Marked

by Elisabeth Naughton

  Alone and spent, Isadora slid down into the pillows and stared up at the vaulted ceiling above with its intricate wood beams. She tried to clear her mind of everything so she could sleep, but one thought kept pinging around in her brain.

  Acacia.

  If only there had been a way…

  Theron turned at the base of the grand staircase and headed for the king’s suite of rooms on the fourth floor of the castle. Enormous Grecian columns flanked the massive hallway. Plush furnishings, gilded mirrors, statuary and fresh flowers atop pedestals and marble tables filled the space around him as he moved. Wealth dripped from every trinket, from the velvet curtains at the enormous windows to the gold-dusted doors he passed along his way.

  The place so totally wasn’t him, his shoulders tightened with every step he took. How could the king or Isadora stand it? How in Hades would he manage living in this mausoleum? He could barely walk down the hall without feeling the overwhelming need to run for freedom.

  Just as he reached the end of the hall, the king’s door opened and Callia stepped out with her healer’s bag in tow. He waited until she turned and saw him before speaking.

  “Callia.”

  “Theron.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and gave him the once-over. “I see the rumors about you were true. I smell lavender. Is there anything you’d like me to look at?”

  Always the same Callia. Direct and to the point.

  “No,” he said. “I’m well enough.” Thanks to Casey.

  He quickly pushed thoughts of the human out of his mind. “Tell me about Isadora. Her health concerns me.”

  Callia cast a quick glance over her shoulder toward the king’s doorway, then motioned for Theron to join her across the hall, out of earshot.

  “Yes,” she said when they reached the staggering windows overlooking the stone courtyard below. “Theron, I’m not sure how to tell you this but, there’s no other way to say it. Isadora’s dying.”

  Her words should have elicited a reaction, but all Theron felt was…nothing.

  No, that wasn’t entirely true. A tiny part of him was relieved. And that emotion angered him more than the misery he knew he should be feeling.

  “You’re sure of this?” he asked. “How? She looks—”

  “I’ve consulted every book I have, looking for something—anything—that’s remotely similar. None of the traditional healing methods have worked. Something is broken inside her, only I can’t figure out what. It’s like…”

  “What?”

  She frowned. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “Nothing could be crazier than knowing our kingdom is about to lose both its king and its heir. Don’t hold back from me, Callia. What?”

  She let out a breath. “It’s almost like she’s losing that part of herself which is inherently Argolean. Her immune system, which is normally strong, is the weakest I’ve ever seen. It’s almost as if her human half is taking over.”

  Theron glanced around the posh room but saw none of it. “Have you told anyone else this?”

  “No. You’re the only one. I mentioned her fading health to the king, but I don’t want to put more stress on him than necessary. He hasn’t seen her since she was returned to the kingdom. I’m afraid her situation could push him over the edge.”

  Theron glanced toward the cathedral window and the view of Tiyrns down the hill below. A bird flew over the parapet, swooped low into the courtyard and landed on the fountain’s edge. He followed the flap of its wings as the time line he’d been ticking off in his mind jumped to light speed. He’d spent precious hours with Casey, when he’d been needed here.

  “How long?” he asked. “How long do you think she has left?”

  “I’m not sure,” Callia said softly at his side. “Could be days. Weeks. Possibly longer. But one thing’s certain, Theron. She’s not strong enough to produce an heir. A pregnancy would seal her death warrant.”

  No, he’d been wrong. He did feel something. A shred of impending loss for Isadora. And a low, searing ache at the bottom of his heart for their race. This changed everything.

  His gaze snapped to Callia. “This goes no further. The Council cannot be told.”

  “You’re the only one. As her future mate, it’s your burden to bring this to the Council of Elders when you see fit.”

  He nodded, though it was a duty he didn’t particularly look forward to. He was a fighter, a soldier who commanded an elite band of guardians against those who would destroy their world if they could. He cared little of politics and status and the bickerings of the Council. If Isadora died without producing an heir—even if he did marry her—the Council would never allow him to become king. And the direction of the Argonauts would shift forever.

  He looked toward the king’s bedroom door.

  “Try not to stay longer than necessary,” Callia said. “He’s frail. If you have any other questions regarding the princess, come find me.”

  Callia stepped around him, leaving him alone in the deserted grand hall. When she disappeared from sight, he rubbed a hand over his face, and fleetingly thought of Casey. Staying with her would have been a helluva lot easier and way more pleasurable than coming back to all this.

  The king’s nurse rose from behind a large desk when he stepped into the outer sitting room. Theron waited while she checked to see if the king was up for a visitor.

  When she returned, her lips were drawn down in a disapproving frown and lines creased the skin between her eyes. It was a look he’d seen often from her over the last few weeks. Not that he cared.

  “Not long,” she said. “He needs his rest.”

  He rapped on the bedroom door and waited. And told himself that somehow he’d find a way to save Isadora. It was his duty, not only as the leader of the Argonauts, but as her future husband.

  “Come in, son,” a weak voice called from the other side of the door. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  From his chair near the window, King Leonidas gestured for Theron to join him with one frail, bony hand. “Come, come. Sit.”

  The elderly ándras had lost weight since Theron had seen him only a week ago. His red-checked pajamas and blue silk robe hung on thin shoulders. Hair becoming more and more silver captured the sunlight shining through the tall windows. Lines Theron hadn’t noticed before deeply creased the king’s sagging face.

  As Argoleans only began to age during the last twenty-five years of their lives, the changes in Leonidas were amplified more each day. It was to be expected, yet each wrinkle and jutting bone seemed like a cruel death sentence to such a wise and boisterous male, and not for the first time, Theron cursed the gods who gave them such amazing powers but limited their existence to that of mere mortals.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, my son.” Leonidas nodded weakly toward the double doors Theron had closed at his back. “The old hag with the thermometer could rule the Argonauts with an iron fist and run Zeus himself into the ground if she wanted. Don’t show fear, lad. She smells weakness.” A mischievous glint lit his eyes as he glanced at Theron’s jacket. “Did you bring me a gift?”

  Theron reached into his coat. The king had few weaknesses, but among them was his well-known penchant for Irish whiskey. Whenever Theron went into the human world, he brought a bottle home with him just for the king.

  It was one of the things Theron had always enjoyed most about Leonidas—his passion for life, so unlike other Argoleans who were, as a race, more reserved. He suspected the king had developed his desires during his time secretly spent among the humans, but the elder ándras never spoke of those days, and Theron had never bothered to ask.

  Theron pulled the bottle from the inner pocket of his leather jacket and handed it to the king. “If she finds this contraband, I’m going to have to turn you in.”

  The king grabbed the bottle like a parched traveler in a dusty desert. “Pansy.”

  The human slang brought a smile to Theron’s lips as he eased into a c
hair across from Leonidas.

  The king broke the seal and took a long swallow of Jameson, then let out a contented sigh. “The damn Irish got one thing right. If you were half as smart as Zeus contends, you would have bought a bottle of this magic for yourself when you were there.” His violet eyes narrowed with unseen knowledge. “But you didn’t. Did you?”

  “No.”

  The king took another long swallow and eased back into his seat. Though Leonidas’s body had decided after six hundred and eighty-four years it was time to wind down, his mind was still sharp as a tack. And the cunning light shining in his eyes confirmed exactly what Theron suspected was on the old ándras’s mind. “Tell me, Theron. How do you find the human world?”

  There it was. The same question he always asked whenever Theron came back.

  How did he find it? Last night it had been steamy and sultry and nothing like what he’d experienced before. And he had a feeling the memory of that heat might haunt him long into his marriage.

  Since that wasn’t something he suspected his future father-in-law wanted to hear, he simply said, “Hot.”

  Leonidas chuckled. “It is that at times. But vibrant.” He waved his gnarled hand around the room. “Oh, most would say nothing could compare to Argolea, and I would agree for the most part, but there’s always been something intriguing about the human world…something we lack here. Olympus lacks it as well, which is one of the reasons the gods have always been so intrigued with humans, themselves.”

  “That and that they like to meddle,” Theron muttered.

  Leonidas grinned. “True. But Argoleans are fascinated as well. Look around you. Sometimes I have a hard time believing this is the same kingdom I was born into. Styles, speech, even our technology—though more advanced—are similar these days to what you find in the human realm.”

  Theron frowned. Yeah, he’d noticed that over the last two hundred years as well. Argoleans were applying for passage into the human realm more and more, even when it wasn’t safe as the daemons grew ever bolder, bringing back popular culture as if it were treasure to be coveted, and the Council was letting them—though only the males. Didn’t matter that most thought they were intellectually and physically superior to humans, they were still enthralled with what they didn’t have. Theron couldn’t see the fascination. And frankly, it disgusted him. Or at least it had. Before last night.

  Leonidas took another swallow from the bottle. “Tell me, Theron. You’ve been all over the human realm. What’s your favorite place there?”

  “When I’m in the human world, I’m not paying much attention to the landscape.”

  “No, of course, you wouldn’t be, now would you? You’d be hunting daemons, doing what you were bred to do.”

  Leonidas eyed Theron a long moment, as if debating what to say next, which was something new for the king, as he’d always seemed to know what to say and do. Theron’s intrigue was piqued.

  “You know, don’t you,” Leonidas finally said, “that you are probably the greatest Argonaut since Heracles. Your father was a great guardian, and a good friend of mine, but Solon was never as strong as you. He would be proud of what you’ve become.”

  Would his father be proud? Theron doubted it. Solon hadn’t ever wanted to see the humans caught in the middle of their war. Theron thought differently. The only thing he enjoyed was the fighting. And since legally he couldn’t unleash his anger on humans, he took that rage out on the daemons he encountered.

  “You, of course,” Leonidas went on, oblivious to his thoughts, “are smarter than Solon was. I like to think I had something to do with that, though I know it’s probably more a testament to your genetics than it is to our friendship over the years.”

  The king was obviously feeling his age. Theron pushed aside the sting of the memory of his father’s death and the revulsion it caused, and relaxed his shoulders. “You’ve taught me many things, Your Highness.”

  Leonidas waved his hand. “Bah. I took advantage, Theron. We both know that. If it were my choice, the kingdom would fall into your hands upon my passing. The Council—” He heaved out a breath. “The Council has different ideas.”

  “Tradition is to be upheld. It’s fed our race for centuries.”

  The older ándras glanced out the window, a faraway look in his eyes. “Fed, but not nourished. Mark my words, boy. They will run this kingdom into the ground if they can. You are the only one who’s strong enough to stop them.”

  He looked back at Theron, and whatever regret had shown in his eyes earlier was long gone. “I know you’re not thrilled with the prospect of marrying my Isadora.” When Theron opened his mouth to protest, Leonidas held up his knobby hand to stop him. “No, now let’s not mince words. There are too many things I must tell you tonight, and I fear our time is coming to a close. Know this though, Theron. The sacrifices you make now and in the future are done for a reason. We may not see them at the time they are offered, but they are there nonetheless. You and I, we are both of Heracles’s line, and therefore honor and duty rule us. Remember your blood when all is said and done. Remember the vows you took when you were inducted into the Argonauts.”

  Wariness crept over Theron as he listened to the king. There was something on the older ándras’s mind. Something more than the regrets of a long life and worry over his failing health.

  The king took one last swig of whiskey, capped the bottle and handed it back to Theron. “You were absent these past few days. I take it you ran into trouble.”

  Theron replaced the bottle in his inner jacket pocket. “Four daemons converged just as I located Isadora.”

  The king nodded. “You sent her back here and dealt with them on your own. Your bravery is commendable. Four against one. Those are insurmountable odds, even for you.”

  Theron thought briefly of his knight in shining armor and the way she’d taken care of him in the aftermath. Strength, he knew, often came in unforeseeable packages, but he hadn’t expected it of the human woman he’d stumbled across. “Not quite insurmountable.”

  The king eyed him a moment, then pushed himself out of his chair and hobbled toward the windows. Late-afternoon sunlight splashed over his wrinkled features and the weariness was evident in his withering body. “You are holding back. What’s troubling you, Theron?”

  Theron shifted his weight in his seat. Among the king’s greatest powers was his ability to sense emotions in others. Some said he could read minds, but Theron had never known that to be the case. Leonidas did, however, have the ability to draw whatever you were thinking right out of your head, and in this case, though the king knew Theron didn’t love Isadora, he didn’t want the older ándras to know his thoughts kept running back to a human he had no right thinking about.

  “The daemons’ powers continue to grow,” Theron said, hoping to distract the king. “Though the Argonauts have been successful in eliminating a large number of their army over the last few years, we aren’t making the dent we should be.”

  The king showed no reaction, only continued to stare out at the city and the first twinkle of lights from houses far below. “That isn’t what truly troubles you, though, is it?”

  Theron thought back to the night he’d sent Isadora home. To the fact that the daemons hadn’t killed Casey when they so easily could have. He chose his words carefully. “They’re not hunting humans. The few we find dead seem more like random accidents than intentional murders.”

  “No,” the king said without turning. “There’s no benefit to them to kill humans outright. Not unless they kill the right one.”

  Theron’s brow wrinkled at the strange comment, and while he waited for the king to go on, his spine tingled.

  The king finally turned his way. “You know the story of Atalanta, Theron.”

  Yes, every Argonaut knew the story of Atalanta, who’d traded her soul for dominion over the daemons after Zeus refused to appoint her as one of the original seven Eternal Guardians. Even millennia later, she was still seeking revenge. Her
goal was twofold: kill the Argonauts guarding the portal between Argolea and the human realm, and at the same time build her army of daemons.

  “Each Argolean soul she sends to Hades makes her and her army that much stronger,” Leonidas continued. “And that includes the souls of the half-breeds they kill as well.”

  “Half-breeds?” Theron asked. “I thought they were a myth.”

  “And humans think we’re a myth. Half-breeds do indeed exist, though they are rare,” Leonidas said with a sigh.

  Theron thought back to the marking he’d seen on Casey’s lower back—the Greek omega surrounded by wings. He’d convinced himself it was nothing more than a human tattoo. All Argoleans had the alpha marking—a brand from the gods themselves that signified the beginning of their race—but this was different.

  The king gave him a searching look and nodded. “I can see your mind working, my son. If there’s no benefit for daemons to kill humans, and they aren’t intentionally hunting humans, what are they after? What are you and the Argonauts really protecting? The answer to both of those questions is simple: the key to the prophecy.”

  “What prophecy?” Theron asked cautiously.

  “The one that will change this war forever.”

  Theron watched as the king crossed to the large hand-carved desk in the sitting area of his suite. The older ándras pulled a leather-bound book from a shelf against the wall and laid it out on the shiny wood surface. After flipping the book open, he sat in his regal chair, looking every inch his six-hundred-plus years, and very royal.

  “When Atalanta was passed over as an Argonaut and she made her pact with Hades for immortality, Zeus was very concerned she would wreak havoc on humans in retaliation, since the Argonauts were guarding the portal and she couldn’t get into Argolea to extract her vengeance on us. It’s no secret Zeus and Hades have a long-running feud, or that Hades found humor in unleashing Atalanta on the humans Zeus has long been so fascinated with. In payment for creating Argolea, Zeus commanded the Argonauts to protect not only our race, but humans as well—some would say to right the wrong of what was once one of our own. And the Argonauts have done so, for nearly three thousand years. But as you pointed out earlier, Atalanta continues to grow in strength, regardless of your efforts.”