He grinned down at her in the moonlight, his hair wet and covered in gunk, his handsome face dotted with sweat, his onyx eyes just as mischievous and hypnotic as they’d ever been. Her devil, her captor, her hero.
The love of her fucking life.
“Oh my gods…” She threw her arms around his shoulders and squeezed him so tight, he gasped. But she didn’t let up. Didn’t think she ever could. “I thought I lost you. I thought…” She hugged him harder and pressed her face to his throat, breathing him in. “You son of a bitch. Don’t do that to me again.”
His other arm closed around her, holding her just as close. Then in her ear, he whispered, “You can’t lose me, mono mia. No matter what, I’m yours, remember? No one else in the world is crazy enough to want me. ”
In the middle of what could only be described as a nightmare, she smiled. Laughed. Pressed her lips to his throat and kissed him again and again. “I am crazy. Crazy in love with you. And you are so getting punished for that insane stunt.”
He eased back and shot her a smoldering look, one that ignited a fire inside her, one only a wicked god like him could enflame. “Promise?”
“Absolutely.” She grinned wider, pushed to her toes, and pressed her mouth to his.
He groaned, then opened to her kiss, sliding his tongue along hers and filling her mouth with the hot, wet, seductive taste of him she would never get enough of.
And as she drew him in, her heart filled with relief. With hope. With every bit of love she hadn’t even known she could feel.
A blood-curdling scream echoed through the charred forest. One so shrill it sent a shiver straight down Talisa’s spine.
She jerked back from Zagreus’s mouth and twisted to look over her shoulder, across downed and blackened tree trunks in the direction of the stone arch. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” Whatever humor had been in his features faded. He grasped her hand and tugged her with him, heading toward the sound. “Stay close to me, though, just in case.”
She grabbed her blade from the ground and hustled to keep up with his long legs. She knew the others had heard the scream too and were following, but since they were closer, they were the first to crest the rise and reach the small clearing in front of the arch.
The first to see Phineus holding a thrashing female from behind with an arm wrapped around her chest.
“Let me go. Let me go!” she screamed, fighting with everything she had even though her struggling barely made the big Argonaut budge.
“Settle down, witch.” Phin tightened his grip, holding more firmly so she couldn’t kick him in the balls. “I won’t hurt you so long as you cooperate.”
“Zagreus.” Talisa squeezed his arm. “It’s Pandora.”
“Yeah, be careful,” he said in a low voice at her side. “We don’t know what she’s done with her box.”
They moved up slowly, so as not to surprise either of them, but as they stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight, Pandora’s gaze shot their way, her eyes flashing with fury.
“You,” she growled, still wrestling against Phin’s hold, glancing from Talisa to Zagreus and back again.
“Yeah, us,” Zagreus muttered, stopping yards away.
Talisa stilled next to him and gazed at the female who’d tried to kill her. Who’d tried to kill them. She knew she should care about that damn box, but right now only one thing mattered. “Where is he?”
Pandora’s eyes blazed. “Maximus is mine.”
Talisa had said the same thing to Zagreus—that he was hers—but not like this. Never like this. Her words had come from the heart. These reeked of actual possession.
“He’s not yours,” Talisa said. “He’ll never be yours. And your little game here is over. Tell us where he is,” she demanded.
Pandora struggled harder against Phin’s hold, then started wailing like a dying cat. So loud, any satyrs left in the area had to hear it. So loud, she could be calling them back.
“Shut her up,” Zagreus snapped, stepping forward. “Before—”
A roar sounded from the trees above. Talisa barely had time to look up before something slammed into her, knocking her hard to the ground.
She heard Zagreus grunt as he hit the ground, too. Had no idea what had hit them. It was there and gone, but when she lifted her head and looked up from the dirt, she realized it wasn’t a “what” but a “who.”
The who she’d been looking for since Zagreus had poofed her out of that club.
“Max!” She pushed up in the dirt, scrambling to her feet.
Max had already knocked Pandora free of Phin’s hold. She scrambled back while the two males rolled across the ground, throwing punches and kicking up dirt in a blur of movement.
Footsteps pounded at Talisa’s back. Beside her, she sensed Zagreus watching for the moment he could jump into the fight and take hold of Max. But the two were moving too fast, then their momentum shifted so quickly Talisa barely tracked it. One second, they were on the ground. The next, Max was behind Phin with a dagger at Phin’s throat.
“Get back, all of you,” Max growled, a wild look in his eyes. “Get back or I swear I’ll kill him.”
“Whoa, hold up,” Theron said on Talisa’s left. Max shifted Phin that direction, skidding in the dirt. “We’re not going to hurt you. Just drop the blade, Maximus. We’re all friends here.”
“Yeah, dude,” Phineus said. “Friends. Rememb—”
Max pushed the tip of the dagger into Phin’s throat, breaking the skin so blood ran down the blade. Phin’s mouth snapped shut.
“You’re no friends of mine,” Max growled.
His voice was low. Flat. Nothing like Talisa remembered. He moved back a step, dragging Phin with him.
Nick moved up on her father’s other side. She could see both him and Zagreus were reading Max, trying to decide if they could step in and disarm him. But if Zagreus’s theory was true, and Max could harness any powers used around him, that would only make him stronger. And judging from the crazed look in his eyes, that wouldn’t be a good thing. At least not until they got him away from Pandora.
“Son…” Zander. That was Zander’s voice to Talisa’s right. Max’s dad. Only he didn’t just sound stressed, he sounded scared. As if he knew what Max was capable of. “We’re all your friends. And family. We just want you to come home.” He stepped forward, hands up in a nonthreatening way. “We love you, Max.”
Max glanced from Theron to his father, then to Talisa. Familiarity flashed in his stormy eyes. He swallowed. Seemed… conflicted.
“We do,” Talisa said, also stepping forward, desperate to get through to him, hoping her voice would shock him back from whatever hold Pandora had on him. “Your mom, too.”
Max’s gaze shot her way. “My… mother?”
“Don’t listen to her,” Pandora snapped at Max’s back. “She’s lying.”
“Talisa’s not lying,” Zander said, inching forward again. “Your mother’s here, son, waiting for you. We all are. We’re here for you. Just let go of Phin. Stop listening to that… female, and let us help you.”
Pandora growled, but indecision warred in Max’s eyes, a battle Talisa sensed he waged deep inside.
“Max,” she whispered, feeling that bond to him they’d shared since they were kids. When he was the only person who’d understood her. “Max, come back to us.”
His gaze found hers. Held. And like storm clouds parting, the uncertainty faded from his turbulent eyes, leaving them the same soft, silver hue she’d gazed into thousands of times back home.
His hold on Phin eased. The blade fell from his throat. Relief swept through Talisa as Phin jerked free. Then she heard the scream.
Max lurched around and stared wide-eyed at the dagger sticking out of Pandora’s chest. The one already soaking the front of her dress with blood.
Talisa whipped back, squinting past the argonauts and Zagreus, toward the top of the hill, where Rhen stood staring at Pandora.
Oh sh
it.
Talisa whirled toward Max again, cradling Pandora in his arms. Only his eyes were no longer silver spheres. They were raging squalls she sensed were about to unleash a fury none of them had ever seen.
“You,” Max growled in a low, menacing voice as Pandora lay limp against him. “You’ll pay for what you did to my soul mate. Every last one of you.”
“Max, no.” Panic rose in Zander’s voice. “It was an accident. Don’t—”
A roar that shook the forest burst from Max’s chest, then he and Pandora disappeared in a cyclone of black smoke.
“Holy skata,” someone muttered.
“How did he do that?” someone else said.
“Motherfucker,” whispered another voice.
Talisa looked from one shocked face to the next, knowing the Argonauts had no clue how powerful Max really was. But she was too focused on the horror pushing up her throat to explain it to them just yet.
Something grazed her arm. She turned to find Zagreus standing right behind her.
Without hesitating, she moved into him and wrapped her arms around his waist, then pressed her cheek to his chest, closing her eyes against the hot rush of tears.
His strong arms settled around her like steel bands, holding her tight, and in her ear, he whispered, “We’ll find him. We did it once, we’ll do it again.”
She wasn’t so sure. What she’d seen in Max’s eyes seconds ago was unlike anything she’d seen before. Violent savagery was the only way she knew how to describe it. Like the humanity inside him had all but been annihilated and replaced with blinding rage. She just wasn’t sure if it was because of Pandora, his link to the Greek hero Achilles, or if there was something much darker at work here. Something festering from his time with Atalanta as a child in the Underworld.
She sniffled against Zagreus. Clung to him. Knew only that none of this would have happened had it not been for her. “This is my fault. This is all my fault.”
“It’s not.” He shifted one hand to her face and lifted so she had to look at him. “You told me when a soul endures terrible things it can become capable of terrible things. He endured something long before this. Long before he knew you. It’s just coming to the surface now. You are in no way responsible for the choices he makes because of what happened to him then.”
She blinked up at him, tears blurring her vision. His features were drawn, his dark eyes pained, but underneath she saw strength. And resilience. And hope.
“If anyone knows it’s possible to come back from the dark, it’s me,” he whispered. “Because of you. We’ll find him and bring him back. Whatever it takes. I promise.”
Her chest contracted, and all the love she felt for him swirled inside, threatening to overwhelm her.
Sniffling again, she pushed to her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, knowing her father and the Argonauts were all watching, not caring in the least. Pressing her face to his throat, she drew in his calming, wicked scent and hung on tight.
Because he was not what anyone thought. He was a devil, but he was also her savior. He was the darkness and the light. He was the result of everything bad in the world but had transformed himself into an expression of good. He was flawed and broken and real. Her captor, her protector, her trial. Yet through it all, her absolute strength, just as he was now.
He was hers. And no one and nothing could ever change that.
She drew back once more, nodded, and forced her lips into a sad smile. One she knew on instinct he ached to kiss from her lips.
He lowered his head, but the deep, inhuman snarls stopped him.
The snarls coming from the shadows at his back that only one kind of creature could make.
Every muscle in Zagreus’s body froze. Every muscle except his heart, which kicked up like a doomed drumbeat in his chest.
“Wh-what was that?” Talisa asked, trying to see past him into the dark.
His eyes slid closed. He’d hoped defeating Pandora and her satyrs would head off his father. He’d been wrong. He’d always been wrong when it came to Hades.
Forcing his eyes open, he looked to Theron, already twisting toward the sounds with his blade drawn. Talisa’s father glanced once at Zagreus and nodded. The Argonauts fanned out with their weapons as well, forming a protective arc around them.
Talisa shivered in his arms, and as the temperature dropped, Zagreus realized those weren’t just hellhounds lurking in the dark. They’d brought daemons with them. A lot, judging by how quickly the temperature was changing.
“Oh gods.” Talisa realized it too, because she pushed back and reached for her blade.
“Talisa.” He stopped her with both hands at her upper arms and squeezed until she looked up at him. “Wait.”
Her horrified gaze shot to his. “We don’t have ti—”
“You were wrong. You’re not here because of me. The Fates, the Creator… They didn’t bring you back so I could fulfill my destiny. They brought you back so you could fulfill yours.”
Her brows darted together. “Why are you say—”
“The Orb, Talisa. They brought you back so you could fulfill your destiny with the Orb.”
Her gaze skipped over his face. Behind him, a blade whirred through the air and was met with a horrific scream, but neither of them looked. “What are you talking about? What Orb?”
“The Orb of Krónos. The one the gods have been fighting over for centuries so they can claim ultimate power. The one I stole from Zeus months ago. The one that’s been hanging around your neck since those satyrs tried to kill us.”
Her wide-eyed gaze dropped to her chest, where the amulet he’d draped over her head the night of that satyr attack was hidden beneath her garments.
“I charmed it. No one here can tell what it really is, but once you get home, you’ll see.”
Her shocked gaze met his. “I don’t understand. I don’t get what that has to do with anyth—”
“He knows.” He squeezed her arms again. “My father knows you have it. Pandora told him. She was after the Orb the whole time. She knew I took it. That’s why she was working with the satyrs, to get me to join forces with her. With a god, the Orb, her box, and an army, she’d be stronger than all of Olympus. Only I wouldn’t cooperate with her plan, so she turned to my father for help. I thought if we could defeat her and her box, my father wouldn’t show, but he’s here. He’s here for the Orb and for you because you’re the only person who can destroy it.”
“Me? But I can’t—”
“You can. Prometheus cast a spell so it could never be destroyed by man or god. Your people thought that meant it could only be destroyed by a demigod—by a hero—but they were only partly right. The hero also has to be—”
“A descendant of the Horae,” she finished for him, looking down at her arms covered by the long sleeves of her tunic.
“Yeah,” he said, watching her carefully. “A female warrior descended from the Horae, the only beings who can control the Orb.”
The hellhounds were getting bolder, snapping and snarling, a few charging here and there, but the Argonauts were holding them back. Giving them this moment. And even though Zagreus never wanted it to end, he knew they were out of time. “That’s why they sent you back to me. Because they knew I had the Orb. So you could get it and take it home. Then destroy it so no god can ever have that kind of omnipotent power.”
“B-but the last time any of us saw it, it didn’t contain the water element.”
“It still doesn’t. And it can’t be destroyed until your people find that last element. But in Argolea, it’s protected. The Olympians can’t cross into your realm, and magick prevents my father from accessing your queen’s castle. That’s why I need you to go there. Now. Where you’ll both be safe. You promised me if I asked, you would leave. That you would listen and go.”
“But…” Her fingers fisted his shirt at the arms, and her frantic eyes met his. Behind him, the snarls and growls grew louder. “But Ehrendia…”
“Ehren
dia will be safe. I promise.”
“We have to go now.” Theron stepped up behind her, breathing heavy, his blade covered in blood. “We can’t hold them much longer.”
Zagreus nodded then looked down at her. Her eyes were wild as she glanced over the Argonauts, moving in closer, but he didn’t let that stop him. “I know why the Fates let me go from their service after twenty-five years.”
Her frenzied gaze lifted back to his.
“It wasn’t so I could finally do the right thing. I had that chance. I had it numerous times and failed. They let me go so you could be the hero you were always meant to be.”
Tears filled her eyes. “This is what you were keeping from me.” Her hands shook, but she held on tighter. “No. I won’t let you do whatever you think you have to do. Come with me.”
“I can’t. But oh, I want to.” He lifted his hands to her face and stepped into her, until her heat surrounded him and her strength was all he felt. “You were right when you said my past was not my destiny. You are. You always were. The you right here in front of me now. The one who saw through my darkness and brought me back to the light.”
He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her softly, sweetly, with as much tenderness as he had inside, because of her. “I love you, mono mia. I will love you always, till my very end, no matter how long or short that may be.”
“Zagreus…” Tears fell down her cheeks.
Forcing himself to let go, he moved back and looked to her father. “Take her.”
Theron wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back several steps. Against him, she yelled, “No!” and struggled, but her father was as strong, if not stronger than her, and her thrashing did nothing to ease his grip.
“I’m sorry, mono mia. This is the only way everyone is safe.”
“No, Zagreus. No, you don’t have to do this!”
His heart clenched at the tears streaming down her cheeks, at the misery on her beautiful face, but he knew this was the only option. His father would never give up his search for the Orb so long as he was here and there was a chance she could return. She was too important to risk for his selfishness, and he would never again take chances with her life.
Wicked Page 34
