Unchained: An Eternal Guardians Novella by Elisabeth Naughton Read Free Book Online

magic from the pedestal in the middle of the room. It clattered against the hard stones. The flames snuffed out. Hot, red cinders scattered across the floor and paled until they were nothing but cold black coals.
    Her heart raced as she flattened her body against the rocks and prayed he moved past, that today she’d be spared.
    Her cell door clanged open. She closed her eyes and held absolutely still, knowing there was no use in fighting. Remembering when she’d struggled yesterday and the blinding pain that had followed.
    Before she had time to conjure a protection spell, he snarled and lunged. His big body slammed into hers, knocking her head against the hard stones. Pain ricocheted across the back of her skull. Even though she told herself not to, she tensed and cried out. His fangs sank deep into her throat, ripping through her flesh.
    She somehow forced herself to relax so he wouldn’t tear her to pieces. As the shade feasted on her blood, tears streamed down her cheeks. Tears of horror. Tears of agony. Tears of blinding, bitter madness.
    This was her fate. To be punished day after day after miserably long day.
    Just, she remembered as her vision darkened, as Prometheus had been punished so long ago.
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
    Prometheus paced the length of the library in his lonely castle, his blood humming with lust as he remembered the kiss he’d shared with Keia in the gazebo. She hadn’t appeared to him in two days. Not in his dreams, not in his waking hours. Hadn’t once called to him in all that time, either. He’d yet to hear her voice since she’d poofed out of his arms in the early morning light, and he was going nuts waiting for her to contact him again. Not only because he didn’t like the thought of her anywhere near Zeus, but because he itched with the need to touch her. To taste her. To feel her everywhere.
    This need was stronger than anything he’d ever felt. Not just lust, he knew, but something more, something primitive, something so all-consuming it was all he could focus on.
    His mind skipped back over the blood he’d found in the gazebo, and his steps slowed as he remembered the way she’d abruptly left him—twice now. She’d told him the blood had been animal, not hers, but he couldn’t stop wondering if they were somehow connected. She’d said she was a prisoner. He, better than anyone, knew how the king of the gods treated prisoners. He thought back to her creamy flesh in the low-cut green gown and her flawless face. She hadn’t appeared hurt when she’d come to him, but she knew how to use magic, and if Zeu—
    Voices sounded from the corridor, bringing his head around. His heart picked up speed when he realized one voice was female. Was it her? Was she back? He stepped toward the door, excitement burning like fire in his blood, only to draw to a stop when his daughter Natasa and her mate, Titus, appeared at the threshold of the room.
    Disappointment swept through him, a disappointment he tried to mask.
    “There you are,” Natasa said with a smile as she crossed toward him, slid her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek to his chest. “Hi, pateras .”
    Pateras . Father. He didn’t feel much like a father. He felt like a failure when it came to her.
    His arms drifted around her slim shoulders, and he hugged her back, but when he looked down and caught sight of her flame-red hair—red thanks to the fire element he’d hidden from the gods in her blood hundreds of years ago and which had caused her intense pain until she’d been reborn in the flames—the guilt he always felt around her consumed him again.
    She was safe, he told himself. No longer suffering. And she was happy. His gaze drifted to Titus, standing with his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, his dark wavy locks tied at his nape with a leather strap, a bemused expression across his face.
    Titus loved Prometheus’s daughter. Would do anything to protect her.