Wave of Memories: The Sons of the Zodiac (5 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

An unholy scream escaped his throat as Aidan leaped on the back of Meg’s attacker. The distance between them couldn’t have been more than ten yards, but it had taken forever to reach her. Like the world had slowed to a crawl as he tried to get to her.

To stop what was happening to her.

And now all he felt was a blind rage as he dragged the Destroyer off of Meg, his hands moving to the throat with unerring precision.

Aidan twisted the neck in a tight grip, oblivious to the electricity that ran up and down his arms. He continued to twist after the life force evaporated under his hands and the body collapsed in on itself, an empty husk.

Disgusted, he threw the rapidly disintegrating vessel on the ground as he dropped next to Meg. Gathering her up in his arms, he crooned in her ear, mindless words meant to offer comfort.

Comfort to whom, he had no idea.

“Come on, baby. Come on.”

His hand went to her neck—an immortal’s one place of vulnerability—as he sought a pulse. Desperation gripped him when he felt none.

Laying her back on the ground, he found the slope of her chest and pressed his hands there, pushing, again and again, desperate to feel the life inside of her.

Frantic to feel her heart beat.

“Meg!” He continued to press against her chest, a swift, even rhythm. “Come back here, Meg!”

The minutes seemed to stretch out in long waves, but Aidan ignored them.

Refused to believe she was gone at the careless hands of their enemy.

Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers and breathed, offering his own life to her.

Willing her back.

In progressive intervals, he shifted to her chest, manually forcing her heart to beat, then back to her mouth, channeling his breath.

Giving her life.

As his hands reached once more for her chest, he heard it. The sound was so slight, he almost missed it through the wind that whistled through the morning air.

And then he heard it again.

When he looked down at where his hands lay crossed over her breasts, he saw her chest rise on its own.

*  *  *

Meg heard the murmured words—and the underlying note of desperation that filled them—and struggled to rise from the deep darkness that surrounded her.

Where was she?

Was that Aidan’s voice?

Only a dream, her subconscious quickly assessed as she struggled to fade back into the black, where there was no pain.

Even as she tried, the voice continued to drag at her, the words becoming more clear despite her efforts to fade again.

Aidan?

She allowed herself a moment to enjoy it. To enjoy the warmth that surrounded her body while she just listened to him.

Absorbed him.

“Meg!”

The peaceful moment fled as urgency took its place. Aidan’s voice, but instead of the slow roll of desire she loved to hear, his tone held an edge she’d never heard before.

“What?”

She dragged open her eyes, no longer able to ignore whatever was going on around her. Aidan’s deep blue gaze greeted her, filled with an agony she’d thought never to see on him again.

What was wrong?

Why did he look so sad? Even as she thought the word, she knew sad didn’t even begin to define the look of abject fear and terror that filled his gaze.

“Aidan?” Why did it hurt so bad when she spoke? She felt like shards of glass ripped at her vocal chords and her neck muscles throbbed with a dull, heavy pain.

“You back with me?” The fear in his eyes was matched by the slight quaver that filled the deep tones of his voice.

“Back?”

The pain in her throat receded slightly as her own natural healing abilities kicked in. While her immortal gifts began the work of repairing the damage done, the last few moments repeated themselves in her mind’s eye. Sheer terror of her own sent waves of adrenaline spiking through her system and she struggled into a sitting position.

“Where are they?”

“They’re gone. Dead.”

“Who were they?”

Before he could answer her, Aidan glanced up at the curious shout from farther up the park path. “Everything okay?”

He smiled and waved, his voice back to normal. “Absolutely. Just enjoying a few moments with my girl!”

At the responding shout of good humor, Meg felt the odd urge to blush. A quick glance down and she realized she was wrapped in Aidan’s arms. The appearance to someone happening upon them could look like a stolen moment between two lovers and as Aidan’s mouth descended to hers, she realized that was exactly what he wanted the onlooker to think.

“Make it look good. It’s a cop doing rounds.” And then his mouth was on hers and the air seemed to dry up in her lungs once more as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

Thick muscles met her fingertips when she planted her hands on his shoulders. The heat of his skin called to her and she couldn’t stop touching him—couldn’t stop
feeling
him—while the air around them grew thick with passion.

His tongue filled the cavern of her mouth, seeking to join with hers. The action was so familiar—so welcome—she couldn’t believe it had been over two thousand years since they’d touched like this.

Since they’d shared stolen moments that belonged only to the two of them.

How could she have ever thought to send him away? To throw away what they had between them because of misunderstanding.

How could she have let her base nature—one that encouraged anger before understanding—ruin what was so good? So right.

And how had she lived without him?

The answer came crashing over her while she clung to him with renewed desperation.

She hadn’t.

Meg shifted her hands, moving one off of his broad shoulders to roam down his chest. Hard planes and delicious heat met her touch as she delved lower, over the thick, ropy muscles of his stomach.

Blood beat a heavy rhythm under her fingertips and she gloried in the speed of his pulse.

He wanted her.

“Meg,” he whispered against her lips.

“Aidan.” Opening her eyes, she looked up from where he had her nestled in his arms. “Oh, Aidan.”

*  *  *

Aidan pulled away from their embrace, the wet sheen of her lips nearly calling him back. His ruse to avoid the cop’s interest had backfired on him as his desire for her rapidly overtook anything else.

“Aidan,” she whispered again. “I want you.”

He knew it was madness—knew nothing could erase what had come before—but as he looked at the woman in his arms, that sense of familiarity and comfort and need rose up in greedy, gulping waves.

He wanted her. Had always wanted her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

One word, full of need and spoken without equivocation.

A quick scan of the park told him they were once again alone. The cop had moved on and no one was nearby on the running paths. He held her close and pulled them into a port, the visual in his mind the very large bed that dominated his room.

The air pressed in around them, heavy like an impending storm before they were pulled into the ether. Mere moments later, the two of them fell to a laughing heap on his bed.

Meg was splayed over his chest. “That was smooth.”

Heat crept up his cheeks. “I don’t usually port from a sitting position.”

“I can see why.” She giggled again, before leaning up to drop a quick, nipping kiss to his chin.

The sweet, simple kiss was his undoing. On a heavy growl, Aidan reached for her, threading his fingers through the dark hair at her temple and pulling her close.

Light kisses quickly morphed with a desperate urgency as they raced toward something new. He skimmed one hand along the exposed flesh of her stomach, the gap between the waistband of her slacks and her blouse offering him a tantalizing patch of warm skin.

A soft sigh escaped her and Aidan stilled his fingers.

“What,” she breathed, her heavy-lidded gaze seeking his, awareness pushing its way through the haze of arousal.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Meg settled her small hand against his cheek. “Please tell me. What is it?”

“When you sighed. That sound was so familiar. Achingly so.”

CHAPTER SIX

Meg struggled to sit past the heavy weight of emotion and regret that lay on her chest.

“What’s wrong?”

Tears filled her eyes and strangled her throat as she moved to the side of the bed. It wasn’t far enough, but the cool air that swirled around her after moving away from the heat of his body gave her room to breathe.

“I ruined so much. I thought I could see past it if given the opportunity. But I can’t.”

“Meg.” He placed his large hand on the base of her spine and she leaped forward at his touch, moving off the bed and across the room.

Whirling on him, she couldn’t hold back the question. “How’d we end up here?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She saw the anger in his eyes and, underneath, the hurt as he came to a sitting position on the side of the bed.

It was that hurt that had drawn her to him in the first place. That sad, aching sense that he was lost and lonely somewhere in the deepest part of his soul.

The questions sprang to her lips. For her or for him, she didn’t know.

“How can I still need you? Want you? How can I want something I ruined so very long ago? How did we manage to come back to this place?”

“We haven’t been in this place in a hell of a long time.”

“But it’s there. There is something inevitable about us.”

Meg moved to a small chair on the far side of the room and sat on the edge, wrapping her arms around herself. A jumble of frantic thoughts fought for space in her head and she looked for the right words to explain what she meant.

“The first time I met you, you were a boy.”

“And then I wasn’t.”

“No, you weren’t. But that first time. When I was asked to intercede to help your father. You were just this sweet little amusement. A small boy with the mind of a scholar and the heart of a warrior.”

“I was a scrawny, know-it-all brat.”

“I recall it rather differently. But imagine my surprise fifteen years later when your father called me back once more to offer aide and I saw the man you’d become. I saw you with a woman’s eyes.”

“I thought you were beautiful, that first time I met you. A vision I could never let go of, no matter how hard I tried. I was too young to understand what it meant, but I thought you were perfect.”

Even with the distance that separated them across the large room, the unerring focus of his blue gaze penetrated through her. “It’s always been there,” Meg whispered.

“So what is the problem? Why are you upset?”

“Because I ruined us once. Why should this time be any different?”

*  *  *

Eris paced the length of her small living room. She’d never been fond of waiting, preferring action to stillness. “It should be over by now.”

Tyrus glanced up from where he tapped at his cell phone. “I don’t know why you sent them out in the first place. Those Destroyers came off like a couple of bumbling idiots.”

“My sister assured me they were some of her best men.”

“Right. Testosterone-laden assholes who wouldn’t put together two coherent thoughts if they’d been handed to them.”

“I wanted information.”

“Yeah. Doubt you’ll be getting that.” Tyrus stared back down at his phone. “The surprise attack was a nice touch, though. I told her she had forty-eight hours. The early hit was a sneaky stroke. Well done.”

Eris allowed her gaze to roam over him. Thick black hair framed a tanned face with high cheekbones, full lips and a hard jaw. He had the physique of a fighter and the demeanor of a cat.

Silent watchfulness with overtones of lazy.

And something else she hadn’t quite been able to pin down, even after all this time.

As a first project, he’d been all right. He’d done her bidding without much fuss and had given her a pair of eyes and ears on situations when she needed to be elsewhere. She knew those eyes and ears also indulged in his own interests during his time off and that was what had always left her just the wrong side of bothered.

Since he did his job with no complaint, she’d ignored the tell-tale signs and disregarded the small voice that told her something else hovered just beneath the surface.

Besides, there was the possibility it was just her own sense of job dissatisfaction that was really coming through.

Discord was relatively easy to create, Eris knew, but there were so many damn humans in the world it was hard to keep up with all of them. Her little project had allowed her to start a fire somewhere and keep it burning while she headed off to start up another one, but even with the help, she had far too much to do.

She shot another glance at his bent head and sighed. All things considered and that little nagging voice be damned, she’d call him a success. She had bigger fish to fry than anyone could possibly imagine.

Tyrus had proved she could put her plans in motion.

Not a bad job for her first try. And relatively easy, all things considered. The hardest part had been keeping him on ice until she was ready to put him to good use.

Unbidden, an image of Rogan Black seared through her mind’s eye.

Those bright green eyes that were somehow able to bore through her, stripping away her defenses. The quick and ready smile that tilted at the corners in a way that was just sweet enough to skip over cocky and move straight on to endearing.

Shaking off the images, she returned her focus to Tyrus. Rogan was a thought for a different day. A puzzle to worry over later.

“You seem awfully calm, Tyrus.”

“I’ve trained and I know my enemy.”

The sly fingers of her gift swirled through her, finding purchase in her words. “You’re rather confident. Aidan’s a formidable opponent.”

“He’s always been a worthless nerd.” On a half laugh, Tyrus glanced up from his phone. “I wish they’d had that word when we’d been kids. It’s the only thing I’ve ever come up with that seemed to fit perfectly.”

“He’s spent the last two thousand years being an ass-kicker with a cause.”

Tyrus shrugged. “Guy lives in his head. I can use that to my advantage. I always could before.”

“Before?”

“Sure.” On a sigh, Tyrus shoved the phone in his pocket as if finally realizing he wasn’t going to get through an entire game of electronic bird tossing if he kept ignoring her.

“I knew you had a history.”

“Hell yeah, we have a history. The little pussy was so easy to fuck up. I framed him and his girlfriend and watched all hell break loose.”

“Didn’t it break loose all over your ass?” Eris couldn’t hold back the purr, “As I recall.”

Tyrus shrugged and let out a loud guffaw. “What does it matter? You fixed it and made it all better.”

That I had
, Eris thought, turning Tyrus’s words over. She knew there was a shared history there, it’s why she’d kept him in place all these years. Why she’d even had the idea to turn him in the first place. Two birds, one stone as it were.

Meg had been a lifelong enemy. The Fury had gone ape-shit one time too many on one of Eris’s targets and she was going to pay.

Eris knew there was a certain balance in the Pantheon. It was why humans were such a fun target. She and her immortal brethren could play with the mortals and if some got lost along the way, no big deal.

But Meg had punished a few of Eris’s humans one time too often and the bitch was going down. Eris had had too many plans thwarted over the years—too many carefully constructed ops ruined—because the damned Fury had swooped in and taken care of a human causing problems.

Meg’s latest interference had been the last straw. A disgraced banker who’d stolen millions was publicly caught with his pants down, despite having spent years of fucking around in complete anonymity. Meg had engineered the whole thing, and the public scandal had been more than enough to interrupt the plans for financial ruin Eris had already laid in place.

Discord interruptus.

Once again.

All thanks to the Fury.

Meg had “principles,” she’d always claimed. She only went after the humans who “deserved it.”

Fuck. They all deserved it. That little humiliation Montana Grant threw her way a few months back only reinforced the thought to Eris’s way of thinking.

The real problem was, Eris knew, that she and Meg fundamentally targeted the same people. Eris preyed on their dark sides and Meg used that same dark side to eviscerate them with the consequences.

Well, she was done playing nice. Done being patient. Done waiting for her carefully woven webs to catch the fly. She hadn’t kicked ass in a while and damn it if she wasn’t ready for a firefight.

Megaera the Fury, punisher of jealousy and envy, and her gods damned principles had made herself the perfect target. Snagging one of Themis’s boys in the process only made vengeance all that much sweeter.

Turning back to Tyrus, she forced another layer of disdain in her voice. “Just to ensure you don’t screw this up, let’s go through it one more time.”

*  *  *

Aidan didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to console her. He’d spent his life cursing the day Meg came into it, but now that she was back he was struggling to find reason to send her away again.

And it wasn’t merely the need to touch her. That crazy force pulsed in time with his very heartbeat and grew stronger the more time he spent with her.

It was more. So much more.

As she’d said, it was the inevitability of
them
. Him and her.

He’d fought her memory for millennia and yet twenty-four hours in her company and he wanted her as if the ensuing years had never existed.

As if the pain had never been.

But how did he show her that? How did he make her see that what came before didn’t have to be indicative of what came next.

“That first time we met. My father won that battle against the Spartans. I’ve always believed your input was invaluable to him.”

“He . . . he won on his own.” Meg stumbled at the shift in conversation, but quickly regained her footing. “It’s not my place to change human events, nor is that what the Pantheon requested of me when they asked me to get involved. I only offered my input to help along the natural outcome.”

“It doesn’t change the fact your wisdom and insights gave him the necessary ingredients to achieve victory.”

“He achieved many victories. I simply helped things along. Allowed him to use some additional tactics to leverage his strategy in a new light. As the Fury responsible for punishing infidelity, the coldness of men’s souls are often on display to me. It’s easy enough to use that to secure other information.”

He’d never fully understood her gift, but he’d lived in contentment, knowing she’d never find that coldness in his own soul.

But how wrong he’d been.

Shaking off the old, useless bitterness, Aidan shared a memory he knew she’d treasure. “My father was happy when you and I found each other, you know. He felt you were a suitable mate for me.”

Interest now sparked in the caramel-colored depths of her eyes. “He did?”

“He most certainly did.” A flash of remembrance dragged a quick laugh. “Thought I was a hound dog for snagging an older woman, to boot.”

“Little did he know just how old,” Meg murmured, but he saw the hint of an answering smile.

“Oh, I think he had an idea. I know times have changed, but people back then were far more accepting of the things they didn’t fully understand. And quite a bit more open to the idea of mortals and immortals.”

“I suppose so. Did he know you were turned?”

Aidan nodded, touched she even thought to ask. “I found him at the end of his life. Told him I hadn’t died that day locked in battle with Tyrus. Instead, that Themis had sought me out and asked me for my service.”

“He understood?”

“Understood and was glad I’d found a calling.”

“He loved you very much.”

Aidan shrugged, uncomfortable with the words. “He was a soldier. I believe he loved me in his own way, but it didn’t involve a demonstration.”

She nodded. “The battle-hardened soldier to the end.”

“I did see one small chink in his armor, though, when he asked about you.”

Her eyes widened at that. “Me?”

“He asked where you and I would make a life. He seemed rather infatuated with the idea you’d be his daughter-in-law.”

Aidan stood and walked across the room. The air cracked with renewed energy as he stood before her. “He believed you were a proper mate. Was shocked when I told him otherwise.”

“He didn’t know the level of my betrayal.”

The reality of what had happened so long ago began to wither away as something new replaced it, unfurling before him like a rose in bloom. With that hope, Aidan kneeled before her. “It wasn’t betrayal. Nor was it fair of me to refuse you the chance to explain.”

He leaned forward and she placed her hands once more against his cheeks. “Aidan. Our moment has passed. There’s too much history. And we can’t go back and alter its course.”