Ares Page 5

  She squared up to him, shutting out the small voice at the back of her mind that warned he might go ahead and make her suffer the consequences right now if she unleashed her temper on him. “I’ll heal him... but I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it because I owe him for protecting me tonight. You... well, you can just go to Hell.”

  Her heart pounded and her palms sweated. Had she just told a man with unknown powers and murder on his mind to go to Hell?

  A wry smile curved his profane mouth. “I am afraid that is the one place I cannot go.”

  Esher reappeared. “All set.”

  “We shall track down the daemon scum who did this and will return by dawn.” Daimon stepped back and turned to Esher. “We’ll check the gate first and make sure it is protected and safe, and then scout the city for trouble. Question any daemon you come across. I want to know where the bastard who did this has gone. I want him dead.”

  Darkness swirled around them both, rising up from their feet to embrace them, and they disappeared.

  Megan watched the smoke slowly dissipate.

  “Daemons?” When Esher had called the man a daemon, she had thought he was just angry and considered the man was a lowlife because of what he had done. She had the feeling that wasn’t the case after all. Her dark eyebrows rose. Daemons. The man had powers, and so did these brothers. Were they all daemons too?

  Creatures of Hell?

  Megan drifted towards the open side of the bedroom and paused when she reached the bed. Her gaze roamed over the man where he lay on his front, his lower half hidden under the crimson covers. Was he a daemon?

  She frowned and looked at her hands. Was she?

  A breeze blew in through the open door onto the balcony and she rounded the foot of the bed and walked between it and the long ebony chest of drawers that lined the short dividing wall between the bedroom and the other smaller room. Her foot caught in something and she almost tripped over, barely catching herself on the drawers. She raised an eyebrow at the clothes strewn across the wooden floorboards. The room was a mess and it wasn’t because of Esher. The ones the man had been wearing tonight were in a small neat pile near the living room area of the apartment.

  Megan kicked the clothes aside, clearing the floor so she didn’t trip again. Whoever her protector was, he needed to hire a maid.

  She slid the glass door closed. The view of Manhattan was breathtaking even with the rain making it hazy. She could make out the silhouette of trees in Central Park, a dark patch in the middle of the tall buildings surrounding it. It wasn’t a front row seat but it was certainly an expensive view. Her own apartment had a view of the brick wall across the alley from her building. She would kill for a view like this. Seeing a slice of nature every morning and evening would make her feel closer to home and infinitely happier.

  She pushed away thoughts of the mountains and forests she had left behind years ago and turned to face the man. She rounded the bed again, her gaze tracking over him, taking all of him in. It settled on his face when she reached his side.

  He was beautiful.

  Was he single?

  The voice of reason piped up again, mentioning that she was trapped in his apartment, a captive who would be facing a death sentence should she try to escape. Now wasn’t the time to be wondering about relationship statuses.

  Besides, he was so handsome that he was bound to have a string of women vying for his attention and time in his company.

  She glanced at the dirty clothes littering his bedroom floor and then into the living room to the white pizza cartons scattered around it and across the black granite kitchen counters. The whole apartment had an air of bachelor pad. She hadn’t failed to notice the expensive entertainment centre in the corner of his living room, or the motorcycle in the small room that backed onto the bedroom.

  Maybe he was single.

  Or maybe he just didn’t bring women back to his place.

  Maybe she needed to keep her nose out of his business, do what Daimon wanted her to and get the hell away from them.

  Megan eased down onto the bed beside her protector. She reached over and curled a strand of his dark damp hair behind his ear, letting her fingers linger on the stubbly line of his jaw.

  Was it wrong of her to want to stay?

  It wasn’t just him who had her torn between leaving and remaining.

  They all had powers and she wanted to know more about them. She needed to know more about them because she hoped that maybe she would learn more about herself in the process. How many others were there like them in the world? She had so many questions she wanted to ask.

  She had spent the past fifteen years with a gift she didn’t understand and the past decade wandering from city to city, trying to lead a normal life and searching for an explanation.

  Searching for others like her who might be able to provide her with answers.

  She looked down at her hands and turned her palms upwards. She sighed, shifted to kneel on the bed beside his hips, and settled her hands on his strong bare back. He was still warm beneath her fingers. She focused and let her power flow through her and into him. His breathing deepened and sped.

  The draining effect of her power had been quick to manifest in the alley when she had healed his chest wound and it was just as quick now. She breathed slowly against it, focusing on it and her hands to keep her power flowing. Fatigue swept through her but she held her focus, her desire to repay the man for protecting her stronger than her need to protect herself. Her pulse spiked and then slowed, and she willed the burns on his back to heal. Her vision wobbled. She blinked and drew in a deeper breath, holding it for a second before exhaling. She couldn’t figure out why he was so slow to heal and why it took so much out of her. Normally, she could heal these sorts of wounds without breaking a sweat and with only a minimal drain on her strength.

  He shifted beneath her hands.

  Her eyes glided up the line of his spine to his face.

  His eyes opened, irises swirling like fire in the low light. The sight of them didn’t frighten her, not like the Frenchman’s had or those of the men who claimed to be his brothers. He tried to look at her and his eyes slipped shut again, his broad body relaxing back into the mattress.

  She eased her power back as the last of his wounds healed and gently stroked his muscled back. Thin scars darted across his golden skin. Hundreds of them. She followed one with her finger from where it started above his right shoulder all the way down to where it ended close to his left hip.

  His breathing slowed to a gentle rhythm.

  She stroked another of the silvery scars. This was wrong on so many levels and she felt as though she was taking advantage of him in his unconscious state but she couldn’t help herself. The scar tracked from one shoulder to the other and her insides heated as her fingers trailed over the peaks and valleys of his muscles. He was huge, the span of his shoulders almost twice that of hers, and broader than Daimon’s and Esher’s. None of them looked like brothers. Maybe they were brothers by circumstance rather than blood.

  She stifled a yawn.

  How long would his so-called brothers be out? She stared out of the bank of windows at the city. Daimon had said they would return at dawn. Dawn was a long way away and she didn’t think she could stay awake that long. She looked down at the bed beneath her. It was soft and comfortable despite the slightly scratchy bedclothes, but there was no way she was going to curl up on it and fall asleep.

  No matter how tempting it was.

  She wasn’t that sort of woman and she didn’t think that the man, or his brothers, would be pleased if they found her sleeping next to him.

  Megan stood and yawned loudly this time. Her eyes watered and she rubbed them. She pulled the covers up and smoothed them over the man’s shoulders. She had done all she could for him and now she had to take care of her own needs.

  She trudged back into the pale living room. The door tempted her but she turned away from it. She really did believe that Daimon w
ould track her down and kill her if she left. She had somehow survived a fight between two powerful men tonight but only because one had protected her from the other. If Daimon came after her, she didn’t think the man would protect her from him. He would side with his brother over her.

  She toed her black trainers off and picked them up, crossed the room to the red couch and set them down beside it. She pulled her black jumper off next and frowned at how soggy it still was. She would catch a chill sleeping on the couch in just her damp jeans and dark pink camisole. Her eyes snuck back to the bed and she forced them away. They settled on the beautiful motorcycle in the small open room next to the bedroom.

  She dropped her jumper onto the arm of the couch and squeezed between the ebony coffee table cluttered with magazines, DVDs and a pizza carton and the dark red armchair that stood close to the dividing wall. How had he got the motorcycle up to his apartment?

  Esher had teleported with her. Perhaps they could teleport with objects too. She would have to ask her protector when he woke up. She pushed the ebony coffee table aside so she could move around without banging her legs on it and glanced at the door again. She couldn’t leave even if she was free to do so. She couldn’t leave the man alone. What if he needed her?

  Megan lay down on the dark wine-coloured couch opposite the black entertainment centre. The material was itchy beneath her. How could such expensive-looking furniture be so damn uncomfortable? She shuffled until she was finally more comfortable and tried to remain awake, fighting the rising tide of fatigue within her.

  She picked up one of the magazines from the table and flicked through it, reading the articles but not taking them in, her motions slowing until she was just staring at the pictures, her mind on the man in the other room, the two who were his brothers, and the one who had attacked him.

  Four men with powers even more incredible than hers were.

  Tonight had been strange, and somewhat exhilarating, but something told her that it wasn’t over yet.

  When tomorrow came, the sun would dawn on a new world for her, a place with people who were like her, and she would finally know where her powers had come from. She would have the answers she craved and a world where she belonged.

  A world that felt dangerous and dark.

  Megan’s eyes drifted closed.

  A world with powerful warriors.

  Her protector swam into existence in her dark mind and hurled a fireball at another man. A man who turned glowing eyes on her and smiled cruelly.

  A world with daemons.

  CHAPTER 4

  Ares woke feeling as though he had drunk from the river Acheron and gone ten rounds with a gorgon. His head pounded so hard that he couldn’t think straight and he didn’t want to open his eyes until he was sure his bedroom was dark. Every bone in his body throbbed deeply, making it difficult to keep from twitching restlessly.

  He cracked one eye open a sliver, enough to see that it was dark in his bedroom, but not dark enough. What little light there was stabbed his retina, sending shooting pains down his optic nerve to the base of his skull.

  What in the name of the gods had happened last night?

  He groaned, gritted his teeth and pressed a hand to his head. Rolling onto his side was a mistake. The action sent fire ripping through his shoulder and he moaned low and long. He had definitely been in a fight. How it had ended and how he had gotten home were beyond him though. He eased his eyes open little by little so they adjusted to the painful dim light.

  He did recall losing a tooth. He brushed his tongue around his mouth. All of them were back, so he had been asleep for over seven hours straight.

  He pushed his red covers off and stared down at himself. Who had put him to bed? Certainly not him because he was wearing his black trunks and he preferred to sleep in the nude. A quick scan of his body revealed zero damage, just the way he liked it. He eased into a sitting position. His clothes from last night were in the corner of his bedroom, close to the open side that joined it to the living room.

  They were folded and stacked.

  Esher? The man was a neat freak. Had to be Esher who had put him to bed, but what had his younger brother been doing in New York?

  Ares swung his legs over the edge of his double bed and pushed onto his feet. He stumbled forwards and hit the wall, grasping it to stop his knees from giving out beneath him. Damn. Whatever had happened, he was still feeling the effects of it now.

  His muscles ached but he straightened, ignoring their protests and stretching them to loosen them up. He held on to the wall and walked as far as he could with its aid, and then risked it. He let go of the wall and his legs didn’t give out. Progress, but he still couldn’t figure out why he was feeling so weak.

  He crossed the short distance to his clothes, fished his black coat off the top of the pile and held it up in front of him. The back was ruined, riddled with holes that were scorched around their edges.

  His dark eyes widened and cold stole through him.

  He dropped the coat, stared at his hands, turning them palm up, and called his power.

  Nothing came.

  He focused harder, determined to bring fire to his fingertips.

  Still nothing.

  The cold inside him spread icy tendrils until it seized all of him, leaving him chilled to his core.

  He breathed hard, eyes locked on his fingers, struggling to come to terms with what he was seeing and what he was feeling.

  His power was gone.

  It couldn’t be gone.

  He was just tired and sore from the fight against that daemon. That was all this was. His energy was low and his body wasn’t responding because of it. There was no reason to panic. With a little more rest, he would make a full recovery. He would. There was absolutely no reason that he wouldn’t.

  His chest burned and he looked down at the spot above his heart, along the line between his pectorals. It flickered between perfect skin and a blistered red patch. He clutched it as pain seared him, as hot as the deepest pit in the Underworld, and ground his molars together. The daemon. The bastard had touched him there and then it had been able to use fire.

  He had stolen his power.

  Ares growled and levelled a punch at the wall, slamming his fist into the plaster and denting it. Fire, but not the sort he loved with a passion, chased through his bones and his shoulder throbbed madly.

  What was he supposed to do now?

  He had never been without his power before. None of his brothers had either. He wanted it back. He felt naked without it, weak despite his immortal strength and other abilities. He had cursed his power since arriving in the mortal world two centuries ago and had dreamed countless times of how good his life would be without it, with the ability to touch again and be touched without fear of hurting someone, but now that it was gone, he wanted it back.

  Ares glanced at the world drenched in evening light outside his window.

  He would get it back.

  He stalked across his apartment and shoved the door to his bathroom open. He slid the clear door of the double-width shower open and switched the water on, swinging it straight over to hot for the first time in his entire life. He would get himself warm and then he would call his brothers. They would be able to help him and he needed to tell them what had happened and his suspicions about the gate.

  He stripped off his underwear and stepped into the shower. The hot water beat down on his body, easing tired muscles and melting the ache away. He stood under the jet, letting it cascade over him and waiting for it to heat his body back to the temperature he had grown to like.

  It didn’t.

  He hung his head forwards, pressed his palms into the tiles and closed his eyes. The hot water bounced off his arms and shoulders, scorching his scalp, but he still couldn’t get warm. His blood still felt like icy sludge in his veins.

  Fear.

  He cursed and slammed his fist into the tiles, splintering them. He was still powerful. There was no reason for him to
get jittery just because he had to rely on his strength now and other powers. It was just temporary. He would have his fire back before he knew it.

  He really needed to speak to his brothers. Esher hadn’t come alone last night. He remembered Daimon being there too. He didn’t remember calling them though.

  Ares switched the shower off and stepped out of the cubicle. He grabbed a fresh white towel from the pile on the oak vanity and stared at it. It was strange not having to worry about setting it on fire. He was in a foul mood, one so black that under normal circumstances he would have to exert all of his willpower to keep his flames under control. Now there was no risk of setting the towel on fire, or his apartment. He had wanted to feel this way for so long, had thought it would be great to be like the majority of his brothers, able to touch things without fear of setting them alight. It turned out that he didn’t like it at all.

  In fact, he hated it.

  He dried himself off, wrapped the long white towel around his waist and grabbed a smaller one from beside the sink. He rubbed it against his overlong tawny hair, rehearsing how he was going to break this to his brothers. Not only had a daemon got the better of him, twice, but it had taken his power too. Talk about embarrassing.

  He was never living this one down.

  Gods only help him if his father found out what had happened.

  He trudged out of the bathroom and frowned as a soft scent curled around him, bringing him to a halt as it filled his lungs with warmth and soothed the ache in his head.

  What in the gods’ names was that smell and where was it coming from?

  His body tensed, every inch of him going rigid in response to the delicate scent of evening sunshine and night flowering jasmine.

  Every inch.

  His eyelids slipped to half-mast and he drew in another slow breath of it, holding it in his lungs and savouring it. He had never smelled anything so sweet and tempting.

  He had never smelled anything so feminine.

  His dark gaze scoured his apartment. There was a faint sense of familiarity about the scent. It conjured an image in his mind of a beautiful brunette, her shoulder-length hair hanging in delicate wet ribbons that framed her face, a stark contrast against her clear pale skin. Luminous brown eyes had looked at him with heat and stirred a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time.