“Actually, you said it would be the last name. That’s still up in the air.”
“Oh, this isn’t over.” His embrace tightened around me. “We have tonight, and tomorrow, and the next night, until forever.”
“I won’t live that long,” I muttered. “And we’d probably get tired of each other.”
“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “The point is I want to be with you, if you want me.”
I yawned, barely able to keep my eyes open. “We can see where this goes.”
I drifted to sleep wrapped in his arms, but even that could not keep the nightmares away. My aunt’s dead eyes glared at me, and she pointed her finger. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying.
I woke with a gasp to a heavy air that seemed to hold me down and a burning in my wrist. I whimpered as depression sank into me. Beside me, Hermes struggled to sit up. Serenity stood over us with a pistol pointed at me. However, it wasn’t Serenity that stared at me behind those eyes.
It was Moros.
Chapter 31
“Isn’t this interesting,” Serenity’s voice took on Moros grating rasp. “A god and a pandoran in bed together. I doubt either of your families would be happy about that.”
“Get out of my daughter,” Hermes said through gritted teeth.
“Funny, you didn’t seem that concerned for her a few hours ago. You were busy with another girl.” Her eyes slid to me as she chuckled. “Always the same.”
I sat up, clutching my sheet to my breasts. “Why are you doing this?”
“You can’t guess? It’s all for you? You and your little family.” Moros waved the gun in Hermes’s direction. “Not that his family is much better. They took my form originally, and left me a spirit trapped in a box. Only to be released by your dumb ancestor. But hey, the last few centuries have been fun.”
“Poor you.” I shifted my body closed to the edge of the bed. “Plaguing humanity must be tiresome.”
“It’d be better if your family wasn’t always showing up to ruin things. But hey, we’re going to fix that. It’s why I’m here, after all. At first I wanted you. You’d lead me to the others. But then, I found this wonderful demi-god, just ripe and ready for me.” Serenity’s hand trailed over one of her breasts. “So much pain inside. It’s almost as if she never had a happy moment, until she met you. Then you went and did her dad, and she thought she’d lost you. But I was there, ready to snatch her up.”
“Always the bottom feeder,” Hermes said. “I told you before, find another place to prey on.”
Moros turned the gun on him. “You expect me to be frightened by you? I was around since long before you were seed in Zeus’s well used cock, and I’ll be around much longer yet, especially now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “Besides the fact you like to overshare.”
“One whispered word in the right ear, and Daddy would be up in arms.” Moros slid Serenity’s gaze to Hermes. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s if you could still speak.” Hermes sat up. “You can’t defy me even in you spiritual form.”
Moros pressed the gun to Serenity’s head. “Back off, Messenger, unless you want your favorite’s gifted brain all over the wall.”
My heart pounded in my chest, and little flames flicked across my knuckles. “Hey, how about you get out of my friend and we deal with this just you and me?”
“Why would I do that? She has so much untapped potential,” Moros said. “I haven’t felt this kind of power in millennia.”
“You’re not going to get near my family with her,” I said. “They’d kill you on sight. Not that I see how you’re going to do that with me, either.”
“We have ways. But you do have a point.” Moros smiled and leaned closer. “I can already sense the ker in you, struggling to get out. Let’s see if we can’t help her.”
I shoved my hand in Serenity’s face and flared the fire up. Moros lurched back with a gasp, dropping the gun. Hermes lunged forward and grabbed Moros by the front of Serenity’s t-shirt, jerking her closer to him.
A thunderous boom reverberated as the gun went off and set my ears to ringing. Serenity’s body flew into the wall near the window, bounced, and toppled to the ground. She was on her feet and out my bedroom door in an instant. I flung the covers off, leapt out of my bed, and was halfway across the room before I realized Hermes wasn’t ahead of me. He sat in bed with his hand pressed against his side. Blood oozed through his fingertips.
“Go,” he said. “Don’t let him take my daughter out of this house.”
I sprinted through the hall into the living room, leapt over the couch, and planted my foot in Serenity’s back just as Moros was opening the door. She slammed face first into the door, and we both toppled to the ground. That would probably leave a bruise I would have to apologize for later. I rolled back and hopped to my feet.