Erebus was warm and content and more relaxed than he’d ever been.
The fire crackled in the fireplace as he dozed with Sera beside him in the big bed. She’d fallen right to sleep after he’d brought her to a fourth blistering climax—or maybe he’d been the one to drift to sleep; he wasn’t sure. Regardless, now, as he drifted in that space between sleep and consciousness with her heat warming the coldest places inside him, thoughts echoed in his mind. Thoughts he hadn’t considered until this very moment.
His draw to Sera—not just here but eighteen months ago on Olympus—made so much sense now. She was from Atlantis, the enlightened race, the golden utopian realm, and he was from darkness. She was everything he wasn’t—light instead of dark, selfless instead of selfish, resourceful instead of resigned. She balanced him in ways no one he’d encountered before her ever could. And he knew with her, he could lift himself to a place he’d never been able to reach on his own.
He wasn’t giving her up. He didn’t care what the Sirens said. He didn’t care what Zeus wanted. He needed her, and he’d do whatever it took to keep her with him.
He rolled toward her, reached across the space between them to draw her back against his body, and faltered when his hand met nothing but cold sheets and blankets. Tearing his eyes open, he lifted his head and looked across the bed, surprised to see her side empty.
He pushed up to sitting and glanced across the room illuminated only by the dying fire toward the darkened bathroom. His pulse picked up speed, and he quickly climbed out of bed, telling himself the whole time she was in there, only the room was empty when he reached it.
Panic shot through his chest, chilling all those places that had warmed because of her. One look at the closed window told him she hadn’t gone out that way. Turning back into the room, he spotted the open bedroom door, and reality hit him hard in the chest.
She hadn’t run. She’d walked right out of this room. And he’d been too blinded by pleasure to stop her.
His fingers shook as he dressed. He didn’t know how long she’d been gone, but he had to find her. Why the fuck would she run? They’d reconnected tonight. He’d seen it in her eyes, felt it in that space that hurt like a motherfucker in his chest right this moment. She was his. She knew she was his. What had spooked her into running when he knew she’d felt everything he had?
Zeus.
Fear stabbed like a knife straight through his heart, stilling his feet on the stairs.
Zeus could scare the fuck out of her and make her run. If the King of the Gods had been privy to what they’d done, if Zeus had any idea what Erebus was planning, he could have shown up here. He could have threatened Sera. He could have taken her.
He pushed his legs into a sprint and shot down to the tunnels. His enhanced sense of sight scanned the main corridors for any sign of her but he already knew she wasn’t in any of them. She was gone. She was outside the ruins. All he could do was hope and pray he got to her before Zeus took her back to Olympus.
The forest was dark and damp when he raced out of the tunnels and stilled in the silence to search for her. He couldn’t see her through the thick trees, but faintly he picked up the crashing of brush. Picked up racing heartbeats. Recognized heavy breaths and pounding footfalls.
Most were animals. He sensed elk not far away. A raccoon was in a tree a quarter mile to his left. And a cougar roamed the hillside to his right. But there was no sign of Sera.
He closed his eyes and focused on her, able to find her now because of his connection to her. Tuning in to his hearing, he searched the area for the familiar sounds of her breathing, the memorable scent of her skin. And located her a mile up the mountain to his right, not far from that cougar.
Using his god senses to zero in on her position, he flashed to that spot, muscles tight and ready to step between her and the King of the Gods. Except when he appeared at her back there was no sign of Zeus. No sign of anyone else but her. And she wasn’t running away as he’d expected. She was crouched on the ground with her hand inside an old, decaying log.
“Come on,” she muttered with no clue he was behind her. “I know you’re in here.”
Erebus had no idea what she was doing, but something about the scene, about her hair shining almost silver in the moonlight set the hairs on his nape straight to attention.
“There you are.” She exhaled what he recognized as a relieved breath and pulled something out of the log. He tilted his head to see over her shoulder and watched as she brushed dirt from a palm-sized silver coin.
“What are you doing, Sera?”
She jerked to her feet and whipped around to face him. Wide-eyed, she closed her fist tightly around the coin, hiding it from view. “Erebus. I—you scared me.”
“I see that.” He didn’t like the guilty look on her face or where his thoughts were going at the moment. “Tell me you have a good reason for running this time. Right out of my bed when I thought you’d enjoyed that as much as I had.”
“I...”
Warning signals fired off in his head when she couldn’t even formulate a simple answer, and that darkness inside surged right to the forefront. Warning signals that screamed she hadn’t felt any of the shit he had in that room tonight. “Start talking, Sera, before I come up with scenarios you don’t like.”
She swallowed hard and pulled whatever was in her hand against her chest. Her feet shuffled backward, and fear replaced the guilt in her eyes. The only thing that stopped her from bolting was the log at her heels that slowed her movement.
Before she could step back and over it, he grasped her wrist, pulled it away from her chest, and pried her fingers open. She yelped and tried to push his hand away, but he blocked her and stared down at the silver coin that was no bigger than her palm and stamped with an image of Heracles surrounded by the traditional Greek key design.
“I’ve seen this before,” he said in a slow voice, lifting it so he could turn it in the moonlight.
“Erebus... Don’t.”
“This is the Medallion of Heracles. The key that opens the doors of Argolea, the realm of the ancient heroes, to any being who possesses it.” His brow lowered in disbelief as he glanced back at her. “Where did you get this?”
She swallowed hard, and her gaze shot to the medallion still in his hand. “Just...give it back. Please.”
Something didn’t make sense. What the hell was she doing with the key to Argolea? He’d heard of its existence when he’d been with Hades, but it had been lost for years.
His jaw tightened. “Start fucking talking, Sera, because I can’t think of a single reason why you, the last surviving Atlantean, would have this key. Unless you stole it from someone and plan to sell it to the highest bidder.”
“Okay, just listen. And don’t do anything rash until I tell you everything, okay?” She lifted her hands in what he knew was a pleading move, but it did little to settle the darkness inside him. “I did steal it. From Zeus. That’s why he sent you after me. Not because I failed any of the Siren tests, but because I took the key so he couldn’t use it.”
His eyes flew wide. Not just because of what she’d done but because he hadn’t known the King of the Gods had come into possession of the key. Zeus despised the Argoleans and could do serious damage with this key. He bet Zeus also wouldn’t think twice about doing serious damage to the person who stole it from him.
“You know the story about the creation of Argolea, right?” she said quickly. “How Zeus created the realm of Argolea for his son Heracles to keep Heracles and his descendants safe from Hera’s wrath? When Zeus created Argolea, he created a border that was impenetrable to the Olympians. He thought that would protect Heracles and all the others. And it did, but it also prevented Zeus from crossing into Argolea whenever he wanted. To get around that, Zeus had Hephaestus forge a special key, that medallion in your hand. It grants the bearer of the medallion the ability to cross into Argolea, regardless of race. For hundreds, thousands of years, Zeus had no reason to use the key so he kept it hidden. And the place he chose to hide it was in the one realm he knew Hera had no interest in visiting: Atlantis.”
She wrung her hands together and glanced at the medallion. “He gave it to the queen of Atlantis to hold in safe keeping. It was hidden in my realm for ages, long before I or my parents were born. Zeus kept close tabs on it by seducing each and every queen so he could retrieve it whenever he wanted. But he made a mistake with the last queen. She sensed Zeus would one day use it for evil purposes, so she gave it to my father, and she told him to hide it in the human realm, someplace Zeus could never find it. And he did. He sent it with me and my mother to that half-breed colony in Russia. But Zeus discovered the queen’s deception. That’s why he destroyed Atlantis. That’s why he murdered my father and sent the Sirens to murder me and my mother. So he could get his precious key back and get rid of anyone who knew what had happened to it.”
Erebus’s gaze strayed to the medallion between his fingertips. It looked like a coin, but even he could feel the power vibrating inside the small metal disk. And he knew if Zeus caught wind he had it, the King of the Gods would do to him what his father Krónos had done to Erebus’s ancestors.
“Don’t you understand?” Sera said. “Zeus is looking for the water element. He needs only that to complete the Orb of Krónos, the circular disk that holds all four classic elements and has the power to start the war to end all wars. He stole the Orb from the Argoleans. It already holds the three other elements—air, fire, and earth. Zeus is convinced Prometheus, who created the Orb, hid the water element in Argolea, where the Olympians cannot cross, and Zeus is frantic to get into that realm and find the last element.”
She stepped toward him. “Erebus, if Zeus does that, if he finds the water element, he’ll be able to release the Titans from Tartarus. He’ll be able to command Krónos to wield all his evil powers for his purposes. And if he can do that, he’ll control every realm—Olympus, the Underworld, the oceans, Argolea, and even the human world. No one and nothing will ever be able to stop him.”
Understanding swirled in Erebus’s mind. And visions of Zeus wielding unlimited power burst like fireworks behind his eyes.
“Erebus.” Her soft fingers landed against his forearm, squeezed, gently. “If Zeus does that, he won’t just destroy the other realms as he did Atlantis. He’ll bring about death and destruction in ways even Hades cannot comprehend.”
She was right. With this key, Zeus had almost everything he could ever want. And every race would be enslaved to him...exactly as Erebus had been enslaved to the Titans and Olympians since his family had been stripped of their human forms.
“If what you say is true and Zeus had this, then why didn’t he use it immediately? And how did you even know Zeus had it?”
She exhaled a slow breath. “Remember I told you that I overheard Athena talking to one of the Sirens in the mess hall? That was true. But they weren’t just talking about Atlantis. They were talking about this key. The Sirens have been searching for it ever since he annihilated Atlantis and discovered it was missing. He figured my father must have hidden it with me and he was right. It was at that Russian half-breed colony. They were protecting it. When I left there, I thought it would be safe. I never thought his Sirens would find it. That’s what I overheard them talking about on Olympus. Something about the half-breeds registered as familiar, and after I left the mess hall that night, I went to the Hall of Sirens to look it up. That’s when my memories came back. That was the trigger for me. I remembered everything then. Everything I told you about hiding with the half-breeds for eighty years and Zeus eventually finding me on that island off Italy was true. I just didn’t tell you about this key.”
His gaze shifted to her face, cast in the shadows of the trees, and he searched her eyes for lies. But he only saw truth. A truth that made his spine tingle. “Why? Why did you keep this secret?”
She swallowed again and glanced at the medallion. He could tell she was itching to take it back but knew she wasn’t fast enough or strong enough to wrestle it from his grasp. “I-I wanted to tell you. I did.” Her gaze shot back to his. “But you work for Zeus. And you were sent to bring me back to him.”
Disbelief churned in his gut, a disbelief rooted in the knowledge that she didn’t trust him. “You think I want Zeus to have this kind of power?”
“Don’t you?”
His jaw clenched down hard. “Are you seriously asking me that question?”
“I—”
“I’m nothing but a fucking slave to Zeus. That’s all I’ve ever been to the Titans or the Olympians. That’s all I will ever be.”
Her shoulders sagged, and relief filled her eyes as her fingers tightened around his arm. “Then we have to make sure he never gets his hands on it.”
She was right, and yet he didn’t like the fact she hadn’t trusted him. Even after everything he’d seen in her eyes and the connection he’d felt with her, she still saw him as the personification of darkness. To her, he would likely always be only darkness because he came from Chaos and had served the three gods she considered the big evils: Krónos, Hades, and Zeus.
Motherfucker. Stupidity echoed through every cell in his body. He was good for a hot and dangerous fuck now and then but not for the truth.
“Why hasn’t Zeus used this already?” he demanded.
“I’m not sure. I don’t think he’s able to. There’s magic in it. Magic that is not from Olympus but from witchcraft. I remember my father and the queen discussing it. They thought Hephaestus had Hecate cast a spell over it that prevented Zeus from using it. From what I could gather, Hecate never wanted him to be able to use it either, so she cursed it. But it was only a matter of time before he broke that curse. Which is why I had to get it away from him.”
That made sense. But before he could say so, another thought hit him. One he definitely didn’t like. “And just how did you get this from Zeus?”
Her face flushed a gentle shade of pink, and for the first time since she’d started this plea to draw him to her side, she dropped her hand from his forearm. “Well, ah, I located its likely position on Olympus by following Athena, and then, well, I, um...” She scratched the back of her head and glanced down at the ground beneath her bare feet. “I overpowered the guards protecting it.”
His gaze narrowed on her nervous features. She’d said guards. Not Sirens. “Overpowered them,” he repeated slowly. “How?”
“With my Siren skills.”
A vibration lit off low in his gut. “Which Siren skill?”
She bit her lip, seemed to debate her answer, then finally said, “Seduction.”
Oh, no godsdamn way... “You fucked them?”
Her irate gaze shot up to his. “I didn’t fuck them. I just distracted them with seduction skills you taught me. Then I immobilized them with the hand-to-hand combat I’d learned, and I stole the medallion. Isn’t that what Sirens are supposed to do?”
Yes. But not his Siren. He didn’t care that she hadn’t actually fucked those guards. He didn’t like the thought of her using her seduction skills on anyone but him. Which he knew was completely hypocritical considering all the Siren trainees he’d fucked during his time on Olympus, but he didn’t care. They hadn’t meant a thing to him. She meant everything.
He closed his fist around the medallion and swept his other arm around her waist, yanking her tight against his body. She gasped and braced her hands at his chest, but didn’t try to push away.
“You’re not seducing anyone else, agápi. Got that?”
Her fingertips curled into his T-shirt. “Does that mean you’re not taking me back to Olympus?”
“That’s exactly what it means. You’re mine.”
“And what about you? Does that ‘mine’ thing work both ways?”
“Absolutely.”
Something softened in her eyes. Something he wanted to believe was trust, but a niggling voice in the back of his head whispered it wasn’t. “And the medallion?”
“Zeus can’t have it.”
The tension in her muscles eased where he held her. “We have to take it to Argolea. It’s the only place where it will be safe. You remember Elysia, right? The Siren trainee who escaped Olympus with Damon?”
Damon had been one of the Siren trainers Erebus had worked with. He’d always liked the mortal and had been oddly disappointed when he’d learned the guy was really an Argonaut who’d been duped by Zeus and that he wasn’t coming back. “Isn’t Elysia’s the Argolean princess Damon broke out of the Siren compound?”
“Yes. She’s in Argolea with him. But his name is really Cerek. They’re our way in. They’ll know what to do with the key and how to keep it safe from Zeus. That’s why I came here, to the half-breed colony, because I thought maybe there would be a way to signal the Argonauts from here. They allied with the half-breeds for many years before that colony was destroyed.”
Erebus knew all about the Argonauts. Do-gooders Hades—and Zeus—had bitched about in his presence on more than one occasion. “I know how to signal them.”
“You do?”
The excitement in her voice didn’t thrill him. He didn’t want her around any so-called heroes who might try to take her away from him, but he knew in the center of his gut that they weren’t getting back to any sort of seduction until they got rid of this medallion. “Yes, but I’m not about to call them unless you agree to one thing.”
Unease filled her blue eyes. “And what’s that one thing?”
He leaned close to her lips and breathed hot over her mouth. “That you promise to stop fucking running from me. I am not the one you have to fear. I’m the one who’s going to save you.”
* * * *
“I’m the one who’s going to save you...”
Erebus’s words in that damp forest echoed in her head as they crossed the portal into Argolea. She didn’t need him to save her. Didn’t need anyone to save her. She’d been on her own long enough to know how to save herself.
And yet, something inside her recognized that he wanted to be the one to save her. Which was a totally new experience for her and left her completely uneasy.
No one had ever cared enough to want to save her...no one but her parents. Sure, the half-breeds had kept her hidden and safe from Zeus’s Sirens for eighty years, but not because they’d cared for her. They’d done that simply because they didn’t want Zeus to have the key to Argolea, and quite possibly because they’d been afraid she might reveal their location and put them all in danger if they didn’t protect her. She’d had to beg and plead her case to finally get them to agree to let her leave the confines of the colony, and even then they hadn’t been thrilled with the decision.
That unease turned to a burst of guilt when she thought of the Sirens finding the Russian half-breed colony and destroying it, but at least she knew that hadn’t been her fault. She’d never told the Sirens a word about the half-breeds’ location. Now that she had her memory back, she was sure of it.
Erebus released her hand as their feet hit solid ground in the protected realm of the ancient heroes. Getting to Argolea had been a heck of a lot easier than she’d thought. Erebus, being a minor god, knew more about the key than she’d assumed. He’d flashed them to a mountaintop in Northern Greece and led her to a cave that looked as ordinary as any other she’d ever seen. He’d explained that the cave was actually the tomb of Heracles, and just inside there had been a small circular indentation that was the exact size of the medallion she’d stolen from Zeus. Anyone who didn’t know what it was for would have easily overlooked it, but when Erebus slid the medallion into the slot, a flash of light erupted around them and the portal to Argolea opened.
Four guards dressed in armor and carrying long spears rushed toward the raised dais where they appeared. Behind them, the portal lights slowly faded until there was only an ancient stone arch above them.
Sera stiffened, but Erebus slipped the medallion into his pocket and immediately stepped in front of her, shielding her as he held up his hands in a nonthreatening way. “Careful, boys. Pretty sure you don’t want to do that.”
The guards’ eyes flew wide. They clearly recognized he was a god, even if they didn’t know which one. As a unit, they crouched down in fighter stances, their spears held out menacingly in front of them, and shouted to each other with rapid words Sera didn’t catch. Another guard, one who must have heard the commotion, came running from another room, saw Sera and Erebus on the dais surrounded by spears, and sprinted toward a different archway flanked by columns.
“I don’t think we’re as welcome here as you thought we’d be,” Erebus muttered under his breath.
“They’re not used to people just appearing through the portal unannounced.” Pressing a hand against his forearm, she stepped around him.
“Sera—”
“We’re not here to cause any harm,” Sera said to the guards, ignoring Erebus’s warning. He might think he needed to save her, but he was the threat to these people, not her, and this time she was the one who was going to do the saving. “I’m a friend to your princess. Princess Elysia.”
The guards exchanged confused glances, and Sera knew she had to get them to understand if they were going to believe her. “We trained together on Olympus.”
The guards shouted again and shoved their spears forward. Sera’s adrenaline shot up as they jerked toward her, and she yelped and stumbled back into Erebus.
His arms closed around her as he pulled her against him and moved back three steps. “Not a great idea to mention Olympus,” he hissed in her ear.
He was right. She hadn’t thought that one through. Her mind spun with options. She didn’t want to take the key back to the human realm, where Zeus could possibly find them, but she didn’t see another option at this point. Living was better than being skewered two steps into this realm. “Can you use the medallion to open the portal again so we can get out of here?”
“I’m not sure.” He let go of her with one arm and reached for the medallion in his pocket. “I don’t know how it works on this side. If I can’t, we might have to make a run for i—”
“Holy Hera,” a voice exclaimed from across the room. A voice Sera vaguely recognized.
Footsteps echoed, and Sera looked toward the arched doorway, where a very familiar face peered up at them.
“Damon,” Erebus said in surprise, seeing the muscular blond male as well.
For the first time since they’d stepped into this realm, Sera breathed easier. “No, not Damon. Not anymore. He’s Cerek.” Her gaze dropped to his marked forearms, visible where his long-sleeved gray T-shirt was pushed up to his elbows, the ancient Greek text that identified him as one of the chosen warriors of the great heroes visible in this realm.
Cerek moved into the middle of the room, his eyes filled with confusion and disbelief. “Erebus? Is that you? Why—? When—? How the heck did you get—”
A horde of footfalls filled the room, and Sera glanced from Cerek to the other massive males rushing up behind him, each sporting the same holy shit expressions and the very same markings that identified them as Argonauts.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Erebus said, releasing Sera and moving up to her side. “And I’m not here to cause any trouble, so you can tell your guards to relax.”
“Stand down,” Cerek said to the guards. “The Argonauts will handle this.”
The guards looked less than thrilled, but they did as Cerek commanded and cautiously moved back to their posts, though Sera noticed their attention never left Erebus and they watched every single movement he made.
The Argonauts fanned out around Cerek, murmuring words to each other Sera couldn’t hear. Still clearly in shock, Cerek climbed the steps of the dais until he stood in front of them. “I don’t understand what you’re doing here. Or how the heck you even got here.”
“It’s a long story.” Erebus reached for Sera’s hand and glanced down at her at his side. “You remember Sera, don’t you? She was in the same training class as Elysia.”
Cerek’s gaze slid Sera’s way for the first time, and recognition flared in his brown eyes, but they were still laced with a helluva lot of confusion. “Yeah,” he said slowly, glancing back to Erebus. “Though I’m not quite sure what you’re doing here with a Siren.”
Sera’s back went up. “I’m not—”
“She’s not a threat either,” Erebus said, cutting her off as he squeezed her hand, telling her without words to let him handle it.
She closed her mouth and let him take the lead, but frustration surged inside her that he didn’t think she was capable enough to deal with an Argonaut. As sweet as it was that he thought she needed him to save her—which was still not exactly something she’d ever expected from him—she didn’t like being brushed aside as if she were fragile and incapable.
“But she is the reason we’re here,” Erebus went on, clearly oblivious to what was going on in her head. “And when you hear what she did for you and your realm and everyone in the human world as well, I think you’re going to be pretty damn impressed. Just as I was.”
Cerek looked down at her, expectantly awaiting an explanation, and from the corner of her eye she spotted Erebus gazing down at her as well. But she couldn’t think of any words to fill the awkward silence because all she could focus on were Erebus’s last words.
“Well then,” Cerek finally said, sensing she wasn’t going to speak. “I can’t wait to hear what you did. I’m sure Elysia would like to hear it as well. She’s back at the castle.”
The Argonaut was still talking. Sera could hear him speaking over his shoulder to the Argonauts and introducing them to Erebus, but she didn’t catch his words. She was too hung up on what Erebus had said.
He’d been impressed? By her? By what she’d done for this realm and the human world? He hadn’t seemed impressed in that forest. He hadn’t seemed anything but ticked she’d left his bed, then frustrated he’d been dragged into this mess. The god of darkness was all about seduction and control and domination when he wasn’t in Zeus’s presence, so his being impressed by anything other than sex when he was with her seemed completely out of character.
Somehow she found the strength to glance up at him. Voices continued to echo around her, but she didn’t hear them. And when her eyes met his, she didn’t see irritation or darkness or even a hint of that domination—sexual or otherwise—in his dark eyes. She saw awe.
An awe that told her he hadn’t lied when he’d said he felt a connection between them. An awe that completely rocked the ground right out from under her feet.