“You need to come back to the castle ASAP,” Theron said.
Concern flooded Nick’s features, and though Cynna knew he couldn’t help it because of the whole soul mate thing, a sick feeling stirred in the pit of her stomach. “Why? Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Theron said. “Or they will be soon. Callia’s figured out what you need to do to help Isadora.”
Of course this was about Isadora. Everything was always about Isadora. Cynna tried to fight back the resentment and jealousy, but couldn’t squash either completely.
Nick glanced between the two again. “So the blood draw worked?”
Theron and Zander exchanged apprehensive looks. “Something like that,” Theron muttered.
Cynna’s pulse kicked up, and a little voice in the back of her head whispered she wasn’t going to like where this was headed.
“Something like that,” Nick muttered, eyeing each of them warily. “What aren’t you both telling me?”
The Argonauts looked at each other once more. Zander lifted his brows as if asking a question. Theron shook his head.
Zander turned to Nick. “It’s probably better if Callia and Natasa tell you.”
“Natasa’s involved now?” Nick asked. “Prometheus’s daughter? Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling about this?”
“Because you’re smart,” Zander muttered under his breath.
Cynna’s stomach pitched. And though she tried not to listen, that little voice grew louder and louder until it was a shrill in her ears.
Theron cut Zander a hard look, then nodded toward Nick. “Come on. The sooner you get this over with, the better. For all our sakes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I’m just going to wait in your room.” Cynna continued up the steps of the grand staircase in the castle when Theron and Zander turned off at the third landing.
Nick captured her hand before she could get more than a step away and drew her to his side, a whisper of panic rushing down his spine at the thought of her getting too far away. “No, I need you to stay with me.”
His pulse was already ticking up, and that dark energy he’d conquered thanks to her was suddenly rushing back. If she left him now, he wasn’t sure what would happen. Especially since the scars on his back were tingling with an uneasiness that told him whatever the Argonauts and the queen wanted from him couldn’t be good.
She exhaled a long breath but didn’t try to pull away again. And as he tugged her with him and they followed the Argonauts down the long corridor that led to Isadora’s private office, relief and calm filled his soul.
“This doesn’t concern me,” she whispered. “You didn’t need me before when they were poking you with needles.”
“That was different. They hadn’t come up with any theories yet.”
She didn’t answer, just stared straight ahead as they walked. But he knew she was stressing. She didn’t want to see Isadora any more than he did, especially after what had just happened between them. All he wanted was to finish what they’d started and thank her for dragging him back from the edge—again—the right way. But he couldn’t do that until he got the Argonauts off his back and dealt with whatever emergency had popped up this time.
“I know it’s asking a lot.” He glanced sideways at her. Her jaw was clenched, her shoulders tight. Squeezing her hand, he added softly, “I’ll make this up to you as well. A double thanks. I promise it’ll be worth your while.”
“Stop making promises to me.” They reached the threshold to the office, and Theron and Zander moved into the room. As voices conversed inside, Cynna pulled her hand from Nick’s and frowned, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “Especially ones you might not be able to keep.”
She moved into the office, and as he watched her go, a strange sense of foreboding washed over him. One that ignited a rash of ripples all along the scars on his back.
She was pissed, and she had every right to be. Especially because Isadora seemed to keep coming between them. But he wasn’t lying. He would keep that promise. Not just because he owed Cynna for saving him, but because he needed to thank her in the only way he knew how. To show her what she meant to him. To tell her…
His heart lurched.
To tell her that he loved her.
His skin grew hot. The capillaries in his fingertips tingled, and the air caught in his lungs. He’d never been in love before, hadn’t known what to expect, but immediately he knew this was different from the soul mate draw. It was stronger. Deeper. More immediate. And it was a choice. Not some predestined future ordained by the gods. It was…freedom…at the most basic of levels.
An uncontrollable urge to drag her out of that room, to kiss her, to tell her how he felt consumed him.
His pulse raced, his stomach tossed as he took one step forward, then another, intent on doing just that. Heads turned his way as he entered, and he registered more than just Isadora and Callia in the room, but he didn’t care. He spotted Casey sitting on a couch, Theron standing behind her, Natasa across the room next to Titus, Callia and Zander speaking quietly with the queen near her desk, his brother Demetrius pacing along the far wall. But he couldn’t see Cynna.
Worry rippled beneath his ribs as he looked for her. And when he finally spotted her, in the corner near the far window, one arm crossed over her chest as she gnawed on her thumbnail and peered out toward the steadily darkening sky, that tightness eased in his chest. He drew a deep, relieved breath, one that spread through every cell in his body. One that felt like it was the first of the rest of his life.
“Nick,” Callia said. “I’m glad you got here so fast.”
Nick wasn’t. He looked past the healer and zeroed in on Cynna. He shouldn’t have dropped everything with her to rush right over here. He should have told the Argonauts he’d deal with Isadora’s latest crisis later. He couldn’t change any of that now, anyway. But he could do something to make things right for Cynna.
He moved for the windows. “Whatever this is, it can wait. I need to—”
“No, this can’t wait.” Callia stepped in his path, blocking him from getting to the female he needed to reach. “As your god powers increase and your immortality strengthens, you’re draining your soul mate of her life force.”
“Says your theory.”
“Says history,” Callia tossed back.
Nick frowned and tried to step around her, but Theron moved in his way. “Listen to her, Nick.”
Nick stopped and stared at the leader of the Argonauts. He didn’t have time for this, didn’t want to make time, but common sense told him if he grabbed Cynna and bolted, they’d never be left alone.
“Fine.” Nick crossed his arms over his chest, wanting to get this over with as fast as possible. “You’re talking about the three mortals you mentioned yesterday. The three who died and became judges of the Underworld. I’ve already heard this story.”
“Pretty sure you haven’t heard this part,” Natasa mumbled from across the room. When he glanced toward the redhead, she moved away from Titus and said, “Callia asked me to do some research. Titus and I went to my father for confirmation.”
Her father, Prometheus, was a Titan, and since the Argonauts had rescued him from his perpetual torture at the hands of good old Zeus, the elder god had been hiding out in the Aegis Mountains in Argolea, doing gods only knew what elder gods did these days.
Nick tamped down the irritation. “Enlighten me then. But do it quickly. Because I’m not seeing how three Underworld gods I’ve never heard of have anything to do with me.”
“Zeus gave each of the three mortals—Aiakos, Minos, and Rhadamanthys—a choice,” Natasa went on. “To either travel to the Isles of the Blessed upon their death, or become immortal in the Underworld. Immortality’s a seductive lure. Each one eventually chose immortality, leaving behind a mate—a soul mate—in the human realm. A soul mate who eventually died.”
She was right. The whole soul mate part of this was new, and he had a feeling he
knew where this was heading. But he still wasn’t seeing the solution Zander and Theron had hinted at. “Mortals don’t have soul mates.”
“No, but Argonauts do,” Casey said from the couch. “All three were from Zeus’s line. All three served with the Argonauts at different times.”
Nick looked toward Casey. Her hand rested on her belly, her violet eyes as shadowed as he’d ever seen them. And there was a sadness about her, one he couldn’t put his finger on. One the vibrations growing stronger across his scars told him, had to do with him. “So let me get this straight. Zeus got to handpick three mortals to be the Judges of the Dead in the Underworld. And he chose Argonauts. And Hades didn’t have a problem with that?”
“It wasn’t his problem to have.” Theron rested a hand on Casey’s shoulder. “Zeus is the King of the gods, even over Hades. And why wouldn’t he choose Argonauts, just to fuck with his brother?”
“That’s a total Zeus thing to do,” Zander muttered.
“I verified everything with my father,” Natasa said. “It’s all true. Except there was a fourth mortal who was given the same choice. Also an Argonaut. He chose immortality as well, but after learning his soul mate was dying, he escaped from the Underworld and rushed back to find a way to save her. According to my father, their reunion did just that. It restored the life energy and soul mate balance between them.”
That word…reunion…floated in Nick’s head, but his mind was spinning with questions. He’d never heard of anyone escaping the Underworld and living to tell about it, except for Orpheus and Gryphon. “You’re saying this Argonaut bested the gods.”
“No,” Natasa answered. “Ultimately he didn’t. Zeus found him, and, as punishment for abandoning his immortal duties, he turned him into a daemon. But his soul mate lived on.”
Nick’s brow lowered. “Who was the Argonaut?”
Across the room, Demetrius slowed his frantic pacing.
“Meleager,” Titus said behind Natasa. “The Argonaut was Meleager.”
The name bounced around Nick’s brain, pinging like tiny pinballs smacking into each other in a vast empty space. Meleager. Meleager…
And then the name finally registered, and his wide-eyed gaze shot to his brother. “Atalanta’s lover. You’re telling me she—our mother—was this Argonaut’s soul mate?”
Natasa nodded, drawing his attention. “She didn’t know Zeus had turned Meleager into a daemon. She thought he’d gone back to the Argonauts, and when he disappeared and no one could find him, she blamed the order for not searching harder for him. Years went by with no word from him, and, eventually, she accepted his death and gave in to her grief. But she never stopped blaming the Argonauts. And eventually, that grief pushed her to make her pact with Hades for immortality and revenge.”
Perspiration formed on Nick’s forehead. He wasn’t sure what to say. What to think for that matter. This was all way more than he’d expected when Theron had dragged him back here. His mother’s vendetta against the Argonauts hadn’t just been because they’d passed her over for induction into the order based on her gender as everyone thought, but because she’d blamed the Argonauts for her mate’s death.
Reunion.
The word trickled back into his jumbled thoughts like a cog stuck in a wheel, trying to break free.
Reunion…
Re—
Vibrations rippled all along his spine as his gaze shifted to Callia. “What do Atalanta and Meleager have to do with Isadora?”
Callia shot a worried look toward Zander. Her mate nodded, then she turned her violet eyes on Nick once more. “It proves that what nearly killed Atalanta is the same as what’s happening to Isadora. It’s all about life-force energy and the soul mate balance. Whether you or Isadora want to accept it, she is your soul mate, and as any of the Argonauts will attest, the soul mate bond is the strongest bond there is.”
Nick looked toward his brother, but Demetrius was no longer watching him. He was pacing again, this time raking his hand through his hair as if just the thought of standing still might kill him.
“We’ve tried everything else,” Callia went on, drawing Nick’s attention back to her. “We’ve had Isadora hold the Orb of Krónos, hoping the powers contained in the disk would help, but they haven’t. We’ve confirmed that she gets an increase in energy when you’re in the same room. Touching you amplifies that increase. We’ve even tried infusing your blood into hers, which worked for an hour or so to bring her vitals back to normal, but the effects slowly wore off. We know that you’re the key to her being healthy again, but nothing we’ve done so far has worked. This, though…” She glanced toward Natasa, then looked back at Nick. “This proves there’s really only one way to solve this problem.”
Nick waited for the healer to tell him what that one way was, but Callia didn’t go on. She just stared at him with a sorrowful expression. Everyone did, actually. Everyone but Isadora, who sat still behind her desk, as silent as she’d been through the whole conversation, glancing repeatedly toward her mate across the room, and Demetrius, who, Nick was pretty sure, was going to wear a path in the marble floor if he didn’t slow his steps soon.
Nick’s brow dropped. “I don’t think I’m follow—”
Reunion…
The word. The meaning. This intense powwow. Everything suddenly clicked.
Nick’s gaze shot to Isadora, then to Demetrius again—neither of whom were looking at him—then finally back to Callia. “Someone tell me this is a practical joke.”
An eerie silence settled over the room.
“Seriously,” Nick said, looking from face to face. “This isn’t funny.”
“Do you see Orpheus in the room anywhere?” Zander muttered. “If this were a joke, that lunatic would be here dragging it out, loving every minute of it. This is no joke, man.”
No way. Nick’s chest stretched tight as a drum. No way they were implying that the only way to save Isadora’s life was for him to…
He took a big step back and rested his suddenly sweaty hands on his hips, unable to even think the words. Yeah, there might have been a time when he’d considered it, even fantasized about it because the soul mate curse had been tormenting him and seeing Isadora so happy with his brother had been like a knife to the chest, but no way in hell would he ever have acted on it.
His attention shot toward Demetrius. “You, of all people, can’t be listening to this insanity. Please, Demetrius, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me this is a fucking joke.”
Demetrius’s feet stilled. His back was to Nick, and he didn’t turn to face him. But every muscle in his body was clenched and rigid, and the way he reached up, the way he grabbed a fistful of his dark hair and pulled hard, as if he were trying to will away reality with pain, reignited those vibrations all along Nick’s scars.
“It’s not a joke,” Theron said in a hard voice to Nick’s left. “Every Argonaut knows the power of sex.”
Nick cringed. Holy fuck, someone had actually said it. Just the use of the word made his stomach roll and all of this seem that much more real. And fucking deranged.
“Sex solidifies the soul mate bond,” Theron went on. “It’s how we each knew who our soul mate was, without doubt. Callia’s right. The soul mate bond is the strongest force out there. And your newfound god powers are fucking with that bond in a negative way. No one’s saying this has to be a repeat event. Once was all it took to save Atalanta’s life, and since she was your mother, once should be all that’s needed here.”
The leader of the Argonauts made it sound like they were talking about swapping recipes, not Nick fucking his brother’s wife.
That dark energy inside rumbled to life with a burst of excitement, but Nick fought it back. Raking a hand through his hair, he grabbed his own damn locks, wanting a little pain to dull the throbbing in his skull.
“If this is a”—gods almighty, he couldn’t believe he was saying this—“a sperm issue—”
“It’s not a sperm issue,” Callia said.
“It has nothing to do with fertility or even biology. That’s why the blood transfusion didn’t work. It’s about solidifying a bond. A connection. One that balances energy.”
Holy shit. They really did expect him to have sex with Isadora. Everyone in the room was waiting for him to say yes as if it were no big deal. He glanced toward Isadora. She still hadn’t met his eyes, just kept flicking worried glances toward Demetrius. But just the fact she wasn’t freaking out told him she’d either already accepted this insanity or wasn’t about to make a scene in front of her family and friends.
Disbelief rushed through him. How the hell could she accept it? He shot a look at Demetrius, who was still fucking pacing. How the hell could he? They were in love. Madly in love. He’d seen it up close and personal. This wasn’t something two people in love would ever agree to.
He wasn’t doing it. He couldn’t. Now that he knew what love felt like, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—do anything to jeopardize theirs.
Nick’s gaze shifted to the windows in search of Cynna. Only she wasn’t there. He looked around the room but couldn’t find her. She’d left. At some point when he’d been wrapped up in all this nonsense, she’d slipped out, and he hadn’t even noticed.
Panic pushed at his chest. Had she left before or after they’d decided he needed to sleep with Isadora, the one person Cynna hated more than anyone else in the world?
“I…I’m not doing this.” Nick turned for the door. “This is nuts. You are all fucking nuts.”
Footsteps shuffled behind him. Theron called, “Wait.” But Nick ignored him. He needed to get out of this crazy house before he went completely insane himself.
Zander lurched forward and put his big body between Nick and the door, blocking Nick’s exit.
“Move,” Nick said, ready to be done with this.
“No, you are doing this.” Zander’s eyes shifted to a dark, stormy gray, one that indicated his legendary rage was just waiting to be set free.