Poisoned Kisses (23 page)

Her nails dug into the sculpted muscles of his arms as his hips battered her own. Renata had never made love like this before. Never let herself moan aloud, never let herself guide a man’s hands to touch her in just the way she wanted to be touched—not that Damon needed guidance. His hands were everywhere, until finally she was shaking at the precipice and with an artful thrust of his pelvis, he pushed her over the edge.

This time, when Renata screamed, it was with pleasure, and the music of it was a delight to her own ears. Damon wasn’t far behind her. He let out an animal sound as he flooded her. Then together, they lay tangled and entwined.

Afterwards, Renata let him roll her onto her stomach and plant rows of kisses upon her back. She wasn’t afraid. He’d been right. He could make her so unafraid, she’d strip down and swim naked in the sea. He could make her fearless, and it was the greatest gift anyone had ever given her.

As he kissed each tiny scar on her back with reverence, she sighed with contentment. At long last, she turned and rolled into his arms, caressing his face, his chest, and memorizing each line.

Perhaps it was her sculptress’s touch that brought regret to his handsome face. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?” Renata asked, quite certain that this was one of the best things she’d ever done.

“I frightened you,” he said. “I went too far, always too far.”

He looked tortured, so Renata tried to comfort him with a kiss at the corners of his clean-shaven upper lip, and inhaled the soapy scent of his skin. “Those screams had been inside me for a long time. Perhaps they needed to come out.”

“Even so, I threatened to break your fingers.” He took her hand from where it cupped the curve of his cheek and kissed each fingertip in turn. “It was unforgivable.”

“I know you wouldn’t really hurt me,” she said.

“You don’t know that,” he said. “You don’t know me.”

She knew him. She might even be in love with him. He knew what she’d done. He knew what she was—a gorgon. He’d even seen her shatter mirrors, yet his attraction to her had not crumbled away. He knew her secrets, yet still thought she was beautiful. “I feel like I’ve always known you, Damon. The first time I saw you, your face was familiar, and I don’t think it was only because you look like your brother.”

It was the wrong thing to say. His eyes clouded over like a storm and he sat up in the bed, pulling the coverlet to his waist. “You don’t even know my true name.”

Renata was still too free from fear not to ask. “Then what is your true name?”

“Deimos, Son of Ares, and I feed upon fear. Terror sustains me. And I have hurt you, Renata. More than just tonight, more than you know. When I told you that you were a gorgon, you thought I was calling you a monster. But I’m the monster.”

“Deimos,” Renata repeated with wonder, trying the new name on her tongue and finding it pleasurable to say. She reached for his hand, but he was already up and out of the bed, finding his clothes and dressing.

“Do you know why my brother, Phobos, and I both look familiar to you? Because we were there the day of the
explosion. We were both there the day soldiers ripped your life apart.”

Renata tilted her head, searching her memories.

“The warriors in Bosnia called on the old immortals and we answered,” he said. “My brother and I drove our father’s chariot, spreading fear and dread. I saw you burning. I heard you scream that gorgon’s scream that shattered windows and stopped soldiers in their tracks.”

Renata remembered that now, how the fighting had stopped, how the soldiers had retreated long enough for her mother to scoop up her wounded body and try to get her to safety.

“And when you screamed,” he continued, “It froze my blood inside me. I’ve carried this stone inside my heart ever since. I swore that I’d never drive my father’s war chariot again.”

Renata whispered now, “Did you ever drive it again?”

“No,” he spat. “Mortal men create enough fear to feed me—never again will I help them make more.”

Renata wanted to reach out for him, but as he pushed his dark hair back from his face he warned her away. “Every bad thing that has ever happened to you in your life is my fault. So you see, Renata, I have no right to touch you, no right to love you. And it won’t happen again.”

S
ince they’d made love, Renata’s sense of fearlessness had faded, but she was still left with longing. She needed to talk to him, but he’d stayed away.

Everything had changed.

This time, when the goons came to fetch Renata and whisk her to the airport, Deimos wasn’t with them. She was comforted to be back on his private jet, but it alarmed her that he wasn’t on board.

When the plane was in the air and the pilot had taken off the seatbelt sign, one of Deimos’s men delivered the crystal decanter to Renata. It was accompanied by an envelope with her name written in florid script.

Renata wondered if drinking more of the ambrosia-laced spirits would lift her mood, for she feared what lay coiled and lurking within the envelope. Mustering her courage, Renata tore the envelope open and found that it contained the sketch, the business card and a short, handwritten note.

Renata’s studio looked smaller and shabbier than she remembered it, but she was grateful to see that Marta, the gallery owner, had found her python while she was away. Renata pressed her hand against the glass cage and watched Scylla’s forked tongue taste the air. Renata lifted her nose to do the same, but didn’t smell anything, comforting or otherwise.

She missed Deimos. If she closed her eyes, she could trace the contours of his face with her artist’s fingers. She had memorized the smooth planes and the hard edges. But memories were no substitute for the warmth of his skin against hers. She had no way of contacting him, no way of telling him how much she ached for him. He was just gone. Gone from her life as if he’d never been there at all, and she wasn’t certain she would ever see him again.

Meanwhile, she wandered around her apartment, aimlessly. Yellow police tape littered her studio like drooping party streamers, and Renata realized that they must have searched the whole place for clues to her whereabouts.

The first call she made was to her foster parents, who were so relieved to hear from her that they insisted on hopping on a plane to come see her. But Renata knew they’d ask questions she didn’t want to answer—not yet, anyway—so she told them to give her some time to collect herself.

There were about a hundred calls from her therapist, and Renata deleted them all. It was near midnight. The skyline
was as black as her mood, so she tied up her hair, picked up her chisel and began to sculpt.

Renata had been expecting a visit from Ms. Athena Kokkinos and her nephew the police detective a few days after her return, so she didn’t startle at the knock. “Good to see you again,” the detective said when Renata opened the door.

“I’m glad you think so, Phobos,” she said, her heart aching at the familiarity of his face and the sadness of knowing that he only looked like the man she loved.

The detective seemed taken aback by the use of his true name, but his aunt pushed into the studio and marched over to Renata’s workspace. With one good yank, she pulled the canvas off the stone then turned her angry eyes on Renata. “What’s this?”

“It’s a statue of my father and my brother,” Renata said, squaring her shoulders. “I took all the details I remembered, all the sweet little lines of my baby brother’s smile, all the rough calluses of my father’s hands, and I brought them to life. At least, as much life as a gorgon can give to stone statues.”

“I gave you a sketch to carve,” the woman barked. “A sketch of a man you should hate. Make an end to him. Avenge your family.”

“I should,” Renata said. “But not the way you want me to. I won’t kill for you.”

“It isn’t as if he doesn’t deserve to die,” she said.

“But that isn’t why you want me to kill him,” Renata said. “He’s in jail and you can’t reach him, but I can. He’s on trial, and for some reason, you don’t want him convicted. I only asked you to come here today so I could return your sketch to you. I can’t accept your patronage.”

The older woman glared at Renata and drew herself up to a towering height. “Do you know who I am?”

“Oh, I know,” Renata said to the gray-eyed daughter of
Zeus. “And I mean you no disrespect, but you’ll have to find yourself another sculptress.”

“Do I need to bend you to my will?” Athena asked.

“Only if you want to risk the lives of your other pets,” Renata said. “Give me a chisel, and you never know what I might carve. Take my chisel away and I can always make a sculpture with a butter knife and a bar of soap.”

Renata had no idea if this was a legitimate threat, but she felt that it was one that she needed to make.

“I’ll make you too scared to refuse,” Phobos said.

“If you do, I’ll scream,” Renata warned. “If you come near me, I’ll scream my gorgon scream, so terrible that you’ll choke on it.”

Phobos looked as if he might test Renata’s resolve, but his aunt stopped him. “Leave it be, Phobos. She’ll change her mind in time, and when she does, she has my card. Let’s go.”

But Renata didn’t think she would change her mind.

Besides, she had a different, more important call to make. This time, she dialed a lawyer in the Netherlands.

Renata stepped out of the International Court of Justice into the afternoon sun. It had been painful to relive those memories, to tell her story to the court, but now she felt as if she were taller, lighter and freer than she had ever been. Underneath the Peace Palace’s cathedral-like spires, she felt reverent, and somehow it didn’t surprise her to see Deimos waiting for her on the verdant lawn.

It had been more than a year since she’d seen him last, but his face was exactly the same. For he was ageless. As was her love for him. She knew in the moment he folded a newspaper under his arm and smiled at her. Renata wondered if it was the first time she had ever seen him smile.

“How did you find me?” Renata asked.

“Sometimes people call upon the oldest immortals and we
answer,” Deimos said, and then showed her the newspaper. “The headlines also helped.”

“I was afraid to testify,” Renata said.

“But you did it anyway,” he said, taking her hands. “You helped to convict him, and all his crimes are exposed in the light of day. No one is going to take up his cause as an excuse to make war. I’m so proud of you.”

Maybe it was that she was so happy to see Deimos again, or maybe it was that he was proud of her, or maybe it was the worshipful way he held her sculptress’s fingers, but somehow she found herself blinking back tears. “I found a way to sculpt without hurting anyone,” she said.

He reached up and brushed away her tears. “I’m not accustomed to dealing with people’s better instincts, young lady, but I should have realized you’d find a better way. Anyway, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to see you one last time.”

“Take me with you,” Renata said, the words bursting out of her. “Wherever you’re going, I want to go with you.”

“Renata, I’ve already told you. Everything bad that ever happened to you is my fault.”

“You’re wrong,” she insisted. “It was mortal men who made war, not you. They called you and if you hadn’t come, others would have. What happened to me would have happened with or without you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Deimos told her.

“Even if I weren’t sure, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Because I love you and I forgive you.”

“No,” he said stubbornly. “You can’t.”

“I can,” Renata said, feeling her gorgon’s power strongly now. “You changed and that’s what matters. You shaped yourself into something else. And that’s what we all have to do. We all have to change before things will ever get better in the world.”

“I don’t know that things will ever get better,” he told
her sadly. “There will always be other wars—and other gorgons.”

“And we’ll stop them,” she said. “Together.”

“Together for how long?” he asked, his eyes off somewhere in the distance. “I left the decanter of ambrosia on the plane for you, but you didn’t drink it. I think you mean to leave your options open, to escape my love with old age. You’re always trying to run away from me.”

“What if I’m done trying to escape you?” Renata wanted to know. “What if I drank the ambrosia now?”

His expression became fiercely possessive. “I’d keep you with me, forever.”

“Then take me with you,” she said. “We’ll toast with ambrosia.”

Deimos pulled Renata into his arms and devoured her in a kiss, the lushness of his lips eliciting a whimper from her. He kissed her, right there on the street, where anyone could see them, and Renata wasn’t the least bit afraid.

“Let’s go then,” he said. “The plane is fueled up and ready.”

“Where are we going?” Renata asked.

He arched a dark brow. “First? On our honey moon.”

“Then?” she asked, smiling.

He held her close, as if ready to take her fears from her should they ever come again. “Then, we should go back to Bosnia and look for your mother—if you’re ready.”

To her astonishment, Renata realized that she was.