by Hall, Linsey
“She is but a priestess, bound to do my will as I see fit. Nothing more!” His arrogance cut through the night.
Rage such as Druantia had never experienced engulfed her, made all the worse by her impotence. She could do nothing. No matter how she struggled, she was pinned, kneeling in the mud. In front of her people. Their faces all turned to her, confusion turning to disdain. No!
“Your tributes are to me!” Thunder followed his bellow, the elements urged on by his fury. Rain poured from the sky, turning the mud and the blood of war into a foul swamp that soaked through Druantia’s clothes. “Gather the heads of your greatest foes and bring them here.”
Druantia, trembling in her rage and humiliation, watched as her people brought the heads forth and piled them in front of Camulos. Their faces were awed, glowing with admiration in the light of the torches.
The god of war watched, satisfaction and arrogance glowing from his face, until the heads were piled high, a gruesome tribute to his power and glory. The gods were known for their passions and jealousy, but never had it been turned against her. The heads were meant for her temple, so that she might benefit from the power of their souls. But no, they went to him. And such pleasure he took in it that it burned her.
From his outstretched hand, Camulos shot a blast of godly fire that immolated the tribute, the flames rising high despite the pouring rain. The souls of the fallen, what would have been her tribute, poured forth from the flame, rising to Otherworld in his name.
And worse, worst of all, the people cheered.
Camulos, they yelled. Over and over and over until Druantia was certain that the refrain would never leave her head. Did they not know that it was her, Druantia, who had bartered for their victory? Assured it?
The last of the flames died down until there was nothing but ash, and without hesitation, the god of war departed for Otherworld, disappearing before her eyes.
Finally, his hold on her disappeared. Trembling, she rose to her feet. Her people spared not a glance for her.
Something dark within her surged. Camulos might be a god, but she was the High Priestess of the Druids. And he treated her like a servant. She was but a tool to him, a thing to cast aside.
He would regret this night, she vowed. All the gods would regret this night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“You know, I really thought she’d live in a tree or something,” Ana said as they crossed the street toward Druantia’s shop, an ornate stone building that rose three stories above a bustling city street in the heart of Inverness.
“A tree?” He arched a brow.
“Well, a big one. Or at least in a copse of trees. In the forest. You know, very Druidy.”
“The old days.”
“Well, this building is creepy.”
“She’s strange, but she’s a valuable tool with valuable skills.” He led her around the building to a side entrance in the alley and pushed open the wooden door that lead into a shop.
Ana stepped in behind him, and her eyes took a minute to adjust to the light. It was nice enough, full of books and crystals and tiny statues all piled on shelves and tables. Dim light filtered in through small windows, glinting off dust motes and glass. All the sorts of things mortals would buy from a witchy type.
“Times have changed,” Cam murmured.
“Indeed they have.” A husky, feminine voice came from an archway in the back of the store. Surprise lit her green eyes when she saw them, and a strange smile twisted her lips. “Camulos. Times really have changed. It’s been nearly two thousand years since I’ve seen you last, hasn’t it? And now you’re in my shop and I’m consigned to peddling trinkets to the mortals and the occasional spell to Mytheans. The good old days are long gone.”
Ana assumed she meant back when Druidry was still the dominant religion in Britain and she’d held an enormous amount of power as the intermediary between mortals and the gods. Ana shrugged mentally. Tough tits—it happened to all the old religions.
“Druantia,” Cam said. “We’ve need of your talents.”
No salutation, Ana noticed, and his voice was different. Businesslike and brusque. Far from how he spoke to her. Druantia took it in stride, with only the barest tightening of her lips.
“And who might this be?” Druantia asked, looking at her appraisingly.
“Andrasta, Goddess of Victory.”
The briefest flash of something like shock crossed Druantia’s face, there and gone. Had it existed at all?
“Her glow has faded,” Druantia said.
“I’ve been on earth a while,” Ana said.
“What can I do for you?” Druantia asked.
Ana listened as Cam explained his lost protection charm, but she focused her attention on the store, hoping to see Logan Laufeyson lurking amongst the shelves.
“Aye, I can replace it,” Druantia said when he finished. “But it will cost you.”
“Not a problem. We can do it now?”
She nodded.
“Could I get one, too?” Ana asked. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of this before. It would solve all her problems.
“No. It doesn’t work on gods,” Druantia said.
“Oh.” Ana suddenly felt as collapsed as a pile of dead leaves.
“Come on back.” Druantia waved a hand and turned to walk under the archway that led to a back room.
Ana glanced at Cam expectantly, the question in her eyes. He nodded and she followed, weaving around the little tables and shelves until she passed through the arch. A zip of magic sang across her skin when she stepped over the threshold. She must have just entered the Mythean part of the store, protected from mortal eyes and ears.
“Sit down.” Druantia nodded to a big wooden chair in the corner of the room.
There wasn’t much other than bookshelves and a few chairs. Not as creepy as Ana had been expecting. Then she felt like a bitch for assuming the worst of the spell peddler.
Cam sat in the chair and stripped off his shirt, revealing the hard planes of muscles that always gave Ana dry mouth. He was pale and huge in the cozy room, and suddenly her breath became a little harder to drag into her lungs.
Druantia strolled to a bookshelf and picked up a black curved wand-type thing that had a pointy end like a pen. Cam’s face tensed as she neared.
“Wait, what are you going to do to him?” Ana asked, suddenly nervous. The thing in Druantia’s hand did look very pointy.
“Protection tattoo,” Druantia said, and waved the pen-wand.
“He doesn’t have a tattoo from the last one.”
“Aye, he does. It’s invisible. Magic inked into the skin.” She stepped close to his side and Cam looked up at her.
“Add her name,” he said. “So she can see me.”
Druantia nodded and set the tip of the pen-wand on the meatiest part of his shoulder. Cam didn’t flinch, but Ana was pretty sure she saw faint lines form at the corners of his eyes. She wanted to ask what he’d meant by seeing him.
Ana held her breath as Druantia began to draw. Fine red lines appeared in the wake of the pen-wand, glowing for a moment until they disappeared. Ana’s eyes darted back and forth between Cam’s glowing shoulder and the harsh set of his lips and eyes. A drop of sweat trickled from his temple.
It all made Ana vaguely ill, and though she was desperate to ask if it was almost over, she held her tongue. Causing Druantia to slip up could only be bad.
“Right. You’re done.” Druantia stepped back, and Cam’s face finally relaxed.
Ana let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
He stood, flexed his arm and shoulder, nodded appreciatively, then dragged his shirt on.
They walked to the front of the store, where Cam settled his bill with a wad of cash she didn’t realize he’d been carrying. How did he make his money if his company was non-profit? She shook her head. Not her business.
“We’d like to speak to Logan Laufeyson. Is he here?” Cam asked.
; Druantia’s brows drew together. “I’m sorry, he’s not.”
“Do you know where he is?” Cam asked.
“No. He walked out a few weeks ago and didn’t leave a note or anything.” A grimace twisted her features.
Ana’s breath rushed out of her lungs, disappointment filling up her body like an overflowing jug left out in the rain. Shit.
She winced when her hand started to hurt and looked down to see that she had a death grip on her bow. The sound of Cam requesting the now-worthless potion that he’d used to Fall from Otherworld echoed through the fog in her brain. Why would they even need it if they couldn’t find Logan?
At the request, Druantia’s eyes widened, then her features went blank. “Of course. I have a bit that I could sell you.”
Cam paid for the potion—because Ana couldn’t seem to function—and turned to leave. Ana snapped back to attention and turned to face Druantia.
“Is there any other way for a god to Fall from Otherworld? Without a replacement?”
Druantia looked at her thoughtfully and Ana’s heart thudded with hope.
“No,” Druantia finally said. “To my knowledge, there isn’t.”
“Not a spell or a potion or anything? Something to hide me from the eyes of other gods, at least? Like a version of Cam’s tattoo?”
Druantia shook her head, the thoughtful gleam still in her eye. “No. I’m sorry. Gods follow different laws than other Mytheans. Most of my magic won’t work on you.”
A low buzzing sounded in Ana’s head and her vision blurred. This was it. There was no way out. As if from outside of herself, Ana felt Cam’s hand at the small of her back as he nudged her toward the exit.
They stepped out into the alley and were hit with a downpour. Damn it. Just her fucking luck. Her hair was soaked and clingy in seconds, her clothes not far behind.
“Come on.” Cam hustled her to the car.
She scrambled into the seat and sat with her bow pulled up to her chest. Eyes squeezed shut, she counted to five while he rounded the car to get into the driver’s side.
By the time she’d opened her eyes, she’d gotten rid of the worst of the knot strangling her throat and the burn in her sinuses. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t.
“So, you’ve got your charm.” She tried to inject a note of cheerfulness into her voice and came out sounding half deranged.
“Yes.”
“When do you head back to the jungle?” Her grip tightened on the bow. Now that he was going back, she realized how much she’d started to care for him. More than care for him. Real, scary, horrible feelings that scrabbled around inside her chest like a wild animal. How could he possibly feel the same? It was insane.
“What?” Cam turned to look at Ana. He hadn’t even considered leaving, he realized. Technically, he’d done what he’d come for—gotten his charm renewed. So he should be heading back soon. “I’m not leaving. I told you I’d help you.”
Her overly bright eyes—tears, he just now noticed—widened. A fist closed around his heart and squeezed. He cared for her, too much and not enough.
“You thought I’d leave you?” That pissed him the hell off, actually.
“Well, I—”
“Let’s get something straight, Ana. Shit’s complicated between us. That’s true enough. But I said I’d help you get out of Otherworld. I owe you and I fucking care for you. We’re going to figure this out together.”
A shuddery breath escaped her lips, and her fist relaxed infinitesimally on her bow. He dropped his head back on the seat and stared at the ceiling. Shit, he was in deep.
“We don’t know where the hell this bloke is, so I’m going to call Fiona,” he said.
“You think she’ll be able to find him again?”
“Don’t know unless we try. And she’s got a stake in finding him too. If I offer to retrieve the bow and arrows for her, it might grease the wheels. It’s our only resource right now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“We’ve got a little while until Fiona calls back with something,” Cam said to Ana when she walked out of the bathroom wrapped in the hotel robe.
The clouds had finally parted and sunlight streamed through the window to glint off her blond hair. They’d checked back into the hotel because it was the safest place to be while they sorted out their next move.
“You reached her?” Ana asked.
“Yeah. Took a while to convince her to share any info she finds, but she really wants that bow. I promised to try to retrieve it. She’s going to call in a favor with the witches, which I’ll have to pay, but they should be able to locate him. We’ll wait here until then.”
“Okay.” Ana grabbed her clothes from where she’d set them on the chair, upsetting her quiver of arrows in the process. It tumbled to the floor and several arrows slid out. A flash of blue caught his eye, and he swooped down to pick up the quiver.
He reached in to withdraw an old arrow that he hadn’t seen in millennia. He stared at it for a second, an odd feeling welling in his chest. Ana was watching him when he looked up. “You kept it?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
She looked away, tightening the robe around her throat, then shrugged.
“Why’d you save this for two thousand years?” He found that the answer had suddenly become very important to him.
Her eyes met his, exasperated. “What was I going to do? Shoot a god’s arrow? The god of war?”
He gently grabbed the front of her robe and drew her to him. Her wide eyes met his as he said, “You’re that god now.”
She shook her head, suddenly looking smaller than she ever had. “I wasn’t, Cam. I wanted to prove myself as a warrior, but not like that. You were the war god—I am a placeholder.”
Placeholder. Because he’d run.
“You did a good job,” he said, trying to imbue his words with enough truth that she’d believe him.
She smiled. “I know. I’m good at whatever I put my mind to. I just wasn’t meant to be a goddess. I’m not cut out for that life.”
He heaved a sigh, shook his head. “Neither was I.”
“Sure you were.” She dragged him toward the bed and sat next to him, turning herself so that her knees pressed into his thigh. She reached out and stroked his cheek, and somehow that touch meant more than what they’d done in the darkened pub last night.
“Maybe at first,” he said. “When I still acted like a god. But then I saw you. And everything changed. I became… different. I felt things.”
“Maybe that’s not so bad.”
He laughed, low and bitter. “It puts me halfway between god and mortal. I’m neither one, not fully.”
Not as emotionless and stalwart as a god, capable of seeing things through without being swayed by emotion. It was a shitty way to live, but it was their way. Nor could he feel as strongly as mortals seemed to. Except where Ana was concerned.
He had the suspicion that what he felt for her now, if he were mortal, would be something like what they called love. Yet it was just out of his reach.
“What’d it feel like when you were a god? Just… nothing?” she asked.
He frowned, his brow scrunched. “Before I met you, it’s like the world was in gray. Crisp and clear, so that I knew exactly what was going on and what I should do about it. Yet victory was hollow, so I never fully understood why I was the god of war. Then I saw you. Everything was in color suddenly, but blurred.” He could still remember how strange his chest had felt. As if his heart had actually registered something, though it was physiologically impossible.
“Why do you think I was the one who made you feel emotion?”
He dragged a hand through his hair, frowned. He’d barely known her then, but had seen something in her, something that drew him to her still.
“I don’t know, but it’s what I’ve learned about you now, in the present, that has me feeling like I’m walking backward on a tightrope, desperately trying to reach the other side. Where you are.�
�� And that the tightrope might snap at any moment, dropping him into the mess that they’d created of their lives.
“I fucked up, Cam.” Her voice was raw. “Back then. I didn’t know what was going on. My confusion and fear all lead me to Otherworld. I’m sorry about that, for the position it put you in.”
He picked up her wrist, and when she tried to jerk it free, he didn’t let go. He didn’t touch her scar or look at it, but he didn’t let go.
“The other gods led you to Otherworld,” Cam said.
Ana shivered. “They’d have killed my family. Going to Otherworld, as awful it was, saved them. They lived long lives, even if I didn’t get to see them. Now they’re in Otherworld, and they’re different. A shadow of their former selves. Like the gods. Emotionless.”
“But at least they had their lives,” Cam said.
Ana pushed the thought of her brothers away. It hurt too much to contemplate for very long. Instead, she asked, “What kind of Mythean did you become?”
“When I realized that I couldn’t kill you, I knew I wasn’t fit for Otherworld. So I went to Druantia for the potion that turned me into a demigod.”
“So you’re a demigod.”
“Yeah. Not quite as strong as I was, but not dead either. The catch being that I could no longer use my bow. Which I hate like hell.”
She nodded. That would have sucked. “But you must have loved earth when you arrived.”
He frowned. “I didn’t know what to expect, and it was more than I ever could have imagined. I knew that something was wrong in Otherworld, and I ran. I did it to try to save you, but at the end of the day, I was running.”
“I don’t—”
“No, Ana. I was born with all the power of a god, and I ran. I could have stayed, tried to figure another way around our problem and done what I was born to do. But I didn’t. I haven’t lived the life I was supposed to.”
“You came to earth, where you’ve done an enormous amount of good with your company.”
“We’re trying to do an enormous amount of good. We haven’t actually done it yet. There’s a difference.”