Taken by the Blood God (Devil Springs #4)

Chapter 6

Chapter

Six

Minerva

I should have known I couldn’t trust Talant. He was sneaky, underhanded, arrogant, and…well, a lot of things, and none of them were good.

I had no clue why I let him sleep in my bed with me. The only way it could end was in disaster. Which was why I woke up with my hand in the center of his chest and my cheek resting on his shoulder. His bare shoulder. Sometime in the night, he’d removed his shirt and crawled beneath the blankets with me. The bastard.

My heart was already pounding in my chest before I even opened my eyes, but when I did, I blinked repeatedly.

I was no longer on my side of the bed. I wasn’t even in the middle of the bed where I tended to sleep. I had thrown one of my thighs across Talant’s hips, and my foot was hanging in the air off the other side of the mattress because he was almost on the edge of the bed.

And while I had my body all but plastered to his, Talant’s hands weren’t touching me. At all. The arm I was lying on was bent up so that his bicep cradled my neck like a pillow and his other palm rested on his bare stomach.

It looked like an uncomfortable position, one he’d picked so he wouldn’t accidentally touch me when I basically welded my body to his.

I should have known better. I should have kicked him out of my bed no matter how much his little admission of loneliness made my heart ache.

What did that get me?

Nothing but trouble.

Biting back a growl, I eased my thigh off his hips, moving slowly so I wouldn’t wake him. Based on the amount of sunlight peeking around the curtains, it was just after dawn, almost a full twenty-four hours since I found him in my backyard, nearly incoherent.

He was going to wake up soon and be just as insufferable as he always was now that he wasn’t weak from having all his magic drained.

I eased my body away from his, rolling my legs and hips in the opposite direction before I started to withdraw my hand.

He didn’t even flinch. His breathing was as deep and even as it had been all day yesterday when he passed out in my bed. Maybe luck was on my side for a change.

As I rolled onto my own pillow, I tried to ignore the sensations coursing through my body. The residual heat of his skin still lingered on mine, and the smoky scent that I would forever associate with him filled my head. I was no longer touching him, yet I felt surrounded by him.

My sigh of relief was silent…and premature.

The moment my body began to relax and I thought I’d managed to escape without waking Talant, he rolled over. Right on top of me. His dark hair fell like a curtain around our faces, and his eyes were only a few inches from mine. From the twinkle in them, I’d say he’d been awake for a lot longer than I had. Which meant he’d let me lie on top of him while he gloated.

I scowled up at Talant, putting my hands to his shoulders and pushing. He didn’t budge. Instead, he tangled his legs with mine and slid one hand down my side, the calluses on his fingertips scratching at the silky fabric of my nightgown.

“Good morning,” he greeted me, his voice low and gravelly.

He sounded sleepy. And sexy.

“Talant, I seem to recall telling you to keep your hands to yourself last night and?—”

“You proceeded to crawl on top of me as soon as you fell asleep? I know, I was there.”

My scowl became a glare. But I had no comeback. What in the hell could I even say?

“I took that to mean we were changing the touching rules,” he murmured, his eyelids lowering as his hand moved back up my ribcage.

I held my breath as his thumb brushed the very edge of my breast. I could feel the flush building in my chest and neck as my nipple immediately hardened beneath the silk of my nightgown.

No. I would ignore it and focus on the ridiculous things he’d just said.

“I apologize if I bothered you last night. Obviously, it would have been better if you’d gone to your own bed.”

I expected him to smirk at me, to keep gloating over the fact that he’d kept his word and I’d been the one to break the rules.

But he surprised me once again.

The smirk on his face disappeared as he stared down at me. Tiny scarlet threads swirled into existence in the deep amber of his eyes. Then, the sight of them vanished all together as his pupils expanded until they nearly eclipsed his irises.

He looked…desperate.

“You could never bother me,” he murmured. “At least not like that.”

My mouth opened but not a single sound came out. It seemed to be his morning to befuddle me.

“Then again, there are a lot of things about you that do bother me,” he continued, lowering his face toward mine. “But I think I like every single one of them.”

My mouth was dry, but there was a lump in my throat that threatened to choke me. I tried to swallow, but it came out as more of a gulp.

Just when I expected his lips to touch mine, Talant nudged the tip of my nose with his, skimming it across my cheek to my ear. His lips trailed the lightest line from my earlobe down to my clavicle. It was barely a touch, but it burned through me like wildfire.

Goosebumps erupted on my arms and legs. Even though my skin suddenly felt hot, I shivered violently. A tingling sensation began in my lower abdomen before it slid lower—right between my legs, settling in my clit.

“Talant—” I began, unsure of what my next words would be.

Was I going to tell him to go to hell or kiss me?

My mind was utterly blank, unable to form coherent thoughts. All I could do was feel the havoc he wreaked on my body with nothing but a single touch of his mouth to my throat.

What in the hell was he doing to me?

I gave thanks to the goddess when my cell phone rang on the nightstand. We both looked over, and I saw Ally’s name on the screen.

Before I could tell him that I needed to get the call, Talant had already rolled off me and was out of the bed, bending over to pick something up off the floor. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, watching as he wadded his shirt up in his hand and headed toward the door.

It was nearly impossible to ignore the outline of his hard cock behind the loose shorts he wore, but I managed. Almost.

When the door swung shut behind him, I collapsed back onto my pillow and groaned. Then I reached out my hand for my phone, feeling blindly along the top of the nightstand until I snagged it.

Bringing it to my ear, I said, “You have perfect timing, darling niece.”

Silence greeted me before Ally asked, “Is everything okay, Aunt Minnie?”

Sighing, I sat up and leaned back against the headboard, bringing the blankets up to my chest as I did. “Yes, honey. Everything is fine. I was just waking up when you called, and I had the strangest dream, so it has me feeling out of whack.”

“What were you dreaming about?” she asked.

That’s what I got for lying to a witch who was a dreamwalker. She was learning the significance of dreams and their meanings. Especially since I had the power of precognition. My visions of the future often came to me in my sleep when my body was the most relaxed and my mind was wide open to the magic of the universe.

“I can’t remember,” I answered, wincing as I lied again.

This was why I hated lies of any sort, even small fibs. Once you told one, you would have to tell another to cover that one. And another to cover that one. Honesty was much simpler. Even if it felt like a pain in the ass at the time.

“You weren’t having a vision?” she asked.

I shook my head before I realized she couldn’t see me and answered aloud. “No, I still haven’t had a vision. Not since the day you freed Talant from the mountain.”

“Have you ever gone this long without having a vision before?” she asked.

“Yes.” I didn’t expound. When her parents died, I’d been without visions for nearly a month, and it taken another couple of months after their death before my precognitive abilities gradually returned.

“My destiny is enmeshed right now, and my magic is suppressing my view. I don’t know if it’s a defense mechanism or Fate’s way of keeping me from changing my future, but the only thing I see when I look to the future is a gray cloud.”

“I don’t like this,” Ally replied.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but there’s nothing I can do.”

She didn’t say anything else, and we sat in silence for a few moments.

“Was this the reason you called?” I finally asked, tired of waiting for her to get to the point.

“What? Oh, no. I was calling about the store. I wanted to let you know that I talked to Sela Harper, and she’s interested in working at the shop part-time. I’ve also talked to a couple of other people around town, and they’re willing to pitch in as well. So, I’m going to start training at least two of them this week while you’re out of town. The shorter hours will make it easier to walk them through the processes of opening and closing the store and all the duties that come with the shop.”

I blinked several times, surprised that she’d done all of that in less than a day.

I must have been silent too long because Ally said, “Unless you’d prefer I didn’t do any of that.”

I shook my head. Shit. I really was off balance because I kept doing that even though she couldn’t see me. “No, no…I mean, yes, I’m fine with your plan. I’ve needed more help at the shop for a while now. I just haven’t taken the time to arrange it. I appreciate that you’re taking care of it for me. I was surprised at how quickly you seemed to have arranged it, that’s all.”

“Well, you’re leaving today for an undetermined amount of time. I thought the sooner this was handled, the better.”

I had to smile. My niece was a planner. She liked to know what was going to happen and when. If she had her way nothing would be left to chance.

While that characteristic was handy in this instance, I worried that she would miss out on some of the best experiences in life because she avoided spontaneity like the plague.

“You’re not wrong,” I replied.

“Do you…” She cleared her throat. “Want to approve my list of candidates?”

“No, no. I trust you. You’ve been in Devil Springs and working at the store with me long enough to know who will be a good fit for the job and who won’t. Your choices will probably be better than mine.”

“Okay. Great. Well, I guess I’ll take care of that this morning. Are you leaving town today or tomorrow?”

I stared at the closed door, trying not to envision the arrogant blood god who was driving me crazy. “Talant will probably want to leave today, but I’m going to try to talk him into waiting until tomorrow. He expended a great deal of power the night before last and spent the last twenty-four hours sleeping it off. The last thing I need is for him to collapse on me in the middle of this insane prison break attempt.”

“Minnie, maybe you shouldn’t do this,” Ally said.

No, I shouldn’t have run off at the mouth like that. Ally was fully grown now, but I knew she still worried about losing me. About losing every member of her family.

Considering the same fears plagued me, I understood.

“I have to do this, Ally, but I promise I will do everything in my power to make it as safe as possible.”

“Please be careful, MinMin.”

“I will, sweet girl. Now, go enjoy the morning with your mate. I’ll text you when we leave.”

After she disconnected, I rested my head against the headboard and stared at the ceiling. While I’d done everything I could to reassure my niece, I had a bad feeling about this endeavor.

Not for the first time, I wished my damned visions would return so I had some idea of what I needed to do next. Then again, this was probably why the goddess had blocked my ability. I relied a great deal on my precognition when it came to making choices. Destiny loathed to be denied.

Done ruminating for the moment, I climbed out from beneath the blankets and made my bed. Then, I locked my bedroom door, took my waterproof vibrator out of my nightstand, and went to enjoy a long, hot shower and hopefully a long, hard orgasm too. Maybe if I relieved some of my pent-up sexual tension, my reaction to Talant would lessen. Or at least become manageable.