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Isadora jumped at the sharp rap against her window.
It was nearly midnight. Her latest sentry, Gryphon, was keeping guard and talking smack with anyone who ventured by. The last time Isadora had checked, he’d been flirting up a storm with the kitchen help—a young girl no more than thirty—who’d brought up Isadora’s dinner.
Isadora had heard laughing beyond her suite. And of course she’d peeked. She thought back to the way the giant blond Argonaut had twirled the gynaíka’s red hair around his finger and looked down into her eyes with that mischievous glint. And the way the girl had seemed mesmerized by him even before he’d opened his gorgeous mouth to whisper in her ear.
There was something disgustingly wrong with her world. The strongest and most virile males were the Argonauts. They also happened to be the most attractive and the most dangerous—on more than one front. Oh, she’d heard rumors about their sexual appetites and the way gynaíkes supposedly threw themselves at their feet, but she’d never had the chance to view any of it in action firsthand.
Now? Good gods. The sexual heat the two had been throwing off could be felt all the way inside Isadora’s room—even with the door closed.
Was that how Theron reacted to other gynaíkes? Is that what she could expect once they were married? Him flirting and making plans with other females? She knew there was no chance she could ever satisfy the guardian. In fact, what if he was off with another gynaíka right now?
Surprisingly, the thought didn’t upset Isadora. If anything, it gave her hope. Because if there was someone else out there for him, perhaps there was still a chance he wouldn’t want to marry her after all.
Frowning, she glanced at the door. And thought back to the way Gryphon had touched that girl outside. She’d seen that lust-filled look on a man’s face before. When she’d been in that human strip club looking for her sister.
Her skin tingled as she thought back to the patrons of the seedy establishment. What kind of man went there? There’d been plenty of roughnecks, a few higher-class individuals, and a whole lot of young men—college kids?—who’d obviously been out for a good time. But the one man her brain kept skipping back to, and the one that had shocked her more than any other, was the scarred blond behemoth Acacia had talked with briefly that night.
Who was he? How did they know each other? And why had he been staring at Acacia so intently?
The tapping at her window again brought her head around. She stared toward the dark glass, didn’t see anything, then nearly came out of her skin when something hard hit the pane.
Rising slowly from her chair, she rubbed her hands down her thighs and stepped toward the darkness. Her reflection peered back at her, thin and pale. She ignored the image and looked beyond. To the twinkling lights from the city below shimmering in the distance. Narrowing her eyes, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.
“Red’s a good color on you, Isa.”
Isadora whipped around so fast, she nearly lost her balance.
From the middle of the room, Orpheus laughed. “Don’t tell me you weren’t expecting me.”
Isadora pressed a hand against her stomach. “You startled me, that’s all. You know I hate it when you poof in like that.”
Orpheus shrugged, his light brown hair falling into his eyes in the process. “Some ándres can lift tall buildings. I simply poof through them. There are worse powers to have.”
Yeah, she could think of something worse. Like not having any powers at all anymore.
She pushed that lovely thought aside as her gaze swept over Orpheus. He was built like the Argonauts, so tall she had to crane her neck to look up at him. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, roped muscles. As he hailed from Perseus’s line, he could have served with the guardians, had he not been passed over in favor of his younger and stronger brother, Gryphon.
And wasn’t it just convenient Gryphon was standing outside her room right now? Good thing Orpheus had poofed in here after all. The last thing Isadora needed was a hand-to-hand in the middle of her sitting room.
His sandy brown hair was longer in the front to fall over his eyes, shorter in the back; he wore a black T-shirt, low-slung black jeans, clunker military boots and a long black leather trench coat. She, like every other Argolean—maybe more than other Argoleans—was fascinated with human styles and peeked through the portal just to see what they were doing and wearing. But unlike other Argoleans, Orpheus made a habit of bouncing back and forth from world to world unnoticed to satisfy his deviant pleasures, and he didn’t care what anyone thought of him. That was obvious in his speech and dress. And in the way he carried himself as if ready to pounce on anyone who looked at him sideways. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to wind up dead from it.
Orpheus tipped his head to the side. “You don’t look so well, Isa. Don’t tell me you’re pining for your Argonaut. Word on the street is he ditched you.”
Isadora glared. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Theron’s taking care of Argonaut business before our…binding ceremony.”
A ghost of a smile curled Orpheus’s mouth, and Isadora cursed herself for the stammer that proved just how freaked-out she was by the whole marriage thing. Showing weakness in front of Orpheus was a bad idea.
“Sounds exciting. Both the business at this important time and the binding ceremony he’s not bothering to prep for. You’ll forgive me if I don’t attend. I figure if the groom can’t make it a priority and all that, why should I?” He flopped onto a plush white sitting chair across the room while Isadora clenched her jaw. “I mean, let’s get real, Isa. If the big, bad stud were here now taking care of family business, I wouldn’t be, would I?”
“You are an ass.”
Orpheus’s smile widened. He kicked his feet out to rest them on the low glass coffee table. “Aw, now Isa. You hurt my feelings. You really do. Here I am, giving up my precious sleep to help you—again—and what do you do? You hurl insults at me.” He tsked and shook his head. “Breaks my heart. It really does.”
Orpheus wasn’t here simply because he was worried she would spill the beans on his secret, but because he knew she was desperate enough to call him. And that put him in the driver’s seat. Refusing to show him an ounce of weakness, she lifted her chin. “What’s it going to cost me?”
“Depends.” He arched one wicked brow. “What exactly are you asking for?”
She thought for a minute. Then said, “Persephone.”
His rolling laughter was like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard. “Wait, let me check.” He held up a finger, glanced around as if he were listening for something, then shook his head. “Yeah. No. She won’t give you five minutes.”
“But she would for you,” she said quickly, ignoring his sarcasm. “If you asked her.”
His expression said that wasn’t a guarantee. “Even if I wanted to, her SOB of a husband won’t allow it.”
“He doesn’t have to know.”
Orpheus’s eyes narrowed. “And how do you plan to keep Hades from knowing? Did your Argonaut teach you that Jedi mind-trick thing?”
She ignored the comment, because she wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. She wouldn’t need mind tricks if she had Orpheus’s cloak of invisibility. He used it to sneak into the beds of the human women he ravaged, and he’d let her borrow it before to cross through the portal unchecked when she’d gone looking for Acacia. The cloak was so strong, it worked on both humans and gods alike.
“Oh, no,” Orpheus said, reading her expression. “Not on your life.”
“I may not have much of a life left. And you’re the only one who can help me, Orpheus.”
His eyes flashed green in that daemon way of his, then returned to their normal shade of gray. For a moment, fear raced through her, but she beat it back. She was the only one who knew of his true lineage—she and his father, a past Argonaut who was now, conveniently, dead. Not even Gryphon knew his brother was half daemon. The only reason Isadora had discovered the truth was because she’d secretly followed him into the w
oods one night, where he often trekked alone for reasons she didn’t understand, in the hopes of convincing him to help her, and had seen what he could turn into.
She inwardly shuddered at the thought. She could have slinked away. Could have returned to Tiyrns and turned him in. But a vision had stopped her. It had been the last one of the future she’d had before her powers had dried up. And in it, Orpheus—in his daemon form—had saved her.
He looked toward the dark windows. “I don’t owe you shit.”
She knew he was lying. He knew she held his fate in her hands. One word from her and he’d be executed. If Argoleans discriminated against humans, it was nothing compared to what they’d do to a daemon living among them.
Silence stretched between them. She half-expected Orpheus to poof his way right out of her suite. And then he said, “Tell me why.”
“It’s personal.”
“Tough shit. If you’re asking me to go out on a limb to get you Persephone, then you better cut the personal crap.”
Isadora bit her lip in indecision. In the end, she knew she didn’t have a choice.
Before she lost her courage, she reached for the hem of her skirt and slowly lifted so he could see the marking high on the inside of her right thigh. The winged omega symbol. The one she’d never understood until recently.
Orpheus’s eyes grew wide and he swore in his native tongue.
Yup. He obviously knew what the mark meant. But then, being half daemon, of course he would.
She dropped her skirt back into place. His smug expression had been replaced by a “holy skata” one she knew she would never forget. “I need to see Persephone because she’s the only one who can influence Hades to alter the pact.”
His shocked gray eyes slowly lifted from where he was still eyeing her skirt up to her face. If there was one other person in all of Argolea who didn’t want to see the prophecy come true, it was Orpheus. “And what if he won’t?”
“Then you and I are both likely dead.” She narrowed her eyes. “Now tell me, are you going to help me or not?”