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.