Enraptured

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 on.

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 Orpheus 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.

Blackness spiraled in. The end—at least for today—loomed close. Even though he couldn’t move, his body felt heavy, his mind a brick falling fast. And as he separated from what was being done to him, tried to think of a way out of this never-ending hell, the irony wasn’t lost on him. As a descendant of the famed hero Perseus, his power had been the ability to freeze his enemies for a few minor seconds, just enough time to get the upper hand. It didn’t matter that he’d rarely used that gift. He was now paying for it.

Would always pay for it.

“Please.”

There was no use begging. There was no one to hear him. Not even the voice. Blackness closed in until all he saw was one tiny pinprick of light.

He was alone.

Dead.

Forever.

How could Orpheus be both daemon and Argonaut?

Skyla’s mind whirred with impossibilities as she stood in the trees, staring at Orpheus, and thought back to what she knew of the Argonauts. The seven strongest heroes had been chosen by Zeus himself to protect both the Argolean realm and the human world from Atalanta’s daemons. Though Zeus and the other Olympian gods couldn’t cross into the blessed realm, they sure as hell kept tabs on what happened there, and they were fully aware which descendents from each line served with the Argonauts. There was no way a daemon hybrid could have slipped in unbeknownst to them. And the fact that neither Zeus nor Athena had bothered to tell her cut deep.

Her spine stiffened. She was being played. There was more going on here than simply a daemon gone wrong who was pressing Zeus’s buttons.

“Well?” she asked.

“Consider me gifted and talented.” Orpheus grasped the dead daemon at their feet and dragged it across the damp earth toward the river.

His snarky comment wasn’t lost on her. It was the same sort of response she would give when she didn’t want to actually answer. How in hell was this all possible? The only thing clear at the moment was that he was moving more slowly than he had before. When he came back for the second dead daemon, sweat covered his forehead and blood began dripping from the wound near his ear all over again.

Daemons healed quickly. So did Argonauts. But apparently the shifting process took something out of him. Questions pinged around in her brain, questions she wanted—needed—answered. But she could see she wasn’t going to get them now. Not with him in this condition.

She dragged what was left of the third daemon to the river herself. When she got close, she let go of the body, stepped over it, and grasped the legs of the daemon Orpheus was trying to hurl into the water. She could see he’d filled the beast’s pockets with rocks and was having a hard time lifting him.

He stilled, stared at her for a long second. Moonlight accentuated the muscles in his jaw, the strength in his neck, the width of his shoulders. “Working with the evil daemon Argonaut now?”

“It’s either that or watch you struggle. Consider it my good deed for the day. I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog.”

He harrumphed, hefted the daemon’s upper body. “If under’s the position you like, woman, all you have to say is when.”

“Ha. The state you’re in now, you’d never be able to keep up.”

A glint lit his eyes, but he didn’t respond. And that more than anything told her how much he was suffering. She helped him hurl the other bodies into the river and reminded herself to stay on her toes. He may look docile right now, but he wasn’t. Not really. And even though he was sexy—tall, strong, with sandy brown hair that needed a trim and a day’s worth of stubble on his chiseled jaw—he was still a threat. Though a threat that intrigued her.

When all the remains were disposed of, Orpheus wiped the sweat from his brow then stepped past her, heading back toward the clearing. She followed and slowed as he stopped to look down at her bow, lying on the forest floor.

Nonviolent. Athena’s word echoed in Skyla’s mind, but her fingers twitched at her side and the dagger felt heavy where it pressed against her lower back.

He reached down for her bow, turned, and handed it to her. Cautiously, she accepted it, still unsure of his intentions, then depressed the button on the end without a word, shrinking the weapon to a metal bar only six inches long.

“Definitely not human,” he said. “Though that body…not bad. Since I know you’re not Argolean either, that leaves only a couple of options.”

She didn’t answer. Wasn’t about to tell him anything. But she recognized the heat in his eyes. Not a daemon heat or a battle heat, but a male heat. The kind that said he was interested. Her stomach tightened as she slipped the bar into her boot and waited.

“Not that I care.” He shrugged. “Something tells me you’re the sort of female who doesn’t play well—or like to share—with others.”

Maybe. But Skyla wasn’t thrilled with the fact he could read her so easily either.

“I guess I’ll be on my way.” He turned toward the lights of the parking lot.

Panic closed in as she watched him stalk away. “Wait.”

One eyebrow angled upward as he looked back over his shoulder, a sexy expression that warmed her blood. “For what?”

Yeah, for what? She searched her mind. It’s not because he intrigues you. It’s because you have a job to do. Zeroing in on his shredded pants and shirt, she said, “You can’t walk around like that. You’ll draw attention.”

He glanced down at his nearly bare chest—his very impressive, very muscular bare chest. Then his so what? gaze jumped back to her face.

Skyla’s cheeks heated. Even to her, the excuse sounded lame. But she still needed answers. And though she knew she could follow him again and see where he went next, she’d always been better at enticing information out of her mark rather than tailing him. After all, it was what she’d been designed to do.

So do what you’ve been assigned to do and get on with it.

“I have a room not far from here,” she said. “There are clothes there. You’re welcome to them. Plus, you need that wound covered before infection sets in.”

He lifted his blade from the ground, found the scabbard a few feet away. “A room? You just conveniently have a room in this podunk town?”

Not exactly, but when she’d found out the female he’d been chasing had bought tickets to the metalhead concert, she’d had a feeling it might draw all kinds. And she’d hoped he’d show up looking for her.

Luckily, her intuition had been right.

Since she couldn’t tell him that, she said instead, “I…like to be prepared.”

He didn’t immediately answer as he slung the weapon over his back so the strap cut across his bare chest and crossed back to her. He stopped inches away. And though she fought it, the heat from his muscular body made her the slightest bit light-headed.

“Why would you care?” he asked. “You saw what I am. And you’re the one who cut me.”

She had. But that was before, when she thought he was going to eat her. Now…now things had changed and she wasn’t sure why. She glanced down at his forearms again, covered with the Argonaut markings. Markings that should not be on his skin. “It’s the least I can do.”

“That must grate.”

“What?”

“Thanking a daemon.”

Her warrior shield came up even as she worked to keep her expression neutral. “If you hadn’t been chasing that girl, she wouldn’t have run into that pack of hybrids and I wouldn’t need to thank you, now, would I?”

“No one asked you to intervene.”

No, no one but Zeus. Though she wasn’t about to say so.

She debated the best tactic. Knew—regardless of how attractive he was—that her feminine charms were her surest bet.

So get on with it.

Before she could change her mind, she eased a half step closer, then reached out to run her finger down the center of his sweaty chest. “It’s up to you, daemon. I was just trying to be nice. If you’re not interested—”

A jolt of déjà vu rippled through her when she touched him. As if she’d touched him like this before. Her words cut off midsentence. He sucked in a breath as if he felt it too.

Skyla moved back. Searched his face and tried to remember if she’d met him somewhere else. But she was sure she hadn’t. He was a stranger…a daemon hybrid…her mission. Only, as she stared at him, her stomach clenched as if he had touched her and she’d enjoyed it. Immensely.

She stepped past him, more rattled than she wanted to admit. Weird. Residual energy from the fight? Memories of the last time she’d run into a hybrid and nearly died? It had to be. It couldn’t be anything else.

“Where’d you get them?”

His voice stopped her feet, slowed her mind. She turned. “Get what?”

“The clothes.” His boots crunched over sticks and dried leaves as he stalked toward her. His interest flared hot all over in his eyes.

Relaxing, because this was a role she knew how to play well, she rested her hand on her hip, shifted her weight in a way she knew accentuated her breasts. Males were all the same—human, hybrid, or immortal. If all went as planned, she’d have the information she needed from him before the night was over. “Worried they belong to an ex-lover?”

He chuckled. “No.”

“No?”

He leaned in close, and even though he was covered in blood and moments ago had shifted into a monster, heat ignited in her abdomen. A heat that sent her back a step, right into the hood of a parked car. “Especially not since you haven’t been able to stop staring at my ass since we left the river.”

“That’s not what I…”

He braced his hands on the hood of the car. Leaned in close. Until the warmth of his breath tickled her ear, sending tingles all along her skin. “Curiosity killed the cat. Or so humans like to say. Be sure this is a curiosity you’re willing to gamble with, female.”

He pushed away and threaded through the parking lot before she could think of a comeback. Before she could tell herself she’d just lost the upper hand. She was trained for seduction, but he seemed to be the one doing the seducing. If she let this go on without taking the reins, she’d be putting not only herself but her order in jeopardy.

And that…well, to put it in his words, that wasn’t something she was willing to gamble with. She may not have a lot, but she had the order. It had saved her life. It had given her a life. No sexy, charming, or intriguing daemon would ever make her forget that.