Not just any instruments of war, but only those archaic tools that were allowed in the Otherworld: swords, spears, bows, axes, daggers, maces, and knives.
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
“Strange saying,” Ninurta said.
Selena nodded and kept searching the tables as the full realization of what Badb and her sisters, the good-natured Dagda, and all of the other gods she had met and genuinely liked would soon be facing. But especially what Badb – this goddess she had grown to know and love, her own protector from the Otherworld, who in so many ways, had become both a friend and the mother figure she had lost twice – would soon be confronted with.
She had almost died once for Selena. And Selena was certain Badb wouldn’t hesitate to die for her now.
“That’s what I’m planning on,” Ninurta muttered.
“I wish you’d stay out of my head,” Selena hissed.
Ninurta gave her a strange look, as if he couldn’t even fathom why he wouldn’t eavesdrop on all of her thoughts, then gestured toward the nearest table. “Tell me, healing goddess…”
“Demigoddess,” she corrected.
Ninurta waved a hand at her and said, “Close enough. So tell me. If you were to fight, which weapon would you choose?”
“The .357 Mr. Martin gave Cameron.”
Ninurta arched the same eyebrow at her and gestured toward the table again. “Choose something here.”
Selena folded her arms defiantly and told him she didn’t want to choose a weapon she didn’t even know how to use. She’d rather just shoot him with a gun.
He didn’t think she was funny.
She told him she wasn’t trying to be funny.
“If you’re trying to get me to kill you before going to the Otherworld so you don’t become bait for Badb and your Irish gods, it’s not going to work,” he warned her. “I’ve lived a long time, Selena. I have a surprisingly high tolerance for demigoddess’s bullshit.”
“Not wanting to die or have my friends murdered isn’t bullshit,” she snapped.
“Just humor me and pick a weapon.”
“Why?”
“Because you have an interesting nature. I’ve never met anyone quite like you. It’s almost as if you’re predisposed to avoid violence altogether.”
Selena let her arms fall as she gaped at the god. Granted, he was at least partly a war god, but did he seriously think all people were predisposed toward violence? Selena didn’t need to ask him; he answered her before she could put her thought into words.
“Look around you, Selena. Why do you think my followers are here? And look at the world. It’s endemic even among humans.”
“Well… not all humans. There was…” Selena bit her lip as she tried to think of examples to prove to Ninurta that humans could be loving and compassionate and forgiving, but she came up with few examples. “Gandhi. And Dr. King,” she said. “Jesus?”
“Murdered, murdered, and murdered,” Ninurta answered.
“Fine, you want me to pick a weapon? I’ll pick…” She scanned the table again but all of the weapons made her uncomfortable. She caught Ninurta watching her again, that puzzled and amused smile at his lips. “Too bad you can’t just stick me in your zoo,” she said. She had to verbalize that thought in case he didn’t pick up on sarcasm telepathically.
“Yes,” he agreed, “it is a shame.”
She eyed the weapons one more time then pointed to the spear. “That one, I guess.”
“Interesting. Spears are extremely difficult to master. Why would you choose that weapon over something a bit easier to learn?”
Selena lifted a shoulder at him, but surely, he already knew why.
“It’s almost time to leave, Selena, but I have to admit: you’ve even managed to pique my curiosity as to why this man has remained your friend when your feelings for him are clearly so strong. I don’t think I’d need to be psychic to pick up on your love for him.”
Selena watched his army finishing their preparations to travel to the Otherworld to wage a war against her ancestors, this world she’d once thought would be her own as soon as they found the Dagda’s Cauldron. “You wouldn’t understand, Ninurta. You have to possess a heart in order to understand.”
“Oh, I am sure I wouldn’t understand,” he responded. “Which is exactly why I find you so fascinating.”
Someone called out to him and Ninurta looked at the other god and exhaled quickly, a broad smile emerging as he grabbed Selena’s arm and told her, “Finally. It is the Eve of Samhain and the Otherworld is open. Now, Daughter of Danu, you will see your gods brought to their knees for you.”
Oh, please Badb, just let him kill me. Defend your home and the others.
“Don’t count on it,” Ninurta said.
He barked an order to the others, and they clutched their weapons and watched him with eager, hungry eyes. Ninurta’s smile fell on her once more as he waved his hand and the room disappeared, and Selena found herself in the lush green fields of the Otherworld.
Chapter Sixteen
Selena squinted against the bright light of the morning sun in Murias. In the distance, she could see the glass castle atop the cliff by the sea, resplendent as it reflected the sun’s beams and lit the eastern hills with blue and pink light. Ninurta pulled on her arm, and she glanced over at him then did a double take when she saw he was no longer wearing the black suit but a knee length sheepskin skirt and nothing else. The muscles in his arm and torso rippled and flexed as he pulled on her arm again to get her to walk with him.
All around her, the gods had transformed as they prepared for battle, anachronisms that offered snapshots of the cultures from which they’d been born. Ninurta called out orders in what may have been Sumerian, but even the demigods seemed to understand him. He dragged her up the nearest hill, his fingers biting into her arm as she tried to slow his progress, but she couldn’t have slowed down a strong demigod, let alone a god like Ninurta.
At the top of the hill, she could see the Dagda’s palace in the distance, its green and gold spirals reaching into the pale blue sky. She whimpered as she thought of Badb coming to her aid with Macha and Nemain by her side. “Tonight,” Ninurta sneered, “we’ll be dining at the Dagda’s table.”
The god closest to him laughed. “Shame the Mórrígna are so difficult to subdue. They could have provided immense entertainment for the evening.”
“You bastard!” Selena shouted. She tried to twist her arm free from Ninurta’s grasp, but that only resulted in his fingers digging deeper into the muscles of her arm.
Ninurta seemed to find her outburst more amusing than his fellow god. “Don’t worry, Selena,” Ninurta said. “I have no intention of allowing any of them to live.”
“And I have no intention of allowing you to leave the Otherworld again,” Badb answered.
“No,” Selena whispered.
Ninurta pulled her in front of him and wrapped an arm around her chest, his other hand clutching the mace he planned to carry into battle. Badb stood on the other side of the hill, her golden hair pulled behind her head, the morning breeze billowing her white dress, the sword she gripped gleaming in the sunlight. Selena had never seen her gray eyes filled with more hatred and anger as she glared at Ninurta. And, of course, he’d been right: her sisters would never allow her to approach Ninurta alone. They stood beside her, as beautiful as she, as terrifyingly angry and bloodthirsty.
“Where’s the rest of your army, Badb?” Ninurta asked.
“They’re here, as you well know. This is your plan, isn’t it? To trade Selena for someone or something? So what is it you want? Me?”
“No!” Selena yelled, but Ninurta’s arm squeezed across her chest, and she choked as the air in her lungs left her body.
“Stop this!” Badb shouted. “You’re going to kill her!”
“Selena!”
Cameron? She thought she must be hallucinating, the lack of oxygen forcing her brain to hear the only sound it wanted to hear in the moment
s before her death, but when she saw him run on top of the hill followed by Badb’s worried reaction that he’d joined the impending fight, she knew he was here, and suddenly, losing her life, Badb losing her life, was no longer the worst outcome of Ninurta’s war.
“Let her go,” Cameron demanded.
Ninurta laughed and his arm loosened around her just enough that the Irish would be deceived into thinking they could save her but not enough that she could speak. She kept her eyes on Cameron, wondering what the hell Badb had been thinking in bringing him here, but Cameron wouldn’t take his eyes off of the god who had abducted her from him.
“The demigod,” Ninurta cooed. “The lovers who refuse to be lovers. Such a strange pair.”
“I killed both of the last gods who threatened her, and they never hurt her. Imagine what I’m going to do to you,” Cameron answered.
“I look forward to finding out,” Ninurta said. “I assume, then, you’ll stay behind in her place?”
Selena shook her head since she couldn’t speak, but Cameron ignored her anyway. She’d known he would. “Obviously. Of course, I don’t believe you actually intend to let any of us just walk out of here either.”
“Why not? I only want the Otherworld and the Tuatha Dé control it. Have the Dagda relinquish it, you’ll all be banished just as I was, but at least you’ll live.”
Selena shook her head again, but this time, Ninurta had grown tired of her interfering in his lies. His arm tightened around her ribcage again and what little air she’d been able to breathe disappeared. She clawed uselessly at his arm as the Mórrígna and Cameron all shouted at Ninurta to let her breathe. “Last chance, Daughter of Danu,” he hissed in her ear. “Move again and I’ll kill you and your lover. We’ll take the Otherworld either way.”
As his grip loosened, she coughed and gasped as black spots floated in front of her eyes. She heard Badb yelling again. The Dagda had come.
“Give her to me then,” the Dagda told Ninurta. “When she is safe in my possession, I will surrender this world to you.”
No, please. Can’t one of you read minds? Don’t you know he’ll only trick you and has no intention of letting me live?
She blinked and tried to focus on Cameron’s face again. He was still watching Ninurta. His features blurred as she struggled to stay on her feet. She wondered if this was what drowning felt like.
“I need an oath,” Ninurta claimed. “One that will bind you to surrendering the Otherworld.”
“Only when Selena is safely with us, and Cameron has taken her back to Earth,” the Dagda added.
Ninurta clicked his tongue at the good god of the Irish and shook his head. “And the Greeks and Egyptians who are waiting at the base of the hill?”
The Dagda’s red beard bobbed against his thick chest as he inhaled a deep breath. “You’ll let no one stay then?”
“Did you let me stay?” Ninurta yelled.
His arm tightened around her again, a reflex, but the crushing force would have caused her to cry out in pain had she any air left to scream. The world faded around her, and she heard Cameron shouting one last time. “Badb, give me my spear!”
No… God, please, no…
Ninurta’s arm suddenly released her, and Selena fell to the ground, the soft grass tickling her hands. She winced and cried as coughs racked her body again as she tried to fill her lungs with air. The momentary silence, if it had even been real or only because she couldn’t hear anything around her as she’d drifted toward unconsciousness, was broken by the sharp sounds of metal against metal. She closed her eyes as tears fell, the pain in her chest threatening to force her to lose consciousness anyway.
She felt his hands on the side of her face and realized he’d been calling her name. She tried to respond but still couldn’t speak. She thought every rib in her chest must be broken.
“No, don’t move,” Cameron said. He cradled her in his arms, and she felt the same regenerative force he’d used to heal her before, only this time, something was different. It seemed stronger, more powerful.
Godly.
Badb, give me my spear!
Selena gasped and opened her eyes. The world focused and with it, Cameron’s features settled into place, those beautiful dark brown eyes filled with so much love and concern.
“Oh, Cameron,” she whispered. “The spear…” She turned her head and saw Ninurta’s body lying behind her, the god’s head impaled by Lugh’s Spear.
Maybe it’s not too late. He doesn’t seem that different. Maybe it can be undone.
“Cameron!” Badb yelled. “Get her to the palace!”
Cameron reached over to the lifeless body of the Sumerian god and pulled his spear free then lifted her into his arms and the battlefield vanished. Selena immediately recognized the great hall of the Dagda’s palace, the beautiful tapestries on the wall. The Dagda’s Cauldron came alive in her presence, but the tapestry of Lugh’s Spear remained still.
Cameron brought her to the same bed she’d once slept in and laid her carefully on top of the luxuriant comforter. On the small table beside the bed, someone had filled a glass bowl with the colorful rocks from the stream.
“Cameron,” she whispered again. She touched the side of his face and felt tears on her cheeks again, but he’d become something he despised to save her. And she couldn’t stop hearing Ninurta’s warning, which he hadn’t meant as a warning but had been one nonetheless, that becoming a god had to change a demigod, that they surrendered everything that made them human. How could her heart ever stop crying now?
“Hey,” he said, “I was only kidding myself anyway. I was never going to abandon you and every time we turn around, there’s someone else trying to kill you. It was going to happen eventually.”
Selena shook her head and sobbed, “But I was going to give it up! I wasn’t going to join them so we could be together! As us!”
“You were…” Cameron inhaled slowly and lifted her hand, kissing it and holding it close to his lips. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Just say it. Please.”
Selena made a noise that was a cross between another sob and a laugh, and she put her arms around his neck and promised him, “Because I love you, and I have no future in any world without you. No matter who you are.”
“Selena,” he whispered. His fingers wiped the tears from her cheeks and when he kissed her, she didn’t feel the presence of a sun god or the prophesied god who would claim the title as the greatest warrior the Tuatha Dé had ever known. He was simply Cameron, the man who had rescued her in New Orleans and who had risked his life for a stranger again and again and had quickly earned her trust and her heart. Those lips belonged to the man that fate had decided centuries ago would be such a part of her and she so much a part of him that neither could exist without the other.
She wasn’t even surprised that there was something wonderfully new and exciting about this first kiss she’d fantasized about so many times, yet something so familiar, as if she’d kissed him a thousand times before, and it still filled her with the same passion, the same eternal love.
As completely unromantic and unsexy as it was, though, she’d been crying too much recently, and she had to break their kiss far too soon because she couldn’t breathe. She laughed again and ran her fingers through his hair, and he wrapped his arms around her.
“I’ve never been so scared,” he whispered. “I don’t know why, but I knew I could get you away from Ninurta, but when you fell… I can’t do what you can, Selena, and I was terrified you were too badly hurt.”
“Somebody really needs to teach me how to heal myself,” Selena sobbed against his shoulder.
Cameron laughed and nodded. “Yeah, because I’m not sure I can survive this again. Even if I am a god.”
A god.
Cameron is a god.
Selena swallowed and tightened her arms around him as their new reality fully settled on her. How would becoming a god change him? Would the silly, sarcastic, and surprisingly gentle man become power
-hungry and greedy and vengeful? Was it a gradual process since, so far, he still seemed like himself?
And what if they never found the Cauldron? She would remain a demigoddess and Cameron would have to watch her grow old and die – just as she’d once feared she would lose him.
Selena sat back from him but slipped her hand inside his and looked at the spear he’d leaned against the wall. She’d been on the verge of consciousness and hadn’t noticed if it had changed when Badb placed it in his hands, if he had changed at all. “What happened when she gave it to you?” Selena asked.
Cameron shrugged. “I threw it.”
“Cameron,” Selena sighed. One thing was certain: the transformation from demigod to god didn’t immediately erase smartass personalities.
He grinned at her, that sexy smirk that still made her heart flutter, and said, “Seriously. I was kinda preoccupied with killing the asshole who was killing you. As soon as it left my hands, I started running to you, so I don’t know if anything happened at all.”
“Do you feel different?”
Cameron blinked at her then grinned at her again and she had a feeling she wasn’t getting the answer she expected this time either. “Well, despite everything we just went through and the fact there’s a war being waged on the hill outside this palace, I’m sitting here and was making out with the woman I’m crazy madly in love with, so I’m feeling kinda horny. Wait. That’s not really different than normal.”
“Cameron!” Selena laughed.
He held her other hand and for a brief moment, that sensation of familiarity they’d first experienced in his apartment in Baton Rouge passed through them, only this time, its reason for familiarity seemed clearer. Cameron shook his head because he must have sensed it, too – its meaning was right there yet so elusive.
Selena sighed and leaned back against the headboard. Whatever spark of recognition had emerged dissipated just as quickly. Selena tilted her head and asked him, “How did Badb know to come for you?”
Cities of the Gods (The Unbreakable Sword Series Book 2) Page 16