Marked by the Demigod Read online

  Marked by the Demigod

  A Romance

  Alessa Winters

  To Allen, for love and support.

  To Lisa, for reading how many drafts of this?

  To Amanda, for being the best encourager a writer can ask for.

  To FTH, for constantly inspiring me to be the best version of myself.

  To Angela, Evan, Sharon, Bruce, Kate, Daniel, Amanda, Sam, Steve, Alicia, Tanner, and Allen. You know what you guys did.

  To my Mother, who read my last book and loved it, who will probably enjoy this one slightly less for the content.

  To L and G, for giving me spite to succeed so I no longer have to put up with people like you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Also by Alessa Winters

  1

  The clock clicks over to eleven at night, and she's still alone.

  Well, not alone alone. The dimly lit bar's still crowded, but hotel bars always have people in them when conventions are in town. Especially conventions as unexciting as the National Convention of Librarian Sciences.

  But Aimes is just alone enough that her head throbs a little bit and her shirt tends to the silly side of cleavage.

  With another critical glance at the crowd, Aimes turns back to the bar and accidentally catches the bartender's eye. Who of course takes it as an invitation to come schmooze.

  "You here with the library group?" Because of course that's his opener.

  "It's the most exciting convention I've been to all month." Aimes deadpans, twirling her now-empty champagne glass.

  "Another?"

  She sits back on the stool, somehow doesn't overbalance. "Sure. Why not."

  He turns back away, and she pulls out her phone. No new texts, and definitely no new texts from Rocky.

  She still can't believe she dated a guy named Rocky.

  She still can't believe she's still hung up on a guy named Rocky.

  Which is why she’s decided it'd be a good idea, on the last night of the most scintillatingly boring convention she's ever attended, to see if the hotel bar has anyone worth fucking. Or, if not fucking, at least worth drinking with.

  Not that work conventions are usually too much fun. Data adaptation courses for library science was never going to be a life of excitement.

  "Another librarian?" Someone slides onto the stool next to her, jarring her out of her thoughts.

  "Hardly," she quips back, looking up, blinking with shock.

  He grins at her, tall and striking with a shock of dark hair, longer than is in fashion but not too long to be obstructive. His gray eyes seem to sparkle from within, the shade of wet concrete, if that could be a romantic color.

  "Me neither, just passing through town. Jake," he extends his hand. His suit cuts close to his shoulders, and he’s slender. Exactly the opposite of Rocky, but in a way that she doesn’t mind at all.

  He’s the best dressed person in the bar, and yet, no one is looking at him. It's as if their eyes slide over him, as if they want to look anywhere else.

  "I'm here for that convention, but definitely not a librarian." She smiles back, as wide as she can make it, grateful that she isn’t wearing any lipstick to get on her teeth.

  "Not that I have anything against books, just...not the crowd I thought I'd be playing with today." He fake shudders, and Aimes takes a second to admire the movement of the close cut fabric. It looks luxurious, and she wants to spread her fingers over it. “Here alone?”

  She nods, pushing a curl back so she could get a clearer look at him. He’s pale, his face sharp and defined, like he doesn’t spend too much time outside. "You?"

  He hesitates a brief second, and for that second she prays he's not married. “I don’t know many people who’d spend the night in a hotel bar who’d have someone to go home to. What are you drinking?”

  “Sparkly. You?” She raises an eyebrow at the champagne glass.

  “I was hoping to not spend enough time here to get a drink.” And he looks at her, and his eyes burn deep inside her. Like he can see down into her, see all the secrets and the longing and the loneliness...and that he wants to fuck it.

  It’s been a while since someone’s looked at her like that. She had had relationships with people who had never looked at her like that.

  Rocky hadn’t, for the last six months of their relationship. Maybe longer. But she didn’t notice.

  He shifts ever so closer, a bare heat radiating off of him in the close cut suit. An intoxicating scent envelopes her, a cologne worth more than the hotel rooms at this dinky hotel. She turns towards him, swiveling on the stool.

  "I could be convinced." A glimmer of satisfaction - or panic - crosses his face, before it gets smoothed over by a smile.

  "I could be convincing."

  He leads her up to the top floor, unlocking the door with a swift click.

  Aimes whistles as soon as she sees the room.

  Plush white carpets, a shining dark wooden bed frame, and mirrors on all the walls, with gold accents.

  "Who woulda thunk that Kansas City had a room this nice?"

  He chuckles right behind her, so close but not touching her. "You come in and say money's no object, you can find a lot of hidden gems." Soft, careful, he grabs her hand and leads her in.

  The lighting is soft, almost akin to candlelight, and he seems to glow in it. He fiddles with his cufflinks, setting them on the bedside table. They're a shiny metal symbol, something unknown.

  "Where were you at today that needed cufflinks?" Aimes asks, sitting on the bed.

  It dips beneath her, soft as clouds and far superior to the one she had waiting for her two floors beneath. She spreads her hand over the comforter, it's silky.

  "I really didn't, I overdressed." He throws her a sideways grin, a quick twisting of his lips, and she'd rather he’d put those lips to use against her. He opens the cabinet and pulls out a small, glistening golden bottle. "Have you ever had dolce?"

  She raises an eyebrow. "No, but I've heard of it."

  "Elixir of the gods." And the twisted smile is back. He breaks the seal and pours a tiny bit in a hotel glass, hands it to her. "This will be the best thing you taste all month."

  "I thought you said you didn't want a drink?" If she hadn't seen him break the seal in front of her, she'd refuse, but as it is she takes the small glass.

  "Not of anything they had down there." He toasts her with his glass, then drains it in one go. She follows example, and it's so sweet it almost burns, but so sweet it's like candy and syrup. It's chilled, way more chilled than is logical for it to be out on the counter.

  "Do you give all the girls fancy drinks?” In spite of herself, her stomach flutters.

  Not like it has been a long time, but everything about this is subtly off, in ways she can’t put a finger on. It’s delightful.

  “Only the pretty ones.” He sets his glass down, careful, deliberate, before shedding his suit jacket. The fabric whispers away from him, soft and quiet.

  They lock eyes for just a moment, before he reaches out, snaking a hand behind her neck and pressing his lips against hers.

  He freezes, the moment of contact, and she opens her lips in
response, leaning in. He hmmms, before shifting closer to her on the bed, a hand slipping under her shirt and settling at her waist.

  He inhales, sharp, as if unsure, and Aimes winds her hand up to his hair, pulling softly.

  “Are you okay?” she whispers. The moment seems weighted, too much so for a hookup in a semi-decent hotel.

  He opens his eyes, as if unaware he had closed them, then smiles, a soft twisting of his lips. “Yeah,” he says, hand at her waist, “yeah I think I am.” And he leans over her, pressing hard against her, before deftly - and roughly - pushing her down on the bed.

  Her back hits it with a satisfying thump, the breath almost knocked out of her.

  The man - Jake - climbs on her and starts kissing up her neck, his actions strange, disjointed. It’s almost ticklish, to the point of ever so slight distraction, a brushing of stubble and lips and skin upon skin.

  She arches into it. It has been too long since someone had done anything more than a perfunctory peck of a kiss, and even longer since someone actually paid attention. Anonymous sex tended to be more focused elsewhere.

  “Been a bit?” He mumbles into her neck. He chuckles, soft, and she feels rather than hears it.

  She nods, and he runs a hand through his messy hair, sitting up.

  They’re still fully clothed.

  “You want to do this?” His voice is soft, almost cautious, almost pleading.

  She props herself up on her elbow, then pulls his face down to hers and kisses him, slow, teasing his lips apart.

  “Yeah, I think I do,” she murmurs.

  The glimmer of satisfaction flickers behind his eyes once more, and he crushes his mouth down on hers.

  She tugs on the buttons of his shirt, and they fall open way easier than logical, sliding out as if they were meant for it. He grunts a laugh at her, fumbling with the zipper on her pants.

  It's a moment of dual awkwardness, and they both grin for a second before she reaches down and grabs his dick through his suit trousers.

  He startles, then sheds the pants as quickly as possible before crawling back on top of her, all long lean lines and slender muscles. He slips a hand between her thighs, crooking his finger into her without any warning.

  She hisses and he gentles, rubbing her clit in soft circles, lips mouthing at her neck, some almost whisper, something she doesn't quite catch. For a moment it's like she's out of time, with just his fingers against her and --

  He pulls away from her, just a brief second, and she uses that to flip him onto his back and straddles him. He's a pretty picture, his mouth slack, hair on the pillow behind him. He squirms with her hands on him, writhes, eyes shut and lashes long.

  "Do you have condoms?" She whispers, unable to speak louder for the moment.

  He nods, flails his hand at the bedside table. Sure enough, previously unseen, a single condom lays. She grabs it.

  The sound of the wrapper shocks, and he opens his eyes. His eyes shine, as if overwhelmed, as if unbelieving, as if in awe. As if not believing she’s real.

  "You look...like you didn’t expect this?"

  He tries to say something but his voice rasps. He clears his throat, tries again. "Been a bit for me, too." He locks eyes with her and twists a smile up.

  “That's a shame," Aimes says, gripping his dick and slowly, ever so slowly, shifting her fist up and down him. "You're so very pretty, should be easy for you."

  His mouth is slack again, and it's just about the best thing she's seen in ages. Holding him in place, she lifts herself up, then sinks down on him.

  His eyes fly open, and he stares at her, his jaw working, before his hands tentatively settle on her waist. It's like he's not even breathing, carved from marble.

  She thrusts on him, and he groans, naked, embarrassingly so, and his fingers dig into her hips. He pounds her, once, twice, before flipping her again and pinning her down, a hand closing on each wrist.

  She gasps, and he grins, the sudden shyness gone.

  "You're a bit more...forward than who I'm used to dealing with." He says, panting a bit.

  She bucks up at him, returning the grin. "Sounds boring." He's larger than she thought when grasping him, and it's embarrassing how solid it feels.

  He somehow shrugs, then leans back in and kisses her, slow and steady.

  "My thoughts exactly.”

  2

  Well, it’s not every day she has that sort of sex with a total stranger.

  She’s not complaining. But, as she stretches on the bed and watches Jake wash the sleep out of his eyes, it definitely feels strange.

  As if sensing her eyes, he turns to her with a raised eyebrow. “Did I wake you?” His voice rasps, as if the night had taken it.

  “Only sorta. Not a person who sleeps well.” She could feel him watching her as she shifts around. “All my stuff is in my hotel room downstairs.” She reaches off the end of the bed, hunting for her shirt.

  “You in town for long?” He smiles at her, something soft and a bit too affectionate for a one-night stand.

  “Today’s my last day.”

  After a brief hesitation, he nods, then splashes more water on his face. “I travel a lot, what city do you usually stay in? Maybe we can…” he gestures at the bed, face difficult to parse out.

  It’s as if he’s struggling to say something, but can’t quite force himself to, and it’s very odd. Obviously odd.

  Aimes shrugs on her shirt, then grabs the pad of paper from the bedside. “Here.”

  He glances at the number. “California?”

  “I work for the city of Los Angeles.” She fake grimaces at him, and he matches the smile before sitting on the bed next to her.

  It’s a hair too close, too intimate, and Aimes leans back. He hesitates at her movement, as if the breath has caught in his throat.

  “I never caught your name.” His voice dips down into the same whisper as before.

  “Aimes. Aimelie, but...yeah. Call me Aimes.”

  The strange glimmer across his face, then a smile.

  “Nice to meet you, Aimes. Always good to meet someone new.”

  The rest of her day is mild by comparison, but there are worse things than a mild day. It doesn’t worsen the deep aching loneliness, so in retrospect it’s a success.

  Maybe she needed that one night of excitement, she muses as she packs up her overnight bag. Maybe that’s what she needs.

  Shouldering her small overnight bag, she closes the hotel room behind her. On the door immediately to the left, a middle aged man leans out of his room, eyeing her as if she’s stolen something.

  She stops in her tracks and immediately checks to make sure she’s wearing all her clothes.

  He drops his chin, eyes narrowing, something akin to shock on his face.

  What the fuck?

  Her skin tingling, she adjusts her bag then pastes on a fake smile as she walks past him.

  “What did you do?” He calls out after her, but she doesn’t look back. Even small towns, as small as this town seems during a library conference, can have utter creepers. Engaging them is so not her brand.

  Not that she has a defined brand, but she definitely likes to think them up when she’s bored.

  On the flight to LA someone watches her with a single raised eyebrow. Each time she gets up, his eyes follow her.

  He’s a fresh-faced college freshman type with bright green hair but the look in his eye is not the typical college freshman jeer.

  She flashes him a smile, and a look of profound alarm crosses his face. He buries his nose in one of the in-flight magazines

  The moment she steps into her Uber at LAX she flicks open her phone and calls Trixie.

  “Have you finally gotten back?”

  Trixie is her best friend, in the way single adults in their late twenties have best friends. And she takes care of her cats when she’s gone on all these conferences.

  “Finally. And no more traveling for a week and a half, unless Evan calls out sick for the Texas bit
.” Aimes cradles the phone on her shoulder and digs in her purse as the driver pulls out of the airport loop.

  There’s a crackle and a pause on the line. “Do you think he’d call out sick?”

  “It’s Evan, he hardly calls out sick.”

  “Can we please please do a lunch or something this week. I need it, so much stuff happened you have no idea.”

  That’s the other thing about Trixie. Her life is interesting.

  "Tomorrow?" Aimes asks, glancing at her wristwatch. For no reason. All her schedule and stuff is on her phone; the wristwatch is there so she can refer to it in front of librarians.

  "Yes, yes, you have no idea the shit that went down, it's so weird you won't believe." There’s an awkward lull, as the Uber driver inches through the Los Angeles traffic.

  Trixie coughs over the phone. "Was your trip okay?"

  One car over on the freeway, a young woman stares at Aimes. Just stares. Aimes studiously looks away, facing away from the window. "Too many librarians, not enough free time to see the sights."

  "You were in Kansas City...are there sights?"

  "Sure?" And immediately, the image of the stranger - Jake - sitting over her, long hair in his eyes, pops in her mind. "I mean, there were pretty things."

  "Heard from Rocky?" Trixie' voice softens, as if gentling will help the question go down smoother.

  Aimes forces a laugh, it's about as fake as one could expect. "Not a peep."

  Her cats don't give a shit when she opens the door, but cats never really do.

  She checks her phone again, no text from Rocky. Or from the random fuck buddy, but she can't expect anything from that. It'd be nice, but, you know. Practicality.