“What the…?”
Maelea broke the eye contact, tugged her hand away, and cradled her arm against her stomach again. “I told you it was fine.”
Orpheus’s jaw tightened, but instead of arguing he turned toward Skyla and said, “She’s fine. Let’s go.”
Maelea took a step back. “I’m not going anywhere with either of you.”
Orpheus rolled his eyes. Then whipped her into his arms.
“Put me down!”
“When you start listening to directions, we’ll talk about it.”
“You sonofa—”
“Where are you taking her?” Skyla asked, grabbing her weapons and hustling to follow as he strode down the dock toward shore.
“Where’s the closest airport?” he asked Maelea.
“Airport?” Maelea repeated in surprise. “Why do you need an airport?”
Orpheus stepped off the dock and stopped on the grass, glaring down at the girl in the moonlight. “Let me explain this to you so you get it. I ask the questions, you provide the answers. If you give me answers I like, I’ll consider answering a few of your questions. You got it?”
Maelea’s mouth snapped shut. She glanced past Skyla to the dark lake beyond.
“Airport?” Orpheus asked again.
She pursed her lips. Looked as if she wasn’t about to answer. In the silence Skyla could practically see the steam brewing in Orpheus as his patience waned, and she prepared herself for the worst. Now that she knew he was only after Maelea to get to the Orb, his reasons for protecting her the night of the concert made sense. But there were no daemons out here. No hellhounds either.
Finally, Maelea mumbled, “Snohomish County Airport. But it’s at least ten miles from here. My house—”
“Is probably already toast,” Orpheus told her, walking again. “And by now those hellhounds have reported back to Hades and told him you’re with me. You’re not safe on your own anymore.”
Sickness slid across Maelea’s face, and at his side, Skyla clenched her jaw at the way Orpheus was carrying the girl—the same way Rhett Butler had carried Scarlett up the stairs in Gone With the Wind. Orpheus picked up speed as he climbed a small knoll in the park. “We’ll find a cab, head toward that airport. There’s gotta be a charter plane we can catch there.”
“Where to?” Maelea asked, cringing and clutching her injured arm as he jostled her.
“Was that a question?”
Her mouth snapped shut again, and this time her jaw clenched with barely contained anger.
Looking pleased, Orpheus said, “I’ve got a friend in Montana. He can take care of you there.”
“Montana? But I live here!”
Orpheus’s face went stony. Skyla drew to a stop, her breath catching at what he would do to the injured female. She’d seen him in battle. Had seen the way he could shift into daemon form with just a thought. Why he’d screwed around and hadn’t shifted back at Maelea’s house she didn’t know, but she’d soon find out. About that and the earth element. And just what he had planned.
Skyla waited for his eyes to change to signal he was calling up his daemon, but they didn’t. “Do you want me to take you back to your house?” he asked.
Maelea stared at him. Swallowed. Seemed to debate her options. Slowly, she shook her head.
“Okay then.” Orpheus resumed walking through the trees. “I think we’re your only option at this point.”
Maelea’s gaze found Skyla, and it was clear she believed the hybrid. And didn’t like it.
Be careful, female.
They reached Bothell Way, a major thoroughfare, in silence. Streetlights illuminated the four-lane highway. “There won’t be any flights going out this late,” Skyla pointed out. “Unless you’re planning to hitch a broom to Montana, we need to hole up somewhere until morning.”
“Then we’ll take a train,” Orpheus said. “But we’re not sticking around here. I guarantee those hounds have our scent.”
“Yeah, but we don’t need to run all the way to Montana to lose them.”
Orpheus ignored her—he was damn good at that—and looked to Maelea. “What about a train station?”
“Um…there’s one close,” Maelea said. “Edmonds. About twelve miles, maybe—”
“There won’t be any trains leaving at this hour either,” Skyla protested.
“Fucking fine, Miss Transportation Guru.” Orpheus moved down the sidewalk. “We’ll find a car and drive north to Bellingham, catch a train from there.”
“Find a car?” Skyla liked that less than his idea to run for Montana.
Orpheus veered into a parking lot, where he dropped Maelea to her feet and peered into the window of a Ford Explorer.
“You’re gonna steal that, aren’t you?” Maelea asked.
“Sure as shit, I am.” He used his elbow to knock out the back window. An alarm sounded. Seconds later he was in the front seat, bent down under the steering column, pulling wires free. The alarm clicked off, then the ignition roared to life. “Get in. Both of you.”
Skyla stopped Maelea with a hand on the female’s arm. “She’s not in any condition to travel. And you’re not the one calling the shots here.”
She waited for the flash of green in his eyes, almost wanted it, because that would prove he was out of control and not thinking clearly, but it didn’t come. Instead he turned very focused, very stubborn eyes her way. Eyes that were as gray as they’d been in Cynurus’s head over two thousand years ago.
“Trust me, Siren, I am calling the shots. And I could just as easily have left you to deal with those hellhounds alone as rescued you.”
“Rescue me?” she snorted. “On what alternate plane do you live?” But even as she said the words, unease slid through her. Had he rescued her?
Orpheus looked past her as if she hadn’t spoken. “Who did the saving? You’re the final judge here. Me or Rambo Girl there?”
Maelea’s eyes widened, obviously not liking being caught in the middle. “I—I don’t—”
“Stop tormenting the girl,” Skyla snapped.
There it was again. That irritation that he seemed more interested in Maelea than her. What the hell was wrong with her? Daemon hybrid, she reminded herself. Traitor to Olympus and just about every person on the planet.
Orpheus eased out of the car and put his body between Skyla and Maelea, easily breaking Skyla’s hold. “Ghoul Girl comes with me. Why don’t you just head back to Olympus and tell your boss you failed?”
“Ghoul Girl?” Maelea’s shocked expression would have been comical in a different situation, but Skyla barely cared.
She was suddenly too bowled over that Orpheus was suggesting she leave instead of making her go. From his reaction when she’d appeared at Maelea’s house, it was clear she hadn’t surprised him. He was tracking the Orb, and he knew she was there to stop him. Why the hell had he let her tag along this long?
His intense eyes stared into hers. And she had a flash of him glancing at her when they’d been running across Maelea’s lawn, checking to make sure she was with them.
Why hadn’t he left her there? And better yet, why wasn’t he demanding the info he needed from Maelea right now and leaving her behind as well?
A thousand questions pinged around in her head. Melded with questions from the past, the ones regarding Cynurus’s guilt or innocence—his guilt or innocence. And in the silence between them, she knew she had a choice. Walk away for good and let one of the other Sirens deal with him…or not.
Walking away would mean turning her back on the order.
Duty has saved you.
Athena’s words trickled through her mind. Her mentor was right. The order had saved her. When nothing else could. But now she knew that order had also lied. The one question she couldn’t get out of her head was why he’d been given a second chance.
She wasn’t walking away from him. Not until she had the answers she needed. Not until she knew for sure he really was the black soul Athena and Zeus claimed him t
o be. Though she could now see the similarities between him and Cynurus, they didn’t matter to her. She’d built up her barriers long ago. She’d look at this assignment objectively, keep her emotions out of it, and base her decision on the facts.
On what he did from here.
“If you think I’m letting this girl go anywhere alone with you, daemon, you’re higher than a kite. Where she goes, I go.”
She’d just made herself Maelea’s protector. Her. A Siren. A lethal warrior trained not to protect, but to kill. Shit, she knew as much about protecting as she did about, well, Orpheus.
She ignored the irony in that thought and instead focused on Orpheus’s gray eyes. His suddenly wicked gray eyes and his seductive mouth, curling up ever so slightly along one edge as his gaze slid from her face to her breasts, then lower. “I always liked to get high. I can think of one way that doesn’t involve drugs. Just hormones.”
There it was again. That transition from battle mode to sexual predator. How did he do that? And why the hell did it make her hot?
“Get in, Siren.” His gaze lifted back to Skyla’s mouth before she could think of something pithy to say in retaliation. Where it hovered until the heat of his stare pooled in her abdomen and sent shocks of electricity all through her body. “Before I come to my senses and change my mind.”
***
Spiders.
Today it was hundreds of spiders in all shapes and sizes and colors.
A scream echoed through Gryphon’s mind as he lay on the flat obsidian rocks and stared into four giant, gaping eyes of a hairy arachnid the size of a grapefruit. He tried to move but couldn’t. Tried to holler but was met with only the tapping of thousands of legs against rock, echoing in the humid air. Felt the sensation of those legs crawling over his skin and the sharp, angled fangs sinking deep into his flesh.
Death hovered just out of his reach. His vision swam as the creature on his chest lifted its front two legs and waved them wildly in the air in front of his face. Its fangs loomed dangerously close.
Another stab somewhere on his leg. A gasp of pain he couldn’t inhale. Poison burning through his veins to mess with his mind.
“I have to get out of here.”
You’re not going anywhere.
“I don’t deserve this. It’s a mistake. It’s—”
That’s what they all say. But not all can be innocent. You sure aren’t.
“I can’t take it anymore.”
You have thousands, millions of years yet to suffer. This is only the beginning. Just a taste of what you’ve yet to experience.
“Please…”
Don’t beg. It’s so…un-Argonaut. Man up and take it like the hero you used to be.
“I’ll do anything. Anything…”
There is no such thing as anything. You should know that by now…
The voice faded to nothing. His mind fogged as unshed tears and unanswered prayers washed over him. Inside he felt his body liquefy, pool, begin to slowly ooze out through every single puncture wound. He no longer felt the thousands of feet crawling across his body, no longer saw the spiders. A thick, white haze descended, and he felt himself drifting downstream, heading for a black abyss as vast as an endless chasm.
“Yes, finally…”
“I can ease your pain, Argonaut.”
Gryphon’s eyes flew open at the sound of the voice somewhere close. His vision cleared to reveal hundreds of multicolored spiders undulating across the length of his naked body. Sensation returned to his skin, along with the pain in his flesh. But even through his poison-laden mind, he recognized the voice.
This one didn’t come from inside. It was female and deep. The sweet smell of candy wafted in the air nearby, mixing with the voice to tempt and tease and draw him back from the oblivion he needed.
“Yes, Argonaut. You know me well. Soon you will know me very well.”
Atalanta.
His gaze darted from side to side as he looked for the female. He didn’t care who she was. She was real. He wasn’t alone in this forgotten hell after all.
“Help me!”
“I can take you away from all this pain, Argonaut. Would you like that?”
“Yes, yes, please, yes.”
She chuckled.
A pale-skinned hand dropped down in his line of sight. Long tapered fingers lifted a giant spider from his chest and dangled the monster in front of his face. “Did you know there is a place within this realm where relief can be found? Where those who were sentenced long before you found refuge? Where the Elder Gods themselves rule a land more pleasurable than even Sodom and Gomorrah?”
Elder Gods. The Titans.
Gryphon’s foggy mind spun as the words sank in deep. Zeus had cast the Titans into Tartarus at the end of the Titanomachy, the war between the Titans and the Olympians. And they’d been locked in the lowest level ever since, awaiting the day they would one day be freed by the Orb of Krónos.
“I can take you there, Argonaut. I know where it lies. I can save you from this never-ending agony. With me you can leave this torture behind for good and become powerful again. Whole. The warrior you once were. All you have to do is join me.” Her voice dropped to a seductive whisper. “Be my doulas.”
Slave.
Some deep space inside screamed No! but it was drowned out by the thought of a world without pain. An end to this continuous torment.
The fact that Atalanta had been his bitter enemy in the living realm meant nothing. He wasn’t an Argonaut any longer. His prior life was over. And he was willing to do anything to make this suffering end. Even if that meant sacrificing everything he’d once believed in.
“Yes, yes, yes. Anything you want. Just take this all away.”
No!
A soft chuckle met his ears. “I knew I could count on you, Argonaut.”
A whoosh of air streamed across his bare skin, sending the spiders scattering. A rumble sounded somewhere close and blackness spiraled in, then exploded into a thousand colors, fading like a clearing mist until a face appeared through the fog. A face with skin like alabaster, lips as red as blood, eyes of coal black, and a fall of long straight onyx hair that looked as if it were made of silk.
“Follow me, doulas.”
His arms moved. Excitement leaped in his chest. But before his mind could tell his limbs what to do, he felt a tug, right in the center of his chest. A tug controlling him. Pulling him forward like a bull being led by a nose ring. Toward her. Until there was nothing. No sound. No pain. Nothing but endless emptiness fanning out in every direction.
***
Maelea didn’t know what to make of her traveling companions. As she lay on the top berth of the stateroom they’d arranged in Bellingham and pretended to sleep, she listened to their quiet breathing and wondered if they were awake. Wondered also just how long until she could make a break for it.
She hadn’t dared try on the drive to Bellingham. Hadn’t tried when they’d stopped at that Walmart and Orpheus had dragged her in to buy a jacket and shoes so she’d blend in. Certainly hadn’t tried at the train station when he’d booked tickets, not with the way Skyla kept watching her as if her head were about to spin around. She wasn’t dumb. She knew Orpheus was right. Those hounds clearly had their scent, and if they stopped for any length of time, the monsters would be on them in a heartbeat. But that didn’t keep her from planning for a way out when they finally reached their destination. Wherever that might be.
They’d switched trains in Everett around noon, had gotten lunch and hung out in the dining car as long as possible, then retired to their stateroom to get some rest and—Maelea knew—to avoid curious eyes. It didn’t take a genius to see the three of them didn’t go together. Skyla with her model-perfect body, Orpheus’s sheer size and the dangerous air that seemed to hover around him, and Maelea, the quiet one who had a hard time looking either of the other two in the eye and wasn’t even sure what she was doing here.
The need to bolt overwhelmed her, but she calmed her
self by thinking about the alternative. Hellhounds? No, thanks. She was not about to tangle with Hades. For the time being, she’d wait and watch and make tracks only when she was sure it was safe. She wasn’t wild about being with either of these two, but she sensed they didn’t have plans to harm her.
At least not yet.
No one had said much since they’d returned to the stateroom. There was tension among all three of them, especially between Orpheus and Skyla. Tension Maelea was curious about but didn’t dare question. Though she’d tried to doze as the train barrelled east toward the Rockies and dusk settled in, her mind was too full of images and sounds and the bitter reality that Orpheus was not the one she needed to kill after all.
The darkness she’d first sensed in him had diminished. How, she didn’t know, but during the last hour she knew for certain his death would not grant her the access to Olympus she wanted. And that realization pissed her off more than anything, because thanks to him she now couldn’t even go back to the sanctuary of her house in Seattle.
Stupid male. Stupid her for going to that concert in the first place. She was better off keeping to herself, but even knowing that, she couldn’t seem to stop looking. It was the one major malfunction in her brain—the light pushing her to seek out the dark when what she should be content with was slinking into the shadows.
“You’re staring at me, Siren,” Orpheus said in a low voice.
Maelea went still and listened. They definitely weren’t partners. He was marked with darkness from the Underworld; she was of Zeus’s light. Another irony that wasn’t lost on Maelea.
“I’m just trying to figure out which bones will be easiest to break when you try to take Maelea out of here without me,” Skyla said from the bottom bunk.
Now that was a fight Maelea would like to witness.
Orpheus chuckled. “So protective. One wouldn’t expect it, coming from you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Not entirely. But I know way more than most. You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you? That’s why you can’t stop watching me.”