Elisabeth Naughton: Enslaved

The bloody voice was back.

Not that it ever completely went away, but most days he could deal with it. Today it was like a pounding drum, growing louder each and every second. The sound so intense, it left him wanting to stab his eardrums with a hot metal poker just so he didn’t have to listen anymore.

Come to me. Bring me what I seek. You know you can’t deny your destiny.

Gryphon twisted in the May sunlight, squinted through the trees, searched for the source of the voice that continued to torment him. But it wasn’t close. Not in this vast Montana forest, not in the remote village down the hill to his right, not among his warrior kin, who’d been eyeing him as if he were bat-shit crazy for the last two months. No, this lovely voice was in his head. Inside his body. Calling to him every hour of every day, drawing him toward a darkness he feared might soon consume him.

Panic and a need to break free tightened every muscle in his body, pushed him to do something . He couldn’t give in to the darkness. He wouldn’t let it have him. He’d seen its wrath firsthand, knew the horror it would unleash. No matter what, he had to keep fighting that voice. He couldn’t let go and…

“Gryph? Dude? You okay?”

Gryphon startled at the gruff voice—the real voice—coming from Titus, his Argonaut kin, standing in the shadows of a large pine. A lock of wavy hair fell free of the leather tie at the nape of Titus’s neck, brushed his weathered cheek. The guardian tipped his head, narrowed his eyes, seemed to study Gryphon more intently. A descendent of Odysseus, Titus was the keenest of all the guardians, and he had the ability to hear others’ thoughts. Could he hear the voice too?

“Gryphon?” Titus asked again, this time crossing the small clearing toward him, his knowing hazel eyes honed in on Gryphon’s face, his boots crunching over dried needles and broken sticks as he moved. “Maybe we should take a break.”

Oh, yeah, Titus could hear it.

Shame, fury, helplessness welled inside Gryphon. Before Titus reached him, he stepped out of the guardian’s way and beat feet for the hillside, where his brother Orpheus was scanning the small village with binoculars. “Stop treating me like a freakin’ five-year-old. I’m fine.”

Titus’s boots stilled, and he heaved out a heavy sigh. Without looking, Gryphon could see the you’re not fine, you’re fucked expression on his kin’s face.

He didn’t need the pity from Titus. He could barely handle the way Orpheus looked at him, as if he had some terminal disease. Did they think they were helping with their constant coddling and useless baby-sitting? Gryphon scratched at the back of his neck, dragged his hand down his chest, and clawed at the skin hidden under the thick henley and leather strap that cut across his torso. Things would be a helluva lot better for everyone if they’d just leave him alone. Couldn’t they see that?

Come to me, doulas . You know you want to. Stop fighting me.

He clenched his jaw, rubbed his ear against his shoulder. Flexed and released his hand so he didn’t draw his blade against the only threat out here he could see: himself. Stopping next to Orpheus, he tried like hell to ignore the voice and asked, “What do you see?”

Orpheus lowered the binoculars, shot him a way-too-fucking-concerned look. “Nothing. No movement. Looks like a ghost town. You okay?”

Gryphon ground his teeth at the question—and the worry he saw on his brother’s face—took the binoculars, scanned the distance. Saw the same thing Orpheus had, nothing but empty houses and swaying tree limbs. No humans, no Misos—half-breeds who often lived together in isolation—not even a damn dog roaming the empty streets.

He handed the binoculars back to Orpheus as he fought the need to strike out and kill something… anything . As Titus came up on his left, he caught sight of the ancient Greek text on the guardian’s arms. The same text that covered all the Argonauts’ arms, marking them as guardians of their race. He’d served with them for over a hundred years, but now everything felt different. It was his first mission since Orpheus had rescued him from the Underworld, and Gryphon knew Orpheus was responsible for his being included today. The other guardians—Theron, Zander, Demetrius, Cerek, Phineus…even Titus—they didn’t think he was ready. But Orpheus had argued that getting back into the routine of his old life, hunting Atalanta’s daemons as Argonauts had been doing for millennia, was an important step in his recovery.

His recovery.

From the hell of the Underworld.

And Atalanta…

The last thought sent a tremor through Gryphon’s entire body. A tremor that triggered a bitter hatred, turned his vision a blinding, glaring red and amped the need to annihilate exponentially.

“Gryph,” Titus said jovially—way too jovially—“why don’t we hang out up here while Orpheus goes down to see if Nick needs help.”

Nick was the leader of the half-breed colony where Gryphon and Orpheus had been living the last two months. He was already in the village below, looking for survivors of what they suspected was a daemon attack. And he had a tendency to eye Gryphon as if he had three heads too.

Fuck them all. Gryphon was sick and tired of being treated like an invalid. It wouldn’t stop until he showed them that he could hold his own, just as he had before. It wouldn’t stop until he proved he was the same guardian he’d once been.

Before Orpheus could agree, Gryphon stomped down the hill toward the silent village. And felt like screaming, because even he knew he wasn’t that ándras anymore. He twitched, he heard voices, he felt the need to claw himself free of his own skin every second of every day…nothing he did made any of it stop. Not the therapy the Argonauts made him go to, not the time or distance from the Underworld, not even being out here on a damn mission again. And after the things he’d seen and done when he was in the Underworld, he was starting to question whether he’d ever be that ándras again.

Only I understand you, doulas . Only I can ease you. Give in. Come to me.

He swiped at both ears with his hands, scrubbed his fingers through his hair, and pulled hard so he wouldn’t scream as he headed down the hillside. If he started hollering like a psycho, they’d surely lock him in a padded cell. And he wouldn’t go back to being imprisoned. Not even by them. Never again.

A growl echoed to his left just as he reached the bottom of the hill, followed by a frigid burst of air that signaled daemons were in the area.

His adrenaline shot up. He reached back for his parazonium—the ancient Greek sword all the Argonauts carried—just as Nick stepped out of the shadows.

Screw that. This was Gryphon’s kill. His blood grew hotter with the promise of a knock-down, drag-out, blood-letting fight.

The first daemon came around the side of the house, stepping between Gryphon and Nick. The beast lifted his head—a grotesque mix of cat and goat and dog—and narrowed glowing green eyes on Gryphon. Then he drew in a deep whiff and growled, “You.”

“Me, you son of a bitch.” Gryphon lifted his blade. “And I’ve a message for you to take back to your bitch of a leader.”