Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) (2 page)

Sophie waited for an explanation, and, getting none, asked, “So, what language was that?”

“Eh?” He lifted his face. “Oh, yes. Greek. I am Greek. You have heard of Arkadia?”

“Uh…”

“Yes, is in Peloponnisos, in Greece.”

“Okay.”

“I am from there. Yes.”

“How are things at home?”

Another big sigh. He cast a look of desolation at her window. The late afternoon sun lit up his pale green eyes. “Is difficult,” he said. “My family and friends, there is problems always, between them. And my cousin, he wants me to find a girl for him.”

“He wants you to find him a girl?”

“He looks for someone, a certain girl. Is my job now, somehow.”

“Um. Yeah, that’s difficult.” Sophie decided she wasn’t even going to ask.

He stuck out his hand. “I am Nikolaos. Hello.”

She shook hands with him. “Sophie.”

“Ah! Sophia. Is good name. Greek. Wisdom.”

“Yep. That’s right.”

“You know. Of course. You are how old? Eighteen?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, I as well. So you are freshman here too?”

She nodded. “Just moved in.” Her gaze trailed along all the things she still had to unpack, and the tiny half of the room in which she had to fit them. Her roommate Melissa, a short, mousy, pale Oregon girl with brown corduroy shorts and white sneakers, had stuck around for about two minutes when Sophie and her entourage had arrived. Then Melissa had backed out of the room, flashing her student ID and claiming it was time to go use it to get dinner, and vanished. Apparently dinner took a while, as that was two hours ago. Sophie was alone.

Her mood sagged downward again as she recalled just how alone she was.

“So I am confused,” Nikolaos said. “You can help me perhaps?”

Sophie lifted her head. “How?”

“You know where bookshop is? For the textbooks?”

“Yeah, I went there earlier. You go down the main street outside, and—”

“The street here?” He pointed in the wrong direction.

“No, right down there, by the parking lot.”

“I go across a street?”

“Actually, you just go
down
the street, and…”

He crinkled up his eyes, looking hopelessly lost. “It is not far? You can show me, yes?”

Sophie gave up. Getting out of the dorm room would be a relief anyway. “I can show you. Sure.”

He beamed and jumped up from the bed with her. “Thank you. It is good. You are very helping.”

Stuffing her cell phone in the pocket of her denim shorts, Sophie led Nikolaos into the dorm hallway and locked her door. She turned and headed for the stairwell. Nikolaos followed, bobbing beside her, grinning too widely at everyone who passed.

They trotted down the stairs and emerged into the breezeway between Sophie’s dorm and the next. Warm air rolled over them, smelling of dry grass and a thousand burgers being cooked.

“I see you moving in with your family before,” Nikolaos said. “There was tall boy with hat. He is your boyfriend?”

Jacob had bravely worn his new yellow and green University of Oregon cap onto the Oregon State University campus, earning him jeers from a car full of OSU football fans.

“Yes. He’s going to U of O, down in Eugene.” Forty miles away. Not so far, perhaps. But until now, she had always lived in the same town with him, and with everyone else she knew.

“He does not know how lucky boy he is.” As they entered the shade of a huge redwood arching its branches over the sidewalk, Nikolaos threw his arm around Sophie’s shoulders. “I make him jealous, yes?”

Uh-oh
, she thought. She faked a laugh. “Probably shouldn’t.” She tried to push his arm off, but it wouldn’t budge. The boy was stronger than he looked.

While she tried to decide the nicest way to say
Hands off, dude
, Nikolaos swung to face her, snaring her in both arms. “Hold on tight.”

Her face went hot in protest. She tried to twist away, still failing. “I’m serious, I—” At that second the ground heaved beneath her. Losing her balance, she tumbled into the tall grass, in Nikolaos’ arms.

An earthquake? No, it had only been one jolt, no rolling or rumbling. And tall grass? Where had that come from? They’d been walking along the dorm sidewalk, next to short hedges and cropped lawn and a few giant redwoods—all of which were now gone.

As she debated whether to worry about that later and stick her thumbs in his eyes now, Nikolaos pinned her to the lumpy ground, grinning. “That was easy. We must teach you to be less trusting.”

His awkward Greek accent had nearly vanished, only a trace of it remaining. He now spoke a fluent and rather British English.

He’d been faking! Bastard. The self-defense moves they’d taught her in high school gym class came sweeping back to her on a wave of fury. She slammed her knee up between his legs, and shoved both hands at his face.

He grunted, and rolled off her, clambering to his feet. “Ow. Careful.” She had definitely made contact—her knee and fists throbbed from it—but he didn’t appear to be in any pain.

Whatever. Time to escape.
She flipped onto her front and scrambled to get her feet beneath her, but found herself being lifted by Nikolaos, who caught her around the ribs and set her upright as if she were light as paper.

When she got a look around, she froze. Golden fields rippled in the late afternoon sun. Trees dotted the hills. The buildings and people were all gone. The normal campus sounds—music, laughter, cars—had vanished with them. Leaves rustled, birds twittered, and the wind whispered; that was all.

Panic washed through her. Had he slipped her a drug of some kind? How? No, she’d surely been knocked out just now, and this was a dream, or a coma. But it felt so
real
.

“Who are you?” Her voice shook; she couldn’t control it. “Where is everyone?”

He still held her by the arm, casually but firmly. “You don’t believe my name is Nikolaos? It’s perfectly true, I promise.”

She swallowed, gaze darting around the wild terrain, her mind scrambling to recall all the details leading up to this. “And you’re Greek. Sure.”

“I
am
Greek. Honestly, I’m insulted you doubt me.”

Sophie shot him another look, and now noticed the mature shrewdness in his green eyes. “I guess you’re not eighteen, either.”

“All right, you’ve got me there.”

She looked around again, seeking any sign of the campus. Nothing. Just nature, and a lot of it. Something that sounded like the trumpet of an elephant echoed from far off.

Nikolaos let go of her for a moment to tap something on his cell phone. She seized her chance and bolted across the meadow. Her feet hit unsteady lumps and dips of ground, but she made decent speed. Thank goodness she was wearing her jogging sneakers rather than impractical sandals.

“Bad idea,” called Nikolaos from behind her.

She slowed to reach into her pocket for her cell, thinking now might be a good time to try 911. But the phone wasn’t there.
Crap
. She suspected she’d dropped it in the meadow, and good luck finding it in this tall grass if she had. Forget it. Escaping was more important. She put on a burst of speed.

As she reached a large oak tree, a growl brought her skidding to a halt. From the grass a lion emerged, staring at her with amber eyes. It was a
huge
lion, as tall as Sophie even when down on its four giant paws, its shoulder muscles piled high behind its short ears. Its fur was browner than any lion’s she had seen in a zoo, and its mane was shorter.

She’d been scared already, but now pure primal terror chilled her from head to feet.

Though she might indeed have just stepped through some kind of magic wardrobe, this was not Aslan she was dealing with. From the predatory gaze and the saliva dripping from those fangs (which looked at least six inches long), she was sure this animal regarded her as lunch.

Oh, please, let this be a dream or a coma
, she prayed.
Otherwise I’m about to die.

Were you supposed to climb a tree when faced with a lion, or run in a zigzag pattern, or punch it in the face, or what? She couldn’t recall.

Then a young man and a medium-sized dog darted in between her and the lion. The guy had curly black hair, tamer than Nikolaos’, and wore all black: untucked long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and boots with laces. She couldn’t see his face yet; he was staring down the lion, as was his dog. The dog’s hackles bristled beneath its golden fur.

“Off you go, mate,” the guy told the lion.

As if to back him up, his dog growled, and barked.

The threat worked. The lion hissed, turned tail, and bounded away into the grass.

Sophie’s knees shook as her adrenaline subsided, leaving her weak.

The young man turned around to look at her. “You okay?”

He was rather lovely. Probably a couple of years older than Sophie, with olive skin, shapely mouth, and large dark eyes with black lashes and brows.

She parted her lips, found she was too upset to answer, and merely nodded.

“Please don’t run,” he added. “We’re not going to hurt you. But the lions won’t give you that guarantee. It’s not safe out here.”

Sophie detected a different accent in the slant of his words, Australian perhaps. She answered with another nod, more guarded this time.

Footsteps rustled up behind her, and she spun about.

But it was only Nikolaos. “Told you running off was a bad idea. But now you’ve met…Wat-son.” He separated the syllables playfully, as if this wasn’t the guy’s real name.

Watson glared at Nikolaos. “Why are you dressed like that? What is
wrong
with you? Did you need to wear the most conspicuous clothes on the planet?”

“It worked, obviously,” Nikolaos said. “So, I shall leave you two dears alone.” He sauntered to Watson, and slipped something into his palm while murmuring a few words in a foreign language, maybe Greek again.

Watson nodded and tucked the item into his jeans pocket. His dog, meanwhile, sat and gazed calmly at each human in turn. It looked like a golden retriever crossbred with something darker, perhaps some kind of shepherd dog. It also looked gentle, not the type of animal who would rip out her throat upon command. She tried to take comfort in the gaze of the friendly dog.

The two men finished their discussion, and Nikolaos turned and executed a bow in Sophie’s direction. “Sophia, it has been a pleasure. I hope we meet again soon.”

She didn’t dignify that with a response, only a cold gaze.
Yeah, hope we meet again. Thanks for kidnapping me, you lying jerkwad.

Nikolaos, catching the glare, laughed, then waved and strolled away into the wilderness.

Sophie turned her wary attention to Watson, or whatever his name was. He was already studying her, but when their eyes met, he looked down and cleared his throat. “All right. Let’s talk.”

Chapter Two

A
DRIAN’S STOMACH CHURNED.
H
E HATED
having to approach Sophie this way, loathed it. He dared another look at her. Streaks of dirt marked her slim white T-shirt from her tussle on the ground with Nikolaos. Her hair was shorter than last time Adrian had seen her, cut to just below her ears and partially pinned back. Bits of dry grass stuck to her dark brown curls. She hugged her small, curvy body as if trying to protect herself from him. Her hazel eyes watched him, sharp with distrust. Her full lips looked pale, and her light brown complexion had gone ashen.

She still looked thoroughly beautiful to him.

And, of course, she had no idea who he was. Yet.

“Am I in a coma?” she asked. “Or dead, or dreaming?”

“No. You’re awake.”

“Then where the hell are we? And what’s with the lions?” Her voice was unsteady.

He’d asked similar questions when he first got dragged into this realm. Using stronger language, in fact. “It’s kind of like another dimension,” he said. He tried to sound gentle and reasonable so he wouldn’t scare her further, though he suspected it wouldn’t work. “It’s the same geography as the living world—see, same mountain over there, same river over there—so in a sense we’re still in Oregon. But only animals live here, species that evolved without humans around. There’s no civilization, because humans don’t live here.”

“Except you. What are you?” Her eyes narrowed.

“People like Niko and me, we have certain abilities. We can switch back and forth between the realms. The animals here avoid us.”

Sophie glanced at Kiri, sitting at attention beside him. “They avoid your dog too?”

“Yeah, her too.” Adrian reached down to stroke Kiri’s head, then straightened up again. “I had Nikolaos fetch you because I wanted to meet you.”