Huntress (24 page)

I threw every mental shield he’d ever taught me up and gave into the sobs. This wasn’t just about his near death. No, this went quite a bit further down the road to insanity.

For the last few months, I’d spent every day with this man and it occurred to me that maybe this breakdown wasn’t just about lust and friendship. I’d taken Drew’s presence for granted. He was an immortal. He wasn’t supposed to die and leave me to confront these kinds of feelings.

Lust, that was logical. He was Adonis. Of course there would be lust. I could explain away lust. I could ignore lust. I cried harder and he just held on, never saying a word.

"Want to talk about it?" The question was quiet and tentative.

Hell NO I didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe when he wasn’t living with me or training me to stay alive.  Maybe when I was on my deathbed, I would tell this beautiful man the traitorous thoughts in my head. But not right now.

I shook my head violently in the negative. I realized that I was naked and my body tensed.

"I need to dry off and get dressed. I’ll meet you in the kitchen and we can talk about what happened tonight. I-" pausing because I didn’t know what to say, I just waved my hand at him and clambered out of his arms.

My teeth began chattering like some kind of hopping toy. My dentist was going to kill me if I chipped a tooth. He’d spent months rebuilding them after I’d given birth to Dylan.

Jerking a towel off the hook in the shower, I wrapped it around my body and stepped out of the bathroom. The damage to my bedroom had been minimal. I guess it was because the monsters thought someone had already been through.

Keeping my bedroom clean wasn’t high priority these days and piles of laundry in various states of clean were scattered on different surfaces.

This wasn’t a love story, the writer in me argued. This wasn’t one of my sappy romance novels. This was an adventure book. There was no room for love here. The plain ugly duckling would not get the beautiful guy in the end. No fairy tales were at work.

Angry, I pulled on jeans that were too big and a sweatshirt that had seen better days. I ignored the frayed cuffs and neck and looked for something to hold my pants up.

Why hadn’t I gone shopping? Oh right, because I didn’t expect to lose another twenty pounds. The only thing that fit was what I’d worn to Rose’s house for Christmas and that outfit was
literally
a bloody mess.

I spotted the braided cord that held the curtains back and ripped it off the wall. It would have to do. Threading it through the belt loops was harder than I thought it would be, but this wasn’t a fashion show. This was fucking life and I wasn’t willing to play the game anymore.

I twisted my hair into a knot while I stormed down the hall to Zachary. With each step, my mood darkened. I was going to get straight answers or he wasn’t leaving my house without a few bruises and cuts. I was tired of people dodging questions for my safety or because I "wasn’t meant to know yet."  Bullshit. Tonight, I was getting answers.  Then I was going to find my mother and make her take all of this back.

Life was way less complicated before she showed up.

The ground began to rumble.  I should have taken care, but I was too pissed and confused to pay much attention.  I heard running steps behind me.  Most likely it was Drew taking another pass at calming me down - comforting me.  Hah!  He was the cause of more of this turmoil than I cared to admit.

A tingling started at my feet. Like an experienced lover, power from the earth flowed across my skin, welcoming me with its warm embrace. As I walked, I concentrated hard on that feeling. This new power was eager to please me. It wanted direction and a way to manifest itself. I was absolutely willing to comply and just before Drew reached me, I threw my hand up, directing that power. A thin wall of rock shot up through the floor and through the ceiling, effectively blocking his reach. I smiled and continued forward, hearing his shocked exclamation behind me.

I wouldn’t think about the damage done to my pipes or structure. The house was ruined at this point anyway. I was curious what else I could do with this newfound power. Beyond that, I wanted to know where it came from. As far as I knew, my mother didn’t have any Earth powers. Hers were illusion and sensory.  Power exploration came later, first, conversation. Zachary wasn’t going to dodge my questions anymore. I was tired of being treated like a curiosity or worse, a child. He would answer me, or I would bury his ass.

Looking back, I have to wonder what Zachary saw when I finally thundered into the room. He described some kind of goddess of terrifying beauty with electricity flitting across her skin. I don’t want to wonder too often. I don’t want to know what I look like when I’m in a rage. Not unlike the Hulk, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. People tend to get hurt and that’s not who I want to be.

"You will answer my questions, by God, or I will bury you under so much rock, they won’t find you for millennia." I snarled as I stalked toward him through the living room. He continued to back away from me slowly, as though I were a mountain lion looking for a snack.

"You should probably calm down, Grace. Even my power cannot hold back this disturbance for long." But I didn’t want to hear logic or platitudes. I wanted him to tell me what he wanted from me. What they all wanted from me.

"Answers first," I shouted. "Who has my Mother? Why haven’t you rescued her and
why are you people wrecking my life
?"

Each of my questions was punctuated by a violent shaking of the earth. I imagined rock-like hands, wrapping around his throat and pulling him down and out of my world.

He’d stopped moving.  I realized it was because that loving power had adhered to my wishes. Granite rock encased his legs up to his knees. It should have shocked me out of this anger. It didn’t. I envisioned the rock moving higher to his hips and before I could blink, it had.

"I can go higher, Zachary." My voice was calm - purring even. This power felt good. I wanted this feeling to go on forever. I could forget about the crap life, the fear and just give in to this sensation of enormous pleasure. Narrowing my eyes and wiggling my fingers a little, the rock crept to his waist.

"Medusa’s balls, Grace!" Zachary frantically wriggled, trying to free himself.

His exclamation made absolutely no sense and acted like a bucket of freezing water - kicking me out of my power induced orgy. I stopped and frowned in confusion. "Wait, what? Zachary, Medusa didn’t have balls. I appreciate your colorful epitaphs, but you should at least TRY to make sense. You have to realize that your exclamations just don’t work most of the time." I planted my hands on my hips and stood there, staring with confusion.

"Well," he growled. "She sure as hell had bigger stones than most men I know."

Nodding thoughtfully I answered, "Fair enough. You can keep that one."

I took a deep breath, letting the brunt of my anger wash away. What was I doing? Who was this person that I had become, full of rage and bitterness? It felt like the last thirty years of stuffing emotions had caught up to me and the feelings weren’t good - or even wanted. Zachary still wasn’t getting out of the rock until he’d given me answers, but it wasn’t creeping higher anymore. 

"My mother. Details. I want them. Very pointed. Very concise." Leaning against a broken end table, I looked at him expectantly, letting him know with my expression that he wasn’t going anywhere until I had answers.

My question was met with an exasperated sigh. "You will be the death of me and my patience Grace Murphy."

I nodded. "Most likely. Start talking."

"Don’t you think we should wait for Adonis so I don’t have to tell the tale twice?"

"He’s crouched outside the bay window behind you. I imagine that he can hear you." The lingering power gave me a sense of my surroundings. I could feel him crouching and if I focused on him hard enough, I could feel his pulse. Yeah, that was freaky. It was almost worth the freak though when I felt him start with surprise. I wanted to yell "Surprise!" but thought better of it. I’d already made a mess of things with my Drama Queen reaction.

How could I tell he was crouching? That was easy.
 
I could see the spikes of his hair through the bottom of the window. He needed a shower, dried blood was giving him a porcupine appearance.

"You should wash your hair, lovey. Blood is not a good color on you."

He raised his hand to feel the spikes at my suggestion.  I grinned and yelled, "Vain!"

Looking back at Zachary, I simply raised my eyebrow.

"I dislike being told what to do," he began petulantly.

"Get used to it."

"I think that she’s with your father," he stated abruptly.

"I’m sorry what?"

"I think that she’s with your father. This is why we can’t find her. He is hiding her power."

"That doesn’t make any sense. She told me that she went off world to find a suitable sperm donor. How could he be here and how do you know about him?"

A pained groan came from the window. Glancing over, I saw Drew had his head against the pane, slowly shaking it back and forth. "Of course! Why didn’t I think of that before?"

"Because the wrong head has been thinking for you lately, obviously," came the gruff response.

I stared wide-eyed at both of them. "Excuse me? Clueless person in the room. Care to elaborate?"

"Geb has your Mom." I raised my eyebrows in question.

"Oh right, you don’t know who Geb is. Really Grace, you’ve had a few months, I would have thought that you’d look all of these deities up to familiarize yourself with our culture." The rebuke was not wasted upon me. I hadn’t looked it up because part of me just didn’t want to know.

"I thought that you guys mated with Humans to produce your little demi-gods. How was I supposed to know that she’d gotten it on with a – a, whatever you call yourselves," I waved my hand around, looking for the word.

"Alancean."

"Right. How was I supposed to know she went off the reservation on that one? You guys are about as forthcoming with your information as J. Edgar Hoover." Exasperated, I threw up my hands and started pacing. "Ok, give me the info on this. How do I get her?  More importantly, does she want to be gotten?"

"I’m pretty sure she’ll want to be gotten," Drew responded quietly.

"Are you sure?"

"Remember those old stories where a ‘bride’ was kidnapped blahedy blahedy?"

"Yeah?" I responded, drawing out the word.

He shrugged at me, leading me to the conclusion that Diana had been bride-napped. Realization dawned on me and my mouth dropped in shock. "You have got to be kidding me. Who in the hell was powerful enough to get the drop on Diana?"

"Geb," they both said in unison.

Drew threw Zachary a scowl before continuing. "She ended up escaping on her own and…well, 12 months later, you were born."

I was going to store that 12 month gestation period away for later. No way was I going to carry a kid for a year. Dylan had been two weeks early and that had been too long.

"Why did she have to escape on her own?"

"Geb’s power is earth based," Zachary explained. "Centaur’s horns, I should have realized that you were his daughter sooner. He’ll pay for this"

"Before I was interrupted," Drew scowled at Zachary again. "He’d created a diversion. That year there was an earthquake that flattened Tangshan, China killing nearly three-hundred thousand people." His face fell as he remembered the devastation. "Before that he’d been ramping up with a freak typhoon and a major earthquake in Guatemala. It was a bad time. We were spread thin, trying to cover too much."

"And where were you Zachary?"

"Locked up in my Gods-damned lab! That’s where!" He thundered and the house shook a bit in his anger.

"So how do we get her now?" I started thinking of all of the recent "natural" disasters we’d had and realization clicked. New Orleans, Haiti, India, Los Angeles – it was all the work of this man who thought of himself as a god. It suddenly became very obvious where I got my "depressive" nature. Yikes, this guy had problems.

"We tried this before.  There were fifty of us and we couldn’t find her. It was impossible." Drew tried to run his fingers through his hair in his frustration and got tangled up in the dried blood.

My face scrunched up in distaste. That was just ick. "Seriously, go take a shower. You’re grossing me out, here. I’ll find my laptop and start looking at where the most recent disasters have occurred since LA, which may help pinpoint him. When I’m pissed, things just stay fairly centered around me right?"

Both of them looked at me with blank faces. "You are all aware that we have technology to do this now, right?" How could they be an advanced species and not get this?

Zachary just looked shocked. "You can pinpoint his location from your computer?"

"Didn’t you guys have computers? I mean, advanced civilization, I thought that you’d at least be that far ahead of the curve."

"Well," he began gruffly. "More magic than anything. You saw the technology that I have. Of course we’re advanced."

Drew sighed. "We didn’t have Earth tech when she was kidnapped last time to pinpoint her. Check out the latest big occurrences. I’ll take a shower and meet you in your office. I didn’t see any major destruction there when I was stuck behind the wall." I got a pointed look before he turned and headed down the hall. I waited for the exclamation. Instead the house shook a little and the sound of a minor cave-in reached the room that we were waiting in.