Bedeviled Read Online Free PDF Page A

years of service in exchange for their release from the Fields of Punishment in the Underworld. If they completed their hundred years, Hades would lift them from their binds and they’d be allowed entrance into the Elysian Fields. Because Kyana was technically no longer their master, they’d be forced to begin their hundred years all over again. Since they were already thirty years into their servitude, the unfairness of that twisted her heart. They might have been pretty awful in their human existence to wind up in the Fields of Punishment with other sinners who weren’t quite bad enough to go to Tartarus, but as her minions, they’d redeemed themselves.
    â€œYou have your precious Nymphs,” she pressed on. “I’d like Farrel and Crag to continue their service to me so they aren’t forced to start all over again with someone else.”
    Artemis smiled, and Kyana could all but read the thoughts bouncing in her pretty head. Kyana had a heart. Who knew? When the goddess nodded her consent, Kyana started down the temple steps.
    â€œIt was nice of you to think of Farrel and Crag,” Ryker said, catching up to her.
    She ignored him.
    When she reached the portal that would take them directly Above to the humans’ world, he grabbed her arm to prevent her from stepping through. “This is your hunt, Kyana. I won’t interfere unless I have no choice.”
    Somewhat placated, she nodded. “Good.”
    His fingers warmed her skin. It felt good. Too good. She pulled away and slipped through the portal.
    On the other side, the Castillo de San Marcos was in chaos. Kyana was nearly jostled back through the portal as guards rushed by her, knocking her into Ryker, who had to find a hold on the wall to keep himself upright. She dodged her way to the door, her eyes wide and unblinking as she took in the confusion of what was normally a pretty tranquil fort.
    Sentinels ran from every direction, their shouts and pounding footsteps obscuring all sound. Set against the backdrop of a glorious sunrise, panic spread like the plague among those stationed in the old fort, which had become the South Eastern United States’ headquarters for the Order of Ancients when Tartarus had opened up over two weeks ago and released Hell on Earth.
    A second group of sentinels rushed from the portal room and into the plaza courtyard. She craned her neck, casting her gaze over the tall heads around her to peer up at the sun with a smidgeon of self-pity. It had been more than two hundred years since she’d been able to glimpse a sunrise without fear of being turned into charbroiled Vamp, and now that the sun wasn’t her enemy, she still hadn’t found a peaceful morning to appreciate it.
    Her pity party was crashed by a noxious odor that forced a brutal cough from her lungs.
    Ryker stopped walking. “What the—”
    â€œâ€”hell is that smell?” Kyana finished for him, bracing her hands against his back to avoid another collision.
    Together, they maneuvered their way into the courtyard and up the stairs to stand on the edge of the bastion overlooking Matanzas Bay. While the sky was gloriously alive, the bay itself looked as though it had died. The stench of dead fish turned her stomach as she looked down to find the surface shadowed by bloated carcasses.
    â€œWhat the hell caused that?”
    Ryker stepped away from the edge. He shoved his way down the stairs through the guards running up them and disappeared out of the fort, leaving Kyana to follow after him. As she moved toward what had once been the fort’s pay station, the overpowering stench of dead fish in the air nearly smothered Ryker’s scent as she struggled to follow him. He glanced back at her, held out his hand which she took, and yanked her beside him.
    Together they ran in a whirl of speed that made their surroundings blur. She had no idea where they were or where they were headed, but she clung to