Chapter 2
New York, Earth Realm
Alex groaned in frustration as she reformed on her private balcony. Wind whipped through her hair, batting it against her still-flushed cheeks, but nothing about it eased the heat coming from her aching body. She tucked the long tendrils behind her ear as she glanced down at the lights illuminating the dense trees in the park several stories below.
Soft laughter filtered from the sidewalk and her eyes moved to a mortal couple strolling hand in hand. The romantic picture actually made her chest ache, so she turned from the display because she refused to fall into a bout of self-pity.
With a thought she used telekinetic power to part the French doors before stepping through to the private suite of the penthouse she shared with her brothers.
Her body was strung tight. Hours spent in her private cavern getting a little alone time from her brothers had done little to alleviate her tension. Even the night air slipping in from the balcony did little to cool her.
Going back to her game with Urian had been a mistake. She knew she needed to end it and had managed to resist seeking him out for a month before she’d succumbed. It wasn’t just that he’d tried to change the game by prowling towards her a month ago, it was that she’d been rooted in place. She’d wanted him to catch her, and that was dangerous.
She shook her head and didn’t bother with the lights as she stalked through her room toward her private bath.
She’d gotten off in her cavern, but it was a hollow climax that hadn’t left her relaxed or sated. Instead, she felt anxious and needier than she’d been before seeing him.
And she couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
She couldn’t have the Guardian and she couldn’t be with a human. It would be too easy to kill a mortal if she tried having sex with one.
Who was she kidding, she had zero interest in any mortals she’d seen. She’d spent the last century, or more, obsessing over the sexy-as-hell Urian, or Uri, as Gregoire called him. She blew out a breath as she passed her big lonely bed covered in soft white linens and wished she could lie down and go to sleep. Maybe pretend she wasn’t doomed, but she knew better. Her body was strung too tight, which meant she needed to find another way to release some tension.
She really did need to spend more time trying to hone her skills, but she just couldn’t concentrate on anything like that at the moment. She needed something mindless.
Her rare abilities were the nightmare catalyst that had caused her to lose nearly all of her independence, and she was determined to find a way to solve her problems. The main issue was the shield she’d created to protect herself when her head-hopping power left her unconscious body vulnerable. She’d spent centuries trying to find a way to control her power or do something about the shield, with little to no progress, and she’d never stop trying. Just not tonight.
She sighed as she hit a light switch on the way through the door of her private bath. She needed a shower before anything else. It was days like these that she felt more frustration and defeat than the determination that usually drove her.
She groaned as she sent power out to turn on the nozzles. After the shower, she’d drown her frustration with a good fight or a painfully expensive shoe-shopping binge.
After slipping out of her clothes, she stepped into the tile enclosure and let the soothing warmth of the water ease some of the tension in her tight muscles. In all honesty she wasn’t sure shoes or killing possessed would make her feel any more in control of her life. Or any less lonely.
Gods, she wanted Urian. Just once. She’d wanted him to move toward her again tonight and that was why she’d left so soon. It either ended or stayed the same, nothing else would work. What the hell was wrong with her? She knew, thanks to her other unique gift, that she was needed on Earth, which meant she couldn’t risk getting herself exiled to Tetartos.
The first time her “knowing” ability had surfaced, she’d ignored the odd compulsion. That was the only time she hadn’t heeded it… and that error was one she was still paying for. It was nearly comical how much she suffered for not listening to her budding power all those centuries ago, so when she knew to take her brothers far below ground just before the Creators had come back, she didn’t question it. Now she, Vane and Erik were here while the other Immortals had been exiled to Tetartos. And the Gods, including her mother, Athena, had been sent to sleep. She hadn’t questioned it then. She’d acted.
Her power of being taken into another person’s body was the far bigger problem. It came on with little warning and left her physical body vulnerable to attack. That was the one that had screwed up everything. She’d never imagined just how dangerous it could be until her unprotected body had been brutalized within the safety of her mother’s palace. If she’d listened to her knowing, she would have left the palace that day. And if she hadn’t collapsed in the hallway as her consciousness floated to another, she and her baby brothers wouldn’t have almost died.
Never again.
She shook her head. It had been horrible, but if she’d only taken more time to think through the shield she’d built to protect her body before putting it into place… At the time she’d been so desperate to regain control, to feel safe in her own skin that she’d linked the powerfully protective shield to unconsciousness. It had seemed logical then, and it would’ve honestly been fine had her father and brothers not felt the need to create a link to her shield so they would always know the minute she was vulnerable.
Back then they’d felt just as powerless as she’d felt.
She groaned. It had all been handled too soon and too emotionally because obviously none of them had understood the consequences of the link.
None of them had considered that it would go off anytime she lost consciousness. That included sleep. In those early years she hadn’t resented having to inform her brother’s when she knew she was going to bed. Not when the trauma was still fresh, but years later she’d felt the true impact on her independence. Only she couldn’t seem to fix it and neither could they. That shield and link were deeply cemented within her.
To make matters far worse, decades later she realized that her shield also associated orgasms with unconsciousness. She let her head drop to her chest, willing the warm water to relieve the tension in her neck as embarrassing memories replayed in her mind.
There was absolutely nothing worse than your brothers popping in like massive beastly protectors only to find you naked…
Her face flushed and she banged her head into the tile wall at the humiliating memory. She’d been barely able to look at them for a good decade after that. Not that her brothers had fared much better; they’d been just as uncomfortable. The only good news had been that she’d made the discovery after her mother and father had been sent to sleep, or it might have been a kind of humiliating family reunion. She rolled her neck and refused to dwell on things that were out of her control.
The shield was a protection as much as a curse. Until she gained some kind of control over it and found a way to sever the link to her brothers, she was forced to inform them anytime she knew it would go off. It wasn’t the end of the world. She made excuses of working on her powers or sleep when she needed private time.
It was all so damned isolating. She was forced to keep her distance from mortals as potential lovers unless she wanted to forgo the climax part because the shield violently repelled anything that touched the magic shell that covered her. Its strength could and would likely kill a mortal.
She blew out a frustrated breath. It wasn’t as if she’d ever been attracted to a mortal, but she craved some kind of contact… Connection.
She had her brothers and loved them, but just to be close to another being in a nonfamilial way would be pure heaven. To feel flesh that wasn’t her own… A strong body pumping into hers, bringing her to a real release, one that would truly sate her… She groaned, because the only face that came to mind was Urian’s. The only body she wanted was that damned Guardian’s. He’d been the feature of her fantasies for too long now. He along with the occasional cameo appearance from the brooding Gregoire. She’d wondered for too long just how it would feel to be wedged between the two massive Guardians. Allowing them to ease away all the centuries of pent-up sexual frustration.
She closed her eyes and imagined the water was their hands, their warmth. She’d never seen them take a female between them in the basest of ways. Not the way she’d seen the humans do it, with a female held firmly between two thrusting bodies, crying out in blinding release.
She wished the big Guardians could give her that experience. She wanted everything she’d never experienced, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not when she was destined to a life of compulsive voyeurism added to an embarrassing amount of battery purchases on her credit card.
Going to Uri again had been stupid.
She got out of the shower and wrapped her body in a towel before proceeding to dry her hair. If she could just focus on simple mundane tasks, maybe she’d get through the almost painful arousal and bout of depression until she was herself again.
Taking a deep breath and attempting to regain focus reminded her that she needed to check on the wire transfer from their last mercenary mission. The kidnap recovery job she and the twins had just come from in Russia had ended with her beelining straight to Uri… Being mercenaries in the human Realm kept her and her brothers from boredom. Plus, though they were wealthy in all their forged identities, she had a shoe problem. The problem being that designers just kept making more.
She had a bad feeling shopping wouldn’t distract her from her current aching need.
Alex didn’t understand why she was so obsessed with the Guardian. Physically, Urian was absolute perfection with dark hair a little too long and those seductive mercury eyes. He was also tall, probably an inch taller than her brother’s six foot seven inches. His shoulders were wide and strong, a warrior’s body with muscles she unfortunately hadn’t seen in decades. He and Gregoire used to undress and take their time. Now they only stayed for a short time and rarely disrobed. She missed seeing every naked inch of his chiseled body.
She groaned thinking how much she envied those human females. Uri’s mesmerizing, silver eyes drew her just as much as they did the mortals. And damn if she didn’t want to lick his sexy stubbled jaw down to his Adam’s apple. She’d followed him for centuries, taking stalking to a whole new, pathetic level.
She’d tried to stop on many occasions, but all she ended up doing was flooding their multiple homes with sexy peep-toe pumps and strappy sandals. Then, filling her private cave, where she went to refuel her strength with Earth’s healing energies, with erotic toys she kept hidden in case her brothers ever came to visit.
If Erik or Vane knew what she did on her off time, they’d be having kittens right now.
She sensed that her brothers were home. She knew they’d gone hunting possessed when she’d gone off to stalk Urian.
The twins needed to feed their lion half’s need to hunt, and the possessed were pumped up on demon powers, which made them stronger and more of a challenge than the piece-of-crap kidnappers they dealt with in their mercenary work.
Alex didn’t have the same animal DNA as her brothers. She’d been born before their father had been taken and altered by Apollo and Hermes. Her lip curled with disgust remembering how Apollo had enslaved and experimented on all the Immortals those millennia ago. The monster had bred them like animals in the hopes of creating the perfect immortal warriors for his army. He would have done the same to her father if her mother, Athena, hadn’t forced her way into the palace and taken back what was hers.
Alex’s father, Niall, hadn’t been the same after that. He’d become stronger and more primal after being infused with lion DNA, the same DNA he had passed on to her younger brothers, Vane and Erik, at birth.
Alex was decades older, but she’d adored them from the second they were born. She’d held and snuggled them as babes, played with them as cubs and loved them with all her heart. They’d been her only real companions since her mother and father kept their family hidden and secluded on Earth as they’d trained their own armies for battle against the other Gods all those millennia ago.
Erik had always been the more playful of the two when they’d been children. But after Alex had been attacked, things had changed. Two years after her violent assault, their parents had been sent to sleep by the Creators. Since her new and powerful ability had shown her they were meant to do something in the Realm of humanity, the three did what they needed in order to avoid exile. Her brothers had followed her lead then, trusting her unique power and the near compulsion that hit when a “knowing” came.
At the time, Erik, only two decades old yet still minutes older than his twin, moved into their father’s role. He grew more fierce and serious. To balance out his twin, Vane’s personality had become lighter. She shook her head.
Shaking off her dark memories, she finished drying her hair then reached to turn on her… What the…?
“Damn him,” Alex muttered while throwing on some clothes to stalk barefoot through her suite out into the marble hallway that led to Vane’s room.
She hadn’t spared a glance at the beautiful Venetian textured walls. Their penthouse took up the entire top two floors of the building and was done mostly in cream with a lot of metal, including the very modern wall sconces that lined each hall.
Alex threw open the door, knowing her brother was alone in his suite. He was pretty fanatic about allowing no visitors in his private sanctuary.
“That’s it, Vane! The next time you take my straightener, I’m going to plug it in and attach it to your balls.”
She stood, one hand on her hip, the other out palm up, waiting for the ass to hand it over. All six foot seven feet of girly beast with beautifully straightened, shoulder-length, sun-kissed hair smirked. She glared, smiling would only encourage him; he thought he was amusing when he took her stuff.
Alex narrowed her eyes when the smirk grew. A split second later she launched across the bedroom. Vane braced in expectation of the attack, so he didn’t budge, just grunted, as she made contact in her attempted tackle.
Now she smiled.
Laughing, he tossed her to the bed. “I can’t believe you’re flying off the handle over this. It’s a hair thing. You’re acting crazy.”
“You have your own.” She wasn’t really mad, part of her just wanted some company, but she also wanted to make a point. They had plenty of money, which meant he didn’t need to take her stuff. He knew it drove her crazy.
“What’s going on?” Erik scowled as he leaned in the doorway, arms crossed over the wide expanse of his chest. Short black hair stuck out in every direction, yet looked perfect on him with his piercing ice-blue eyes. An aura of command surrounded her darker brother even when he was doing something as mundane as standing in the entry. The twins were as opposite in looks as they were in personalities.
Vane answered Erik with a grin. “PMS.”
She mentally growled. Her brother was about to learn a lesson about taunting her when she was “crazy.” Teleporting onto Vane’s back, she wrapped an arm around his thick neck, ready to choke the life out of him as she grinned at her other brother.
Suddenly her smile dropped as the all-dreaded flicker of vision started, the only warning she ever had.
Erik must have seen it on her face because he ordered, “Vane, get her to the bed.”
She felt air, then a bounce onto soft bedding before registering the sounds of crashing glass and crunching drywall. Vane likely hadn’t cleared her shield in time and had been thrown into the wall before her consciousness, her essence, floated away, being taken into another person.
Bright spots filled the sides of her vision from the relentless stream of overhead lighting. Alex saw through the eyes of the female’s body she inhabited. They were in a metal room, but she couldn’t tell where. The harsh stench of sterilizing chemicals burned her host’s nose, and her skin itched from the cleaning they must have given her. She was grateful their father had known the importance of showing them memories he had from his limited time with Apollo and Hermes all those millennia ago. Those clear mental images allowed her to identify the evil pair that starred in all these visions.
Elizabeth, the sadistic female who worked with Cyril, the asshole, was there. Her flaming hair swirled wildly around her shoulders as she giggled freakishly. The crazy redhead liked to taunt her victims, flashing her fangs, playing on vampire fears even though her race, the Aletheia, did not drink blood unless it was to take another’s memories. Alex’s host wouldn’t understand that, and it would just upset and confuse her more if she tried to explain it in the female’s head. Cyril ignored Elizabeth’s antics and performed some kind of medical tests on the body she inhabited.
Alex felt her host attempting to tune it out. Exhaustion and the drugs in her system were muffling the sounds coming from outside her head. The cold metal against her bare back made her muscles ache, adding yet another layer of misery to being naked and having samples taken from every part of her body, inside and out. Warmth trickled down the sides of her wrists where she’d fought against the shackles holding her down.
Alex melded more closely into her host, feeling and hearing her every thought, becoming the female, experiencing every emotion, every sensation.
Tears of frustration streamed uncontrollably down her face, she could barely see her tormentors through the blur, yet the dark evil behind Cyril’s eyes would forever be imprinted in her mind… Eyes that looked almost purple, but it was so dark she couldn’t tell. His face was backlit by the bright lights shining down relentlessly from behind the bastard’s bent head, making details difficult to discern.
Her host focused on his face and cringed at the thought that he would come across as handsome if one didn’t see the inhumane indifference of a sociopath lurking behind the deceptively beautiful eyes. It was scary to think she might have found a monster like him attractive before she’d been taken and violated.
In the hours since she’d been kidnapped, neither had said why they’d taken her. Apparently they just enjoyed abusing her body in any way they could. The man was more detached and scientific. As if she were a frog or cat in some biology class, meant only for dissection, not an actual living human being.
She caught glimpses of movement and heard the occasional beeping of machines, the footsteps of med techs or whatever you’d call them, and the occasional whimper or scream of another “patient.” Jesus, what were they doing to them? Why lab tests? The implications were adding to her panic. Her body was still lethargic from the drugs they’d pumped into her system, and it was almost like her thoughts were coming in slow motion. A strange voice inside her head was insisting on more information, but it was so hard to focus. She’d either lost her mind, or the drugs were overtaking her again. Were they hallucinogens? Did it matter? If the voice was a distraction her mind created for her, she didn’t care, it was keeping her from the hysterics that she wanted to give in to. Sam just knew the evil redhead would love that, and she couldn’t bear to make that bitch happy.
Louder now, the voice demanded her name and she mentally shrugged and decided to go along with her obvious mental breakdown. What would it hurt at this point? Her name was Sam…
When was she taken?
She’d just gotten to her apartment door. It was… Friday night after work. She remembered the shock of being grabbed from behind by strong arms before a sharp sting to her neck… drugged.
Again, the voice in her mind was whispering for more information. It was so sympathetic… calming…
She answered. She’d picked up some groceries at the store down the street from her apartment before heading home. She’d planned on a quiet weekend in her apartment.
Her address?
Sam gave the street and apartment name, but she couldn’t remember more. It was lucky the apartment number made it through the fuzz in her brain.
It had been dark, and she had dropped her grocery bag when she was grabbed. It had happened so fast… She’d never even had time to try to defend herself. That first burst of semi consciousness after being drugged at her apartment awarded her a brief, hazy view of rock walls and black-clad figures surrounding her, chanting in firelight. She’d heard voices of men and women but saw no faces.
Sam recalled the faint smell of damp rock and dirt as she lay on the cold ground. The chanting picked up speed; then a bright light filled her vision. The air from her lungs rushed out so quickly it had left her disoriented, followed by pure nothingness as her body felt as if it were flying apart before reforming again. It was so fast… She came to, struggling to breathe air back into her system. Spots had filled her vision, and nausea had hit so hard that she curled tighter into the fetal position.
Sam had barely registered that all the others were gone, and in their place were two huge men dressed in leather. She vaguely remembered thinking she had to be dreaming before she succumbed to darkness.
The sharp stinging pain of a cut being carved just above the nipple of her left breast jolted Sam back to her current reality with a stark rasp. Pale gray eyes above her sparkled with madness. Light skin and flaming hair surrounded moist red lips opened to display sharp fangs within inches of Sam’s face. It was a glimpse of pure evil that she wished never to see again.
In the back of her mind she realized that her male captor had gone after taking her blood and performing his grossly invasive tests. It was just another violation, like not allowing her clothing. She’d been naked since she’d woken up here. It was painfully obvious she was no more than an animal to them.
A split second later she felt warmth moving through her veins and realized she’d been dosed through the IV in her arm. She welcomed the darkness, the only peace she could find, away from monsters that shouldn’t exist…