He took a step into the room, conscious that Skyla wasn’t far behind.
“She’s not here,” Skyla whispered.
Yeah, she was. He turned toward the female he still couldn’t stop thinking about but who was quickly becoming a thorn in his side. “Why don’t you see if she’s downstairs.”
“And leave you here alone? I don’t think—”
The double doors to his right flew open. A high-pitched shriek echoed through the room just as a slight figure draped all in black charged, hands held high over her head, holding a blade as big as a machete poised to slice him in two.
He dropped back three steps. The female hurled herself at him, the whites of her fury-filled eyes blinding in the darkness. She slammed into his body. Another shriek filled the room as she sliced out with the weapon. “I will kill you!”
She couldn’t have been more than five-five, a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. Didn’t even knock him off his feet when she barreled into him. He easily overpowered her, grasped her forearms, and wrestled for the blade now only centimeters from his face. When he pulled it from her fingers, she screamed in denial. He tossed it to his left and flipped her around, her back pressed to his front, her arms pinned beneath both of his. “Stop. Now.”
“I’ll never stop,” she screamed. “Never. Do you hear me?”
Bloody hell, she was stronger than she looked. With her arms still locked tight under his, he eased back a few steps until he felt the bed, dropped down, and pinned her on his lap, hooking one leg over both of hers to hold her still. “Stop fighting, do you hear me? We’re not going to hurt you.”
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.