They were somewhere in the human realm, but Talisa didn’t know where. An owl hooted high above, and the gentle wind whistled through the canopy like an ominous warning.
Zagreus clearly knew where they were because he didn’t once look around. Just tightened his hold on her arm and pulled as he stepped forward. “Come on. There are darker things than me out here in these woods.”
She had no idea what he meant, but the second he started dragging her through the brush, her instincts kicked back in—fiercely.
“Let me go.” She struggled against his hold, unable to do much more than slow his pace.
He didn’t answer. Just dragged her along like a sack of potatoes. She wasn’t sure why her strength wasn’t working, but she had a hunch he’d cast some kind of spell to mess with it.
Cursing the fact she’d left her blade in a locker back at that club, she reminded herself she was a warrior, not a victim. And it was time she started acting like one.
Her boots kicked up dust and debris as she wrestled against his grip. He grumbled something about her slowing him down, but she barely heard him. While he was distracted pulling her along as she fought, she reached back for the dagger she kept sheathed against her low back, hidden beneath her clothes.
She waited until he yanked her past a large oak, and as soon as the space was clear, she gripped the handle tight in her hand and arced out with the blade.
The steel came within centimeters of his throat, would have sliced through the carotid artery of any mortal, enhanced or not. But he wasn’t mortal. He was a god, with reflexes that bested any from her world. And she realized that a split second too late.
He jerked back from the glinting blade, grasped her at the wrist and squeezed so hard, pain shot up her arm like a bullet, causing her fingers to instinctively fly open and the dagger to drop at her feet.
Her vision wavered. With both of her arms captured, she couldn’t strike out again, but she wasn’t about to give up. She lifted her knee, aiming for his balls, but she never made contact. He whipped them around, jerked her close, and shoved her back. Leather and spices filled her nostrils but was quickly gone. And then she was flying, not through a portal this time, but through air, flung backward as if she were nothing more than a rag doll.
Her body slammed into the ground. She grunted as dry leaves flew up around her. Pain shot down her spine and radiated through her limbs. Blinking, she tried to clear her fuzzy head, then looked up toward the god stalking toward her with her dagger in his hand.
The dark and malicious and deadly god who was something straight out of her nightmares—or dreams.
She blinked several times. Tensed against the ground, ready to strike out if he lunged for her. But he didn’t. He just stopped at her feet and looked down. And as she stared up at him, she realized instead of the enraged expression she expected to see in his features, there was only… annoyance.
Annoyance? No, that couldn’t be right.
He hooked her dagger in his belt and tipped his head. “Are you done playing games?”
Was she done? Not even close.
Her jaw clenched, but before she could answer, he leaned down, grasped her arm, and wrenched her to her feet. Then he pulled her hands together in front of her and muttered words she couldn’t quite make out.
Magickal black ropes formed around her wrists, binding them together.
Her eyes flew wide. She looked from the ropes up to his face. “You asshole. Take these off me.”
“I don’t think so.” He grasped her arm again and tugged, resuming his pace to she didn’t know where. “I told you there were darker things out here than me. We don’t have time for your theatrics.”
Theatrics? Theatrics?
“Darker things?” She stumbled over a tree root and only kept from going down because he was holding her. “Like your satyrs?”
“Those weren’t my satyrs.”
“Bullshit! What did they do with my friends? If they hurt them, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?”
He jerked her to a stop and rounded on her, towering over her like a... Well, like a pissed off god, which he was. One who could smite her into ruin in a heartbeat.
“Look around you, female. You have no power here. I bound the little gift your goody-goody Fates gave you, and your warrior skills are no match for mine. If I’d wanted to break a few bones back there when I threw you, I could have. I chose not to. But make no mistake. You’re my prisoner now. And that means you’ll say and do exactly what I tell you to say and do, or the courtesy I’ve shown you up until this point will be a thing of the past.”
Courtesy? Abducting her had been a courtesy? Blasting her cousin with that ray of electricity had been a courtesy? Slamming her into the ground was a courtesy?
Belatedly, she realized he’d turned her around before he’d thrown her, and that she’d hit some kind of pile of dead leaves, not the hard-packed earth. She could be in a lot worse pain, but she wasn’t about to start thinking of him as any kind of compassionate individual. She knew too much about him for that, and she wasn’t about to fall for his tricks—at least not now that his glamour had faded.
“I—”
“Shut up.”
He waved his hand in front of her face, and the words instantly dried up on her tongue.
Her eyes widened again. She opened her mouth to yell at him, only no sound came out.
The son of a bitch hadn’t just abducted her and bound her strength, now he’d cast some kind of spell to keep her from making a sound.
Rage colored everything around her red. Then she realized he was looking over her head into the trees, intently listening for something—or someone.
She closed her mouth and tuned into her own senses. Twigs and dried leaves crackled under footsteps. She picked up two—no three—bodies moving quickly toward them. Preceded by a wave of chilled air that told her just what they were.
She reached both bound hands toward Zagreus’s arm and shook her head, trying to tell him to give her a blade or something to defend herself with, but the asshole only muttered, “Stay here,” and shoved her to the ground.
Her butt and legs hit the dry earth. He stepped away from her, back into the trees, then drew to a stop.
Three daemons emerged from the brush, each at least seven feet tall and as muscular as Zagreus. Monsters from the Underworld, commanded by Hades, with the bodies of men, hands full of razorlike claws, teeth something off a shark, their heads a grotesque mix of cat and goat and dog.
“That’s far enough,” Zagreus announced.
The daemon on the left chuckled. “Well, well. The Prince of Darkness. We’ve been looking for you, Zagreus.”
“That’s not a surprise.”
“Daddy dearest wants a few words.”
“That’s not a surprise, either,” Zagreus answered in a bored tone. “Too bad I’m not interested. You boys wandered into the wrong forest.”
A rustle of leaves above was the only sound. All three daemons leveled glowing green eyes on Zagreus. Then the daemon on the left growled low in his throat.
Talisa tensed against the tree, unsure what was going on here. Hades was Zagreus’s father, and though she knew they had a tumultuous relationship, they often worked together. They’d combined forces and invaded Argolea with Zagreus’s satyrs and Hades’s daemons just before she’d been born. The only reason one or both weren’t ruling her world now was because the Argonauts had stopped them.