Chapter Four
F ifteen minutes later, things had not improved, even though I’d finished filling Pritkin in on recent events.
Or maybe because of that.
“I sent you back to Earth to keep you safe!” he snarled. “Not to have you fighting gods!”
Yeah, that was what he’d thought was happening since I’d had information that I hadn’t shared with him. It hadn’t been a lie, unless by omission, but it hadn’t been the entire truth, either. Because he’d been coming here and needed to concentrate on what he was doing, not be constantly worried about me.
But I’d made that decision for him, and he was pissed about it. It had been one of those times when duty had to supersede our relationship, but I didn’t think now was the time to bring that up. Or to remind him exactly why we were here.
Once upon a time, having the spirit of Faerie, essentially the soul of a planet, giving me orders would have sounded weird, but that time was long past. I had accepted that she was real, was tired of seeing her creations destroyed by a bunch of vagabond gods from another universe, and wanted said gods dead. And since she’d noticed that we felt the same, we’d gotten an ally.
But she didn’t communicate through speech, so her instructions had been murky. I’d understood enough through the visions she’d been shooting into my head, however, to know that there were some pressing issues that she needed help with. The one I hadn’t told Pritkin about had involved Zeus, AKA Jupiter, AKA Odin—the father of the gods and the biggest asshole I had ever met—getting up to some very bad stuff in old Romania.
I’d tackled that one, as it required a time traveler. It had been the most brutal battle of my life, something that I guessed I should have expected, and I’d spent more than half of it dead. Having a dad who was a necromancer comes in handy when you have to animate your own corpse.
Mircea, meanwhile, had been sent on the second task, namely to find his long-lost wife, who had been fighting the gods in another world. Only we hadn’t known about that last part until I caught up with him again, and we showed up just in time for the big battle. And turned the tide; well, mostly Mircea and his daughter had, by him borrowing some of Pritkin’s abilities through our bond and meeting a goddess as a peer.
And annihilating her.
Pritkin had been stuck with the third task, which we assumed was about getting one of the strongest fey armies on our side before they joined the other guys. But considering how the last few errands had gone, I didn’t know for sure what we were facing here. And the fact that I hadn’t gotten any more visions lately probably meant that Faerie didn’t, either.
She theoretically saw whatever her creatures did, and that included the fey. But the gods could cloud her sight or play tricks on it, leaving her knowing where the hot spots were but not necessarily what they were. Or else she did know and didn’t want to tell me, thinking we’d run for the hills if we knew the truth, and we just might!
“I only fought Zeus,” I pointed out, trying to drag my thoughts somewhere else. “Athena was more of an assist. . .”
And, okay, not helping. Pritkin had been sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, but at that, he looked up. And there was savagery there that I had rarely seen, at least directed at me.
It radiated out of hard green eyes, flushed stubbled cheeks, and exposed teeth as flat and normal as mine but which suddenly reminded me of fangs. That look alone would have given most people palpitations, like being stuck in a cage with an angry tiger. It didn’t me.
This man had suffered, risked, and almost died a hundred times to save me. He had battled through trauma that he’d repressed for centuries, had bared a soul that few had ever seen, and which had probably been more challenging for him—so private, so guarded, so careful—than any physical fight would have been. So, no, I wasn’t frightened.
But I didn’t like seeing him in pain and with an added layer of confusion in his eyes because he wasn’t sure that he could protect me anymore, not against the kinds of things that we were facing these days.
That made me sad, which in turn made me angry because we’d had enough of that, of stupid angst that didn’t get us anywhere, of pain that neither of us deserved, of greedy assholes who thought they could come barging into our world and upend everyone’s lives, or end them. Yes, we’d had enough, and I was tired. Like I was tired of this conversation because he didn’t get it despite being way smarter than me.
But not about this.
I walked over and knelt between his legs, my head on his chest, my heartbeat and his mingling in my ears. His was rapid, hard, and angry as if he was gearing up for a fight, but I didn’t give him one. I didn’t do anything except hold him, and slowly, the furious beating under my ear started to ease, to slow, to melt back into a normal rhythm until I could barely hear it anymore.
And the tiger began to purr.
Or at least to sigh and run a hand up and down my back. One that was lethal to his enemies, as evidenced by the gun calluses I could feel through the thin layers of chiffon. And the potion stains that I couldn’t see but knew were there because they never went away.
Over time, I’d learned to use them as a kind of mood ring. Brown or yellow meant that he was mellow and happy because he’d been experimenting with weird stuff from three different realms that the Silver Circle, the leading magical authority on Earth, didn’t need to know about. Purple, blue, or green meant that he was worried and busy crafting protection spells and wards, or nasty little traps to litter around the outside of my court to terrorize anyone trying to break in. And then there was red. . .
Red, mauve, and the pinkish, washed-out salmon color that resulted from him scrubbing his skin so that I wouldn’t know what he’d been up to, indicated that he had been working on lethal potion bombs, vials of poisonous gases, and bullets that did a lot more than go boom. We’d argued over red because the Silver Circle had plenty of weapons he could access, as protecting the Pythia was one of their many jobs, and Pritkin had been a war mage in their employ before quitting to guard me. I wanted him to use their stuff, not to experiment with crazy shit that could make flesh drip like water and eat through bone—and two layers of wards!
But he didn’t trust anything he hadn’t made himself and insisted that the Circle was always behind the times. Our enemies constantly developed new weapons, so we had to follow suit. And as someone no longer employed by the Corps, he didn’t get the experimental, cutting-edge stuff anymore.
So, I knew, I knew , without turning my head, that his hands were speckled with red. Because he’d used up the weapons he’d had when he came here and had had to craft more on the run. It told me something of the battle to get this far, how savage it must have been, and the toll it must have taken on him.
It also told me that he hadn’t expected to see me, hadn’t thought I’d come after him, had believed that he would be all alone.
And he probably wanted to be because he’d come here expecting to lose, knowing the competition. And that he would be fighting in an arena of their choosing, in their world, because they were too cowardly to come into ours. Meet me on my turf, I thought viciously, and this will be a very different contest.
And a damned short one!
I felt my breathing quicken and my heartbeat speed up, but the rhythmic stroking never faltered, although I knew he’d noticed. Pritkin noticed everything about me. I sometimes thought he knew me better than I knew myself.
The long, slow strokes continued as if he understood how much I needed them, and he was right. I’d had a grip on my emotions for so long that it had become a stranglehold. I hadn’t been able to let them out or relax enough to grieve everything that had happened recently; I couldn’t when I had to be strong for my court, my job, my self .
So, I’d sucked it up and did so again, only it was easier this time with the power that seemed to be leeching into me from that soothing touch. I didn’t know if it was a spell, but I didn’t think so. We didn’t need a spell.
Just this, just him, just those arms holding me and those hands on my bare skin through the rips that battle had left in my protection. I wasn’t sure which battle anymore, but it didn’t matter. None of it did.
Just that we’d survived them all and were back together, something I hadn’t been sure would ever happen. And I guessed Pritkin hadn’t, either. Because his hands suddenly tightened, as if he was afraid that I would disappear if he let go, like a mirage in the desert.
“You fought so hard,” I finally whispered. “When I had the Pythian power dropped onto me like a boulder out of nowhere, you fought for me, to help me, to train me, to defend me when I couldn’t defend myself. So that I could someday become a Pythia who didn’t need it anymore. And I did.”
I looked up at him. “Or as close as anyone can be in war. I can hold my own.”
“I know that.” It was a rasp I didn’t understand.
“Then what . . .?”
He looked at me, and his eyes were haunted. “Then what the hell can I offer you? What am I good for anymore except to put you in danger? You shouldn’t be here, Cassie! This is my fight!”
I stared at him, caught off guard. And then repeated the most absurd claim in a string of them. “What are you good for?”
Green eyes blazed into mine, and there was anger again, but it wasn’t for me. “I let you be assaulted, tortured, beaten to a bloody pulp,” he rasped. “And almost—”
“You didn’t let anything happen,” I said low and vicious, before he uttered the word that rang in both our heads.
“I didn’t prevent it, either,” he said, his jaw tight.
I glared at him, suddenly furious, because we’d discussed this once before, and I didn’t want to do it again. I didn’t want to remember the prelude to my fight with Zeus, which had been a much smaller but no less horrifying battle to escape from a camp run by his creature, Aeslinn. He was the fey king with whom we were currently at war, who had allied with the gods against his own world.
His silver-haired servants had taken me prisoner, and it was from them that I’d learned the true meaning of fear. And of the sensation of bones snapping under my skin, of limbs turning unresponsive, of breathing becoming labored when I could manage it at all, and of eyesight fading after I escaped my tormentors and dragged myself toward a portal that I couldn’t even see properly. Luckily, its brilliance had blinded the fey, too, ensuring that at least some of their boots, fists, and clubs had missed.
But not all.
Not even most.
Yet the portal had caught me right before my strength gave out, with the strangest feeling of weightlessness as my almost dead body fell away. It had been the one Faerie had made for me when I’d visited her realm in spirit form, or else what would have tumbled out the other side probably wouldn’t have lasted long. Instead, the next thing I knew, I was waking up in my mentor’s cozy court, with my whole, unbroken flesh embracing me.
I should have felt relieved and grateful. Instead, I’d been terrified, hearing those jeering, angry voices over and over in my head, feeling phantom pain that didn’t have a source anymore but was so real nonetheless, and being afraid to close my eyes in case I got caught in that nightmare all over again. It had felt obscene, like there should be a price for cheating death.
And, of course, there had been. Because the nightmares had come when I was too weary to stay awake another moment, sending me plunging back into a vortex of leering faces and grasping hands. And abject panic, as if I was right back there again, helpless, alone, and terrified, and unsure whether I’d ever see anyone I loved again.
The fight with Zeus had come later, and strangely, another trauma seemed to have partially healed the first. Maybe because, while I might not have won that contest, I hadn’t lost it, either. I had come face to face with the biggest threat of them all and lived to tell about it.
And I wasn’t sure which of us had been more beat up at the end.
The momentary victory had done wonders for my belief in myself, my training, and my competence. For so long, I had been flailing around like a drowning victim, just trying to keep my head above water and wondering if I would ever be worthy of the position I held. I didn’t worry anymore.
I was Pythia, I was a damned good one, and if I had beaten Zeus once, I could do it again. Of course, I could also die trying, but that was old news. But this, this chance , this possibility that maybe we could survive, even win . . .
That was new.
But Pritkin hadn’t been there. He hadn’t seen that fight, and the look on his face reminded me a lot of the one I’d seen in my mirror before I left to face my biggest challenge ever. He didn’t know that we could do this, and the last thing he’d seen had not been positive.
He and Mircea had been linked with me when the terror and torture and savage beating happened at that horrible camp. They had helped me to escape through Pritkin’s abilities and Mircea’s mental powers, all of which we’d shared through our bond. But not before experiencing it right along with me.
I’d been so busy ever since that I hadn’t had much time to think, especially about things I’d rather forget. But I realized now: Pritkin had had nothing but time, fighting his way across a land rent by war and full of enemies. I could see him sitting by a fire in some godforsaken wood, trying to craft weapons out of the locally available flora that might keep him alive a little longer, with nothing but his thoughts for company.
Waiting on another attack and thinking—entirely too much.
“I saw what condition you were in at the end of it,” he growled. “If you hadn’t been traveling in spirit, clothed in a body that Faerie gave you, you wouldn’t have made it. You’d have come back a corpse!”
I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t argue with that.
I’d thought a few times since that being injured in battle came with one advantage: the long recovery time. I’d had a bit of that after the fight with Zeus, which had mostly involved lying in bed for a week with my head spinning. But it had given me a chance to come to some kind of grip with what had happened and how my world had changed.
But his hadn’t yet.
Mircea’s may have because the last time I saw him, he was soaked in the blood of a goddess whose head he’d just cut off, which you had to assume changed a person. But Pritkin had yet to cross his Rubicon, to evolve in the way that this war was causing all of us to, and while I’d come to help him, there was only so much I could do. Physically, because my power didn’t half work here, or emotionally because I didn’t understand what he was feeling.
But maybe there was one thing I could give him.
“Every time the nightmares came,” I said softly. “Every time I felt helpless, like I couldn’t handle another day, like the war would never end and all the hopes we’d had were just that. Just hope, just straws we clutched because what else was there? To lay down and die? I won’t do that.”
“Cassie—”
“No, let me finish.” I looked up at him and let my anger show for once instead of hiding it as I did with most people. I didn’t need to pretend here.
I never had with him.
“Every time, every time , I banished the pain by thinking of you. You and Mircea and Rhea and Tami and Gertie and so many others. But mostly you. Your face got me through that night, just as your power gave me light in the darkness. I followed your footsteps to that portal, and it was the thought that they were yours that kept me going. I don’t know that I would have had the courage to do it otherwise.”
“You would. You always do—”
“Shut up!” This time, it was my eyes blazing. “I’m trying to tell you that I do need you! I needed you that night like I need you now, by my side to the end. We can do this—I know we can. And the damned fey can go hang!”
“You came to rescue me, then?” Pritkin asked, his voice raw but his eyes lightening with something he didn’t want to let himself feel.
“I came to fight beside you. Because I need you, in so many ways I’ve lost count. And because I love you.” I stared up at him. “Are you really going to turn me away?”
I didn’t get an answer in words that time, but I didn’t need them. Incubi spoke with other things, with lips and tongues and fingers pressing harder now, as if to reassure himself that I was really there and hadn’t dusted away in some magical battle he hadn’t even known was happening. Maybe that was what was eating at him, as it had me, not knowing what the other was doing and whether all this fighting was for a brighter future we wouldn’t share because the most important person in our lives might not survive to see it.
But we were together now, I thought, kissing him back. And this was what I’d wanted, what I’d needed, what I didn’t think I could live without. What I’d dreamed about when he was gone, and the world had felt so big and empty without him.
He was still angry; I could feel it in the rigid set of his shoulders, see it in the frown on his forehead, taste it in his kiss. But he was more relieved, vastly, vastly relieved, that we were together. And together, I thought, drawing him closer, we could handle anything.