Red Demon (40 page)

She hesitated, and then her hands moved quickly as she began signing. “In my dream this afternoon, there was a woman. The one who came to me and helped me regain physical form.” She sank down onto the edge of the sofa. “Apparently, when she made the offer, I agreed to a payment of sorts in exchange for her help.”

“Oh, fuck,” was all he could think to say. Visions of Ares and his chariot and trident danced in his head like a scene from a schlocky Ed Wood movie.

“She could return me to my physical body; that’s what she told me,” she signed, then added, “That much I
do
remember. Now.”

Ari’s signing skills were too rusty for this detailed conversation, and it frustrated him. “Do you feel her now? Do you think we can talk aloud?” he signed slowly.

Juliana frowned for a moment, then looked up at him. “I don’t think she’s strong enough to manifest again. I think we’re okay to talk . . . for now.”

Okay, so he’d cover current events quickly—and quietly—before they were interrupted by the seductresses from hell.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the demon as soon as you woke from the dream?” he asked in a sharp voice. “That’s all you’d had to have done—say, ‘I made a teensy little arrangement to get here. I remember now.’ ”

“Because she told me she’d hurt you, like I said,” she whispered, reaching a hand tentatively to her throat, as if waiting for the demon to choke her again. After a moment, when the Djinn clearly didn’t manifest, she continued. “Besides, you’d been so busy storming around, claiming I was a demon or a devil when I first arrived. How could I possibly have hoped you would listen to me or believe my heart if I told you how I’d returned?”

She leaned forward, trying to reach for his hands, but he kept them out of range. He wasn’t ready for cuddling, or even forgiving—not yet.

“Fear kept me silent. Fear for your life . . . fear that you’d reject me. Abandon me and our love. I planned to tell you, but first I had to make sure you understood that I was not a demon.”

“Sure sounds like you bargained with one!”

Jules shook her head. “No, no, she was very kind and lovely. Beautiful, in fact.”

He groaned and reached for her shoulders, fighting the urge to throttle her. “Aren’t they always? They’re deceivers and liars by nature. I can’t believe you weren’t able to see that?”

“While a ghost?” she snapped back. “Thank you, sir, for being so fair and open-minded on this matter.”

He sighed. “What did she say when she came to you?”

Juliana began talking very fast, rushing to explain. “She seemed trustworthy, and I wanted to return to you so badly. She was eager to offer assistance that I was more than ready to accept. Nothing seemed wrong or evil about her kindness, not then. She said she knew firsthand what it was to want a man, to need him so terribly, that nothing else—nothing in the universe—mattered. I believed she was sincere, and she gained my trust with those words.”

Yeah, well, leave it to a Djinn to come wrapped in layers upon layers of good-seeming intent
, Ari thought.

“I had no other avenue for returning to you, so I chose to trust her. Foolishness, obviously. I didn’t realize that . . . Oh, holiest God, what have I done?” She clung to him, seeking comfort from his presence. “I didn’t know I’d put you in such grave peril. I’d have died again . . . many times over . . . if I’d realized how brief a time we’d be together.”

He grew utterly still, the words echoing all through his mind.
How brief a time we’d be together.

He swallowed hard. “Wh-what do you mean? There’s some kind of time limit?”

“The bargain,” she said and began to sob. “It’s short; she didn’t tell me in the beginning.”

“How short?” he managed to ask, chest painfully tight.

She pressed her face against his, crying even harder. “We only have another eight days.”

 

A popping noise went off in Ari’s brain, releasing a whirlwind of fury and reaction.
Only eight days
, he thought, feeling like his chest was tearing open—like his skull was expanding. His body clicked into a terrible, reactive overdrive as the words drilled into him like the cadence of a battle march.
Eight days . . . eight days.

He’d lose her again—he was definitely going to lose Juliana, and it was going to hurt a thousand times more this time. He knew it already, same as he’d recognized his moment of death at Thermopylae, felt the slice of that Persian’s sword as it took off his arm.

Juliana was like that Persian, wielding a scimitar into his chest, cutting out his heart.

“It’s nine days from tonight, eight as of tomorrow morning,” Jules rushed to explain, holding him tighter. “Her name is Layla; that’s what she told me.”

Ari shook his head vigorously. “Wouldn’t give her real name,” he said tightly. “Gives you too much . . . power.” No Djinn ever willingly gave its spiritual name. They’d learned Sable’s true name of Elblas only because Ares allowed it.

“She made me the offer, to return to you, while I was lingering by the town house. But I didn’t know, didn’t understand what she was or the bargain’s short duration. Nor that she’d endanger you. I truly believed that she was an angel, come to help me.”

His body was in a full-scale nuclear buildup, one unlike any he’d experienced to date. The emotional distress he felt was so intense, the power was swamping him, overwhelming him faster than he could even process the changes. Vaguely he was aware that the lights all around the room were exploding. The acrid smell of smoke filled his nose, and he heard raised voices from upstairs. But he couldn’t rein himself or his body back in; all he could do was submit to the rapid escalation, reeling first in one direction, then the other, as it overtook him.

“When?” He barely managed to squeeze the question out.

“When did I know?” she asked.

He tried to force the words out but finally gave one firm nod.

She wrapped her arms about his neck, and he shook like a storm-battered barn in her arms. “Shh, my love. I’m here; it’s okay.”

He clutched at her, trying to get her even closer, wanting nothing more than to hold her for eternity.

“I only found out after we made love this afternoon. She came to me in my dreams while I slept next to you. That’s why I was so upset when I woke.”

Still, his voice failed him. He wanted to beg her to cheat her bargain, throttle her for having made it at all. But he pressed his face against hers, feeling their tears mingle against his own cheek.

There was a disastrous explosion from the entertainment center, and Ari didn’t have to look to realize it wasn’t just the Wii this time, but the Xbox, the DVD player, and every other piece of electronics housed inside it. The whole room was dark now except for a dim light over the bar of the kitchenette.

Nikos came down the stairs, and taking one look at him, declared, “You’re not all right. I suspected as much when I smelled the smoke. Let me help you to your room, brother. Come now, ease up.”

Ari shrugged him off and didn’t even look up. “Mason. Now.” He kept Jules close against his chest, trying to ignore the humming in his skull and the silver in his eyes. “Need Mason . . . help.”

Ari heard his retreating footsteps on the stairs and clung to Jules even harder. If he could just focus, will himself to feel her—smell her—he could stave off the waves of painful power. He knew it; he’d seen River regain control numerous times.

By using sex
, some part of him thought. But that was after River’s shape-shifting. This? The overdose of pain and power and transformation being rammed down his throat right now? There was no fighting it; he was almost sure.

“Aristos, look at me,” Jules said, pulling back to touch his face. She placed a soothing, warm palm against his cheek. “You’re shaking all over, like earlier today. Are you all right? I know this is upsetting. . . .”

Ari blinked at her, suddenly unable to see anything
except
silver—rivers of it, floods. He’d gone blind with it, and his ears rang so sharply, he could barely hear anything at all. He struggled to his feet, dragging frantic breaths into his tight lungs.

He stumbled back toward Juliana blindly. Clearing his throat, and determined to ask the most important question in his heart, he regained control of his vocal cords. “Tell me you believe we can free you,” he demanded slowly. “Tell me you’ll fight to stay with me. . . . I can’t survive losing you again.”

But he couldn’t hear her answer, just the storming tide that filled his ears. He sank to the edge of the sofa and, groping with his hands, he felt her face, her neck, her hair. Needed to be connected to her even though he couldn’t see her at all. She pulled his head against her breast, holding him and rocking him—trying everything in her power, he could tell, to soothe him.

It did nothing to stop the tide of change. His muscles bunched and bulked across his shoulders and back; his spine began burning with sharp fire. Staggering out of her grasp and to his feet, he felt his wings emerge, cutting through his T-shirt, shredding it.

He was uncontrolled, rabid . . . utterly berserk. The force in him, the demigod’s pressure . . . was overtaking him. Which meant there was only one option left, and he’d die taking it—die loving the only woman who could help him.

“Jules,” he cried in a voice that barely sounded human. “Juliana.”
A shriek; a shrill hawk’s song.

He reached for her, trying to protect her from his talons, and hauled her toward the guest room. The only way to stop this tide was by taking her sexually. River’s old cure; it had to work—or he’d never survive, he was certain.

“A
ristos, tell me how to help you,” Juliana begged, as he pulled her toward the bed. He’d become much larger in the past few moments, his wings broader than she’d seen them yet, gleaming a pure shade of midnight. And yet, silver seemed to move across the feather tips, just as she could see it move through the bulky muscles of his forearms.

He blinked down at her but couldn’t seem to see her; even the pinpoints of his pupils had vanished. She reached for his hand—and pulled back instantly. Talons replaced his fingers, just as his voice had morphed into something truly raptorial.

“This is my fault. It’s the things I told you,” she said.

He said nothing, already struggling to unfasten his pants.

“Shh,” she murmured gently, covering his twisted, hawk’s hand with her own. She kept her palm there for several seconds, willing him to feel soothed, loved. “I’ll unfasten your pants for you. Is this what you need to help you right now?”

His head fell forward heavily, and he pressed his face against hers. “So . . . sorry,” he told her in that scraping voice. “Berserk.”

Working with gentle urgency, she tugged his zipper, peeling his pants down. He breathed in quick, huffing pants, the heat of it blowing against her cheek as he obviously tried to still himself, to settle down a bit—but at the same time he’d begun a powerful, needy motion with his hips. They were still separated by clothing, and his pants weren’t all the way off, but he’d started a wild kind of thrusting.

Reaching between them, she yanked the folds of her dress upward—thank goodness she wore no undergarments this time—and then worked his pants all the way down his hips.

With a sharp intake of breath and another eerie cry, he sheathed himself inside her, full hilt, without even pausing. She flinched, still tender from earlier, and yet she needed all of him. Craved having him full inside her this way; that need overcame any physical pain.

She angled her much smaller hips, taking him as deep as she could, knowing instinctively that her body was his cure; that releasing his seed, spending himself inside of her, could possibly remedy the wild heat raging all through him.

“Yes,” she urged as he began rocking inside of her, raising his hips, them crashing into her again. “Take all of me, Aristos. I’m yours, yes. Lose yourself inside of me.”

She tightened around him, a kind of ecstasy that she’d never known, not even in their previous joinings. Not until this moment. Perhaps because what they were sharing now was so raw and wild and dangerous. Suddenly she felt a clutching spasm of pleasure deep inside, a rapturous sensation that had her crying out his name with no care that anyone else might hear. He mimicked the sound with a beautiful hawk’s song, pitched low in her ear, even as his hips’ tempo became frenzied.

So quickly this time, she felt his seed pulse inside of her, that shudder of release, as suddenly his fingers were stroking all through her hair. The talons were gone, and as he brushed her hair back from her eyes, she saw that his gaze wasn’t silver anymore. And he was smiling, downright beaming at her, with the sweetest, giddiest look she’d ever seen on his face.

“Oh, dear God above,” he whispered in his own, normal voice, still breathing heavily atop her. “You’re
magic
, Jules darling. Sweeter than Elysium, better than love itself.”

She wound her fingers through his damp hair, equally satisfied. “You’re sure you’re better now? That the . . . berserker”—she said the word carefully—“is gone?”

He captured her mouth with a kiss, answering her with a gentle, tender pressure that was thoroughly unlike the aggression he’d just displayed. As he did so, she felt for his wings, wanting to stroke them, only to realize he’d absorbed them, as well.

Aristos Petrakos was thoroughly human again. She relaxed slightly, sinking back against the pillow, only then realizing how his stormy, threatened state had worried her. Not out of concern for her well-being, of course, but for his.

She sighed, breaking the kiss, and forced him to look into her eyes. “You promise me that you’re well now, Aristos? That you’re not suffering or hurting or—”

“We’re going to work this all out,” he told her, cupping her chin. “I am fine, and you’re going to be, too. I get like that because the power in me—it goes thermal when I’m upset. If I’m on edge or emotional, it amps up. I just haven’t learned how to keep it contained, but I will. I swear that I will, cause I don’t want you having to put up with that every time we have a fight or, gods forbid, hot sex.”