Enraptured

Chapter 10

Skyla needed a drink.

She eyed the bottle of Jameson behind the bar in the dining car. If she were home on Olympus, she’d down the whole damn thing. Here on earth, she needed to keep her wits about her. Especially around the hybrid.

Holy…mother. She lifted the glass of ice water she’d ordered to cool down after her run-in with Orpheus and downed the whole thing. Her barriers needed strengthening if he was able to get to her so easily. Daemon, she repeated to herself. Daemon. Why the hell was she flat out ignoring that part of him?

A loud shriek of metal against metal echoed through the car. The cup of ice flew out of her hand. Screams echoed. Skyla fell forward. She smacked into a booth, hit the floor with a thud. As she pushed up the train came to a stop. She looked out the window and saw a river of snow rushing down the mountain right toward her.

Oh…fuck.

Snow plowed into the train, sending it end over end like a matchbox car tossed into a clothes dryer. Skyla sailed backward, crashed into the wall. Her head cracked into glass. Pain nudged the conscious ends of her mind, but the screams echoing around her dragged at her attention. That and the smash of glass breaking, of snow pouring into the car and sucking out every last molecule of air.

When she tore her eyes open, silence met her ears and nothing but a vast empty darkness surrounded her. A frigid cold darkness.

Oh…gods.

Instinct had her clawing at the snow. She managed to get her hands up near her face, was somehow able to dig enough snow out of the way to create a pocket of air. Drew deep breaths to tamp down the terror.

Common sense nudged the panic to a manageable level as she lay cradled in the snow, her fingers numb, her arms and legs packed against icy-cold walls. She had no idea if she was facing up or down, how the dining car was lying in the snow, or if the car had been ripped to shreds by the avalanche. The fact the snow hadn’t hardened yet told her she hadn’t blacked out, but that didn’t ease her anxiety.

Orpheus’s image flashed in her mind. The way he’d looked when she walked away from him in the sleeping car. The disappointment on his face. The yearning in his eyes…

Stop.

She smacked her head against the snow behind her. Told herself to stop being a fool. He wouldn’t be looking for her. He was a daemon. He knew why she was here, and even though he was playing her own seduction game—for whatever reason—that didn’t mean she meant anything to him. That didn’t mean he had any desire to see her live.

A shiver racked her body. Panic closed in again. Panic over the fact she was by herself here in the dark. That no one would find her. That no one would miss her when she was finally gone. The Sirens would move on. Sappheire would likely take her place as Athena’s favorite. She had no family left, no close friends. She was over two thousand years old, with countless battles fought and won under her belt, and her life had been reduced to this moment. To dying in an avalanche in the middle of frickin’ nowhere. Alone.

Don’t panic. Stay calm. Using her brain had always worked for her before. Somehow, it had to work again.

She kept her breaths slow and shallow. Used her fingers to claw out more space around her face. Wiggled her body to make room before the snow hardened and she was truly stuck.

From somewhere to her right, a muffled sob reached her ears.

She froze, listened.

Another sob. Then a scream.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

The crying cut off. Silence met her ears.

“Who’s there?” Skyla asked again.

“Me,” a muffled voice echoed. “I’m…here. I’m here.”

Relief pulsed through Skyla’s veins. She wasn’t totally alone. “What’s your name?”

“K-Katie,” the small voice said. “I’m eight. I—I can’t find my mom!”

Skyla tried to turn that way. She didn’t have much room, but her flailing earlier had created enough space around her so she could move. Able to get her hands in the vicinity of the voice, she started digging. Snow fell into her tiny pocket of air and began packing near her feet but she didn’t care. The fact she wasn’t alone was all that mattered. “Keep talking to me, Katie. I’m trying to get to you. My name’s Skyla.”

“S-Skyla is a weird name.”

“It is,” she agreed as she dug. Her fingers were numb, her heart pounding hard in her chest. But she kept on digging, because anyone was someone.

“I—I’m cold,” Katie said.

“Me too, Katie.”

“I’m so scared.”

Skyla’s fingers broke through and closed around flesh and bone. Katie gasped. Skyla continued digging, using her arms and legs to move the snow around as much as possible until the small child was only inches from her. When she could manage, she wrapped her arm around the human girl and pulled her close, the heat of her upper body against Skyla’s torso a stark improvement over the ice-cold snow packed tight now up to her waist.

“We’re going to die,” Katie sobbed against Skyla’s chest.

“No, we’re not,” Skyla lied. But even she knew things weren’t looking good. The utter darkness around them signaled they were buried deep. She ran through options in her head and decided trying to dig out was better than lying down and dying without a fight. On a deep breath, she let go of the girl and reached out to give it her best shot.

Her fingers dug into ice-cold snow. From somewhere deep below, a rumble echoed. Fear wound its way around her heart just as the earth shook with a force that knocked Katie into her and brought snow falling down around them.

“Skyla!”

Skyla grabbed onto the girl. “Take a deep breath, Katie! Fill your chest with as much air as you can!”

The shaking continued until Skyla wanted to scream. She knew they were dropping deeper into the snow, farther from salvation. She held tighter to the girl. Katie sobbed against her chest.

The shaking stopped. Skyla went right to work, digging around their faces to create another pocket of air. Then stopped short when she heard a noise.

She stilled. Listened.

“Is that…?” Katie started.

The sound echoed again. Muffled, but distinct. A voice.

Hope leaped in her chest. No, not one voice, Skyla realized. Several. There were people out there.

“Here!” she screamed. “We’re here!”

“We’re here!” Katie yelled at her side.

The voices increased in intensity, and then a flicker of blue light cut through the darkness. Then another, and another, until the snow near her face began to break away piece by frozen piece.

Adrenaline coursed through Skyla’s body as she struggled toward the light. Snow flicked into her eyes. Then a hand broke through, followed by another voice. This one not muffled, but clear and strong. “We’ve got another one!”

Relief was like the sweetest wine. Warm and brisk and encapsulating. Katie sobbed out her excitement.

“Grab my hand,” the voice yelled.

Skyla grasped Katie’s arm, pulled it up. “Take the girl first!”

Snow kicked back in Skyla’s face as Katie was drawn up and out of the hole, then Skyla reached for the hand held out for her and used her boots to dig in for leverage so she could climb.

Bright light burned her eyes as she was hauled out of the broken windows of the railcar. Voices echoed around her. She held up her hand to block the glare and saw dozens of people digging in the snow, some holding flashlights to aid the rescuers. A shiver racked her body, the night air decidedly colder than it had been in that frozen pit. From the corner of her eye, she saw someone whisk a blanket around a young girl with dark hair. Saw a man and a woman rushing toward the girl. They grasped her in a tight hug and rocked her back and forth.

And even though Skyla was free, that rush of emptiness washed through her again as she watched. She’d sacrificed that—love, companionship, a family—for the Sirens. To stay on Olympus doing what Zeus commanded because it was safer to remain numb inside than to feel anything again.

Through hazy vision, Skyla watched Katie’s parents lift the girl into their arms and carry her away. And as she swiped at her frozen cheeks she told herself it was melting snow, not tears. Sirens didn’t cry.

Her chest pinched with the weight of the emptiness around her until it was hard to draw a single breath. Then the image of Katie and her parents was blocked by a body rushing toward her. A body with wide shoulders, a broad chest, and a pair of intense gray eyes that drew her in like a lifeline.

“You stupid Siren.” Orpheus’s arms were around her before she realized it was him. In a whir of movement he jerked her tight against his warm body, slid his hands into her wet hair and lowered his mouth to hers.

Her mind was still a blur of sensations, but the heat of his lips, the roughness of his whisker-covered jaw, the way he kissed her like a man starved, overwhelmed every one. She was alive, she’d been found. And she wasn’t alone.

She reached for him, dug her numb fingers into the fabric of his shirt, opened her mouth and drew him in. Then she kissed him back as she’d promised herself she would never kiss anyone ever again.

Someone moaned. She wasn’t sure if it was her or him. All she knew was this kiss. This moment. This man, daemon, Argonaut, whatever, who tasted of promises and regrets and a thousand other emotions she couldn’t define in the moment.

He kissed all thought out of her head, and when she was sure he’d demolished a few thousand brain cells in the process, he drew away and stared down at her with those achingly familiar eyes. The ones she couldn’t get away from. The ones she’d never been able to forget.

Someone threw a blanket over her shoulders. He tugged it tight at her chest, pulled her close to his warmth again, and whispered in her ear, “If you’re trying to impersonate a Popsicle, you’re doing a damn good job.”

Skyla had obviously hit her head harder than she’d thought, because she couldn’t seem to process anything yet. And when he scooped her up in his arms like a damsel in distress, it took several seconds before she realized what he was doing. She pushed a hand against his chest, a hand that was shaking and did nothing to stop him. “I…I can walk.”

Was that her voice? It didn’t sound like her. It sounded as if it came from someone else. She was strong, confident, a warrior. Not someone who needed tending. She should tell him to stop and put her down. Wasn’t a hundred percent sure she wanted him to.

He didn’t look at her, just kept walking with her cradled in his arms like some fragile woman. “I’m sure you can. Humor me for the time being, would you? You go acting all Rambo Girl on me and the humans around here won’t know what the hell to think. And I’m pretty sure they’ve had enough surprises for one night.”

He stopped at a grouping of humans near the end of the train, which hadn’t been swallowed by the avalanche. The cars were dislodged from the tracks but somehow appeared to still be in one piece. Gentler than she expected, he set her on a boulder near a fire someone had built, tugged the blanket around her shoulders again, and mumbled something to the woman next to her. Then he turned and headed back to the buried cars.

She was aware someone was checking her head, knew bandages were being applied, and that another voice was asking her questions to see if she had a concussion, but all she could focus on was Orpheus thirty yards away, searching for more survivors, digging with the humans, all while wearing nothing more substantial than jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved henley.

Her chest tightened. Her mind spun. She ran her fingers over her lips, lips that were still tingling from his kiss and alive with heat.

She was too rattled to do anything but sit by the fire and watch Orpheus work from a safe distance. Someone offered a jacket. Around her, people recounted the earthquake and the avalanche.

Earthquake. Yeah, earthquakes happened, but here? In the Rockies? Stopping the train she and Maelea and Orpheus were traveling on? This was not a coincidence. Her mind drifted to the hellhounds back at Maelea’s house. There was only one person who could be linked to both. Too late she remembered she’d left her armor in their stateroom on the train, which was now probably covered in snow.

The ground shook. Skyla gripped the rock she was sitting on, pushed down the panic. When the shaking stopped, shouts echoed in the distance, and men ran toward a buried railcar that had somehow rumbled to the surface.

Her mind flashed to another rumble, another moment when the earth had opened before her. That shaking hadn’t been god-induced, just as this aftershock seemed too gentle to be generated by Hades.

She searched for Orpheus. Couldn’t find him. Pushed to her feet and dropped the blanket on the rock.

“Skyla?”

She ignored her name being called from around the fire. Stepped past fallen trees and boulders that had been dislodged from the ground. Moved through the dark and into the woods, searching. And finally spotted him…a good twenty-five yards from the others, hidden from view behind an outcropping of rock, his hands extended in the direction of the still-buried cars, his eyes closed, the earth element shining in his palm like a falling star.

Her breath caught as she watched him harness the magic of the element with something seated deep inside him. Something she was sure not even Zeus knew he possessed. The ground shook again. A rumble echoed. Shouts grew to her right, and she looked that way to see another group of men run to yet another railcar that had risen to the surface of the snow.

Suddenly, how she and Katie had been saved made sense.

Her gaze shot back to Orpheus. Only he was no longer focused on what he’d been doing. He was staring right at her. And his eyes were no longer the familiar gray she knew so well. They glowed a blinding green that lit up the night.

Orpheus had gotten used to people being afraid of him. Most of the time he relished it. But the stark shot of fear in Skyla’s eyes as she stared at him across the snow hit him dead center in the chest in a way that not only knocked him for a loop, it pissed him off. Especially after he’d just saved her life.

He pocketed the earth element, stalked toward her, and tried to ignore the fact some small part of him cared what she thought. As he worked to calm the daemon inside, he realized he should be glad he was having such trouble. It meant his daemon was back. And judging from what he’d spotted in the woods behind Skyla, he knew he’d need that daemon sooner rather than later.

Confident his eyes had returned to their normal color, he stopped in front of her, gave her a quick once-over. She’d found a coat at least, but he didn’t miss the bandage near her right temple and the purple and black bruise bleeding out from beneath it. Yeah, she was alive, but if she hadn’t run from him in the corridor of their railcar in the first place, she wouldn’t have been trapped in that avalanche. Wouldn’t have that wound now. Wouldn’t be looking more shell-shocked than confident as she stared up at him.

Guilt was another thing he’d gotten used to over the years. But he pushed it down as he’d learned to do and looked past her to the humans beyond. “Where’s Maelea?”

“I…I haven’t seen her. I thought you knew where she was.”

“She sensed the earthquake before it hit. I was able to get her off the train and away from danger. I left her on the tracks with a group of humans before going back.” To find you.

When she didn’t answer, only continued to stare at him as if he had three heads, he gripped her arm at the elbow, turned her toward the others, and started walking. “We have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“A hellhound problem.”

Skyla scanned the forest. “Where?”

“About a hundred yards past the last railcar, down the tracks. I counted at least three.”

“They travel in packs of five.”

“I know.”

The fifty or so humans who’d survived the avalanche were about to meet a death they couldn’t even imagine. Bloodbath wasn’t a term Orpheus used lightly, but that’s exactly what would happen if he didn’t do something to stop it.

They reached the last railcar. The wheels were dislodged from the tracks but the car still stood upright. Darkness loomed beyond the wreckage, towering trees and mountains, a mixture of inky darkness and shadows eerily lit by the moon high above. And far off in the distance, a red glow that flickered and disappeared.

“Are you up for a little hunting?” he asked, still looking out at the snow-covered trees.

“Get me to my armor and I’m with you. What about Maelea?”

At least the Siren sounded normal again. He headed around the end of the last car, then back up the other side, where they had a modicum of privacy. “Let’s hope she wasn’t stupid enough to run off by herself.”

They reached their sleeping car, which was still upright too. The cars on both sides had separated, the door of the car behind butted up against their stateroom window—the one he’d pulled open so he and Maelea could escape. He planted a foot on the mangled car at his side for leverage as he climbed up and dropped into their wrecked stateroom.

A chair lay on its side, pillows from the top berth were scattered about, and Skyla’s armor was strewn over the floor. As Skyla climbed through the window, he reached out to her, slid his hands around her waist, and helped her jump down from the sill. The long, lean line of her body pressed against his as she gripped his shoulders and eased to the floor.

For a moment he remembered their little bet. What he’d wanted to do to her out in the corridor. His blood warmed. His pulse picked up speed. When her gaze flicked to his and her cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink, he knew she felt it too.

She took a quick step back. Broke the contact. Moved to pick up her armor. “What’s the plan?”

War strategy. She had an easier time talking about that than the attraction still simmering between them. But could he blame her? It was a helluva lot easier for him to think about how to kick some hellhound ass rather than the kiss she’d laid on him out in the snow. The one that was still smoking through the toes in his boots.

He pushed his hands into his pockets, fingered the earth element as she took off her coat, tied the garment around her waist, then strapped on the breastplate and arm guards. Man, she was sexy. All long legs and willowy curves. Built, obviously, to seduce. But he liked that about her. Because it meant when this thing between them eventually burned out, he’d have no regrets about whatever came next.

“I was thinking we’d lure them out with my daemon,” he said. “You wait in the trees until we’ve got them all. I take down what I can, you swoop in and get the rest.”

She turned his way, her golden hair waving behind her as she moved. “Are you sure your daemon will come out and play this time?”

“Sweetheart, my daemon’s ready to play anytime, anywhere. Just say the word and he’ll be there.”

“Hm.” She stepped over the chair, crossed to the small bathroom door. “I’ll feel better about that when I see it for myself.”

“A pregame warm up? Siren, you surprise me.” He reached for the button on his jeans. “I’m not sure we have time, but I’m ready to give it a try if you are.”

She huffed an exasperated sound as she grasped the handle of the door, pulled it open. “Get real.”

He smiled because he knew he’d gotten under her skin.

A scream echoed through the small space.

Skyla let go of the handle and jumped back, the dagger strapped to her lower back already in her hand.

Orpheus rushed over, peered around the corner into the bathroom, and spotted Maelea crouching on the floor with his blade in her hand.

“Holy Hades.” He reached in and grasped the girl by the shoulders, hauling her up and out of the bathroom. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What the hell do you think I was doing?” She wriggled out of his grip, dropped down on the lower berth, breathing heavy. “There are hounds out there.”

Skyla moved to Orpheus’s side, slid her blade back in its sheath. “We saw them. We were wondering what happened to you.”

“I heard noises outside so I hid in the bathroom,” Maelea said. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“No, you’re not,” Orpheus said. “You were smart to hide.”

She glared at him. “What other choice did I have? Run? Then Hades would have exactly what he wants. He hasn’t paid me any mind in all this time, but since you came after me, twice now I’ve had to run from his underlings. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Orpheus’s spine stiffened because what she said was true. That guilt he’d gotten good at ignoring came back tenfold.

“Maelea—” Skyla started.

Maelea tossed Orpheus’s knife to the floor, pulled her legs up to her chest, and curled into herself. Conversation done.

Skyla looked at Orpheus and tapped her wrist with her index finger, indicating they didn’t have time for this.

“We’re going to take care of the hounds,” Orpheus told her. She didn’t answer. “You’d be wise to stay here until we come back and get you.”

Still nothing from her.

When long seconds passed without an answer, he finally glanced to Skyla again, who nodded toward the open window and the hellhounds that waited for them.

“We’ll be back for you, Maelea,” he said as he climbed out the window and helped Skyla to the ground. “Sit tight.”

“Where else would I go?” Maelea muttered with a wicked bite as they walked away. “All I have left is this holding cell you created for me.”