She swallowed, braced her hands against his shoulders, and pushed with what little strength she had left. “You’re hurting me.”
He immediately eased away, dropping her legs to the ground so she could stand. He wasn’t hurting her—at least not physically—but he didn’t need to know that. Hands shaking, she tugged her pants back on, reached for her shirt from the floor and shrugged it on, then found her boot, the whole time avoiding his eyes, trying not to notice the movements he made as he dressed, how similar they were to his.
How could she have been so stupid? Why hadn’t she seen it from the very beginning? And why in Hades hadn’t Athena warned her?
“Skyla—”
She turned for the kitchen. “I need to go.”
“Wait a minute.”
“There’s food in the refrigerator if you’re hungry.”
He grasped her arm just as she reached the door. “Hold on. We need to talk.”
Panic pushed in. A panic she knew would sweep her under if she didn’t make tracks. So what if she looked like the weak female running from the scene after doing the deed? It wasn’t embarrassment over what they’d done driving her. It was a need for answers. And for an explanation that made no logical sense in a world she’d come to rely on.
“Look,” she said quickly. “You don’t need to worry. I’m not fertile. Nothing will come of this.”
“That’s not what I…” His hand tightened around her arm. “Skata. What the hell just happened?”
She turned her face toward his. For a split second searched his eyes for some confirmation that what she suspected couldn’t be true. But she didn’t see it. For the first time since they’d met, she saw eyes she’d looked into hundreds of times before, thousands of years ago.
Cynurus. The man she’d loved with heart and mind and soul. The one she’d nearly sacrificed her order for. The one whose death still haunted her, even now, over two thousand years later.
The man she was responsible for killing.
Pain slashed sharp and deep. Dear gods, it really was him. Reincarnated into this…this monster.
“Skyla—”
“Forget you met me, daemon. Forget everything about this night. If you know what’s best for you, you’ll forget what it is you seek and you’ll leave this realm. And you’ll never return.”
Chapter 5
The Fields of Asphodel were as depressing and desolate as Atalanta remembered. As she stood in the middle of the waving gray wheat and stared out at a dull gray sky, she remembered why it had been so easy to recruit souls from this forgotten land to build her army of daemons.
Those that dwelt here existed between life and death. Frozen in time. Almost as if they’d never existed in the first place. Though some were truly evil and would ultimately find their way to Tartarus to begin punishment, others, the ones who’d led unremarkable lives, were simply awaiting judgment. All wanted out, though. For one never quite knew how long a soul would wait in the Fields of Asphodel before receiving that judgment. It could be days. It could be millennia. The promise of a second chance—even in the body of a daemon—had been Atalanta’s greatest enticement.
She walked through the field, the palm of her hand brushing the stalks of wheat, the entire meadow undulating in the breeze like an old-time black-and-white movie. Back then—when she’d recruited from this realm—she’d drawn power from the Underworld, where she’d resided. But now, after being expelled from Hades’s realm and reestablishing her army in the human world, she found herself back in this gray and barren land. Only this time she wasn’t just visiting. She was an inhabitant. Trapped here by her disloyal son and the daemon spawn who shared her son’s Medean powers.
Anger welled deep in her soul, burned her flesh until she tasted the embers on her tongue. She stopped, looked down at her once bloodred robes now as gray as the sky, at what was her milky skin now ashen and plain. She couldn’t stay here. Every day that ticked by in the human realm was a day she would never get back. And there was so much vengeance to be had. So many Argonauts—her son included—to destroy.
“Mistress. I beg for yer attention.”
Atalanta whipped around, stared down at the three-foot-tall troll-like creature whose pointy ears barely crested the wheat. “Galto, I’ve been waiting for word. I trust you’ve brought me something of use.”
The creature she’d recruited to help her in this plight—the one who was supposed to be monitoring the inhabitants of this realm, his directive from Hades himself—rubbed his scaly hands together and glanced back and forth with large oval catlike eyes that dominated his triangular face. “I have, mistress. But…these fields have ears. If ye will come with—”
“I’ve waited long enough, Galto. Tell me your news. Now.”