Ravaged: An Eternal Guardians Novella (1001 Dark Nights) (11 page)

He made it three steps away before Daphne’s hand captured his arm. Before he could ask what she wanted, she rose on her toes and pressed her cold lips against the scruff on his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for helping her.”

She let go of him, knelt back by the Siren, pulled his jacked up to the Siren’s neck and whispered words Ari didn’t catch. And as he watched, that cold space deep inside heated until only warmth remained.

* * *

“What the hell are you doing here?” Daphne whispered when Ari disappeared into the trees. “And what in Hades happened?”

Sappheire adjusted against the rocks, sitting more upright. “Athena sent us to find out what was taking you so long. We were looking for you.”

Unease filtered through Daphne’s belly. If Athena had sent Sappheire and Rhebekah, she could easily send more Sirens. She needed to think fast. “I hit a snag.”

“No shit,” Sappheire grunted. “What’s going on, Daphne? Why did he heal me? He has to know what I am.”

Daphne fixed the jacket over Sappheire’s bare shoulder then sank back on her heels. “He does. I could tell by the way he looked at you. But he’s not what you think.”

Sappheire’s brilliant blue eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand. He should have killed me already.”

Daphne brushed her hair over the shoulder of her jacket and braced her hands on her thighs. “He’s not crazy, Sappheire. Not like they want us to believe. They lied to us—Athena, Zeus, all of them. He’s not the monster they say he is. You’ve seen it for yourself.”

Sappheire’s eyes grew skeptical. “He’s got you under some kind of spell. What have you been do—”

Ari’s shout echoed through the trees, cutting off Sappheire’s words. Frustrated that Sappheire so easily believed the lies they’d been fed, Daphne whispered, “There’s no spell. I’ve simply opened my eyes.”

She turned toward the trees where Ari appeared, stomping through the snow.

“I found two dead daemons and a trail of blood.” He wiped his blade against his thigh, then sheathed it at his hip. “The third’s no longer a problem.” He looked down at Sappheire. “Your friend was dead by the time I got there. I’m sorry.”

Daphne’s heart pinched as she looked back at Sappheire. Daphne hadn’t known Rhebekah long, but Rhebekah and Sappheire had been close. Emotions ran over Sappheire’s face as she glanced around the snowy forest, clearly not seeing any of it. “I...”

“Are you sure there were only three?” Ari asked.

Brow drawn low, Sappheire finally looked up. “Three?”

“Daemons. Did you see any others?”

“No.” Sappheire shook her head and swallowed hard. “No, only three. They surprised us. We heard voices over the ridge and went to look. It...it must have been them.”

Ari glanced toward Daphne. “Voices could mean more. I can handle a handful of daemons on my own, but not an entire horde, not with you both here, and not with fresh blood in the area. We need to go.”

Fear wrapped an icy hand around Daphne’s chest and squeezed. She remembered all too well the horror of being caught with those daemons. She pushed to her feet. “Can the snowmobile hold all three of us? I can—”

“I’m not going with you.”

Daphne’s gaze snapped to her mentor. “Of course you are. You can’t stay out here, especially if there are more daemons in the ar—”

“I’m not going with you,” Sappheire said again. “I know how to get home on my own.”

“But—”

“No buts.” Gritting her teeth, Sappheire pushed up to standing. Her arm hung limply against her side as she leaned back against the rocks, but it was clear Ari’s healing powers had worked. She looked past Daphne toward Ari at her back. “Thank you. For killing that last daemon. Where is she?”

Ari nodded toward the trees. “Fifty yards that way. You’ll see the rocks. She’s behind those.”

 Sappheire eased away from the boulder and took a step past Daphne.

“Wait.” Panic pushed at Daphne’s chest. They couldn’t just leave Sappheire out here, not if there were more daemons in the area.

“I’m fine.” Sappheire pinned her with a hard look. “I’m getting Rhebekah and taking her home. Go, Daphne, before anything else appears.”

Before any other Sirens appear.
Daphne heard the warning loud and clear. Sappheire was letting Ari go. But Daphne had no idea if the Siren meant to bring other Sirens back or if she’d tell Athena what she’d witnessed.

A new sense of urgency gripped Daphne. “She’s right.” She grabbed hold of Ari’s sleeve and pulled him toward the snowmobile. “We need to go.”

She picked up her helmet as they drew close, grabbed his and handed it to him. He was watching her curiously as she sat on the snowmobile and snapped her chinstrap, and she knew he was wondering what the hell had just happened, but she didn’t have an answer, and she didn’t want to get into it now. Now they just needed to put as much distance between them and this location as they could, in any direction.

“Come on,” she said when he only continued to stare at her. “I thought we were going.”

“She called you Daphne.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t remember saying your name in front of her. Do you know that Siren?”

Oh shit...

Daphne’s stomach drew tight as a drum, and her mind spun as she tried to think of an answer—any answer—that would make sense. But before she could latch on to one, Ari drew in a deep whiff through his nose and growled.

Startled, she looked up. And a new sense of fear consumed her.

His gaze was fixed on something far off in the trees. Every muscle in his body was tight and rigid. But more importantly, his eyes were no longer the mismatched green and blue she’d come to love. They were black. Deathly black, and one-hundred percent possessed.

“Sirens,” he growled in a low, unfamiliar voice.

Daphne lurched to her feet and glanced over her shoulder. Six females—six Sirens—emerged from the trees. They were dressed in knee-high boots, slim pants, and tight, sleeveless shirts. All carried the familiar bow and arrows from Olympus, and all were as gorgeous and built as Sappheire. But a tingle of unease spread down Daphne’s spine as she looked over the group. None of the females were familiar to Daphne, and she’d met every Siren on Olympus, even the newest recruits. More than that, though, the look in each of these Siren’s eyes was both dark and evil. And it was a look she’d never seen from any of her sisters.

“Something’s not right.” She reached for Ari’s forearm.

He pulled his gaze from the Sirens and looked down at her. And for a moment, the crazed, dark look faded and his eyes shifted back to their normal mismatched colors.

An arrow whirred through the air. Ari pulled Daphne off the snowmobile and shoved her to the snowy ground. Against her ear, he growled, “Stay down.”

Her heart beat hard. Another arrow whirred through the air. Ari jerked to his feet before she could grasp him, that crazed look darkening his eyes once more and twisting his features until she barely recognized him.

“Ari.” She reached out to draw him back to her. “Stop.”

But he was already was gone, racing toward the females she knew instinctively had never been her sisters.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ari was in hell. Burning in the fires of Tartarus, unable to escape from the heat. He turned, kicked, punched out at the flames, but they snaked over his body and danced toward his face as if he hadn’t even moved.

He was going to die. Suffocate from the heat. From the smoke. And he deserved it after all the horrible things he’d done. After he’d left Daphne bloody and alone in those snowy woods. After he’d lost control and—

He bolted up, gasped in a breath, and stared into the flames across the room. A log rolled off the pile and sent a flutter of ash and sparks upward in the fireplace. Sweat slid down his temple and dripped along his spine as the crackle of wood echoed in the air, drowning out the sound of his heavy breaths, bringing consciousness slowly back into place.

His bedroom in the hold. He looked down at the soft bed, at the covers tangled around him. Kicking them free, he swung his legs over the side of the mattress, leaned forward, and dropped his face into his hands.

In. Out. He breathed deep as his heart rate slowly came down. He didn’t know how he’d gotten here or what had happened, but that was nothing new. Whenever he had one of his episodes, he couldn’t remember shit. All he knew for sure was that he was alive, he was naked except for a pair of boxers, and he was alone. But as soon as he closed his eyes, images flickered through his mind. The snowmobile. The Sirens. Arrows flying through the air. Daphne covered in blood, lying in the snow.

He jerked upright, walked across the room and back again so he didn’t completely lose it, and racked his brain, trying to remember what had happened. He could only see bits and pieces, not the entire scene, and his mind kept tripping over Daphne in the snow, blood staining her hands and shirt and pants, reaching out for him, telling him...

He stopped. His brow dropped low. Telling him what?

“Ari, stop.”

Her voice echoed in his head, the sound of her plea squeezing his chest so hard pain radiated outward from the spot. She’d been telling him to stop. To stop hurting her.

Bile slid up his throat. The walls closed in until he could barely breathe. Glancing quickly around the room, he spotted a pair of sweats he’d left on the chair days ago. With hands that shook so hard they barely worked, he pulled them on, needing air, needing to breathe, needing to run until the pain of disgust and regret loosened its hold.

He flung his bedroom door open, stumbled down the hall toward the great room and the wide deck beyond. Darkness pressed in through the tall windows. He had no idea what time it was, but he didn’t care. All he could focus on was freedom. All he heard was Daphne’s voice, echoing in his head.

“Ari, stop...”

“Oh my gods, that’s it. That’s...holy Hades, that’s it.”

His feet slowed just past the open library door. The first words had definitely come from his mind. A memory from the snowy forest. But the second...

He moved back to the library door and peered inside. A fire crackled in the fireplace, and in the middle of the floor, surrounded by books and notebooks, a slim female with dark, curly hair hanging past her shoulders sat cross-legged and scribbled on a piece of paper.

“Daphne?” he whispered.

Her head came up, and when her gaze met his, her green eyes twinkled. “Oh, you’re awake. Good. There’s something I want to talk to you abou—”

She wasn’t covered in blood. She wasn’t lying dead in the snow. Heart in his throat, Ari crossed the floor in three steps, grasped her at the shoulders and hauled her to her feet. The notebook and pen flew from her fingers. She yelped but he didn’t let it deter him. He closed his arms around her and held her tight.

“Um. Okay.” Her arms shifted around his back until they rested softly against his bare skin. “I guess that means you’re happy to see me.”

Relief was sweeter than any wine. He closed his eyes, breathed her in. Reveled in the fact she was whole, alive, not a single hair on her head out of place. And that she was here. With him. Waiting for him to come out of his nightmare.

He eased back, but he didn’t let go of her. Wasn’t ready yet. His gaze searched her face for answers. “How?” He drew away just enough so he could look down her body, so he could see for himself that she wasn’t injured. Dressed in nothing but one of his long-sleeved T-shirts, the hem hitting mid-thigh to show off her shapely legs, she didn’t just look healthy, she looked perfect. His gaze lifted back to her face. “What happened? The last thing I remember is seeing you bloody and hurt in the snow.”

“I wasn’t hurt.” She slid her hands to his forearms, over the Argonaut markings he’d been born with. “That wasn’t my blood. It was Sappheire’s.”

“Sappheire?” His brow wrinkled. “Who the hell is Sappheire?”

“The Siren you healed. She’s upstairs. In my old room. Asleep.”

A Siren was in his hold? He tuned into his senses. Didn’t pick up a thing. If a Siren was close, he should know. He should be flipping out already.

Daphne’s soft fingers landed on his jaw, tugging his face back toward hers. “Ari, you’re not crazy. It’s a curse. It’s not your fault.”

She was talking about his blackouts. His psychosis. Holy gods, she’d seen it. He let go of her and stepped back, for the first time realizing the kind of horror she must have witnessed.

“I know.” He turned toward the fire, unable to face her. “It’s the soul mate curse. Whenever I sense Sirens I can’t stop myself. The need for revenge is too strong. I can’t control it. I didn’t want you to see that. I didn’t—”

She stepped in front of him. “No, it’s not the soul mate curse. It has nothing to do with your soul mate’s death. If it did, you wouldn’t have healed Sappheire. You’d be going after her now. And look at you, you aren’t. There’s not a crazed thing about you.”

There wasn’t. He felt as in control as ever. But that just meant his curse was growing more unpredictable, and unpredictable meant even more deadly. “I remember sensing them. I remember the rage and—”

“They weren’t Sirens.”

“They were Sirens. I was there. I saw them.” He opened his eyes and stared down at her, ready to tell her to stop being so naïve, but the excitement in her gemlike eyes halted his words.

“Come here.” She grasped his hand and pulled him around to her books, then drew him to the floor. “They weren’t regular Sirens.”

Her grip was strong, and he was still wrecked from his episode. He let her tug him to the floor. She grasped a book from her stack and handed it to him.

“Look here.” She pointed toward a passage on the page. “They looked like Sirens. When they showed up in those woods, I thought they were. But then I realized they were different.”

Ari glanced down at the book. A drawing of a female warrior dressed in leather breastplates, armbands, and boots, holding a weapon graced the page. “Different how?”

“At first it was the look in their eyes. There was a darkness there I’d never seen before on a Siren. But then I looked closer.” She flipped the page. Another drawing of yet another female warrior filled the page. She was dressed the same as the first, except this one wore a sleeveless tunic. “It’s subtle, but if you look closely...” She pointed toward the marking on the female’s right bicep, flipped back to the first drawing. No marking there. She turned the page again. “Two S’s in the shape of snakes, head to tail. Those females had this marking.”