Ravaged: An Eternal Guardians Novella (1001 Dark Nights) (12 page)

Ari was more confused than ever. “If they weren’t Sirens, what were they?”

“I think they were the Sirenum Scorpoli. Zeus’s secret band of Sirens. The ones he culls from the Siren Order to do his dirty work.”

“That’s no different from any regular Siren.”

“It is different. The Sirens are tasked with policing otherworldy creatures in the human realm. Zeus’s own private army. He can’t control the Argonauts and what you do, but he can control the Sirens. The Sirens, however, are headed by Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, so he can’t use them in all the ways he wants. Enter the Sirenum Scorpoli. He can do what he wants with them, can command them to carry out any plot he deems worthy. And no one can stand in his way. Not Athena, not the Argonauts, and especially not his wife.”

“What does Hera have to do with this?”

“Everything, I think.” Daphne paged through the book in his hands until she came to a chapter on the gods, specifically a passage about Hera, Zeus’s wife. “‘And the Fates decreed,’” she read aloud, “‘that no person—mortal or immortal—shall be subjected to more than one curse by any god at any time.’”

He stared at the words, still unable to see her point. “You’ve lost me. What does this prove and why is it important?”

“It proves you’re not hunting Sirens.” When he glanced up at her, still completely confused about where she was going with this, she shook her head. “It means what happened to you isn’t related to the soul mate curse. If it truly were the soul mate curse making you hunt down Sirens in revenge for your mate’s death, you’d have gone crazy as soon as Penelopei died. But you didn’t. Silas told me that you didn’t start having these episodes until long after you’d faked your death and were living in the human realm alone.”

Ari looked down at the page. That was true. His episodes hadn’t started for several months after Penelopei’s death.

“These blackout moments don’t happen when you’re around regular Sirens,” Daphne added. “I think they happen only when you sense the Sirenum Scorpoli. And if that’s the case, then I think it’s highly possible Hera took advantage of your pain and depression after you lost your mate and cursed you a second time.”

“You just said a person can’t be cursed more than once by any one god. Hera is the one who established the soul mate curse.”

“Right. But once an Argonaut’s soul mate is dead, there is no more curse, now is there?”

Ari studied her smooth face in the firelight. Her eyes were filled with hope and promise, but he was wary. For fifty years he’d been fighting the soul mate curse. Hadn’t he?

“I hear what you’re saying,” he said cautiously. “But there’s no way to prove it. Just because I didn’t flip out on the Siren upstairs doesn’t mean anything. It could just be that the soul mate curse is changing, adapting, I don’t know, fucking with me so I go even more nuts.”

“I might have believed that myself until I saw the marking on your calf.”

 “What marking?” He reached for the edge of his sweats and pulled them up to his knee. “I don’t have a marking on my leg.”

“It’s faint. I didn’t notice it until I helped you out of your wet clothes and put you into bed. Here.” She placed her hand on his leg and twisted so he could see the back of his calf. And the very faint mark, two inches long, so light and in a place he never thought to look, he’d never noticed it.

 A feather. A peacock feather.

“The peacock is a symbol for Hera,” Daphne said. “I looked it up. No other Argonauts have that marking. Which means this mark, this curse? It’s unique to you.”

Ari stared at the marking, his mind tripping back over every encounter he’d ever had with Sirens. He couldn’t remember them. Couldn’t see their faces or the markings on their arms. But even if Daphne’s theory was true, it didn’t change anything.

He set the book down, what little hope he’d foolishly built up crumbling at his feet. “Whether they’re Sirens or this Sirenum Scorpoli, it makes no difference. I still hunt and I still kill and I still can’t remember why.”

“It makes all the difference.” She grasped another book from the floor and set it in his lap. “According to this—this ancient text from Olympus that I found in your own library—the Sirenum Scorpoli are responsible for instigating most of the wars in the human realm. They stir up religious zealots. They prey on differences between cultures and emphasize those differences until people want nothing more than to kill each other. These pages are filled with accounts of the Sirenum Scorpoli stimulating one natural disaster after another with Zeus’s magic, for causing diseases like the black plague and AIDS. Think about it, Ari. Zeus thrives on chaos. Chaos creates instability and instability leads people to pray. To pray to the gods. And that, more than anything else, is what he uses the Sirenum Scorpoli to do. To make people turn back to praying to the gods. Because the more humans who worship Zeus, the stronger his powers grow.

“Ari,” she said softly, “You’re not hunting unsuspecting good guys. You’re hunting the bad guys. The Sirenum Scorpoli cause more bloodshed and death than any daemons. They’re daemons trussed up like models.”

Ari’s chest vibrated with both hope and doubt. He looked down at the book she’d set in his hand. Didn’t remember bringing it here. Didn’t know where it had come from. Closing the book, he looked at the cover. The same double-S marking Daphne had seen on those females’ arms in the woods was stamped into the leather.

A memory flashed. Bits and pieces of a battle he couldn’t piece together. “I took this from them,” he muttered. “After a fight. When they were dead.”

“That’s what I assumed. There’s no other way you could have gotten your hands on something from Olympus.” She glanced up and around the library. “It’s been here a while. You had the knowledge the entire time. You just didn’t know it.”

A sliver of hope tunneled its way into Ari’s chest, but he was too afraid to let it grow. “If this is true, why would Hera use me? What did I ever do to her?”

“Nothing. You did nothing to her. But if she saw you struggling with your grief after your soul mate’s death, I’m guessing she saw a way to use you. To curse you again in a way you’d never know. To make you think it was simply an extension of the soul mate curse, when in reality, it was her way to get back at her husband. The god who’s done nothing but humiliate her to the world.”

Ari’s heart beat hard and fast against his ribs. If what Daphne said was true, then he’d been used as a pawn in an immortal chess game. He’d lost his life, his home, his son, all because of the whims of the gods. But ironically, he didn’t care. Suddenly all that mattered was the fact he might possibly be free.

He reached for Daphne’s hand, warmth and hope filling his chest, making him feel light and alive. More alive than he’d ever felt before. “How did I get here?”

Daphne smiled as he pulled her toward him. A sweet, beautiful, electrifying smile that made his whole body tighten in anticipation of her touch. “I brought you here. Sappheire helped. She heard the commotion through the trees and came running to help. When she saw the Sirenum Scorpoli, she opened a portal and helped me get you through before anything happened. I told her how to get here.”

He hadn’t hurt anyone. Not even those evil Sirens. “And she just...saved me? Even knowing how many Sirens I’ve killed over the years?”

Daphne’s eyes softened. “She saw what I saw, Ari. And she realized the same truth I already figured out. That she’d never known a Siren killed by you. She’s served with the Order for nearly three hundred years. She’s Athena’s right-hand Siren. If you were really killing Sirens like Zeus and Athena want everyone to believe, she would have met at least one.”

Ari glanced toward the fire and watched a flame dance over the log. Remembered his dream of burning in the fires of Hades. He wanted to believe Daphne’s claim. Wanted to believe he’d been doing good all these years instead of bad, but something held him back.

“How do you know so much about the Sirens?” His gaze drifted to the shelves. “I haven’t been asleep that long. You can’t have learned it all from these books or the Siren upstairs.”

A nervous look passed over Daphne’s face. “That’s the other thing I want to tell you.” She pulled her hands from his, pushed to her feet, and crossed toward the fire. “Oh man. I can’t believe I’m about to do this.”

Ari’s brow dropped low as he watched her, and a low buzz sounded in his ears. One that set his nerves on edge. One he didn’t like. Sliding the book on the ground beside him, he slowly rose to his feet. “Do what?”

“Ruin everything,” she mumbled.

Before he could ask what that meant, she turned to face him and straightened her spine. “I know about the Sirens because a week ago, I was on Olympus training to become one. I wasn’t in that forest by accident, Ari, and our meeting wasn’t by chance. Zeus sent me here to find you. He sent me to find you, to seduce you, and then, when you let down your guard, to kill you.”

* * *

Ari didn’t say anything. Just stared at her from across the room with blank, unreadable eyes.

Urgency pushed Daphne’s feet forward, her stomach swirling with both dread and fear. Not fear that he would hurt her, she knew he’d never do that, but fear that she’d lose him if she didn’t tell him everything fast.

“I was close to being inducted into the Order. I thought that’s what I wanted. When Zeus gave me this mission, I couldn’t say no. If I didn’t do it, they would have kicked me out, and you know I have no family left. So I said yes, and I came here looking for you, and I pretended that I was running from a god, when the truth was, I was doing what he and Athena told me to do. But I quickly realized that you aren’t at all what they said you are.”

She knew she was rambling but she didn’t care. All that mattered was making sure he understood the truth. “I didn’t seduce you. I realized early on that I wasn’t any good at seduction. I mean, I was trained in it. All Sirens are. But I guess none of it really stuck because when I tried to use it, you totally walked away. The only time you even seemed interested in me was when I was being my normal, rambling self, which, by the way, the Sirens do not like. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times Sappheire’s told me to shut the hell up. And I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to do what Zeus and Athena sent me to do, but then I saw the map in your office and I learned what they’d done, and you were so nice and you comforted me, and...and I knew even more that you weren’t the psycho they said you were.”

She swallowed hard and met his eyes. They were guarded now, his gaze narrowed. And she still couldn’t read what he was thinking. But those mismatched eyes of his were locked on her, and she took that as a good sign.

“I didn’t sleep with you because I was trying to seduce you,” she went on. “I slept with you because I wanted to. Because I’m attracted to you. Because you’re the sexiest male I’ve ever laid eyes on. I mean, let’s get real.” She held out her hand toward his chiseled abs and muscular arms. “You’re like...carved from marble. My knees went weak the first time I saw you in the gym downstairs, and that was when I thought you were a lunatic and when you didn’t even want to have anything to do with me. I slept with you because you excite me. Because I’m crazy about you. Because...”

Heat burned her cheeks when she realized how insanely she was rambling now. But she forced herself to go on. “Because I...because I care about you.”

No, she didn’t just care. She loved him. The truth burned through her chest, stole her breath, and knocked her back a step. She’d heard that nymphs fell fast and hard when they met that perfect someone—her mother had once told her she’d fallen in love with Daphne’s father in a matter of days—but Daphne had never experienced love before so she didn’t know what to expect. Now, though, she did. Now, when her head grew light and her legs trembled, she knew exactly what it was from.

The room spun around her. Backing up, she reached out to steady herself but knew it was already too late.

Strong arms closed around her and pulled her against a hard chest before she hit the floor. Blinking several times, she gazed up into Ari’s handsome face as that whoosh of emotion sped all through her chest again.

She really did love him. So much she no longer saw the scars on his jaw and neck, no longer saw the menace she’d first noticed in his mismatched eyes. She just saw a hero. Her hero. The only true hero she’d ever known.

She also saw someone who wasn’t drawing her into him and professing his feelings right back.

He shook his head. “You’re crazier than I am, you know that?”

Crazy. He’d said crazy, not beautiful, not amazing, not alluring, not dreamy. Just
crazy
.

Heat rose in her neck and enflamed her cheeks. A hard knot rolled through her stomach with the realization that she’d just made a giant fool of herself.

Pushing against his arms, she found her feet and stepped back, just enough so she could catch her breath. Just enough so she didn’t humiliate herself even more.

Pull it together, Daphne. So he doesn’t love you. Big deal. You still believe in him. You can still help him.

“So what if I am? Crazy, at least, is real. I could be all seductive and mysterious if I wanted, but I don’t want to be. Just like I don’t want to be a Siren. I never really wanted to be a Siren in the first place, but you can’t say no to the gods, at least I didn’t think I could. Now I’d tell them all to fuck off.”

An amused expression crossed his features. One that only kicked her embarrassment up even higher. “And why are you smirking at me? Is what I’m saying funny? None of this is funny. I’m trying to tell you the truth. I’m trying to tell you—”

“Daphne.” He grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her into him. “Stop talking, okay? I believe you. Any time you ramble I know there’s no way you’re lying.”

Butterflies took flight in her stomach. “You do?”

He nodded, lifted one hand to her cheek, and brushed the hair away from her face. “And you are seductive and mysterious, and yes, even crazy. I’ve lived with crazy long enough to spot it.” He slid his fingers into her hair and cupped the back of her head, pulling her toward him. “Which is probably why I can’t get enough of you. Even when I know I’m the last person who should ever touch you.”