How to Worship a Goddess (9 page)

Brand lowered his fists and felt Lucy's breast brush against one of them.

Yeah, really not helping keep the dick in line.

Tessa's mouth twitched again. “Maybe you want to, ah, put some clothes on, and we'll meet you downstairs. I really need to talk to you.”

Lucy stiffened, her expression screwing into a frown. “What's wrong?”

“I think you're going to want to do this downstairs. I'm Tessa, by the way.” She smiled at Brand again before putting her hand on Hard-Ass's shoulder and squeezing. “And this is Cal. We'll wait downstairs. For however long it takes.”

Brand caught the blonde's raised eyebrows and bright grin aimed at Lucy before she turned and dragged Cal out of the room.

Lucy's frown worried him as she reached for a silky blue robe lying on a chair in the corner, then tossed his jeans and T-shirt on the bed.

“You okay?” he asked as he pulled on his clothes.

She stood in the doorway, watching him with a look he couldn't decipher.

“Yes, I'm fine.” She gave him a smile before she turned and walked through the doors, probably headed for the stairs. “We'll be in the living room when you're dressed.”

Throwing on his clothes, he dragged his hands through his hair then flat-out ran for the stairs.

Lucy was worried. What the hell would a goddess have to be worried about? Jesus, did he really believe she was a goddess? He stopped at the top of the stairs, weight settling on his chest.

All the doubts and questions he'd forced himself not to think about last night barreled through his brain now like a runaway train.

Common sense told him there was no such thing as gods or goddesses. He should be running for the nearest exit, not running to her. Not worried that she'd take his memories for good this time.

So
how
the
hell
do
you
explain
that?

He couldn't. He didn't have one Goddamn rational explanation for his jumbled memories of the night they'd spent together before last night. Drugs? He'd never heard of a drug that would do that except in TV shows. Electroshock therapy? Hypnosis? What?

Maybe
she's just telling you the truth?

Shit.

At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if she told him the sky was falling and that there was a goddess to fix that.

The oceans overflowing? Surely Poseidon—wait, Poseidon was Greek, right? Was there an Etruscan Poseidon? Oh, hell, were there Greek and Roman gods and goddesses?

He forced himself to take a deep breath, bending over until he felt the need to hyperventilate pass.

He'd have to go to college to study ancient mythology just to date this woman. Goddess. Lucy. To him, couldn't she just be Lucy? Because if he continued to think about the rest of it, he might not think about anything else. And that was one fucking awful migraine just waiting to happen.

After a deep breath, he took the stairs to the second floor and followed the sound of voices to that amazing living room.

Tessa sat on a chaise, Hard-Ass standing behind her, one hand stroking through her golden hair.

In here, with the lights shining, he saw how beautiful Tessa was. Her blonde hair was the exact color of the sun and her blue eyes recalled clear fall skies.

“Are you a goddess too?” Tessa's smile broke out again. Shit, he'd said that aloud.

“You're just too darn cute,” Tessa said. “And yes, Thesan, Etruscan Goddess of the Sun, at your service. Well, not really, but you get the meaning. But you can call me Tessa. And this is Caligo, but you can call him Cal.”

Caligo, huh? Sounded foreign, though he had no discernible accent.

“Brandon, why don't you have a seat?”

His gaze shifted to Lucy, sitting on the chaise opposite Tessa. She stared at him, an inscrutable expression on her face. So fucking beautiful.

She held out her hand and he moved to take it before he realized he'd done so. When she tugged on his hand, he let her pull him down onto the seat beside her.

Lucy's gaze tangled with his for several seconds. She was searching for something… acceptance, fear, confusion. Whatever it was, she finally took a deep breath and turned back to Tessa.

“Alright, Tess. Spill it. What's going on? Where have you been?”

After a quick glance up at Cal, who nodded, his hand squeezing her shoulder, she started. “Lying low. We know Charun is attempting to break free of Aitás by consuming deities. Namely, those of us who no longer serve much of our original purpose. After our meeting at Salvatorus's a few months ago, he nearly caught me. I was this close,” she held her hand up, thumb and forefinger pinched together, “to being taken to Aitás by a
tukhulkha
demon.”

“Blessed Goddess, Tessa, why am I just hearing about this now?” Shock rasped through Lucy's voice. “What happened? Why didn't you come to me? How did you get away?”

“Well, I had some help getting away.” Tessa sent Hard-Ass an adoring smile that actually made the guy's mouth quirk. “Cal and his father killed the demon before it got me into Aitás, but there were… complications and I spent some time, um, recuperating before I could get back to Cal.”

“Recuperating from what? Tessa, were you injured?”

“A little, yes, but…” She turned to Hard-Ass, who pulled her back against his thighs. Tessa didn't seem to be able to complete what she was going to say.

“We've been keeping off the radar,” Hard-Ass picked up the story, “making sure Tessa isn't targeted again. So far, she hasn't been.”

“So we're here to warn you. When I was,” Tessa slid a quick glance at Brand, “being healed…”

“Tessa, just say whatever you want to say.” Lucy sighed. “Brandon knows what I am, what we are.”

“Yeah, but does he know what that means?” Cal shook his head. “
Eteri
don't handle this stuff well, Lady. You know that.”

“Brandon's handling himself just fine.” Lucy's voice had a note of haughty control Brand had never heard from her before. He liked it. Especially since it made Hard-Ass nod and shut up.

“I bet that's not all he's been handling well.” Tessa wiggled her eyebrows at him and Brand felt his lips curve in an answering smile. “How did you and Lucy meet, anyway?”

“I've been watching her all season so I finally decided to track her down.” He didn't mention the fact that he'd done it twice.

“Season?” Tessa shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“I play for the Reading Railers. So I asked the ticket office for her address.”

Tessa's eyes rounded in shock. “You gave out your real address for season tickets to a hockey team?
Anyone
could track you down. Oh, Lucy—”

“I'm not that stupid, Sister.” Lucy sighed. “Brandon tracked me down through the County Recorder of Deeds. Apparently he's resourceful.”

“Yeah, well, he's gonna need to be if one of those demons comes after you, Lady.” Hard-Ass scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Look, we're not positive, but Tessa thinks she might have overheard something while she was… recuperating that makes her think Charun might be coming after you next.”

Tessa nodded. “I would have come sooner but I only had this memory tonight. We came as soon as I woke. You haven't been having any weird dreams lately, or thought about killing yourself? No visits from any
tukhulkha
demons?”

Brand blinked, his mouth dropping open before he could stop it.

Demon? Had she actually used the word demon? He needed a fucking glossary to keep up.

Lucy shook her head. “No. No dreams, no demons.”

“Well, maybe you better be on the lookout, Lady.” Cal gave him a critical look. “And maybe you want to get yourself some guards. Maybe have a few of your wo—uh, a few friends stay with you. I could arrange for my brother to stay with you for a while. He's not a Sentinel but he's damn handy with a sword.”

“You're kidding? A sword?” Brand snorted as the image of Hard-Ass in a kilt swinging a sword around popped into his head. “What the fuck—”

“You have to separate a
tukhulkha
demon's head from its body to kill it.” Hard-Ass looked straight into his eyes. “You either rip it off or you slice it off.”

Okay. This conversation had just stepped over into the land of Bigfoot and ancient aliens, both of which Brand loved to watch on cheesy TV shows but neither of which he believed to be real.

And yet the woman he'd spent the night having sex with thought she was a goddess.

“So what does that make you? Captain Jack Harkness?”

Did he actually see amusement glint in Hard-Ass's gaze at Brand's reference to
Torchwood
?

“Oh!” Tess clapped her hands, just once. “I love that TV show. That guy is just too cute. But no, Cal is Cimmerian.”

Cimmerian. Where the hell had he heard that name before…

Oh, no way. No
fucking
way. “Wait. Are you seriously telling me he's Conan the fucking Barbarian?”

Tessa laughed in a sunny burst of sound, while Lucy's husky chuckle played over his skin like smoke.

Hard-Ass rolled his eyes. “Fuck you, jackwad. Who the hell is this guy, anyway?”

Brand stood, noting that he had at least two or three inches and probably twenty pounds of muscle on the other guy. “Brand Stevenson.”

Cal shrugged. “Okay, so who the hell cares?”

“Well, I think Lucy cares.” Tessa laid her hand on the guy's arm and squeezed. “No harming the pretty
eteri
, Cal. You're a hockey player, right, Brand?”

“Yeah.”

“Ooh, I love athletes.” Tessa smiled and raised her eyebrows at Lucy, which made Brand smile at her. And made Hard-Ass the Barbarian scowl that much harder at him.

“Fuck, at least you're not a pansy-ass baseball player.” Hard-Ass turned and shook his head at Lucy. “Seriously, my lady, you can't keep him. You gotta throw him back. He's in no way prepared for what's coming. I was barely able to protect Tessa and, yeah,” he glared at Brand, “I'm Conan the fucking Barbarian.”

“Then I guess it's a good thing I don't need protection.” Lucy shook her head. “I don't believe Charun would be so stupid as to attack me. I retain too much power for him or one of his demons to get the jump on me.”

“I wouldn't be too sure about that.” Tessa gnawed at her bottom lip. “I know over the years I… I lost most of my abilities and that made me vulnerable to attack. But just because you have some of your powers doesn't mean you shouldn't be worried. He's sending his demons to do his dirty work, and they're powerful, possibly more powerful than you. They've not been fading away on his plane for more than two millennia. They've been gaining strength in Aitás.”

As the room fell silent, Brand's head swam with an overload of information. Were the pretty blonde goddess and Hard-Ass the Fucking Barbarian really talking about demons? Probably not demons in the Christian sense of the word, which was all Brand—whose parents had never attended church in his lifetime—knew about.

Jesus, what other powers did Lucy possess? And where the
hell
was Cimmeria? He thought Robert E. Howard had made up those stories about Conan. He'd devoured those books as a kid.

What did that make Hard-Ass? Was he human? Or something else? He looked human. Hell, Lucy and Tessa looked human, too, but they claimed to be goddesses.

Questions. Too many damn questions.

And that crack about him not being able to protect Lucy—and Lucy's obvious belief that he couldn't—had hit a little too close to his manhood. He took a fucking beating three nights a week on the ice. His body was rock solid with muscle and able to withstand more physical pain than most of his fellow players.

But if they were talking about actual demons with superpowers… Well, hell, could they be right? Maybe he wouldn't be able to protect Lucy from whatever this demon threat was.

And that would suck. Big time.

Christ, he was getting a headache. Did he even want to try to figure out what the hell they were talking about?

“Brandon, are you okay?”

He turned his head to find Lucy staring at him, concern evident in the tightness of her expression. But he saw something else in her eyes. Pity?

Fuck that. And fuck thinking he didn't want to ask questions. Lucy hadn't sent him away to deal with this herself. She'd invited him to listen in.

“I'm fine. Just a little lost.” He ignored Hard-Ass's snort, though it made his hands curl into fists. “Who's Charun?”

“God of Aitás, our Underworld,” Lucy answered, her expression loosening a little. “FoGEs are what we,” she nodded toward Tessa, “call ourselves. The Forgotten Goddesses of Etruria.”

Forgotten goddesses. That's not something that came up in conversation every day, now was it? “How many are there?”

“Well, there were twenty-four at one time, in addition to several minor deities,” Lucy continued. “Over the years, we've lost touch with some and others have disappeared completely. We don't know what happened to them. After so many centuries, some of us couldn't find a new purpose to support our existence. It was… an untenable position for some. The world has changed so much over the centuries that some couldn't keep up.

“Tessa used to control the rising and setting of the sun—”

“Until that bitch Aurora took my job,” Tessa cut in, her mouth screwed up in an adorable frown. Even angry, the woman lost none of her appeal.

Lucy… Lucy only got more beautiful with each passing second.

“There's no love lost between our pantheon and the Romans', as you might be able to tell.” Lucy smiled at Tessa and Brand thought he'd melt into a puddle at her feet. Damn, he had to be off the deep end. “When the Romans assimilated the Etruscans, many of our people adopted the Roman culture and religion. Some of our people remained true to us, but worship had to be conducted in small, secret groups. Though the Romans were surprisingly tolerant of those who practiced other religions, the Roman deities tend to be… jealous.”