Free Enraptured by Elisabeth Naughton

didn’t age, she was still mortal in every sense of the word. She truly was the toughest Siren Athena had ever trained, but that didn’t make her invincible. The iron shield she’d built around herself since Cynurus’s death wouldn’t last forever. And when it finally gave, Athena had a sinking suspicion the aftermath just might cause a host of problems for the whole of Olympus.
    Unless, of course, Athena headed it off before that happened.
    Footsteps echoed to her right. She didn’t turn to look to see who’d joined her. She already knew who’d been lurking in the stacks because she’d told her to wait there until Skyla left. “Gather two other Sirens. I have a job for you.”
    Sappheire paused at Athena’s side, her gaze straying to the front of the building. “Khloe and Rhebekkah are available.”
    “Good.” Athena turned toward the blue-eyed Siren who would one day soon take Skyla’s place. “Send them to Argolea. A new queen rules. I want them to enlist the help of the Argonauts.”
    “Toward what end?”
    “To locate the warlock who holds the Orb of Krónos.”
    “And what if they won’t? As far as they know, the hybrid is one of them.”
    “They will. Especially when you tell them what he really is.”
    “And what of her?” Sappheire nodded toward the door Skyla had just exited.
    “Follow her. And report back to me what she and the hybrid are doing.”
    “You think she’s compromised.”
    Athena chose her worlds carefully. “I think it’s possible Skyla is letting emotions rule her actions.”
    “And if you’re right?”
    Loyalty was a sacred trait that couldn’t be taught. But even to the gods, self-preservation trumped loyalty by a long shot. “Then you and I both know what has to be done.”
    ***
    Orpheus had been in a piss-poor mood ever since the blond with the hypnotizing violet eyes had ditched him three nights ago in her apartment. He’d replayed the events over in his mind and only two things were clear.
    One, she was definitely otherworldly. Even if she hadn’t poofed right out of his arms, he’d have known it from the mind-blowing sex they’d had in her hall. Human females didn’t blow his mind. Argolean females either. He’d even slept with a few goddesses in his many years and not even they’d rocked his world the way Skyla had. He tried to ignore the fact she was the only one who’d ever flipped him end over end like that, but couldn’t.
    He had to get the female out of his head. The only thing that really mattered—and the second point that was clear to him—was that the sex obviously hadn’t been as earth-shattering for her as it had been for him. Evidenced by the way she’d run like the wind as soon as it was over.
    Whatever. He didn’t care. Skata , he shouldn’t even be thinking of her anyway. He had more important things on his mind. Like locating that damn Maelea creature, the one he’d let get away the night he’d met Skyla. The witches in Argolea had told him she could sense energy shifts on earth. If that sonofabitch warlock Apophis was using the Orb’s energy, Maelea would be able to feel it. And she’d be able to tell Orpheus right where the slimy piece of shit was hiding.
    He stayed in the shadows of the ritzy Lake Washington neighborhood he’d tracked Maelea to. Two nights of waiting and she hadn’t returned to the small town of Auburn, Washington, where the concert had taken place. But he’d lucked out when he overheard a conversation in a bar between two human males about the weird black-haired woman who routinely hung out at the death-metal concerts. What she’d been doing with the metalheads, Orpheus still didn’t know. But he wasn’t about to question a streak of luck, especially not when the waitress told him Maelea had mentioned living somewhere near Lake Washington in the Laurelhurst area.
    He’d spent the last night running reconnaissance and he was pretty sure which house was hers. The daemon inside him could sense the light