Tempted (3 page)

“Gryphon,” Theron said quickly. “Your brother—”

“I’m on it.” Gryphon jogged for the door. “I may want to kick Orpheus’s ass now and then, but even I wouldn’t sic D on him.”

When the room fell silent, Casey turned toward her husband. She knew he was doing everything he could, but the heavy weight on her heart and that tingling near her lower back told her something was very wrong. “Theron,” she whispered.

“Shh,
meli
.” He pulled her close. “We’ll find her.”

Casey leaned into his touch and glanced at Callia. Across the room her half sister crossed her arms and chewed on her thumbnail. And in her eyes Casey saw the dread she felt reflected right back at her.

***

The black mist rolled through Demetrius as he flashed to the sidewalk on Corinth Avenue in the Draco region of Tiyrns, the slum that was home to the lowest life-forms in all the city. Dusk had just settled in, and the streetlights above glowed orange in the fading light. He took in the trash in the gutters, the run-down buildings, the bars on the windows, and the swaying signs from businesses that had long ago called it quits in this part of Argolea.

He knew this area well. Knew the pub across the street, with its blaring music and raucous laughter. Knew several who inhabited the seedy establishment even better, because they came here for the same things he did. But there was no way Isadora could have known about this place. And just the thought of her walking these streets to find Orpheus sent that black mist boiling.

He spotted Helios, Orpheus’s “shop,” halfway down the street, and headed in that direction. Oh, the irony that Orpheus’s shop bore the same marking those damn witches glorified.

“Hold up, D,” Gryphon called. “Shit, wait for me, would ya?”

Demetrius ignored the guardian and didn’t stop until he was outside the shop’s door. The sign said “Closed” but he turned the handle and found it unlocked. Stepping inside, he glanced around the dimly lit interior with its tables and shelves overflowing with trinkets. Human shit. Things Orpheus had no doubt pilfered from the human realm and brought to Argolea to hawk.

Gryphon moved past Demetrius and picked up a snow globe on a nearby table. A soft chuckle came from his throat as he turned the globe in his hand and little white flakes floated through the clear liquid inside. “Man, the Council’s gonna love him when Uncle Lucian finally retires.” His eyes shifted to Demetrius. “Can you see good ol’ Orpheus on the Council of Elders, advising the king or Isadora or whoever in Hades is running this place by then?”

No, Demetrius couldn’t see Orpheus as any kind of advisor to anyone. It was a sick twist of fate that he and Gryphon were the only living heirs to Lord Lucian, the leader of the Council of Elders. Since Gryphon already served with the Argonauts, that left Orpheus as the only eligible
ándras
to replace Lucian on the Council when he finally retired. But Orpheus was no lord. He was only out for himself. He obviously had no qualms about opening the portal, about letting Argoleans roam back and forth between their world and the human realm. Didn’t give a shit about the dangers that lurked there or the daemons that couldn’t wait to infiltrate Argolea and destroy their home. And he obviously didn’t give a flying fuck about the monarchy, if he was the one who had led Isadora to those witches.

His jaw clenched. Before he could tear into Gryphon about his lazy-ass scheming brother, he spotted a door along the back wall and headed in that direction.

“D,” Gryphon called. “Dammit.”

The doorway led to a dimly lit hall that ran through the length of the building. From the far end, voices echoed.

“Come on,” a male voice said. Orpheus’s voice. “Ignore what you heard and refocus. Act like you’re enjoying yourself. Attitude is half the battle.”

“I am,” a female replied. “Stop bitching at me.”

“I would if you’d just open yourself to this. We don’t have all night.”

That darkness brewed deeper in Demetrius’s gut, like a mist rising up to envelop him. He moved around the corner and into the room.

A female with long blond hair stood at a rectangular table, a bowl of what looked like water in front of her. For a moment Demetrius thought it was Isadora, but then he remembered that the last time he’d seen the princess, her hair had been short. And Isadora was thinner than this female, more wiry, and definitely prettier.

The female’s hands hovered over the surface of the liquid and her eyes slid closed as she chanted softly to herself. Behind her and to the right, Orpheus stood with his feet apart and his arms folded over his chest, a scowl on his face as he watched.

He was as tall as the Argonauts and, because he was Gryphon’s brother and hailed from Perseus’s line, just as muscular. But he wasn’t as well trained, and even though he was a scrapper, Demetrius knew he could take him in a hand-to-hand.

As the water in the glass bowl swirled, the female chanted, stepped back, and lifted her hands outward. The water rose up, swirling higher until it was at least four feet tall, a mini cyclone twisting above the bowl.

“Yes, that’s it,” Orpheus said, dropping his hands. Sandy brown hair fell across his forehead. “Keep concentrating. You’re doing it. You are fucking doing it. What do you see?”

The muscles around the female’s eyes contracted. “Faces.”

Demetrius stepped fully into the room. The female’s eyes popped open and shot in his direction.

“Dammit, Aellô,” Orpheus said quickly. “Focus!”

With the female’s concentration broken, the cyclone stopped spinning and gravity grabbed hold of the water, drawing it down to slap against the table and floor and spray over her and Orpheus.

The female yelped. Demetrius went right after Orpheus. He grabbed hold of Orpheus’s shirtfront and slammed him against the wall. “Where is the princess?”

“
Skata
,” Gryphon muttered. “Demetrius, let him go.”

A sinister smile spread across Orpheus’s face. “Don’t tell me you boys lost her again. I guess the rumors are true. None of you are man enough to satisfy her after all.”

Demetrius pulled forward, then slammed Orpheus back against the wall again, but before Orpheus’s body made contact he disappeared. Poofed right out of Demetrius’s hands.

Demetrius’s eyes widened. He looked at his now-empty hands and whipped around to find Orpheus standing behind him, a murderous expression on his face.

“Don’t fuck with me, Guardian. Aellô, we’re done here. Gather your stuff and head home.”

The female cast each of them a nervous look but quickly picked up her cloak and bag from the floor, stepped over the puddle of water, and hightailed it for the door.

“Now,” Orpheus said, crossing his arms over his chest as he glanced from his brother to Demetrius and back again, “to what do I owe this…surprise?”

Demetrius took a step forward, but Gryphon’s forearm against his chest stopped him.

“The princess is missing, Orpheus,” Gryphon said.

“And that concerns me how?”

“Because you took her to the portal.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking ab—”

Demetrius pushed past Gryphon’s arm. “Dark magick hovers all around this place. That female you had in here was a witch.”

Orpheus’s gray eyes settled on Demetrius, and for a second they flashed green. Green? That wasn’t right. “Be careful, Guardian.”

“Orpheus, listen,” Gryphon said, moving by Demetrius with a glare. “Isadora went missing from the castle just before her binding ceremony to Zander. No one can find her. She doesn’t even know the king called off the proceedings.”

At those words Demetrius finally pulled his gaze from Orpheus and shifted it to Gryphon. “The king did
what
?”

Gryphon frowned Demetrius’s way, but refocused on his brother. “We found a bracelet in her room. One with the Helios marking. This store. Those witches.” He gestured to the door Aellô had just left through. “Casey told us the portal you took her, Callia, and Isadora to was manned by witches.”

Orpheus’s gaze shifted from Gryphon to Demetrius and back again. “The king called off Isadora’s binding?”

“Yeah.” Gryphon’s brow wrinkled. “Wait. You were supposed to be at the ceremony. You should know this already.”

“I decided not to go. Why did the king call it off?”

“Because it’s clear Zander and Callia are meant to be together.”

Orpheus’s eyes narrowed. “Who did he give her to this time?”

“No one.”

“No one?” The words shot out of Demetrius’s mouth before he could stop them. Gryphon glared his way again with a
what
the
hell
is
wrong
with
you?
look that tightened Demetrius’s stomach and told him what the guardian said was true.

The king really hadn’t betrothed her to anyone else? Fuck.
Fuck!

“Translation, little brother,” Orpheus said with disdain, flicking a curious look between the two. “The king didn’t have a chance to force her on yet another Argonaut she doesn’t want because she ran off before he could.”

“Ran off or was kidnapped.”

The brothers stared at each other, and in the tension crackling it was clear that they both knew something Demetrius didn’t. The darkness inside him tingled with awareness.

“Will you help us?” Gryphon asked.

Orpheus’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re asking, not ordering?”

“Yeah. This time I am.”

Orpheus nodded at Demetrius. “And what about that one?”

“He wants to find her as much as the rest of us do.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Something tells me he has other, contradictory motives where your princess is concerned.”

Demetrius had sensed Orpheus and the princess had some kind of connection in the past. Knew it now by the way Orpheus glared at him. What was she to him? And what was he to her?

The dark mist churned and boiled inside Demetrius as he imagined the two of them alone together. This was her choice? This piece-of-shit, rat-bastard, scheming
nothing
?

Orpheus’s eyes slid back to Gryphon. “I’ll take you to the portal where I took the girls. But if she already went through—”

“We know,” Gryphon said. “There’s no telling where she could be by now.”

Orpheus grabbed a cloak from a nearby closet, led them outside, gave them a location in the Aegis Mountains, and disappeared in a flash of light. With no other choice, Demetrius followed. He cleared his mind and imagined the location, then he was flying, flashing from the sidewalk on Corinth Avenue to a wooded area at the base of Mount Parnithia.

Orpheus was already there waiting when Demetrius opened his eyes. Seconds later, Gryphon arrived. They followed Orpheus up a hill toward a small tent city made up of colorful fabrics. Flags flew in the wind, streamers of greens, reds, golds. A large pavilion with three flags marked with sun symbols took up the center area. As Demetrius glanced around, he counted twenty, thirty, maybe fifty witches in this gathering alone.

Fifty witches. The darkness inside condensed even as disgust roiled through him.

Faces turned their way as they moved into the camp. Voices died down and movement stopped. At his side, Demetrius saw Gryphon ease his hand toward the blade he kept strapped to his thigh. Even he didn’t completely trust his brother. Not when he’d led them into the center of a witch’s brew.

Orpheus spoke in Medean to a young female standing near the pavilion’s door. Her eyes grew wide. She nodded and disappeared inside. Seconds later she came back with an older female, this one with long, straight, snow-white hair, a youthful face, and piercing blue eyes. The witch looked only about thirty, but Demetrius sensed she was much, much older.

The witch’s eyes narrowed, passed from one to the next, and swept back to Orpheus. “These are not the Horae.”

“No.”