The agonizing cry of pain that echoed in his ears was his own, even though his lips didn’t move.
In his mind, Gryphon kicked out at the vulture attacking his right leg, but his body didn’t answer the command. It never did, even though he wished and willed and prayed for just an ounce of movement. Frozen in place, he breathed deep through the pain and closed his eyes—the only part of his body he could move—blocking out the vultures and the view he’d looked out at for the last three months: jagged black rocks that made up the ground and mountains. Red-gray clouds above that swirled and boiled but never let loose the cleansing rain he sought. A canyon mere feet in front of him that dropped to a gurgling lava river, and a hot acrid wind that blew across the barren land, the heat so intense it seared what hair he had left on his skin, dried his eyes, and made him wish for annihilation.
But annihilation wouldn’t come, just as moving even one limb was a pipe dream he should stop fantasizing about. This depraved land was his eternity. Tartarus. Hell in all its glory. And though today’s torment would soon be over, he knew another would take its place tomorrow. When he awoke in the morning whole and healthy, just as he did every morning, only to be subjected to another round of torture more agonizing than the last.
Tears burned the backs of his eyes. Tears that would never fall. He turned his mind from the pain rippling through his body and imagined home.
Argolea.
The blessed realm of the heroes. Where his ancestors had dwelt. Where his Argonaut kin remained. Where his brother lived, whole and healthy and alive.
He felt himself flying, could see the entirety of his homeland as he looked down. The blue-green Olympian Ocean with its white sand beaches, the emerald green fields, the majestic snowcapped Aegis Mountains and the city of Tiyrns, gleaming white marble in the setting sun. He wondered if the Argonauts were in the castle or out on patrol. If Orpheus was with them as he should be. If his brother wondered where he was now. Did Orpheus care that Gryphon had been sentenced to Tartarus even though he’d never done anything to deserve it?
That’s a bloody lie.
“No. It’s the truth.”
You’ve killed more than your fair share. The blood of innocents stains your soul.
“If I killed, it was done out of duty.”
Ha! There is no duty in death. Only misery. Which you now well know.
The voice mocked him. He hated the voice. Fought against it. And yet it was the only constant in this ever-changing hell. “I am an Argonaut. I did what was asked of me.”
Not anymore. You’re nothing. You’re dinner. Look at you. You can’t even move.
“I served. I saved—”
You’re pathetic. Whom did you save? You can’t even save yourself.
“I—”
Go ahead. I dare you. Save yourself, stupid. I’d like to see it.
His tears burned even hotter, but still no wetness slid down his cheeks. He focused every bit of strength he had left in an attempt to move one muscle. Just a fraction of an inch.
I knew it. See? You’re worse than pathetic. You’re navel lint. You’re the crud on the bottom of the other Argonauts’ shoes. You’re—
“Stop it!”
—dead…
“So are you! If I’m dead, you are as well. Now who’s the pathetic one?”
Silence descended. He waited. Listened. Hoped. Only the voice didn’t even sigh. A bone-chilling emptiness slithered into its place until all he heard was the tearing of his flesh as the vultures continued to pick him apart.
“Wait. Come back. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean…Please? I’ll be nice. I promise.”
Nothing.
Dear gods, he was going crazy. He couldn’t continue down this path, hoping and wishing for something that was never going to happen, arguing with himself only to spiral headlong into insanity when he awoke day after day after miserable day to be tortured all over again. There had to be a way out. Even if it was just up one level in this terror-filled infinity.
Blackness spiraled in. The end—at least for today—loomed close. Even though he couldn’t move, his body felt heavy, his mind a brick falling fast. And as he separated from what was being done to him, tried to think of a way out of this never-ending hell, the irony wasn’t lost on him. As a descendant of the famed hero Perseus, his power had been the ability to freeze his enemies for a few minor seconds, just enough time to get the upper hand. It didn’t matter that he’d rarely used that gift. He was now paying for it.
Would always pay for it.
“Please.”
There was no use begging. There was no one to hear him. Not even the voice. Blackness closed in until all he saw was one tiny pinprick of light.
He was alone.
Dead.
Forever.
How could Orpheus be both daemon and Argonaut?
Skyla’s mind whirred with impossibilities as she stood in the trees, staring at Orpheus, and thought back to what she knew of the Argonauts. The seven strongest heroes had been chosen by Zeus himself to protect both the Argolean realm and the human world from Atalanta’s daemons. Though Zeus and the other Olympian gods couldn’t cross into the blessed realm, they sure as hell kept tabs on what happened there, and they were fully aware which descendents from each line served with the Argonauts. There was no way a daemon hybrid could have slipped in unbeknownst to them. And the fact that neither Zeus nor Athena had bothered to tell her cut deep.
Her spine stiffened. She was being played. There was more going on here than simply a daemon gone wrong who was pressing Zeus’s buttons.
“Well?” she asked.
“Consider me gifted and talented.” Orpheus grasped the dead daemon at their feet and dragged it across the damp earth toward the river.
His snarky comment wasn’t lost on her. It was the same sort of response she would give when she didn’t want to actually answer. How in hell was this all possible? The only thing clear at the moment was that he was moving more slowly than he had before. When he came back for the second dead daemon, sweat covered his forehead and blood began dripping from the wound near his ear all over again.
Daemons healed quickly. So did Argonauts. But apparently the shifting process took something out of him. Questions pinged around in her brain, questions she wanted—needed—answered. But she could see she wasn’t going to get them now. Not with him in this condition.
She dragged what was left of the third daemon to the river herself. When she got close, she let go of the body, stepped over it, and grasped the legs of the daemon Orpheus was trying to hurl into the water. She could see he’d filled the beast’s pockets with rocks and was having a hard time lifting him.
He stilled, stared at her for a long second. Moonlight accentuated the muscles in his jaw, the strength in his neck, the width of his shoulders. “Working with the evil daemon Argonaut now?”
“It’s either that or watch you struggle. Consider it my good deed for the day. I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog.”
He harrumphed, hefted the daemon’s upper body. “If under’s the position you like, woman, all you have to say is when.”
“Ha. The state you’re in now, you’d never be able to keep up.”
A glint lit his eyes, but he didn’t respond. And that more than anything told her how much he was suffering. She helped him hurl the other bodies into the river and reminded herself to stay on her toes. He may look docile right now, but he wasn’t. Not really. And even though he was sexy—tall, strong, with sandy brown hair that needed a trim and a day’s worth of stubble on his chiseled jaw—he was still a threat. Though a threat that intrigued her.