Poisoned Kisses (17 page)

“And I’m a war-forged hydra,” Marco said. “I’ve been fighting in Africa for more than a decade and I’ve made a lot of money doing it. I’m not going to give that up. Not even for you.”

Could the money have meant more to him than she’d realized? She’d seen his penthouse in Naples. She’d let him kiss her in his luxurious suite in Toronto. Marco drove expensive cars, wore expensive suits and was a man with the power to look however he pleased, go where he pleased, to do what he pleased, to have who he pleased. “What about for Ashlynn?” she asked acidly. “Would you give it up for her?”

Marco shrugged. “She won’t have me, so it doesn’t matter. War is the only thing I know.”

“You’re lying,” Kyra said. He
had
to be lying.

“No. You’re the expert when it comes to lies. Everything between us was deception, Kyra. You’re blisteringly hot in bed, but when it’s over, all I’m left with is the illusion. I guess that’s how it is with nymphs.”

Shocked, she stumbled back. His words were as poisonous as his blood, and she could hardly believe they’d come from his lips. “You—you’re hurting me.”

“You’re tough,” Marco replied coldly. “You’ll get over it. You’ll take another lover and move on. So will I. Now go.”

It was as if he had backhanded her. She felt the sting and
could almost taste the blood in her mouth. She’d thought he was struggling to be a better man, she thought she knew him, but Hecate had been right. No matter how clearly you tried to illuminate the crossroads, mortals sometimes still willfully took the wrong path. And it broke her heart. It broke
her.
She felt as if she was looking at him for the first time. Hell, he’d even taken on the face of a war god. How blind had she been? Like every other silly nymph in history, she’d seen in Marco only what she wanted to see. The reality was that he’d been a soldier, a warrior, and the bloodlust was in him. He’d make a perfect minion, after all.

“I hate you,” she grated. “I wish I’d killed you in Naples.”

It wasn’t true, but she wished it were. His betrayal would hurt so much less.

Marco’s eyes were unreadable, but what he said was, “Me, too.”

Then he tossed her the peridot choker. She caught her mother’s pendant in one hand, gripping it with fury. Then she turned and stormed out past Ogun’s boy soldiers with what little dignity and strength she had left. Kyra stumbled down the mountain trail, tears and confusion blinding her. It was only dusk, but Kyra was so weak that she couldn’t see through the trees.

She pushed her way through thickets of bamboo, and stopped there, wondering if she might not just become part of them. Right here on this mountain, felled by grief, she could transform. She felt ready to sink down into the earth and become a new sort of tangled, strangled vine. No. Something with wings. She hated to fly, why not punish herself? Why not become like an angel or some creature that could fly far away from a world in which she no longer belonged? That was her fate.

But Hecate had said her fate was to destroy a hydra.

Kyra’s heart missed a beat. Marco had told her to remember what they’d said on the plane, that they couldn’t cheat fate.
He’d said it when he was trying to think of ways to escape Ogun. He’d said it because he wanted her to kill him. To fulfill her destiny. Was that still what he had in mind? Had everything else he’d said in Ogun’s hut been a lie designed to make her leave?

In either case, Marco had said one true thing to Ogun. Kyra
was
the daughter of Ares. She could smell war before it came, could hear the explosions before they happened, like the crack of her father’s whip over his chariot.

And war was coming now.

T
he first explosion went off in the middle of the general’s pastureland, sending up a big cloud of dust. Marco heard the jingling of frantic bells as goats and livestock ran. The force of the second explosion was much closer and nearly threw Marco off his feet. A wooden beam collapsed beside him, but he wasn’t afraid. Better that he die this way, crushed. And better that he die swiftly so that he wouldn’t have to live with the memory of Kyra’s tear-streaked face as she left him. He’d been sure that she’d see through his lies, that she’d look into his eyes and know his intentions. It hurt him to think that she might never know how he felt about her, but at least it got her to leave before the bombs started falling.

Outside, panicked men shouted, but even though the shelling had blown a hole in the roof, the war god only laughed. As debris fell around them, Ogun stood in the midst of the destruction, upright, his eyes alight. “Does your little nymph think the same thing will work twice? That a few grenades will make me take my eyes off of my prize?”

Ogun reached for Marco, but Marco leaped away. “It’s not another distraction, and those explosions aren’t grenades.”

“If not a distraction, then what?”

“Something you’ll like a lot better,” Marco said, lifting the machine gun he’d taken off one of Ogun’s guards.
“War.”

With that, Marco pulled the trigger and sent a hail of bullets toward Ogun’s chest. Ogun stumbled back, clutching at his torso and Marco felt the brief rush of triumph. But then the general spread his hands, sprinkling the broken bullet fragments like deadly fairy dust. And he began to laugh again. Acrid smoke billowed around them and Marco pulled his sleeve over his face so that he could breathe. Another explosion rocked the ground; it broke the glass and took off part of the front wall with it. Far off, Marco could hear the rumbling, and Ogun could, too.

“Tanks.” Ogun’s expression lay somewhere between fury and delight. “What have you done, my old friend?”

“What I should have done a long time ago,” Marco said. In the envelope he’d delivered to the UN, Marco had given a complete account. Maps of every stronghold and fortress. Inventory of rebel weaponry. Everything.

Ogun’s soldiers burst in. “An army is coming!” they shouted, then pulled up short, not knowing which man was truly the general. He pulled back. Behind Marco, the smoldering hole in the wall beckoned. As another explosion shook the ground, he dove through the opening, rolled to his feet and bolted. He heard the staccato burst of a machine gun behind him and little divots of earth came up around his feet as he ran, but better that he was shot than captured alive—Ogun would still harvest his toxic blood, but at least there’d be a limited supply.

“Don’t shoot him, you imbeciles!” Ogun cried, his long elegant strides easily closing the distance. There was no way Marco could outrun the war god, but it just wasn’t in him to surrender.

Behind them the battle raged. UN and government forces were clashing with the rebels and the scent of war was in the air. It was the one thing—perhaps the only thing—more tempting to Ogun. “I want to fight. I want to taste the gunpowder, to see the destruction, to feast upon the forces of war!”

“Then go back and enjoy yourself!” Marco shouted. Vines and thorns lashed at him as he ran and behind him, he heard the god’s frustrated cry.

“You’ll never find your way out of this jungle in the dark, my friend. I’ll win this battle and have you in my hands again by morning.”

Probably so, but Marco kept running. At first it was the slim hope of escape that kept his legs pumping and led him to ignore everything but the slope of the mountain as he fled. Then as time passed and darkness fell, he knew it was simply adrenaline that kept him going. He didn’t know how long or how far he ran. He was so disoriented he wasn’t even sure he was going the right direction anymore. He stopped when it was so dark that he couldn’t see anything in front of him. That’s also when he hit a patch of wet earth. The ground dropped out beneath him and he slid through the mud, rocks and fallen branches, bruising him all the way.

Momentarily dazed, he checked himself for wounds. Miraculously, he wasn’t bleeding anywhere, so he just lay still listening to the rumble of government tanks as they assaulted the general’s stronghold. Maybe for once, the world would do something right in Africa. Maybe the information he’d provided the UN would be more valuable than the weapons he’d sold. Only time would tell. He probably wouldn’t live to see it, but he felt strangely at peace with that. The important thing was that the people he loved were safe. Ashlynn and Benji were on a plane out of Africa, and hopefully, so was Kyra.

She hated him now—he’d
made
her hate him. He’d never
forget the rage on her face when she’d told him so, nor the pain that shot through him when she said it. But he’d saved her, and it might have just been the only good thing he’d managed to do with his life.

Waiting for his eyes to adjust enough that he could make out the shape of the night in front of him, Marco held up his hands. But between his splayed fingers, he saw a brief flash of green, like a firefly from the summers he spent in Niagara Falls as a boy. Then he saw it again, that green glow. Peridot.
No
. His eyes must be playing tricks on him. It was just that he
wanted
to see her. Surely he’d pissed Kyra off enough that she’d gotten off this damned mountain and out of the war zone. But what if she hadn’t? “Kyra?”

She didn’t answer him. She didn’t pause to wipe the mud from her hands or cheeks. She simply pushed through the foliage and threw herself into his arms, kissing him hard, desperately. Maybe it was the feel of her that he recognized in the dark, but soon his mouth enveloped hers in that feverish way that robbed her of all reason. And for a moment—just a moment—it seemed as if their gasped breaths were louder than the war that raged in the distance.

“Damn you,” Marco finally said, shaking Kyra. “Why are you here? Why didn’t you go?”

“Because I love you,” Kyra admitted with a sob. It was the last thing she’d wanted to say, but the words wrested themselves from her and left her utterly defenseless. He could cast her away. But he crushed her against his chest, steely arms around her waist as if he’d never let her go.

“Kyra, you said you hated me.”

“I lied!” Kyra cried bitterly. “Isn’t that why you’re always so angry at me? Because I lie and I lie and I lie. But you lied, too, you hypocrite.” She pounded her fist against his chest. “Tell me you were lying!”

“Ow!
Damn it.
”

“Don’t you hear the war raging up there, Marco? The bloodlust vibrates beneath my skin because I’m the daughter of Ares. But if I can turn my back on it, so can you. Tell me you didn’t mean what you said in front of Ogun. All those horrible,
horrible
things you said. Tell me you lied.”

“Of course I lied!” Marco barked, pulling her against him as if he couldn’t decide whether to hug or throttle her. “You said you could look right into my eyes and see my soul—that you’d always know me, always see the truth!”

Kyra took a sharp breath. “But I didn’t have the strength. He’d been torturing me, and I was using everything I had left to heal my wounds. I couldn’t use my inner torch…and I couldn’t understand why you came back.”

His fingers locked around her wrists. “I came back for you, you witless nymph!”

“Oh, Marco—”

“Shut up,” Marco said. Then he kissed her lying lips as if they were the most precious things to him in the world. She wanted to stay here, just like this. His hair in her hands. Her heart slamming in her chest alongside his. She wanted to savor and explore the emotions that swirled within her at the realization that he’d come back for her. That once—just once—a man came back for a nymph.

But as another rocket lit up the night sky, she was reminded that there was no time for that. “Did you pledge yourself to be Ogun’s minion?”

“Not yet. The explosions started before I could.”

“Then we have to keep walking,” Kyra said, scrambling to her feet. “If we can get to the plane, maybe we can get out of the Congo before the fighting stops.”

“Kyra, we have to wait until daybreak. It’s too dark and I’m not sure where we are. I can’t see a thing.”

“Maybe I can,” Kyra said, tugging at his hand. To summon what power she had left, she’d have to let all her cuts bleed.
But perhaps if she focused her strength she could do it. She might not be immortal anymore, but she was still a nymph of the underworld. Darkness posed no barrier. Her inner torch flickered until she glowed in the darkness, but it was a struggle to keep it lit. She took a few steps, squinting, and Marco stumbled behind her, sweeping the air in front of him with his free hand.

“You have to trust me,” Kyra whispered, knowing how deeply that ran counter to his nature.

“I do,” he said, putting himself in her hands.

Kyra’s torchlit eyes burned until tears flowed freely. Until her feet were so sore that she couldn’t feel them anymore and her tongue was thick in her mouth with thirst. As she and Marco trudged through the tall grasses, flies bit at the blood she let trickle down her arms. And when Kyra stumbled, Marco caught her around the waist and slung her up into his arms. The sudden weightlessness, the feeling of someone else unburdening her, made her tremble with relief. “It’s dawn,” Marco said. “I can see, now. In fact, I think I see the plane. Just close your eyes, Kyra. Close your eyes.”

Letting her head fall back against his shoulder, Kyra’s lids fluttered shut. She’d done it. Just a little farther and they’d be free. And she was in his arms—the only place she wanted to be. He carried her the rest of the way, setting her down in the passenger seat, and never in her life did she think she would be so happy to be inside a plane.

K
yra woke up in an empty cockpit, sweating profusely in the stifling air. She sat up suddenly, rasping, “Marco?” There was no answer.

Unstrapping herself and standing on shaky legs, Kyra climbed out of the plane, knife in hand. She’d taken only a few steps past the tail before her vision slid, tilted and slammed back into focus. Struggling with her new mortal vulnerability, Kyra needed to sit down. Right where she was. Wherever she was. As it happened, she found herself at the edge of a sparkling blue pond beneath a fat, orange, setting sun.
Gods above and below,
where was she and how long had she been asleep?

“Marco!” she called again, trying to fight the panic in her voice.

“I’m here,” he said, emerging from beneath the wing of the plane. He was red-faced and shirtless, with only a canteen strapped to his shoulder. Sweat glistened on his arms and dripped down his hard stomach, soaking the waistband of
his muddy fatigues. He’d been working hard at something—perhaps fixing the plane.

And he smiled at her. It was the first time she’d ever seen a genuine smile on his face, and the beauty of it made everything tighten inside her chest. She’d never seen anyone smile like that, and it made her forget to breathe.

“You’re looking a little better,” Marco said. “The sleep helped?”

“Yes,” Kyra exhaled, relieved to see the aura of his concern. Her powers were returning to her. For how long, though, she didn’t know. “I’m thirsty.”

He handed her his canteen, hovering while she took deep gulps. “Easy,
Angel.
”

For some reason, it no longer bothered her that he called her that. He could call her anything at all in that sexy baritone and it would please her. She took a few more swallows, then squinted. “Where are we?”

“Cameroon. It was as far as I could get from Ogun on the fuel we had. How long do we have before he finds us?”

That was a tricky question. “Ogun doesn’t have the gift of sight. He isn’t like Hecate. His minions are probably searching for us now, and then he’ll catch up.”

“How long?” Marco asked, with that infuriating pragmatism of his.

“Just as Ares takes vultures for his minions, Ogun chooses wounded warriors,” Kyra said softly, realizing only now that Marco had always been drawn to Ogun for just this reason. In the sunlight, the scar from his gunshot wound on his shoulder was paler than the rest of his skin. He, too, was a wounded warrior. “This place has more than its share of wounded warriors who could report back to Ogun, but as long as no one saw us land here, it could be days before he finds us.”

Marco nodded, some of the tension flowing away. She relaxed some, too. Marco took the canteen back, but only sipped from it as if to save the bulk of it for her, as if she were
any other mortal woman who could die of thirst. And maybe she could. “Everything really hurts,” Kyra admitted. “I don’t even remember the plane ride. I don’t remember anything after I led you out of the jungle.”

“After what you’ve been through, I’m not surprised.”

“This…this exhaustion. This is what it’s like for mortals?”

He winced, his eyes traveling over her with guilt.

“Don’t look at me that way, Marco. I stabbed you. The poisoning was my fault.”

But Marco didn’t answer. Instead, he crouched beside her, pouring some of the water from the canteen into his hands and using it to wash her arms. She realized what a mess she must be—her hair matted, her tank top glued to her back with sweat and blood. And it made her defensive. “You’re dirtier than I am, you know.”

“I don’t want your wounds to get infected.”

Wounds?
Kyra looked down to see marks on her arms—bruises and jaggedly rent skin where Ogun had cut her. Was that a scab on her perfect nymph’s skin? It was the way mortal wounds closed, slowly and with a mark to tell the story. It mesmerized Kyra, and when she looked up at the world again, it was with a sense of being alive she hadn’t felt before. The world looked new to her eyes, and she wanted to be a part of it.

Kyra peeled her shirt over her head. Marco averted his gaze—apparently trying not to stare at her breasts as she bared them in the glow of the setting sun—but he couldn’t hide the naked lust the sight evoked in him. “I’m going to swim,” Kyra said. “You should come with me.”

Marco’s eyes darted toward the gorgeous watering hole, then back at her. “There could be crocodiles. Who knows what’s in that water?”

“It’s clear to the bottom!” Kyra protested, taking off the
rest of her clothes. “Besides, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I have uncommonly good eyesight.”

He smirked. He’d never been a man for whimsy. But something was different about him today. “Okay,” he said, his hands unfastening his belt buckle.

Her breath caught at the sight of him. Even after all they’d been through together, her raw need for him was reliable and easily triggered. It was an ache. She stood there watching until he was undressed and splashed into the water up to his knees. Kyra’s heart seized with the most overwhelming sensation that she’d somehow seen this before. Seen him walk away from her, into the water. No, it wasn’t
her
memory—it was just the story Calypso had told about the day Odysseus left. But as the water embraced Marco, swirling around his hips, Kyra was suddenly and acutely aware that he planned to leave her. Even now as he held his hand out to her. He wouldn’t stay. She knew it as she knew herself. Better than she knew her own nymph’s nature. And yet, she took his outstretched hand and let him draw her in.

The water was warm as a bath and she tried to shake off her sadness as they washed away the blood and grime and sweat. She told herself to leave it alone, but she had to know. She was already naked. She’d already told him that she loved him, and now they were both clean. She didn’t want to dirty whatever it is they had with pretense. “Marco? What aren’t you telling me?” His dark hair was wet and slicked back, his shoulders bare and glowing, but his expression was a mask. There was nothing to do but ask. “Are you going back to Ashlynn?”

The mask broke as he looked her dead in the eye. “No.”

But there was something he was still hiding. Something dark and looming between them. “But you wish you could be with her?”

“No.”

She had trouble believing him. “When I pretended to be Ashlynn, you
wanted
me to be her.”

“No,” Marco said again, this time shaking his head and sending a spray of water droplets into the air. “I wanted
her
to be
you.
”

Kyra didn’t dare look at him. If she saw a lie in his eyes it would shatter her into a thousand pieces. Instead, she let him draw her close and kiss her. It was the first time—the only time—they’d been completely naked together. No disguises. Their own faces, their own skin. Nothing between them but the silky water and the heat of their bodies. They matched each other, lip to lip, chest to breast. He was hard against her belly, and it sent a sweet pain right to her core. But some part of her was afraid to be so aroused again, afraid of the wild lust.

No. She knew lust, she knew sex, and she was too primal to fear either. It wouldn’t be sex this time, it would be lovemaking. There could be no more pretending, even to herself, that it was only about his hard body or her easy virtue. Marco’s teeth captured her lower lip and softly bit down, sending a shiver through her. His hands splayed at the small of her back, clutching her like a drowning man.

“I need you,” he whispered.

He
needed
her. How was she to struggle against that and why should she try? Especially when the answering call of her own need echoed through her body. She reached for him below the water and it was like a jolt of electricity arced between them when her fingers wrapped around his erection. He pressed hard into her hand, his mouth suddenly all over her. Her face, her neck, her shoulders. She stroked him, water swirling between them as she did so.

When his lips fastened on the vulnerable hollow of her throat, she smothered a groan and he said, “You don’t have to be quiet anymore, Kyra. We’re not on a dance floor.”

The heat of a blush crept up her skin, but it wasn’t shame. His knee shifted between her legs—a vivid reminder of their rooftop dance with all its pleasure and unfulfilled desire.
Molten-lava memories flowed beneath her skin—the memory of what he’d done to her and what he could do again if he wanted to. He could drive her right over the edge into orgasm with nothing but his voice, but it was not what she wanted. Not this time. And he seemed to know it. “It’s all right,” Marco said hoarsely. “When you come this time, I promise I’m going to be inside you.” Now Kyra
did
groan, and it came from the depths of her as his hands slid over her thighs, rough fingers over sore muscles. He hoisted her up out of the water so that she straddled him—and Kyra felt a strange kind of weightlessness.
It’s his gift,
she thought. He could lift an earthbound nymph from the world, hold her in the sky and not let her fall. He carried her, his powerful thighs churning through the water until they reached the shore, then he set her down on a bed of tall grasses. The dry weeds must have scratched her naked back. The hard ground must have been unyielding. But all she could feel on her body were the places where he touched her.

He cupped her breasts, kneading them as he settled his weight down on her. She took that weight, loving it. Then her legs splayed in invitation. She wanted him to push inside her. But instead, he lowered his head, kissing a fiery path down her stomach to the downy curls between her legs. Kyra jerked when his tongue found her center.

It was too much. She grabbed his hair, trying to slow him down as he used his teeth to drive her to the edge.

Marco wasn’t gentle. He couldn’t be. Especially not with her thighs closed around his neck and the taste of her feeding an urgency in him to utterly ravish her. “Please,” he heard her muffled whisper, her hips twisting beneath his mouth as if to get away. He thought he might have hurt her until she said, “You promised…”

What the hell had he promised? Marco couldn’t remember. He was so far gone he couldn’t fasten on anything but the
satin of her skin. He looked up to see her hair fanned out on the grass and a flush that stained her bare breasts with pink arousal. Those beautiful lips were parted, her fists clenched at her sides, and that’s when he realized how close she’d been to orgasm. “You promised when I came this time, you’d be inside me.”

Hearing her say it made him snap. He crawled over her, positioned her hips and, with one thrust, buried himself inside her. She took all of him. Every last inch. And it made him shudder with a satisfaction that throbbed throughout his whole body. He thrust into her. Again. Then again. Until he found a pounding rhythm that made him forget all else. That was vital, because right now, he
needed
to forget everything but her.

Kyra let out a desperate sound, as she rocked her hips forward, but he held her still. If she kept moving like that, making sounds like that, he’d never last. And this
had
to last. This had to last so he could remember it. So he could take this one happiness with him to the grave.

In his rough sexual frenzy, his body made wet slapping noises against her. But he couldn’t seem to stop. Then Kyra’s eyes fluttered closed. He knew the signs. He’d watched her come before. A ragged breath tore itself from her throat, and he felt her clamp around him. Her body went rigid as her lips parted in a delicious orgasmic cry. He let out a ferocious growl as he emptied himself into her. The pleasure was blinding—white-hot. Wave after wave of intense release, as if he were pouring everything he had, everything he was, into her body.

Afterward, his muscles all gave way. He tried to roll away so as not to crush her beneath him, but Kyra pulled him down onto the pillow of her body. And he lay there, shattered. He’d never felt this way. He must never have been in love before. And this was undoubtedly love. There was no lying to himself
about it. It’s just that he hadn’t known it would feel like this. And it would make everything he had to do so much harder.

Kyra stared up at the night sky. She couldn’t remember having ever seen so many stars before. It made her brave. It made her reckless. “Marco, I want you to come back home with me.”

His eyes were half-lidded, his breathing even. “I thought you didn’t take anybody home with you.”

She’d already let him into her heart. Maybe she could let him into her home, too. “That was before.”

A sad smile passed his lips and he asked, “What would we do there in your villa?”

She touched his cheek. “Make love. Gather our treasure. Buy a big boat and sail the Mediterranean. Only Poseidon would have to know, and he’s not very warlike.”

“How long could we live together like that?” Marco asked.

Her newfound mortality didn’t frighten her. “Until we die.”

He nestled against her, sleepily, and whispered, “I’d like that.”

I’d like that,
he’d said. And instantly, Kyra knew he was well and truly done with selling weapons. He was done with war. But he hadn’t said he loved her, and it was the one thing she wouldn’t push him to say. It irritated her, like a prickle on her skin and it wasn’t the only one. Kyra touched the scab on her arm and was rewarded with a sharp pain. It was a wound, a real wound. It was somehow more real than anything she’d ever suffered before. She’d have to learn to get used to the kind of injury mortals like Marco endured and risked every day. “You know, you could’ve been killed,” she murmured. “When they bombed Ogun’s compound, you could’ve been blown to bits or riddled with bullets just like any other soldier. How did you know you’d get away?”

“I didn’t,” Marco said, and his answer chilled Kyra to the bone.

That’s when she realized the barrier—the only barrier—that still lay between them. He’d returned to save her, yes, but he hadn’t expected to live through any of this. She should’ve known it by the way he’d been so different today. She should’ve known it by the way he smiled when she first woke up. Mortals never smiled with quite that much lightness and openness unless they were imbeciles or ready to die. “What were you doing today while I was asleep in the cockpit?”