“Wouldn’t you rather catch the bastard who actually killed her?”
“If it wasn’t this, it would be something else. That tattoo was nothing but a bull’s-eye for all of our world. It was as good as a bounty on her head.”
He had to talk to Megaera again. Not to warn her, although he would, but to wring her secrets from her.
“You don’t think training her to be an assassin would have eventually resulted in Galatea’s death?”
“No. I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
Marcus opened his mouth, but Spinner wandered slowly back up the path, sans Davis and with a dark look on his face. “We’re going to need forensics.”
“What did you find?” Kage and Frost asked simultaneously.
“You have to see it to believe it.” Ian shook his head. “Are you sure she was living out there?”
“Of course.”
Ian kept shaking his head. “The place is covered in webs. It looked like something out of the end of
Kingdom of the Spiders
.”
Chapter Four
Megaera followed Marcus Kage all the way to Sunset Hill and Nicodemus Frost. She kept praying the wind would continue from the south; if it shifted, he’d scent her and he’d want answers she wasn’t ready to give him.
She’d known Galatea had some unnatural attachment to Frost. Meg had suspected they were lovers, but she’d never dreamed the girl had made him into some kind of demented father figure.
Meg understood Frost’s rage, even though it was directed at her. Because she felt it herself, the heavy mantle of guilt for pointing her finger at Galatea and declaring her Athena’s chosen. Athena spoke through Meg, but sometimes she didn’t know if it was Athena’s voice she heard or her own. She could have just as easily chosen another girl, but Galatea had been so desperate to serve. Born an Amazon, exiled at twelve for her small size and stature… Meg closed her eyes against the flood of memories.
Her power was already turning gangrenous, shifting inward toward herself, latching onto her guilt and devouring her from the inside out. Megaera had to find out who was killing the Amazons, or she’d literally destroy herself from guilt.
When she saw the glint of silver on Frost’s fingernails, she’d almost revealed herself, crying out a warning to Marcus, but from the way the two alphas regarded each other, Meg would guess they’d come to blows before. Marcus’ low growl was a caress on her skin, reverberating through her to touch secret and forbidden places. She trembled and her cunt clenched as she remembered what it had been like to have him inside her. She wanted him again.
Meg squeezed her thighs together as if that could stop the rush of heat and lust. She couldn’t let him scent her. She faded back amongst the shrubs and greenery, repeated over and over to herself that what she was doing was right and just. As long as she believed that, her power would keep the wind from carrying her scent to him.
She’d peeked into the guesthouse after she’d overheard the other detective’s comment about
Kingdom of the Spiders
and decided it was too obvious. Someone wanted it to look like Arachnae, but Meg knew the Arachnae were cunning rather than obvious and garish.
And wrapping the whole interior of a building in spider silk was more than a little garish.
Who would want to frame the Arachnae besides Amazons? The warrior women didn’t need an excuse to fight. They were as forward and blunt as the Arachnae were subtle. Since they were Athena’s creatures, they didn’t lie, and while they would sacrifice their own for the greater good, Meg knew in her bones they’d never kill their own ranks for a ruse.
Guilt surged again, the cadence of it in her ears beating in time with her own heart.
She returned to her car, and it wasn’t long before Marcus’ black Charger pulled out onto the street. Meg used her phone to activate the tracking device she’d slipped into the shoulder holster of his gun when she’d taken it off him that morning.
Meg knew that he’d easily leave behind a coat, but he was a cop—that gun probably had its own pillow in bed next to him.
She started her black ’70 Plymouth Sport Fury GT and followed the coordinates, but found she didn’t need to. Meg already knew where he was. Almost as if he really
did
belong to her. But that would mean his bite, his mark…it had taken root in her. So if he belonged to her, then she belonged to him—wholly. That wasn’t something she could accept. As a servant of Athena, she could mate with a male, even take him for her own, but
she
could never belong to
him
.
She was a Fury, one of Athena’s own. They did not belong to anyone but the goddess.
She put all thoughts of her personal bullshit out of her head. Meg was trailing him to find out what he knew, scope out his sources, not to obsess over him like a teenaged girl.
Shit. She lost her connection and had to look at the tracing coordinates again on her phone. She found him at 27
th
and Sewell—right before he suddenly went off the grid.
Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit again.
Where had he gone that he’d take off his gun? It wasn’t—
Unless he’d gone somewhere there was no signal. Her brain twisted every scenario, fast and furious. The only thing near there was the Quindaro Ruins. What the hell was he doing there? Maybe he was going to the river. Or the caves…
The caves!
She’d always had a cell signal everywhere but the caves.
Meg headed straight for 27
th
and Sewell and spotted his Charger. She pulled in right behind him and parked. Visitation to the Quindaro Ruins was by appointment only, so she was surprised to see lots of cars and people with cameras. Even a bus.
Dread suddenly bloomed hot and sour in her stomach, and she ran. There was something wrong with Marcus. She could feel it. Meg didn’t stop to think about what it meant, this link between them. All she could do was react.
She used her Fury strength and speed to bypass the mortal security measures—moving too fast for the security guards or the cameras to catch her. She moved too fast to even be aware of the landscape, her muscles stretching and shifting in response to some unknown directive in the primal part of her brain that carried her forward to Marcus Kage.
Of the myriad caves that burrowed into the land along the Missouri River, Meg knew exactly which one he’d gone to. The knowledge had come to her with surprising ease and surety, but she was unwilling to recognize in her conscious mind how she could do such a thing, what it meant for her and Marcus.
As fast as Meg had moved to get there, now inside the cave that fervor abandoned her, leaving only the dread that wound around her body like a boa constrictor. It started in her gut, squeezed her ribs tight around her heart and constricted her throat. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t force herself to move forward.
Her eyes focused on one thing. Long, angry gashes in the stone of the cave wall. Five deep grooves that looked like the slashing of claws…
Meg’s imagination exploded with nightmarish visions of dark things ripping their way through stone and metal to run free.
This was where he chained himself up.
Megaera swallowed hard. She’d wanted to push him tonight, wanted to see his beast. Now she’d have the chance. Meg was terrified, but her Fury nature wouldn’t let her run. It wouldn’t let her do anything but see this through to the end. She’d never seen a Lycanos Change.
Why had he come to chain himself so early? It was still morning.
She finally crept forward, the scents of the cave heavy in her nose. It smelled like water, freshly turned earth and dark, mossy places that had their own particular indescribable scents.
And wild animal.
For all intents and purposes, it was an animal den.
Yet, when she emerged into a large cavern, it was
nothing
like an animal den.
The scene would have been more at home in a modern research facility. The walls and floor of the cavern were polished white and looked to be marble. Machines with dials and levers lined those walls, a giant screen and desks with three computers and processor towers were inside a bright metal cage. Megaera guessed it was painted with blessed silver. There were several hospital beds, each in its own cage on the far wall, with wires and different machines hanging limp and quiet inside. They fueled her already hyperactive imagination with images of experimentation, ala
The Island of Dr. Moreau
.
Especially since Marcus made no use of any of it, but rather had positioned himself beneath several sets of chains that hung from the ceiling of the cave.
Methodically stripping off his clothes, he didn’t turn around, but she could tell by the way his shoulders stiffened and his muscles flexed in his back that he knew she was there. She was held rapt by the smooth glide of his golden skin as he moved, bit her lip hard enough to draw blood when she saw the scars on his back from her nails.
She’d marked him, indeed.
Her fingers fluttered up to her neck where he’d bitten her. She didn’t have to look or even touch the skin to know she bore his mark.
Double shit
.
“Yes, little Fury. We’re fucked.”
He smoothed his slacks down his strong thighs and Meg’s breath hitched in her chest. By Athena, he was a beautiful male. She wanted him again.
Marcus spun around. His eyes had already shifted, bright amber and hungry. “You don’t want to be here.” His voice was deceptively soft. “Especially not with the scent of fucking on your skin.”
“I—”
“I don’t want you here,” he snarled, and slipped his hands into shackles that tightened automatically around his wrists.
“We’ve marked each other, Marcus.”
“Even more reason for you to get the fuck out of here and run as fast and as far away as you can. I can find you anywhere now. Track you over hundreds of miles.”
“That makes me feel safe,” she confessed.
“It shouldn’t. I ran down the woman I loved. Killed her. I don’t love
you
, and you’ve made me angry.”
“Because I didn’t tell you everything?” she answered easily. “There are some things I’m forbidden to speak of. Even to a cop. Even for justice.” She crept closer.
“Get away from me, Megaera,” he demanded, then his voice fell to a whisper. “It’s not safe.”
“The more you try to warn me away, the harder it is for me to go. Don’t you understand that?” She was close enough to touch him and she splayed her hands on his chest. “Even now, when you’re about to Change, can’t you smell my need?”
“You’re going to die, Fury.”
“No, I’m not. You’re not going to hurt me. Don’t you think I would have scented your guilt on you, your sins? No, there’s nothing but purity and honor in your heart.” She leaned into him, his skin almost too hot to touch.
Megaera pressed her lips to his collarbone and every muscle in his body flexed. “Don’t…” He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I’m going to Change and I’ll be nothing but an animal.”
“No, you said
you
were in control. Not your beast.” She drew her fingers down his chest and farther still, to where his cock jutted out—engorged with lust for her. “Although, it’s cruel to cage a wild animal, Marcus. Let him out to run with me. I can keep up.”
He groaned and Megaera knew it was more the lure of her words rather than her hand stroking his cock. She knew intrinsically that she’d spoken his most secret and ardent desire. He wanted to be free.
He needed it.
All of the dread and fear that had coiled around her suddenly released, and Meg was left with nothing but her desires and the echoes of his. She sank to her knees, braced her hands on his hips and took the crown of his cock into her mouth.
Meg could taste herself on his skin as she flicked her tongue over the head. She drew him deeper and when his cock jerked against her tongue, there was an answering twinge in her pussy.
She wanted his hands on her body, his mouth, his tongue; she wanted him to claim her again. She even longed for another bite. It had sent her careening over the edge into the hardest, longest orgasm she’d ever had.
But right now, this was for him. Megaera had complete faith he could surrender to the beast and his human moral code would remain intact. She’d been afraid of him before, but maybe this marking, this owning, had shown her things within him that he didn’t even know himself. That was her lot, after all, the ability to see into the souls of the world.
She descended the length of his shaft, stroking him slowly only to pull back then descend again. Salty fluid had gathered on the head and she tasted it, swirling her tongue over the tip and suckling. His cock surged and flexed, his hips pushing forward to thrust himself deeper, to take more of what she was offering.
“Megaera.” Her name was a plea on his lips. His voice was soft; there was no beast, no animal. It was simply Marcus. She accepted that the beast
was
simply Marcus as well.
She pulled back for a moment, tilting her head to look into his eyes. “Let go, Marcus.” Meg’s tongue darted out to taste him, their gazes still locked as she took him back into her mouth and out again. “Give me everything.”
Meg was used to feeling powerful, that was nothing new, but to feel like she had power over this male in particular was something else entirely.
His hips jerked forward, thrusting his cock into her mouth, giving her what she’d demanded. Everything. Yet he was still in complete control. Only his eyes had shifted to that yellow that belonged to the beast.
When she’d said “everything”, she’d meant it. She wanted to
see
his beast.
Meg wrapped her hand around his shaft and stroked as she suckled and licked, flicking her tongue over his cock in a dance designed to taunt him and spur him hotter.
But Megaera wasn’t finished with him. She wouldn’t let him come. Not yet.
She stopped her ministrations to his cock and kissed him hard on the mouth, letting him taste himself on her, before pulling away again.
Meg stripped slowly—his stare was burning through her clothes anyway—and Marcus’ hungry gaze never wavered. She peeled off her Volbeat t-shirt first and then her fingers moved to her satin bra, pulling down the cups to reveal the first blush of her nipples. Meg turned her back to him then unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor, casting a sultry look over her bare shoulder.