by Hall, Linsey
Would she be able to kill him again when she saw him? Would he kill her first? If she wasn’t strong, if she didn’t remember that she fought for her brothers’ lives, she was afraid that she would let him.
“Are you looking for me?” The deep voice came from behind. She stumbled in surprise after so many days alone.
How had she gotten to be so clumsy that he could sneak up on her? She spun to face him, fear leaping in her heart. Relief followed, for he was, in fact, still alive. Her wrist twinged. Perhaps alive wasn’t exactly the word for it. But here, in the land of the gods, he looked hale, though he lacked the otherworldly quality that he’d had on earth.
Perhaps because I am in his world now. She raised her bow, ashamed to feel her arm quiver. She swallowed, sighted down the shaft of the arrow he had given her.
Why would he not raise his bow? He just stood there, strong and still and calm like an oak.
“Raise your bow.” Her voice cracked under the strain. She had to kill him.
But she didn’t want to. She wanted to go to him and take one of their walks again. To talk and laugh and forget this terrible situation. Her brothers flashed through her mind again.
“Raise it!” He had to. She couldn’t shoot him if he didn’t at least raise his own bow. Something horrible started to rise in her chest, fighting with her determination. She could finish this. She could save her brothers. Her arm shook.
Damn it. She had to pull herself together. But as her breath tore in and out of her lungs, she realized that she… couldn’t. She wanted to scream, to tear at her hair, to return to earth and forget that she had ever met this man.
“Lower your bow, Andrasta.” His voice was too kind, his eyes too understanding.
It broke something within her, and her voice rose in a harsh sob. She released the arrow, pulling her bow to the left at the last moment so that the arrow thudded into an oak a dozen feet from him.
She collapsed to her knees as the darkness of what she’d done converged on her. She was here, in Otherworld, with no escape. If she didn’t destroy the soul of the man in front of her, her brothers would die. He’d brought her to this, by watching her. But she’d brought herself here too, when she’d confronted him in the forest and then spent so many hours with him that she’d grown to care for him.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him sit, prop his arms on his knees, and hang his head between his arms.
“Why didn’t you kill me right away?” Her voice broke. Would it have been preferable to this? Yes. She gripped her bow tighter, but it did nothing to soothe her.
“I… couldn’t.”
She looked up to see him staring down at his bow. He chucked it away, disgust and longing etched into his face. She watched the bow slam into a tree and crack in half. Her hand closed reflexively around her own bow.
“Why couldn’t you kill me? And why did you do that?”
He met her gaze, but didn’t answer her question. “You’ll be fine here. You’ll find your way. One day, you’ll be clever enough to sneak back to earth occasionally.”
“What?” Why did it sound like he was rushing to give her last-minute instructions?
Regret shone from his eyes as he looked at her. She shifted under his careful regard, under the longing that she thought she saw in his eyes. Confusion raged like a storm around her, buffeting her back and forth as it would a small boat far from sea.
“You cared for me.”
His eyes jerked to hers. “I did. I… do.”
A smile might have pulled at her lips any other time, but it couldn’t now. She’d wanted him to care for her as she’d grown to care for him. But now it didn’t matter.
“We’re in a mess.” He rose.
Her gaze followed him as he walked to the tree where his blue arrow had lodged. He yanked it free and returned to her. He sat again, this time only a few feet from her. The heart that no longer felt like hers fought to be free of her chest.
He reached into his cloak and withdrew a small bottle. Carefully, he unstopped it and poured a few drops of opalescent liquid onto the tip of the arrow. He held it out to her.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Nothing important. For the pain.”
Did he lie? But his face brooked no argument, and she was so out of her element that she didn’t question.
“Take it,” he said when she hesitated.
Swallowing hard, she reached out and curled her fingers around the arrow shaft. So close were their fingers that she swore she felt the heat of his. She looked at the arrow, then back to him.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Did he not want to kill her? She couldn’t let him, fearing that the gods would carry out their vengeance upon her brothers. But how could she stop him when she didn’t want to raise her bow against him?
But when she met his eyes again, she realized that he wouldn’t be killing her.
“You’ll shoot me with it. As you did before. Don’t miss,” he said.
A tear leaked from her eye, trailing cold and lonely down her cheek. He reached out to wipe it away. The warmth of his hand burned through her. How had she come to be here, in this utterly indecipherable, inescapable, intolerable situation?
“Why?” She wanted to reach out and grab his hand. Instead, she tightened hers on her bow.
“I’d prefer to leave Otherworld on my own terms.”
“Leave? You mean, you really won’t kill me?”
A chuff of strange laughter escaped him, loaded with so much emotion that she couldn’t decipher. His eyes raced over her face, down to the hand that clutched her bow.
“No,” he said finally. “I’ve done enough harm to you.”
“Harm to me? But I killed you. I escaped lightly.”
“Neither of us has escaped. Spend long enough here, and you’ll learn that.”
“I would become a god if I do this.”
“You wanted to prove yourself.”
“Not like this.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “It seems you don’t have a choice.”
“But you want me to destroy you with the arrow, as the gods said?”
“I’ve lived a long time. I’m not meant for Otherworld. The other gods are determined to see me dead. They’ve wanted it for a long time, and now they have a way. I could fight them, but at the risk of you and your brothers.”
“You’d do that for me?” She searched his handsome face, trying to decipher anything from the gray eyes that watched her so closely.
“For you, for me. For the only way to get out of this disaster on my terms and without your soul being destroyed.”
Andrasta shivered. Once a body died on earth, the soul went to Otherworld, the land of the gods. She was proof of that, sitting here in the grass across from Camulos.
It was almost impossible to destroy a soul in Otherworld, however. But she’d killed him on earth, had the permission of the other gods, and had his arrow. That was no ordinary magic. It gave her the power to destroy him. He was a god, which gave him the power to destroy her. It was a power that the other gods possessed as well. There truly was no way out.
As she weighed her miserable options and the trap that she’d built for herself, she looked down at the arrow. Her stomach lurched at the idea of sending it through him.
But there was no other choice. “This is what you want?”
He nodded, and her heart clutched at the resignation in his eyes. He rose. Shaking, she followed suit.
“But first. One thing.” He approached her. The breath caught in her lungs at the intensity of his face. “A kiss.”
She stared up at him, her voice stolen, lost in the wildness of emotion swirling in his eyes, emotion that wasn’t reflected in his still form. Her lips parted in soundless invitation as her lost heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest.
His big hand cupped the side of her head, his heat burning through to her errant heart. Tension vibrated from him as he pressed his mouth to hers, warm and firm an
d so lovely that her mind stopped. Too soon, he drew away. He closed his eyes, leaned his forehead against hers.
His hand tightened just briefly in her hair as he murmured, “Enough.”
He stepped back, and though she wanted to reach for him, the finality in his eyes stilled her. He walked backward from her, his gaze never leaving hers, until he stood ten yards away. So close. Too close for her to put an arrow through his heart. How could he think she’d do this to him?
“Now, Andrasta.” His voice was harsh, the emotion in his eyes replaced by determination.
She shook her head, panic beginning to well within her, threatening to flood her brain.
“Now! For your brothers. For yourself. For me.” The desperation in his voice, the finality of it, made her raise her bow. Her arms shook and tears spilled from her eyes. She desperately tried to blink them away.
“I—I can’t.”
“You will. I want this. You want this. Do you want to see your brothers dead? For the gods to destroy their souls? Or yours?” His eyes were stone serious, committed to this path.
She drew in a harsh breath, tried to memorize his face, then let go of the arrow. It flew straight and true, and so fast that her desire to yank it back welled immediately, but not sooner than the arrow pierced his chest. He disappeared, along with the arrow.
On a sob, she collapsed to her knees. He was gone. And she was here. A god. More alone than she’d ever been.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bruxa’s Eye, Present Day
Ana filched the cell phone out of the back pocket of the bruiser leaning on the bar and slipped toward the exit. She’d left the hotel room an hour ago, intent on finding a way to call her friend Esha. She’d called her from Cam’s phone the other day, but she wanted to check up and didn’t want to have to ask Cam to borrow his phone again. The bar down the street had seemed like the perfect place to find a phone, and the big ugly brute who was currently berating the bartender fit her criteria of people she didn’t feel guilty stealing from. And stealing was the only option, considering that pay phones weren’t exactly plentiful in the middle of the Amazon.
With the phone clutched in her hand, she pushed through the side door of the bar. The alley outside was narrow and dark, but it was perfect. She didn’t feel like company right now, and the quiet would allow her to hear anyone sneaking up on her.
After a bit of cursing and fiddling to make the phone work, she punched in the number of her one and only real friend. And she could really use a friend right now.
“Esha?” she said when the ringing ceased and the line clicked.
“Ana? What the hell are you doing with a phone? Moved up from blenders?”
Ana laughed. Esha thought her obsession with the modern technologies that Otherworld lacked was hilarious. It was the reason she knew Esha’s phone number even though she didn’t actually have a phone. When Esha had gotten her cell, Ana had insisted on calling it a dozen times from the home line. Thank gods she remembered the number now. “Fates, I miss you!”
“Then come see me!”
“I wish.” Normally she aetherwalked to visit Esha, popping in to see her for a few hours whenever she could. “How’s Warren?”
“He’s good,” Esha said. “Says hi.”
“Hi back. Anyway, I was wondering if you found out anything about the Druid priestess called Druantia.”
“Yeah. She’s the top Druid priestess. Most powerful one alive. She’s creepy, too, from what I hear. Her magic is legendary, though I think she’s fallen on hard times.”
“I’m most interested in her location.” Though Ana had never met Druantia before, she too knew of her, and everything that Esha was saying was spot on. Druantia had once been extraordinarily powerful, the only mortal capable of contacting the gods directly. She hadn’t stayed mortal, though Ana had no idea how she’d made the switch to immortality. But she was grateful for it now. Druantia would be her ticket out of Otherworld. She had to be.
“I don’t have that yet,” Esha said. “I’ve asked around and someone will get back to me with something soon, I’m sure. This is about getting out of Otherworld, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s something wrong. What is it?”
“I’m fine.”
“Whatever. I can hear it in your voice.”
She hesitated, unsure of how to bring up any of the hundred things that were bothering her.
“I found Camulos,” she blurted.
“Really?” Nerves tinged Esha’s voice. “Are you okay? He doesn’t want to kill you, right?”
When she’d first learned that Cam might still be alive, she’d been afraid he’d want to kill her for shooting him with the arrows. Over the years, she’d repressed all the good memories of him and focused on the bad. After the nightmare she’d gone through, she hadn’t been able to help herself. But maybe repressing the good hadn’t been fair to Cam. “He doesn’t. And I’m fine.”
“How is Camulos?”
“Um, not bad.”
“Not bad? You’re holding out on me. What’s going on? Come on, ‘fess up.”
How did she even start? “He’s complex.”
“Complex?”
“We’ve got history. You know that.”
“You still have feelings for him. I can hear it in your voice.”
“You’ve got great hearing tonight.”
“Try morning. It’s three AM here in Scotland.”
“Damn, sorry about that. I guess with everything that’s going on here, I lost track of your time.”
“Don’t worry about it. Tell me about Camulos. He was your one big love.”
“That was a long time ago. And it wasn’t love. I was too young for love. And I’m not looking for that, anyway. I want to experience everything I missed out on while I was trapped in Otherworld.”
“Maybe you’re not picking the right things to make up for. There’s something to be said for quality over quantity. What I’ve got with Warren is incredible. Way better than partying and hookups. I want something like that for you, too.”
So do I. To be loved like Esha is would be amazing. Ana started at the thought, then crushed it. “Well, it’s not what I want.”
“Liar. You just don’t know how to cope with strong feelings anymore, after being locked up in Otherworld for so long. You say you want to party and hook up with a bunch of guys, and that’s great and all, but I think you’re hiding.”
She bristled, then fought it back. Esha was just trying to help. But she wasn’t right about her. “It doesn’t matter anyway. For me to be able to escape Otherworld, he would have to go back.”
“What?” Esha cried.
Ana relayed what Cam had told her about the power balance in Otherworld requiring a war god of appropriate skill. It made her chest feel heavy and her mind feel cluttered just to think about it.
“There’s no way he’d be willing to return?” Esha asked.
“No way. And no surprise. It’s utterly awful there.”
“Damn. That’s just… damn.”
“Yeah. Now you see why it doesn’t matter if I did want something more. It’s impossible when one of us is going to end up in Otherworld.”
“Look, if there’s anything I can do, let me know,” Esha said. “And you know I love you. I think you should have other people who love you too.”
Ana’s heart thudded with pathetic gratitude to her only real friend. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, well, come see me soon.”
“I will. We’re actually headed that way. We fly out tomorrow.”
They said their goodbyes and Ana pressed End. She stared down at the phone, wondering if Esha was right about her not being able to cope with real feelings.
No way. She was coming to earth because she missed all that.
And even if the idea of Cam caring for her made her heart ping around inside her chest like a pinball gone mad, it didn’t matter because one of them had to end up in Otherworld.
&nbs
p; But she wasn’t the same girl she’d once been, who’d thirsted for love and approval. She was a goddess, even if she didn’t really want to be one, and she was tough and independent and she didn’t rely on anyone. She realized that she was pounding her fist into her palm in time to her exclamations and stopped.
Loving someone was the worst way to rely on them. She relied only on herself. That’s who she was.
And she was going to go into that bar to pick up a man and prove Esha wrong. She shoved the phone into her pocket and spun, pushing open the door. A blast of noise hit her.
Shit, she was being an idiot. She scowled and let the door swing shut, dropping her back into the quiet dark of the alley. Of course she wasn’t going to go in there and pick up some guy while the gods could possibly be on her tail. She should head back. And if she were honest with herself, she didn’t really want some other guy.
She huffed, then set off down the alley toward the main street, turning onto the boardwalk toward their hotel. A stumbling pair of drunken shifters lurched in front of her, their tails hanging down behind them as if they’d let their inner animal escape a bit.
The roar of a crowd caught her attention, and she glanced left. There was an empty lot situated between two buildings, a fight ring in the middle, like the one in the Caipora’s den. It must have been darkened when she passed by it the first time. Lights now shined down on an empty ring, but from the sound of the cheers, the fighters were making their way to it.
She wanted to step off the boardwalk and wind her way through the crowd toward the ring so that she could feel the action and energy in the air. So that she could feel something other than the angst and desire that Cam dredged up in her. The din of the jeering Mytheans drowned out the howls of the jungle creatures. Maybe it could drown out the howling in her mind.
She’d just turned her head to keep moving toward the hotel when she caught sight of a flash of familiar ginger hair. Cam was climbing into the ring, his chest bare and his fists wrapped in white.
She stepped off the boardwalk and headed toward the ring. With some threatening glares, she managed to push her way to the front, so close that she could see the dark splotches on the floor of the ring. Blood from previous matches.
