Abruptly, she turned back for the hold. “I have to go.”
Thankful she was heading back in, Ari moved into the great room and shut the door at his back. But instead of heading for the stairs and the solitude of her room as he expected, she rushed for the entry to the hold.
She shoved her feet into the first pair of boots she found, then reached for the massive door handle. It took only two seconds to realize what she was doing.
Ari slapped his hand against the hard wood before she could pull the door open.
“You’re not leaving like this.”
“Get out of my way.” She pushed his hand away from the door and yanked. “You wanted me gone, so consider me gone.”
Cold air swept into the hold. But before she could get two steps outside, he captured her around the waist, pulled her back against him, then shoved the door closed with his foot. “I said you’re not leaving.”
She dug her fingers into his forearms and struggled against his grip. “Let me go!”
She was a strong little thing. Stronger than he expected. Twisting her around, he pushed her back against the wall and closed in at her front, bracing his arms on the walls near her head so she was trapped with nowhere to go. “Running after them won’t do any good.”
“How would you know?” She pushed at his arms but he held them still. “You don’t know anything about where I’m going.”
“No, I know everything about where you’re going. I’ve been where you are right now. I’ve wanted them dead for what they did. But I also know there is no such thing as revenge against Zeus’s army. The Sirens are too many.”
Her struggle slowed. She looked up at him and glared, and in her heated look he knew that he was the closest target for her pain. But as their eyes met, the glare slipped away and was replaced with a sea of emotion. And he noticed for the first time that her eyes were a deep, emerald green. As green, he guessed, as the woods around her lost village. And completely and utterly mesmerizing.
“My mother’s name was Eleni.” Tears filled her gemlike eyes, and she blinked rapidly to hold them back. “I saw Zeus in our village days before it happened, talking with her, but I never put it together. I didn’t know she was the reason...”
Her voice trailed off as tears overtook her. She lifted her hands to her face, her slim shoulders shaking with her sobs. And before Ari realized it, she leaned into him and rested her forehead against his chest.
For a moment, he stood stone-still. Didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. But when warm wetness seeped through his shirt and penetrated his skin, that duty took over, and he closed his arms around her, holding her while she cried.
She was small, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder, soft and curvy, fitting perfectly against him. He didn’t know a lot about comfort, had never been good at accepting or giving it, but he held her any way as she worked through her emotions. And though he told himself he was just being supportive, that there was nothing sexual about the situation, he couldn’t stop his body from reacting to her.
His blood warmed. Tingles rushed across his skin wherever they touched. She smelled like vanilla, her scent rising in the air to make him lightheaded, and her damp hair was silky soft wherever it grazed his flesh. He forced himself to remain still, but the longer he held her, the more he had to fight the urge to slide his hands up and down her spine, back and over the curves pressed into him. And the more he tried to fight that, the more all he could think about was tangling his hands in her curly mass of hair, tipping her head back, and claiming her mouth with his own.
She shivered against him, and the movement snapped his brain back to the moment. In a rush, he realized the wetness pressed against him wasn’t just from her tears. Her T-shirt and sweats were soaked from standing on the deck in the storm.
“You’re cold.” He drew back enough so he could lift her into his arms. The enormous boots on her feet slid right off to clomp against the floor. “You need dry clothes.”
She didn’t fight him when he carried her into the great room and headed for the stairs. Just sniffled and swiped her arm across her nose. “I don’t have any other clothes. These were the only ones Silas gave me.”
Ari stopped at the bottom of the steps. Skata. She was right. That dress she’d been wearing when he’d brought her here was nothing but rags now.
He moved for the hallway that led to his rooms before he thought better of it. She didn’t say anything as he carried her in, set her on the bed, then pulled a blanket from the foot and wrapped it around her shoulders. “I’ll find you something dry.”
Still she didn’t answer. Just clutched the blanket around her and stared off into space, her damp hair hanging around her face, her bare feet dangling above the hardwood floor.