Okay, playtime was over. Orpheus tore down the hill after Skyla. All around him, Argonauts and Sirens battled hellhounds. He grasped Skyla’s arm just as she let go of an arrow. “Come on. It’s time to go.”
“What? I can’t go anywhere. I—” She whipped around, saw Hades and the Minotaurs. “Holy hell.”
“Pretty much. Let’s go, Siren. Can you flash?”
“Yes, but…” She looked at her sisters. “The others…”
Orpheus’s gaze followed. To the Argonauts. Battling back hell’s underlings. For him. The only way for them to escape was through a portal back to Argolea, and they’d never risk opening one with hellhounds that close.
“Damn sonofabitch fucking conscience,” Orpheus muttered, glancing up at the sky. “I didn’t ask for this!”
“What are you doing?” Skyla’s eyes grew wide as he pulled the Orb from beneath his shirt and shoved the air element into place.
“Trying to give us all a fucking chance. Stand back.”
She stepped in front of him, blocking him from the battle, lifted her bow, and took aim at a charging hellhound. Orpheus closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, focusing his energy on both the Orb and the mother of all protection spells, pulling on the two elements as much as he could. Against his shirt, the Orb grew hot.
The ground rumbled. The wind picked up, tossing his hair away from his face. The chant grew in his mind and spilled from his lips, and as it did he imagined a protective barrier all around the meadow. It wouldn’t save them from the hellhounds already in the circle, but if it held, it would shield them from Hades and the next wave the evil god had planned.
“Orpheus!”
He heard his name called just before the barrier was in place. Felt some sort of energy siphon through, like water through cheesecloth. But then the barrier solidified, holding a tight, careful perimeter.
He opened his eyes. Caught Hades’s furious glare on the other side of the barrier. Around him the battle between Argonauts and hellhounds and Sirens waged on.
A scream echoed from ahead. He looked that direction just as Skyla’s body jerked as if she’d just been hit with a bolt of lightning.
“Skyla?”
A gurgling sound echoed. She dropped to the ground at his feet with a thud. From her chest, the long curved blade and black wooden handle of a scythe protruded, surrounded by blood already welling around the blade to seep through her clothing and spill into the ground.
“No. Oh, shit. No. Skyla?” Panic beat a drum line to his heart as he fell to his knees. He reached for the handle of the scythe marked with the image of a three-headed dog.
“No,” Skyla rasped, her shaking hand lifting to try to stop him from pulling it out. “No, don’t…”
He jerked the blade free and dropped it on the wet grass at his side. She groaned in pain, her eyes rolled back in her head, but all he could see was the blood gushing out of the wound in her chest. So much blood.
Oh, gods…He had to stop the bleeding. He needed a healing spell. Couldn’t think. Frantic, he tore the Orb from around his neck and pressed it to her chest, knowing it had some kind of healing element to it. “Demetrius!”
“Don’t,” Skyla rasped again. “It’s…too late.”
He looked down at her pale face and his heart clenched. Tight. So tight he felt as if he’d been stabbed with that blade. Reality, and a future, one that didn’t include her, ran out like a carpet of red before him.
“It’s too late,” she rasped. “Let me—”
Her hand closed over his bloody one atop the Orb. But her eyes never left his. Amethyst eyes that were even now glazing over.
“Orpheus…” A ghost of a smile tugged on her mouth. “I think of you as Orpheus now. Not as Cyn—”
She coughed. Her body shook. Blood pooled at the corners of her mouth. Gushed from her chest.
No, no, no, no, no. This wasn’t happening. Not when he’d just realized she was the only thing that mattered.
Tears blurred his vision as he leaned over her. The battle continued around them. Shouts and clashes of blades and teeth and arrows winging through the air. “Listen to me, Siren. Don’t give up. Do you hear me? You hold on. I’m going to get you out of here. Just…just don’t let go. Skyla?”
Her eyes slid closed and she drew a deep, shuddering breath. A breath he felt all the way in his soul. “Don’t let Zeus have it. Or Hades. Don’t let…any of the gods have it. P-promise.”
“They won’t. I promise.” He flipped his hand over and squeezed her bloody fingers. Rain ran down his face. Why wasn’t the Orb working? And where the fuck was Demetrius? “Stupid, stupid Siren.” Tears lodged in his throat. “What were you thinking, stepping in front of that scythe? I don’t need you protecting me, damn it. I need you alive. I need—”
“Was thinking…of…you…” Her voice grew weak. “You were…meant for something…greater. Be greater, Orpheus.”
Her hand softened against his.
No, gods, no. He wrapped both arms around her and pulled her into his lap, pressed one hand against the wound. Her head lolled against his arm. The Orb pressed between them, covered in her blood and his tears. “Skyla? Stay with me. Stay with me, damn it.”
Please, Dimiourgos. Don’t take her from me. Don’t…
He looked up again, searching through watery vision for Demetrius, the pain in his chest so sharp he could barely breathe.
A figure moved toward him. A figure that looked like Demetrius at a dead run. Screaming…his name.
“I—” she started.
“Shh…” Hope leaped in his chest. He pressed his lips against the wet hair plastered to her forehead. “Help is coming. Just hold on a little longer, okay, baby? Don’t let go.”
“Never…did.” Her hand slid down his chest to clasp his again. And through his tears he looked at their bloody fingers, entwined over her heart. Over his heart. And he knew in that moment that was exactly what she was. What she’d always been: his heart. Only he’d been so consumed with anger and jealousy and vengeance, he hadn’t seen it. Not the first time. Not the second. Not until now, when it was too late.
“Never forgot…you,” she whispered. “Not…once.”
Demetrius skidded to a stop at his side. “Skata. O?”
Her breathing slowed, and even before Demetrius dropped to his knees to help him, alarm raced through Orpheus’s body. He grasped her chin with his bloody hand, tipped her face up. “Skyla?”
She didn’t move.
“No.” He gripped both sides of her face, willed her to open her eyes. “Skyla? Dammit, Skyla?”
“O,” Demetrius said, “let me…”
Demetrius took her from his arms, laid her out on the ground, and leaned over to listen for her breath, then felt for her pulse. His body went still, then his gaze roamed over the gaping wound in her chest. And before he could stop it, every muscle in Orpheus’s body went rigid with disbelief.
“No!” He knocked Demetrius back and away from her. Demetrius hit the ground on his ass. Orpheus leaned over Skyla and grasped both of her shoulders. “Wake up, damn it! It’s not time for you to go! Do you hear me? It’s not time…”
Hands landed on his shoulders, pulling him back. Around him he saw boots—heavy, rugged ones worn by the Argonauts and platform kick-ass, knee-high ones worn by Sirens. Silence descended, seemed so out of place all of a sudden. No more battle sounds. No more roaring monsters. Just the empty, gut-wrenching silence that told him it was already too late.
He thought he’d known pain before. He was wrong. Two thousand years of torture in the Underworld hadn’t prepared him for the agony that ripped through his heart and soul.