Page 32 of Tangled Threads Of Fate

The old man reached out and shook Nate’s hand. “Stavros.”

I smiled at him. “I’m Wren. And this is Nate.” I scratched the dog’s ear. “And this is Cy.”

Nate’s gaze ran over the man and the dog, before he nodded in greeting. He put a possessive hand on my back, as if I was about to run off with a man who must be in his late eighties, at least.

Nate continued to eye the dog, like maybe I was about to bring it home with me. Actually, that was probably more likely than me running off with the old man. Dragging his gaze back to me, he gave me a fake smile. “We should head off.”

Okay then.

I pushed myself to my feet and gave Stavros’s liver-spotted arm a squeeze. “It was lovely to meet you.” He lowered his chin in return, his dark eyes sparkling.

Nate led me away and back to the car. The dog, Cy, trailed behind us, its nose snuffling my hand. As Nate helped me into the car, he looked down at the dog, his brow lowered. “Stay.”

His voice was filled with power, and honestly, that was kind of freaky in itself. The dog didn’t seem overly perturbed, however.

“What’s with you and the dog?”

Nate shook his head, shutting the door so the dog couldn’t get in. “It feels wrong. This whole place is just bustling with supernatural energy. I don’t trust anything with you that isn’t me.”

My heart skipped a beat at his protectiveness, but when he climbed in beside me, I rested my hand on his tense forearm. “This is why we came all this way, remember? Neither of us thought it was going to be just a sleepy little Greek village.”

He frowned harder. “I’d kind of hoped that it was just so obscure, no one would think to look for you here. I hate that we’re right in the middle of their seat of power, like sitting ducks.”

I could understand that. “Let’s get this over with then, shall we?”

Nodding, Nate drove back up the road toward the stone wall. “There was nothing obvious about the place or its inhabitants. The fortress is old, really old, and it feels like history has been imbued into the very stone of its walls, but I can’t find any hints about who might be in there.”

As we pulled up outside, I drew in a deep breath. My instincts said this was what I was supposed to do. “You told me to follow my gut, remember?” I reminded him, and he muttered something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch.

I waited until he’d helped me out, then strode up to the door, determined. My heart was thundering in my chest, and a cold sweat had broken out across my skin. Grabbing the twisted bronze knocker, I slammed it down three times.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I might have hallucinated it in the midday sun, but it felt like the sound of that knock reverberated much further than it should’ve. It echoed around us, like we were living in a Poe horror story.

We waited, but no one came. “Maybe it’s abandoned?”

He shook his head. “There are people in there.”

I didn’t ask how he knew, and when he pressed closer to my back, I sank into his strength. I knocked three more times.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Finally, the handle of the door jiggled. Holding my breath, I waited as the door opened slowly. A pair of golden feet were the first thing I saw, my eyes rising further and further up, over a pair of strong golden legs, dark shorts, abs to die for, a chest so broad I wanted to sink into it, and then…

No. Fuck. No. Not again.

Not again.

I screamed, then passed the fuck out.

Chapter 16

TRYPHONE

The guy at the front door held the lifeless pregnant woman in his arms and growled. I knew enough about self-preservation to know that slamming the door in his face was the right move right now.

“Sorry, man. I swear to the Goddess it wasn’t me.” I closed it with a bang, then barred it, because that fucker was huge.

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