Unable to resist a chance to touch him, any chance, she reached up. The moment she met his grip, he hefted her to her feet until only a whisper separated them. He peered down at her, his body heat snaking around her and squeezing like a boa.
Tension crackled between them so hotly she imagined she could almost feel the flames. His lips were swollen, red and still wet from her kiss. His eyelids went to half-mast, as if hed slipped into a dream and wouldnt emerge.
If he looked this sumptuous turned on, how would he look sated?
Mind, out of gutter. This was clearly another attempt to distract her, to win her over to his side. She had to remain strong. Well?
Did you make a play for her man? he demanded. O-kay. Obviously hed emerged from the dream.
Her cheeks flushed with color and that was all the answer he required.
He released her to scrub his hand down his face. Damn it, Kaia.
Without his touch, her skin cooled. She would not admit to her own stupidity, even acute stupidity committed so long ago. She would not admit shed sought to prove herself worthy to a mother who would never love her, and that shed failed on every level.
I saw him, I wanted him and I took him. End of story. The truth muddied by his own suppositions. Strider would never find his way to the surface, and that was for the best.
And she found out? His voice snapped like a whip.
Yep. He was lost in the mire of her omissions. She did. Kaia nodded, her head bobbling. Thats exactly right.
How?
Her eyes widened. Why wouldnt he let this go? Excuse me?
How did she find out?
Oh, uh, she walked in on us, Kaia said, gaze falling to the floor. Realizing what shed done, she forced her attention back up. There were two things a girl needed when telling a lie. The first, confidence. You could convince anyone of anything as long as you believed it yourself. The second, details. The more details you supplied, the more credible the story. We were in the middle of the act. Very hot and heavy. I wasnt at all distracted with him.
Strider was quiet for a moment. Then he said smoothly, Is that so?
Perhaps he wasnt as blinded by the mud as shed thought. What had given her away? Well, it didnt matter, really. He could suspect the truth all he wanted, but hed never know for sure. And hell, there might be another way to convince him of what she wanted.
She glared up at him. Yes, thats so. I had him flat on his back atop a pile of furs. She pictured Strider in just such a position, and her desire reignited, adding a smoky note to her voice. He was nakedI was naked. I straddled his waist, and gods, he was beautiful, so lost to passion. To me.
Strider whipped around, as if he could no longer bear to face her. There. Done, she thought. He was utterly convinced of her slutty nature. Her shoulders sagged just a little. Part of her wished he would have continued resisting.
Better this way, she reminded herself. Hed already considered her promiscuous. Adding weak and dumb to the equation would have hampered her future progress with him.
Not that shed really made any today.
SHE WAS LYING, STRIDER thought, suddenly needing every ounce of strength he possessed to stop himself from grinning. Damn if she wasnt ten times sexier as she spun her web of deceit. Maybe because shed almost had him. Would have had him, if she hadnt glanced down at her feet. So telling, that glance. When Kaia believed something wholeheartedly, her confidence was like a shining star. She did nothing to signal a back down.
Defeat liked that theyd figured out her game and was shooting little sparks of pleasure through his bloodstream. A victory he hadnt anticipated, yet one that was as delicious as ambrosia-laced wine. Almost as delicious as Kaias kiss.
Dont think about that right now.
He couldnt help himself. Hells fire, that kissthe woman was passion incarnate, so sensually giving he could have gorged himself on her forever and still found himself hungry. Her tongue had thrust just right, her nails had scraped just right, and her legs had wrapped around him better than just right.
Shed justfit him. Fit his body perfectly. Every curve, every plane, every indentation. Two puzzle pieces locking together. And theyd still had their clothes on! If he ever stripped her, hed No. No, no, no. He couldnt venture down that road again. The kiss had been a mistake. A damn exquisite mistake, but one that could have done serious damage to his cause.
Already his mind was muddled by her.
And unfortunately, he couldnt blame her skin this time. What was bared, shed dulled with makeup, making her look like any other human. No, not true. Shed never look like a human, no matter what she did. Her features were too dazzling, too flawless.
Shed never kiss like a human, either. She was too bold, too lush, too damn eager.
Too mine, hed thought midway through, wanting to give her all as shed said. Wanting to give her everything. Only then had he realized how lost he was, simply enjoying her, not even trying to please her. Just taking, giving and taking some more. There was nothing more dangerous for him. He had to please her, more than Paris had, or he would suffer.
Reining in his own desires had been the most difficult battle of his life, but hed done it. Hed won. And oh, Defeat had loved him for it, sparking the same sense of pleasure that raced through him now. Which had made it all the more difficult to hold back, to measure each of his caresses, every single lick.
Except one moment shed wanted all, everything, and hed been willing to supply it, to take her over the edge, and the next shed wanted him to stop. He recognized a challenge when he heard one, and I bet you cant stop was one-hundred-percent, raise-the-red-flag challenge.
What he hadnt knownstill didnt knowwas why shed done it.
Didnt matter, he supposed. What was done was done, and there was no going back. He had to forget the kiss and concentrate on the journey ahead. On the games, the Rod and ultimate victory. He had to forget the color that bloomed in her cheeks, the breath that sawed in and out of her nose, the flecks of fury that had detonated in her eyes every time hed spoken. Had to forget the fact that she was gorgeous when her emotions were roused, that she lit up like a firecracker, and he wanted so desperately to be burned.
Kaia cleared her throat. Strider, she began.
He held up his hand in a bid for silence. Look, heres how its gonna be. You dont trust me, and I dont trust you, but we are going to work together. So, youre going to tell me about tomorrows battle, and then were going to scout the competition.
Or rather, she would scout. He would search for the Rod. Much as he understood her plight, her pain, that understanding didnt change the facts. No artifact, no box.
So, he would find and steal that Rod. Even at the expense of Kaias pride. He wouldnt like himself afterward, he was sure, because victory required a betrayal of her trust, but nothing would sway him from this course.
Got it? he demanded, already fighting a wave of guilt.
A pause, heavy and unsure. Then she whispered, Yes. All right. Well work together.
Good. He cleared his expression and spun back around. He made sure to glare at her for good measure. Now, start talking.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WILLIAM THE EVER RANDY, honorary Lord of the Underworld and a man so physically perfect hed once been voted Most Beautiful Immortal of All Timeso what that hed been the only judge of that particular competition; he would swear on what remained of his soul that the scores hadnt been fixedstood in the living room of a human residence.
Strider the Reneger should be here with him. I must be rubbing off on him. Strider had promised to be here with him. Instead the lucky bastard was spending time with the very Harpy William often dreamed of seducing.
William had been with vampires, humans, witches, shape-shifters and goddesses, but hed never been with a Harpy. He wanted to be with a Harpy. Whine, pout.
Maybe, when he finished here, he would give Strider a wee bit of competition for Kaias affections. The warrior liked to compete, after all, and William was such a giver, always thinking of others rather than himself.
That giving nature was the very reason he was here.
Here was an average home, with average rooms in serious need of a decorator. Beige furniture, beige walls and beige carpet, as if the owners were afraid of color. Oh, and had he mentioned the half-empty vodka bottles that were hidden inside vents, behind books and even in hidden cutouts in the mattresses?
This mundane, prisonlike alcoholics paradise was where his Little Gilly Gumdrop had grown up.
Gilly, a.k.a. Gillian Shaw. Human, brown-eyed, too sensual for her own good. At seventeen, she had known more horror and terror than most immortals experienced in an eternity. All because of the owners of this home in Nowhere, Nebraska.
William didnt have many friends, so he took care of the ones he had. Sure, he liked the Lords of the Underworld well enough. They were fun to torture and damn entertaining to watch as they fell in love, one by one, like flies meeting the swinging net of a swatter. Case in point Strider. Until William intervened, of course. Surely Kaia would at last succumb to his delightful wiles and forget all about the keeper of Defeat.
The entertainment alone was worth the price of his ticket into their Budapest Fortress: allowing the freaking (minor) goddess of Anarchy to hold Williams most treasured possession for ransom. He lay awake nights dreaming of ways to retrieve that possession, a book written in code that foretold how to save him from the curses the gods had heaped upon him. But he wasnt going to think about that right now.
He was only going to think about his Gilly. Hed met her months ago, when the keeper of Pains woman brought her to the fortress, and hed been instantly smitten. Not in a sexual way, she was too young for thathe would remind himself a thousand times if necessarybut in a white-knight kind of way.
Shed looked at him, and shed seen a gorgeous immortal warrior who could give her body untold pleasure. Of course. Everyone did. Shed also seen a gorgeous immortal warrior who could slay her dragons.
He wanted to slay her dragons. He would slay her dragons.
A few times over the past several months, hed returned to the fortress injured from battle. Gilly had taken care of him, always tender, sweet, ensuring he ate something, was tucked into bed and comfortable. She wasnt intimidated by him. She laughed with him, joked with him, and when he pissed her off, she stayed and fought with him, rather than running away to hide from his temper.
She knew, soul deep, that he would never hurt her. Even if he didnt always know it himself. There was a darkness inside him, a churning darkness sprung from the vilest pits of hell. A darkness hed never loved more than he did at this moment.
Hardly anyone noticed his evil side. They saw the irreverent scamp he projected. And no, that image wasnt a lie. William was irreverent to the bone, but there was more to him, and somehow Gilly saw that part, too.
And still she accepted him. Had never asked him to change. Had only thought to enjoy his company, to protect him. No one had ever tried to protect him before.
Now, he would protect her. Her family had hurt her in the worst possible way. Therefore, her family would die in the worst possible way. Vengeance was its own form of safeguarding, after all. Sure, time had passed and shed had no recent contact with them. That didnt change the fact that theyd hurt her in the most terrible way, forced her to brave the streets on her ownand that they could do it again, to someone else. Hed wanted to do this for a long time, and that hadnt changed. In fact, the need had only grown stronger.
William walked around the room, lifting knickknacks, discarding them and smiling when they shattered on the floor. Gillys mother and stepfather were currently at work, and her stepbrothers no longer lived here, so he didnt worry about noise control. When he finished that little exercise, he studied the pictures on the mantle over the fireplace.
There were none of Gilly.
Obviously theyd written her out of their lives. No afterthought, no concern for what had befallen her once shed left.
What he did see: a thirtysomething bleached blonde with silicone-enhanced breasts and an average-looking thirtysomething male.
Stomach clenching, William thumped the mans face. The bastard was going to pay for every illicit touch, every ounce of shame inflicted. The mother would pay for allowing it to happen. The brothers would pay for failing to save her.
Her family had given her no option but to run away at the age of fifteen. Fifteen. On her own, surviving as best she could, for over a year before Danika had found her and brought her to Budapest. But because of what had been done to her, because of what shed had to do merely to eat, she no longer valued herself. She saw herself as used, dirty, unworthy. Shed never said as much, but he knew. When she stayed at the Lords fortress, she slept in the bedroom next to his, and hed heard the way she cried out at night. He knew nightmares plagued her.
Her family would pay for every single one of those dark dreams, too.
His ears suddenly twitched, picking up the sound of the garage door sliding open. He grinned. Oh, goodie. The first contestant of Hurt, Suffer and Die was home.
When hed first arrived, he had dropped his bag of toys on the floor and now bent to pick it up. Oh, yes, hed never loved his darkness more.
This was going to be fun.
KANE, KEEPER OF THE DEMON of Disaster, strode down the long, winding corridor inside the unfamiliar heavenly palace where he now found himself. The walls were straight up weird, comprised of thousands upon thousands of threads braided and strewn together. Thick and colorful threads with animated scenes playing across them, as if the people he saw were truly living and breathing right in front of him, and he had only to reach out to touch them. It was the most awe-inspiring sight hed ever beheldand was that Strider and Kaia crawling along a moonlit hill, females sneaking up on them, weapons trained on their skulls?