Banished (9 page)

“I think,” Cian
said, helping her take his sweatpants off, “I can’t make love to you, Chloe. It’s
been too long for me to be gentle.”

She chuckled,
the sound husky to her own ears. “I’m quite fine with that.”

Cian thrust into
her and she moaned. Her fingers scored down his back as the friction inside,
his size and length was everything she remembered.

His hands clasped
her arse and he pulled her hard against him, deepening their contact. Her body
begged for release and with every stroke, touch and thrust, Cian brought her
closer to what she craved.

She kissed him
and his frantic lovemaking slowed to an unhurried torment. “What are you doing
to me?” she gasped, as he teased her, beckoned and loved her.

His lips took
hers and the passion and need she felt in his embrace made her stomach clutch. “I
love you,” Cian said, simply.

Chloe pushed against
his chest and rolled Cian onto his back. She straddled his hips and impaled
herself on his large, satisfying shaft.

Cian moaned as
she played with his chest, his muscles bunching with every move between them.
The smell of the ocean mixed with the scent of sex intoxicated her and she
loved him the only way she knew how. Hoped beyond reason that she was enough woman
for this larger than life man.

Delicious
pressure built to an inferno inside. Cian clasped her hips and pulled her hard
against him. It was too much sensation. Too much yet not enough. Never enough.

Chloe moaned
never having felt this passion, heat and love before. She wanted to shatter
around him, break into a million pieces of pleasure just to do it again.

Cian sat up and
the calluses on his hands skimmed along her back. He kissed her neck before
biting just beneath her ear and she came in a blinding rush. Her release went
on forever. Delicious sensations spiraled about her body—a continuous line of
pleasure she never wanted to end.

Cian rolled her
onto her back and thrust hard once, twice before his own release followed. He
gasped and watched her, his dark eyes burning with need she fully understood
only added to her pleasure. She pushed back the locks of hair falling over his
brow and sighed.

She had missed
making love to him.

She had missed
him.

“I love you too,” she whispered.

Chloe woke the
next morning to the smell of coffee. She rolled over and noted Cian wasn’t
under the blankets with her. She touched the pillow where his head had lain and
smiled.

They had talked
into the early hours of the morning, and with each hour that ticked by a little
bit more of her past memory came back. Chloe doubted there was anything left to
know of her previous life as a goddess.

She heard Cian
in the kitchen and jumped out of bed. Walking into the bathroom, she stared at
herself in the mirror. She couldn’t recognize the woman who stared back at her.
With plain clothing and hair askew she hardly represented the god she was. Hundreds
of years, a multitude of lives and here she was once more. In a life that she
was never born to live.

Zeus had a lot
to answer for.

Chloe turned on
the shower and let the hot water run over her aching muscles. An ache she would
welcome again if it meant she was able to sleep with her highlander. Memories
of their night fogged her mind and an pain of a completely different nature
thumped between her legs.

“Do you want me
to wash your back, lass?”

Chloe smiled. “I’d
love you to.” She turned around and watched Cian undress and join her. Water
ran down his muscled chest and her body quivered with need. “You look delicious
wet, Cian.”

“Whereas you
just look delicious,” he replied before taking her up against the shower wall.
Hard.

Chapter Eight

“It’s been a
long time, my dear.”

Chloe gasped and
turned at the voice that had a multitude of layers of tone. Her father stood before
her in her lounge, dressed in regal silk robes. His eyes as old as time itself.

“Zeus,” Cian
said, loathing all but dripping from his tone.

“Do not address
me, druid.” Zeus turned back to her and smiled. “My dear, Chloe. You remember
me. It seems my powers have worn thin over the many years or,” he shrugged, “the
powers within you have grown restless and refuse to lay dormant any longer.”

Chloe opened her
mouth to reply but no words formed on her lips as the memory of all the things
she could do swamped her mind. Remembered all the tricks her father had taught the
children of the immortal court when she was a child.

She imagined Cian’s
Castle and within a moment was standing in the great hall. A startled maid screamed
and dropped the pile of laundry she was carrying. A grin quirked Chloe's lips. Now
this was more like it.

She stood and
waited and was soon rewarded with Zeus’s presence. She walked around the god of
gods and marveled at his grandeur and power. Pity she would have to fight him.
No longer would she allow him to leave her in this mortal existence. For hundreds
of years he’d played his game with her, made her a puppet while he held all the
strings. But not anymore.

“I will not
chase you for long, Chloe. Do not take me for someone to play with, for it will
be yet another mistake of yours I shall have to remedy.”

Chloe scoffed
then laughed. “You are the keeper of Heaven and yet you have the blackest heart
which belongs in Hades. Damn you for doing what you did to me.”

Zeus shrugged. “You
would not listen and you put us all in danger. Humans have long lived oblivious
to our existence. They no longer believe in the tales of old. We are a page in
history to them and it is where I prefer our kind to stay.”

“With all due
respect, old man. My relationship with Cian never put any god in danger. He
would no sooner divulge our existence than he would his own. And yet by your
decree you made him immortal.”

“Does that not
bring forth questions about a man who never ages nor dies? You put him at risk
of discovery in his own village and home. You did to another what you were
scared of happening to you. You are cruel and blind.” She walked out through the
grand doors of the castle and started to walk toward the village. Memories of
her past flickered behind her eyes. Of her love for all things otherworldly.
Her adventures in the past and the distant futures. Her love for Cian foremost
in her mind.

“Halt.”

Chloe turned and
shimmered into the clothes of a god. Power thrummed through her with every beat
of her heart. With the thought of home she pushed off from the ground and
within a moment landed in Olympus. She gazed about the hallowed halls and
recognized everyone present. Artemis smiled then laughed when seeing Hera, Chloe’s
stepmother’s enraged visage. The other god’s startled eyes gave way to fear
when Zeus followed close on her heels.

“I commanded you
to stop.” He walked up to her, his height and build dwarfing her in comparison.

“There was a
time that I followed your every command. But I do believe when it comes to who
I love, you have no say. That I long to live and be with a druid should not
concern you. And nor will I allow you to any further create chaos in my life.”

The pillars shook
and thunder rumbled. “You will, Chloe. You have no choice.”

“I feel sorry
for you,” she said looking out over Mt Olympus. “The humans have so much more
than us and I have learned a lot from living amongst them.”

Zeus laughed. “Oh,
do enlighten me.”

Chloe turned and
met his gaze. “They have something to live for. Life. To make every day count.
What do you live for? Nothing. You have no purpose. Every day you sit on your
golden throne with your thunderbolt to do what? Humans with their fickle blood
make the most of what time they have. They love with passion. Live with fierce
longing, while you, a god, idle away on top of the world and do, nothing.” A
muscle ticked at Zeus’s temple and Chloe smiled.

“My power on you
may have worn off, my dearest child, but it is easily rectified.”

“There are worse
things in life than being mortal. You cannot hurt me now.” Chloe walked over to
Zeus and gazed at the man she once worshiped. “Do your worst.”

“Perhaps it is
not you that I can do my worst to.” Zeus laughed and his court looking on with
interest laughed as well. Chloe glanced over at them all and looked at them
with disgust. How pathetic they were to follow and have no independent thought
for themselves. Each and every one of them scampering after Zeus to ensure they
never befell his wrath.

Well not her.
Zeus may be the father of all gods but he was also just her father. He could no
longer hurt her anymore than he already had. “Explain,” she said.

“When I cursed
you to live your mortal life I also cursed your beloved druid. I made him
immortal which is not something your Scotsman wished.” Zeus laughed and the
sound echoed throughout the hall.

“I know this, so
what is your point?”

Zeus’s smile
sent a chill down her spine. “I will simply revoke my curse and make your
love
a mortal once again.”

Chloe stepped
back as a multitude of thoughts crashed down on her. If Cian was made mortal it
would make him over eighteen hundred years old. He would age within a moment
from a young man in his prime to nothing but dust. Her stomach clenched. She
couldn’t allow it. Just the thought of losing Cian after finding him again was
an unbearable burden to even visualize. “I will not let you kill him,” she
said, raising her chin. “You’ve have had your fun, Zeus. Why can you not let us
be?”

“Humans are to
be played and toyed with. Especially human’s who dare to love a god. I am not
forgiving.”

“I beg you. Do
not do this to Cian.”

He smiled. “I
feel we have had this conversation before. Do not be so naive, child. If you
would only stop thinking with a human’s immature mind you would understand. Do
you think your druid does not know what I could do to him? That I could take
back the immortal curse whenever I choose.”

“I’ll kill you
before I let you touch him again.” Never had Chloe felt such rage. It coursed
through her body, igniting her temper to flame. No need to steal fire from Zeus’s
lightning-like
Prometheus, they way she felt right at this moment she
could produce it all on her own.

“You are amusing, child, but I’m
not destined to die at your hand. And do not forget who I am. I command you to
return here to Mt Olympus. You will marry a god of my choosing and forget the
mortal plane.”

Zeus turned his back on her and
returned to his throne. Chloe glared at his billowing robes and wished he’d
trip over or better yet, fall off his mountain and die. “And what if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll return you here anyway
and your druid will die. There is no choice.”

Chapter Nine

Chloe thought of
Cian and within a moment she landed at the base of his bed. He sat up and threw
the bedcovers to the side. Chloe’s mouth fell open at the sight of his
nakedness storming toward her. A pain thumped hard between her thighs and she
bit her lip to stop moaning over his masculine charm. She could not allow him
to die. She would never allow Zeus to take him from her again.

He grabbed her
arms and gave her a little shake. “Where have you been? I thought I’d never see
you again.”

“What do you
mean?” she said frowning. “I was only gone a few minutes.”

“No you weren’t.
You were gone three weeks. You know time between the realms do not coincide.
Your realm moves at lightning speed compared to earth.”

Chloe shrugged
out of his clasp and studied him. She couldn’t help doing so, for so long her
powers had been denied, and so too it would seem her sex drive. And yet being
the Chloe of old once more had also returned her need for men. Well, one man in
particular.

She ran her
finger over Cian’s heaving chest and smiled. A light dusting of hair covered
the corded muscles running down his abdomen and she kissed him, savored the taste
of Cian forever on her tongue.

He sighed and
pulled her against his chest. “What did Zeus decree?”

Chloe read the
worry in his eyes and tone. “I’m to return to Mt Olympus and to marry a god of
his choosing.” Chloe sat on the edge of his bed and ignored the multitude of
curses coming from her highlander. After all, he had a right to be angry. She
was angry.

“I will not obey
him,” she stated.

Cian turned and
she watched him. He stood still and she knew he was thinking. Lost in thought
as to what their next move would be. “Was that all he asked?”

Chloe shook her
head. “No. There’s more.” She paused as the image of Cian ageing before her
tormented her mind. She would not allow it. “You are to return to your mortal
life. You will no longer be immortal.”

She waited for Cian
to comprehend what her words would mean for him. His eyes narrowed before he
came to sit beside her. Chloe sniffed back the sob that wanted to burst free. A
goddess did not cry and yet Chloe did. She had become quite fond of crying in
the mortal world. It may never help the situation but it did allow a form of
release once unknown to her.