Avenging Heart

by Desni Dantone

  That was partly my job.

  From my seat in the first row, directly behind the tour guide, I asked, “What do you think about the legend that the entrance to the underworld is here?”

  Beside me, Nathan perked up, curious to hear what the gentleman had to say. The rest of the boat fell silent in anticipation, but the guide didn’t seem to notice.

  Apparently, this was a common question, because he fell into a monotone explanation that included early Greek myths, and burial rituals that occurred at the caves thousands of years ago. All scientific explanation for why the cave was believed to have been a portal to the underworld.

  But he didn’t actually believe it.

  A year ago, I probably wouldn’t have either, but one thing I had learned was that these so-called Greek myths were usually real. Few knew the truth, and they were all in this boat right now.

  The thirty-minute tour ended with us back where we started, and no closer to uncovering the hidden passageway to the underworld.

  “Anyone see anything that looked like a possible entrance?” Jared questioned as we stepped outside.

  “It could be anywhere.” Nathan stopped in front of a large sign outside the cave museum. On it was a map of the caves. “The tour only covers a tenth of the actual cave. We can’t get to the rest of it without scuba equipment.”

  A defeated silence settled over us as we stared at the expansive network of tunnels that made up the Diros Caves. Red dots marked the trail the boats took . . . and only dotted one tiny section of the caves. It continued for miles beyond where the guide had stopped the boat at a broad rock wall. Apparently, that had not been the end of the cave.

  It wasn’t close.

  ~ ~ ~

  The following days were spent talking to locals and trying to dig up a trail on the demigods. While the guys focused predominantly on that, I practiced a few spells with Lillian’s assistance. She remembered most of what she had known as an Incantator. Though I was a natural Incantator, I still had to learn how to perform the spells. Her guidance helped significantly.

  Even my dream-walking improved. I could pull both Callie and Alec into dreams effortlessly now . . . without intending to most of the time. Both nights, since we had settled in Areopoli, the three of us shared a dream.

  Nathan seemed relieved to have been left off the hook. He still insisted on keeping me on a rigorous conditioning and training regimen. Every. Single. Morning.

  We usually broke for showers and lunch before he handed me over to Lillian. While we worked on Incantation, Nathan joined the rest of the guys in their research.

  It was a nice routine. I was learning a lot.

  “Hey, guys! Come check this out!” Lillian called, waving to the group where they had assembled near the parking lot adjacent to the beach after an afternoon of detective work. As they gathered around us, Lillian gave me a nod.

  I channeled the power I needed, just as I had practiced, while I focused on a spot directly behind Alec. In a flash, I was staring at the back of his head. I tapped on his shoulder. His startled reaction caused everyone to spin around in my direction.

  “Shit, Kris!” Alec’s hand reached out to me as if he wanted to make sure I was real.

  I blinked out again, and zapped myself directly in front of Nathan. He flinched from my sudden appearance, and I turned to Lillian with a laugh.

  “I could have some fun with this one,” I told her.

  Nathan’s hands came down on my shoulders as if willing me to stop. “I’d bet you could.”

  “She’s moving too fast for an invisibility spell,” Jared mused.

  “That’s because it’s not invisibility,” Lillian returned. “She’s teleporting.”

  Alec’s eyes were wide when they met mine. “How far can you go?”

  “It has to be somewhere I can see,” I answered. “For now.”

  “For now?” Nathan spun me around. “Don’t be going crazy, flying off to God knows where, just for the hell of it.”

  “I won’t,” I snapped a little too harshly.

  “We wanted to see if she could take a passenger,” Lillian said from behind me, breaking up my mini-showdown with Nathan.

  “I volunteer!” Alec called.

  I left Nathan’s side to take a hold of Alec’s hand. I glanced at Lillian. “Do I do anything special?”

  “I don’t know. Just try it, and see what happens,” she shrugged.

  So I did. I zeroed in on a spot of sand several yards away, where the water lapped with gentle waves. Then I was standing there, my feet just touching the water, with Alec beside me.

  “That was awesome!” Alec hoisted me up, and spun me around with an excited whoop.

  I patted his arm to get him to set me down. Dizziness and spells didn’t work well together.

  “How’s your energy?” Lillian wondered.

  “Still strong,” I announced excitedly.

  I tried it with everyone, just to make sure that I could. By doing some experimentation, we learned that I had to be touching someone to make them teleport. I also had to envision them coming with me. Though it took an extra second of concentration on my part, the reward was worth the small delay.

  “How about glamour?” Lillian asked me after I had teleported everyone twice.

  “I practiced it a little bit back on the base,” I answered. “I was able to alter my appearance a little bit.”

  “And mine,” Alec offered. “You gave me some wild hair a few times.”

  Lillian smiled at Alec before turning her attention back to me. “Have you tried doing more than one at a time?”

  “I haven’t tried it at all since we left the base.”

  Lillian gestured around to our group. “Try altering our appearances.”

  “That might come in handy,” Jas muttered from the back of the group.

  All eyes turned to me as the significance of Jas’s words hit me. He was right. If I could alter our appearances, we could pull off just about anything. We could get close to Hades’ demigods without them knowing. Unless, of course, they had that weird built-in demigod radar that I seemed to have. But the others . . .

  They could be protected by my magic.

  My eyes squeezed shut as I channeled my energy to the surface. I altered myself first, and stifled a smile at the gasps of surprise around me before I pushed the energy outward. I reached Lillian first, and knew I had succeeded in altering her appearance by the low whistle that came from Alec’s direction.

  I altered him next, giving him a blonde mullet and a flannel button-up shirt.

  Jas’s booming laugh nearly undid me, but I moved through the rest of the group quickly before my impatience at seeing the results made me lose my focus. By the time I finished, everyone was enjoying their own fits of laughter.

  I opened my eyes to find Alec tugging on the wisps of blonde hair at his neck. He glanced down at the shirt he was wearing before hooking an eyebrow at me. “You made me look like Joe Dirt?”

  I shrugged unapologetically before checking out the others. The spitting image of Rambo in the center of the group did me in, and I joined the others in laughter—all of them, the embodiment of nineties movie characters . . . and one famous billionaire with an unfortunate head of hair.

  Jared folded his arms over his crisp business suit, his lips twitching as he fought to maintain his composure. “How long can you hold it?”

  “The glamour?” I shrugged. It wasn’t draining hardly any of my energy, despite glamourizing eight people. “I feel like I could hold it all day.”

  “Please don’t,” Alec begged. “I look ridiculous.”

  “We all look ridiculous,” Kira—temporarily the lady from the movie, Misery—added vehemently.

  “But look at our eyes,” Bruce added thoughtfully. “They don’t look like hybrid eyes.”

  For the first time, I looked directly at everyone’s eyes. They all looked human—completely human. With no way for other hybrids to recognize us.

  We would
be stronger—we were stronger—as a team, with my powers at the center.

  All we had to do was find the demigods.

  ~ ~ ~

  We took a break for dinner. Jared spread a map of the area out on our table in the corner of the diner, and we all crowded around it.

  “As you can see,” he started, “there’s not much around here. Only three small villages, each less than twenty minutes away. The next large city takes about an hour to reach.”

  “The demigods are not here,” Nathan stated confidently. “If they were, we would know it by now.”

  “Could they be hiding in any of those nearby villages?” Alec questioned.

  Jared nodded thoughtfully as he studied the map. “It’s possible.”

  “They’ve got to be around here somewhere, right?” Kira mused. I glanced at her, and caught her gaze as it shifted from Nathan to me. Her lips curved into a snarky smile reserved for me.

  I took the high road and ignored her. “Maybe we should check out the villages, work our way out.”

  “Move farther and farther from the caves,” Nathan agreed. “They shouldn’t have gone far.”

  “We’ll make this ground zero for a few days, while we scope out the neighboring towns,” Jared declared. “We’ll find them.”

  I wondered about the other known entrances to the underworld. What if the demigods had chosen another route, and were nowhere near where we were looking? We would have to locate the other entrances, and search all over again.

  I worried about how long it might take to find them. Each day wasted, I feared, put Alec in more danger of Circe’s wrath. And Callie . . .

  What if Circe found a way to fulfill the curse without my help?

  Time was our second biggest enemy, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it.

  After dinner, Jared and Bruce took the vehicle for a quick trip to the next town over. It was only a ten-minute drive, and they planned to spend the rest of the evening looking for any signs of the demigods there.

  Nathan held me back while the rest of our group retreated to the hostel. For a brief moment, I thought he had something nice planned for us. But no. He had an hour of hell planned.

  “We already trained this morning, and I spent all afternoon working with Lillian,” I whined. “Can’t you give me a break this time?”

  “We’re this close to the demigods, and you want to take a break?” He folded his arms over his chest in a display of perseverance.

  It was impossible to not notice the way the fabric stretched over his shoulders and arms. Even if he was a stubborn bull, he was a hot stubborn bull. And he was mine.

  “What?” he asked guardedly, though from the slight twinkle in his eyes, I suspected he had caught me checking him out, and knew exactly what I was thinking.

  “Nothing,” I lied. “Let’s go.”

  The only weapons we had at our disposal were our diamond-coated knives and the pistol Nathan carried with him everywhere. That meant no weapons training, which was perfectly fine with me. We fought in the traditional hand-to-hand sense. Fortunately, the beach was deserted. Otherwise, we would have had the police called on us for a domestic dispute within minutes of starting.

  So I got a little vocal from time to time. Fortunately, Nathan never took any of the things I said in the heat of the moment to heart.

  “Good,” he praised after I practiced a particularly difficult set of moves. “Free style?”

  “Ooh. My favorite. Bring. It. O—”

  My taunt was cut off by a shoulder to my midsection as Nathan plowed into me. My elbow dug into his back as I rolled away from him. We got to our feet at the same time, but I was the first to strike. Low and fast, like Nathan had taught me.

  I sent him flipping over top of me. I knew what he would do next. When he didn’t disappoint, I was ready for him. I evaded his leg sweep, spun around with the speed of a demigod, and shoved an open palm into the center of his chest before he managed to get to his feet—the move that indicated a fatal strike during practice.

  I must have hit him a little harder than I intended. He flew backwards several yards before landing with a thud on his back.

  “Oh, my God!” I exclaimed as I hurried to his side. “Nathan . . . are you okay?”

  I heard him groan as I dropped to my knees beside him. His head shook like he was trying to clear out of a daze, then his eyes landed on mine.

  “You okay?” I repeated tentatively.

  A few uneasy seconds passed before he answered me with a smile. Then he laughed—a laugh so deep, and full, and completely out of character for him, that I started to worry he had a head injury.

  He sucked in a breath long enough to get out the words, “You kicked my ass,” before laughing harder.

  As I watched his amusement, a smile broke out on my face. I had finally done what he had wanted me to do all this time. I had used my demigod strength . . . and executed it well.

  Go me.

  Nathan pulled himself together with a sigh. When his eyes met mine again, all traces of amusement were gone. “I’m so proud of you right now. Come here,” he ordered gruffly. His arm curled around my neck to pull me toward him.

  My heart soared from his praising words as our lips met. What started off as a congratulatory kiss quickly evolved into something much, much more. Our fight had not caused the amount of breathlessness Nathan’s demanding kiss caused me now. The more he coaxed, the more I wanted to give, and the more I wanted to demand for myself. Kneeling beside him with my head bent to his wasn’t cutting it anymore.

  I swung one leg over his hips and rose above him without breaking our kiss. It was easier to touch him with my hands. I started with his shoulders and moved down his arms, taking stock of every ripple under my fingers. By the time I reached his hands, where they gripped my waist tightly, I suspected both of us wanted to take this one step farther.

  I peeled away long enough to scope out the rest of the beach. Still deserted. The sea was calm, the weather pleasant. The sun had recently dropped below the horizon behind me, creating a brilliant pink and orange sky. Honestly, it was kind of perfect.

  The grin on Nathan’s face told me that he knew exactly what the hook of my eyebrow meant. The smoldering look in his eyes as he pushed himself up into a seated position, with me in his lap and my legs curled around his waist, suggested that he, at least partially, liked where my thoughts were going. But the tender way he kissed me now also let me know that what I hoped to happen wasn’t going to happen.

  “Dog walker,” he mumbled against my lips.

  “What?” I pulled back with a laugh.

  His head nodded to the side, and I turned to spy the distant silhouettes of a man and his dog down the beach.

  “There will be others,” he added between kisses. “Besides, the beach isn’t as great as it’s cracked up to be.”

  I supposed having sand stuck in unpleasant places didn’t sound like an enjoyable way to spend the rest of my evening. Not that I knew anything about that.

  I leaned away from another kiss. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

  Nathan tensed. His mouth opened, and shut again without a word.

  “It’s fine, Nathan.” I smiled despite the twisty sensation in my stomach. “I get it. You were the one who once told me you weren’t a saint.”

  He studied me peculiarly. “You remember that?”

  “I remember everything we talked about.”

  One corner of his mouth tipped up. “Then you know my past doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

  I couldn’t resist snuggling against him. It was impossible not to when he said the things he said sometimes—such a stark contrast to the times I wanted to kick him. Yet there was one thing that nagged me, and had for a while now.

  With my face pressed into his neck, I asked, “Could you just tell me one thing?”

  His heavy breath stirred my hair, and I suspected he was debating on which route was safer for him to take. Deny my request,
and suffer my wrath. Or agree, and respond to my question with an answer that may also bring on my wrath.

  I didn’t give him a chance to agree or disagree. “Kira? Was she . . . ?” I pulled back to study his face as I trailed off.

  He shook his head at the ground. “Kris, it doesn’t matter.”

  “When she gives me her snotty little looks like she’s keeping a secret from me, it matters. The next time I see it, she might end up getting hurt.”

  Nathan coughed to mask a laugh. When he looked at me, I tilted my head, silently repeating my question. He sighed warily.

  “A fling,” he admitted quickly. “After Lillian disappeared. That’s it. That’s all it was.”

  “A fling? Ew.”

  He shrugged. “You asked.”

  “Men,” I muttered.

  “Different,” he emphasized.

  I made a face that portrayed just how unimpressed I was. Ugh . . . what had I been thinking? I had known. Really, I had. Why had I needed to ask?

  His finger under my chin forced my face up to his.

  “I’m not about flings anymore,” he said. Again, with the words. “I’m all about you.”

  “Keep talking.”

  He smiled tenderly. “I want to be with you, Kris, in every way. I know you know that. It’s

  just . . .” He trailed off to feather my lips with a kiss. “I don’t want to rush anything, and I don’t want anything about it to be subjected to regret later.”

  “I would never regret—”

  “I’m not saying you would,” he interrupted quickly. “But if something were to happen, say a dog walker coming along at a bad time, that’s not something we can do over.”

  I nodded when it clicked. He wanted it to be perfect . . . for me.

  “But a private room all to ourselves?” I ventured.

  His smile grew. “Now that’s an idea.”

  I wondered what the chances were that one of the private rooms had opened. We hadn’t returned to the hostel all day. For all we knew, we were missing the advantage of having a private room while talking about the advantage of having a private room.