South of Surrender (Hearts of the Anemoi) (18 page)

Had he…? No.
No
. What he felt was guilt that he’d caused her harm, over and over, and regret that he’d intruded upon the quiet, ordered life she led. Disgust with himself for endangering her when he should’ve just stayed the hell away in the first place.

It wasn’t the first time he’d fucked everything up for someone, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. And wasn’t that a real slap in the ass.

Laney shivered, refocusing Chrys’s attention on her.

The wet cloth he held had cooled, so he balled it within his fists and infused it with his natural warmth. Then he cleaned her off everywhere he’d soiled her. She hummed, a sound full of relaxed pleasure, and a little smile played around the corner of her lips. Her obvious trust and faith in him was like a knife impaling his chest. He was greedy for it, but that didn’t mean he deserved it. And he didn’t. He set the rag aside.

Calling heat to his hands again, Chrys massaged Laney’s shoulders.

“Feels good,” she mumbled, eyes closed, lips curved in a small smile. “Masseuse could be a fallback job, if you ever need one.”

“Good to know,” he managed.

He watched his hands move over her soft skin. He’d been rough with her. Too rough. He’d called on every ounce of restraint he’d ever possessed, but with all that energy overloading him, there was only so much he could hold back. Not to mention how fucking
good
it felt to be inside her. Not only had she accepted every demand he’d made of her body, but her enjoyment of it seemed to match his. It wasn’t the act that some of his lovers put on for him. With her, there was no agenda, no favor seeking, no notch carving. Just pure, honest arousal and real, uninhibited pleasure. So he wanted to do everything he could to take away the pain she’d likely feel in the morning from the way he’d used her.

Pain that he’d caused. Go figure.

He massaged her neck, her shoulders, her upper back. By the time he’d moved on to her arms, her slow, steady breaths told him she’d fallen asleep.

He worked down her limbs, gently kneading and caressing. His gaze zeroed in on the redness on her right wrist.

Thunder cracked low in the sky.

He’d fucking marked her. By morning, the red stripes of his fingers would bruise. As if her skin didn’t already bear enough evidence of his destructiveness.

Speaking of which…

He swung his leg so he knelt beside her. Crisscrossed black stitches still ran down the back of her thigh and calf, her bandages gone when he’d dispensed with her clothing.

The cuts, though, were almost entirely healed. From when he’d laid atop her and drew off her heat? His energy had certainly been potent enough.

She hadn’t wanted the cuts healed. She’d had perfectly good, human reasons for her position. But now that it had begun, he would complete it. Eurus’s attack changed things. Yes, she had the amulet, but still, given everything, she shouldn’t be injured. Not now.

The thought made him wonder if her blindness was correctable. He didn’t possess that level of healing power, to be sure. And he wasn’t sure if Zeph did, either. Hephaestus? Maybe. Zeph’s father-in-law, Mars? Almost certainly. He tucked the question away for another time.

Leaning down, he willed the stitches on her calf away and released a healing stream of his warmth over what remained of the wound. This close to her, the scent of her sex made it difficult to
not
want to take his time, linger, explore. Gods, she smelled so damn good. He would’ve liked nothing more than to spend a whole night with his face buried between her legs, worshipping her and drinking her down.

Shaking off the fantasy, he sat up and observed his handiwork. Scars remained, but at least she would be able to walk without pain.

But now what to do? He had to go after Eurus. He had to find his father. He had to get far, far away from Laney Summerlyn.

He couldn’t leave her unprotected, and he couldn’t leave her here, which meant he also had to violate her demand to be allowed to stay here through all this.
Damnit
.

There weren’t many great options, and certainly none that didn’t tear at a part of his soul. With regret pressing on his chest and making it hard to breathe, he reclothed them both, her in the pajamas he’d seen her wear before, since her clothes had been ruined in the attack. He rose and surveyed the room, which looked like a freaking war zone. Given what had happened, it wasn’t far from the truth.

He commanded the South Wind to come forth. It swirled through the space and pushed the shards into neat piles. One at a time, he marshaled the wind to scoop them up, carry them across the room, and dump them into the kitchen trash. Last thing he wanted was for her to cut a foot on broken glass after she returned home.
Without him
, his brain added.

Ignoring the sinking feeling closing in on him, Chrys scooped her into his arms, adjusted her amulet, and did the only thing he could think of that made any sense—for both of them.

Chapter Eighteen

Laney woke up on a moan, her bones, her joints, even her skin aching. Lifting her eyelids took more energy than she had, so for a long moment, she didn’t bother to make the effort.

Exhaustion weighed on her like a lead blanket. She tugged the covers over her shoulder and turned to her side.

She gasped and pushed onto an elbow. “Chrys?” She frowned. Everything was…wrong.

Somewhere, a clock ticked.

The blanket balled in her fist was thick and chunky—an afghan?

Light streaked across her field of vision, followed by the soft murmur of an engine outside. A passing car?

Problem was, she didn’t own a ticking clock, a crocheted afghan, or a house that sat by a street.

As odd, she wasn’t dressed in the same clothes she’d worn earlier. Instead, she had on the pajamas she’d slept in last night.

Her heart hammered so hard she felt the beat’s echo under every inch of her skin.
Where the hell am I? And what the hell is going on?

“Chrys?” she called, dread filling her stomach. Nothing. No answer. Just the torture of the ticking amid the silence. “Chrys!” She swung her legs off the bed. But she was totally blind, no idea where she was or what the room looked like, the darkness stealing what little vision she had. Tears sprung to her eyes.

Had whatever—or whoever—attacked her come back to finish the job? If so, why was she still alive? And what had happened to Chrys?

Panic bubbled up her throat.
Please let him be okay.
She choked down the fear. Until she got her bearings, she had to hold it together.

Wood floor underfoot, she sank to her knees. Crawling was safer than walking blind. If she could find a lamp or a light switch, she could begin to figure out what the hell was going on. Hopefully.

Swinging her hand proved that the coast was clear, at least to start. She felt around for a night table and eventually found one. Walking her hands up the front, she prayed she’d find a lamp.

Her fist hit glass. Something clanked, splashed, and then crashed to the floor. Laney squealed at the unexpected noise and jerked back.

Footsteps thumped nearby. Laney froze, listening. The door to her room rattled, opened. Light poured through the opening, blinding her, but the sharp contrast between the dark and light did nothing to help her see. Dreadful anticipation shivered over her skin. She flew back against the bed.

“Are you okay?”

She choked on a scream. “Who are you?”

“It’s Megan Winters. We met last night. You’re at my house.”

As Laney’s brain struggled to process this information, a male voice called from the direction of the door. “Is everything okay?”

Megan sighed. “Not really. But, yes.”

“Why am I here?” she managed, her vocal chords strained by her panic. No response. “Megan?”

“Here. Let me help you up.” Fingers touched the back of her hand. She flinched, but then clasped hands with the woman and rose to her feet. “Chrys thought you’d be safer here. Please tell me he discussed this with you.”

“Uh, no. Last time I talked to Chrys—” Heat flooded her face as memories of the sex they’d had paraded through her mind’s eye. “No, he didn’t.” She sagged against the bed’s edge and hugged herself. Blood still pounded under her skin, and the flood of adrenaline left her shaky. “What time is it?”

“About four in the morning, I think.”

“I…” She swallowed, so many questions competing for air time she wasn’t sure which to give voice to. Why had Chrys left her here? Where was he? When was he coming back? And what was going to happen when Seth discovered her gone in the morning?

As she calmed, she became aware of the light filling the room. She scanned her vision around for a moment. The details of the room’s décor remained foggy, but at least she could confirm that the woman talking to her was the same one she’d seen when Chrys had pulled her into the elements.

Megan’s voice interrupted the confusion of her thoughts. “I’m sorry. Will it help at all to know that the next time I see Chrysander, I’m going to kill him?”

She managed a smile. “Maybe. Yeah.” The humor slid off her face. “I can’t stay here. I have to go home.”

“Do you know what happened last night?” Megan asked.

A
lot
of things happened last night
. Holy crap, her head was spinning over it all. She smoothed her hands down her front, over her pajamas. Why had he brought her here in these? She dropped her hands into her lap. “Which part?”

“After you got home.”

The memory of that dead, black light passed before her mind’s eye. Her scalp prickled. “We were attacked. In my house. But that’s all I know.”

“Mind if I sit down?” Laney shook her head, and the mattress shifted as Megan sat on the foot of the bed. “Chrys said it was his brother, Eurus. That Eurus tried to kill him but you got hit instead. The past six months, a feud has erupted and escalated among the Anemoi, the three you’ve met against Eurus. Last spring, he killed Zeph’s wife. From what they say, it’s not the first time he’s killed. Something’s happened that makes him more powerful than he should be. Chrys went with his brothers to figure out what to do. He didn’t want to leave you alone.”

Laney rubbed her forehead. “I appreciate the explanation, I
do. But I…”

She pressed her fingers to her lips. Chrys should be the one telling her this. They’d made love, or had sex, or whatever he would call it. At the very least, that should’ve earned her a conversation, some basic common courtesy, not being dumped a hundred miles from home in a stranger’s house in the middle of the night. She didn’t know whether to feel humiliation that he’d dumped her off like a child who needed babysitting or be grateful that he was trying to take care of her, even if he’d gone about it all wrong. He should’ve asked her— She gasped and rubbed the back of her right leg.

“What’s wrong?”

No bandages. No stitches. No cuts. He’d healed her. “I cut my leg and had stitches. It’s all gone.”

“He healed you.”

Pressing her lips together and bottling up her mounting anger, she nodded. She’d told him
not
to heal her. How the hell was she going to explain her miraculous recuperation to the doctor? To Seth?

Seth.
He was going to be so worried when he realized she wasn’t at the house. What would he think? What would he do? She groaned and dropped her head into her hand, a throb squeezing her skull. Not now. She couldn’t begin to deal with that problem on top of everything else.

Not safe here
.

The thought crashed into her brain like someone forcefully implanted it. A montage of a thunderous rumble and flames and unapproachable heat ran through her head.

She wrenched up, her skin erupting in goose bumps. Something bad was going to happen here, she was suddenly sure of it. She forced a deep breath. The weirdness of the night was just getting to her, that was all. And no wonder. In the last twelve hours, she’d traveled through the air, been attacked by a deranged god, been healed by a god she was falling for, had sex for the first time in four years—no, had
amazingly mind-blowing
sex, and woken up sore, confused, and scared in a stranger’s house. It would be odd if she
didn’t
feel strange, after all that.

But one part of that foreboding thought stuck with her. “If I’m not safe, then that means Chrys is worried Eurus will come after me again. And if that’s true, I shouldn’t be here, endangering you and your family as well.”

“I appreciate the thought, but the guys stationed some of the ordinal Anemoi here while they were doing whatever it is they had to do. And my husband’s here. You shouldn’t be alone, not with all this going on.”

Problem was, she felt horribly alone. Chrys was gone. They hadn’t had a chance to talk after everything that had happened in her living room. Where did they even stand?
I get my partners off good, but then I walk out the door.
If she believed him, they stood exactly nowhere. Her shoulders slumped. “What’s ‘ordinal?’” she asked, hoping to divert her spiraling thoughts.

“Oh, I don’t know how much Chrys explained to you about—”

“Assume it wasn’t much.” Her spirits plummeted at the admission. Aside from that first night he’d lain in her bed and answered her questions about how he ended up on the floor of her barn, he hadn’t really shared much about himself. Rolly’s healing came to mind. Okay, she
had
learned a lot about him as a person, but not the specifics of his life and his family and his world.

“Well, there are four cardinal Anemoi, each in charge of a different wind—north, south, east, and west—and season. And there are four ordinal Anemoi, the intermediate winds, like northwest, southwest, southeast, and northeast—three of whom are downstairs right now. And then there are eight inter-ordinal Anemoi, in charge of the half-winds, like north-northwest.”

“Interesting family tree.”

Megan chuckled. “Yeah. Takes a bit to wrap your head around, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll say. Most days, I never leave my farm. I do my freelance writing, ride my horses, and help manage the farm. An exciting day for me involves shopping in Salisbury or a day trip to the beach. Now all of a sudden I might be in love with a—” Her face went hot and she wanted to disappear through the floor. Or into thin air. Since she now knew that was possible. She twisted her hands in her lap. “Please forget I said that.”

“Said what?” Megan paused. “You know what would make this night better? Coffee. And maybe some cookies. Or some ice cream. My neighbor keeps bringing over new flavors of homemade ice cream. What d’ya say?”

Laney released a shaky breath. She wanted to hug Megan for the hard right turn in the topic. “I don’t want to keep you up all night.”

“It’s fine. Teddy sleeps great, but he’s up with the sun. I doubt I’d go back to sleep before he started fussing anyway. Come on, don’t make me snack alone.”

She gave a small smile. “Okay, then, why not.” Anything was better than sitting here by herself and wondering what the hell had happened to her life. And what would happen next.

…

“Where the hell could he be?” Zeph asked.

Chrys didn’t have an answer. For two days, he and his brothers had searched non-stop for Aeolus. His villa on the Aegean Sea, his citadel in the Realm of the Gods, each of their divine estates. Boreas had gone to the Underworld to make sure their father hadn’t somehow ended up there, while Zeph and Ella confirmed with a very displeased Mars that the Olympians didn’t have him, either. Standing on the bluffs overlooking the deep blue Aegean, they’d come full circle and were no further ahead than when they started.

How is Laney doing?
Chrys bit out a curse. No matter how hard he threw himself into the search, he couldn’t get Laney—or his guilt and regret at dumping her at Owen’s without a word—out of his mind.

No. The mistake had been putting her in harm’s way. Not leaving sooner. Giving in to his blood-pounding desire for her.

His body tightened. Damnit all to hell. What more did he want? What more did he truly think he could have? And at what cost?

Love ‘em and leave ‘em. His specialty.

Enough. Focus on the damn job at hand
. Chrys blew out a hard breath. “What other places hold significance for him?” He traded glances with his brothers. The sun couldn’t set on another day without them finding him.

“And why has he gone so deep underground?” Zeph asked. “We’re wasting time.”

“Underground,” Boreas murmured, scrubbing his hand over his stubble-lined jaw. “What if…”

“What?” Zeph stepped closer as Boreas looked to the west, where the evening sun hung low in the sky.

Underground
. Chrys turned the word around in his mind and followed his oldest brother’s gaze. Memories best forgotten sucked him several millennia into the past. To the youth of the Anemoi. To their father’s effort to control the turmoil they unleashed over heavens, land, and sea. To Zeus’s edict to rein in the power of the Anemoi or face the Olympian’s wrath.

Aeolus had imprisoned them in a cavern far beneath the sea at the edge of the known world. A place the ancients called Calpe. Today, the world referred to the location as the Rock of Gibraltar.

“That would be some messed-up shit right there,” Chrys said. Out of nowhere, clouds gathered and the winds kicked up.

“But hiding there would make a certain twisted sense, wouldn’t it?” Zeph asked. “If he doesn’t want to be found, he knows it’s the last place any of us would ever willingly go.”

Damn straight. Aeolus had kept them locked up for a year. Something about the below-sea chamber prevented their transforming into their elemental states, and so they’d been trapped and powerless. Their roars for freedom helped establish the ancients’ fear of traveling past the strait into the open ocean, beyond which, they believed, nothing existed. At least, nothing good.

During their incarceration, Aeolus had forcibly taken blood from each of the Anemoi and syphoned off a small part of their elemental natures. And had laced both into a ring that gave him control over them for all time.

The firestone.

After he made the ring, Aeolus released them from their prison at Calpe, but they’d never truly been free again.

And now Eurus had the ring.

“Well, I guess we’re going whether we want to or not.” Chrys glared to the west as the sky darkened.

“Indeed,” Boreas said. “We have to give it a look, so let’s get this over with.”

They traded glances and nodded, resolve bonding them. One by one, they shifted into their elemental forms and took to the air. Over 1,600 miles separated Aeolus’s Greek citadel and the rock formation that jutted off the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. They couldn’t get there soon enough, as far as Chrys was concerned.

Within an hour, the massive limestone cliffs appeared on the horizon. The closer they got, the more apparent the enormous scale of the rock became, rising over a quarter mile above the churning sea. Hundreds of caves and crags and caverns made up the internal structure of Gibraltar. If their suspicions were on target, within one of the most remote caverns, one not accessible to humans, they would find their father and get their answers.