“The colony,” Isadora breathed. “He and Nick are friends.”
“Yes,” Casey said, looking to her sister, the we have to warn him more than clear in her eyes.
“That’s not all,” Cerek added. “There’s something else you might need to know. Ever heard of Maelea?”
“Zeus and Persephone’s daughter?” Callia asked, with a wrinkle in her brow. “What does she have to do with all of this?”
“Nick’s got a friend in Seattle. One who keeps tabs on otherworldly events in the area. Maelea’s been living there near Lake Washington, blending in, not causing any trouble. Apparently a portal opened and closed near her house earlier, not once but twice. A hellhound was killed. And the female’s now missing.”
“Skata,” Theron muttered, shooting Isadora a see? look.
“Holy shit,” Zander murmured. “Now Zeus’s interest in O is starting to make a lot more sense. Hades’s too.”
Yeah, Isadora was thinking the same thing. And hating where her thoughts were heading. She looked toward Cerek with a whole new urgency. “Tell Nick we’re on our way.”
Demetrius, who’d been silent through the entire conversation, stepped forward. “Kardia.”
“Don’t worry,” she said to him, sure she wasn’t easing his fears. She knew he remembered what had happened the last time she’d crossed into the human realm, but this was different. This time they weren’t going alone. “You’re coming with me. Several of you are. This isn’t something we can ignore any longer.”
Chapter 10
Skyla needed a drink.
She eyed the bottle of Jameson behind the bar in the dining car. If she were home on Olympus, she’d down the whole damn thing. Here on earth, she needed to keep her wits about her. Especially around the hybrid.
Holy…mother. She lifted the glass of ice water she’d ordered to cool down after her run-in with Orpheus and downed the whole thing. Her barriers needed strengthening if he was able to get to her so easily. Daemon, she repeated to herself. Daemon. Why the hell was she flat out ignoring that part of him?
A loud shriek of metal against metal echoed through the car. The cup of ice flew out of her hand. Screams echoed. Skyla fell forward. She smacked into a booth, hit the floor with a thud. As she pushed up the train came to a stop. She looked out the window and saw a river of snow rushing down the mountain right toward her.
Oh…fuck.
Snow plowed into the train, sending it end over end like a matchbox car tossed into a clothes dryer. Skyla sailed backward, crashed into the wall. Her head cracked into glass. Pain nudged the conscious ends of her mind, but the screams echoing around her dragged at her attention. That and the smash of glass breaking, of snow pouring into the car and sucking out every last molecule of air.
When she tore her eyes open, silence met her ears and nothing but a vast empty darkness surrounded her. A frigid cold darkness.
Oh…gods.
Instinct had her clawing at the snow. She managed to get her hands up near her face, was somehow able to dig enough snow out of the way to create a pocket of air. Drew deep breaths to tamp down the terror.
Common sense nudged the panic to a manageable level as she lay cradled in the snow, her fingers numb, her arms and legs packed against icy-cold walls. She had no idea if she was facing up or down, how the dining car was lying in the snow, or if the car had been ripped to shreds by the avalanche. The fact the snow hadn’t hardened yet told her she hadn’t blacked out, but that didn’t ease her anxiety.
Orpheus’s image flashed in her mind. The way he’d looked when she walked away from him in the sleeping car. The disappointment on his face. The yearning in his eyes…
Stop.
She smacked her head against the snow behind her. Told herself to stop being a fool. He wouldn’t be looking for her. He was a daemon. He knew why she was here, and even though he was playing her own seduction game—for whatever reason—that didn’t mean she meant anything to him. That didn’t mean he had any desire to see her live.
A shiver racked her body. Panic closed in again. Panic over the fact she was by herself here in the dark. That no one would find her. That no one would miss her when she was finally gone. The Sirens would move on. Sappheire would likely take her place as Athena’s favorite. She had no family left, no close friends. She was over two thousand years old, with countless battles fought and won under her belt, and her life had been reduced to this moment. To dying in an avalanche in the middle of frickin’ nowhere. Alone.
Don’t panic. Stay calm. Using her brain had always worked for her before. Somehow, it had to work again.
She kept her breaths slow and shallow. Used her fingers to claw out more space around her face. Wiggled her body to make room before the snow hardened and she was truly stuck.
From somewhere to her right, a muffled sob reached her ears.
She froze, listened.
Another sob. Then a scream.
“Who’s there?” she asked.
The crying cut off. Silence met her ears.
“Who’s there?” Skyla asked again.
“Me,” a muffled voice echoed. “I’m…here. I’m here.”
Relief pulsed through Skyla’s veins. She wasn’t totally alone. “What’s your name?”
“K-Katie,” the small voice said. “I’m eight. I—I can’t find my mom!”
Skyla tried to turn that way. She didn’t have much room, but her flailing earlier had created enough space around her so she could move. Able to get her hands in the vicinity of the voice, she started digging. Snow fell into her tiny pocket of air and began packing near her feet but she didn’t care. The fact she wasn’t alone was all that mattered. “Keep talking to me, Katie. I’m trying to get to you. My name’s Skyla.”
“S-Skyla is a weird name.”
“It is,” she agreed as she dug. Her fingers were numb, her heart pounding hard in her chest. But she kept on digging, because anyone was someone.
“I—I’m cold,” Katie said.
“Me too, Katie.”
“I’m so scared.”
Skyla’s fingers broke through and closed around flesh and bone. Katie gasped. Skyla continued digging, using her arms and legs to move the snow around as much as possible until the small child was only inches from her. When she could manage, she wrapped her arm around the human girl and pulled her close, the heat of her upper body against Skyla’s torso a stark improvement over the ice-cold snow packed tight now up to her waist.
“We’re going to die,” Katie sobbed against Skyla’s chest.
“No, we’re not,” Skyla lied. But even she knew things weren’t looking good. The utter darkness around them signaled they were buried deep. She ran through options in her head and decided trying to dig out was better than lying down and dying without a fight. On a deep breath, she let go of the girl and reached out to give it her best shot.
Her fingers dug into ice-cold snow. From somewhere deep below, a rumble echoed. Fear wound its way around her heart just as the earth shook with a force that knocked Katie into her and brought snow falling down around them.
“Skyla!”
Skyla grabbed onto the girl. “Take a deep breath, Katie! Fill your chest with as much air as you can!”
The shaking continued until Skyla wanted to scream. She knew they were dropping deeper into the snow, farther from salvation. She held tighter to the girl. Katie sobbed against her chest.
The shaking stopped. Skyla went right to work, digging around their faces to create another pocket of air. Then stopped short when she heard a noise.