by Addison Fox
Kane drifted in and out of consciousness, only to be awakened by the cool touch and crooning voice of their caretaker, Callie. Small and petite, she ordered the lot of them around with military precision. Positioning a warm flask at his lips, her voice was firm, but gentle. “Drink this down.”
The bland broth stayed down—the first of anything to do so in days—and he fell back to sleep within minutes of drinking it.
And so it had gone.
For three more days, he drifted in and out of consciousness. And for the first time since the poison invaded his body, he didn’t have to walk through the fire alone.
Kane knew he would have gone on that way, hiding his annual trip into hell. The way he figured it, the poison was a punishment for his folly. A penalty for falling in love. A lifetime sentence for his hubris.
Thankfully, his family thought otherwise.
Chapter Eleven
Emmett?
How could Emmett be responsible for Kane’s condition? For the poison that raged inside the Warrior’s body, slowly killing him?
And she’d gone and made a bargain with the man. A very specific bargain with a very specific target. Emmett? The man she’d secured the vial of blood for?
Oh gods, this was very, very bad.
Ilsa paced a long, wood-paneled study filled with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, each shelf bursting with books. Quinn had shoved her in here with the promise he’d return shortly, threatening to follow her to the ends of the earth if she left.
The gruff warning meant nothing—she’d come and go as she pleased—but the image of Kane fighting for his life in the next room ensured she’d stay put far more effectively than an idle threat.
It had become increasingly clear to her since first meeting Kane, the bargain she’d made with Emmett was a mistake of momentous proportions. But this?
This news meant Emmett had used her and her anger toward Themis as a weapon against her.
She’d been duped.
Her pulse pounded and her stomach clenched in undulating waves as the horrible, bitter truth of the matter sank in. With unfailing regularity, she seemed completely incapable of dealing with others. Obviously Rhea and, later, Zeus had only been the beginning.
How had she missed it? How had she possibly missed the manipulation in Emmett’s true intentions? How could she have been so stupid, allowing the need for vengeance to overshadow something so obvious?
So calculated?
Emmett knelt on the floor of her cave on Mount Ida in supplication, his eyes focused on the floor as he bowed his head. Despite her initial desire to run from the cave and never look back, she had an odd attachment to it.
It was home.
Yet he’d found it.
“You are the goddess Nemesis. And you are the only one who can help me.”
She’d determined from the start that she’d not use her immortality to simply kill whatever got in her way. The gifts bestowed upon her by Hades had value—they weren’t to be used for personal gain. She’d lived by that code—believed in it—but there was something about this man, this mortal, that put her senses on high alert.
Her fingers curled into fists at her sides as she stared down at him.
“Help you? How did a mortal like you even find me? You are lucky I don’t kill you now for your impertinence.”
“It is a risk I am willing to take. You are a legend, my goddess.” His eyes lifted. “And you are the only one with the knowledge—nay, the abilities—to help me.”
“And why should I help you? Why should I believe you when you say Emmett is your name?”
“I don’t lie to you. I am Emmett, born in Florence in 1628. Although my body is mortal, my soul expands the boundaries of my life. It is the great power that lives inside of me that has enabled me to live to nearly four hundred years, now.”
“You’re a sorcerer, then?”
“Yes. And my quest is so important to me, I will give up even that to possess it.”
The question of how he’d found her still caused concern, his answers slightly too vague for comfort. She stared down into his eyes, which swirled with a hunger he couldn’t conceal. Keeping her voice bland, she pushed at him, questioning his sincerity and determination. “You bore me, Sorcerer. Leave now and I’ll allow you to live.”
His gaze never wavered as those eyes remained fixed upon hers. “I will offer you something great in return for your help. Something far greater than what I ask of you.”
“What do you seek?”
Seeds of doubt sprouted in the back of her mind. How did he find her? And what could she possibly gain from dealings with a mortal?
And why did he look so sure she’d agree?
But all her doubts were forgotten in his next words.
“I seek the Scorpio Warrior of the Zodiac. He ruined my sister nigh on many years now, and I seek my vengeance against him.”
Interest slammed through her, filling up the endlessly empty chambers of her soul. She knew of the zodiac Warriors. Knew of their origins in the Great Agreement between her archenemy, Themis, and her betrayer, Zeus.
With false bravado, she stared at Emmett. “And what matter is this to me?”
“Your desire for vengeance against Themis is legend, my goddess. Whispered by those who know of these matters. I’ve heard of the great betrayal that caused Zeus to punish you.”
Ilsa had simply stared, unwilling to reply for fear she’d give herself away.
As if sensing her interest in hearing more, Emmett continued. “Her betrayal of you. Themis. It was she who whispered in Zeus’s ear, with her endless prattle about balance and justice. She who forced you to this life.”
“You speak boldly, Sorcerer. Who would dare whisper of me? Whisper of the great god, Zeus? One who cares little for his life, no doubt.”
“The truth has a way of being found out, Goddess.”
When she didn’t reply, the man rose to his feet, his penetrating gaze as fixed as a steel cable. “I simply bargain with what I know you desire, Goddess.”
“Just because you possess information, Sorcerer, doesn’t mean you have any power with which to negotiate.”
The sorcerer stood at his full height. “But I do have something to bargain with, and the power to make it happen.”
“What is this you speak of?”
“I know when Zeus punished you he decreed you to be unable to retain corporeal form outside this cave.”
How could he possibly know the great consequence of Zeus’s unimaginable betrayal?
At that she’d leaped forward, taking his throat between her hands. Despite his height advantage, the sorcerer stood before her, his hands at his sides, that steady gaze still unwavering.
“You take liberties, Emmett the sorcerer. Great liberties. You speak of things you should have no knowledge of.”
A sly smile hovered at his lips. “So am I wrong?”
“Yes, you are.”
The swirling gaze stilled, his eyebrows narrowing over the deep green of his irises.
“I leave this cave and I walk in sunlight.”
She took momentary satisfaction in obviously tripping him up. Clearly he didn’t have quite the cache of information he’d believed.
Words sputtered at his lips as he struggled to find a reply. “This is not true. It cannot be true.”
“Aye, it is. I exist in the world, just as much as you do.”
Emmett moved away from her and seated himself on an animal skin she kept on the floor, near her fire pit. Her normal ability to see into men’s souls eluded her, his essence cloaked behind an iron will.
The fact he even knew how to do that was fascinating and she moved toward him, taking a seat on a skin opposite him. It took great strength—great understanding of one’s essence—to cloak the soul.
“I came to offer you a great bargain, Goddess. I can see I was mistaken.”
“What did you hope to receive in return, Sorcerer?”
His voice was quiet in the cave,
the tone so low his words didn’t echo around the walls. “I hoped to avenge my sister.”
“What vengeance do you seek? And why?”
“The Scorpio betrayed my sister. Scorned her and left her behind, not caring what happened to her. Not caring if she lived or died.”
Ilsa felt immediate sympathy for this nameless, faceless sister. She knew the pain of abandonment, especially for one deeply cared for. “Why do you seek me?”
“You, too, seek vengeance. Against Themis.” Emmett’s eyes searched her face. “I know this is true. I know it.”
Ilsa nodded, unable to deny something she hated on a visceral level.
“I need you to get something for me from one of her Warriors. If you do that, I can help deliver you Themis.”
She refrained from laughing at his earnest words. As if this mortal could deliver a goddess and her Warrior. “You need me to get you something? And in return you’ll hand me Themis. And just how do you propose to do this?”
“I know how to reach the Scorpio.”
“That’s a bold statement.”
“Goddess. As I stand here, I tell you, I can reach him for you. Connect you to him.”
“And what is it you’d like me to do?”
“I need you to secure a vial of his blood.”
“And then?”
“With that, I will find a way to capture him. Weaken him. Themis will come for him. She’ll know he is in danger and will not be able to resist providing her aid.”
Ilsa nodded, weighing the truth of his words—and his ability to deliver on them.
“When she arrives, you may have Themis. All I ask is that you leave the Warrior for me.”
“And if I agree? How long do you propose this to take?”
“It must be done in stages.”
“Stages?”
“The Warrior has protection. His own strength as well as the strength of his brothers. You’ll need to earn his trust. Work with him. Spend time with him. Once you have him in your grasp, you will have the access you seek. The access to Themis.”
The memory of her conversation faded as the souls inside of her began their caterwauling again. How had she been so blind to Emmett’s motives?
And was it possible the screams of the souls were getting louder? What had been mildly irritating before had suddenly grown to a great clanging throng in her head.
Diligently ignoring them, she focused on the puzzle that was Emmett. How had he gotten past her defenses?
The straightforward answer was because she was so blinded by vengeance. It was that simple. But how to fix it now?
The MI6-issued cell phone she carried boasted several text messages from the miserable traitor in the past two hours. She ignored them all, desperate and frantic to find a way out of this. Desperate to come up with a plan that would keep Kane safe.
A cold line of sweat crawled down her spine as the screams of Alex and Robert played a demonic counterpoint to her dismal thoughts of Emmett. She desperately needed to get the two of them delivered to Hades. Their constant banging and ramming against her insides felt like they were trying to rend her very soul in half.
But she couldn’t leave Kane.
Why? It wouldn’t take any time at all to port away, deliver the souls and port back.
So why was she so reluctant?
He’d gotten along just fine without her so far.
Without warning, the erotic images of what they’d shared in the garage behind the safe house swamped her. The hot moments overwhelmed her and locked her firmly in place, in spite of her dereliction of duty to Hades.
Quinn stepped into the study, with a pointed look at the open door. “I can see you were smart enough to stay put, unlike last evening at Equinox. You didn’t even close the door behind me earlier.”
A combination of worry and fury burned like steady fire, low in her stomach. The pure, undiluted panic twisted and churned with each minute she spent away from Kane. Add in the increasing pain she felt from carrying the souls of the dead scientists long past an amount of time that was wise and Ilsa figured she was entitled to her raging headache and equally raging bad mood.
“I know you have a problem with me, Quinn, but I’m not leaving until we figure out what’s wrong with Kane.”
Quinn paced the study, his impressive height easily reaching one of the upper rows of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. “You’ve got one thing right. You’re not leaving.”
Despite her desperate desire to stay with Kane, Ilsa was no one’s fool. She’d protected herself for almost sixteen thousand years and the Taurus didn’t scare her. “I’m not some helpless girl you’ve dragged in here. Don’t think you can threaten me and I’ll go curl up in the corner, ready to do your bidding.”
“You don’t have any choice.”
An angry retort nearly spilled from her lips, but Ilsa stopped herself, opting for a different tactic. She was always on the defensive, always trying to explain herself and her actions. Quinn already thought the worst of her.
She was done defending herself now. There’d be plenty of time to do that later, when the truth about her bargain with Emmett came to light.
It would come to light, of that she was certain.
She’d spent her entire service to Hades capturing those who’d thought themselves above the rules of humanity. And had she learned anything from them? Obviously not, if she’d gone and made the exact same mistake.
An act of hubris of colossal proportions.
Quinn broke the silence first. “Tell me again why you think the knife fight caused Kane’s condition.”
“I watched as all of you fought with those things.”
“Those things are Destroyers. As if you didn’t know.”
Another brilliant flare of anger washed over her, but Ilsa settled for a dark glance instead. “Okay. Destroyers.” At his expectant glare, she kept going. “As I told you before, the two of them fought but the only contact made was the knife to Kane’s collarbone. What else could have harmed him like this?”
Quinn nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer.
Of course, who knew with him? She’d been in his presence for less than a day and it was easy to see he was difficult to please, his stubborn, suspicious nature prone to question everything from multiple angles.
Seeking answers to some of her own questions, Ilsa shifted the conversation. “Kane and I were outside when we heard a scream. Who was that?”
“One of the Destroyers squealed the first time Drake got him in a choke hold. Which brings me to a more important point. Would you kindly explain why you ported Kane outside in the first place?”
Ah well, so much for leading the question-and-answer period. “He needed air. Open space. And I knew I could help him.”
“Like you’ve helped him so far.”
Ilsa thought of those glorious moments in the cozy garage, when it was just her and Kane. A long, beautiful stop in time that belonged to no one but the two of them. She refused to taint what they’d shared by discussing it with Quinn.
“We heard the scream and ported into the basement so we could assess the situation. I went first because Kane was in no position to enter the fight on his own.”
She omitted that it was anger—and Kane’s own lack of faith in her—that had sent her barreling into the fight.
“I entered the living room and waited for a moment to jump into the fray and then I stopped looking and simply stared. Other than the attack outside the club last night, I’ve never seen a Destroyer and I was fascinated by the battle, especially when the first one to die disintegrated into a greasy spot.”
Quinn’s eyes stayed focused on her in his persistent disbelief, but he refrained from saying anything, his mouth set in a stubborn slash.
“After I got past the weirdness of the fight, I began to see patterns emerge.”
“What patterns?”
“Battles have patterns. They have energy. Experienced fighters have moves they depend on. Moves they’ve h
oned over time. The older the fighter, the stronger their patterns.”
“Patterns?” His voice tapered off in amazement and for the first time, Ilsa saw an expression on Quinn’s face that, for once, didn’t contain harsh slashes of anger.
She pressed her point, trying to find the words to explain something she intuitively knew. “I watched the patterns that emerged throughout the fighting and I had a sense the neck was the key to everything. Kane confirmed it for me.”
Suspicion again filled Quinn’s eyes and his lips resettled into the harsh line he seemed to reserve only for her. “How could you tell that?”
“The fights had an intimacy to them.”
“Intimacy?”
“Oh yes. A fight to the death has that. Couple the stakes with the careful, deliberate maneuvering toward the neck and it was easy to see. After I watched the first guy fall, I put it together.”
“How convenient.”
A wave of nausea knocked her for a loop as Alex and Robert screamed, the sound echoing through her soul like spiritual nails on a chalkboard.
Gods, she was in one hell of a mess.
“How do you understand battle so well?”
Ilsa didn’t trust the questioning tone, or the sudden out-reach. Wrapping her arms around her stomach to stem the tide of nausea, she tossed back a glib answer. “I’ve had a lot of years to learn.”
“Kane said you work for Hades. Do you battle for the god of the Underworld?”
Although her work for Hades wasn’t exactly a secret—and it certainly didn’t need to stay secret from fellow immortals—she wasn’t interested in getting into it with him. “I don’t see why it’s important. You don’t believe anything I tell you, so why waste the breath?”
“If you really work for Hades, then what was your purpose in drugging Kane six months ago?”
“What happened between Kane and me isn’t any of your business.”
Quinn stalked toward her, his face looming over hers. She knew the tactic—felt it each and every time she removed a soul. There was something about being on the receiving end, however, that chafed.