Werewulf Journals 4: Sated Pleasures (5 page)

A heavy sigh gusted from him as Aricles’s heart twisted in his chest. He hated hurting her like this, but he couldn’t take the chance she might be softening toward him. He did love her, and therein lay the problem.

He was a loner by choice. When your touch causes uncontrollable lust, you quickly learn to keep to yourself. Over the years, she’d breeched his formidable defenses. He’d been able to allow it only because she had asked nothing more of him than to be like a brother. He might be immortal, but it would kill him if he harmed her. Better the small hurt in warning than the devastation of unrequited love.

“Indigo…” He sighed again. “Look, I’m sorry. You know how much I love you, but you and I, we could never…” He broke off, cursing his insensitivity as the sound of her choked cries reached across the aisle. “Great Zeus, Indigo…please don’t cry!”

24 Camille Anthony

“Oh, God, you’re such an arrogant asshole!” She gasped between chortles, her face turning a bright red with suppressed mirth toward him. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she rolled about in the seat, howling with laughter. “Thank goodness I’m not in love with you.”

He crossed his arms to keep from snatching her up and swatting her bottom. “Childish imp!”

She sat up and swiped at her eyes, a leftover hiccupping giggle occasionally overcoming her. “I tried…I really did. I figured that if I was in lust with you, I couldn’t very well fall in love with anyone else. The thought of going to bed with you felt too much like incest, though. I couldn’t go through with it. Then you started spouting your warnings and threats and…” She went off in another peel of laughter.

He didn’t find the situation amusing.

Indigo wound down after a while, wiping the tears from her cheek. “Oh, lighten up, somber one. You’ll become a bore if you’re not careful. Remember, Ari, everyone needs a little laughter in his or her life.”

“Life is not a laughing matter,” he said, and then winced. Even to him, his words sounded pompous and arrogant.

“Ha! Thank goodness, your future mate won’t agree with you on that score. You deserve every single thing she’s going to put you through.”

Indigo’s visions were dead on. Sure as the sun rose in Zeus’s sky, when she saw something, it happened. He sat up, heart thumping, startled at how much her words affected him, how much he wanted to believe her. “I have a mate? You’ve seen her…? Who is she?

Where is she? What does she look like?”

Unholy glee lit up in her light blue eyes. “Yep, yep! Nunya. Ditto and ditto!”

He scowled and wondered why he wasted the effort. He’d never impressed her with his wrath or his bad humors. “What does that mean?”

She ticked the points off on her fingers. “Yep, you’ve got one and I’ve seen her. Nunya business who she is, and that goes ditto for where she’s at and what she looks like.”

He hadn’t given thought to having a life mate, pretty much concluded his curse would rule out having a woman of his own. Now that Indigo said he had one, he found himself eager to know all about her. That Indigo decided to be closed-mouthed today of all days made him livid. He imbued his voice with power and barked, “I demand you give me the information I seek!”

She responded with a loud guffaw. “Jeesh, Aricles…that crap work for you much? Man, talk about tricks! You can cut out the super male stuff. It doesn’t work on me.”

“Damn it to Hades’ realms!” He shrugged, reverting to normal. “It worked for Madonna. Why won’t you tell me?”

Werewulf Journals 4: Sated Pleasures

25

“Contrary to the song, she’s nothing like a virgin. If I told you, you’d only use the information to armor yourself against her. I want her to win. You need what she’ll bring to your life.”

“Is there doubt? Haven’t you seen the conclusion?”

Indigo sobered, shook her head. “I’ve seen some of the antics she puts you through. I’ve seen some mighty hot, kinky loving… Dude, you are seriously hung!” She waggled her brows à la Groucho Marks.

“Peeking?”

“It’s the nature of several of my beasts, actually.” She smirked.

The thought of her seeing him doming a sub shook him up. Younger sisters -- even one savvy and world wise as Indigo -- should be sheltered from some things. “What else did you see, besides my cock?”

“That wasn’t enough?” Indigo drew two fingers across her lips. “My lips are sealed.”

He tapped his foot. Outside, the clouds darkened, thickened.

“Ari, it was no big thing…after a while.” She giggled. When he didn’t smile and lightning slashed through the now dark sky, she sighed. “I honestly didn’t see all that much.”

She flung up her hand at his scowling face, laughing. “That one was unintentional. I meant your mate’s reaction. I didn’t see much of that, but she seemed okay with being tied up and eh…all the other things you were doing to her. You, on the other hand, were…” She broke off, looking distracted. “Hey, Aricles…you’re glowing.”

He felt a familiar tingling, glanced down at his body and back up at her. He didn’t have much time. “I must be time-walking, but why here? Why now?”

She stared at him with eyes so wide, the whites totally surrounded the blue. Her pupils were tiny dots of inky black, her skin paper pale with drops of sweat beading her brow.

He rose, moved to the center of the aisle. Stood there with his arms hanging loose and relaxed at his sides. “Don’t be frightened, I doubt you’re in danger right now or I wouldn’t have chosen this time to contact you. Listen carefully to whatever…ah…I say and follow the instructions I give you to the letter. It will be a warning.” He saw her nod just before the golden sparkly effect shut down his sight and disrupted reality.

No matter how many times he experienced the time displacement anomaly from this side of the equation, he continued to find the process fascinating.

A shimmering cocoon of golden light covered his body, held him immobile as the far wall of the plane rippled like water disturbed by a skipping stone. Indigo leaped out of her seat and scrambled away from the wavering bulkhead, astonishment written all over her drawn facial features. She said something he couldn’t catch, her voice weirdly distorted by the fluctuating winking of time and space.

26 Camille Anthony

Smiling inwardly, he watched himself step through the rip in reality, marveling at the seeming ease with which he accomplished that feat. With a detached calm available to him only in this suspended state, he took note of his other self’s appearance.

The god’s chiseled features bore the classic stamp of ancient Greece. Six feet, seven inches tall, he was -- according to countless women -- the epitome of male beauty. His inky black curls tumbled across a broad, high forehead. Slashing brows shaded crystalline blue eyes and a classic nose -- faultlessly straight -- slashed its way between sharply defined cheekbones, lending his face a long, patrician cast.

His future self paused on the threshold, looked in his direction before making his way over to Indigo. He took her hands in his and gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek, causing Aricles to gasp in alarm. To his surprise, Indi did not fall into instant lust, but seemed to engage the traveler in earnest conversation. Apparently, when time-walking, the curse of flesh did not operate. Chronos had attempted to explain it to him. His vulnerable body was somewhere else while he traipsed through the dimensions. Though appearing solid, he was more like a hologram. He could touch and be touched without adverse consequences.

Damn, wish I could do that in the real world. Frozen while his future self occupied the same time, unable to do anything but observe, Aricles refused to give in to bitterness.

Future Aricles finished his business and, after a quick nod in his direction, left the plane the same way he’d arrived, through the portal opened in time. The solid sheet of dancing light surrounding him thinned, dissolved, and suddenly light and sound rushed in, inundating Aricles with sensory bombardment.

He flinched, flinging up an arm to block the light from his sensitive eyes. The roar of the plane’s engines, even the sound of Indigo’s breathing were loud, garish sounds, threatening to overwhelm him.

“You okay?” A tentative hand on his sleeve helped him focus. A soft voice at his ear anchored him in this time stream’s reality as he recognized Indigo’s familiar scent.

His nod garnered him a bracing pat and a small bottle of water, which he uncapped and quaffed immediately. “Good. Why haven’t you ever told me you could walk through time?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but her eager words rolled over his slight pause.

“I mean, yes, you do that instantaneous teleporting, but the time thing is totally wicked.” She cocked her head, studied him through sharp, curious eyes. “I’ve gotten so used to you, gotten too familiar with how you mask a portion of your power, I forget your background.”

She shook her head in a slow, side-to-side motion, not a negation…but more as if she could not fathom what she saw. “When something like this occurs, I remember how truly awesome you are.”

Her words of praise and admiration made him uneasy, compliments not being the usual conversational medium bandied between them. “I am the same as always.”

Werewulf Journals 4: Sated Pleasures

27

She made a smiling grimace. “I know. And five minutes from now, I’ll probably be busting your chops about your asinine attitude, but for now, allow me a brief second of: Wow!”

He grinned, knowing exactly how his next actions would kill her momentary hero worship. Spreading his arms wide, he intoned in his most godly voice, “By all means, worship Me, My child. Fall to your knees before My majesty!”

Indigo’s reaction was better than he’d anticipated.

Mouth falling open, she glared at him a moment in speechless ire. Then, a sly expression settling over her face, she allowed her eyes to drift closed. She moaned softly.

Reminiscent of the oracles of Delphi, drunk on the fumes of the gods, she swayed side-to-side; she let her head rock listlessly on her willowy neck. She spoke in a slurred monotone voice. “Your greatness has flung me into a vision. Yesssss, my lord. I can see…I can see” --

her eyes snapped open -- “all that crap you just suggested never happening!”

They both laughed. Aricles was grateful for the moment of levity. Only with Indigo, did he completely relax. Fear of losing that comfort had fueled his earlier strong reaction when he’d thought she was deliberately coming on to him.

His ties with the other members of the NHP weren’t so close. Yes, he’d shared the occasional joke or woman with Gregori Vlasavic, but he dared not risk the same level of play with Vlasavic he could with Indi. Gregori was bisexual. The centuries-old vampire was also accustomed to getting what he wanted and for the moment, he wanted Aricles. Even older and just as spoiled, Aricles was adamant that wasn’t going to happen. They walked a constant tightrope precariously stretched between friendship and confrontation.

The dinging of the warning alert and the seatbelt light coming on dragged him from his somber thoughts. Aricles shifted, felt for his seatbelt, and fastened it. A second later, the captain’s calm voice sounded over the intercom. “Kyrios Aricles and Ms. Carter, we are on final approach to Paradise Island. The landing strip is shorter than standard and might require sharp braking, so please secure all loose articles and remain in your seats until after the plane comes to a complete stop and the seatbelt lights go out.”

“Cliff is so by-the-book isn’t he?” Indigo chuckled, exchanging a laughing glance with Aricles. “No matter how many times he’s flown us, we get the same old spiel every time. It doesn’t matter that you could step out of this plane and hover on air, while I’m a multimorph, capable of changing into a cushion. Course, I’d be a squashed cushion on landing, but I think I’d survive.”

Her eyes twinkled. Watching her, laughing with her, he wished he were free to touch her skin-to-skin, to exchange a kiss instead of the impersonal hugs they settled for --

freedom his time-walking self displayed.

Damn Apollo to Hades, his infernal jealous curse has deprived me of the most basic joy.

Because some woman long dust preferred me to him, I must be forever denied the simple pleasure of another’s loving touch. Speaking of my time-walking…

28 Camille Anthony

“What did my future self tell you?”

The joy bled from her face, leaving her eyes starkly flat. Her low voice was devoid of life as she whispered, “You told me to keep it to myself. Said if I revealed the knowledge too soon, I’d set events in motion that would change the lives of five people. If it were just me, I’d take the chance. It’s a tiny thing, in the scheme of things; however, I’ll err on the side of caution.”

The aisle wasn’t that wide. Aricles reached his gloved hand across the narrow space, offering what comfort he could. Her hand gripped his, the clasp of the deceptively dainty fingers stronger than one would expect.

“When the time comes, I’ll be there for you.”

One corner of her lips turned up, the half smile enchantingly sad while it lasted. “Yes, you will.”

Their hands parted and both gave their attention to other things. Aricles pondered the recent events, wondering what about this assignment merited his timely interference. Time-walking was not a task one undertook lightly. It required disrupting reality and rippling the time stream. Besides taking a certain level of psychic energy, it drained a lot out of a person.

Depending on when in time he did it, he’d soon be paying for the outlay of energy.

The strange thing about manipulating time was having to deal with the paradox equation. The one time he spoke to Chronos about it, his head ached for a month. The elder god had explained, or tried to. He came away knowing the reason his present self would always be bound and helpless while his future self coexisted on the same line, was to protect the continuity of reality. Aricles had stopped Father Time in the middle of his explanation.

As far as he was concerned, it was like electricity. He didn’t have to know how it worked to use it.

Still, he continued to worry about what would occur to make him do something so risky. He couldn’t help thinking it might have something to do with Indigo’s visions. Only then did he realize she’d sidetracked him adroitly. She’d never finished telling him the details of her vision regarding his life mate.

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