Enraptured

Chapter 8

Orpheus knew he was playing with fire. Just sitting across from the Siren in the confined sleeping car, he’d been juiced to the max. Now, seated next to her on the bottom bunk waiting for her answer, the heat from her body swirled in the air to mix with some sweet honeysuckle scent from her skin that left him light-headed and on the edge of control.

Gods, he wanted her. Wanted to taste her again. All of her this time. Even knowing who and what she was.

The easy move—the smart move—would have been to ditch her ass in Seattle. But he hadn’t. Partly because he needed to know what this weird connection was between them. Partly because she was no real threat until he actually had the Orb. And partly because seducing her in the meantime was a way to screw with Zeus. If there was one god Orpheus didn’t mind screwing with, it was the King of the Gods.

“Well, Siren?”

Her eyes lifted to his, held. Brilliant violet eyes, the color so unusual he wondered if they were real. The color so familiar he was sure he’d looked into them before.

She pushed her hand against his chest. “You’re radiating heat, daemon.”

So was she. And her touch only amped the fire in his blood to lava-hot levels. Her hand flat against his sternum sent a shot of wicked heat through his chest. A hand that wasn’t moving or forcing him back farther. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

A crash sounded outside in the hall. Skyla jumped to her feet. Before he could reach for her, she was out the door and into the narrow hallway.

“Sonofabitch.” Frustrated, he pushed off the bench, looked out to see a steward picking up plates from the floor.

“Excuse me,” the steward said when he caught sight of them. “Sorry for the disruption.”

The steward quickly swooped up the dropped utensils, set them back on the tray, then disappeared down the corridor.

Orpheus looked at Skyla, a good foot away from him. The door between this car and the one behind clanged shut as the waiter left. With a one-sided grin, Orpheus stepped toward her. “Where were we?”

She held out her hand and eased away. “We weren’t anywhere.”

“Yes, we were.”

He moved closer. She moved back again. Damn, he liked this nervous side of her. Way more than the seductive one. What would she do if he kissed her? Like he’d wanted to kiss her in the hallway of her apartment? Those lips were made for kissing. Plump, tender, so damn sweet, he was sure they’d taste like candy.

“We were right about…” He maneuvered her around until her back hit the wall, slapped a hand against the surface to trap her between it and him. “Here. Weren’t we?”

She pushed against his chest. Didn’t budge him. He leaned close, stared at her enchanting lips, and imagined them opening to take him in. Her mouth would be warm and wet and, he bet, just as slick as her sex. The need to taste her overwhelmed his senses. He moved in, saw her eyes widen in surprise.

He liked that he threw her off-kilter. Liked that she was remembering all too well how they’d fit together. He wanted that fit again, this time with her mouth locked tight to his as he drove inside her.

“Yeah,” he said, staring at her lips, “we were right here.”

Just as he moved to kiss her, she turned her head, offering her neck instead. “Maelea is just inside.”

He focused on the pulse beneath her skin, remembered how sensitive she was there. “Ghoul Girl’s asleep, trust me.”

“That’s like asking a mouse to trust a starving lion.”

“With you, sweetheart, I am a lion. An insatiable lion.”

She tensed when he nuzzled her ear. And he smiled at her nervousness. It meant that whatever this was, it wasn’t the same thing she had with all her marks. He wasn’t stupid enough to think she was tagging along with him and Maelea because of him—or even Maelea, as she wanted him to think. She was here because Zeus had sent her to get the Orb. And still that didn’t stop him. Not yet. He was having way too much fun tempting her.

Her hand rested against his chest but she didn’t push, and the way she tipped her head farther away told him she liked what he was doing.

He kissed the soft, soft skin beneath her ear. So it wasn’t her mouth. He’d take her mouth later. When he slid inside her.

She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. Her body relaxed against him. “I…uh…thought there was to be no touching.”

“With my hands. You never said anything about other body parts.”

Her throat worked as she swallowed. He followed the movement with his eyes and brushed the tip of his nose across her jaw again, barely scraped his lips over her neck.

“Someone could walk by.”

His lips curled as he pressed them to a mole at the base of her throat. “That makes it more exciting. And I don’t remember you objecting in that apartment.”

“I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly then. I seem to have that problem when you’re around.”

His chest expanded. He liked that. Liked it a lot.

He nudged her knees apart with his leg, pressed his thigh between hers as he kissed her neck again, as he pressed his lips to the electric skin just behind her earlobe. A tremor ran through her body, one that made his jeans even tighter.

“I know how to ease that problem.” He skimmed his nose across her earlobe again, inhaling a deep whiff of her sweet scent that went right to his head like a drug, pressed his leg just high enough so his thigh rubbed against her mound.

Her chest rose and fell with her deep breaths. She was definitely aroused. Probably already wet.

Gods knew he was aroused. Ever since she’d shown up at Maelea’s house, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her. Shit, that was a lie. He hadn’t stopped thinking of her since he’d seen her at that concert. It didn’t matter that he’d already had her. He wanted her again. Here. Now. However he could get her.

He breathed hot against her neck, watched as the pulse in her throat picked up speed. Her fingers drifted down his side to rest on his hip, dangerously close to the bulge in his jeans. And his blood heated to near boiling at the thought of her fingers so close to his cock.

Her gaze followed her hand to his hip, hesitated. She swallowed, as if she was imagining taking her own delicious sample.

He swelled harder against his zipper, imagined her mouth around his shaft. He didn’t dare move his hand away from the wall for fear he’d forget all common sense and take her, losing their bet before it even got started. “You’re teasing me, Siren.”

Her dark, spiky lashes lifted to reveal amethyst eyes heavy with desire. “I was just wondering what happens if you come first. We didn’t factor that into our bet.”

He nearly came right then, just from the possibility in her words. It was his turn to swallow. “That won’t happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because I learned to master control long ago.”

She raised her right thigh, slid it up over his hip so his erection sank in the vee of her body until he felt the heat of her sex through the denim and cloth separating their skin. Her hands roamed up his chest to rest against his pecs and squeeze ever so gently. Ripples of sensation flowed from that spot, through his abdomen and lower. “I saw your control in my apartment, daemon. Something tells me you don’t have quite the control you think you do.”

When she pressed her hips forward and his cock rubbed against the cleft between her legs, he knew she was right. If he wasn’t careful, he’d explode long before she even warmed up.

He glanced down at her chest, at her luscious breasts lifting and falling beneath her thin black shirt. Thankfully, she’d taken off the breastplate and arm guards in their stateroom, but he liked the fact she was still wearing those stripper boots. He wouldn’t mind if she wore those and nothing else as she wrapped her legs around his waist and screamed his name.

“So, what do you say, daemon?” She pressed forward, stroked his erection with the heat between her legs. “Why don’t we make the bet a little more interesting?”

He was vaguely aware their power positions had reversed, that she was trained thoroughly in the art of seduction and knew how to strip a male of every thought so she could get what she wanted, but this wasn’t about him. It was about her. And giving her a little of the lust-drenched mind she’d drugged him with the last few days.

He pressed his cock against her heat, rubbed until she sucked in a breath. Yeah, she was wet. He could feel it. “What do you have in mind?”

She pressed back. “Let’s say if you come first, you walk away from Maelea and leave the poor girl alone.”

His hips stilled. He focused on her determined yet very aroused eyes. Eyes that set off a tremor of déjà vu deep in his chest. “Why would a Siren care about someone like Maelea?”

“I don’t.”

For a second he thought she was lying, then he realized she wasn’t. “So this little bet is a way to make sure I don’t use her to get what I want.” When she didn’t answer that thought, another crept into his mind. “Which prompts the question, why would a Siren try to stop her mark? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

She focused on his shoulder. And in her silence he knew she didn’t have an answer. At least not one she could voice. But it was there, hiding behind her familiar and entrancing eyes. An answer that explained what their connection was and why she was all he’d been able to think about since the moment they’d met. Even to the detriment of his one clear goal.

The door at the end of the hall creaked open. Skyla’s head darted that way and her hands pressed hard against his chest, pushing him away from her succulent body.

Another steward came down the corridor toward them, a tray in his hands. He stopped when he caught sight of them, looked from face to face. Understanding dawned in his eyes just before he coughed and a rush of pink spread up his cheeks. “Um. Sorry. I just need to get through.”

Orpheus stepped back against the opposite wall to make room, but he knew his irritation reflected in his eyes. Only…they didn’t flash green the way they normally did when he was irritated.

The man ducked his head and was out the opposite door in a flash.

Skyla stepped away and cleared her throat. “I need some air.”

“Hold on.” He reached for her but wasn’t quick enough to grasp her.

“Thanks, but no. I think we both need a good shot of distance right now. I know I sure do.”

She disappeared out the door before he could think of a reason to make her stay. For a brief moment he considered following, then remembered Maelea in the stateroom. He couldn’t leave Ghoul Girl alone. She was waiting for the first opportunity to run, and contrary to what Skyla thought, he didn’t intend to harm the waif. But he would use her to get what he wanted.

And what he wanted…It was time he remembered his goal and stopped screwing around with the Siren who’d obviously been sent here to get rid of him. She was a distraction he didn’t need. And though he didn’t know why, he had the strangest feeling that being close to her was messing with his daemon.

She was right. They did need distance. Distance so he could call back that part of him he both hated and needed at the same time. Once they got to the half-breed colony, he’d ditch her ass. Because without his daemon…he’d never get what he wanted most.

There were benefits to being the Lord of the Underworld. Chief among those benefits was that souls weren’t just scared of you, they cowered. And though Hades ruled Hell in all its glory, everything that happened within his domain eventually found its way back to his ears, no matter how secret.

Which was how he’d learned Atalanta once again roamed his realm.

He stared at the relief in front of him, carved from the purest marble in the human world. The image of him and his two brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, immortalized as they stood on the top of Mount Othrys, the home of the Elder Gods, after they’d defeated Krónos and the Titans and locked them deep within the bowels of Tartarus.

Their victory in the Titanomachy had been long fought and hard-won. And in that moment when he’d stood there with his kin, the strength of everything they’d accomplished had flowed as rich as wine through Hades’s veins. But it had been fleeting. For as soon as Zeus had locked their father, Krónos, in Tartarus, he’d taken command of the heavens, bestowed the oceans on Poseidon, and left the afterthought to Hades.

The same bitter resentment he’d held for thousands of years rushed through him, heated his blood, and burned his eyes. He’d wanted the human realm, had deserved it. But the Fates had fucked him there, hadn’t they? According to them, the human realm was subject to free will. No god could rule it. No god, that is, except the one who possessed the Orb of Krónos, the magical medallion that held the four chthonic elements—earth, air, water, and fire—and granted the owner powers never seen before, not by any god.

He’d waited long years to find the Orb. Had come so close to controlling the human realm when he’d held it in his hands, thanks to his power-hungry wife. The irony that the daemon hybrid Orpheus had been the one to find the Orb in the realm of the blessed heroes wasn’t lost on him. Orpheus was more than anyone knew. More than a daemon, more than a witch, more even than the Argonaut he’d recently been branded. Only one being truly knew what he was. One Fate he couldn’t wait to destroy when he finally had that Orb in his hands for good.

The air stirred at his back and without looking he knew his wife stood behind him, waiting for his attention.

“I take it you’ve returned with news.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said in a sickeningly sweet tone. A tone he knew was meant to placate and deceive. “You were right. She went after the Argonaut in Tartarus.”

He turned Persephone’s way. She stood five feet from him, her fall of silky black hair framing her powerful shoulders to hit near her narrow waist. As a god herself, she was near his height at close to seven feet, and her flawless skin and ruby red lips drew his attention as they always did. The daughter of Demeter, the goddess of fertility, Persephone was every god’s—and human’s—wet dream. His included. Even after all these long thousands of years, she was still the only female he desired day after long, miserable day. Not that he didn’t occasionally want—or take—others, but when it came down to it, she was his. In every sense of the word.

He narrowed his eyes on her smiling face, knew, as he always did, that she was scheming to get the Orb and rule the human realm herself.

Getting his hands on the Orb was turning into a clusterfuck of missed opportunities, but that’s what made this whole thing fun. And he’d gotten so bored with the torturing-souls thing. He was enjoying the chase as much as he would enjoy the moment he had the Orb and all four elements and could say fuck you to the Fates and every other god—including his two brothers. Every other god except his beloved wife. The wife who was as devoted to him as he was to her, and who would never stop scheming for a way to take charge as his master.

A wicked smile curled one side of his mouth as his gaze roamed her luscious body from head to toe. He had to love a woman who could match him in wickedness. Clasping his hands against his spine, he took a step down the three marble stairs. “So she’s found the Argonaut Gryphon within Tartarus. What does she plan to do with him?”

Persephone turned as he walked by her toward a window that looked out on his realm. Lava boiled and popped, jagged black mountains rose in the distance. And like a breath of air, the moaning of souls being tortured in the most horrendous ways floated like a song on the breeze. “She’s taken him to Sin City.”

With his enhanced eyesight, he could see a soul far across the valley, in the center of a circle of rabid dogs, about to be devoured whole. Hades’s energy thrived on each soul he obtained, and his powers grew every time a soul was tortured within his realm. In this case, the man had enjoyed great wealth from the underground dog-fighting ring he’d run in the human realm. It didn’t bother Hades in the least to know that reliving those fights, with the human as the victim, again and again and again was a just and fair punishment for the man. In all likelihood, it was probably better than he deserved.

“Sin City, you say?” His gaze scanned this level of the Underworld. A good distance from Tartarus, where Atalanta was now scheming with the fallen Argonaut. He had no doubt she’d make the Argonaut Gryphon her bitch in every sense of the word. He knew all too well how she fucked not only with a male’s body, but his mind. While the sex had been hot enough, the aftermath with his wife, when she’d learned he’d lost the Orb, had been less than stellar. The question was, what did Atalanta plan to do with the Argonaut? She hadn’t been sentenced to the Underworld herself. She’d simply been trapped in the Fields of Asphodel by her son and his witchcraft. But it was clear she planned to use the Argonaut to her advantage. Somehow.

“Yes,” Persephone answered. “She was granted access to Sin City, and word is she’s meeting with Krónos soon.”

Hades had no doubt his father would relish a go at Atalanta. The bitch was hot. But she was also unpredictable. And Hades didn’t put it past her to use her feminine charms on Krónos to get what she wanted. Which was undoubtedly to find a way back to the human realm and to get her hands on that Orb.

Unfortunately, the area Krónos and his Titan goons had set up in Tartarus was the one and only part of the Underworld Hades couldn’t see into. Which meant he didn’t know what they did in their depraved corner of hell. Knowing his good ol’ dad, though, it was as immoral and degenerate as it could get, not that Hades cared. So long as the bastard stayed locked down there, things were fine. It was the wild card Atalanta and what she might promise Krónos that left Hades with a bitter taste in his mouth. “We have someone on the inside?”

“Tantalus is there.”

Tantalus. The human who’d cut up his son Pelops, boiled him into a soup, and served it to the Olympians when he’d been invited to join them for a meal. One corner of Hades’s mouth curled at the image of that banquet. Tantalus had been condemned to Tartarus by Zeus himself, but Hades had granted the soul special privileges other inhabitants didn’t have, simply because he loved the fact Tantalus had had the balls to pull that one over on Zeus and the other egomaniac Olympians.

“Tantalus is perfect. I want to know exactly what she has planned.”

“Yes, my lord,” Persephone said.

Hades turned back to his wife, moved close to her. She didn’t cower from him, and he liked that. Every other female cowered because they knew what to expect. Persephone loved his perversion.

She braced her hands on his forearms as he slid his arms around her waist and dragged her close, as he sank his teeth into her neck and drew the sweetest taste of her blood. Blood and pain and desire swelled in his mouth to heighten his need for her.

“There is one other thing,” Persephone said, tipping her head to grant him more access.

“Mm?” He ran his tongue over the bite mark, healing it with his powers, then taking another bite from her flesh in a more delectable spot.

“This part you might not like.”

He lifted his head, stared down into her emerald eyes. “Tell me.”

She never once looked away, but he saw the quick flash of fear before she masked it with steel resolve. Something else he admired about her. Even when she knew she was going to piss him off, she didn’t back down. She’d meet his fury head-on even when it left her battered and bruised.

“Orpheus has found Maelea.”

The slow, red rage he always felt when the bastard child’s name was mentioned slid through his veins and pummeled his chest. He’d banished her to the human realm, couldn’t kill her because those fucking Fates had meddled where they shouldn’t be meddling. But he wished only for that stain to die. While he didn’t have a problem with his wife screwing around on the side, the reminder that his brother Zeus had succeeded in seducing his wife right here in his realm and had created a child with her was a humiliation not even Hades could forget.

He dropped his hands, moved back mere inches. Never took his eyes off his treacherous wife. She was to blame too. Still was to blame. “And?”

She drew a deep breath. “And I sent hellhounds to stop him, but they got away.”

Hades looked past his wife to the marble relief again. Only this time all he saw was betrayal, not victory. A betrayal he would douse with vengeance. “And the bastard?”

Persephone frowned. “My daughter is not a bastard. But yes, she got away with him. I didn’t send the hounds there to harm her.”

No, of course not. Persephone loved that fucking stain. Even though that love made Hades hurt his wife time and again.

“What would he want with the bastard?”

“I don’t know.”

Hades looked back at her, only this time he didn’t see his wife’s beauty anymore. He saw deception of the most calculated kind.

“Find out,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Of course, my lord,” she said in that sickeningly sweet voice again. The one that this time energized his anger. “Anything for you, love.”

She turned for the door, and for a second he thought of stopping her, of dragging her back by her hair and bending her over the altar behind him to punish her. But he didn’t. Because right now he had more important things than her insolence to deal with.

When she was gone, he snapped his fingers. The four-foot-tall troll-like creature emerged from a small door hidden in the wall and dragged a lame foot behind him as he scuffed across the floor. He stopped to look up at Hades with his green scaly hands and twisted, too-long nails pressed together in subservience. “Yes, my lord.”

“Orcus, where is that stain Maelea?”

It was Orcus’s one job in this realm to monitor Maelea for Hades at all times. If Zeus so much as made even the most minute contact with the girl, Hades had just cause to strike her down. It was an agreement he’d made with Lachesis, that meddling Fate, when he’d cast Maelea out of his realm and banished her to the human world eons ago. He’d waited and watched for that opportunity, but so far, over three thousand years later, Zeus hadn’t shown even an ounce of interest in his bastard daughter. But perhaps now, monitoring her might come in useful after all.

“She’s on a train, heading east.”

A train heading east. Hades looked out the window again at the depravity he’d worked so hard to create, all within the Underworld. For the last two hundred years or so, Maelea had taken up refuge in the Seattle area. She ventured out, but she stayed close to home. Until now, that is. “With Orpheus.”

“Yes, my lord. There’s also a Siren with them.”

Hades whipped around. “A Siren? Which one?”

“Skyla.”

The eldest and most fierce of Zeus’s assassins. Oh, this just got better and better. Zeus was after the Orb too, it seemed, and he was using his Sirens to track Orpheus, then no doubt take the Orb by force when they found it. But why would Orpheus need Maelea?

He rubbed a hand over the patch of hair covering his chin as he thought through the possibilities. Maelea had no powers. At least none he was aware of. But what if she was somehow linked to that Orb? He wouldn’t put it past his brother Zeus to bestow on her some gift the King of the Gods could one day use to his full advantage.

He dropped his hand. “Send the hounds.”

“They’re on a train, my lord. Traveling at rapid speed.”

“I’ll deal with the train. Have the hounds kill Orpheus and the Siren. But leave Maelea to me.”

“But the Fate, my lord—”

He slashed Orcus a look that struck fear to the center of the scaly creature’s soul. “The Fate cannot interfere because I won’t harm the bastard child. I have other plans for her. Now stop asking asinine questions and do as you’re instructed.”

When Orcus slithered away, Hades looked back out at his view, clasped his hands behind his back, and scanned the flaming red horizon. No doubt Lachesis would be pissed he’d sent the hounds to kill her precious Orpheus, but he could handle the loss of Orpheus’s soul. Yes, the soul of a hero had been a prize worth fighting for over thousands of years, but for the chance to find the Orb and rule what was rightfully his, Hades would gladly go back on the deal he’d made to give the hero a second chance at life. He didn’t care what role Lachesis claimed Orpheus played in the balance of the world. All he cared about was getting his just due.

And after all, some things required sacrifice. Even on his part.