In the next instant, he had turned, his arm winding around her waist and holding her up.
Her lashes fluttered shut, suddenly too heavy for her to keep open. «Don’t know. Head…spinning…» He was so still against her, she couldn’t even feel his heartbeat or the rise and fall of his chest. Couldn’t feel his heat, that amazing heat.
«Human. Yes. I am.»
The dizziness intensified, pulling her under a dark, dark wave. No matter how hard she fought, she couldn’t swim to the top. «Amun…»
«Can’t,» she wanted to tell him. No sound emerged.
Before she could tell him the invitation wouldn’t have an expiration date, that his «consequences» were not a threat but a delightful prospect, the darkness swallowed her completely.
Damn this. Amun hefted Haidee over his shoulder, barely registering her slight weight. He did, however, register the fact that her breasts were smashed into his back. Because of her unusually cool body temperature, her nipples were already pebbled.
She’d been behind him for what seemed an eternity, touching him fleetingly yet awakening every nerve ending he possessed. Despite the danger, he’d almost stopped a dozen times, desperate to taste her again, to hear her moan his name. His, and no other.
When she’d confessed that she had only dated that bastard Micah because she’d mistaken him for Amun, she’d almost found herself pressed against the cave wall, her jeans and panties ripped away, his shaft pounding its way home. Control had been maintained through a wish and a prayer only.
Confounding baggage. How was he supposed to callously use her and work her from his system when she treated him with such…sweetness? When she responded to his barbs with hurt rather than venom?
Secrets still couldn’t read her mind, but the demon had begun to sense the absolute conviction in her every word. She believed everything she said. Of course, the demon also retreated every time Haidee touched him. The coolness that so delighted Amun terrified his companion.
Damn this, he thought again, striding forward. Didn’t matter why. He needed this woman.
A little dizzy himself, he shouldered his way through the foliage. He’d whisk Haidee to safety if it killed him. And it just might. If he was affected by the ambrosia in the air, how much damage would the substance do to her?
Through Maddox, Amun had learned that humans simply couldn’t tolerate ambrosia, a drug meant only for immortals. They were better off being injected with tainted heroin. Haidee hadn’t ingested the substance, had only breathed in the fumes, so Amun told himself she would be okay.
Was she human, though? She truly believed she was and could very well be, despite the fact that she’d risen from the dead. But surely she was more than she realized. That unnatural coolness, her mental connection to Amun, the way she corralled his demons, each bespoke something beyond mortality.
Still. To be safe, he wanted to get her out of this forest as quickly as possible. All he had to do was find the entrance to the next realm. Which, if he wasn’t mistaken, would be the Realm of Shadows. So far, all he could see were trees. Trees, trees, trees. They surrounded him so completely they were like a second layer of clothing.
Soon he was panting from exertion. His dizziness increased, and he tightened his hold on Haidee. They didn’t touch skin to skin, merely cloth to cloth. Perhaps if he slid his hands up the hem of her pants and gripped her thigh properly, her temperature would stave off the dizziness the same way it staved off the demons.
Branches slapped at him, slicing his cheeks. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. The action must have roused Secrets. Instantly agitated, the demon prowled through his skull, hatred for this place welling up.
Voices suddenly wafted to Amun’s ears.
Thoughts soon followed, filling his mind.
The snakes were closing in, ready to strike. To kill. He couldn’t fight them with Haidee dangling so precariously over his shoulder. She would take the brunt of the action, her body acting as his shield, and that he wouldn’t allow.
Not knowing what else to do, he stopped and eased her to the ground — no sudden movements — then fit the backpack she still carried around her neck, shielding the sensitive area as best he could. As he slowly, so slowly straightened, he withdrew two of his blades, metal whistling against leather.
That must have been the starting bell for the snakes.
Dozens of crimson eyes leveled on him… Fangs flashed bright white.
He tensed.
The snakes launched forward.
Chapter Fourteen
Now this is the shit, Strider thought with a slow grin.
A few hours ago, Lucien had flashed him and William to Paris. The guy, not the city. Though the evening had only just begun, Paris had been well on his way to ambrosia intoxication, already laughing like a loon. So rather than cart him off and start hunting Gilly’s parents to play a little game of slice and dice, as planned, and rather than leaving him behind in such a vulnerable condition, Strider and William had decided to take care of Paris — aka down a little ambrosia themselves — and head out as a unit in the morning.
Brotherly love and all that.
He reclined on a delightfully cushioned lounge in the sprawling ranch Paris had rented. In Dallas, Texas, of all places. Promiscuity had decked himself out, too, wearing a Stetson (weird), no shirt (understandable), unfastened jeans (smart) and cowboy boots (weird again). Dude looked ready to rustle cattle or something.
At least the girls Paris had invited to party with him were more sensible. They wore bikinis.
Best of all, as the girls swam in the moon-and-lamplit pool, laughing, playing, Strider was reminded that he’d always preferred females with big boobs and lots of makeup. He was able to forget all about only-a-handful Haidee and how lovely and delicate she’d looked in Amun’s arms. Arms that should have been
«I call dibs on the topless one,» William said from Strider’s left, throwing back his ambrosia-laced beer. «And the one wearing dental floss.» He’d changed his mind five times in the past ten minutes. As of now, he had dibs on every single female in sight.
«That’s a thong, moron,» Paris slurred from Strider’s right.
They reclined in lounges, too, the only cocks within miles of this little henhouse.
The girls were in front of them, some using the concrete rim around the hourglass pool as a dance floor. Gods love this modern era, because the females weren’t afraid to grind on each other.
«If the thing riding up her ass is a thong, whatdya call that string across her nipples?» William
