“Orpheus!” Skyla threw her weight into him, knocking him to the ground so the blast wouldn’t hit him.
He rolled to his stomach, pushed to his knees, his chant never once missing a beat. Demetrius’s voice grew louder. The warlock shifted Demetrius’s way, tried to hurl the same energy, but this time the force hit the edge of the circle and dropped to the ground like a ball slamming into a wall.
He was weakening. Orpheus had been right: without his witches, he lost his dominance. Magic was something Skyla was familiar with. After all, she lived on Olympus. She watched the gods conjure it without a second thought. But what she witnessed in that field between those two Argonauts, both of whom could trace some part of their ancestry back to Medea, was like an art form. Awe rippled through her at what they were able to do by focusing their gifts and working together.
When the warlock’s energy was spent, his words cut off midstream, his eyes popped open. Every time Orpheus and Demetrius finished a verse, the warlock would yelp, as if he’d been shocked by some unseen electrical current coming from the ground. He lifted his feet, tried to jump away from the soil. After five minutes of yelping and screaming and dancing around like a chicken with its head cut off, he shrank to his knees in the middle of the circle, curled into himself, and whimpered like a child.
Orpheus opened his eyes. Grinned Demetrius’s way. “Nice work.”
Pulse still pounding hard, Skyla kept her arrow at the ready as Orpheus stepped into the circle and knelt over the warlock. Apophis didn’t seem to notice. Orpheus reached for the Orb, but a pop sounded, and he jerked his hand back as if he’d been burned.
“What’s wrong?” Demetrius called.
“He must have put some kind of damn spell on the thing.”
Demetrius moved into the circle. “What are you thinking?”
Orpheus frowned. “I’m thinking we might not be able to get it off him until he relinquishes control of Gryphon’s body.”
“What does that mean, as far as holding him goes?”
Orpheus pushed up from the ground. “It means we’ll have to make sure he’s wrapped up nice and tight until I get back.”
Back. From the Underworld. Skyla’s stomach tightened. She’d known this was where things were headed, but her stomach tightened just the same.
“Let’s just hope three days is enough time,” Demetrius muttered, helping Orpheus tug the warlock from the ground and out of the circle. “He’ll be pissed when he wakes up, and if his witches have honed their craft enough before you’re back, I’ll be in deep shit.”
“I’ll be back,” Orpheus said.
Demetrius didn’t look so sure as he led the warlock toward their vehicle hidden in the trees.
Alone, Orpheus perched his hands on his hips, tipped his head as Skyla shrank her bow. “You did good, Siren. That takedown was NFL-worthy. You been watching Monday Night Football? ”
Skyla knew enough human culture to catch the meaning. And the compliment warmed her. More than she expected. “Physical contact, as you know, isn’t a problem for me. I expected something a little more cataclysmic, though.”
“Cataclysmic’s overrated. Sometimes uneventful’s good enough.”
Not for her. But then she was a Siren. She always expected the worst.
She flicked a look at the earth element now hanging from a chain around his neck, just barely visible at his open collar. The thing unnerved her. Not only because it held so much power, but because he wore it as if it belonged to him. And though she didn’t like where her mind was going, she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when he had the Orb to go with it.
She focused on his eyes. “You can go ahead and take the virgin spell off anytime.”
“I don’t know. It’s got a certain…charm on you.” His wicked gaze raked her breasts, slid down her waist, shifted to her thighs beneath the hem of the white gown.
And under that heated exploration, fire exploded in her veins. Whereas before his lusty looks had ignited a low simmer in her belly, now it stoked a full-blown blaze. He’d added a shot of something else to that masking spell, she realized. Some enhanced arousal he’d intended to use to punish her for not listening to him when he’d told her not to tag along. “This is funny to you, isn’t it?”
“There’s so little humor in my life, Siren. I have to take it where I can get it.”