What a Goddess Wants (15 page)

So why?

Good fucking question. Now if he only had an answer. Hell, an answer to anything would be helpful right now.

Why had Charun targeted her specifically? How could he stop a god? And why did he feel the warmth of her body?

If he stood next to her now, if he went out onto the dance floor and pulled her against him, he’d feel the heat of her skin. That close, he’d be able to see if her cheeks had turned pink as she danced. If her skin was slightly damp from exertion.

He wanted to run his tongue over her skin and taste the sweet heat of her.

Shit
.

He shook his head and forced himself to check out the crowd. Young and energetic, they bounced and swayed and danced.

But his gaze quickly returned to Tessa.

She kept to herself at first, warming up. Arms over her head, she swayed as the song started, her eyes closed as if immersing herself in the music.

Hell, he wasn’t even sure what it was. All he could make out was “last dance” and something about needing someone to hold her. He’d pretty much skipped the whole disco scene.

Fucking embarrassment to all mankind, if you asked him.

But Tessa must have loved it. As the song got faster, she moved even more seductively, her body a pure representation of the rhythm. Drawing men to her like bees to honey.

At first, she didn’t seem to notice them. She just kept swaying by herself, as if lost in the music, even when one of those men put his hands on her hips and began moving his body along with hers.

Cal was halfway out of his seat before he realized he’d moved. Forcing himself to sit back down, he watched as she opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder at the man. Her smile made Cal’s hands clench into fists. And when the asshole dancing with her turned her in his arms, Cal nearly ground his back teeth into dust.

Christ, he really was an idiot. Just because he’d fucked her didn’t mean she’d pledged her undying troth. What the fuck was a troth anyway? And what the hell did it matter who she danced with?

Matters to you, you fucking imbecile. You want her for yourself
.

He did. Even though he should know better.

You’re an asshole.

Yeah, he had to agree with himself.

Forcing himself to stay seated, he watched Tessa bump and grind with several men through the course of the song. She didn’t stick with anyone for long, and he had to admit she didn’t seem to be encouraging the men in any way.

She didn’t look at them the same way she looked at him, which made the primitive part of his brain want to beat his chest in triumph and the rational part want to beat his head against the wall.

He knew which one was right. The head beating might actually do some good.

The band didn’t take a break between one song and the next. They seamlessly headed into a hyped-up version of some song he’d heard playing on someone’s radio. Something about being hot in here and taking off their clothes.

Benny Goodman, now that was a musician.

Shaking his head, Cal forced his gaze away from Tessa and scoped out the rest of the crowd. No one seemed to be paying her any undue attention.

Hell, he’d expected these people to be fawning all over her. She was a freaking
goddess
. Most acted as if they didn’t know who she was.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t an act.

Those who had made some motion of deference to her were older. Most of the people here looked like babies—

Cal stiffened as he watched a man detach himself from the back of the far edge of the crowd. The man’s wry smile was so achingly familiar that Cal had to force himself to breathe through the sudden, heavy weight on his chest.

He watched the guy skirt around the crowd, smiling at friends and kissing several women who tried to cling to him. X had always drawn women like flies. He smiled. They swooned. He crooked his finger. They came running.

Blond and blue-eyed, X had a laugh that could make an entire room smile. And that covered a hell of a lot of other, less pleasant stuff.

“Caligo.” The man slid into the stone seat next to Cal’s, mimicking his laid-back position on the stairs. Whether on purpose or just by default, Cal didn’t know.

“Extasis. You look well.”

“I feel well, thanks. You look like shit.”

“Yeah, well, I come by it naturally.”

That made X turn his attention from the dance floor to look more closely at Cal.

“Never expected to see you here,” X said after a few very long seconds of scrutiny. “As a matter of fact, I believe you once said you’d never be caught dead here.”

“Have you memorized everything I ever said?”

“Only what I knew would come back to bite you later.”

Cal’s lips lifted in a reluctant smile. “Been to see Mom lately?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. She wanted to know if I’d seen you. Had to tell her no. Where the hell have you been, Cal?”

Cal turned to face his younger brother. X looked so much like their mom that Cal had envied him as a child. The dark gold hair, the sky-blue eyes, the upturned nose, and the sharp lines of his face. Built like a swimmer, the guy could wield a sword as well as Cal.

Though he’d never had to.

“Working.” Cal knew X wouldn’t be satisfied with his explanation. X had also inherited their mom’s dogged determination. “What about you? How’s the business?”

“Business is fine. You know that because I send you a report every six months. You do own half of it.”

“I never wanted half of your business.”

“You gave me the money to start it. Of course it’s half yours.”

“X…” Cal sighed, shaking his head.

This was an old argument and one his brother would never let him win. Yes, Cal had bankrolled X twenty years earlier when he’d finally made the break from Cimmeria and moved here.

Cal had gotten him an apartment and set him up with a bottomless bank account. Not that X had ever spent money like water. No, the kid had always been a wiz with numbers. Almost as good as he was with food.

Well, dessert, to be exact.

When X had finally decided what he’d wanted to do after those first few months out of Cimmeria, Cal knew his younger brother would be fine.

Today, X shipped his gourmet desserts all over the world.

“Got anything new in development?”

“You’d know if you stopped by more often.”

“What am I? Your mother? Get a life, kid.”

X snorted. “I’ve got one. You’re the fool who needs one.”

Cal felt his mouth curl up in a slight smile, which he crushed when X started to laugh.

“Damn, did I actually get a smile out of you? Holy shit, I can’t believe you still remember how.” X paused and Cal knew his brother was staring at him.

“So what are you doing here? And with someone like her? I thought you’d laid off that flavor after the last time you got your ass kicked so bad you nearly bought it. I don’t want to have to patch your head back together again.”

Cal didn’t like to be reminded that he’d nearly bought it at the hand of some pussy-ass Greek god. Or that he’d had to call his brother for help. “It wasn’t that bad.”

X turned to stare at him, eyebrows raised. “Dude, your frickin’
skull
was exposed.”

“When did you turn into a girl?”

“When did you become a fuck toy for someone like her?”

Damn good question. One that shouldn’t make him want to take his brother’s head off at the implied slur at Tessa.

He bit back the angry words before X had even more ammo to pick through and could get into Cal’s head.

“Cal, what’s going on?”

Looking into his brother’s eyes, Cal saw confusion. And very real fear.

Cal sighed. “Nothing I can tell you about now but nothing you need to worry about. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time, X. Stop acting like an old woman.”

“But you’re not indestructible.”

“No, but I am fucking hard to kill and I’m not stupid.”

As the current song wound into a crescendo, Cal’s gaze tracked back onto the floor, searching for Tessa. He panicked for a brief second when he didn’t see her right away, but then he caught the flash of her bright hair seconds before the lights went out.

“Fuck!” He jumped to his feet, waiting for his eyesight to adjust, ready to blast through the crowd to drag her out.

X stood next to him, his hand gripping Cal’s shoulder. “Dude, calm down. It’s part of the show. Pretty damn cool, too. Your lady’ll be fine.”

From out of the dark, the low throb of the bass made every bone in Cal’s body rattle. Then the strobe lights kicked in, and he swore the entire arena began to shake as the crowd cried out. Whether in fear or excitement, he didn’t know.

He didn’t recognize the song, but if he had to guess, this was what the lowest level of hell sounded like. Sonuvabitch, his teeth
ached
and his sensitive ears began to ring.

“What the hell’s going on?” He shouted his question in X’s general direction and hoped his brother heard him.

X must have heard because he started to laugh. “Just watch. It’s cool as hell.”

Rationally, Cal knew nothing would happen to Tessa. Not here.

Still…

In the eerie flashes of the strobe light, the crowd roiled like one entity, bouncing up and down like a restless sea.

On stage, he saw the band’s
strega
, Gemma, make her way to the center of the wooden platform. She stopped beside Dilby, the singer, and lifted her hands as if to appeal to the crowd. With the strobes going, the whole thing looked weird as hell, like a scene from a horror film, one where the main character had been drugged with a hallucinogen.

In the weird glow, Cal couldn’t see if Gemma was speaking, but he sure as hell felt the power in the air around him begin to thicken.

Cal had no innate magic of his own, even though his mom was Etruscan. He couldn’t cast worth a damn, though he was able to call power to him to open gates. Now X… He had ability, much to their father’s dismay. Of course, X had just rubbed that in Cal’s face like salt in a wound.

Cal slid a quick glance at his brother, his gaze narrowing at the nearly rapturous expression on X’s face.

What the hell? Cal felt good. Just not
that
good.

Which was fine, because he needed his head on straight. He needed to watch out for Tessa.

His gaze shot back to the floor where the faces in the crowd had taken on the same expression. Where the hell was she?

Finally, he caught sight of her on the far side of the stage. Her face showed something different.

Power. She literally glowed with it.

Fuck. Where the hell did she get that much power?

She continued to dance with the crowd, writhing along with them. Sexy as all hell. Cal felt his body respond, blood pumping and an erection he couldn’t deny. Aroused but with an increasing sense of anxiety.

No one else seemed to notice she was glowing. Most had their eyes closed as they bounced along to the music. Those that didn’t stared at the stage.

They were waiting for something. Anticipation glazed the air and beneath it, the magic continued to build. Now Cal felt it brush against his skin like velvet.

“X.” Cal had to shout over the music to get his brother’s attention.

“I know,” his brother shouted back. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“This is normal?”

“This is better than normal.”

Shit, that’s what he’d been afraid of.

His gaze locked on Tessa. She still wore that rapturous expression, but something else was going on. Something Tessa was doing affected the spell Gemma was spinning.

Maybe it was just the fact that Tessa was here. Or maybe the energy they’d created at the temple was boosting the
strega’s
power.

Whatever was happening, it wasn’t normal. And that probably meant trouble.

Cal stood, searching for Tessa where he’d seen her before, but the strobes wreaked havoc with his vision and he didn’t see her immediately.

Shit, where the hell—There!

He caught a glimpse of her, farther away than she’d been the last time he’d seen her. Too damn far away.

Too many people were between them, and now the crowd seemed to be getting carried away. The dancers surged in one huge mass, starting to bang off each other like water bubbles in a boiling pot. Tessa was a pinball in the mix.

He had to get her out of here. Now. Before something—

An unseen force blew through the crowd like a breeze. More like a gale-force hurricane. Cal swore it went
through
his body, not just on the surface but through his actual molecules.