She wouldn’t have ever had to know if it weren’t for Marco. Racked with guilt, he tried to tell her that she was safe now—or at least she would be safe as soon as he could get her away from Ogun. But he should’ve felt something for her beyond guilt, shouldn’t he? Instead, he kept eyeing the bruises on Ashlynn’s arms with a different kind of regret. Those bruises proved that she wasn’t Kyra pretending to be Ashlynn—and that, for once, he wished she were. “Where is Kyra?”
Ashlynn wiped her tear-streaked face with her hands. “Is that that…that pale creature with the crazy black eyes?”
Creature. Kyra had saved her life, but Marco realized that Ashlynn thought of her as something alien, something outside her experiences, something apart. And it angered Marco more than he could say. “She’s not a creature,” he growled.
“I don’t care what she is,” Ashlynn whispered. “I just want to go home.”
From the closet, the vulture called out and banged on the locked door, which made Ashlynn jump. “Who is that?”
“You don’t want to know,” Marco said.
From the panoramic view of the beach house, Marco stared out at the water, then at the patchwork of jungle, dirt roads and pasturelands beyond. Kyra could be anywhere. Anywhere at all. Marco had promised the nymph that he’d return, but it hadn’t occurred to him to make her promise she’d stay with the plane. And now Marco was ready to put his fist through another wall. “Benji, where the hell is Kyra?”
Benji shrugged helplessly. “I thought she’d catch up after the explosion, but—”
“Marco, she seemed like she could handle herself,” Ashlynn interrupted, her voice tempered. “She was invisible. She could be in this room for all we know.”
That’s right. If Kyra wanted to disappear, she could. He’d never see her again even if she were standing right beside him. A pain shot through him at the thought. It was a longing so unbearable that he had to actually brace himself against the door. No, Kyra couldn’t be here. Maybe it was just his ego talking, but after the lengths Kyra had gone to chase him down, he couldn’t imagine she’d just disappear. She was in danger. Ogun had her. Marco was sure of it. “Benji, take Ashlynn to the United Nations mission. Walk her right in and tell them who she is. They’ll help get her back home safe.”
Benji—whose eye was still swollen—managed to scowl at Marco under a crust of blood. “They’ll interrogate me, Chief. About you. They’ll be looking to arrest you.”
“Tell them whatever you need to. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Ashlynn stood, still trembling. “You’re not coming with us?”
“I can’t leave Kyra behind.”
Now Ashlynn was angry—or at least as angry as he’d ever seen her. She’d been kidnapped and threatened on his account, so he could hardly blame her. But what she said was, “Why is there always someone you think you have to save? Why can’t you just come home where you belong?”
If he belonged anywhere, it was with Kyra. He only wished he’d realized it before this very moment. Marco leaned over and carefully kissed the top of Ashlynn’s head. “You’ll be safe with Benji,” he said, and before he withdrew, he unclasped the pendant from around Ashlynn’s neck. It was the only thing Kyra had of her mother—and now it might well be the only thing he had left of Kyra. Clasping the glowing stone in his hand, Marco said, “Benji, get going.”
“But what about the woman in the closet?” Benji asked.
Marco snorted. “She can take care of herself.”
As he watched Benji and Ashlynn make their way onto the crowded and dusty streets of Goma, he made the call. He figured that he could make a simple trade. Ogun would get his weapons. Marco would get Kyra. But when Ogun didn’t answer the phone, he suspected everything had changed.
He let the vulture out of the closet and asked, “What would Ogun want with Kyra?”
“To hurt her,” the vulture said without hesitation. “If he finds out that she’s a lampade—if he finds out about her powers—he may use her to speak to shades in the underworld. But mostly, he’ll amuse himself with her for a while. Maybe with pleasure, definitely with pain.”
Marco felt his poisoned blood boil inside him. The idea of the general’s hands on Kyra was bad enough, the idea of him hurting her was worse. He’d seen for himself that she could feel pain. Why the hell couldn’t she have just stayed with the plane like he told her? Why had she risked herself for the sake of two people she didn’t even know? “We have to go after her,” Marco said.
“Why are you so ready to rush into the breach and risk your beautifully sculpted flesh for a nymph? Do you think you’ll rescue her and live happily ever after? That’s not how the stories of nymphs end.”
“I promised I’d return for her,” Marco said. “I’m not leaving her behind.”
“We’re mortals. We don’t stand a chance against a war god and now that I know where Kyra is, it’s time for me to return to Ares. You should come with me. My master has al ways wanted a hydra of his very own.” She licked her lips again in a blatantly sexual way. “Besides, there could be side benefits.”
Ignoring her propositions—and not knowing which one was more offensive—Marco fastened upon the most important part of the statement. “You’re leaving? Look, I don’t pretend to understand all the perverse reasons Ares sent you after me, but wasn’t part of it to protect Kyra? You said he has plans for her. She’s his daughter.”
“And Ares is a god,” she said. “He’s patient. His plans will wait.”
“Wait for what?” Marco asked.
“For Ogun to tire of torturing her,” the vulture said. “After a decade or so, Kyra will heal and return to Ares chastened by this experience.”
“You don’t understand,” Marco growled. “She doesn’t have a decade. Kyra isn’t immortal anymore. My blood has made her vulnerable. I’ve changed her!”
He couldn’t tell if the vulture was listening to him. She was too eager to return to her master. If she heard him at all, she was too stupid to know what to do about it without getting Ares’ opinion first. If Marco was going to save Kyra, he was going to have to do it on his own.
Ogun’s blade opened a thin red line down her arm. Her pale skin parted and blood quickened to the surface, flowing onto the sheets of the bed to which she was chained. Kyra groaned through the pain, waiting for the flesh to close back over the wound, knowing that when it did, he’d only cut her deeper. “Ah, my sweetling, are you ready to tell me what manner of creature you are?” Ogun asked, with a menacing smile. He’d already shot her—amused at how the bullets passed through her. He’d already pounded a nail through one hand to watch her body slowly expel it. He’d already choked her, made her gasp for breath, made her fight for every gulp of air.
But she wasn’t healing as quickly as when the torture started, and soon, she wouldn’t heal at all. That she was becoming mortal was ever more apparent, both to the war god and to her. But it had all been worth it. She’d saved the people Marco loved. She’d given him the chance he needed to break free of this life. That was the best gift she could give him, wasn’t it?
Ogun brought his mouth close to Kyra’s ear, a flesh-crawling kiss upon her neck before he sank his teeth into her pale skin. Kyra screamed, feeling as if she were in the jaws of Cerberus himself, wondering if he was going to devour her chunk by chunk. And now Kyra was in so much pain, she couldn’t remember why she’d refused to tell the African god what he wanted to know in the first place. “I’ll tell you!”
Ogun released her and she felt the warm flow of blood behind her head as it dripped from her ear down her neck. And he was looking at her with expectation. Shaking her sweat-soaked hair, Kyra let out a choked sob of defiance.
“If I cut all the way down into the tendons…if I sawed through the bone and cut your hand from your body, would it grow back again? I am so curious, Sweetling, because my skin is like iron. No blade can cut me, no weapon can wound me. Shall we try it, or will you tell me what you are?”
At this, Ogun’s smile of triumph was short but terrifying. “Ahh, another Hellene, just like the hydra. And just what are you doing so far away from home?”
“I’m on safari!”
Ogun laughed. “The mortals only come here for the gold, for the diamonds and for the coltan that they use in their cell phones. But you are here to see the giraffes? I think not.” Ogun stabbed her again, this time in the chest, where the blade pierced her lung and it hissed. Then he pulled the knife back out and Kyra coughed. She couldn’t breathe, and when she did exhale it was with a spray of blood.
“Now, again, Sweetling,” Ogun said, “Why are you here?”
“She’s here because of me,” a voice said from the door. Kyra’s eyes swam in tears of agony. She must have been hallucinating because what she saw was another version of Ogun himself, all tall and ebony and elegant as the Congolese soldiers so often were. He was even wearing camo and carried a rifle over one shoulder.
When Kyra lifted her head from the blood-soaked pillow to illuminate his soul, she found herself too weak to do it. Still, somehow, she knew it was Marco.
No! He couldn’t be here. After all the pain she’d endured to set him free, he couldn’t possibly have walked right into the god’s clutches. Kyra let out a helpless moan. It was the only sound she could make until the wound in her chest healed. But she wished she could shout. She wished she could scream that this was all wrong. Marco wasn’t supposed to come back for her. Mortal men never came back for nymphs.
Ogun stood quickly, a bloody machete flashing at his side. “Ahh. The Great Northern Warlord has returned!”
“Release her, Ogun.”
“Why should I? This creature is almost as interesting as you are.”
“If you let her go, I’ll give you your shipment of weapons.”
Kyra tried to pull herself upright, only to be yanked back by the chain around her throat she’d forgotten was there. She was in such horrible pain, and to hear Marco make this offer only made it worse.
“Marco, my old friend, why do you behave so foolishly? When it was just your timid Benji and your soft little Ashlynn that I held prisoner, weapons for hostages was a worthwhile trade. But now? I want to know what this creature can do for me.”
“She’s not going to do anything for you,” Marco said, grabbing the keys off the wall. “She belongs to Ares. She’s his daughter.”
How could Marco be foolish enough to mention Ares? If they involved her father, Marco would never escape. Between the two war gods, Marco would be a prize to be fought over—a deadly arms race between divine forces that would only end catastrophically. Her father was no better than Ogun, and possibly much worse. The mention of Ares was also the first thing—the only thing—that gave Ogun pause.
“Ares, the Thracian?” the African asked with a bitter twist of his lips, and perhaps a touch of alarm. “Is it true, Sweetling?”
“No,” Kyra forced herself to rasp. “I don’t know Ares.”
“She’s lying,” Marco said. “She’s a very accomplished liar, trust me. She is the daughter of Ares, and she’s here because of me. You see, you’re not the only god who wants his very own hydra.”
“Ares is powerful.” Ogun scowled. “But I think I am more powerful still. Have you made your pledge to the Thracian war god?”
“Not yet. But if you let Kyra go, I’ll make my pledge to be your minion instead.”
Marco couldn’t do this, Kyra thought. He wouldn’t do this! Not for any reason. After all they’d been through, he couldn’t betray her like this.
A booming laugh came from Ogun. “As you would have it, then, my friend.”
With that, the iron collar around Kyra’s neck snapped open. Freed, she tore at the chains that clasped her, scrambling to stand. The knife Marco had given her was on the table, and she might be able to get to it if she lunged for it. She wouldn’t be able to overtake a war god even if she had all her old immortal strength, but perhaps she could buy time for Marco to flee. That was the only plan she had left.
But Marco must have seen the lethal gleam in her eye because just as Kyra took the knife, he grabbed her. Just the sensation of his skin against hers—a touch she’d never thought she’d feel again—was enough to dizzy her. Though it hurt to speak, she forced herself to whisper, “You can’t give your pledge, Marco. Not after everything—”
“Kyra, remember what we said on the plane. We can’t cheat fate.”
So he’d just given up, then. He’d given in. He thought it was his inescapable fate to be an instrument of death. He really believed that he was no different than the killers in the ditch in Rwanda all those years ago. “Don’t you realize what’s at stake?”
“I do,” Marco said, his eyes trying to make a connection with hers.
Perhaps if she could’ve used her torchlight…but she was too weak. Her powers were all but useless, but she still had fierce determination. “I’m not leaving you,” Kyra said, clinging to him stubbornly, even though he wore the face of the war god she feared.
Marco thrust her away. “I’ve made my choice, Kyra. Ogun is an old friend and we both see things the same way.”
It made no sense. She didn’t believe him, but she was in such pain. Everything was swimming before her eyes. Maybe she was imagining it all. “He’s not your friend. He’s a war god.”
“And I’m a war-forged hydra,” Marco said. “I’ve been fighting in Africa for more than a decade and I’ve made a lot of money doing it. I’m not going to give that up. Not even for you.”
Could the money have meant more to him than she’d realized? She’d seen his penthouse in Naples. She’d let him kiss her in his luxurious suite in Toronto. Marco drove expensive cars, wore expensive suits and was a man with the power to look however he pleased, go where he pleased, to do what he pleased, to have who he pleased. “What about for Ashlynn?” she asked acidly. “Would you give it up for her?”
Marco shrugged. “She won’t have me, so it doesn’t matter. War is the only thing I know.”
“You’re lying,” Kyra said. He had to be lying.
“No. You’re the expert when it comes to lies. Everything between us was deception, Kyra. You’re blisteringly hot in bed, but when it’s over, all I’m left with is the illusion. I guess that’s how it is with nymphs.”
Shocked, she stumbled back. His words were as poisonous as his blood, and she could hardly believe they’d come from his lips. “You—you’re hurting me.”
“You’re tough,” Marco replied coldly. “You’ll get over it. You’ll take another lover and move on. So will I. Now go.”
It was as if he had backhanded her. She felt the sting and could almost taste the blood in her mouth. She’d thought he was struggling to be a better man, she thought she knew him, but Hecate had been right. No matter how clearly you tried to illuminate the crossroads, mortals sometimes still willfully took the wrong path. And it broke her heart. It broke her. She felt as if she was looking at him for the first time. Hell, he’d even taken on the face of a war god. How blind had she been? Like every other silly nymph in history, she’d seen in Marco only what she wanted to see. The reality was that he’d been a soldier, a warrior, and the bloodlust was in him. He’d make a perfect minion, after all.
“I hate you,” she grated. “I wish I’d killed you in Naples.”
It wasn’t true, but she wished it were. His betrayal would hurt so much less.
Marco’s eyes were unreadable, but what he said was, “Me, too.”
Then he tossed her the peridot choker. She caught her mother’s pendant in one hand, gripping it with fury. Then she turned and stormed out past Ogun’s boy soldiers with what little dignity and strength she had left. Kyra stumbled down the mountain trail, tears and confusion blinding her. It was only dusk, but Kyra was so weak that she couldn’t see through the tre
es.
She pushed her way through thickets of bamboo, and stopped there, wondering if she might not just become part of them. Right here on this mountain, felled by grief, she could transform. She felt ready to sink down into the earth and become a new sort of tangled, strangled vine. No. Something with wings. She hated to fly, why not punish herself? Why not become like an angel or some creature that could fly far away from a world in which she no longer belonged? That was her fate.
But Hecate had said her fate was to destroy a hydra.
Kyra’s heart missed a beat. Marco had told her to remember what they’d said on the plane, that they couldn’t cheat fate. He’d said it when he was trying to think of ways to escape Ogun. He’d said it because he wanted her to kill him. To fulfill her destiny. Was that still what he had in mind? Had everything else he’d said in Ogun’s hut been a lie designed to make her leave?
In either case, Marco had said one true thing to Ogun. Kyra was the daughter of Ares. She could smell war before it came, could hear the explosions before they happened, like the crack of her father’s whip over his chariot.
And war was coming now.
Chapter 21
The first explosion went off in the middle of the general’s pastureland, sending up a big cloud of dust. Marco heard the jingling of frantic bells as goats and livestock ran. The force of the second explosion was much closer and nearly threw Marco off his feet. A wooden beam collapsed beside him, but he wasn’t afraid. Better that he die this way, crushed. And better that he die swiftly so that he wouldn’t have to live with the memory of Kyra’s tear-streaked face as she left him. He’d been sure that she’d see through his lies, that she’d look into his eyes and know his intentions. It hurt him to think that she might never know how he felt about her, but at least it got her to leave before the bombs started falling.
Outside, panicked men shouted, but even though the shelling had blown a hole in the roof, the war god only laughed. As debris fell around them, Ogun stood in the midst of the destruction, upright, his eyes alight. “Does your little nymph think the same thing will work twice? That a few grenades will make me take my eyes off of my prize?”
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