She chuckled.
A pale-skinned hand dropped down in his line of sight. Long tapered fingers lifted a giant spider from his chest and dangled the monster in front of his face. “Did you know there is a place within this realm where relief can be found? Where those who were sentenced long before you found refuge? Where the Elder Gods themselves rule a land more pleasurable than even Sodom and Gomorrah?”
Elder Gods. The Titans.
Gryphon’s foggy mind spun as the words sank in deep. Zeus had cast the Titans into Tartarus at the end of the Titanomachy, the war between the Titans and the Olympians. And they’d been locked in the lowest level ever since, awaiting the day they would one day be freed by the Orb of Krónos.
“I can take you there, Argonaut. I know where it lies. I can save you from this never-ending agony. With me you can leave this torture behind for good and become powerful again. Whole. The warrior you once were. All you have to do is join me.” Her voice dropped to a seductive whisper. “Be my doulas.”
Slave.
Some deep space inside screamed No! but it was drowned out by the thought of a world without pain. An end to this continuous torment.
The fact that Atalanta had been his bitter enemy in the living realm meant nothing. He wasn’t an Argonaut any longer. His prior life was over. And he was willing to do anything to make this suffering end. Even if that meant sacrificing everything he’d once believed in.
“Yes, yes, yes. Anything you want. Just take this all away.”
No!
A soft chuckle met his ears. “I knew I could count on you, Argonaut.”
A whoosh of air streamed across his bare skin, sending the spiders scattering. A rumble sounded somewhere close and blackness spiraled in, then exploded into a thousand colors, fading like a clearing mist until a face appeared through the fog. A face with skin like alabaster, lips as red as blood, eyes of coal black, and a fall of long straight onyx hair that looked as if it were made of silk.
“Follow me, doulas.”
His arms moved. Excitement leaped in his chest. But before his mind could tell his limbs what to do, he felt a tug, right in the center of his chest. A tug controlling him. Pulling him forward like a bull being led by a nose ring. Toward her. Until there was nothing. No sound. No pain. Nothing but endless emptiness fanning out in every direction.
Maelea didn’t know what to make of her traveling companions. As she lay on the top berth of the stateroom they’d arranged in Bellingham and pretended to sleep, she listened to their quiet breathing and wondered if they were awake. Wondered also just how long until she could make a break for it.
She hadn’t dared try on the drive to Bellingham. Hadn’t tried when they’d stopped at that Walmart and Orpheus had dragged her in to buy a jacket and shoes so she’d blend in. Certainly hadn’t tried at the train station when he’d booked tickets, not with the way Skyla kept watching her as if her head were about to spin around. She wasn’t dumb. She knew Orpheus was right. Those hounds clearly had their scent, and if they stopped for any length of time, the monsters would be on them in a heartbeat. But that didn’t keep her from planning for a way out when they finally reached their destination. Wherever that might be.
They’d switched trains in Everett around noon, had gotten lunch and hung out in the dining car as long as possible, then retired to their stateroom to get some rest and—Maelea knew—to avoid curious eyes. It didn’t take a genius to see the three of them didn’t go together. Skyla with her model-perfect body, Orpheus’s sheer size and the dangerous air that seemed to hover around him, and Maelea, the quiet one who had a hard time looking either of the other two in the eye and wasn’t even sure what she was doing here.
The need to bolt overwhelmed her, but she calmed herself by thinking about the alternative. Hellhounds? No, thanks. She was not about to tangle with Hades. For the time being, she’d wait and watch and make tracks only when she was sure it was safe. She wasn’t wild about being with either of these two, but she sensed they didn’t have plans to harm her.
At least not yet.
No one had said much since they’d returned to the stateroom. There was tension among all three of them, especially between Orpheus and Skyla. Tension Maelea was curious about but didn’t dare question. Though she’d tried to doze as the train barrelled east toward the Rockies and dusk settled in, her mind was too full of images and sounds and the bitter reality that Orpheus was not the one she needed to kill after all.
The darkness she’d first sensed in him had diminished. How, she didn’t know, but during the last hour she knew for certain his death would not grant her the access to Olympus she wanted. And that realization pissed her off more than anything, because thanks to him she now couldn’t even go back to the sanctuary of her house in Seattle.
Stupid male. Stupid her for going to that concert in the first place. She was better off keeping to herself, but even knowing that, she couldn’t seem to stop looking. It was the one major malfunction in her brain—the light pushing her to seek out the dark when what she should be content with was slinking into the shadows.
“You’re staring at me, Siren,” Orpheus said in a low voice.
Maelea went still and listened. They definitely weren’t partners. He was marked with darkness from the Underworld; she was of Zeus’s light. Another irony that wasn’t lost on Maelea.
“I’m just trying to figure out which bones will be easiest to break when you try to take Maelea out of here without me,” Skyla said from the bottom bunk.
Now that was a fight Maelea would like to witness.
Orpheus chuckled. “So protective. One wouldn’t expect it, coming from you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Not entirely. But I know way more than most. You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you? That’s why you can’t stop watching me.”
Skyla grew quiet. The air thickened. And Maelea’s unease at being in the same room with them jumped. Orpheus’s suddenly husky tone spoke of intimate knowledge, but she couldn’t imagine one of Zeus’s warriors lowering herself to have sex with a daemon.
Not that Maelea had a whole lot of experience with sex as of late. She’d pretty much given up on that whole part of her life as she couldn’t see the point in getting involved with a human when they’d eventually die. But she wasn’t a virgin. Or a prude. She had cable, after all.
Or did. Before Orpheus ruined that for her too.
“You’re full of yourself, daemon,” Skyla said from below.
“No,” he purred. “You were full of me. You’re wondering what that would be like again. You’re wishing you could have it right now. Admit it.”
Maelea’s skin warmed, and the realization that these two definitely had gotten busy hit her head-on.
Before she could stop it, her mind spun with images of their coupling. It would be fierce and rough. Both were warriors. No sweet lovemaking for these two. Judging by the power play between them before, it would be a fast, hard, animalistic struggle where one or both were eventually injured. And though she knew this was not a conversation she—or anyone—was meant to hear, for some reason she couldn’t stop listening. Couldn’t stop picturing them together. Couldn’t stop herself from craving something…just as hedonistic.
“I thought you said it wasn’t all that good,” Skyla tossed back.
The seat below creaked, and through half-lidded eyes, Maelea watched as Orpheus leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees and clasp his hands while he stared toward the bottom bunk. “But it was for you, wasn’t it? I seem to remember you scoring my back with your nails and screaming for more. I felt it, when you came. Hard. All around me. I could make you come again, just as hard, right here, right now.”