Before he could answer, the female he’d just been thinking of poked her head into the room. “Is it okay if I come in?”
Warmth spread through his chest. Warmth followed by worry. Would she try to take the Orb now? “Yeah. He’s in the shower.”
She stepped in, looking all long-legged and gorgeous with her hair tumbling down around her shoulders, just like always. “How is he?”
“Better.” Orpheus glanced at the bathroom door, then back again. “I think maybe the worst is behind us.”
“I hope so.” She crossed her arms, looked around the room. “Not bad. Better than pink. That’s the color they gave Maelea.”
Orpheus had nearly forgotten about Ghoul Girl. He pressed two fingers against his right temple. “How is she?”
“Fine. The same. And the last thing you need to worry about right now.”
Why did she care about him so much? Where was the kick-ass Siren who’d been sent by Zeus to kill him? Orpheus scrubbed both hands over his face. Confusion mixed with the exhaustion finally hitting him now that his adrenaline was waning. He dropped into the chair Gryphon had been sitting in earlier. “The Argonauts are here?”
“Yes. And the queen and her sisters.”
“Fantastic.” Another party. “Gryphon doesn’t want—”
“Demetrius already told them. They’re hanging out downstairs for now.”
“That’s gotta please Nick.”
Skyla eased onto the armrest of his chair, her thigh inches from his hand. “Thrills him,” she said sarcastically. “What’s the story there? Between him and them?”
“He’s Demetrius’s brother.”
She frowned, a pouty little look that made him itch to kiss it from her face. “I figured that out already, daemon.”
“His half brother, smart-ass. Nick was persecuted by the monarchy because of his lineage.”
“Which is?”
“He’s an original hero. Sired from a human and a god.”
Skyla sat silent for several seconds, then said, “Cool.”
Orpheus chuckled. What was it about this female that tugged at him? Even now, when he knew he couldn’t be anywhere but right here with Gryphon, when logic told him she was seconds away from snatching the Orb, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and drag her across the hall into an abandoned bedroom suite. Then find out all over again what it felt like to slide inside her body and get lost in her scent.
Him. A daemon who didn’t form attachments. A witch who’d learned long ago to keep to himself. A male who never spent more than one night with any female.
And her. A Siren. Sent to seduce, steal, then take him down.
He eyed her leg. Ached to reach for her. To touch her. To let her remind him he was alive. To prove that he hadn’t been forgotten.
He blew out a long breath and glanced toward the bathroom door. The shower was still running. “Maybe I should check on him.”
Moment of truth. What would she do?
“Okay,” she said as he pushed to his feet. “Are you hungry? I could call down and have something brought up.”
He frowned. “Are you always this motherly, Siren?”
“Always,” she mocked, crossing her shapely legs and leaning forward to bat her long dark lashes his way. “After beheading ogres all day long, I serve on the PTA board at night.”
“You on a PTA board. Now that I’d like to see.” He knocked on the bathroom door. Drew up his defenses, just in case. “Gryph? You okay in there?”
Nothing but the sound of running water met his ears.
Orpheus knocked again. Got no response. He tried the handle and found it locked. A shot of panic rushed through him.
Skyla’s boots clicked as she pushed off the chair. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Orpheus jiggled the knob again. “Gryphon? Answer me.”
Nothing.
“Skata.” Orpheus stepped back from the door, centered himself, and called up a simple spell to free the lock. A click resounded. He turned the knob.
Steam enveloped the room, fogged the mirror. Through the frosted glass he could see Gryphon standing naked under the spray, scrubbing at the skin on his arms. “Gryph? Are you okay? I knocked and knocked and you didn’t answer.”
“Can’t get clean,” Gryphon murmured. “Have to get it off. Just a little more.” He stopped scrubbing, slammed both hands over his ears. “Stop!”
Gryphon shook his head violently, then went back to scrubbing at his skin again, murmuring faster, “Can’t get clean. Can’t get clean…”
Shit. He wasn’t better. He was getting worse. That panic morphed to all-out dread as it pushed its way back up Orpheus’s chest. “Come on, Gryphon. That’s enough. Let’s get you out.”
Orpheus was aware Skyla was standing in the doorway as he reached for a towel and grasped the shower door, that the Orb was in plain view on the floor. But he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered right now was his brother.
Orpheus pulled the door open. Then froze. “Holy gods…”
Blood ran like rivers from Gryphon’s arms, his legs, his face and torso. His fingers were bloody stumps where he’d dug into his skin over and over, scrubbing harder with each pass.
“Gryphon, stop!” Orpheus threw the towel around Gryphon’s shoulders and hauled him out of the shower. Gryphon hollered and hurled his weight into Orpheus, knocking them both to the ground with a crack. They grappled across the bathroom tiles until Orpheus got behind Gryphon, closed one arm across his brother’s head, used the other to immobilize his arms, then hooked Gryphon’s legs so he couldn’t break free.
Gryphon struggled once, twice more, then collapsed against Orpheus and broke down, his entire body shaking with soul-rattling sobs. Water and blood ran from Gryphon’s skin into Orpheus’s clothes, dripped onto the floor around him. “I can’t get it off,” he cried. “It’s all over me. Inside me. I just want it to go away. I just…oh, gods, make it go away.”
His body convulsed in Orpheus’s arms, and the sobs turned to full-body trembles Orpheus felt all the way to his very core.
Orpheus caught Skyla’s horror-filled gaze in the doorway, where she stood still as stone. And his heart—the heart he thought he didn’t have—contracted beneath the earth element still resting against his chest. “Get help,” he whispered. “Find someone who can help my brother.”
It was hours later when Skyla peeked her head back into Gryphon’s room. Though it was quiet, there were several people taking up space. Callia, Queen Isadora’s personal healer, held Gryphon’s wrist on the far side of the bed and glanced at the clock high on the wall. Theron conversed quietly with Isadora near the window. Skyla knew from her conversations downstairs that several other Argonauts had come and gone through the night, but Orpheus remained, sitting in a chair next to Gryphon, his elbows leaning on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him while he watched his brother sleep.
The image of the big Argonaut clawing at his flesh wouldn’t leave her head. Neither would the blood that had covered him and the floor and Orpheus when Orpheus had tackled Gryphon in the bathroom. Every time she thought of what he’d been through in the Underworld, her mind skipped to Orpheus and the years and years he’d been trapped there himself. The gruesome things he must have endured. The fact that—thankfully—he couldn’t remember them.
She’d considered telling Orpheus the truth about their relationship so many times. Had pondered what it would do to him to learn who and what he really was. But after seeing Gryphon, she knew she couldn’t. It wasn’t about her or what she’d be losing. She didn’t want to hurt Orpheus. And bringing up the past would do only that. It would dredge up something that was better off dead and buried.