Entwined (20 page)

He only needed himself.

Thanatos stood in the center of the run-down cabin high in the Cascade Mountains and glared at the two daemon warriors in front of him: Dumb and Dumber. “Explain how the Argonaut got away from you.”

The two daemons looked at each other.

“We…” The one to the left shifted his gaze Thanatos’s way. “When the second Argonaut showed up to aid the first, we retreated. We knew we had to report back to you about the loss of the others.”

Thanatos’s jaw clenched. This was why the Argonauts still lived. Because Atalanta filled her army with brainless cowards. There was a reason these morons had been in the Fields of Asphodel, awaiting sentence in Tartarus, when she’d found them. Because they were too stupid to live.

And she blamed
him
for the fact the Argonauts outsmarted them at every turn?

He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “And was the first Argonaut injured in battle? You said he killed six daemons. He couldn’t have done that much damage unscathed.”

“Well…” The daemon dumb enough to start this discussion looked at his pal, then at the ground where the two hunters’ blood seeped into the dirty floorboards. Hunger
showed clearly in their glowing green eyes. “He was still fighting.”

“We wanted to make sure you didn’t walk into a trap,” the other daemon piped in.

The two looked at each other and nodded, like they’d just covered their asses well.

“Thank you.” Thanatos gripped his sword. “You’ve both proven your worth.”

Both daemons had the bad sense to glance at each other again and smile, their twisted lips curling over stained teeth. And Thanatos figured that was as much relief as they deserved. He drew his sword and sliced through both their necks in one fell swoop.

Their decapitated heads dropped to the ground with a smack, followed by their twitching bodies, to land on the human hunters they’d planned to feast on only moments before.

Disgusted, Thanatos slid the sword back in his scabbard and turned to look around the decrepit cabin.

Things were not going at all as he’d planned. Now, not only did he have Atalanta breathing down his neck, but he didn’t even have a platoon in this region to command. He was going to have to hunt the Argonauts on his own. That or hightail it out of this forest for good and spend the rest of his life running.

Options swirled in his mind. Could he survive on his own? Atalanta would come after him. But he was smarter than the average daemon. And he still had his archdaemon powers. At least until she caught him. And killed him.

If only he’d figured out a way to get that damn disk from around her neck…

A sharp knock at the door of the cabin brought his head around. Followed by a voice. A soft female voice.

“Is anyone in there? I’m sorry to bother you, but I saw your light on. Hello?”

Thanatos drew in a deep breath and caught her scent. Yes, definitely female. And Argolean. And…special.

Now this was interesting…

“Hello?” She knocked again. “Is anyone there?”

How had someone of royal ancestry wandered into these woods? As questions swirled in his mind, a way out of this mess he’d created for himself condensed into a plan. A plan that didn’t involve Atalanta’s pendant but was just as good.

Without hesitation he jerked the door open. The female’s eyes grew wide with shock, and she opened her mouth to scream, yet no sound came out. When she turned to run, he easily grabbed her arm and stopped her.

The scream that finally tore from her chest reverberated through every cell in his body. His feral smile widened.

He pulled her inside the cabin with one easy yank. “We haven’t officially met, Princess. I’m the archdaemon. And right now, I’m your worst nightmare come true.”

Zander pushed himself up to his hands and knees and took a deep breath. Okay, this time he was pretty sure he could do it without…

Nope. There it went.

His head spun like he was on the mother of all benders. Sonofabitch. What the hell did she do to him? She was a healer, for crap’s sake.

The sound of heavy footfalls reached his ears, echoing down the long tunnel. For a second he held his breath and listened, then exhaled when he realized who it was.

Titus.

He’d know the sound of the Argonaut anywhere. They’d spent enough time together wandering backcountry and hunting daemons for Zander to pick Titus out based on his clod-stomper footsteps alone. Sure enough, the scents of pine and fresh blood wafted on the air, followed by Titus’s gravelly breath.

“Callia? I’m back.”

Zander eased back to rest on his heels but kept his head down. Man, when he saw her again…

“Z,” Titus said as he came around the corner, surprise in his voice. “You’re up.”

Zander focused on the rocks in his direct line of sight and worked on knocking back the motherfucking migraine.

Titus chuckled. “I woulda thought by now you’d be almost back to normal. Brother, you don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine.”

“Oh, yeah, I can see that.” Titus chuckled again, “By the way, you’re butt-ass naked.”

Zander thought about flipping Titus the bird, but that would take too much energy.

Titus’s feet shuffled on the rocks to Zander’s right. “Where’s Callia?”

“Gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“Away, I guess.”

“Away? What the hell happened?”

“Nothing.” Zander pushed to stand, irritation fueling him, then had a moment of
Oh, shit
when the room spun. He reached out a hand to steady himself on the rock wall. “It’s none of your damn business anyway.”

“Tell me you at least sent her home.” When Zander didn’t answer, Titus added, “Zander. Tell me you fucking opened the portal and sent her back to Argolea.”

“I might have,” he mumbled. “But she didn’t give me a chance.”

“Fuck me,” Titus breathed. “You let her leave, in the middle of the night?” He pointed down the dark tunnel. “It’s twenty degrees out there. And snowing. Not to mention there are daemons roaming this area. You know she has to find holy ground to open the portal on her own. She’s not an Argonaut. She can’t open it from anywhere. And we’re on the top of a fucking mountain.”

“Wait.” One hand braced on the rock wall, Zander lifted his head. “You and Demetrius didn’t take care of the rest of those daemons?”

Titus ran a hand through his wavy dark hair, frustration radiating off him in waves. “By the time I found Demetrius, he was so bloody and banged up he could barely lift his parazonium. The two fuckers he was fighting didn’t look much better, and when they saw me, they bailed. I got Demetrius home, then came back for you and Callia. But sure as shit, those daemons didn’t get too far away.”

Skata.
A rush of adrenaline speared Zander’s chest and spread beneath his ribs. He scanned the cave floor, seeing
it clearly for the first time since he’d awoken and found Cal-lia leaning over him. He spotted fresh clothes—ones Titus must have hauled back when he’d brought Callia to heal him—and stooped to pull on the pants. “She can’t have gotten far.”

How long had she been gone? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Panic edged its way in. Shit, why had he let her leave?

“What the hell did you say to her, Zander?” Titus quickly checked his blade and shoved it back in its scabbard.

“Nothing. I…” He jerked on his shirt, dropped to the ground and shoved his feet into fresh boots as the conversation with Callia replayed through his mind. Every goddamn word of it.

“Fuck,” Titus whispered. “You dumb shit.”

Zander clenched his jaw and went back to lacing his boots. Rage pushed its way up his torso. Rage over Titus’s suddenly protective nature where Callia was concerned—who the hell did he think he was anyway?—and the way Callia had flat out lied to his face in this cave minutes ago. And about something so precious, so important too. But he fought it back, pushed it down, breathed deep so he could stay in control. Regardless of the things she’d done, he didn’t want her dead. And he needed Titus’s help right now if he was going to find her before she got herself into serious trouble.

He rose to his feet, threw on his jacket and lifted his bloody weapons from the ground. “Let’s just go fucking find her, all right?”

Zander took off at a jog down the darkened corridor, not caring about the supplies they’d left behind. Ahead, moonlight illuminated the opening of the cave and the snowflakes falling in a sea of white from the sky. At least two inches of fresh powder had accumulated recently, and there were tracks in the snow. Boot marks that had to be Titus’s from where he’d stepped through the portal right outside the cave, and smaller ones. Ones that were already filling in.

“There,” Zander said, pointing to what had to be Callia’s footprints leading away from the tunnel.

“She was running.” Titus squatted on his haunches, examining the tracks.

Zander frowned. Yeah, well, no shit, Sherlock. She’d wanted away from his ass as fast as possible, hadn’t she? He rubbed a hand over his temple, the lingering effects of the energy she’d so easily inflicted on him still hovering behind his skull.

Titus pushed up on his thighs and stood. “She’s not that far ahead of us. We should be able to catch her if we hustle.”

Her footprints were easy to follow until the snowfall increased and the forest turned into a sheet of white. They tracked her for a least a mile through the trees before the snow covered her prints. Zander stopped and turned a slow circle as big, white, chunky flakes fell all around him and clung to his hair, eyelashes and the stubble on his jaw. Dammit, where was Demetrius when they fucking needed him? “There’s nothing out here.”

Titus scanned the eerily dark forest. His mustache and soul patch were white with ice crystals. He squinted and pointed through the trees. “There. A light.”

Zander held up a hand to block the snow from slapping him in the eyes. “What is that? A fire?”

“A house of some kind. There’s nowhere else to hide out here, and contrary to what you think, she’s not stupid. She wouldn’t stay out in the open, no matter how pissed at you she is.”

Zander ignored the jab and picked up his pace. He made it another fifty yards in the trees before pain exploded behind his eyes and radiated through his skull all over again. Only this time it was a hundred times worse than what Cal-lia had thrown his way.

“Mother…fucker.” He grabbed for a tree trunk, swayed but caught himself before he went down.

“What the hell’s wrong with you now?” Titus asked, stepping up beside him.

Zander pressed his fingers against his temples, leaned his shoulder against the Douglas fir at his side. “I don’t know.” Another sharp pain gouged out the area behind his eyes. “Son of a fucking bitch.”

“Is it your back?”

“No.” He cringed as the pain knifed him again. “It’s my fucking…head.”

“When did you hit your damn head?”

“I didn’t.” He leaned forward, tried to give gravity a chance to ease the throb. “What the hell did she give me?”

“Nothing that would have fucked up your head. Holy crap, Zander. Eight hundred years with barely a scratch, and in the span of two days you’re about to keel over. Old age has finally hit you, moron.”

That couldn’t be it. This was something else, but Zander didn’t know what.

“Come on, old geezer,” Titus said, tugging at Zander’s sleeve with his gloved hand. “We gotta find Callia. Then we’ll have her take a look at your pathetic head.”

“She’ll probably bash it in,” Zander mumbled. But he let Titus pull him along and tried not to think of what might happen when they found her, only focused on finding her before it was too late.

Fear drowned out the scream in Callia’s throat as her body sailed through the air. She smacked into the far wall of the cabin and slumped to the ground. Pain ricocheted off her forehead where she’d hit the hard wood, a stabbing sensation behind her eyes. In a daze she tried to get up, but her head spun, and stars fired off in her line of sight.

“You make this too easy, Princess,” the daemon growled behind her. “Get up.”

She shook her head, rolled to her back and pushed up on shaking hands. Then wished she’d kept her back turned. The monster coming toward her was straight out of a nightmare. Seven feet of quivering muscles. His catlike face didn’t mesh with the sharp pointy ears, the goat horns sticking out
of his head or his human body. But his fangs were a clear reminder he was anything but docile. She’d run into a daemon once before—in Greece—but that one hadn’t been nearly as large as this one. And he definitely hadn’t been as menacing.

Adrenaline spiking, she scooted backward, but hit the wall. She glanced right and left, desperately searching for a way out. The cabin was small, nothing but a main room and a doorway that led to what looked like a tiny kitchen. A table blocked her path.

She wished beyond wishing she could blend into the wall or flash herself somewhere else like she could in Argolea. A piece of broken porcelain from a bowl he’d thrown at her earlier caught her eye. She picked it up and heaved it toward the daemon.

“I see you want to play.” He deflected the shard and stepped over—oh, gods—what looked like a pile of bloodied, decapitated bodies. Her stomach roiled. She scrambled to her feet and darted toward a wooden table, putting it between her and the monster.

The daemon chuckled. “Imagine my surprise, running into you here, of all places.” A menacing smile slid across his gnarled face, his sharp teeth glinting in the low light from a lamp above. “I have to be the luckiest archdaemon ever.”

Terror made it hard for her to latch on to coherent thoughts. But two got through. One, for some reason this beast thought she was Isadora. And two, from her schooling she knew the archdaemon supposedly had powers none of the other daemons did, though just what those were, she couldn’t remember.

She was dead if she stayed put. In hopes the cabin had a back door, she turned and ran through the kitchen. She made it two steps before he grabbed her from behind. Claws raked across the top of her chest and lower abdomen, and she screamed in pain as he dragged her back into the main room.