Free Ravaged: An Eternal Guardians Novella (1001 Dark Nights) by Elisabeth Naughton Page A

by the soul mate connection and convinced if I could just get her to stay, everything would work out. A standoff resulted. The Argonauts came to my aid. But she didn’t want to stay and struggled against my hold. The Sirens thought I was going to harm her. Before any of us could stop it, a battle broke out. In the chaos, Penelopei was killed.”
    And there was the crux of the rest of his guilt. Knowing that because he hadn’t been able to control his desire, not only had he abandoned his son, but a female had died. “It wasn’t my blade that struck her,” he finished, “but I killed her just the same. If I’d let her go, she’d still be alive.”
    “Maybe.” Daphne looked back at the fire. “If I hadn’t gone to the creek that day, maybe my parents would still be alive too. Then again, maybe not. We’ll both never know. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re not meant to know. When I was a child, my mother told me that life was a series of events that make zero sense at the time, but which come together to reveal a greater good in the end. I forgot that until just now. Maybe what happened to you stopped Penelopei from tormenting another male. Maybe Zeus’s fascination with her—and you—stopped him from ruining another family’s life, like he ruined mine. Maybe everything happens for a reason.”
    He turned to look at her, at her profile set against the flickering flames. There was strength inside her. A strength he wasn’t sure she knew was there. There was also simplicity. Something he craved in his confusing, fucked up, crazy world. “Are you saying you believe in some unseen Fates pushing us around like pawns on a chessboard?”
    “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I just know that if someone had told me a week ago I’d be sitting here like this with you, I would have laughed and said they were insane. Everything’s changed in a short amount of time, and not by my doing. There has to be a reason for it.”
    He glanced back at the fire. He didn’t believe in reasons. He didn’t believe in the Fates. Where were the Fates when his world fell apart? Where were they when he started having blackouts and went nuts? No, he believed in what he could see and touch. And right now, what he could see and touch was way too close and much too vulnerable, especially when his arousal was still up and his own vulnerability hovered on the edge. “Be careful. People call me insane, and they’re not far off the mark.”
    “Those people don’t know you. I’d say you’re way more sane than I am.”
    He huffed. “You haven’t seen me at my finest.”
    “Yes, actually, I have.” She leaned close and kissed his cheek.
    Her lips were soft and sweet and gone way too fast. And though he knew he shouldn’t, he turned to look at her. “Why did you do that?”
     “To say thank you for stopping me from going after Zeus and his Sirens. I wouldn’t have gotten very far in the snow without a coat. You saved my life, Argonaut. Again.”
    Their eyes held. Heat and electricity crackled in the air, warming his skin all over, sending a rush of heat straight to his belly. He didn’t know if she felt the charge the way he did, but as the firelight danced over her smooth features and she continued to hold his gaze, her eyes slowly darkened and a warm flush grew in her cheeks, telling him she was feeling something. Something dangerous. Something wicked. Something he might not be ready for.
    “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “I’m not going to seduce you to extend my thanks.”
    A wave of disappointment washed over him even though he knew he had no right. But then she leaned close once more, and he sucked in a breath, afraid to move, afraid to hope, afraid to do anything but go stone-still.
    Her luscious mouth stopped millimeters from his own, more sweet and hot and tempting than any mouth had ever been. And in a husky whisper, she said, “I can’t, because you’ve already seduced me.”
     

CHAPTER SIX
    Daphne