Awakened (Eternal Guardians Book 8) (22 page)

Binding…

Nereus…

Elysia’s eyes grew wide as the memory swept over her. They’d been discussing her arranged binding. Her parents had been preparing to marry her off to someone she didn’t want. That was why she’d run, and Zeus’s Sirens had intercepted her before she’d been able to cross the portal.

A whirlwind swirled through her chest, twisting her lungs like a tornado twists metal into shreds. She missed her family, missed her home, but she didn’t want to go back to that. Couldn’t. Because going back to that meant leaving Damon.

“Wait.” She pulled back on Max’s hand.

Max turned to look down at her, his blond hair catching the lights from the path behind him. “What’s wrong?”

Elysia looked up at his strong jawline, his familiar silver eyes, and the compassion in his rugged and handsome features.

More memories rushed in. They weren’t just cousins, they were friends. The best of friends. He was eleven years older than her, but he’d never treated her as an imposition, and he’d always watched out for her like a brother. She knew he’d do anything to keep her safe. Just as she knew he would never understand her need to stay on Olympus with Damon.

“I can’t go with you.”

“What? Why not? You can’t stay here.”

“There’s more I need to do. I was sent here for a reason. I know that reason now.”

“Did they freakin’ brainwash you? You were sent here because Zeus is a prick. Because he wants revenge against the Argonauts.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, you need to care, because—”

Voices echoed from the far end of the path, followed by footsteps drawing close.

Panic rushed through Elysia, and she pulled Max back into the brush and held her breath.

Two recruits approached, laughing and chatting about their evenings. They moved right past the brush where she and Max lurked without so much as a sideways glance and disappeared inside the barracks.

When the double doors snapped closed, Elysia turned toward Max and squeezed his hand hard. “You have to go.”

“But—”

“I’m fine, Max. Look at me. I’m not hurt, I’m not brainwashed, I’m good. Truly, I am. But I can’t leave. I won’t. And if you stay here any longer, someone
will
catch you. I won’t risk that. Tell the others—tell my parents—that I’m okay. Tell them that I love them and miss them, tell them…”

Her mind caught on another memory. Words her mother had spoken to her not long before she’d come here.

“Twenty-five years is nothing but a blink of the eye to the gods. And peace is as fleeting as the wind. It will end. It will end soon.”

She looked up at Max in the shadows. “Tell my parents it’s too risky. If I go back with you, there will be no more peace. Zeus will attack Argolea. You yourself said he took me for revenge. If I go back with you now, he’ll retaliate. I won’t risk that. I’m fine here, Max. I really am.”

“But…” His frantic eyes searched her face, and his fingers closed around hers. “We can keep you safe. We have a plan. Just come with me.”

She wanted to. She wanted to go home, wanted to see her parents, but she wanted Damon more. And after the words he’d said and the things he’d made her feel tonight, she knew she couldn’t leave him now.

“You have to go.” Her throat grew tight, her hands shaky as she pushed him back toward the path. “Go, and don’t come back. I couldn’t live with myself if they caught you.”

“But…”

She rose up on her toes, threw her arms around his broad shoulders, and hugged him tight. “I’ll find you. When I get through my training and they send me into the human realm, I’ll find you. I promise I won’t forget you. I won’t forget any of you.”

Before he could protest again, she tugged the hood of Orpheus’s invisibility cloak over his head. He vanished from sight, but she knew he was still there. She just hoped he did as she said and left before what limited magic was left in the cloak ran out. “Now go.”

She stepped past him, raced the rest of the way down the path, and skipped the steps to the porch of her barracks. Pulling the door open and moving inside, she told herself she was doing the right thing. She knew she was.

But her heart still squeezed so hard, it felt as if it shrank a size in her chest. Because by staying here with Damon, she’d just given up her one chance to be free.

D
amon couldn’t stand still. He hadn’t seen Elysia since he’d kissed her good night outside the doors of this building nearly forty-eight hours ago.

Seduction training was only scheduled six nights a week. On the seventh—which had been Sunday—the trainers were given the night off. Since Athena had assigned classroom work to the recruits during the day, and because she’d sent Damon and Erebus to Hephaestus, the god of metalworking, on Monday to pick up a new set of weaponry for the Sirens, Damon hadn’t been in the field. Which meant he hadn’t even been able to catch a glimpse of Elysia since their magical night in the hot springs.

Athena had purposely sent him on that little errand just to spite him. Hephaestus was Aphrodite’s husband, and the god knew full well who Damon was to his wife. Everyone on Olympus knew what Damon did for Aphrodite, and Hephaestus, clearly, had reason to despise him.

Fury burned hot through Damon’s gut when he thought back to that encounter. The only reason he wasn’t a bloody, bruised mess right this minute was because Erebus had been there to run interference. As Damon paced the length of the private room while he waited for Elysia, he wished like hell he could send Athena on an errand or two. The goddess was still pissed he’d switched up the seduction schedule so he could have Elysia. He’d been stupid to think she’d just let that go. He had to be careful with Elysia from here on out. He didn’t want Athena targeting her because of him. And if she planned to make it impossible for Elysia to pass just to get back at him—

The door opened. Damon looked in that direction just as Elysia stepped into the room. Her hair fell in a sleek mass past her shoulders, and she was dressed in another sweet sundress, this one light blue with a heart-shaped neckline that showed off her delectable cleavage. Slim spaghetti straps held the organza fabric in place as it nipped in at her waist, rounded her hips, and dropped to hit mid-thigh, accentuating the long, toned length of her legs.

Desire rolled through his belly, pushing aside all the fury. But it was the shadows in her pretty dark eyes that put him on instant alert.

He reached for her hands. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just…just a little homesick today.” She drew a deep breath and forced a smile he knew she didn’t feel. “Athena kept us on the training field longer than usual. I got here as soon as I could.”

Of course Athena had. The goddess enjoyed making him suffer.

Don’t think about Athena
. Damon brushed a silky tendril away from Elysia’s face and forced his focus on this, on them, on the moment he’d been anticipating for two damn days. And after hearing she was homesick, he felt even better about what he had planned. “I missed you.”

“Mm.” She leaned toward his hand and sighed. “I missed you too. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the other night.” Her gaze shifted to the right and the lone candle he’d lit. “Are we—”

“No.” Desire came roaring back, a hot and needy fireball that rolled through his blood. Grasping her hand tightly in his, he moved toward the candle and blew it out. “We’re not staying here.”

“We’re not?”

He shook his head as he pulled Elysia with him out into the hall. Tugging the door closed, he held one finger to his lips to tell her to be quiet, then leaned close to her ear, drew in a whiff of her sweet honeysuckle scent, and whispered, “I have something special planned.”

Dim light filled the hallway from sconces set every twenty feet along the wall, but it was enough to see the spark of excitement in Elysia’s eyes that told him she approved. His pants grew tight. Anticipation curled through his belly as he pulled her down the hall, pushed the far door open, and led her away from the buildings.

Darkness surrounded them as they moved into the trees that bordered the Siren property. He led her through the woods until they reached their meadow. Slowing his steps, he turned toward her, reached for her other hand, and laced their fingers together. “Okay, close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see. Trust me.”

She narrowed her eyes in a skeptical way, but the sexy little smirk on her lips told him loud and clear that she did trust him. And that warmed his heart more than anything else.

Her eyes fell closed. Studying her delicate features in the moonlight, he imagined where he was taking her. Excitement curled like fire in his blood.

A pop sounded, and a whir of light illuminated the meadow. Elysia gasped as the portal opened. He squeezed her hands in reassurance as they flashed through time and space.

Solid ground formed beneath their feet. She wobbled, and he reached for her shoulders to make sure she didn’t fall. When she opened her eyes and looked past him, she gasped all over again, making him smile.

Her gaze drifted over the crumbling columns and massive ruins behind him, illuminated by the waning moon. “What the…?” She turned to look down the rolling, forested hills to the ocean far off in the distance sparkling like a sea of diamonds in a spray of white light. “Where are we?”

“Pandora.”

Fear rushed across her features.

“Don’t worry. This is sacred ground. We’re safe here. The monsters on this island can’t cross into the temple, I promise.” He closed his hand over hers once more and pulled her with him toward the broken and chipped marble steps of the ruins. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

They moved up the steps and into the temple. Moonlight illuminated the dozens of crumbling columns lining the inside of the temple in two parallel rows. The ceiling was missing in places, and twigs and leaves that had blown in over the years skittered along the cracked and broken floor. Darkness beckoned from the edges of the temple, but Elysia’s wide eyes told Damon she wasn’t seeing the ruins. She was seeing it as it had once been. Massive, grand, and absolutely spectacular.

“Wow. This is incredible. Whose temple is this?”

“Athena’s.”

The whites around her mesmerizing dark irises grew even wider.
 

Damon chuckled and pulled her deeper into the temple with him. “Don’t worry. She’s not here, nor is anyone else. After Zeus trapped the monsters of the world on Pandora, this temple fell into ruin. It hasn’t been used in hundreds of years.”

Steps led down into what had once been a large central pool in the middle of the temple. Now only twigs and leaves and broken marble were scattered across the bottom, but as Elysia studied it, Damon knew she was seeing it filled with water, illuminated by carefully positioned holes in the ceiling high above to let in light. To the right and left, chipped benches offered seating. Past the pool, an altar made of marble was perched on a dais, and beyond that, an enormous statue of Athena overlooked everything.

“It’s amazing.” Elysia let go of his hand and turned in a slow circle. “Can you imagine what it was like in its day?”

Damon glanced around. He didn’t see amazing. He saw an ostentatious place where the gods lounged like fat kings and mortals worked their fingers to the bone, rushing around serving the gods like royalty. Exactly as they did on Olympus. “Probably pretty boring. Athena is still known as the virgin goddess. Ironic that she makes her Sirens peddle sex when she’s such a prude.”

Elysia smiled and stepped toward the altar. Moving up the three stone steps, she ran her hand over the flat marble. “Still smooth.”

Damon’s stomach tightened, anticipating those delicate fingers sliding along his skin. Soon…

Tucking his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t reach for her yet, he moved up two steps toward the end of the altar. “This temple does have a dark history, though.”

“Oh, really?”

“You’ve heard of Medusa, right?”

“The gorgon?”

He nodded. “She was once a priestess in this temple. Gorgeous, they say, and totally devoted to Athena. But Poseidon had a thing for her. And he followed her here. When he found her alone, he took her, right here on this altar.”

Elysia’s gaze dropped to the marble beneath her hand. “Right here?”