Yes. Yes, it was. And what she wanted right now was Demetrius.
Demetrius stalled as long as he could. Until the chill night air sent gooseflesh all over his skin and he shivered in the great hall. The fire had gone out. He was too tired to light another and didn’t think he had enough magick left inside to cloak the smoke this time anyway.
Okay, this was stupid. She had to be asleep by now. He’d just go in, grab a blanket, and slip right back out. She’d never even know he was there.
As he moved soundlessly down the steps to the Hall of Heroes again, he called himself ten kinds of stupid. He was an Argonaut. Hiding from a female. From the weak little princess, for crying out loud. If the guys ever caught wind of this…
He let that thought die as soon as it hit. The rest of the guardians were never gonna know any of this. Especially not anything that had happened between him and Isadora last night.
Dumb, dumb, really fucking dumb. That was him in a friggin’ nutshell.
The chamber was quiet when he reached the floor. The torch across the room still flickered and burned, but it had died down and now cast only a dim glow over the heroes’ trunks. Quietly, he moved toward the dark corner where Isadora—hopefully—was sacked out.
His night vision sharpened. He caught sight of her lying still on her side, one leg angled out in front of her, her hands tucked up near her face. She’d kicked the blanket off and the orange tank top rode up on her abdomen, giving him a nice view of her toned hip and creamy skin. The shorts, though baggy, were the perfect length to showcase her shapely legs and the winged omega marking on her inner thigh. Warmth gathered in his stomach as his eyes ran over her body.
Go. Now. Leave.
With a muffled grunt, she rolled to her other side. He tensed, afraid he’d awakened her, but when he looked closer he realized her eyes were still shut and her chest rose and fell in rhythmic succession. And that’s when he noticed her breasts pushing against the strained cotton. That warmth turned to a white-hot burn that pooled in his groin. Hard.
Don’t just go. Run.
He hesitated. What if her nightmares came back? If he was all the way upstairs, he’d never hear her scream. She didn’t have the nightmares when he was close, so maybe if he just slinked down in the corner…
It wasn’t an excuse to get close to her, he told himself. He reached for an extra blanket from the floor, but as he drew near, her sweet feminine scent enveloped him and cut through what was left of his gray matter.
The corner would be uncomfortable. And the bed he’d made for her was easily big enough for two. He’d slept on it next to her last night and nothing had happened. And gods knew he was more tired tonight than he had been then. If he was going to leave her in the morning to hike around and find holy ground, he needed at least a few hours of rest.
Careful, so as not to wake her, he eased in beside her, tucked his arm behind his head, and lay down on his back. She lay facing him but—thankfully—was still asleep.
He released a breath. Closed his eyes. And fell instantly asleep.
The light rain hit Apophis’s cheek with a sting he felt deep in the fleshy tissue of his skin.
Not his skin by birth, but his now by possession. He lifted the young Argonaut hand attached to this new body and ran it across his smooth, unwrinkled cheek. Power coursed through his veins. He was strong, not just mentally anymore but physically. And he was no longer confined to that bloody prison. He couldn’t wait to test out this new body in every way possible.
The portal popped and sizzled as it closed. Crossing the frozen ground, he tried to remember what those useless Argoleans had called him. Grant? Grim? No, Gryphon. Yes, that was it. The Argonaut Gryphon. Playing the character wouldn’t be so important now, but shortly it would be. And this was the perfect time and place to experiment with his newfound persona.
Northern British Columbia. A frozen wasteland as far as he was concerned, but a means to an end. He narrowed his—Gryphon’s—eyes and peered through the trees toward the main house some three hundred yards across the clearing. Night fell fast this far north, but the hour was late. Atalanta would already have dismissed her warriors to their barracks. The archdaemon resided with her in the house, but before turning in for the night he’d make a sweep through the outer buildings and check in with security.
Oh, Apophis wasn’t a fool. He’d done his research, especially since siding with Atalanta. The archdaemon was the one he needed. It would know what she had planned.
He hovered in the shadows. Waited. Watched. Planned. Did Atalanta think she could outmaneuver him? Outthink him? She did not have a clue about what lingered deep inside him. From the edge of his vision he watched lights dim in the last bunkhouse, then the archdaemon close and lock the door behind him before turning for the field that led back to the main house.
Apophis’s muscles vibrated. Magick gathered in the depths of his new hands. The power burst from his fingers and struck with deadly precision, taking the daemon down with one blow to the back of the neck that paralyzed his limbs within seconds. He was on the daemon before it could gasp, grasping its jacket and dragging the body into the trees so the security detail roaming these woods wouldn’t be any the wiser.
He dropped the daemon at the base of a great pine tree, knelt down so he was face-to-face with the monster. “Your mistress took something that belongs to me. I want it back.”
Recognition swept over the archdaemon’s features and his eyes widened in horror. “You…you’re not…a guardi—”
“No,” he whispered, leaning even closer until the glow from his eyes turned the daemon’s face, the ground, even the base of the tree just to his left, a blinding shade of blue. “I am your worst nightmare. And I can make you feel pain like you’ve never known. Tell me where the princess is and I will let you live.”
The daemon trembled with such force, Apophis knew it realized death was but a breath away. “I…she…”
“Your fate will be a thousand times worse with me than your mistress, I guarantee it. The princess. Now. I grow tired of this conversation.” He held up his hand for effect and watched the daemon’s eyes grow even wider as it stared at the power pulsing inside his newfound skin, the blue glow backlighting the bones and veins and tendons within.
The daemon swallowed hard. “In the human realm. An island. She sent them to…Pandora.”
“Who else is with her?”
“An Argonaut. At-Atalanta’s son.”
Apophis’s brow lifted. Now this was an interesting bit of news. The conniving, vengeful goddess had a son who was an Argonaut. He wanted to know just how that had transpired, but a stronger curiosity left him wondering if the princess knew what evil lurked alone with her on that island.
The ramifications of what Atalanta might very well have done slammed into him. He needed the princess alive, with her virginity intact, if he had any hope of gathering the strength he needed to open the portal and draw his army of witches through with him.
“Pandora, you said?” He glared down at the shaking daemon. “How did she send them?”
“Th-through a portal.”
Of course she had. One of the many benefits to being of the god class. You could poof people and things around the earth wherever and whenever you needed. Including yourself. But lucky him, even though he wasn’t one of them—yet—he had the Orb of Krónos. And that was almost as good. Soon, it would be better.
“Thank you, daemon.” He pushed to stand.
“Wait. My arms. My legs.”