TWISTED (Eternal Guardians Book 7) (24 page)

He tried not to dwell on the fact she was shutting him out. Tried not to think about what he’d do if he lost her. He wasn’t losing her. She was the reason his heart beat. And he was determined to find a solution. Even if it meant hour after hour sitting in this dusty library, reading every damn word that had ever been written.

From the corner of his eye, he watched Zander close the book he was searching, move to stand behind Callia, and gently massage his mate’s shoulders.

“We’ll find it,” he said to her. “Don’t worry.”

“I can’t help but worry.” Callia flicked pages faster. “You saw her this morning. I think she lost another five pounds overnight.”

“
Thea
,” Zander said softly. “Careful.”

Callia’s auburn head came up, and she slanted a look Demetrius’s way, then cringed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. She’s—”

“You’re right.” Demetrius closed the book he’d finished and pushed to his feet. His hands were shaking, his stomach a tight knot, and he felt that pull to close himself off from everything and everyone, but he wasn’t giving in to it. Isadora needed him, and he wasn’t regressing back into old habits. “She’s not sleeping and barely has an appetite anymore. Whatever’s affecting her is drawing a physical reaction, even if you can’t find it.”

Callia sighed and looked back at the book in front of her. “Okay, let’s run through what we know.”

Demetrius moved closer and leaned against a table while Callia whipped out a notepad and started jotting notes in furious scribbles.
 

“She was fine a month ago.”

Demetrius thought back. “I don’t know. Physically, I started noticing her lack of appetite about a month ago, but the restlessness, the sleepless nights… Those have been going on for a couple of months at least.”

“She chalked it up to the strains of being a new mother, which it could have been,” Callia noted, “but looking back now—”

“It was probably linked to whatever this is,” Demetrius finished for her.

“Yeah,” Callia said. “That’s what I’m thinking too.”

“So what changed over the last few months?” Zander asked.

“Well, she had a baby,” Callia said.

“People have babies all the time,” Zander pointed out. “And they continue to every day.”

Callia squeezed his hand at her shoulder, and Demetrius saw the look of worry that passed over her features. Worry for her own unborn child. She nodded. “Yes. True.”

“The Misos came to Argolea,” Demetrius said. “They were living in the castle until just recently.”

“Yes.” Callia jotted another note. “It’s possible one might have passed a virus to her or that she might have come in contact with some kind of bacteria. But if that were the case, I would have seen it in my scans.”

Silence stretched in the library. After several long seconds, Zander said, “Hades’s contract on her soul was broken.”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Callia shifted in her seat to look up at her mate. “Hades was pissed that he lost her. Is it possible he could have done something to her soul? Put some kind of, I don’t know, spell on it?”

“No.” When Callia turned to look at Demetrius, he crossed his arms over his chest, confident this had nothing to do with any kind of spell. “The gods can’t dictate life or death. Only the Fates do that. And in the case of a prophecy, like the one that brought Casey to Argolea, it’s preordained at birth. We’d know if that were the case now.”

 
Callia bit her lip and looked down at her notepad again. Quietly, she said, “Nick disappeared.”

Zander glanced down at his mate. “How would that have any kind of impact on Isadora,
thea
?”

 
Callia turned to look up at him again. “It’s a long shot, but bear with me. We already know that Isadora is both Demetrius’s and Nick’s soul mate, right? Thanks to the whole twin thing and Hera’s curse. What if the soul mate curse is somehow affecting her?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Demetrius said. “The female in the equation is immune to the curse. It’s only the Argonaut who feels the pull, and even then, it’s more of an—”

“Emotional pull,” Zander supplied, looking over Callia’s head toward Demetrius. When Demetrius nodded, he glanced back down at his mate. “It’s a physical pain for the Argonaut, yeah, but the draw is toward another person’s soul. Not the body. And I’ve never heard of it weakening or threatening a guardian’s life.”

Callia placed her hand on the back of her chair. “I realize that, but Nick isn’t a normal Argonaut, now is he? We already know he’s Krónos’s son. And if Atalanta was his mother, she was a goddess herself. Even if, somehow, Krónos made her mortal when he impregnated her, then that makes Nick a true demigod. And we’ve never had a true demigod Argonaut in the ranks, have we?”

Demetrius looked over her toward Zander and lifted his brows in question. Zander shook his head.

“No, I guess not,” Zander said. “Not recently, at least. The original seven were true demigods, but that was generations ago. I still don’t see how that would change anything, though.”

“I’m not sure yet, myself,” she answered, looking back at her book. “I’m just—”

“I think I found something.” Maelea’s voice sounded from somewhere in the stacks.

Callia and Zander turned her direction. Demetrius looked past them where Gryphon’s mate was walking from between shelves, her jet-black hair falling past her shoulders, a faded leather book open in her hands.

She laid the open book on the table in front of Callia and pointed to a passage. “There. I knew I remembered something similar.”

Callia scanned the page, and since he couldn’t see the words, Demetrius watched her features. Her eyes furiously read the words, then her face paled. And that knot in his stomach clenched even tighter.

He pushed away from the table, worry and dread skittering along his already frayed nerve endings. “What does it say?”

Callia laid her hand on the worn book and looked up at Maelea. “You remember this happening?”

As Zeus and Persephone’s daughter, Maelea was over three thousand years old and had seen or been privy to almost every important moment in ancient Greek history. “I remember hearing about each one, yes.”

“Callia,” Demetrius demanded, stepping closer. “What does it say?”

Callia sighed and looked back at him. “Aiakos, Minos, and Rhadamanthys were three mortals who were given the choice between death or becoming Judges of the Dead in the Underworld.”

“Okay.” Demetrius stared at her. “What do three dead mortals have to do with Isadora?”
 

“All three were of Zeus’s line,” Maelea said. “And all three were bound in life to a mate. When they became gods of the Underworld, the mate they each left behind slowly withered away until eventually death claimed them.”

Demetrius looked from face to face. “I’m still not following. I’m not dead.”

“No,” Callia said, shaking her head. “You’re not following. Death isn’t the connection. Power is. As their powers grew, their mates’ strengths dwindled until there was nothing left.”

Demetrius stared at the female. And her words didn’t immediately click. He was perfectly healthy. Nothing about him had changed. And since Isadora was his soul mate, that meant nothing should be impacting her. Because…

Oh
skata
… The blood rushed from his cheeks, and the entire room felt like it tilted right out from under his feet.

Callia turned in her seat to look up at Zander once more. “We
have
to find Nick. Hades said he needed Zagreus to harness the powers Krónos gave Nick. If that’s about to happen and Nick’s powers are growing, that could explain why Isadora is sick.”

Zander was already stepping toward the door. “What will you do if we find him?”

Callia pushed out of her chair. “I don’t know. But maybe having him here will give me a chance to figure something out.”

Demetrius felt like his brain was thick pea soup. His mate’s health was failing because of his brother?

His heart pounded hard in his chest, and his skin grew damp and tingly. From the first moment, her life had been cursed. By him. By Nick. The Fates couldn’t be this cruel to them. They couldn’t keep threatening to take away the one thing that mattered most in his life.

In a haze, Demetrius pushed away from the table, intent on following Zander, but Titus’s big body filling the doorway to the library drew him to a stop.

“There you guys are.” Titus’s voice was breathy, as if he’d been running. Wisps of his long wavy hair fell over his temple. “We’ve been looking all over for you. There’s movement at the colony.”

“What kind of movement?” Maelea asked, stepping out from behind the table.

“Not sure,” Titus said. “But someone’s fired up the generators, and there are at least two people moving around inside.”

Zander glanced toward Demetrius. “Where would Nick go if he somehow escaped from Zagreus’s lair?”

“To the colony.”

“That’s exactly what Theron thought,” Titus said. “We’re leaving in five.”

Zander kissed Callia’s cheek. And with a new sense of purpose rushing through him, Demetrius headed out into the corridor. But at his back, he heard Zander say, “See? I told you everything would work out.”

“It hasn’t yet,” Callia whispered.
 

“Have faith,
thea
. It will.”
 

Faith… Demetrius had never been able to summon up much of that, but for his mate, he’d find a way. No matter what he had to do, he’d find a way to save Isadora’s life.

H
e was so silent, Cynna was sure Nick could hear her heart pounding against her ribs in the cell. And since she couldn’t see him in the darkness, she had no way to judge what he was thinking.

He doesn’t believe you. Now that his temper’s eased and his desire’s been slaked, he doesn’t want to be near you. Why would you possibly think he’d want your help anyway?
 

Doubts rushed in. Every doubt she’d ever had where he was concerned. But she pushed them away, just like she did every doubt that had ever threatened to drag her down. Reaching for his hand and finding it in the dark, she wrapped her fingers around his and pulled him toward the open cell door. “Come on.”

He didn’t tug back on her hand. Didn’t fight her. Didn’t say anything, for that matter. She led him out into the tunnel, walking carefully on the uneven rocks with her bare feet as she headed toward the dim orange light, the corridor growing brighter with every step.

They rounded a corner, and she spotted the open doorway and the splintered door lying on the ground. Just before she reached it, Nick pulled back on her hand, stopping her. “Wait.”

His face was cast in shadows as he let go of her hand, grasped the hem of his T-shirt, and tugged it off, then dropped it over her head so the soft cotton fell against her bare skin.

Until that moment, she hadn’t even realized she was still naked. She’d been too focused on him. “Oh. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, Cynna. Not after that. Your back is all scratched from the rocks. You have bruises over—”

“I’m fine.” She knew she had bruises. But they were the good kind of bruises, not that bad. And she, more than anyone, knew the difference.

He scowled and looked away, and she realized then that this was about more than what had just happened between them. He was good and truly wrecked. She could see it in his flat eyes and the way they wouldn’t meet hers, could hear it in his gravelly voice. The hours, the days, the months were catching up with him, and suddenly she knew exactly what he needed.

“Come on.” She gripped his hand again and picked her way around the broken door at her feet, then moved into the anteroom that opened to the colony.
 

He didn’t pull back from her again, didn’t fight her, didn’t do anything but sigh and let her lead him. And as she pulled him up the stairs and the devastation around them grew visible, she felt his pulse pick up against hers. Felt his muscles tense in her hand. And knew he was blaming himself all over again.

She couldn’t let him focus on that. Not if he was going to hold it together. They made it to the main level, and he groaned at her back. Tightening her fingers around his, she pulled him toward the charred staircase. “Don’t look around. Just stay with me.”