Free Tempted by Elisabeth Naughton

had Demetrius pinned. “Bring him.”
    The daemon curled its claws into Demetrius’s shirt and yanked. “Get up, asswipe.”
    Demetrius staggered, caught his balance, stumbled again as he was dragged across the ground. The daemon threw him to the dirt near the others.
    Pain seared every inch of his body, but he pushed up on his hands, searched through the sea of tree-trunk legs and arms for Isadora. Sweat and blood rolled into his eyes, but he barely cared.
    Isadora’s face was bruised, her arms limp, her head tipped to the side. Blood trickled down her temple. More dried blood caked her short blond hair and matted the side of her head. One foot was twisted at an odd angle, and her chest neither rose nor fell.
    No. Oh, skata, no…
    The daemon who’d summoned him stepped in Demetrius’s line of sight, blocking his view. He wrapped his meaty hands in the front of Demetrius’s shirt and jerked him to his feet. Demetrius didn’t fight back, didn’t try to defend himself. All he saw was the image of Isadora lying dead on the ground.
    The daemon’s glowing eyes roamed Demetrius’s face, and that black mist brewed in Demetrius’s chest with every passing second. Two hundred and eighteen years of life had come down to this. To making one monumentally fucked-up mistake that had just toasted all three of them and sent Isadora straight into Hades’s clutches for good. “Just kill me, you fucking prick.”
    The daemon’s lips curled back in a grisly smile to reveal stained, pointed teeth. “And risk the wrath of Atalanta? I don’t think so.”
    The daemon set Demetrius on his feet, but instead of the blinding pain from claws or teeth or blade, what came was a pat on his back as if they were old friends. The daemon turned to face the others. “What we have there, my comrades, is of royal blood. And lucky for all of you I realized this before you killed her.”
    Demetrius’s gaze snapped to Isadora. She wasn’t dead? Hope erupted in his chest.
    “Atalanta has been waiting for her,” the daemon went on. “What a lucky twist of fate that we are the ones who will bring her to our queen.” He turned and looked Demetrius’s way. “And she will be most pleased you are the one who brought her to us.”
    That hope fizzled and died. Trepidation coursed through Demetrius as the leader’s chest swelled with pride. More daemons gathered to see what was happening. Murmurs and throaty whispers rose up in the night to circle the field like a malicious, pulsing halo of evil.
    The leader of the pack held his arms out wide. “Warriors, pay homage to this Argonaut who will change the tides of our war. For Atalanta’s son has succeeded in his duties. Your brother has finally brought us our prize.”

Chapter 5

    Orpheus felt like he’d been run over by a semitruck. The skin on his hands and forearms was fried from all the acidic witch blood. His shoulder hurt like a bitch where he’d taken a blast of Apophis’s energy. And he had enough nicks and cuts from claws and swords everywhere else to last him into the next millennium.
    Man, the Argonauts owed him big-time. As he flashed to Delia’s tent city in the low hills of the Aegis Mountains, he corrected himself. Isadora fucking owed him.
    And this time he planned to hold firm to his word and make sure she paid up.
    Delia rushed out of the pavilion just as he lowered the invisibility cloak’s hood. She grasped his forearm, her fingers digging in deep to his already-seared skin.
    He winced as pain shot into his arm and tried to pull away. But the witch had a death grip and her wide-eyed expression put him on instant alert. One look around and he realized the Argonauts weren’t here, where’d they’d planned to reconnoiter after rescuing Isadora.
    “Where are they?” he asked.
    “They left.”
    Left? Why, those ungrateful motherfu—
    “They sensed one of their own open the portal.”
    “I know. The big one opened it to get the princess away from Apophis.”
    Delia shook