Rise of Athena

Chapter 21

Even if she could mask the emotions on her face there was no hiding her racing heart,
«You came back." The quiver in her voice was barely there as he lightly stroked the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck exposed by her high updo. It was barely there but he heard it. He smiled and as soon as hse saw it in the mirror she seemed to remember her role of playing hard to get.
"The next time you touch me, ot'll be the last thing you do with those hands." She took several steps away from him.
"Is that your heart or your brain
talking?"
"They are one and the same and you would do yourself a favour to heed those words."
He took a step closer wondering if she would move back. She didn't. she was looking straight at him- glare was more like it - daring him to come

closer and touch her.
He thought of Ciara's advice, what if
athena was just too scared of what she felt to admit it. What if he had to give her a push, just a little. Perhaps Ciara was actually wiser than he thought.
"I'd say I'd die happily, but you won't hurt me."
"you seem to have a very short memory." she said referrign to the time she wanted his head on aspike and oddly enough she seemed to be enjoying the abck and forth chatter. He took another huge step forward leaving a few inches between them.
"that was before absent made your heart grow fonder." She surprised him by closing the fianl distance tilll they were toe to toe. He was so close he could smell the scented soap she must have used to bathe on her hair and heart the thud of her heart beat even as she stood alsmot a head shorter than him. The proximity made his loins

burn. He looked at her hands partially concealed by the folds of her dress, Ciara better be right. He took her right hand into his left she stilled but did nothing. Ciara was right. He began to draw invisible lines on her palm.
As she opened her mouth to talk he expected a rain of curses but he heard something akin to concern in her voice. "your finger." she touched his swollen little finger.
"I twisted it climbing into your window. A small pain considerign its twenty feet away from the ground." He looked at her and saw her still lopking at his finger as if contemplatign what to do before adding, "A small distance considerign the final destination."
She picked up some sort of oil near one of the burning candles in the room on her vanity and began to massage it on to his little finger then spread to his palm and behind it. He had pictured a hundred different ways this night could have gone and he couldn't dare

to imagine any scenario as goo as this.
Ciara was a genius.
"You changed your soap while I was gone. I like it what else is new?"
"Your audacity." Her tone had become hostile as usual.
Having her alone in a room while the nature did what nature did outside her window was a dream come true. And having her worry about him and carress his palms? The feeling was fuckign electrifying. That was until it started to burn. Literally.
Followign her previous words to him was a candle. As soon as it made contact with his his skin his hand went up in flames due to the aid of the flammable oil she had rubbed on him.
She set him on fuckign fire. Ciara was an idiot.
"You keep making your punishment worse, my love." He started to wave his hands relfexively and but stopped

when th flames ate him faster. He looked to her open trossuea and before she could stop him he started to hit his hands on the bundle of clothes and as the fire burnign his skin was put out, the flames were transferred to her clothes.
"No!" she went towards the burning heap then stopped before she could getr there. But as the flames rose it wasn't consuming silk and satin, as the smell of burning skin wafted through the air, it was the screams of her mother she heard and she stood unable to do anythign while everyone cheered. She ran to the fire.
W"'Athena. Athena." she vaguely heard her own name or even felt as she felt a furty body pull her away from the fire it was as if all the willpower in her' disappeared as she melted into the safeness of his werewolf body.
At first Alex thought it was ptsd that was keeping her from goign to the burning pile and instantly regretted

settign them on fire. But when she put her hands in the fire and started to pull out burning fabric as if in trance and wasn't reppondign to the call of her name. He needed no soothsayer to tell him what she must have imagined.
But now as he held her in his paws makign sure to avert her gaze from the fire, what he couldn't comprehend however was the complete lack of damage on her, apart from her dress beign burnt there wasno marks on her skin despite the fact that she more or less dived into the fire.
She began to move against him and as he gave her some space she still lay against him.
Are you okay?
he telepthically said to her.
"Damien. I need-" He growled and rose to all four he picked her up, made sure she was strong enough to hold on and swung her onto his back then carried her to the bed and laid her down before resting beside her.

To hell with Damien