Enraptured

Chapter 11

Snow crunched under Skyla’s boots as she made her way around trees and downed logs, careful not to give away her location, her eyes ready for anything that might jump out at her. She knew Orpheus was somewhere to her left, circling the hellhounds’ position from the other side, but she couldn’t see him. He moved like a shadow—silent, deadly, utterly undetectable until the last second.

For that she was glad, because she was sure those hellhounds could hear her from a mile away. Her pulse pounded in her ears and every step she took seemed to echo across the empty forest. Moonlight filtered through the tall pines to cast eerie shadows on the snow.

A branch cracked to her right. She lifted her bow and arrow. Her heart beat hard against her ribs as she waited. For a long moment only silence met her ears, and then a rustle echoed above her. She shifted, aimed her arrow, then released her pent-up breath when she realized it was only an owl, his whooooo echoing through the darkness like an ominous warning.

Holy Hades. Relax already!

Hellhounds were a piece of cake. It was daemons—hybrids—she should be worried about. Like the one somewhere out here in the dark.

Something red darted between trees twelve feet in front of her. She shifted in that direction. When two red dots peeked out from behind the tree, she didn’t hesitate.

Her arrow whirred through the air, struck something with a hard thwack. A yelp echoed in the trees. She grasped another arrow from her collar, lined up her next shot. A black shadow loomed ahead, followed by a low growl, then the snarl and snap of jaws and the pounding of paws against snow as the injured beast charged.

She didn’t think. She acted. Just as she’d been trained. One, two, three arrows sailed from her bow, struck the hound dead in the chest. It hollered a sickening sound, then dropped to the ground. Its massive body sailed across the snow as if on a sled, stopping at her feet.

Steam rose off the corpse. Blood poured from the four arrows sticking out of its flesh. Its bloodred eyes were open and glassy. Howls to her left drew her attention.

Damn it. Where was Orpheus?

Her adrenaline shot up. As feet—lots of feet—pounded across the earth in her direction, she looked up and around, searching for safety. She hooked her bow over the branch of a pine and pulled herself up.

She got her legs up under her, managed to reposition so she was sitting on the tree limb, one boot braced against the trunk. She lined up another arrow and waited.

Within seconds, three hounds bounded into the clearing, their eyes beady points of red light, their mouths open, fangs dripping something vile. A fourth hound, bigger and blacker than the others, ambled to the edge of the trees, his gaze pinned right on her.

She aimed toward the big one, the leader.

His lips curled in a snarl—no, not a snarl, a smile—and a low growl echoed across the snow. “Come down, Siren.”

Where the hell was Orpheus?

She fired. The big hound stepped aside, narrowly dodging the arrow. He barked toward the other hounds. With gnashes and snarls they hurled their big bodies at the base of her tree, shaking it, snapping at the bark and biting enormous pieces from the trunk.

She grappled for the trunk and pushed up to her feet. The shot was hers but she couldn’t steady herself long enough to take it. Where in the bloody hell was Orpheus?

A roar echoed from below just before a violent tremor shook the bow out of her hand. Her heart shot to her throat. She reached for her weapon, the ancient wood grazing her fingers. But she was too late. It sailed out of her reach, fell to the ground with a crack. With one hand wrapped around the tree trunk, she reached into her waistband and grasped a throwing star. She didn’t aim, just hurled. A howl from below said she’d hit something.

Another violent shake knocked her off balance. A yelp slipped from her lips as she went flying. Frantic, she grappled for the branch, caught it, the bark digging into her bare, sweaty hands as she fought to hold on.

Damn it, Orpheus. Where are you?

He wouldn’t have left her out here alone. He wouldn’t have double-crossed her like this, would he?

Would he?

She sucked in a breath, tried to adjust her grip. The hounds below growled and barked. She knew this was it. As soon as she let go she’d be eaten alive. At least if she died here she’d die in battle. There was honor in that. Or so she hoped.

Her fingers slipped again. A rumble shook the ground and the tree and everything around her. The branch jerked out of her grasp. She screamed as she went down. Was sure she was lunch. Her boots hit the snow-covered ground with a thwack, and her legs went out from under her, a jolt of pain shooting up her spine as she collapsed.

In an instant of confusion she realized the shaking had come from the ground, not the tree itself. The hounds all lay on their sides as if they’d been knocked off their feet. Head spinning, she scrambled for her footing, grasped the bow to her right, and lined up another arrow. The dazed hounds lifted their heads, shook out their manes, and growled. She released one shot after another, impaling them with as many poisonous arrows as she could.

Two went down. The third stumbled her way with murder in its bloodred eyes. She shifted that way, was just ready to let loose, when the hound’s eyes bugged out and he froze, then dropped to the ground at her feet.

Her adrenaline pulsed in the out-of-this-world range. A rustle echoed from the edge of the trees. She drew her bow that way, then saw Orpheus stalking toward her. A quick glance down and she realized his blade stuck out of the back of the hound at her feet. She scanned the tree line again and spotted the lead hound—the big one—lying bloody and dead amid the brush.

Relief was swift and consuming. As consuming as it had been when he’d swooped her into his arms after she’d come out of that frozen pit and kissed all thought right out of her mind. “How did you—?”

“I thought we agreed you’d wait for my signal.” Orpheus crossed the snow with a frown. He looked like a man, like the sexy devil-may-care man she’d come to recognize and even anticipate, not the daemon she’d expected.

He stopped when he reached the last hound, braced his boot against its back, and yanked his blade from its flesh. After wiping the beast’s blood on its fur, he sheathed the blade and set those sexy, smoky, smoldering eyes on her.

Eyes that were so familiar and definitely annoyed. “Well? And you can stop pointing that damn thing at me anytime, Siren.”

She lowered her bow, couldn’t seem to quell her racing heart. “I expected something cataclysmic like, I don’t know, a daemon to charge out of the trees or something.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. Next time I’ll try to remember you like blood and gore more than flesh and bone.”

She didn’t. She liked him. More than she should. And she was way too relieved that he hadn’t really betrayed her to think clearly yet. “Your daemon didn’t want to come out and play after all?”

His jaw tightened. Emotion flashed in his eyes before he tamped it down, but she noticed, his eyes didn’t shift to green as they normally did when he was angry. “Guess not. Must have shriveled in all this cold.”

The sarcasm hit her as defensive, not playful. “You used the earth element, didn’t you?”

“That and a little witchcraft. You can thank me later.” He patted his pocket. “This thing comes in handy now and then.”

Yeah, she could see that. Not that the knowledge that he held it eased her racing pulse.

Her hands shook as she depressed the end button on her bow, stuffed the rod it became into her boot. Why couldn’t she stop thinking about that kiss? About the fact he was standing next to her now looking like a hero? She glanced away so she wouldn’t be distracted by those eyes. “I meant to ask, how is it you’re able to use witch—?”

A rumble echoed through the trees. On instinct she scrambled for her bow, swiveled. But Orpheus’s hand against her arm brought her head around. That and the heat from his fingers searing her skin. “Easy, Rambo Girl. That’s a chopper. My guess is the authorities have arrived.”

The accident. Right. There would be humans looking for the missing passenger train.

“We should get back before Maelea decides to run,” he said as he let go.

Maelea. With one sentence he’d just reminded her what they were all doing here. Whatever thought she’d had about telling him to touch her again disappeared like the moon setting behind the mountain.

They reached the forest edge and stepped onto the tracks in tandem. Choppers were parked beyond the wreckage. Rescue personnel moved survivors from danger to safety. But the activity didn’t catch her eye. The woman standing still as stone at the end of the train did. The one with her arms folded across her middle, her eyes focused right on them. The one Skyla had pretended to protect so she could tag along on this little adventure. The one Orpheus seemed to have some protective instinct toward.

“Well, at least she didn’t run,” Orpheus said, heading in Maelea’s direction.

“Yeah,” Skyla muttered as she followed. “Aren’t we lucky?”

Sin City lived up to its name in every way imaginable.

From the balcony of Atalanta’s suite, Gryphon looked over the stone balustrade out at the sea of depravity. Fountains gurgled bloodred water in the center of the square, and lust-filled moans echoed up to his ears. Naked bodies were draped across the benches surrounding the fountain like blood-starved daemons in need of a fix. Some were grouped in pairs, but most were engaged in hedonistic acts of three and four, in plain sight of anyone who wanted to watch. In invitation to anyone who wanted to join in.

Here in Sin City, anything went. Orgies, gambling, highs never experienced in the living world…if it could be imagined, it was here. The Titans had set up a racket sweeter than anything Vegas had to offer. Pleasure, self-indulgence, no strings—all drugged the inhabitants and kept them from contemplating leaving, as lotus flowers had done to Odysseus and his crew when they’d anchored near an island off the shores of North Africa eons ago. And the only thing the Titans required in exchange for this pleasure-filled escape from the tortures of Tartarus was utter and complete allegiance. Krónos believed he would one day be released from the prison his sons had locked him in. Every soul he stole from Hades down here was one more soldier who would be bound to serve in his army when he was finally free.

“See something you like, doulas?”

His stomach clenched as Atalanta moved up behind him. He hadn’t heard her enter the room, but he should have expected it. She seemed to know where he was at all times.

Her hot breath washed over his nape, sending a shiver down his spine. She was slightly taller than he was, and a thousand times more powerful. As her doulas he was bound to do her will. So far, since being here with her in Sin City that will had consisted of waiting on her hand and foot, running her errands in the acrid streets, dodging danger in Krónos’s city to bring her whatever she asked for. And sometimes—though he hated it—it included serving her guests and allowing them to berate and humiliate him. He wasn’t proud of his station. It was demeaning to be ordered around. Degrading to know your life was held in someone else’s hands. But it was better than the torture he’d endured in Tartarus.

A million times better.

Some deep-buried instinct told him to fight back, but he ignored it. Though when her hand brushed his bare back and she leaned even closer to his ear, his stomach tightened with unease.

“I do so like to look at you, doulas. You are quite a specimen.”

That unease quadrupled. And a worse kind of torture—one she’d yet to unleash but which he worried hovered around the next bend—haunted his every thought.

This is not who you are.

He swallowed hard, worked not to recoil from her touch. Didn’t want to do anything to piss her off. But as he stared out at the black mountains and hazy red sky far off in the distance, he couldn’t quite remember who he was anymore.

Once, before that torture in Tartarus, he was sure he’d been someone. That he’d been part of something. He didn’t know what that was, exactly. Didn’t know who might be missing him right this second. But he was sure of it. Once, he’d made a difference.

“What is it?” Atalanta asked, coming to stand in front of him. He hadn’t noticed she’d stopped stroking his back, that her hands now cupped his face, tipping it up to hers.

She was beautiful. Even he couldn’t deny that. Porcelain skin, large onyx eyes, jet-black hair as silky as the most delicate satin. And her body bested that of any Siren. But her soul was evil. Her eyes as empty as his. And even though he’d vowed to be her doulas for all eternity, he never forgot that. Not even for a moment.

“Nothing,” he managed.

She brushed a finger across his cheek, wiped away a tear he hadn’t known had slipped from his eye. A tear he didn’t even know he could cry. “My doulas is unhappy?”

He thought of the alternative to her humiliation. He couldn’t go back to the torture of Tartarus. An eternity with her, no matter what she made him do, was a billion times better than what he’d been through under Hades’s control.

“No,” he said. “I’m whatever you want me to be.”

“Good boy.” She brushed her hand down his cheek, then stepped past him. “I think I have something that will make you very happy. We’ve a meeting with Krónos in an hour.”

She walked back into the gaudy bedroom with its gold-plated everything and moved behind a screen. Her bloodred robe landed on a side chair. She held her hand out. “Bring me my dress.”

Gryphon crossed to the emerald green gown hanging from a hook on the far wall, removed the hanger, and offered it to her. The gauzy white curtains blew gently in the breeze from the open arched windows. “What do we want with Krónos?”

Fabric rustled as she wriggled into the gown. Stepping out from behind the screen, she turned her back, lifted her long black hair. “Zip me.”

He grasped the zipper at the base of her spine and slowly zipped it up her back until the two halves of the dress came together just beneath her shoulder blades.

“A great many things,” Atalanta said. The emerald green gown was so long, it draped across the floor even when the straps were over her shoulders.

She didn’t elaborate, and he knew not to question. Turning to face him, she leaned close and brushed her index finger over his lips.

His unease at what she had planned, the fear of the next round of humiliation she decided to unleash, exploded in his belly.

“Now you’d best get ready.” She sent him a wicked smile. “I want you dressed appropriately for this meeting. It’s quite important to our future. Wear the leather I got you.”

She slid her hand down his naked chest, around to his back, then lower to pat his ass through the loose cotton pants he wore. The only thing he wore. “Do not disappoint me, doulas.”

She disappeared out the arched doorway without another word, her heels echoing on the marble stairs as she left.

In the silence, Gryphon turned back to the depraved view of Sin City as sickness rolled in his stomach.

Fight back. Run. Leave.

He wanted to, but where would he go? Like it or not, he was stuck here. With Atalanta. His only hope at this point was that she’d continue to be satisfied with the degrading and humiliating things she made him do. If she wasn’t…

Bile pushed up into his chest. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if she wasn’t. Because for him, no matter what she plotted next, there was no escape.