“He’ll make a mistake.”
She ground her teeth, fought the urge to yank the sword from his scabbard and decapitate the bastard. Killing him wouldn’t help her find her doulas. If she didn’t get Gryphon soon, they’d run out of time to find the Orb before the six months Krónos had given her was up.
“Send more daemons.” She grasped the sides of her long, red robe and climbed back up to her throne, refusing to believe even for a second that she wouldn’t succeed. She would not go back to the Underworld. Not to be his slave. She was a god. And she was destined to command all. “Gather hybrids to join in the search.”
“My queen,” Stolas said, “the hybrids are unpredictable.”
She turned to glare at him. “Then make them predictable. I will have your head if you fail me here, Stolas.” Fear filled his eyes. She averted her gaze and looked out over the ten daemons behind him. “I will have all your heads.”
“My queen,” a daemon to the back of the pack said. “There is one avenue we have not investigated.”
Atalanta’s eyes narrowed. “Who said that? Come forward.”
The pack parted, and a daemon dressed in a long black trench coat moved to stand next to Stolas. One whose body and eyes looked…vaguely familiar.
“What is your name?” Atalanta asked. Where had she seen him before? And who had he been in the human realm before trading his soul for a second shot at life in the Fields of Asphodel?
“Naberus, my queen.”
Naberus…the name meant nothing to her. But then, daemons rarely took on names that resembled those they’d used as humans.
She didn’t miss the glare Stolas sent the newcomer. Or the smug expression Naberus shot back. He was challenging the archdaemon, and they both knew it. Something very few daemons even thought about, let alone attempted.
“Tell me what you know,” Atalanta said, shaking off the strange feeling that she knew this daemon from somewhere. “Or I’ll have your head now.”
“My queen,” Naberus said, “the Argonaut travels with a female.”
Atalanta cut her gaze to Stolas, whose eyes flew wide. “Why did you not tell me this?”
“I…I did not know for certain. I—”
“It is your job to know all.” She looked back to Naberus. “Who is she?”
Naberus shot a wicked smile Stolas’s way, then looked toward Atalanta. “Zeus and Persephone’s daughter. She goes by Maelea. The one who led the Argonauts to the Underworld to free your doulas in the first place. Sources confirmed this to me.”
Fire rushed through Atalanta’s veins. “What sources?”
Naberus shrugged. “Hellhounds I tortured.”
Fury raged through Atalanta. She flew down the steps.
Naberus didn’t move, but Stolas lurched backward and held up his hands. “My queen! Hellhounds lie. We’re not sure it’s her.”
She grasped his sword by the hilt, pulled it out of its scabbard, and stabbed him straight through the heart.
His eyes flew wide. He dropped to his knees at her feet. She pulled the blade free, arced back and decapitated the useless beast. His body slumped forward.
Looking toward Naberus, Atalanta barked, “Kneel. Quickly.”
Naberus did so without even an inkling of fear.
Atalanta tapped the sword against his shoulder and uttered the magical words that infused him with her powers as archdaemon. When she was done and he pushed to his feet, he’d grown at least a foot. And something in the way his glowing green eyes sparked hit her square in the center of the chest.
Slowly, still trying to figure out who he was, she handed him the sword. “Find her and you will find my doulas. And do it quickly. Or you will be my next victim.”
Naberus bowed with a sinister grin. “As you wish, my queen.”
The door slamming brought Max’s eyes open.
As footsteps echoed down the hall, he lay on his stomach in the dark of his bedroom, listening carefully. He’d been home in Tiyrns for several days. His dad came and went, as always, and his mom…she was freaking out, worried about what was happening in the human realm at the Misos colony. But because of him, she wouldn’t go back. Because his dad had ordered her to take him home.
Anger simmered under his skin. He wasn’t a baby. He didn’t need to be protected like one.
The door to his room creaked open. He slammed his eyes shut and lay still as stone, trying not to move a single muscle so they wouldn’t know he was awake.
“Zander,” his mother whispered from the doorway. “He’s asleep.”
Silence met his ears. He knew his parents were watching him. They were always watching, checking up on him. They didn’t trust him.
“Come on,” Callia whispered. “Let him sleep.”
The door creaked closed, but when he peeked, he saw they hadn’t closed it all the way. Light from the hall spilled into the room from a crack.
“Any luck finding Gryphon?” his mother asked in a low voice.
They’d moved away from his door, but Max could still hear them. And because they were talking about Gryphon, he listened closer.
“No, none,” Zander answered in a frustrated voice. “It’s like they all but disappeared.”
“He’ll turn up,” Callia said softly.
“When?” Zander asked. “He’s not stable, thea. Whatever the hell they did to him in the Underworld changed him. Every time I think about Max being there…”
“Max is fine,” his mother said.
“He’s not fine,” Zander tossed back, louder this time. When Callia shushed him, he lowered his voice. “He’s not fine and we both know it. Every day he grows more defiant. I can’t even talk to him anymore, and he’s angry all the time.”
“He’s struggling, Zander. We knew the transition wouldn’t be easy. We have to give him time.”
“And what if time doesn’t work? What if he gets worse? What if he ends up like Gryphon?”
“He won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I do,” his mother said firmly. “Don’t even think that, Zander.”
Silence echoed like a hollow vat of nothingness from the hall, and Max’s heart rate shot up as he strained to listen.
“I never wanted this,” his father finally whispered from the hallway. “It’s not supposed to be this way.”
“I know,” his mother whispered back. Cloth rustled, and even without seeing them, Max knew they were hugging. His dad was always touching his mom one way or another. But not him. The only time his dad touched him was when he was mad, the way he’d been when he found Max in the tunnels of the colony. “We’ll make it work, Zander. Believe in that. Believe in us.”
A heavy sigh, followed by footsteps echoing down the hall, told Max his parents had finally moved away.
But in the darkness of his room, his heart rate didn’t slow. I never wanted this. The words echoed in his head. Along with the ones his father hadn’t said: I never wanted him.
He swallowed hard and forced back the tears. His father thought Gryphon had become a monster because of his time in the Underworld. And now he was beginning to question whether Max was one too. He wanted to prove to his parents he wasn’t, but he didn’t know how.
He didn’t know anything except that he suddenly felt more alone than he ever had, even when he was in the Underworld. Because then, at least, he’d had the fantasy of a family who loved him to keep him company. Now he knew he didn’t even have that.
“Delator is not a word.” Gryphon stared down at the Scrabble board on the coffee table between him and Maelea, then shot her a look. Seated on the floor with the fireplace roaring at her back, she flicked him a what on earth do you mean? expression that was so damn cute, he itched to wipe it from her mouth with his own.