What a Goddess Wants (8 page)

He kissed her like he wanted to get inside her body and stay there for hours. Which she didn’t have a problem with. Not at all. Only…

“Hey,” Salvatorus called from the kitchen. “Get your tongue out of her throat and come get some coffee. We need to talk.”

Cal froze, said tongue retreating, but he kept his mouth on hers for several more seconds. When he finally pulled away, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

“Cal—”

“Don’t.” His gaze burned into hers. “Just don’t say anything right now. Sal’s right. We gotta talk. And if you open your mouth now, I’m gonna take you upstairs and lock a door behind us. And then I’m gonna make you use that mouth on my body.”

***

“So you think just the fact that Tessa’s with me will be enough to keep Charun from sending another demon after her?”

Sal nodded as he tapped a finger against his coffee mug. “Yeah. That’s why I sent her to you. The Cimmerian reputation should be enough to keep him at bay. At least for now. But you have to stay close.”

“But what about the others?” Tessa’s soft voice held sadness. “He’ll just go after Lusna or Alpan or Thalna or one of the others. We need to find a way to stop him.”

“Tessa honey, I told you,” Salvatorus said, “the only way I can think of to do that is to get the other Etruscan deities to accept that Charun is enough of a problem to pool their power and strengthen the wards holding him in Aitás.”

And that, Cal knew, was the problem. He turned to look at Tessa. “You don’t think you can talk enough of them into attempting it, do you?”

She shook her head, her expression grim. “There are a few who would. Selvans, Nortia, Tivr, and Lusna, for sure. Possibly Turan. Maybe Fufluns and Laran. But there are others who haven’t been seen in centuries. Nethuns, Usil, Veive, Lucifer. We have no idea where they are or how to find them. And even if we could, I don’t know that there would be enough to create the kind of power needed to strengthen the ward. It took Uni, Tinia, and Menrva to do it before they disappeared.”

Cal heard the bitterness in Tessa’s voice as she mentioned the three main deities of the Etruscans, the equivalent of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva in the Roman pantheon. He heard the despair, too, over the desertion of those deities centuries earlier.

“The other goddesses like me,” Tessa continued, “the members of the FoGEs, we no longer control that much power. Not even all together.”

That bothered her. He saw it in the slump of her shoulders. He wanted to put his arm around her and pull her against him.

Damn it, that was just one big hole waiting to suck him in. Emotions made you weak. He knew that. And he and Tessa had met less than half a day ago. Still…

“But if he consumes seven,” Tessa shook her head, “maybe eight of us, combined with his own powers, Charun would have enough to escape Aitás.”

Cal forced his gaze away from Tessa and turned back to the goat man. “And you don’t think you can get some of the others to listen to you?”

Salvatorus shook his head. “Not a chance, at least not enough of them to make a difference. They’re a damn stubborn bunch.”

Much like all the rest of the deities he’d ever met. Stubborn, selfish. Stupid.

His gaze slid to Tessa. Maybe not all.

Shit
.

“So… what?” Cal threw his hands in the air, wondering what the hell Salvatorus wanted him to do. “How are you supposed to stop a god intent on breaking out of his prison?”

Good question.

Tessa watched the men fall silent as she sipped hot chocolate. She could’ve used the caffeine in the coffee but she’d craved chocolate. Luckily for her, Salvatorus knew his goddesses and stocked four kinds of hot cocoa mix as well as dark and milk chocolate syrup.

She wished she could really enjoy the chocolate. The sweet had magical properties that allowed it work on the biochemistry of the deities. Unaffected by all diseases, man-made drugs, and most poisons, the deities had discovered many millennia earlier that chocolate acted as a sedative.

And she definitely needed one. Between the attempted kidnapping by the demon and Cal’s kiss just now, she needed to calm down. She couldn’t think clearly, and that would not help them.

“Have you told the other goddesses what’s going on, Tessa?” Cal asked, drawing her back into the conversation. She took a few moments to think before answering.

“Not yet, no. I’ve been a little preoccupied.” Trying to stay alive. “I can try to contact them, but it will be tough to get them all in one place at the same time. Deities can be notoriously difficult, and several have had, ah, disagreements over the years.”

Cal snorted, his expression clearly showing he thought she’d understated the matter. Then he sighed, long and deep, as his expression became dead serious. “And you haven’t tried to reach Uni or Tinia? To see if they’d help?”

She shook her head. “No. We’ve tried for centuries with no luck. Some believe they’ve deserted us for good.”

Cal’s gaze sharpened. “What do you believe?”

Another good question.

Did she, like some of her fellow deities, believe that Uni, the Great Mother Goddess, along with her consort, Tinia; sister goddess, Menrva; Ani, God of the Sky; and Voltumna, God of the Seasons, had deliberately abandoned their children, the Etruscan pantheon, and cut them off from Invol, the ancestral home of the Etruscan gods? That they’d hidden the entrance to Invol and forced their children to live forever on this plane of existence?

Some days…

Then she shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. I would like to believe they’re unable to answer us. That something is keeping them from us. But I don’t know what that could be.”

Something flickered in Cal’s gaze, something she couldn’t identify. “Could it be related to the problem you’re having now?”

She frowned. “Do you mean, do I think Charun has gotten to them? No. If he had their power,” she had to stop to yawn, putting her hand over her mouth before shaking her head and continuing, “nothing would stop him from leaving Aitás. The world would be overrun with the dead, and Charun would spread death and destruction in this world.”

Cal’s eyes narrowed as he thought about that, still holding her gaze. “You need to rest.”

Her mouth tried to quirk into a smile. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Then at least lie down. If you don’t, you’ll get pissy and not listen to me and then we’ll both be in deep shit.”

Now, she couldn’t stop her grin. “Oh my, Cal. You have such a way with words. Do you talk to all the girls like that or only ones you have sex with?”

The man didn’t flush, didn’t look away, didn’t show any sign of discomfort at her teasing.

And she
was
teasing. Salvatorus started to laugh, and finally Cal broke their gaze to give the
salbinelli
a glare.

“Sounds like you’ve been on your best behavior, Cal.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you, Goat-Legs. If you’d given me a heads-up—”

“You would’ve been long gone when she showed up.” Salvatorus gave Cal the finger. “Don’t piss me off, boy, or I’ll give you a tail.”

Cal shut up. Salvatorus had the power to do it.

“Lady, the kid’s right, though. You look beat.” Salvatorus stood, his hooves clopping against the tile floor as he walked to the sink. “Why don’t you take the bedroom at the top of the stairs? I gotta go out for a while, see a few people. You’ll be safe here for now. We’ll talk when I get back.”

***

The room was dark, spare, and comfortably cool, with a double bed, a wooden chair, and a television sitting on top of a low chest.

Cal immediately grabbed the remote, sat in the chair, and began to press buttons. Tessa had to stifle a laugh. No matter what race, religion, creed… hell, no matter the species, some things were universal.

Sitting on the bed, her back against the pillows, she let him flip around the channels for a few minutes.

“How old are you?” she asked when he stopped at the Syfy Channel for an
X-Files
rerun.

“Ninety-eight.”

“Really? I didn’t realize Cimmerians were so long-lived. But you’re still a child, comparatively.”

He flashed her a quick look. “Well, you did say you like ’em young.”

Yes, she did. And she really liked him. “Please, anyone is young compared to me.” She shifted into a more comfortable position on the bed. “So, how did you come to live in the States, Cal? You said you were born in Cimmeria. When did you leave?”

He didn’t bother to look at her, just continued to stare at the television. “A few years after my naming. I traveled for a while, did a few jobs. Discovered I liked this part of the world so this is where I decided to stay.”

Now, why did she think there was more to that story? “Are there many Cimmerians living here, like you do, instead of in Cimmeria?”

He nodded. “Some.”

Ooh-kay. This was worse than pulling teeth, Tessa decided. But she wasn’t going to give up just yet. “So, tell me about your culture. I only know that your people are carefully bred to produce great warriors.”

His face contorted into a grimace that he quickly wiped away. “Yeah, well, don’t believe everything you hear.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It means some of us aren’t as carefully bred as others.”

She heard something in his tone that made her consider his words carefully. “You’re not purebred Cimmerian, are you?”

Now he did look at her, lifting one eyebrow. “Wanna trade me in for a better model?”

Not on her life. And it very well might be her life. She rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t be foolish. You’re stuck with me. I’d just like to get to know you a little better since we’re going to be spending some time in close proximity. I’m going to assume your father is Cimmerian. So who’s your mother?”

He leaned back in the chair, the wry smile on his face hiding the uneasiness she could sense in him. “Pretty sure of yourself, huh? But you’re right, my mother’s
aguane
, which is probably why Sal sent you to me specifically.”

Tessa’s mouth dropped open for a brief second before she recovered.
Aguane
were elusive, elemental Etruscan water spirits. Unlike many Etruscan descendants, most
aguane
had remained in their homes in Etruria, while the other
Fata
had moved to the United States two centuries earlier.

Aguane
were solitary beings for the most part, but obviously some of them had found Cimmerian men irresistible. And, she had to admit, who could blame them, if Cimmerians looked like Cal? “How long have they been living there?” she asked.

“My mom’s been living in Cimmeria for more than a century. And she’s not the only one.”

“But… why? Why would they choose to leave their forests and hills for the constant gloom of Cimmeria?”

His expression hardened, and he turned to stare straight into her eyes. She felt the force of that stare like a physical weight. “You’ve never been to Cimmeria, have you, Goddess? It’s not all gloom and doom. We might not have sunlight, but it’s not always pitch black. There are many levels of darkness, from the pale blue of morning to the silver gray of day, light purple in twilight, and velvet black at high midnight.

“Those colors soothe the soul. They camouflage and hide and conceal. The dark holds a freedom you can’t find in the light, where your every move, your every fault is revealed. Cimmeria is forest and wood, mountains and valleys. And a lot of beautiful water.”

Tessa found his deep, raspy voice completely mesmerizing, her gaze riveted to his beautiful mouth as he painted a picture of his world.

“At one time, our people had settlements all over Cimmeria, but now we live mostly in communal homes in the valley near the river. The boys and girls sleep in separate barracks, away from our parents’ homes. Easier to train that way.”

“Are you trained from birth?”

He nodded. “Pretty much so.”

“Are there many children of mixed blood, like you?”

He held her gaze steadily. “No. When I left, there were three. I don’t know how many there might be now.”

“So you had to be doubly tough, didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer right away, seeming to think about his response as his gaze slid back to the TV for a few seconds. “We all had it tough.”

“But they were harder on you because you were part
Fata
.”

Cal knew Tessa wasn’t asking him a question. He heard it in her soft tone and saw it in the rueful tilt of her lips. “I’m a better warrior for it.”

“But who do you fight for now?”

He shrugged. “Whoever pays.”

“No matter what they want that help for?”

Ah, he knew what she wanted to know. “We don’t wage war against the undeserving, no matter who that might be. We might be considered mercenaries, but we have to believe in the cause.”