This time he’d done nothing when the Prince of Darkness had taken Talisa right in front of him.
He deserved to be in this cell. Deserved to rot here in the dark. Part of him... Part of him hoped no one ever tried to find him and that the Argonauts focused their energies on rescuing Talisa instead.
Talisa...
She was his cousin, his closest friend, the only person who truly understood him. And because of him, she could be suffering indescribable torture right this very moment. Or she could already be dead.
Dead...
A searing pain lit off deep in his chest. He gasped, opened his eyes, and stared into the darkness. Only to realize...
It wasn’t her death he felt.
It was his own.
Talisa’s eyes widened as Zagreus pushed her up several rock steps edged with moss toward the stone archway.
It was a portal of some kind. She felt the energy radiating from the stones as strongly as she felt Zagreus’s wicked heat seeping into her spine.
He could take her anywhere through a portal—anywhere in the human realm, the cosmos, Olympus, even the Underworld. And several of those were places the Argonauts would never be able to follow.
At her back, he muttered ancient words she didn’t understand. The portal’s energy snapped and grew stronger.
“Wait.” She dug her heels into the stones beneath her feet and tried to push back, but with her gifts bound, it did nothing to slow him down.
He pushed her right up to the edge of the portal. She gasped in a breath...
Only to let it out when he forced her under the archway and no energy rushed through her body, indicating they hadn’t used any kind of portal at all.
Her eyes widened as she took in her surroundings. The dark forest she’d seen through the stone archway was gone. Instead, the trees opened to a giant pool of crystal blue water fed by an enormous waterfall, which roared over a rocky cliff at least a hundred stories high.
At the top, set back from the edge of the falls, a white castle with spires that reached toward the sky gleamed bright in the moonlight. She looked back down, realizing the pool narrowed to her left, transitioning to a fast-moving river where water swirled and gurgled and disappeared into the forest.
Shocked, she turned to look behind her. The archway was still there. Through it she could see the steps and dark forest they’d come through. But this...
Wide-eyed, she looked back at the waterfall and castle high above. This had been camouflaged. By magick, she realized. Zagreus’s magick.
Without a word, he stepped around her, grasped her bound hands, and pulled her with him down a slight hillside. Skirting the pool, he drew her toward a sheer rock wall. Mist from the waterfall sprayed over both of them. He brushed vines and tree limbs aside, moving toward the cliff. When they were five feet from the rocks, he tugged her to a stop and turned to face her.
She eased back, unsure what he had planned. But she didn’t make it far because the second his dark eyes locked on hers, she felt a tug toward him, right in the center of her chest.
The same tug she’d felt in that club when he’d looked at her, and she’d climbed off her barstool then crossed the dance floor.
His scent surrounded her—spice and citrus and rum—and her head grew light, her limbs heavy. The blood pounded in her veins and warmed in a way she both craved and didn’t understand. And before she realized what he was doing, the long line of his body brushed hers, and his arms closed tight around her back.
“Stay still, princess. I wouldn’t want you to be hurt.”
She had no idea what he meant. No idea why he’d called her princess. Then his knees bent slightly, the muscles in his strong thighs flexed against her own, and he tightened his arms, crushing her to his chest as he pushed off the ground.
Her boots left the dirt. Air streaked past her face. Her brain registered the flash of rock and water and trees rushing by, but it wasn’t until her heels clicked against solid stone that she realized he’d used his god-powers and jumped them to the rocky ledge at the top of the waterfall.
She gasped and pushed back from his chest. He loosened his hold and let her go, but his hand quickly slipped down to wrap around the bindings holding her wrists together so she didn’t fall.
Wide-eyed, she looked from the river of water rushing down the cliff, over the rocks to the right of her feet, then finally to the castle at his back, surrounded by an enormous wall with sentries posted at each tower.
“W-what is all this?” she managed above the roar of water. “Where are we?”
“Home.” He turned and tugged her with him.
He didn’t elaborate, and as they drew closer to the castle, she was too shocked to push for more.
Sentries hustled toward the enormous gate as soon as they were spotted. Guards above on the wall walk hollered down to someone behind the gate. A clank sounded, then the heavy wood doors, both at least three stories high, groaned and pushed inward, revealing a lower bailey lit by torches and an arched bridge over what looked to be another river running in front of an even higher wall and the castle beyond.
“My Prince,” several guards in armor muttered, nodding while Zagreus passed, tugging her behind him. None seemed surprised by her presence. None even bothered to look at the bindings on her wrists.
She wanted to scream at them to help her, but one look at the way they all bowed to Zagreus and backed away told her they were his lackeys and that she’d find no help from them.
Zagreus headed straight for the bridge, hauling her over the stones and past the second gate, then into the main bailey without a word.
She scanned the area, trying to take it all in so she’d know how to escape when the time came, but in the darkness, she couldn’t see anything past the rings of torchlight. She’d been right, though. The bridge spanned another river, this one smaller but flowing fast to join up with the first to spill over the cliff in a wall of water. And it looked deep—not something she could easily cross if the drawbridge’s chains were pulled.
“Master!”
“My Prince!”
Three females appeared through the open castle doors and rushed up to Zagreus, pawing and grabbing at him as he continued to walk. Females, Talisa realized as her attention swung back her captor’s way, who were petite, barefoot, with long curly hair in a variety of colors, and dressed in thin, gauzy gowns that accentuated their curves.
Nymphs.
Talisa’s shock gave way to disgust as Zagreus held up a hand and said, “Yes, my pretties, I’m back.”
“Oh, master,” the one with curly red hair down to her ass cried while she reached for his arm, “we’ve been waiting for you.”
“It’s been so long,” the blonde added, clawing at his chest.
“All for a reason,” he answered, tugging Talisa inside the warm glow of the castle.
Yeah, right. Talisa nearly huffed as she watched the three nymphs all but throwing themselves at Zagreus’s feet. She was in some kind of great hall lit by more torches and a plethora of candles and oil lamps.
Had he put a spell on these brainless bimbos? She’d heard plenty of stories about what Zagreus liked to do with nymphs. They should be running from the monster, not trying to fuck his brains out right in front of her.
Why do you care if he fucks them?
Talisa gave her head a swift shake and reminded herself she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting away from the asshole.