He let his hand fall from her throat, his fingers glancing off her skin in the softest of caresses. The pad of one finger rested where her pulse hammered her skin.
Terena’s heart rolled over. Blood heated and moved slowly beneath her skin and she felt the languorous pull of his body, adjusting her limbs to fit within the embrace of his powerful frame.
“I think your body disagrees with you,” Daris murmured, leaning closer until his lips were on her ear.
No! Do not give in!
Terena listened to her head this time. Desperate to get away from him and have a serious conversation with her traitorous body, Terena willed herself to think of Croak. Of Rydon. Gabriol and Orry. All of them waiting for her.
Slipping a dagger out of her belt, she held it at his back. Right at his kidney. With a cruel tilt of her lips, she sighed.
“Think again,my love.”
Before she could stab him, Terena stumbled, no longer in Daris’s darkened bedchamber.
Daris fell forwardinto the wall.
Growling as he rubbed at his sore forehead, he swore in Greek.
Then blinked.
She was gone.
Baffled, Daris stepped back, his disbelieving gaze taking in the space in front of him as if Ren might somehow reappear from the shadows.
A muffled banging reached him from the other room. Daris stalked to the nightstand where he’d set his eyepatch. Before he could pick it up, Hermes stormed in, his face various shades of red as his gaze darted around the empty bedchamber.
“Where is she?” Hermes roared, his eyes on fire as he strode through the room, lifting Daris’s discarded clothes and tossing them down again.
Daris wiped his hand down his face. He grabbed his eyepatch and fitted it over his ruined eye before rising and grabbing thetunic Hermes had thrown. Daris looked at him warily before pulling it over his head. The god stalked across the large bedchamber, cursing under his breath.
“Who are you looking for?”
“My niece,” Hermes hissed a few inches from Daris’s face.
Daris’s spine stiffened, and he narrowed his good eye. “She’s not here.”
“I can see that,Eudaemon!” Hermes spat, jerking his head around as if he’d conjure her from thin air. Turning his furious gaze back to Daris he said, “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know,” Daris answered, raking a hand through his hair. At Hermes’s scowl, he raised his hands in supplication. “I didn’t know?—”
“When did she get here? What did she say?”
Daris, surprised by the god’s ferocity, blinked at him in shock. “Lord?—”
“Don’t—!” Hermes closed his eyes and held up a hand to Daris as if trying to control himself. Still with his eyes closed, his fingers folded until he held up only his forefinger. “I want to know exactly when she came to you. What was said? Did she say where she is?”
Daris gaped at the god. A second later he composed himself, crossing his arms at his chest. “I don’t know how it’s possible. No one informed us she was here?—”
“That’s because she wasn’t,” Hermes closed his eyes again, once more visibly calming himself before he continued. “She used her powers. She ported here.”
Daris’s eyes widened. “What? What’s that mean?” He strode to Hermes’s side, facing the god when he turned away, his hand lifted to his chin. “What’s that mean, Hermes?”
“Tell me what was said.”
Daris sighed. “She… seemed confused. Wanted to know if I was real. Where I was.”
Hermes flapped his hand. “And? Did she tell you where she was?”
