Tempted (7 page)

The magick that was as much a part of him as his eyes and hair and teeth, but which he denied at every turn, gathered in his hands. A chant rose in his mind, circled, and swirled until the words poured from his tongue without encouragement.

“Earth, wind, water, fire, grant to me your growing power.” He felt the force push through his hands, zing out his fingertips. Imagined his arm shooting across the distance and his hand wrapping around the daemon’s throat. Sensations rippled through him. The instant he felt contact, he clamped down and yanked.

The daemon lost its footing. Jerked back ten feet before it slammed into the ground. Isadora scrambled to her feet. The daemon jumped up with murder in its green eyes as it searched for whoever had grabbed him.

He homed in on Demetrius and charged. Demetrius had just enough time to brace himself. He darted a look toward Isadora and the remaining daemons closing in tight. The daemon launched just as Demetrius swung out. His parazonium caught the beast across the chest, tore into its thick flesh. Demetrius swiveled out from under its weight.

“Isadora! Run!”

Blood spurted over him as the daemon hit the ground and rolled. From the corner of his eye Demetrius saw Isadora sprinting toward the trees. But the monster was up again, charging, blocking his view of her, teeth bared, fangs unsheathed, eyes a blinding glow in its grotesque head.

Isadora screamed again. A loud crack resounded through the chill night air seconds before the daemon slammed into Demetrius, knocking him to the ground. His head hit hard, stars fired off behind his eyes, but panic over what he couldn’t see happening only yards away had him swinging out again and again with his blade.

He couldn’t make headway. Didn’t have enough time to focus and draw on his magick. The creature knocked the blade from his hand. Metal pinged against rock as his parazonium clanked across the ground. The beast reared back, blood-coated claws seconds from annihilation.

“Stop!”

The daemon above hesitated. His gruesome head swiveled toward Gryphon and Isadora and the daemon who’d shouted the order.

Demetrius looked too. Ten or more daemons had gathered around Isadora, blocking his view. The daemon kneeling on the ground nodded toward the beast that still had Demetrius pinned. “Bring him.”

The daemon curled its claws into Demetrius’s shirt and yanked. “Get up, asswipe.”

Demetrius staggered, caught his balance, stumbled again as he was dragged across the ground. The daemon threw him to the dirt near the others.

Pain seared every inch of his body, but he pushed up on his hands, searched through the sea of tree-trunk legs and arms for Isadora. Sweat and blood rolled into his eyes, but he barely cared.

Isadora’s face was bruised, her arms limp, her head tipped to the side. Blood trickled down her temple. More dried blood caked her short blond hair and matted the side of her head. One foot was twisted at an odd angle, and her chest neither rose nor fell.

No. Oh, skata, no…

The daemon who’d summoned him stepped in Demetrius’s line of sight, blocking his view. He wrapped his meaty hands in the front of Demetrius’s shirt and jerked him to his feet. Demetrius didn’t fight back, didn’t try to defend himself. All he saw was the image of Isadora lying dead on the ground.

The daemon’s glowing eyes roamed Demetrius’s face, and that black mist brewed in Demetrius’s chest with every passing second. Two hundred and eighteen years of life had come down to this. To making one monumentally fucked-up mistake that had just toasted all three of them and sent Isadora straight into Hades’s clutches for good. “Just kill me, you fucking prick.”

The daemon’s lips curled back in a grisly smile to reveal stained, pointed teeth. “And risk the wrath of Atalanta? I don’t think so.”

The daemon set Demetrius on his feet, but instead of the blinding pain from claws or teeth or blade, what came was a pat on his back as if they were old friends. The daemon turned to face the others. “What we have there, my comrades, is of royal blood. And lucky for all of you I realized this before you killed her.”

Demetrius’s gaze snapped to Isadora. She wasn’t dead? Hope erupted in his chest.

“Atalanta has been waiting for her,” the daemon went on. “What a lucky twist of fate that we are the ones who will bring her to our queen.” He turned and looked Demetrius’s way. “And she will be most pleased you are the one who brought her to us.”

That hope fizzled and died. Trepidation coursed through Demetrius as the leader’s chest swelled with pride. More daemons gathered to see what was happening. Murmurs and throaty whispers rose up in the night to circle the field like a malicious, pulsing halo of evil.

The leader of the pack held his arms out wide. “Warriors, pay homage to this Argonaut who will change the tides of our war. For Atalanta’s son has succeeded in his duties. Your brother has finally brought us our prize.”

Chapter 5

Orpheus felt like he’d been run over by a semitruck. The skin on his hands and forearms was fried from all the acidic witch blood. His shoulder hurt like a bitch where he’d taken a blast of Apophis’s energy. And he had enough nicks and cuts from claws and swords everywhere else to last him into the next millennium.

Man, the Argonauts owed him big-time. As he flashed to Delia’s tent city in the low hills of the Aegis Mountains, he corrected himself.
Isadora
fucking owed him.

And this time he planned to hold firm to his word and make sure she paid up.

Delia rushed out of the pavilion just as he lowered the invisibility cloak’s hood. She grasped his forearm, her fingers digging in deep to his already-seared skin.

He winced as pain shot into his arm and tried to pull away. But the witch had a death grip and her wide-eyed expression put him on instant alert. One look around and he realized the Argonauts weren’t here, where’d they’d planned to reconnoiter after rescuing Isadora.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“They left.”

Left? Why, those ungrateful motherfu—

“They sensed one of their own open the portal.”

“I know. The big one opened it to get the princess away from Apophis.”

Delia shook her head, white hair flaring out all around her shoulders. And his last thread of patience snapped. He’d nearly gotten fried, had risked his own neck so Demetrius could get Gryphon and Isadora the hell out of there, and then they’d gone and ditched his ass so they could—

“It didn’t reopen.”

“What did you say?”

“I said the portal didn’t reopen. They didn’t come back through. Not here, not in Tiyrns.”

His brow wrinkled. “How can you—”

“Because I sense anytime the portal opens, anywhere in Argolea. How do you think I’m able to monitor our mobile portals?” Her hand tightened on his arm. “I sensed it open to the human realm, but not back again. Orpheus, I don’t have to tell you, as one of the Horae, it’s not safe for the princess to be in the human realm.”

No, it wasn’t safe for Isadora to be in the human realm, but that wasn’t what set off a tremor of unease deep in Orpheus’s gut. Thinking about Gryphon unable to stand on his own when Demetrius had taken him through was foremost in Orpheus’s mind.

He didn’t bother to answer Delia, simply closed his eyes and pictured the castle in Tiyrns, then flashed to the grand foyer.

The guards at the front door caught sight of him and hollered, surprised he’d flashed inside walls. Turning, he looked up the massive staircase to where Theron and a few of the other Argonauts were coming down.

Footsteps pounded across the marble floor. Theron waved a hand from above. “He’s with us.”

The leader of the Argonauts stopped at ground level, motioned Cerek over to take care of the flustered guards. Then he turned his attention on Orpheus. “Glad you made it back.”

Yeah, right.
“What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell us.”

“We were overrun. Demetrius took the princess and Gryphon through the portal to get away. I stayed back to give them a chance.”

“How in Hades did you get out?”

Orpheus didn’t like the accusation. The guardian might command this ragtag group of warriors, but he didn’t hold a damn thing over Orpheus. “I have my ways.”

Theron studied Orpheus for a long beat, and in his eyes there was skepticism and distrust, the kind Orpheus was used to seeing. But not when he’d
volunteered
to help. And definitely not when he’d nearly gotten zapped to smithereens as a result. This is what he got for being a fucking Good Samaritan.

He set his jaw, was just about to lay into Theron, when the guardian said, “They never made it back. What did they say to you before they left?”

Nothing that would help the Argonauts find them, that was sure. They could be anywhere. Except…“Gryphon was injured.”

“Where? How?”

“That piece of shit warlock hit him with some kind of energy. He could barely stand on his own. If they didn’t come back right away—”

“
Skata.
” Theron looked over his shoulder. “Zander, get Callia. We’re going to need her.”

As the blond guardian headed back up the stairs, Orpheus’s irritation with this whole fucked-up situation reached its limit. “Can’t you just track them with those fancy medallions you all wear?”

“The medallions work like a beacon, one way, and only if they’re pressed. Someone has to activate them for—”

Boots clomped on the floor above, and all heads turned to see what the ruckus was about. Seconds later Titus rounded the newel post and skipped stairs to reach them at the bottom. He was out of breath when he said, “I got it. Just came in.” He waved some kind of handheld gizmo. “Gryphon’s medal went off.”

“What about Demetrius’s?” Theron asked.

Titus shook his head. “Hasn’t been triggered. Theron, man. They’re at the half-breed colony.”

“
Skata,
” Theron muttered again.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that was the worst possible place to open the portal. The colony had recently been overrun by daemons, and the Misos—half human, half Argolean—were in the process of setting up new digs somewhere in Montana. If Demetrius had opened the portal there, odds were good they’d run into a shit storm of daemons, still running patrols and searching the area for stragglers. And with Gryphon injured, their chances of getting out alive diminished radically.

“Get Nick on the horn,” Theron said to Titus. “He’s still in Oregon rounding up his people and getting them moved over.”

“Got it,” Titus said, skipping back up the steps.

Zander was just coming back down the massive staircase with Callia at his side. “T,” he said as Titus rushed by. “What’s up?”

“Nothing good,” Titus muttered, then disappeared around the corner.

One hand gripping Zander’s tightly, the other holding her healer’s bag, Callia couldn’t hide the worry shrouding her face. She stopped at the base of the stairs, looked from Orpheus to Theron and back again. “Zander said Gryphon was hurt. How bad?”

Theron shook his head then focused in on Zander. “T tracked them to the colony.”

“Shit,” Zander muttered. “What the hell are they doing there?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. We’ll need to go in carefully, pick a location well enough away so the bastards can’t sense us.”

“I’m coming too,” Callia cut in.

“No,” Theron said. When she flicked him an irritated look, Theron gentled his tone. “No, Callia. It’s too dangerous. Until we know what the scene is like, you stay here. But I want you ready at the Gatehouse. If it’s safe and we need you, Z will come back for you. If not…we’ll figure out a way to get Gryphon back to you ASAP.”

That didn’t seem to appease Callia, but she nodded, then turned to Zander. The two exchanged quiet words while the other Argonauts muttered among themselves. And watching, Orpheus had the distinct impression he was systematically being shut out.

His jaw clenched. “I’m going with you.”

“No,” Theron said without looking his way. “We can handle this on our own.”

Fuck
that.

The muscles in Orpheus’s eyes constricted, and though he fought it, he couldn’t stop what was about to happen. Callia glanced his way and gasped. Several of the Argonauts turned to look. But before his eyes shifted to complete glowing green, he closed them tight and flashed out of the castle and straight to the portal.

Screw the Argonauts.

In this case he was lucky the Council had replaced the Argonauts with the Executive Guard. It took him microseconds to hit the Gatehouse, pull up the hood of his invisibility cloak, and sail right past the morons and through the portal.

The Council thought they knew best, that they didn’t need the Argonauts to protect their realm, that the Executive Guard could do it just as well by standing guard. They didn’t have a clue what kinds of evil lurked on the other side of the portal. But Orpheus did. He knew because he lived it every damn day.

Since he’d been at the half-breed colony only days before, he knew the coordinates in the remote Oregon wilderness, and it was easy to open the portal just beyond the cave’s entrance. A flash of light erupted as he stepped through, then sizzled and popped into nothingness.

He lowered the hood of his cloak, stood where he was, his eyes and ears adjusting to the sights and sounds around him. The Douglas firs were eerily quiet, the light from the full moon illuminating the thin layer of fresh snow on the forest floor with a surreal gray light. A whisper of frigid air ran down his spine, prickling the hair on his back, and the scents of earth and pine and decay filled his nose. That and blood. Lots of blood.

The daemon in him pushed forward, but he fought it back, thankful this one time his heightened senses would draw him to what he was looking for. He moved through the forest without a sound, like the dark shadow he knew he was, and reached the edge of the clearing moments later. It was just as he’d remembered days ago—wide, snow-covered, and bloody. Except this time it was empty.

The storm the last two days had covered the battle from before, when the daemons had overrun the colony, so he knew this blood was fresh. As he moved over the meadow, he studied the footsteps in the soft powder, stopped to examine the blood sprays and other fluids he found staining the ground. He knelt down, ran his bare fingers over one wide patch of red, and brought the blood to his nose to sniff.

“Not exactly a winter postcard, now is it?”

Nick.
Orpheus recognized the voice of the half-breed leader. Though Nick Blades and the Argonauts didn’t exactly get along, Nick and Theron had formed some sort of alliance in the war against the daemons and aided each other whenever necessary.

Orpheus looked up at Nick’s shaved head and scarred face. A highly trained warrior, he was dressed in boots, thick black pants, a heavy black military-type sweater, and his signature fingerless gloves. It was easy to see this Misos was built like the Argonauts and was just as deadly. But unlike the Argonauts, Orpheus considered Nick an ally. Usually. Today he was too juiced to think of anything other than finding his brother.

He sensed the portal open and close in the woods behind him, so he knew the Argonauts weren’t far behind. As he went back to checking the ground, a pair of boots stopped just at the edge of his vision.

“Daemon?” Theron asked.

Orpheus rubbed the blood off on his pants, rose, and looked around the barren meadow. “No. Argolean.”

“My men killed four daemons in the woods on the way over here,” Nick informed Theron, “but we haven’t seen anything else.”

“
Skata.
Fan out,” Theron announced to the rest of the guardians. “Z, you and Phin keep an eye out for the bastards. I don’t want any surprises while we check the scene.”

No one said a word as they worked. A handful of Nick’s men joined the search. Minutes later, Cerek’s voice rang out near the tree line. “Over here!”

Orpheus followed Theron and the others to where Cerek stood holding a knife of some kind. Theron reached for it with gloved hands.

“It’s Demetrius’s,” Cerek said, pointing to the letter
D
carved into the handle.

“Yeah.” Theron turned it over, looked up and around the battlefield again. “There should be bodies. If they got hit by daemons when they came through the portal, D and Gryphon should be here. Even if the motherfuckers recognized Isadora.”

“We’re in the right spot,” Titus announced, studying the screen in his hand. He tapped it with his finger. “Gryphon’s medallion is going off right”—he turned to the left and faced the trees—“here.”

Orpheus glanced up and around while the Argonauts and Nick discussed what could and couldn’t have happened. He saw nothing but snow and trees, a few shrubs here and there, rocks, and an old-growth, moss-covered log that looked like it had dropped twenty years ago and was now home to rodents and snakes.