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Ah, the good old days, back before she bailed on life. And me.
Deep, rumbling drumming filled the woods around us, and Adonis stiffened beneath me, as if I wasn’t already riding on a shoulder carved from marble. His fingers dug into my thigh in warning. “Sorry about this,” he whispered.
The next thing I knew, he grabbed me by the waist and basically tossed me to the ground. Part of me was fully enraged at the treatment, but the fact that he managed to unload me without hurting my ankle didn’t escape my notice. Again with the weird kindness.
I still glowered up at him though, partly because I was a little miffed at being dropped on my ass and partly because he clearly didn’t want anyone to know he had a soft spot for me.
“What do we have here?”
A trickle of dread worked its way through me at the sultry sound, and Adonis’s gaze flicked to mine for a nanosecond before it snapped back to the owner of that voice. I clambered to my feet as best I could and turned to see something so wholly unexpected my brain refused to process it for a solid three seconds. My mouth worked like a fish out of water before I regained enough sense to slam it shut.
How had I managed to miss so much of my surroundings on the trip up there?
Oh right, my view was limited to the ground or a Greek god’s ass.
An intricate network of bridges spanned overhead, creating a web of rope and board walkways. Each suspended path was lit end to end with glowing turquoise orbs that bobbed and swayed in the gentle breeze. I craned my head back and followed the interconnected paths to at least two dozen shed-sized structures built right there into the trees.
Three main highwire paths stretched out from the courtyard my new buddy had dropped me in. Perched in the center, sprawled lazily across a throne made entirely of interwoven vines, was a woman. A drop-dead gorgeous woman, whose only visible flaw from where I was standing was the pure fucking evil glistening in her black eyes.
“We found her wandering out by the boar pit,” Adonis said stiffly.
“Is that why she’s lame on the one side?” the woman asked. “Or did you forget my orders?” The question came out dangerously polite, and the look she gave the kid I’d cracked over the head with the rock almost made me feel sorry for him. He stumbled over his words, yipping like a panicked puppy when one of her perfect eyebrows winged up impatiently.
As much as I wanted to kick that particular frat boy in the nuts for being an insufferable dick, his reaction to the woman triggered something protective in me.
I hobbled forward a step and held up my hands. “They didn’t hurt me. They just caught me off guard and I fell in a big ass hole trying to get away.” I motioned to my right foot. “Twisted my ankle a little, but it’s nothing serious.”
That perfectly manicured brow ticked up a little higher, and her plump pink lips quirked up on one side. “Is that so?”
The two dickhead frat boys were quick to agree, but Adonis didn’t move a muscle.
“Leo.” She said his name on a soft sigh, then swung her long legs off the throne and stood in one fluid movement. Her hips swayed gently as she prowled toward him. “My sweet Leo. I can always trust you to tell me the truth.” When she reached him, she ran a finger down the side of his face. “Is that what happened?”
So, Leo was Adonis’s real name? I studied his features as he stared back at the woman, his expression blank. He didn’t look like a Leo.
He nodded once.
She turned her attention to the bleeding boy. “And what happened to you?” She tipped her chin down and watched him like a wolf stalking its prey.
The boy pressed a hand to his head.
“I hit him with a rock,” I offered.
Her head swiveled slowly toward me. It was a weird, creepy movement, like the way a possessed doll’s head spins in exaggerated slow motion in a horror movie. “Why would you do that?”
“I’m kind of a bitch that way.” I gave her a half-shrug. “I mean, these three did sneak up on me in the woods, in the dark. So, it’s kind of on them if they got hurt in the process of taking me hostage. Don’t you think?”
The woman bit her bottom lip and tipped her head with a smile. “Feisty. I can see why he’s so taken with you.”
My stomach churned uneasily, and it was all I could do not to look at Adonis-Leo. There was no way she could possibly know he’d helped me. The other boys were oblivious to it. At least, I thought they were. Shit.
Maybe it was a test. Maybe she was fishing for information.
She shook her head and turned, tossing one hand in the air dismissively. “He always was a foolish creature, even before he started playing the role of surly pirate captain,” she said coolly, sashaying back to her throne and summoning two more frat boys with the snap of her fingers.
Surly pirate captain.She was talking about Hook, not Leo.
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding on a silent huff, refusing to let any of them see my relief. That brought me back to Earth, so to speak, and a fresh wave of anger tingled across my scalp.
