Page 23 of The Demigod Complex
Shoulders shaking in silent laughter, she nodded. “Please.”
Luckily, her feet were already clean and bare, her toes neatly trimmed and painted a soft pink. Castor squished some of the gel into his palm, smoothed it over the bottom of her foot and, trying to be gentle, worked it into the skin, giving her a foot massage at the same time.
“Oh, wow.” Her moan went straight to his dick.
This was a bad fucking idea. He should’ve got her the hydrating things and left the room, because now all he wanted to do was make her moan again.
“Has anyone ever told you you have magic hands?”
Castor opened his mouth to answer, only her hand shot up. “If you say something like only in the bedroom, I might kick you,” she said.
He huffed a tight laugh. “Actually, I was going to say that my wife liked foot rubs.”
The words left his mouth and he waited again for that sharp lance of pain, but none came. Just a pleasant warmth with the memory.
Meanwhile, Leia looked at him with a hundred questions in her eyes. And Castor found himself wanting to share this part of himself that only his brother knew.
“Pollux and I captured our wives and stole them from our cousins, who they were promised to. Hilaera was a priestess of Artemis, and we’d grown up together. Hers was an arranged marriage and he did not love her.”
“But you did?” Leia asked softly.
Castor nodded. “Since we’d been children. I was young and stupid and arrogant as most demigods can be. It’s hard to be taught humility when you have the strength of the gods running through your veins and are surrounded by puny humans who adore you. The things Pollux and I did to our mother…” He shook his head.
“I can just picture it. That poor, poor woman.”
He snorted a laugh. “Don’t you believe it. She was a juggernaut and we loved her the most until the day she died.”
The curse of immortality and loving humans.
“Anyway, Hilaera and I ran and had one spectacular year together and she became pregnant with my child. But the goddess Artemis—my half sister by technicalities—was angry that I’d taken one of her priestesses and told my cousin where to find us. I was out hunting when he attacked.”
Castor broke off and closed his eyes, concentrating on the motions of his hands as he worked on her feet. “She and my unborn child were both burned to death in our home.”
“I’m so sorry,” Leia said softly.
Many had said the words before, but somehow with her they struck true, like Eros’s arrows, and the pain of the memory that had coiled around his heart like a hydra, squeezing the joy and life from his life for ages, melted away.
Was it possible for a demigod to find happiness? Most of his bastard cousins, spawned by various gods, had only found misery.
Still, immortality meant that with time all things were possible.
“Me too,” he said.
“If you did things like this for her, she was a lucky woman.” Leia wiggled her feet. “Heck, if you did this for me regularly, I might sell you my soul.”
She was trying to lighten things up for him. After watching her with the employees they helped through his secret giving, he knew her generous heart hated to see anything in pain. It didn’t mean she cared for him, just that he was in pain and she wanted to help.
But Castor sent up a prayer to his father, something he hadn’t done in a thousand years.If she gifted me her heart, I would cherish it. Always.
Chapter Nine
Castor stood at the front of the chapel beside Marrok, who appeared as cool as ever while he waited for his bride. Not being a love match, and more of a business deal, that was probably about right. Except they were going to have to go through the mating tonight. Wolf shifters had strange traditions.
Like the exterior, built in natural stone, the interior of the building was simple, constructed of thick pine logs. Pews carved from matching wood stood in rows with a single aisle down the center, a deep red velvet carpet leading up to the altar and pulpit. Floor-to-ceiling windows at the front revealed an incredible view of the lake, which glittered under the brilliant light of the full moon.
Kaios was already seated in the front row. Marrok had pointed the werewolf out when he’d come in, commenting that he and Tala had been shocked when the man had shown up unannounced.
“We invited them, of course. All our ancestors are invited. But werewolves don’t usually bother with wolf-shifter matings,” Marrok had said. “It must be because we’re both alphas.”
