A licentious grin curled her mouth. “I never said I wouldn’t fuck you.”
“Answer the question, Atalanta.”
“You don’t,” she said, sobering. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
“I learned not to trust a long time ago.” He let go of her, leaned back. “However, I am willing to make you a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
He nodded toward Gryphon. “I’ll gift your doulas there with what you ask and give you six months to find the Orb and all the elements so you can free me from Tartarus. If you don’t, I’ll drag that sonofabitch back here and I’ll program that darkness inside him to drag your ass back as well. And that girl you saw in here earlier?” He leaned close. “If you don’t get me the fuck out of here, you’ll be her.”
Atalanta’s face blanched. “Six months isn’t long enough to—”
“Tantalus, come in here,” Krónos called.
A male dressed all in white with scars running down both cheeks emerged from the door to the right. “Yes, my king?”
“Bring me my glass.”
The male disappeared, then reemerged with a flat object covered with a velvet cloth. He handed the object to Krónos, bowed, and retreated through the door.
Atalanta watched with wide eyes as Krónos removed the cloth and tossed it on the desk behind him. “You have a looking glass?”
“All the better to see you with, my dear.” He waved his hand over the glass. “Show me my heart’s desire.”
Atalanta looked down at the glass and gasped. Her gaze shot toward Gryphon, then back to the glass again. “How…? I thought—”
“I had a feeling our warlock was one and the same.” He set the glass on the table behind him. “Six months. You can either take the deal, or we can strap you to the wall now.”
She shot a look at the shackles and chains mounted behind him. And for a minute, Gryphon’s chest warmed at the idea of Atalanta bound to that wall. Then the warmth dimmed, because he knew if she was strapped up there, he would be too.
Take the deal, take the deal, take the deal…
He didn’t know what the deal really was, but something inside told him it was infinitely better than letting Krónos have his way with them.
Atalanta held her hand out to the Elder God. “I accept.”
Krónos’s lips curled in a malicious grin. He closed his hand around Atalanta’s and dragged her close, trapping her between his legs. As she sucked in a surprised breath, he looked over her shoulder to where Gryphon stood, hoping—praying—to be sent from the room.
“Tell your slave to get his ass over here,” Krónos said in a low voice, his soulless eyes fixed on Gryphon. “We’re going to have a little fun, just the three of us, to seal the deal before I tether you together.”
Chapter 17
Orpheus didn’t dare move.
His heart beat like wildfire against his ribs as Skyla lay draped over him, her face pressed into his shoulder, her warm breath fanning his neck while she worked to slow her pulse.
Somehow they’d made it to the floor. One of them—he wasn’t sure who—had had the good sense to throw cushions down so they weren’t sprawled on the hardwood. But another round of mind-blowing sex and his third—fourth?—screaming orgasm weren’t what kept him still. No, what kept him from moving a single muscle were the images flickering through his mind like some old-time movie set on fast-forward, with Skyla’s face as the constant. The ones that had started just as he’d climaxed the last time and were still flashing for his eyes only in both black-and-white and color like a collage set to silence.
Her, smiling. Dressed in a white gown, her hair piled in braids on the top of her head. Standing on a balcony with a blue-green sea behind her. Wearing her Siren fighting gear. In a courtyard, talking with people he didn’t recognize dressed in what looked like sheets. With the other Sirens in a field of green. Lying naked on a bed of blue silk. Looking sated and sexy and completely worn-out.
Holy skata. He was seriously losing it. Like certifiable, strap-me-in-a-padded-cell, fast-track-to-the-loony-bin losing it. He shut his eyes, gave his head a swift shake, opened them again. The images were still there, though if anything playing faster now.
Skyla drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, relaxed everywhere against him. “I hope that was enough follow-through for you, because I’m officially beat. I think you broke me.”
He’d have laughed if he wasn’t already freaking the hell out. And shit, she was making herself comfortable, which meant she wanted to snuggle. When all he wanted to do was beat feet for the door and get away from her. Panic clawed its way up his chest, but he worked to keep from hyperventilating so she wouldn’t know he was wigging out. “Good to know.”
She chuckled, burrowed in deeper. Gods, she had to feel his racing pulse. She probably thought he was still jacked up from the sex, which he was, but shit…what the hell was with the images? Now she was naked, swimming in the ocean? Okay, this twisted fantasy shit had to end here.
He squeezed his eyes together tight, willed his brain to stop dicking around. “Why wouldn’t Athena answer you?”
“What?” The surprise in her voice wasn’t the least bit sexy, and that’s what he needed. To get the topic away from earth-shattering orgasms so he could get his mind off naked skin browning in the sun.
“Athena. You said the goddess wouldn’t answer you. Why not?”
“Oh.” She shifted off him, just enough so her hip was against the cushion but her arms and legs were still draped across him. He’d never been claustrophobic before, but right now he felt like he couldn’t breathe. There was so much pressure in his chest. Fresh air would be good. A lot of it.
“I suppose it’s because she doesn’t expect me to complete this mission.”
“And why not?”
She pushed up on her elbow. “Are you okay? You seem, I don’t know, tense. I thought sex was supposed to relax a man.”
“I’m not a man, Siren.” But because he caught the slightest bit of hurt in her eyes at his terse voice, he worked to keep the bite from his words when he added, “I don’t ever really relax. Curse of the daemon inside me and all that. Answer the question. Why wouldn’t she think you’d complete this mission?”
She blew out a long breath, played with the thin patch of hair on his chest. “A few weeks ago I was injured in a fight. With a daemon hybrid. He got the jump on me. I was careless. If it hadn’t been for my sisters, I probably wouldn’t have survived.”
The images came to a stop, the last one fading in a poof of smoke. “Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where were you injured?”
“Italy.”
“Not where, idiot. Where?”
“Oh, here.” She smiled as she turned so he could see the long scar that ran from just under her right breast, diagonally across her ribs, and around her hip to the small of her back.
“Holy shit.” He’d felt the puckered skin when he’d been exploring her body, but in the shadows, with her twisting all different ways, it had been hard to see. Carefully, he ran his fingers over the scar and examined it in the moonlight. “This was only a few weeks ago?”
“Yeah. Luckily, we Sirens heal fast too. It’ll be just a thin white line soon.” She eased back down next to him, grazed her fingers over his chest hair again. Sent shards of heat through his torso. “Anyway, I convinced Athena to let me come on this mission. She wanted me to stay behind. Didn’t think I was ready.”
He thought back to that first night. In the trees behind the amphitheater. The quick flash of fear in her eyes when she’d seen those hybrids change. The one she’d masked quickly and probably wouldn’t ever cop to. “And that’s why she won’t answer you? Because she thinks you’re weak?”
“Not just that.” He could sense from her words and what she wasn’t saying that there was more. He waited, though he wanted to shake the answers out of her more than he liked. “I’ve been with the Sirens a long time. And when I took my vows, I th
ought I was doing something good, you know? Helping Zeus keep balance and order in the universe. Over the years, though…well, let’s just say that recently I’ve seen the world from a different perspective. And I’m realizing that what Zeus and Athena have led me and the other Sirens to believe all these years isn’t the entire truth.”
Orpheus could have told her that. His first reaction was to ask why she hadn’t figured it out sooner, but then he thought about what her life as a Siren must be like. Living on Olympus, surrounded by gods, separated from the living realm, and only going there to do Zeus’s bidding. If you’re taught one thing and are never shown anything different, it would make sense you’d see that as truth, wouldn’t it?
“How long have you been with the Sirens?”
She didn’t answer.
“Skyla?”
“A long time,” she finally answered. “A lot longer than the rest. I, uh, met your forefather.”
“Perseus?” He stared at her for confirmation, barely believed what she’d just said could be true. She continued to play with the hair on his chest and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Are you telling me you’re over two thousand years old?”
She cringed. “Two thousand six hundred and four, actually.”
No way.
Her eyes slowly shifted to his. “Surprised?”
Floored. And he’d thought he was old. Shit, he was a baby compared to her. “Are all the Sirens—?”
“No. Most serve only a few hundred years. That’s the goal, anyway. My mother was a Siren. Zeus tends to recruit from past Sirens he deems worthy. Good genes, you know.” She smiled, but he was still too shocked to smile back. “I was two when I started my home training. At the age of twenty I took my vows, was inducted into the order. I moved to Olympus, spent the next few decades mastering my skills, but didn’t begin formally serving with the Sirens until I was about forty. It’s common for a Siren to give three, four hundred years to the order, then leave to marry and raise a family. From that point they’re usually granted a blessed life, much like the Argoleans, if they so choose.”
“But you never left. Why?” He couldn’t imagine dedicating his life to anyone. Hell, he’d spent his three hundred years being pissed the gods had overlooked him to serve with the Argonauts even though he was the eldest from Perseus’s line, but now that he had the markings, he didn’t want to be tied to them. Certainly couldn’t see giving twenty-five hundred years to them, even if he could.
She shrugged. Slid her fingers down to his sternum. “Just never had a reason to.”
Again, he sensed there was more she wasn’t saying. And the hurt he saw flash over her features before she masked the emotion told him loud and clear something dark in her past was the reason she’d stayed hidden behind the order and hadn’t ventured out to truly live.
Who was he to judge her, though? Wasn’t he doing the same thing? Using his daemon as a reason to remain closed off from others, to keep from finding some sort of happiness in this life? He knew it existed. Hell, if someone could love Demetrius, then anything was possible.
His pulse picked up speed and his skin grew hot again. Only this time it wasn’t panic or even desire warming him from the inside out. It was something else. Something that filled the empty place in his chest he’d lived with since the day Gryphon was lost. Something he wasn’t sure he was ready to face.
“I wasn’t going to tell Athena where we are or where we’re heading next,” she said, her sexy voice cutting through his thoughts. “I was just trying to check in so she doesn’t send more Sirens after us.”
“Why?”
This time, she met his stare head-on. No fear, no worry, only determination shone in her amethyst eyes. “Because she sent me to do a job, and I’m doing it.”
He knew that answer could be taken in a variety of ways. She hadn’t said she was going to turn him in, but she hadn’t said she wouldn’t either. Or that she wouldn’t eventually kill him if she decided that’s what needed to be done.
She yawned, snuggled back into him. “Give Maelea an hour or two to sleep, then we’ll go ask her where it is. She looked exhausted when I left her. She’s growing on me, daemon. In a petulant, irritating, teenager sort of way. The more I’m around her, the more I sort of like her.”
Her eyes slid closed, her face relaxed. Maelea wasn’t the only one who was exhausted, he realized. His Siren looked as though she could sleep for a week.
His. It was the first time he’d thought of her as his. She wasn’t, though. Never would be. They were on opposite sides of a war that was only just beginning. And this moment of truce didn’t do anything but reinforce that fact.
His chest ached at that realization, and as she drifted off to sleep in his arms that place inside that had seemed so full only moments before deflated, leaking out all the warmth right along with it. He lay still, tried to regulate his pulse so it would drop out of the stratosphere and he could think straight. Tried to figure out what the hell he needed to do next.
And knew only one thing for sure.
Skyla was not his goal. The Orb was. Everything hinged on that. And it was time he remembered that fact.
***
Orpheus’s boots echoed through the dark corridor as he moved down the hallway toward the room Maelea had been given. He hoped like hell Ghoul Girl was in there and that the Siren had been lying when she’d said she’d hidden her away. He didn’t have time to play hide-and-seek, and he definitely wasn’t in the mood.
Thoughts of Skyla lying naked in the moonlight, hair fanned out around her, eyes closed in sleep, filtered through his mind, but he pushed them to the side. Walking away from her tonight was the first smart thing he’d done since he’d met her. He was done being a schmuck. No matter how great sex was with her, no matter how much he wanted to go back to her and do it all again, it wasn’t worth compromising his goals. Those images of her that had been rolling through his head when he’d climaxed? Those thoughts of her being his? Those were prime examples of how twisted his brain was becoming with every minute they spent together.
He sensed Maelea from the hallway outside her room even before he came to her door. The same light and dark warred inside her that he’d noticed the first night, but the light didn’t repel his daemon now as it had then. He felt the daemon move inside him, but the beast didn’t come screaming to the forefront like usual. Didn’t make any attempt to do anything but lie down and sleep, which was just plain weird.
He didn’t have a clue what was happening to him, but he knew Skyla was right. His eyes hadn’t once shifted green since they’d taken down those hellhounds after the train wreck. And though he knew his daemon was still in there somewhere, calling on its strength was becoming harder and harder to do.
He glanced at his watch. Two thirty-two a.m. Ghoul Girl was probably asleep, but he needed what was in her brain. And if he didn’t get it now, he’d have to deal with the Siren.
And he was done dealing with the Siren. Way done.
He lifted his fist, knocked. Seconds passed in silence, then a small voice said, “Come in.”
The room was dark, but through the moonlight shining in from the tall windows he could see Maelea sitting cross-legged on the bed, a white billowy nightgown fanning out around her, her long black hair falling past her shoulders like ribbons of silk. No surprise registered on her ashen face when he stepped into the room, and he figured that made sense. She was the daughter of Zeus and Persephone. If he could sense her, she could probably sense him as well.
He closed the door at his back. “Not tired?”
“I don’t sleep much.”
That made two of them.
He scrubbed a hand over his head. Tried to forget Skyla’s fingers skimming through the hair at his nape when he’d kissed her after the train derailment and the electrical charge that had sent through his body. “I came to talk to you about—”
“Is it true?”
“What?”
“About your brother? Is it true he was sent to
the Underworld and that you seek the Orb to save him?”
Isadora, damn it. He loathed the way the queen kept sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.
“It is, isn’t it?” Maelea persisted when he didn’t respond. “You need the Orb to rescue him.”
He hated the fact that everyone seemed to know his plans before he’d even solidified them. Why did they think he was anything but the seething daemon inside him? Isadora, Skyla, now Maelea. They all thought he was some kind of heroic Argonaut when the truth was, inside he was the same as he’d always been.
He perched his hands on his hips, shot her his most wicked glare. But he could tell from the expectant look on her face that she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by him anymore. Which only pissed him off more.
“Where is it?” He locked his jaw. His fists itched to hit something. But for Ghoul Girl, because he needed her help, he killed the urge so as not to scare her.
She looked down at her dainty hands, resting in her lap. “The darkness is leaving you. At first I thought you were the one I was supposed to…” Her voice trailed off and she swallowed. “But I realized pretty quickly that you weren’t him. It’ll be gone soon. Does it leave you feeling empty?”
He had no idea what she was talking about, but the lack of animosity in her voice was new. And unsettling. “How do you—?”
“I sense darkness. I’m attracted to it. Something I can thank my mother and her wretched husband for, I guess.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “I wish mine would go away. I’d relish the emptiness.”
The anger left him as swiftly as it had hit. And in the silence he realized, yeah, they were more alike than she knew.
That emptiness in his chest that had consumed him the instant Gryphon’s soul was lost opened up like a chasm between worlds, the pain as stark and fresh as the minute it had hit. Before he thought better of it, he crossed to the bed. She looked up in surprise when he reached for her hand, pushed the sleeve of her gown up, and turned her wrist over, revealing the thin white scars all over her inner forearms. “Something tells me you can’t handle any more emptiness.”
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