The Dragon Legion Collection(45)

The hellhound wouldn’t let anyone pass through the gates to return to the River Acheron and the world above. That was forbidden and the injunction even applied to Damien.

It was possible he didn’t realize as much, or that he was just focused on the moment, because Damien seemed untroubled. Petra knew he had no shortage of confidence. It took a brave man to walk into the underworld when he wasn’t dead, and a braver one to imagine he might be able to leave alive whenever he wished to do so.

Damien looked furious. His eyes were blazing and his muscles were pumping. He was all male and so gorgeous that Petra almost wished to be caught and kissed into submission.

Instead, she ran. Would she spend eternity trying to outrun Damien? The realm of the underworld was nearly endless. She could lead him across its vast wastelands for untold ages.

Except, of course, that Damien was mortal. Even he would fade without food and water. And if he consumed anything in this realm, he’d be trapped here as surely as if he were dead.

That bothered Petra more than she knew it should.

A glimmer of blue-green light crackled along the deadened ground, drawing up alongside her then racing ahead. Petra couldn’t make sense of it, but she didn’t have time to think about it. She spared a backward glance to find Damien closing fast, his expression murderous. She stumbled over something and looked forward again just as blue-green brilliance flared. It lit into an orb of light so bright that she had to close her eyes against it. It appeared so abruptly that she couldn’t keep from running straight into its glow.

Then her footsteps faltered to a halt as she stared in wonder.

Because Petra was abruptly surrounded by the past and filled with the ache of all they’d lost.



* * *



Trust Petra to be unpredictable and uncooperative.

Trust Petra to start an argument instead of helping them both to escape.

This quest should have been easy. Damien should have been able to fetch his son, return to the ferry and have Charon take him back to the side of the river that touched the land of the living. It should have been quick and relatively painless. He should have been heading back into the world he knew, his son safely with him, but nothing with Petra ever went as planned.

She’d always defied expectation—in fact, that had been one of the things Damien had once admired about her. She challenged him and surprised him, as no one else had ever done. She was fearless and defiant, and completely captivating. Their relationship had been fiery from the start, filled with arguments and passion, filled with battles of words that ended in ferocious lovemaking. He’d felt so alive with her, so embroiled in a constant battle of wits and challenges.


Challenge was the right word for Petra.

Look at their firestorm. He’d planned to fulfill it, conceive their son, and leave again. She’d been agreeable, even wanting to experience it. Instead, he’d stayed one day, then another, until he’d been with her for three months. It was only because he finally had left, to make a quick trip to Delphi, that he’d learned the truth about her and been able to leave for good.

The strange thing was that he knew he should be furious with her, but Damien felt invigorated. He was startled to realize how glad he’d been to feel that old flame leap to life between them. He’d missed Petra, even knowing how dangerous she was. Maybe that was part of the reason she intrigued him. Either way, he wasn’t nearly ready to step away from her again.

That should have worried him more than it did.

Damien had to wonder if she was the one who had ensured he couldn’t shift shape to fight Cerberus. It would have been like her to want him in her debt for something.

Maybe that was why she’d enchanted the hellhound, so Damien would owe her.

What did she want in exchange? It was a question that only Petra would be able to answer.

Except that she was running away from him.

Damien couldn’t believe that his son hadn’t been born before Petra had drowned, but the evidence was unmistakable. That made his mission more complicated, and he wondered if she’d planned it that way in advance. It seemed a bad time to acknowledge that he had no clear idea of her powers. Had she seen the future? Guessed where and how they’d meet again? He had a thousand questions, but Petra was clearly disinclined to explain herself. Why hadn’t she waited for their son to be born? It had been irresponsible for her to undertake such a journey so close to her time, and he felt angry with her for her choice.

An unwelcome voice in his thoughts reminded him of his own lack of responsibility, but that had been different. He couldn’t have stayed with Petra, not once he’d learned the truth about her.

Not once he’d known that she could kill him at any time.

He would have gone back for his son sooner, if he and his fellows hadn’t been cast across the centuries.

And now Charon had forgotten his bargain and had headed back to the far shore. Damien doubted there would be a refund or a credit on the extra fare he’d paid. Petra was running like the wind, running faster than he could have imagined a woman in her state would be able to run. It would have been simple to catch her if he’d been able to shift shape, but no amount of effort seemed able to rouse the dragon within. Damien pursued her, realizing as they moved deeper into this strange territory that the underworld wasn’t a place he wanted to explore alone—much less a place he wanted to remain.