Take that Enforcer team, it was Gigi DeWitt and her chocolate treats for the win. Defeating a bunch of power-crazed deity assholes should be child’s play in comparison. Right. Right?
Chapter Four
The first ray of sun hit the horizon, Nico releasing a small groan of thanks. Dragging his weary ass off the mattress. He stumbled off to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face and grab some running shorts and a t-shirt. Damn, his eyes felt like sandpaper, his head throbbing. It was that bloody ancient silver ring. Pulsing. Demanding. Pound. Pound. Pound.
Setting up shop in his head about an hour after he’d found it amongst his erstwhile intruder’s belongings.
But whatever it wanted. Freedom? Obedience? Nico didn’t know. Perhaps it just wanted to be returned to its original owner. All Nico knew was that the thing was grindingly, achingly, hammering away at him twenty-four seven. He hadn’t slept in six nights now.
He felt beyond jetlagged and was getting desperate. People died from consistent lack of sleep, didn’t they? He could commiserate. Bleary-eyed, he swung open the floor to ceiling window overlooking the beach and stepped out. Gripping the nearest ladder rung tightly before climbing down the outside of the rear of the building until his feet hit sand. His entire body felt both too heavy and drained. All he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep, but that cursed tiny ring wouldn’t leave him alone. And unfortunately, distance didn’t bother it.
Leaving it at his brother’s place on the bluff when he checked on the house over the weekend failed to dim its caterwauling. Hopping in the Transportal, dumping it in his great-grandfather’s urn, tucked away in an all but forgotten chapel in the lowlands of Scotland, had also proven a dismal failure.
If anything, the pulse seemed to grow louder, more demanding, more desperate. All but silently screaming at Nico.
It had gotten so bad he’d been forced to retrieve it, which did seem to thankfully settle the ring back to its dull insistent roar setting at the very least. Making it impossible for Nico to sleep but he could hear himself think again.
The hellish ancient thing appeared to have formed some type of link with Nico and wasn’t going to release him until it achieved whatever it had been made for. Yeah, he wasn’t going to let that happen.
Next stop had been South America, where a cousin of his owned a forge. Quickly learning the ring was resistant to a blast wave of heat that would have melted a lump of silver a hundred times its size in less than ten seconds. Not the dainty dove ring. It proved impervious.
Taking a deep breath, Nico began to run along the sand, headed towards the bluff. He was tempted to go for a swim, but in his sad state he might drift off into a doze and drown himself. Running, with the blood pounding in his ears, it helped a little. Plus, it pushed back his level of dead tired ever so slightly, enough that he could try and concentrate on coming up with a new plan to offload, or just bloody silence the ring long enough so he could sleep and recharge.
For about an hour yesterday, Nico had thought, hoped, the ring had burnt itself out.
He’d been at a meeting with Lucy Valhalla to discuss the catering for her grandchild’s first birthday party, contemplating the steaming cup of tea she was pouring him. Wondering if his potential client would consider it ill-mannered of him if he chugged the entire pot, when blessed silence had fallen.
The ring. Not the world. That, of course, kept turning, as Gigi DeWitt had proven, sauntering in like the embodiment of a ray of sunshine. Excuse his sleep deprived brain, but the woman was too much. He’d had to bite his tongue to keep from asking her to dial it down.
The wide gorgeous smile. The chic cropped hair that reminded him of a sun glazed white tropical beach. So inviting you couldn’t help but want to run your hands through it to test if it was as soft as it looked. And those deep purple eyes of hers, that brought back memories of staring up at the sky just as the sun kissed the horizon goodbye and the mysteries of the night began to unravel.
Gigi’s presence was the equivalent of touching a live wire, a strange jolt of energy coursing through him. Pushing away the bone deep weariness. Which was great, a relief. But Saint Medard, it was also kind of annoying. As if he’d swapped one irritating tug for another.
Because something new had definitely commenced pulling at him, vaguely, relentlessly, like lost treasure needing to be found. But it was a deeper tug than that. Kind of like that feeling you got when you made it into Port just ahead of a killer storm. Home. Home? Ridiculous. Or perhaps not, he hadn’t slept for six nights. He was probably delirious and hallucinating.
But still that slight tenacious pull had persisted.
Was Gigi wearing silver? Not visibly. Yeah, don’t go there, even as he shifted trying to will his suddenly extremely interested cock back under control. There were a lot of places Gigi DeWitt could be wearing silver under her clothes.
Perhaps it was the rabbit sporting silver? No, the amethyst choker it wore was low grade gold. Nico would know, he could gauge gold content at forty feet by the time he was five years old.
Seriously, who gave their pet a choker made of real gold and amethysts to wear? For that matter, who dyed a pet to match their eyes? It smacked of animal cruelty and being a slave to fashion that just didn’t jibe with the energy Gigi was giving off. Her outfit was functional, professional, though there was something about the fitted skirt, the way it hugged her curves that also made it a little sexy.
By all the Saints, what was wrong with him? Well, doh, he wasn’t firing on all cylinders. And at the very first opportunity he had been determined to find an excuse, any excuse to leave, now that the ring had gone radio silent in his head. Intending to head back to the Bar and hit the sack. Finally he’d be able to get some rest.
Unfortunately, he’d failed to factor in the wacky. Considering where he now resided, it was a rookie mistake.
Excuse him, but he was just so fucking tired. Detached fingers. Babies on the loose. Tangerine oven mitts. Mysteriously appearing choc chip cookies. And finally the owners of the house, Asher’s parents, stumbling home, covered in grit and gore, both large, gorgeous and laughing.
The Transportal had instantly unlocked. Mumbling a farewell Nico had bolted. Only to step out into the Five Alarm Bar three seconds later and be instantly smacked down by the howl of the ring. Hammering away in his head once more. Mierda.
That had been yesterday. The tug of the ring was back to that dull insistent unrelenting pounding roar. Currently it was back at the Bar, but it might as well have been adorning his little finger. Turning, huffing, trying to catch his breath, Nico for some reason looked down at his little finger just to double check he actually wasn’t wearing it. Saint Medard. The thing wasn’t just killing him slowly, it was sending him insane first.
Clenching his fists, Nico began running back the way he’d come. Determinedly focused on his breathing, his heart rate, putting one foot in front of the other. Seaweed blocking his way, he angled up higher, onto the softer sand. It was harder going, but that was a good thing. Maybe if he punished his body enough he would knock himself out. Or instead just trip over his own feet, falling, rolling and coming to rest on his belly in the cool sand.
He lay there for a moment, trying to get his bearings. He’d been so out of it he’d run right past the Bar. Glancing over his shoulder at the rear of several shops that backed onto the beach, just like the Five Alarm Bar. Though he supposed in a lot of instances they doubled as homes as well. He knew for a fact Riya, who owned and operated the exclusive boutique where she sold her own designs lived, had lived, in the apartment above it, before she’d melded herself to a Maat Warrior.
Slowly, getting to his feet, Nico moved over to grab the railing leading up to the nearest sundeck, he had like a ton of sand in his shoes to off load. But the moment his hand came down to rest upon the railing, silence, blessed silence descended with a thankfully inaudible thud. It was just like what had happened yesterday, at the Valhalla farmhouse. Nothing. No pounding cursed ring. Halleluiah, silence.
