As if he cared. His head was too light to give a shit what they wanted.
“I can’t wait to sink my teeth into that blonde we captured last week,” one of the satyrs said at Max’s back.
“Already did that,” another one answered. “Not that impressive. The redhead who was with her, though... She’s another story.”
“Talented?”
“Double-jointed.”
Laughter echoed through the forest. Then another satyr called out, “Ah, the maenads were Zeus’s greatest gift to us mere mortals. Horny little sluts.”
Their laughter grew louder. Ahead, through a gap in the trees, Max spotted what looked like a crumbling stone fortress high on a cliff.
A satyr slammed into Max’s back, shoving him forward. “Did we say it was break time, maggot? Keep walking.”
Max hadn’t even realized he’d stopped. His muscles were weak. Every inch of his body felt fucking weak, but he wasn’t about to show it in front of these beasts.
Gathering what was left of his strength, he pushed forward, heading through the trees where the satyr pointed toward what looked to be a cave entrance.
The cave was dark. And cool. Cooler than the night air. Max shivered. Inside, one of the satyrs lit a torch, which cast orange light over the uneven rock walls.
The satyr at his side grasped him by the arm and pulled. He stumbled but followed. As they wound their way through the cave, he realized they were slowly gaining in elevation.
When they finally came to a stop outside a thick, steel door, Max was sweating and breathing hard. The tallest satyr in the group—one who was about Max’s height—rapped on the door, then stepped back as they waited.
At Max’s side, the satyr who’d been dragging him said, “What are we doing with this one?”
The leader of the ragtag group turned and gave Max the once over. “Until we figure out what he can do for us, throw him into the abyss.”
Metal hinges creaked as the door pushed open. Inside, a couple of satyrs greeted the party, but Max was too busy wondering what the hell an abyss was to care.
The group thinned out as satyrs disappeared in different directions. Stone walls rose around Max as he was pushed forward down a long corridor lit only by torches here and there. Laugher and voices echoed through the space, followed by feminine screams that had to come from whatever nymphs these beasts had trapped here.
Max didn’t want to think too much about those females and what was about to be done to them. He was pushed through two more archways, then pulled to a stop outside a heavy wood door.
The satyr on his right punched a button near the door. A whining sound, like gears turning, echoed from beyond the dark door. Grabbing a key from a hook on the wall above the button, the satyr slid it into the rusted lock and turned.
Metal clanked as the old door was pulled forward. Inside, Max saw nothing but darkness.
A light flared at Max’s side. He turned his head as the satyr lit a torch and held it up, illuminating a stone, curved room. Cool air whooshed past Max’s face.
Max’s heart picked up speed. He was groggy as hell, wanted only to sit so he could rest. But something in his gut told him there was nothing good in that room.
The satyr stepped behind Max then lifted a hoof from the floor and shoved it into the middle of Max’s back, sending him stumbling forward.
Max grunted and fought to keep from falling to his knees in the room. Then sucked in a sharp breath and shuffled back when light illuminated the space.
His boots came to a skidding stop on the edge of some kind of platform overlooking a drop-off. A staircase led down into the dark, following the curve of the stone walls.
A click sounded at Max’s back. He turned just as the satyr set the torch in a hook on the wall.
“You’ve got three minutes before the torch dies out and the steps disappear,” the satyr said. “Unless you want to fall to your death, maggot, you better beat feet to the bottom fast.”
The satyr stepped back, and the door slammed shut with an ominous clank.
Pulse thundering, Max looked down and realized the stones weren’t permanent. A grinding sound echoed, and slowly, the steps began to retract inside the walls.
Grasping the torch so he wouldn’t be left blind, Max hustled down the steps as quickly as he could, staying close to the wall so he didn’t accidentally slip and tumble into the darkness, praying he didn’t pass out from the fog still swirling in his head.
The last step slid inside the wall just as he reached the bottom. Breathing hard, he turned and looked up where he’d just been.
He couldn’t see the door or platform at all. The only things he could see were circular walls and stones that went on forever and finally faded into utter darkness.
A shiver rushed down his spine. He swayed and braced a hand against the wall to keep from passing out.
He was weak. Growing weaker. Whatever Zagreus had hit him with had zapped him not just of his powers but his strength and energy, as well.
He leaned his back against the stones and slowly slid down until he dropped to his butt with his legs sticking out in front of him. Holding the torch awkwardly in one hand, he brought his pinkies together and tried to open a portal but nothing happened. And when he reached up for his Argos medallion, the beacon that was like a transmitter back to the Argonauts in Argolea so they could always find each other, he realized it was gone from around his neck.
He wasn’t sure when he’d lost it. His head was so light, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. His only hope was Elysia.
That she’d made it home. That she’d alerted the others. That the modern-day descendants of the Horae—his mother, Elysia’s mother, and Talisa’s mother—could pool their gifts and look into the present to see where he was trapped. And that their abilities were strong enough to see through the magick surrounding this fortress.
A magick he’d felt the second he’d stepped through the heavy steel doorway.
The torch sputtered and then went out, dousing him in darkness. Another shiver racked his body as he lowered his arm to his side, let the torch roll from his fingers across the cold dirt beneath him, and dropped his head back against the wall, fighting to stay conscious. To survive. To win.
This is your reality. The rest... It was never real. Just a dream...
Out of nowhere, words he’d heard ages ago echoed in his mind. Words he’d heard when he’d been trapped with Atalanta. The goddess who’d abducted him as a baby and raised him until he’d finally escaped her daemons at the age of ten.
He’d been a prisoner then, too. Forced to do horrific things. Except then, he’d been a kid. Innocent. Naïve. Blameless in the grand scheme. Now, he wasn’t. Now, his choices—his mistakes—were his own. And, skata, there had been so many fuckups over the years since he’d found his family and gone to live with them in Argolea.
Pain lanced his chest. Mixed with the agony and guilt already swamping him. Every mistake, every epic failure stemmed from one thing: his asinine belief that he was special. That he was a hero like his father and the other Argonauts. When the reality was... He was just one major disappointment.
Spineless...
Atalanta had said that to him. Too many times to count when he’d been young. And she’d been right.
He hadn’t been able to stand up to the evil goddess, to stop her from murdering innocents. He’d failed to rescue Elysia when she’d been abducted by the Sirens. And this time...