The Nymph's Curse: The Collection Read online

  Contents

  The Nymph's Labyrinth

  Montana Mustangs

  Winter Swans

  Savannah Sacrifice

  Crimson Sneak Peek

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  The Nymph’s Labyrinth

  Danica Winters

  Avon, Massachusetts

  This edition published by

  Crimson Romance

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, Ohio 45242

  www.crimsonromance.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Danica Winters

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-6223-7

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6223-5

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-6224-5

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6224-2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © 123rf.com

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank my critique partners and dearest friends Casey Dawes, Rionna Morgan, Clare Woods, and Pam Morris. Your constant support and kind words are invaluable.

  I also want to extend thanks to Amanda Luedeke who always has my best interests in mind. I can’t wait to see what the future will bring.

  Also, thank you to Jennifer Lawler for extending a welcoming hand.

  Lastly, I want to thank my family (Eliot, this goes for you too) and friends — your love and humor keeps me on my toes.

  To Bridget and Gavin —

  May you always follow your hearts.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The Palace of Knossos, Crete

  1613 BCE

  Zeus stepped to the side of the bed and lifted the sheet to gaze at Epione’s sleeping form. The goddess’ hair splayed around her head in a black halo and her hands rested over her bare breasts. The warm ocean breeze filtered through the curtains behind him as he stared down at her tanned chest while it rose and fell with the innocence of sleep.

  The air must have startled her and she stirred. The nymph’s hands shifted from her breasts as she moved to stretch, and the action made the God’s manhood quiver to life. He dropped the sheets back down and as the air wafted against her skin, she opened her eyes. “Hmmm. Zeus?” She yawned. “Have you come to me in need of healing?”

  Epione sat up, pushed her legs out from beneath the bedding and stood up. Zeus’ gaze fell to her round breasts and trailed down to the black wavy hair between her thighs. “I come for deeper needs. Needs only a woman … no, only a nymph can fill.”

  She stumbled toward her robe that lay draped over the wooden chair at the end of the bed, but he put out his arm, stopping her. “You won’t be in need of a covering.”

  She glared at him as she backed away from his touch, and bumped against the wooden bed behind her. “What of your wife? She’ll be angry if you stray from your marriage bed, will she not?” Epione pulled her hair over her shoulders and covered her chest.

  “Are you not the goddess of all nymphs? The Queen of the seductresses? Is it not your job to soothe a man? I am here to be a victim of your seduction, to have the needs of my manhood and my aching desires sated by your touch, not to worry about the fickle emotions of my wife.”

  “A man who treats his wife with such indifference will find no place in my bed. I believe in true love, not infidelity.”

  “She cares not where I plant my seed — only that I return to her.” Zeus reached out to touch her. “Come here and show me how you seduce, then I will leave and you can find another man who you can love.”

  He laughed at the thought of such a romantic idea. Who wouldn’t want a nice tussle without the attachments of love? And the Queen of seduction? She would most certainly be in need of good lovemaking. He would love to teach her the ways of a real God.

  Epione stared up at him with her bright green eyes. She was even more beautiful than the other gods of Olympus had foretold.

  “I know who you are, and of your erotic escapades. I wish only to be made wet by those who love me eternally, not those who wish to ravish me for sake of their fantasies.” Epione turned to the bed, grabbed a sheet and pulled it around her. “I seduce and soothe whom I choose.”

  Zeus ran his fingers along the edge of the white sheet, so close to her breasts. So close to possessing what his loins called for. Her denial only made him want it more. “I am a God. I have sired gods and goddesses, and ruled humankind. Having me as a lover is an honor. There’s no reason you should not choose me.” He leaned closer to her, and could smell the salty scent of her skin. “My body is ravaged with pain of want and only you can dampen my fire.”

  He followed her gaze toward the corner of the room, where a crystal staff shimmered in the sun, but he cared nothing of her trinkets, only the purpose that pulsed from between his thighs.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed, careful to keep her body covered. “You’ll need to find another to wet your fire.”

  Anger flashed within him. Who does she think she is?

  He reached toward her, but she pushed his hand away. “I am a god. The God of gods. I ravish whomever I desire. My touch is an honor to those with whom I share my bed.”

  With a calm fury, she flung aside the sheets, pushed up from the bed and sidestepped around him. He turned as he watched her grab the crystal staff.

  She glared at him with a fury reminiscent of the fires of Hades. “Let me be the first to be dishonored.”

  Zeus stepped back and lightening sparked from his fingers. His body responded with a hardness that came to the men of war. “I will not beg. You’ll give me what I want, or I will take it.”

  Epione thrust the staff in the direction of his manhood. “Come near me and I’ll burn it off.”

  He covered his groin and sneered. “Your denial will bring only acrimonious dishonor.”

  “So be it.” She jabbed the staff at him again.

  He glared at the idealistic goddess. “Because of you, your kind will be cursed. Never again will you or your kind partake in your senseless desire for true love. If a nymph attempts to love a human, that man will be fated to die a tragic death!”

  “No.” The crystal staff lowered as she shirked from his words.

 
He raised his arms to the sky and bellowed. The ground quaked beneath him. “This island and everything you hold dear I condemn to the fires of Thera. All because you dared to turn a god away!”

  “You wouldn’t!” she cried. “What of the humans?”

  “The Minoans worship the bull, not the God of gods. They deserve no mercy.”

  The walls cracked and fissured around them as the earth shook. Thunder filled the air and from the window, a cloud of gray ash poured from the direction of the volcano to the North.

  “Foolish Epione, you and all that your humans hold dear will this day be destroyed.”

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Shoveling dirt in a dark, forbidding hole was the last place Ariadne Papadakis wanted to be. She used the trowel in her hand as a weapon to scrape the clay away. A drop of sweat trickled down the ancient black tattooed snake on her arm, past her elbow, over the serpent’s weaving body, and stopped at the base of her wrist as if it was afraid to enter her palm where the head of the snake was poised for attack.

  The city of Gournai sat at the base of a Cretan hill, a blister of light in the callous night. Ariadne could remember when the town had been nothing but a few villas and a market, perfectly rural — a great location for a secret. Now it bustled with modern life and somewhere within the public maze, sat an archeologist who wanted to expose the Labyrinth she and her sisterhood of nymphs had kept hidden for so long.

  How had Beau Morris found their secret … a secret that had been hidden for thousands of years? She couldn’t know for sure, but now she had been ordered to deal with the consequences of his action.

  Earlier that day, while Ariadne had been working at the museum in Heraklion, a braying couple from Alabama had been among the handful of visitors. They had laughed at the bare breasts of the statue of Epione, the snake goddess. They had snickered and made jokes of the serpents that graced her arms and her ample breasts. They never paused to consider what the woman had once meant to so many and still meant to Ariadne’s sisters and all nymphs. They had just laughed and gawked at the oddity before them. Stupid Americans.

  Did no one revere what is sacred anymore? Had culture changed that much?

  Ariadne pushed the thoughts from her mind. There were some things about the modern world that she just didn’t understand, and Dr. Morris’ ardent desire to destroy the nymph culture by exposing the secrets of the Labyrinth was at the top of her list.

  Couldn’t he just leave some things alone?

  If he found the Labyrinth, the artifacts would sit in the museum, and like the statue of Epione, be pointed at and mocked — or they would be misused. The sacred Labyrinth needed to stay exactly as it was, hidden from science, from prying eyes, mocking laughs, and greedy hands.

  She jabbed the trowel into the hard earth.

  The trowel-marked square walls around her seemed to move in a little closer as Ariadne worked. She swallowed back her fear as she looked up at the night sky. When she was done, she could get out of this place and never come back.

  Her gaze fell to the exposed light gray column at her right. For a moment she stared at the moonlit carved stone, it reminded her of the thousands of years that had passed since she had been born. Each year brought a new challenge, a new set of problems. She ran her finger against the arid dirt and brought her fingers to her nose to smell the burnt sage, the citric aroma of oranges, and a hint of olive.

  To have an archaeologist sticking his nose where it didn’t belong was an invasion tantamount to war. Subterfuge was the game and nymphs had thousands of years of practice.

  The ocean breeze picked up and with the scent of salty air, came the dank, putrid scent of forbidden secrets. A hooded crow called out, announcing the arrival of night and sordid undertakings, and pushed Ariadne back to work. She needed to complete her task and get out of the depths. She needed to get back to Heraklion, back to normalcy and out from under her sisters’ command.

  The tip of the trowel struck gray volcanic ash and Ariadne stopped. The top of the Minoan-era dirt sat exposed and vulnerable. Ariadne grabbed the box beside her and pulled off the cardboard lid. After she slid on a pair of latex gloves, she lifted the tiny skull and placed it in the hole.

  Lifting the rest of the bones one by one, she laid them beneath the skull. Ariadne thought of the child to which these bones had once belonged. She and the child must have been alive at the same time. Had she seen the little one playing in the fields or at the market? Maybe the child would like the mischievous game she was playing, but only if she was successful.

  It was of no use to wonder about the past. Now these were just bones, and the child’s spirit was alive and well in the heavens.

  Ariadne moved on to the ribs, lying one bone above the next. In no time, she was done. After all, the skeleton couldn’t be too perfect. This was supposed to be a body that had been resting beneath the earth for thousands of years, not a freshly sown grave.

  Satisfied, Ariadne pulled the sweaty blue latex from her fingers and stuffed the gloves into her back pocket. Grabbing her trowel, she carefully pushed the soil over the body and packed it down.

  Perfect.

  The roar of a car stopped her in her tracks. Looking up, Ariadne watched as headlights bounced off the edges of the pit above her. Her heart pounded.

  Damn it … someone is coming.

  Grabbing the box and trowel, she stood up. Standing on her tiptoes, she grabbed the edge of the pit and peered out into the night. A thickset man had his back turned to her as he opened the rear door of his car. For a second, she could only stare at the man, his snug American jeans, and his gray T-shirt that stretched over the well-defined muscles of his arms. He brushed his shaggy hair behind his ear.

  Breaking her gaze, Ariadne stuffed the handle of the trowel in her back pocket and pushed the emptied box under her arm. The dirt from the edge crumbled beneath her fingers as she pulled away. Stumbling backward, she shoved her body into the tight space between a column and the earthen wall.

  Hopefully he wouldn’t come into the pit where she was hiding. A confrontation wasn’t ideal. No, it was supposed to be in and out, as Kat had instructed.

  Ariadne tried to slow her heart as she stood still, a human bridge between the memories of the past and the terror of the future. So much was at stake — her life, her culture, her species.

  The car door slammed shut and crisp footsteps approached the pit. Ariadne pushed her body back as far as it would go against the crumbling wall. The tight space made her heart race faster, and a bead of sweat slid down her forehead — she was a trapped animal.

  So … tight. She must stay calm.

  He moved closer, and her breath quickened. She needed to get out. Though he couldn’t kill her if he found her, trying to explain her presence would be next to impossible.

  Shifting was an option, to strike at him with her serpent fangs — a couple of well-placed bites and he would no longer be a problem. But to kill … it was so permanent.

  I shouldn’t have come here.

  She sat the box down in front of her feet and closed her eyes. Shifting was the only option.

  Shuffling her feet, they scraped against the dry soil. Her eyes sprang open. The sounds of the man moving toward the pit stopped.

  “Who’s there?” the man said, his smooth voice breaking the tense silence.

  Ariadne didn’t answer. Holding her breath, she peered out from behind the column. A pattering rain of dirt announced the man’s entry into the pit. His thick, brown hair shimmered in the moonlight and silhouetted his V-shaped torso.

  The beam of his flashlight bounced around the cave, and she pulled back, deeper into the small space.

  The light moved away from her and she peered around the darkened corner. The man’s back was to her, as he faced out into the night. His feet were in front of the di
sturbed patch of soil, but he didn’t seem to notice. Thank the gods.

  Pulling the trowel from her pocket, Ariadne sat it on the ground. Closing her eyes, her arms pulled into her sides and her legs blended together. Her teeth grew longer and sharpened in her mouth. There was a quiet thump as her clothes fell to the ground. The man turned toward the sound as her body dropped to the ground.

  The light flashed above her, but he must not have seen her and he turned back.

  Her smooth body snaked around the cardboard box and past the edge of the column as he pulled a bottle from his pocket and took a long drag.

  The ocean wasn’t far. Beau’s body would be easy to hide.

  Chapter Two

  Beau Morris threw his feet up on the cheap particleboard desk of the rented room. A roach scuttled across the floor. Without thinking, he pulled his boot from his foot, and pitched it at the bug, missing the roach by at least a foot. He’d never been much of a baseball player; books and dirt had always been more of his thing.

  God, he hated this place. He should have been with his field crew. Instead, he was pent up in this hellhole with nothing but a roach for company.

  His mind wandered to the young students. Each morning at least one or two of them staggered into the site still stinking of booze from the all-night parties. Maybe there was something to staying in the roach-infested room. At least he had his own place, a place where he could come, relax, and think about the site instead of babysitting all day and night.

  Opening up his laptop, he scanned through his emails. Bills, bills, and more bills. Clicking through the mess, he paid the ones he could and avoided the ones that could wait. At the bottom of the list was an email from Lynda. It wasn’t time to pay yet, but without a doubt she was stepping in line for her money.

  Without opening the email, Beau clicked to his account and sent the normal amount. That should shut her up for a while. Avoiding her at all costs was the simplest solution. He always seemed to trip into disasters when it came to her. The only thing good about Lynda was Kaden.