Chapter 3
In Between Two Worlds
The second their very essence combined during the port, P’d been screwed. It was the most erotic thing he’d ever felt. His molecules merged with hers in a way that was too damned dirty and perfect. Inside the storm of their bodies he felt her panic and desire and couldn’t do anything about it while they were soaring into the unknown. He felt her trying to fight it, which only seemed to bind them that much tighter, distracting him even more.
Focus had been the first casualty to carrying her away with him. His power surged, shooting them further out of control, thundering them through the ether. He hoped his subconscious had given it a destination, because rerouting to Tetartos seemed to be impossible now. Not when he felt her all over him like a second skin. He was inside her in a way that was baser, deeper than any physical touch could have been. His brothers had all said teleporting together while in the mating frenzy was a fucking erotic nightmare. They’d never said a damned thing about being unable to control where the hell they were going.
Calling this an erotic nightmare was an understatement of epic proportion.
He wanted more.
If it was possible to come in this state, he was about to.
Refocusing his thoughts to reroute to Tetartos Realm wasn’t changing anything. They’d soared out of his world. It was like being sucked into the center of a storm; all they could do at this point was ride it out.
Sweet fuck.
The second they were finally whole, it was with her body wrapped around him and her tongue in his mouth. He groaned as his fingers gripped her ass, pulling her tighter to his body as he took command of the kiss and fucking devoured her. His wings flexed as those long-assed legs tightened around his waist, grinding her pussy against him as she made sexy mewling noises against his lips. He growled and lifted one hand to tunnel his fingers in the silky strands of her hair.
Her hands were running over his shoulders, his head, his jaw. Everywhere she touched made his muscles twitch as if there was an electrical charge firing every nerve. It was intense. Out of control.
An ounce of self-preservation existed enough that he sent out a mental scan of the area. Every synapse fired, demanding he keep his female safe above all else. His eyes narrowed for a moment, noting the change from night to day before sliding over high stone pillars. He heard tranquil water flowing into a pool, with a brilliant green forest beyond. There were lounges with soft white cushions, but he refused to loosen his hold long enough to set her down.
Birds and animals were silent, but out there. He didn’t sense any people, and that was what he cared most about. Her safety.
The place was ancient, pure. Private. And so obviously not of his world that he knew he was back in Thule.
Mine thundered inside his mind over and over as he devoured her soft lips, riding her over his denim-clad cock. She felt so damned good. Perfect.
One moment she had her hands all over him, and the next she was in the wind, taking herself out of his reach. He growled low, a primal beast denied his mate. It took every ounce of his shredded control to stop from stalking her. His muscles fucking hurt from the tension in holding back. His father’s voice in his head and the loss of her touch were the distraction he needed. It saved him from closing the space separating them. He still tasted her, smelled the sweet seduction of her wet pussy aching for him.
Fuck. He struggled for breath as his eyes refocused.
His family. He needed to be sure they were safe.
What’s happening there? he simultaneously sent his father and Drake. I have the Goddess with me; tell them she’s safe. I didn’t fucking take her on purpose. He mentally cursed himself. He’d left them in order to protect those he’d cared about, but taking her with him was the opposite of protecting his damned family.
It was as if he were a babe with absolutely zero control of his abilities. The power inside him was like a living breathing thing, surging from every damned cell so that it completely flooded the space around them. Panic nearly drowned him before his mind computed it wasn’t hurting her. Her breathing was uneven, her eyes lust hazed, and there was a tiny crease between her eyes, but she seemed otherwise fine. It was all fuzzy as he fought the lust and attempted to focus on anything but how hard his dick was fighting the bounds of his fly.
He sucked in air as he watched her pant while facing one another over the span of the sunlit temple. Her back was pressed against a large carved rock pillar. They stood on more stone with steps leading to some pools on one side. The entire platform was built on a high cliff surrounded by a forest of vivid green shot with the occasional brilliant red flower.
Is everything okay? he demanded, further stressed when neither his cousin nor father answered right away.
His female was taking in their surroundings while angrily glaring at him. “What have you done?” she demanded.
He breathed deeply, needing to make sure his father and the others were okay before he attempted to answer her question.
His ears were ringing by the time his father’s voice came through. We’re still locked in place by these ridiculous creatures, Hades spat out. The Thulian Gods were demanding answers to what you’ve done with her, but the irritating animals haven’t so much as twitched… Where are you?
He felt a hint of relief that the cats hadn’t freaked out; that fact should calm the Gods of Thule. He hoped. It made sense to him that the powerful beasts would have been agitated unless they knew the Goddess was safe with him. He shook his head, thinking how ridiculous that sounded in his head. As if the cats were all powerful. Maybe they were. Maybe his life had turned into Planet of the Lynx.
He glanced around again, taking a better look at where they were. Brightly colored blue and red birds perched as still as statues in the ivy-covered trees beyond the pavilion. When he glanced around the pillar at his female’s back, he caught the view of an ethereal-looking waterfall. He narrowed his eyes at the familiarity of it. The beauty of glowing blue and silver orbs that made up the falls paled against the sight of his angry, lust-filled mate. He watched her closely and felt her trying to build power.
“Why did you take me?” she snapped and narrowed her eyes at him. His female was crouched as if they were about to battle and, fuck if her warrior stance didn’t make his cock throb harder against his zipper. The damned thing was probably imprinted with the metal teeth by now.
“I have no intention of harming you,” he assured her in the ancient language as calmly as possible though he could barely talk without growling. He felt like a damned animal. He wanted to fuck her until she was screaming his name. And nowhere in that scenario would there be any pain. Only soul-rending pleasure.
Son of a bitch, this was fucked. He wasn’t sure if he should take her back to the lake. He couldn’t be there though, not this out of control. His power had washed into the forest with the force and strength of a tsunami, and he wasn’t sure he could contain it all.
Everything in him stilled when the implication of it finally sank beneath the lust.
His power was free and she wasn’t affected. He’d been right to leave the lake if his power didn’t work on Thulians. Even his father would have been rendered completely enthralled and at P’s mercy with a fraction of the power he was unleashing now.
He took in every inch of her, paying special attention to her heavy breathing and swollen lips like a damned fiend.
Was she immune because she was his mate? That made the most sense, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to test that theory. There was no way he was taking her back to her brothers if he couldn’t get his power back under control. He tried to force it back and heard the soft gasp of his mate.
Her eyes flashed with fire that lit him up as she choked out a demand, “What are you doing?”
His cock ached at the glazed look in his female’s eyes. She moved as if by compulsion. A few steps until she locked in place, balling her fists, glaring at him.
He tried again and they both groaned.
For fuck’s sake. His power was somehow linked to the raging arousal. For both of them. Each surge matched the throbbing of his damned cock. He ran a shaking hand over his head as he tried not to be embarrassed by the fact that they were both, in fact, ruled by his dick at the moment.
“What was that?” she breathed, and fury mixed with the arousal burning in his direction. “Have you put a spell on me?”
He eyed his female. The draw was a damned drug, and he could see her fighting it. Her tanned skin was flushed a gorgeous pink and her lips were swollen from his kisses. He smelled her juices and knew she was making more for him. He rubbed his lips and held back a damned growl at how much he wanted to taste it. Her eyes trailed his fingers and he was only seconds from losing his mind. He took a deep breath before telling his father what he was sure the God could already sense. What he sensed. We’re in Thule, and I can’t leave until I get my power back under control. It’s linked to her, and the mating frenzy is fucking with it. Do not start a war while I’m gone. I need time to figure out how to fix this. But tell me if anything changes there.
This was a damned nightmare.
*****
Gefn felt completely out of control of her body, spelled to the point of animalistic need by the heathen in front of her. The dizzying effects of how he’d taken her away had worn off, but intense power seemed to fill her entire body. All that power and the arousal were affecting her mind. She was wild and needy, out of control, and somehow it was linked to the male in front of her. He’d stayed on his side of the space, but it was taking all her will not to go to him. They were alone. But where had he taken her? It felt familiar, but not. She’d tried to build power for a portal and cursed when it fizzled out. How could she feel so powerful and not be able to wield the one ability she needed most?
One minute she’d been in his world, feeling the crushing impact of betrayal. Spa and Velspar hadn’t only been her protectors, they’d been her friends… her constant companions for thousands of years. She had a bond with them, had battled at their sides, so to be blindsided by the immense power she hadn’t known they held was like a blade to the chest.
Her cats had effectively immobilized not only the powerful beings in the new world, but also her and her brothers. If they’d always had this hidden ability, why hadn’t they used it to prevent her evil brother Tyr from slaughtering her priestesses?
She still mourned them. They were bonded to her at birth just like the cats. And she hadn’t saved them, but knowing that Spa and Velspar could have infuriated her. She’d been trying to get some kind of answers from the cats before she’d been whisked away by the intoxicating male.
She was still angry with the beasts, and feeling their pleasure that she’d been abducted only angered her more. Was she some kind of pawn in a greater plan for Thule? When she felt her beasts trying to soothe her again, she pushed them away. She didn’t need soothing. She needed answers, and she needed to get back to that lake.
“Return me to my brothers,” she demanded, even though a traitorous part of her rebelled at the thought of leaving this soothing place, of ending whatever this was. She wanted to be in his arms far too much, but if she didn’t get back to Hroarr, there was no telling what he would do to find her.
“I can’t. Not with my power so out of control.” His words were said through clenched teeth.
She scowled at him. “You were able to get us here. You should be able to return me the same way.” She tried for another portal and again the power fizzled away. “You need to take me back.” Hroarr would not wait long.
“I am not lying to you,” he ground out, his chest rising and falling as harshly as hers. Lust? He continued more steadily, “Do you feel the power coming from me?”
“Yes,” she rasped out as she tried not to moan at the comforting warm blanket of power he spoke of.
“It doesn’t hurt you?” he growled.
She flushed, because it did the opposite of hurting her. “No.”
He growled low. “Fuck. It feels good to you, doesn’t it?”
She sucked in air, assuming the first word was a curse by the way he spoke it. “Yes.” She wasn’t about to admit how good it felt running along her skin.
He moved closer, and she was mesmerized by the animal grace of his movements, the way his muscled chest flexed with each step. The way his black wings fluttered in the building wind. He was more than beautiful, with the images on his arms and his piercing blue eyes drawing her in. His next words dried her mouth. “It makes you wet.”
She licked her lips and watched his eyes focus there. She swore a shudder ran over his body as his eyes nearly burned with heat. She refused to answer him, but his voice lowered. “I can smell how good it makes you feel, and I can’t wait to make it even better. Now, tell me your name.”
She gasped a little as her entire body flushed and she grew impossibly wetter at his words. She spoke without thought. “Gefn.”
“Gefn, I’m Pothos.” He said her name as if it were a vow, just as he’d said it at the lake. As if the word were for her only. Air stuttered from her lungs.
He broke some of the spell after long moments. “Gefn, at this level my power could hurt everyone at the lake.”
She narrowed her eyes. He seemed sincere, but it seemed too convenient an excuse. “If this is true, why would it not do the same to me?”
“Because it knows you’re mine, thea mou.”
“What do those words, thea mou, mean?” she demanded while narrowing her eyes at the male.
“It means my Goddess.”
Her lips parted at the way he said the words, as an endearment instead of an acknowledgement of her power. And it was attached to blatant possessiveness from a male she didn’t know. She heard purring and firmed her lips at her absent beasts.
“I am a Goddess. That means I belong to no male.”
“In my world there is such a thing as fated mates, Gefn.”
She just stared at him. “I am not an animal to mate.”
His lips twitched before he continued, “No. We are not animals, but you and I are linked. We’re bound to each other.”
Her jaw dropped a fraction as she heard more infuriating purring. “Bound how?” Because the cats seemed to believe it and so did this male. She could see the truth in his eyes. Could feel it in his words and she should have paled; instead she felt her cheeks flush with even more desire.
“Our souls are trying to connect. What we’re feeling now is what we call a mating frenzy.”
“Frenzy?” Her ears were ringing as thunder crashed around them.
“This lust will get worse and worse until it becomes painful. We’ll want each other constantly, possibly more than we desire each other now, and our powers will start to blend together.”
She felt far away, like the words were said through a wind tunnel. Truth. This was the truth. She knew it.
Her nipples rasped the harsh confines of her vest as she took a deep breath, thinking more about the emphasis he’d used on my. The lust was truly affecting her mind. Her powers were slipping free just as wildly. Winds had kicked up and clouds were rolling in rapidly above them. Maybe he wasn’t lying about struggling for control of his power, because she was as well.
He was still several steps from her, but she swore his scent was everywhere. It was on her skin, sliding through her lungs like an intoxicating fog. Her entire existence seemed to have been turned on end by… lust. By this male. It seemed that she was so affected by him that she had started making excuses to like him, to believe him. Her beasts had championed the male the moment Velspar had perched in front of him, so she knew it had to be true, but it seemed impossible. Immortals and Gods of their worlds had never joined or married, yet this seemed like an extreme version of just that.
An arranged one. With her beasts as the cosmic matchmakers.
Logic demanded she question it all, fight the male who’d stolen her from her brothers or at least attempt to escape on her own, but Spa and Velspar… This match was for the good of Thule. They would not have championed it otherwise. Reason infused her with doubt. He lived in the same world that her reckless brother Dagur had stolen a God from. And his world was holding her sister, if the cats were to be believed. Didn’t that mean neither should trust the other? Wouldn’t he see her as an enemy? Did he even know they held his God Apollo? Nothing had been said about it at the lake. She fought the lust, trying to figure out what to believe.
She gritted her teeth while taking in her foreign surroundings. “Where is this? And what do you call the power you used to take us here?”
He frowned at her. “This is Thule, Gefn. And we call that power teleporting or porting.” The translations felt odd, but the more he spoke, the more it seemed she understood his odd speech.
She shook her head as she looked around. It was like Thule. “No, this is not Thule.”
Her eyes slipped to the stone altar in the middle of the space. Frowning and distracted, she moved closer. Her eyes widened as she took in the runes etched in the stone. Spinning, she took in the soft-looking white lounges and fluffy white pillows. The open view was of a brilliantly colorful forest of greens, reds, pinks and yellow. Behind where she’d been standing was…
Her mouth dropped at the sight of the waterfall.
Spirits of the dead.
She rasped, “You brought me to Fólkvangr?”
*****
Pothos watched his female closely, curious as to how a Goddess of Thule could be unfamiliar with this Realm of her world. He’d known at once that it was like Heaven Realm on Earth. There was no mistaking the brilliant orbs or the tranquil feel. This was where the souls of Thule’s dead flowed.
Her beautiful emerald eyes had shot wide as she stared off to the falls.
He was attempting to give her time. She had no idea what they were going through, and no matter the agony to his cock, he would allow her questions for as long as they both could take it. He wasn’t sure how long that would be, because his fingers itched to touch her.
She shook her head and stared at him. “Your father was at the lake,” she confirmed, watching his eyes closely. “Who is your mother, Pothos?”
She’d figured out the secret of his birth. He guessed this would be the test of whether the Gods of Thule would really want him dead because of it. “Her name was Eir.”
Air rushed from her as she faltered away from the stone altar, seeming to speak more to herself than to him. “Your mother was a priestess of Thule?”
“You knew her?” he asked, more than curious about the mother he didn’t remember.
“She was my brother’s priestess. I did not know her well. Agnarr and I were not close.” She knew of his mother. That was an odd feeling.
He nodded, studying her closely as he fought his dick’s reaction to her parted lips.
She closed her eyes.
“What are you thinking?” He wanted to know because she looked pained.
“I am thinking of all the reasons your mother would have felt the need to hide your existence.”
“She told my father to keep me hidden from Thule. That the Gods of your world would want me dead.”
Her eyes flashed with anger before she blew out a breath. “At the time she was right. Hroarr was gone a lot, and our evil siblings were killing priestesses and Gods alike for decades. It took a long time to finally build a cage for them.” Her eyes flashed with regret. “I am very sorry, but your mother was one of those who died.”
“I know.” He’d gotten that much from his father.
The caring in her eyes gutted him.
She shook her head. “There was so much death then. Your mother likely saved you, Pothos.”
He changed the subject because he suddenly felt uncomfortable. “You’ve never been here?”
“No.” He could tell she was debating telling him more.
“Did your mother share this place with you?”
He shook his head. “If she did, I don’t remember. Why haven’t you been here?”
She studied him with lust in her eyes. “We cannot open a portal here. Only priestesses have access to this place.”
“They couldn’t take you here?”
She didn’t seem to want to say more. Her lips had firmed, and he suddenly understood the implications of what she wasn’t saying. She couldn’t get out without him. Or his power. He swore he was feeling her emotions through their bond. He felt sorrow and anger when talking of his mother, and there was a pang of anxiety that he knew meant she was worrying he’d trap her in this Realm. It made him want to hold her, reassure her.
Fuck her.
He gritted his teeth as need slowly ate at him. Minutes seemed to pass like hours.
He sent a message to Drake and his father. Is everything okay?
It’s the same. Drake’s tone was not amused.
P sighed. This information might help. We are in Fólkvangr; it’s Thule’s version of Heaven. Gefn has never been here because their Gods can’t portal to or from this place. She said only priestesses can travel here, and they can’t take passengers.
He heard his father scoff. Good, leave her there.
Father, she is my mate, he growled. And so far she knows who and what I am and doesn’t want to kill me.
So she says. His father was fucking stomping on his last nerve.
P snapped. Fucking stop. I’m still on guard, but she says that Gods in Thule had been killing priestesses and Deities in Thule until they were imprisoned.
Anything about Apollo? Drake asked.
Not yet. I haven’t asked, he ground out. He was barely hanging on with all the need battering them both. I have to go.
When he saw her eyes flash with pain, he nearly lost his mind. “You’re hurting?” he growled.