her. Footsteps pounded at his back, growing steadily lighter until they faded in the dark forest.
Talisa scrambled out from under him and shifted to her knees. “Oh my gods, that’s my dagger. She had my dagger.”
Grinding his teeth, Zagreus moved so he was sitting in the dirt and reached for the handle sticking out of his side.
“No, don’t—”
“Fucking”—he yanked the blade free, wincing at the pain radiating through his side with the motion—“first bitch.” Blood gushed from the wound, staining his shirt, but within seconds the flow slowed as the wound knit back together, a benefit of being immortal. “Hephaestus never should have created her for Zeus. I don’t know how the hell she found me, but I should have seen through her glamour.”
“Who?”
He dropped the blade on the ground and fought from groaning as he pushed to his feet. Wrapping a hand around Talisa’s arm, he pulled her up next to him. “Pandora.”
Talisa’s eyes flew wide. “That was Pandora? The first woman ever created?”
“Unfortunately. A scheming, conniving, evil bitch who is more dangerous than all the gods put together.”
“What was she doing here?”
“Who knows. Probably trying to fuck me over. She was one of my prisoners years ago before my lair was demolished.” He gripped her arms at the elbows, his gaze scanning her body for injuries. “Did she hurt you?”
“No, but—”
“Good.” He closed one hand over hers and turned to pull her after him toward the stone arch. “We need to get back inside the kingdom’s borders.”
“Zagreus, wait.” Talisa tugged back on his arm. When he looked over his shoulder, she blinked up at him in the moonlight with familiar yet very focused eyes. Eyes that put him on instant alert and made him turn her way. “She wasn’t alone. She brought—”
Growls echoed in the dark trees behind Talisa, cutting off her words. So many growls, her familiar violet eyes grew wide once more.
Zagreus stilled and looked over her head toward the fifty or so satyrs emerging from the forest around them, muscles hulking, weapons ready, murder glinting in their soulless eyes.
Holy fuck.
Options, possibilities, scenarios raced through his mind.
They were too close to the satyrs to try to make a break for it under the archway. If Talisa already knew the beasts were here, it meant those satyrs had been waiting for Ana and had seen them passthrough that gate. Satyrs were simple creatures who fixated on one thing at a time. Unless they got what they wanted, they’d attack until they broke through the barrier and found a way in. And it was also possible Ana had already given them the spell to access Ehrendia when the stone arch was unguarded.
That left grabbing Talisa and teleporting their way out of this mess, except… Outside the camouflaged borders he’d erected with his magick, that would create an energy surge his father or any of the other gods could detect. If, that is, the gods were searching for him.
Which… yeah. Double fuck. He knew they were. His father was always searching for him. And thanks to his recent visit to Olympus, now Zeus and Zeus’s motherfucking miserable Sirens were hunting him, too.
Shit. He was fucked. They were fucked. She was going to die. Again. Only this time she wouldn’t die simply because of his neglect. She’d die because of his complete and utter stupidity. Only hours after he’d truly found her.
Slowly, Talisa glanced over her shoulder and whispered, “Skata.”
As the growls grew louder, mixing with the clash of metal as weapons were drawn, that one word echoed in Zagreus’s mind—that Argolean word—bringing a clarity and burst of light in the middle of the darkness that told him exactly what he needed to do.
The only thing he could do.
The very thing he’d never been strong enough to do before.
“Take this. We don’t have much time.” Zagreus quickly pulled a chain over his head and draped it around Talisa’s neck, tucking the amulet she only saw for a brief second inside the front of her dress, drawing her attention away from the satyrs and back to him.
“Wh-what’s that?”
“Something that will help you.” Still holding her with one hand around her upper arm, he held the other in front of her face and muttered ancient words.
She felt the hold on her gifts give and break free, infusing her with strength. The strength she’d been born with.
Gasping at the rush of power surging inside her veins, she sagged back, but Zagreus’s hand shifted to her other arm, and he pulled her close.
“I’ll distract