Enraptured (7 page)

She continued to struggle, and when she realized she was trapped, finally stilled. But her chest rose and fell with her labored breaths, and Orpheus knew she was plotting a way out.

“Orpheus.” Skyla stepped forward from the shadows, concern across her perfect features as the lights from outside reflected off her face. He hadn’t lied when he said she was built like an X-rated Barbie. Not only was she the hottest thing he’d ever seen, that warrior-princess getup with the arm guards and breastplate and those ridiculous platform boots made him hard with just a look.

The female in his arms stopped breathing. And too late he realized
she
thought he was turned on because of
her
.

Not
even
close.

“Are you calm enough for me to let go?” he asked, careful to keep his tone even and his body still. “Or do I need to restrain you?”

Silence.

“Orpheus,” Skyla warned again.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said. “I just want to talk.”

The female nodded once.

He didn’t trust her, but she was no threat. And he didn’t want to restrain her if he didn’t have to. A willing hostage was way better than an enraged one. “Okay then. Nice and easy, you got it?”

Maelea nodded again.

He eased his leg off her lap, let go of her arms one by one. As soon as she was free, she bolted away and flipped around, pressing her back into the wall and searching the ground for her blade.

He rose, kicked it toward the bathroom door, spread his feet to use his size as intimidation.

“Now that we’ve got the awkwardness out of the way, let me introduce myself. I’m Orpheus. The chick in the Halloween getup over there is a Siren.” Skyla flicked him an irritated look that only amused him. “You’re familiar with Delia in the Argolean realm? She sent me to find you.”

Confusion crossed Maelea’s face. She shot a look toward the weapon behind him again. “The witch? Why?”

Delia was the leader of the Medean witch enclave that resided in the Aegis Mountains outside the Argolean city of Tiyrns. And she’d been a personal friend of Orpheus’s mother and was now a friend of his. “I’m looking for a warlock named Apophis. He broke free of his prison in Argolea and crossed into this realm a few months ago. He has something that belongs to me. I want it back. It’s as simple as that.”

The female’s wary eyes darted his way again. She wore a long-sleeved black tunic that covered her hips, the sleeves so long they fell all the way to her fingertips, and a full, black, bohemian-style skirt that swallowed her slim frame. Straight black hair fell around her shoulders like a curtain. “What does that have to do with me?”

“I want you to tell me where he is.”

“And what if I won’t?”

“I’m hoping,” he said carefully, putting a hint of malice in the words, “that won’t be your choice.”

Skyla’s blond head darted his way, and in his peripheral vision he read the warning in her violet eyes, but he ignored it.

After a silence, Maelea said, “I don’t know anything about any warlock.”

She was lying. The daemon in him stirred as his patience waned. He took a step toward her. “Maelea—”

She pressed her hands against the wall at her back. Glanced past him to the weapon she’d never reach. “I’m warning you. Stay back.”

He nearly laughed. But he was well past laughing. He needed to know where that shitty warlock was hiding. He took another step her way. “If you won’t cooperate willingly, I’ll have to come up with creative ways to make you talk.”

“Orpheus—”

A howl cut off Skyla’s protest. Both females turned to the windows at the front of the house. The daemon in Orpheus vibrated with excitement, sensing something otherworldly outside.

The howl echoed through the still night air again. Maelea’s eyes went wide with fear. Skyla stepped past him and looked out the front window.

“Shit.”

“What?” Orpheus reached her side and peered out into the dark.

“Hellhounds.”

Three enormous doglike creatures with pointy ears, red eyes, and protruding fangs stood on the front lawn, looking up at the house.

“
Skata
.” It wasn’t daemons who’d been following him. It was Hades’s miserable underlings.

“You really are on a roll tonight, aren’t you, daemon? Is there a god you haven’t pissed off yet this week?” Skyla shot him a
way
to
go, dumbass
look, then turned back to Maelea. “Shit, she’s gone.”

He whipped around. Sure enough, the room was empty. And Maelea’s weapon of choice was missing as well. “Motherfucker.”

Skyla pulled a metal bar from the inside of her boot. Seconds later her bow unraveled. She reached inside her collar and extracted what looked like a toothpick but which grew into a full-blown arrow right before his eyes.

“Now
that
is sweet,” Orpheus murmured before he thought better of it.

“Check the first floor for her.” Skyla readied her weapon. “Those things will tear her to pieces if she tries to run.”

“Now you don’t mind me being alone with Ghoul Girl?” He stepped toward the door. “How the tides have changed.”

She twisted back to the window, slid the pane open a crack, and brought the bowstring to her shoulder. “If it’s a choice between you and Hades’s hounds, I’ll take you any day.”

“Gee, I feel so loved.” He moved into the hall, intent on putting the Siren out of his mind and finding that damn Maelea before she screwed this up for him for good, but paused when a whisper met his ears.

You
aren’t now, but you were once, daemon.

He whipped around just as Skyla pulled the arrow back near her ear, let it go with deadly precision. He heard the whir as it spiraled toward its target, then the yelp and howl of the hound as its flesh tore open. And couldn’t ignore the fact those words hadn’t been in his head. She’d said them. Out loud.

The world spun. Blurred then cleared, until the bedroom walls disappeared and he was surrounded by trees. Standing in a field of green. The woman in front of him poised with her bow, exactly as she’d been in Maelea’s bedroom. Only this time she was aiming for a target propped against the trunk of a tree.

She released the arrow like a pro. It sailed through the air, struck the target dead center with a resounding thwack. With a triumphant grin, she lowered the bow and turned to face him.

“
Your
turn. Try to beat that, lover
.”

His lungs tightened on a gasp. And an ache, the same one he’d experienced in the hallway of her apartment two nights before, settled deep in his chest.

Holy Hades. Whatever head game the Siren was playing with him had to stop
now
.

A scream from the back of the house jolted him out of his trance. The trees and field disappeared like a wisp of fading fog.

“Maelea.” Skyla passed him in a dead run.

Orpheus simply pictured the back patio and flashed there. Feet from him, Maelea stood frozen, the blade she’d used on him earlier shaking in her hand as she stared out at the side yard and the hellhound growling an ominous warning.

The door crashed open behind him. Skyla leaped onto the patio, spotted the hellhound, and froze. “Orpheus! Behind you.”

At Orpheus’s back, another growl echoed. He looked that way to see another hound, its eyes glowing as red as death. Skyla and Maelea stepped backward toward him as two more hounds joined the fray, followed by the bleeding and pissed hound with Skyla’s arrow sticking out of its shoulder.

“If you’re thinking about shifting so we have a chance here,” Skyla muttered, “I wouldn’t object.”

Orpheus couldn’t agree more. Though the fact the Siren had flipped from trying to stop him to trying to help him wasn’t lost on him. He tuned in to his inner daemon, felt his eyes morph to glowing green and the power of the daemon ripple through his limbs. In a rush he released the hold he kept on his dark side and unleashed control.

Nothing happened.

“Um…” Skyla raised her bow, pulled the arrow back as she cast him a frantic look. “Now would be a good time.”

He focused deeper on the daemon’s strength rumbling right beneath the surface. Pictured it consuming him as it had done so many times before.

Only again, nothing happened.

“Sonofabitch,” he hissed.

Skyla’s eyes darted from hellhound to hellhound. “Orpheus?”

Panic closed in. He could feel its strength, damn it. Why wasn’t it working?

He reached for the knife he kept strapped to his hip. “I don’t think that’s gonna work this time.”

“
What?
”

The hound directly in front of them chuckled.

It
chuckled. Holy hell
.

“Damn it,” Skyla muttered. “This is not good.”

“No shit,” Orpheus tossed back. Damn it, what the fuck was going on?

Maelea’s entire body shook as she backed into Orpheus. But this time she didn’t seem to mind being close to him. “What—what do we do?”

Five bloodthirsty hellhounds against him, Skyla, and the quivering Ghoul Girl. He was a fierce fighter who knew a little magic. Even without his daemon, he and the Siren could probably survive these odds if they worked together, but not Ghoul Girl. They’d lose her in a heartbeat.

And he wasn’t about to lose her. Not when she was the key to everything.

He thought of the lake behind them, a good hundred yards down the sloping grass. “You got a boat?”

Maelea swallowed hard. “Y-yes. A power boat. It’s stored in the boathouse.”

“You thinking about making a run for it?” Skyla asked in a low voice, her bow poised to shoot.

The injured hound growled low in its throat.

“Thinking about it,” Orpheus muttered as the monsters slowly moved forward, forcing them back several steps and onto the grass.

He glanced behind him, toward the boathouse. They’d never make it. Even injured, those hounds could run like the wind.

“You have something Hades wants,” the hound to the left growled in a voice that was half man, half beast.

Oh, fucking fantastic. It could speak.

Orpheus reached into his pocket and pulled out the earth element. The one Queen Isadora had found and given to him months ago. Just before he’d left Argolea to find that warlock.

The monsters drew to a stop.

Skyla darted a look at the glittering quarter-sized diamond in his palm. The one stamped with the symbol of the Titans. “What the hell?”

All five beasts stared with rapt attention at the element he held. At the element that fit in one of the four chambers of the Orb of Krónos. Though the element held a special kind of power Orpheus had yet to tap, it wouldn’t be fully useful until all the elements were joined with the Orb. Then the powers would combine and the bearer of the Orb would be stronger than Hades. Stronger, even, than Zeus.

And the monsters in front of him knew that.

Orpheus closed his fingers over the element and squeezed, harnessing the Medean powers bequeathed by his mother. He hadn’t played with the element much since Isadora had given it to him, and he had no idea what to expect, but he wasn’t against harnessing every shred of magic from it if he could.

But nothing happened, aside from the element growing warm in his fist.

The lead hound moved forward and growled. “We’ll take that from you now, Argonaut.”

The word
Argonaut
echoed in Orpheus’s head. And he thought of his brother, Gryphon, confined to the Underworld because of that damn warlock. Of the moment Gryphon’s Argonaut markings had appeared on
Orpheus’s
skin. Of the real Argonauts, who didn’t give a shit about him or what had happened to his brother.

His anger harnessed a flash of power. Medean magic shot down his arm and erupted through the earth element in his hand.

The ground shook in a violent blast of energy that knocked Orpheus back two feet. A hellhound shot forward with a snarl and a snap of its jaws. Maelea screamed. Skyla shouted something he couldn’t make out. The other hounds howled in unison. And a roar that sounded like Hades himself rushing up from the center of the earth echoed everywhere.

“Orpheus!”

Skyla lost her footing as a chasm split open between them and the hounds. She hit the ground with a grunt. One monster launched its massive body toward Maelea with a snap of its jaws. On her back in the wet grass, Skyla aimed her bow at the hellhound sailing through the air.

Its bloody teeth caught Maelea’s arm. She screamed. Skyla fired, heard the hound cry out in agony, pulled another arrow, lined up another shot, and fired again. Before she could get to her feet, Orpheus was on top of the hound, driving his blade deep into the beast’s flesh.

More snarls and growls echoed from across the chasm as the shaking died down. The other four hellhounds paced back and forth, waiting for their chance to strike. The bleeding hound lay dead at Orpheus’s feet.

“You will pay, Argonaut,” one hound growled across the distance.

Shocked, Skyla looked at Orpheus, who was shoving the earth element back into the front pocket of his jeans. Holy Hades. He already had one of the four sacred elements. No wonder Athena hadn’t told her who he really was.

“Go fuck yourself!” Orpheus shouted.

Two hellhounds barked out their protest with a snap of their massive jaws.

Orpheus sheathed his blade in a scabbard at his back and bent next to Maelea. “How bad is it?”

Tears filled Maelea’s eyes as she cradled her bloody arm against her stomach and shook her head.

Orpheus lifted her in his arms, then peered at Skyla across the damp grass before he hustled toward the boathouse. “If you’re coming, you’d better haul ass, Siren. They’re going to figure out how to cross that gap pretty quick.”

Skyla shot their seething enemies a quick glance before realizing that escaping with Orpheus was her only choice at the moment. With her bow and arrow still in hand, she ran after him and caught up on the dock outside the boathouse. He kicked the door in with his boot. The little bit of light shining in from the watery opening at the end of the boathouse reflected the word
Olympian
painted across the side of the nineteen-foot motorboat.

“Fitting.” She tossed her bow into the boat as Orpheus dropped Maelea in a seat and searched compartments.

“Where are the keys?” he asked Maelea.

“Hanging in the second compartment. There.”

Skyla untied the boat and threw the rope in. She jumped in the back, picked up her bow and arrow. Outside she could hear the snarls and growls of the monsters as they raced across the grass. “Um…anytime would be good.”

“Goddamn it.” Orpheus opened panels and slammed them shut. The sound of claws racing along the dock outside echoed in the air.

“Orpheus?” Skyla readied her bow, aimed for the door.

“Found them!” Keys jingled as Orpheus jumped behind the wheel.

The outer door shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Now!” Skyla screamed.

The boat’s engine roared to life. Orpheus punched the throttle. The hounds rushed into the boathouse. Skyla fired one arrow, readied the next shot just as the boat tore out of the boathouse and cut across the water.

She fell backward into the seat behind her. Water sprayed her face. When she found her footing and pushed up, the hounds were already pacing the end of the dock, their glowing red eyes tiny points of light far off against the shore.

They motored out of Union Bay and into Lake Washington. The dashboard lights highlighted Orpheus’s sandy brown hair blowing in the breeze as he maneuvered the boat through the glassy water as if he’d done it a thousand times before.

To keep from staring at him, Skyla moved to check Maelea’s arm. Looking at him made her wonder about that element. Where he’d gotten it and what he planned to do with it. And what else about him was the same as Cynurus.

Maelea jerked her arm back from Skyla’s touch. After arguing with the girl for five minutes, Skyla finally gave up and sat on the other bench.

They slowed as the lake came to an end. “Through there.” Maelea pointed toward a dock with her good arm. “There’s a park.”

Orpheus killed the engine and brushed past Skyla to tie the rope to the dock. A rush of heat swept over her skin where he grazed her, followed by a chill that left her with gooseflesh.

“How bad is the arm?” he asked, helping Maelea out of the boat.

“It’s—it’s fine.” Maelea wrapped her good arm around her bad.

“Let me see it.”

“No, it’s fine.”

When he grasped her hand and tugged it away from her body, moving the sleeve out of the way to have a look, she protested again. “I don’t need—”

“What the…?”

Maelea broke the eye contact, tugged her hand away, and cradled her arm against her stomach again. “I told you it was fine.”

Orpheus’s jaw tightened, but instead of arguing he turned toward Skyla and said, “She’s fine. Let’s go.”

Maelea took a step back. “I’m not going anywhere with either of you.”

Orpheus rolled his eyes. Then whipped her into his arms.

“Put me down!”

“When you start listening to directions, we’ll talk about it.”

“You sonofa—”

“Where are you taking her?” Skyla asked, grabbing her weapons and hustling to follow as he strode down the dock toward shore.

“Where’s the closest airport?” he asked Maelea.

“Airport?” Maelea repeated in surprise. “Why do you need an airport?”

Orpheus stepped off the dock and stopped on the grass, glaring down at the girl in the moonlight. “Let me explain this to you so you get it. I ask the questions, you provide the answers. If you give me answers I like, I’ll consider answering a few of your questions. You got it?”

Maelea’s mouth snapped shut. She glanced past Skyla to the dark lake beyond.

“Airport?” Orpheus asked again.

She pursed her lips. Looked as if she wasn’t about to answer. In the silence Skyla could practically see the steam brewing in Orpheus as his patience waned, and she prepared herself for the worst. Now that she knew he was only after Maelea to get to the Orb, his reasons for protecting her the night of the concert made sense. But there were no daemons out here. No hellhounds either.

Finally, Maelea mumbled, “Snohomish County Airport. But it’s at least ten miles from here. My house—”

“Is probably already toast,” Orpheus told her, walking again. “And by now those hellhounds have reported back to Hades and told him you’re with me. You’re not safe on your own anymore.”

Sickness slid across Maelea’s face, and at his side, Skyla clenched her jaw at the way Orpheus was carrying the girl—the same way Rhett Butler had carried Scarlett up the stairs in
Gone
With
the
Wind.
Orpheus picked up speed as he climbed a small knoll in the park. “We’ll find a cab, head toward that airport. There’s gotta be a charter plane we can catch there.”

“Where to?” Maelea asked, cringing and clutching her injured arm as he jostled her.

“Was that a question?”

Her mouth snapped shut again, and this time her jaw clenched with barely contained anger.

Looking pleased, Orpheus said, “I’ve got a friend in Montana. He can take care of you there.”

“Montana? But I live here!”

Orpheus’s face went stony. Skyla drew to a stop, her breath catching at what he would do to the injured female. She’d seen him in battle. Had seen the way he could shift into daemon form with just a thought. Why he’d screwed around and hadn’t shifted back at Maelea’s house she didn’t know, but she’d soon find out. About that and the earth element. And just what he had planned.

Skyla waited for his eyes to change to signal he was calling up his daemon, but they didn’t. “Do you want me to take you back to your house?” he asked.

Maelea stared at him. Swallowed. Seemed to debate her options. Slowly, she shook her head.

“Okay then.” Orpheus resumed walking through the trees. “I think we’re your only option at this point.”

Maelea’s gaze found Skyla, and it was clear she believed the hybrid. And didn’t like it.

Be
careful, female.

They reached Bothell Way, a major thoroughfare, in silence. Streetlights illuminated the four-lane highway. “There won’t be any flights going out this late,” Skyla pointed out. “Unless you’re planning to hitch a broom to Montana, we need to hole up somewhere until morning.”

“Then we’ll take a train,” Orpheus said. “But we’re not sticking around here. I guarantee those hounds have our scent.”

“Yeah, but we don’t need to run all the way to Montana to lose them.”

Orpheus ignored her—he was damn good at that—and looked to Maelea. “What about a train station?”

“Um…there’s one close,” Maelea said. “Edmonds. About twelve miles, maybe—”

“There won’t be any trains leaving at this hour either,” Skyla protested.

“Fucking fine, Miss Transportation Guru.” Orpheus moved down the sidewalk. “We’ll find a car and drive north to Bellingham, catch a train from there.”

“Find a car?” Skyla liked that less than his idea to run for Montana.

Orpheus veered into a parking lot, where he dropped Maelea to her feet and peered into the window of a Ford Explorer.

“You’re gonna steal that, aren’t you?” Maelea asked.

“Sure as shit, I am.” He used his elbow to knock out the back window. An alarm sounded. Seconds later he was in the front seat, bent down under the steering column, pulling wires free. The alarm clicked off, then the ignition roared to life. “Get in. Both of you.”

Skyla stopped Maelea with a hand on the female’s arm. “She’s not in any condition to travel. And you’re not the one calling the shots here.”

She waited for the flash of green in his eyes, almost wanted it, because that would prove he was out of control and not thinking clearly, but it didn’t come. Instead he turned very focused, very stubborn eyes her way. Eyes that were as gray as they’d been in Cynurus’s head over two thousand years ago.

“Trust me, Siren, I am calling the shots. And I could just as easily have left you to deal with those hellhounds alone as rescued you.”

“Rescue me?” she snorted. “On what alternate plane do you live?” But even as she said the words, unease slid through her.
Had
he rescued her?

Orpheus looked past her as if she hadn’t spoken. “Who did the saving? You’re the final judge here. Me or Rambo Girl there?”

Maelea’s eyes widened, obviously not liking being caught in the middle. “I—I don’t—”

“Stop tormenting the girl,” Skyla snapped.

There it was again. That irritation that he seemed more interested in Maelea than her. What the hell was wrong with her?
Daemon
hybrid
, she reminded herself.
Traitor
to
Olympus
and
just
about
every
person
on
the
planet.

Orpheus eased out of the car and put his body between Skyla and Maelea, easily breaking Skyla’s hold. “Ghoul Girl comes with me. Why don’t you just head back to Olympus and tell your boss you failed?”

“Ghoul Girl?” Maelea’s shocked expression would have been comical in a different situation, but Skyla barely cared.

She was suddenly too bowled over that Orpheus was suggesting she leave instead of making her go. From his reaction when she’d appeared at Maelea’s house, it was clear she hadn’t surprised him. He was tracking the Orb, and he knew she was there to stop him. Why the hell had he let her tag along this long?

His intense eyes stared into hers. And she had a flash of him glancing at her when they’d been running across Maelea’s lawn, checking to make sure she was with them.

Why hadn’t he left her there? And better yet, why wasn’t he demanding the info he needed from Maelea right now and leaving her behind as well?

A thousand questions pinged around in her head. Melded with questions from the past, the ones regarding Cynurus’s guilt or innocence—
his
guilt or innocence. And in the silence between them, she knew she had a choice. Walk away for good and let one of the other Sirens deal with him…or not.

Walking away would mean turning her back on the order.

Duty
has
saved
you.

Athena’s words trickled through her mind. Her mentor was right. The order
had
saved her. When nothing else could. But now she knew that order had also lied. The one question she couldn’t get out of her head was why he’d been given a second chance.

She wasn’t walking away from him. Not until she had the answers she needed. Not until she knew for sure he really was the black soul Athena and Zeus claimed him to be. Though she could now see the similarities between him and Cynurus, they didn’t matter to her. She’d built up her barriers long ago. She’d look at this assignment objectively, keep her emotions out of it, and base her decision on the facts.

On what he did from here.

“If you think I’m letting this girl go anywhere alone with you, daemon, you’re higher than a kite. Where she goes, I go.”

She’d just made herself Maelea’s protector. Her. A Siren. A lethal warrior trained not to protect, but to kill. Shit, she knew as much about protecting as she did about, well, Orpheus.

She ignored the irony in that thought and instead focused on Orpheus’s gray eyes. His suddenly wicked gray eyes and his seductive mouth, curling up ever so slightly along one edge as his gaze slid from her face to her breasts, then lower. “I always liked to get high. I can think of one way that doesn’t involve drugs. Just hormones.”

There it was again. That transition from battle mode to sexual predator. How did he do that? And why the hell did it make her hot?

“Get in, Siren.” His gaze lifted back to Skyla’s mouth before she could think of something pithy to say in retaliation. Where it hovered until the heat of his stare pooled in her abdomen and sent shocks of electricity all through her body. “Before I come to my senses and change my mind.”

***

Spiders.

Today it was hundreds of spiders in all shapes and sizes and colors.

A scream echoed through Gryphon’s mind as he lay on the flat obsidian rocks and stared into four giant, gaping eyes of a hairy arachnid the size of a grapefruit. He tried to move but couldn’t. Tried to holler but was met with only the tapping of thousands of legs against rock, echoing in the humid air. Felt the sensation of those legs crawling over his skin and the sharp, angled fangs sinking deep into his flesh.