She’d been poring through her books for hours. And though she couldn’t explain it, she needed to know the answer to her questions before she was forced to bind herself to Zander. Something in her gut told her this was important not only to her future, but to his as well.
She looked back at the text with a mixture of dread and foreboding. There was one person who knew what this all meant. One person who could fill in the blanks. Only he was the last ándras she ever wanted to be indebted to.
Before she could change her mind, she jumped to her feet and rushed to the massive walk-in closet on the far side of the room. The invisibility cloak was hidden all the way in the back, hanging underneath the full-length silk cloak she wore to formal palace affairs. She pulled it from the hanger and stared at the lightweight black fabric between her hands.
Please let this still work.
She turned out of the closet, slipped her feet into the black flats Casey had been more than eager to provide her and buttoned the cloak around her shoulders. On a deep breath, she pulled up the hood and headed for the door.
Standing in the Grand Hallway of the castle for a moment, she listened to the early evening sounds. Somewhere close a bell chimed. A door opened and closed. Footsteps padded softly away.
She headed for the back stairs. At the base of the stairwell laughter and the sounds of dishes clinking in the kitchen drifted her way. She paused in the shadows just outside the doorway and held her breath. This was it. Time to see if the Fates had decided she was worthy of a crown or not.
She stepped into the kitchen. Three cooks filled plates with steaming meat and potatoes. A handful of servants were refilling glasses and gathering silverware. Dishwashers stood at the massive sinks, cleaning pots and pans and cooking utensils. At the long wooden table on the far side of the room, six members of the Executive Guard were taking their dinner break, telling stories and laughing as they spooned food into their faces.
No one looked her way.
Holding her breath, she took a step toward the back door, past Cookie, the oldest member of the kitchen staff. Still no one paid her even one iota of attention. She wrapped her hand around the back door handle, pulled slightly. Behind her she heard someone yell, “Who didn’t latch the door? The wind’s pushed it open!”
Before someone could close her in, she slipped out through the narrow opening. The door slapped closed behind her. Fresh evening air filled her lungs and a smile she just couldn’t contain swept across her face.
She’d done it. She was outside and no one even knew.
Confidence growing, she breezed past the four guards at the main gate without so much as a backward glance. She didn’t stop until she reached the road at the bottom of the hill and stood staring at the city of Tiyrns.
Massive buildings made of marble filled the skyline. The city fanned outward from the castle, most of the businesses and shops close in, the residential areas and seedier neighborhoods farther out. And though she could have flashed to the section of the city she intended to visit tonight, she didn’t, instead reveling in the fact she could walk wherever she wanted and no one could see her.
Her. The future queen of Argolea. Outside the castle walls. Beyond her father’s heavy hand. Away from everything that was slowly killing her.
Don’t dawdle, Isadora.
Right. She wouldn’t. If she was gone too long, eventually someone would miss her and then all hell would break loose.
Remembering the map she’d studied earlier today, she imagined Corinth Avenue. Her eyes slid closed, her limbs grew light. And then she was flying.
Flashing was a strange sensation, and one she didn’t get to experience all that often, because she was usually confined to the castle. One of the benefits of living in Argolea was the fact its residents could flash from place to place simply by envisioning a location in their mind. Way faster than walking through a city of two million. Much safer than the unpredictable cars and trucks Isadora had seen in the human world. Of course, you had to be outside to flash, and you couldn’t go through walls and buildings, but tonight that wasn’t a problem.
She slowed, then halted and opened her eyes to exactly what she’d imagined when she’d overheard the description of this area of the city. Darkness had completely pressed in, and streetlamps every ten yards illuminated the dreary cobblestone road. The shops here were run-down, their glass fronts dingy, some missing lettering that had been stenciled on far too long ago. Most were already closed. A trash can was overturned on one sidewalk, leaking garbage and day-old food. A trio of grubby young who looked like they hadn’t seen a bath in days and who couldn’t possibly be more than ten rifled through its contents.
She avoided the bar to her right, walking quickly past the open door. Rowdy shouts drifted her way, followed by a female’s laughter and chairs scraping the wooden floor. Ignoring what sounded like a party inside, she made for the lone shop on the corner of the barren street. The one marked HELIOS.
Light burned at the back of the store. Though the sign out front said CLOSED, Isadora placed her hand on the door handle and pushed.
The scents of incense and herbs used in ancient ceremonies burned her nose. Candles flickered here and there on tabletops and from a chandelier over a counter near the far wall. Tables covered in a variety of colorful fabrics held polished stones, dried flowers and herbs, crystals and beads. And throughout the entire space, human trinkets were scattered like gold dust in a flowing river.
A four-inch replica of the Statue of Liberty, a cell phone, a book called Twilight. Women’s heeled boots, a shirt with the word Abercrombie emblazoned across the front. Everywhere you looked you could find something not of this world. And everywhere you looked, you were drawn deeper into the store.
Isadora slid the hood off her head and glanced around the cluttered shelves, the busy displays. My gods. He’s been smuggling human relics back for years. Part of her wasn’t sure how the Council turned a blind eye and didn’t shut this place down. Another part smiled because its existence was exactly what she’d hoped to find.
She took a step farther into the room and bumped into a table. A picture frame teetered, then clattered to the table with a clank.
“We’re closed,” a voice called from the back room.
Carefully, she replaced the frame on the table. And swallowed in the silence that followed.
She’d never been good at blackmail, and she’d already played this card once. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to use it. But she needed him now—maybe more than she had then.
Footsteps echoed behind the far wall. She stayed where she was and waited. And hoped she hadn’t interrupted him in one of his…moods.
Sound ceased. Though she’d heard his steps, he didn’t come through the dark and open door at the end of the long room. Where was he? She squinted to see clearer.
“How did you escape your playpen, Isa?”
Isadora jerked at the rough voice behind her, whipped around and tipped her head back to look up at Orpheus.
Her pulse pounded under his glowing green gaze, but she held her ground. He stood as tall as the Argonauts, was as big and brawny and just as menacing, with his rugged features and broad shoulders. But that’s where the similarities ended. While the Argonauts were dangerous in their own right, Orpheus was downright disturbing. The way he could poof through walls wasn’t normal, and when his eyes flashed green in that daemon way, as they were doing now, they made Isadora want to run screaming for the hills.
She slapped a hand against her chest. “Gods, Orpheus, you scared me.”
“I should,” he said without humor. “Right now, Isa, you’re on my turf. You would be wise to be very scared.”
She didn’t move. He was waiting for her to tuck tail and run. He wanted her to be afraid. And she was. The half of him that was daemon—which he wasn’t hiding from her now—was unpredictable. But instead of giving in to the fear, she clung to the vision she’d had of him before she’d lost her powers. To the one t
hat had pushed her here tonight. To the one of him saving her.
He edged closer until she felt his hot breath on her skin. “Haven’t you heard the rumors? Daemons eat virgins for supper.” When she didn’t answer, he reached out and fingered her newly shorn hair. “This, I like. Don’t tell me the king banished you from his playground because you cut your hair, and a sinner is the only one you can turn to now.”
The amusement in his voice brought her chin up. Fear and ridicule, that’s how he worked. That’s how he’d always worked, but she wasn’t going to fall for it. “Don’t flatter yourself. And don’t get your hopes up. My father is sicker than a dog. In mere weeks you’ll be bowing down and pledging your allegiance to your new queen.”
“Don’t count on it, virgin. I pledge my allegiance to no one.” He let go of her hair, walked past her and around the shop’s counter.
She turned, her gaze following his fluid movements. To the average person, he looked like everyone else: an Ar-golean, albeit a big one. But he wasn’t. He was what everyone feared and hated most. “How about to the one person who knows your secret?”
He glared at her over his shoulder. And those eyes, which had slowly faded to black when he’d touched her hair, flashed green all over again. “You would be wise not to threaten me, Isa. I guarantee you won’t enjoy the consequences.”
She lifted her chin again. Screw him. She’d been through much worse than he could dole out. She’d tangled with a god and lived to tell about it. “I need your help, Orpheus.”
He frowned. “I should have destroyed that damn invisibility cloak as soon as we left Olympus.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He braced both massive hands on the counter that ran along the wall and leaned back. “Do tell then, what could you possibly want from me? I’m all ears.”
“I need…” She hesitated, because even to her this sounded stupid. “I need you to teach me.”
“Teach you what?” A bored expression raced across his features.
“To fight.”
He scoffed.
“I’m stronger than I look.”
“You’re pathetic.”
“I want to learn.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “There are factions that do not want to see me rule and will do whatever it takes to undermine my authority. Weakness is not an option for me. You will teach me to fight so that when the time comes—and it will—the first person who challenges my rule will realize I’m not just a patsy.”
He glanced away with a “yeah, right” look. But he didn’t say no, and she took that as a subtle yes. Anything that undermined the Council or the Argonauts pleased him, and she could practically see the wheels turning in his brain, imagining her taking down Lucian, the head of the Council, with her blade.
The image nearly made her smile before she remembered death wasn’t always the answer. “I also want you to teach me something else.”
“Lara Croft fighting tactics aren’t enough?”
Lara Croft? She shook off the question. Pulled the slip of paper from inside her cloak and set it on the counter in front of him. “I want you to teach me about this.”
He went still as glass, and for a split second, those eyes flashed green again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” she said slowly. “I’m not clueless, Orpheus. I’ve done my research. The omega symbol was the marking of the prophecy. These hatch markings here…” She pointed to the wings around the omega, the ones found in the first symbol of the translation of the Horae and on her skin. “They mean something else.”
He rolled his eyes. “You are higher than a—”
“No,” she said forcefully, refusing to let him sway her. “I’m not. Something’s building. Has been building for weeks, since the moment Casey and I united. I can feel it. Only it’s different from before, and I don’t know what it means.”
She stepped forward and pointed to the text she’d copied. “The omega with wings, that’s the symbol for the Horae, and there weren’t two, there were three. Goddesses of balance, half-sisters of the Moirae, or the Fates. Three is a powerful number in science, religion and mythology. The third dimension, the triangle. Beginning, middle and end. The three Fates, the Trinity—”
“You’re suddenly religious?”
She scowled. “The Triad, the three phases of the moon, the three Muses—”
“I thought there were nine.”
“—the three Furies, the three faces of Hekate—”
“Stop.” His humor faded. “Witchcraft is not something to joke about, Isadora.”
Her mouth closed. The green glow was back to his eyes. And the tense line of his shoulders told her she’d just hit on something big. “I’m not joking.”
“Leave well enough alone, Princess.”
“I can’t. The buzzing in my head won’t let me. You know what it means, don’t you? This isn’t just about me and Casey anymore, is it? There’s someone else.”
His jaw flexed. And in the silence she knew she was right. Just as she knew she’d been right to come here. Her adrenaline surged.
“What do you want from me?”
“What are you offering?”
“You…” Her mind spun. “I’ll make sure you live the way you always have.”
He frowned. “Not buying it. If you’d wanted to out me, you’d have done it a long time ago. You’re too softhearted for that and we both know it.”
“Fine. I won’t tell anyone about this little shop. You can go on smuggling materials and people to and from the human realm and no one will be the wiser.”
“No one is the wiser. You saw what I let you see. Try again.”
He had the power to alter perceptions? Wild.
“Gold,” she said quickly.
He harrumphed. “I don’t need your money, Isa. Look around you. This place is a gold mine.”
Glancing around, she realized he was right. “Fine then, what do you want?”
His eyes flashed green one more time. Only this time it wasn’t with malice. It was with heat. The kind that burned into the middle of a female and told her loud and clear what was on an ándras’s mind.
Daemons are impotent. The widely known fact floated in her brain even as her eyes ran over him from head to toe. Only he wasn’t just daemon. He was Argolean too. And if he’d been sired by a daemon after all, it meant that little fact was null and void.
“I think you know what I want,” he said in a low, rough voice.
She swallowed even as her heart hammered against her ribs. “You want me to…to sleep with you.”
“No, Isa,” he said, those burning eyes roaming over every inch of her skin. “I don’t plan to sleep. What I want is your body. Every inch. Mine to do with as I please. Whenever and wherever I choose. For as long as your training lasts.”
“Training?”
He nodded toward her right thigh, where her marking was hidden behind her slacks. “What you’ve got there is more powerful than you or your sister realize. It didn’t end with Atalanta’s immortality. It began. But to tap into its powers, you’ve got to learn how to wield it. You’re right. I can help you. But it’ll cost you.”
Her stomach churned, and an image from the Underworld popped into her brain.
“Don’t look so repulsed, Isadora,” he said with a hint of humor. “Something tells me you may just enjoy it.”
Her body.
It wasn’t really her body anymore, was it? In a matter of days it would belong to Zander. When she passed from this world into the next, it would belong to Hades. In the meantime, shouldn’t she have a say in what she did with it? This was her choice, no one else’s. And if it got her to her ultimate goal, then it was worth it.
Shaping her own destiny and not letting others do it for her was worth her virtue.
She lifted her gaze to his. Didn’t even flinch. “Yes.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. He was still leaning against the back counter, and it w
as obvious from his shocked expression he’d expected a different answer.
“I said yes,” she repeated. “For as long as my training sessions last, my body will be yours. But you will teach me everything, Orpheus. Everything I want to know and more. And if you don’t know it, you’ll find it for me.”
She took his silence for a yes. Turned for the door. “We’ll start the first session tomorrow. I’ll be here at the same time.”
“What about your husband?”
She paused but didn’t turn.
“Yes, Isa,” he said. “Even I know you’re to be bound to the Argonaut Zander. Word spreads all the way out here, virgin.”
She turned slowly and met his gaze. Level, cold, as hard as the one he was giving her. “Zander is injured. I’m fairly certain the binding ceremony will be postponed. Which means we have time to get started before then.”
“And your virtue?”
“Is mine to do with as I please.”
He whistled low. “Hubby’s not gonna be pleased to find out you broke the seal without him.”
Her jaw clenched. “Then he’ll just have to get used to living with disappointment. I sure have.”
She headed for the door.
“Isadora,” he called, this time in a softer voice.
She hesitated with one hand on the doorknob.
“There are severe consequences for adultery in this culture. Especially for a female of the monarchy. Are you sure you want to do this?”
She thought of the females who had been punished. Though many thought the archaic chastisements of the past were over, Isadora knew the Council was pushing to have them reinstated. Orpheus was right. They would come down hard on her if she was caught in a compromising position, but not on him. Males had always gotten off scot-free. Until she could rule and set things right, their…relationship…could be deadly. Especially for her.