Vicious (Fated Sight Book 2), page 19
It makes me nostalgic for the shore and for the girls, when we ate until we were so stuffed, all we could do was lie around our hotel room, whining that we couldn’t swim in the ocean because, well, we ate too damn much. I would love to experience that moment again. It would be amazing.
Instead, I’m stuck in Hell, while I march toward the sound of a freaking pack of swine.
The guys don’t even stop me as they file out of the house along with Circe. Her laughter grates on my nerves.
Beneath my skin, I feel my dragon shift and shimmer. My back itches, and a ripping sound filters through the air. My dress flutters to the ground, leaving me bare, just as a herd of swine come barreling forth.
They pause at the naked woman, whining a moment before they turn to race away.
I love a good chase, my dragon purrs.
That’s when all hell breaks loose. My legs leave the ground, Circe shouts, the guys yell over her, and the swine all whine as though it’s the end of the ever loving world. Shit, it just might be.
I look over my shoulder, finding a set of beautiful golden wings.
“Oh, pretty!” I reach behind me, petting a wing to feel the texture. It’s smooth and reminds me of a bat—then I go spiraling down to the ground.
That’s going to hurt. I throw my arms up, but somehow, my wings catch me and set me down gently. Okay, almost. I hover there, my toes grazing the ground.
The guys stumble to a stop around me, while Circe comes stomping up.
“Woman.” Hades slashes his hand through the air, and a moment later, a cute little black crop top and a pair of jeans covers me.
“You brought an untrained dragon to my island?” Circe rounds on Pim, her hand slashing through the air just as Hades’ did a moment ago. Only this time, she strikes Pim, and he goes flying backward into the pigpen.
All the pigs stop their snorting and turn toward him.
My head jerks from left to right, and a fire inside me burns so hot that I can feel my skin heating the surrounding air.
Kill her, my dragon whispers seductively. Kill her for touching what’s ours.
My wings do a weird little twirling motion, and then I soar through the air, right at a wide-eyed Circe, who looks just as surprised as I feel to be hurtling toward her.
Sure, I’m angry at her, and sure, I want to take her down a peg or two, but I didn’t know this would happen, and it’s fine until I’m slamming into the woman and not knowing exactly what to do with her.
Our bodies crash together as my momentum sends her tumbling ass over teakettle. My wings catch and balance me, hauling me backwards.
Okay, I could get used to this. With a smile, I charge her again, this time with my legs out. Remembering my self-defense classes, I kick her in the head and listen to the delicious sound of her nose breaking.
Yep, there is something seriously wrong with me, because I don’t stop there. With a battle cry, I shift, but I’m unbalanced, so I crash to the ground with a moan. My head falls forward, and I hit the sand.
That’s when a cloying floral power drifts over me, freezing me to the spot. I blink my slitted eyes, and then I realize just where I went wrong.
Everything is upside down, but it doesn’t stop me from seeing my very human body and legs dangling in front of me. My wings are gone.
Somehow, I shifted my wings away and only shifted my head, which is now a big fat dragon head on a tiny little puny human body.
Can’t make this shit up, folks.
“Is that how we get her to stay still?” Hades crouches before me with a smile on his face, telling me just how much he is enjoying this moment. Psychotic bastard.
Okay, maybe we both are, because a moment ago, I was ready and willing to chase down a sorceress and destroy her for touching Pim. It didn’t go well, and this is all the more reason that we need to hide out here and let me practice.
I open my mouth to tell her just that, but all that comes out is a plume of smoke and an angry dinosaur growl.
Hades just waves it away before turning to a wide-eyed but amused Greyson.
“Do you have a camera?” Hades asks.
Greyson reaches into his pocket, and the asshole pulls out a freaking cellphone. “No service, but I don’t need service to take a picture.” With a click, my mortification becomes immortalized.
I can’t even be mad. I brought this on myself, no matter how much of a compromising position I’m in.
“Angel, did you try to avenge me?” Pim leans down, his hot pink hair shimmering in the hazy red sunlight.
“It would appear she tried.” Apollo stresses that word. “At least now we know she can do a partial shift. Not even wolf shifters can accomplish that.” He tilts his head to the side, which is disorienting being upside down and all.
“Circe,” Hades calls, and I hear huffing behind me. “Let my mate free.” He doesn’t ask, he demands, and he also throws in that four-letter word that begins with an M. I don’t even have time to think about how adorable this is before my limbs unfreeze and my legs flail once more.
Dear dragon, I begin in my head, imagining her in my sacred space chuckling at me because if the roles were reversed, I would also laugh at me. Besides, we deserve all the laughter right now, even if it is at my expense.
Oh, I got off track there, so I start over. Dear dragon, if you change us back into a woman, I promise us all the orgasms.
From whom are we negotiating? Why does she suddenly sound like Apollo? I bet he’s feeding her answers.
Orgies, all the orgies, I tell her.
The tricky one can shift. Now I know it’s definitely her. He can—
Ew, don’t even say it, don’t say it, I beg.
Shift to a dragon.
Bitch, you want a little one-on-one sexy time with a dragon? That is bestiality! I chide.
Don’t yuck my yum.
Where the hell did you even hear that? I ask her.
My yummy yum.
Wait. I know that song! No! don’t do it, I shout.
Yummy yum, yummy yum.
I can’t even cover my ears because I don’t have ears in this form, and even if I could, it’s all inside of my damn head. This entire situation is in my freaking head. I swear I’m not psychotic. Not at all.
“What’s happening?” Greyson looks to Apollo.
“The dragon sings.” Apollo tilts his head to the other side, considering me. There isn’t anything to consider. All he needs to do is get me out of this partial shift.
“If she doesn’t shift, I’m going to cut off her head.” Circe throws the threat out there with a nonchalance only an immortal can achieve, as though my predicament offends her.
Hell, it offends me, lady.
Still, it does the trick, and my body shudders until my weight evens out and I roll onto my back, looking up at the hazy sky.
“Huh, it isn’t blue.” It’s a sheer purple, similar to a cloudless summer day and the brilliant blue. Only purple.
“Did she hit her head?” Circe steps over me, glancing down with that offensive sneer.
“Move, witch.” I flutter my hand, despite the intake of the guys’ breaths.
I feel like I just made a grave mistake. What else is new?
“I am no witch.” Circe shrinks down to look me in the eye. “You have one day before I alert the queen to your presence, dragon. For your sake, and for mine, it is better off that your kind remain extinct.”
“Circe,” Pim pleads, and I dislike his tone of voice, “she didn’t know.”
“It isn’t about her calling me a witch, Prometheus, it is about her presence. You should have told me what you hid on my lands when I walked through your door earlier. It’s bad enough I’ll have to tell Eos and Hecate.”
“Don’t be hasty.” Hades pulls me up and tosses me over to Greyson, who tucks me into his side. “Give us twenty-four hours and we’ll leave, and they will never have to know.”
“You believe it is that simple. You already owe me a great boon for this.”
“We owe you nothing.” Apollo slashes a hand through the air, to which Pim waves his hands in denial.
“You owe me one for allowing her here, for not telling my lover and mistress at once. I will need a plan for what to tell them. The only reason I’m allowing her to stay” —she points to me as her voice turns calm, too calm— “is because if she exists, then so do the others, and I want them on my side.”
“Wait.” I hold up a hand, but Greyson slaps a palm over my mouth, preventing me from speaking. It doesn’t even matter how many times I lick his hand, I can’t persuade him to allow me to talk.
“Very well,” Apollo states. “We will leave within twenty-four mortal hours.”
I see the gleam in Circe’s eyes. She hoped to catch him on that. This bitch hoped to trick us. I’m glad Apollo is as intelligent as he is, otherwise we might have awoken to an angry Persephone and that just isn’t something I’m willing to deal with.
Not yet, at least. First, I have to figure out just what I’m capable of.
Circe turns to walk away. “Stay away from my men!” She moves toward her pigpen, leaning down and cooing at the pigs that surround her.
I wait until she’s out of sight before breathing a sigh of relief. “Wait, did she say men?” I turn back and look at the pigpen through fresh eyes.
No…
It can’t be.
“Yes, Cupcake. Circe turned her lovers into swine. It is best we stay on her good side.” Apollo gestures to the shoreline. “Shall we?”
Dammit, I’m already on her unpleasant side. Not that it matters. She can’t turn my guys into swine. They’re mine.
19
Vanessa
“All right, what are we doing? And is the reward sex?” I stare at the ocean, the purplish waves crashing on the gritty white sand with a familiar roar and white foam. This entire world is so like Earth and yet so very different.
None of the guys respond to that.
“Orgasms?”
Hades is the first to recover, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Practice. I need to ensure Eos will allow us here.”
“But I thought Circe allowed us to be here?”
“Eos will assure she doesn’t go insane on us.” He backs away, addressing Apollo over his shoulder. “Work on her control. I don’t know how much longer we can stay here.” With that, he walks off toward the cabins.
“I’m going to join him.” Pim brushes a kiss along my cheek before addressing the other two. “Make sure she does the pose where her ass is in the air.” He gives us a chef’s kiss before running to catch up with Hades before I can even reply to him.
Bastard.
Greyson looks around, kicking the sand and appearing unsure, while Elliot rests on his shoulders. “Do you need me?” He tucks his hands into his back pocket, seeming out of place.
“Always.” I reach out for him, even as Apollo sighs in annoyance.
“The mortal may get in the way.” Apollo flicks invisible lint off his jeans, and I can feel Greyson pulling away.
“No.” I tug him closer. Greyson’s eyes light up at the contact, and I know it’s the right choice. He needs this, my touch, probably more than the others. “Stay.”
“Fine, but he must sit over there.”
“No.” Now I look at Apollo with a hypothetical question on my tongue.
“Ask, Cupcake.” He crosses his arms while staring down his nose at us. Before last night, I would see this as his cruelty, though Hades should own that title, but now I watch as the glimmer of warmth crosses his features. It’s there, but buried so deep by his will alone.
“What will happen to Greyson if I bite him?” I nibble on my bottom lip, doing my best to keep my fangs from sprouting free at the mere thought of marking Greyson.
My eyes dart to Apollo’s neck, where twin puncture marks glimmer silver in the sunlight, and damn if that doesn’t send a thrill up my spine. As though he just knows where my thoughts are, Apollo grazes the area with his fingertips.
It’s like he’s touching me, and a shiver ghosts over my clit. Rubbing my thighs together, I try to give him a hard look, but he just chuckles in response.
“He dies,” Apollo states.
Never mind, there goes all that delicious desire.
Once more, I feel Greyson try to pull away, but I hang onto his hand for dear life.
Mine.
“My dragon claims him,” I press. There has to be a way to make him mine and give him my bite.
“Your genome will kill any who your dragon does not claim. Mortal and immortal alike. However, no dragon in history has ever once claimed a mortal as a mate. They simply do not make the transition.”
“Transition?” Greyson pulls away, crossing his arms over his chest as a finger taps his bicep. I know he’s thinking through Apollo’s words.
I just want him to live. If he wants to stay by my side, then I need him to survive my world and any chaos the future might bring.
“Yes.” Apollo plops down in the sand, sinking his toes in as he throws his head up to the rising sun. He looks like a surfer boy, but I won’t say that, no matter how true it is. “Greyson is mortal, that is his greatest fault. He lives a few years, then he dies. As a god, your bite did not affect me except to place your claim on me. For him, he will die.”
“Apollo,” I growl. I know his intelligence far surpasses that of most gods, but he’s irritating me with partial answers, as though we should already know this information. Cocky bastard.
“Your venom will change him. You are a dragon, immortal. He is a human, mortal. Your venom will change him fundamentally. It isn’t as simple as just biting him because your dragon commands it. In fact, there is no historical record of it occurring in the past.” He cocks his head to the side, his gaze going distant.
I know that look. I know it far too fucking well. He’s come up with something, and I will not like it.
“No.” I point at him, stepping in front of Greyson as Apollo rises, sand drifting off his body.
“We could experiment, assure he lives.”
“You are not using him as an experiment.”
“You just said you wanted to bite him. I guaranteed a full bite will kill him,” Apollo points out.
He damn well knows I won’t take that risk, no matter how much I want it.
“Why don’t you ask the human,” Greyson mocks, making me wince.
“He is right, you know.” Apollo smiles, he knows he’s got me cornered. “This is his choice.”
“Do it.” Greyson nods, giving me whiplash as I turn to look at him.
“Greyson, think about this.”
“I am thinking about this.” Greyson grabs my hands, tugging me close and sending Elliot flying. “Vanessa, I don’t belong here.”
Damn, but those words hurt no matter how true they are. I open my mouth to deny it, but I can’t. Not when he speaks the truth.
He cups my face, his eyes softening. After several long days, days that could very well have been weeks on Earth, his eyes brighten with that tenderness I missed in him. His personality is finally pushing through, and his shoulders relax.
“It’s okay. I can’t deny that fact either, and I wouldn’t want to. I know you see the way I look at you, as though I resent being here. I don’t. I told you once I’d never regret following you to the ends of the Earth and even to Hell for you. I don’t belong here, Vanessa.” He leans in, ghosting his lips over mine. “But I do belong with you.”
His kiss remains gentle and sweet, so very sweet, and it curls my toes into the sand beneath us. My breath hitches, and I drag him closer, demanding he open up to me so I can devour him.
And that is exactly why I pull back and press my forehead to his. I can’t claim him.
“What do you want, Greyson?”
“You, Little Dragon, always you.” His sigh smells of minty toothpaste, but the exhaustion in his tone saddens me. “I don’t belong on Earth either. I think.” He licks his lips. Inhaling deeply, he continues, “I think I ended up in Eternal Hollows because fate directed me there. Somehow, I knew if I stayed long enough, you would find me and you did. I waited five years for you, Vanessa, and I’d wait eternity to be yours if it meant that I could.”
Tears burn behind my eyes. “You are, Greyson, you are.”
“I’ll die. I’ll age and I’ll die, Vanessa. Are you willing to go through that? Feel that?” A tear spills from his eyes, breaking me in half.
“I’d rather have you live and thrive for as many years as you will give me than to die from my bite.”
“So would I.”
“Where does that leave us, Greyson?” Tears flow from my eyes, and the ache in my chest grows. Inside, I can feel my dragon whimper at the thought of losing this man. She doesn’t care he’s very much human, he’s ours and that is all that matters.
“Like I said,” Apollo inserts, breaking the moment, “we experiment.”
I open my mouth, and this time, he growls at me.
“Hear me out, woman.” He groans, and that’s when I see the stress in his eyes. He’s affected by this moment, by my and Greyson’s pain. “Microdosing.”
“You’re going to give me mushrooms?” Greyson shrieks, offended.
“No, mortal, we microdose you with her venom. But I need her” —Apollo points to me— “to have control first.”
I see the hope in Greyson’s eyes, just as my stomach plummets. Knots twist me up inside. I spent years doing yoga to control my anger, but it was always there, just simmering beneath the surface. I never actually controlled my anger, I’ve controlled nothing in my life. My manipulative father crafted each moment. I even screwed up my second shift. It’s amazing how I even shifted in Tartarus.
“Apollo.” I can hear my heart thunder in my ears, making me sway on my feet.
One wrong bite, too much venom, and he dies.
“You understand just how important your control is now?” Apollo challenges, but his statement hits me harder than ever before.
He’s been telling me I need to control my powers for weeks. In turn, I created storms, fires, and earthquakes. It never really hit me, more like just an event that occurred to me. I bit two of my guys, making them my mates. Even now, I can feel the pulse of their lifelines stretching out to me from the beach.
