Divine Ecstasy (The Guardians of the Realms Book 8) (17 page)

He felt Sacha’s aversion to the memories that brought. He clenched his teeth tight but managed to keep a gentle hold on her hip while tamping down the hatred he felt for his brother. His fury wouldn’t help her.

“Most any place,” Sacha agreed. She was trying to find a way to minimize her explanation, and he knew this was going to gut him.

Sirena lifted a bottle of wine and some glasses as she considered her next words. They came as she uncorked and began pouring the deep red liquid. “You said you suppressed the ability?”

Sacha nodded and easily accepted the glass handed to her as if the two had done this a million times through the centuries.

He declined a glass with a shake of his head. He wasn’t interested in wine; he was interested in what his female would say next.

“It just tried to break free… during sex.”

Sirena nodded. “You don’t need to tell me the rest unless you want to. I truly don’t know if it could cause symptoms of a frenzy because I’ve never come across anything like this. But I will say that mated pairs always meld abilities from the start. I’d think if it’s trying to get out, then you’re going to need to let it.” There was a hint of empathy in her violet eyes as she spoke, and she tilted her head, adding, “That brings up something else that could be a problem. Has your beast blood manifested its match in Hades?”

The healer’s eyes settled on him. He hadn’t considered her having a physical animal like his sister’s consorts. “I don’t feel a beast.” He’d felt Era’s beast halves and had been able to release them, but there was nothing like that in him. Nor did he see it in Sacha. “What kind of creature are we talking about?”

“Kairos are a race with the smallest amount of beast blood. It wouldn’t feel separate, but it manifests in impulses. And to answer your question, the blood was from an ancient bird Apollo created. I was once told that he’d done it to make the Kairos stronger, smarter and quieter than the original teleporters without adding the temperaments that came with the shifting breeds.”

“I felt an odd clawing when my power started trying to break free,” Sacha admitted.

“But nothing before?”

“No. I’ve never felt anything from the animal blood,” Sacha agreed, and his female hesitated a second before adding, “But if it’s impulses, I believe it has manifested in Hades.”

He did a mental scan.

She turned to him.
You seem surprised by all the need to dominate and mark me. If that wasn’t something you felt before, it seems to me that would be an impulse she’s talking about.
Her bronze skin flushed beautifully with the mental words. She was imagining him pinning her down and fucking her hard. He gritted his teeth as his cock tented the dark slacks. She angled her body to cover the evidence of what her thoughts had done to him, and that amused him immensely.

“You may go,” he commanded the healer, his gaze never leaving his female’s.

Sacha narrowed her eyes at his dismissal of her friend and turned, making sure her body still hid his hard cock. He liked this side of his female.

He glanced over her head to the healer and, to appease his female, grinned. “Please.” He leaned into her back and let her feel what she’d done to him, what she wanted to hide. He didn’t need to hide anything.

He heard her gasp of breath and curved his hands around her small waist. The material couldn’t hide the shiver that racked her frame.

He barely caught the healer’s next words, but he didn’t miss her twitching lips. “I’ll go double-check the blood and let Drake know that you’re still figuring things out. He wants you two to stay here until we understand what’s going on.”

He had no intention of taking his female back to her home until they were through whatever was happening to them. This island was secluded and secure. He mentally sighed before commanding, “Tell my nephew that we are only to be disturbed for two reasons. One, that the tests show something’s wrong.” Which he doubted now that they had other reasons for what was happening. He had a hard time believing for a minute that a beast or suppressed power could cause a compulsion like this in a God. But they would find out soon enough. “Or when the Goddess of Thule wakes.” He said the last with a growl. He would have the location of Apollo and he would make him bleed for eternity for all he’d done.

Sacha sucked in a breath and he knew she felt his need to give her retribution. And he would.
My brother will suffer,
he assured her.

His thoughts were interrupted when Sirena sighed. “I’ll let Drake know.”

He heard the healer’s telepathic words to Sacha.
I think it’s going to take both of you letting go. Let him catch you. Call if you need me.

The second the healer was gone, she turned to him. “You heard everything she said?”

“I did.”

He could feel her displeasure at having more of her thoughts opened to him. She breathed out and he understood her frustration.

He pulled her against him and looked down into her eyes as she sighed. “You have links to all the Guardians now?”

“I do.” He could see them in his mind’s eye, and he’d tested his ability to block them already and was assured that it would work easily enough.

He waited as she let everything settle in her mind. She was strong and intelligent. Perfect.

Her eyes heated as she understood his emotion. “You are beautiful,” he admitted before adding, “Bring your wine,
thisavre mou
. We need to discuss this for a moment,” as he led her to the biggest bedroom.

With a thought, the flames roared to life in the hearth as he materialized a tie to contain his hair.

He had a feeling the healer was correct in her assumptions, though he still had trouble believing the small amount of beast blood could affect him at all. At the moment he was more concerned with Sacha letting go of the power she’d bottled up. This he could free her from, but he wouldn’t harm her and he knew she’d instinctually latch onto it. She’d contained it for centuries, and he knew she was going to struggle with letting it free.

He gently slipped the glass from her hand and set it on the table beside the bed. A moment later he retracted his wings and smiled at her frown. “I don’t like lying on them, and right now I want to lie with you and talk.”

She cocked her head before nodding regally.

“Can you trust me to help you,
thisavre
mou
?” He felt her sifting through his emotion to figure out where he was going with that, and it made him smile.

She considered that for a moment before nodding. “I do.” And that surprised her, but her serene features didn’t share any of that. She knew what he was thinking and that helped.

He lifted her to the bed and lay facing her, his head resting on one hand as his eyes slid over her beautiful face. She was wet for him, he could feel her desire, and his cock pulsed in answer. He was dying to be back inside her, but not yet. You’ve fought off the horrors and numbness before.” He fought back fury at that thought. “Can you let me deal with containing the power that comes out while you battle the memories?” He needed her to feel comfortable to just let it all go, no matter how powerful. He’d never let her fall. But she needed to release it when her instincts fought to hold on. He’d still be there to fight the memories with her, but if they put it into pieces, she might let go.

He could open it for her, but he wouldn’t chance that hurting her. Not when she could let go.

“I’ll try,” she agreed huskily.

She looked small, yet she somehow projected the appearance of a Goddess even snuggled into a robe that was too big for her. And it wasn’t only in how she looked, it was in the power sliding from her. He wanted to unwrap all that fluff and devour her, to hear her sultry cries. His eyes tracked back to hers. “Okay.”

“It’s not trust that’s the problem,” she replied softly. “It’s just one part of a past I buried, and I’m not sure what will come with it.” Her memories. “I’m prepared for it. Are you?” she asked while gliding her small hand over his rough cheek.

“I won’t like anything that makes you hurt.” He searched her eyes. “I can’t take any of it away now. But the power I can control so we can deal with the rest. I only need you to tell me how the power works.”

“So sure of yourself? I have no idea what it’s going to be,” she said with a raised brow.

“I’m sure I can deal with the power,” he admitted easily. He was the most powerful of the Gods. That was the easy part of this.

She nodded and waited for long minutes. “It starts with a kiss.”

He frowned. “Yet my kisses have never triggered the memories?”

She shook her head. “The power itself used to make me feel strong. It’s what came after that left me numb. That’s what I don’t want to feel when I’m with you.”

He took a deep breath and calmed the anger at the pang of shame he felt from her. “So the power won’t hurt?”

“No.”

“What did you use it to do?” It wasn’t a hard guess to assume that his female would have had good reason to do something that caused her shame.

“To protect Sebastian,” she said before adding, “And later to search for a way to free us all from Apollo and Hermes.”

He lifted his hand to move her hair off her cheek. He needed to touch her skin, not because he wanted her, because he cared for her. Her lids lowered a fraction at the contact and he smiled as he confirmed, “Bastian?”

“Yes.”

“How did he become your son?” He wanted her to relax, and he needed to know about her. She’d warmed at the thoughts of her son.

“When his mother, my sister, died, I promised to protect him.”

“Yet everyone considers you his mother instead of an aunt.”

“The moment Phedra forged a mental link between the two of us, he was mine,” she said with fierce protectiveness and warmth. He was glad when she continued, “He was such a smart, caring child, but those were dangerous traits to have in the warrior camps. They could have gotten him killed.” She shook her head and he felt the love she had for her son in every word. “He had to learn to mask it.” He felt the regret in her words. “Those were lessons I wish I never had to teach him, but in the end he grew into an honorable and beautiful male. A Guardian.” He was caught by the pride in her tone, in her heart.

She’d chosen to be a mother to a child she hadn’t birthed; she’d done things that she’d hated to protect the boy. That made him feel things he’d never experienced. He already cared for her, but this… feeling was so much more. It was only one more reminder of how perfect she was.

“You humble me,
thisavre mou
.” He breathed and couldn’t stop touching her face. “There isn’t a more perfect female in all the worlds.” He leaned in and tilted her chin to accept his fleeting kiss. When he moved away, her fingers curled around his neck and pulled him back for more, and he wouldn’t deny her. He knew at that moment, he would deny her nothing.

She took a longer taste that he couldn’t help taking deeper. He slid his tongue along hers, slowly teasing them both, but he managed not to pull her hips against his aching cock.

Not yet.

When he finally broke the kiss and looked at her swollen lips, he groaned. “You distract me,
thisavre mou
.”

She took a deep breath.

“What exactly does the power do? How did you use it?” he ground out. He needed to understand before deciding how to move forward.

“I would breathe it into their lips,” she said, watching him for a reaction.

“Whose?” He braced for the answer.

“The guards to the warrior camp.”

“And what would it do to them?”

“It jumbles the mind. It used to stun them in place,” she admitted. “I’d slip through to the camps. By the time I returned and they came out of it, they wouldn’t even know any time had lapsed.”

He understood what she wasn’t saying. She needed to seduce them to get close, and she would likely have needed to finish what she started so they wouldn’t suspect. Or she might have been forced. He stifled a growl and heard the crackling thunder above the house. She caressed their bond and the thunder stopped.

He bit out, “I wish I’d have known you were there. That I would have freed you.”

“I won’t say I’d ever
want
to go back, but I do love who I am now. I love being a Guardian. And knowing what I do, I would have done those things a thousand times over to make sure Bastian was safe.” She sent him some soothing energies and he calmed as she spoke. “I truly haven’t given it a thought in centuries. I think that’s why it was so shocking the first time the memories came.” She sighed. “I hadn’t considered what sex would be like now. By the time it was all a distant memory there were no males who appealed to me.”

He felt the truth in her words, but it didn’t ease his guilt, because this wasn’t all she’d endured there. What she was sharing was only a small part of her horrors. This was the piece of hell she’d selflessly chosen to endure.

They stayed there for a moment, just staring at each other as the dark thoughts eased and desire started pulling at them.

She ran her thigh over his hip, drawing his cock against her hot pussy. She wanted him to forget. And she wanted to forget with him.

He rolled her to her back and commanded the kiss, feeling the desperation slowly melt away until the only thing left was pleasure. She sucked on his lower lip and he growled. She loved his lips and he planned to do so much more with his mouth.

You feel the pull to let the power free when you orgasm?
he whispered through her mind.

Yes,
she breathed.

He trailed his lips to her ear and nipped, and her gasp made him growl for more.
When the time comes, let it go for me. Let me take care of it. Of you.

She moaned. “Yes. And you don’t need to be so careful with me.”

His dick pulsed against her.
One thing at a time, agapi mou.
The words stilled her, but she was his love and he smiled against the pulse beating at her throat. He laved her smooth skin and groaned, she tasted better than anything he’d ever had, but she was thinking too much.