Red Demon (15 page)

“I have you, Oracle,” Leo had murmured reassuringly. “You are safe with me.”

The Oracle had released a high-pitched, eerie cry then, one that made the hair on Ari’s nape prickle. “The Daughters of Delphi will separate the wheat from the chaff, ordain the truth. Proclaim Juliana Tiades’ nature to be true,” she’d murmured in a disembodied voice. “Gather the Daughters. . . . Gather them tonight. In truth there is freedom from the curse of lies and uncertainty. The promise of eternity, of walking in light. The Daughters of Delphi must gather, must proclaim her innocence, and grant freedom . . . or destroy the evil.”

He’d practically shouted those questions, but then Daphne herself had returned, half collapsing against Leonidas. Leonidas had lifted a bowl of water to the Oracle’s lips, very gently.

“Our lady’s gift always takes such a toll on her,” Leonidas had explained, still holding the drink to her mouth.

“Not to be impolite, sir,” Juliana had asked quietly, “but why does your Oracle guide you in all things?”

Leo had turned to Ari in question then. “How much did you tell Juliana . . . before?”

Ari just shook his head. He’d willed their leader to hear his mind, transmitting one phrase:
She knows nothing.

“No idea about what we are?” their king pressed.

Juliana shook her head, too, obviously frustrated. “Which, gentlemen, seems most unfair, as it appears that you’re trying to decide whether to allow me to stay, instead of . . . well, I don’t know what you do with demons, but I don’t imagine it’s very pleasant.”

Ari was thankful when nobody even tried to answer. He’d be the one to explain the facts to Jules—no matter which way this evaluation went down. Good gods, he thought, it was like some medieval virginity test, with Jules needing to prove the purity of her spirit and soul.

Juliana spoke after a long, awkward moment. “I told you I’m the one you loved. . . .” Slowly she lifted her eyes, looking at him. Into him, it felt like. “And the one who always loved you.”

As if he didn’t already feel like a total jerk for how he’d been treating her tonight.

“It’s not just on me to decide,” he explained lamely. “It affects a lot of people, and . . . yeah, this isn’t my call.”

“Quite obviously, sir.” She stood even taller, maintaining an air of dignity and grace.

He hated himself in that moment, that he hadn’t stepped up to the plate on her behalf from the get-go.

Her hair had come loose about her face, and those disheveled tendrils made her appear only more vulnerable. He reached and, very carefully, as gently as possible, began repinning the loose curls. His hand grazed her ear, and she shivered, turning so that her cheek brushed against his palm.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, and moved his hand away, but she’d have none of that. She seized his big palm, pressing it right up against her face. Closing her eyes, she savored that connection, breathing deeply as if finally being offered water after an endless drought.

“No, no, Aristos. I want to feel you. I need to do so,” she said. “Until tonight I haven’t been touched by anyone in so many years, and certainly not by you.”

“How did you really find me? Come back to me?” That one question still nagged at him and couldn’t be denied. “You indicated earlier that you made some sort of arrangement with a spiritual guide.”

She glanced away, chewing on her lip. “I believe she was an angel. She wore glowing robes and was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Very kind. She had observed my many efforts and attempts at reaching you, the way I’ve hovered around the brownstone.”

“An angel,” he repeated, wondering why he’d not seen any such spiritual messengers outside her home earlier tonight. And thinking of all the times he’d prayed to the Highest God about his grief over losing Jules. Perhaps he had finally answered those supplications, which wasn’t so hard to believe, not with the spiritual battles of good and evil he’d engaged in over the millennia, and not when Ari knew firsthand that angels were real.

“This angel gave you physical form again?” he asked, his mind whirling with questions.

She gazed up into his eyes. “I’m not sure how she did it, or knew how to send me to your side, but one moment I was . . .” She stared at the floor and in a quiet voice said, “A ghost. I was a ghost just as I’ve been since my death, and then . . . she transformed me.” Jules lifted her hands, staring at her palms with wonder. “I was physical again, and then I was moving through this dark, whirling wind . . .” She hesitated, seeming to search for words. “More of a tunnel? I find it most difficult to describe, how the sensations felt.”

“She teleported you,” he explained, recognizing the process she sought to describe from firsthand experience, although with their Oracle and Ares, not an angel. “The angel sent you to my side.”

She nodded, amazement in her eyes. “First, there was the sensation of being alive again, right there, standing on the cobblestones! And next, the darkness folded away and I found myself in your bedroom.” A broad, radiant smile filled her face, her eyes growing bright with emotion. She took hold of his hand, squeezing it. “Aristos, I cannot tell you the joy I felt. My heart and soul triumphed, seeing you there in the bed, alive and real and waiting for—”

He didn’t even let her finish; he reached out, folding her tightly within a bearlike embrace. Wanting to use his own brawny body as a shield against anything or anyone who might try to take her from him, ever again.

How she had died, why she’d drowned herself . . . There would be time to solve his questions. Later.

“I need you,” he murmured against the top of her head. “I . . . God, I’ve loved you all these years, just couldn’t stop, sweetheart.”

“I waited for you—and you finally came back to me.” Juliana buried her face against his chest, inhaling as if needing to verify for herself that he, too, was real and alive.

The rush of love and sensation he felt right then was so intense that for one delirious moment he actually forgot the second part of the prophecy. The one that indicated that Juliana would still need validation from the other Daughters.

Very slowly, he released her. “Look, we still need to hear from Shay and Emma and Sophie,” he said, but the words sounded halfhearted even to himself.

She blinked back at him, finally turning away. It was all he could do not to pull her back into his arms—to hold her until time itself melted away.

Because he did believe. With his whole heart, he was now convinced that Juliana Tiades stood only a few feet away from him. And that was the problem. Because she’d broken him once before, and now? Feeling her heart beating against his chest, smelling that familiar aroma that belonged uniquely to her? He was falling for her all over again, and hard, because he’d never once stopped loving her. “Yeah . . . ,” he said lamely. “Just need to hear what the Daughters all say.”

Juliana inclined her head. “Of course, Aristos. I understand,” she said, but her blue eyes became very sad, as if she’d sensed the true reason for his hesitation.

Daphne folded both arms over her chest and gave him the feminine once-over. Nothing like being sized up—and snickered at, albeit sweetly—by the Oracle of Delphi.

“What?” he demanded when she just kept on grinning at him with that knowing, goofy smile.

She waltzed across the room, working that leather mini like she expected to be noticed. And maybe she did, he thought, seeing the way the king’s eyes flared, locked on her rolling hips like a laser beam. She crooked a finger, beckoning Ari to lean down to her much shorter height. He knew whatever was coming next was not going to make him proud of his actions tonight; nor was it going to be gentle on his ego.

She reached up onto her toes, pressing her mouth against his ear. “I thought you were angry with her. That you couldn’t forgive her for dying? And then
that
embrace? Whoa! Smokin’!” She dropped her voice confessionally, eyes sparkling. “Too bad you chickened out.”

She was gloating! Their mystical guide, their own prophetess was . . . mocking him.

After reading either his thoughts, or maybe just his indignant body language, she disagreed. “I’m merely egging you toward . . .” She tapped her chin with her forefinger. “Well, let’s call it appropriate, gentlemanly action in regards to Juliana.”

“Holding her in my arms isn’t gentlemanly?”

“Sure, but letting her go that abruptly wasn’t.” She sighed, shaking her head. “It seems you need a little kick in the buckaroo there, Aristos, considering you’re still mentally ranting at her for that one teensy, tiny issue of her death.”

He sputtered back at her, embarrassed. “How’d you . . . You can’t know that. I didn’t say that in front of you or tell you that.”

Yeah, as if you stood a chance arguing with
the
Oracle of Delphi, who naturally knew all the mysteries of the universe, and your own private mind.

The woman only laughed, tugging on her faded Oingo Boingo T-shirt. “When I prophesy, I hear lots of things, Ari. I always have.”

He could think of “lots of things” he’d rather she not see or hear from inside his mind. Since, of course, it wasn’t exactly like he’d had a girlfriend or lover for the past hundred years or so. During a drought that long, there were certain matters you learned to take into your own hands. And often. But that didn’t mean you wanted your Oracle glimpsing you in the shower, going to town solo, wishing you had a real woman instead of just your fantasies.

He shook off the embarrassing thought, frowning at a much more real one. “And if Shay or Em or Sophie declare her a demon after all? What then?” Ari flashed on a horrific image: of the Shades taking out Jules like one of their darkest, vilest prey. “Can’t you see my hesitation?”

Daphne leaned close again, kissing his cheek. “You have such a huge heart, Ari. Release your fear, and don’t worry. The Daughters will concur with my words.”

“If you’re so sure, then why do you need them?”

“Oh, I don’t need them at all. That was the Highest God’s instruction.” She stroked a long lock of hair back from his face, as tender as a sister or a mother. “Because without them,
you
won’t fully believe. There will always be hidden doubt, a place you’ll hold back from Juliana, as you did just moments ago.”

“You’re saying . . .”

She placed a warm hand along the back of his neck, whispering in his ear once more. “You need their validation so
you
can trust again. Your love for Juliana will be tested greatly. I’m so sorry, Ari, but I saw that it will. The Daughters’ words will give you strength in the oncoming trial.”

He didn’t want a trial, not about his feelings for Juliana. Wasn’t holding on to his love for her, clinging to it, raging against it—and for more than a damned century—enough of an ordeal? Didn’t that qualify as the trial to end any and all
future
ones?

Turning the tables, he pressed his own mouth to their Oracle’s ear. “I love her. That should be good enough.”

No answer came at all; the fey prophetess only smiled and, oddly, looked at King Leonidas as if that glance were an explanation all its own.

E
ros reached into his quiver, retrieving the captain of his arsenal, Karanos. Immediately the arrow grew hot within his hand—apparently as eager to be back in the within his hand—apparently as eager to be back in the trenches as Eros himself was.

Eros kept himself concealed with his god’s glamour, watching the unfolding discussion as if it were one of Aristophanes’ great plays. He positioned the projectile neatly in his bow, firmly concealed in the corner of King Leonidas’s study.

Captain Karanos nearly scalded his palm, making one point very clear: He was ready for battle. Eros patted the warrior, wondering, as he often did, how bold that man must have been when engaged in ancient warfare.

The arrow spun in his grasp, aimed right for Leonidas. The king stood beside his desk, quietly listening, hands clasped behind his back.

“Leonidas?” Eros asked Karanos in surprise. “You wish me to use you against the great king of Sparta?”

Although such an aim would certainly complement Eros’s current mission, it was unnecessary. The leader’s body was surrounded by a crimson aura, a glow that appeared only when a man had become blindingly intoxicated by love.

Pity
, Eros thought,
that I’m not the one who served the elixir to him.

“He loves without aid of our aim, old friend,” Eros told the agitated arrow in his grasp, but Karanos only continued his desperate vibrating, eager for attention.

Suddenly, Eros had a thought, “Are you telling me, brave captain of mine, that you are a Spartan? That Leonidas was your own king?”

At once the arrow grew so hot, he could barely hold it in his palm.

Their long-standing mystery, solved! His arsenal was not comprised of common Greek soldiers as he’d always guessed, but the greatest warriors of all time. Perhaps his army had even fought in phalanx formation beside these very same Spartans, the ones his father now sought to destroy.

“Karanos, if I use you in this battle, know that your arrow shall not bring death,” he reassured the arrow, “but it will bring mayhem and chaos. That is my father’s plan. Do you understand? I would not ask you to battle your own people. If I must, I will seek another weapon for the coming weeks.”

The arrow bristled within his palm, clearly affronted. Eros smiled. “Ah, you are a military man to the core. Duty and honor above all else.”

Karanos offered no answer, so Eros returned him to the quiver, listening closely to the conversation unfolding in Leonidas’s study.

Slowly, Eros smiled.
Yes.
The Daughters were approving Juliana. They believed her intentions to be pure.

“She’s not a demon,” he heard the one called Shay Angel say. “But what about Mason’s reaction? That should be considered, don’t you think?”