by Addison Fox
“What? You can’t be serious.”
“Look at it from my point of view.”
“Quinn.” She shook her head, willing him to slow down and listen. “Quinn!”
He stopped and his body stilled as she placed a hand on his chest. “What?”
“Listen to me. Please. I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t set anything up for my own benefit. And, might I remind you, you’re the one who sought me out, so you can’t blame this all on me.” She stopped short and stared at him. “Speaking of which, why have you been following me?”
A pained look crossed his face and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer her. “There’s been a lot of activity in your sector.”
“My what?” Good God, she sounded like a fucking megaphone, echoing back each word he said. But seriously. What was he talking about?
“I monitor…things. The streets. Manhattan. Farther than that, really. I look for patterns. I’ve written algorithms to watch for paranormal activity and I can usually find it within all the technology that monitors our lives nowadays.”
Montana knew it was silly—knew the last thing she needed to do at this moment was laugh—but she failed miserably to keep a straight face, or the laughter from her voice. “You’re a geek?”
“I most certainly am not.”
“You most certainly are. And this monitoring you do? What does it have to do with me?”
“About a month ago, I started to get a sense that there was a lot of activity in your sector. Your quadrant.” When she only stared at him, he continued. “It’s the way I monitor all the data. I narrowed it down to your block and, since your building is the entire block, I began looking into the tenants. It didn’t take too long to figure it was you.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“I can see patterns, Montana. Things that most others don’t. It’s why I’m a good security expert. And it’s what I do as my role within my Warrior brothers.”
“I thought you were an ass kicker.”
“I’m that, too. But we’ve all evolved through the years. We all do more. Than kick ass,” he added.
He could call himself anything he wanted, it still didn’t explain why he’d followed her. “So why did you start focusing on me?”
“Like I said, the paranormal activity around you was off the charts. Then I started—”
“Whoa, whoa. Stop there. What paranormal activity?”
“Everything has an essence. A life force. I can see those forces.”
She shook her head, his explanation too fantastical for words. “You’re like those weirdoes on TV. The ones who claim they’re following ghosts and whatnot.”
“It’s not exactly like that, but it’s not far off. I look for energy patterns. Humans give off energy patterns. Supernatural humans give off even more.”
Oh holy shit, he actually believed this stuff?
The urge to put a few additional feet of distance between them crossed her mind, but even as she felt the urge, it was swiftly followed by another.
A desperate desire to believe him.
Because maybe if she believed him, some of the things in her life would finally make sense.
He held his hands up in a “don’t shoot” gesture. “Can I finish? Please?”
She nodded, curious to hear what he had to say despite herself.
“After I got the”—he broke off as if searching for the right word—“sense that something was going on, I looked into your background, your father’s death and your recent ascension to the head of Grant Shipping. Couple it all with the fact that you’re taking the company public and my instincts went off.”
“But I still don’t see how they’re related.” She saw his skepticism in the raised eyebrows and the hard set of his shoulders, but she continued. “No, really. Explain it to me. I think I have a right to know.”
“I didn’t know what to think about you other than the business reputation your father built and you’ve inherited. Then you start talking to me about your mother and her reappearance, so soon after you take the helm. It all seems rather convenient.”
He couldn’t be serious. He thought her mother was involved? That the frail woman afraid of her own shadow was someone setting this all up to her benefit? Whatever pain Eirene’s absence had caused her over the years, Montana refused to believe the woman was playing her.
To what end?
If Eirene had wanted a piece of the company, she’d have had much better luck sticking around and playing the long-suffering wife.
“So you think what? That my long-lost feeble mother is up to no good? At a time when she doesn’t have to fear my father anymore, which is likely the reason she never returned in the first place.”
“And you never questioned that maybe she was back for a different reason? Something tied to the company your father founded.”
“But my mother hasn’t mentioned one word to me about taking the company public. Not one single word. Don’t you think if she were trying to set me up she’d say something about it?”
“She’s been around a long time. I’m sure she knows how to be more subtle than that.”
“I’m serious, Quinn. The two things aren’t related. They’re just not. There has to be some other connection.”
“You can keep thinking that all you want. But I want to know more. Like this healing thing. You’ve never noticed that before?”
She’d nearly forgotten about that in the midst of their argument. With the reminder from his words, the shock of it all came rushing back. “I’ve never had any healing powers like this. I bleed, like anyone else. And I heal like anyone else. Here. Look.”
Another thought hit her as she made her arguments. With quick movements, she tugged at the waist of her skirt, lowering it to show him a scar from her appendectomy. “Appendicitis when I was twelve. See. I’ve had physical problems during my life. Disease. Surgery.”
She watched his eyes roam over her skin, saw him reach out and touch the thin white scar that was proof of her surgery. “I had to heal from that. I was out of school for two weeks.”
“But this doesn’t make sense.”
“Let’s slow down for a minute. Talk to me and tell me what you think you know.” She shook her head. “No. Tell me what you know. Come on. Please.”
He nodded and they walked back toward the couch. Was it possible he was softening? Montana reached for the blanket the women had covered her with earlier. Although she could still feel the brand of Quinn against her skin—could still feel each and every agonizing sweep of his tongue on her breast—she covered herself from his view.
Whatever had flared to life, whatever she’d thought she was going to prove by her little seduction attempt, was long over. It was time for a real discussion.
She could wallow in her hormones later.
Quinn took the seat opposite her on the couch and started in, no preamble. “Your mother is an immortal.”
“Themis is my mother?”
“No. Her daughter is your mother. Eirene was one of the Horae.”
“I’m a little fuzzy on my mythology.”
“It’s not a myth, Montana. It’s real.”
She sighed at the edge that tinged his words. “Look. I’m going to fumble a bit. This is all new—brand-new—to me. Can you cut me some slack?”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Fair. The Horae are three daughters of Themis and Zeus. Sisters to the Moirae.”
“The three Fates?”
“Yes. The Horae are responsible for natural justice and order.”
“But Themis is the goddess of justice?”
“As an overall concept, yes. Justice as a whole. But there are subclasses of that. Natural justice, legal justice, and so on.”
“Natural justice?”
“It’s natural justice that the animal who lingers too long over a carcass is eaten by another predator.”
“Ew.”
He nodded again, but she could see a sense of satisf
action in his gaze that she’d gotten it. “Exactly. There’s an order to the world. A logical way of being. Themis has overall control of it, in a broad sense, but she’s allowed her offspring to control the various pieces.”
“So what is my mother?”
“Eirene is the personification of peace.”
“But how is that possible? I’ve seen her, Quinn. She’s frail and sickly. She won’t let me take her to a doctor, or call one in to look at her.”
“She fell, Montana.”
“Oh my God! When?” She scrambled to the edge of the couch, a desperate longing to find Eirene simply forcing her into action.
“Montana.” Quinn’s hand on her arm held her in place on the couch. “Stop. I didn’t mean an actual fall. Like today. I meant she fell. From Mount Olympus.”
“She what?”
“When she married a mortal. She abdicated her role and fell. She’s no longer immortal.”
“Like a fallen angel?”
“Of sorts. It’s not quite the same thing, but you’re getting the basic picture.”
“Okay. Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt on this one—and I’m not even remotely saying I am—but how the hell does someone fall from being a goddess?”
“It’s not all that hard, from what I understand. You simply make a choice. That’s all it takes.”
Montana’s thoughts raced with the implications. “They sure as hell didn’t teach us that one in Greek mythology lessons.”
“It kind of makes sense when you think about it. Choice is a powerful thing. Oddly simplistic, but a very fundamental power afforded all of us.”
Even as every rational thing inside of her suggested she hightail it out of there as fast as she could, a part of her thought his words made sense. An even smaller—yet insistent—part believed him.
“Look. I know it’s hard to digest, but it’s what happened.”
“And Themis just let her go?”
“I don’t have all the details. It was a very private matter, but even gods talk. Her sisters were devastated when she abdicated her role. They’ve shared that with other immortals over the years.”
“So who replaced her?”
“No one.”
“But if she’s the keeper of peace, that can’t be possible.”
Quinn let out a harsh bark of laughter. The sound was so raw—so bleak—it pulled her from her thoughts. At the matched look in his dark chocolate eyes, Montana felt the overwhelming urge to touch him.
To comfort him.
Before she could, he was off the couch and pacing the room. “Have you looked at the state of the world over the last four decades?”
“But humanity has always had problems.” Montana fought for some rational explanation—for something to explain what couldn’t possibly be true. “Come on. There were more deaths during World War II than any time in human history. If what you say is true, she was still a goddess then.”
“Yes, but humanity has gotten more and more depraved with their warfare. More sinister.”
“Humans haven’t changed. Just the tools to see their plans through. If you are who you say you are—if you’ve lived the lifetimes you claim to—you have to know that.”
“Oh, I do know it. But even I can see it’s gotten worse.”
“Humans haven’t exactly shown their best sides to the world. The history books are full of that.”
“But don’t you think the world’s gotten significantly more dire in the last forty years?”
“I’m sorry, but I just find that hard to believe.”
“It’s because of your mother’s abdication.”
He couldn’t be serious. Even people who weren’t overly familiar with history knew that humans had been finding new and interesting ways to kill, maim and destroy one another for millions of years. “That’s an awful lot to lay at the feet of one person, Quinn.”
“I’m laying it at the feet of a goddess, not a person.”
“Well, now that she’s a mortal, she’s going to die. What’s Themis’s grand plan then?”
“I suspect she’s decided it’s you.”
Chapter Ten
“Me?” Montana’s eyes darted around the room, the sudden tensing of her shoulders suggesting she wanted a way out.
Well, there wasn’t a way out if his suspicions were correct and he’d be damned if he was going to sugar-coat it.
“Add it up. If you haven’t been immortal all along—and that little appendix story was too quick not to believe—then you’re becoming an immortal.”
“Don’t you think I’d have known that? Felt it?”
“I know we talked about it yesterday, but I want you to really think about it. Have things changed lately?”
He saw her glance down at her thumb and he followed her gaze, wondering what was suddenly so fascinating. Before he could analyze it, Montana snapped her attention right back to him. “Oh, I don’t know. Other than a deranged killer’s after me and I’ve suddenly garnered the bodyguard services of an immortal? Is that what you mean?”
He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing she was acting so sarcastic, but Quinn also decided it couldn’t be all bad. It at least suggested she had decided to believe him.
Or so he hoped.
“Montana—” Before he could finish, there was a loud knock on the door.
“Quinn! Can I come in?”
Quinn groaned inwardly before hollering back, “Enter!”
“Callie told me you brought a woman with you who was injured and Brody and the guys just got back and—”
The owner of the voice—Ava—stopped in the center of the room. Their Leo Warrior’s wife stared at Montana. “Callie and Ilsa told me you were hurt. Why are you sitting up?”
Ava rushed over to the couch to wrap her arm around Montana. As she fussed, Quinn could see his Warrior brothers hovering in the doorway. He shot one gaze at Montana, still wrapped in the thin blanket, and then tossed his brothers the evil eye. They all seemed to get it, as he heard a few mumbled words and a hollered, “Callie!” before all of them moved back into the hallway.
“I’m Ava. I heard what happened to you. How can you possibly look so good right now?”
Montana lifted her shoulders in confusion, but before she could say anything, Ava barreled right on through the conversation. “Come with me and I’ll get you fixed up. Callie’s got the poultice ready for you.”
“I don’t think—”
“It won’t hurt that bad and it will heal you up right away.”
“No, I mean, I am healed.”
“What?” Ava dropped Montana’s arm and turned toward Quinn. “Why didn’t you tell them? Ilsa and Callie are really worried about her.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know she was an immortal?”
“I didn’t know either,” Montana interjected, “if it makes you feel any better.”
Ava whirled back toward Montana and for the briefest moment—the tiniest, nanosecond, really—Quinn wished for the old mousy Ava. The one who wasn’t bossing all of them around like some annoying older sister.
“I saw that look, Quinn.”
With eyebrows raised to the ceiling, he let out a groan. “Of course you did. Were eyes in the back of your head one of the gifts Themis threw your way on your turning?”
A very delicate middle finger shot back at him while Ava wrapped her free arm around Montana’s shoulder. “Come on with me. I’ll get you some clothes and I’d still like Callie to take another look at you.”
Montana shot him a look of helplessness, but she followed Ava anyway.
Ava dropped the middle finger and had the graciousness to look contrite as she led Montana from the room. “I’ll bring her right back. I promise. Don’t worry.” Seeing the lightning-quick change in Brody’s sweetheart’s soul, Quinn immediately felt bad about wishing she was her old, mortal self.
As soon as Ava had Montana out of the library, Grey, Brody, Kane, and Drake barreled into the ro
om.
The curtain of awkwardness Quinn had been fighting for six months descended over his thoughts and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Did you get him?”
Brody shook his head, disgust riding high on his cover-model-perfect cheekbones. “Fucker got past us. I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d say he had the same skills we do.”
Quinn weighed the idea in his mind. “You think so?”
Brody nodded as the other guys took up spots around the room. It didn’t escape Quinn’s notice Kane took the seat farthest away.
Damn, but they just couldn’t seem to get their groove back. Quinn knew it was his fault—his oh-so-helpful reaction when Kane and Ilsa needed him to port to the Underworld had put a permanent riff in their relationship.
But fuck it if Quinn could figure out if Kane was cold to him, or if it was an outgrowth of his own standoffishness.
And when the fuck had he turned into such a girl that he was even thinking about shit like this?
Brody slammed a meaty fist into his shoulder. “Yo, bro? You there?”
“Yeah. Sorry. And sorry I brought her here.”
“Where else were you going to bring her?” The Leo’s puzzled gaze stared back at him.
“Yeah, but here? What if she was a threat?”
Brody shrugged. “Like Kane and I haven’t done the same. Besides, everyone in this house knows how to take care of himself.”
“Or herself,” Kane added for good measure.
“So, as I was saying,” Brody continued, effectively closing the door on the subject of Quinn’s questionable choices, “I did think it might be one of us, until Callie filled us in on the spikes in her back. Not our style.”
Grey added, “And while it sounds like it could be the work of an immortal, I haven’t heard word one about someone horning in on our territory.”
“But the spikes,” Quinn pressed. “The way they exploded. It’s too much like the textbooks.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be.” Grey shook his head. “I see shit all the time, Quinn. Stuff that would blow your hair back and make the goons on Mount Olympus cry with jealousy.”
Quinn had to acknowledge Grey’s words. The gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus hadn’t quite caught on that humans weren’t exactly bumbling around in the dark any longer. They might not have immortality but they weren’t clueless, either. And they sure-as-hell knew how to do some damage to each other.
