Jessa clambered over the bar, plank ready, as Elysia whipped out her own knife, but before either of them could do a damn thing, Crusher vibrated as she leapt to her feet. The snarling animal guarding their front was no longer a pint-sized lap dog, but a creature large enough to swallow a man whole. Her glorious black and copper fur gleamed as her lips peeled back, revealing sharp, terrifying teeth.
Drunk and without any sense of self-preservation, the man took another step. Crusher lunged and tore off a sizable chunk from the man’s ass.
Jessa spoke in a restrained hush. “Elysia, you need to call it off.”
Eyes on the enormous beast, her voice trembled. “Crusher, come here.”
She turned her head and looked at Elysia with baleful dark brown eyes.
“You can’t eat him.” Thanks to the shake in her voice, her statement sounded far too much like a question, but nonetheless, the dog lowered its head and forcefully nudged the now profusely bleeding man toward the door. With one final ram of her head, the interloper was flung outside. There were a few mutters aboutcrazy bitches,and then he staggered away into the night, bleeding and moaning.
“If you shrink down, I’ll go back.” She didn’t need anyone else seeing a dog bigger than a horse in Jessa’s bar. One person rambling about it was just drunk nonsense. More than that meant executions.
Crusher heaved a great sigh as she returned to her previous form. Totting back over to Elysia, she looked up expectantly as if she should get a treat.
Jessa’s voice quivered as she roared. “Getoutof my bar.All of you!”
Chapter 9
Elysia landed heavilyon her ass, sopping wet and pissed off. She’d had to jump into the Valvere Sea to travel back, and there was nothing she hated more than wet clothes sticking to her skin.
Gathering her bearings, she tried to figure out where she had ended up. She still didn’t fully understand how traveling worked, and she wasn’t ready to swallow her pride and ask Aidan for tips.
Intense music vibrated up from the floor, beating inside her chest like a second heartbeat. It must have been almost dawn, and she was tired and bewildered. Brass horns—much like the ones attached to record players in Kava—were fixed up high in the corners of the room, music booming out of them. She stared in confusion, unsure if it was a different technology or magic making the speaker work.
A masculine grunt drew her attention, and Elysia gulped.
The two gods on the mats kept breaking apart and then clashing together again like angry, thundering cymbals, and she was more than a little awestruck.
She hadn’t expected this. Not with his lean but solid swimmer’s body, rumpled button-downs, and constant mugs of tea. But she had been mistaken not to look past the polite scraps heoffered to put her at ease. And maybe if she was honest, she’d been a little bit afraid to see the god rather than the man.
Because stripped to the waist and gleaming with sweat was the scarred and shredded body of someone who was more than familiar with a fight. Grappling against him, with his brown skin equally sweaty, was Grim. The god of the dead dealt a blow to Grim’s jaw that would’ve knocked a lesser being out, but Grim grinned as if it was nothing and dropped his shoulder to go for Aidan’s gut.
Elysia came to her knees, sopping robes hanging off her, completely entranced with the show and wanting nothing more than to continue peering beneath his high-strung, overworked façade. Seeing him fight should have made her nervous. It should have made her want to tuck her tail and hide in her rooms until his frustration blew over, but instead she drank it in. She wasn’t a stranger to rage or violence, and this was an orchestra of it with their bodies playing both conductor and instrument.
Grim’s eyes darted to her as he dodged another hit. “Aidan.”
Aidan undoubtedly knew she was there, but he ignored Grim. Shooting forward, he took him down to the mat. On his knees, he loomed over his sparring partner, his pale face a chiseled mask of concentration as he fought to keep him down.
Gods above and below. Her mouth went dry, and heat sank in beneath her skin. This wasentirelydifferent from watching Gage and his men spar. When she watched them, she was focused on their footwork, their style, and how she could translate it into her own body.
All she was learning right now was what incredibly deep shit she was in if her libido had anything to say about matters. With her eyes still glued to them, Grim reversed their positions, and she willed herself to get up, to leave, to do anything other than continue to ogle the man of her nightmares.
He tricked you, she reminded herself.
That has nothing to do with sex,the demon in her mind countered, looking at the hard lines that disappeared into his shorts.
Her inner logic waved its last flag, screaming it was a trap.
Allowing herself one more creepy, lingering stare, she abruptly ripped her gaze away and stood up in a flurry of seawater and heavy robes. She needed a bath and to go to bed so she could wake up with her sanity restored. Without a clue where she was within the sprawling estate, Elysia trudged off to find her room.
The music cut.
“Going somewhere, Thorn?”
Elysia shuddered.Illegal. His voice should be illegal. She turned to look over her shoulder, ignoring how his muscled chest heaved with exertion and his cold blue eyes seemed to heat as they stared at her.
“To bed.”
