We stare out over the ruins. Tourists have reemerged from wherever they’ve taken shelter during Harpoc’s quake and are ambling about the site again, seemingly none the wiser.
I bite my lip. How is that even possible? How have they not freaked out hearing Zephyr? I glance at Harpoc, then shake my head. I won’t question, he’s shielded us from wind and rain, no doubt he can block sound. I shake my head.
“What’ll happen when archeologists discover the rebuilt labyrinth?” My stomach tenses.
“They won’t.” Harpoc nods toward the doorway we took down into the maze.
It’s a far bit away, and I squint, not sure I’m seeing things right, then glance back at him with narrow eyes. “You… you…”
His metallic eyes dance.
There’s no sign of the opening. Just like the wall in the cistern stairway, he’s somehow concealed it.
I exhale. “What’ll happen to her?”
He meets my gaze, and his look tells me all I need to know. She’ll die down there, without food or water. What a horrible way to go. I shudder, but no amount of humanitarianism in me will ever convince me to intervene. She’d kill untold numbers if she ever got loose, it’s that simple.
Does my callousness condemn me to hell, or worse, damnation? Probably, but I’ll never stand in judgment before Zeus, which is how this whole thing started, with Zephyr not wanting to get in trouble with the god. Someone recorded her secret, then I read it aloud. Yes, I have a large part in this, but she started it.
Surprisingly, my inner voice remains quiet.
The sun’s casting orange rays across the landscape when Harpoc asks, “Ready?”
“For what?”
“Unless you want to sleep under the stars tonight, I think we should head to more appropriate lodgings.”
“Oh, yes. Good.”
Harpoc grins, and seduction fills his voice. “And we’ll pick up our previous conversation.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Previous conversation. Previous conversation.
My eyes go wide as Harpoc’s promise concerning a consequence for undoing his duster’s buckle bolts to the forefront of my mind.
What’d you get yourself into this time, Pell?
My stomach flutters. I’ve no idea, but I’m not entirely sure I’m opposed.
My inner voice coughs.
“Our hotel isn’t far,” Harpoc says, “So I thought we’d fly.”
I meet his gaze. “You have a reservation?”
“No, but hopefully they’ll make room for us.”
I tilt my head. ‘They’ll make room?’ What’s that supposed to mean? Has he stayed there before? Is he some VIP they’ll move the world to satisfy? It wouldn’t surprise me.
My natural tendency would have me questioning and pushing for answers to his mysterious statement, but Harpoc has surprised me at every turn. Why not just let things unfold? What harm can there be? Maybe I can live spontaneously for once.
You? Spontaneous? My inner voice guffaws.
I smile to myself. What’s this man doing to me?
“Flying sounds good,” I reply, more to muzzle my inner voice than anything else.
He extends a hand and helps me up from where I’ve been lazing under the trees, and I step beside him. The buckles of his duster close in unison and he wags his brows, not letting me forget my earlier indiscretion.
My traitorous cheeks warm, which his grin tells me he sees.
I look down, busying myself zipping my own jacket. Pugh, I stink.
He wrinkles his nose, and I laugh. But the next thing I know, the smell of jasmine replaces puke.
“Much better,” he says.
I don’t disagree.
He bends forward and picks me up. I grab him around the neck and his citrusy clove smell fills my senses. Mmm, mmm, mmm.
“You seemed to do better with me holding you.” He opens his mouth to say more, then closes it again. But the look in his beautiful metallic eyes as our gazes meet makes the butterflies in my stomach take flight.
His dark features, those onyx brows and stubbled jaw, his pleasing lips, and olive skin, they hold me captive. For his part, he seems to be drinking me in. He studies every aspect of my face, especially my lips, as our gaze holds.
Discomfort at the rawness of the moment makes me look away, my heart pounding.
He doesn’t say a word as his wings appear in a swirl of shadows over his back and he lifts off with several mighty downbeats.
I drop my arms from around his neck and bite my lip, trying to distract my raging heart with the view of the clear blue water that’s near the coast, not far ahead. Even as dusk starts to settle over the land, I can see the sea’s sandy bottom and out a ways.
A few minutes later, he points at a two- and three-story white stucco cluster of buildings, so iconic of Greece, that sprawl along the shoreline. “Here we are.”
Pathway lights already illuminate the walkways and highlight the trunks of olive trees as well as wooden chaise lounges beside beach umbrellas, collapsed for the night, down by the water. The sound of waves lapping the white sand beach adds to the calm.
I inhale deeply, filling my lungs, letting some of the stress of the day drift out to sea on those waves. Harpoc definitely knows how to pick hotels.
He sets down in a dark recess shielded by manicured bushes, near the curved driveway. A host of uniformed attendants staff the posh hotel entrance not far away. At least that’s what I discover once his wings disappear and we’ve emerged from our hideaway.
I don’t mind this kind of secrecy, tucked away as I’ve been in his arms.
Pell… My inner voice rises.
Harpoc puts a hand on my back and despite my puffy jacket, I swear I feel every inch of it as we walk up the drive. The bellman who
