Wicked (Eternal Guardians #9) - Elisabeth Naughton Page 0,2
were another matter.
Zagreus had no doubt the bastards were searching for him, which was why they’d dragged the timid nymphs along—as bait. His proclivity for nymphs was well known throughout the realms. Obviously, his recent activities had not gone unnoticed.
His gaze swung back to the satyrs, both brawny and hairy and at least six feet in height with tree-trunk legs and meaty arms. Their heads were shaved, their horns virtually nonexistent. They wore leather pants to hide their fur-covered legs, and long trench coats that flapped behind them as they moved.
He couldn’t be sure from this angle, but he was fairly certain they weren’t any of his satyrs—at least not any of his former satyrs. His lair in the Yucatan had been demolished some twenty-eight years ago. Most, if not all, who’d served him then had been killed in the destruction. But the hair on his nape tingled with the knowledge they could be hunting him. And if so, it meant they’d joined forces with Zeus or even Hades himself.
A dark shadow rolled through Zagreus at the thought of his malicious father. The god who hadn’t just cursed him, but who’d sent him to a hell no one—not even him—deserved. If it was the last thing he did, he was going to make Hades pay for every miserable thing the god-king of the Underworld had done to him.
Which was exactly why he needed to stick to his plan and not draw attention. He was close to that goal. He already had one major piece of the puzzle. He just needed to lie low until things cooled off. Then, he could put the rest of his plan in motion.
But only if he forgot about this stupid obsession and got the hell out of this pathetic club.
He turned away from the crowd and glanced to his left where his companion, Rhen, stood waiting with a hood pulled over his head, hiding his features, even in the dark. Rhen was like a silent shadow. A loyal one. Not a thing like the satyrs Zagreus used to employ.
The male caught Zagreus’s eye, nodded at their silent communication, then turned for the back door.
Zagreus moved to follow, but a shiver rushed down his spine, causing him to stop. His skin tingled—everywhere—and a familiar pressure grew in his chest. One he hadn’t felt in years.
Nearly five hundred years, to be exact.
Heart thumping, he swiveled back toward the crowd of writhing bodies, moving to the rhythmic beat under the pulsing lights, and quickly scanned faces again.
They were all the same ones he’d already dismissed. But the pressure was still there. In fact, it was growing now, making his chest feel full instead of hollow. Making him feel... alive, not dead and empty and forsaken inside.
His pulse raced as his gaze shot toward the two nymphs again. He tuned into his senses, but still picked up nothing special from them. Nothing that told him either was—
Every thought came to a whirring stop as his gaze landed on a tall, dark-haired female standing near the bar, looking out over the dance floor.
She wore chunky-heeled, knee-high boots and tight black pants that fit her like a glove. Her hips were slim, her waist narrow and cinched in by a black, leather underbust corset, her breasts full and round beneath the thin, white, long-sleeved off-the-shoulder blouse that showed a hint of cleavage and luscious tanned skin. She had striking features—plump lips, high cheekbones, a cute, slightly upturned nose—and her face was framed by jet-black hair that was pulled back in the front and fell like a river of silk to the middle of her back.
She could have been a Siren—she had the same drop-dead gorgeous body and model-worthy face all of Zeus’s elite female warriors possessed—but while her looks definitely intrigued him, they weren’t what drew his attention. No, his attention zeroed in on her eyes.
Her violet eyes. Like shimmering amethysts, catching the light. The color so striking, so unique, so familiar, he could see them all the way across the dark club.
She blinked those mesmerizing eyes then turned away from the dance floor, moving toward the bar.
Zagreus took one step to follow her, only to falter again when he realized...
She wasn’t a nymph.
She was Argolean. A descendant of the greatest heroes in all of Ancient Greece.
His brow dropped. Most Argoleans didn’t venture into the human realm these days because Zeus had all but declared war on their queen. They kept to their own realm, a world the Olympians couldn’t access.