Entwined by Elisabeth Naughton Read Free Book Online Page A

at least he had more than a corner to call his own.
    After being banished from Hades for reasons he still didn’t understand, Atalanta had moved her army to this barren wasteland deep in the forests of northern British Columbia. He knew why she’d brought them here. Because it was isolated. Just as he knew this house and all the land around it had once belonged to some old oil tycoon who’d struck it rich somewhere in Alaska. That man was now dead, the gruesome details of his mutilation alive in Max’s mind thanks to Thanatos, but no one in the nearby community of Fort Nelson had any idea a demigod from the Underworld was living among them. None realized they would soon die. Or that the woman who now resided here plotted revenge and was formulating a way to take over the world.
    His thighs ached by the time he reached the fourth level. He was so tired from the day’s fighting he could barely see straight. At the end of the long hall that split the floor in half, he eased open the three-foot-high door and crawled through the small space. Inside, he grasped the rungs of the dusty, wooden ladder and climbed until he reached the attic. Then finally sighed in relief.
    Across the dirty floorboards, his pallet beckoned. The filthy porthole-shaped window high on the wall looked out at the frozen gold-brown training field, but he didn’t spare it a glance. He never did. Its only use was to let light into the dingy room, as it did now.
    He was grubby, covered in blood and sweat, and he needed a shower in the worst possible way, but it could wait. Right now he wanted comfort. The kind he could only get from one thing.
    He crossed the room. The blanket had already been removed from his pallet—by one of her minions in the house who’d watched the scene outside, no doubt. Punishment, he was sure, for not killing that daemon when he’d had thechance. If there was one life lesson he learned every day it was that in this world, everything had consequences. But today he barely cared.
    Next to his pallet, a fresh bowl of water and a plate of bread had been left for him. Though his stomach growled at the sight, he ignored the pathetic food and instead continued on. To the fifth floorboard from the wall. To the one only he knew was loose.
    He pried the board up with fingers still so cold he could barely move them. After lifting the corner, he reached underneath to draw out the glass.
    It wasn’t a mirror, but it wasn’t clear either. The oval piece was frosted on both sides, rippled as if from the inside out even though it was smooth to the touch. Around the outside it was rimmed in what looked to be gold, though Max couldn’t be sure, as he’d never seen real gold before. All he knew was that it was heavy, a solid weight in his palms, no bigger than a saucer, and it held a magic like nothing he’d ever known.
    A window between worlds.
    He cradled the glass gently against him, walked forward until his feet brushed his pallet, then sank down to his knees. He held the glass in front of him and whispered the words the little old lady who had visited him in secret both in Tartarus and here had taught him.
    “Show me my heart’s desire.”
    The ripples inside seemed to move. And then the glass cleared. Heat flowed from the object in his hands into his body, warming him from the outside in. And when he looked, he saw her face.
    Excitement pumped through him because only rarely was she looking straight on when he peeked. And because it meant at this very moment she was gazing through glass somewhere herself. Maybe she was thinking of him right this second, as he was thinking of her.
    Oh, she was beautiful. A smile spread across his face. She never aged, but then, being an Argolean, she wouldn’t,would she? Not until the last few years of her life. To anyone else she would look to be in her early thirties, though he was sure she was much older. Her skin looked silky, her eyes a dreamy violet color, a lot like his own, or at the very