She pulled the door open, then drew up short.
Kellen’s tanned face filled the doorway. “Helene.” He looked past her and focused on Nick. “We’ve got a problem.”
Always a problem. Always another fucking problem.
Nick tamped down the resentment. “What’s happened?”
“We got a call on the satellite line. One of the Argonauts is stranded and requesting help.”
Nick’s jaw clenched. Let it be Demetrius. He was in the mood for a good bloodletting. At the moment, it was the only thing he could think of that might improve his mood. “Which one?”
“Titus. And he’s not alone. The redhead? The one that was here a week or so ago, looking for Maelea? She’s with him.”
She was running. Her feet were bare. The ground dry and covered in a thin layer of dust. Her muscles ached, but she pushed on, the fabric of her dress flapping in the wind around her ankles.
Breathe. Focus. Draw on the strength inside you.
Her mother had spoken those words to her. Years ago. So many, Natasa could barely remember when exactly. But her mother’s voice rang in her head. Louder now. So very clear. As if she were right behind her, urging her on.
The dirt road blurred. And a blast of heat rolled over Natasa, dragging the air from her lungs, flinging her forward with a force that swept her off her feet. She hit the ground with a grunt, landing on her hands and knees. Dirt flew up around her, making her cough. Blinking to rid her eyes of the grit, she looked over her shoulder to see what had hit her. Then gasped as the landscape began to change.
Her homeland swirled as if made of a magical fog. No more mud huts or pyramids; even the palace on the hill where she lived with her mother had disappeared.
Rolling over the mountains, a smokeless fire as big as a sandstorm came straight toward her. So hot she could feel its heat burning her skin, even miles away.
Breathe, Natasa. Focus. Draw on the strength that is inside you. Good or evil, the choice is yours.
Fear consumed her. She didn’t want to focus. Didn’t care about good or evil. She needed to run.
She dragged herself to her feet. Pushed her muscles forward with every ounce of strength she had inside her. The fire roared closer. Panic swelled in her chest. Fiery heat licked at her back, igniting the skirt of her dress in flames that crawled up her legs.
“No!” She swatted at the flames, trying to put them out. She couldn’t stop running. “Help me! Someone!”
She batted furiously, couldn’t smother them. Panic morphed to bone-melting fear. She tried to rip off her dress. Her fingers got stuck in the folds of fabric. She sobbed and pulled harder. The fire across the hills thundered close. She looked up just as it devoured the tree she’d been reading under. And her eyes grew wide when she realized it wasn’t just a fire. There was a face within the flames. A face that was blowing the blaze all across the land, igniting everything in an unquenchable fire. A face she’d seen in her mother’s drawings.
The face of her father.
Her eyes grew wider. Horror whipped like a wind blown straight from the fires of the Underworld.
She looked up at the sky, and screamed into the burning wind, “Why are you doing this?”
An eagle screeched high above, swooping overhead. Her gaze followed. The eagle sailed over a man, standing not a hundred feet away. Flames licked at his feet, but he wasn’t burning. At least not yet. Her breath caught. Recognition flared.
Titus…
Her heartbeat picked up speed. She pushed her feet toward him, grasping her burning skirt. She had to save him. Had to help him…
Just as she reached him, his face shifted, the nose growing longer, the chin sharper, the hair not dark and shoulder length but short, blond, and sun kissed. And all around him, a cool, blue aura erupted.
“I can help you. Come to me and live.”
She heard the voice in her head, but the lips didn’t move. Confusion swamped her. This wasn’t her Titus. This wasn’t what she wanted to be running toward. She knew she needed to go, to flee, but her legs wouldn’t move. A hand extended. A hand bathed in the same blue aura. Not scorching and hot but cool and refreshing, offering her…relief.
Her heart screamed no, but her mind told her it was the only way. She reached out. Energy flowed from his fingers to hers. A crackle of power across the empty space that told her the face in the blue glow—whoever he was—was more than relief. He was a god. And stronger than any she’d known before.
“Yes, child. I’m the only one who can stop the flames. I will cool you so you have more time. You have but to promise to give me one tiny thing…”
Titus paced the outer room of the medical clinic in the colony, his jaw twitching as he waited for news.
The muscles in his chest tightened, and he ran a hand over his sternum to ease the ache. Thankfully, Nick had sent a helicopter to pick them up, but when he’d reached Natasa again, she’d been lying so still against the rocks, for a moment he’d thought she was dead.
The memory of that—the gut-wrenching fear he’d felt and the way she’d mumbled “No, no, no…don’t take me back to the water,” over and over—was still enough to make him draw in a breath, then let it out slowly in an attempt to regulate his pulse.
She wasn’t dead. She’d been hotter than hell, but alive. He’d held her close all through the flight back to the colony, and for whatever reason, she’d cooled slightly under his touch, but not enough. Now, as he paced the waiting room, all he could think about was whether or not they’d been too late. Whether or not the infection had spread. Whether or not he was going to lose her so soon after finding her.
A lump formed in his throat. One he couldn’t swallow. The door behind him opened, but he didn’t turn to look. Couldn’t. He closed his eyes.
Don’t let her be dead. Please don’t let her be dead.
“I brought you clothes.”
Nick. It was Nick.
Fixing an impassive look on his face, Titus turned. Fresh clothing sat on the chair, and Nick stood in the doorway, his massive arms crossed over his chest, the long sleeves and fingerless gloves covering the ancient Greek text on his forearms and the backs of his hands, just like Titus’s.
His gaze skipped to the Misos leader’s face. Hard jaw, amber eyes narrowed in speculation, the UV clinic lights above reflecting off his shaved head and highlighting the long, jagged scar on the left side of his face.
He didn’t seem thrilled to see Titus, but then Nick never seemed thrilled to see anyone. “Thanks.”
“My men said you ran into some trouble with a tribe of Amazons. And Zagreus.”
Titus tugged off the seawater-scented coat he was still wearing and reached for the long-sleeved Henley, thankful for something clean. He really wanted to take a shower but couldn’t leave Natasa. “You could say that.”
“Zagreus is not someone we want to fuck with.”
Zagreus wasn’t someone the Argonauts wanted to fuck with either. Titus tugged the clean shirt over his head. “He didn’t follow us.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I scouted the area before I called you. Zagreus and his goons were long gone.”
“What the hell were you doing with a tribe of Amazons?”
That was a story Titus wasn’t ready to get into yet. He glanced toward the door. “What’s taking so long? I need to see her.”
Nick turned to look through the empty doorway. “Lena will tell us when there’s news.”
Titus flexed his fingers and resumed pacing. Worst-case scenarios flashed through his mind, and that fear he’d been fighting came raging back.