by Linsey Hall
But he couldn’t throw off the mantle of insanity that was overwhelming him, nor could he fight the pull of her. It stole conscious thought, vision, hearing, and eventually feeling. The glorious feel of her body accepting his began to fade. The joy that he’d taken in the act, in the victory of winning her affection, became hollow. Soon, his mind wasn’t there at all.
He awoke from his befogged state in a thick forest of oak trees, confused, for there had been far fewer trees before. All had been home to the Druid’s sacred mistletoe. The new trees were darker than the others, bigger and stronger, with no mistletoe hanging from their branches.
The sound of revelry had died, and the forest was silent. It was so quiet that he swore the other gods must have returned to Otherworld.
His gaze was drawn to the forest floor. At his feet lay the bloodied body of a beautiful blond Dryad. Yet he looked at her the same way he’d looked at the trees—with only the vaguest interest.
Had he killed her? Perhaps. There was a strangeness in his chest at the thought, but it too was uninteresting. As this night had become. He felt nothing and didn’t realize that it was strange.
Detached, he watched as her blood soaked into the ground and her body grew to form a great oak tree. The roots plunged deep into the black earth, while branches reached skyward as if the tree were desperate to escape the hold of the earth. But even that bit of magic held little relevance to his life, so he picked up his bow and quiver and returned to Otherworld and his duties. He really should be getting back.
~~~
Cam’s eyes snapped open, his consciousness returned to Blackmoor and the rock upon which he was chained. Madness tore at the edges of his mind. Ana.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Ana hopped out of Logan’s Range Rover in front of Druantia’s building and looked behind her at Logan. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Sure.” He nodded, then pulled away as soon as she shut the door.
Not too friendly, but he’d saved her ass.
Determined to get to Cam no matter what it took, she headed toward the wooden door of Druantia’s shop. The knob was cold under her hand, and she was grateful to step into the warmth of the shop.
“Can I help you?” Druantia asked as she appeared from behind a tall shelf. “Oh, Ana. I didn’t expect to see you here. How is Camulos?”
“Not good. The gods found us. I don’t know how, but he’s back in Otherworld.”
Interest glowed in Druantia’s eyes, and her mouth curved to an odd smile so fleeting that Ana was sure she imagined it. “That’s awful. Come on to the back, tell me what I can do to help.”
A sigh heaved out of Ana’s lungs. She followed Druantia to the back room, weaving around the little tables and under the archway. The zip of magic that sang across her skin was stronger now, almost painful.
“Ouch. You really upped the power on that spell that protects this room.” She rubbed her arms.
“Really? I’m sure I didn’t.” Druantia turned and smiled sweetly at her. “Tea?”
“Um, sure. Thanks.”
“So, tell me what happened and how I can help.” Druantia gestured to the chair that Cam had sat in for his tattoo.
Ana sat. She looked around the room, which was still fairly empty with the exception of the bookshelves. They’d been here just yesterday, so full of hope. And now everything she’d feared had happened.
Ana shook away the miserable thought and told Druantia about the gods while the other woman made tea at a little counter in the corner. The ding and click of the electric kettle made Ana’s mouth water for something warm after being in the frigid wind.
“Here you go.” Druantia handed over the steaming mug and Ana took it gratefully. She smiled at Druantia and sipped.
“Thanks.” She sipped again, luxuriating in the warmth that spread through her as she dredged up the energy to finish her tale. Her status as a demigod was making her hungrier and more susceptible to cold than she’d ever been as a god. “Cam took my place in Otherworld. He’s trapped there now.”
“Oh, what a shame.”
Ana blinked, certain that Druantia’s voice had changed. And was she smiling?
“And what do you want from me?” Druantia asked. Yes, her voice did sound strange.
Ana blinked again and rubbed her ears. A buzzing bee was trapped in her head. “I need to get to Otherworld.” She tried to keep talking, to tell Druantia that she had to find a way to save Cam, but her tongue had become so leaden.
“You—the tea—” Her hand relaxed on the glass, and it fell to the ground. The shatter of ceramic on stone floor echoed in her ears.
“Aye. The tea. You gods always think you’re cleverer than we mortals. Why you’re so arrogant, I have no idea. You’ve no reason to be.” Druantia tsked and leaned back in her small chair, a smug cat’s smile stretching across her face.
Ana’s mind scrambled to understand, to make sense of the woman sitting across from her and all that had happened.
“You—you sent Cernowain to us.” She wished the damn bee in her head would die. “Not… his spies.”
“Of course. Idiot gods always need my help. And it suited my purpose to have Camulos found and punished for desertion.” Hatred thickened her voice.
“But you… helped him Fall. With tattoo… and potion.” Speaking was becoming harder.
“Of course, you imbecile. I’d do anything to see that arrogant bastard lowered from his godly status. Had I been able to kill him, I would’ve. But he’s too damned strong, and I never knew where he went once he fell from godhood. I couldn’t believe my luck when you walked into my shop. Of course I set the gods on you. I’d have done it right away if I could have, but I didn’t want to alert Camulos. He’s still strong enough to kill me.” Bitterness and fear flashed across her face. “So I gave him the damn tattoo. And I added a tracking spell I’d recently devised. It was only a matter of time before Cernowain found you.”
“But…” Ana’s voice trailed off as fog clouded her mind.
“I’ve been waiting ages for this. And now I’ve got plans for you.” Druantia reached out. Her hands were cold and strong, biting into Ana’s flesh.
With what felt like a herculean effort, Ana heaved herself off the chair and onto the floor and the broken mug. Druantia crashed on top her, and Ana felt the bite of glass into her arm. They grappled, but no matter how Ana struggled, the dark and deep of her mind dragged her under until she could hear nothing but the buzzing in her head.
~~~
Something brushed over her arm, light and quick. The tickling woke Ana. She jerked upright from the hard floor, breath sawing in and out of her lungs, and her eyes popped open wide.
Darkness. All she could see was darkness. Air whistled through her throat as she tried to get it together. Blind.
She blinked frantically, shaking her head. No, she wasn’t blind, she realized as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. A tiny window high on the wall let in just enough light through heavy streaks of grime.
A streak of pain pierced her skull. She rubbed her aching head, then winced when the cuts on her arm burned. She poked at the slices in her flesh that peeked out from the holes in her shirt. From the mug, she remembered. And her fight with Druantia.
Blood was dried on the fabric. What the hell? She was a demigod. If the blood was dried, enough time had passed that her wound should have at least started to heal.
Yet it was still gaping and ugly, slowly trickling blood. She prodded the lump on her head. Had she gotten that when she’d been thrown into this dark room? Demigods didn’t heal that much slower than regular gods.
She looked up, more concerned with where she was trapped than with her wound. What the fuck? Druantia had drugged her. And thrown her in a cupboard or a butler’s pantry, from the look of the shelves. The sound of rustling and chattering drew her attention to the corner.
Rats. One must have crawled across her arm. But it wasn’t tiny rat feet that bothered her. No, this shit was far worse.<
br />
She glanced at the ground, desperately hoping to see her bow but knowing it was likely as futile as hoping for an unlocked door to the cupboard. Nothing. Her hands curled into fists on the stone floor, and she tried to slow the panic that threatened to suck her under. Even her bow wouldn't help her get out of here.
With an ache in her bones that felt wholly unnatural, Ana climbed to her feet and went to the door. Tried the knob.
Fuck. Of course it was locked. She gripped it hard in both hands and pulled, straining and cursing when it didn’t budge. Why couldn’t she open it? She should be at least strong enough to break down a door.
But she wasn’t. And without her strength or her bow or godly magic, all she had was her mind. So figure out if you can get past this door. Carefully, she ran her hands over the wood and metal fixtures, down to the base of the door to sneak her fingers under and measure its thickness.
Her throat and eyes burned when she realized it was a heavy wooden door with sturdy metal hinges and a lock. The old kind, built to really keep people out instead of just marking space with a piece of hollow plywood that could be broken through.
So Druantia really wanted to keep her locked up. But why? She’d helped Ana and Cam before. Given Cam his protection charm and the demigod potion. But there was no way around the fact that Druantia was clearly playing toward an endgame that Ana didn’t understand. There was more at stake here than just her life or Cam’s, at least for Druantia.
Options raced through Ana’s mind as she explored the dark cupboard. It took her only minutes to feel around on every surface and determine that it was basically empty with the exception of some canned goods and books. Nothing to help her.
She sank down against the wall and dropped her head back. Had Druantia locked her up as bait to draw Cam back here? Or would she try to ransom her back to the gods?
Ana groaned and rubbed her throbbing temple. The cold, stale air in the cupboard wasn’t helping. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift on waves of horrible thoughts and plans and futile attempts at escape. There was a chance she drifted off at one point, but after what felt like hours, she realized that Druantia probably wasn’t coming to let her out.
And even if she did, it wouldn’t be good. Without her bow, she’d have a hard time defending herself if Druantia appeared. Ana looked at her wounds again, her gut sinking when she noticed that they were still as open and angry as before. She wasn’t healing. Not like she should be if she were a demigod. Had the potion not worked?
It hit her then, like a piano from the sky in an old cartoon. Only this wasn’t funny. Whatever Druantia had given them had turned Ana mortal.
That’s why she’d been feeling so cold and tired and slow and hungry and all the other things that mortals felt that gods and demigods did not. It was all so twisted, and Druantia’s motivations so confusing, that Ana couldn’t wrap her head around it.
Wow, she’d really fucked this up. Cam was in Otherworld, most likely being tortured, and she was here, a puny mortal locked in a cupboard. Things had really come full circle. They’d started out with he a god and she a mortal, and now they were back to it. Only in arguably a much worse situation.
But the fact remained: She was mortal. If Druantia had just given them colored water for the potion, Ana would have woken in Otherworld and realized they’d been scammed. Instead, she’d woken up mortal.
Which meant that there was a way for her to get to Otherworld.
Death.
She rubbed the scars on her wrists. There were risks to the plan, no doubt. She could end up in Otherworld like all the other mortals. An unfeeling automaton. If that happened, would she retain the desire to save Cam?
But there was no guarantee that she would end up like other mortals. She was mortal, but she had knowledge of the reality of the world, Mytheans and afterworlds, gods and monsters. Having that knowledge was halfway to being Mythean, anyway.
No, the worst of it was that if she failed, she might never return to earth. Not even for the rest of her miserly mortal years. But there was no question.
Ana heaved herself to her feet, slowed by the weakness of her mortal body. She searched the room again, patting down every surface for something sharp. After a few minutes, though, nothing. Still just a few old canned vegetables and a couple of cookbooks.
The light from the corner window caught her eye. Far too small for an escape effort, but perfect for her purposes. She grabbed the heaviest can and climbed onto the counter until she could reach the window.
The view through the grime revealed an empty alley, as she’d expected it would in this type of old building. No one to hear her scream, and what would it matter? She couldn’t drag a mortal into this. She’d committed to her plan and she’d see it through.
She fumbled with her jacket until it was wrapped around her hand and the can. With all her strength, she punched her fist through the glass. Searing pain sang up her arm, but the glass shattered.
Gasping, she set the can on the counter and grabbed the biggest piece of glass she could find. It was still small, given that it was such a tiny window, but it would do.
With the glass pinched between her fingers, she climbed down from the counter and knelt on the floor in a position not dissimilar to how she’d sat two thousand years ago at the feet of the gods.
How appropriate. She’d done this once before, too young and stupid to extricate herself from the mess she’d gotten herself into. Only that time, she’d been heading to Otherworld to kill Cam. Now, it was just the opposite.
She sucked in a deep breath, held it in her lungs, then raked the glass down her wrist, pushing deep and hard and gasping at the pain that sliced through her. Coming full circle hurt. She fumbled to do the same to her other wrist, and though the cut wasn’t as deep, the blood poured onto the floor.
The glass clattered to the stone and she sat, her head bowed, and watched her warm blood seep onto her thighs. So similar to the past, yet not.
As if it had been fated all along.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Guilt tugged on Logan’s conscience, strong enough that he pulled his Range Rover to the side of the empty mountain road and leaned his head against the steering wheel. This wasn’t his business. He had shit to do that was more important than whatever mess his uninvited houseguests had gotten themselves into.
He’d dropped Ana off at the bitch Druantia’s place a couple of hours ago. The idea of Druantia noticing his Range Rover in the street had him driving off immediately, wishing Ana the best. She was a big girl. A goddess no longer, but in the world of myth, it was each Mythean for himself. A law he lived by.
He couldn’t help but feel for her, though, heading into the lair of that harpy he’d been stupid enough to sleep with for a few weeks. His brain had followed his dick, though it wasn’t until he’d seen some of the weird shit that she’d been into that he’d finally left.
With a groan, he swung his car into a U-turn on the empty highway and headed back toward Druantia’s place. Ana probably knew what she was getting into, and fate knew his ass had been on fire to get away. But he couldn’t fight the nagging guilt. Druantia probably wasn’t as fucked up as he suspected she was. But what if?
Two hours later, he stalked through the door of her shop. Empty, but the eerie feel of the place made him shudder. He hadn’t felt it when he’d first started sleeping with her, but over time it had begun to give him the creeps.
“Druantia!” he yelled when she didn’t appear in the archway from the back room as she usually did.
Fuck it, he wasn’t going to wait around for her. Maybe she had helped Ana, but he’d driven all this way on a hunch and a dinged conscience, and he was going to at least have a search around.
Her back room was empty, as was the little kitchen and sitting room. She lived above the shop, and he’d turned toward the stairs when a narrow door caught his eye. He’d skipped it when he’d walked through the room, figuring that it was a closet, but no stone unturned an
d all that shit.
The doorknob didn’t twist under his hand. Locked. And suspicious as hell. So he yanked on the knob hard enough that the lock broke and the door swung open to reveal a larger space than he’d expected.
Ana’s collapsed form lay on the floor.
Shit. He was kneeling at her prone form in seconds, her blood soaking through to his knees. He gently tugged at her to roll her onto her back.
Dead. Fuck.
But how? A demigod shouldn’t be able to die from sliced wrists. Yet the shard of glass next to her body confirmed that she’d indeed killed herself.
Whatever the fuck had happened here, it had happened because he’d dropped Ana off with Druantia, ignored any niggling concerns he’d had, and hightailed it away. Druantia had some kind of stake in this, but it was beyond him to determine.
But it was his fucking fault that Ana lay dead, covered in blood. She’d been this desperate to go after Camulos? He hadn’t spoken to Camulos in nearly a thousand years, not since he’d been a god. But he’d liked Camulos, who’d been a decent enough fellow.
Decent enough that he didn’t deserve what happened to gods who ran from Otherworld. Logan could empathize with that desire and felt like shit that the guy might end up chained in the Celts’ miserable, archaic punishment. It was a fucked-up system. And now Ana had run off to Otherworld after him in the only way she knew how.
Logan heaved a disgusted sigh and climbed to his feet. There was nothing he could do for Ana’s body—not that it mattered, anyway—but he could try to help her in Otherworld.
He made it out of Druantia’s shop without being noticed and drove all the way to the first abandoned patch of gravel along an empty Highland road. Private enough, he figured, so he climbed out of the car.
Mountains rose on either side of him, low and sloping in this part of the Highlands, and empty of mortals. Already regretting his decision but tugged by his conscience, he shed his mortal form for that of a black falcon.
