Damn it, if she could just reach her dagger. It, like her bow and arrows, was charmed and could inflict more damage than a regular weapon. But daemon hybrid skin was tougher than most, and since her arrows weren’t doing much to stop these monsters, even it was no guarantee. Her mind raced with options. Feminine charms definitely weren’t going to work in this situation. Her only hope at this point was to deflect and incite.
The closest daemon growled and stepped toward her. But a voice at his back stopped his feet. “I said she’s mine.”
Skyla looked past the first to see another—bigger—daemon stalking across the ground with murder in its glowing eyes. Her adrenaline surged. She gripped the rock and glared up at the closest daemon, the one who was backing off to make room for the big one.
“Can’t do it yourself?” she taunted. “Oh yeah, you’re a real badass, aren’t you? Do you wipe his ass for him when he asks too?”
The smaller daemon’s eyes flashed, but he stepped aside for the big one. If she could get them to turn on one another, she might have a chance. A slim chance.
“No one touches her but me,” the big daemon growled.
She lifted the rock. Ground her teeth together. Felt the weight of her dagger in its sheath against her lower back. But before she could swing out and make contact with the rock, the daemon at the back of the pack—the one who’d only recently appeared—wrapped his meaty claws around the neck of the big monster and jerked him backward.
A roar poured from the mouth of the bigger daemon as his feet left the ground. The other two turned to look with shock and awe across their grotesque faces. The big daemon sailed across the small clearing, slammed into a tree trunk. Crumpled like a rag doll. A blur of claws slashed out until there was nothing left but bones and blood. The other two daemons, sensing fresh meat, turned and charged.
Skyla scrambled to her feet, grasped the dagger at her back and hurled it through the air. It hit one daemon square in the back of the head. He slammed into the ground face-first with a thud. As the other charged the remaining daemon, Skyla darted for her bow and arrow. She ran hard, slid across the damp ground, scooped up her weapon, then lined up her shot and hoped like hell she was aiming for the right one.
Her arrows sailed through the air in succession. Stuck into the back of the daemon still wearing a trench coat. Another slash of claws and all that was left was her, a bloody mess, and the man named Orpheus she’d followed into the trees.
Correction, the daemon named Orpheus she’d been sent to find.
Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breaths. Hands steady from years of training, Skyla kept her bow at the ready, her arrow aimed dead center at his chest in case he made any kind of threatening move. Though Athena claimed he was nonviolent and that after three hundred years he’d mastered control over his daemon side, the acrid scent of blood and the vile stench of daemon slime wafting on the breeze reminded her he was more beast than man, no matter what Athena said.
Her adrenaline surged as his glowing green eyes lifted to hers. She searched his face for any sign of the man she’d seen earlier. The man who’d tried to get her to leave before the battle began. She couldn’t find him. All she saw was a monster. A monster born of the Underworld and intent on annihilation.
Skyla widened her stance, braced herself for one last fight. No, she wasn’t going down this way. Screw Zeus and what he wanted from the daemon hybrid. Yeah, she’d been sent to gain his trust so she could complete her mission, but if it came down to her life or some stupid relic Zeus deemed important, she’d choose her life every time. No matter the consequences.
He stepped forward.
Skyla’s pulse raced. She pulled the arrow back. “Stay where you are, daemon.”
Chapter 2
Orpheus breathed deep, tried to regulate his pulse. Energy and darkness radiated through his body—through his daemon body—urging him to strike again. To take. To feed.
The female pulled the arrow back, the tip catching what little moonlight filtered down from the forest’s canopy. But there was no fear in her violet eyes. Only challenge.
Take her. Taste her. Feed.
He licked his lips. Took a step closer. Knew it would be so easy. To suck the blood from her veins. To tear into her pale flesh. In his daemon form, instincts ruled and the need was always there, even if he’d forcibly denied himself over the years. One taste wouldn’t kill him. One bite wouldn’t condemn him. He’d already been condemned to a fate worse than death.
He eased closer.
“Stay back,” she said. “I’m warning you.”
Something familiar in her tone stopped his feet. He tried to see through the wavering haze that always descended after he turned. But the golden glow of her hair and the violet of her eyes were all he could focus on. That and her voice. He inhaled. Exhaled. Tried to place her. Couldn’t. All he knew was that he wanted her. Had always wanted her.
The bloodlust turned in on itself and twisted his insides until pain consumed him. The change came on as swift as the slice of a blade, even though he didn’t consciously will it.
He stumbled forward a step, then another. The female’s wide eyes came into focus just before something sharp sliced across his scalp near his ear.
“That was a warning. I said stay back.”
He hollered, but no sound escaped his lips. He was already in the throes of the change. His body slumped to the ground and excruciating pain exploded everywhere—through his torso, his limbs, his fingers and toes, even behind his eyelids.
He gripped his stomach as a wave of nausea rolled through him, followed by two more that kicked the shit out of him. Bones cracked and reformed, blood raced like fire through his veins. A kaleidoscope of color burst behind his eyelids, melding with the torment that seemed to have no end. Just when he was sure that this time the change really would kill him, an ice-cold chill slid through every cell in his body, leaving him clammy and shivering in its wake.
He breathed deep to fill his aching lungs, teeth cracking together as he fought the cold. In the fuzzy aftermath that was his brain, he knew he’d be lucky to find enough strength to uncurl from his I-just-got-my-ass-handed-to-me fetal position.
But with the weakness came a rush of memory, and he groaned when he realized where he was and how the hell he’d gotten here.
Skata. He’d lost the female he was tracking. He couldn’t even sense that weird light of hers anymore, which meant she was long gone. Which also meant he’d be starting from scratch all over again, and that this time she’d be watching for him.
Footsteps echoed off to his right. He opened his eyes. A pair of platform black boots decked out in silver buckles stopped directly in his line of sight.
For a heartbeat, he didn’t move, barely breathed. If it was another hybrid, he was toast. No way could he defend himself right now.
Then the legs attached to those boots bent, and the being—no, woman—knelt in front of him. “You don’t look so good.”
She reached out to touch him. Obviously thought better of it and pulled her hand back. His gaze lifted. He focused on her golden hair. On smoky, made-up eyes with irises the color of a summer lilac. On porcelain skin that stretched across finely carved features. And for a split second, just a heartbeat, he knew he’d stared into that face dozens—no, hundreds—of times before.
She pushed to her feet and vanished, her boots crunching across sticks and rocks on the forest floor. Seconds later she reappeared and pressed a wad of fabric against the side of his head.
“Damn it,” she muttered. “I thought you were attacking me, not…” She shook her head. “Never mind what I thought. You’re lucky I fired a warning shot.”
His memory was a maze of starts and stops. He had no idea what the hell she was talking about.
She pressed against his ear. Looked at the blood on the rag, pressed again. While she mumbled about daggers and poison and magic, which made zero sense, he stared at her face and tried to figure out what the hell was going o
n.
He knew her from somewhere. Was sure of it. Still couldn’t place her to save his life.
“I think this is going to be okay. It’s barely bleeding now. You know, if you’d told me you were shifting, this wouldn’t have happened.”
He still couldn’t follow her, but lying on the ground when his head felt as if he’d shoved it in a washing machine during the spin cycle wasn’t helping the situation. He knocked her hand away, then maneuvered to sitting, resting his back against the trunk of a tree for support.
“Skata.” The forest spun. He pressed both hands to his pounding forehead and tried to quell the thump.
Shifting back always left him weak and out of it. If he’d fed in his daemon form, he’d be fine. Better than fine. He’d be as strong as the Argonauts. But that wasn’t his goal, was it? No, he couldn’t change who he was, but he could control it. Most of the time.
He glanced down, found his pants ripped through the calves and thighs, his shirt shredded. He was pretty sure he’d worn a jacket, but who the hell knew where that had gone? He was lucky he still had some kind of clothing left. Sometimes he was left bare-ass naked.
He moved to his knees, pushed to stand. The woman reached out to steady him.
“I’m fine,” he managed in a raspy voice before she could touch him. “Though if you’re hot to grab something…”
She shot him a yeah, right look. “I see one part of your brain is still working.”
Yeah, his little brain, not his big one. Because he was way too aware of the human woman standing entirely too close to him on the bloody battlefield.
Sonofabitch. There were three dead-ass daemons lying on the ground that he now needed to get rid of. And he’d annihilated the fuckers in front of a witness.
A human witness.
The woman turned away, walked toward the hybrid he’d tossed near the shrubs. Her hair was windblown, there were streaks of dirt and blood smeared across her black clothes, and her right cheek was pink, as if she’d taken a hit there. But she didn’t seem fazed. Or scared. And though nothing about the fact she’d just been through a daemon battle screamed “sexy,” Orpheus couldn’t tear his eyes away from her.
Who the hell was she?
The daemon’s arms stuck out at an odd angle and twitched against the forest floor. She knelt by the crumpled remains, looked close. Orpheus opened his mouth to warn her away—daemons, especially hybrids, were hearty creatures—but before sound left his throat, she pulled a dagger from her lower back and decapitated the beast like a pro.
Two things occurred to Orpheus in the silence that followed. One, she’d definitely fought daemons before. And two, she was well trained on how to take them down.
His strength came back little by little as he watched her stand, wipe the bloody blade against her thigh, and sheathe it at her back. But when she turned and stalked in his direction, those kick-ass boots echoing in the still dark air and her hair trailing behind as if she were more supermodel than superwoman, Orpheus was struck again by the strange sensation that he’d met this particular female before. A long time ago. A lifetime ago.
“We’ll need to dispose of the bodies.” She stopped in front of him, gestured to the two mutilated hybrids to his left. “A fire this close to the concert will cause too much attention. We could weight them down and throw them in the river. Hopefully the remains will disintegrate before anyone discovers them.”
Burning was the safest and quickest way to get rid of any evidence. Though Orpheus didn’t give a rip what humans knew of the gods, even he realized the pandemonium that would result if they discovered that monsters like these, like him, roamed the earth. The female was right. Daemon remains decayed quickly—quicker than normal—but the question of how she knew that surged to the front of his gray matter.
She bent over, grasped the arm of the closest hybrid, but Orpheus blocked her with his hand on her forearm. Shards of heat penetrated his skin when he touched her, spread deeper, amping that arousal he shouldn’t be feeling. “Before we do that, why don’t you tell me just where you came from?”
She rose. “And ruin the mystery? Where’s the fun in that?”
She was toying with him. He didn’t know why, but the knowledge eased the tension inside him. “You’re not Argolean.” He tapped into his senses, this time focusing on her. On what he’d ignored before, because he’d been too distracted by his target to pay attention to her. “And you’re not a god. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but—”
“What in Hades…?”
She was staring at the ancient Greek text on his arms. The text marking him as a guardian of his race.
Damn it. When he’d lost his shirt in the shifting process, he’d forgotten all about the Argonaut markings. Markings he didn’t want and couldn’t wait to get rid of. Markings he’d inherited after his brother’s death.
Her eyes darted back to his face, and confusion—maybe even a little horror—slithered into their amethyst depths. “You’re an Argonaut? But I saw you shift. I saw you turn into that…that thing.” She shook her head. “Daemons can’t be Argonauts. They can’t be chosen. It goes against every law ever established. It goes against the natural order.”
She was definitely otherworldly, but he still didn’t know from where. And if she knew what he was, why wasn’t she slicing and dicing him like the others right this minute? When she jerked her arm out of his grasp, he didn’t try to stop her. ’Cause, yeah, this whole fucked-up situation went against his order too.
Damn you, Gryphon. And damn the gods for marking him in Gryphon’s place. There was only one thing he wanted now. One thing that would grant him vengeance against the sonofabitch god who’d cursed him to begin with.
He stepped back, perched his hands on his hips, breathed deep so he’d stay calm and not shift again. But it wasn’t easy. Because the fire in her eyes told him his night was far from over.
“Screw whatever it is you want to know about me,” she said. “What I want to know is…who the hell are you?”
***
The agonizing cry of pain that echoed in his ears was his own, even though his lips didn’t move.
In his mind, Gryphon kicked out at the vulture attacking his right leg, but his body didn’t answer the command. It never did, even though he wished and willed and prayed for just an ounce of movement. Frozen in place, he breathed deep through the pain and closed his eyes—the only part of his body he could move—blocking out the vultures and the view he’d looked out at for the last three months: jagged black rocks that made up the ground and mountains. Red-gray clouds above that swirled and boiled but never let loose the cleansing rain he sought. A canyon mere feet in front of him that dropped to a gurgling lava river, and a hot acrid wind that blew across the barren land, the heat so intense it seared what hair he had left on his skin, dried his eyes, and made him wish for annihilation.
But annihilation wouldn’t come, just as moving even one limb was a pipe dream he should stop fantasizing about. This depraved land was his eternity. Tartarus. Hell in all its glory. And though today’s torment would soon be over, he knew another would take its place tomorrow. When he awoke in the morning whole and healthy, just as he did every morning, only to be subjected to another round of torture more agonizing than the last.
Tears burned the backs of his eyes. Tears that would never fall. He turned his mind from the pain rippling through his body and imagined home.
Argolea.
The blessed realm of the heroes. Where his ancestors had dwelt. Where his Argonaut kin remained. Where his brother lived, whole and healthy and alive.
He felt himself flying, could see the entirety of his homeland as he looked down. The blue-green Olympian Ocean with its white sand beaches, the emerald green fields, the majestic snowcapped Aegis Mountains and the city of Tiyrns, gleaming white marble in the setting sun. He wondered if the Argonauts were in the castle or out on patrol. If Orpheus was with them as he should be. If his brother wondered where he was now. Did Orph
eus care that Gryphon had been sentenced to Tartarus even though he’d never done anything to deserve it?
That’s a bloody lie.
“No. It’s the truth.”
You’ve killed more than your fair share. The blood of innocents stains your soul.
“If I killed, it was done out of duty.”
Ha! There is no duty in death. Only misery. Which you now well know.
The voice mocked him. He hated the voice. Fought against it. And yet it was the only constant in this ever-changing hell. “I am an Argonaut. I did what was asked of me.”
Not anymore. You’re nothing. You’re dinner. Look at you. You can’t even move.
“I served. I saved—”
You’re pathetic. Whom did you save? You can’t even save yourself.
“I—”
Go ahead. I dare you. Save yourself, stupid. I’d like to see it.
His tears burned even hotter, but still no wetness slid down his cheeks. He focused every bit of strength he had left in an attempt to move one muscle. Just a fraction of an inch.
I knew it. See? You’re worse than pathetic. You’re navel lint. You’re the crud on the bottom of the other Argonauts’ shoes. You’re—
“Stop it!”
—dead…
“So are you! If I’m dead, you are as well. Now who’s the pathetic one?”
Silence descended. He waited. Listened. Hoped. Only the voice didn’t even sigh. A bone-chilling emptiness slithered into its place until all he heard was the tearing of his flesh as the vultures continued to pick him apart.
“Wait. Come back. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean…Please? I’ll be nice. I promise.”
Nothing.
Dear gods, he was going crazy. He couldn’t continue down this path, hoping and wishing for something that was never going to happen, arguing with himself only to spiral headlong into insanity when he awoke day after day after miserable day to be tortured all over again. There had to be a way out. Even if it was just up one level in this terror-filled infinity.