Her eyes flew wide. “What did you say to me?”
“You heard me. And we both know you, of all people, know how that’s done.” His voice hardened. He reached down to maneuver his cock into position. “No more talking now, Callia. Let’s fuck like we both want.”
Callia could barely see straight, but with his hand beneath the water she didn’t even hesitate. She lifted her leg, braced her bare foot against his rock-hard stomach and pushed as hard as she could. “You son of a bitch! How dare you!”
He stumbled backward in the water, his face full of shock and irritation when it lifted to hers. “What the hell?”
She was shaking as she jerked her camisole back up and shoved her arms through the straps, then hauled her naked ass out of the water. Only this time her tremors had nothing to do with arousal. They were spurred on by contempt. And bone-jarring anger, the kind she’d never given herself over to. Not even after he’d left her.
“Fucking A,” he muttered in the water behind her as she searched for her underwear. “You’re gonna get all pissy now? Can’t you wait ten fucking minutes until we’re done?”
“Go to hell!” A red haze covered her vision, but she finally spotted her panties three feet across the damp rocks. She crossed to them and pulled them on, then moved back to the bedroll Titus had set up for Zander before he left, and yanked on her pants.
She should have let him die. She never should have let Titus talk her into coming here…
He was out of the water and at her back before she ever heard him move. One strong hand closed around her upper arm and jerked her around to face him. “You selfish little bitch. Don’t go getting all high-and-mighty on me.”
“Let go of me.” She braced both hands against his chest and pushed hard. Only it did little good. He was like a granite statue. Immovable. “How dare you say something like that to me!”
“How dare I what?” he mocked. “Tell the truth?” He dropped her arm as if she’d burned him, shook his head. Whatever arousal had darkened his features before was long gone. Disgust now etched its way clearly across his chiseled features. “I could have called a spade a spade and told you what you really are, but I didn’t.”
“Because you wanted to fuck me,” she tossed back. “Not because you care about me.”
“I stopped caring a long time ago. You made sure of that.” His gaze took a heated stroll across her body, as if he had the right. As if he owned her. The need to cover herself swept over her, but she resisted the urge. “But I’ve wised up. You’re the last female I’d ever want to fuck. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
Her jaw clenched at the disdain in his eyes and the way it made her skin crawl as if she’d done something wrong. “And what am I?” she asked, lifting her chin in a clear shot of challenge.
His eyes narrowed to menacing slits. “A murderer.”
Her mouth dropped open. She was too shocked to whisper more than “What did you call me?”
“I asked you for one thing,” he growled as if he hadn’t heard her. “One fucking thing. Just to wait a few days so I could work things out with Theron. But you couldn’t do even that much for me, could you? You ran right off to your father and did exactly what he wanted. You got rid of my child like it meant nothing!”
Something clicked in her brain as she glanced around the dark cave, tried to reconcile what he was saying with what had happened nearly eleven years before. “Are you saying you think that I…you think I had an abortion?”
“I know you did!”
Her anger ebbed as ten years of confusion and hurt finally made sense. “Zander, I didn’t…couldn’t…” She shook her head. “I never—”
“Don’t try to lie to me,” he ground out. “I went to that human clinic.”
Slowly, she lifted her eyes to his. Only the Argonaut standing in front of her was not the hot and bothered almost-lover she’d shared that pool with. He wasn’t even the injured and battered one she’d saved from paralysis. This one was a warrior tensed for attack. A threat. A killer. One who could rip her to pieces with his bare hands if he wanted.
She swallowed hard, took one step toward him and tried to defuse his rage. He’d warned her once it was in him, that as he hailed from Achilles’s line, it was his curse to bear, and that he always fought against it so it didn’t control him. But she’d never seen it full force. At least not until now.
“You were there?” she whispered.
“Oh, yeah, I was there.”
“Then you know—”
“I saw the chart. Talked to a nurse. By then you and your father were long gone, hiding somewhere because of what you’d done. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? It was all right there. In black and white.” His voice lowered. “You didn’t even have the decency to tell me. You just ran off in the night like the murderer you are.”
“Zander.” She took a deep breath, tried to calm herself because one of them sure needed to be rational here. “I didn’t run off. After you left me to take care of whatever it was you needed to do, there were complications. I was bleeding. I thought I was having a miscarriage. I couldn’t go to an Argolean healer because then they’d have known about…us.”
“Liar,” he whispered.
“I’m not lying. I was scared. My father found me. He took me to the human realm so I could get help. I didn’t abort our baby, Zander. I tried to save him.”
“Liar!”
“You have to believe me.” Panic closed in as she stepped closer. The menace in his eyes was something she’d never believed possible in anyone—especially him. “I would never have hurt our child. I loved our baby. When he was born…you don’t know what I went through for him.”
“Liar!” he screamed again. “I’ve heard enough lies from your mouth to last an eternity.”
“I wouldn’t lie. Not about this—”
His hands closed over both her arms and squeezed hard. “I said enough!”
All her life she’d been a healer. Even as a child she’d known she was special, that while other Argoleans had powers that benefited themselves, hers benefited others. But when Zander grabbed her, forcing her palms to push against his chest to keep him away, the only thing she could think of was defending herself against someone who so obviously hated her with every fiber of his being.
Power rushed into her hands as if she was pulling it from some unseen force, and without thinking, she directed it right back at the threat in front of her. It flowed out of her body and she pushed it with her mind as hard as she could, without even realizing she was doing it.
Zander’s eyes grew wide. He barely made a sound as he crumpled to the ground at her feet, then gasped in several breaths as if his lungs suddenly weren’t working.
Her hands vibrated from the raw power that had just rushed through her, and Callia stumbled back, shocked and repulsed by what she’d done. Remnants of a rage she’d never experienced trickled through her body, leaving her nauseated and unstable. Her vision blurred, darkened, but she shook her head to clear it. Not once had she purposely hurt someone until now. Never had she known she had it in her.
Her adrenaline surged and her airway constricted. She backed up until she hit the rock wall of the cave.
“Callia…” Zander tried to push up on shaky hands and knees but couldn’t make his limbs work. He hit the ground with a thwack.
Holy Hera. What have I done?