Warrior Enchanted: The Sons of the Zodiac (13 page)

“He’s a protector. That’s his job.”

“I know what I saw. The smelly, oily fish has a girlfriend.”

Eris watched Phobos resume his maniacal dancing around her living room, the towel still pressed to his face, and let a new idea spin its web in her mind’s eye.

“You don’t need to walk me home. I live next door.” Emerson stood in the front foyer of the Warriors’ brownstone, full of that awkward feeling one gets when finishing up a first date. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she kept folding and unfolding them, then finally gave up and made fists at her sides.

Why was she so nervous all of a sudden? And what was there to be nervous about?

She’d been sleeping with Drake for almost a year. She knew what each and every luscious inch of his body looked like and had bared hers in return.

There was
nothing
to be nervous about.

“No one thought we’d be attacked in broad daylight in the park, either. Humor me.” He reached for the door, any sign he felt as awkward nowhere in evidence.

“Seriously, Drake. It’s like a fifteen-second walk to my front door. You can stand here and watch me.”

Drake ignored her, just planted that Zen-like smile he was so damn good at and took her elbow. They descended the heavy stone steps that flanked the front of Warrior Central and, in less than her estimated fifteen
seconds, ascended a matched set on the front of her house.

Before she could react, Drake had her pinned against her front door, his lips covering hers with heat and need as the morning air swirled around them.

Emerson wanted to protest—wanted to push him out of her personal space and draw a few deep breaths to center herself—but instead found herself kissing him back, her hands fisting in the soft material of his T-shirt where it bunched at his waist. On a sigh, she gave herself up to the power of what lived and breathed between them.

What she was helpless to resist, no matter how many times she told herself she should walk away.

Hands firm on her body, his fingers played at the top of the waistband of her shorts, the light scrape of his nails on her skin sending rivers of pleasure coursing through her nerve endings. Drake’s lips moved over hers, urgent and unyielding as he plied her tongue with his. The kiss was hot and carnal and utterly possessive and she was rapidly losing brain cells.

Lifting his head, the gold that mixed with the green in his eyes dominated. With gentle fingers, he traced the line of her cheekbone, his gaze following the path of his touch. “I’m so sorry they hurt you.”

Emerson swallowed around the lump that had formed in her throat. “Like I told you, I’m fine.”

“There’s a mark on you.”

“It’ll heal. I’ll put ice on it,” she added with a wry smile.

His large body still loomed over her, covering her from view of the street.

In protection?

Possession?

Regardless of the reason, she found she couldn’t resist the deeply feminine yearning caused by the nearness of his body. Couldn’t stop the need that gripped her low in the belly as desire quickly replaced every other feeling—every other thought—inside of her.

“Come up—”

The thought—to invite him upstairs—was cut off by the opening of the door at her back. If she hadn’t been holding on so tightly to Drake’s waist, she’d have fallen back through it.

“Isn’t this sweet?” Magnus drawled.

“Your timing is impeccable,” Drake added, his normally easygoing tone as hard as the acre of chest under her fingers.

“I’d say I’m right on time. Especially since my sister’s put herself on display for the entire neighborhood to see.”

“It’s none of your business, Magnus.” Even as she said it, Emerson slipped from Drake’s arms and took a few steps back. “I’m not fifteen.”

“You’re acting like it, making out on the front porch.”

“Just how long were you standing there spying on us?” She whirled on him, unwilling to continue the fight with her back to her brother.

“I wasn’t—” It was Magnus’s turn to break off midsentence as he caught sight of her face. “What the hell happened to you?”

Before she could stop him, he’d squeezed past her and was on top of Drake, the two of them perilously close to the edge of the steps.

“Magnus!” She hollered his name a few more times to get his attention, to no avail. “Magnus! He didn’t hurt me. Would you just listen to me?”

The two men continued to battle on the small area of the front stoop, their well-matched footing keeping one from getting the better of the other.

With a move reminiscent of their backyard battles as children, Emerson waited for the optimal moment she knew would come as the two men continued to trade position in the small area. On a heavy grunt, Drake went in low with a shoulder to Magnus’s stomach and it was that move—and her brother’s clumsy stumble on his back foot—that gave her the opening she needed.

She flew onto his back, wrapping her arms and legs around him like a maniacal monkey who wouldn’t let go. “Leave him alone, Magnus! Drake didn’t do this to me.”

Her brother continued to struggle, but Drake stood down, taking a few steps backward to give her brother room to calm down.

“Em! Get the fuck off of me!”

“Not until you listen.” She was tempted to slam a hand to his ear to cuff him, but held back at the last minute. “I’m okay. Drake didn’t hurt me.” When she felt his back muscles relax slightly under her thighs, she added, “Are you calm enough to let me explain?”

“Yeah.” He patted her ankle. “Come on. Get off, okay?”

She slid from his back, but kept a hand on his chest to hold him still.

“Em. Come on. I’m done.”

“Then say you’re sorry.”

“Are you kidding me?” Magnus’s mouth dropped in a shocked
O
of surprise.

Drake came back up the stairs, his hand extended to Magnus. “Come on, Emerson. It’s fine. I’d have done the same.”

She watched the male byplay as a series of self-righteous emotions flitted across her brother’s face until resignation took the place of all of them. He extended a hand. “Sorry.”

She watched as the two men clasped hands, but it was Drake’s words that stopped her cold. “I wouldn’t hurt her.”

Magnus nodded and went to pull his hand back, but Drake’s grip stayed firm.

“Ever.”

D
rake left Emerson’s house and retraced their morning run, his body hard and uncomfortable. The feel of her in his arms was still imprinted on his nervous system and he could only hope the walk—and the focus on figuring out why they were attacked—would do something to calm him down.

Fuck, but he wanted to go destroy something.

The attack that morning had left him with far too much to think about and any way he twisted and turned the facts, he had only more questions.

The apple and Phobos’s sudden appearance.

They had to be related.

But Emerson wasn’t involved, so why was she the target?

He entered the park and the area where they’d met up with Enyo’s demonic nephew. Central Park was far more crowded now, late morning, than it had been when they took their run. The city’s refuge was one of its most well-used recreational areas.

Yet Phobos had selected the park in broad daylight to launch his attack.

Although humans were sometimes collateral damage in the endless fight between Mount Olympus’s immortals, all of them—regardless of their goals—knew getting onto humanity’s radar wouldn’t benefit any of them.

So they fought in the shadows, the power plays of the gods kept as far away from human knowledge as possible.

Drake slowed as he neared the rock formation, his gaze scanning the path leading to it as well as the grass surrounding the area. Although the entire park was open to public view, the way the path twisted through here did offer a bit of seclusion, especially if the actions of the attacker were swift and decisive.

Which they most definitely were this morning.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the oily fish man. Back to the scene of the crime?” Phobos came around the edge of the rocks, his smile the sort of maniacal leer that filled children’s nightmares. The burned skin on his face was a vicious red where it stretched across his cheeks, still healing from Emerson’s earlier handiwork.

“I could say the same for you.”

“Your girlfriend burned me.” The leer downshifted into a definite pout.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“You’re a
lying
, oily fish man.” Phobos moved forward, his eyes shifting with calculating curiosity. “Very interesting.”

Drake kept his attention fully locked on Phobos while he allowed his senses to reach out and probe the
surrounding area. The joined fish on his back twitched their tails on high alert, but other than the threat standing before him, Drake couldn’t find anything waiting in the wings.

Which really was too bad.

Phobos shifted from foot to foot, but kept his distance. “Since she has the power of fire, I say she’s a witch.”

“Fine”—Drake shrugged—“say it.”

“Yep. And she’s your girlfriend, too. I know people having sex when I see it. You’ve got that look in your eye each and every time I bring her up. And you definitely had it in your eye before.”

Uncomfortable with the course of the conversation and just how close to the truth Phobos actually was, Drake shifted strategy, wondering if he could use the moment to his advantage and get the little worm talking. “She’s a beautiful woman. A body like that, a man looks.”

“It’s the sex look.” Phobos nodded his head knowingly, far from put off by Drake’s nonchalant agreement. “My aunt thinks I don’t know about those things, but, oh boy, do I.”

Not for the first time did Drake have to acknowledge the beings that populated Mount Olympus were just as deranged—just as fucked up—as humans. They simply had more inherent power at their disposal.

“Clearly you’ve made a study of it.”

“She thinks I don’t know, but I do.” He hopped again. “I do, I do, I do, oily fish man.”

“So tell me why Enyo sent you. What does she want?”

A sharp peal of laughter rang out as the crazy little fucker doubled over at the waist. “You think you know so much.”

Gods, this was a pointless waste of time. Phobos was a tool—literally and figuratively. He didn’t know anything beyond the orders he’d been given.

The temptation to port home was strong, but Drake decided to wait it out a little longer. “Since you’re the one who walked away with your ass kicked this morning, I’d say I’m not doing half-bad.”

“This morning was only the beginning. She knows you have the apple and she knows what you value. You won’t win.”

“The apple isn’t Enyo’s. She’s got enough of her own tools without worrying about her sister’s apple.”

Phobos shrugged, standing stock-still. “Suit yourself.”

“So where’d you get the shiner?” Magnus stretched his legs out in front of him where he took a seat at the kitchen table, looking for all the world like the lord of the manor.

“It’s a mouse,” Emerson said with no small measure of disgruntlement as she hunted up a bottle of Gatorade in the fridge.

“So if our neighbor wasn’t the one to put it on you, which you adamantly informed me as you wrestled me on the front stoop, how’d you get it?”

“A little incident in the park this morning.”

Magnus sat forward at that. “What happened?”

How, exactly, did she explain being set upon by a paranormal predator and his goon squad? Although
her grandmother knew the men who lived next door were a band of immortals, the knowledge hadn’t extended to her brother. The less she shared with him on that score, the better. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

“If you think I’m going to drop it that quickly, you’ve got another one coming.”

“Why?” She slammed the Gatorade on the counter. “I’ve told you it’s nothing, but you don’t believe me. Yet when the situation is reversed, you won’t answer any of my questions.”

“So it’s quid pro quo? I can’t be concerned about my sister?”

“No, Magnus. I just want some answers. Something that explains where you’ve been for four years.”

“Here we go again.” Those dark eyes rolled in an almost exact imitation of their sister, Veronica, when she didn’t want to discuss something.

Undeterred, Emerson pushed him. “What happened to you? You look like you’ve been hanging with the WWE. What did you do? How did you earn money? Did you date anyone? Who have you been?”

“I finally found a sweet gig, Em. Someone who appreciates my talents and has found a way to put them to good use.”

She rounded the kitchen counter and took a seat opposite Magnus at the table. “You make it sound like you’re a mercenary.”

He hesitated—for a fraction of a second—before meeting her eyes. “I’m useful, Em. Can’t you be happy for me? Be happy that I’ve finally found some purpose.”

The pleading note in his voice pulled her up short,
and whatever she’d thought to say evaporated in the moment. His eyes were filled with an odd, desperate sort of need she hadn’t seen since those dark days after they’d realized their mother wasn’t coming back.

He was the little boy lost. He’d always been that way, but it had gotten worse after their mom had disappeared, and it was clear he’d never really found his way.

Until now.

She knew about those dark spaces inside. Knew the holes that were left by those who were already gone. Holes that didn’t fill, no matter how badly you wished them to.

Or how many years passed.

“You’re doing something you enjoy?”

“Yes. I really am.”

“But you can’t talk about it?”

“Not yet.” He reached over and fitted his palm to hers, the calluses on his fingers rubbing roughly against the top of her hand. “Just give me a bit of time. Time to settle. Time to get my life set up again.”

She wanted to question him further, but her instincts had her staying silent.

Magnus was home.

Why couldn’t that just be enough?

Grey turned the apple over in his hands as he sat in Quinn’s office. The pin was small and rather innocuous, hardly something that could bring down a powerful group of humans. Yet it had, several times in the past when Eris had chosen to brandish the weapon.