TWISTED (Eternal Guardians Book 7) (29 page)

Callia tucked a lock of auburn hair behind her ear and frowned. “I’m sorry, but Isadora’s pulse regulating when she touched you was not a coincidence.” She turned toward her sister. “We’ll figure this out, don’t worry. Now that Nick’s here, it should buy us some time.”

Oh no. He wasn’t staying. He looked back over the faces in the room. They didn’t actually expect him to remain in this realm, did they?

Footsteps reverberated from the corridor before he could ask, and his attention shifted that direction, his pulse skipping with the hope of seeing Cynna, back to keep him centered.

Except the female who stepped into the room wasn’t the one he desperately needed. It was Casey, her brown hair shimmering under the chandelier above, her violet eyes sparkling as her gaze caught on Nick. “Someone told me we had a visitor.”

Nick fought back the darkness pushing him to run. Casey crossed the floor, rose up on her toes, and wrapped her arms around Nick’s shoulders. But this time—unlike when Isadora had hugged him—he didn’t flinch. Because Casey was not, and never had been, any kind of threat to his sanity.

“I knew you’d come back,” she said softly, lowering to her feet and smiling up at him. “You’re like a bad penny. You always turn up.”

Nick nodded toward her rounded belly. “You’ve obviously been busy while I’ve been gone. How long?”

Casey cast a warm look toward Theron, who was talking quietly with the queen and Callia. The guardian caught her eye, sent her a worried half grin, then went back to his conversation.

Casey turned back to Nick. “Two more months.”

“And how’s the hero with it all?”

“A bear. Worried. Constantly.” Casey grinned. “Not a whole lot different than usual.”

Nick huffed.

Casey hooked her arm in his and drew him toward a couch in the sitting area of Isadora’s palatial office. “The bigger question is, how are you?”

She was the first person who’d asked. The first one who even seemed to care. But then, being a half-breed—one of
his
people—maybe she was the only one who could.

Cynna cared.
His mind flashed to the way Cynna had grabbed him and kissed him when he’d given her the chance to run in the tunnels. Then how she’d known he was spiraling out of control and gently taken him upstairs, cut his hair, and dragged him back from the edge of something he was sure he wouldn’t have been able to pull himself free from without her.

“Nick?”

He looked to his right, where Casey was sitting next to him on the couch, one hand resting on the swell of her belly while she eyed him with curiosity. Dammit, he didn’t even remember sitting. “What?”

“I asked how you were doing. After everything you’ve been through—”

“I’m fine,” he said quickly, not wanting to delve into what he’d been through. Not with her. “I’m always fine.”

She frowned like she didn’t believe him. “You’re not happy about being here, are you?”

He leaned forward, rested his forearms on his knees, and worked not to scowl again. The fine hairs along his back bristled. “Let’s just say this isn’t my favorite place in the world.”

“I know. But I’m glad you’re here, even if you aren’t. Isadora needs you right now.”

He turned to face Casey, his eyes hardening as a whisper of animosity—no, a hell of a lot more than a whisper—whipped through him. “She never needed me before. Don’t tell me you’re buying into all this bullshit too.”

“It’s not bullshit. You haven’t been here, so you haven’t seen her deterioration, but something is definitely affecting her. Look at her. She’s thinner now than when I met her.”

Nick’s head shifted Isadora’s way before he could stop himself, and he took a good long look at the queen, standing across the room as she spoke quietly with Callia and Theron. Yes, she was thin, but the last time he’d seen her, she’d been eight months pregnant. It was hard for him to gauge what was normal for her and what wasn’t since he’d stayed as far from her as possible in the past. But as he studied her closer, even he couldn’t miss the sallowness to her skin, the way her eyes were sunken in, her cheekbones more prominent than before, and the tired droop to her shoulders.

Guilt whirled around him. And the soul mate draw, the one that he’d never been able to stop, pulled at something deep in his chest.

Her chocolate gaze lifted and locked on his from across the room, almost as if she’d felt it too. And the shock of it was so sudden, so intense, it sent a shiver of surprise through Nick that made him blink and look quickly away.

“She’s fighting it,” Casey said at his side. “She won’t admit to anyone that she’s weak—especially Demetrius, because she doesn’t want to hurt him—but she is. At least now you’re here, and we can hopefully figure out what’s going on.”

“I’m not staying.”

The words were raspy, forced, and didn’t sound like his own. He cleared his throat.
 

“Of course you’re staying. You just got here.”

Nick looked back toward the door. Desperate now for Cynna so he could get his mind off Isadora and back on something that kept him centered. Where the hell was she?

A quick glance over his shoulder told him Demetrius was still watching him way too carefully. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He started to get up, but Casey’s hand on his forearm stopped him. “Wait, Nick.” When he turned her way, he caught the worry in her friendly eyes. “I know things between you and Isadora and Demetrius are…strained.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

A half smile curled her lip but faded quickly. “I also know being here is the last place you want to be. But if you can’t stay for her, or them, then stay for me.”

“You’ve got superhero over there. You don’t need me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Our people need you. And I’ll always be one of them.”

“Our people?” Confusion drew his brows together.

“Yeah.” She stared at him. “Don’t you know? After you left the colony with Hades and Zagreus—”

Casey’s words cut off as Skyla stepped into the room. Alone.

Nick pushed to his feet, his eyes growing wide, searching the empty hallway beyond for Cynna. “Where is she?”

“She went out the bathroom window. Good climber, that one.”

Holy fuck
. “You let her
leave
?”

“Relax,” Skyla said. “She can’t get far. I already alerted the castle guards.”

Not far? She’d clearly underestimated the female. Just like Nick.

“She’s Argolean. If she gets outside, she can flash.” And he’d never find her again. He headed for the door.

“She can’t flash through the castle walls, even if she is in the courtyard.” Skyla sighed. “Besides, something tells me she’ll be back.”

Nick didn’t wait for more. Didn’t listen to the protests behind him. He turned out the door and hustled for the stairs.

“What did you find out?” Orpheus’s voice drifted into the hall behind him.

“Something quite interesting,” Skyla answered.

Nick could only speculate what Cynna had told the Siren, but right now he didn’t give a rip. He had to get to her before she was gone for good.

He skipped steps to make it to the first level as quickly as possible. Across the marble floor and towering entry of the castle, Cynna was just pushing her way past the door guards, heading for the outer courtyard and the castle wall beyond.

Nick didn’t yell for her, didn’t want to give her any reason to run. He pushed his legs forward, moving with stealth across the great Alpha seal stamped into the floor. Both guards regarded him with speculation as he drew close, but he’d visited the castle often enough in the past that they didn’t pay him any extra attention. He raced down the front steps and caught up with Cynna yards from the closed front gate, grasped her by the arm, and tugged her around to face him.

“Hold up,” he said. “Just where do you think you’re going?”

Her eyes widened in surprise but quickly hardened. “I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not.”

Fury flashed in her chocolate gaze. “You don’t get to decide that. You don’t get to choose. I was willing to help you in any way I could, because I know you deserved it after all the shitty things I did to you. But not this. I can’t.” She tugged back against his grip. “I won’t.”

He’d seen her pissed when those satyrs had come at her. But this was different. This wasn’t just anger, it was panic and fear and hurt all clashing together.

“Look,” he said calmly, hoping to settle them both down. “I know you don’t want to be in Argolea.”

“You think this is about Argolea?” She wrenched her arm from his hold. “This isn’t about Argolea. It’s about her.”

“Her who?”

“Her.” She held up a hand toward the castle. “Your
soul mate
.”

A hard knot formed in Nick’s chest, and his memory skipped back over the last few minutes. She’d obviously seen his reaction to Isadora. He hadn’t been able to mask it, even though he’d tried. No wonder she was pissed. Especially after the things he’d done to her in the tunnels of the colony. Especially considering the things he wanted to do to her all over again.

Nick took a step toward her. “It’s not what you think. Isadora and I—”

“Oh, for gods’ sake.” Cynna stepped back so he couldn’t touch her. “I don’t care that you have a soul mate. I don’t care if you have ten. What I care about is the fact it’s
her
. Of all the people in all the world, your soul mate turns out to be the one person I hate more than any other. I should have expected it. I should have known, dammit.”

She took another step back and waved her hands, and as he watched her frantic movements, as he saw her panic and anger growing, an odd tingle spread across the scars along his back.

“I don’t care how guilty I feel over the things Zagreus made me do,” she snapped. “I won’t have anything to do with her. And you can’t make me stay anywhere near this disgusting castle.”

She turned to leave again, but Nick caught her by the arm, twisting her back to face him once more. “Hold on. What did Isadora do to you?”

Her jaw clenched, and that dead look, the one he hadn’t seen in her eyes since before she’d tended his wounds in the Prince of Darkness’s lair, crept back into her gaze. A look that was so sudden, so emotionless, it halted every one of those tingles and sent a chill straight down his spine.

“Everything,” she said in a hard, cold voice. “She’s the reason I was with Zagreus. The person I traded my freedom for to see ruined. She’s the one who murdered my entire family.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
he disbelief on Nick’s scarred face told Cynna everything she needed to know.

He didn’t believe her. But then, why would he? His soul mate was the queen of fucking Argolea. And he was so completely gone over her, he wouldn’t believe the truth about her even if it punched him square in the face.

Metal ground against metal at her back. Cynna didn’t have to look to know that the castle gates were opening. Someone was coming in. Which meant—because she couldn’t flash through solid walls, even out here in the open—she now had a way out.

She pulled her arm from his grip once more and moved back a half step. “This is finished.”

“Cynna—”

She closed her eyes and pictured home. Or what was left of it. And in a flash, she was floating, spinning, traveling across the distance to the only place in this miserable land where she’d ever felt she belonged.

Her feet connected with the hard ground, and she opened her eyes only to draw in a surprised gasp.

Snow littered both sides of the dirt road. Spindly barren deciduous trees void of leaves stood like decrepit statues while conifers swayed in the cool breeze. Beyond, the Aegis Mountains rose to the gray sky in shades of blue and purple. But what startled her wasn’t the familiar scenery. No, it was the two-story high stone wall that had been rebuilt, the enormous wooden gate—solid, not burned or broken or filled with holes—and the soldiers. Castle soldiers from Tiyrns—she recognized their emblems—manning the entrance.

Her pulse raced, and she looked all around as she moved forward, trying to figure out what was going on.

The guard to her right leveled her with a look and held out his spear. “Halt, female. Papers are required for admittance to the Kyrenia settlement.”