Rogue Soul (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 3) (18 page)

Cam returned a few minutes later. “That was the pilot. I got us a ride out on the next flight. Leaves in an hour.” He didn’t bother looking at her, just tucked back into his breakfast.

Ana frowned, bothered despite herself. He’d been so intense last night. And now he wouldn’t look at her.
Not that you want him to!
 

But she was a liar. And an idiot. Actually, she wasn’t just an idiot. She was the world’s biggest idiot. Because she was falling for the only person qualified to take her place in Otherworld.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A day after fleeing Bruxa’s Eye on Paulo’s small plane, Ana sat next to Cam on the biggest airplane she’d ever seen.
 

“You all right?”

Cam’s voice sounded like it was pushing its way through water to get to her. She jerked her head. It was the first question he’d asked her, and some of the very few words he’d spoken to her since they’d fled Bruxa’s Eye. They’d made it to a bigger city on the coast, gotten two hidden hotel rooms for the night, then caught this monster of a plane that was supposed to take them to London.

Cam had barely spoken to her since
that thing they did
, but she’d caught him looking at her dozens of times as if he didn’t know how to deal with her. Good, because she didn’t know how to deal with him.

She jumped when she felt his warm, hard palm cover hers on the plastic arm rest. She twitched, but didn’t loosen her grip. Couldn’t loosen it, even though this was the first time he’d touched her since the other night.

“You weren’t afraid on the other planes,” he said. His low, concerned voice soothed her, if only a bit. “Remember that you can aetherwalk to safety if something goes wrong.”
 

 
Though huge, the plane was nearly empty. The only other passengers sat several rows ahead. The lights had been dimmed for anyone who wanted to sleep, according to the announcement made by a dark-haired woman in a red suit with matching lipstick. Ana had kept her eyes glued to the red scarf tied right below the beautiful woman’s chin.

“I’m not afraid.” Her voice almost cracked, and it horrified her.
 

He squeezed her hand, then pried it off the arm rest to grip in his own.
 

“Why are you being so nice?” she asked.

“I’m not. You’re terrified. I’m simply not being an asshole about it.”

A grin tried and failed to pull at her lips.

“Why, Ana?”

Some of their walls had broken down over the last days, it seemed. She drew in a ragged breath. “My bow. I’ve never been away from it.”

“Shit.” Realization tinged his voice.
 

Unlike the two tiny Mythean planes they’d taken, this stupid, gigantic ocean-crossing plane required that she pack her bow in the hold because the airline was run by mortals. For the first time in thousands of years, Ana had been parted from her bow. It was her protection, her friend, her past.

They’d been pretty sure the gods hadn’t followed them to Sao Luis, the city where they’d caught this plane, so there was no reason to think the gods could find them and send the plane into the sea. But if something
did
go wrong, she’d have to aetherwalk and leave her bow.
 

Leave her bow.
She shuddered. It would be as good as gone; she had no idea how to get it back from the hold. Didn’t even know where such a place would be on such a big plane.
 

“I’ve seen how you hold it,” he said. “You clutch it when you’re nervous. I noticed that back when I first met you.”

That made her turn her head to look at him. The aloofness had faded from his eyes. The gray was warm with memory, his lovely mouth slightly upturned in his harshly beautiful face.
 

“Really?” she asked.

“In the forest. I’ve seen you do it recently, too.”

He’d noticed that about her? Her bow was more than just a thing to her. It defined her—restrung thousands of times, imbued with magic to make the wood last. It was her safety blanket, as stupid as it sounded.

“I know how it feels,” he said. “Giving up my bow after godhood was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. Took a hell of a long time to get used to.”

She couldn’t even imagine. “This is the first you’ve really spoken to me in almost two days.”

“Been thinking.”

“About what?”

“About a lot of things. About how to help you get out of Otherworld.” Cam’s eyes met hers. Hers looked a little less panicked, he noted with relief.

Her jaw slackened. “Wow. Thanks. Does this have anything to do with what happened when you tied me up?”

“Maybe.” But he’d been headed toward this decision for longer than that. If anything, the night in Bruxa's Eye had tipped him over the edge. He’d backed away from Ana since that night because the things he was starting to feel freaked him the hell out. But he couldn’t avoid it any longer.

“Well, whatever the reason, thanks for the help.”

“Sure. Don’t know what the hell we’re going to do though, because I’m not too keen on going back.” The idea made a muscle at the corner of his eye twitch as memories of Otherworld surfaced. He wasn’t cut out to be a god. When he’d been young, he’d assumed he was destined for greatness. How could he not, having been born into such power?

He’d been wrong. As the years had passed, he’d grown to hate Otherworld and the other gods. He’d been the only one to feel emotion, that lowly element that separated the mortals from the gods. Becoming enamored with Ana all those years ago had led him to fuck everything up. No matter what he’d thought as a kid, he wasn’t destined for greatness. Certainly not as a god.

“We’re going to the university first, right? I called my friend Esha to see if she knows anything about Druantia. Hopefully she’ll learn her location or something else useful.”

“If she discovers something, we can stop by.” For someone on the run from gods, it was safer than anywhere else in Scotland. Gods who hadn’t been granted permission to be on campus couldn’t trespass on the grounds.

“Good.”

“You’re really friends with a soulceress?” Creepy and dangerous, they were.

“She’s not as bad as everyone thinks. She gets a bad rap for stealing people’s power, but she doesn’t mean to.”

Perhaps not, but Cam didn’t fancy having the strength of his immortal soul sucked out of him. But he stayed silent, not wanting to insult her friend. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore how good it felt to hold her hand.
 

Just as he was debating letting go, her voice broke the silence. “Do you think about Otherworld at all?”

He shrugged. Of course he’d thought of it. If you escaped prison, how could you stop thinking of it?

“So you don’t miss anything about godhood?” she asked.

“Parts of it, sure. Aetherwalking. My bow. Miss that a hell of a lot. Having a role and a job that’s valuable.” Though he’d been shit at being a stone cold god after he’d met Ana, he’d been a damn good god of war. He’d kept the battles even—for the most part—and the casualties not overwhelming.

Her eyes caught his, her brow scrunched. “Is that why your drug company is non-profit?”

He twitched. She’d always been insightful, but it was annoying when she caught something he felt weird talking about. At her unwavering stare, he said, “Yeah, I suppose so. I guess I got used to making a difference in Otherworld, doing something important. The company is my way of doing that here on earth.”
And of making amends for everything that I screwed up by sticking you in an awful fucking afterworld.

“Interesting choice. Most Mytheans wouldn’t care about helping mortals.”

“Yeah, but I started out as a god. That’s our job. Doing that on earth, albeit in a different way, just made sense to me. Though it took me some time to figure it out.”

“It suits you, running all over the Amazon looking for fancy plants. Fighting in bars at night. Making out with nymphs.”

The word
nymphs
made him flinch, though he didn’t know why. But she was right, the life did fit him. Adjusting to life on earth had taken centuries. The more fun he’d had, finally free of responsibility and with access to the lowlier pleasures earth offered, the guiltier he’d felt about ditching godhood. He’d run from his problems and was probably still running from them. He shook the thought away.

“Yeah,” he said. “The Amazon works for me. No rules, not too many mortals to worry about.”
 

Plenty of things to keep his mind occupied. So what if the nights in places like the Caipora’s Den had started to get lonely? He still liked the fights, if only as a way to temporarily clear his head, and the women were nice. But even variety got old once you’d had enough of it.

“And you’re doing good work there, with your cures,” Ana said.

“Yeah. The work has taken decades. For the two cures to be available at the same time, because of the same plant… Huge deal. We had a sample of the plant,
Rosa McManus.
We just have to find the source of it now.”

It was the main reason he could never even consider going back to Otherworld.
 

Cam blinked. Consider going back to Otherworld?
He’d never had that thought before.
Was he really considering it? Fuck, ’course not.

But he looked down at Ana, the one who was suffering in his place there. He rubbed his chest absently. Shit.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ana was screwed. No doubt about it, she was falling hard for the man sitting next to her in the plush seat of the small private jet. She could believe he’d agreed to help her get out of Otherworld—that’s just the kind of guy he was. He’d tried to protect her so many years ago by letting her take his place in Otherworld. It might suck up there, but it was better than being an automaton or having her soul obliterated. He even understood what it was like for her to be away from her bow. He was like Marrek, in the way he understood her.

If he kept this understanding, protective business up, she’d be a goner.

“You good?” he asked her.

She nodded, gratefully eying her bow, which leaned against the wall next to her.
 

They’d arrived in London earlier that morning. She’d never truly appreciated aetherwalking until she’d had to wait at a baggage claim for her bow. There were definitely some aspects of being a god that rocked. At least Cam had the contacts to get her a fake passport.
 

“Thanks for getting the private charter to Edinburgh,” Ana said.
 

Talking to Cam on the last flight had helped her forget most of her anxiety, but she was glad that his thoughtfulness—and deep pockets—kept her from having to go through that again. Not to mention the fact that she was grateful for the hotel room he’d rented them in the airport while the jet was prepared for takeoff. The quick shower made her feel a million times better, not to mention the clean clothes she’d conjured that were more appropriate to the cooler weather. They’d both studiously avoided looking at the bed.

“Traveling as a mortal takes a decade,” she said as the plane hurtled into the air. By her calculations, they’d been on about three hundred planes in the last few days. Exhaustion should haunt her, but she’d gotten some decent sleep on the last plane.