Leia’s gaze roamed over the wooded scene beyond the window over the kitchen sink. As places to hide went, this one was idyllic. The Napaeae wood nymph who dwelled here had been nothing but welcoming. A nice change.
After she had given Cas the slip, she’d met up with Delilah, who’d flown Leia back to Colorado. There Tala and Marrok had stepped in and hidden her away in a tiny cabin, one that smelled of the pine trees the logs had been hewn from, in the middle of the wilderness. The home where she stayed was as basic as you could get, with a combined kitchen and living area on the first floor, and a ladder leading up to a loft that functioned as a bedroom. Minimal furniture, a power generator, and a well system for water, and she was set. For how long she had no idea.
A large pond was situated within walking distance, about half a mile down a steep hill from the flat area on which the cabin was situated. The presence of water so close and nature all around her was what she’d been wishing for and dreaming of since the day she’d lost them. She’d felt incomplete, living only half a life. Now she had it, but pure happiness still lay out of reach.
She missed Castor.
Only three days had passed since she’d left Austin. Disappearing on him as she had came with a certain amount of guilt, even if she was doing this to protect him. When you loved someone, sacrifice came with the gig.
“Leia.”
She could’ve sworn she heard his voice on the wind calling her name. Fabulous. Now she was hearing things. Not even the loss of her spring had made her lose her sanity.
“Leia, it’s Castor. Honey, are you in there?”
She dropped the glass she was drying with a hand towel, hardly hearing the sound of it shattering in the sink.
No. He couldn’t be here. This had to be a trick.
Cautiously, she moved to the window at the front of the cabin and inched back the edge of the white cotton curtain to peer outside. Sure enough, Castor Dioskouri stood in the field of wildflowers outside her new home.
By the gods. Her eyes drank in the sight of casual jeans, short-sleeved black t-shirt, and hiking boots. The wind ruffled up his dark hair. She gulped, battling the need to throw herself into his arms even as she knew she had to throw him off the property. Now.
Leia took a deep breath before she pulled open the door. Hands on her hips, she confronted him. “What are you doing here?”
She glanced at the tall pine trees around them but caught no trace of the protection by which she was supposedly surrounded. Where had they been when a demigod walked right onto the property. Huh?
His intense, blue-eyed gaze zeroed in on her, and he stalked across the field toward her. “I’m here to be with the woman driving me absolutely crazy.”
Her heart picked up its pace. She ignored it and tilted her chin. “I left you.”
“I noticed.” He stopped only a foot away.
The scent of his spicy aftershave, her gift to him, floated across the distance to curl around her, making the ache of longing in her heart worse.
“You didn’t give me two weeks’ notice.”
That’s what this was about? “Delilah would have helped you with a smooth transition to a new Executive Assistant.”
His lips pinched and he crossed his arms. A sure sign of major irritation. “Would she help me find another nymph?”
She glanced away, her jaw tight.
“One who has the ability to see straight into my soul? One who challenges me with her refusal to back down or let my ego take over? One whose kisses brought me out of a thousand-year sleep?”
She turned her head, eyes wide…hope, doubt, and fear all warring for dominance inside her. “What are you saying?”
He stepped closer, crowding her. “I’m saying I don’t want to lose you. Don’t walk away.”
“I’m a good assistant, but Delilah can find you another.”
He took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. “I’m not talking about losing my assistant.”
“I’ve only been something…more…to you for a few days.”
He stole her move and rolled his eyes heavenward. “You’ve been more to me for months. Perhaps even a year.”
Was that true? No. It couldn’t be. She stepped back, crossing her arms. His wife was the more in his life, as proven by his track record with dating the last year. “All those other women would agree, I’m sure.”
Leia wanted to pull the words back the second they were out of her mouth. Where had that jealousy-ridden question come from?
“Every woman I’ve dated since I met you can tell you things never got past kissing.”
She frowned her disbelief.
“I haven’t been a saint since my wife died,” he admitted. “My interest this past year was just hijacked by a blonde, blue-eyed nymph. In fact, the last thing Pamela said to me when I ended it was I should marry you and put everyone out of their misery.”
Her heart surged, but before she could respond or even gather her thoughts, a deep voice interrupted. “How sweet.”
She and Castor both whipped toward the sound of Kaios’s voice. The ancient werewolf stepped out of the cover of the dark woods.
Dammit. “This is what I was trying to keep you out of,” she hissed at Castor.
“Trying to protect a demigod?” Kaios, whose keen ears had picked up her comment, pulled his lips back in a sneer of derision as he advanced toward them. “You always did have an overblown sense of your powers, nymph.”
Behind him, out of the darkness, a line of werewolves, already shifted into their animal form, advanced upon them. There had to be at least thirty. A low growl rose from a few, while others pulled back their lips, baring their teeth in snarls meant to terrorize. As far as she knew, Kaios wasn’t an alpha, so where had they come from, and why were they helping him?
Castor stepped closer and took her hand, presenting a united front. Above them, the skies darkened with the warning of his wrath, swirling with dark clouds.
“Oh, I have a way to deal with you.” Kaios turned to signal someone over his shoulder. A woman with deep red hair stepped out of her hiding spot. She raised her arms, and whispered words Leia couldn’t catch. The clouds cleared in an instant, returned to the blue skies of moments before.
Castor’s hand twitched in hers.
“What’s she doing?” she asked under her breath.
“Best guess is she’s a witch.”
The woman closed her eyes, her face a study of regret. Leia got the impression the woman would rather be anywhere than here right now. If the witch could control nature, could she keep Leia from using her own powers? Being located near a large body of water hadn’t been coincidence. Closing her eyes, so Kaios couldn’t see them glow, she reached for her powers, and slammed into a mental wall. Her eyes flew open.
“I’m sorry,” the woman mouthed at her, misery pinching her face.
The woods were eerily quiet—no bird chirped, no animals scurried through the underbrush. They’d all gone into hiding. Were her fellow nymphs equally disabled?
“Your brothers and sisters will be no use to you now, Lyleia.”
There was her answer, but Leia wasn’t worried. Yet.
“Why don’t we make this fight a tad more even, first,” Marrok’s voice boomed from behind her. Together, he and Tala stepped out of the line of woods behind her, along with their own contingent of werewolves—at least fifty.
Kaios’s smug smile fell. “You’d fight one of your elders?”
“We’ll kill you if we get the chance,” Tala snarled.
At an unseen signal, both sides of werewolves burst into a dead run, straight at each other. Before her eyes, both Tala and Marrok shifted, the action immediate, rending their clothes and accompanied by their twin yelps of agony as their bones realigned. In seconds, chaos reigned all around them.
Cas grabbed her and slung her onto his back. “Hold on tight.”
Before she could even squeak a protest, he took off. The glen, then the forest, blurred around her as his phenomenal speed took them down to the pond. He deposited her at the edge of the water.
She tugged on his hand. “You have to knock the witch unconscious.”
He leaned down to plant a quick, hard kiss on her lips. “I know.”
And he was gone.
“We can’t use our powers.”
Leia spun around to find Calliadne and ten other Naiad sisters standing hip-deep in the pool behind her. “There’s a witch.”
Calli scowled. “I swear the Mages are asking for a war.”
“I suspect this one is being forced to cooperate with Kaios against her will.”
“You always were a smart girl.” Kaios stood at the edge of the trees, not ten feet from her. He must’ve guessed where Cas had taken her and followed.
Sounds of the violent battle above them echoed off the peaks of the mountains all around—
snarls and growls, yelps of pain and howls of rage. She tried to sense the water, pull it under her control, but nothing happened. Cas had to find that witch. Soon.
She kicked off her flip flops, her feet squelching into the mud as she stepped back. The water lapped at her ankles, then her knees, plastering her jeans to her legs.
He paced at the edge of the trees, not coming nearer the pond. “One night together. Was that too much to ask?”
Was he seriously still thinking about the night they’d met at a werewolf mating ceremony? The man was obsessed.
He continued his pacing. “Then you go and ruin my perfectly good plan to keep Tala and Marrok from gaining too much power. But after your little display of nature, all the werewolves think those two are blessed.”
“Killing me won’t help. Even if you win today, you’ll be hunted down by the wolves. They may have tolerated you, but the entire community of nymphs and the Banes and Canis packs of werewolves, and all their allies, are all going to want your blood after this.”
“I’ve been alive much longer than you, little girl. Feuds pass, anger fades. I’m still here.”
Is this what time did to a person so obviously and utterly alone? The werewolf was clearly not playing with a full deck.
The tips of her fingers tingled with an achingly familiar sensation. Castor must’ve been successful. Expression carefully neutral, she backed further into the water, closer to her sisters. They had to time this right. They’d tried to drown him before and failed.
Leia gathered her power inside her, secretly whispering her will to the water surrounding her, using it to whisper instructions to her sisters. They communicated better fully submerged, but even being up to her waist, as she was now, helped.
“Do you want to know why I rejected you?” She needed to distract him a bit longer.
Kaios turned a bored expression her way. “No. I want you to die.”
Without warning, he held up the gun she hadn’t seen in his hand, pointed it at her, and pulled the trigger.
A wall of water surged up in front of her and turned to solid ice in an instant. The bullet lodged in the block. She dropped it into the pond with a splash. Before Kaios could react, she and her sisters worked together. They tossed a wave up around him, and tendrils of water lilies wrapped around his legs and arms.
They dragged him, kicking and screaming, into the water, pulling him to the center of the pond, where they forced him under. His scream turned into a gurgle of terror as his head submerged. They held him under until the thrashing stopped, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he stopped his struggles. To be sure he was dead, they kept him under even longer, until the water reeked with the taint of death.
Leia closed her eyes, waiting for relief or perhaps a sense of justice served. But she was numb.
“What do you want us to do with him?” Calli asked.
“I don’t care.” Leia trudged back out of the water, inexplicably exhausted. Kaios’s death, and her revenge, had been a long time coming. Most of the time, she’d doubted this time would ever arrive. Now that it had, other than knowing he couldn’t hurt anyone else, she just didn’t care.
She flopped down at the edge of the pond, her clothes once more dry as a bone. The fight up by the cabin must’ve wound down, because the sounds of the battle no longer rang through the trees.
“What will you do?” Calli asked.
Leia considered the last thing Cas had been saying to her when Kaios appeared.
“Find a new job.”
“What about Castor?”
Leia ran a hand over her face. “Do you think there’s a chance for a son of Zeus and a failed nymph?”
“I think love is worth trying for.”
“I’m not worthy of his love.”
Calli floated out of the water, her own diaphanous dress of white drifting in the breeze, also instantly dry. Her sister sat beside her and took her hand. “We weren’t worthy of your love. I should have been there for you. We should have supported you all these years. We’re family.”
Leia blinked away unwanted tears. “I always understood.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
Calli wrapped her arms around Leia’s shoulders. “You are worthy, sweetie. The question is, is he worthy of you?”