Sera was hiding something.
Erebus didn’t know what, but he was now convinced the story Zeus had fed him about why she’d escaped Olympus was total shit.
“I didn’t fail on Olympus.”
The way she’d said that, off the cuff, as if she’d been shocked he’d even assume such a thing, kept circling in his head as he sat in what used to be the main gathering room of the castle. He’d dragged the chair in from another room and set it in front of the fire. Staring into the flames as he swirled an ancient glass of brandy—the bottle another treasure he’d found in storage—he thought back to the Sera he remembered from those early days with the Sirens.
Before she’d been assigned to him for seduction training, Sera had pretty much sucked at marksmanship, agility, hand-to-hand combat, and warfare strategy. She’d been at the bottom of the class in almost every category. But by the time she’d moved on from his seduction training, she’d already been steadily improving in all the areas of the field. He’d told himself a well-satisfied Siren made a better warrior, but the truth had little to do with him. A confident Siren made a much better warrior, and he’d watched her confidence grow over the months they’d been together, not just in their steamy seduction sessions, but out on the field as well.
Which was why when Zeus had pulled him aside only days ago and told him he had an AWOL Siren, Erebus hadn’t once considered it could possibly be Sera. By the time she’d moved on to the second phase of training and he’d been assigned to a new set of recruits, he’d been sure she’d adapt to every one of her training routines and pass each of her upcoming benchmarks. And remembering back to the way she’d almost kicked his ass out in the woods when he’d been hunting her proved she could hold her own. Shit, the way she’d scaled the side of this freakin’ castle and very nearly escaped from him down there in those tunnels proved she wasn’t just confident as hell but completely capable.
She was definitely hiding something. And he was determined to find out just what that something was.
Creaking floorboards echoed from the hallway. His head came up, and he looked into the darkened corridor. Night had spread over the lake and ruins, and although he’d checked the barrier he’d erected where the tunnels opened to the ruins, that didn’t mean there weren’t kobaloi hiding in the shadows inside the castle, now looking for a way to get back into the tunnels where they were safe.
Another floorboard creaked, the sound pushing him to his feet. Setting his half-empty glass on a side table he’d dragged in along with the chair, he quietly moved toward the dark hall. A shadow moved, heading slowly toward the stairs that led down to the tunnels. A shadow that was definitely not small enough to be kobaloi.
Amusement spread through him. Amusement and challenge, and a tiny bit of disbelief that she was trying this again.
As a god, he could flash in any realm. He wasn’t limited by laws of physics or solid walls, like mortals. Gathering his energy just as he’d done when he’d flashed Sera out of that cavern and away from that horde of kobaloi, he envisioned the top step of those stairs and appeared directly in front of her before she could take that first step down.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
Sera gasped and scrambled back. “Erebus.” She pressed a shaky hand to her chest. “Y-you scared me.”
“Uh huh.” He didn’t buy that for a minute. “You were looking for me, I assume.”
Panic flashed in her eyes, and she took another giant step back, the pajama bottoms he’d dressed her in pooling around her bare feet. “I... Well, yes. I didn’t know where you’d gone.”
Liar...
He moved up the step, eyes locked on her, and stepped forward. “I was sitting in the main room. In front of the fire. You couldn’t have missed me.”
She scrambled back another step, glanced over her shoulder toward the glow from the fireplace, then quickly looked back, only this time the panic was stronger in her sweet blue eyes. “Oh, I... I heard a sound. I didn’t even look in the main room. I just assumed you were downstairs.”
Two days ago, if she’d fed him this line of B.S., it would have enraged him. Now all it did was entertain him, because even when she knew she was caught red-handed, she still wasn’t backing down.
He had to admire her for that. Had to admire that even after escaping Olympus, nearly falling to her death, and suffering a concussion, she was still willing to take on a god. A minor god, albeit, but a god who was still a hundred times more powerful than her.
“Since you’re out of bed,” he said, drawing closer, “you must be feeling better.”
“Better?” She inched backward until her spine hit the wall. Pressing her hands into the stone behind her, she sidestepped to her left, toward the glow of the main room. “I-I wouldn’t say better, per se. Just...worried.”
Worried? About him? He wished she was, but considering she looked like a cornered animal at the moment, he was calling bullshit. “Well, for what I have planned I don’t really need you better, just able to stand upright.”
Her eyes widened. “What you have planned?”
Was that excitement he heard in her voice? Oh, he definitely liked that.
He braced a hand against the wall over her shoulder and leaned toward her seductive heat. She immediately tensed, but didn’t try to move away. And he liked that even better. “Why do you think I nursed you back to health? So we could finish what we started the other day.”
She sucked in a breath and held completely still as he pressed his face into all her silky hair. “You don’t mean—”
“I mean exactly that, female.” He bent at the knees and hefted her over his shoulder. Holding her tight, he ignored the yelp that passed over her lips and headed straight for the main staircase. “We have unfinished business, and now that you’re well enough, we’re going to get back to it.”
Her hands landed against his back. Warm and small and so damn enticing. She tried to push herself upright, but he held on tighter, keeping her immobile as he carried her up the steps.
“B—but,” she sputtered. “I have a concussion!”
“Then I guess you should have stayed in bed.”
A warm glow emanated from the fireplace in her room, bathing the corridor in an eerie orange light. Dropping her to her feet in front of the same corner bedpost he’d tied her to originally, he reached for the charmed rope that was still wrapped around the wood and pressed her back. “Hold still.”
“Erebus, you can’t do this!”
She struggled but was no match for his strength. Satisfied she wasn’t going anywhere, he stepped back, perched his hands on his hips, and eyed her carefully. “This looks very familiar. Though this time I’m going to do more than just leave you alone to plot your escape.”
Her eyes shot daggers into his as he grabbed a chair, dragged it in front of her, turned it around, and straddled the seat. Resting his forearms on the back, he watched as she struggled to break free, smirked at the way her long, silky blonde hair fell over her eyes and the delicate skin of her face, and smiled as she grew more outraged by the second.
“We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way, Sera, but know this, you’re not getting away from me until I’m ready to let you go. And I have no intention of letting you go until you give me what I want.”
She glared hard in his direction. “I’m not giving you anything. If you want it, you’re going to have to try to take it from me.”
Excitement pulsed inside him because that was exactly the answer he’d hoped for. After twiddling his thumbs the last two days, waiting for her to heal and regain her strength, he was more than ready for some fun. He could have gone back to Olympus during that time and checked in with Zeus to let the King of the Gods know he was still looking for the nymph, but he didn’t want to risk giving Zeus a reason to reassign him and send another hunter after Sera. Plus, if memory served, fun with Sera was hotter than anything Erubus had experienced before or since her, and he wasn’t about to let anyone else near her.
Grinning, he pushed up off the chair. “I guess we’re doing this the hard way then. Good thing that was my first choice.” He crossed the room, reached for a pair of scissors he’d found in a dresser drawer downstairs, then moved back to stand in front of her. “Okay, nymph, where should we start?”
Her eyes zeroed in on the scissors and grew so wide the whites could be seen all around her sexy blue irises. “W-what are you planning to do with those?”
“Get you naked, of course.” He reached for the hem of her shirt. “Top or bottom, agápi? Where we begin is all up to you.”
* * * *
The statement—the implication—should have enraged Sera. Only it didn’t. It didn’t because all Sera could focus on was that one word...agápi. The same word she’d heard him utter in her dream, when she’d been groggy and wounded and he’d been lying in the bed beside her, holding her close as if she were...precious.
Precious.
Her.
To a minor god who didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything.
Agápi...
Holy hell. The ancient endearment registered, and her breath caught in her throat. He had called her “my love” in the tunnels. He was calling her “my love” now too.
He tipped his head, and a mischievous smile curled his lips. “You look confused.”
She wasn’t confused. She was way the hell freaked out. He’d never called her agápi when he’d been fucking her senseless on Olympus. Why the hell was he using that word on her now?
Her mouth was so dry she wasn’t sure she could form words, but somehow she mumbled, “W-why are you doing this?”
“Because nothing else seems to grab your attention. All you want to do is run.”
She glared down at the ropes, then back up at him. “Well, I obviously can’t run now, can I?”
“No, you definitely can’t.” His heated gaze swept over her chest where the ropes bound her to the post above and below her breasts, causing them to push out even more. “Though I can’t complain. I like you like this.”
Using the scissors, he sliced into the bottom of her tank. Cool air washed over her belly as he pulled the hem of her tank away from her skin and cut through the thin material.
Her pulse shot straight up. “Erebus. Stop.”
“Hold still, agápi. I don’t want to accidentally cut you.”
He snipped again, and with every swish of the scissors tingles shot across her skin. Tingles that weren’t all laced with fear. Even as he came dangerously close to nicking her flesh, her blood heated and an excitement she knew she shouldn’t be feeling flared in her veins.
He pulled the scissors away, then tugged the bottom four inches of her tank free all the way around, leaving her stomach exposed to his view beneath the bottom rope holding her in place.
“Mm.” He set the scissors on the seat of his chair and skimmed his gaze over her exposed flesh. “You’ve been working out, agápi.” Drawing close once more, he brushed the back of his knuckles down the center of her abs. “I like this line right here.”
She sucked in a breath. Tried to move back from his touch. Knew she couldn’t get away from him. Knew also that part of her didn’t even want to try.
Dammit, this was why she needed to run. Because the son of a bitch wasn’t going to force her. He was going to seduce her, just as he’d done on Olympus. And her traitorous body would enjoy every single moment of it, even knowing when it was all over that he was going to haul her ass back to Zeus and abandon her.
“Please don’t,” she whispered.
His knuckle grazed the sensitive skin just beneath her belly button, sending tiny electrical arcs straight between her legs. “Please don’t what?”
“Don’t touch me like that,” she managed, but the words were so soft even she had trouble hearing them, and there was no heat behind them. Just a quivering, aching need.
His hand stilled, and his head lifted. Holding her breath, she chanced a look up, and in the silence as their eyes held and nothing but the crackle of the fire sounded in the room, she had absolutely no idea what he was thinking.
There’d been a time when she’d been so head over heels in love with him on Olympus that she’d thought she knew what went on in that gorgeous head of his. That she could predict his reactions. Then she’d discovered he’d barely thought about her at all outside that farce of a bedroom where he’d screwed her blind in the training center, and every one of her beliefs had changed.
That realization had hurt, but it hurt more now because, even though she’d told herself she’d gotten over him, one gaze deep into his eyes here in this room and she knew she’d never be over him. It didn’t matter what he had planned. It didn’t matter what he did to her next. It didn’t even matter that he was going to turn her over to Zeus when he’d had his fill of her. All that mattered was that she was a fool for ever thinking someone like him could love her back. At his core, regardless of what he’d done to “save” her, he was immortal. A god. As selfish as the Olympians. As emotionally void as Hades himself. As deserving of love as that bastard Zeus.
“Go on,” she whispered, looking away, resigning herself to something she ached to feel, didn’t really want, but knew she wasn’t about to fight. “Just get on with it already.”
“Okay,” he said just as softly. “Since you asked so nicely.”
She tensed, anticipating his touch on her breasts or between her legs, but it didn’t come. Instead, he lifted the strip of black fabric he’d cut from her tank and used it to cover her eyes.
With swift movements, he tied the fabric behind her head so all she saw was darkness. “Where I want to start, agápi, is with the truth. You didn’t fail any benchmark test with the Sirens, did you? You ran from Zeus for another reason. Before I untie you from this post and give you what we both want, you’re going to tell me why.”
Give you what we both want... The words echoed in her head and were so arousing, she suddenly wanted his hands everywhere she’d just told herself she didn’t want them.
She waited for him to say more. Waited for him to cut away more of her clothing. Waited for that touch that would make her melt in ways she’d hate herself for later, but it still never came.
Neither did his voice. The only sound she heard was the squeak of leather.
“Erebus?”
“Right here. Waiting.”
His voice was feet away. Lower than her ears. As if he were sitting in that chair again, watching her.
Without her sight, her other senses heightened. Everywhere the rope bit into her, her flesh heated, aching for more contact. The gentle push and pull of his breath sounded over the crackle of the fire—steady and even, not fast like hers, as if he had all the time in the world to sit and wait. And his scent—that hypnotic blend of leather and cognac and skull flowers—filled her nostrils, making her light headed in ways she didn’t expect.
What the hell was he doing now? Making her suffer so she’d beg for his touch?
She clenched her jaw. “Erebus, what’s going on?”
A shuffle sounded, like a boot scraping the floor, and heat flared in her veins all over again. She braced herself for the feel of his fingers against her skin—all but ached for it—but the touch never came.
“Erebus?”
“I heard you, agápi.” His voice was still coming from that damn chair. The bastard was making her suffer. “But I’m still waiting for you to tell me what I want to hear.”
Shock rippled through her. Shock and disbelief that he wasn’t seducing her, wasn’t taking her as she’d expected him to do.
The muscles in her stomach quivered, and between her legs—though she couldn’t believe she was reacting this way—her sex grew heavy and tingly. “Erebus, take this blindfold off me.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like it.”
Another scrape of his boot across the floor. “And I don’t like you avoiding my questions. Tell me why you ran, and why Zeus is so pissed.”
Holy hell, he was going to sit there and stare at her until she gave him what he wanted. And dammit, why was that suddenly a worse kind of torture than his seducing her?
Because you want him to seduce you. You’re envisioning it now. You’re getting all hot and bothered just thinking about it.
Dear gods, she was. Damn her nymph bloodline. Damn her body’s natural reaction to sexual taunting.
“Come on, agápi. Give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you need.”
Her sex tightened at the sound of his deep voice caressing that term of endearment, and she ached to have his hands caress her hypersensitive flesh in the same way.
“I’m a very patient god, you know.” His chair squeaked again. “I could watch you all night. All day tomorrow if that’s what it takes. And the day after that and the day after that. I do love watching you.”
Her stomach clenched, and against what was left of the black tank, her nipples pebbled with the thought of his heated, needy eyes roving over every inch of her.
She swallowed hard, knowing he’d do exactly what he threatened. Knowing just as surely that it would make her absolutely throb with need.
“Agáááápi...”
He drew the word out until she wanted to scream.
“Fine,” she blurted out. “You win, okay? I ran because I found out Zeus is a sonofabitch.”
He chuckled. “That’s not exactly news.”
Anger burned inside her. Anger that she was about to tell him anything when she should just keep her mouth shut.
But maybe if she gave him a little information it would encourage him to untie her from this stupid post. And with any luck, when that happened, she’d be strong enough to squash this growing desire for a god who’d always been her greatest weakness.
“You want to know why I ran?” she said. “I ran because I remembered. I remembered everything the Sirens wiped from my memory when they kidnapped me and brought me to Olympus. I remembered that Zeus murdered my parents, that he destroyed my home, and that he wiped out my entire race. All because he’s an asshole who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. And I ran because I wasn’t about to stay another second in a realm with a god who hunts women down like dogs and gets a sick thrill out of turning them into his brainless Siren bimbos.”
She drew a deep breath. “Now, are you happy?”