Warrior Enchanted: The Sons of the Zodiac (2 page)

Who knew she’d find him when he’d least expected it?

“I have searched for you and wish for your gifts more desperately than you will ever know.”

A curious light filled the brilliant blue of her eyes. “Why?”

“I grow tired of Alexander’s battles. War and destruction for the sake of nothing but greed. I am pledged to him, yet I loathe what he’s become. What his army has become.”

“My Warriors battle, too, Dracas. There is no escape for them from battle. No escape from the need to protect humanity, for there are many Alexanders in this world and the next. Many who wish to show their might and do much harm.”

He studied her as she spoke and knew she sought to prepare him. Wanted to give him a full understanding of what service to her entailed.

What hand of fate had brought him to this place? What magic had befallen him that he be visited by a god on this day?

“And you believe I am worthy?”

“Aye, Dracas, I do. But you must know, the choice is yours alone. I do not endow my gifts by force.”

Images of the battle he’d left behind assailed him and Dracas could still taste the ash on his tongue from the destruction Alexander delivered freely. Could still smell the blood and the suffering that suffused the air.

Would service to this woman really be any different?

Aye, he’d wanted her gifts, but were they simply a mirage created to distract him from the reality of service to her?

“Do you seek to battle like Alexander?”

Her smile was as gentle as her voice when she spoke. “I battle for humanity, and I ask that my Warriors do not back down from a fight.”

“So you seek power of a different sort.” Dracas couldn’t explain why that bothered him so, but it did.

As if she read his thoughts, her gaze softened with compassion. “I seek the power to protect humanity and Warriors who will help me attain that goal. Nothing more than that.”

He searched her youthful face, the porcelain skin nearly translucent in the bright sunshine.

Did he dare believe her? And could he really afford to deny her? Deny what she offered to go back to…

Dracas thought of the long, long years he’d spent in Alexander’s service. He had no choices save one—obedience—for Alexander’s words were law.

No mercy
.

Stepping forward, he stood before Themis. His gaze was unwavering as he stared down at the goddess he’d sought for so long.

“I choose you.”

“Do you choose freely, Dracas?” Themis answered, her gaze unwavering in return.

The response hovered briefly on his tongue, the magnitude of the moment not lost. “Aye.”

“Then like the Pisces that fills the sky, your decision this day shall bind you to me and I to you. We will be
tethered with rope like the two fish of the constellation. You are my Warrior and I will stand with you always.”

A great, blinding light turned the daylight around him to a blazing white as Themis’s sword lay against his right shoulder.

He’d made his choice.

Today

New York City

D
rake Campbell lay on his bed and watched the woman walk toward him in the light of the moon. Her small, lithe frame belied an untold strength and the short spikes of her hair caught the moonlight.

In all his years, he’d never seen a woman more beautiful.

Had never wanted one more.

She moved alongside the bed, her thighs brushing the silk sheets, her high breasts beckoning for his touch. With the dark, desperate ache of desire, he reached for the peaks of her nipples, his fingers seeking to give her pleasure.

Only pleasure.

With quick, sure movements, she climbed on top of him, throwing her head back as he cupped the fullness
of her breasts, the thumb and forefinger of each hand relentlessly caressing her nipples into hard points.

Wet heat painted his thigh as she rode him there and he shifted one hand from her breast to the dark triangle at her core. The tight bud of her pleasure pulsed under his touch and a soft cry fell from her lips as he pressed his thumb to the tight bundle of nerves.

Her head fell back on an aching moan and her small hands balanced behind her on his thighs as she allowed the pleasure to capture her.

To consume her.

Desperate for more—for everything she could give him—he embedded two long fingers inside of her and pushed his erection into the pressure of her thigh. On another erotic moan, she convulsed around him as he pushed her to peak again, the tight sheath of her body promising even more pleasure once he was inside of her.

Like quicksilver, the moment altered and re-formed; the object of his desire became the tormentor as she reached for the hard length of him. Shifting, she painted herself over him, teasing the tip of his cock with the wetness at her core.

“Emerson.”

They were the first words he’d spoken since she’d entered the room. He’d hardly breathed since she’d arrived in the light of the moon, fearful she was only a dream.

A mirage leading him to certain madness.

She ceased torturing him with her tight warmth, instead shifting to press a line of kisses down his chest, over the hard lines of his stomach and down, until her lips hovered over his straining body.

“Do you want me?”

“Always.”
And forever
.

“Then how can I refuse?” Her smile was beatific before those lush, sensual lips closed over his cock. The room spun around him as Drake battled fiercely to maintain control over his body. Fought to prolong the pleasure. Struggled against a desire that consumed him.

Desire for a woman he could no more control than the raging tides.

He craved her. He was utterly bewitched by her. And he knew he’d no more be able to hold her than he could hold water through his fingers.

Waves of pleasure assailed his body, the epicenter at the base of his spine.

He needed her.

Now
.

“Emerson.” With a ragged breath, he pulled at her slight frame, dragging her up his body until her core was again positioned over him. In one flash of movement, she impaled herself on him, the tight warmth of her body consuming him.

Wrapping her in his arms, he shifted, rolling her to her back as he held his weight above her. With rough hands, he dragged her legs up until she wrapped them around his hips and mindlessly drove into her, satisfaction whipping through him as her movements matched his.

Dark cries echoed around the room as they drove each other toward a shared goal. Sweat slicked their bodies as they surrendered to a passion that refused to be sated.

A passion she refused to bring into the light.

Drake felt her body tighten around his, felt the telltale tightness as the walls around his cock closed in. On a triumphant cry, he shouted her name again and buried himself to the hilt, desperate to drag a response from her.

As the pleasure crashed—over him, around him, within him—he heard it. Whisper soft and the antithesis of the vibrant, effervescent woman in his arms.

From the eye of the raging storm she whispered one word.

“Drake.”

Drake wrapped his arms around her from behind, the curve of her ass pressed against his all-too-eager cock. They’d barely settled from the firestorm and again he was ready for her.

Who the hell was he fooling?

He was
always
ready for her.

He slammed a leg over both of hers, anxious to keep her there, even as he knew it was a futile exercise.

Emerson Carano danced to no one’s tune, least of all his. As she’d proven all too often over the past year, she’d come and go as she pleased.

And the going always came far too soon for his tastes.

With a swift slap against his thigh, she struggled against his hold, scrambling toward the edge of the bed. “All right, Sweet Cheeks, enough cuddling.”

He let her go, fisting his hands to keep from reaching for her. “We’re back to Sweet Cheeks?”

She shifted and shot him a sideways glance out of
stormy gray eyes. “You preferred last week’s nickname?”

“Hell no.” He shuddered at the thought. Although he might like what it suggested, Lord Pantymelter was too twisted, even for her and her endless series of nicknames.

On a devilish grin, she leaned in. “You’re right. Sweet Cheeks is so uninspired. I think I’ll switch back to Wonder Stud.”

“Emerson.”

When she looked at him with a wide-eyed, mischievous gaze, he couldn’t stop the words. “How about my name? Just my name.”

“I use your name.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I use it when I come.”

Why the hell was this so important to him? He was getting no-strings-attached sex. So why did that simple fact chafe so badly? “That’s the only time you use it.”

“That’s enough.”

“No, it’s not enough.”

She thrust a leg into a pair of jeans, the storm clouds immediately evident in her gray gaze. “You know the rules, Ace. This has to be enough.”

“Well, it’s not, damn it.”

“Too bad. My body, my rules. Take it or leave it.”

She dragged a navy blue tank top over her head, the tight points of her nipples visible through the cotton, and damn it if his gaze didn’t laser in on that fact. Anger balled in his stomach at his helpless reaction to her.

He had control.

A great deal of it, truth be told.

So what was it about this one pixie-sized woman that made him lose every last bit of it?

Dragging his gaze away from her chest, he focused on her face and the wry quirk of her lips. “I know it may come as a surprise to you, but I actually enjoy your company.”

The slight smile fell as she gave him a nearly imperceptible shrug, the tight set of her slim shoulders a direct opposite to the casual gesture. “Every man enjoys getting laid.”

“Fuck, Emerson. Don’t insult me or yourself. I like you. The person you are. And I like spending time with you.”

“Fine.” She ran a hand through the short spikes that covered her head in a soft cap of black. The tribal tattoo on her inner arm flashed, the dark ink exotic against her pale white skin. “You want to talk to me. Fine. Talk to me. Tell me about your day.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Moonlight reflected off of her form and he didn’t miss the sly grin that lit up her face. “Then what are you talking about?”

“Shared conversation and interests. Time spent together.
Intimacy
.”

“It takes an intimate relationship to have intimate conversation. We have sex, Ace. Don’t tell me you haven’t been paying attention.”

Drake fought the urge to fist the sheet in his hands. He had been paying attention, damn it. With his dick most often, but more and more with his head.

And the sex wasn’t enough.

The sat phone on his night table lit up and he reached
for it as the ringtone—“Under the Sea”—offered a dead giveaway as to who it was.

“Ah, saved by the bell.” Emerson leaned in and pressed a loud, smacking kiss to his lips. “Or Walt Disney.”

He didn’t disavow her of the notion, even as he cursed Brody and his damn idiot sense of humor with the ringtone.

Although she knew what he and his brothers were, he refrained from discussing what he did for a living in too much depth.

Or his immortality.

She was prickly enough about a relationship; he didn’t need to complicate it with information that would send the average woman running for the hills.

The ringtone continued to peal in the silence of the air between them and he fought the urge to turn it off.

Why hadn’t he changed the damn song?

The sugary-sweet notes of the music couldn’t diminish the power of the instructions that would be conveyed from the other end, but at least he wouldn’t have the immediate reminder of what he was.

Of what he’d chosen.

While he lived with his choice and was grateful for it more often than not, the all-consuming nature of his service to Themis came with a price.

Drake picked up the phone and offered up a terse hello as he watched Emerson sashay out the door. Listening abstractly to his latest orders—something about overthrowing a warlord causing trouble off the coast somewhere in southeast Asia—Drake couldn’t help but wonder how he’d gotten himself into this position.

Traipsing through third-world countries with nothing but a gun and a backpack for days on end, a slave to the constant demands of human depravity as he fought in service to Themis.

No-strings-attached sex with the only woman he’d ever wanted to tie himself to.

And then he remembered.

Oh yeah, he’d agreed to all of it.

Emerson snuck down the dark hallway, throwing a long shadow on the wall as she moved. The spikes of her hair waved back at her from her silhouette as she hotfooted it down the stairs, desperately hoping to avoid detection. Unfortunately, the small table lamp in the middle of the foyer threw a surprising amount of light.

Just enough to ensure she’d be easier to see…

“Emerson?”

She had nearly made it to the front door—and freedom—when Callie’s voice stopped her.

“Oh. Hey.”

“Visiting again?”

Emerson couldn’t resist giving the raised-eyebrow treatment as she sized Callie up. The woman knew why she was there. She’d probably also known the moment Emerson had walked in the house, had entered Drake’s room and had even had her first orgasm—the first of three, damn that asshole—that she’d had that evening.

“Just hanging out with Drake.”
He showed me his tattoos. Every luscious inch of them
.

“Where is he?”

Since “I left him behind” sounded bad even for her,
she grasped at the straw offered by his late-night phone call. “I think he just got called on a mission.”

“Which he’ll no doubt come home from bloody, bruised and mean as a wild rhino. Ah well, there’s nothing to be done for it.” Callie let out a soft sigh. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

Emerson nearly said no. The reply was on the tip of her tongue, but something held her back.

Maybe it was embarrassment at the way she snuck in and out of this house like a thief. Or maybe it was a sudden desperate need for the sisterhood the other woman offered.