The air whooshed out of her lungs. Her head grew light. He stepped into the staircase and started climbing.
“Put me down, dickhead.” She pounded her joined hands against his back. “Put me down right now.”
“Bloody hell, but you are a loud one,” he muttered, not even flinching at her hits against his spine. “Keep that up and every daemon in the forests around us will know you’re here. And if they show up, I won’t promise to protect you again.”
Protect her? Protect her?
Her vision grew red, but her mouth snapped closed. He was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. He wouldn’t dare let his father’s daemons touch his precious nymphs. Especially not the redhead who’d been in the great hall.
But Talisa was smart enough not to say so. There was no sense wasting her energy when she could use it against him wherever he was taking her.
She wasn’t sure how high they climbed, but she knew it was several stories. At the top, he paused, and she craned her neck to see why.
Another heavy wood door blocked their path. He pushed it open, then stepped under the archway, letting the door slam at his back.
The walls were curved, built from smooth rock, the ceiling high. As he dropped her on her feet and the blood drained from her head, she spotted a cold stone fireplace, chairs on either side. To the right were two giant cathedral windows that looked out and down to the dark lake far below, separated by an ornate bookcase filled with a smattering of books. Behind her and up two steps on a raised platform was a four-poster bed and two nightstands with oil lamps. And beyond that, another door that led to a closet or a bathroom—she wasn’t sure which.
The room wasn’t big, and instinctively she knew she was likely in the highest tower in this hidden castle. Her gaze shot back to the windows made of thick glass that didn’t open. To the fact there was no balcony to scale down. To the view far, far below that would lead to her death if she tried to escape that way.
Temper rising, she looked past Zagreus to the door they’d just come through, realizing it was the only way out of this godsforsaken room.
“You son of a bitch.” She turned her glare on Zagreus and stalked past him. “You’re not keeping me here.”
He grasped her by the waist with one arm, picked her up, and swung her back around, dropping her on her kicking feet where she’d just been. “I am keeping you, princess. And the sooner you accept that, the easier this will be.”
She stumbled in her heeled boots, whipped around and stared at him as he moved for the door.
“Seeing as how you need time to adjust to your new surroundings”—he shot her a scathing look over his shoulder—“I’ll be back when you’ve cooled down.”
The door was big, but he was bigger, and she knew there was no way she could get by him and down those steps without his catching her. Looking for something—anything—she could use as a weapon, she spotted the books.
She rushed toward the bookshelf, grabbed a leather tome with her bound hands, and hurled it across the room at his head. “Fuck you, asshole.”
He didn’t turn. Didn’t look toward her. But his hand shot into the air as if he sensed the book coming at him. His fingers closed around the thick binding with a death grip and slowly lowered it to his side.
Then he did turn. Only this time when his gaze met hers, she realized just how docile he’d been with her before. This time there was no humanity in his obsidian eyes. Only stone cold malice and a promise of retribution she wasn’t sure she wanted to taunt.
The air caught in her lungs. She shuffled back, her boots hitting the bottom step near the bed’s platform, stopping her.
Her pulse raced as he stared at her. And though she told herself not to be afraid, that he fed off fear, she was afraid. Terrified, because he suddenly didn’t look a thing like the hunky sex god she’d almost had a tryst with at that club. He looked like Hades’s son. The personification of evil. As twisted and vile as his father.
In every way, the Prince of Darkness.
He hurled the book at a chair near the fireplace and clenched his jaw. “Listen very carefully because I’m only going to say this once. There are only two ways out of this room, female. The first is by submitting to me. The second is by your death. The choice of how you leave is up to you.”
He jerked the door open and left, letting it slam closed in his wake. A clank echoed, followed by groaning metal that told her he’d locked her in.
Heart racing, she stood still in the middle of the room as his footsteps faded down the stairwell. A heavy silence surrounded her. One that drown out even her rapid pulse. One that threatened to overwhelm her if she let it.
Breathe. Focus. Remember who you are. Think like the Guardians who came before you...
Except...
She wasn’t a guardian. They’d yet to accept her. She might have the markings, but she still wasn’t one of them. Which meant... Any hope she had of escaping was entirely up to her.
She blew out a slow breath and looked up and around her opulent prison cell. This was not how she thought her night would go when she’d headed to that club in the human world. Never in a million years would she have predicted she’d end up trapped. In a castle tower. Like some wimpy fairytale heroine. Like a damsel in distress. By Zagreus of all people.
Submission or death...
He thought he could back her into a corner, scare her? Well, fuck him. Fuck everyone in this miserable place. He didn’t know a thing about her.
A rising, rolling anger built inside her, one that put any she’d had before to shame. Those were not her only choices. She wouldn’t let them be her choices.
Regardless of what her father thought, regardless of what the Argonauts thought, she was a warrior. And she wasn’t about to abandon Max to Zagreus’s satyrs. She could save herself and then save him. After all, it was what she’d been born to do. It was her destiny.
And it was way past time she proved that to the world.
Chapter Five
Zagreus nearly slammed into Ana on the stairs.
Drawing up short, he stared down at the fair-haired nymph dressed in the flimsy white garment all nymphs wore and frowned. “Took you long enough.”
“Aia said you needed two of us. I went to find Ida.”
He glanced toward the dark-haired nymph at Ana’s back, several steps down in the cramped stairwell, looking anywhere but at him. He’d seen her before, but she was as unremarkable as the rest of the nymphs in this place. Thankfully, the child was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t sure he had the patience to deal with her at the moment.
“You,” he said to the brunette.
“Ida,” the brunette said sheepishly, still not looking at him.
“Right. Go get bathing supplies and fresh garments for the female in the tower. Not what you two are wearing.”
“I...” The brunette’s worried gaze shifted to Ana, who’d turned on her step to look down at her, then shifted back to Zagreus. “I don’t know her size, My Prince.”
“Taller than you. Slightly thinner.”
She looked toward Ana again with wide eyes then quickly bowed. “Yes, My Prince.”
He hated how skittish some of these nymphs were.
As the brunette rushed off, he told himself it wasn’t his problem and turned his attention back to Ana. “The female in the tower has a unique marking somewhere on her body. I want to know what it is and where it’s located.”
Ana’s brow wrinkled. “And just how am I supposed to figure that out?”
“Creatively.”
Ana blew out a breath and glanced around the narrow stairwell. “I guess I could charm her.”
“No magick.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “Why not?”
Zagreus worked to keep his temper in check. He didn’t like answering to anyone, least of all a nymph, but on this he knew he had to give her something or she’d go gossiping to her friends. “Because I already used a few spells on her, and I don’t want her brain turned to mus
h.”
Too much magick had a tendency to do that, especially to weaker races. It made the nymphs stupid. And with the satyrs all it did was feed their aggression. He’d learned that the hard way.
Not that Zagreus thought the female up in the tower was weak, per se. She was Argolean, and Zeus had chosen the first heroes from the Argolean race as warriors to defend and protect humans from threats of the Underworld. But he wasn’t willing to take any chances with his prisoner.
Ana’s gaze narrowed on Zagreus’s face. “She means something to you.”
His jaw clenched. Ana was a nymph, not immortal but otherworldly, and since she assisted Zagreus in matters dealing with the nymphs, he’d taught her a few spells to sway them to his way of thinking when needed. But that was as far as his leeway with her extended.
“She’s a prisoner. A valuable one. And it is not your job to question me.” He stepped back so she could pass. “Your job right now is to go up there and find her marking.”
Ana’s shoulders tightened. She clearly wasn’t happy with his order, but he didn’t give a rip. He was fairly certain the female was who he thought, but he needed confirmation one way or another. And he wasn’t willing to wait.
Ana swept past him up the stairs without another word.
He waited until her footsteps stopped at the top of the staircase then listened as she turned the lock and metal clanked, echoing through the space.
The old door groaned, followed by more footsteps, then the slap of the heavy door closing.
He stood still as muffled voices drifted down to him, trying to decipher what Ana was saying to the female. Silence followed. Then a thwack. A thunk. And something hard hitting the floor with a whomp above.
His gaze shot up the steps. In a matter of seconds, he was back at the top of the tower, pushing the door open.
Ana stood with her arms folded over her chest, glaring down at the female he’d just left in the room, slumped against the stone floor.
“What the fuck did you do?” Zagreus crossed the floor in two strides and knelt to push the hair off her face. Her eyes were closed, her body limp, but one check told him she was still breathing.
“What did I do?” Ana snapped. “I defended myself. She attacked me as soon as I stepped in here. Hurled a candlestick at me and tried to take me out.”
An iron candlestick as long as his arm lay at the nymph’s feet. Zagreus glanced up at Ana, noting the nymph wasn’t hurt. Just ticked.
He swept the female into his arms, shot Ana a glare as he stepped around her, then moved up the steps toward the raised bed. “I said no magick.”
“Too bad. You didn’t tell me she was violent.” Ana turned and watched as he laid the female on the mattress. “And since when do you care if prisoners are hurt anyway?”
His jaw ticked as he checked the female for injuries. He couldn’t see any besides a small bump on the side of her forehead where she’d hit the ground. Odds were good she’d be fine, and her being unconscious for the moment actually worked in his favor, but he wasn’t about to tell Ana that.
His gaze drifted to the long, slender column of her throat, to the open vee of her fitted blouse, and finally the swell of her breasts near the hem of the neckline. Heat stirred inside him. A heat he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
He forced himself to let go of her, to straighten and step away from the bed even though all he wanted to do was run his hands all over her body. Moving off the raised platform, he said, “Strip her and find the marking.”
Ana’s eyes widened, and she dropped her arms. “What if she wakes and attacks me again?”
“Then you’ll be in trouble. So you’d best get busy.”
Ana glared his way, then stomped up the stairs and stilled next to the bed.
“And don’t hurt her again.” Zagreus stood near the cold fireplace and braced a hand against the stone mantle, knowing better than to watch, unwilling to leave the room again. But his pulse raced as he stared down at the dark ashes and tried not to envision the nymph slowly revealing the female’s naked flesh.
She had a name. What had the male in the club called her? The wannabe Argonaut who’d tried to get in the way? Tamara? Tahliah? No... Talisa. He’d called her Talisa.
The name revolved in Zagreus’s mind while the sounds of fabric rustling mixed with Ana’s grumbling at his back. It wasn’t familiar. She’d never used it before. But he liked it. Liked the way it rolled over his tongue. Liked what it meant—of noble blood—because it was one more sign she was exactly who he thought her to be.
“I don’t know why you’re putting her up here in the tower,” Ana complained. “She should be in the dungeon. Chained to a wall. Where the hell did you find her, anyway? If she goes after one of the others the way she went after me, we’re going to have serious problems. They can’t defend themselves the way I ca—”
Her words died on a gasp.
“What?” Zagreus dropped his hand from the fireplace and turned. “Did you find it?”
The nymph had backed herself against the wall, her eyes wide and horror-filled. She pointed toward the bed. “L-look.”
Zagreus stepped onto the platform and looked down at Talisa, still out cold, her head tipped to the right on the pillow, her arms limp at her sides against the comforter. Ana had managed to get the bindings off her wrists along with the corset and blouse, but that was it. The soft, smooth skin of Talisa’s belly drew Zagreus’s attention. The small indentation of her belly button. Then the perfect swell of her breasts covered by the thin, black satin of her bra.
That heat resurged inside him, stronger this time, urging him forward. Taunting him to touch and taste and take. Especially when he saw the two small bumps pushing against the satiny fabric on each side of her nipples.
He licked his lips, anxious to see just what kind of treasures she was hiding under that bra, and was about to find out when Ana said, “Her arms. Don’t you see it?”
His gaze shifted to her arms, both bare, lying motionless against the bed. Both marked with ancient Greek text from her forearms down the backs of her hands to entwine her fingers.
“She’s an Argonaut,” Ana snapped. “Do you know what that means? It means other Argonauts will be looking for her. And wherever they go, trouble isn’t far behind. God trouble, like the kind Zeus and Hades cause with their armies. We don’t need that here. We won’t survive that here. She needs to leave this kingdom, right now.”
“She’s not going anywhere.”
“What?” Ana’s gaze shot his way. “Are you mad? She’s an Argonaut.”
“There are no female Argonauts.”
“She has the markings.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s untrained.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know.” He pinned the nymph with a hard look. “Those markings are unimportant. Keep searching.”
She stared at him as if he’d grown a third eyeball right in the middle of his forehead, but he didn’t care. The markings on her arms meant nothing. And they weren’t the marking he was desperate to find.
Ana didn’t argue again, just went back to tugging at Talisa’s clothing with jerking motions and a clenched jaw that told Zagreus the nymph was good and ticked.
As if he cared. There was more at stake here than one inconsequential nymph’s feelings.
Anticipation curled inside him as he stood beside Ana and watched her work. Ana reached for the waistband of Talisa’s slim black pants and tugged them down on the right side, then the left. The smooth skin of Talisa’s lower belly came into view, her hipbones, and—
“What in Hades...” Ana let go of the left side of Talisa’s waistband and tugged lower on the right, exposing the female’s hipbone and the marking visible on her pale skin. “What is that?”
Zagreus pushed Ana aside, ignoring the nymph’s question, instead focusing on the straight lines and rounded curves of the marking.
To the average eye, it probably looked like an arrowhead or a dagge
r of some kind. An upside down V connected by an open circle at the bottom. But Zagreus knew the truth. Two symbols—the alpha marking, upright, and the omega marking upside down—joined at the bases.
His hand drifted forward, and he skimmed his fingertips over the lines and curves on Talisa’s hip. Warmth radiated from the spot. A warmth that seemed to grow hotter by the second. In his left hip, where the same exact marking was branded upside down with the omega symbol on top, heat erupted. And echoing in his head, he heard words. Ancient words he’d heard long ago…
The alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end...
His gaze shot to Talisa’s face. To her mesmerizing violet eyes softly closed, to her dark lashes skimming supple skin, to her perfect nose and high cheekbones, and her plump lips barely parted as she slept.
She looked nothing like he remembered. Nothing like he expected. But she was her.
His mono mia.
His one and only.
The urge to wake her, to take her, to reforge the connection he’d broken so many times consumed him. But he fought it. Fought back the rush of heat and the insatiable need to claim her body with his own.
He’d lost her so many times before—too many times. And the last time...
It had been so long ago. He wouldn’t survive another five hundred years by himself if he screwed this up. He had only one chance.
He lifted his hand from her hip. Straightened. But couldn’t tear his gaze from her face. Not even for a second.
“Go prepare a bath for her,” he said to Ana, still standing at his side.
“But she’s out cold.”
“She’ll be awake soon.”
“But—”
“Just do it.”
From the corner of his vision, he saw Ana’s mouth snap close and her lips thin in anger, but she didn’t argue. She swept into the bathroom with a huff and began filling the tub.
Zagreus’s heart beat hard and fast as he stepped toward the head of the bed, gently lifted Talisa’s shoulders from the mattress, and sat in the pillows behind her, letting her rest back against his chest.
Wicked Page 7
