Shadows of the Gods (The Unbreakable Sword Series Book 1)

by S. M. Schmitz

  Cameron snorted and said, “Then why should I hope he isn’t in jail?”

  “Who’s Jasper?” Selena asked. For someone who had spent most of her life alone, she felt overwhelmed by all of the names and people entering her world so quickly.

  “An asshole,” Cameron retorted.

  “Cameron,” Quinn groaned. “Just… stop being yourself for the next few days and help her settle in.”

  Cameron gave him a funny look and snapped, “Who the hell else am I supposed to be then?”

  Selena tried not to laugh because Quinn was trying to be nice. She looked at him seriously and thanked him and waited until Cameron’s apartment door closed before asking him again who Jasper was and why he was an asshole.

  “Like me, also unusually strong, but he goes out and gets drunk and does stupid shit and then somebody has to go bail him out of trouble and hope he hasn’t attracted too much attention,” Cameron explained.

  “A sun god, a healer, and feats of strength,” Selena murmured. Cameron was a more complex puzzle than she’d originally thought and she studied him, intrigued by his combination of talents. He squirmed a little under her gaze and she smiled when she realized she had the potential to make a man like him uncomfortable. Her amusement wasn’t mean-spirited; she was simply surprised.

  “Have you ever considered that you might have more than one god as an ancestor?” she asked.

  “A lot of demigods do,” he answered.

  Selena shook her head and didn’t let him finish. “I’m not talking about the children of gods. What if you’re such a mystery because someone like Helios had an affair with Athena?”

  “That wouldn’t explain the healing,” Cameron said.

  “It was just an example.”

  “Not a very good one. Athena was supposedly a virgin goddess anyway.”

  “True, but she raised Erichthonius, and Hephaestus was the god of fire. What were Gaia’s powers? As the mother of the Titans and the representation of the Earth, I can see healing powers coming from her.”

  Cameron offered her that crooked smile and Selena looked away, pretending to pick at a rough edge on one of her fingernails. “Why are you so convinced I’m Greek?” he asked.

  “Why are you so convinced you’re not?”

  “Because every white demigod trying to connect to his past starts with the Greeks. If there were a thread to unravel there, I would have found it by now just as you would have found yours.”

  Selena thought about it then reluctantly admitted his logic was pretty sound. She’d spent years studying Greek mythology and had still refused to accept this history was not hers until she’d walked the ruins of the Acropolis and felt no connection to those ancient buildings or the gods who used to be revered there.

  “Well, I’m blonde. Obviously, I spent a fair amount of time reading Norse mythology, too,” Selena said.

  Cameron feigned disbelief. “You mean, you’re going to admit I’m right that we would resemble our ancestors?”

  “Obviously we’d resemble our human ancestors,” Selena pouted. She pulled her feet onto the sofa and tapped her fingers against her knee. “Quinn looks like he should be related to Thor not Freyr. He just needs to grow the red beard.”

  “You should tell him that,” Cameron responded, his lips spreading into a mischievous grin, and she suspected it wouldn’t be the first time someone told Quinn he resembled the wrong god.

  “You are terrible,” she teased as she leaned over to playfully push him off the sofa. Cameron laughed and grabbed her hands and a brief flash, a spark of recognition, passed between them. Selena gasped and pulled her hands away, blinking at him but the moment was gone and she couldn’t even identify this feeling, let alone its source.

  Cameron stared back at her, just as bewildered, and whispered, “What the hell was that?”

  “There’s… something familiar about you,” Selena said slowly, feeling the jagged edges of the pieces of this puzzle should be aligning but were stubbornly refusing to settle into place.

  Cameron’s eyes widened as he continued to stare at her. “We’re from the same pantheon.”

  As soon as Cameron spoke the words, she understood their truth and Selena tried to force the knowledge into her brain but it was as useless a gesture for her as it would be for anyone else. She sighed in frustration and gave up.

  “Hey,” Cameron said gently, “don’t get so discouraged. There are over three dozen people in our group and I’ve never met anyone I seemed related to. Maybe that means our pantheon is small and that’s a pretty significant clue.”

  “How? I know virtually nothing about Ukko and Finnish gods. There are hundreds of possibilities.”

  “I don’t know about hundreds…” Cameron argued but stopped himself when Selena shot him a don’t-even-think-about-being-a-smartass-right-now scowl. “Ok, but we can both heal and if we’re right… if we are from the same pantheon, we may even have a common ancestor.”

  Selena had no idea why that hadn’t occurred to her until now. She sat up straighter and gaped at him. “We could make a list of the gods and goddesses who were capable of healing but how would we know if we’re on the right track? It’s not like I’ve ever had a light bulb moment reading a book, and we can’t afford to travel all over Europe hoping something clicks with us. Your car isn’t even paid for.”

  Cameron grimaced and scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t even have a car anymore. It was badly damaged when the camp exploded. I really hate those bastards.”

  “We’re quite a team, Cameron,” Selena snickered. “Broke, unemployed, carless, and at least six powerful deities want us either dead or enslaved.”

  It wasn’t funny, but Cameron smiled back at her, the hopelessness of their situation seemingly weighing on him, too. “I’m going to go find you something to eat,” he offered. “I’m pretty sure I have frozen pizza. I’m a nice guy. I’ll even put it in the oven for you.”

  “I’m almost hungry enough to eat it frozen,” Selena said, and she was only half-joking.

  She watched him pull the box out of the freezer and rolled her fingers against her thigh, trying to force those curves and angles of the puzzle pieces together even though they didn’t want to fit. She exhausted her mental catalog of deities and rested her chin against her knee, unable to think of any pairing that would have produced his combination of talents.

  Cameron caught her staring at him and flashed that sexy grin at her and she felt her cheeks warming but didn’t look away. “Twenty-two minutes. I could scorch it to try to speed things up, but I don’t think it would be edible after that.”

  “Do all gods have unnatural strength?” she asked.

  Cameron’s hand paused over his kitchen timer.

  “Hurry,” she reminded him. “Set it. You’ll burn my pizza.”

  Cameron blinked at the timer in his other hand as if he’d forgotten he was holding onto it. He twisted the knob and set it on the counter. “Selena, you already know not all gods and their descendants are physically stronger than humans.”

  She lifted her head and nodded at him. “Yeah, but aside from a few like Thor, I don’t know of many gods who are famous for being strong. That’s a more common motif with heroes, like Heracles or Cú Chulainn.”

  “Huh,” Cameron said, “I think I’ve been mispronouncing Cú Chulainn for years.”

  “You’re still mispronouncing it,” Selena told him.

  Cameron waved her off and opened his refrigerator, pulling out two cans of Diet Coke. Like raindrops gliding lazily down a window, those puzzle pieces began to slowly snap together, forming a larger picture in her mind. She sat up excitedly as Cameron held out the can to her. He looked at the can then back at her.

  “It’s just Diet Coke, Selena. I told you… I don’t drink. I’ve got this and water.”

  Selena shook her head rapidly. “Who is Cú Chulainn’s father?”

  “Um… I have to be honest. I read about this myth years ago, but I don’t know much abo
ut Irish mythology. I vaguely remember the Tuatha Dé Danaan but that’s about it.”

  “Yeah, you’re mispronouncing that, too,” she said, smiling to herself as that puzzle began to offer her a completed picture. “And you really need to grab your laptop and start reading. Cú Chulainn’s father was Lugh. In Irish myth, he’s depicted as being a master of all things, but in some, he’s also depicted as a sun god. And his grandfather is Dian Cécht, one of the original Tuatha Dé, and he was the god of medi…” Selena trailed off and swallowed as Cameron arched an eyebrow at her and that slow, sexy grin pulled across his lips.

  “God of medicine?” he asked.

  Selena nodded but her voice was gone and she was sure she couldn’t breathe. The air had been sucked from the room. She felt dizzy and shaky and dropped the unopened can of soda on the floor. Cameron knelt beside her and picked it up, placing it on the coffee table before turning those beautiful dark brown eyes back on her.

  “Holy shit, Selena, if you’re right… I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to figure out my ancestry and you do it in ten minutes?”

  She shook her head and swallowed again, trying to find her voice, because if she were right, it wasn’t only Cameron’s past she’d found a connection to but her own. And she had studied Irish mythology extensively, just as she’d studied so many others, but she’d never experienced the moment of revelation she always expected when she stumbled upon the truth. Each collection of myths had simply been one more book thrown on top of her read-pile, more knowledge added to her extensive collection of cultural beliefs that no one believed in anymore.

  “I told you I spent my childhood and teenaged years mostly alone with my aunt. What else was I going to do but read?” Selena whispered.

  “And let me guess… this Dian Cécht, and yeah, I know, I’m butchering that name as well… he was a pretty powerful healer?”

  Selena nodded. “He could heal anything except decapitation. Like a lot of myths, there are some inconsistencies in the stories because he isn’t the one who healed King Nuada’s arm. He made Nuada a new arm out of silver, and it was Dian Cécht’s son who gave Nuada a real arm. Dian Cécht then killed his son because he was jealous that he did a better job.”

  “How charming,” Cameron said. “Why do all the gods have to be such assholes? Why can’t any of us be related to someone who was like… I don’t know… Prometheus? Champion of the mortals.”

  “Cameron!” Selena laughed. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him gently. “Focus! We might be Irish! Do any of these names… seem familiar? Anything at all?”

  “I guess I remember reading about them a long time ago. Is that what you mean?”

  Selena let her hands fall and sat back, some of her excitement fading with Cameron’s lack of enthusiasm over the thread she’d pulled through a possible family tree.

  “It’s silly, isn’t it,” she said. She wasn’t asking; she only wanted to hear him say it. “Here I was thinking I’d solved some mystery you’ve been trying to solve for years.”

  Cameron picked up her hand and held it between his, and that brief spark of familiarity flashed between them again, and just as quickly, disappeared. Cameron stared at their hands but didn’t drop hers. It didn’t seem to startle him as much this time. He inhaled a slow, deep breath and kept his eyes on their hands. Selena’s stomach fluttered, but she wasn’t sure if it was nerves or fear.

  “I have a confession to make,” he said.

  Fear. Definitely fear.

  “I had to beg Quinn to let me be the one who trailed you. He wanted to do it himself. I don’t know how to say this without it sounding really pervy and that’s not why I… I mean, yeah, you’re beautiful, but that’s not what this is about. I just…” Cameron inhaled another deep breath and let this one out quickly, forcefully. “There was a small group of us who followed you to Denver about five months ago. And the first time I saw you in person, I just had this feeling like I already knew you. Quinn wouldn’t even agree to let me go after you in New Orleans until I told him the truth.”

  “What does he think it means?” Selena asked breathlessly. The room seemed hot and stifling despite the cool temperatures outside. The first time she met Cameron, she hadn’t experienced anything unusual, but she had been outside a nightclub in New Orleans, trapped by the gods of the New Pantheon who had been pursuing her for three years. And she’d had no idea who he was and he scared her almost as much as they did.

  “Quinn is kind of like our leader here, but that’s only because he’s a great warrior and has the tactical genius of a descendant of Freyr.”

  Selena shook her head and Cameron stopped talking. “Freyr’s not a war god though,” she pointed out.

  “Freyr was a great swordsman. The Norse are the gods of the Vikings. They’re all kinda war gods. Except Loki. He’s just an asshole.”

  “Be careful,” Selena warned. “He’s probably still alive.”

  “If he is, then he’s still bound in that cave so I’m not worried about it. But you didn’t let me get to my point. Quinn has a lot of the qualities of a great leader, but he doesn’t know world mythologies well. He knows his own, and that’s it. So he agreed that it probably meant something but had no idea what and because we are demigods and can be kinda superstitious, he thought maybe it was a sign I’m meant to help you after all.”

  “And maybe,” Selena smiled, “it’s because we’re both descended from the Tuatha Dé.”

  “I think we’re definitely part of the same pantheon,” Cameron agreed. “Whether it’s this Irish one I can’t pronounce or some other, I don’t know, but Selena, this is the first time in my life I’ve met someone I’m connected to. If nothing comes of our research into the Tuatha Dé, don’t get discouraged. We’re connected. We have to be.”

  Selena’s smile turned shy and she lowered her eyes to their hands, still folded together. “Is it weird to be attracted to someone you might be distantly related to then?”

  Cameron laughed and shook his head. “We’re about as closely related as any of those people who take that online genealogy test that tells them they’re descendants of Charlemagne. Farther back than that, actually, because if we are both descendants of Dian Cécht, then this would have been thousands of years ago.”

  Selena kept smiling at their hands, but her brain told her to snap out of it. She’d let her guard down too soon once and was still paying for that mistake. And Cameron was too perfect. Not perfect but everything about him seemed to be specifically crafted to endear him to her, from his constant barrages of smartass comments to his ability to turn around and be gentle and compassionate to his complete devotion to her safety. And she had a difficult time imagining they could have found a more attractive man to send her way.

  No, Selena couldn’t allow herself to fall for their deception again. Anyone’s deception. She couldn’t let her heart get broken again. Even these fleeting moments of recognition and familiarity that passed between them could be fabricated if he were powerful enough, and he’d already demonstrated he possessed at least three strong gifts.

  Selena slipped her hand out of his and nodded toward the kitchen. “Think the pizza’s almost ready? I’m famished.”

  Cameron smiled at her and stood up. “Should be close. Just to prove I’m capable of being a gentleman, I won’t even take any until you’re full.”

  Selena watched him walk into his kitchen then closed her eyes. You aren’t doing this again, Selena. You aren’t falling for him. You can’t. It can’t end well and it will be far worse than Alan. He may literally be the death of you.

  The sound of the oven door closing forced her eyes open just in time to see Cameron glancing at her over his shoulder, offering her that seductive grin and she held her breath. “You’re in luck, Sweet Goddess. I’ll be serving you momentarily.”

  Goddamn it.

  It was too late. Her heart was trapped and she had no idea how to help it escape.

  Chapter Nine

  The tall gray tr
unks of the cypress trees jutting from the water punctured the smooth brown surface of the Atchafalaya River. Selena chewed nervously on a fingernail as Quinn’s car brought them closer and closer to where their camp used to stand outside of Butte La Rose. She didn’t remember any of this trip because she’d slept through it the last time, and even if she’d been awake, it had been dark. She only remembered waking up outside of Cameron’s camp, the eerie outline of the black trees and the rough angles of the tall camp erected high on stilts to keep the water out when the river flooded. The thick trunks of the trees and the swaying branches along the winding river seemed far less foreboding during the daytime.

  Her eyes drifted to the land beyond the river and she wondered where Quetzalcoatl’s swamp was, what little inlet of water he’d claimed for himself that she’d stumbled into and started yet another nightmare not only for herself but for Cameron and his friends and the innocent people along this river.

  Two more had disappeared the day before.

  A father and his twenty-two-year-old son, both on their fourteen days off from the same rig in the Gulf, doing what they loved to do most: fishing together in the same bays where they’d both grown up fishing and, most likely, so had their fathers before them. Selena sighed and wiped at her eyes, resting her forehead against the cool glass as she watched the greenness of the world pass her.

  Cameron turned in the passenger seat and bit his lip. He looked like he wanted to comfort her somehow but didn’t know what to say. It was just as well; there was nothing he could say to bring those men back and right now, all Selena wanted was for those families that were grieving to have their loved ones at home with them.

  This was exactly why she’d always known she could never work for the New Pantheon. And this was exactly why she wouldn’t work for Quinn and Cameron in their attempt to destroy the New Pantheon either. As wretched as Ukko seemed to be, as horrible as she believed the rest of his men were, she couldn’t shake the possibility that someone somewhere loved them and looked forward to them coming home and picked up the phone eagerly each day to hear their voice.