Authors: Elisabeth Naughton
He tugged at the bandage, pulled it free, then grasped the tear in her pants and ripped it open wider so he could get a better look.
The wound was red and inflamed, no longer bleeding but swollen, the edges oozing. Infection had already set in. Faster than it should have for one shallow cut. He shifted his hand back to her forehead. She moaned once more and leaned into his hand.
Skata
, she was burning up. He needed to do something to cool her fever or she could seize. At this point, risking a secondary infection to her wound was less of a concern than watching her die.
He pushed to his feet, leaned down and wrapped his arms around her. She grunted, resting her hands on his biceps. Her burning head fell against his chest. Fear and panic mingled inside him. “Come on, Tasa. I need you to wake up.”
She was like deadweight in his arms. He carried her toward the water and scanned the area. When he found a place where the waves weren’t crashing too strongly against the rocks, he headed that direction. Lowering her to her feet, he wrapped his arm around her waist and slowly eased them both into the water.
He gasped at the frigid bite, but she was so hot next to his skin, her heat quickly eased the chill. Bracing one hand on the rock ledge to keep the waves from knocking them into the cliff, he held her tight. “Wake up for me, baby,” he whispered, running his fingers up and down her lower spine. “Open those pretty eyes.”
She moaned, leaned her head against his chest as if still sleeping, but her legs grazed his, and her arms tightened around his waist.
Man, he could get used to this. Her wrapped around him, leaning on him, needing him. And as he slowly felt her body temperature lower, he couldn’t help but see how the situation had reversed. Hours ago, she’d been the one saving him. They seemed to have this back-and-forth thing going. Where she couldn’t walk away from him and he couldn’t walk away from her. Now more than ever, he was determined to figure out who she was, and how he could help her.
His fingers brushed her hair to one side, and he noticed the triangular tattoo on the back of her neck.
He shifted her in his arms to get a better look. The triangle wasn’t fancy, just straight lines and identical angles. Nothing someone would purposely have tattooed on their skin unless it meant something personal. But this didn’t look like ink to him. It looked—he shifted his forearm covered in the ancient Greek text closer to compare the lines and markings—like something she’d been born with.
Everything inside him stilled.
Her erratic body temperature, the fact Maelea had said she was searching for Prometheus, Natasa’s admission that people were after her, her inconsistent, almost volatile reactions, his strange ability to touch her…
A tingling grew in his chest, slowly drifted up until his thoughts were a whir in his mind. He looked down at her face, resting gently against his shoulder, her eyes closed, her long, dark lashes forming crescents against her pale skin. And realized what he would have figured out with his superstrength brain had he not been so obsessed by her touch.
She was fire. He didn’t know why or how it was possible, but he was certain she was the element the Argonauts and gods were all desperately seeking.
His heart pounded hard. Options, scenarios whirred through his mind. Theron and the others already thought she had some dark agenda. If they found out she was fire, they’d use her as a weapon. The same way they’d used him all these years to get an upper hand in their battles.
“Don’t stay…in water…too long,” she mumbled against his chest. “He’ll come… Will think I…failed.”
His brow lowered. He tried to read her expression. Couldn’t. “Who, baby?”
Zeus? Hades? Both were desperate to find the remaining elements. The waves rocked them in the water, but she didn’t answer. Her breathing slowed, and as she drifted to sleep, her temperature seemed to normalize. But his heart was racing. And he was starting to shiver again.
Realizing he was going to be no help to either of them if hypothermia set in, he climbed out and dragged her with him. Water ran in rivulets down their skin. She was still groggy and out of it, but this time when he lifted her, she curled into his arms, and the urge to protect her, to take care of her, overwhelmed him.
He carried her back to the shelter of the overhang and reached for her now-dry coat. He dabbed at the wound on her leg. Her face tightened, as if in pain, but when he placed his bare palm over the cut, she tipped her head and sighed. Her breaths slowed once more and evened out. He felt her forehead again, counting minutes as they ticked by in silence.
Her temperature was already slowly creeping back up.
“
Skata
.”
She needed medicine. A healer. Something to take care of the fever before it burned her alive. He could open a portal back to Argolea, but there was no way he was letting Theron get close to her now.
He glanced up and around. Zagreus and his goons had to be long gone. Judging from the position of the moon and the reduced cloud cover, hours had passed since their run-in. He didn’t have time to wait to make sure. By morning, Natasa’s fever would be worse, and though the water had cooled her slightly, something about her mumbled warning set his nerves on edge.
“Here, baby, drink this.” He grasped the canteen they’d lifted before running from the Amazon city and brought it to her lips. She grunted, tried to push it away, but he forced her to drink. Licking her lips, she leaned back against the rocks and sighed again, never once opening her eyes.
“I’m gonna get help,
ligos Vesuvius.
Don’t worry.
”
She didn’t answer. He didn’t expect her to. He set the canteen next to her hand, then gently brushed the hair away from her face, grimacing at how hot she was already. Grabbing her jacket from the ground, he went back to the water, then dunked it in the ice-cold ocean. The frigid garment would make him cringe, but he knew it’d feel like sweet relief to her.
She sighed when he draped it over her, seeming to melt into the rocks.
He leaned close and pressed a kiss to her forehead. And felt his heart take a nosedive into an ocean he was starting to think he might never be able to swim free from. “I’ll be back. Dream of me.”
Chapter Ten
“Daemon attacks are down in the area since Atalanta’s death,” Helene said as she sat in front of Nick’s desk in his office at the colony and made marks on her trusty clipboard. “But Kellen reported this morning that a new pack was sighted outside Whitefish. And we’re hearing word of attacks at small outposts deeper in the Rockies.”
Nick had never expected his mother’s beasts to stop their hunt for blood simply because she was now dead. But he’d hoped for it, even if he’d never said so aloud. He studied the report Kellen, one of his best scouts, had generated. “Send a unit to the Whitefish area to check for signs. And another to scour the acres south of the lake.”
Helene nodded, her shoulder-length, light brown hair falling over her face as she looked down at her notes and made another mark. The movement dragged his attention away from his own papers, and he watched with detached interest as she brushed the lock back and tucked it behind her ear.
Her jaw was strong, her skin creamy, her features feminine and attractive. She’d been his go-to person for the last two years, had been instrumental when they’d relocated the colony here from Oregon, and was probably the closest thing he had to a friend. And yet he knew virtually nothing personal about her. Not about what she did after she left him for the day or who she hung out with or even how she’d lost her leg as a child.
“There’s one more thing,” she said.
She lifted her head, and her eyes widened when she realized he was watching her. A blush spread across her cheeks. A blush that told him she was aware of him on a level he
should
be aware of her. And yet, even with that knowledge, he felt nothing inside. Nothing but anger over the fact the gods had cursed him more than any other. Ever since he’d learned Isadora had fallen for his brother, he hadn’t been able to get it up for any female. Even one as sexy, available, and interested as the one sitting right in front of him.
She quickly glanced back down again and made a mark on her paper. Her cheeks turned pinker. “Um…the therillium supply will need to be replenished soon. You’ve been so busy with the scouts and the celebration in Argolea, I was thinking it might be time to pass that job on to someone else.”
Nick’s jaw clenched at the memory of that celebration, and his back tingled at the thought of what lived beneath the colony. “No one else goes into the mines. End of subject. And I don’t want it brought up again.”
Helene’s gaze snapped to his. Questions brewed in her dark eyes, but she didn’t ask them.
After a long pause, she sighed, then looked back down at her notes. “I guess that’s about it.”
She pushed to her feet, and guilt slithered through Nick at the disappointment showing on her face. Guilt that he wasn’t what she wanted him to be. That he couldn’t be more. Followed by another shot of anger that whipped and burned through every inch of his veins.
He was tired of doing and being and having others depend on him. Exhausted from the duties and responsibilities of running the colony and being the person everyone turned to in a crisis. He was on a circular path that seemed to have no end. And now, thanks to his inability to restrain his temper, he’d done something he shouldn’t have. Which meant the one tiny piece of joy he had in his life—seeing his soul mate now and then even if she’d never truly be his—was gone.
His mood darkened. As if on autopilot, he rose from his seat and followed Helene toward the door. Her limp was less visible these days, the new prosthetic obviously working better than the last. He wanted to ask about it. Knew he should say something to clear the air but couldn’t find the words. Didn’t even know if he wanted to.
She pulled the door open, then drew up short.
Kellen’s tanned face filled the doorway. “Helene.” He looked past her and focused on Nick. “We’ve got a problem.”
Always a problem. Always another fucking problem.
Nick tamped down the resentment. “What’s happened?”
“We got a call on the satellite line. One of the Argonauts is stranded and requesting help.”
Nick’s jaw clenched.
Let it be Demetrius.
He was in the mood for a good bloodletting. At the moment, it was the only thing he could think of that might improve his mood. “Which one?”
“Titus. And he’s not alone. The redhead? The one that was here a week or so ago, looking for Maelea? She’s with him.”
* * *
She was running. Her feet were bare. The ground dry and covered in a thin layer of dust. Her muscles ached, but she pushed on, the fabric of her dress flapping in the wind around her ankles.
Breathe. Focus. Draw on the strength inside you
.
Her mother had spoken those words to her. Years ago. So many, Natasa could barely remember when exactly. But her mother’s voice rang in her head. Louder now. So very clear. As if she were right behind her, urging her on.
The dirt road blurred. And a blast of heat rolled over Natasa, dragging the air from her lungs, flinging her forward with a force that swept her off her feet. She hit the ground with a grunt, landing on her hands and knees. Dirt flew up around her, making her cough. Blinking to rid her eyes of the grit, she looked over her shoulder to see what had hit her. Then gasped as the landscape began to change.
Her homeland swirled as if made of a magical fog. No more mud huts or pyramids; even the palace on the hill where she lived with her mother had disappeared.
Rolling over the mountains, a smokeless fire as big as a sandstorm came straight toward her. So hot she could feel its heat burning her skin, even miles away.
Breathe, Natasa. Focus. Draw on the strength that is inside you. Good or evil, the choice is yours
.
Fear consumed her. She didn’t want to focus. Didn’t care about good or evil. She needed to run.
She dragged herself to her feet. Pushed her muscles forward with every ounce of strength she had inside her. The fire roared closer. Panic swelled in her chest. Fiery heat licked at her back, igniting the skirt of her dress in flames that crawled up her legs.
“No!” She swatted at the flames, trying to put them out. She couldn’t stop running. “Help me! Someone!”
She batted furiously, couldn’t smother them. Panic morphed to bone-melting fear. She tried to rip off her dress. Her fingers got stuck in the folds of fabric. She sobbed and pulled harder. The fire across the hills thundered close. She looked up just as it devoured the tree she’d been reading under. And her eyes grew wide when she realized it wasn’t just a fire. There was a face within the flames. A face that was blowing the blaze all across the land, igniting everything in an unquenchable fire. A face she’d seen in her mother’s drawings.
The face of her father.
Her eyes grew wider. Horror whipped like a wind blown straight from the fires of the Underworld.
She looked up at the sky, and screamed into the burning wind, “Why are you doing this?”
An eagle screeched high above, swooping overhead. Her gaze followed. The eagle sailed over a man, standing not a hundred feet away. Flames licked at his feet, but he wasn’t burning. At least not yet. Her breath caught. Recognition flared.
Titus
…
Her heartbeat picked up speed. She pushed her feet toward him, grasping her burning skirt. She had to save him. Had to help him…
Just as she reached him, his face shifted, the nose growing longer, the chin sharper, the hair not dark and shoulder length but short, blond, and sun kissed. And all around him, a cool, blue aura erupted.
“
I can help you. Come to me and live
.”
She heard the voice in her head, but the lips didn’t move. Confusion swamped her. This wasn’t her Titus. This wasn’t what she wanted to be running toward. She knew she needed to go, to flee, but her legs wouldn’t move. A hand extended. A hand bathed in the same blue aura. Not scorching and hot but cool and refreshing, offering her…relief.