How to Worship a Goddess (2 page)

Her name was Lucy Aster. He'd asked the ticket guys who she was and, after they'd busted his chops for at least five minutes, they'd come up with a name. And an address that had turned out to be bogus. Which had intrigued the hell out of him. Why—

“Hey, Stevenson, let's go.”

With a start, he realized the guys were heading out for warm ups. Shit, he needed to focus. Or he'd find himself checked headfirst into the boards tonight. A few more hits like the one he'd taken the day before and he could kiss his career good-bye. For good.

Chapter 2

Now that he was here, Brand felt pretty frickin' stupid sitting in front of her house, like some damn stray dog that had followed her home.

Or, worse yet, a stalker. Christ, just what he needed—a woman calling the police to say some stupid-ass hockey player followed her home. And just what the hell did he think he was going to say to her if he actually got out of the car and knocked on her door?

Hey, I noticed you never miss a home game and always manage to be in your seat for the pregame warm-up. Wanna have sex?

Yeah, he really was an idiot. A woman like that, she had a husband or, at the very least, a boyfriend. Still, even though she usually came to the games with a man, sometimes the same man, it wasn't usually the same guy two nights in a row. The men rotated, as if she had a wide group of friends and they shared the extra season ticket.

He'd never seen her kiss or hug or hold hands with any of them—which just meant he spent way too much time watching the woman when he was supposed to be concentrating on warm-ups. During the game, he'd learned not to accidentally catch sight of her or he'd wind up checked into the boards.

Tonight…

He sighed. Tonight he'd been distracted from the moment he set foot on the ice. He automatically flexed his shoulder and let himself wince because no one could see him do it. That hit into the boards had rattled him and the team doctor was still debating treatment.

Which was why he sat here, outside the address it'd taken him a month to track down, because the one on her season ticket application wasn't hers. Oh, it was a real address. She just didn't live there.

About a month ago, he'd actually gotten up the nerve to introduce himself. He'd knocked on the door of the house in Wyomissing that was listed as hers. And ended up looking like a jackass when the homeowner recognized him as one of the players. Turned out the guy was a season ticket holder. Just not the one he was looking for.

So he'd had to dig a little deeper into Lucy Aster's life before he'd come up with a real estate deed with her name on it. His mother had sold real estate once upon a time. When he'd made his weekly call home Sunday, he'd asked her how to find an address for someone who might not want to be found. Mom had come through.

Now, staring out the window of his truck, he studied the stone farmhouse that had to be at least two hundred years old and in perfect condition. It'd been built at a time when the second and third floors had housed the humans and the first floor had held the animals.

Today, the ground floor housed a bar. Not that the sign hanging outside actually said
bar
on it. It didn't need to. The figure of the wolf sitting on a stool holding a mug pretty much made that clear.

Though there were no open windows, music filtered out into the cold January air. He'd opened his window so he could hear it. Something from the seventies. Boston, “More Than a Feeling.” Good song.

There were three cars parked in the gravel lot where he now sat several hundred yards from the house. Estimating two people per car and a few locals who might have walked, there might be ten people in there.

He'd only found this place because he'd taken the time to get a longitude and latitude for the property to plug into his car's GPS system. The property literally didn't have an address, though how the hell that oversight had happened, he had no idea.

Farm roads and unmarked lanes crisscrossed Oley Township and meandered all the hell over the place. The map of the area he'd bought hadn't been much good, so he'd needed every bit of help he could get.

Her home sat at the very end of a dirt lane that had started as a two lane road that ran straight through the most picturesque country village he'd ever seen. A village with no name that wasn't listed on his map.

It sat in a small valley, surrounded by old-growth woods, not farmland, like most of the rest of the township. He'd passed through the little town of Oley on his way here. The houses along Main Street looked like they'd been transplanted straight from a German travel brochure. Wood, stone and plaster buildings with shingled roofs and old-fashioned shutters on the windows lined a narrow street, with many of the houses boasting placards with the year of their construction—a seventeen started most of the numbers.

Quaint.

This village's buildings looked German, but not completely. Almost as if they wanted you to think they were built by German immigrants. The edges here were softer, the windows and doors arched. The houses were nearly all plastered, their walls smooth, except for a few made of stone. Those actually looked like something out of a fairy tale. A place hobbits or elves might feel right at home.

He hadn't intended to end up here tonight. He'd only planned on taking a drive, clearing his head. He'd driven for an hour before he'd pulled to the side of the road and plugged in these coordinates.

Yeah, he probably should've thought this through a little more, thought about how he'd look, showing up unannounced on her doorstep. But now… now that he had a legitimate excuse to walk into the bar and talk to her… now he just sat here.

“Christ Almighty,” he muttered. “You're thirty-five years old. Act your fucking age.”

He got out of the car and walked to the door, gravel crunching beneath his feet, his breath visible in the night air.

The building had no windows on the ground floor, so he had no idea what to expect. But he'd practically been raised in his parents' bar. Nothing here should surprise him.

Reaching for the doorknob, he had a moment of what-the-fuck when it felt warm to the touch. Almost hot. Weird. Shaking his head, he turned the knob and pushed against the door which was heavy and huge. Solid wood and beautifully decorated with intricate carvings that looked like random squiggles and lines. He had to give it a good shove to open far enough for him to walk in. It almost felt like someone was leaning against it from the inside. Which couldn't be right because when he crossed the threshold, there was no one within ten feet of him.

As he closed the door behind him, he realized he'd been wrong about the number of people. There had to be at least thirty, spread out around the handful of tables on the floor or at the long bar opposite the door.

And they all stared at him.

Good thing he wasn't shy because the combined weight of those gazes was worse than the home audience at a losing playoff game. Walking up to the bar, he took an empty stool. The bartender, who looked like a teenager with short, spiked dark hair, heavy-duty tats covering his arms, and a serious addiction to his Nautilus machine, came right over.

The kid's sharp gray eyes took in everything about him in seconds. “What can I get you?”

“Draft, whatever's on tap.”

The guy nodded and moved down to the taps to fill his order. “Haven't seen you here before.” He set the mug in front of Brand. “How'd you find us?”

Brand took a swallow, trying to figure out why the guy sounded like he was trespassing. If this was a private club, why had he let Brand order?

“Heard about the place from a friend,” not quite true but good enough for now, “thought I'd check it out.”

The guy nodded and Brand found himself staring into the guy's eyes. He couldn't be sure, because the lighting was so dim, but the bartender's eyes looked silver, not just gray. And they glowed. Whoa.

Blinking, he forced his gaze to drop.

“Is your friend here tonight?” the bartender with the freaky eyes asked. “What's his name? Maybe I know him.”

“Lucy Aster.”

The guy's eyebrows shot up. “Then you're in luck. She'll be on in just a few. I'll be back to see if you need anything else.”

On? What the hell did that mean? Brand settled in to find out.

***

Lucy stood at the door separating the kitchen and office from the bar, her lips parted in surprise.

Her hockey player was out there. Brandon Stevenson was in her bar. Dumbfounded, she watched him drink a beer, taking in everything around him, looking as comfortable as if he were a regular. She flashed cold then hot, her body shaking with conflicting emotions. He'd found her. How the hell had he found her?

She didn't know whether to be flattered or terrified. The full moon was only a few days away and more than three-quarters of her patrons were
versipelli
. He had absolutely no idea of the danger he was in from a room full of skin-shifters this close to the full moon.

Of course, the man had been knocking heads on the ice for the past sixteen years. He could take care of himself. To a point. Lucy let her gaze trip over the rest of the crowd. They had a good house tonight and she saw no one who might cause a problem.

Actually, some of the male
versipelli
eyed Brand warily. He easily stood inches over the tallest of them and probably had at least twenty pounds on the biggest guy out there.

The women, on the other hand… They stared at him like, well, probably just like she was. Like they wanted to throw him on the nearest bed.

No matter who was staring, Brandon Stevenson was a man to watch. And she had been, for the past two seasons. How had he found her? And why?

It couldn't be coincidence. He couldn't have just walked in here off the street. There were no signs, no arrows pointing the way. The village was listed on no map in existence. The only way he could have known to look for her here was if he'd seen the most recent deed to the property, which was more than a hundred years old. Had he really gone to that much trouble? Her breasts tightened and her thighs quivered just thinking about it. “Mother, are you ready? It's time.” Caeles walked up behind her, guitar in hand.

She turned to smile at the young
fauni
she'd adopted after he'd been dropped on her doorstep as an infant.

Now thirty-two, he had the face of a young man just out of his teens. His golden-brown hair curled in ringlets to just above his shoulders, and his golden eyes gleamed in the low light. When he walked among the
eteri
, he had to hide those eyes. They attracted unwanted attention.

Caeles would much rather be known for his music than his looks. The boy had a gift and she'd often wondered if whoever had placed him on her doorstep that night had known exactly what they were doing when they'd given him to her. He'd brought music back to her life.

And she'd never tried to find out who had abandoned him because she hadn't wanted to lose him to them.

Selfish? Yes. She didn't care. He was hers and she protected what was hers.

“I am. Is the playlist okay, sweetheart? I tried to include a few new songs for you.”

The boy's smile lit the entire room, just as it had from the moment she'd held him in her arms. “You know it is.”

“Good.” She grasped his hand and squeezed. “Now, let's go knock 'em dead, kid.”

Pushing through the door, she deliberately ignored Brandon, though she wanted to seek him out. Instead, she pinned her gaze to her stool on the small stage in the west corner of the room and walked toward it with a determination she hoped no one else noticed.

The room went silent as she sat, the heavy weight of anticipation settling over her. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes. And swore she felt his gaze like a physical caress. Curious and hot and… No, not just hot. Blindingly passionate. The man wanted her with a physicality that made her stomach clench in reaction.

His presence energized the room to a degree she hadn't thought possible with an
eteri
. And she sensed no trace of
Fata
or
Enu
, the Etruscan magical races, in him.

Of course, that didn't mean he couldn't be a descendent of the
Sidhe
or any of the other magical races of the world. Egyptian, Sumerian, or…
Berserkir
. Yes, with his dark-blond hair and stormy gray eyes, she wouldn't be surprised to find a little Norse magic in his blood.

The click of Caeles's guitar being plugged into the amp drew her out of her thoughts to the task at hand. They had a set of music to perform, one she hoped her guests liked. What would Brandon think?

For just a second, she let her gaze connect with his and had to suppress the jolt of heat that shot through her veins like quicksilver. Blessed Mother Goddess, she wanted him. Could she let herself have him? Knowing she'd have to give him up tomorrow?

Maybe the question should be, could she let him walk out of here
without
having him? That might require more willpower than she'd possessed in millennia.

***

For the next forty-five minutes Brand sat at the bar, barely remembering to drink his beer or hide his raging hard-on.

Not that anybody was looking at him. All eyes were glued on Lucy Aster. The woman had the voice of a fallen angel, a smoky tenor that blew through a set of jazz and R&B and standards any cabaret singer would be proud of. A little Janice Joplin, a little Billie Holiday, a whole lot of Lucy. Sexy without being in-your-face flagrant. Smooth and rich but undeniably hers.

Brand swore he felt sex waft through the room. Every man wanted her and every woman wanted to be her. Hell, the once or twice he tore his gaze away from her and looked around, the expression on every single face in the crowd was rapturous.

The audience felt every emotion with her, a roller-coaster ride of unrequited love, heartbreak, and finally, redemption. It was almost eerie, how he felt every breath she took, felt the deep sadness that made her voice so husky, without ever making eye contact.

Instead, he watched her every move. And he meant
every
move. The deep, scoop neck of her purple velvet dress bared the tops of her breasts, the flesh quivering with every breath. The high waist emphasized the length of her body and molded the luscious curves of her hips and ass. He wished it bared her legs but he wasn't complaining.