Tempted

Chapter 9

The castle was a flurry of activity by the time Orpheus made it back. He flashed to the fifth-floor hall outside Gryphon’s room and was greeted by a metallic crash from inside that set his nerves on high alert.

“We’re losing him!” Callia yelled.

Machines beeped and whirred. Something hard scraped the floor. Orpheus tried to muscle his way past the two guardians blocking the doorway but it was like swimming against an ocean of stone.

“No admittance,” someone said in his ear. A hand clamped over each of his arms.

“Shit, Orpheus,” Phineus mumbled on his left. “It’s not a good idea for you to be here right now.”

Screw that. Orpheus tried to wrench his arms free. The meaty hands tightened.

“Theron,” Callia said from inside the room, “hold him down. Zander, I need that syringe. Now.”

Panic and rage pushed in as Orpheus flashed free of Cerek’s hold and reappeared at Callia’s side. “What happened?”

Callia spared a quick glance his way before depressing the syringe of clear liquid into Gryphon’s IV line. The guardian’s eyes were closed but his face was scrunched in serious pain and his body thrashed against the bed and pillow. The only things that kept him from sailing off the bed were Theron’s massive hands pressing down on his shoulders, holding his upper body in place.

“Sonofabitch,” Zander said at Orpheus’s back.

“Not good.” Callia tossed the syringe on the table to her right, then pressed her fingers against Gryphon’s carotid artery to feel his pulse. Her eyes zeroed in on her watch. “Step back, Orpheus.”

“What happened? When I left—”

“Zander?” Callia asked without even looking up.

Another hand closed over Orpheus’s upper arm. “Come on, O, give her some space to work.”

Orpheus felt his eyes shift before he could control it. He wrenched free of Zander’s grasp with his surging strength. “Fuck that! Tell me what happened!”

Voices rose up in unison around him. Gryphon got off a good kick with his right leg and sent a cart full of medical supplies crashing to the ground. In the pandemonium, Orpheus was forgotten as Zander and Cerek moved in to pin Gryphon’s legs. The machine on the wall behind Gryphon’s head picked up its incessant beeping. Then Gryphon’s entire body seized and his back arched off the bed. Another machine off to the right set off a high-pitched alarm.

“He’s flatlining!” Callia shifted around and reached for something behind her. A loud hum echoed through the room. She moved back with two large white paddles in her hands, placed one paddle just beneath Gryphon’s collar bone and the other on his left side, down by his ribs. “Clear!”

Theron, Zander, and Cerek all let go of Gryphon. A zapping sound echoed. Gryphon’s body jerked.

Callia looked at the monitor. “Again. Clear.”

As Orpheus watched the seconds tick by with no change in his brother’s condition, and Callia started CPR, the tightness in his chest returned. Only this time it was razor thin and brittle. And he knew if he didn’t do something now it would fracture and shatter, splitting him forever in two.

He pulled the Orb from his jacket pocket. The disk was cool in the palm of his hand, the chain heavy between his fingers. The symbol of the Titans deeply embedded into the center stared up at him, as did the four empty chambers waiting to be filled. But the Orb didn’t need the classic elements to work. It carried a power like no other. And right now it was the only hope Gryphon had left.

Gently, Orpheus laid the Orb over Gryphon’s bare abdomen and let go. For a second, nothing happened. And then it began to glow. Pink at first, then brighter, until it was a blinding circle of red.

“Holy shit,” someone muttered.

Realizing something was happening, Callia paused and looked over. Her eyes went wide when she caught sight of the Orb. “What the hell are you doing?”

Before she could grasp it, Gryphon shot up like a bolt of lightning, the movement so strong it threw Theron back and down to the ground with a thud. Gryphon’s arm arced out to the right, knocking Callia off her feet. She screamed as she crashed into a medical cart behind her.

“Thea!” Zander yelled.

Theron pushed to his feet in a flash. The other guardians took a step in. The Orb slid down Gryphon’s stomach and dropped into his waiting hand. And then Gryphon opened his eyes.

Movement in the room came to a screeching halt as Gryphon looked from face to face. And as his head slowly swung Orpheus’s way, a collective gasp echoed through the room. When his brother was finally staring at him, Orpheus realized what was wrong.

The eyes that bore into his own were the same as they’d always been. Deep set, light blue, the same wide almond shape Orpheus always remembered. But this time they were empty. Vacant. As soulless as if…as if there was no one home.

A monstrous grin inched its way across Gryphon’s face and his hand tightened around the glowing Orb. “My master thanks you, adelfos.”

Brother.

In a poof of smoke, Gryphon disappeared. Leaving behind only rumpled bedding and swinging tubes and wires.

“Motherfucker,” Theron muttered on the far side of the bed. “Orpheus, what the bloody fuck did you just do?”

Voices kicked up again as questions swirled. Zander helped Callia to her feet at Orpheus’s side. The Argonauts argued around him about where the Orb had come from and what had just happened. But Orpheus barely cared. All he saw was the image of his brother disappearing into nothing.

“Dear gods,” he heard Callia whisper at his side. “Orpheus. Your arms.”

In a daze, he looked down. The ancient Greek text that marked all the guardians was slowly emerging on his skin. The writing was exactly the same as what had been on Gryphon’s arms, noting him as the guardian from Perseus’s line.

Voices trailed off. Someone swore. But the words didn’t register for Orpheus. The tightness in his chest cinched until he gasped in a breath and then it cracked and shattered, blinding him with pain. And then all of it trickled out. Until there was nothing left behind but a vast cavern of nothingness. Until the line that was his one connection back to humanity was finally severed.

“Oh, shit,” someone muttered.

“Um, guys?” Titus said from back near the door. “O’s the least of our worries right now.” Heads turned to look. But not Orpheus. He was still staring down at his forearms.

“What now?” Theron asked.

“I caught a glimpse of Gryphon’s thoughts—well, um, his thoughts—before he poofed out of here. And it wasn’t good.”

“What do you mean ‘his’?” Theron asked, stepping forward.

“‘His,’ as in the warlock,” Titus answered. “Apophis. Spawn of Hecate. Underling of the devil. Whatever the shit you want to call him. This guy’s got some serious control issues. He made a deal with Atalanta to get the hell out of Thrace Castle, but he’s been planning to double-cross her all along. And that little energy blast Gryphon took? It did exactly what Callia said it would, it killed off his soul. Only Gryphon’s soul didn’t go to the Isles of the Blessed like it should have. It went straight to the Underworld, leaving behind his body and mind for the warlock to do whatever the hell he wants with it.”

Orpheus’s eyes shot to Titus, standing in the doorway.

“Fucking A,” Phineus muttered.

“That’s not the worst of it,” Titus said, his gaze skipping from Phineus to Orpheus and then finally to Theron. “From reading Gryph’s—his—mind, it’s clear Apophis knows Atalanta has the princess. And now that he’s got the Orb of Krónos—”

“Oh, dear gods,” Callia whispered. “He’s going to go after Isadora on his own.”

“Skata,” Theron said, running a hand over his hair.

“You can say that again,” Titus muttered. “Sometimes I’d really rather not know this shit.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Hell is coming, boys. And it’s coming fast.”

Demetrius skidded to a stop just outside the arched doorway that led into the room where he’d left Isadora sleeping. Heart pounding, he dropped the bundle of blankets he’d brought with him and reached for the parazonium at his back, then inched over to glance around the corner.

Across the moonlit space Isadora leaned against the corner of the room. Her eyes were tightly shut, her head flailed from side to side as if she were in pain, but the thwacking he’d heard from the hallway was nothing more than the splint on her lower leg hitting the wall as she moved. There was no one else in the room with her. No Harpies or boars or a hundred other threats he’d imagined on his sprint up here.

He let go of his weapon, stooped to pick up a blanket, and crossed the floor quietly so as not to wake her. It wasn’t comfort, he told himself as he dropped to his knees next to her and laid the blanket over her trembling body. It was…survival. If she broke her leg again, she’d be another few days of dead weight. And he needed her healed so they could get their asses off this damn island. An Argonaut could open a portal into their realm wherever he chose, but since Atalanta had bound his ability, that left everything up to Isadora. Regular Argoleans needed holy ground to open a portal. And that meant he needed her in walking shape so they could scout out that holy ground sooner rather than later.

“Stop fidgeting.”

She kicked out with her good leg, tossed her head his way. “No. Don’t…”

Definitely having a nightmare. Probably about Apophis and his gnarled minions. She flinched before his hand caught the edge of the blanket. “Don’t touch me. Don’t…”

He didn’t want to, but he also didn’t want to waste more of his energy on healing spells when he knew he’d possibly need that energy for other, more important spells tomorrow. Gritting his teeth, he leaned over her, hooked his arm around her blanket-covered thigh to pin her bad leg in place so she couldn’t swing out and whack it against the stone wall. “Dammit, Isadora. I said hold still.”

What his voice didn’t impact, his touch did. Her body went still beneath his, and just as he was taking a breath of relief, she shifted into him, rolled her weight onto his, and pushed him back so he was pinned against the wall.

His head hit the stones with a crack and he cringed as pain lit off behind his eyes. But the throb only briefly registered because in the split second he was caught off guard, she slid her leg up along his thigh and shifted her torso over his so her face fit in the hollow between his shoulder and throat. And then the only thing he felt was heat.

He tensed. Braced his hands against the cold stone floor and had a moment of What the bloody hell do I do now?

She drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, her entire body relaxing into his with the movement. Her hand landed against his bare chest, her bad leg draped over his, trapping him in place. But it was the blood humming in her veins and the beating of her heart right against his that really did him in.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. His heart kicked up to the beat of a marching band. He thought through his options, but every single one involved waking her up and he definitely didn’t want to do that. He chanced a look down at her face tucked into his shoulder and caught his breath.

Smooth porcelain skin stretched tight over exceptional bone structure. Light brown eyelashes feathering delicate cheekbones, and a mole next to her sweet, tender mouth.

His heart tattooed a blinding rhythm against his ribs as he stared at her. The thousands of reasons he’d avoided her over the years hit full force. He needed to push her off him, to get up and run far, far away before he did something he’d regret later. He needed—

“Softer than Hades,” she mumbled.

Was she awake?

“Not bony,” she mumbled. “And warm. Hades…so cold.”

A shudder ran through her and she burrowed closer. No, the Isadora he knew would most definitely not huddle this close to him. He shifted his shoulder against the wall at his back.

“Stay,” she murmured, tensing. “Don’t wanna go back to him. Hate going back to him.”

His chest tightened when he realized she’d been dreaming about Hades, not Apophis. Casey’s revelation that Isadora had traded her soul to Hades to save Casey’s life ran back through his mind. And with it a whole host of images of what could have been and probably was done to her when she’d been in the perverse god’s realm.

Just what had she been thinking? Didn’t she realize a deal with Hades was forever? What kind of idiot made that sort of transaction without weighing the consequences? Especially for someone she didn’t even know?

Anger creasing his brow, he opened his mouth to ask just that, then stilled when she drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. Even through the thin blanket he felt the tips of her nipples brush his chest. His skin tingled with awareness and blood pooled hard in his groin, bringing every one of his senses to attention. And when she shifted her leg higher so it grazed his inner thigh, electricity coiled tight in each of his nerve endings.

Oh, man. That felt good. Way too fucking good.

Bad idea. Wrong person. Get the hell away before she wakes up.

The only problem was, his body wasn’t responding to his brain’s commands, and suddenly the only things he could think of were a host of erotic images that involved her, him, and all kinds of sinful positions he’d never let himself imagine before.

Which, if he wasn’t careful, would lead him exactly where he couldn’t go.