South of Surrender (Hearts of the Anemoi) (8 page)

Strictly speaking, what he was about to do violated the rules about the use of divine magic in the human realm. He’d seen firsthand the punishment his father meted out for such an infraction. Then again, Chrys hadn’t been able to find his father in a few months. And, given Chrys knew about the firestone, his father needed to be equally worried about what Chrys might do. Any way you sliced it, the god had far bigger things to worry about right now than one of his sons healing a human. He touched the bandage and willed it away.

Laney gasped and withdrew. “What did you…how did you…?”

“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. In fact, I just want to make it better.”

When her hand crossed the mattress toward him a second time, she was trembling.

Chrys cradled the back of her hand in his palm. She was soft and small and
warm
. His skin tingled with the sensation. Instead of wishing to rush through so he could stop touching her, he found he wanted to touch
more
of her. “Just hold still, Laney.” He dragged his forefinger along the crisscrossed string that held her wound closed. With a thought, it disappeared. Laney sucked in a breath as he lowered his head and pressed his lips to the cut. There was that scent again, of warm oranges. Did all of her smell—taste—this way?

What he wouldn’t do to find out.

Calling on the heat at the center of his being, Chrys inhaled and blew gently on the cuts. After so many days in the Hall of the South Wind, Chrys’s body was strong with healing energy, something his basic nature gave him since marshaling the lush life of the summer season was part of his job. He blew his warm, healing breath until her wound closed and his cock was rock hard between his belly and the soft bedcovers. It took everything he had not to follow the healing by worshipping her skin with his lips. And tongue.

“What did you do?” she said in a low voice, like she was trying not to disturb.

“It was my fault. I just wanted to fix it.” His voice sounded raspy with need, even to himself. But it was a fucking phenomenal feeling to
fix
something rather than to destroy. For once.

She flexed her fingers, carefully at first, then more vigorously when she apparently realized her hand was, in fact, healed. The wonder that lit her expression and eyes was the most amazing reward. “You just
healed
me. I don’t…I can’t even…”

“Shh,” Chrys whispered. He reached across the narrow gap of bed separating them and brushed her hair off her face. Black silk. He could imagine wrapping it around his fist as he…

She grasped his hand. Chrys sucked in a breath at the unexpected contact. No one ever touched him like this. His regular lovers knew not to. And he prevented his random fucks from doing so, in one creative way or another. She pushed herself up a little and pulled his hand toward her mouth. Her lips pressed and lingered against the heel of his palm, nearly mimicking what he’d just done to her. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The soft thrum of her pulse played against his fingers where she held him still. Chrys’s own pulse thundered in return. Without a thought, he was in motion, needing to possess, claim, take control.

He closed the gap between them, cupped her face in his hand, and kissed her. Aw, gods, her lips were soft and warm and eager. Sugared oranges on a warm summer day. Taking her wrist in his grip, he pressed her arm to her chest, gently trapping her as he leaned in further. She moaned into the kiss and opened her mouth, just a little. Unable to resist, Chrys’s tongue surged forward and found her tongue pressing and twirling and exploring right back.
Almighty Zeus,
she was so enthusiastic, accepting,
warm
.

He had to protect her. He had to keep her safe.

She twisted her shoulder to lay flatter on her upper back. Her bottom arm, now freed, slipped around his back. Grabbed tight.

Chrys gasped and reared back, his heart in his throat. Her hand fell away. “I’m sorry,” he managed.

She shook her head. “I’m not.” She looked away and her cheeks went hot.

He sat back on his knees. He hated knowing his fucking frustrating reaction had probably made her feel embarrassed and rejected. It wasn’t his intention. Not at all. Part of his body was screaming for him to dive back into her heat. But a bigger part told him to run far, far away. And he had the perfect reason to go—after Eurus. “You should go back to sleep, Laney,” he managed, cursing the raspy strain audible to his own ears. He ushered a soft, lulling breeze through the room, the kind that conjured up lazy summer afternoons in a hammock, and mentally summoned Livos.

“But I don’t want to fall asleep.” She yawned.

“You’re healing. You need your sleep.”

“But you’ll disappear again,” she said, her voice suddenly groggy.

“I’ll be here.” In one way or another. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

Livos’s energy radiated from beyond the bedroom window.

The moment Laney’s breathing settled into the slow rhythm of sleep, Chrys materialized outside. “Stay here and watch over the woman. I’m going after Eurus. Anything threatens her, anything at all, and you summon me immediately.”

Chapter Eight

Laney gasped awake. Morning light brightened her room. “Chrys?” Finn whined and his tail thumped a
good morning
against the carpet. “Chrys, are you still here?”

Nothing.

“You said you’d stay,” she said. “And I’m talking to an empty room. Awesome.”

Disappointment warred with disbelief in her gut. She’d dreamed him. Again. Not surprising since she’d been dreaming of him and the winged horse so much. And damn could dream-Chrys kiss… Of course, last night hadn’t been real—

She gasped and looked down at her hand. No bandage.
No cut!

Tilting her palm toward the light from the window, she still couldn’t really make out the scar, but when she ran her finger across her skin, she could
feel
it. He’d healed her. He’d freaking
healed
her. A deep sense of awe swamped her until she felt nearly dizzy with all the questions flooding her mind. She simply couldn’t wrap her brain around what had happened, how it had happened, and what Chrys…was.

Because he clearly wasn’t…what? Like her. She’d put it that way, for now.

Which also meant…the kiss
was
real. God, it had been so intense, the surprise of it, the way he’d held her, his incredible taste. A tingle of pleasure ran through her body and she trailed her fingers over her lips. She could’ve kissed him all night long and never tired of it. And, man, no matter how crazy it was, a part of her wouldn’t have been against even more.

But then the memory of his rejection chased the feeling away. Her stomach sank. Why had he ended the kiss so abruptly?

Maybe he felt like he’d taken advantage? After all, he’d been the one to initiate the kiss, so he must’ve felt attracted to her, right?

Laney stared at the shifting patterns of light and shadow on the ceiling and sighed. It had been so damn long since she’d last been with a man. Four years. That wasn’t a dry spell—that was the freaking Sahara Desert.

It was a problem she didn’t know how to fix. She couldn’t go anywhere to meet anyone without Seth’s assistance, and Seth didn’t do much to help her attract members of the opposite sex. In fact, just the opposite. Half the time, people assumed they were a couple. But, as much as she loved him, she didn’t feel that way about Seth. Never had.

Not to mention, she was sorta hardwired to expect guys to decide she was too much to deal with. That had certainly been the case with Ryan, her last lover and boyfriend of two years, who had dumped her because he couldn’t handle her deteriorating condition. They’d met in college while she’d still possessed a large percentage of her central vision and before she’d gone totally blind in her left eye. By the end of their relationship, she’d been down to ten percent of her central vision in her left and about forty in her right. He’d always been so supportive, she never realized that he was actually freaking out. He’d seen the writing on the wall, and he hadn’t liked it.

One thought about the night he’d said he wanted to talk about their future and that old humiliation swamped her. In her secret heart, she’d been expecting a proposal. Instead, he broke up with her.
It’s not you, it’s me.

At least his rejection had made moving back in with her grandfather an easy decision. And thank God she had or she never would’ve been here to share the last year of his life. She wouldn’t have traded that for anything.

But Ryan’s reaction was a damn good reason to put the brakes on her runaway libido where Chrys was concerned. If her RP turned off a far-from-perfect man, she couldn’t see why it would be any different with…whatever Chrys was.

Ugh
.

Annoyed with herself, Laney eased her legs off the bed. “Some guard dog you are,” she muttered to Finn, who pushed himself up with a grunt and laid his head on her knee. She gave him what he wanted and scratched his ears for a while. “Okay, out of the way, you.” She rose and reached for her cell phone on the nightstand, but what caught her attention was a spot of yellow light.

The feather. He’d returned it to her after all. Warm pressure filled her chest. This was further proof that Chrys existed. That he’d been here. That she wasn’t losing her mind.

Smiling, she clutched it to her chest. As she held it, she inhaled the faintest hint of that incredible scent she remembered from the previous night. The feather tickled as she brought it against her nose.
God, that smell is amazing
. A thought came to mind and she couldn’t resist. She moved to the bottom of the bed, about where she thought Chrys had been laying, and lifted the covers to her face.

The blanket was absolutely permeated with the scent of the sun and the summertime air and the richness of growing, fragrant things. It was the scent that had surrounded her as they kissed. She would’ve bottled it if she could, she found it so appealing. And, was it just her imagination, or was this part of the blanket warmer? She rubbed it against her face and a shiver ran through her, like when he’d stroked her cheek.

I am never again washing that blanket
. The thought made her chuckle.
Who needs the blanket if you have the man
? her mind helpfully added.

Yeah, well, she’d asked him to stay, hadn’t she?

Where the hell was he, anyway?

In the bathroom, Laney cleaned up and changed her bandages. She’d almost walked away from that job and left her hand uncovered, but at the last minute it occurred to her that she had absolutely no way to explain to Seth, should he notice, how her hand had healed so completely so fast. And he’d notice, all right. So, with a twinge of guilt over the lie, she wrapped clean gauze around her palm.

The one Chrys had apparently healed by blowing his warm, ticklish breath against her skin until she’d been hot and breathless. She couldn’t even let herself think about the idea of him using the same treatment on her leg without her pulse spiking. God, if kissing him got her this worked up, she couldn’t imagine what she’d feel if anything more ever happened.

As if.

The part of her brain shouting that she was freaking crazy, that
all of this
was totally nuts… Well, she boxed that up nice and tight. If being almost blind taught her anything, it was that sometimes things were more than what they seemed at first glance. A whole lot more.

“Where are you?” she asked her kitchen after she finished breakfast. Great, now she was talking to herself. But she couldn’t help it. All morning she kept expecting Chrys around every corner.

She settled in at her desk and opened her latest project—her bimonthly column for an international magazine for the blind. Each column featured a person successful in their job, who also happened to be vision impaired. Her document opened across a pair of computer monitors with huge screen magnifiers that made it possible to make out what she typed. When her vision ultimately deteriorated, she’d have to invest in some good voice recognition and screen reader software. This column was about a really interesting massage therapist…except she just couldn’t concentrate on him.

Where was Chrys?

Why had he said he’d stay if he had no intention of doing so?

Was he coming back?

One thing was certain, she’d better pull herself together before she saw Seth or he’d know right away something was up. And no way could she tell him any of this. Not if she wanted him to continue to support her independence. He’d never believe her. And why should he? Everything about the past week had been way, way outside the bounds of normal.

Focus, Laney
. Right. Another couple hundred words and she’d have this thing wrapped up. She replayed part of his interview to get the quote she wanted. She’d no more started to type when a knock sounded at her front door.

Finn raised his head, sniffed, and growled.

Laney pushed out of her chair. “
Now
you’re going to guard the place? When someone knocks at the door instead of just appearing in my room in the middle of the night?” She hobbled down the hallway and through the kitchen, gritting her teeth the entire way. Strictly speaking, she’d been walking more than she was supposed to, and she was feeling the sting of it.

The knock sounded again.

Who the heck could it be, anyway? She rarely had visitors. And anyone who came for horse or farm-related business either met up with Seth directly or made an appointment with her.

She pulled open the front door and scanned to see who was there.

On the other side of the screen door stood an unusually tall woman. Surrounded by a deep red light.

Laney’s heart tripped into a sprint and her scalp prickled.

She didn’t know what that red glow meant, but instinct told her it was nothing good.

“Can I help you?” Laney managed, her narrow vision focused as much as she could on the woman’s drawn face. Finn pushed his body against her leg, whining and growling low in his throat.

“I hope you can,” the woman replied in an accent Laney couldn’t identify. “I am looking for Notos.”

“Who?”

Finn put himself in front of her, his agitation escalating by the moment. The woman tilted her head to the side, as if she was assessing Laney with that severe expression and stony gaze. She wore some kind of a scarf over what seemed to be unusually full hair.

“Notos. He was here. The other one, too,” she scowled.

Laney shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.” Finn backed into her, like he was trying to push her away from the door. She patted his rump. “Stop it, Finn.”

“Ah. Yes, right.” The woman narrowed her gaze. “How about the name Chrysander? Is that one more familiar?”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said, and then her heart hammered against her breastbone so hard she could feel it everywhere.
Chrysander
.
Chrys?
Her gut told her that was right. Whoever this person was, she was looking for Chrys. And she didn’t bring good news, that much her instincts—and Finn’s—were making crystal clear. Laney had to get rid of her. “I don’t know anyone by those names. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”

The dark red flared. “As am I.” She disappeared.

Laney gasped. She scanned her gaze over the spot where the woman had been standing. What in the freaking world was going on? Finn whined and pushed against the screen door. Trembling, she eased it open and scanned her vision over the porch on either side of the door. Empty.

Finn forced his way out and sniffed the wood where the woman had stood. He kept sneezing and shaking his head.

“Come in, Finn,” Laney whispered, her voice stolen by the fear gripping her throat. “Finn,
now
.”

When the dog trotted past her, she yanked the screen door closed and secured the door. She fell back against the frame and tried to calm her breathing. What had she gotten herself involved with? Better yet, what had Chrys—no,
Chrysander
—gotten her mixed up in?

She. Freaking. Disappeared
.

As in…poof, gone, now you see me, now you don’t. Ta-da!

Trembling, Laney limped her way to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup. For several long minutes, she allowed herself to think only of the rich brew. The warm smoothness going down her throat. The mix of cream and French roast. Whether it needed a bit more sugar.

Coffee, she could handle. Coffee was real.

Glowing people and sky-fighting and miraculously healing injuries? At this moment, not so much.

Mug in hand, Laney made her way to her bedroom. A monster of a headache was taking up residence behind her right eye, and a nap was sounding more and more appealing despite the fact that it wasn’t even noon. Just an hour, and then she’d get back to work.

A nap would help. She just needed a reset on this whole day.

Already imagining how good her pillow would feel, Laney took a sip of her coffee as she entered her room. A scuff of a footstep. A movement of light. She gasped and stumbled. “Who’s there?”

…

“Laney,” Chrys said, rushing to her as she slammed backward into the door. A drink sloshed all down her front. “It’s me. Are you all right?”

Gods, he left her alone for a few hours and a
Fury
showed up. Tisiphone, no less. If she’d meant harm, Livos might not have been strong enough to protect Laney. And where had Chrys been when the lesser god summoned him? Off losing his brother’s trail. Again.

“Shit,” she said as she steadied the mug. “Chrys? You scared me.”

He stepped in front of her and frowned. Her eyes glanced around wildly, her gaze not seeming to focus. Tisiphone’s presence had apparently done a real number on her. Sonofabitch. Next time—no, there wouldn’t be a next time. He’d just have to figure out a way to juggle finding Eurus and protecting Laney himself. Which meant he owed Zeph and Boreas some conversations pretty damn quick.

He bent down so his face was in front of hers and cupped her cheeks in his hands. “Shh, you’re okay.” His thumbs swept over her soft cheekbones. Gods, she was beautiful. He stared into the dark blue of her eyes, but she didn’t really seem to meet and track his.
I need you to get me out of the stall. I’m having trouble seeing
. He sucked in a breath. Could she…? “Laney, can you see me?”

She clenched her lids closed and heaved a shaky breath. “Sorta.” She tugged her shirt away from her chest. “It burns.”

Chrys glanced down. Angry red marred the skin showing above the V-neck of her shirt. “Damn it all to Hades. Take the shirt off. I can help you. Like last night.” Emitting and absorbing heat were powers granted by his godhood.

She stood plastered against the door, indecision and fear written all over her face. Blowing out a shaky breath, she tore the wet cotton over her head and dropped it to the floor.

Almighty Zeus, she was spectacular. Dark blue lace formed an intriguing pattern over the swells of her breasts. He dragged his gaze away from feasting on her many appealing attributes. “Trust me, okay?”

She gave a very small nod that looked like it had taken every ounce of courage.

The burn marks ran from her chest to her stomach to her feet. Chrys decided to ease her into it and knelt. He pressed his palms to the tops of her feet and beckoned the heat within to come to him. “Better?”