Something in his chest cinched down tight. He knew it wasn’t his heart, because he was pretty sure he didn’t have one anymore, but as he stared out at the female, something stirred inside him. A feeling. A calling. Something pulling him toward her. Something that wasn’t related to the darkness that still lingered from the Underworld.
She turned and looked his way, almost as if she’d sensed him watching her. And as their eyes met, he remembered the hundreds of times he’d stared out at Maelea like this from his room at the colony.
Sotiria…
Images flashed in his mind. A boat rocking. A closet-sized bathroom. Closing his mouth over hers. Dragging her up his body. Laying her out over a table like an offering and all but devouring her whole.
His skin grew hot. He turned away from the window, tried to slow his racing pulse. He didn’t know where they were, but he was pretty damn sure the images flitting through his mind weren’t fantasies. They were real. Which meant that sometime between the motel where those daemons had attacked them and here, he’d done something horrible. Something he never ever should have done.
Fuck. Fuck! He gripped his hair and pulled until pain shot across his scalp. Why couldn’t he remember? Why did his brain feel like it was short-circuiting?
Doooouuulas…
Why the hell was that voice suddenly the least of his worries?
His skin tingled with the intensity of a thousand needles stabbing into him over and over. His pulse was a roar in his ears. He didn’t bother with a shirt or shoes, had only one thought in mind as he pulled the bedroom door open and headed out into the hall in bare feet. He had to see for himself that he hadn’t hurt her. But shit…would he know if he had? That kind of pain, the kind he lived with every damn day, was on the inside. It couldn’t be seen, only felt. Sickness brewed in his stomach, threatened to push up into his chest at the thought that he’d done that to her.
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, gripped the newel post, and breathed deep, forcing back the bile. When he was sure he wasn’t about to lose it, he scanned the wide family room with white beadboard trim, comfy oversized furnishings grouped around a fireplace, the adjacent open kitchen alight with an orange glow, and the wide windows that looked out over the serene beach.
Serenity was the farthest thing from his mind. His nerves kicked up as he crossed the room, pushed the screen open, and stepped out onto another deck, this one with stairs that led down to the sand.
Maelea stood ankle deep in the gentle waves, throwing breadcrumbs up into the air for the seagulls to catch, her dark hair flowing in the breeze behind her. The birds squawked and fluttered over her head. The gauzy white, long-sleeved gown with the wide cuffs hit at her calves, cinched in at her waist, and was open just enough at the neckline to showcase her breasts. Tight, firm, high breasts he remembered closing his mouth over, drawing deep, licking to stiff peaks.
Skata. He was every bit the monster Nick and all the other colonists thought he was. Orpheus never should have rescued him from the Underworld. The Argonauts shouldn’t have let him stay in the human realm. They all should have left him in Tartarus to rot. He deserved that. Deserved more than that now.
His skin felt three times too small. He swiped a hand over his brow. Forced his feet forward. If Maelea heard him, she didn’t show it, and that only increased his guilt and nausea. As he moved down the stairs and crossed the beach toward her, all the shitty things he’d done and said to her since the day he took her hostage at the colony rolled through his mind. But none of them—not even all of them combined—compared to what he’d done to her on that boat.
He stopped several feet away, shoved his hands into his pockets so as not to scare her. Didn’t know what the hell to say. What could he say?
She threw up the last piece of bread, dusted off her hands, then turned his way. No surprise rushed over her features in the sunlight, and he couldn’t read her dark eyes. Wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she was thinking.
“I thought you’d sleep longer,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
How are you feeling? Seriously? She was asking him how he felt? He searched her face for any signs of injury, didn’t see it. But that didn’t mean there weren’t internal injuries…emotional injuries.
“Maelea…” His throat grew thick. Words dried up on his lips. Now that he was out here, now that he was staring at her face-to-face, he didn’t know what the hell to say. What the hell to do, for that matter. His stomach rolled, and that bile pushed right back up his throat.
She stared at him for several seconds, waiting, he knew, for him to say something. Anything. When he didn’t, she looked past him to the house. “You were out most of the trip. I thought it was best to let you sleep. After all, it was my fault you were hurt in the first place.”
Her fault? Confusion seeped into his already hazy mind.
“It’s mine, by the way.” She gestured behind him. Still not sure what the hell was going on, he turned to look at the two-story beach house with wide decks, nestled into a private bay. No other houses could be seen. No other people, either. Just trees and cliffs and the one little house. “I bought it over a hundred years ago. It’s been remodeled once. Probably about due for another update, but I don’t get up here very often.”
He looked back at her. She was talking about a stupid house, when inside he wanted to die over what he’d done.
The wind blew a lock of hair across her face, the contrast between the dark of her hair and the light of her skin reminding him of her lineage. Of who she was and how long she’d lived. She tugged the lock away from her eyes, shook out her hair. He remembered her doing that in the caves, when her hair had been wet and plastered to her face. Remembered sliding his fingers in those thick locks as he’d kissed her again and again on that boat.
He swallowed hard, forced himself to find his voice. “Maelea—”
“No one will find us here, in case that’s what you’re worried about,” she said. “I paid cash for it. Didn’t put my real name on the deed. And it was so long ago, it’d be hard to track this place to me. Plus, I used the ore.”
“The what?”
“The mineral? The one you picked up in the caves? I found it in your backpack when we got here. I did some research on therillium while you were asleep, and you were right. When heated, it makes the area around it invisible from the outside. The invisibility factor seems to spread out at least a quarter mile from the source. Or at least that’s what I found from my unscientific tests. I have it under a heat lamp inside. From the road up on the hill, you can’t even see the house anymore.”
He wasn’t sure whether he should be impressed or way the fuck confused.
Confusion won out. “Maelea—”
“Let’s go inside,” she said, moving out of the waves and up on the beach. The bottom of her skirt was wet when she stepped onto the sand and moved by him. She didn’t touch him, but her heat warmed the air nearby. Stirred a memory of their bodies locked tight together on that boat. “It may be July up here on Vancouver Island, but that doesn’t mean its beach-weather warm. You look cold.”
For the first time, he noticed the temperature. Brisk. The slight wind puckering his nipples. Likely only in the upper sixties, even with the sun.
“Vancouver Island?” he asked as she headed for the house. Why the hell wasn’t she screaming at him? Why didn’t she look…hurt and upset? What the fuck was going on? “How did you get us all the way from that motel in Montana to here?”