Awakened (Eternal Guardians Book 8)

by Elisabeth Naughton

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You have to. You’re Argolean. I bet the gods hid it on Olympus, like they did with your Argonaut markings.” She glanced over his strong, sexy, naked body. Stilled when she spotted it. “Look at your arm.”

  He glanced at his left arm, then to his right. And when he spotted the same intertwined Alpha and Omega on his right biceps, where Aphrodite’s rose brand had once been, his eyes grew wide. “Whoa.”

  “You’re not hers anymore.” Elysia leaned down and kissed him, pushing him into the pillows once more. “You’re mine.”

  They kissed until they were breathless. Sighing, she snuggled into him and laid her head on his chest.

  “I like being yours,” he said softly, running his hand up and down her arm in a languid way that sent tiny shivers all across her skin.

  She liked it too. And she planned to keep him hers, no matter what Zeus or Aphrodite or Athena had planned.

  “Cerek,” she said after several minutes. “What’s the first thing you remember from Olympus?”

  “I’m not sure. A lot of the past is a blur. I don’t really remember meeting Aphrodite or being assigned to her. I just remember being in her temple.”

  “Nothing before that?”

  “There is one thing. I remember a female with fire-red hair and bright green eyes. I know she spoke to me. But I’m not sure what she said.”

  Elysia pushed up on her elbow again. “I think she was a witch.”

  He looked up at her with an amused expression. “Why?”

  “I told you my gift is accessing memories. A few minutes ago, I picked up one from you. You were in a cave somewhere, and a very tall female with red hair and green eyes was chanting over you. My father comes from a long line of witches. I recognized the spell she was chanting. It was an eradication spell.”

  His brow dropped. “An er-what spell?”

  Elysia sat up and brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. The ivy crowns they’d both worn during the binding ceremony had ended up on the floor, and she pulled at one of the jewel’s Juniper had used to decorate her updo. “Eradication spells are used to get rid of things. I think she used it to wipe your memory. An eradication spell could do that.”

  “Why would a witch be on Olympus?”

  “I don’t know. Unless Zeus needed her for something.”

  He stared at her so long, a tingle ran down her spine. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  He sat up next to her. “I think we should leave.”

  “This tent? But we just got here.”

  “No, leave Argolea.”

  “Why? We’re safe here. The Olympians can’t cross into this realm, and now that we’re bound, the Sirens can’t come after me again.”

  “I’m not afraid of the gods or the Sirens. I’m worried about something else.”

  That tingle intensified. “What are you talking about?”

  He glanced around the tent with a wary expression. “Ever since we crossed into this realm, I’ve had a strange feeling. Like something’s waiting to happen. Like I shouldn’t be here.” He looked into her eyes. “Your father feels it too.”

  Her pulse sped up, but she told herself what he was feeling was just stress. “Cerek.” She reached for his hand. “My father’s judgment is clouded because he’s worried about me and because he’s overprotective. Don’t let him dictate what happens between us.”

  “Maybe he has a reason to be worried.”

  Panic spread all through her chest. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I just know how I felt at that castle. Something there isn’t right.”

  At the castle… Her panic ebbed. “I’m sure you’re just picking up my father’s anxious vibes.” When he frowned, she squeezed his hand. “Look, I know you don’t remember this place. I know everything feels new and that you’ve been inundated by people expecting you to remember them. I get that it might make you want to leave. But this is home for both of us. You have to give it a chance to feel like home.”

  “Home isn’t a realm or a castle or a city, emmoní. Home is wherever you are. As long as we’re together, we can make our home anywhere.”

  Her heart swelled. She felt that way too. But there was too much at stake now to just leave. “Cerek, I’ve dreamt of running away my whole life. I never wanted to rule. I grew up hating that my every move was observed and recorded. But these last few months with the Sirens taught me one very valuable lesson. You can’t run away from your destiny. After I was taken from here, I thought I was destined to serve with the Sirens, but now I know that wasn’t my path. My path was to come back here”—she squeezed his hand—“with you. I didn’t have choice in whom I was born to and neither did you. But our paths intertwined for a reason. I have to believe that wasn’t a coincidence. We’re destined to do something important, together.”

  His worried gaze searched hers. “And what if our destinies aren’t the same?”

  “We’re bound now. We won’t let them be different.”

  His jaw clenched as he stared at her. Panic trickled in again, but she tried to force it back.

  “You’re right,” he said after several long moments, pulling her against the warmth of his chest. He kissed her temple. “We won’t let them be different. We’re together now no matter what.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. “No matter what,” she repeated.

  But worry niggled at the back of her mind, because he didn’t sound convinced. And as she thought back over the memory she’d pulled from him, she couldn’t help but wonder if the strange feeling he’d spoken of really was just her father’s disapproval or if there was something more sinister at work beneath the surface.

  “Cerek’s missing too.” Orpheus moved into Theron’s office where Demetrius stood next to his mate, discussing Elysia’s disappearance.

  A darkness Demetrius only just barely held back swirled inside him. “Are you certain?”

  “Pretty damn. He didn’t go back to his room last night after the party, and Max called from Ari’s place. No sign of him there either.”

  “Skata.” Demetrius’s jaw clenched down hard, and he stepped toward the door.

  “Demetrius,” Isadora called at his back, but he didn’t turn. She didn’t want to believe the worst, but he was done pretending this wasn’t happening.

  “Hold up.” Theron moved in front of Demetrius before he could reach the door and pressed a hand against his chest. “We don’t know that they’re together. We all need to stay calm until we have more information.”

  “I know they’re together. And don’t tell me to stay calm. If it were Talisa he’d targeted, you wouldn’t be so fucking calm.”

  “He’s one of us, D,” Zander said from across the room, his thick arms crossed over his chest.

  “I don’t fucking care who he is,” Demetrius answered, glaring at the blond Argonaut. “He bears the mark of the rose. You know what that means.”

  “He does have a point,” Orpheus said. “I spent plenty of time slinking around Olympus in the old days. The rose is Aphrodite’s symbol. All her pleasure slaves have them. Lotta sick shit goes on in her palace, let me tell ya.”

  Isadora glared Orpheus’s way. “You’re not helping.”

  “What?” Orpheus shrugged and crossed to sit on the arm of the leather couch. “I’m just sayin’. D has a right to be stressed.” Leaning toward Titus on the couch, he muttered, “This is why I never wanted to have young.”

  “Yeah, you really put your foot down on that one,” Titus muttered back. “Got two for the price of one.”

  Orpheus frowned and folded his arms over his chest. “Melita’s getting locked up until she’s two hundred.”

  “Might want to think about locking your Siren up instead,” Titus answered. “She’s projecting loudly these days. Female’s got a serious case of baby fever. Again.”

  “She does not.” Panic filled Orpheus’s gray eyes. “Does she?”

  “Oh yeah.”
Phineus chuckled from his seat beside Titus. “And you thought the Underworld was a wild ride. Orpheus with a whole litter. This is going to be fun to watch.”

  “Fuck me,” Orpheus mumbled.

  “Can we please focus?” Demetrius glared at Phin, Titus, and O. “We need to find my daughter before the Sirens show up to take her to Olympus or before Cerek takes her back for them.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Theron said.

  “And how do you know?” Demetrius turned his glare on Theron. “There’s something off about him. I know you’ve sensed it too.” He glanced around the room. “I know you all have, only none of you want to admit it. Even Callia picked up some kind of dark energy radiating from him when she did his exam.”

  Theron looked past Demetrius toward Zander, Callia’s mate.

  Zander frowned. “Callia’s not sure what she sensed.”

  “But she suspects the energy was likely related to whoever wiped his memories,” Isadora added.

  “It’s more than that,” Demetrius said, turning his attention to his mate. “And you know it too.” To the rest of the room, he added, “It’s time we all stop pretending he’s fine, because he’s not. I don’t care what story he and Elysia are telling. They didn’t escape Olympus. No one escapes the Sirens that easily. Zeus let them go. He let them go for a purpose.”

  “And what purpose would that be?” Gryphon asked from the opposite side of the room.

  “To attack the heart of who we are,” Demetrius answered. “Zeus hates the Argonauts not just because of what we’ve done, but because of what we stand for. Family, faith, the future of Argolea. I wouldn’t put it past him to go after the people who mean the most to us in his sick need for revenge. If we collapse, then Argolea is ripe for the Sirens to conquer. Forget about any political threat from the Council. Right now, our biggest threat is Zeus and what he has planned.”

  The guardians all exchanged glances, and a heavy silence spread over the room. None of them were safe if that was Zeus’s plan. They all had mates, children, attachments in this realm that kept them whole. And a broken Argonaut—as Ari had proved when he’d lost his soul mate—was a danger not just to himself but to anyone around him.

  “Any word?” Ari’s voice echoed from the hall.

  All eyes turned to look his way where he stood with Max in the doorway.

  “What?” Ari asked, glancing from face to face.

  Theron moved to Ari’s side. “We might have a problem.

  Worry darkened Ari’s mismatched eyes. “Shit. Not Sirens again.”

  “No.” Theron’s jaw clenched. “Some concerns have been presented. About Cerek.”

  “What kind of concerns?” Max asked.

  “The kind that don’t matter,” a female voice said behind Ari.

  Demetrius’s pulse skipped as he glanced past Ari toward Elysia, standing in the doorway. “Angeklos?”

  “Yes, I’m here, patéras. And you can stop talking about Cerek as if he’s Zeus’s evil minion, because he’s not.” Cerek stepped into the doorway beside her, and as she reached for his hand, the darkness inside Demetrius screamed to be released. “He’s my mate now. We were bound last night.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Silence settled over the room. A silence that should have made the hair on Cerek’s nape stand straight but didn’t because all he could focus on was the weird energy again. The one he’d felt tingling in his limbs as soon as they’d stepped foot in the castle. The one urging him to walk out of this room right now and find…

  Holy hell, he didn’t know what he was supposed to find. All he knew was that it was tugging at him to find something.

  Fighting the pull, he glanced around at the eight Argonauts staring toward the doorway where he and Elysia stood. Though the office was big, with two-story ceilings and arched windows that looked out over the city shimmering in the morning light, the males seemed to suck up all the space, dwarfing Elysia and her mother.

  “What did you say?” Demetrius asked slowly, a vein in his temple bulging as if it were about to explode.

  “You heard what I said.” To the Argonauts, Elysia said, “I’d like to speak with my parents in private if you don’t mind.”

  The Argonauts exchanged worried looks, but when the queen nodded, they slowly filed out of the room. Several—Cerek wasn’t sure who—muttered comments as they left. He picked up “Way to go,” and “Good luck, buddy,” and the long-haired guardian who always wore the gloves mumbled, “Well, that was one way to go.” But Theron’s warning gaze caught Cerek’s attention as he passed, and when the leader of the Argonauts said, “I’ll be right outside in case he tries to kill either of you,” Cerek realized the shit storm he’d started when he’d stayed on Pandora with Elysia wasn’t simply going to hit the fan, it was about to rain holy hell down all over him.

  His spine stiffened, and he stood a little taller. Maybe he deserved whatever was coming his way, but her parents deserved it too for trying to bind her to someone she didn’t want.

  Only Ari stayed. Elysia’s father shot him an intimidating look, but it had no effect on the guardian. Ari perched his hands on his hips and shook his head. “If they’re bound, that makes us family. Sorry, D, but you’re stuck with me now.”

  At least Cerek had one person on his side. Correction, two. He had Elysia. He squeezed her hand.

  “I don’t believe you’re bound,” Demetrius said when the Argonauts had all left.

  “Believe it.” Elysia let go of Cerek’s hand and tugged the edge of her pant leg up so her parents could see the Alpha and Omega marking on her ankle.

  “Holy skata.” Demetrius stiffened, and that vein in his temple pulsed faster. “Who did this?”

  “Delia,” Elysia answered.

  “Fucking witch,” Demetrius muttered.

  Elysia crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, seeing as how you’re part witch, I guess that’s a diss on you, and me, patéras.”

  “Elysia.” The queen squeezed her mate’s arm and stepped forward. She sent Cerek a worried look before focusing on her daughter. “Your father has every right to be upset. We had no idea where you’d gone last night. We’ve been sick with worry for hours. And then we find out you ran off and were bound? How could you do that without—”

  “How could I?” Elysia’s voice lifted, and her arms dropped to her sides. “How could both of you? You were going to bind me to Nereus like I was nothing but property. And don’t try to deny it,” she added when her father opened his mouth, “because I know it’s the truth. You’re not upset I’m bound. You’re upset you didn’t get to benefit politically from the arrangement.”

  Tension curled like a thick fog all through the room. A tension Cerek knew he was responsible for.

  “That’s not true,” the queen said softly. “Your father and I talked last night and we both agreed there would be no binding, to Nereus or anyone, unless you were in favor of the union. And any discussions we had on the matter were done in an attempt to keep you safe—then and now. That’s our duty as your parents, Elysia, to keep you safe. If Zeus—”

  “If Zeus comes after me, I know how to take care of myself. I killed harpies on Pandora. I trained with the Sirens on Olympus. Not only that, but I escaped from both the gods and that hellhole of an island. How many Siren recruits do you know who’ve done either of those things? How many Argoleans? I’m not the weakling you both think I am. And I wasn’t about to be bound to someone you picked out just because you think I can’t take care of myself. I’m not a child anymore—”

  “We know you aren’t,” the queen said.

  “—and I’m done letting you treat me like one.”

  “Then start acting like a grown-up,” Demetrius cut in.

  Elysia’s mouth snapped closed, but her hard, narrowed eyes pinned on her father told Cerek she wasn’t about to back down. And the way Demetrius glared back at her was a big red warning flag that this argument was nowhere near over.

  Cerek didn’t want to be
the cause of a rift between her and her parents. Family was something he’d never known. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he was the reason she walked away from hers.

  “The binding was my idea,” he said. “Not because I think she needs me to keep her safe, but because I love her.”

  Elysia turned his way, and when their gazes met, he felt that connection deep inside. The one he’d felt from the very first. Her eyes softened, and she reached for his hand once more. As her warm fingers slid around his, he knew this was right. That they were meant for each other. That it no longer mattered what anyone thought.

  He looked back at her parents. “She saved me, more than once. On Olympus, on Pandora, here. And I wasn’t about to lose her, to you or Zeus or anyone. So if you want to be pissed at someone, be pissed at me.”

  Demetrius crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the desk, but his jaw was a little less clenched, his expression a bit more relaxed. The queen’s mouth softened, and her chocolate eyes grew damp. From the corner of his vision, Cerek saw Ari smile like an idiot.

  The tension in the center of his chest uncoiled.

  “Materas,” Elysia said, her voice gentling. “Pampas… I know this is not what you envisioned for me, but this is what I want. This is my choice. I love Cerek, and I would have chosen him even if I’d never known about the arranged binding with Nereus.” She looked toward her father. “You, of all people, should understand. Once we found each other and realized who he was and that I was his soul mate, this was inevitable. I know you have—”

  “Whoa.” Demetrius dropped his arms and pushed away from the desk. “Soul mate?” He looked between Elysia and Cerek. “She’s your soul mate?”

  Icy fingers squeezed the air from Cerek’s chest. He tried to remember back to what Elysia had told him about the whole soul mate connection.

  “Holy skata.” Demetrius’s jaw tightened once more, and he glanced toward the queen, whose own worried expression sent Cerek’s pulse up all over again.