As if Nick freakin’ cared. He had his own darkness to deal with. “No, I’m not. And none of you can make me.”
He moved to step around Zander, but the guardian slapped a hand on Nick’s chest and pushed him back. “This isn’t just about you. People are going to die if you don’t do the right thing.”
“Zander,” Callia said softly from the opposite side of the room.
“No, thea. He needs to know the fucking truth.”
“And what truth is that?” Nick tossed back, that shadow energy now a roaring thunder in his veins. “That you’re all fucked in the head because you want me to screw my brother’s wife? I’m sorry, but I’m not into your sick and twisted games.”
“No.” Zander blocked Nick’s path, still not letting him by. “This is the truth. If Isadora dies, so do Callia and Casey, because they’re linked through the Horae. And I’ll be gone too, since my mate is my weakness. But forget about me. Forget about what this will do to my children or Isadora’s child, or even Casey’s baby, if it survives. Have you ever seen what happens to an Argonaut when he loses his mate?”
Ari’s insanity flashed in Nick’s mind. The crazed look in his eyes. His thirst for vengeance. His unpredictability and irrational recklessness.
“Theron and Demetrius won’t be of any use anymore if they lose Casey and Isadora. That leaves, what? Orpheus, Gryphon, and a handful of other guys to protect the human realm? Orpheus is unpredictable at best. Gryphon’s still pretty well fucked in the head from being your parents’ plaything in Tartarus. And the other guys are tough as shit, but how effective can they be without the rest of us to back them up? And what happens if Argolea loses its queen? Did you stop for one minute to think about that? The Council will rush in and abolish the monarchy. Isadora’s daughter will never be allowed to rule. And your people… Just what the hell do you think the Council is going to do to the Misos when Isadora isn’t here to protect them? When we’re not around to help her?”
A cold chill settled hard in the center of Nick’s chest. He knew exactly what the Council would do. The same damn thing they’d tried to do to him. Only his people weren’t half as strong as he’d been, even as a child. They’d never survive.
A buzzing sounded all through his ears. One that sent his stomach swirling.
“This isn’t just about you.” Zander dropped his hand from Nick’s chest. “This isn’t even about sex. This is bigger than all of us. If you were half the leader your people think you are, you’d man up and do the right thing this time and save them like you should have done before.”
Nick’s gaze shot up, and all that rolling darkness surged forward. “Why, you son of a—”
“All right, enough,” Isadora pushing to her feet. “Zander, you’ve said your piece, now back off. This isn’t Nick’s problem, it’s ours. And this isn’t his fault, so stop heaping blame where it doesn’t belong. If you want to blame someone, blame the gods. Nick.” Her voice gentled, just a touch. But it was still strained, telling him she was just as anxious about this whole nightmare as he was. “No one’s telling you what you need to do, least of all me. As far as I’m concerned, this is one gigantic mess with no right or wrong solution.”
She stepped back from the table, looking even thinner than she’d appeared yesterday when Nick had arrived in Argolea. “I’m going upstairs to check on my daughter.” She glanced toward Demetrius, and Nick couldn’t help but see the hurt and lingering fear in her eyes. “If anyone needs me, you know where to find me.”
She stalked past Nick, then disappeared into the hall. As silence settled over the room, Zander moved back, but he didn’t cut his glare from Nick. And Nick knew everyone was staring at him, waiting for him to say something, to do something, to make it all right. But he didn’t know what the fuck to do. And all he could think about was getting to Cynna, where things made sense.
He moved out into the hall, and headed for the stairs. This time, thankfully, no one tried to stop him.
“Niko, wait.”
Fuck.
Nick stilled at the sound of Demetrius’s voice. With one hand on the banister, he slowly turned to face his brother.
Shadows covered Demetrius’s face, but as he drew closer, Nick saw what he’d missed in Isadora’s office because the guardian had been looking away the whole time. Agony. Pure, unrestrained agony. The kind that could rip a person apart. The kind Nick had seen on so many prisoners’ faces in Zagreus’s lair.
“You have to do this.”
Nick let go of the banister. “No. Just…no.”
“She’s going to die. I can’t save her. Only you can. You have to.”
Nick pinched his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. “Holy shit. Do you realize what you’re asking me to do?”
“I know exactly what I’m asking,” Demetrius said in a low voice. “Do I hate it? You fucking bet I do. But she’s running out of time, and I can’t stop it. We’ve tried everything. I need her to live, Niko. Elysia needs her to live. This country needs her to live. And if that means I have to share her with you”—he swallowed hard as if just the thought sickened him, which Nick knew it had to—“then I’ll do it. I’ll do anything to save her.”
Nick dropped his hand, still unable to believe—unwilling to accept—that Demetrius was asking him…no begging him…to…
Shit.
He leveled a look on his brother. “No one in that damn office mentioned the elephant in the room. If the soul mate bond is affecting her in the opposite way, you know what could happen. You know what might result.”
Demetrius’s dark gaze never wavered from Nick’s. “The soul mate bond amplifies emotional entanglements. Yeah. I know.”
“Which means she could fall in love with me.”
Demetrius’s jaw ticked.
“And you’re okay with that?” Nick asked, wide-eyed.
“No, I’m not fucking okay with it,” Demetrius snapped. “But I don’t have a damn choice here. It’s either this or death. And I can’t—I won’t—lose her. You have to do this. She’ll be in the red suite, on the fifth floor at nine o’clock. I’ll make sure she’s there.”
“Tonight?” Nick stepped back. “Holy fuck. Isn’t that like rushing things just a little?”
“You want her to suffer? Because that’s all you’re doing by making her wait.”
“What if everyone in that room is wrong?”
“They’re not. You and I both know deep inside this is about the soul mate curse. I can feel it. I know you can too. She grows weaker every hour. There’s no telling how long she has left. If the stress on her body gets to be too great, it could push her into cardiac arrest. Callia’s given me every gruesome detail, and I can’t… I don’t…” He drew in a shaky breath. “Meet her tonight and finish this, Niko.”
There was a time, not all that long ago, when Nick would have relished those words from his estranged brother, but not now. This wasn’t any kind of victory. And he knew if he agreed to this, none of them were going to walk away unscathed.
Nick closed his eyes. He’d gladly trade time in Zagreus’s torture chambers for this fucked-up mess. “I don’t want this. I don’t…want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t let her die. Do the right thing.”
Holy hell. Nick didn’t know what the right thing was anymore. He didn’t want anyone to die, not his people, not Casey and Callia, and especially not Isadora. But this… What they were all asking him to do…
Pressure built in his chest, made him feel like he was being sucked under a rolling, brutal wave. He needed Cynna. Needed to see her and touch her. Needed her to center him, like she’d always been able to do. Needed her to tell him what the hell he was supposed to do next.
“I’ll…” Fuck. He couldn’t believe he was actually about to say it. “I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think too long,” Demetrius said as Nick turned for the stairs. “Our soul mate doesn’t have much time.”
Cynna stared out at the darkening view from th
e window seat in the room she’d shared with Nick last night. A wide beach stretched beyond the castle walls and disappeared in rolling waves that lapped at the shore. But her gaze was fixed on the horizon, where the clouds had parted just enough to let a few shrinking rays of sunlight pass through as the sun set low in the distance, drawing everything into darkness.
She closed her eyes and breathed deep. She’d been silly to think she could have any of that sunshine in her life. The dark was all she knew. Since her parents had died, it was the only thing that was consistent.
The door behind her opened and closed, but she didn’t turn to look. Couldn’t. Not with the tumultuous way she was feeling at the moment.
“I thought maybe you’d left,” Nick said in a quiet voice.
Cynna blinked back the useless sting of tears and told herself all wasn’t lost…yet. He could very well be here to announce that he’d told the queen and everyone else in that room to fuck off. “The last time I did that, I didn’t make it very far.”
The sound of his footsteps drifted across the carpeted floor, then he sank next to her on the window seat, where she sat with her back to the wall and her knees pulled up to her chest. But he didn’t touch her. And a little voice in the back of her head whispered that was not exactly a good sign.
He leaned forward and rested his forearms against his thighs. “How much of that craziness did you hear?”
Skata. He hadn’t told them to fuck off. If he had, his shoulders wouldn’t be bunched and that guilty look wouldn’t be pulling at the corners of his eyes.
What little hope she’d been clinging too dropped like a stone into the pit of her stomach, and that voice mocked, What the hell did you expect? She’s his soul mate. “Enough.”
He looked down at the floor and clasped his hands together. “It’s nuts, right? I mean…really…outrageous.”
No, it wasn’t just outrageous. It was completely sick and twisted, but it wasn’t Cynna’s place to say so. She had no hold on him. She wasn’t his soul mate. And she’d known that from the moment she’d gotten emotionally involved with him. She’d just stupidly let herself fantasize that it didn’t matter.
“So I take it she really is going to die.”
He still didn’t lift his head. Just continued to stare down at the floor with that blank, unreadable expression. “It looks that way.”
Steeling herself against a conversation she didn’t want to have, she dropped her feet to the floor, careful not to touch him, then pushed to standing. “Well, it looks like you’re getting everything you ever wanted then. Even with your brother’s blessing.”
“I don’t want this,” Nick said as she crossed to the bed. “I never really did.”
She looked down at the lightweight jacket Skyla had given her that first day, laid out on the mattress. She’d already thrown the denim jacket she’d been wearing earlier away. It was ripped at the shoulder from the scene in the alley, and she couldn’t stand to look at it anymore. Couldn’t handle remembering the way Nick had finally kissed her after she’d dragged him back from the edge, the tenderness in his voice, the sweet way he’d touched her, and his urgent need to be close to her. Not his soul mate, but her. “I guess it doesn’t really matter what any of us want, now does it?”
He pushed to his feet. “Cynna—”
“No, you know, it’s…fine.” She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her pulsing temple. She was lying. It wasn’t fine. It would never be fine, but what the hell could she do about it? “She’s your soul mate, and though I might not get the whole soul mate draw…thing, I’ve definitely noticed how you can’t say no to her. So fine. Do what you have to do.” She dropped her hand and reached for the jacket. “You don’t owe me any explanation.”
“It’s not what you think.” He stepped toward her.
She tried not to look but couldn’t keep from glancing up. His eyes were shadowed, his brow furrowed. He was probably the strongest man she’d ever met, even stronger than Zagreus because of everything he’d lived through, but at the moment, he didn’t look strong. He looked wrecked. And her foolish heart went out to him.
“It’s not just about her,” he went on. “It’s about what happens to her sisters if she dies, and the people of Argolea if there’s no ruling monarchy, and what the Council will do to my people in the settlement if the queen isn’t around to stop them.”
He was justifying his decision. A decision he’d clearly already made. Her eyes slid closed, and her heart—or what was left of it—felt like it burst into flames in the center of her chest.
Drawing a deep breath, she pulled herself together as best she could, opened her eyes, and tugged on her jacket. “Then I guess that’s all there is to say.”
She turned for the door, but he moved quickly, stepping in her way. “Wait.”
Angry now—that this was happening, that she couldn’t change it, that she wasn’t enough for him to want to find a way to change it—she glared at him. “For what?”
“Just… I still need you.”
Frustration and hurt and betrayal all swirled inside her. “You never needed me. Not really. I was just a distraction from reality. In Zagreus’s lair, when we got to the colony…here. I’ve never had any magical power over you, Nick, not like your soul mate, and you know it. So I’m sure if a nobody like me can distract you for whatever it is that you need, then your soul mate will do an even better job.”
She stepped around him, but he grasped her upper arm, the heat of his fingertips burning into her skin beneath her jacket as he turned her to face him.
Godsdammit… She was past the point of understanding. She wanted to lash out, to tell him to leave her the hell alone, to run. But when she glared up at him, the anguish she saw on his scarred face nearly did her in.
“I don’t…want you to leave,” he said in a pained voice.
Oh gods. Everything hurt—her stomach, her chest, her limbs, her head. And she found herself wanting to sink in and comfort him the way she needed to be comforted right this very second. But she couldn’t. Because something told her when he eventually left her to be with Isadora, that willpower that she’d held on to so tightly all those months with Zagreus would finally break. And she’d spiral even deeper into the depths of a despair that had pushed her toward revenge in the first place. To a place she’d never break free from.
“Neither do I,” she managed. “But I’ve never gotten what I want out of life. And this time, I’m not willing to compromise.”
Gently, she pulled her arm from his and straightened her spine. “It’s selfish of me. I know it is. But I won’t share you with someone else, especially her. I just...can’t. If you do this, then you have to do it without me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Zagreus stalked out of the cavern where Lykos was tormenting a particularly naughty nymph chained to the wall. Nothing pleased him lately. Not the sounds of agony in his lair, not watching Lykos—now that he was healed from his wounds—work his special talents on a nymph who’d tried to run away. Not even toying with the trio of Maenad nymphs he’d taken to his bedchamber last night.
He headed for his office, pushed the door open, and dropped into the chair behind his massive desk. The underwater window cast shades of blue and green over the dark room, and he stared at the fish swimming by, wondering if ripping a few to shreds would do anything to bolster his mood.
Probably not. The only person who could lift his spirits was an entire world away, probably fucking his uncle right this very minute.
His mood slid deeper into darkness. He clenched his jaw and drummed his fingers along the stone surface of his desk. The tracking device in Cynna’s arm had been a diversion, so that she and Nick would think that was how he was monitoring their escape. But he didn’t need it to know where she was or what she was feeling. Thanks to his blood, which now circulated in her veins, he was privy to her emotions. And those emotions—those disgusting, abhorrent emotions—were currently fucking with his plans.
He loathed the fact that he needed that to happen, but breaking the son of a bitch emotionally was the only way he was going to harness Nick’s powers once and for all. Still…the thought of Cynna fucking the bastard, of her enjoying it, of knowing that she was falling in love with the asshole made Zagreus see nothing but blinding red.
“Did you think you could double-cross me and I would not find out?”
Startled out of his rage by the sound of the menacing voice, Zagreus jolted and glanced to his left, where Hades sat in a chair in the dark corner of the room, his black-as-sin eyes like daggers boring into his son.
Fuuuuck. Play it cool.
Zagreus glared right back at dear old Dad. “You’ve got nothing better to do than bother me? Things must be slow in the Underworld.”
“Don’t play coy with me, son. Where is your female? The one you so like to fuck in this deplorable lair you call home?”
Zagreus’s blood heated, but he forced himself not to react. “Around.”
Hades pushed out of his chair, his gaze never once wavering from Zagreus’s face. “Your female is in Argolea with my prize.”
A bead of apprehension slid down Zagreus’s spine. “Why would you ever think that?”
“Because I have spies within the Argolean Council who keep me abreast of what’s happening in their realm, and the two were recently spotted there together.” He slammed his hands on Zagreus’s desk, making Zagreus inch back from his father’s rolling, heated fury. “There’s no way they could have escaped from your control unless you let them go. The demigod’s powers may continue to grow, but he’s not as strong as you. Not yet. Not unless he breaks. And something tells me if you released your bitch with him, it means you’re about to claim something that does not belong to you.”
TWISTED (Eternal Guardians Book 7) Page 29