Enraptured (28 page)

“Everything,” Skyla said in that same broken voice. “All of it. He…” She drew in a shaky breath, dropped her hands. “He’s Perseus’s son. Zeus’s grandson.”

“What do you mean, Perseus’s son?” the queen asked. “Orpheus is only three hundred years old. How—?”

“He was given a second chance at life.” When both looked at her as if she was nuts, Skyla waved her hands. “Two thousand plus years ago he stole the air element from Zeus. I was sent to get it back and then kill him. Only I didn’t. I…we…we had…a relationship. And then I found out he really had stolen the element. I couldn’t kill him at that point, but I didn’t stop it either. I didn’t think…” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again to focus on the queen. “When Zeus sent me after Orpheus because he was hunting the Orb, I knew something wasn’t right. But I didn’t find out until later that Orpheus was Cynurus reincarnated. They told me he wouldn’t remember his past life, but they were wrong. They were wrong about so many things. And I believed them. Just like always.”

Isadora and Callia stared at the Siren in disbelief, and Maelea found herself thinking back to what she knew of Perseus and his son Cynurus, about whom she’d heard whispers but had never met. He’d done something to anger Zeus. Something more treacherous than simply being born, like her.

“I have to find him before he does something he’ll regret later. He has the Orb and the earth element. And he thinks I betrayed him. He’s angry and hurting. If he tries to challenge Zeus with the Orb…”

Callia shot a look at Isadora. “Theron needs to hear this.”

“Go get him,” Isadora said.

As Callia rushed off, Isadora added, “Now tell me what this has to do with Maelea.”

“Maelea can sense energy shifts. She’ll know if he tries to use the power of the Orb. She can locate him before he—”

Maelea stepped out of the shadows. Skyla’s head came around and her mouth closed. Stopping in the middle of the room, Maelea rubbed her arms to ease the chill that had settled over her skin with this news. “He’s my nephew. In three thousand years I’ve not met a direct relative until now. I—I didn’t even suspect.”

“I need to know where he is.”

Maelea nodded. She knew all too well what would happen if Orpheus tormented Zeus with the Orb. And a part of her—the part that had believed in him the night he told her he wanted the Orb to rescue his brother from the Underworld—needed to know a soul could still overcome all that darkness. “He came down the stairs just before you. He left through there.” She pointed toward the far end of the hall.

“What about the Orb?” Skyla asked.

“I—I didn’t see it.”

“Orpheus can flash on earth,” Isadora interjected. “He won’t need to tap into the Orb’s energy to open a portal like the warlock did.”

“Damn it,” Skyla muttered, running a hand over her face. “I forgot about that.”

“He doesn’t need to,” Maelea said. When Skyla’s head came up, she added, “He’s using the Orb to give him strength. The strength he lost from his daemon.”

“Where?” Skyla asked.

Maelea closed her eyes, focused on the darkness she’d felt when Orpheus had come down the stairs. It had left the colony with him, she now knew. She loosened her mind and the tendrils of awareness she so often kept locked tight.

She opened her eyes when she located it. “In the hills outside Litochoro, Greece.”

“The City of Gods.” Determination settled hard in Skyla’s eyes, turning them to intense shards of colored glass. “Thank you.”

Skyla was out the door before Maelea could think to answer. Before the queen of Argolea could stop her. Footfalls echoed from the hall, and then the great room felt ten times too small as it was suddenly flooded with too many men. Big, brawny, intimidating men.

The Argonauts.

Maelea shrank back into the shadows as quickly as she could.

The queen looked toward the dark-haired Argonaut, the one with eyes like the dead of night.

“Where?” he asked.

“Litochoro. At the base of Mount Olympus in northern Greece. The Siren’s already gone to try to stop him. But, Theron…”

Her hand on his arm stopped his movement toward the door. He looked down at her. “I know, Your Highness. We won’t hurt him. Not if we don’t have to.” He glanced over her head to the tall Argonaut beyond. “We need to go.”

Low murmurs rose up in the room. The mass of male bodies moved toward the door but the tall Argonaut lingered, waited for the others to leave, then crossed to the queen and kissed her before following the others out.

And in the silence, seeing something Maelea knew she’d never find no matter how long she looked, she felt more alone than she had before. Alone and very much aware of the darkness still hovering in some hidden part of the colony. Darkness that had nothing to do with the Orb.

A darkness that called to her and taunted her to find it.

The cool wind whipped through the mountains. A chill Orpheus barely registered because revenge burned hot, heating him from the inside out.

The trees were different, the mountaintops more weathered than he remembered. Though humans called the city at the base of the majestic Mount Olympus the City of Gods, it wasn’t. On earth, this wasn’t anything more than rock and soil. The metaphysical Mount Olympus where the gods actually lived was a different place entirely. But he didn’t need to recognize the landmarks to tell him he was in the right place. The Orb grew hotter against his chest the closer he got, and memories of the last time he’d been here flickered through his mind like a steady stream of color.

There was one similarity in the two very different lives he’d led. Then, as now, his only goal had been to see justice served. The gods—those mystical beings who were nothing more than fallen angels—had one weakness. The same weakness that was responsible for their fall from grace so long ago. They were enamored of humanity. And they meddled in that which they couldn’t understand and could never replicate.

The temple was nothing but crumbled rock and broken columns. A thrill of victory slinked through him as he stepped from one massive boulder to the next. Destroyed. Just as Olympus would soon be destroyed.

He located what would have been the altar area of the temple—the temple to Zeus, no irony there—and called on the power of the Orb as he conjured a spell to clear a space. When the mountain of stone had been sufficiently moved out of the way, he crawled down into the pit that remained and stared at the marble altar now broken in two, the iconic lightning bolt, the symbol of the King of the Gods, cut right down the middle.

He stepped around behind the slabs of marble and reached underneath the right side to the hidden compartment in the base. The one that held the small wooden box he’d left there so many years ago.

The Orb grew warmer. The box was lodged in the broken marble. He grimaced as he fished around inside, found the bronze latch and flipped it up, his fingers closing around a small teardrop-shaped glass.

His skin grew red-hot. He pulled his hand free and stared at the swirling cloud of gas inside the container marked with the symbol of the Titans. The mixture found in heaven and on earth and even in the Underworld. That which made life possible. Power and strength surged in the palm of his hand, shot up his arm, gathered in his chest. And he felt a stark tug where the Orb lay beneath his shirt, as if the medallion were calling the element home.

He pushed to his feet. Reached for the chain around his neck. Stopped when he heard movement behind him. Slowly, he turned and stared into eyes as old as the sun.

“Be sure of this move, hero.”

Lachesis.
The wrinkled and petite Fate had warned him off the air element once before. Had told him stealing it would bring a wrath he’d never understand. And looking back, he knew that it had. But then he hadn’t had the Orb and the earth element. Now he did. Now he had what everyone wanted.

“It’s too late for theatrics, old woman. I’ve already reached my quota for this lifetime,
and
the last. And I’m no hero.”

He climbed out of the pit, started down the hill away from the ruins with the air element in his palm. Lachesis appeared on the path, stopping his feet.

“You were destined for something greater than this, Orpheus. Greater than thievery and vengeance, and much greater than ignorance. Do not fall into the trappings of the gods. For it makes you no better than them.”

He ground his teeth. “Look close, Fate. I am no better than them. The fact I was born part daemon proves that loud and clear.”

He pushed past her, nothing but a gust of wind hitting him where her solid flesh should be. He was done with people telling him what to do. His father Perseus had tried. Zeus had ordered. This Fate had even cajoled long ago. And in this life? Isadora, the Argonauts, even Skyla…they were all trying to make him into something he wasn’t.

Thoughts of Skyla flittered through his mind, followed by memories of when they’d first met so many years ago. When he was a man wanting more. When he’d known she was sent by Zeus to seduce the element out from under him. When he’d turned the tide on her and seduced her right back, just to torment the god.

“You are not a daemon, hero,” the Fate called after him. “Not anymore. You earned your soul back, just as I knew you would.”

So he’d been right. His daemon really was gone. And that fullness he’d felt in his chest…that had been his soul. A soul he’d come to believe he just didn’t have. Not that it made a difference. It didn’t change who he was inside. The same man he’d been over two thousand years ago. One who cared for nothing but what he was due.

“Vengeance will do you no good,” the Fate added. “And a great many will suffer if you fail this time.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Fate. Retribution’s the only thing that’ll make all the shit I’ve been through worth it.” What he’d done, what Skyla had done, what had happened in the long lonely years since.

“You—”

“And the nice thing about revenge,” he added, “it means I’m not in hell anymore.”

“There’s more than one kind of hell in this life, Orpheus. There’s the hell that Hades can subject you to, and then there’s the living hell. The kind you create for yourself. The kind that’s impossible to break free from. Ask Skyla about that hell. Ask her how many lovers she’s taken since your death or why she stayed with the Sirens for so long. You are not the only one who sacrificed and suffered. You are simply the one who got a second chance.”

His feet stilled on the sodden grass. He didn’t want to hear about Skyla or what she’d been through. He didn’t want to think about the consequences of what he’d done. He just wanted to hold on to his anger as he’d done for so long. To blame the gods for the fucking hand of fate he’d been dealt. He just wanted…

What? What did he want?

I
choose
you. Daemon or no daemon. Argonaut or not. Zeus and Athena are wrong about you, Orpheus. You’re not evil.

How
can
you
be
so
sure?

Because
I
watched
you
with
your
brother. An evil soul can’t love like that.

I
don’t have a soul—

Yes, you do. One that deserves so much more than you’ve been given.

The air felt as if it shot out of his lungs, tightening his chest to painful levels. He wanted
that
. He wanted to feel the way he had in
that
moment. When the past and future, when gods and wars and who had done what to whom didn’t matter. When he’d only known contentment and peace and…love.

He turned to glare at the Fate, only she was already gone.

He looked around the rubble of the temple, half expecting her to pop out from behind a broken column, only she didn’t. He was alone. And the Orb that had moments ago felt so hot against his chest was now cold and flat.

“Bloody Fate,” he muttered. “Bloody conscience.” He looked up at the sky, a swirling gray threatening—what else?—rain. “I’m not supposed to have a conscience!”

Only he did. He always had, even when his daemon had been with him. A conscience that now told him Skyla wasn’t entirely to blame for what had happened to him.

He looked down at the air element in his hand. It too was cold. Just like the rain beginning to fall in big fat droplets around him.

“Orpheus.”

He turned on the path to find Skyla feet from him. She was dressed in the same get-up she always wore, and with her blond hair flying back from the wind and the rain drizzling down around her, she looked powerful and formidable. How he imagined Athena would look before taking down a target.

Her gaze shot to the air element in his hand. The one she’d suspected him of taking. The one they’d argued about that last day. The one he’d told her had nothing to do with her and was none of her business. “You found it.”

He heard the accusation in her voice and told himself to be careful. She was still a Siren, no matter what she’d said to him last night. And no matter where he went from here, he wasn’t going to be the fool again. He closed his hand around the element, blocking it from her view. “I did.”

“What do you plan to do with it?”

“Does it matter?”

A long beat of silence drew out between them. And then she said, “No.”

She stared at him head-on. And in her amethyst eyes he couldn’t read her thoughts. Couldn’t tell if it didn’t matter because she believed in him or because she was finally going to kill him.

The rain increased. Water slid down his cheek. A lifetime—two lifetimes—of things left unsaid hovered between them.

She took half a step toward him. “Orpheus—”

Movement behind her drew his attention. Five figures approached. Five females, all dressed in the same femme-fatale fighter gear, bows drawn, arrows ready.

“Good job, Skyla,” the tall Siren with multicolored hair said. The one Orpheus recognized from the woods outside the colony. “You led us right to him.”

Skyla’s spine stiffened. Her panicked eyes held on Orpheus. “I didn’t. I swear.”

He wanted to believe her, but history told him otherwise.

“Step aside, Skyla,” the tall one said.

Six against one. Even with the Orb, this wouldn’t be easy to fight his way out of. But then he didn’t have to fight, did he? The one gift his lineage had bestowed on him was the ability to flash on earth.

“Sappheire,” Skyla said, turning to face her sisters. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“It concerns the order,” the tall Siren answered. “It concerns me. Now step aside.”

Orpheus was just about to get the hell out when Skyla stepped fully in front of him, blocking him with her body. “No.”

“If you want him,” Skyla added, “you’ll have to fight me too.”

His heart leaped. Right there with five arrows pointed at his chest, ready to kill. She was protecting him. Standing up for him, even though he’d just proven Zeus’s claims true.

“Skyla—” he started.

“Is there a problem here, ladies?”

The male voice at the edge of the clearing caused the Sirens to shift sideways, arrows at the ready. Theron and the rest of the Argonauts appeared from the trees.

“Argonauts,” the dark-haired Siren on the right hissed.

Orpheus blinked twice, barely able to believe what he was seeing.

“Yes, we are,” Theron said as Zander and Titus took up the flank on his left and Phin, Cerek, and Demetrius did the same on his right. “And he’s one of ours, so if you’ll kindly lower your weapons, we’ll get to the bottom of whatever disagreement you’re all having.”

“There’s no disagreement,” the dark-haired Siren said, shifting her bow from Orpheus to Theron. “And you’ll move back.”

Titus had his blade at the Siren’s throat before she even saw him move. “I wouldn’t advise that, missy.” Her eyes grew wide. “Now lower your weapon before anyone accidentally gets hurt.”

“Lower it, Daphne,” Sappheire said.

The Sirens brought their bows down, but tension still crackled in the air. Even Orpheus could tell this was no surrender. It was a lull before the battle. The battle over him and the Orb.

Snarls and wolflike howls erupted from the trees around them.

The Argonauts stepped back, in line with the Sirens, and together the group of would-be enemies glanced from tree to tree.

“Hellhounds,” Sappheire snapped, shooting Skyla a glare behind her. “Now do you see how this concerns the order? Fan out, Sirens.”

Whatever prejudices they held against each other were forgotten as the Argonauts and Sirens took up space, blades drawn, bows at the ready. Skyla turned and pushed Orpheus back three steps. “Go. Get out of here before Hades shows up.”

Panic closed in when she reached for the bow from her boot, pressed the button, and the weapon unfurled.

“Not without you.”

Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds before she shoved her hand hard into his chest. “He doesn’t want me. He wants the Orb. Now go!”

He stumbled back as she raced to the line with the others and drew her weapon. The tree branches and foliage swayed. And then monsters from the Underworld broke free and charged.

Blades clashed against bone and muscle. Howls and snaps echoed through the small clearing. The whisk of arrow after arrow being released echoed through the air.

The Orb warmed against Orpheus’s chest, but without all four elements it wasn’t any help as a weapon. He could use his witchcraft to harness the powers of each element, though.

He looked up at the sky as the battle raged in front of him, clasped the air element in his hand, and called up a storm spell. Thunder echoed above. Black clouds swirled and a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky.

It struck a hellhound about to devour one of the Sirens to Orpheus’s right. She grunted and kicked the beast away. Another bolt struck the soil with a snap and singe and billow of black smoke.

They were holding their own, but the sound of hooves or feet or claws thumping the ground from ahead told Orpheus they were about to be overrun by something else. Something worse. Something…
Oh, shit.

Ahead, through the swirling mist of rain and smoke, Hades approached, the image of imminent death. And on each side, a Minotaur. The legendary man-eating creatures with the bodies of men and the heads of bulls, snorting red plumes of smoke as they zeroed in on the battle in the meadow.

Okay, playtime was over. Orpheus tore down the hill after Skyla. All around him, Argonauts and Sirens battled hellhounds. He grasped Skyla’s arm just as she let go of an arrow. “Come on. It’s time to go.”

“What? I can’t go anywhere. I—” She whipped around, saw Hades and the Minotaurs. “Holy hell.”

“Pretty much. Let’s go, Siren. Can you flash?”

“Yes, but…” She looked at her sisters. “The others…”

Orpheus’s gaze followed. To the Argonauts. Battling back hell’s underlings. For him. The only way for them to escape was through a portal back to Argolea, and they’d never risk opening one with hellhounds that close.