Page 5 of The Demigod Complex
Leia didn’t like the dark intensity in his eyes, like a storm brewing. Something suspicious lingered there, she just had no idea what it could be. Was it extra dry in here? Where had she left her water bottle? Crap. On her desk. She could really use it about now.
The intensity honed and settled on her as he stood and came around the desk. “The wedding will be under the Banes/Canis names.”
She lowered her gaze to make a note, then the names he’d shared sank in and her head snapped up. “No.” The word punched out of her.
“What?”
“I’m not going.”
Did the sky outside darken? As a son of Zeus, Castor’s emotions were sometimes reflected in the weather, but a quick check revealed blue skies outside and his next words were softly put. “Why not?”
“I don’t go to wolf-shifter mating ceremonies.” Especially not with Castor Dioskouri.
Leia watched with trepidation as Castor leaned back against his desk, ankles crossed, seemingly at total ease. Only somehow she could tell that he was anything but. “Again, why not?” he asked.
She bit her lip but stopped when his gaze automatically dropped to follow the movement. She straightened in her chair, crossing her feet primly at the ankles, knees together. Body language that screamedkeep away. Which he always had done. The body language was more for herself.
“Have you ever been to a wolf-shifter mating ceremony?” she asked.
“No.”
Huh. She would have expected that, in his long lifetime, he would’ve been to at least one. “Have you heard anything about them?”
He lifted a single eyebrow. “I’ve been around a while, Lyleia. Of course I’ve heard.”
“So, you know the pair being mated releases a pheromone which makes everyone there very…” She searched for a word appropriate to use with her boss.
“Very?”
She narrowed her eyes at the impatient snap in his voice and tried not to shift in her seat with how her body heated up. “Horny,” she bit out.
His eyebrows shot up. “I’m shocked, Ms. Naiad. I wouldn’t have expected you to know that word.”
“Iama nymph,” she pointed out drily.
Castor held up his hands. “My apologies. I forget that fact sometimes.”
Which firmly put her in her place. Most supernaturals couldn’t wait to get with a nymph, for obvious reasons. The gods had a lot to answer for with that whole giving and receiving pleasure thing. She glanced away, out the window.
“As a nymph, I’d think pheromones shouldn’t bother you.” Castor’s voice dragged her back.
Very carefully, she picked up her computer, stood up, and tucked it into the crook of her arm. “I’mnotgoing.”
She made it to the door, only to be stopped when he placed his hand over hers on the knob. No whisper of sound reached her ears to warn her of his move, blast his demigod speed. She absorbed the heat of him through her skin, warmth traveling through her blood to pool low.
“I need a reason, Lyleia.”
She shivered as the dark, rough tones of his voice made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. His warm breath brushed over her cheek, his lips only a fraction of space away. What was it about this doorway today?
If she hadn’t been so keyed up, she would’ve laughed at Castor’s incredulous irritation. She wondered if the man had ever been denied anything he wanted. Instead, Leia ground her teeth.
Wolf-shifter matings were heady and hedonistic, but he was right—she could handle it under normal circumstances. However, attending one with a demigod who exuded power and sexuality was a different circumstance altogether. That she happened to have a small, apparently uncontrollable, thing for him was a recipe for disaster.
When Delilah had approached her about this job, she’d given one directive: DO NOT FALL FOR HIM.
That was it. Simple enough, to Leia’s way of thinking at the time. Delilah was a long-time friend and had known Leia’s unique qualifications to resist such a temptation. She’d successfully fended off countless gods and demigods for ages. In the gods’ heyday—now referred to as Classical Antiquity, which tickled her sense of humor since it technically made her an antique—the gods had relentlessly pursued her and her sisters and cousins. In addition, Delilah knew Leia’s history with gods. She’d picked Leia up, dusted her off, and given her a life.
Leia owed her.
