Red Mortal (46 page)

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Authors: Deidre Knight

Tags: #Man-woman relationships, #Goddesses, #Gods, #Paranormal, #Delphian oracle, #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal romance stories, #Immortalism, #Daphne (Greek deity), #General, #Leonidas, #Contemporary

BOOK: Red Mortal
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You look so much like him; I so desperately want you to be him . . . I don’t dare hope.
Her heart screamed the words, but she didn’t dare to believe, not with what she’d witnessed. This had to be some sort of demon, a shape-shifter . . .
Gingerly he knelt beside her, swiveling his hips sideways to conceal his groin. A demon or an enemy who worried about honoring her virginity? That didn’t compute.
“Soph, it really is me,” that familiar voice said. “Look into my eyes . . . I’m alive.”
“You’re not a centaur . . . you’re not like you were.” She shook her head insistently, swiping at her tears. “No. No, I will not believe it . . . you must be some other demon, come to trick me. Maybe one of those things that were chasing us, but not my Sable. He was consumed in those flames. Burnt to ashes and nothing.”
“Sophie, use your empathy—and just look at me. Really look into my eyes. Still blue. Because of you, I changed and I’m not dark, not ever again.
It is me
.”
His warm hand traced the line of her cheek, so tender, so honest. “Look at me,” he murmured, and she dared glance up.
His light eyes met her own, that particularly soft vibrant blue—offset against the dusky-rich, Persian skin. Her breath hitched, her hand came to her lips in wonder. And without censoring herself or holding back at all, she launched herself at him. He sank on his knees, and she climbed onto his very naked lap. She could feel every part of his beautiful, nude body—so human—but she was too overjoyed to feel shy.
“I . . . wanted to die, too.” She buried her face against his shoulder, wrapping her arms about him. “What would I have done without you? Can you imagine what a mess I’d have been? Oh, Sable.” She sobbed, her whole body wracked with the raw feeling.
He stroked her soft curls, petting her with shocking gentleness. “Oh, my Sophia, I’d have consumed myself a thousand in times in demon fire to stop that.” Pulling back slightly, he held her face in his palms, his gaze flicking over it. “I want to kiss you, I want to hold you . . . I want to love you, here and now in the grass . . . and I have the body to do all of that.” His own eyes suddenly swam with tears. “You are the only thing I ever bothered dreaming about. The first, the only in all my thousands of years. So simple: to be a man again, to hold you as one, just like this.”
She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against his wordlessly. Without a murmur or a sound, face-to-face like that, she skimmed her hands lower along his body—feeling his human hips, his upper thighs . . . his buttocks. With every caress, every trailing touch, she made sure he understood her love for him, and also understood that, oh, she worshipped this gorgeous body of his, the one he’d been denied so long.
He moaned softly as she explored him, tensing as he released a slow, hot breath against her face.
She reached the end of the exploration when she slid her hands along the soles of his feet. Feet, not hooves. Such a personal thing, and probably the one that mattered to him most of all. So she was especially tender about it, massaging his soles with particular and slow care. He moaned again, a lower, more sated sound. Yes, having his feet back would undoubtedly be the most important thing of all to him.
“Oh, holy moly,” she sighed, sliding her arms about his waist. “And I thought I was in trouble when I loved you as a centaur.” She sighed again, even more dreamily. “You are . . . such a man. But how? How did you change form?”
“At the moment when the fire fully consumed me, I felt the last of my darkness burn up. It was gone, then . . . because of my love for you. I think,” he said quietly, “that Ares’s curse, it was always tied to the darkness in me. Ares’s evil . . . was held in place by my own wickedness.”
“You gave your life for me. Because you cared . . . and that broke the spell.” Sophie stroked his silky, thick hair, loving him more than she ever had. “It was a purely selfish act, and it got rid of that lingering darkness in you.”
“Not entirely true,” he said, pulling her into his arms to kiss her. “I laid down my life because I
love
you, Sophie. It’s your love that saved me.”
“I do love you, Sable,” she held him close, tugging his head down to her breast. Close to her heart. “I could never tell you freely, not till now.” She pressed her eyes shut, remembering that vision from months ago. “When I told you that I’d seen our future—and that you’d do anything for me to love you back? I left out one part. That even then, I knew you were the love of my life.”
“I will have to work doubly hard to keep you out of trouble now,” he laughed softly, playing with her curls. “Because you can lead me anywhere . . . into bars for cocktails, onto boats for sailing . . . even an occasional hardware store. Think of all the trouble you might find, now that you know I can follow you?”
“You know what I want?” She pulled back, looking him in the eyes. “I want to go to a diner with you. Just sit down, order a cup of coffee and have Sunday brunch. Normal people, doing normal things. We’ll even read the paper!”
He got a funny, sideways grin on his face. “Did you see into my dreams with that one?”
She shook her head. “Honest? It just feels right. To have you in my life, all parts of it now. Hey! We really can go to AT&T. The world’s gonna become three-dimensional now that we can text. You’ll hate it, of course, because it’s just another opportunity for me to talk too much. Oh, everything’s going to change and be so much more fun now that you’re human—not that you weren’t fun before, although fun . . . well, that’s not exactly the right word for it. You were just . . . everywhere. In my heart, my mind, my life, my way . . .” Then she started to laugh. “But can I admit one thing? And don’t kill me, because you’re gonna want to . . . but I’m going to miss your tail switching whenever you get mad.”
He scowled at her, cranking his black eyebrows down. “You impossible, addle-brained, danger-mongering human”—he rolled her onto the grass, pinning her—“are the best woman in the world to me. And I love you, even without my tail and hooves.”
 
Leo felt exhausted, but for once, not because he was older—because he’d just led a legion of demons and immortals against one of the vilest gods ever to live. But he wasn’t so tired, of course, that he wasn’t ready to finally have some alone time with his fiancée. She had followed him inside the castle, her jeans and T-shirt covered in dirt and mud. Now that they were alone in his chambers, she looked herself again, back to her Goth girl fashion and her punked out hair that turned him on so much.
“Come, my queen-to-be,” he fairly growled at her. Seizing her hand, he led her right into his royal chambers. He still wore his armor from the battle, and felt a lumbering oaf in his breastplate and greaves as he turned to close the door. She was as nubile and dewy-eyed as she’d been before the recent events, certainly no more than eighteen—not by outward appearances. And as he caught sight of himself in the looking glass over his dresser, he was pleased to see that his appearance truly had been restored—he was now an “Old Man” of thirty-five. No more, no less, not by visual estimation.
She worked at the straps of his breastplate, her nimble fingers doing quick work with the restraints. It was like that very first time when she’d helped him out of his armor, and he’d pulled her right down onto his lap. He’d hardly been able to breathe, and on impulse, had kissed her, his beautiful, mysterious Oracle. He’d not even known her name then, nor that she was daughter to Zeus! How far they had come since then, how well they’d come to know each other.
And yet, at this moment, as she released him from the brass breastplate, opening it along the hinge, he felt the old, uncomfortable shyness return. Once again, he was the unruly bull, longing to clutch a wee butterfly to his chest—or at the very least, the Old Man wanting to take the youthful fairy princess to bed.
He told her in exaggerated, mock concern, “I am still too old for you, even with my proper age restored.” He had to wrestle away his smile in an effort to appear chastening. “Thirty-five to your dewy-eyed eighteen.”
“Are you being shy with me? After everything we’ve experienced together?” She gave him an incredulous look as he discarded his armor, laying it on the wooden floor beside the mammoth bed. A king’s bed . . . that had not
yet
held a queen. Not until this night. “Leo, we’re lovers now, and we’re going to marry soon . . . why ever would you be reticent with me now?”
He rubbed his beard, searching for the best way to explain his ludicrous hesitation. “I find that . . . I find that with our status quo restored . . .” He reached for the words; they seemed to evade him like a tricky enemy. He tried again. “Daphne, the thing of it is, with the prospect of bedding you here, in my own chambers—in my very big and until recently, most empty bed . . .” He sighed, meeting her gaze honestly. “I’m obviously a bit tongue-tied with you, once again.”
She reached upward, cupping his bearded face. She forced him to look down into her liquid, pale eyes. “Can I tell you a secret, Leo, my darling?”
“Do we have any remaining secrets between us?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“I think, should we investigate the facts of my birth . . . that I’m actually a little bit older than you.” She gave him an impish look. “But I was happy for you to live with your delusions until recently. We women have our own vanity, too, you know. I only tell you now so that you’ll be clear about one thing: you may be the lion, but I am the cougar in this particular relationship.”
“You little devil, you,” he said, catching her by the nape. “You never told me.”
“You always assumed! You of all people know that appearances can be most deceiving—especially when it comes to Olympian facts and curses and such.”
He cradled the back of her head, angling her face upward. “I think you should be punished.” He planned to absolutely ravage her with his mouth—the best possible punishment for the most beautiful woman he’d ever held in his arms.
“But there’s another secret,” she told him, eyes sparkling.
He gave her a first kiss, just a brushing of his lips against hers. “Umm?”
“You think you’re unattractive—but every woman who knows you, myself most of all, thinks that you’re drop-dead, insanely . . . wickedly handsome. In your own unique way.”
His face suddenly burned beneath his beard. “You love me, that’s all.”
“Uh, no. Sorry, my lord. Why do you think Sophie blushes around you all the time? Have you not seen the way Emma, even at nine months pregnant, would do the same?” Daphne pulled him down to finish the kiss. “I plan to make you understand how desirable and hot you are.”
Apparently, Leo realized, she meant to start by kissing him right in the center of his hooked, once-broken nose.
If this was her method, to worship his imperfections, he couldn’t help smiling as he thought of the long, thin scar right across the lowest part of his belly. Because, you know, one thing would naturally lead down to another.
Leo seized hold of her hand, grinning like a prize stud. “Come, my lady, let us shower.”
The darkness was gone, the evil night done; still, Leo wanted to wash them both clean—all the way. And then, only then, he planned to take Daphne into that regal bed, and in all the ways that really counted . . . make her his queen.
Epilogue
 
L
eo scooped up tiny Angela, hoisting his daughter atop his shoulders. “Daddy’s taking you to a picnic,” he told her as they started a rolling walk from the main house out to the peach orchard in the side pasture.
His three-year-old daughter giggled, clamping her small hands atop his head. She often squealed and laughed in unbridled delight, her life so much easier than anything he and Daphne had known as children. No war, no harsh training, and certainly no lack of loving parents, just safety and nurture, in the bosom of a very large, extended—and, yes, boisterous—family.
Life here in Savannah was heaven on earth for his baby girl: fishing with Uncle Mason, boating with Aunt Emma, horseback riding with Uncle River, baking with Aunt Shay. Leo had prayed hard for this dream, but it was more than he’d ever pictured in his most private hopes.
He took careful steps toward the peach grove in the distance, excited about the day with his warriors and friends, but treasuring this brief moment. For now, he was just Daddy, with wee Angela all to himself.
Catching sight of the gathering ahead, he said, “Do you remember last year’s celebration? Your mama knows how to plan a party, little girl, let me tell you. I can only imagine what your sixteenth birthday will be like.”
Angela giggled, pulling on his curly hair. “Mama’s
good
at parties!” The words came out with a soft twang, probably because she was so excited.
He grinned, as he often did, when he heard his baby girl’s Southern accent. It just couldn’t be helped, not with the bevy of strong Southern women who were in her life. There was Emma, with her lilting, sophisticated accent, and Shay with her less subtle one. And then Sophie, of course, whose drawl was most pronounced of all, as she chattered away about almost anything that interested her—particularly her children and her beloved husband, the once hot-blooded Djinn whom she’d managed to tame.
“Daddy, when we gonna have the picnic?” Angela popped him on the forehead. “I’m hungry.”

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