“Be smart, mono mia,” he whispered in her ear. “Rely on your instincts more than your strength. They won’t fail you.” He skimmed his lips against her temple, and in an aching voice added, “Neither will I. I promise.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Zagreus’s words echoed in Talisa’s head even as she let those instincts guide her.
She sliced through the neck of a charging satyr, drew her weapon back when he stumbled, then stabbed him through the chest.
The beast gurgled what she suspected was a growl, then grasped his bloody throat and dropped to the ground with a thud.
All around her in the forest, the battle raged. Breathing hard, she swiped the sweat out of her eyes and glanced through the moonlit trees.
Weapons clanked. Argonauts and silens fought satyrs everywhere she looked. The beasts just kept charging out of the darkness. As if there was an unlimited supply. As if Pandora was conjuring more with her freakin’ box.
He won’t fail me… What did he mean by that?
What the hell was he planning?
She scanned the battlefield for Zagreus, frantic to find him. He wasn’t using a weapon—he didn’t need one. But he couldn’t just blast all of the satyrs like he’d done before because there were too many silens and Argonauts who would get caught out here in the melee. Not to mention his electricity-charged hands could engulf the entire forest in flames if he accidentally hit a dry tree or log.
She kept searching, her anxiety amping with every second. When a satyr charged from her left, she let those instincts guide her and swung out with her blade, catching the beast across the chest. Blood spurted. The satyr tumbled to the ground, but she barely looked.
She spotted her father swiveling between trees with his weapon, battling four satyrs. Orpheus charging a trio from behind and taking all of them down. Cerek and Titus and Ari and Zander demolishing every satyr around them. Skyla firing arrow after arrow into the beasts from her charmed bow. She even saw Nick, a blade in one hand, throwing the other out and using his telekinetic god-powers to lift the monsters off the ground, slam them into trees, even rip them in half. But she still couldn’t see Zagreus.
Several growls echoed to her left. She rushed that way, up a small hill, and stopped at the top to look down.
Zagreus was on the edge of a creek, surrounded by twenty or so satyrs, battling them back with his own powers. Hustling down the embankment, she swung out with her blade, taking down each beast she came to until she was fighting by his side.
“Here!” She tossed him her extra dagger, then swung around and caught a satyr across the thigh, slicing through his femoral artery. He howled and went down. Shoving a foot into his chest, she pushed him back, then twisted and stabbed another through the abdomen.
Her legs ached, her arms were sore, and she was covered in blood and other things she didn’t want to think too much about. But as Zagreus stabbed her dagger through the chest of the last satyr and she paused to take in the destruction around them, she realized how lucky they were.
Satyr bodies littered the ground everywhere. Not just here but on the other side of the hill, too. She could hear the battle continue to rage beyond the small ridge, but they were holding them back. And so far, any injuries to their side were minimal.
Zagreus stalked toward her like a wolf, all predatory and heaving muscles in the mist, his eyes as dark and dangerous as she’d ever seen them, his focus trained only on her. He held her bloody dagger at his side in one hand. With the other, he grasped her around the nape, pulled her to him, then lowered his head and kissed her hard.
It was quick. Not nearly close to the smoldering erotic kiss she knew he could plant on her. But it made her melt just the same. Everything about him made her melt, made her ache, made her want.
He lifted his head, eased back just enough so he could glance over her blood-stained body, but didn’t release her. “Are you hurt? I told you to stay close to me.”
Gods, he was bossy. And she loved it.
She dropped the tip of her blade to the forest floor and curled her other hand in his shirt, holding him close. “I’m fine. It’s not my blood. And you’re the one who disappeared over the ridge. Scared the crap out of me.”
He pulled her against his chest and skimmed his lips over her temple as his watchful eyes scanned the forest around them. “I thought I saw Pandora, but it wasn’t her.”
“I haven’t seen her. Or Max.”
“We’ll find them.” He kissed her temple again then released her. “She’s probably watching from a safe distance. That’s what I would do. She could be on the other si—”
A roar—no, several roars—that had not come from any kind of satyr echoed like a cluster of bombs going off through the forest.
Talisa’s eyes flew wide, and a new sense of fear shot through her whole body. “What the hell was that?”
“Nothing good.” Zagreus grasped her hand and pulled her with him as they hustled up the hillside. What they saw at the top made Talisa gasp.
A hydra. A fucking hydra. Laying waste to anything in its path, good bad or inanimate. All five heads had razor sharp teeth that were snapping, gnashing and vomiting fire, which was already igniting trees and shrubs and grass into fireballs.
Her mouth fell open in shock as she watched a sileni burst into flames and run screaming into the darkness. Others around the beast dropped as if just the smell had killed them. Orpheus, Demetrius and Nick were already trying to conjure enough magick to douse the fires the hydra was igniting so the entire forest didn’t go up. The rest of the Argonauts, including Talisa’s father, had shifted direction and were now battling the hydra, trying to figure out which head was the lead so they could cut it off and kill the monster. The problem was, every time they cut off the wrong head, two new ones grew back, making the creature even more deadly.
And the satyrs were still coming. Charging down the hillsides out of the dark, taking advantage of the chaos.
Oh gods… They were going to lose this battle.
Zagreus captured her arm before she could race down there herself. “Hold on. Wait. And watch.”
Her adrenaline was in the out of this world range. She didn’t know what he wanted her to see. But as she watched the hydra’s heads swivel and twist and undulate like snakes in Medusa’s hair, and she noted which heads were new, sprouting from one the Argonauts decapitated, she realized what he was looking for.
“Holy shit,” she muttered. “It’s that one. The head with the purple scale on the back of its skull.” The one those down below in the fray couldn’t see because they didn’t have their vantage point.
“I’ll try to hit it from here. Get down there and tell them to get out of the way.”
She nodded and turned to go, but he captured her again and whipped her back. “Stay out of range of its breath. The gas is poisonous.”
“I will.” She pulled free of his hold and raced down the hillside, using her blade to cut through any satyrs in her path. At the bottom, she screamed her father’s name and continued to battle satyrs who seemed to be coming stronger and faster than they had before.
“Talisa!” Her father spotted her and instantly shifted direction, heading her way, fighting through satyrs as well. When he reached her, they were both sweaty and breathing heavy, but he grasped her by the arm and drew her up against him, alarm filling his familiar eyes. “Are you hurt? Where? What happened?”