Morpheus (3 page)

The man watched and listened closely, his
eyes alert and full of intelligence. She shivered again, when she
looked at him, she remembered she was a woman. It wouldn’t be long
and Slay would drop them off, they’d be alone. It both thrilled and
terrified her.

Slay pulled up in front of her house. She
looked at it the way a stranger might who was seeing it for the for
the first time. It was a three bedroom, two bath contemporary style
brick home. It was about twenty years old, give or take a few
years. There was a chain link fence around the yard that kept
Buddy, their black Lab, inside, at least most of the time. Buddy
was too smart for his own good and was constantly finding ways to
get out when it suited him. He had even figured out how to open the
gate when they had a simple hook closing it. It had called for
tougher measures.

He barked as they drew closer and his tongue
lolled out on one side of his mouth. His intelligent eyes glowed
with happiness. She could always count on him to be happy to see
her no matter what the day brought their way. He was truly her best
friend.

“This is Buddy. Watch it because he’s very
friendly and he will jump on you. It’s his way of greeting
you.”

“Pretty dog.”

“Thank you. We’re very attached to him. What
do you want me to call you? I can’t just say hey, you.”

“Morpheus.”

“Isn’t that some kind of god?”

“Greek god of dreams.”

Greek god, could he be? Maybe she would get
online and contact the website. He probably wasn’t, what were the
odds? Meanwhile she would settle him in and walk to the bus stop to
meet her kids. She had really gotten behind and they would have to
go to town to pick up some fast food. She took him to Cassie’s
room. Cassie could sleep with her while Morpheus stayed with
them.

“This is my daughter’s room, it will be yours
until we get you situated.”

“Why can’t I stay in your room?”

El’s face turned beet red. “I’m just helping
you out. I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression, but we are
not
going to be sleeping together.”

“Why not? Are you with someone else?”

El choked. “No, I’m not with anyone and I
don’t plan on being with anyone.”
But if I did, dear Lord help
me it would be him.

“Why don’t you rest while I pick up my
kids.”

He sat on the bed testing it and it it held
up just fine. He bounced a bit, like a kid might before he settled
down and laid back on the pillows. She left him hoping he would
sleep while she walked down the road to the bus stop. She worried
about what her kids would think, about what her relatives might
believe, and how complicated things might get before she figured
out what to do with him.

Chapter 3

Morpheus

He’d fallen asleep, it surprised him. He’d
dreamed of the life he had lived before and after he’d been
separated from his brothers. His life hadn’t been easy, not ever
and this little human female had shown him the only kindness he
could ever remember receiving. She was beautiful, so much the
female he had always wanted sent to him than those frightened
scrawny females he had used because his sex drive gave him no
choice. This one, he would find a way to have her, then he would
keep her.

He moved restlessly in his sleep even when he
remembered his childhood. He had been more a loner than the others,
except for Hades and Lucifer who understood what it meant to be
feared even by most of their brothers. They’d hid their curse from
those who kept them in prison, but their brothers sensed those
powers and knew they could spell death for them all. He and Hades
had often been paired up in training and learning when it was
necessary and even sometimes when it wasn’t.

Lucifer had hung with them, here and there,
the king of demons, but he wasn’t allowed to be near most of them,
demon or otherwise. Morpheus felt for him because he knew lonely
better than most. He relived his first mission, he lead his own
team and while they lost none of their own, he was certain they had
killed innocents that day. He hated Origin and everything they
stood for and he wouldn’t return to them, not alive.

His dream took an odd twist. It was El, he
saw her clearly with her glossy long black hair. Her pale blue eyes
looked into his with the same desire he felt. Her curvy body,
voluptuous by any standards, wrapped only in a towel, a towel she
dropped as she stood right before him. His mouth watered as he
viewed her ample breasts, her rounded belly, and her full hips, he
liked his females with a little meat on their bones and she didn’t
disappoint.

Before he could pull her into his arms, she
was gone. In her place was that bitch that had tried to force him
to have sex with her. It was so real, for a moment he could smell
her. Dread shot through his system as he feared his escape had only
been a dream. What would he do if he woke up to find he was still
captured? What could he do? His dream was taking on a scary life of
its own as Cutter, the doctor that wanted to give birth to the next
god, tried to force herself on him. She held a needle in one hand
and a scalpel in the other, not the first time she had sat astride
him in that exact way.

She seemed to be weighing which hand she
would use to encourage his intimacy, as if that would work. The
scalpel seemed to win out and her hand slowly lowered toward him.
Sweat broke out all over his body, a conditioned response to the
pain that was coming. His body tensed, even though he knew that
would only make the pain worse. He looked into her cold, soulless
eyes and saw the satisfaction on her cruel face. His body jerked in
anticipation of the pain that would soon wrack him and there was
nothing except sunlight streaming through a nearby window.

He was laying in a bed that smelled of sweet
innocence. It was soft and somehow comforting, he reached next to
the bed pulling a snuggly teddy bear into his arms. He must have
pressed a button because the bear began to talk.

“Hi, I’m Mr. Snugi. Do you want to be my
friend? I love you!”

Morpheus looked in wonder at the plush toy,
amazed how much he relaxed as he listened to the message intended
for a child. He held the bear in his arms and went back to sleep.
He woke up maybe thirty minutes later to the inspection of a pair
of pale blue eyes much like El’s.

“You can keep Mr. Snugli to sleep with while
you’re here if you want. He gives really good hugs,” a serious
looking young girl said. “My name is Cassie, what’s yours?” She
inclined her head to show she was waiting for an answer. She smiled
shyly as if she thought she might have scared him. He decided right
that moment that he liked this girl. She was kind, like her mother,
she looked a lot like her too.

A head pushed up from behind her with big
brown eyes. “I would have shared my room with you, but Mom picked
Cassie’s room for you.” He hadn’t said a word yet as he watched
them watching him.

“Thanks,” he told them with a blink of his
eyes. He’d never been around kids much. The generations of gods
were largely kept separate by Origin.

“Cassie, Donnie where are you two?” he
recognized El’s voice as she yelled for the kids.

They looked at each other. “Gotta go,” they
both said in unison as they took off. He looked down at his chest
where the bear lay in his stranglehold. He sheepishly put it back
where he had found it. What would his brothers say? He flushed a
little as he thought what their comments might be. No matter how
much he normally scared them, they wouldn’t let something like this
go. He chuckled to himself, if it happened to one of his brothers,
he wouldn’t let it go either.

He got up and walked out of the room and into
the kitchen where El was giving the kids a snack. As soon as she
saw him, her cheeks turned a lovely pink and she went to get him a
snack as well. He got the same apple slices, cheese chunks, peanut
butter cracker snack, the kids did, but his was ten times as much.
His glass of milk was much larger too and he got seconds. Maybe it
wasn’t a big deal to most people, and he could see that El was the
type of person that took care of others, but it gave him a warm
feeling inside that she was looking out for him.

A feeling was coming over him that he had
never felt before. It was warm and cuddly, but also hot and needy.
It was strong, too strong to fight it but he didn’t know how to act
on it. He was ready to have a home and a mate, and he had already
picked one to create the other with. Now he just had to convince
the lady in question to mate with a male who had nothing but a
sordid past and people with unlimited money and resources out to
get him. No big deal, huh?

Morpheus had never been a worrier, it wasn’t
in his nature. He was, however, a planner, and a damn good one. He
would see what information the kids might give him. He was pretty
sure their advice could make all the difference. At their age, he
had already been training to be a killer. He saw the way they both
watched him and their mother with curiosity. Had she had men over
before? Was someone else vying for a place at her side? He’d find
out and then he would crush the opposition as he always did on his
missions.

The kids finished eating and went outside to
play. He finished eating and sat there watching her clean up.
“There’s not much to do around here. You can go outside and the
kids will show you around or watch TV in the living room,” El said.
“When the kids go to school tomorrow, I’ll go to town and buy you
some stuff. I’m sure you’d like some clothes, shoes, and other
things like that.”

“I’ll go too.”

“Okay, If you want to, but we’ll have to get
you shoes and a shirt before you can go in the stores.”

He went into the living room to play with the
remote. El went into a room that looked like an office to catch up
on some work. He was bored with the television, he really hadn’t
ever watched much and when he had, it had been movies with his
fellow gods. He peaked in and saw El was on the computer typing
away. He decided to go find the kids.

They weren’t hard to find. They were in the
back yard which was surrounded with a privacy fence that had locked
gates. They had entered on the side of the house when she had
brought him here, so he hadn’t seen the front or back very well. It
was a habit he had, to look for exits and entrances. It came from
years of hard missions where survival was not only not guaranteed,
but sometimes unlikely. It was a nice set up she had for the kids.
There was a basketball goal, a small pool that was covered and
locked for the winter, a selection of toys that were age
appropriate, or at least he assumed they were, a wooden playhouse
that looked like it was built on site, and some playground
equipment like a slide and monkey bars. He’d go so far as to say
the kids were spoiled and they were clearly El’s priority as they
should be.

Never having had parents or any family
besides his brothers, didn’t mean he didn’t know how things should
be. It just meant that his life had never been about how things
should or could be and never would be. The kids were playing and
laughing, it gave him both a warm feeling and a tight feeling in
his stomach. The warm feeling was the wishful desire to belong, to
be part of this small family, the other, regret for what had never
been.

He sat outside on a bench, watching them play
for a long time. Was it an hour, maybe more? The kids were so happy
and excited as they played ball and used the playground equipment,
he smiled to himself as he watched. He pushed back thoughts of
Origin and all the horrible things they had done to him. The most
recent being the worst. Before he had at least been treated
decently as long as his missions were successful, lately he was
punished, tortured, and abused no matter what he did. It was hard
to believe he’d been freed and he still looked over his shoulder.
His slightly better than usual sense of smell picked up something
familiar. It was the cologne one of the guards liked to wear, nasty
stuff. He moved to a corner of the fence where a larger than usual
gap existed. He peered out and saw Hart and Figgley checking out
El’s house and the area around it.

They must not be sure who was here or they
would have attacked to recover him. They might even kill El and her
children, they needed to run. As soon as he saw those two leave, he
went to get the kids.

“Hey, guys, we need to go inside for a
bit.”

“Ah, c’mon, Morpheus. We just started having
some fun,” Donnie said with a little whine to his voice.

“Yeah, Morph, let us have some fun,” Cassie
added.

“I need you kids to come inside, just for a
few minutes and Cassie, Morph?”

“It’s just a nickname. Everyone has one,” she
said as they reluctantly followed him in.

“Go to the living room, kids. I need to talk
to your mom for a minute,” Morpheus said as he hurried to the
office.

“Hey,” El said as she looked up at him with a
smile.

“El, we have no time to waste. The guards
that kept me tied up were outside your house looking around. We
need to get out of here. If they come back, they’ll try to
recapture me. I can’t even guess what they might do to you or the
kids.” She looked as horrified as he imagined.

She picked up the phone pushing speed dial.
“Slay, the guys that had Morpheus locked up have been seen around
my house. We’re headed your way.”

“Morpheus? Is that the name of the big guy
you took home?”

“Yeah.”

“Get here as quick as you can.”

“Will do.”

She hurried out to the living room. “Plan
one, kids. We need to get rolling.”

Morpheus was shocked as each of them pulled
out an already packed travel bag. They carried them out to the
garage loading them in an old SUV. El shut everything off and
locked all the doors. She packed her laptop quickly and
efficiently. They loaded in less than ten minutes and she used the
garage door opener to provide an exit. He looked but saw no one
hanging around. She closed the door as they took off down the road.
His mind had still not caught up with what had just occurred.