Marked by Elisabeth Naughton Page B

birthmark. Tell me about your parents.”
    He wanted to talk? About her folks? Now?
    Apprehension turned to wariness, and the skin near her birthmark began to tingle. She pushed up from the couch and turned slowly, sliding down onto the cushions until she sat and her mark was hidden from his view.
    His jaw was tight, his eyebrows drawn together until a deep crease lined his forehead. One glance confirmed what she’d already suspected. That heavenly erection that had been pressed up against her moments before was gone.
    Her skin prickled, and a blast of self-doubt at her near nakedness washed over her. She reached for her sweater, dangling from the arm of the sofa. “My…my parents?”
    “Your mother and father. Where are they?”
    Unease knotted her stomach. She pulled the sweater over her head and, by the time it was once again shielding her breasts, discovered he was back in his jeans, staring at her with an intense expression she couldn’t define.
    This was what she’d wanted to avoid, right? This awkwardness. Things had gone too far, and now he regretted it. Just what had happened to change his mind? He’d been all over her before—
    “Casey,” he said sharply. “Focus. Your mother and father.”
    She gave her head a sharp shake, unsure why her brain seemed so muddled. “My mother died just after I was born. My father…I never knew him. They had a brief affair years ago when my mother was studying in Europe. She came home after she found out she was pregnant. I…I never met him.” She glanced up. “Why do you want to know this now?”
    He ignored her question. “Who raised you?”
    “My grandmother. This is her house. Was,” she amended as she looked around the living room and a sick feeling settled in her stomach. She could actually hear Gigia’s disapproving voice in her head over what she’d almost done. “She passed a few months ago. Cancer.”
    His jaw clenched as he studied her with narrowed eyes. Then he uttered one word.
    “Skata.”
    She knew enough Greek to recognize a few choice swear words. And at that moment, Casey was reminded that he was a complete stranger. She didn’t know anything about him besides his name. Why had she helped him? What had actually happened to him? And what was he really doing in her house right now?
    She pushed up slowly from the couch as questions pinged around in her brain again. Ones she’d somehow—and foolishly—brushed aside earlier. “What’s going on here? Why the sudden interest in my genealogy? Just who are you anyway?”
    His expression softened. Just a touch. Just enough so those black-as-sin eyes engulfed her attention.
    Or maybe she only imagined they did. But for a moment, for a split second, he was the sensuous almost-lover she’d kissed and fondled wildly just a few minutes before.
    “No one,” he whispered, as he reached for her hand. “No one important.” His fingers wrapped around her wrist and pressed into her skin ever so slightly, right over her vein, and though she knew it couldn’t be, she thought she heard a note of regret in his voice. “No one you will remember. Close your eyes now, meli .”
    And like a lamb being lead to slaughter, she did.

C HAPTER S EVEN
    Isadora smoothed the covers over her legs and plastered on a smile as fake as the cubic zirconium some human women went gaga over as she looked up at her father’s personal physician.
    The crease between Callia’s perfect eyebrows wasn’t a sign of optimism.
    Not that Isadora needed confirmation from the race’s greatest healer. She was growing weaker by the day. She knew it in her head, felt it in her bones. She just didn’t understand why.
    Callia replaced the tools in her bag with quiet care. “No visible injuries. Your vitals are strong. Whatever agents you encountered in the human world shouldn’t be affecting you like this. Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
    Now, there’s a question. How in the name of Hades to answer that one?
    Isadora