“Yes,” she said softly, “I am the same. And this does not concern you.”
He knew no one could hear or see her but him, but it was still weird to hear her voice so clear in this silent room. He chanced a look at Atalanta, afraid maybe her godlike powers would make her aware of the woman, but she slept on silently.
Excitement pulsed all over again at that realization. Didn’t concern him? No, it didn’t concern her. Or her useless glass.
He ignored the old woman as he moved to the edge of Atalanta’s bed. The pendant lay exposed above Atalanta’s cleavage. Her head was tipped to the side, one arm up by her face. Her other arm was draped across her belly. The closer he got, the stronger his confidence grew.
“Maximus…”
He reached out a hand.
“Maximus, don’t!”
His fingers grazed the pendant. Heat rushed into his limb at the first contact, and he sucked in a breath, not expecting the metal to be anything other than cold. Atalanta startled, and his gaze rushed to her face, his fingers frozen to the disk. For the first time, fear and the repercussions for being caught became very real in his mind.
An eternity seemed to pass. Sweat broke out on his skin, but he dared not move. Atalanta’s eyelids fluttered but stayed closed. With a soft grunt she shifted her head in the other direction and fell back into rhythmic breaths.
And Max felt like his heart started in that moment.
Wasting no more time, he leaned over and examined the clasp of the chain.
“You do not know that with which you tamper,” the old woman said, now at his side. Her voice vibrated, as if she were restraining her emotions. He continued to ignore her and used his other hand to help push in the heavy clasp. It opened with a soft click. When Atalanta still didn’t move, he slid one side free from her neck and gently tugged.
Atalanta grunted, shifted her head; then the chain was free and he was holding the disk in his hand.
“Maximus, this is not a mere trinket. It never should have been in Atalanta’s care, but it most definitely should not be in yours.”
The hollow disk radiated energy in his hand. It slid through his fingers, into his limbs and down into his chest until it reverberated through every muscle in his body. A sense of power washed through him, and he felt like he grew three times his regular size in the seconds that followed, even though physically nothing changed.
Cool.
A smile slid across his face. Moving past the old woman, he headed back through Atalanta’s sitting room until his hand landed on the outer door.
“Maximus.” The old woman appeared at his side again, almost as if she’d floated through air to join him. He didn’t look at her, his eyes still glued to the pendant. But from the edge of his vision, for the first time he realized she stood no taller than him. “It’s not too late. There’s still time for you to put it back. No one will ever know what happened here.”
“Why aren’t you afraid for her to have it?” he whispered, not looking away from the four empty chambers that were obviously meant to hold some kind of stones. He turned the disk in his hands. Each chamber was slightly different. One was round, one was oval, one diamond shaped. The last was triangular.
“Because she cannot wield its power.”
“But I can.”
The old woman didn’t answer, and in her silence, Max knew the truth. Yeah, this was what Atalanta was afraid of. And he had been smart to come here and take it. His smile widened as his fingers curled around the smooth edges.
“Maximus—”
“What is it?” he asked, finally looking up. Stark fear registered in the old woman’s eyes when his gaze met hers, and wasn’t that interesting? She was some ancient godlike creature, and she was suddenly afraid of him. A ten-year-old boy no one wanted.
“It is”—her voice lowered—“death and destruction in the wrong hands.”
His smile grew even wider. “Perfect.”
“Maximus—”
Max flew down the stairs as silently as he could and into his room, where he tore off his pajamas and threw on his clothes and boots. A pang of regret zipped through him when he glanced at the warm, soft bed, but he pushed it aside. When the hollow disk was safely hidden inside his shirt, its energy radiating across his skin, he finally turned to grab his coat.
The old woman stood inside the door of his room, but this time her eyes weren’t scared, they were filled with sadness. “She’ll hunt you,” she said quietly.
“It’s better than staying here. We might not be in Tartarus anymore, but this is hell just the same. And you know it.”
She shook her head slowly, that sad look still in her eyes. “You are so much like your father.”
His back tingled. “An asshole?”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise, and something like amusement crossed her face. But after everything that had been done to him, shocking some ethereal old lady with blunt language didn’t even register on his I-give-a-rip chart.
“I meant—”
Oh, yeah, he was so not going there. “Save it. We both know I don’t have a father.”
“You do,” she sighed. “And regardless of what you think now, there is still hope.”
At her words, hatred for Atalanta’s torture, for the old woman’s meddling, for the parents who’d left him to rot in this hellhole whipped through him and condensed in the center of his chest, right where the pendant lay against his skin. And a rage, the kind he’d always tried to hold back, simmered right beneath the surface of his control. “There’s no such thing as hope. There’s only this.” His hand closed over the pendant beneath his shirt. “And right now, this is mine.”
He moved past her and out into the hall, almost as if the pendant were leading him, giving him strength and courage he’d never had before. And wasn’t that even more cool?
“Remember your humanity, Maximus,” the old woman called after him.
He nearly laughed as his feet hit the first floor and he headed for the hidden entrance he came and went through when he didn’t want the house servants to see him. His humanity hadn’t ever done shit for him. And it sure as hell wasn’t going to save him now. He didn’t need it. He didn’t need anything or anyone for that matter.
He only needed himself.
Thanatos stood in the center of the run-down cabin high in the Cascade Mountains and glared at the two daemon warriors in front of him: Dumb and Dumber. “Explain how the Argonaut got away from you.”
The two daemons looked at each other.
“We…” The one to the left shifted his gaze Thanatos’s way. “When the second Argonaut showed up to aid the first, we retreated. We knew we had to report back to you about the loss of the others.”
Thanatos’s jaw clenched. This was why the Argonauts still lived. Because Atalanta filled her army with brainless cowards. There was a reason these morons had been in the Fields of Asphodel, awaiting sentence in Tartarus, when she’d found them. Because they were too stupid to live.
And she blamed him for the fact the Argonauts outsmarted them at every turn?
He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “And was the first Argonaut injured in battle? You said he killed six daemons. He couldn’t have done that much damage unscathed.”
“Well…” The daemon dumb enough to start this discussion looked at his pal, then at the ground where the two hunters’ blood seeped into the dirty floorboards. Hunger showed clearly in their glowing green eyes. “He was still fighting.”
“We wanted to make sure you didn’t walk into a trap,” the other daemon piped in.
The two looked at each other and nodded, like they’d just covered their asses well.
“Thank you.” Thanatos gripped his sword. “You’ve both proven your worth.”