“Better?” she asked.
No, not better. Just being close to her made him hard. And when he got hard, he thought of what sex with her had been like. Hot and consuming in that apartment in Washington. Mind-blowingly erotic in that tower at the colony.
They sat in silence for several minutes. In the hot, humid air, he was aware of every breath she took, of the way her breasts rose and fell under her shirt, of the droplet of perspiration running down her neck to disappear beneath her collar.
Man, this wasn’t going to work. He should be plotting strategy for tomorrow. Mapping their route. Not sitting here lusting after the Siren who’d been sent to kill him.
Gods, he was a fool for bringing her here. Why the hell couldn’t he think straight when she was around?
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said, her tempting voice cutting through the quiet.
Will you have sex with me again?
Why yes, yes I will. Where do you want me?
His skin grew hot, the air around him stifling.
“What?” he snapped.
“How is it you’re Argonaut, Medean, and daemon? Those three don’t seem to go together.”
Relief rippled over him. As long as the topic steered clear of sex, he was good. “My father was an Argonaut. My mother a Medean witch. They met because he’d heard she and her coven knew where the Orb was hidden in the Aegis Mountains.”
Her gaze strayed to the earth element at his chest. “She’s the one who found it?”
“No. But her coven had found evidence of it. There were stories. He went to investigate.”
“Did they fall in love?”
Orpheus wasn’t sure he knew what love meant. Let alone what it felt like. “I don’t know. They hooked up. I was the result. But he didn’t bind himself to her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Because she was a witch?”
“Most likely. Witches aren’t popular in the human realm, but they’re even less popular in Argolea.”
“So what happened?”
“She raised me in the coven until I was five. Then she died. The other witches didn’t like the idea of an Argonaut’s offspring left to their care, so they sent me to him. But since I didn’t have the Argonaut markings…”
A lump formed in his throat. The same damn lump that always formed when he thought of his relationship with his father.
Except…relationship was too strong a word. They’d been strangers. Two people living in the same big house because of some warped sense of duty, barely speaking. Until the day his father had died.
“That must have been hard.”
Yeah, hard. He nearly scoffed. He was the son his father had never wanted. Gryphon was the son he’d been meant to sire. Orpheus had sure learned about rejection early on. Something that had saved him.
“And the daemon part of you?” she asked.
He shrugged again. “I was born with it. I figure my mother must have been part daemon. I don’t know, as I barely remember her.”
Except for her face. Smooth skin, chocolate eyes, silky brown hair he’d loved to play with. Even now he could conjure up her image if he tried. He couldn’t remember her voice or even the times he knew he’d spent with her, but he remembered her face.
Skyla tucked her legs under her, turned to face him, and eased her head against the rocks. “Daemon hybrids are rare, but they do exist and have for some time. But most we’ve come across have been the result of a human female and a male archdaemon mating. Regular daemons are impotent.”
Yeah, he’d heard that too. Still didn’t explain how or why he’d ended up part daemon. Unless you went with the “cursed” theory, which was the only one that made sense to him.
“Did your father know?” she asked. “About your daemon?”
He stared off into the distance. “No. After the backlash I got for my Medean gifts, I learned to keep that one secret. Gryphon doesn’t even know.”
“And how does Gryphon fit into all this? Is he Medean as well?”
Orpheus stretched his legs out, crossed his arms over his chest. “No. His mother was Argolean. Our father bound himself to her long after I’d moved out of the house. Gryphon’s quite a bit younger than me.”
“The chosen son,” she said softly. “And yet you still love him.”
He frowned at her. “You conjure things that aren’t there. Are you sure you’re not a witch?”
She smiled. “I hear the truth you work hard to keep hidden. No man ventures into the Underworld for a brother he doesn’t love. Why didn’t you ever tell him about your daemon?”
Orpheus’s chest tightened. The Siren was mistaken. It wasn’t love that had brought him here. It was guilt. A hell of a lot of guilt. Guilt for thinking he could play hero. Guilt for getting Gryphon hurt in that warlock’s castle. Guilt for never telling his only sibling he was sorry for being such a shitty brother.
Guilt shifted to emptiness, opened that hole inside him all over again. Then was replaced with an anger he’d learned was the only emotion that could fill the void. “Because he’s an Argonaut, and for a daemon, a witch-daemon, that means enemy. And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, Siren, that damn hero gene in Gryphon is a major conflict to my interests. Look around you. We wouldn’t be here now if Gryphon hadn’t tried to save my fucking soul. Something I don’t even have.”
His frustration with the entire situation welled inside him, threatened to bubble over. His dumbass brother would never listen, not to the truth, even when it all but smacked him in the face. Because Gryphon was the real deal. A hero to the core. One who instinctively overlooked the bad and zeroed in on the good.
Except in Orpheus’s case, Gryphon had been wrong. There was no good in him, no matter how much Gryphon wanted to believe there was.
“What makes you think you don’t have a soul?” Skyla asked quietly.
Reality. That emptiness widened in the center of Orpheus’s chest, dousing the anger with pain. A black hole of nothingness waiting to suck him in. “The energy that sent Gryphon’s soul here should have done the same to me. We were both hit by the same power source that day. Except I survived and he didn’t.”
Because I don’t have a soul to destroy.
“Maybe your daemon strength stopped it.”
“Maybe you’re naïve.”
She smiled. “You have a soul, Orpheus.”
He tipped his head her way. “I have a daemon, Siren, as you oh so eloquently like to remind me.”
“Your daemon hasn’t been very reliable lately.”
No, it hadn’t. Which pissed Orpheus off more than this entire conversation. Down here, the beast could be a real asset, but Orpheus knew it wasn’t about to come out and play. Even now he could feel his daemon simmering beneath his skin, but it made no effort to unleash itself. Aside from a tremor now and then, it was as if the daemon barely existed.
“Whatever.” He didn’t have time to worry about what was happening to him. He had to figure out how to find Gryphon. “Doesn’t change the facts. And facts don’t lie. As a Siren you know that better than most.”
She didn’t answer, and silence settled between them. A silence that left him more edgy than before. To distract himself, he focused on the red-orange glow in the distance that was dimming but didn’t completely go away, as if not even night could blanket the pain and suffering with comfort.
Skyla yawned, eased down to her side, tucked her hands under her face. Even though he fought it, Orpheus’s gaze drifted her way and he watched the tendrils of damp hair blow gently against her skin.
“We’ll find him, you know,” she whispered.
His chest filled all over again as he watched her eyes drift close. She had a way of taming that emptiness inside him as no one had done before. Not even his brother. He wanted to chalk up her concern to the Orb, but the longer they were together, the harder that was to do. Logic told him she should have taken the Orb as soon as they’d immobilized that warlock. Or she could have let him venture into the Underworld alone and then stolen it when he wasn’t looking.