“Everything in our city concerns us.”
“Not him, and not me. Now go.”
The guard cast Titus a scathing look. One that screamed of malice and distrust—and—Natasa narrowed her eyes—heat?
Oh…shit. This was so not what she needed right now.
Reluctantly, the guard dragged her attention from Titus and glared Natasa’s way. Then turned for the door. “We’ll be right outside.”
Yeah, Natasa knew they would. This was getting better by the minute. And would make getting Titus out of here so much easier.
The tent flap closed in the guards’ wake. Natasa blew out a breath equal parts relief and frustration.
“Is this how all men are treated in your village?”
Titus’s deep voice brought the fine hairs along Natasa’s nape to attention. In addition to a chiseled body and gorgeous face, he had a great voice, deep with just a hint of rasp. And at the moment, it was even raspier than normal.
She turned away so she wouldn’t be tempted by him. Yeah right. She was always tempted by him. “It’s not my village. And yes, this is how all men are treated here. Amazons do not like men. Which is why your being here is a really bad idea. I told you not to get involved with me.”
“You’re not an Amazon.”
It wasn’t a question but a statement, and she didn’t feel like being vague right now. She unhooked the small pack from her waist and dropped it on the floor. After sliding her remaining dagger from the sheath at her lower back, she set it them on the small table. “No.”
From the corner of her eye, she watched him look up at his arms, bound to the tree above his head. Then back at her. But when she caught the gleam in his eyes, she no longer saw pain. She saw heat. A heat as hot as the one she’d seen blazing in his eyes when he’d looked at her in the safety of those trees.
“I could snap these ropes at any moment. I let you bring me here, ligos Vesuvius. Admit it, you wanted to get me alone so you could have your way with me.”
Yes…
No!
Her frustration bubbled up, and she faced him. A frustration that grew to bursting with each miniscule curve of his lips. “I don’t think you get what’s happening here. These are Amazons, not children.”
“They’re still girls.” He nodded toward the door. “Those two are no threat.”
“Those two are the least of your worries. How many Amazons do you think live in this city? No idea? I’ll tell you. At least eighty. And that’s not counting the nymphs they protect who’d turn you over to the guards faster than you could cry foul should you so much as look at them wrong. Two Amazons wielding swords are nothing? Try the entire city bearing down on you because they not only hate men, they see you as a threat. You’re only alive right now because I convinced them you were my prisoner. As soon as you challenge that, you’ll be dead. I’m the only thing standing between you and the afterlife, buddy.”
She turned for the door. She had to get away from him. There was something about him that riled her up. Distracted her. Made her want. And she didn’t have the patience for that right now. Not when she was running out of time.
“Why are you?”
She stopped a foot from the door. Why was she? Good question.
A memory hit before she could answer. The gentle way he’d taken care of her at the half-breed colony after her panic attack. How he’d seemed as astonished by that fact as was she was. How dangerous it had felt to be comforted by him. How right.
She might not have time to want. She might be dangerously close to an end she couldn’t even think about. But she was cognizant of the difference between right and wrong. And though she knew she probably couldn’t save the world, she wasn’t about to turn her back on it either. Not the way her father had.
“Because you once helped me.” She didn’t face him. Couldn’t. Because she was dangerously close to needing that comfort once more. And she, better than anyone, knew there was no such thing as comfort for her.
“Stay here and don’t do anything to antagonize the guards,” she said before he could answer. Reaching for the tent flap, she added, “I don’t have to tell you the one asset Amazons see in men. Their last queen ordered all male prisoners be bound and crippled. I’ll let you ponder why while I go meet with the Aella and try to save your life. Again.”
Chapter Six
Nick’s skin itched to the point he could barely stand still.
He shifted his boots against the gleaming floor, scanned the ballroom of the Argolean castle from the shadows, and wished like hell he was anywhere but here. Fighting daemons was more enjoyable than this form of personal torture. Even being sliced and diced by the fuckers was a step up from pretending he was having a good time.
A shadow moved to his left, and the scars on his back tingled. Without even looking, he knew it was Demetrius moving up next to him.
“Thought you’d left already.”
Nick’s spine stiffened. They rarely talked. For years they hadn’t even acknowledged each other’s existence. While Demetrius had been chosen to serve with the Argonauts, Nick had been banished to the human realm. Those who’d exiled him as a child had expected him to perish, but he’d survived. In fact, he’d thrived. And now not only was he the leader of the Misos, he was also the Council’s biggest fear because he was something not even the Argonauts could lay claim to. He was a true demigod.
“I was just about to.” Nick pushed away from the wall, intent on getting away from this farce of a celebration and his long-lost brother with whom he had nothing in common, when a swish of pink to his right drew his attention.
His breath caught, his feet stilled, and for a heartbeat, it was as if time and place and fate had no bearing. Isadora moved down the ornate steps on the far side of the room with all the splendor and regality she’d been born into. Her pale gown was open at the shoulders, dipped into her cleavage and fell all the way to her feet. Her short blonde hair had been pinned up, and the golden wreath of her crown sparkled under the chandelier lights and drew his gaze to the small gold drops at her ears.
But it was the smile on her face that increased the beat of his heart. The way she greeted each of her subjects, introduced them to Maelea and owned the room bursting with Argoleans and Misos and Council members dressed to the nines. And the way she looked his direction and that smile grew to a full-blown grin.
His soul mate.
“She doesn’t show it,” Demetrius said at Nick’s side, “but she’s nervous as shit about this celebration.”
His brother’s wife.
The air leaked out of Nick’s lungs like a balloon pricked with a needle, leaving behind an emptiness that consumed him from the inside out. Reality settled in hard, and sound returned—the instrumental notes of the four-piece orchestra in the corner, the voices chatting around them, the clink of glasses and the scuff of shoes across the marble floor. As did the tightness in his skin that reminded him this was not his place. This was nowhere he’d ever wanted to be.
His gaze settled on the roundness of her belly. To what should be holding his child but wasn’t. Awe turned to anger. And a bitter frustration he’d been living with for months, all because of the Argonaut at his side.
“She should be nervous. She’s not a leader. She’s a target.”
Demetrius shot him a look. “What does that mean?”
Darkness bubbled up inside Nick. A darkness he fought every moment of every day. A darkness that preoccupied him with the reality that if his brother were dead, he could have the one thing he wanted most.