Awakened (Eternal Guardians Book 8)

by Elisabeth Naughton

  He was being a total barbarian and completely possessive, but he didn’t care. She was his, and he’d do anything to keep her with him. Anything.

  Her eyes softened. “You are entirely sweet and adorable when you’re in domineering warrior mode, but there are limits. Next time, talk to me before you go all nutty on me.”

  He breathed easier. “Yes, emmoní.”

  Sighing, she crossed her arms over her chest and glanced around the dark beach. “So what’s your plan? To stay here? We’re less safe here than we were on Olympus. There are a thousand different predators on this island.”

  He pulled her toward him and slid his hand down her slim back. “I’ve seen you with a bow and arrow. I think we’re pretty safe. Plus, I’m not bad with a sword.”

  She snorted and rested her hands on his biceps. “Did you happen to bring any of those weapons? Because I didn’t.”

  “We’ll come up with something. There are a lot of ruins on this island. More than just Athena’s temple.”

  She leaned into him, resting her head against his chest in a way that didn’t just warm his heart, it filled his soul with light. “It’s too bad you can’t open a portal anywhere else besides Olympus.”

  Yeah, no shit. That would make their lives way too easy.

  “Oh my gods, I can.” She pushed out of his arms and looked up with wide eyes.

  “You can what?”

  “I can open a portal.”

  “You can? To where?”

  “To Ar—I mean, the human realm.”

  His gaze narrowed. “How?”

  “On sacred ground. Everyone from my race can open a portal from sacred ground. And lucky us, we have that right here on this island.”

  At Athena’s temple. “If it’s that easy, why didn’t you open a portal so we could escape those harpies the other night?”

  “Because I just remembered it now. Blame the Sirens for wiping my memories.” She gripped his forearms. “Damon, we can really be free.”

  Escape… From Olympus, from the gods, from Zeus and Athena and Aphrodite and everyone who used him for their own gain.

  Hope pulsed inside Damon. A hope he’d never let himself dream of before. A hope he felt thanks to the female beside him.

  Warmth filled his chest as he looked down at her in the moonlight. So much warmth and heat and life, whatever pressure he’d felt before disappeared and was replaced with nothing but joy.

  Twigs snapped in the forest to his right, and his adrenaline shot up as he looked in that direction. He squeezed Elysia’s hand. “Only if we make it to Athena’s temple unseen.”

  “We’ll make it,” she whispered, stepping back on the sand and pulling him with her. “You’ll see. We’ll make it together.”

  Freedom sounded pretty damn good to him. He just prayed they stayed free wherever they went from here.

  Demetrius couldn’t sleep.

  Standing at the balcony railing of the suite he shared with Isadora in the Argolean castle, he gazed out at the moonlight sparkling over the surface of the Olympic Ocean like sunlight on newly fallen snow. He rubbed the heel of his hand over his heart, but it did no good. The ever-present ache he’d lived with since he’d heard the news his daughter had been taken by Sirens didn’t ease. In fact, as he stood there wondering where she was this very night, it intensified, spreading through his chest to rouse the darkness he’d worked so hard to bury over the years.

  The darkness rolled and gathered strength, urging him to forget the bonds of brotherhood he’d forged with the Argonauts, to ignore the fate of the land his mate ruled, to release the shadows inside him and go after that which rightly belonged to him. His fingers curled around the balustrade. His pulse pumped hard and fast. But he fought the darkness back for one simple reason.

  Elysia had made the choice he couldn’t. Demetrius had been livid when he’d heard what Max had done, but knowing Elysia was unharmed—and that she’d chosen to stay with the Sirens to keep their realm safe—had gotten through to him when nothing else could.

  He drew in a shaky breath. Released his fingers from the cold stone. Reminded himself he needed to stay strong for his mate. That he had to keep it together at least until Elysia was allowed to cross into the human realm. It might take three years, but then he could rescue her. Then he could hide her away and protect her. Then he would make sure no one could ever touch her again.

  “Demetrius?”

  He turned at the sound of Isadora’s voice. Her cotton nightgown swayed around her feet in the open doorway to their bedroom, and her blonde hair fell in messy waves past her shoulders. But it was her eyes he focused on. Her glazed coffee-colored eyes that told him something was wrong.

  “Kardia?” He stepped toward her and reached for her hand. Her skin was cold and clammy, and her fingers shook as they slid over his. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “She’s in danger.”

  Demetrius’s heart rate spiked. “Max said she was safe. That she was okay. He said—”

  “It’s not the Sirens that threaten her.” Isadora looked up at her mate, and horror reflected in her eyes. “It’s not the gods either. It’s someone else. Someone she trusts.”

  “What did you see?”

  Isadora had the gift of foresight, but her visions were muddied when they involved those she loved. Since Elysia’s abduction, the most Isadora had seen were hazy images…a training field, a bow and arrow, a candle burning in the night.

  She squeezed his hand. “I saw a great sword, blazing with the fire of a thousand suns in the darkness, and I saw our daughter unable to move as the flaming blade pierced her chest.”

  Every muscle in Demetrius’s body contracted, and his blood turned to ice.

  “I saw our daughter fall to her knees as the sword was pulled free, and a mighty hand reach deep into the cavern of her chest to pull out her still-beating heart. And I saw agony and heartbreak brimming in her eyes as she looked up and watched the hand curl around her heart, crushing it to ashes in its palm.”

  Demetrius’s own heart pumped hard and fast against his ribs, and a new sense of terror consumed him.

  Tears filled Isadora’s eyes. “We have to bring her home before it’s too late.”

  That darkness sizzled and rolled inside Demetrius, and as he pulled his mate into his arms, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold it back much longer.

  Because some things were more important than duty and honor and brotherhood. And knowing Elysia was in mortal danger changed everything.

  Making it to Athena’s temple in the dark without disturbing any kind of monsters had been tricky. Damon could flash from Olympus to Pandora but not from location to location on the island. Twice Elysia had stopped and pushed Damon back into the shadows because she’d spotted a manticore and a chimera. Luckily, neither had noticed them, and they’d been able to pick their way through the forest untouched and finally climb the hillside to the ruins.

  Elysia’s soles hurt from walking barefoot, and her skin was sweaty beneath Damon’s baggy T-shirt, but there was no one else she’d rather be with. And she was already envisioning where she’d open the portal in the human realm.

  Common sense told her the smartest move was to take him to Argolea, but she didn’t want to do that. Not only because it wouldn’t be any safer there for them—the Sirens could cross into both Argolea and the human realm and possibly come after them—but also because she wasn’t ready to face her family. They’d tried to arrange a political binding for her. To a male she didn’t love. Damon had spent his life as nothing but a slave. Regardless of who he was before his time with the Sirens, his social class now was far below hers. They’d never accept him. For all her parents talk about helping the common person in need, she knew that was all well and good unless it involved their daughter’s future.

  She closed her hand tighter around Damon’s in the dark as he pulled her up the hillside, remembering the way he’d looked at her on the beach. As if he couldn’t breathe without her. As if t
he thought of losing her had destroyed him. As if she were his everything.

  She’d never been anyone’s everything, had never wanted to belong to someone else or be in a relationship. But the connection she felt to him was getting stronger, and every moment they spent together only made her want to be his.

  They finally reached the temple. The moon had set during their hike, and the sun would soon be rising. A monster screamed far down the hillside, but Elysia ignored it and followed Damon inside.

  Heat rushed to her cheeks when she remembered what they’d done on the altar, and more than anything, she wanted a repeat of that moment right here, but she knew there would be plenty of time to explore his body somewhere safer.

  “I thought you said the monsters on this island couldn’t enter sacred ground,” Elysia said as he drew her to the base of the broken steps, trying to take her mind off the images replaying in her brain—the moaning and rocking and mindless pleasure.

  “They’re not supposed to be able to.”

  “Then how were the harpies able to enter?”

  “I have a theory on that. I think Athena sent them. I think she sensed what we did here and the power you took from her. I’m pretty sure she sent the harpies because she was pissed.”

  Skata. Then Elysia had gone back to the Siren compound and shown off her newfound skills. Perhaps leaving Olympus for good wasn’t a bad idea after all.

  Damon turned to face her and clasped her hands. Above, stars sparkled through the open roof. “So how does this work?”

  “I just have to focus.” She drew a deep breath, closed her eyes, and pictured a damp forest.

  Nothing happened.

  “I thought you said you could do this on holy ground.”

  “Shh.” Elysia pictured the trees, the moss, the rocks and lake.

  Still nothing happened.

  “Need a little help? I could focus too. Where are we going again?”

  She frowned and tried to concentrate. “You’d probably accidentally flash us back to Olympus.”

  “True.” He squeezed her hands. “How ’bout I just focus on you while you focus on wherever it is we’re going. I could spend all day focusing on your gorgeous face.”

  She opened her eyes to find him grinning at her. A childish, happy grin she hadn’t seen on his face before. One filled with…hope.

  A roar sounded outside the temple, and Elysia’s gaze darted toward the door.

  Damon’s smile faded. “Uh, emmoní. If you’re gonna flash us out of here, now would be a good time.”

  “I can’t do it.” Panic and fear filled her chest as understanding dawned. She looked up at Damon. “That’s why the harpies were able to enter. Because Athena stripped this temple of its sacredness.”

  The roar grew louder. Followed by a thunder of footsteps.

  “Skata,” Damon’s hands tightened around hers. “We’ll never be able to outfight that. Focus. One more time. Do it for me.”

  “It won’t work.”

  “Try!”

  Elysia had no hope this would work, but she closed her eyes and pictured the forest again.

  And felt the temple spin around them and the world fall apart at her feet.

  Solid ground formed beneath her legs, and the smell of pine and moss and damp earth filled her senses before she even opened her eyes.

  “Whoa.” Damon let go of her with one hand and glanced around the old-growth timber and dewy forest. “Where the heck are we?”

  Elysia could barely believe what she was seeing. “Near the half-breed colony. Or what’s left of it. In Montana. In the human realm. I was born here.”

  He grinned down at her. “Told ya you could do it.”

  “That’s just it, though. I didn’t do it.” Her brow wrinkled. “I think you did.”

  “Me? All I did was imagine you focusing on opening a portal.”

  Which didn’t make any kind of sense, because she couldn’t open a portal on anything but holy ground, and she was absolutely sure now that Athena’s temple on Pandora was no longer holy. “Damon, do you have any gifts?”

  “Gifts?”

  “Abilities?”

  He looked at her like she’d grown a second head.

  She sighed. “Powers?”

  “Like the gods?” He huffed. “No. I’d know by now if I did.”

  “I think you must. I couldn’t have opened that portal alone.”

  “Trust me, emmoní. If I could open a portal like that on my own, I’d have done it years ago to get the hell out of Olympus.”

  Her gaze skipped over the dark stubble on his jaw, down his thick shoulders and strong pecs as she tried to figure out just how he could have opened that portal, then dropped to his carved stomach and his hand still holding hers in the moonli—

  “Oh my gods.”

  “What?” Damon looked down and froze. In the dark of the forest, the whites of his eyes appeared all around his chocolate irises. “What the hell is that?”

  Elysia’s stomach pitched as she stared at the ancient Greek text appearing on Damon’s forearms and running down to entwine his fingers. “Those are the markings of the ancient Greek heroes. The strongest demigods who ever lived.”

  Wide-eyed, she looked back up at Damon’s shocked features, and in a rush realized why he’d always felt so familiar. Because she’d seen his face in a photo on the wall in the castle where she’d grown up. In a photo that had been taken long before Zeus’s Sirens had struck him with an arrow dipped in Medusa’s poison that had turned him to stone.

  “What does that mean?” he asked in a low voice.

  Holy skata, this couldn’t be real.

  But it was. She was seeing it with her own eyes.

  “It means you were an Argonaut.” Her heart beat like wildfire against her ribs. “It means you are an Argonaut. And it means your name isn’t Damon. It’s Cerek.” She held his gaze. “Your name is Cerek, and oh my gods, you’re alive.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A whisper of foreboding rushed down Damon’s spine. “Of course I’m alive. I’m standing right here.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Elysia said. “You were dead. Zeus’s Sirens killed you. All the Argonauts watched it happen twenty-five years ago.”

  Twenty-five years ago… Damon’s gaze dropped to the markings on his arms, growing darker by the second, and his stomach rolled because he knew who the Argonauts were, but he had no memory of them. No memory of anything but Olympus. He let go of Elysia’s hands and took a shaky step back. “I don’t understand.”

  “I should have realized it sooner.” Elysia brushed the hair back from her face, but her dark gaze stayed locked on Damon’s, so intense and unwavering, his pulse sped up. “I was a baby when you were killed, so I had no memory of you myself. But the moment we met, I knew there was something familiar about you. I just didn’t put the pieces together until right now. Your picture hangs on the wall in the castle, next to pictures of all the Argonauts who have ever served. I’ve walked by it hundreds of times.”

  He swallowed hard. “That can’t be.”

  “It is.” She stepped close once more. “Your name is Cerek. Your forefather is Theseus. You were one-hundred twenty-five years old when you died, one of the younger Argonauts in the Order at the time. Your father is Aristokles. You took his place with the Argonauts when he went missing. He was gone for fifty years and reappeared the day you died. He’s been serving in your stead ever since. I remember my father talking about it. About how heartbreaking it was for Ari to finally reconnect with you only to lose you. He was there that day. My father watched you die along with the other Argonauts.”

  Damon’s heart beat hard and fast as he stared at Elysia. She was talking about people and things he didn’t remember. Could it be true? Could he really be an Argonaut? He glanced down at the markings once more. They still held no familiarity, no recognition. “I don’t—”

  “Look at me.” She placed her fingers at his temples and stared into his eyes, and, in a r
ush, pictures flashed inside his mind.

  A group of males, all massive and muscular and each sporting the Argonaut markings on their arms and dressed in the same heavy dark clothes as they stood in some kind of grand office with soaring ceilings and massive arched windows. A great Alpha seal was embedded in the middle of the marble floor, and a female who looked a lot like Elysia but with blonde hair leaned against a decorative desk, frustration lines evident on her forehead while a dark-haired toddler—a girl—played with blocks on the floor at her feet. But one male stood off to the side, staring out the window toward the ocean, barely paying attention to whatever discussion was happening. And when he turned, sad, lost, heartbroken mismatched eyes came into view…one green, one blue.

  The image shifted, and this time it was of a young girl, no more than seven, wearing a pink dress, her dark brown hair flying behind her as she laughed and ran down a long hall flanked by columns. Framed photos covered the walls. All of males dressed in the same dark clothing Damon had seen in the previous image. But one stood out from the others as the girl ran by. One who looked exactly like Damon.

  Damon gasped and stumbled back, away from Elysia’s touch. “W-what was that?”

  “My gift. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to make you believe me.”

  His eyes widened, and he stared down at her hands. “Gift?”

  “All Argoleans have some kind of gift. Mine deals with memories. I can transfer memories. The girl was me. The first memory was the Argonauts, how distraught they were after you were killed. The second was the great hall where photos of the Argonauts all hang. Your pictu—”

  “How do you know all this? You said your memories were still scattered.”

  “They are. But when I saw the markings on your arms and realized who you were, that all came back to me.”

  It still sounded crazy, but Damon couldn’t deny what he’d seen in those memories Elysia had shared with him. Urgency pushed Damon toward her. “Tell me everything. About who I used to be and what happened.”

  Elysia glanced warily around the forest. “We should leave this place first. Hades’s daemons still roam these forests. I can tell you when we get to—”