Ravaged: An Eternal Guardians Novella (1001 Dark Nights) by Elisabeth Naughton Read Free Book Online Page A

who to believe.
    “You know the story of the Argonauts, right? How each are given a soul mate?”
    Daphne remembered a story her mother had once told her. “Hera cursed them. Because of Zeus’s affection for his son Heracles. She was jealous that Zeus had created a realm for Heracles’s descendants, and she cursed him and all the Argonauts with a soul mate.” She frowned. “I never understood how that could be a curse though.”
    “It’s a curse because the soul mate in the equation is the worst possible match for that particular Argonaut. The person he’s forever drawn to but who will torment his existence. Some Argonauts never find their other half. Some do. Ari found his, fifty-odd years ago, in the human realm while on patrol with his Order. She was a nymph, like you. Young and beautiful. And she was running from Zeus.”
    Silas leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table. “Olympians can’t cross into Argolea. It was the one safeguard Zeus put in place, to protect the Argonauts from Hera’s wrath. But that safeguard turned out to be a source of frustration for Zeus. See, Ari took the nymph to Argolea. He tended her wounds, gave her a place to live, and eventually they fell in love. But when Zeus discovered Ari had stolen his prize, he was livid. Since he couldn’t cross into Argolea himself, he sent his Sirens to get her back. There was a confrontation. In the struggle, Ari’s soul mate was killed.”
    It was the same story Daphne had heard from the Sirens. With one minor change: in the telling she’d heard, the nymph hadn’t loved Ari. He’d recognized her as his soul mate, kidnapped her, and she’d been trying to escape his clutches when the Sirens arrived to rescue her.
    “Ari lost it then,” Silas went on. “The death of a soul mate is like losing half of who you are. He withdrew from the Argonauts, went into isolation in the human realm, struggled to deal with his grief. Months passed, but he couldn’t find the strength to return home. His son Cerek wouldn’t give up on him, though. Cerek tracked him down, tried to bring him back, but Ari refused to go. When it became clear to Ari that Cerek was never going to give up on him, he faked his death. You saw those scars on his neck?”
    Daphne remembered the scars she’d seen up close last night in the library. “Yes.”
    “They cover the whole left side of his body.”
    “From what?”
    “A fire. One he set on purpose. His son thinks he’s dead. Most everyone does.”
    Everyone but Zeus and Athena and the Sirens. Daphne tried to imagine the scene but couldn’t. Tried to imagine what it would take to isolate one’s self so dramatically, but came up blank. Even in her darkest moments, she’d never wanted to be alone, which was why she’d jumped at the chance to become a Siren when she’d been chosen.
    “It wasn’t until after all this that Ari started having his episodes,” Silas said.
    “Episodes?” Daphne looked back at the male across from her.
    “Spans of time where he completely blacks out. He’s not aware of what he’s doing while in these episodes, but he has flashes of them afterward, and of the things he’s done while in them. From what we’ve been able to discern, the episodes are usually triggered when he senses Sirens close by.”
    Daphne’s head was suddenly spinning. Zeus and Athena had implied he killed Sirens in his crazed need for revenge, but if that were the case, he would have started killing them as soon as his soul mate died. What Silas was describing made it sound like Ari’s “episodes” began after he’d left the Argonauts. Months after his soul mate was already gone.
    That didn’t sound like revenge at all. It sounded like...a curse.
    Daphne opened her mouth to ask more, but before should get the words out Silas went on.
    “For a while, he kept himself locked in this hold. Thought if he isolated himself, he could stop the episodes. But his duty was too strong. The need to protect is engrained