Chapter 20
WREN
A huge bonfire in the center of town threw off so much heat, it was almost like a Hell pit had reopened. But the laughter and the smell of food on the air gave a far more welcoming atmosphere than a portal to Hell. Someone was playing a guitar, with several people singing along, though I didn’t understand any of it. I’d picked up a few Greek words in my time here, but most of the time, the guys spoke to me in English.
I looked over at Milo, who was proudly showing off all three babies strapped to his chest to a long line of admirers. The villagers didn’t know they were Mythics, or anything other than the most beautiful babies in the world. I trusted Milo with them, because he would murder this whole town to save them, regardless of his feelings toward the people. He was my marshmallow warrior, and he loved the triplets. It was there in every soft look, every stroke of their heads, the way his forearm banded beneath all three. Plus, he was huge enough, and strong enough, to carry them all.
It was weird to see my guys among the… well, mortals. Hell, it was weird to be outside the walls of our compound. The Valkyries were around, dressed casually, but I knew their weapons were just enchanted so they couldn’t be seen. They were there, just like Nate’s ax was strapped across his back.
He was more casual than I’d seen him in so long, laughing and drinking with a bunch of elderly residents, listening to their stories in stilted English. The darkness of the night had settled over the crowd, lit only by hanging lights, and it was comforting rather than terrifying.
Are you all right, my mate? Griff’s voice in my head was a sweet purr, and when I looked over, I saw Teron walking toward me, food in his hands. He nuzzled his cheek against mine as I took the plate. The smells coming from it made my mouth water. Thick slices of meat and fresh bread were piled up on the rough porcelain, along with a huge range of salad that vied for space.
I smiled up at him, but responded to Griff. I’m fine. I’m having a really lovely time.
Teron raised an eyebrow. “But?”
“I have my perfect babies, and my perfect boyfriends—and mate—in this beautiful tiny village filled with people who love and care for them, but I miss home. I miss Mrs. Byrne. I miss Rossi’s deli. I miss my life back when it made sense.”
“Wren—” Teron started, but I placed my finger against his lips.
“But I have no regrets. And even when this is all over, my home is with you guys now, and while my life might be more… complicated, I wouldn’t change anything. Not where we live. Not the babies. Nothing. ”
He lifted me onto his lap and fed me pieces of my food from his fingers, his eyes hungrily watching my lips as they closed around the food. There was a heat between us, and my body was almost healed from the triplets. God knows, my libido had definitely healed and was raring to go.
However, the birth of the triplets—or more specifically, what had happened afterwards—made one fact undeniable. I was still mortal. I’d almost died. Irrespective of the fact that the babies were Demigods at the very least, that hadn’t transferred to me. And why would it? I had no higher purpose, other than as a vessel. A vessel was useless once it had delivered its contents.
I kept reminding myself that I wasn’t getting anything more or less than what the average person got. I’d have time to see the boys grow into strong men with a world-altering purpose, hopefully. I didn’t deserve to be any greedier than that.
Especially not when I had so many partners who wanted to love me in every way a man could love a woman. Including the one beneath me right now, who was trying to be restrained despite the hard line of his cock beneath my ass.
“Sweet Wren. I’m going to trace every inch of your body with my tongue,” he purred in my ear, and I practically vibrated in his lap. “I’ve been dying slowly, waiting for our moment.”
“Teron…” I breathed. “We don’t have to wai?—”
“Teron! I’m so glad you’re here!” One of the local villagers appeared in front of us, the leg of his pants rolled up to expose a festering sore on his calf.
Ew. The meat I just ate threatened to make a reappearance, and despite the semi-hard dick beneath my ass cheeks, Teron looked at the villager with nothing but kind compassion. It was why I loved him so much.
A disgruntled huff in my brain almost made me laugh out loud. I can bite off his leg, and you two can go back to what you were doing. He has so much pent-up sexual tension that it can’t possibly be healthy. The other day, he jerked off three times in the shower shouting your ? —
Stop! Teron shouted in my mind, although his face didn’t change as he listened to the villager talking about how he’d scraped his calf on an old screw, which had been poking out from a piece of farm equipment, and then his leg had begun to fester. Ugh, I better handle this before he gets blood poisoning, Teron told us telepathically as lifted me gently from his lap and placed me on the bench beside him, his long coat doing its best to hide his erection from the man in front of us.
“Let me grab my medical bag, and I’ll irrigate and bandage it before it gets further infected.” He stood, turning toward me and kissing my cheek. “Later,” he promised, and I didn’t think he meant picking up our conversation. He wandered away with the village guy, whose name I didn’t catch, and I was alone once more. I looked through the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of my guys.
Erus and Tryp were running the bar, being quite liberal with the rakí, if the amount of inebriated humans running around was any indication. They looked like they were having a great time, though, laughing and joking, dancing behind the makeshift tent storing the liquor. Erus had explained that celebrations and partying had once been their main profession; they’d been cupbearers, or something along those lines. They were there for the vibes, and right now, they were in their element.
Dogs ran through the crowd, including Cy in his canine form. I didn’t know if he was keeping the pack in line, or if the town just expected Cy the dog to be at an event like this. That seemed likely. If I’d learned anything about Cy in the last few weeks, it was that he was loyal to a fault. He cared about every single one of his hounds. He cared about every single villager, even if they treated him like a dog. He even cared about my guys, even though their relationship had been strained for a very long time.
I looked for Demke, expecting him to be in the thick of it, but came up empty. Searching further out from the firelight, I saw him at the edge of the darkness, his face tilted up at the moon. Shifting the plate of food from my lap—my appetite gone in the face of the villager’s mangled tetanus leg—I moved toward him.
He was so compelling, and I could understand why he’d been worshiped for so many centuries. Everything about him screamed more. More beauty. More power. More everything. He had his own gravitational pull, and I was helpless to resist. Moving around the small clusters of villagers, as well as dancing Valkyries, I stepped into the darkness beside him.
He looked down at me, his eyes reflecting the flickering firelight. “Wren,” he greeted softly.
“What are you doing out here by yourself?” I kept my voice low. There was something about being here, on the fringes between the light and the dark, that felt almost seductive. Like the possibilities of what could happen here, just out of sight, were endless.
He tilted his face back up to the sky. “Bathing in the moonlight. Soaking in the life around me.” He sighed. “If I’m honest, I don’t know who I am anymore. How I’m meant to interact with these humans, who have never known me as a God. Who’ve never heard of my religion, or any religion except Christianity. I don’t know how to be normal.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that snuck past my lips. “Demke, you’re about as far from normal as you can get. They might not all know you’re Demke, the Minoan God of Renewal, but they definitely don’t think of you as anything as mundane as normal.”
He shifted his gaze back to me, and I tried to read his expression. Of all the men in my life, I still found Demke an enigma. He was trying—that much was obvious. He was as fond of the babies as any of the others; he took his turns at feedings, and was already researching baby food combinations for when they could start solids. I caught him regularly sniffing their heads, or talking to them in a soft voice in a language I suspected was ancient Minoan.
However, when he looked at me, there was such a weird tangle of emotions, that it gave me whiplash. Longing, definitely. Guilt, maybe, though that was lessening as time went on. Frustration, though I didn’t know what about.
“And you?”
I’d been so lost in my thoughts, I wasn’t sure what he meant. “What?”
“Do you think of me as normal?” The soft timbre of his voice brushed over me like a caress.
Shaking my head, I looked up into those eyes that seemed alive with heat. “Someone like you was always destined to be special.”
Leaning down closer, his fingers brushed across my hip, and the innocent touch felt like it electrocuted me from the clit outwards. “You were also destined to be special, Wren Mahone. Special to the world. Special to my brothers.” Leaning forward, he brushed his lips across mine as he whispered, “Special to me.”
I kissed him. Not something soft and delicate, or hesitant. I kissed to consume, to own, to burn. I kissed him like I needed him to survive, and he kissed me back with just as much desperation. He lifted me easily, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, holding him tightly like he was going to change his mind and disappear into the darkness. But as he stepped back further from the bonfire, I realized he was going to take us both into the shadows, and a thrill of pleasure coursed through my body.
I bit his lip, making him groan. “ Wren. ” He said my name the way a dying man might say a prayer. Like I was his last chance at salvation.
I felt the rough scrape of something along my back, but I was too consumed by the man who was twined around me to care what it was.
He dragged his mouth away. “I want you more than I’ve wanted anyone in so long. This isn’t what I planned, however.”
Looking around, I realized we were in a rocky outcropping on the edge of town. The moon made his hair look like spilled ink, his face carved by shadows. “This is perfect.”
He laughed and dropped me to my feet, though he didn’t stop kissing me. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I could feel the tingle of something on my skin. Like the moment before a storm. Or when you accidentally—maybe on purpose—touched your phone charger to your tongue. It was like a jolt of feeling across all your nerve endings.
Tearing my mouth from his, I noticed the area around our feet was now blanketed in the softest moss and clover, with small purple flowers poking up between the leaves. I gaped in amazement, kicking off my shoes to rub my toes in the soft blanket of green. “Did you just summon us a bed?”
Picking me up once more, he dropped to his knees and lowered me to my back. “Making love to you, under the moon, on a bed of flowers is the very least you deserve.”
This man. No, this God. He’s going to ruin me.
Hell, who was I kidding? I was already ruined.