“Either I was asleep a lot longer than I thought or you’re just happy to see me,” she teased.
He didn’t laugh at her joke, but his big body relaxed against her. “You’ve been asleep for nearly eight hours, meli. I was worried.”
Eight hours didn’t sound so bad. Considering she’d knocked herself out during the middle of a war, though…
“Where are we?” she asked against him.
“My home.”
His? Really?
“You’re completely safe here. The daemons can’t get into Argolea.”
They couldn’t? She wanted to ask why, but was distracted by the realization that…she was in Argolea.
Wow. That was just…wild.
“How did I get here? I thought Nick said I had to willingly cross the portal. I don’t remember doing that.”
He ran a hand down her hair, smoothing the stray locks back from her face. “You were a little out of it from the fall. Nick helped me bring you here. Yes, you agreed to cross, but you were going in and out of consciousness at the time. It doesn’t surprise me that you don’t remember.”
“Nick’s here?”
He shook his head. “He went right back.”
Back. To that battle. To the daemons attacking his people. Her people.
She grasped his forearm. “Marissa—”
“She’s fine. Nick and the others beat them back. They’ve been doing this for a long time, meli.”
Was that sadness in his voice or had she just imagined it?
And then she thought of Dana.
She dropped her head against his chest as a wave of grief rolled through her. “Where did he find Dana?”
His hand traced a lazy circle on her back. “I don’t know.”
But he did. She could hear it in his voice. Feel it in the tingle at the base of her spine, near her birthmark. Just as she sensed he wasn’t about to tell her the details. Because it had something to do with her. “I didn’t even know she was one of them. Us. Me. I should have. I always sensed she was different. She…” Casey closed her eyes tight. “We led them to the colony.”
“No. What happened wasn’t your fault. What happened to your friend wasn’t your fault. It was just…circumstances. Sometimes bad things happen for no reason.”
She knew that. Her whole life was filled with those rotten circumstances. But it didn’t make reality any easier to accept. And she missed Dana with a ferocious ache she wasn’t sure would ever ease.
When she finally let go long minutes later and looked up, the scratches and bruises on his face again reminded her of what he’d done. She ran her fingers over his cheek. “You look like you’ve been wrestling with a mountain lion.”
His sad smile nearly melted her heart. “I’m fine, meli. You were the one…” He closed his mouth, seemed to gather himself. “When I heard you scream…I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
Casey’s heart thumped against her ribs at the emotion she heard in his voice. She closed her hand over his. When their fingers intertwined, she had a flash of the battle. Of his fighting daemon after daemon, saving the lives of the Misos, hearing her scream and rushing for the tree just in time to catch her before she hit the ground. She saw her body slam into his and the way they rolled, the way he took the brunt of the force and shielded her from harm. Then he was on his feet again in a flash, clashing with the daemon at the bottom—the one waiting to kill her.
My hero.
The words revolved around in her head as she stared at him. And in that instant she knew. Whether she really was his or not didn’t matter. She’d fallen for this very unlikely hero who’d slipped into her life and turned her entire world upside down. Two days ago she’d been so angry with him, she could barely see straight. But now…
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. I just…”
Now she loved him.
Her chest grew tight at that thought. Holy cow, was it possible? Could she…love someone? Especially him? He was an Argonaut. One of his race’s guardians. She still wasn’t entirely sure why he’d brought her here. And he despised humans.
“Are you all right, meli?”
No, she wasn’t all right. She was on the edge of freaking out. She shook her head to try to clear the fuzz and looked down at their joined hands. Then remembered the vision she’d had of him and his father in those woods. “What did he say?”
“Who?”
“Your father. Before he died, he said, ‘To peprōmenon phugein adunaton, gios mou.’ What does that mean?”
Something unsettling crossed his face. But he didn’t look away. “He said, ‘It is impossible to escape from what is destined, my son.’”
She looked back down at their hands. What is destined.
Was coming here destined? Was meeting him part of her destiny? She didn’t buy into all that crap about soul mates and finding the one person you were fated to be with for life, but at the same time she couldn’t ignore that there was something pushing her toward Theron and had been from the very beginning. Something that seemed…almost out of her control.
Was that love?
His fingers wrapped completely around her hand, engulfing hers in his. He stroked his thumb gently over her skin. “It’s an ancient Greek saying. A reminder that each of us is born with a purpose.”
Purpose. That made sense. “And what’s your purpose, Theron?”
His thumb stopped moving, and when he looked down at her, it was as if she could see forever in his dark eyes. “For as long as I’ve been alive, it’s been about doing what I was trained to do for my people. But now…I’m not so sure anymore.”
Her heart skipped a beat. And another. And another.
And right then she knew.
She did love him. Which was scary and electrifying all at the same time because she’d never been in love before. Somehow over the past few days, she’d fallen for this big, bad guardian in a way she knew she’d never totally recover from. And the fact he was still struggling with figuring it all out himself was sort of endearing.
And completely empowering.
She needed to do something about it before she lost her nerve.
Ignoring the ache in her side from hitting the hard earth, she leaned in to kiss him. He sucked in a breath as she closed the distance between their mouths, held it while her lips brushed his, then went lax beneath her touch.
A smile pulled at her lips. How fascinating that she could turn such a virile warrior to jelly just by kissing him. And how enthralling that he reacted this way to her.
No one else ever had. Oh, she’d had a handful of lovers—in college, later when she’d been traveling—but none had ever fired her up like Theron did. None had ever seemed unable to get enough of her like Theron did.
He tipped his head and opened his mouth to her, drawing her deep into a kiss he took charge of. His hand slid into her hair as he dragged her closer until she was against his chest and very nearly on top of his lap as she’d been in that cave.
Oh, yeah, she could get used to this. The way he took what he wanted, but was gentle and giving in the process. Almost as if her pleasure meant more to him than his own. Why hadn’t she given in to this earlier?
“Meli,” he whispered, shifting his big legs and pushing her back on the bed. “What you do to me. Ah, gods.”
Her whole body quivered at the desire in his voice. She reached for him and pulled him down on top of her. He was still gentle, settling his weight on his elbows, easing down into the cradle of her body until his erection prodded between her legs. But instead of stripping her bare and driving deep, as she expected him to, he brushed her hair back from her face with both hands and gazed at her so long, that tingling near her birthmark kicked up all over again.