She leaned in and brushed her lips against his. Lips that shot sparks of heat and desire straight to his belly, warming him from the outside in. Lips he could lose himself in. Lips that were keeping him here, tucked into this isolated house in this tiny corner of the world where no one could find them. Where daemons and hellhounds and gods and the Underworld didn’t exist. Where he was losing his desire for vengeance with every passing day.
He wrapped his arms around her back, opened when she slid her tongue along his bottom lip, and let her dip inside his mouth to tempt and tease in that way he’d learned she liked to do. She tasted like the wine she’d been sipping as they played Scrabble, like the sin he knew he could coax out of her with just a little push. She was more than his soul mate, he’d realized over the last few days. She was funny and smart and so damn sexy, she took his breath away. Everything he’d been looking for his whole life. Everything he hadn’t realized he was missing. And when he was with her, he barely heard that buzz anymore. Barely heard Atalanta’s voice. Never heard either when he was inside her, which was his very favorite place to be.
She drew back from his mouth, stared into his eyes. And in her dark, onyx irises, he saw all the same emotions he felt reflected back at him. Who would ever have thought it? She, the daughter of the King of the Gods, and he a broken, tortured soul.
He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Remembered how she’d told him she’d been in love before. How she’d said love wasn’t worth it because it didn’t last. He knew regardless of who he was and what he’d been through, she cared for him. Even if he couldn’t see it, he could feel it. Would she be willing to take another chance if she knew she could be happy for more than fifty or sixty years? Would she put off her dream of Olympus to stay here with him?
His stomach churned, this time with nerves, not sickness, and as she slid down on his lap to rest her head against his chest, he stared into the fire and stroked her hair. She was warm against him. So soft. And they fit together as if they were made for each other. But then that was the point of the whole soul-mate thing, wasn’t it? He didn’t have a lot to offer her, but he knew he could keep her safe. And he had at least another five hundred years in him, assuming he lived through his face-off with Atalanta. If Maelea knew there was a chance they could be together that long, that he could protect her from Hades, would she be willing to try again?
“Why do you want to go to Olympus?” he asked while they sat staring into the fire, the Scrabble game they’d been playing all but forgotten.
“You know why,” she said against his chest.
He ran his hand down her hair, loved how silky soft it was against his fingers. “So you can be safe from Hades.”
“It’s more than that. Olympus is home for me.”
“How do you know it’s home if you’ve never been there before?”
“Because it’s where my father is. Where my mother is half the year. Where the other immortals live and where there’s no death. I’m so tired of death and dying.”
His hope faded. He couldn’t give her eternity. Not like the gods. He couldn’t even give her half that. And with him there would eventually be death. “You said you had to prove your allegiance to get there. How are you planning to do that?”
She pushed against his chest, eased off his lap, and sat on the couch at his side. He tried not to be disappointed she wasn’t touching him anymore. Couldn’t help it. “Well, that’s where the training I asked you to teach me comes in. Which, by the way,” she added with a frown as she glanced over her shoulder, “you haven’t done a very good job with.”
No, he hadn’t. Fighting and defensive techniques were the last things on his mind. Every time Maelea had suggested they go outside to the beach and he show her some moves, he’d distracted her with his hands and mouth and body until they’d both been too worn out to do anything but drop into each other’s arms and sleep.
“I thought you needed to know how to protect yourself from Hades,” he said with narrowed eyes. “How will that help you get to Olympus?”
She wrung her hands together in her lap. Wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Remember I told you Orpheus came looking for me? The truth is, I was looking for him. Or, well, someone like him. See, the only way to prove myself to the gods is to turn my back on my Underworld heritage. By killing someone powerful and important to Hades.”
“Killing someone,” he said, watching her carefully. “You, who doesn’t even like to kill spiders.” While he despised spiders with a passion, thanks to his time in the Underworld, he’d watched her rescue two from the bottom of his boot before he could smash them, and release them outside. She hated death. And even though she hadn’t had much of a choice, he knew she was still wrestling with the fact she’d had to kill those daemons back at that motel. Daemons she’d killed to save him.