Bedeviled

by Sable Grace

  “Now?”

  She pulled her white T-shirt over her head and rolled her eyes. “No. Later when it’s too late to do anything. I’m going to instruct the sentinels and then I’m going to Haven and she’s not leaving my sight until her trial is over. I will not let Cronos touch her again.”

  She found her pants, put them on, then dug her boots out from under Ryker’s bed.

  As she headed to the front door, she paused to glance over her shoulder and saw him tugging on his jeans and snatching a shirt from his dresser before he chased after her. He stopped in the hall to slide on his shoes before he finally made it to her side.

  “We can’t stray too far from Olympus. If you’re not near Artemis at sunset—”

  “I know. The pain, the agony, blah blah blah. As long as my change doesn’t prevent me from standing up for Haven at her trial—”

  “Haven’s trial is set for midnight. I think they wanted to give you time for the change so you could attend as Artemis.”

  “We’ll be back well before it’s time to find Artie.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled. “Let’s go.”

  Kyana followed him over the sand dunes until the streets of Below finally came into view, silence hanging between them as they made their way to the large boulders outside the prison.

  When they reached the cell at the end of the long hall, she froze. Blinked. Blinked again in desperate hope that her eyes were deceiving her.

  “No,” she whispered, her knees giving a slight tremble, forcing her to grip the wall for support.

  Haven wasn’t in her cell.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ryker watched Kyana’s face turn ghostly pale even as his own gut twisted with a sickening wave of disbelief. The barrier to Haven’s prison wasn’t sealed, and there was no sign of her anywhere. A sentinel lay facedown in a pool of blood, a key to the cell in his hand, and as he craned his neck to look more deeply into the prison, he could see more bodies filling the eerily quiet halls. At least a half-dozen guards had been posted to guard Haven. It seemed each of them had died doing his job.

  What the hell had Haven done?

  He snatched the key from the sentinel at his feet. “It’s Geoffrey’s,” he said, rubbing the emblem of Hades that had been etched into the front of the five-pointed key.

  Kyana had been right to worry. Geoffrey had been here, and had obviously not left of his own free will.

  “No.” Kyana’s whisper of denial was barely audible. She was frighteningly stoic as she stood in the middle of Haven’s empty cell, her mouth slightly parted, her eyes wide and unblinking.

  “Ky?” He bellowed her name, gaining her attention. “Snap the hell out of it. Cronos has got Haven, and she’s got Geoff.”

  “I. Know.” Her face became a sculpture of porcelain, white and without expression. Her gaze fell to the dead guards and she shook her head. “I won’t be able to save her now. Not after this.”

  “Stop it. You haven’t given up on her yet.” Ryker stood and grabbed her by the shoulders giving her a brisk shake. “You still believe Cronos is inside her making her do all this, Ky. If you don’t, then yes, she is a goner and there’s not a damned thing you’ll be able to do about it.”

  Kyana blinked, seeming to come out of her stupor. “Of course I believe that! This isn’t her fault! But the Order will want to punish someone and I don’t see them putting Cronos on trial. Do you?”

  “You have to link with Haven.”

  She jerked her head toward him, her eyes damp, but her cheeks dry. “I can’t just fall asleep here, Ryker.”

  He trailed his fingers lightly up her arms. “I know you’re worried about them, but you have to try. The fastest way to find Haven and make sure Geoff is all right is to link with her. Maybe we can get you a potion to make you sleep.”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re not going to knock me out unless there’s no other option. What if something happens and I’m helpless? What if Geoffrey needs my help and I let him die because I can’t pull myself out of the potion’s effects?”

  She rubbed the back of her neck, looking pretty damned close to falling apart. “I’m turning into Artemis tonight, Ryker. Even if you put me under, my Vampyric powers have waned so much, I’m not sure I can link to Haven anymore. I can feel it, the difference. I’m already changing.”

  Forcing himself to remain calm for her sake, he closed his eyes and nodded. “I’ll send someone to find Hermes. Make sure Geoffrey isn’t in the Underworld. Maybe Hermes will know when he left. We can see what sort of time has passed since Haven broke out of here.”

  Though he didn’t want to leave Kyana, he made his way through the tunnels of the prison system looking for any survivors. Since the breakout, there hadn’t been much use of the massive cave system and most of the sentinels had been reassigned to more useful tasks. On the lower floors of the prison, a few guards were going about their duties, standing stoically outside the cells of the less dangerous prisoners. Because of the depth of the tunnel system, none of them had heard a single noise of alarm from the upper floor. Well trained, they showed no outward emotion over the news of their fallen brethren, but Ryker knew well enough that the moment he left them, their rants would begin. They would want justice for their brothers and sisters. They just weren’t fool enough to show as much to a god.

  “Find Hermes,” he said to the startled guard closest to him. “Tell him to find me immediately.”

  “We don’t have time to send a messenger for another messenger.” Kyana appeared behind Ryker, her face so pale it all but glowed in the shadows.

  Ryker shot the sentinel a commanding glare, and the guard disappeared, brushing by Kyana to do Ryker’s bidding.

  “What choice do we have?” His loose grip on his calm façade snapped. “We can’t enter the Underworld to see if Geoffrey ever even left it, and I don’t know where to begin looking for Hermes. That wasn’t part of my damned lessons.”

  He took a deep breath. If he was ready to blow a proverbial gasket, he couldn’t imagine what this had done to Kyana. Haven was loose, which most likely meant Cronos hadn’t given up. If she was with Geoffrey, she’d have access to the Underworld without any alarm bells being raised.

  She wouldn’t need Geoffrey alive to gain access to the Underworld. They would only need his blood. His body.

  Ryker’s gaze fell on Kyana, and he wondered if she’d put the pieces together yet. That there might no longer be a Geoffrey to save at all.

  It took only a matter of minutes for Hermes to appear in the prison antechamber. Kyana had no idea how the sentinel had tracked down the god so quickly, but was happy as hell that he had. The minute she’d seen that Haven was gone, her heart had sunk. Not just for Haven but for what her escape could mean for Geoffrey.

  She had to find him, and if the messenger god had taken even a second longer, she would have had to figure out another way to locate them. Though, she was pretty sure she knew where Haven would have taken Geoff.

  She’d wanted to get her hands on the Eyes of Power, and they were within Geoffrey’s domain. The only way she and Ryker could get there to stop Haven was through Hermes. It was the reason she’d waited as long as she had.

  “If you wish to see me,” Hermes started, his beady eyes shimmering in the underground structure, “you need only use your mind, new Zeus. Not a blasted sentinel whose feet move too slowly. Poor soul. Not sure when he’ll figure out that I’ve already come and gone.”

  “I need to know where Geoffrey is—the new Hades,” Ryker demanded.

  “We know where he is,” Kyana whispered. To Hermes, she said, “We need you to get us into his realm.”

  Hermes scowled. “I spoke with Geoffrey in the Underworld last eve. I can attempt to deliver a message if you wish, but even if he hasn’t left his realm, it’s going to take time. However, taking you there? I’m afraid I cannot.”

  “You will,” Kyana demanded.

  Hermes shook his head, his winged helm clinking against the wall.
“It’s not that I won’t, new goddess. I cannot. Geoffrey can escort others into his domain. My permission is for me alone. The minute you try to step inside without him or his consent, you will set off alarms and immediately be incapacitated. The new security is airtight since the breakout.”

  Kyana’s chest squeezed so painfully, she was almost grateful for the sudden burst of life it brought. There had to be some way in.

  “Even if Cronos, through Haven, took Geoff, she wouldn’t be able to drag him all the way through the Underworld. And she can’t know exactly where the Eyes of Power are, so it will take time for her to find them. If she used Geoff to gain entrance, she would have left him shortly after.”

  And probably killed him, but Kyana refused to think on that.

  “We’ll get her, Ky.”

  She nodded; the dull throb at the base of her neck was rising to a crescendo. “Damned right we will. There hasn’t been enough time for Haven to have escaped the Underworld with the Eyes of Power.”

  “I’ll get a head start,” Hermes said. “I know where the conduits are hidden. I’ll see if they’re still safe.”

  When Hermes disappeared, Kyana moved to follow his path out of the prison but Ryker held her back. “Ky . . .”

  “What?”

  “You need to prepare yourself for what we might find.”

  She shook her head, tears burning and begging to break free but she refused to let them. “No. She didn’t kill him, Ryker. I won’t believe that.”

  “But if she did?”

  She swallowed, unable to hold back the tears any longer. “Then it won’t matter whether or not I’ll have to kill her, because when Haven is free of this mess and knows she murdered Geoffrey, she won’t want to live at all.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I know Haven’s strong now,” Ryker said as he and Kyana sprinted toward the cave that traveled to the Underworld. “But she’s not been in possession of her strengths long enough to get the upper hand on Geoff. He has god-strengths that not even her mixes can match.”

  “Maybe she took him by surprise or maybe Cronos is nearly whole inside her. If it’s Cronos”—which Kyana fervently believed the case to be—“then we don’t know the limits of her strength. Teflon girl, remember?”

  She cringed at the memory of Haven’s body, untouched, impacting the Humvee and rendering it useless. No species alive was that sturdy. Fully risen or not, Cronos was far stronger than any of them had expected.

  They started down the snaking staircase that led to the River Styx, and Kyana caught a glimpse of Ryker’s shadow on the wall behind hers. He was raking his hands through his hair, his frustration mirroring hers. “None of this makes any sense. Sixx did the cleansing ceremony and a binding spell. Cronos shouldn’t be able to possess Haven anymore.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t really purged. Would a binding spell work if he were in possession of her at the time?”

  “Shit,” was Ryker’s reply. “She won’t get her hands on the Eyes of Power,” he said as they stepped onto the shores of the river. “Geoff will never betray the Order. Not even for Haven.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  If Geoffrey didn’t cooperate . . . there was no telling what Cronos was capable of doing to make him regret it.

  “Ky—” The pain in Ryker’s voice pulled Kyana’s attention to him. She stopped, several feet away from Charon’s ferry, and rushed back to Ryker’s side. The color had faded from his face, leaving his skin a ghostly greenish hue. She grabbed his arm and helped him sit on the cool sand.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It feels like my skull’s about to be ripped apart,” he whispered, his hand cradling his head. “The booming sounds like a . . .”

  She grabbed his shoulder and gave it a hard shake. “Ryker, talk to me.”

  He eased to his feet and took her hand. “We have to keep moving. Shit. Shit!”

  “Ryker, what’s going on?” The frantic pitch of her voice called Charon’s attention to them. Ryker dragged her toward the ferry, making her stumble as she fought to find her footing.

  “Hermes was calling Zeus, but I think I just made my first interception.”

  She jogged to keep up with him, wanting answers but too afraid to ask.

  When she moved to step onto the ferry, Ryker leaped onto the wooden planks ahead of her, placed his hands on Charon’s shoulders, and bowed his head. “I give you my speed, Charon. Speed our journey through the swiftness of the gods.”

  The ferry jerked into motion, rocking and swaying as it glided over the lapping waves of the normally calm water. What was usually a slow drift across the river had become a speedboat jaunt and Kyana had to hang on to the side rails to keep from toppling into the spirit-infested waters around them.

  Her stomach pitched so violently that she dropped to her knees and braced herself as they crashed around the bend to slip into a narrow tunnel. The path hit a fork in the river that took them away from the Fates’ cave and toward the Underworld, where the scenery changed to a lush, forestlike environment.

  Finally, the pitching in her belly calmed enough to allow coherent thought. The only thing that would bring this much concern to Zeus, and in turn to Ryker, was if yet another brother had been hurt or . . .

  “What did you see, Ryker?” Her voice was quiet, but demanding enough to force him to face her, his hands never leaving their guide’s shoulder.

  Through the ice blue of his eyes, she could see the anger and fear dwelling inside. “Geoffrey has been found.”

  Kyana stepped off the ferry and followed Ryker into a copse of trees outside the entrance to the Underworld. Her boots felt as though they’d been woven with steel—heavy and burdensome with each step she took. Her heart constricted with worry over what they might find when they arrived at their destination. Ryker had been given a glimpse of something via Hermes. He’d seen blood, the entrance to the Underworld, and Geoffrey. That was all they knew, and the not knowing was worse than anything else.

  She glanced up at Ryker’s stone-cold face, watched him squint as he tried to peer into the trees. She followed his gaze until she saw Hermes standing guard over a form that she instantly recognized. Pulling away, she sprinted past Hermes, and finally collapsed at Geoffrey’s side.

  He was pale. Paler even than he’d been as a Vamp. Blood pooled beneath his head and shoulders, darkening the fine sand to near black. His breaths were shallow, but he was alive.

  Gently, Kyana lifted his head and cradled it in her lap. Guilt weighed heavily on her heart, but she pushed aside the blame she’d carried for a week now. This wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t even Haven’s. It was a hundred percent Cronos’s. Kyana ached to rip him apart, limb by limb. He’d hurt Haven. He’d hurt innocents. Now he’d hurt Geoff. There wasn’t a spell powerful enough in this world to keep him safe from all she planned to do to him if he was fool enough to let himself be raised.

  But as much as it pained her to acknowledge it, she knew she couldn’t let it come to that. Dead, Cronos was a powerful enemy. Alive . . . she couldn’t take the risk to find out exactly how powerful he could be.

  However, there was only one way to stop Cronos. He was going to ride Haven’s body through this ordeal until he’d killed her—unless Kyana killed her first and put an end to it a lot sooner than Cronos planned. The thought made Kyana sick to her stomach, but she had no choice. The buck stopped right fucking here, and stopping Cronos meant killing Haven . . .

  Kyana was the only one who could do it. This was the reason she’d been spared. The reason she’d been sent to search for Haven.

  The time had come to kill her best friend.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Geoffrey’s whispered words pulled her from the disturbing path her thoughts had taken. She stroked his black, blood-encrusted hair from his brow and forced a smile.

  “The Healers will be here soon,” she promised, unsure how she was able to speak when it felt as though a dam had been constructed in he
r throat. “Once they have you fixed up, we’ll talk about what happened. Can you stand? Walk?”

  He shook his head. “She cast a paralysis spell on me before knocking me on the noggin. From the manly bits down I’m as impotent as Ryker.”

  Her chest opened up and she could breathe again. If he was back to harassing Ryker, he was going to live. Seeming to sense that the mood had lightened, Ryker squatted beside them and glared.

  “Care to set him straight on that, Ky?”

  She blinked. “Not really.”

  Geoffrey’s smile at that was broad and childlike. Then just as quickly, it vanished and his face turned somber again. He gripped Kyana’s hand with surprising strength. “Don’t give up on her, lass. The possession is too strong for her to fight.”

  “We’ll talk when you’re healed.”

  His hand squeezed hers until her bones crackled with the pressure. “I watched him take over her will. Watched her change. She’s not responsible.”

  “I know.” But that didn’t change what had to be done. Tears blurred her vision. She blinked rapidly trying to hold them off.

  “She’s not as strong as you. Don’t forget that.”

  “You love her.” The accusation spilled from her mouth before she could bottle it.

  He sat up, gripping his head, but the gesture was proof he was going to be all right. Thank Zeus.

  His eyes softened and they glazed over with tears she knew he’d never spill. “Am I that readable?”

  “To me? In every way.” She placed a kiss on his brow and sighed. Somewhere in the cave in front of her, Haven had disappeared in her hunt for the Eyes of Power. There was a job to be done, and since Geoffrey seemed to be on the road to recovery, she was going to have to leave him in order to do it. “How did she get in if you’re out here?”

  He showed her his bloody palm. “This. She fed enough that my blood in her will open whatever gates Hades and I put in place.”