What a Goddess Wants (33 page)

Oh shit. Stupid. How could I have been so stupid?

She’d let her guard down and now she would pay the price.

I’m so sorry, Cal.

“Go ahead.” The demon shrugged. “Make another run for it. Won’t get far.”

So true. Even though her muscles flexed and twitched with the need to run.

“Besides,” the demon continued, its gaze darting around, “I kinda like it here. It’s cool.”

Unfortunately, the cool air was doing nothing to bring down her body temperature. Her skin felt as if she’d touched the sun itself.

There was no way she’d let the demon know that, though. She was still a goddess. And this creature didn’t have the right to frighten her. She should remember that.

Tessa drew herself up to her full height and stuck her nose in the air. “I’m not running now. I prefer yoga to running anyway. Running’s hard on the knees.”

The demon smiled, showing off a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth. “Good run gets your blood pumping.”

“I don’t have any trouble getting my blood pumping.”

The demon’s eyes narrowed. “He must be good in bed.”

Oh, no, you don’t even get to go there.
“You know Charun will never be able to accomplish his insane plan. Why are you helping him? What do you think you’ll get out of it?”

Laughing, the demon shook its head, the coils of its hair moving as sinuously as a snake. “Oh, please. Like I’m stupid enough to answer that. I’ve read the ‘Evil Overlord List’ on the Web. Good advice there.”

The demon pushed off the tree and started toward her. “Don’t make this difficult on yourself, Thesan. Just come along. I don’t want to damage you. You wouldn’t be much of a challenge anyway.”

Oh, now that was just cruel. Tessa narrowed her eyes and planted her hands on her hips. “Listen, you blue bitch-demon, don’t underestimate me. I’m more powerful than you can know.”

The demon snorted. “So disappear already.” It paused, eyebrows lifted. “What? No powers here? Not enough sunlight, huh? Then I guess you’re coming with me, considering your male left you unprotected.”

Her back stiffened. This was in no way Cal’s fault. What she wouldn’t give to claw out the demon’s eyes for even suggesting that. “Before you serve me up to Charun, could you at least tell me your name?”

“Ah, yeah, really not that stupid.” One blue hand wrapped around her upper arm, the fingers long and skinny, nails filed to points. “Let’s go, blondie.”

Eyes downcast, Tessa followed for a few steps before twisting in the demon’s grip. She’d hoped to catch it off guard and twist out of its hold. When that didn’t work, she kicked and scratched and yanked at her arm.

The demon sighed and shook its head. “You know, I was trying to avoid this. But suit yourself.” Then it lowered its mouth to bite Tessa on the shoulder.

Tessa screamed as the cold poison seeped into her blood.

Cold. So bloody cold.

She screamed until the poison robbed her of her voice and her movement. That only took seconds, and then the demon threw her over its shoulder and began to run.

***

“You brought an Etruscan goddess here and plan to go up against the Etruscan God of the Underworld to save her? Have all those years in the sun robbed you of what little sense you were born with?”

Cal bit his tongue as Cuspis, leader of the Council of Elders, continued to question not only Cal’s sanity but his manhood. The old guy was almost three hundred years old and, as far as Cal knew, hadn’t left Cimmeria in more than one hundred fifty years.

“This council will not let you drag us into…”

As Cuspis raged on, Cal looked around the table and realized that probably most of the seven-member council shared their leader’s opinion.

They’d become complacent. Content to rule their tiny corner of the world as tyrants, conveniently forgetting how they’d once been a force to be feared. How they had fought those who were weaker.

Now, they hid in the shadows and pretended that they still were those men.

Hell, Cuspis didn’t even hide the fact that he probably couldn’t lift a sword anymore, not with the amount of weight he was carrying. They’d gotten fat and lazy and arrogant.

At least, most of them.

Cal let his gaze fall directly on Pavor. Juliana’s father had not aged well. Good.

He hoped the bastard relived Juliana’s death every night. That was the only thing that had stopped Cal from killing Pavor after she’d stepped in front of an assassin’s knife meant for Cal.

He’d wanted Pavor to suffer. And, from the looks of him, he had.

He’d lost his hair and most of his eyesight, if that blank stare was anything to go by. His flesh hung on his big frame after massive weight loss in the eighty or so years since Cal had left. Every breath Pavor took appeared painful, and every movement looked like agony.

Sometimes the fates were good. That bastard deserved to rot in whatever hell he landed in.

Juliana had never wanted Cal, though he’d thought he was in love with her. She’d been merely an obedient daughter, a pawn in Pavor’s games. And she’d let herself be killed rather than mate with Cal.

He’d failed Juliana. He wouldn’t fail Tessa.

“A war with Charun would condemn us all to death.”

Cuspis finally shut his mouth and leaned back in his chair to stare at Cal. Cuspis didn’t bother to check the mood of the other Elders, secure in his control. He fully expected Cal to bow and scrape as well.

But, as Cuspis had said earlier, Cal had been away for too many years.

Cal stood, and every single man in the room followed his actions. He let his lips pull into a smile and watched Cuspis’s expression slowly fade into wary watchfulness.

Yeah, you just keep watching, you bastard.

“I don’t think you understand why I’m here, gentlemen.” Cal used that word deliberately, rather than address them as Elders. “I’m not asking your permission. I’ve accepted the task of protecting Thesan, and I’m not going to go back on my word. There was a time when the Cimmerians wouldn’t have backed down from a fight, especially one like this. But you’ve gotten old. And fat.”

A collective gasp rose from the men, who sounded more like a coffee klatch of old women than once-powerful men. But none of them stood to challenge Cal. Because they knew they couldn’t. He’d cut them down in seconds.

“Thesan requested my aid, and I will not allow a rabid god to take her.”

“But you’re fighting a losing battle, Caligo.” Aestus shook his head. He was the only one who’d spoken against Pavor when he’d attempted to assassinate Cal. “You can’t go up against a god and win.”

Cal opened his mouth but his father beat him to it. “Not alone, no. I believe if we can hit at Charun’s front line hard enough, maybe he’ll back the fuck off and leave Thesan alone.”

His father’s quietly spoken words threw the council into an uproar, and Cal watched them bicker amongst themselves.

His dad had actually come up with a plan, and he’d been the one to suggest they approach the council for help. Not that Diritas thought the Elders would agree but he’d said they needed to be paid lip service.

Cal had been more than a little stunned that his father had agreed to back him. Diritas was in line for a council position when one of these geezers dropped over, and Cal had never expected his father to commit what amounted to career suicide.

Yet here Diritas stood, arguing on Cal’s behalf. He wondered if his father would still be fighting for him if Cal had told him about Tessa’s effect on him.

Would he consider Cal flawed? A failure?

Cal considered it a gift. One he’d fight to the death to keep. Even if that meant being banished from Cimmeria forever.

“Cal! She’s gone! Tessa’s gone.”

Cal spun toward X’s voice and saw his brother running toward him through the meeting hall.

The bottom dropped out of his stomach as his brain processed X’s words.

“No—”

“Mom went to check on her after I came over from Frentani’s, and she was gone. I looked for her but I couldn’t find—”

Cal was already halfway to the exit. He knew exactly where to go.

The gate to Aitás.

Behind him, he heard his brother and his father, their footsteps pounding in rhythm as they tried to keep up with him. They couldn’t. Cal left them behind in a minute. His heart raced as adrenaline flooded his system.

He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t.

Yet he knew sometimes there just wasn’t anything anyone could do to affect the outcome of a shit storm.

***

Tessa didn’t know how long the demon ran, but it didn’t seem far before they stopped.

Which didn’t seem quite fair. In the movies, the trip to the heroine’s doom took forever and the hero always got there to save her before anything really bad happened to her.

But here she was, hanging over a blue demon’s shoulder and paralyzed because she’d been stupid enough to fall asleep and let Charun invade her dreams.

Cal probably had no idea she was gone. However she’d left the house, it hadn’t seemed to raise any alarms. By the time Cal discovered she was missing, she’d probably be wasting away to nothing in Aitás, her powers consumed and Charun one goddess closer to getting free.

She frowned… Well, she tried to frown, but she was still paralyzed. Leave it to Charun to know that the only poison that would work on a goddess would come from a Tukhulkha demon.

She wondered if Cal would mourn her.

She already mourned him. She’d actually hoped to spend a few hundred years with Cal. Hell, she wanted to spend an eternity with him. But no. She’d lived up to her blonde bubble-head image and been scooped up like a white rabbit on green grass.

The demon stopped abruptly and dropped Tessa on the ground in front of a large rock that stuck out of the earth like the jagged tooth of some long-dead monster. Good thing she couldn’t feel anything because that probably would have hurt.

The boulder stood at least eight feet tall and held faint markings. Etruscan runes, she realized. They formed a spell entreating the god of Aitás to welcome those who sought entrance to the Afterworld.

“Last stop, Thesan.” The demon looked over its shoulder. The mist behind them seemed to be growing darker. The sun must be setting in the outside world. At least Tessa couldn’t feel the drain on her powers anymore.

“Sun’ll be down soon,” the demon affirmed. “Better get a move on.”

The demon leaned forward to place its hands on the rock, muttering a spell in the long-dead Etruscan language. The demon’s guttural voice hid the beauty of the ancient words but none of the power.

The earth rumbled and shook as the demon chanted. As Tessa watched, the rock began to quiver and shake until finally it disappeared.

In its place stood a jagged hole. Beyond it, Tessa saw only darkness. She’d never been to Aitás. Not once in her very long life. She’d never had any desire.

And now she had no choice.

Tessa flinched and realized she could move her fingers and toes.

Too little, too late. And isn’t that a sad commentary on my life.

Closing her eyes, she thought of her sister goddess Lusna.

If you can hear me, Lucy, take care. Warn the others. Charun will be coming for one of you now.

Tears leaked from her eyes. No way out now. End of the road.

Cal. I love you.

The demon turned back to look at her. “Sorry, Goddess. Seems like a waste to trash such a pretty face.” Then it bent and tossed Tessa over its shoulder again. “Better if you don’t struggle much. Just takes longer. And believe me, you don’t want this to take long.”

***

Cal heard distant thunder and forced himself to run faster.

The demon was opening the gate into Aitás, and if Cal didn’t get to it before the demon took Tessa through, he wouldn’t be able to save her.

A trip into Aitás was one way unless you were Charun or one of his demons.

Lungs burning from his sprint, Cal pushed even harder, the misty dark of Cimmeria hiding his approach from the blue demon as it stooped to pick up Tessa and throw her over its shoulder.

No. I won’t fail.

Never slowing, he ran at the demon full force, catching it off guard and taking it to the ground before it had a chance to avoid him. The demon couldn’t hold on to Tessa as it fell. She hit the ground with a thud but didn’t cry out. And didn’t move.

The thought that she was already dead made his blood run cold. He couldn’t stop to help her, though, because the demon bounced to its feet and came at Cal with its claws exposed. It raked at his face and he veered away, feeling the brush of air as its hands passed within centimeters of his skin. He countered with a right hook that caught the demon on the chin but didn’t slow it down.

Neither had the advantage in the fast-falling dark, their eyes equally adjusted. They battered each other with fists to the face and body, both enduring a fierce beating. Out of the corner of his eye, Cal saw his father approach and try to get to Tessa, but Diritas was unable to get past the knot Cal and the demon made.