Chapter Twenty-two
“Are you going to continue acting like a baby or are you actually going to do something?”
Merck’s head snapped around to stare at the end of his dock. Bythos calmly strolled his way wearing a flamboyant Hawaiian shirt and linen pants. His bare feet made no noise as he approached.
“You here to kill me this time?”
Bythos held his hands away from his body to demonstrate no weapons. “I’m here to clean up the mess, as usual.”
“I tried to heal her. Nothing happened. Can’t you do something for her?”
“Not my thing. You were judged.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means stop being a dumbass and try again.” Bythos crossed his arms and stared.
“But I’m still here.”
“Yes. You are. You were judged.”
“They’re not going to send me to Hades?”
“Guess not.”
Try again? Maybe he needed to be in the water with Shannon for it to work. He scooped her into his arms and paced to the end of the dock. He met Bythos’s gaze for a moment, finding no confirmation this was the right move. Bythos looked simultaneously entertained and bored.
As he passed Bythos, Merck muttered, “I really don’t like you right now.”
“I know, but you’ll like me even less if you keep flapping your lips and she dies.” Bythos leaned casually against a piling and picked at his nails.
“Shannon, you with me?” Merck jostled her.
Her eyes blinked open, but then drifted shut.
“I need you to hold on. Take a deep breath. We’re going under.”
***
Her body lit on fire, jolting her to consciousness. A scream crested, but Shannon quickly closed her mouth when water flooded inside. Something held her underwater. Drowning her.
Her head broke free of the ocean’s surface. She thrashed, coughed up water, and gulped in air. Her toes couldn’t touch ground. Whatever tried to drown her still restrained her.
“I’ve got you. Stop struggling. Here…” The cuffs around her wrists magically disappeared.
She grabbed at Merck, panicked in the water.
“You’re fine. I swear.” His hands cradled her head above the water, allowing her to breathe.
“Why are we in the water again?” His dock sat a hundred yards or more away.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered. “But I didn’t.”
“Your healing worked? I thought you couldn’t…”
“Yeah, me too, but second time’s the charm.” In a blink, they were on the dock.
“How’d you do that?” She shifted in his arms since he still hadn’t let her go.
“Not sure.” He dropped the cuffs on the dock. His gaze met that of the water god who he’d spoken with after the Athena encounter.
The god smiled at her, his eerie, pale eyes swirling. “I’m Bythos.” He took her hand and kissed it. “You’re more beautiful than the ocean at sunset in the spring.”
Merck knocked his hand away. “Stop hitting on her. You’re not her type. Besides, that was pathetic.”
“I thought it was nice imagery.” She caught Merck’s glower. “Maybe a bit cheesy.”
Bythos shot Merck a smug smirk. “I told you I could be her type.”
“Push it and I’ll castrate you,” Merck warned.
Bythos shrugged. “You passed their test. Means they granted you your full status.”
“A full god?” Merck asked.
“Yes and Poseidon unlocked all your powers. You still have responsibilities, though.”
“What am I the god of? I know there has to be balance between all the gods.”
Bythos shot him a you’re an idiot glare. “What are you best at when it comes to the ocean?”
“Fixing its issues.”
“There you go. God of water healing. Able to heal it and use it to heal others, but your primary duty is as protector to the Pleiades.”
“And be Enforcer? Triple duty?”
“Never said it’d be easy, although being a god might make the Enforcer business easier now that you’re resistant to black magic. I hear the Pleiades descendants are a handful.” He smiled again at Shannon. “Their bloodline must persist. If they all die, their ability to bridge dimensions will crack and fracture reality as we know it.” Bythos clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you, kid. Now I’m out of here. I’ll be back, but fair warning, it’s far more interesting to attack you at random than deal with this type of minutia.” He granted Shannon a slow, sexy smile. “If he cannot satisfy you, I’m available.” He leaned in and touched her cheek. “I love all sea nymph descendants.”
Merck pulled her away from him. “Watch it, asshole. I’ve got a pretty kick-ass sword now. I know how to use it.”
“I don’t see it on you.” Bythos winked at her as he dove into the ocean, shifting to merman form seconds before hitting the water.
“I think he likes you,” Shannon said.
“He’s a total pain in the ass.”
“He’s sweet. You’re a full-blood god? As in Mom’s a goddess and Father’s a god? Is that why your face is fixed? No more scars.” She brushed her hand over his now-smooth cheek.
He touched his face. “Seems I’m not a bastard. I just had to pass some asinine test, no thanks to Danny.” He tossed his chin at Danny, who stood at the entrance to the dock, silent and shocked.
“Now that it doesn’t look like either of us are going to die...” Wickedly, Shannon pressed her body against his, her hand sliding provocatively over the ridge in his pants. “Maybe you can use your new godly powers to grant us a little privacy from Danny?”
“I heard that,” Danny yelled from the entrance edge of the dock. “Yeah, yeah. I’m outta here. Later, Merck.” He waved and stalked out of the yard.
Merck made a sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh. He slammed his mouth against hers. She moaned at the contact of his tongue, kissing deeper and deeper until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. He ducked his head and rested his forehead against hers. “I can’t do that again.”
“Merck?”
“I can’t watch you almost die.”
She twined her arms around his neck. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“It would shatter me.”
“Look at me. You’re not going to die today or tomorrow.” She cupped his face and encouraged him to look into her eyes. “There’s an us. For as long as we both exist there will be an us. You as a god means you might live longer than me. I don’t know how that’ll go.”
She closed the distance and kissed him softly.
He whispered, “I’ve never done an us thing before.”
“Me either. I’ve never really tried to be with one person. We can figure it out. But you and your job… I’ll always worry about you and what you’re going after. I can’t promise I’ll always sit on the sidelines. I think you could teach me a lot and I’d be pretty helpful.”
“I don’t want you near some of the filth I have to go after.”
Shannon smiled. “We can figure it out together. All I know is it won’t be much of a life if I don’t have you in it.”
He searched her eyes for a long moment. His gaze dropped to her lips, and when it rose back to hers, his pupils dilated. His breathing picked up. “I have a condition.”
“What kind of condition?”
“More pie.” His hands tunneled into her hair, pulling just enough to tilt her head back and get full access to her lips and down her neck. He pressed her against a piling. His hands slid up her thighs to dip between them. He nudged aside her soaked panties and stroked where she was pulsating. She gasped.
“I can do pie. Take my dress off,” she begged.
“No. I like it on you out here. No one else sees you naked. Only me.”
“There’s no one here.”
“Bythos might be peeping. Fucker can get an eyeful, but not everything.”
She slipped from beneath him and snagged the cuffs off the dock. With a grin she dangled them from one finger. “I think you’ve been a very bad boy.” She slapped them over his wrists.
“You’re a wicked witch,” he whispered.
“I can be, but only for you.” She kissed him again, but this time there was no rush to it. No desperation. She kissed him like she’d been doing it forever and planned to keep on doing it the same way. “I’m ready to hear those three little words.”
He dropped his cuffed hands around her neck, placing the weight of his arms on her shoulders, and pressed her back against the piling. “You are mine?”
She scowled.
He grinned. “I love you. For however long we’ve got, I love you.”
“You’re going to marry me.”
“Was that a proposal? Because if it was, I think you need to work on your delivery, darlin’. It sucked.” He chuckled.
She placed her hand against his chest. “This belongs to me. It’s always been mine.”
“Ouch.” He rubbed where her hand had been. “What’d you do?” He plucked the T-shirt away from his neck to peek down it. “There’s a mark.”
“The tattoo means this is the real thing. You and me. We Pleiades can place that mark on the guy chosen by the gods to be our soul mate. It’s you. It means you’re stuck with me. Forever.”
“I already know this is the real thing.”
She unbuttoned his pants. “If you even start to think about bed hopping, just remember, I can be a very wicked witch.”