Page 11 of Greed of Giants
For one dizzying moment, the words appeared like fire on the scroll, and a vision flashed before me—chariots racing, horses with flaming riders, and the roar of a terrible crowd, their skin burned black, fused to their skulls.
The last words rolled off my tongue.
Wind whipped up, tearing at my hair, unfurling my cloak. Heat surrounded me, tugging me closer, swelling, heightening. A deep, booming roar came from behind me.
Rocks exploded.
5
Ilaris
Ithrew my arms over my head as debris rained down. Dust choked the air, and through it came a low, rumbling sound. Not the roar of stone breaking, but something breathing.
I spun.
In the distance, one of the mountains had come alive, black smoke pouring from its peak, red lava running down its sides. My chest went tight as I watched it, unsure whether I was in danger and needed to retreat to the hut. Would the lava run this way, or was the mountain merely showing off, a reaction that happened frequently?
When I turned back to the statue, those golden eyes were no longer stone. They were watching me.
I lowered my arms to my sides, staring in disbelief. The statue was cracking. Not crumbling, but opening like an egg. Stone peeled away in chunks, and beneath it gleamed golden-bronze skin. I couldn’t look away, couldn’t breathe as I watched, dumbfounded.
Cracks glowed molten, bleeding light like veins of fire beneath flesh. When the stone fell away, muscle emerged. Broad shoulders, a powerful chest rising and falling. But it was the eyes that captivated me. They were fiery gold. Blazing. Staring directly at me.
My heart slammed against my ribs, and heat flooded me. Not from the embers dancing in the air around him, but from somewhere deeper, lower. It coiled in my belly and spread like liquid fire through my veins, filling me with an unfamiliar ache.
Again came that strange compulsion, almost a demand. I wanted to step forward, reach out, touch him, to see what he felt like, to know if he was truly alive. Seconds ago, he’d only been a statue until I read that damned scroll. I could almost hear my grandmother scolding—or would she be praising me—for acting before thinking?
His gaze held mine, unblinking, and for one suspended moment I saw something flicker in those molten depths. Hunger? Anger? His gaze traced over me, slow and deliberate. Down my throat, across my collarbone. Lower still, lingering on the rise and fall of my chest, hidden beneath my armor.
My breath hitched, and my face went warm. It was as if he knew exactly what he was doing to me. His lips parted as though he might speak, and I watched the movement, transfixed by the curve of his mouth, the strong line of his jaw, and the column of his throat as he swallowed.
The stone around his torso split and fell away. Firelight danced across skin that gleamed like bronze freshly poured. I licked my lips, wishing he would say something, aware that I could say something too, but I couldn’t stopstaring. The hard planes of his chest, the ridges of muscle along his stomach, disappearing beneath the low-slung waistband of his pants.
Of course, I’d seen men before, but nothing had prepared me for this. For him. He wasn’t human—that much was obvious from the way fire glowed underneath his skin. Was he a giant? He was big, tall, but not overwhelmingly. In my mind, I thought of giants as two or three times my size. I was a tall woman, but up close he might only be a head and shoulders taller than me.
Up close. Heat emanated from him in waves, yet I took a step forward anyway, moving closer to this impossible being.
His eyes tracked the movement, and something in his expression shifted. Darkened. His nostrils flared as though catching a scent, and his irises burned brighter. The muscles in his jaw tightened as his hands flexed.
Did he feel it too? That strange pull between us?
Then his skin rippled, and flames cascaded across his body. I should have stumbled back, should have run, but I stood frozen as fire danced over him.
The heat was immense, rolling off him in waves. Not consuming, but becoming. The chains glowed red, then white-hot. One by one they snapped, falling away just like the stone.
He stepped forward. Free.
My pulse thundered in my ears, and not entirely from fear. His movements were all lethal grace and burning power. Predatory and controlled, vastly different from the way humans moved. Who was he? A fire god?
He rolled his shoulders back, hands flexing in a waythat made me weak at the knees. He planted his feet, claiming the ground beneath him. His hands ignited, flames erupting from his palms in twin columns of gold and amber.
And still—still—the reckless part of me wanted to move closer.
Terror finally broke through the spell as the flames leaped higher.
Why hadn’t I paused? Why hadn’t I considered the consequence? He’d been chained for a reason, turned to stone because of some great wrong. The gods had seen fit to punish him, and I’d set him free.
There was no hidden truth here, only death and devastation, locked away until I’d foolishly followed in the footsteps of my grandmother and behaved badly. Regret tasted like ash on my tongue as I lifted my face, and the realization swept over me.
