Chosen (14 page)

She shivered.

With Haven at her side, she made her way across the room where a diamond-encrusted table had been erected. On top of it lay a silver-plated dagger with an onyx hilt.

Geoffrey's dagger.

“How the hell did he get this?” she asked, picking it up and rolling it against her palm.

“Is—is that Geoff's? The one he left in your room?”

Kyana nodded, her mouth suddenly dry as she came to the same conclusion Haven seemed to. Cronos had stolen it right from under her nose. But how?

She must have asked the question out loud because Haven pivoted and answered. “Conjuring spell. He's surrounded by Mages. He could have had one of them summon this object to them.”

“Or someone stole it and gave it to him.” Despite her reluctance to do so, her gaze swung toward Haven.

No. She couldn't have.
Wouldn't
have. Not when she was trying so hard to redeem herself. Would she? And if she
had
somehow gotten the dagger to Cronos, she deserved an Oscar for the look of horror on her face now.

“Did . . . anyone go in my room after you and Geoff left it?”

Haven shook her head, her green eyes wide and unblinking. “I didn't see anyone. Stop looking at me like that. It wasn't me!”

“Okay. I know. I'm sorry.”

For now, Kyana would believe that Haven hadn't betrayed them all again. At least until there was reason to believe differently.

“So . . . a conjuring spell?”

The look of hurt didn't quite leave her face, but there was no anger there. Kyana almost wished there was.

“It's the only thing I can think of. A traitor would be plausible if the dagger hadn't been in Artemis's temple. No one is there without Lachesis or Jordan's consent. If someone on Olympus was untrue to the Order, they'd know immediately.”

Swallowing the disgust and frustration in her throat, Kyana flung the weapon onto the bed.

“Don't,” Haven protested, seizing the dagger and slipping it into her belt. “Cronos has Mages working for him, and more than likely Witches as well. We don't want to give them an opportunity to fuck with something so personal to Geoff. They can do some really sick magic with something like that.”

“Right.” Kyana turned slowly on her heels, taking in the rest of the quarters. Against the far wall, a small rectangular frame on a table caught her attention. She made her way toward it and froze when she saw the faces staring up at her. One belonged to Mehmet.

And the other . . . belonged to her.

Chapter
Nineteen

“K
yana?
What is it?”

Kyana felt Haven move closer behind her, but
couldn't answer as she stared down at the cracked glass over her young, human
face. The portrait had been painted on her wedding day.

Eyes filled with hope stared back at her from her
own face. The naïveté that came with being a young girl who prayed for a loving
marriage with a husband she'd adored. A face unmarred by hands that would soon
strike her down daily. Eyes not yet hardened with the realization that she was a
possession to be abused and misused. Blood not yet tainted with the gift of life
Henry had injected her with, the blood of a monster she'd been fighting ever
since.

“Bastard.” She snatched up the portrait and tossed
the glass aside, shredding the canvas into a dozen pieces. As they fluttered to
the ground, they drifted toward one another as though carried on an unseen
breeze. When the tiny pieces wove themselves back together, she let out a soft
whimper.

She felt Haven's arm drape around her shoulders and
leaned in toward her friend.

“Leave it, Kyana,” Haven whispered. “He knew you'd
come. That was meant to hurt you. Don't let it.”

But Kyana couldn't pull her gaze away from the
portrait. She could burn it, but what good would that do? Whatever magic had
been cast upon it would likely just put the flames out before any real damage
could be done.

“He's a sadistic prick,” she whispered. The more
personal this became, the more likely she was to fly off the handle and lose her
cool. The more likely it was that she'd make a mistake. Cronos knew that. He was
banking on it.

“Yes, he is.”

She forced half a smile. No one knew that better
than Haven. “Shall we leave him a message of our own?”

Without waiting for Haven to answer, Kyana gathered
the portrait in her fist and smoothed it out on the table again.

She slid Geoff's dagger from Haven's belt and
stabbed the heart of the mattress, dragging the blade all the way down the
center to release a plethora of feathers into the air. She continued to gut the
fabric until her hands were too weary to do more damage. Then she turned to the
smoldering fire in the center of the tent. She pulled a small stick from the
pit, rubbed it in ashes, and returned to the bed. With a sick sense of pleasure,
she scrawled the words
FUCK YOU
in soot across the
tent fabric, creating a headboard of sorts, and stepped back to survey her
handiwork.

The sky outside rumbled as a warm feeling coated
her skin. She was going to enjoy coming face-to-face with him. She might not
make it out of the fight alive, but when she was done with him, he was sure as
hell going to know he'd been in the fight of his life.

“Does all this mean something?” Ares appeared
beside them, looking over what Kyana had done. He pointed at the new headboard
design. “Did you do that?”

Kyana dropped the sooty stick and shrugged. “Did
your guys find anything?”

“No. Call back your dogs and see if they have
anything interesting to show us.”

She blew into her whistle twice, but kept it firmly
in her fist so the dogs wouldn't return home. There was no sign of them, but not
too far away, a loud howl sounded followed by a chorus of barks. Together, Ares,
Kyana, and Haven sprinted from the tent and toward the ruckus.

Behind the campsite, all three dogs were jumping in
place, barking and dancing in happiness when they arrived. Kyana stared at the
horror the dogs had brought them to. How could she not have smelled this? The
vulgarity of the sight before her made her want to turn her gaze away.

Bodies lay side by side and feet to head for at
least the length of half a football field. Naked and bloody. Some nearly
devoured, others seemingly untouched. All human. Kyana was no stranger to death,
but the dismembered gore surrounding her made her swallow to keep from retching.
Haven, however, wasn't able to hold back. She leaned over and vomited, her body
shaking. When she stood back up, her face was pale, and she lifted her blouse to
cover her nose, leaving her watery eyes the only visible part of her face.

“You all right?” Kyana asked.

Haven shook her head, then nodded. Kyana took that
to mean she wasn't sure if she was going to puke again, and took a cautious step
away.

Ares pointed to something in the center of the
field. “What is that?”

Trying to get a hold on her queasiness, Kyana
strained to see what was written on the white flag. They had to walk over the
bodies to get to it, but as they got closer, a whole different kind of sickness
washed over her.

Painted on the sign in blood read the warning:
FAILURE TO FOLLOW. LEARN.

“He's sending a message all right,” Haven said,
glancing at the bodies at her feet.

No matter how she tried not to, Kyana stared at
them too. Some were indeed human and fresh, but others were far too rotted to
have been killed recently.

“Yeah,” Kyana agreed. “This is what happens to
those who choose not to follow him when given the chance.”

“Pure evil.” Ares let out his breath in a hiss that
brought a whole new worry to Kyana. If this was freaking him out, they were
probably screwed. “How could he call himself a god and do
this
?”

She was surprised at the softness in his voice, at
the compassion she heard there. She'd always thought of Ares as an emotionless
prick. She was glad to think maybe she'd been wrong.

A deep growl turned all three heads toward a small
structure just inside the hiking trails to the east. As Kyana and Ares exchanged
a quick look, more growls were followed by a sad, loud yelp, then a thud.

“Shit.” Kyana shouldered her way between Ares and
Haven and sprinted toward her pets.

“Kyana!” Ares called out. “My guards are out there.
Do not be stu—”

But she was already gone, tearing across the park
and skidding to a halt only when she saw one of her dogs, the smallest of the
trio, lying on its side, panting in agony. She spun in a tight circle, but there
was no sign of the guards or anyone who might have done this. Hell, she couldn't
even see the other two dogs.

Ares approached, his silver gaze sweeping the park
before resting on Kyana.

“Where are your guards?” she asked, bending to
place a hand on the dog's belly, willing it to understand she'd make sure it was
going to be okay.

Haven stooped beside her. “I can help him. Go with
Ares. Find who did this.”

Kyana would have done exactly that, but there
wasn't a single scent on the wind to give her any clue where the hell to
look.

“They've got Mages or Witches with them,” she
muttered, breathing a little easier as Haven worked her magic on the dog.
“They've got to be using Scent Removing Charms.”

She could read Ares's expression well. He wasn't
keen on leaving Haven alone and unsupervised. But this wasn't exactly the time
to remind him that the bigger threat was Cronos. He'd have to figure that out
for himself.

The sound of footsteps coming from behind spun her
around. There was no one there, but they didn't quiet, sounding as though a
group of something was fleeing in the opposite direction. Kyana didn't wait for
Ares. She took off after the sound, desperate to hold on to it in case it
disappeared like the scents.

She felt Ares behind her as she sprinted, leaving
Haven behind to tend the wounded pup. The sounds were moving as fast as she was,
and she was forced to tap into her goddess speed and use the last of her store
of ambrosia to keep from slowing down.

Something white caught her eye, sending her around
a tree. She leaped, caught a branch in her hands, and swung out and over the
fleeing object. She caught a robe in her hands, her body landing hard on top of
her prey, and she found herself looking into the decomposed face of a grinning
lunatic.

Dark, congealed blood glued the creature's mouth
closed, and the foul odor emitting from him gagged Kyana, but she held on as he
squirmed beneath her, reaching his gnarled fingers outward where she saw a
twiglike wand just out of his reach. She grabbed it, snapped it in two, and
rolled away from the Mage as he howled at the loss of his only weapon, just
before she slammed her boot into his head, shattering his skull like a thin
sheet of glass.

Magic killed Mages, but this one wasn't getting up
again. It was too newly born to reconstruct itself, thank the gods.

She could hear Ares in a scuffle of his own and
turned to find him warding off flashes of blue and red light with his sword,
reflecting the spells back to their owners as a trio of Mages circled him. None
looked smart enough to recognize they were up against gods. They looked hopeful
that they might actually end the day alive. With any luck, one of them would.
They needed information, even if it came from half-dead fuckers like these.

Behind Ares, a flash of green light soared at his
head.

“Ares! Duck!” she screamed, rushing to his
side.

He bent, and the green light shifted slightly to
the right, smacking Kyana in the center of her chest. She was lifted off her
feet and thrown into a tree where the green light slowly ate its way through her
flesh to rest inside her.

Hands gripped her beneath her arms and dragged her
backward. The agony of her insides being invaded nearly made her black out. It
was Haven. She and the dogs left her there, running toward Ares as he played
baseball with his sword and those damned lights.

Her legs and arms wouldn't obey as she ordered them
to stand her up so she could defend herself. But no one was paying her any
attention. They were all focused on Ares.

She tried to open her mouth to warn him again as
branches overhead came to life and reached downward toward his head, but her
mouth wouldn't work.

Haven saw them, reached up and snapped them from
the tree before they could do any damage, then pulled something from around her
neck and slid it over Ares as he drove his sword through a Mage's belly,
lighting up its torso like a Christmas tree as magic wove itself from the sword
to the wound.

The amulet around Ares's neck glowed, and Haven's
words were indecipherable as she spoke her spell.

“Get to Kyana!” she screamed. “They can't see you.
Port her to safety now!”

Ares grabbed Haven by the arm, dragging her to
Kyana's tree, and in the next instant, all three of them and the three dogs were
soaring through the wormhole of Ares's port toward safety.

Kyana closed her eyes and hoped she'd survive to
land on the other side.

Chapter
Twenty

R
yker felt
Kyana's return to Olympus while in the middle of a meeting with his guards—and
knew immediately something was wrong. Without explanation, he ported to her
temple, his racing heart having nothing to do with the magic required to do
so.

“Where is she?” he demanded the minute his feet
touched marble.

Artemis stood before him, her face pale as she
pointed toward Kyana's rooms. “The Healers are tending her.”

“What the hell happened?” Though he desperately
wanted to know the answer, he didn't linger to hear it. Instead, he sprinted to
her rooms behind the stairs and flung open the doors.

Kyana glanced up at him from where she lay on the
sofa in her sitting room, pale and drenched with sweat. She tried to sit, but he
was kneeling at her side in an instant pressing her back into the sofa.

He smoothed her damp hair from her face. At the
sight of the blood staining her vest, his heart constricted. So much blood.
“What the hell happened?”

“I'm all right,” she said. “Just hurts like a
bitch.”

He looked up to find Haven perched on the
windowsill chewing on her lip. “Start talking.”

“Mages,” she said. “They managed to get in a good
hit before we took them down. A paralyzing spell of some sort that incapacitated
her for a while, but it won't last. She's already coming around.”

He placed a hand to Kyana's brow, which she
immediately shook off, but not before he felt the cool clamminess of her skin.
“Where the hell is Ares? He was supposed to make sure you were kept safe.”

“He did. He's one kick-ass god,” Kyana muttered.
“Remind me not to piss him off anymore.” She slipped her hand in his and tried
once again to sit up despite the protests of the Healer tending her. “He needed
tending too, Ryker. He didn't abandon me and we're all fine, so stop
scowling.”

“You don't look fine,” he grumbled. “You're
bleeding. A lot.”

“I'm a goddess,” she said, smiling. “I'll
heal.”

He eased beside her on the sofa and took her in his
arms, making her half sit on his lap. “I'll send the Nymphs for food. Ambrosia
will speed things up.”

The Healer sighed and gave up trying to clean the
wound he hadn't yet seen. “She's clearly not going to let me finish here. I'll
see to it she gets ambrosia.”

When the door shut behind her, Kyana sighed and
closed her eyes. “I'm exhausted. Haven, tell him what we found.”

“We found Cronos's camp. He left some nice
. . . gifts there for us. Knew we were coming. One of which was
Geoffrey's dagger,” Haven said.

“The one he left in here? That would take some
powerful magic to call it off of Olympus.”

Haven nodded. “Yeah, apparently some of the Novi
he's raised are pretty damned powerful.” She stood and started for the door.
“You'll stay and take care of her?” she asked Ryker. “I need food of my own.
Think Artie will mind?”

Kyana shook her head. “Help yourself. She won't
care.”

“I hope Ares doesn't show up and throw a fit,” he
said. “She doesn't look up to a fight with him.”

Kyana gave a slight smile. “He won't. Haven could
have run back there. She didn't. She saved our asses instead. I think Ares will
lay off her a bit now.”

She lay back and closed her eyes. “Look in my boot?
I put Geoff's dagger in there. He'll want it back pronto.”

“I'll make sure he gets it.” Ryker leaned over and
carefully unzipped her boot, pulling it from her foot with care, unsure what
parts of her body had been injured. He turned it upside down. Nothing. He tried
the other boot and got the same result. “It's not here.”

Kyana sat up. “What . . . oh shit. Geoff
is going to kill me.”

He watched her frantically jiggle the boot for a
moment, her expression worried.

“I think I lost it in the fight.”

“It's all right. I'll get him a new one.”

“He loved that dagger. A tracker's weapons are very
personal.”

“He's not a tracker anymore, Ky. He'll deal.”

And if he lashed out at Kyana for this, Ryker would
make him deal. Period.

T
he
pain began to ease that evening and she found herself alone, waiting for Ryker
to be done with his meeting with Atropos, who'd summoned him shortly before
she'd finally fallen asleep. Kyana contemplated seeking him out instead. But as
she swung her feet out of her bed and onto the floor, the jarring motion made
her ribs burn all over again, and the thought of riding a bouncy chariot down
the mountain was about as appealing as letting someone kick her in the
teeth.

Instead, she hobbled her way across the temple,
ignoring the Nymphs lying about and the sentinels standing guard at every door.
What was keeping Ryker?

She was tired of thinking. All she wanted was to
feel strong again, and maybe find something to help her forget this horrible day
and grant her the ability to have dreamless, peaceful rest so she'd be alert for
the meeting to come tomorrow. She sighed and entered the dining hall.

“You are hungry, Mistress?” A Nymph stretched out
before the fire stood the instant Kyana stepped into the hall.

Kyana eased into a chair beside the fire and
contemplated the beautiful creature. She
was
starving . . .

“Yes,” she said. “And thirsty. Fruit and something
strong to drink, please.”

“Of course.”

The Nymph bowed and disappeared in a glittery
spiral of green lights, reappearing a few heartbeats later. She had to be at
least six feet, seven inches tall, and towered so high over Kyana's chair,
looking up at her caused Kyana's neck to cramp.

She placed a platter of strawberries and kiwis,
pineapples and some fruits Kyana didn't recognize in the center of the table,
then produced a porcelain jug and proceeded to fill a goblet with a deep golden
liquid.

“What is this?” she asked the Nymph.

“Dionysus's special harvest of wine. You did ask
for a strong drink?”

Kyana nodded and took a tentative sip. Yes, this
was far better than the alcohol-free cider she was usually served on
Olympus.

“You're wounded and exhausted,” a voice said from
the doorway. “You think becoming drunk is wise?”

She had to peer through the shadows of the dim room
to see Ares scowling at her from the other side.

“I can hold my liquor.”

He gave a short bark of laughter, then strode into
the room, lifted the pitcher, and sniffed. “You must not have imbibed since
becoming a goddess.” He pointed to the pitcher. “That wine will muddle your
mind.”

“Let's hope so,” she said, her fatigue seeping
through her bloodstream to penetrate her marrow. “What do you want, Ares?”

She took a deep swallow of the wine. Because she
wanted it, she told herself, and not to prove to Ares that she could.

The room was getting warmer. Kyana felt flushed and
reached for the tray of fruit, too late realizing that Ares was right. She
shouldn't have had the wine. She'd seen Ryker drunk once, and he'd been really
freaking plastered.

From one shot of Jack Daniel's.

“What do you
want
,
Ares?” she repeated.

As he made his way closer to the fire, she was
better able to see his face. He looked as tired as she felt, and a momentary
wash of pity for him softened her defenses. After all, she was pretty sure he'd
saved her ass at least once today. She supposed he deserved a little civility in
return. A little compassion, even.

She knew the burden of responsibility. Had lived
with more than her fair share the last few months. But for what was coming, the
responsibility was not truly hers. It was Ares's. The God of War would be
charged with keeping the residents and defenders of Olympus alive. If they won,
it would be his name called out among the cheers. But if they lost, his name in
history would be forever tainted—
if
there were any
survivors to remember it at all.

“I was hoping to find my son here,” he said.

“He's not.” She bit into a pineapple and sucked the
juice. “Atropos asked to see him over an hour ago.”

“Ah. That explains why he wasn't at his temple
either.” Without invitation he sat across from her and plucked a bunch of grapes
from the tray of fruit.

“Please,” she said sarcastically. “Join me.”

“Any idea what she wanted him for?”

“Nope.” But she wished she did. Atropos was the
Fate of death, or at least she had been before her Chosen had been found.
Whatever Atropos wanted with Ryker couldn't be good news, which was just lovely.
All they needed was more to stress about.

Ares picked a grape from its stem with a delicate
touch that surprised Kyana. Such a big brute of a man, best known for how well
he killed.

“We have a lot in common, Ares,” she said, pushing
Atropos to the back of her mind.

His blond brow rose. “Do we?”

She nodded and took another tentative sip of wine.
“We are both revered and loathed for what we're best at.”

He leaned his elbows on the table and popped the
grape into his mouth. “There is more we have in common, but you're too fool to
admit it.”

He had something he wanted to say, which made Kyana
highly uncomfortable.

“Oh?”

He chewed, watching her as firelight danced across
the table, warming her wine-flushed skin. “I do believe we both love my son very
much, but we are both too stubborn to make certain he knows it.”