South of Surrender (Hearts of the Anemoi) (21 page)

“What? Oh, God, Tabitha, I’m so sorry you have to see this.”

“Don’t worry about that now. I’ll take care of him. Should I call 9-1-1?”

“No,” a chorus of voices responded.

“We need to get him warm,” a man’s voice said. Who were they talking about? And where was Chrys? “Find as many blankets as you can.”

“Go with Ted,” Owen urged. Wind gusted against the side of the house.

“No, I’m not leaving Boreas.”

The sound of the baby’s cry neared. “Come on, Laney,” Tabitha said.

The depth of her disorientation tempted her to flee. But she couldn’t, not without knowing… “No. I— Do you see a blond-haired man?”

“Uh.” She paused, as if looking. “On the floor, by the stairs, but—”

“Is the path clear between here and there?”

“I really think you should—”

“Please.”

“Stay to the right, but there’s a chair sticking out in the corner.” The one she’d sat in at the meeting the other night. Tabitha’s description was just enough to orient her in the room, even if the specifics were vague.

She crossed the space, passing first by Boreas and those helping him. Déjà vu had her pausing near them. This was just like that weird thing she’d seen at the table. A premonition? Instinct? Yeah.

“You’re killing me with kindness, Zephyros,” Boreas gritted out.

His voice captured her attention, and she stared down at the small grouping. Between Boreas’s white and Zeph’s blue, a soft yellow glow trailed over the older man’s body. What in the world?

“Yeah, well, when I’m done you can pay me back.”

Boreas laugh-grunted. “Do not make me laugh right now.”

Laney forced herself away and zeroed in on a brilliant silver aura with flashes of gold throughout. Sprawled on the floor in front of the owner of that unique light lay Chrys, his aura so pale it was no wonder she hadn’t perceived it from across the room. He was shivering and mumbling, fragments of words only occasionally discernible.

She sank to her knees on the carpet near his head and reached out a hand. “Chrys?”

“Keep back,” a deep voice ordered.

Laney jerked away. She scanned her vision over the huge god at Chrys’s side dressed all in black, long brown hair pulled back.

“He has a knife and is delirious. We don’t need another injury.”

Emotion squeezed her throat. She nodded and dropped her gaze to Chrys. She yearned to touch him, to prove that he was here, to let him know she was there for him. “What’s wrong with him?”

The god ignored her. “His energy is all over you.”

Heat roared over her face, but as the full meaning of his words sank in, a fierce satisfaction filled her. “Good.”

She got the distinct feeling he was observing her. When she looked up, she saw that she was right. She found his gaze. His eyes were a brilliant green, so like… He and Chrys were related. She was sure of it. But it was a conversation for another time.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and stopped just before the bottom. “Here are blankets.”

“Good, set them there and help me hold him down so we can disarm him. He won’t let the dagger go.” Thunder boomed ominously nearby.

Hold him down…
She gasped. “No! You can’t.” She leaned in closer, careful not to touch him. “Chrys, it’s Laney. Can you hear me?” His head jerked toward her. “Chrys, come on, wake up. Can you hear me?”

“You’re Laney?” the huge god asked. “He’s been saying your name.”

He has?
Pressure filled her chest until she thought it might burst.

She focused on his face. So pale. Blue tinged his lips. “Chrys—”

“Laney,” he groaned. His eyelids heaved open once, twice, but sagged closed again. “La….”

“I’m here. You’re at Owen’s. Everyone’s here.”

He whispered something she couldn’t make out. His eyelids opened wider this time, and his teeth chattered. He moaned, a huge shudder wracking through him.

“What’s happening?” she asked. Rain pounded out a beat on the windows.

“It’s akin to severe hypothermia.”

“We have to warm him.” She rested the back of her hand against his forehead. So cool, too cool. She was so used to his unusual warmth that he actually felt cold to her.

He groaned and pushed his face against her hand.

Oh, he sought her touch! “He won’t hurt me,” she whispered. Instinct had her speaking the words, but the truth of them coursed through every cell in her body. “He won’t.” She crowded in closer and cradled his face in her hands. So cold. “Open your eyes. Chrys. Listen to my voice and open them.”

He obeyed, but his eyes struggled to focus. “La…”

“Yes. Listen. We need to help you. You’re holding a knife. Give it to—” She looked over a shoulder at the god beside her.

“Aeolus. I’m his father.”

Oooh
. She couldn’t even process that tidbit right now. “Give the knife to your father.”

“No.”

“Chrys—”

“No, y-you.”

“What?” He was so out of it. What if he didn’t get better? Was that even a possibility for someone like him?

“You…knife. In c-case.”

Her heart squeezed. He wanted her to have it? “Okay, okay,” she said, worry and love for him nearly overwhelming her.
Love?
She shook her head and forced herself to concentrate. “Which hand holds the knife?” she asked his father.

He didn’t answer right away.

“I’m nearly blind. Which hand?”

“Right.”

“I’m going to take the knife now. Chrys? Okay?”

“You.”

“Yes, me.” She crawled around his other side so she could touch him as little as possible. Last thing she wanted was to increase his discomfort. Dragging her fingers down his right arm, she half expected him to flinch or pull away, but he didn’t. Finally, her hand reached his, curled in a tight, shaking fist around the grip of the dagger. “Let go. I’ll take it.” Just when she was sure he wouldn’t, his hand slowly turned and his fingers went lax. She felt for the grip and grabbed it.

Holy crap, it was heavy. Far heavier than it looked. And icy in her hands. But she’d told him she’d take it, and he wanted her to have it.

“Bring the blankets,” Aeolus said.

She leaned away from his chest as his father and the other men spread blankets over Chrys. Drawing close to his face, she whispered, “You’re going to be okay. You hear me?”

His head lolled toward her. “S-so-rry.”

“Shh.”

“Sor-ry.”

“Hey. All you need to worry about right now is getting better.” Unable to resist, she pressed a kiss to his forehead.
I love you
. The thought came unbidden, spiking Laney’s heart rate even further, but she just couldn’t sit and analyze it now.

Chrys tossed aside the covers and pulled her against him, his arms bands of steel around her back.

Laney gasped at the unexpected move, but then nearly melted into him. He was just doing it for warmth, she knew that. But it was so like the hugs she’d yearned to be able to give him that she couldn’t care.

Except he was so cold. Shivers wracked through him.

“Chrysander, you need the blankets,” his father said.

“He’s freezing. If he needs this, just cover us both.” She pushed herself atop him, careful to keep the knife away from his body, wrapped her free hand under his big shoulders, and nestled her face against his neck.

He groaned and pulled her in tighter, like he was trying to climb inside her skin. And if she could’ve done that for him, she would’ve. How many times had he healed her? Just once, to have the power to do this for him. She would do anything.

Heavy layers of blankets draped across her back, covering them both.

Dampness seeped through her clothing. His was wet…and a big part of the cold she felt. She lifted her head to Aeolus. “His clothes are wet. We should get them off him.” She willed the threatening embarrassment at the statement away.

“You love him.”

Competing reactions surged through her. Hesitation to admit it was true. Embarrassment at his
father
asking this, and in front of his entire family—not that they appeared to be paying any attention. And, if she did, fear of him not thinking her good enough. His pause when she’d revealed her disability hadn’t escaped her notice. None of which mattered right now. Only Chrys did. And she was prepared to give him whatever he needed to survive this.

“Yes, I do, but—” She gasped.

His clothes disappeared. And so did hers.

“Your heat will help him,” he said in a low voice. “Fear not. We will keep you covered. Watch over them,” he said to another god. “I will go restrain the storms.”

She buried her face in Chrys’s neck, not understanding everything going on around her, but also not caring. It took only a moment for her self-consciousness to fade, for
everything else t
o fade away, until there was just the two of them. He needed her, and she’d do anything for him.

“I’ve got you, Chrys. I’ll take care of you,” she murmured. For however long she could. For however long he’d let her.

Chapter Twenty-One

Chrys couldn’t stop shivering. Aches throbbed through his joints. His jaw was stiff. Even his teeth hurt.

So cold. The kind of cold that got inside you and never left.

Except… The more he pushed through the fog of pain, the more he sensed a warmth. And, maybe he was dreaming, but he swore he could smell Laney’s warm, sweet scent. He forced the twenty-pound weights that were his eyelids open. “Laney?” he rasped.

She lifted her head. “I’m here.” Her hand skated up and stroked the side of his face, his hair.

Confusion swamped him. Where were they? Who was shouting? And why was Laney on top of him?

Panic loomed in the distance as the meaning of that last question sank in. She covered him from neck to shins. But though it threatened, the panic didn’t come. All he felt was relief, comfort, gratitude. A sign of just how desperate his condition, no doubt.

He became aware again of her hand petting his hair and forced his eyes to focus on her pretty face. Worry furrowed her brow even as her lips shaped into a small smile.

Almighty Zeus, he thought he’d never see her again.

“Hi,” he managed to say.

Her smile brightened. “Hi.”

A series of images flickered through his mind, but he couldn’t make them stick long enough to make sense of them. “What happened?”

“I don’t know the details, but it seems there was some kind of attack. And you’re way too cold. They said you needed heat. But I know you don’t like, um, to be touched, so I’ll get up if you—”

“Stay.” He swallowed the lump that took up residence in his throat. No judgment. No drama. It was like she just…got him. “I need you.”
And I want you.
Even if he didn’t deserve her. Selfish bastard that he was, that didn’t mean he could give her up. At least not right now. Not with his power drained so achingly low, not with the cold emptiness crawling through every part of him. And fuck if using her this way didn’t make him the world’s biggest asshole.

She nodded, still stroking his hair. “I will. Just close your eyes and rest.”

Her gentle touch soothed him and lured his eyes closed. “Stay,” he mumbled.

“Okay,” she whispered, and tucked her face into the nook of his neck.

…

Voices seeped into his awareness. Chrys tried to resist them, but before he knew it, he was dragged into consciousness.

“…don’t think it’s w-working.” Laney’s voice.

“Maybe a hot bath?” someone said. Owen?

“He’ll draw the heat out of bath water in minutes,” another male voice said. It was too much to keep up with. He willed himself back under again. If he could just sleep…

“Do y-you have an electric b-blanket?” Laney asked.

“I still say he needs the Acheron,” someone said.

“I agree with Boreas. The risk is too great. We’re stronger together. If today proved nothing else, it proved that. He wouldn’t be alive if he’d been alone.”

Boreas was okay? He tried to ask, but couldn’t form the words.

The conversation continued, and one thing kept Chrys from giving in to the bone-deep desire to fade away, to just escape the pain of the agonizing cold. Laney’s voice. Except something was wrong with it.

“We have t-to do s-something. I’m not enough.”

He frowned at that idea and forced his eyes open. Owen’s living room took shape around him. Laney’s soft, warm body still covered his, though she’d shifted to rest her face against the other side of his neck. And she was…shivering.

At first he wasn’t sure, because he couldn’t stop shaking. His muscles were nearly screaming from the constant tremors. But…she was, too.
That
was why her voice sounded wrong. Her teeth were chattering.

No
. He’d caused her enough pain. Damnit, he just couldn’t stop, could he?

He swallowed hard, forcing moisture into his mouth. “Get…get her off me. Get her off,” he said louder.

For a moment, she went still. But then shudders wracked through her again.

“Now. She needs to get off me.”

“Okay,” she said in an odd voice. “Just give me a second. I, um, I don’t have… I’m not dressed.”

Not dressed? How in the hell? He concentrated on the feel of her body, the feel of her body on his. Sure enough, they were both as naked as the day their gods made them. The thought shot arousal through him, even if he was in absolutely no condition to act on it. His hands skimmed over her back. Jesus, she was freezing. The realization killed the pleasure he’d felt a moment before.

“Megan, could you m-maybe help me? Do you have a robe or something? Another blanket?”

“Yes.” Footsteps skirted around them and made their way up the stairs.

Chrys rolled his head to the side. Despite hearing the other voices, he had been so focused on Laney he hadn’t really paid enough attention.

It was a freaking packed house. Owen, Livos, and a number of the other lesser Anemoi. Except for a few clearly acting as sentries at the windows, they were all staring at him and Laney.

His
Laney. Who was naked. In the middle of a room-full of males. With only a blanket separating her body from their eyes.

His arms tightened around her. Aggression and possessiveness tore
through him so fierce it brought his cock to life.

Laney sucked in a breath, her stomach muscles tensing against his length.

What a goddamned piece of shit he was. Like it wasn’t bad enough he used her this way. Now he had to make it worse by getting off on it. “Everyone get the fuck out of here so she can get up.”

Except for the sentries, who kept their attention focused solely on the windows, the room cleared. Footsteps sounded on the stairs again.

“Here you go,” Megan said, pressing a fuzzy pink robe into Laney’s hand. “Do you want help?”

“No. Thanks,” she said in a small voice. When Megan left the room, she lifted her upper body off of his chest and attempted to slip into the robe while still under the covers. From throat to belly, her skin was red from the prolonged exposure to his cold. Sonofabitch.

She sat up further as she pushed her second arm into the robe. The change in position pressed the beautifully hot place between her legs into his groin.

He groaned.

“Sorry,” she whispered. Her hands fumbled to secure the robe around her. She looked over her shoulders, as if making sure no one would see her. Then she slipped off him.

Immediately, he missed the feel of her, her heat, her closeness. It was like she’d taken everything good and right in the world with her. But her health and comfort were more important.

Clutching the robe at her throat, she arranged the covers over him, tucking them in tight around his neck and shoulders. “I’ll leave your knife right here next to you.”

His knife?
The dagger. A vague memory of giving it to her shimmered through his mind’s eye. “You keep it.”

She frowned, but didn’t look at his face. She didn’t meet his eyes. Maybe it was unintentional? But then she scooted away, far away it seemed, and pushed herself into a sitting position on the bottom step, the blade resting in her lap. Shaking, she pulled the robe closed over her legs. Still not looking at him, or talking. Worry shaped her expression, but there was something else there, too…

I’m not enough
.

He frowned. No. That wasn’t it, was it? Because it was so the other way around. But the more he thought about it, the more he saw hurt in the set of her shoulders, in the downward cast of her eyes, in the tremble of her lips…

“Laney—”

“Don’t say anything.” She shook her head. “Conserve your energy. Just concentrate on getting better. That’s all that matters.” Using the end post of the bannister, she pulled herself up. “I’m gonna go change now.”

“But, Laney, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just—”

“I know. Really. Just rest.” She turned and made her way up the steps.

For a long moment, Chrys watched her go. With every step she took away from him, something deep inside him cried out, demanded he open his mouth and give voice to the desire careening through him. Not just for her body, or her heat, but for her, the woman. Laney.

He kept his mouth shut.

When she was out of sight, he dropped his head back to the floor and closed his eyes. It was better this way. His life was a disaster on every level. And she deserved far, far better.

…

Boreas sat at the kitchen table and ate his fifth heaping serving of ice cream. Tabitha’s ice cream. He now understood Owen’s obsession with the stuff. Not only was it delicious, but the ingested cold was restorative.

Tabitha sat across the table from him, his grandson asleep in her lap, quietly watching. He regretted that she’d gotten caught in the middle of their chaos, even as he enjoyed her company and the smell of fragrant flowers on her skin. “I am sorry you had to see all this,” he said.

Her mouth opened and closed and she shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure what I’m seeing. A half hour ago, you were literally shredded. And now you’re…not. How is that possible?”

“The less you know, the better.”

She looked down as Teddy nestled into her. “Maybe. But I already know enough to know we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Boreas frowned. “Kansas?”

Intelligent brown eyes dragged over his face, as if studying him. A foreign heat rose inside him. “You don’t know the reference?”

He shook his head. “Should I?”

“Curiouser and curiouser.”

“What is?”

“You don’t get that one either, do you?”

He swallowed his last bite of strawberry ice cream, studying her in return. “I am failing some test right now, yes?”

She shrugged. “I’m just trying to figure you out.”

His body stirred at the idea. He settled his spoon in the empty bowl, crossed his arms over his chest, and met her inquisitive gaze. “I like the sound of that.”

A lovely pink arose on her cheeks. “Oh.” Her gaze flickered to his lips.

He gave in to a small smile, but it fell just as quickly as the conversation drifted in from the living room. Everyone else was in there, now debating how to heal Chrysander’s hypothermia.

His gut clenched. As if he weren’t indebted to his youngest brother enough for saving his life, Chrysander’s condition was his fault. He wanted to help, but because their winds and their natures were extreme opposites, he was the last god that could be of any use in improving his situation.

He loathed this feeling of uselessness, of helplessness.

But with every swallow of the ice cream, strength and power had returned to him. Thank the gods Zephyros had the ability to heal the kinds of wounds which had torn apart his body. It made the decision to return to Owen and Megan’s easy—a decision upon which Boreas had insisted in case Eurus decided to attack his son’s family. And it also gave them the ability to stick together, which Aeolus’s presence made possible—he had the ability to quell the storms that would’ve normally erupted when multiple Anemoi gathered in one place. Given Eurus’s madness, his apparent alliance with the Harpies, and Devlin’s treachery, they needed the strength in numbers.

Devlin. When Boreas had first emerged from Gibraltar, he’d seen him, standing on the edge of the cliff. The boy’s eyes flashed black, the same kind of deadness that inhabited his malevolent brother’s gaze, and watched as the Harpies swooped in and attacked from behind.

Zephyros’s instincts had apparently been right on the money where Eurus’s eldest son was concerned.

Had Devlin been playing Aeolus all along?

Who could say? It hardly mattered now. Even though Father still argued that the situation might not have been what it appeared, it was a risk they couldn’t take.

Which left them exactly nowhere.

Owen entered the kitchen, followed by a number of the others. “How are you?” he asked, his mismatched eyes serious.

“I will be fine. Worry not.”

He shrugged one big shoulder. “Can’t be helped.”

Boreas nodded. “Yes.” He looked at the group assembled around the room. Except for Zephyros, who had gone to collect his wife, and their shared subordinate Skiron, god of the Northwest Wind, almost all of the Anemoi were here—a highly unusual occurrence. “What is going on?”

“Chrys is still”—Owen glanced at Tabitha—“struggling to get warm. Laney’s now freezing, herself.”

Boreas’s gaze dropped to the table, to the empty bowl… Wait. “Something hot. Is he conscious enough to drink uh, uh…” He struggled to name an appropriate drink.

“Hot chocolate? Hot tea?” Tabitha offered.

“Yes, precisely.” He stared an extra moment at the woman he’d admired from afar all these long months. Trapped in the middle of an impossible situation, she’d kept her cool and helped his family. As if he needed more reasons to find her appealing. He gave her a smile.

Owen nodded. “It’s worth a try.”

Megan walked into the kitchen. “What is?”

His son turned to her. “Could you make Chrys something hot to drink? A lot of it?”

She squeezed his hand. “Of course.”

“Or—” Tabitha pressed her fingers to her lips. “I don’t want to interfere.”

“Not at all. What is it?” Boreas asked.

“If what he needs is a way to get really warm, really fast, I have a hot tub.”