Chapter 19
PERA, PYRGOS
Terena woke with a start. She was nestled against something warm and hard. Her hand rested on a muscled forearm and for a panicked second she thought she’d foolishly bedded one of the drunkards at the gambling den the night before.
What the fuck was in that sweet the seer had given her?
Then she remembered Daris, and she stiffened. Turning her head slightly, she felt his warm breath fan her neck, and she shivered.
What the fuck?
She moved her head back to better view his profile.
Aye. It was, indeed, Daris.
Carefully, Terena lifted Daris’s arm and slid away.
As she inched closer to the edge of the bed, he mumbled something and she froze.
Long seconds passed before she felt safe enough to move, slithering out of the bed.
Turning, she looked down at his face shrouded in shadows in the bedchamber’s gloom.
How had this happened? One minute she was in the gambling den with the blonde witch, Cassandra; the next she was in a strange room and Daris’s sword was on a large bed.
After grabbing it, she’d heard someone coming toward her.
Finding Daris on the other side of the blade was not something she’d been prepared for.
How long had she thought of their reunion, what she’d say to him?
What he might say to her? She was still very wounded over his betrayal, but a part of her could not stop thinking about him.
Her traitorous heart would soften and make her relive memories of him before everything turned sour.
Her hunger for him had not abated, obviously.
But she hadn’t thought she’d jump right back into bed with him before hearing him attempt to explain away his involvement with Lerek’s murder.
What the fuck was wrong with her?
Terena moved on silent feet to the doorway where a scattering of clothes lay cold and forgotten.
She picked up her breeches and tunic, frowning at the missing buttons on her pants before glancing at the bed.
How the fuck was she supposed to get back to Ermanel now?
Would Croak even still be there? Did Rydon know what would happen—
“Will you not even say goodbye?”
Terena went rigid, hands on the flaps of her pants. Without turning around she answered, “I didn’t wish to wake you.”
“Coward.”
Heat flashed through her body. Turning slowly, she glared at him. He was sitting with his back against the headboard, one knee lifted beneath the covers, his arm propped on it. She was glad of the shadows, for they hid her body’s response to him as he watched her.
“I need to go,” she mumbled, gripping the front of her breeches closed. She swore under her breath when she couldn’t find her hair tie. She let out an impatient huff. “The others will wonder where I’ve gone.”
“They do not know you’re here?”
“One does,” Terena laughed.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Terena reached down to grab her sword belt when Daris’s fingers closed around her wrist.
“Don’t go,” he whispered.
Terena looked up, his ruined eye uncovered, the scarred brow scrunching with his other brow.
“Stay with me,” he added.
“This was a one-time thing,” she muttered, yanking her wrist out of his hand. She rose, ducking her chin as she put on her belt. “It will not happen again.”
“Really?” He scoffed. “I have no say in it?”
“No, you don’t! I’m an idiot when it comes to you. Gods, Daris! You took my sister! Why would you do that?”
“How else was I supposed to get you to come back? To listen to me!”
“So you kidnap a defenseless young woman?”
“You know I’d never let anything happen to her.”
“I don’t believe a word coming out of your mouth. You’ve lied to me before, Daris.” Terena snapped, tossing a look at him over her shoulder.
Hands balled at her sides, she looked around the room. How was she supposed to get back? Cassandra didn’t tell her anything about what this was. Did it have anything to do with whatever that candy was she’d so cleverly sneaked into her mouth with that kiss?
Daris grabbed her hand, making her fumble back into him.
“Stay. I will tell you everything.” Daris’s voice was gruff and rumbled through her back as he lifted their twined fingers over her head to pull her back into his chest.
“I don’t have time.”
Terena pulled her hand from his, pushing on his arm until it fell away. She took a few steps from him.
“I didn’t kill him, Ren. On my honor as a Liodari. As a Spartan. I did not kill Prince Lerek.”
An all-too-familiar stab of guilt hit her belly, but it wasn’t as painful as it had been in the past. Frowning, Terena turned to look at him.
“I have to go.”
She had no idea how she was to return to the others, but one thing was certain; she could not stay and listen to him. Not now.
“Did you hear me?”
Terena threw up her arms. “I don’t have time for this! I don’t have time for you. We’ll talk another—”
Daris took a couple steps closer, his face deceptively calm.
“You don’t have time for me? So, you come here, we make love, but you don’t have time to listen to me?
About the reason you fought with me? Stabbed me?
Oh, aye,” he laughed, his lips twisted sardonically when her eyes widened.
“Did you not notice the new scar?” Daris patted his left hip.
A jagged line started below his ribs to right above his hip bone, pink and puckered. It looked new.
Terena grew sheepish before recollecting herself.
“Be glad you’re immortal.”
Daris laughed bitterly. “Very nice. What happened to the woman who came in earlier and couldn’t wait to be in my arms?”
Terena pressed her lips together, shooting him a glare. Her eyes caught on something and she bent over, grabbing his discarded breeches and tossing them at him. He caught them and put them on.
“A momentary lapse in common sense,” Terena fumed, stalking past him.
His hand shot out, grabbing her neck. Terena let out a squeak as he shoved her against the wall, his body so close she squirmed to put some distance between them.
Anything to get away from his heat and the dangerous gleam in his eye.
His nostrils flared, and Terena swallowed hard. Daris’s hand was warm and strong with only the slightest pressure on her throat. She knew if she wanted, she could move away.
But she didn’t.
Terena hated herself for that.
“Get your fucking hand off me.”
“Oh no, my love,” he purred, his hot breath rousing the butterflies in her belly. “You’re going to stay right here until we’ve finished our conversation.”
“Daris,” she said in warning, her gaze locked with his.
“I’ve waited months to see you. I am not fucking letting you go until you hear me out.”
“And then you’ll let me go.”
One corner of Daris’s mouth curled up. The way his face could change from strong, courageous leader to seductive, possessive lover made her insides melt.
Terena desperately fought to recall why she hated this man.
“I won’t let you go,” he whispered, his gaze falling to her lips. “Ever again. You are mine.”
“I am not yours.”
He let his hand fall from her throat, his fingers glancing off her skin in the softest of caresses. The pad of one finger rested where her pulse hammered her skin.
Terena’s heart rolled over. Blood heated and moved slowly beneath her skin and she felt the languorous pull of his body, adjusting her limbs to fit within the embrace of his powerful frame.
“I think your body disagrees with you,” Daris murmured, leaning closer until his lips were on her ear.
No! Do not give in!
Terena listened to her head this time. Desperate to get away from him and have a serious conversation with her traitorous body, Terena willed herself to think of Croak. Of Rydon. Gabriol and Orry. All of them waiting for her.
Slipping a dagger out of her belt, she held it at his back. Right at his kidney. With a cruel tilt of her lips, she sighed.
“Think again, my love.”
Before she could stab him, Terena stumbled, no longer in Daris’s darkened bedchamber.
Daris fell forward into the wall.
Growling as he rubbed at his sore forehead, he swore in Greek.
Then blinked.
She was gone.
Baffled, Daris stepped back, his disbelieving gaze taking in the space in front of him as if Ren might somehow reappear from the shadows.
A muffled banging reached him from the other room. Daris stalked to the nightstand where he’d set his eyepatch. Before he could pick it up, Hermes stormed in, his face various shades of red as his gaze darted around the empty bedchamber.
“Where is she?” Hermes roared, his eyes on fire as he strode through the room, lifting Daris’s discarded clothes and tossing them down again.
Daris wiped his hand down his face. He grabbed his eyepatch and fitted it over his ruined eye before rising and grabbing the tunic Hermes had thrown. Daris looked at him warily before pulling it over his head. The god stalked across the large bedchamber, cursing under his breath.
“Who are you looking for?”
“My niece,” Hermes hissed a few inches from Daris’s face.
Daris’s spine stiffened, and he narrowed his good eye. “She’s not here.”
“I can see that, Eudaemon!” Hermes spat, jerking his head around as if he’d conjure her from thin air. Turning his furious gaze back to Daris he said, “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know,” Daris answered, raking a hand through his hair. At Hermes’s scowl, he raised his hands in supplication. “I didn’t know—”
“When did she get here? What did she say?”
Daris, surprised by the god’s ferocity, blinked at him in shock. “Lord—”
“Don’t—!” Hermes closed his eyes and held up a hand to Daris as if trying to control himself. Still with his eyes closed, his fingers folded until he held up only his forefinger. “I want to know exactly when she came to you. What was said? Did she say where she is?”
Daris gaped at the god. A second later he composed himself, crossing his arms at his chest. “I don’t know how it’s possible. No one informed us she was here—”