Free Tempted by Elisabeth Naughton Page B

setting up new digs somewhere in Montana. If Demetrius had opened the portal there, odds were good they’d run into a shit storm of daemons, still running patrols and searching the area for stragglers. And with Gryphon injured, their chances of getting out alive diminished radically.
    “Get Nick on the horn,” Theron said to Titus. “He’s still in Oregon rounding up his people and getting them moved over.”
    “Got it,” Titus said, skipping back up the steps.
    Zander was just coming back down the massive staircase with Callia at his side. “T,” he said as Titus rushed by. “What’s up?”
    “Nothing good,” Titus muttered, then disappeared around the corner.
    One hand gripping Zander’s tightly, the other holding her healer’s bag, Callia couldn’t hide the worry shrouding her face. She stopped at the base of the stairs, looked from Orpheus to Theron and back again. “Zander said Gryphon was hurt. How bad?”
    Theron shook his head then focused in on Zander. “T tracked them to the colony.”
    “Shit,” Zander muttered. “What the hell are they doing there?”
    “Your guess is as good as mine. We’ll need to go in carefully, pick a location well enough away so the bastards can’t sense us.”
    “I’m coming too,” Callia cut in.
    “No,” Theron said. When she flicked him an irritated look, Theron gentled his tone. “No, Callia. It’s too dangerous. Until we know what the scene is like, you stay here. But I want you ready at the Gatehouse. If it’s safe and we need you, Z will come back for you. If not…we’ll figure out a way to get Gryphon back to you ASAP.”
    That didn’t seem to appease Callia, but she nodded, then turned to Zander. The two exchanged quiet words while the other Argonauts muttered among themselves. And watching, Orpheus had the distinct impression he was systematically being shut out.
    His jaw clenched. “I’m going with you.”
    “No,” Theron said without looking his way. “We can handle this on our own.”
    Fuck that.
    The muscles in Orpheus’s eyes constricted, and though he fought it, he couldn’t stop what was about to happen. Callia glanced his way and gasped. Several of the Argonauts turned to look. But before his eyes shifted to complete glowing green, he closed them tight and flashed out of the castle and straight to the portal.
    Screw the Argonauts.
    In this case he was lucky the Council had replaced the Argonauts with the Executive Guard. It took him microseconds to hit the Gatehouse, pull up the hood of his invisibility cloak, and sail right past the morons and through the portal.
    The Council thought they knew best, that they didn’t need the Argonauts to protect their realm, that the Executive Guard could do it just as well by standing guard. They didn’t have a clue what kinds of evil lurked on the other side of the portal. But Orpheus did. He knew because he lived it every damn day.
    Since he’d been at the half-breed colony only days before, he knew the coordinates in the remote Oregon wilderness, and it was easy to open the portal just beyond the cave’s entrance. A flash of light erupted as he stepped through, then sizzled and popped into nothingness.
    He lowered the hood of his cloak, stood where he was, his eyes and ears adjusting to the sights and sounds around him. The Douglas firs were eerily quiet, the light from the full moon illuminating the thin layer of fresh snow on the forest floor with a surreal gray light. A whisper of frigid air ran down his spine, prickling the hair on his back, and the scents of earth and pine and decay filled his nose. That and blood. Lots of blood.
    The daemon in him pushed forward, but he fought it back, thankful this one time his heightened senses would draw him to what he was looking for. He moved through the forest without a sound, like the dark shadow he knew he was, and reached the edge of the clearing moments later. It was just as he’d remembered days ago—wide, snow-covered, and bloody. Except