TWISTED (Eternal Guardians Book 7)

by Elisabeth Naughton

  Zagreus’s pulse pounded hard as he stared up into Hades’s enraged face. As a god, Zagreus was immortal. His father couldn’t kill him even if he wanted to. He couldn’t even strip him of his powers. But he could destroy everything Zagreus had built, and he knew where Cynna was located. In retaliation for what he considered betrayal, Hades wouldn’t hesitate to take the only thing Zagreus really cared about.

  “I’m not waiting to claim anything,” Zagreus lied. “This is all part of my plan. He cares for the female. Physical pain didn’t break him. Sexual pain didn’t seem to faze him. Emotional pain is the only thing that will work. The female is on our side. In fact,” he went on, extending the lie, “this was all her idea. As soon as the demigod falls in love with her, she’ll alert me. My presence will signal the ultimate betrayal. And that will be enough to finally break him the way we want.”

  Hades eased back, his eyes full of distrust. But Zagreus knew the god wanted Nick more than he wanted anything else. And this explanation—even if not completely true—made perfect sense. He breathed a little easier. Yeah, he might just have lost Nick’s powers for himself, but if he played his cards right, he could keep his lair and Cynna too.

  Rage covered Hades’s features, and he slammed his foot into the floor. A massive earthquake shook the tunnels, knocking over the stone desk, dropping pictures from the walls, making rocks crumble from the ceiling and crash against the ground.

  Zagreus lurched back from being pummeled by falling stones. When the shaking finally subsided, Hades’s booming voice roared through the cavern.

  “I will not be fucked with. I warned you what would happen if you double-crossed me.”

  “I’m not double-crossing you,” Zagreus lied, pushing to his feet. “He’s going to break.”

  Hades stalked forward, forcing Zagreus to scramble back until his spine hit the wall. The god-king of the Underworld glared into his son’s eyes.

  “You’re right, he will. But you, my lecherous son, will never claim him. And when he finally breaks, Krónos’s powers will transfer to me. I want him back. Now. If you ever want to see your precious bitch again, you’ll do exactly as I say. Gather your satyr army and be ready to march at midnight.”

  Nick’s hands were sweating.

  Standing outside the bedroom door in the empty hall on the fifth floor of the castle, he swiped his damp palms against the thighs of his jeans, lifted his hand to knock, then lowered it quickly and stepped back.

  Holy fuck. What the hell was he doing? His chest grew so tight he couldn’t breathe. Bracing his hands on his hips, he paced away, focusing on the push and pull of air in his lungs until he could think again.

  He’d been putting this off for fifteen minutes, pacing back and forth in this corridor, trying to convince himself to just go in there and get it over with. But every time he tried, he pictured Cynna as she’d looked just before she walked away from him, her eyes no longer dead and flat as they’d been in Zagreus’s lair, but filled with so much pain and heartbreak, he hadn’t known what to say or do to make this better for her.

  He stopped. Raked a hand through his short hair. Fisted the locks and pulled so hard, pain spiraled all through his skull. He loved her. Loved her. Not with candy and flowers, but with his whole heart and mind. And he was about to step into this room and screw another woman, all because the gods enjoyed fucking with his life.

  He couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t care if his soul was linked to someone else. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t—

  “Come into the room, Nick.” Surprised, Nick looked up to see Isadora, dressed in loose jeans and a thick cream-colored sweater, standing in the open doorway to the suite. “I can’t stand listening to you pace out here anymore.”

  The soul mate draw he’d always felt with her tugged at something deep inside him, and before he even realized it, his feet were moving, carrying him from the hall into the entry of the suite, then into a living room with walls steeped all in red.

  His pulse raced. He glanced around the room, expecting to see nothing but a bed, but to his relief, he discovered he was standing in a living area. White plush furnishings were set out in front of a whitewashed fireplace, flames already flickering in the hearth, and black-and-white framed photographs of flowers and hillsides decorated the walls.

  Wrong. So fucking wrong. This whole thing is just—

  Isadora sat on the couch and tucked one bare foot up under her, looking petite against the enormous piece of furniture, and swiped her blonde hair away from her face. “Why don’t we just…sit for a little bit.”

  Before the fucking began? Nick’s legs felt suddenly wobbly. He rubbed his damp hands on his thighs once more and sat in a side chair across from her. “Okay.”

  Silence settled over the room. Somewhere close, a clock ticked, but Nick’s mind was drifting. To his brother, wondering where Demetrius was right this moment and what the hell he was thinking. To Cynna, and whether or not she’d ever talk to him again after this night.

  “I heard you went out to the settlement,” Isadora said softly.

  Small talk. Shit. Part of him was thankful for it. Part of him just wanted to get this damn thing over with so he could get the hell out of here.

  He cleared his throat, shifted in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”

  “I bet that was difficult.”

  A lump formed in his throat. Seeing his people, what had happened to them, learning about his friends who had died… It was more difficult than anything he’d ever done. His memory slid to the alley and the moment he’d nearly lost it for good. And the way Cynna had pulled him back, comforted him, cared nothing about what might happen to her, and given everything to him.

  He closed his eyes. And a warm wetness burned the backs of his eyelids. One he’d never felt before.

  “You don’t want to do this, do you?” Isadora asked in a quiet voice.

  Nick didn’t answer. Didn’t know what to say. He felt torn between his heart and his soul. Two things he’d always thought were connected.

  He opened his eyes and looked over at his soul mate. At the female he would always be drawn to. And though that pull to her was still there, pushing him toward her, to help her, to save her, what he felt in his heart was stronger. “If you’d asked me six months ago if I wanted this, I would have said yes. Absolutely. But now… Everything’s different now. I’m different. And I don’t…”

  Shit. How did he say this?

  “I don’t want it either,” Isadora blurted.

  “You don’t?”

  She shook her head and blinked back the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Demetrius and I argued about it. I know it’s the right thing to do, but I just…”

  “You can’t do it,” he finished for her.

  “No,” she whispered. “I don’t want anyone to die because of me. Casey, Callia, Zander…” She closed her eyes tight, opened them again. “I don’t want them to get hurt. And I don’t want anything bad to happen to the people of this realm or to the Misos, but I’m tired of doing the right thing for everyone else. I know it’s selfish, but all I can think about is what this will do to my family. To Elysia. To Demetrius. If we go through with this, Nick, it will kill Demetrius. Maybe not at first, but it will eat away at him until the man I fell in love with is gone. He already hates that he couldn’t save me from Hades’s contract on my life. He’ll blame himself that he couldn’t fix this too.”

  “None of this is Demetrius’s fault.”

  “It’s not yours either.”

  No, it wasn’t. It was the gods’. And they were all nothing more than pawns in their fucking game.

  He pushed from the chair, crossed to the couch, and sat next to her. Leaning forward, he reached for her hand, feeling how cold her skin was and the way her pulse jumped against his fingers.

  Yes, she was growing weaker because of him. He knew that in his soul. And yes, he could tell that his touch had a positive effect on her. But he wasn’t convinced sex was
the solution. There had to be another way. Something they’d all missed.

  He cradled her palm against his and smoothed his fingers over the back of her hand, feeling her skin warm the longer he held her. And when he looked up into her chocolate eyes to ask if she felt it too, a jolt of familiarity shot through him. The same familiarity he’d felt when he’d been in Zagreus’s tunnels looking…into Cynna’s eyes.

  “What is it?” Isadora’s brow dropped low. “Are you okay?”

  He gave his head a swift shake, but the scars on his back were tingling again, and puzzle pieces were shifting around in his mind, trying to find a fit. “Yeah. I’m…I’m fine.”

  She shot him a look that said she wasn’t quite sure she believed him, then sighed and looked down at their joined hands. “So what are we going to do?”

  He really had no idea what they should do, but he knew exactly what he couldn’t do. “You know, something no one’s thought of is the fact those four Argonauts everyone’s basing this theory on were given their immortality. I was born with it, even if it’s taken this long to come out. That might not seem like a big difference, but in the eyes of the gods, it might be enough. No one truly knows if the same thing that happened to those Argonauts’ soul mates will happen to you.”

  “I know. Theron, Zander, Demetrius… They’re all desperate, grasping for a solution.”

  He knew that. Understood it. But he didn’t want to accidentally make things worse basing all this on a guess. He nodded toward their joined hands. “This helps, doesn’t it? My touch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll continue to do this.”

  She eyed him warily. “You’re going to sit here and hold my hand all day?”

  “For several hours a day, if that’s what it takes. Whatever we can do to slow this thing down until we can come up with a different solution. Because there has to be one. I can’t come between you and Demetrius, Isadora. I might have tried once, but it was wrong of me. I know that now.”

  Isadora stared at him for several long seconds, then quietly said, “You’re in love with her, aren’t you? The female you escaped with. Cynna.”

  Nick’s heart picked up speed. And memories of Cynna bombarded him from every side. The way she’d tended his wound in Zagreus’s lair, the moment she’d freed him from his cell, the strength it had taken for her to put herself between him and his darkness at the colony, and, ultimately, the hurt in her eyes when she’d left him tonight.

  He drew in a deep breath that did nothing to ease the growing ache in his chest. “Yeah, I am. Which is pretty freakin’ strange, because I’ve never been in love before.”

  “It changes the way you see the world, doesn’t it?”

  He looked into her eyes, for the first time understanding her. “It changes everything.”

  “Then go to her.”

  His brow dropped. “What?”

  Gently, she pulled her hand from his. “I won’t come between you and her either. I might have been willing to consider it when I thought your heart wasn’t on the line, but now that I know the truth…” She shook her head. “I won’t destroy both of the men I care most for in this life all because the gods will it to be done.”

  Something in his soul relaxed. All the pent-up frustration he’d felt through the years because he couldn’t have her leaked away. He reached for her without thinking, wrapped his arms around her and drew her against his chest. Her arms wound around his back, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. And as his body heat seeped into her, easing the chill of her skin, he realized this was the first time he’d ever held her. The only other time he’d been this close to her was when he’d foolishly kissed her, thinking he could force her to care for him.

  What an idiot he’d been. She already had cared for him. He’d just been too stupid to realize her heart would always belong to his brother. Which was exactly where it was meant to be.

  “We’ll find a way to fix this,” he said over her head.

  “Maybe.” She eased out of his arms and rose. “Maybe not. But it’s not your responsibility. And I don’t want you to worry about me anymore tonight.” Her expression softened. “Go to her, Nick. And tell her… Tell her I’m sorry. For all of this.”

  He pushed to his feet. “What about you?”

  She smiled, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “I’ll be fine. Like you said, we’ve still got time. Go. Before Cynna leaves and you can’t find her.”

  Warmth and need and hope pulsed through Nick’s chest. His hands grew sweaty all over again, but this time not with apprehension. With anticipation. And at the first thought of Cynna, he knew exactly where she’d gone. Knew he’d always be able to find her because she held his heart.

  “I’ll come back,” he said. “We’ll figure this out.”

  “Yes,” Isadora said softly as he flashed from the room. “Someday maybe we will. But not tonight.”

  Cynna knelt in front of the remembrance stones in the field behind what was left of her parents’ home on the outskirts of Kyrenia and brushed the dirt and leaves from her parents’ names.

  Moonlight shone down, enough light to illuminate the pale pink, gray, and white flowers that bloomed around the stones year round.

  Asphodel. The ghostly wildflower grew around all the remembrance stones of the dead in Argolea. Food for the souls of the deceased, her mother had once told her. She’d always found it morbid that life should spring from death. But tonight that thought eased the pain she was feeling. If only a touch.

  Shuffling sounded behind her, and without looking, she knew Nick had found her. Knew because no one else would even think to come out here for her. Not even Delia.

  She swiped at her eyes and slowly pushed to her feet. She’d carefully kept the truth from Nick as soon as she’d realized his connection to the Argonauts, but tonight that secret no longer mattered. And maybe if he knew who she really was, he’d stop following her. Because, gods knew, she couldn’t handle being near him after what he’d just done.

  “My mother’s name was Andromeda,” she said without turning. “She lived in Argolea most of her life. She knew my father there when he served with the Council of Elders. She was bound to a very powerful ándras at the time who clearly didn’t love her back. She told me once she tried to make him happy, tried to give him sons, but the Fates were never on her side, and he blamed her for that. For what he called her liability. She stayed with him for hundreds of years, even though she was miserable. Divorce, from someone as powerful as him, wasn’t only frowned upon, it wasn’t allowed.”

  Nick didn’t say anything, but Cynna told herself that was for the best. The sooner she got through this, the sooner they could be done. In the silence, she stared down at the remembrance stone and her mother’s name, the engraving worn from the weather of the years. Her mother had been gone so long, it was hard for Cynna to call up her image, something that made her heart ache even more.

  She swallowed back the pain and forced herself to go on. “He had many affairs, but when she realized he’d been sleeping with her closest confidante, and that the female was pregnant, she couldn’t take it anymore. She left him. My father was her friend, and he helped her escape. But when her husband learned of what had happened, he wasn’t happy. He sent his soldiers to bring her back, only they couldn’t find her. To save face, he publicly announced that she’d crossed into the human realm on a shopping spree and was killed by a pack of daemons.”

  “Cynna,” Nick finally said after several seconds, “are you saying—”

  “Yes.” She turned to face him. He was wearing a thick gray Henley, jeans, boots, and a dark jacket. And standing before her in the moonlight with his blond hair mussed and that sexy scruff on his jaw, her heart did a little flip. Then dropped into the pit of her stomach all over again because, as much as she wanted him, she couldn’t have him. Never again.

  She pushed aside the hurt. His confused expression said he’d obviously heard the stories. But knowing Demetrius was his
brother, of course he’d have heard them all.

  “My mother was Andromeda, the queen of Argolea. She left the king, came here, and started over. With my father’s help. They were never bound, not legally at least, but the witches didn’t care. They took them in as their own, gave them a place to live, and in return, my parents helped hundreds of other refugees who were persecuted or banished by the monarchy and the Council for different reasons.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, rubbed the chill at her arms, and looked down at the asphodel all around her feet. Life from death. She hoped that was true, because her life seemed to be filled with nothing but misery.

  “I was born a few years later. I grew up with two parents who loved each other more than life itself. They didn’t have much, but they had each other. And that was all that mattered. Until the Council’s spies discovered the queen was living in Kyrenia and who she was with. They claimed it was the witches they were trying to eradicate, but it wasn’t. It was her and the former Council member she’d left with. The one who’d defied them. And the king knew. He gave his permission. He sat back and did nothing as his wife was murdered.”

  “Gods.” Nick rubbed a hand over his face. “Isadora is your sister. I knew your eyes were familiar. I even noticed it tonight.”

  A wave of betrayal and hurt rushed through Cynna. She didn’t want to think of him with Isadora tonight. Didn’t want the image of what they’d done together anywhere in her mind. She turned away and stalked across the field, back toward the ruins of her parents’ house. “Half sister. And now you know why I hate her so much.”

  “Because her father took everything from you.”

  Her feet stilled. He was behind her. Close, but not too close. And her heart pounded hard with the desire to touch him and the need to push him away. “Yes,” she whispered. “And like father, like daughter, she’s doing it again. Which is why I need you to go and never follow me again.” Her throat grew thick. “I know revenge isn’t the answer anymore, but I can’t…be around you. Not after all this. It’s too much.”