Ravaged: An Eternal Guardians Novella (1001 Dark Nights)

  The snow, the ravine, everything seemed to swirl around Ari as he stood still, embraced by his son. He heard Cerek’s voice. Knew the boy was talking to him, but couldn’t make out the words. Except for one. One got through and wedged its way solidly inside that heart he thought he didn’t have.

  Pateras.

  Every mistake he’d made, every wrong choice over the last fifty years no longer mattered. With tears stinging his eyes, Ari wrapped his arms around his son and hugged him back.

  “I’m sorry,” Ari managed, his throat thick with regret. “I shouldn’t have left. I was wrong. I—”

  “I don’t care.” Cerek drew back and clasped Ari’s face in both of his big hands. Tears shimmered in Cerek’s eyes as he shook his head. “You’re back. That’s all that matters to me.” A beaming smile pulled at his lips. “You’re back.”

  He hugged Ari again, so tight the air felt as if it were squeezed right out of Ari’s lungs. But Ari didn’t care. He didn’t deserve redemption, but his son was offering it, and he wasn’t about to let it pass him by.

  Cerek finally let go and swiped his forearm over his eyes. “But you’re an idiot for not contacting us sooner. What the hell were you thinking taking on Zeus’s assassins alone? Good thing Daphne’s smarter than you.”

  Daphne...

  Ari’s chest warmed at just the thought of her, and he turned quickly, desperate to find her. He didn’t have to look far. She stood off to his right, her hair twisted into a knot on the top of her head, her body covered by slim black leggings, a fitted hip-length jacket, and boots that elongated her legs and reminded him what it felt like to be surrounded only by her. And her eyes, her beautiful, honest, innocent eyes, were focused right on him, shimmering with both love and forgiveness. Two things he didn’t deserve. Two things that were now part of his life, all thanks to her.

  He reached for her, slid his arms around her waist, then lifted her off the ground and buried his face in her neck. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you, I love you, I love you. Forgive me.”

  Her arms closed around his shoulders. “There’s nothing to forgive.” Her breath was warm against his skin, her words the sweetest thing he’d ever heard. “I knew you were just trying to protect me. I’m not stupid.”

  He couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his mouth or the kiss he pressed against her cheek. “I know you’re not. You’re the smartest female I’ve ever met. Way smarter than me. Even my son knows that.”

  Her gemlike eyes sparkled as she eased back and looked up at him. “Don’t forget it.”

  “I won’t. No way I ever could.”

  “I should have known you were too much of a rat bastard to die,” a male echoed from somewhere close.

  The familiar voice ricocheted through Ari’s mind, and he released Daphne just enough so he could turn and glance behind him. Zander, the oldest of the Argonauts and the Guardian Ari had served with the longest, strode across the snow toward him, all blond-headed and Adonis-beautiful, just as he’d been for the last eight hundred years.

  Ari let go of Daphne and pushed her a step away, bracing himself for Zander’s legendary rage, just in case. Behind Zander, he spotted other Argonauts, but he didn’t have time to look closely. Because Zander captured him in a tight hug before he could, then slapped a hand on Ari’s shoulder and drew back.

  “You’re an asshole, you know that?” Zander grinned and shook his head, that rage nowhere to be seen. “I fucking missed you man. Holy hell. I can’t believe you’re really here.”

  Friends Ari had thought he’d never see again stepped close, hugged him, then let go. Words of happiness echoed around him but he was too dazed to decipher what was said. He recognized his Argonaut brothers—Theron, Demetrius, Gryphon, Phineus, and Titus. Spotted a couple people he’d never met but who were now obviously part of the group—like the blonde holding a Siren’s bow and the guy at her side with dark hair and mischievous eyes. And he saw others still—like Silas and Nick and Daphne and Cerek—people who were familiar. Whose friendly eyes and warm smiles told him that no matter where he’d been or how long he’d been gone, he was home.

  Emotions closed his throat, and tears—joyous tears—filled his eyes. Wrapping an arm around Daphne’s shoulder, he pulled her in to his side and smiled. Really smiled. In a way he hadn’t smiled in at least fifty years.

  She laughed at something someone said and slid her arm around his waist. But instead of the warmth he expected to feel, a chill slid down his spine and everything inside him came to a screeching halt.

  “Ari?” Daphne’s worried voice echoed close but he couldn’t look at her. Because his mind was suddenly focused on only one thing.

  “Sirens...”

  The world seemed to spin in slow motion. Ari turned and looked up. A Siren stood on the top of the ravine, her venomous gaze pinned on him. She pulled the string of her bow back. The arrow whirred through the air. Screams erupted. Ari lurched to his side. His arm caught Daphne by the waist, and he dragged her to the ground. A grunt echoed from her lips. Opening his eyes, he expecting to see the arrow, zinging toward him, but a body darted in the way.

  The arrow struck flesh and bone with a thwack. Cerek dropped to the snowy rocks with a crunch only feet away.

  No. Ari’s eyes flew wide. No! He scrambled from the ground and skidded to Cerek’s side.

  “Cerek...”

  Someone screamed his name. He looked up just as the Siren on the edge of the ravine pulled another arrow back. Another whir sounded, but this one didn’t come from the Siren’s bow. Just before she released the arrow, a dagger struck her in the throat. Blood spurted from her neck, and the bow fell from her fingers. Her body hit the ground and slid down the side of the ravine.

  Ari’s head swiveled to the side, and in a daze, he realized Daphne had thrown the dagger. She rushed to his side, dropped to her knees next to him, and looked down at the blood drenching Cerek’s shirt. “Oh gods.”

  Air clogged in Ari’s lungs as he looked back at his son. He had to fix this. Grasping the fabric where it was torn, he ripped Cerek’s shirt open, then wrapped his hand around the arrow and pulled, but it wouldn’t release.

  “Ari.” Panic lifted Daphne’s voice. “Ari look.”

  His eyes shot to the wound. To the blood that was already drying, and the gray lines streaking outward from the spot where the arrow was embedded into Cerek’s flesh.

  Ari placed his hand on the skin near the wound. It was hard. Hard and cold, like stone.

  “No.” He focused on his healing power, placed his other hand over Cerek’s chest. Energy gathered beneath his palms, but it wouldn’t permeate Cerek’s skin.

  He tried again, but still nothing happened. Voices muttered near him. Feet shuffled. Someone dropped to the ground on Cerek’s other side. But all Ari could see was his son lying in the snow in front of him, his body slowly turning to stone with every inch those lines traveled.

  “No.” Ari’s vision blurred. He moved his hands to yet another spot, only his healing powers weren’t getting through. “This can’t be. Someone help us. Someone—”

  “Pateras.” Cerek’s hand closed over Ari’s on his chest. “Dad,” he said in a weak voice, “it’s okay. Stop.”

  Ari stilled his frantic movements and looked at Cerek’s face.

  “I’m okay,” Cerek said. “There’s nothing you can do. I’m... You have to let me go.”

  “No.” Tears swam in Ari’s vision. He pressed his hands harder against Cerek’s chest but it was already hard and cold. “No.”

  “I’d do it all again for you,” Cerek said, his voice fading. “Promise me...you’ll finish what we started. Promise”—the streaks crept up his neck—“you won’t let our line fail.”

  Tears slid down Ari’s cheeks. He’d said those very words to Cerek just before he’d faked his death and disappeared. He’d wanted Cerek to take his place with the Argonauts, to fill the slot meant for his kin as the chosen descendants of Theseus. Never in a million yea
rs did he expect to hear his son say the very same words back to him.

  “I...I promise,” Ari choked out. “I won’t let our line fail.”

  Cerek closed his eyes and drew a shallow breath. “That’s...good. That’s...the way it should b—”

  The streaks crept over his chin and up his cheeks, hardening his lips mid-sentence. Ari grasped Cerek’s stone shoulders and screamed “No!” but the streaks spread up his face until his skin cracked and hardened and what life force was left inside him turned to solid stone.

  “Holy Hades,” someone muttered.

  “Gods Almighty,” someone else said.

  Through tears, Ari stared down at Cerek’s lifeless body, unable to believe what he was seeing. There had to be a way to fix this. There had to be someone—

  His frantic mind caught on Nick. Nick was a god now. Kronos’s son. Ari had seen Nick’s face only moments before. He turned quickly, scanned the crowd through blurry vision, screamed, “Nikomedes! Do something! Do something now!”

  “Ari, man.” Nick stepped close, his face drawn and somber, his dark gaze skipping over Cerek’s stone body. “I’m so sorry. I can’t—”

  “He can’t bring anyone back from the dead,” a cold voice said from the top of the ravine. Ari’s head jerked around, and he looked up to where Zeus stood staring down at their group with contempt and victory in his black as sin eyes. “No god can. Thank your fucking Fates for that, Argonaut.”

  “You.” Ari’s vision turned red. “You did this. You killed my son.”

  “Technically,” Zeus answered, “my very special Sirens killed him. Their arrows were dipped in Medusa’s venom. I’d much rather one struck you, but since your friends consistently choose war over peace, I guess I’ll take any dead Argonaut I can get.”

  “You bastard.” Ari lurched to his feet.

  Zeus’s eyes flashed. “Careful, Argonaut. The laws of the Fates don’t allow me to kill you with my powers, but if you come at me, I’m more than happy to rip your head from your pathetic body.”

  Ari jerked forward, but Nick captured him by the shoulders and stepped in his way. “He’s right. Dammit, Ari.” Ari struggled against his hold. “You can’t win against the king of the gods.”

  The other Argonauts moved between Zeus and Ari. Disgust filled Zeus’s features. “Circling the wagons. Such a mortal thing to do. You needn’t bother. I’m done here.” He turned his soulless gaze on Daphne. “You’d all be wise to remember who caused this tragedy, though. Had the nymph finished the job I sent her to do, I’d have what I want and your son, Argonaut”—he looked toward Ari—“would still be alive.”

  Zeus disappeared in a poof of white smoke. Smoke billowed around the ground near Ari’s feet as well. Startled, he looked around, wondering where it was coming from. Then Daphne screamed his name.

  He swiveled and looked down, and as the smoke cleared, he realized the ground where Cerek had just laid was empty..

  “He’s gone.” Daphne’s wide-eyed gaze lifted to his. “He’s just...gone.”

  “Fucking bastard,” someone said. “He took him. He took all of them.”

  Ari glanced over the battlefield. The dead Sirens were all gone too, only blood-stained snow left in their wake.

  Ari turned back to Daphne, his mind a mess of what, where, how... But the tears spilling over Daphne’s lashes brought reality to a hard, gasping breath.

  His son was dead. Cerek was dead. And there was nothing he could do, no way he could bring him back. He’d healed so many across the years, but he couldn’t save the one person who mattered most.

  The finality of the moment hit Ari so hard, the pain dropped him to his knees in the snow as if someone had stabbed him straight through the heart.

  “I’m sorry.” Somehow, in the sea of misery, Daphne was there, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding him close. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone to him. I shouldn’t have gone to Argolea. I—”

  “No,” he choked out even though just drawing breath hurt like the pain of a thousand daggers. “No, it’s not. This wasn’t you. This was...me. This was...oh gods...” That pain turned to a burn that consumed his entire chest. “If I hadn’t taunted Zeus all those years, if I hadn’t killed his Sirens—”

  “No.” Daphne grasped his face so he could look into her eyes. “That was Hera. Don’t you dare blame yourself for this.”

  Her voice penetrated the pain. She was his strength, his rock, his last lifeline. And he wanted to reach for her, to hold on and never let go, but the guilt wouldn’t let him.

  “She’s right, Argonaut.”

  Daphne turned toward the female voice and gasped. And when Ari found the strength to look, he glanced past Daphne and spotted the same thing she had—the elderly woman dressed in a diaphanous white gown who’d poofed out of nowhere and now sat perched on a snowy boulder.

  The woman brushed her silver hair over one shoulder with wrinkled hands. “Hera cursed you to destroy her husband’s secret sect and the power he wields through them and with them. It had nothing to do with you, Guardian. You were but a vessel for Hera’s revenge.”

  Voices whispered behind Ari. Someone muttered, “That’s her. It’s Lachesis.” But he didn’t turn to look. Couldn’t because the Fate who spun the thread of life was focused solely on him.

  “I know you hurt for what you have lost.” Lachesis’s gaze skipped to the group behind Ari. “I know you all do. And I know you cannot see the purpose. But in time you will understand. All things happen for a reason. Cerek’s sacrifice will have rippling effects. Ones you will realize before the end.”

  She looked back down at Ari. “I also know your heart, Guardian. I know you want revenge. But now is not the time. Now is for healing. And healing is power. Use that power and you will not fail.”

  She pushed to standing, but her feet didn’t hit the snow. They hovered over the ground as if she walked on air. “I cannot remove Hera’s curse, but know this. Every curse can be a blessing if viewed in the right light. I have faith you can put this curse to use for the greater good. If, that is, you follow through with the promise you made to your son.” Her gaze drifted to Daphne, and a slow smile spread across her wrinkled lips. “This one, I have no doubt, will help you. Hold on to her, hero.”

  The Fate disappeared as if she’d never been there. And though her words drifted in the cool air, easing a little of the pain, the only comfort Ari wanted—the only person he needed—was already hugging him again, pulling him in and never letting go.

  “I’m here,” Daphne whispered. “I won’t let you fall. I’m not letting you disappear from the world again. Cerek wouldn’t want that.”

  “No.” Ari sniffled. “He wouldn’t.”

  “You can do this.”

  He wasn’t sure. But for Cerek and for her—for the two people he loved and who believed in him enough to love him back—he was willing to try.

  “Only with you.” He rested his forehead against hers and gripped her arms at the elbows as he drew in a steadying breath. “I’m nothing but a savage without you. You brought me back to life. Stay with me, Daphne. Stay with me and be my strength. Help me honor Cerek and my promise.”

  She brushed the hair away from his temple and drew back just enough so she could meet his eyes. Love and duty twisted together in her shimmering gaze, giving him strength, telling him that even in death, there was life.

  “Always,” she whispered. “I will always be right where you need me.”

  EPILOGUE

  The wind whipped Zeus’s hair back from his face as he walked along the windy path up the slope of Mt. Olympus. “So he’s rejoined the Argonauts.”

  “Yes, my king.” The Argolean who fed him information on the Argonauts’ movements stumbled over a rock then regained his footing as he hurried to catch up with Zeus’s long strides. “He’s taken the Argonaut Cerek’s spot in the Order and vowed to finish his son’s work. They’ve welcomed him back with open arms.”

  ?
??Of course they have,” Zeus muttered. “The prodigal son has returned and they all act as if he never betrayed them. What of the nymph?”

  “She remains in Argolea. The two were recently bound.”

  Zeus’s jaw clenched down hard as he walked. Had Daphne completed her mission, he’d planned to bring her into the Sirenum Scorpoli. He wanted her. Still wanted her. Her beauty and sexuality were unmatched, and since her mother had refused his advances, he deserved her. But she’d fallen for that asshat Aristokles, and now all his plans to have her writhing and moaning beneath him were ruined.

  The Argolean stumbled again. Rocks spit over the side of the cliff that dropped straight down into the clouds. The pathetic male glanced downward with absolute fear. For a moment, Zeus considered pushing him over just to watch him scream, but restrained himself. He needed his spies.

  “They—she—” The Argolean regained his balance and looked up at Zeus. “Everyone in the realm is enraged that you took the Argonaut’s body. The funeral pyre releases the soul to the afterlife. He cannot join his ancestors.”

  “No, he can’t.” Smug victory rippled through Zeus as they rounded a bend in the path. A cave opened three hundred feet ahead, a slow, red light spilling from the opening. “And what of the Siren? Sappheire?”

  “She remains in Argolea as well, my king.”

  His vision darkened with the familiar rage of betrayal, but it cleared as he eyed the cave. Soon he would have his just revenge. Soon the walls of Argolea would crumble and he would control not only the human realm, but the world of the heroes as well. And all who dwelt there.

  “That is all.” He held out his hand. “Bring me more information when you have it.”

  The Argolean’s eyes brightened with an evil glow as he reached for the gemstone in Zeus’s palm that glowed with a shimmering blue light. “Yes.” He bowed, then scurried backward, closing the magical stone in a tight fist. “I will. I absolutely will, my king.”

  Zeus snapped his fingers, opening a portal for the spineless maggot. Energy popped and sizzled. The Argolean stepped through, then the portal closed with a crack.