What in all the hells had she ever done to deserve this? How Zach wound up in the same class with children she’d never understand, but the Princess had strong-armed her into taking on the younger man and Jo had reluctantly agreed.
The entire week had been one disaster after another.
“Sorry, sorry. Let me help you with that.”
Two strong arms reached around her and began tugging the window open. She heard a deep grunt, felt the pull of that powerful body, and the window screeched open underneath her fingers.
Jo took a deep breath of fresh city air. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
That deep rumbling voice was going to be the death of her. Maybe if she’d been paying attention to what Zach had been putting in his cauldron instead of his strong hands, one bound in a leather glove, one not, she might have stopped him from whatever the hell he’d done.
It stinks like a half-cooked skunk in here.
“Get the other windows, Zachary.”
She felt more than heard his sigh. “Yes, ma’am.”
She risked a quick peek at his strong shoulders outlined in a white button-down shirt, dark jeans hugging an incredibly firm ass. That mop of dark curls begged for her fingers. He reached over and pulled on the window, opening it with another deep grunt that sent flutters through her stomach.
She had to get this unholy lust under control before it did her in. Zachary Beckett was her
student
, damn it. She had to teach him how to control and hone his powers. If Ro caught her drooling over the man she just knew Zach would be sent away. He was at the end of his patience with Zachary Beckett. The complaints against him were piling up as he screwed up one spell after another in spectacular fashion.
But if he were sent away he’d never get what he so desperately needed.
So she growled and she grumbled and she kept him at arm’s length. She prayed he never saw the way she looked for his bright smile, or the way she watched him those rare times when he threw his head back and laughed. She never let him closer than she had to. She was terrified he’d sense her attraction.
Still, if it wasn’t for his perpetual screw-ups, she wasn’t certain she would have been able to stand by her decision. There was no way the man could leave court without serious tutoring in the arcane arts. If he did, someone, somewhere, was going to kill his ass just for the strange stuff he tended to do without even thinking about it.
“All the windows are open, Miss Yashodhar.”
She watched him shake out the fingers of his gloved hand and wondered at it. He never took it off, never allowed anyone to touch it. He held out his left hand to anyone who wanted to shake, and she knew,
knew
it wasn’t his primary hand. The awkward way he tried to do things with his left one let her know the injury to his right was fairly recent too. The fact that he was in her class at all made her think it was perhaps less than a year old but more than six months. He’d been in court now for five weeks, and she’d never seen his ungloved hand.
What had he done to mess his hand up? It had to be pretty bad if the healers around here hadn’t fixed it yet. Maybe it wasn’t even human anymore? She snorted. She wouldn’t put anything past him.
The smoke was clearing, but the rotten skunk smell was lingering like a bad headache, throbbing behind her sinuses. “Everyone, class dismissed for the evening. Call your parents.”
“Way to go, Zachary.”
She hid her wince as best she could, but she knew everyone had heard a child mock the very adult Zach. “Everyone, out. Now!” She sighed. “Zachary, hold back for a moment.”
She watched the children gather their things and head for the door. More than one glared or shook their heads at Zach, blaming him for the catastrophe her lesson had become. She found herself shaking her head at him too.
Someone needed to take this man-boy in hand before he killed himself.
“What
exactly
did you put in that spell?” It was supposed to be relatively simple, a brew to relax and open up the third eye, allowing the magical senses to be brought to the fore. Instead it wound up closing off the sinuses. “Well?”
He shrugged. “It should have worked.”
“Tell me the ingredients you used.”
He began chanting them, his voice almost sing-song. Her horror grew as he listed out the herbs he’d placed in his cauldron. “Lord and Lady, Beckett! Half those herbs are poisonous!” And how the
heck
had poisonous herbs wound up in a novice classroom?
He shrugged. “They were what I needed.”
“What you needed.”
He nodded, giving her what she’d come to term his Bambi eyes. “Uh-huh.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried desperately to remind herself why she hadn’t killed him yet. “Beckett, you can’t have those in here with ten-year-olds.”
“I was careful.”
She pointed toward the desks. “Those children are under my care, Zachary!” She shook her head, furious with both him and herself. She should have noticed what he was doing, stopped it before it got to this point. This was more her fault than his. She sat behind her desk, hoping it gave her more of an authoritative air despite the eau de funk clinging to her. “From now on, you use the herbs I tell you to use, understand?” He opened his mouth to object, but she stopped him with an upraised hand. “
Understand?
”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She hated when he got that hurt tone, but what could she do? There was no way he was qualified to work with those herbs. How were they supposed to open his inner eye? Through death? “Go home, Zachary. Try not to blow anything up on the way.”
She watched him walk out, leaving his jacket behind. Once she was certain he wasn’t coming back for it she started slowly and methodically banging her head on her desk.
What was she going to do with him?
Hell on Earth. It’s not just an expression anymore.
Crazy in the Blood
© 2012 Lucienne Diver
Latter-Day Olympians, Book 2
It’s an ill wind that carries bad news, and Tori’s just had a double load of it blow through her door.
Just a few weeks after she prevented some rogue gods from blowing L.A. into the ocean, more dead bodies are turning up near the leftover crater. Bodies that have been shredded by something too big to be…shall we say, of this world? Worse, Uncle Christos has disappeared after stumbling onto a deadly cult masquerading as the Back to Earth movement.
The connection: Dionysus. Yes,
that
Dionysus. He’s resurrected his bloody fertility rite, complete with frenzied female groupies who tear men limb from limb. And he’s lured Demeter, goddess of the harvest, over to his side by finding a way to get her daughter away from Hades for good.
Predictably, Hades isn’t about to let her go without a fight. Unless Tori finds a way to bring her back, he’ll abandon the gates of Tartarus. At which time all hell will, literally, break loose.
Between saving the world, the woman, and cultists and her crazy uncle? So much for getting to the beach before all the good spots are taken…
Warning: The wine country is going through a heat wave of epic proportions, and it's not all about the weather. Beware steamy gods with seduction on their minds or brimstone in their blood.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Crazy in the Blood: I opened my eyes to the face of an angel—the fallen variety. The kind designed to lead others into temptation and have them thank him for it. Repeatedly. To make matters worse, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his weight slanting the mattress so that my body seemed inclined to slide toward his.
Apollo’s golden hair was wild, like the corona of the sun, like it would look after someone had run their fingers through it, clutching his head to their breast or…elsewhere…urging him not to stop. My mind supplied an image of
me
in that position, Apollo above me, gazing down with those impossible turquoise eyes turbulent with emotion…
I shut it down, closed my eyes and focused on breathing. In and out. No, that was bad. Just…bad.
“Move away,” I said through gritted teeth.
Apollo shifted fractionally, but I could feel him staring at me still. My body cried out for contact, but I ruthlessly ignored it, even though every single cell seemed to strain toward Apollo. I felt
alive.
More than alive. Manically, enthusiastically, quite definitely, hyper-alive. Full of light and energy. My eyes snapped open at the realization of just what had to be heightening all my experiences.
As my gaze met Apollo’s, I struggled to find a well of anger to tamp down my libido and was surprised not to have to look too hard, though I must have known on some level that this was what would happen if Apollo rode to my rescue. Some part of me must have decided deep down that I could die another day but not while the family was counting on me to track Uncle Christos and not while there were new murders, massacres really, begging to be solved. I didn’t have the luxury of the moral high ground. No, as much as I wanted to blast Apollo with both barrels of my wrath, I was the one to blame here. I had to take responsibility.
Still, my “thank you” tasted like ashes on my tongue.
“Stop. Your effusion is just embarrassing,” Apollo said, brushing aside a sweat-soaked lock of hair obscuring my vision. The jolt it sent straight to my heart made me cranky.
I touched the back of my hand to my mouth and it came away wet. “Drool, eh? Sex-y.”
“Very funny.”
“I feel funny.” I couldn’t hold his gaze. It was just too intimate. His eyes were aqua and glowed like the sun reflecting off the Mediterranean. They made me think of skinny dipping and the power of the surf, surging. I cut that thought to the quick. “Seriously, though, thanks for coming,” I said reluctantly. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“What, and miss the chance to make you beholden to me?”
“Think again, buddy. In my book, this just makes us even.”
Apollo tapped a finger on his lip, pretending to consider, but not putting much effort into making it look sincere. “Really? By my count, that makes twice I’ve saved your life and you’ve—oh wait, you have yet to reciprocate.”
“Damn you and your scorekeeping. Tell you what, you let me know when you’re going to throw yourself in front of a train, and I’ll be there to stop you. No, really.” Two could play at sincerity.
Apollo’s eyes rolled upward as if he could spot the heights of Olympus right through my ceiling. “It doesn’t work like that.”
I sighed. “Fine.” I looked down to be sure I was decently clothed, unlike the last time I’d woken in a bed with Apollo, and started to rise. Apollo looked regretful, but didn’t try to keep me there.
I was pleased that all my parts seemed to be in working order. It was the first day in what seemed like forever without the shakes. I didn’t have to
pretend
I was fine. I wanted to give a rebel yell, but that would be undignified. And heavens, having built up my skid row junkie image, I didn’t want to blow it all in one fell swoop. “I need to wash the stink off, and I need food, not necessarily in that order. The least I can do is offer you something.”
I wandered into the kitchen and started opening and closing cupboards, as if elves might have stocked them while I was out. “Um, how about omelets? As long as you don’t like anything in them. More like scrambled eggs, really. Or, I make a mean cinnamon toast.”
He followed me in and lounged against my cabinets. He looked good standing there, and my brain tried to remind me that bedrooms weren’t the only places for fun and games, but those thoughts were by now used to being ignored.
“I’m not hungry, thank you,” Apollo announced as he watched me play at domestication. “I left a…supply…for you in your refrigerator. I suppose you’ll have to let me know when you need more.”
“So, what’s the catch here? What do I owe you?” Rather than look at him, I went about getting the fixings for scrambled eggs and toast. Normally I’d opt for cereal or a Power Bar rather than actual home cooking, but I felt the need for something hot and filling. Besides, I was bursting with excess energy I needed to channel.
“Dump your detective.”
Armed with a tub of butter and a spatula, I whirled on him. “Just because you saved my life doesn’t mean you get to dictate how I live it.”
“Are you yet on a first name basis?”
“Yes.”
Most of the time
. I dropped everything on the counter and attacked the butter with a vengeance, tossing a glop into my pan and barely waiting for it to heat before adding the eggs. “Anyway, it’s none of your business.”
“He’s not for you. I have seen—”
“What do you know about the dead bodies on top of Mount Lee?” I asked suddenly. I didn’t want to know my future…or Nick’s. I’d read enough of the myths to learn that knowing the future often led people to play right into their doom. The whole self-fulfilling prophecy bit. The only thing to do with that power was mark it “return to sender”.
“The ones in the news?”
“I sure hope there aren’t any others.” I chopped the eggs to within an inch of their lives before sliding them onto a plate and carrying my feast to the table. Apollo sat down across from me. It was such a strange homey scene with the morning light streaming through the windows. All we needed were steaming mugs of coffee and newspapers to help us ignore each other.
“They are related to the earlier trouble?” Apollo asked.
I froze, first bite nearly to my lips. “Trouble? No euphemisms before coffee. Anyway, I think they are. There’s the location for one. Plus, the remains of all the bodies would barely fill a chum bucket, so I’m doubtful it was your average man off the street who whacked ’em. Oh, and the Feds asked me some pretty oddball questions. Wanted to know about biological warfare.”
Apollo’s face went all over strange before tightening into a mask.
I swallowed the bite in my mouth. “What? Does that mean something to you?”
“Maybe. Can you tell me any more about the attack?”
“Not…really.” Not except for that strange dream with the gnashing teeth and slashing claws, the details of which were already slipping away from me. And anyway, it was
just
a dream. A vivid, terrifying, heart-pounding dream, but still. Unless…