Wicked (Eternal Guardians #9) - Elisabeth Naughton Page 0,33

the marble tiles, and sank into the hot water.

He had no use for the nymph tonight, but he needed wine. If not to dull the unease inside then to take his mind off the black-haired vixen locked in his tower.

He’d watched her sleep for a long time. And it had taken all the self-control he possessed not to wake her with his lips, with his hands. Not to take her and remind her with his body to whom she belonged. But giving in to the urge would not have given him what he wanted. The female was stubbornly resistant to anything he said or did, even when he knew she felt the flames flickering between them. Which meant, he needed to be patient.

He didn’t have a lot of experience with patience. Not when it came to her. He never had. But he was confident she’d give in eventually.

She always did.

Footsteps sounded at his back. Zagreus stayed where he was, reclined in the sunken tub, as Ana set a goblet next to his hand then moved about the room gathering items. She came back as he sipped his wine, knelt behind him, then dipped a sponge and a bar of soap into the water and began scrubbing his shoulders.

It was a ritual he was used to, but tonight her touch only made his skin crawl.

“So…” she said after several moments of silence. “The female must be awake if you’re down here and not up there.”

“She is.”

“And she’s coherent?”

“Yes.”

“No lingering… injuries?”

Something in the nymph’s tone told him she was hoping the answer would be yes.

“She’s fine. Now.” His lips thinned. “I know how concerned you are.”

A huff sounded near his ear, but he ignored it as she went about rubbing soap over his back.

In the silence, his mind drifted to Talisa in the tower. Only this time it didn’t fixate on her nearly naked body under those thin blankets. It drifted back over their conversation and how concerned she’d been for the male—her cousin—who’d been taken by those satyrs.

Family was a foreign concept to him. His family certainly didn’t give a shit about one another. He never saw his mother, only saw his father when the god was on the warpath, and though he had a half-sister out there somewhere, he’d never met her, nor did he have any desire to.

As for cousins? The gods were always procreating with each other and with mortals, so he had numerous relations all over the cosmos, but they meant nothing to him, either.

“What are you planning to do with her?” Ana asked, moving the soap to his arm.

“Does it matter?”

“It may. Those markings on her arms prove she’s linked to the Argonauts. And the one on her hip means she’s bound. If she’s bound to one of the Argonauts and they come looking for her—”

“She’s not bound to an Argonaut.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I do.”

“You hope,” she muttered, moving to his other arm. “Argonauts have soul mates. If she’s someone’s soul mate, he’ll never stop looking for her.”

His patience reached a breaking point. “No Argonaut will ever find this kingdom. And the topic of soul mates is finished. She’s my prisoner, and that’s that. Are we clear?”

Ana’s hand stilled against his shoulder. She didn’t answer, but he knew from her silence she’d gotten the hint.

Talisa was off limits. He wasn’t about to discuss her with this nymph or any other.

Ana went back to rubbing the soapy sponge over his skin. He leaned forward so she could rinse his back then reclined once more so she could clean his chest, pushing the chain around his neck to the side as she worked.

Candlelight flickered over the water and his skin. She was silent, but he sensed something lingered in her mind. Something she was working up the nerve to say.

“Your shoulders are tense,” she said softly.

Yeah, no shit. His shoulders were always tense.

She splashed water over his pecs with her free hand. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

That wasn’t a surprise, either. He rarely slept.

She ran the soap over his chest then down to the edge of the water and beneath, across his abs, edging lower with each pass. Against his ear, she breathed, “I could help you with that.”

His skin tingled. The only person who’d ever been able to completely make him relax was his mono mia.

The female currently locked in a tower in this very castle.

Ana’s hand slipped lower, beneath his belly button, but before she could release the soap and wrap her fingers around his cock,