The Dragon Legion Collection(58)

He had to find Petra and change her mind.

At the very least, he owed her an apology.

To his relief, he saw a woman’s silhouette ahead. She was standing on the periphery of the strange forest, her back to him. He shouted Petra’s name, but she didn’t seem to hear him. She didn’t turn around, even when he ran toward her. He called her name repeatedly as he ran closer, then touched her shoulder.

When the woman turned, Damien realized he’d made a mistake.

It wasn’t Petra.

This woman was hideously ugly and ancient, as well. Her face was lined and cracked, like an exposed rock. Her long dark hair was actually hundreds of small black snakes, their eyes bright and their tongues flicking. Bat wings stretched high behind her back and she bared her teeth, showing her fangs. Worse, blood ran from her eyes in a stream of red tears, sliding into the crevasses in her skin.


He tried to shift, again without success.

The monster lunged for Damien, her nails like yellowed talons. She screamed, and made a cry like a bird being strangled. Damien saw her forked tongue and smelled her foul breath as she fell against him. She was heavy and strong, intent upon attacking him.

Damien pulled his dagger and buried it in her chest without hesitation. She fell back with a cry, blood flowing from the wound, then attacked again. Was she immortal? Or dead already? Damien feared the odds were in her favor, especially as he felt his own strength fading. He knew he was fighting for his life, and he was determined to win.

Being trapped in the underworld forever wasn’t the future he envisioned with Petra and his son.

The fight was vicious and seemed to last a lifetime.

Finally, the monster was motionless on the ground, lying in a pool of her own blood. Damien stood over her, watching for her to make another move, his heart racing. He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, exhausted and hungry. He stared down at the fallen creature until he felt someone’s presence behind him.

He spun, his dagger at the ready, only to find Petra behind him.

“For the love of Zeus,” she whispered, her horror clear as she looked at the corpse. “What have you done?”





Chapter Four



Petra couldn’t believe her eyes.

The creature at Damien’s feet was clearly dead.

He couldn’t possibly have made a worse choice. Petra rubbed her forehead, knowing that the chances of either of them escaping the underworld had just diminished to less than nothing.

Damien read her reaction well. “What was she?”

“One of the Erinyes,” Petra admitted, then gave Damien a look.

He had paled. “The Kindly Ones?”

The sight of him frightened her, for he looked more dead than she was. “They aren’t kindly and you know it. That’s just flattery, to keep them from doing their worst.”

Damien eyed the fallen creature and shuddered.

“You couldn’t have just scared her off, could you?” Petra asked, worry sharpening her tone. “You couldn’t have just injured her a little, instead of killing her outright?”

“She attacked me! I didn’t have time to think or consider. It was her or me.”

He was probably right about that.

Damien fixed Petra with a look. “But everyone in the underworld is dead already, except me. How could I kill anyone here?”

“The Erinyes are half-divine.”

“So, anything is possible.” Damien winced before she could say more. He passed a hand over his forehead, swore, then sank to his knees beside the fallen monster. “Of course, the Erinyes have a connection with Hades.”

“They work for him, doing his will by tormenting the dead who don’t deserve to rest.” Petra glanced about them. “This must be Tartarus.”

“It doesn’t look any different from the rest.”

“No, but the Erinyes are said to guard its gates and punish its occupants for Hades.”

“Then where are the occupants?”

Petra heaved a sigh. “I think we should be glad to be unable to see them. Maybe we’re only half-dead now.”

“I feel half-dead,” he muttered, then surveyed the corpse again. Damien’s disgust with himself was clear—and a perfect echo of Petra’s own. “I had no idea what she was.”

“Stories,” Petra reminded him, unable to resist.

“I never had much opportunity to listen to stories, even when I was a boy.”

“Why not?”

His frown deepened. “My father was consumed with serving my mother’s will. She kept him drunk, hungry, and a slave to the pleasures of her bedchamber. She liked having a pet dragon.” He shook his head. “There were no stories in our home.”

“I’m sorry.”

He continued, his tone so matter-of-fact that she knew he was still pained by the memory. “My father said I should be sent to train as soon as my powers were noted. I was eleven years of age when I was sent to Delphi.”

Delphi. He’d gone to Delphi for that prophecy.

“My mother didn’t want me to go. She would have kept me back, just to have another dragon at the ready. My father defied her for the first time ever. He said the Spartans sent their sons to the agape to train at eight years of age. By his reckoning, she’d had three extra years by then.”