A long beat of silence drew out between them. And then she said, “No.”
She stared at him head-on. And in her amethyst eyes he couldn’t read her thoughts. Couldn’t tell if it didn’t matter because she believed in him or because she was finally going to kill him.
The rain increased. Water slid down his cheek. A lifetime—two lifetimes—of things left unsaid hovered between them.
She took half a step toward him. “Orpheus—”
Movement behind her drew his attention. Five figures approached. Five females, all dressed in the same femme-fatale fighter gear, bows drawn, arrows ready.
“Good job, Skyla,” the tall Siren with multicolored hair said. The one Orpheus recognized from the woods outside the colony. “You led us right to him.”
Skyla’s spine stiffened. Her panicked eyes held on Orpheus. “I didn’t. I swear.”
He wanted to believe her, but history told him otherwise.
“Step aside, Skyla,” the tall one said.
Six against one. Even with the Orb, this wouldn’t be easy to fight his way out of. But then he didn’t have to fight, did he? The one gift his lineage had bestowed on him was the ability to flash on earth.
“Sappheire,” Skyla said, turning to face her sisters. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“It concerns the order,” the tall Siren answered. “It concerns me. Now step aside.”
Orpheus was just about to get the hell out when Skyla stepped fully in front of him, blocking him with her body. “No.”
“If you want him,” Skyla added, “you’ll have to fight me too.”
His heart leaped. Right there with five arrows pointed at his chest, ready to kill. She was protecting him. Standing up for him, even though he’d just proven Zeus’s claims true.
“Skyla—” he started.
“Is there a problem here, ladies?”
The male voice at the edge of the clearing caused the Sirens to shift sideways, arrows at the ready. Theron and the rest of the Argonauts appeared from the trees.
“Argonauts,” the dark-haired Siren on the right hissed.
Orpheus blinked twice, barely able to believe what he was seeing.
“Yes, we are,” Theron said as Zander and Titus took up the flank on his left and Phin, Cerek, and Demetrius did the same on his right. “And he’s one of ours, so if you’ll kindly lower your weapons, we’ll get to the bottom of whatever disagreement you’re all having.”
“There’s no disagreement,” the dark-haired Siren said, shifting her bow from Orpheus to Theron. “And you’ll move back.”
Titus had his blade at the Siren’s throat before she even saw him move. “I wouldn’t advise that, missy.” Her eyes grew wide. “Now lower your weapon before anyone accidentally gets hurt.”
“Lower it, Daphne,” Sappheire said.
The Sirens brought their bows down, but tension still crackled in the air. Even Orpheus could tell this was no surrender. It was a lull before the battle. The battle over him and the Orb.
Snarls and wolflike howls erupted from the trees around them.
The Argonauts stepped back, in line with the Sirens, and together the group of would-be enemies glanced from tree to tree.
“Hellhounds,” Sappheire snapped, shooting Skyla a glare behind her. “Now do you see how this concerns the order? Fan out, Sirens.”
Whatever prejudices they held against each other were forgotten as the Argonauts and Sirens took up space, blades drawn, bows at the ready. Skyla turned and pushed Orpheus back three steps. “Go. Get out of here before Hades shows up.”
Panic closed in when she reached for the bow from her boot, pressed the button, and the weapon unfurled.
“Not without you.”
Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds before she shoved her hand hard into his chest. “He doesn’t want me. He wants the Orb. Now go!”
He stumbled back as she raced to the line with the others and drew her weapon. The tree branches and foliage swayed. And then monsters from the Underworld broke free and charged.
Blades clashed against bone and muscle. Howls and snaps echoed through the small clearing. The whisk of arrow after arrow being released echoed through the air.
The Orb warmed against Orpheus’s chest, but without all four elements it wasn’t any help as a weapon. He could use his witchcraft to harness the powers of each element, though.
He looked up at the sky as the battle raged in front of him, clasped the air element in his hand, and called up a storm spell. Thunder echoed above. Black clouds swirled and a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky.
It struck a hellhound about to devour one of the Sirens to Orpheus’s right. She grunted and kicked the beast away. Another bolt struck the soil with a snap and singe and billow of black smoke.