Midnight Medusa by Stephanie Draven Read Free Book Online Page B

said.
    “You don’t know that,” he said. “You don’t know me.”
    She knew him. She might even be in love with him. He knew what she’d done. He knew what she was—a gorgon. He’d even seen her shatter mirrors, yet his attraction to her had not crumbled away. He knew her secrets, yet still thought she was beautiful. “I feel like I’ve always known you, Damon. The first time I saw you, your face was familiar, and I don’t think it was only because you look like your brother.”
    It was the wrong thing to say. His eyes clouded over like a storm and he sat up in the bed, pulling the coverlet to his waist. “You don’t even know my true name.”
    Renata was still too free from fear not to ask. “Then what is your true name?”
    “Deimos, Son of Ares, and I feed upon fear. Terror sustains me. And I have hurt you, Renata. More than just tonight, more than you know. When I told you that you were a gorgon, you thought I was calling you a monster. But I’m the monster.”
    “Deimos,” Renata repeated with wonder, trying the new name on her tongue and finding it pleasurable to say. She reached for his hand, but he was already up and out of the bed, finding his clothes and dressing.
    “Do you know why my brother Phobos and I both look familiar to you? Because we were there the day of the explosion. We were both there the day soldiers ripped your life apart.”
    Renata tilted her head, searching her memories.
    “The warriors in Bosnia called on the old immortals and we answered,” he said. “My brother and I drove our father’s chariot, spreading fear and dread. I saw you burning. I heard you scream that gorgon’s scream that shattered windows and stopped soldiers in their tracks.”
    Renata remembered that now, how the fighting had stopped, how the soldiers had retreated long enough for her mother to scoop up her wounded body and try to get her to safety.
    “And when you screamed,” he continued, “It froze my blood inside me. I’ve carried this stone inside my heart ever since. I swore that I’d never drive my father’s war chariot again.”
    Renata whispered now, “Did you ever drive it again?”
    “No,” he spat. “Mortal men create enough fear to feed me—never again will I help them make more.”
    Renata wanted to reach out for him, but as he pushed his dark hair back from his face he warned her away. “Every bad thing that has ever happened to you in your life is my fault. So you see, Renata, I have no right to touch you, no right to love you. And it won’t happen again.”

Chapter Eight
    Since they’d made love, Renata’s sense of fearlessness had faded, but she was still left with longing. She needed to talk to him, but he’d stayed away.
    Everything had changed.
    This time, when the goons came to fetch Renata and whisk her to the airport, Deimos wasn’t with them. She was comforted to be back on his private jet, but it alarmed her that he wasn’t on board.
    When the plane was in the air and the pilot had taken off the seatbelt sign, one of Deimos’s men delivered the crystal decanter to Renata. It was accompanied by an envelope with her name written in florid script.
    Renata wondered if drinking more of the ambrosia-laced spirits would lift her mood, for she feared what lay coiled and lurking within the envelope. Mustering her courage, Renata tore the envelope open and found that it contained the sketch, the business card and a short, handwritten note.
    Renata, I’m sending you home because I was wrong to have taken you in the first place. You have to make your own choices about how to use your powers, just as I’ve made my own. If you want to sculpt, then sculpt. I have no right to control, imprison, or decide for you. I can’t protect you, but the ambrosia can. The more you drink, the less mortal you’ll be. Don’t share Medusa’s fate.
     
    Renata’s studio looked smaller and shabbier than she remembered it, but she was grateful to see that Marta, the gallery owner, had