by Addison Fox
He stood over her, his booming voice delivering his harsh edict as his parting anger replayed before her eyes.
As she did so many lifetimes ago, she whispered her plea.
“I have protected you, as I gave my word I would do. Your mother asked me to hide you. To keep you safe. I have done my duty, Zeus.”
“There will be nothing for you!” Zeus swept his arm in a bold arc, light flowing like a river from the end of his lightning bolt. “You will have what is coming to you, Adrasteia. Forever.”
Another scream.
Another anguished cry.
On a wild, soul-searing shriek, she clutched at her stomach, desperate to stop the pain.
And prayed it would all go away.
Callie and Emerson worked over Ilsa. They’d chanted for what felt like a lifetime, but in reality Kane knew it hadn’t been more than about an hour.
It was endless.
Ilsa screamed as she let out dark, desperate moans. Once he even swore she begged for death.
“What’s wrong with her?”
Emerson broke her chant, but continued her elaborate hand motions. “The punishment built into the spell has attacked the weakest part of her body.”
Realization dawned bright and clear. “The hole.”
“Hole?” Callie looked up. “What hole are you talking about?”
“There’s a tear in her soul. She sustained it on the journey to Hades. It took too long for us to get there. This happened along the way.”
Quinn stepped forward. “What happened?”
Kane grit his teeth, bit back the anguish and pain, when all he really wanted to do was let his scorpion off the leash so they could both go postal on everyone.
“The scientists she carried figured out a way to escape their bonds.” Kane gave them all a quick update, hitting the high points and avoiding a treatise on particle physics.
Concern etched Quinn’s features, his eyes downcast. “I shouldn’t be here.” With stiff movements, he left the room. Kane watched him go, but refused to follow.
The bull could wallow by himself.
“Why isn’t anything working?” Kane paced the length of the room again, the poison in his own veins tap-dancing on his lungs to a merry tune only it heard.
Emerson walked around the room, chanting as she went, seeming to pull energy from the air. Kane turned to Callie with questing eyes, but her shoulders only rose on a note of confusion.
Unwilling to keep his gaze off of her for more than a few seconds, Kane turned back toward Ilsa. Her skin grew increasingly pale, her lips taking on a faint, bluish tinge.
She was an immortal, damn it! An immortal with her head firmly intact.
There had to be a solution.
An antidote.
Something.
“Kane, I have an idea.” Callie beckoned him over. “Here. Stand at her head and keep contact with her. I want her to feel the warmth of human touch. Don’t let go of her.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just try it.”
Callie ran from the room, leaving Kane to his thoughts. Quinn had already left and Brody and Ava were in the upstairs library, researching whatever they could find on dark spells. Callie had put Drake to work in the kitchen, watching over a pot of soup she had on.
Although the Pisces had complained at first at being relegated to an inactive job, at Callie’s urging—and wise words—he’d come around. “She’ll need fortification when she awakes.”
The low, quiet chants from Emerson were the only thing to fill the room besides his increasingly dismal thoughts.
Callie burst back into the room, a gold lyre filling her hands.
“Music?” Kane spat the word. What the fuck was this? Playtime at day care? “You think that’s going to help her?”
Callie’s gaze was direct, her tone even more so. “You have any better ideas?”
What was it about the woman that she could incite remorse in an instant? “No.” On a deep breath, Kane tried a different tact. “What prompted this idea?”
Callie positioned herself on an opposite chair, settling the instrument in her lap. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. This is a golden lyre. Although I’m not nearly as adept as Orpheus, I can play a bit of music.”
“You really think this will help Ilsa?”
“Orpheus was able to cheat death in the Underworld by playing his lyre. Between her association with Hades and her innate strength as an immortal, perhaps the music will aid her body in knitting itself back together.”
Kane ran over the last several days in his mind. “Close the hole? But the scientists told us that was impossible.”
“At this point, my goal is to remove the ravages of the spell. Because this is the weakest part of her body, it’s the root of her suffering.” Callie held the instrument aloft and plucked several strings in a series of chords. “We’ll worry about trying to repair the hole later.”
With exquisite care, Callie played several more rounds of scales, before moving into a soothing, stirring song. The notes hung in the air from each pluck on the strings, then seemed to hold there for a few moments, the quality of the music so beautiful—so pure—it seemed they had extra weight.
Kane maintained his touch, but shifted between watching Ilsa for any signs of life and Callie as she played, her eyes closed as the music absorbed her.
Was it possible? Were Ilsa’s lips less blue than before?
Emerson moved to the foot of the couch, her hand on Ilsa’s leg as she continued chanting. And as they sat there, everyone else in the house found their way back to the living room.
Brody held Ava in his arms as they took a place on the end of the couch. Drake came back and took a seat next to Emerson.
Even Quinn returned, although he maintained a spot at the doorway, unwilling to come into the room.
“Kane,” Emerson breathed on an exhale. “Look. There’s color in her cheeks.”
Emerson was right. Color filled Ilsa’s face and the pain that etched her brow was receding.
When he glanced at Callie, his gaze met hers, her round eyes full of understanding before she closed them again and turned herself over to the music.
They sat there for a long while.
Callie never stopped playing the beautiful music that filled up the house with sound. Eventually Emerson reached for Drake’s hand and held it tight as they waited. Brody and Ava sat wrapped around each other, their gazes focused on Ilsa.
Through it all, Quinn never left the doorway. He stood statue-still, but Kane saw the emotion that roiled in his eyes. The concern stamped on his forehead. The weight of his conscience that rode his shoulders.
Kane returned his focus to Ilsa and watched as her breathing came easier. As her cheeks continued to pinken.
And then she opened her eyes.
That piercing blue gaze penetrated straight through to his soul. With a raspy voice, Ilsa smiled. “Does she take requests?”
Chapter Twenty-four
“Kane. Wecan’t miss the meet.”Ilsa swiveledon a stool in the kitchen, a steaming mug of tea in front of her. Or a tisane, as Emerson had informed her a short while ago. She felt surprisingly strong considering the nightmarish trip through her memories.
Or was it real?
Although the moments with Zeus felt like a real memory, she hesitated to say the same about her boat ride with Charon. Had she truly been that close to death?
A slight shiver ran the length of her spine.
It didn’t bear thinking about.
Kane pointed to Drake. “Will you help me talk some sense into her? Nothing good can come of this.”
Ilsa interrupted before Drake could answer. “And nothing good can come if we don’t. It’s time to end this once and for all. If Emmett wants a meet on Mount Ida, then we’ll give it to him. But”—she glanced into her mug and swirled the contents with a spoon—“I need to go alone. I can’t drag all of you into this.”
Kane’s reaction wa
s even faster than she’d expected. “Absolutely not. I don’t even want you going there. I’m sure as hell not going to let you go alone.”
“We’re in this now.” Emerson’s gray gaze was clear and full of promise. “All of us.”
Ilsa struggled against the wellspring of hope that bloomed in her chest at the words of solidarity. “But how can you say that? You weren’t even a part of this yesterday. How can you want to do this?”
Emerson’s eerily luminescent gray eyes took on a slightly dreamy look. “I’ve spent my life hoping for something like this. Something to make my gifts matter.”
“Of course they matter,” Drake added. “Look at what you can do.”
“No. I mean really matter. Use my gifts to truly help others. All of you have the power to change lives. My grandmother told me about you all years ago. The Warriors, vested in another age and tasked to protect humanity. This is the chance I’ve been waiting for.”
Quinn stepped into the room from where he’d taken up position in the doorframe. “You’re not going alone, Ilsa. We’re going with you. Or at least I am. We leave at three, for whoever else is in.”
And then he did the oddest thing.
Ilsa saw Quinn come closer, saw his head bend down—and still, his actions didn’t register.
Until he planted a soft kiss on her cheek.
Stepping back, the bull turned and walked right back out the door.
Had that really just happened?
Wonder filled Ilsa as she looked around at the remaining faces in the kitchen, all of whom peered right back at her. The same feeling she’d had when they entered MI6 came rushing back to her in a flood.
She had people to stand for her.
With her.
She had friends.
With a glance at Kane, she acknowledged she had more than friends. She had a man she loved.
For the moment, at least, it was more than enough.
“Let’s walk through this one more time. Emmett wants a meet on Mount Ida.” Kane repeated the meager facts he already knew. “With what agenda?”
“So we can renegotiate our bargain.”
“Of which you have told him you’re willing to become a part of the bargain?”
Ilsa nodded. “Yes.”
“And the venue? His idea?”
“Yes.”
A distinct unease ran the length of Kane’s spine. He knew he should take some comfort in his surroundings, but even the proof of more than ten millennia of victories didn’t make him feel any better about the impending trip to Greece.
The basement of the brownstone where he and Ilsa stood housed endless rolls of ancient scrolls, several large maps and quite a few reinforced rooms they used for battle planning. Although the entire house was relatively safe, existing on both the human plane as well as Mount Olympus, its basic structure was still rooted firmly in a bed of Manhattan asphalt.
Because the foundation existed on the human plane, they needed extra precautions in the case of damage or even possible attack. The basement had several fireproof rooms they could house their ancient texts in and the walls were structurally fortified to cave in on themselves, forming a sort of cocoon around those items that were most precious.
One look at Ilsa and Kane wished he could wrap her in a cocoon. A magic bubble where nothing could touch her.
Especially not the fucking rat bastard sorcerer who had it in for all of them.
Frustration rode him hard as he dug through their cases of ceremonial swords. Although the Xiphos was an outstanding weapon for hand-to-hand combat and for eliminating Destroyers, it wasn’t of as much use in a larger battle. As basic protection, it hid easily on the body and served a purpose.
But for serious ass-kicking?
Kane’s gaze ran in hungry waves over the heavy battle swords in their arsenal. His personal favorite—a claymore—shined back up at him in all its glory.
With a quick lift, he tested its grip, the exquisite proportions of the sword ensuring it fit his hand with the ease of a glove.
Just a few feet . . . that’s all he needed. To get within a few feet of Emmett and finish what began three hundred years ago.
“Kane, please tell me you understand why I have to do this.”
He turned to find Ilsa, her eyes wide with unshed tears, staring from his face to the sword and back again.
“Honestly, no. I don’t.”
Ilsa moved toward him, reaching for his hand that held the sword and pressing on his arm to lower it. “Because I need to put my previous life behind me if I hope to have any future with you.”
“He tried to kill you, Ilsa. The trap on the vial of blood. It would have killed you if Callie hadn’t remembered the power of the lyre.”
“And it would have killed you instantaneously had you touched it. It targets weakness and right now, the poison has you in its grip.”
Rage. Pure, undiluted, frustrated rage swelled in his gut. Despite the urge to scream, Kane held himself back, his voice a harsh, quiet whisper. “I hate it when my brothers start in with their worrying bullshit and make me feel like a helpless little fawn. But from you?”
Kane stepped back and laid the claymore into its velvet keep. “When it’s from you? I can’t be the person I am called to be if I can’t protect you.”
“Oh, Kane, I’m not—”
He held up a hand. “No. Let me finish. All my life, I’ve been disinterested in any permanent connection with a woman. Women are for fun. I respect women—I love women—but I’m never sad to see one go. Even all those years ago. Yeah, I was besotted with Emmett’s sister, but that was all. I haven’t spent the centuries mourning her.”
“But that’s because she betrayed you. You might have felt differently if she’d returned your love.”
A harsh laugh bubbled from his chest. “Don’t you fucking get it? I’m in love with you! Great, fucking, gooey, embarrassingly mushy, I-want-to-write-a-freaking-poem, heart-wrenching love for you.”
At Ilsa’s wide-eyed stare, he continued. “I feel like a fucking lunatic. I’m a mess. A wimp-shit, fear-filled ass hat who is so in love with you I am in physical pain. And it’s not the poison. And it’s not Emmett. It’s you.”
He ran a hand through his hair, dragging the short strands into spikes as he went. “It’s you.”
Ilsa stepped up and laid her hand on his chest. The heat of her palms seeped into his skin, directly over the pounding beats of his heart.
“I love you too. Great, fucking, gooey, embarrassingly mushy, I-want-to-write-a-freaking-poem, heart-wrenching love. And that’s why I have to do this. Because in all my life, I’ve never felt that. For anyone. And I’m not starting a life with you with all my baggage still intact.”
“Emmett is a danger.”
“It’s more dangerous to leave him alone, lingering in our lives. I need to do this, Kane. I need to come to you whole. I can live without a piece of my soul that was stolen from me. But I can’t live without you.”
Kane pulled her into his arms.
Because really, how did you argue with logic like that?
Ilsa heard the drumbeats of the Corybants in the distance and a wave of nostalgia assailed her. Could she really feel any sense of softness for this place?
Was it even possible she had any room for good memories?
Apparently so.
Shaking it off, she pointed to a spot in the distance. “Mount Ida is at the top of this next precipice.”
“This is really the place?” Awe filled Emerson’s voice as they stood five across in a row. Ilsa, Kane, Quinn, Drake and Emerson. “Where are those drums coming from?”
“It’s the Corybants. They dance in armor, protecting the mountain. They’re the reason Zeus and I stayed undetected all those years ago. Every time Cronus tried to find us, the beating of the drums and the crashing of cymbals hid the baby’s cries.”
“The Lord of the Dance for the Stone Age crowd,” Drake added dryly.
Ilsa couldn’t stop the giggle t
hat rose up at the thought. “I suppose so.”
“Game faces, people. Come on.” Kane’s harsh bark quieted them, but Ilsa couldn’t resist shooting a quick smile at Drake.
While she wasn’t exactly looking forward to this excursion, it was time to put an end to this situation once and for all.
“What if Emmett’s set another trap?” Drake’s smile vanished as he stared at the cave that rose up in the distance.
“We’ve got Brody and Ava in position in Crete, should Emmett find a way to flee the cave.” Quinn said, his sword already in hand. “Add to the fact he doesn’t have the ability to port and we should be able to manage him between us.”
“And if we can’t?” Kane probed.
Quinn nodded. “Then we’ll go after him until we catch him. By the laws of balance, he violated his agreement with Ilsa. He used her for purposes that weren’t explained in advance and he betrayed the scientists by posing as a double agent and a person he wasn’t. We have a right to deal with him.”
“Damn straight we do,” Kane muttered.
Ilsa took a deep breath and tried to get the raging river of anxiety that drove her pulse into some semblance of order. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. In. Out.
The urge to smile vanished. “It’s time to go in. I’m going first.” Ilsa pointed to the mouth of the cave. “We need the element of surprise on our side and I want him to think I’m alone. I need you all to stay down here until I go in. Then stand to the side of the cave entrance as you listen for my signal.”
“We’ll be waiting, ready to enter at a moment’s notice,” Kane added. “How far between the mouth and the main room?”
Ilsa brought up a mental picture of the cave. The steps she’d taken for so many years. The steps she walked as she sought to soothe a crying baby. “It’s about ten feet from the mouth of the cave to the inner chamber. You’ll be close enough to hear us. Remember. When I say, ‘Emmett, I’m ready to deal,’ that’s when you all come in.”
“Men. Remember your mark. Quinn and Drake, flank the far sides. Brody’s covering the rear and will come in on our signal. Emmett’s mine.”
“You can kill him? Even if he looks like St. Giles when you do?” Ilsa probed.
