He had concluded today that she was a force to be reckoned with, despite the fact she clearly didn’t belong in his world.
He had also concluded that she had felt that same spark as he had when they had touched, when he had been looking into her eyes in that dark archway. Heat had flushed her cheeks, and the scent of desire had laced the air, teasing his senses and strengthening the need he felt for her as it provoked the side of him that had lain dormant for so long.
The dark need to possess her hadn’t faded during their time apart.
Although that might have something to do with the fact that when he had managed to catch some sleep on the patio in the sunshine, she had been the star in a very wicked dream.
In it, it hadn’t been the vampire behind her, twisting those waves of delicious spun caramel around his fist, bending her to his will as he lowered his lips to her throat.
Marek had been there, watching himself kiss her golden skin, watching the way pleasure flittered across her delicate features in response, how her breasts heaved with her quickening breaths and her lips parted on a blissful sigh.
He cleared his throat and adjusted his cock as it stiffened painfully, palming it into a better position. It had been too long since he had slept with a woman, and far too long since he had wanted one this badly. It was a recipe for disaster. He needed to get his body under control, because she was sure as hell going to notice how much he wanted her if he didn’t.
His gaze strayed to the black T-shirt on the dark blue covers of his bed and then down at his groin. Maybe it was better he stuck with his black linen shirt. The tails were long enough that they covered his raging hard-on. It might spare him some embarrassment if he did fail to keep his cool around the woman tonight.
Although she would probably be able to see it in his eyes.
He twisted to face the bathroom and risked a glance at the mirror above the vanity. His normally deep brown eyes glowed with golden and emerald flecks, a sign of his hunger, the desire that pulsed inside him, running like quicksilver through his veins to drug him.
Desire wasn’t the only thing that made his eyes shine like that. Anger did too. Could he make her believe it was anger or the thrill of the hunt making his eyes change if she asked about them?
A grimace tugged at his lips as he remembered that she had seen his eyes like this, when they had been in that strained moment in the arched entry way, both of them snared and held captive by the attraction that had blazed between them.
Not a chance she would believe that had been anger.
“Fuck, maybe it’s better she knows what it is,” he muttered and turned away from the mirror. “Might work in my favour.”
She might help him scratch this itch he had for her. A midnight tango might be on the cards. He wanted her. What was the point in hiding that? It wasn’t as if he was alone in his feelings. She wanted him too.
He started to grin.
Grimaced again when he felt a fierce tug in his chest.
The gate.
“Not now.” He flicked a glance at the clock on his bedside table. Did he have time to deal with the gate?
Normally, he didn’t mind when it called to him to do his duty, signalling that there was a Hellspawn waiting to cross between this world and the Underworld, or vice versa.
Normally, he didn’t have a date with a beautiful vampire slayer.
He growled and pivoted, shoved his feet into his boots and quickly laced them before striding out of the bedroom. He crossed the living room, his boots loud on the terracotta tiles as he banked right towards the dark cream couches and armchairs surrounding the unlit fireplace. He took another right as he reached them, shoving the door to his office open, and swiftly closed the distance between him and the cupboards that lined the wall to his right, behind his desk.
The feeling came again, pulling at him, and he froze as something hit him.
The tugging sensation wasn’t drawing him in the direction of the active gate.
It was pulling him towards that gate’s twin.
A gate that hadn’t been used in centuries.
“Shit,” he growled, yanked the door of the nearest cupboard open and grabbed the silver and black circular medallion that was hanging on the brown leather and bronze shield mounted on the wall.
He slipped it on and tucked it into his shirt. It had come out that the circular amulets weren’t the key to opening the gates when their enemy had stolen the one belonging to his older brother, Ares. Apparently, the Keys of Hades were Marek and his brothers, their blood containing the power to control the gates. Right now, the enemy didn’t know that, and he wasn’t going to be the one to reveal it to them by forgetting to bring his amulet.
Marek held his hand out behind him and focused. His mobile phone whipped into it from the desk behind him and he brought it up in front of him, fired off a group message to his brothers about his suspicions, and pocketed it before he stepped.
Darkness embraced him and then receded, revealing golden earth and olive trees that clung to a rocky hill that rose before him.
Silence stretched around him and he stilled, focused to sharpen his senses. Had he been wrong?
The tug was still there, deep in his chest, but it was lighter now, and it wasn’t pulling him towards the main Seville gate on the other side of the valley, closer to the city. It was definitely the smaller twin gate that wanted his presence.
He followed the winding path up the hill to a bluff and scoured the land below, eyes charting everything in the fading light. The gate was down there, in a clearing among the sparse trees and brush. As far as he could tell, it was the only thing there.
Was it possible a Hellspawn was waiting on the other side for him to open it?
He eased down into a crouch at the edge of a flat rock. He doubted it. His father, the god-king Hades, never allowed anyone to pass through this gate. He had kept it inactive since Marek’s only sister, the twin of his youngest brother Calistos, had been murdered. Upon discovering that he and his brothers were the Keys of Hades, Marek had realised the reason there were two gates in Seville.
One was bound to Calistos.
The other would have been bound to Calindria.
Now that she was gone, stolen from them, it was possible that Calistos had power over the gate, that the closeness of his blood would allow him to seal it if they had to go that route. It was a plan they had discussed more than once over the last few months since their enemy had made itself known.
The less gates they had to protect, the easier it should be.
In theory.
The problem was, the less gates there were to protect, the less gates there were to share the power that flowed between them, meaning the more dangerous and unpredictable they became.
His oldest brother, and self-appointed leader of their team, Keras, had decided that sealing any of the gates might prove catastrophic. Ares had agreed with him, and Esher hadn’t been on board with the plan either. Marek and the others couldn’t exactly argue when the oldest three of them were against it.
He reached down and pressed his hand to the earth beside his right boot, closed his eyes and focused on it, connecting to his element to give his senses a boost in case he had missed something and daemons were lying in wait at the gate. The call it had sent to him couldn’t be caused by them, the gate responded only to Hellspawn, demigods, and gods or goddesses, but that didn’t mean this wasn’t a trap.
The enemy was strong. It was possible they had managed to get their hands on a Hellspawn and had brought them to the gate to make it reach out to Marek. In fact, it was the only explanation that made sense.