Too late. Ophelia stormed forward. Halo observed, poised to assist at a moment’s notice. She went low, stabbing—argh! Only air. The trio of phantoms disembodied and fled through the wall, taking their chill with them.
Had they sensed Erebus’s mark on the harpy, making her off-limits?
“Argh! Why does this keep happening to me? Am I phantom repellant?”
He frowned. “This happened to you before the task?”
“Yes. Why do you think I’m without a kill?”
His frowned deepened. If the mark were responsible, and she’d been unable to approach phantoms before this...she had borne the mark before the task had ever begun. Which meant she’d had contact with the god before the task had ever begun. Information she had failed to disclose to Halo or her General. But...no. If the two had any kind of contact, Ophelia hadn’t known it. She was secretive about her past, but not about the things affecting his task.
The harpy stomped her bare foot, delectable in his T-shirt. The material swallowed her lush curves. “I just want to kill someone. Anyone! Is that too much to ask?”
“I have no doubt the phantoms will attack you en masse once the brand is removed.” A reason to leave the mark on her. No phantoms, no danger. Except, suddenly Halo wanted Erebus’s claim off her, whatever the consequences.
The link between the god and Ophelia would be severed today.
Halo never should have left the mark on her. So he was going to hemorrhage power when he removed it? So what. “No more waiting. Off it comes.” Fun could wait. He stalked closer.
“Now? But—”
“Now.” Halo flattened his palm between her breasts to begin the long, draining process of—Boom! His power butted up against hers, and a high electrical charge punched him. He flew backward, slamming into the mantel above the blazing hearth. Broken wood and crumbled plaster rained around him.
“Astra!” Ophelia cried, seemingly unaffected by the blast. She raced over to crouch at his side, her emerald eyes glimmering with a cocktail of guilt and shame. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” he wheezed from a supine position. He thought every bone in his body might be broken. As he healed, searing pains amplified and died. Suspicions blazed, unleashing an inferno of distrust. That wall of defensive power hadn’t come from Erebus or an ancient blade of untold origins but Ophelia herself.
All power carried the signature of its creator. A piece of their essence. Ophelia’s signature didn’t register as harpy or nymph, however, but primordial.
Proof that her blood had been used to summon the beasts?
Or had Erebus done something worse to her? The god had dared?
Rage charred the edges of Halo’s calm. His instincts shouted, Right. And wrong.
Both? How could it be? What was he missing?
Stumped, he scrutinized the harpy’s firelit features. Oh, yes. She did indeed project guilt and shame. Gaze darting away from him. Color blooming in her cheeks. Pearly whites nibbled on her bottom lip.
She hides more than I realized.
Other suspicions rose, crashed, then rose again, like torrents and tides in an ocean. Was there a deeper connection between Ophelia and Erebus? Something Halo wasn’t seeing? Something he maybe didn’t want to believe?
Unease built inside him even as fury stirred anew, focusing on another target. If the harpy had betrayed him...
No. She hadn’t. She wouldn’t. Harpy loyalty never wavered. But...
He would watch her. Would decipher the truth, one way or another.
“What happened?” she asked.
Did she know or didn’t she? Halo stood and pulled Ophelia to her feet. “Forget fun,” he told her, already stalking toward the bedroom door. “We have some studying to do.”
20
6:00 a.m.
Day 16
Five days later, Ophelia woke with a whimper in her heart and two certainties burning her brain.
The first: Erebus is coming for me today. He planned to morph her into a boar, the next animal Hercules fought.
Second: I’m losing Halo.
How she sensed Erebus’s exact intentions, she wasn’t sure. Well, she kind of had an idea. The mark and her evolving intuition.
How she sensed Halo’s waning interest in her was much easier—common sense.
She lay in bed, awake and aware before Vivi ever entered the bunkroom. Ophelia stared up at the ceiling. Without the Astra nearby, she shivered with cold. But more and more, she was staying cold in his presence too. They hadn’t kissed since he’d attempted—and failed—to remove her brand. There’d been no chin pinches or cuddles either. No questions. Though he had oh, so romantically offered to let her kill the messenger phantoms, he hadn’t shown any interest in bathing with her afterward. Instead, he’d been stoic and quiet, either glaring at her with accusation or nodding at her with relief.
Old fears constantly pinged with new life. Did Halo want less of her now that he’d experienced more? Had he decided she wasn’t gravita material, after all? Did he suspect the truth? That she had panicked the moment he’d turned his focus to the brand’s removal? A voice she hadn’t recognized had screamed inside her head, Mine! A total shock but come on! No brand meant no transformations. No transformations, no added strength. No added strength, no advantage over Erebus. No advantage, no victory. But...Halo kind of deserved the truth. He must sense it.