by Hall, Linsey
“Sure, Mr. President or CEO or whatever you are.”
“That’s just a title. In reality, I’m just the muscle.”
You sure are. But that’s not all.
“I’ve got smart people running operations back in Scotland for me,” he said.
“Back in Scotland? At the Immortal University?”
The Immortal University, located outside of Edinburgh, was the educational center and informal governing body of Mytheans in Great Britain. It performed a number of functions, the most important of which was overseeing British Mytheans and keeping them under the radar of mortals.
The university also provided services that Mytheans couldn’t get elsewhere, lest mortals figured out that their clients never died. Things like education, a hospital, banking. Everyday stuff, but for supernatural creatures that she’d never dreamed existed when she’d been mortal. The idea that mortal beliefs had willed Mytheans into existence had been a hell of a shock.
“Yeah, some,” Cam said, but he seemed unwilling to elucidate.
“You fought that guy in the ring at the Caipora’s Den for the identity of some cures?”
“I fought that guy because I like to fight.”
“But you got the location of an important rose from him, right?”
“Yeah. That was a benefit.”
She had a feeling he was playing up the side of himself that was less admirable, though she had no idea why. “And it’s why you’re so anxious to get to Druantia and get your cloaking spell reactivated, isn’t it?”
“Nailed it. I’ve been working toward this for decades. Can’t let it slip through my fingers now.”
“Thought so.”
“What do you plan to do about finding someone to take your place?”
“What?”
“The potion isn’t going to do you much good without someone to take your place in Otherworld. You knew that.”
“What?” Her mind scrambled. “What do you mean, someone to take my place?”
“What it sounds like. Gods can’t kill other gods because we’re all needed to maintain the balance of power and keep Otherworld running. The only way to leave godhood is the way I did it—with a replacement.”
She swallowed hard, fairly certain that her stomach had just dropped to her feet. “But where am I going to find someone to take my place? Can it be anyone?”
Damn it. She’d been so close. She should have realized, but of course she hadn’t. She’d jumped headfirst into this like she did with everything, consequences be damned—and she’d learned long ago that the consequences could be very damning. She should know better by now.
“It can’t be just anyone.” His voice was grim. Like he cared about this. “It’s got to be someone of equal skill.”
Her heart stopped. She had only one equal in skill.
Him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Southeast Celtic Britain, 13 AD
Territory between the Iceni and Trinovante Kingdoms
Andrasta raced through the forest toward her home, her mind still alight with memories of Camulos. Her brothers were always worried if she wasn’t home by sunset, but she couldn’t bring herself to care right now.
It had been hard to make it home before dark this past week. This was the seventh day she’d seen and spoken with Camulos. As ever, he’d waited for her in the shadow of the trees, a scowl on his face that smoothed out when she approached him.
After their kiss a week ago, which had been interrupted by her brother, she hadn’t known if Camulos would return. After what he’d threatened, she hadn’t been sure if she wanted him to. But he wouldn’t actually kill her brother or her, right?
She couldn’t believe he would, so she’d returned to the clearing to see him, albeit with her hand on her bow and wariness in her step. Camulos drew her like a fly to honey, and she had a feeling that she did the same to him.
He was hot and cold with her, as if he wanted to be with her but knew he shouldn’t. Something dangerous that she didn’t understand was at play, but at least she was smart enough to know it hovered over them. He had an agenda she couldn’t quite figure out, and he wouldn’t speak of it, but it didn’t stop her from meeting him every day for long walks through the forest.
Continuing to see him was probably the stupidest thing she’d ever done, but the hope that he’d continue to smile at her and maybe even kiss her again kept her coming back for more.
But he hadn’t kissed her again. His desire was so strong it was palpable, but he resisted. As much as she wanted his kisses, his restraint made her trust him. Instead, they walked and talked. They’d shared their pasts and presents, their hopes and dreams. He’d been short on the hopes and dreams, but she’d had plenty to share.
He cared for her. She was certain of it. And she’d grown to care for him even as his statement that he’d been sent to earth to kill her lingered in her mind.
She truly was crazy. But no. He had no reason to kill her that she could see. Even if someone had sent him to do the terrible job, he’d obviously made them change their mind. And who would ever notice her, much less want to kill her?
“Andrasta! You’re late again!” Bradan’s voice broke through the fog of her thoughts and she realized that she was nearly home.
She looked up to see her second-youngest brother standing in front of the door of their round house, his broad shoulders draped in a brown cloak and his red hair dark in the dim light.
“I’m here, I’m here. The sun has not yet set.”
Bradan scowled at the sky. “Close enough.”
“I wish you’d trust me to take care of myself!” She could feel her face heating and her blood rushing with the familiar helpless anger that their overprotectiveness engendered in her. Why was it always like this?
“You endanger your own safety. And you’re never careful enough to see threats where they really lie.” He grabbed her as she tried to slip through the door and pulled her into a hug. Her heart warmed against her will.
“That’s not true.” Her words were muffled against his chest. But a niggling of doubt crept in. Was he right? She wasn’t being entirely smart about Camulos. As much as she cared for him, and sensed that he cared for her, there was something beneath it all that wasn’t quite right.
“It’s true,” Bradan said. “Isn’t it, fellows?”
His tone was almost joking—her brothers loved to pick on her—but there was censure beneath it. Six familiar faces in various phases of laughing agreement or annoyance looked up from where they sat on low benches surrounding the hearth in the middle of the room.
She scowled at them all. Each polished his weapon, the symbols of her exclusion. They all looked so similar—such a united front—that her heart pinged with the loneliness of not being included. Ever since their mother had died giving birth to her, it had been just Andrasta and the men in her family. There was no place for her except by their side. As children, they’d played together every day. Countless hours during which she’d been one of them. When their father had died six years ago, they had become an even more cohesive unit.
She’d had the constant companionship of at least one of her brothers until a few years ago, when she’d grown from girl to woman and they’d all grown from boys to warriors. And they’d decided it was too dangerous for her to train and fight with them. A decision made out of love, but one that cut her off from the family she so adored.
She’d never wanted anything like she wanted things to go back to the way they had been. When they’d been a team. The desire was a constant, aching companion that rode on her back as she practiced and practiced and practiced. But they refused to give her an opportunity to prove herself.
Other women were warriors. Why not she? It might be dangerous to fight alongside them, but didn’t they know she’d die for them?
She’d tried to get Camulos to show himself to her brothers so she could prove that she wasn’t a nobody, that she could shoot her bow as well as a god, but he’d shut her dow
n so quickly that she’d not asked again.
“You need to stop running off to the woods every day. It’s dangerous.” Bradan settled onto the bench closest to the door and withdrew his sword to polish it as his brothers were doing. “Find a husband. Start a family and give up this dangerous, stupid dream of being a warrior.”
A bubbling black tar of rage filled her chest up to her eyes, until her anger and pain blurred her vision.
She yanked one of the blue arrows from her quiver and thrust it toward them. She’d been hoarding it until now, but she could bear their dismissal no longer. “This belonged to Camulos.”
Caedmon, her eldest brother, frowned from where he sat in the great chair that their father had occupied before his death. Marrek, the youngest and the one to whom she was closest, eyed it suspiciously.
She stomped her foot and yelled, “I speak the truth. Look at the fletching. I’ve never seen feathers that blue. I couldn’t have made it.”
“Ah, come on, little sister. Calm down and have a seat. You’re turning red.” Caedmon stopped polishing his sword hilt just long enough to indicate a seat on the bench nearest him.
Andrasta almost growled, but she took the seat in front of the popping fire. Its glow illuminated the faces of her brothers, all of whom sat in a circle around the flames. Every night they sat here polishing their weapons before dinner. Every night she sat twirling an arrow. They laughed at the weapon. At her.
“Come now, where did you really find the arrow?” Caedmon’s voice was kind. He was kind. They all were, at their hearts, even though they were sometimes mean. They did it to protect her, but it was suffocating.
“I told you,” she snapped. Believe me! she wanted to shout. Let me join you.
Except that her brothers had never let her join them in training or in battle. She was on the outside looking in.
“Here, take it.” She thrust the arrow at him so hard he was forced to grasp it. His brows shot up when the arrow made contact with his skin, then dropped as he frowned at it. Her breath caught in her lungs as she watched him inspect it.
“You feel it, don’t you?” The vibration of power emitted by the arrow was unmistakable.
His eyes met hers, but he said nothing. He handed it off to Bradan, whose head jerked when he touched it.
“Camulos?” Bradan asked.
She nodded. “He uses the bow for war. Not just hunting.”
Marrek frowned at that, but he too stiffened when the arrow was passed his way.
“We had a competition. I beat him.”
Caedmon laughed.
“I did. And I’m not little anymore!” This was supposed to convince them. It was supposed to work.
He sighed, then looked around at the other brothers. They’d all touched the arrow now, and met his gaze with heavy stares.
“The arrow isn’t from here. And there have been no trade expeditions in months,” Bradan said.
“And Andrasta wouldn’t keep something like that secret for more than a few minutes.”
She scowled at Caedmon, who shrugged at her.
“Ah, gods, you and your little weapon.” Bradan groaned.
“It’s not just a little weapon!”
“No, no longer. If this”—he raised the arrow—“is what it appears to be, you’ve brought the god of war down upon your head.”
“He said I was skilled.”
“You are skilled,” Marrek said. He smiled at her.
Warmth filled her chest. She could always count on him to be there for her.
“Too skilled for your own good. This is what we get for leaving you to your antics.” Caedmon dragged a hand down his face, leaving a weary expression in its wake.
“Antics? I’m a warrior!” She barely resisted surging to her feet.
“What you are is a menace. All fire and action, but little sense. Always charging forward, not thinking of the consequences or the danger. And you’ve caught the attention of the warrior to end all warriors, if this arrow is what it appears to be.”
“But why?” Marrek asked, concern tightening his brow.
Bradan dropped his head into his hand. “If Camulos is indeed using the bow as a weapon of war, and our little sister has actually become that skilled…” He cursed vilely. “The old stories tell of the gods coming to earth long ago. Hafgan, one of the kings of Otherworld, is said to have once been mortal. He was so skilled with a pike, his weapon of choice, that he defeated the former king of the gods and rose in his stead. He pulled the ladder up behind him, and the gods have been determined to see that no other mortal usurps their power. If Camulos is indeed interested in Andrasta, that’s why he’s here.”
“What?” Fear slithered across her skin; she gripped her bow. So there was a real reason for him to kill her? He hadn’t been sent by another, but by himself?
“And they always kill the mortal. It’s their law,” Caedmon said.
Camulos was resisting killing her. He had to be. For how long could he resist? “What happens if he doesn’t kill me?”
Bradan shrugged. “The gods would probably kill him. I don’t know. But there’s nothing to stay his hand. You’re at risk. You can’t go to the clearing anymore to practice. He could be there.”
He would be there. She swallowed hard.
“He’s right,” Caedmon, the final voice in the family, said. “You can’t go back. No more shooting.”
“You can’t stop me.” But fear tightened her skin until it itched. Did she want them to stop her? She wanted to see Camulos again, and she certainly didn’t want to believe he would kill her. But Camulos himself had told her that he had to. Oh gods, what would she do?
“Of course we can.” Caedmon plucked her bow from where it sat next to her.
“No! Give it back!” She reached for it, but Bradan gently pushed her back.
“It’s for the best. We can’t allow you to see him. We love you too much to lose you. Without your bow, you aren’t a threat to him. When he forgets about you, we’ll give it back.”
Panic streaked through her. She’d never been without her bow. “I need my bow!”
No matter how she begged, they wouldn’t give it back to her. She’d even cried, which she despised, but she couldn’t control herself. Being without her bow made her feel helpless. Worthless.
After a long night of tossing and turning on her pallet without her bow on the floor next to her, she woke to a quiet dawn and grim brothers. The men filed out of the house, silent and stern.
Caedmon, almost the last to leave, turned to her and hugged her. Against the top of her head, he whispered, “I’m sorry. But this is safest for you.”
She watched him walk out the door through blurry vision, her throat tight with loss and loneliness.
“Andrasta.”
She turned to see Marrek standing behind her.
“I thought you’d gone.”
“No, you were just busy staring forlornly after the others.”
She gave a watery chuckle, but there was no joy in the sound. He was the youngest, and as such had been with her the longest before he too moved onto training with their brothers. Whenever she was sad, he was usually the one to comfort her.
“Wait a moment.” He grinned, then turned and walked to the far side of the room.
Her jaw dropped when she saw him pull one of the huge benches closer to the wall, right beneath the high shelf where they’d stored her bow. She’d never have been able to pull that weight, or reach that high even with the bench.
But Marrek had her bow down before she could fully process what he was doing.
He pushed the bench back in place, then returned and handed the bow to her. “Here. Keep it hidden from the others.”
“Thank you, Marrek!”
“You’d just make another eventually. But I know you love this one best. And I’m not saying you can go back to the clearing. I’ll break your bow before I let you put yourself in danger like that. But this bow is everything to you, and I respect your judgment. A
nd your skill. So practice near the house. If you see the god again, tell me and I’ll stay with you.”
Andrasta threw her arms around Marrek. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Camulos waited in the forest for Andrasta, his hand clenched around the shaft of his bow. She was late. Hours late. The same fear that had dogged him every other day that he’d waited for her was nipping at his heels.
He was afraid she wouldn’t come, because he wanted to see her so damned badly. And he was afraid that she would come, because eventually the gods would come down upon their heads.
Every day when he returned to Otherworld, that bastard Cernowain was there, watching him. His eyes asked if Camulos had done it yet. When it was clear he hadn’t, Cernowain’s expression darkened. Not with anger, because the gods didn’t feel anger through their cold logic. And not with sorrow, though if Cernowain had felt emotion, Camulos had a feeling that’s what would have been on his face.
Because there was no way for this to continue, not without the death of one of them—or both. Every day, the pressure of the gods’ threat weighed upon him. If he didn’t fall in line and do what was expected, things would become far worse.
“They’ve gone to see her.” The voice that carried through the trees was masculine, and distinctly unwelcome.
Camulos turned to see Cernowain, who stood with his boar, white snowflakes glinting from the hair of both.
“What?” Camulos asked.
“Hafgan and his close council have gone to see Andrasta. You’ve run out of time. And so has she.”
Helpless rage filled Camulos’ chest, pushing at his ribs until he thought they’d break. He’d welcome the pain—anything to distract from this powerlessness.
“Do it, Camulos. If you still have the chance. Send her to Otherworld rather than leave her to face the machinations and tortures of the gods.”
“What do they plan?”
“What does it matter? You’ll both be dead, lucky if you have your souls to go to Otherworld. They could destroy her. Who knows the whims of gods?” He laughed, bitterness and irony in the sound. “Do it, Camulos.”