Free Bound by Elisabeth Naughton Page A

be comforted by him. How right .
    She might not have time to want. She might be dangerously close to an end she couldn’t even think about. But she was cognizant of the difference between right and wrong. And though she knew she probably couldn’t save the world, she wasn’t about to turn her back on it either. Not the way her father had.
    “Because you once helped me.” She didn’t face him. Couldn’t. Because she was dangerously close to needing that comfort once more. And she, better than anyone, knew there was no such thing as comfort for her.
    “Stay here and don’t do anything to antagonize the guards,” she said before he could answer. Reaching for the tent flap, she added, “I don’t have to tell you the one asset Amazons see in men. Their last queen ordered all male prisoners be bound and crippled. I’ll let you ponder why while I go meet with the Aella and try to save your life. Again.”

 
     
    Chapter Six
     
     
    Nick’s skin itched to the point he could barely stand still.
    He shifted his boots against the gleaming floor, scanned the ballroom of the Argolean castle from the shadows, and wished like hell he was anywhere but here. Fighting daemons was more enjoyable than this form of personal torture. Even being sliced and diced by the fuckers was a step up from pretending he was having a good time.
    A shadow moved to his left, and the scars on his back tingled. Without even looking, he knew it was Demetrius moving up next to him.
    “Thought you’d left already.”
    Nick’s spine stiffened. They rarely talked. For years they hadn’t even acknowledged each other’s existence. While Demetrius had been chosen to serve with the Argonauts, Nick had been banished to the human realm. Those who’d exiled him as a child had expected him to perish, but he’d survived. In fact, he’d thrived . And now not only was he the leader of the Misos, he was also the Council’s biggest fear because he was something not even the Argonauts could lay claim to. He was a true demigod.
    “I was just about to.” Nick pushed away from the wall, intent on getting away from this farce of a celebration and his long-lost brother with whom he had nothing in common, when a swish of pink to his right drew his attention.
    His breath caught, his feet stilled, and for a heartbeat, it was as if time and place and fate had no bearing. Isadora moved down the ornate steps on the far side of the room with all the splendor and regality she’d been born into. Her pale gown was open at the shoulders, dipped into her cleavage and fell all the way to her feet. Her short blonde hair had been pinned up, and the golden wreath of her crown sparkled under the chandelier lights and drew his gaze to the small gold drops at her ears.
    But it was the smile on her face that increased the beat of his heart. The way she greeted each of her subjects, introduced them to Maelea and owned the room bursting with Argoleans and Misos and Council members dressed to the nines. And the way she looked his direction and that smile grew to a full-blown grin.
    His soul mate.
    “She doesn’t show it,” Demetrius said at Nick’s side, “but she’s nervous as shit about this celebration.”
    His brother’s wife .
    The air leaked out of Nick’s lungs like a balloon pricked with a needle, leaving behind an emptiness that consumed him from the inside out. Reality settled in hard, and sound returned—the instrumental notes of the four-piece orchestra in the corner, the voices chatting around them, the clink of glasses and the scuff of shoes across the marble floor. As did the tightness in his skin that reminded him this was not his place. This was nowhere he’d ever wanted to be.
    His gaze settled on the roundness of her belly. To what should be holding his child but wasn’t. Awe turned to anger. And a bitter frustration he’d been living with for months, all because of the Argonaut at his side.
    “She should be nervous. She’s not a leader. She’s a