His voice snapped her back to reality. The reality that they were in the Fields of Asphodel. In the Underworld. Marching for Tartarus.
“I’m fine,” she said, picking up her pace and reaching his side. “Let’s keep going.”
But she wasn’t fine. Not really. She was in love. She knew that now without a doubt. And judging by who and what she was, something told her this love would be the end of her.
***
They’d walked through drab wheat fields for hours, nothing but gray in every direction. Souls had floated beside them as they crossed the plains, sad, depressed souls with long faces and haunted eyes. At first, being surrounded by the souls of the dead had unnerved Orpheus, but he’d quickly gotten used to it. These souls weren’t malevolent. They were simply curious. And something about the entire place left Orpheus with a bad case of déjà vu.
It’d be a whole lot easier if he could just flash to Tartarus and look for Gryphon, but he didn’t know where he was going, so that wouldn’t help. Skyla could flash in the human realm, but she couldn’t here, and though he hated to admit it, part of him was glad to have her company.
They crossed from wheat to black rock when they reached the mountains on the far side. The souls stopped, stared after them. Some kind of unseen boundary kept them trapped. Happy to be away from them, Orpheus followed Skyla through the maze of razor-sharp rocks as they began their climb over the jagged mountains toward Tartarus. The gray sky gave way to swirling black clouds and a fire red sky. And the farther they walked, the hotter the air grew until sweat broke out all over his body. Unable to stand it anymore, Orpheus stripped off his shirt and stuffed it into his pack.
Skyla tied her hair on the top of her head. Sweat slicked every part of her skin, casting a sheen that sparkled in the light. Tendrils of damp hair stuck to her neck and the soft skin behind her ear. He tried to keep his eyes on the path so he didn’t fall and slice open his knee on the razor-sharp rocks, but his gaze kept straying back to her. To her compact body in that form-fitting tank and slim pants that molded her ass. To the way she walked. To her soft, soft lips that even now were moving in his mind, singing the tune she’d sung to Cerberus earlier in the day.
Okay, forget the fact that was a stupid move and she could have been eaten. What kept sticking in his mind was that he’d heard her sing before. He didn’t know how or when, but he was sure of it. And that knowledge, coupled with the strange sense that he’d been here as well, left him edgy. Left him wishing they were in Tartarus already so he could stop thinking of her. Stop worrying about her. Stop wanting her.
They passed through a series of rocks that formed a ceilingless tunnel. On the far side, Skyla stopped and pointed down the hillside below. “Look.”
From their vantage point, they could see the five rivers of the Underworld where they converged in a great swamp in the center of the massive valley. Volcanoes rose out of the ground, spewing molten lava, ash, and debris. More jagged mountains rose around the periphery, and everywhere souls screaming for mercy could be heard echoing on the wind.
Skyla dropped her pack at her feet, extracted her water bottle, and tipped her head back. Orpheus watched her lips against the plastic bottle, the muscles working in her throat. Remembered how it had felt when she’d all but swallowed him whole.
Heat coursed through every cell in his body.
She lowered the water. “We should rest here.”
She was right. He knew she was right. But suddenly being alone with her in a confined space didn’t sound like a good idea. Or it sounded way too good—that was the problem. He couldn’t be distracted by her now. Not when he was so close to finding Gryphon.
They found an overhang to sit under. Skyla pulled the blanket from her pack and a bag of freeze-dried food they’d picked up in Crete before entering the Underworld. She plopped down and munched on a handful of trail mix. “Are you okay?” she asked between bites. “You look restless.”
He dropped his pack, braced his hands on his hips, and paced the small ledge. “I’m fine,” he lied. Then to keep her from figuring out what was really on his mind, he brought up the other thought nagging at his gray matter. “Don’t you think it’s weird Hades hasn’t sent anything after us?”
Skyla crossed her legs. “Maybe he doesn’t know we’re here.”
He pinned her with a look. “I have a feeling he sees everything in his realm. Besides that, Charon knew we weren’t souls.”
“What are you thinking?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m thinking, every step along the way Hades has sent his hellhounds to kill us, but now when we’re in his realm? Nothing? Something’s up.”
“Maybe he’s waiting to see what we’ll do.”
“Or he’s springing a trap.”
She didn’t answer, and in the silence he knew she was contemplating that possibility. Fights he could handle. An ambush he could deal with. It was the waiting and wondering that drove him mad.
He kicked a pebble over the ledge. It smacked against rock and dirt and dead tree limbs on its way down to the swirling rivers below. The plastic bag crinkled as Skyla slid it back into her pack. “Stressing over the unknown isn’t going to do you any good right now.” She patted the blanket beside her. “Come over here and sit down.”
His pulse kicked up speed.
“Come on, daemon,” she teased. “I don’t bite.” When he glared over his shoulder, she grinned and added, “Much.”
“No, thanks. I don’t feel like being toyed with right now.” Besides, he didn’t like the way she’d been looking at the element against his chest all day.
“I could sing to you.”
He cut her another glare. “I don’t think so.”
She laughed. “Okay, if I promise not to touch you or sing to you, will you come over here? You need rest. There’s no telling what we’ll find down there tomorrow, and if you’re right, if Hades has something in store for us, I’ll need you at your best.” She held up her hands. “I promise I’ll be good.”
Her eyes glittered with mischief, but the concern in her voice drew him over. He eased down on the blanket next to her, rested his back against the rocks behind him. Even though they weren’t close enough to touch, he could feel the heat radiating from her body. Could smell the honeysuckle scent of her skin.
“Better?” she asked.
No, not better. Just being close to her made him hard. And when he got hard, he thought of what sex with her had been like. Hot and consuming in that apartment in Washington. Mind-blowingly erotic in that tower at the colony.
They sat in silence for several minutes. In the hot, humid air, he was aware of every breath she took, of the way her breasts rose and fell under her shirt, of the droplet of perspiration running down her neck to disappear beneath her collar.
Man, this wasn’t going to work. He should be plotting strategy for tomorrow. Mapping their route. Not sitting here lusting after the Siren who’d been sent to kill him.
Gods, he was a fool for bringing her here. Why the hell couldn’t he think straight when she was around?
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said, her tempting voice cutting through the quiet.
Will you have sex with me again?
Why yes, yes I will. Where do you want me?
His skin grew hot, the air around him stifling.
“What?” he snapped.
“How is it you’re Argonaut, Medean, and daemon? Those three don’t seem to go together.”
Relief rippled over him. As long as the topic steered clear of sex, he was good. “My father was an Argonaut. My mother a Medean witch. They met because he’d heard she and her coven knew where the Orb was hidden in the Aegis Mountains.”
Her gaze strayed to the earth element at his chest. “She’s the one who found it?”
“No. But her coven had found evidence of it. There were stories. He went to investigate.”
“Did they fall in love?”
Orpheus
wasn’t sure he knew what love meant. Let alone what it felt like. “I don’t know. They hooked up. I was the result. But he didn’t bind himself to her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Because she was a witch?”
“Most likely. Witches aren’t popular in the human realm, but they’re even less popular in Argolea.”
“So what happened?”
“She raised me in the coven until I was five. Then she died. The other witches didn’t like the idea of an Argonaut’s offspring left to their care, so they sent me to him. But since I didn’t have the Argonaut markings…”
A lump formed in his throat. The same damn lump that always formed when he thought of his relationship with his father.
Except…relationship was too strong a word. They’d been strangers. Two people living in the same big house because of some warped sense of duty, barely speaking. Until the day his father had died.
“That must have been hard.”
Yeah, hard. He nearly scoffed. He was the son his father had never wanted. Gryphon was the son he’d been meant to sire. Orpheus had sure learned about rejection early on. Something that had saved him.
“And the daemon part of you?” she asked.
He shrugged again. “I was born with it. I figure my mother must have been part daemon. I don’t know, as I barely remember her.”
Except for her face. Smooth skin, chocolate eyes, silky brown hair he’d loved to play with. Even now he could conjure up her image if he tried. He couldn’t remember her voice or even the times he knew he’d spent with her, but he remembered her face.
Skyla tucked her legs under her, turned to face him, and eased her head against the rocks. “Daemon hybrids are rare, but they do exist and have for some time. But most we’ve come across have been the result of a human female and a male archdaemon mating. Regular daemons are impotent.”
Yeah, he’d heard that too. Still didn’t explain how or why he’d ended up part daemon. Unless you went with the “cursed” theory, which was the only one that made sense to him.
“Did your father know?” she asked. “About your daemon?”
He stared off into the distance. “No. After the backlash I got for my Medean gifts, I learned to keep that one secret. Gryphon doesn’t even know.”
“And how does Gryphon fit into all this? Is he Medean as well?”
Orpheus stretched his legs out, crossed his arms over his chest. “No. His mother was Argolean. Our father bound himself to her long after I’d moved out of the house. Gryphon’s quite a bit younger than me.”
“The chosen son,” she said softly. “And yet you still love him.”
He frowned at her. “You conjure things that aren’t there. Are you sure you’re not a witch?”
She smiled. “I hear the truth you work hard to keep hidden. No man ventures into the Underworld for a brother he doesn’t love. Why didn’t you ever tell him about your daemon?”
Orpheus’s chest tightened. The Siren was mistaken. It wasn’t love that had brought him here. It was guilt. A hell of a lot of guilt. Guilt for thinking he could play hero. Guilt for getting Gryphon hurt in that warlock’s castle. Guilt for never telling his only sibling he was sorry for being such a shitty brother.
Guilt shifted to emptiness, opened that hole inside him all over again. Then was replaced with an anger he’d learned was the only emotion that could fill the void. “Because he’s an Argonaut, and for a daemon, a witch-daemon, that means enemy. And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, Siren, that damn hero gene in Gryphon is a major conflict to my interests. Look around you. We wouldn’t be here now if Gryphon hadn’t tried to save my fucking soul. Something I don’t even have.”
His frustration with the entire situation welled inside him, threatened to bubble over. His dumbass brother would never listen, not to the truth, even when it all but smacked him in the face. Because Gryphon was the real deal. A hero to the core. One who instinctively overlooked the bad and zeroed in on the good.
Except in Orpheus’s case, Gryphon had been wrong. There was no good in him, no matter how much Gryphon wanted to believe there was.
“What makes you think you don’t have a soul?” Skyla asked quietly.
Reality. That emptiness widened in the center of Orpheus’s chest, dousing the anger with pain. A black hole of nothingness waiting to suck him in. “The energy that sent Gryphon’s soul here should have done the same to me. We were both hit by the same power source that day. Except I survived and he didn’t.”
Because I don’t have a soul to destroy.
“Maybe your daemon strength stopped it.”
“Maybe you’re naïve.”
She smiled. “You have a soul, Orpheus.”
He tipped his head her way. “I have a daemon, Siren, as you oh so eloquently like to remind me.”
“Your daemon hasn’t been very reliable lately.”
No, it hadn’t. Which pissed Orpheus off more than this entire conversation. Down here, the beast could be a real asset, but Orpheus knew it wasn’t about to come out and play. Even now he could feel his daemon simmering beneath his skin, but it made no effort to unleash itself. Aside from a tremor now and then, it was as if the daemon barely existed.
“Whatever.” He didn’t have time to worry about what was happening to him. He had to figure out how to find Gryphon. “Doesn’t change the facts. And facts don’t lie. As a Siren you know that better than most.”
She didn’t answer, and silence settled between them. A silence that left him more edgy than before. To distract himself, he focused on the red-orange glow in the distance that was dimming but didn’t completely go away, as if not even night could blanket the pain and suffering with comfort.
Skyla yawned, eased down to her side, tucked her hands under her face. Even though he fought it, Orpheus’s gaze drifted her way and he watched the tendrils of damp hair blow gently against her skin.
“We’ll find him, you know,” she whispered.
His chest filled all over again as he watched her eyes drift close. She had a way of taming that emptiness inside him as no one had done before. Not even his brother. He wanted to chalk up her concern to the Orb, but the longer they were together, the harder that was to do. Logic told him she should have taken the Orb as soon as they’d immobilized that warlock. Or she could have let him venture into the Underworld alone and then stolen it when he wasn’t looking.
But she hadn’t done either of those things. She was here with him now, where she didn’t need to be. Risking her life for someone she didn’t even know.
Risking her life for him.
He leaned down until he was close to her ear, until her scent filled his senses and tempted him to take one simple taste. “Why do you care, Siren?”
She yawned. But instead of opening her eyes and looking up as he expected, she reached out and wrapped her fingers his. Fingers that were warm and soft and oh,so comforting in a way nothing else had ever comforted him before.
“The question isn’t why I care, daemon,” she murmured as she drifted to sleep. “The question is how long have I cared?”
Chapter 21
Morning in Tartarus wasn’t much different from night. The air was oppressive and suffocating. The heat sent sweat to every part of Skyla’s skin. And the closer they ventured to Tartarus, the worse the moans and screams and cries for mercy grew in the distance.
She watched Orpheus carefully as they made their way down the jagged rocks. The scowl he’d taken on when they’d crossed the threshold into Hades’s realm had deepened with every passing hour. Athena had told Skyla he didn’t remember his past life, but she couldn’t be sure he didn’t remember the Underworld. More than once over the last day she’d seen the look of déjà vu on his face as he’d turned a slow circle and taken it all in.
For the first time, she thought of telling him about his past. About who he was, how they’d met, why she was with him now. But then she dismissed it. It would do no good. He wouldn’t remember, and what w
as the point of bringing it all up now, when they were close to finding his brother?
Maybe if—when—they got out of this, she’d find a way to tell him. But even as the thought hit, something in her chest pinched. A warning that no good could come from a truth that was nothing but ancient history. He was not the same man he’d been then, even if the soul was similar.
They stopped at the base of the mountain, where rolling hills of death and decay lay before them like grass on a knoll. She took a deep drink of her water, passed it to Orpheus. He sipped, then handed the bottle back to her. Their fingers brushed and heat raced over her skin. But when she looked at his face, he showed no response.
She capped the water and replaced it in her pack. “Where to now?”
He rested his hands on his hips where his jeans hung low, looked out in the distance. A layer of sweat glistened on his bare chest, ran down to his strong six-pack abs. The earth element lay against his heart, the mark of the Titans stamped deeply into the diamond, but it wasn’t the element that captured her attention. With the hot air rushing past his face to ruffle his hair and the determined look in his gray eyes, all she could think was that he looked like a god. Like a sexy, muscular, all-powerful god. The only thing he lacked was cruelty.
“A hero’s soul is valuable, right?” he asked, eyes fixed on the far off marshes. “I’m guessing Hades will have sent him for the cruelest sort of punishment. Close to the heart of the Underworld, where he can draw the most energy from Gryphon’s suffering. I say we head there and see what we find.”
Her heart expanded. When she didn’t answer, he turned to look at her, his brow wrinkled in confusion. “What?”
The thump, thump, thump against her ribs echoed in her ears. And his revelation from last night—that he didn’t have a soul—revolved in her mind.
Second chances.
Athena had told her he’d been given a second chance. That a Fate had made a deal with Hades for him to come back. What if his daemon was part of that deal? A way to ensure he wouldn’t redeem himself? Except…except his daemon was fading. She was certain now he could no longer shift, and his eyes didn’t even change anymore when he was irritated. Every time he did something good, like protect Maelea or help those people on that train or come to Skyla’s rescue, his daemon seemed to grow weaker. And he did have a soul. She was sure of that. A soulless being would never do the things he’d done. A soulless being wouldn’t care. Which meant…if the daemon inside him was nearly gone, that soul he was so sure he didn’t have might be taking its place.