Unchained: An Eternal Guardians Novella (4 page)

She sighed against him. Brought one hand up to rest against his chest. Warmth circled the spot, shot sparks of electricity straight into his groin. Sliding his tongue along the seam of her lips, he coaxed her to open, to let him in, to give him a taste of what he’d been dreaming about for far too long.

She drew back quickly, breaking their kiss before he was ready. His hand dropped to her thigh as she looked to her right.

He didn’t care about whatever animal outside the gazebo had distracted her. He only wanted more. He reached for her. “Keia.”

“He’s back.” She pushed to her feet before he could kiss her again. Her gaze stayed locked on something to her right. “What is he doing back so soon?”

“He who?” A little of Prometheus’s lust faded when he saw the worry rushing over her features. He stood and reached for her. “Keia?”

She glanced his way. But this time he didn’t see heat in her gemlike eyes. He saw fear. True fear. “He’s not alone. I have to go.”

“Wait.” He stepped toward her. “Tell me where you—”

His fingertips grazed her sleeve, but she vanished before he could grasp her.

* * * *

Circe extinguished the flames in her cauldron just as three of Zeus’s Sirens—his Barbie-doll like warriors, dressed in skintight black tops, fitted black pants, and knee-high kickass boots—moved into her cave and spread out around her.

“What is the meaning of this?” Circe straightened her back and looked past the Sirens toward the tunnel. “Where is Zeus?”

“Zeus is busy,” the one in the middle with blonde hair falling in waves to her shoulder blades said. “He sent us to inspire you.”

The brunette to Circe’s right chuckled and ascended the steps toward her.

“Stay back.” Circe lifted a hand, a chant growing in her mind, but the Sirens moved with stealth speed and were on top of her before she could summon a spell.

They jerked her arms behind her back. “No chants for you,” the redhead said, clamping metal cuffs around her wrists. “Not right now anyway.”

Circe grunted as the weight of the cuffs pulled on her wrists. But more than that, she felt the power in the metal. Adamant, she realized. The strongest metal in all the realms. A groan echoed from her chest.

“That’s right,” the Siren to her right said, pushing her forward so she stumbled down the steps. “These cuffs were forged by Hephaestus himself. Your spells won’t work so long as they bind you.”

They led her out the tunnel from which they’d come. The adamant cuffs didn’t just block her magic, they made it impossible for her to fight back. Sunlight spilled into the cave as they grew close to the opening, and Circe tensed. Zeus had trapped her in this cave with his powers. She couldn’t leave. If she tried to cross into the light, an invisible force field would jolt her back with an electrical current. The Sirens didn’t lead her into the light, though. They turned just when she was sure she was going to be zapped and drew her into a tunnel she’d never noticed before.

Darkness surrounded them. The tunnel circled down into the depths of the mountain. Unable to struggle, Circe followed, unsure where they were leading her. The air grew cold. Ahead, a flickering orange light beckoned.

Unease rolled through her. She’d never been in this part of the mountain, but the hairs on her nape standing straight told her whatever was down here could not be good. The ground finally leveled out as they entered a large room. The Sirens at her back drew her to a stop. The one at her front crossed toward a lone torch lit on the far wall, removed it from the holder, and walked back toward Circe.

The Siren tipped her head. “Zeus has decided you need a little something to inspire you to work harder.” Her gaze skipped past Circe. “Ladies?”

The Siren on Circe’s right let go of her and stepped away, into the darkness. Metal groaned, and in a heartbeat of understanding, Circe realized the sound was a door opening. A rusted, metal door. And this wasn’t just a cave. It was a dungeon.

The Siren at her left maneuvered her into the darkness.

“Wait.” Circe tried to push back with her weight, but the adamant cuffs stopped her momentum.

They shoved her into the cell. One uncuffed the manacles from her wrists. The other lifted her boot to the small of Circe’s back and thrust her forward.

Circe lifted her hands just before she hit the hard rock wall of the cell. Metal groaned and clanked. Whipping around, Circe spotted the three Sirens standing outside her cell, the one in the middle holding the torch to shine light all around them.

“Don’t waste time trying to conjure a spell to free yourself,” the brunette said. “These walls are infused with adamant as well. Your powers won’t work here.” She looked to the redhead, and then the blonde. “We should go before he wakes.”

“Wait.” A bolt of fear shot down Circe’s spine, and she rushed to grasp the bars. “He who?”

The brunette smiled. “You’ll find out. Come on, girls.”

The light faded along with their footsteps. Darkness pressed in, stealing the air from Circe’s lungs. Shivering, she stepped back, holding out her hands until she felt the cold stone wall at her back.

“Don’t freak out,” she said aloud to keep the fear at bay. “Zeus is just trying to scare you. He’ll let you go in a few hours.”

 A roar sounded outside her cell. Circe’s gaze jerked in that direction, and her pulse shot into the stratosphere.

That didn’t sound like a Siren. Or a god. It sounded like a monster.

She swallowed hard and told herself the adamant in the bars of the cell door would protect her from whatever was out there. But a clicking sound echoed close. Like nails clawing at the ground. Growing faster. Louder. Coming closer...

She held her breath and went completely still.

The heavy steel door of her cell crashed open. Circe swallowed her scream and slid down the wall, arms and legs shaking, hoping she blended into the darkness

Something drew in a long sniff and growled. “I smell you, witch.”

All she saw was the whites of its eyes before it lunged.

CHAPTER THREE

Circe’s cell door clanged open hours later. Footsteps sounded across the stone floor. Too weak to lift her head, she groaned and pried her eyelids open only to wish she hadn’t.

Torchlight filled the room. A Siren scrunched her nose in distaste as she held the torch and waited in the doorway while the king of the gods crouched in front of Circe and brushed the blood-matted hair away from her face.

“Gesenius was extra rough with you.” Zeus clucked his tongue. “Looks like you fought back. Bad idea, witch. A shade is nothing to mess with.”

A shade. A death shadow. That’s what had attacked her. She would have realized that sooner but the pain had been too great to think through.

“He liked you,” Zeus said. “Then again, your blood turned him back into a human for a day. Who wouldn’t like you?”

Sickness rolled through Circe’s stomach. She closed her eyes again, not the least bit interested in his gloating. Her body was too busy trying to repair itself from the shade’s damage.

“Oh now, don’t be like that,” Zeus said. “You brought this on yourself, Circe. We had a good thing going until you decided to take your own sweet time. Lucky for you I’m a forgiving god.”

He wasn’t forgiving. He had no intention of living up to his “deal,” and she knew that now. He was never going to release her from his service because she was now the most powerful witch in all the cosmos. And to him, she was nothing more than a prize, just as Prometheus had been his prize so long ago.

Prometheus...

He was her only chance now. She had to find a way to convince him to free her completely. And the only way to do that was to make him so obsessed with her, he had no other thought but to come after her.

She needed to move up her timeline. Needed to work faster. Needed to seduce Prometheus now rather than later.

But first she had to get out of this cell so she could get back to her magic.

Groaning, she pushed up on her hands, cringed at the pain in her neck and down her side, but somehow found the strength to shift so she leaned back against the wall. Her dress, damp with blood, fell open across her breasts but she didn’t bother to fix it. “What do you want?” she asked, her voice raspy and weak.

“I want that element, witch.”

Lead him on. Tell him what he wants to hear.

“I could have gotten it...for you. But your Sirens...interrupted me.”

“No, my Sirens clearly inspired you.” Zeus’s dark eyes narrowed. “You need to work smarter.” He brushed another lock of bloody hair back from her cheek, almost tenderly. “I told you I was a patient god, but I have limits.” His licentious gaze drifted over her ripped gown and exposed flesh. “Either get me the results I want, or the hell you just lived through will be your new normal.” His gaze lifted back to her face. “The clock is ticking, witch.”

He rose and looked toward the Siren. “Move her into a cell where she can work. Bring her food and new supplies. Then send someone to clean up this mess. It stinks like death in here.”

He stalked out of the room, followed by a smug-looking Siren. Closing her eyes once more in the dark as the metal door clanged shut, Circe shuddered against the cold stone floor.

Your new normal...

Understanding sent bile sliding up her throat. He was going to torture her the same way he’d tortured Prometheus. Painfully. Horrifically. Daily until she gave him what he wanted. And when she did, he might free her from the shade, but he’d never free her from her imprisonment.

Breathing in and out slowly, she fought to regain her strength for one blinding purpose.

To find Prometheus. Because he truly was her last hope.

* * * *

A thick fog covered the forest floor in the dead of night, illuminated only by a sliver of moonlight filtering through the thick foliage above. A shiver raced down Prometheus’s spine as he scanned the dark trees that looked almost ghost-like in the dim light.

She was out here. Somewhere. He’d heard her voice in his head. Always calling him.
“Find me, Titos...”

His heart raced as he stepped forward, his boots disappearing in the fog, his god-sense on high alert. An owl cried above. The high-pitched chirp of bats flying in the distance echoed to his ears. He knew she was out here. Had felt her. The shiver told him something else was out here too. A faceless danger he couldn’t see but which hunted her.

A flutter of white darted through the trees. He whipped in that direction, his pulse going stratospheric.

He pushed his legs into a run, darting around eerie gray tree trunks in the forest, jumping over logs and boulders his god-sense picked up beneath the fog. The ground rose steadily upward. His muscles burned as he ascended the hillside. The trees slowly dissipated the higher he ran, finally opening up until he stood on a long flat plateau of rock high above a valley.

Keia stood at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the valley and its meandering river, her thin white gown blowing in the gentle breeze, her fire-red hair fanning out behind her. His breaths came fast and shallow as he slowed his steps, as he tried to figure out why she’d lured him here.

“Keia?”

She turned and faced him, her eyes as green as he’d ever seen them, her face as pale as the moon. “Find me, Titos.”

His pulse beat strong and fast, and he stepped toward her. She wasn’t real. He knew she wasn’t real. She was only real in the gazebo. But he reached for her hand regardless. Then sucked in a breath when his fingers curled around solid flesh and bone.

His gaze dropped to her hand then up to her face. “What’s going on? Why did you bring me here?”

She closed both of her hands around his and squeezed so tight pain shot up his arms. “Because you are mine.”

Her eyes shifted. They were no longer the color of shimmering emeralds but morphed to hard black cinders. And her voice...it was different. Deeper. Masculine. A voice he’d heard long ago.

She stepped back to the edge of the cliff and pulled him with her. “And you will always be mine, Titan.”

The ground fell away. Prometheus’s body sailed over the edge. Before he could release her, the ground rushed up at what felt like a million miles per hour.

Prometheus sat upright in a puddle of sweat, the sheet tangled around his legs, his heart racing as his gaze darted around his dark bedroom suite.

No sound met his ears. No voices. His gaze angled down, to the mattress beneath him, to the floor, and finally the window that looked out into the darkness.

Not a cliff. He was in bed, not falling to his death. Not that a Titan could be killed by conventional means, but it
was
possible. Especially where magic was involved.

Magic...

Keia...

That voice...

He knew that voice. It was Zeus’s voice. The god who’d imprisoned him and left him to a daily torture that still haunted his restless hours. Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, he drew in deep breaths that did little to settle his racing pulse, let them out slowly, tried to make sense of the dream.

No, not a dream. A warning. His god-sense was picking up something...something he needed to key into before it was too late.

Urgency pushed him across the floor. He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, shoved his feet into boots, and moved for the dark corridor that led to the stairs. He didn’t care that it was the dead of night. Didn’t care that common sense was telling him it had just been a dream. He knew what he’d felt, and his senses were going apeshit over the threat he knew lurked somewhere out there in the dark.

He made his way into the trees. A low fog hovered over the ground as he headed toward the gazebo Keia had lured him to only yesterday. Moonlight slanted through the canopy to illuminate the woods in an eerie white glow. Déjà vu trickled through him, but he fought it back and pushed onward. He could flash to the gazebo—he had the power to flash in any realm—but didn’t because if danger really did lurk in that magical place, he wanted to surprise it. Minutes later he crossed the bridge and moved silently through the trees toward the dark structure.