The elevator door opened. A wall of arched windows looked out over a view that seemed to come straight off a postcard. Blue-green water in every direction, snow-capped mountains surrounding a lake. Even an eagle swooping through the air to catch a fish, then sailing high once more.
Maelea’s eyes grew wide but still she didn’t speak. Skyla turned a slow circle and took in the two-story stone room with its high peaked ceiling, intricate iron chandeliers, multicolored throw rugs, and fancy Russian furnishings.
She’d have bet her throwing stars they were in a castle. But a castle out here? In the middle of a lake? In the center of nowhere? It made no sense.
Footsteps echoed behind them and Skyla turned just as an attractive woman with a slight limp stepped down from the staircase that curved up and to the left.
“This is Helene,” Nick said. “She’ll take you someplace where you can freshen up and relax. Orpheus and I have things to discuss.”
Skyla knew those “things” meant her. “I won’t—”
Orpheus leaned toward her, his hot breath and low voice millimeters from her ear. “Go with Maelea. She’s liable to jump out a window if we aren’t there to stop her.”
When he eased back, Skyla saw the spark of mischief in his eyes, but the tight line of his jaw belied the carefree attitude. And the fact he’d obviously picked up on Nick’s animosity toward her nixed her jealousy and made her that much more determined to stay.
She opened her mouth to tell him just how little she cared about what Maelea did or didn’t do when he mouthed the word please. And just that fast her resistance wavered. As if he had some magical control over her.
“I’ll come find you both when I’m done down here,” Orpheus said.
She felt she shouldn’t go. But she couldn’t seem to say no. She found herself nodding as she stepped away from him.
The female, Helene, smiled and held a hand out to the stairs. “You both look tired. Come. This way.”
Skyla gripped the intricately carved mahogany banister and looked down at Orpheus as she followed Helene and Maelea. The heat of his stare burned into her soul, and as she climbed the stairs she remembered that day at Perseus’s castle when she’d gone to tell Cynurus she’d thought it over and she was ready to leave the Sirens for him.
He’d been with that Arcadian princess, the one his parents had wanted him to marry. She’d walked in on them doing nothing more dastardly than looking over a book together, but Skyla had been devastated, as devastated as if he’d been kissing the woman right in front of her. Never before had she realized the difference in their social status until she saw him with the sort of woman he should be with. He was heir to an entire kingdom and she was nothing…nothing more than an assassin. No royal blood, nothing to offer him except embarrassment when his family found out who and what she was. She wasn’t even a commoner. She was lower than that. She was someone who did Zeus’s dirty work, who killed and schemed and who had only met him because Zeus had targeted him as a nuisance to be dealt with.
Her heart squeezed tight as memories, emotions she’d long buried, came back tenfold. He wasn’t the same man he’d been then but there were similarities, and she was starting to see the things she’d loved about Cynurus in Orpheus. His worry over Maelea, his compassion for humans, though she was sure he’d never cop to it. And then there were the moments when he looked at her the way he was doing now. As if he wanted her the way he had then. As if she was the only female for miles and he was a man who’d been denied far too long.
She had to pull her gaze away, to break the connection before it sucked her under. Head spinning, she realized Helene and Maelea were gone. A quick shot of unease filtered through her before she heard their voices from the stairs above. She picked up her pace and reached them on the next level, where they were walking down a wide corridor lit every few yards or so with ornate sconces on the red-papered walls. Large arched doorways led into rooms she couldn’t see. Beneath her feet, a lush blue rug with tiny white flowers ran down the middle of the hall.
“What is this place?” Skyla asked, interrupting something Helene was telling Maelea.
Helene’s limp was more obvious as she glanced over her shoulder. “The castle was built by a Russian grand duke who sought exile in the United States in the late 1800s. He had it built for his wife, who was Romanian. Unfortunately, they were both killed before they could reach the States, as were their families. Since his wife was also a Misos, the castle fell into the hands of the Russian Misos colony. It sat empty for more than a hundred years. For whatever reason, no one from that colony wanted to relocate here. When our colony in Oregon was destroyed by Atalanta’s daemons, Nick found out this was available, and here we are.”