Lightbulbs flashed on behind Lena’s light brown eyes. “Theoretically, that might work. But how would I trigger it? She’d have to push pretty damn hard for me to pull out the infection. And she’s unconscious. We have her sedated right now, but even without the drugs, mentally she’s out of it.”
“You get her off those drugs,” Zander said, “and I can get her to do it.”
“You?” Lena asked with disdain. “You can barely stand up straight yourself.”
Zander edged away from the wall, swayed, caught himself. A renewed sense of purpose pulsed in his veins, giving him the strength he needed to get through whatever happened next. “I’m fine.”
Lena shook her head, and the contempt Zander had sensed in her before came back full force. She crossed her arms over her chest, dangled the clipboard from one hand. “I really don’t care if you pass out, Argonaut. But I’m curious how you, of all people, can trigger her powers.”
“She has to be good and pissed.”
Lena’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t say.”
“Lena,” Nick murmured, a warning in his voice.
She brushed Nick’s hand off with a flick of her wrist, her gaze locked on Zander. “And I suppose you’re the one person in the world she’s got reason to be pissed at.”
It occurred to Zander this little half-breed was gunning for him, but he didn’t know why, and honestly, he didn’t fucking care. The only thing he cared about right now was getting to Callia and getting her the help she needed. “Yeah, that’s right. No one pisses her off more than me. Now are we going to do this or what?”
Lena’s eyes tightened to thin slits, and she clenched her jaw so hard, Zander was sure her teeth ground together. “Yeah, we’ll do this. But get one thing through your head,
Argonaut
. When she wakes, she’s not leaving here with you.” Her gaze cut to Theron. “She’s not leaving here with either of you.”
Confused, Zander looked to Theron, who’d let go of Casey and now stood at Zander’s side in a very clear, very defensive posture.
“Lena,” Nick said firmly. “That isn’t our concern.”
“Too bad, Nick,” the female tossed over her shoulder. “I’m making it my problem. I saw the scars on her back. I know what they mean. And I know you of all people know what they mean too.”
“Scars?” Casey asked. “What scars?”
Lena’s fiery gaze swung Casey’s way. “The ones she got when she was punished.”
“Punished?” Zander’s brow wrinkled. He didn’t remember scars. Not anywhere on Callia’s smooth, creamy skin.
“Nick,” Theron warned in a low voice, “put a leash on your female.”
“I’m not of your world,
Argonaut
,” Lena spouted before Nick could stop her. “And no one ‘puts a leash’ on me.” She turned fully to Casey. “Did your Argonaut here tell you how they treat females in his world?”
“Lena—”
“You should know,” Lena said, ignoring Nick again. “Seeing as how you live there now.”
“Nick—” Theron started.
“She’s got every right to speak her mind, hero.” Testosterone all but bounced off the hallway walls. Nick moved in to stand directly behind Lena in an offensive move none of them missed. “Especially on this. And we both know she’s right.”
“What is everyone talking about?” Casey asked. Her violet eyes searched the group with a level of frustration Zander felt all the way to his bones.
Lena’s features settled into a smug expression. “Males in their world”—she gestured toward Theron and Zander with her chin—“can do whatever the hell they want. But females? They’re under a whole different set of rules.”
“Theron,” Casey said cautiously, looking toward her husband. “What is she talking about?”
Theron’s jaw visibly twitched as he stared at the healer. “It’s an archaic tradition. One that’s not practiced anymore. The cleansing ceremony hasn’t been used in ages.”
Cleansing ceremony.
The blood drained from Zander’s face.
“Tell that to the female in that room with lash marks embedded in her skin.”
Casey gasped.
Lena took one seething step toward Zander. “I don’t care if she screwed around on you or humiliated you in front of the whole kingdom. No woman deserves to be whipped like a dog. Not for infidelity and definitely not for something as sacred as giving life. I’ll help you save her, but after that you’re not touching her. Not ever again.”
Voices kicked up in the corridor as Zander watched the healer head up the hallway and disappear through a door, but he barely heard the arguments swirling around him. Because suddenly the blood screamed in his ears and Cal-lia’s words from the cave—words he thought had been a lie—were all he could focus on.
I’ve been in a cleansing period for the last ten years.
No. No, no, no…
Zander’s stomach rolled and pitched. The hallway spun and tilted. He needed air. Fast. Turning, he ran his hand along the wall, but didn’t feel the wood and stone. He swung out and grasped the first arm he caught. “Air. Surface.
Now
.”
Voices around him went silent, and he felt Theron’s big hand close around his upper arm. “Zander.
Skata.
You don’t look good. You—”
“Air!” he roared. Couldn’t they fucking tell he couldn’t breathe?
“Nick,” Theron said quickly.
“Down the hall. End of the corridor. There’s a stairway that will take you to the surface of the colony. But—”
Zander didn’t wait to hear the rest. He was weak, and he was fading fast, but his legs moved as if his life depended on it.
Somehow he made it to the surface, pushed the heavy sealed door open and stumbled out onto the ledge of a great canyon.
The door whooshed closed behind him as he gasped air into his shrinking lungs. Pebbles crunched beneath his feet, skipped over the edge and tumbled below where the ground dropped at least a mile and a stream meandered like a writhing snake. Ahead and to the right the hillside climbed, covered in dense underbrush and spires of pine trees, but he didn’t see the beauty. He barely saw any of it. All he saw and heard and felt was Callia’s face, Callia’s screams, Cal-lia’s pain.
Ah, gods. What had he done?
He dropped to his knees as his vision blurred. Rocks and twigs impaled his knees, his shins, his bare feet. He barely registered the bite and sting, because his mind was a thousand miles and ten years away.
“Damn Hera.”
The voice, female and elderly, was not a complete surprise
to Zander, not now, not at this moment when nothing else in his never-ending life seemed to matter except how badly he’d fucked up. He turned his head and looked toward a group of boulders where a slight woman dressed in diaphanous white sat perched on a rock, staring down at him. Her hair was pale, her features sharp, her skin wrinkled yet luminescent. Power radiated from her, the kind of power he’d never had, and he knew in an instant just who she was.
“Lachesis.”
Her brow lifted. “Why the hell don’t you think I’m Atropos?”
He refocused on the pebbles in front of him, tried to breathe through the pain, but it stabbed him from all sides. “Atropos wouldn’t waste her time on me.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His mind raced, swirled, replayed every conversation, every moment since the day Callia had told him she was pregnant.
“Because you can’t be killed?” the Fate asked.
Silence met his ears. And for a split second he thought he’d imagined her. Then she said softly, “You are not immortal, Guardian.”
Lachesis slid off the boulder and came to stand in front of him. Hot pink slippers peeked out from beneath her flowing robe, looking ridiculous and real all at the same time. Just like his life. “You’re right. I can’t snip the thread of your life, I can only spin it. But even I can’t see how far it will stretch. The distance of your life depends on two things: Her. And what you do now.”
Slowly, Zander’s head came up, and as the Fate’s words sank in, little links clicked into place in his mind. He wouldn’t have died in that cave. He might have been paralyzed if Callia hadn’t removed that bullet, but even when he’d come to, he’d known his body was working hard to repair itself. The only other time—besides now—when he’d known death was waiting to claim him had been ten years ago. When
he’d been alone. At home. Uninjured. And Callia had been in the human realm.
“She’s my weakness,” he whispered.
Lachesis knelt in front of him, and though she didn’t touch him, he felt the heat from her hand as it hovered over his cheek. “A heart is never a weakness, Guardian. It is a gift. A blessing even Hera could not keep from you. Many were the guardians from your line who wished for such a treasure. Your vulnerability isn’t one to be feared. It should be cherished.”
He closed his eyes against the pain. So much pain. All because of him. “I…hurt her.”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“When I think of what she went through…”
“She’s resilient. Stronger than you or her father think. And there is power within her yet unharnessed. Things are never as black and white as they seem. Sometimes pain is the catalyst to our destiny.”
At the mention of Callia’s father, anger wedged its way into Zander’s chest. He looked up. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner? Why now, after ten years, when she’s dying?”
Lachesis sighed, stood, and though she was no more than four feet high, seemed to tower over him. “Because that’s not the way it works, Guardian.”
“And how does it work?”
“I cannot tell you anything you don’t already know. I can only lay out your options before you. Nothing in life is static. The course your life takes depends on the choices you make.”
“And what are my options?” he said, pushing to his feet and pointing toward the rock formation behind him and the hidden door into the colony even he wasn’t sure he could find anymore. “She’s dying in there and it’s all because of me. It’s all because…of…”
The air whooshed out of him along with his adrenaline even though he fought it. Fought it with everything he had in him. But still he wasn’t strong enough to stop it. Just as he hadn’t stopped any of what had happened.
“…me.”
“Yes,” Lachesis whispered, stepping closer. “I would take your pain if I could. But I can’t.” Her arms came around him and though he didn’t actually feel her, her strength eased him down to sit on the hard ground. “Use it, Zander. Use it and that purpose you’ve been seeking for over eight hundred years. Give her a reason to live. The story of your life, of hers, doesn’t end here. Not unless you let it.”
Zander stared past Lachesis, toward the edge of the cliff and the canyon beyond. Days ago he’d stood on the ledge of a cliff much like this one and wished for death. Now…? Now it wasn’t about him anymore. He didn’t care if he lived or died, but he couldn’t let Callia die. Not knowing everything she’d been through because of him. Not when he hadn’t had a chance to set things right.
His gaze refocused on Lachesis. And questions, suspicions he needed confirmed filled his mind. “She gave birth to a son.”
“Yes.”
“Her father knew.”
“Yes.”
“All these years, no one ever said a word.”
He watched something wary pass over the Fate’s features. “Things aren’t always what they seem. The web of deception spins strongest near those we trust the most.”
His eyes narrowed at her strange words.
“The truth will come in time. But you have to heal her first.”
He took a deep breath. Knew she was right. With Lena’s help, he could do it. He could piss Callia off to the point where she channeled her powers and fought the infection. He could try to make up for at least one part of his horrible mess. And then…
“And then nothing is guaranteed.” Lachesis hovered over the boulder he’d initially seen her sitting on, a strange glow behind her. And she was fading.
“Wait,” he said, holding out a hand.
“The thread is thin, warrior.” She faded before his eyes. “Yours, hers, the offshoot. It grows thinner by the hour. The future hinges on the present. Before the end, remember that she is the constant.”
Then she was gone.
Reality was a funny thing. As Callia lay staring at the ceiling, she tried to piece together images in her head. She knew she’d been injured badly by that daemon, but the details of the attack were fuzzy. She also knew she was in a bedroom—not a medical facility—and that the bed was soft, the room plush, and that she was obviously healed enough to be away from major medical intervention. But she wasn’t sure how that was possible or who was responsible for her miraculous recovery. And she didn’t know where the hell she was.
Frustrated when her mind wouldn’t stop spinning, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She pushed up and wobbled on legs weaker than she expected, but caught herself on the edge of the mattress. The pink hospital gown fell to her knees. Her bare feet sank into plush cream carpeting. A lock of hair swept past her vision and she pushed it back with her hand. Thankfully, someone had washed her hair. The thought of what had been in it…
Don’t go there.
She shuffled across the floor toward a small round window. When she reached the rock wall, she cupped a hand against the glass and peered out into the darkness. Stars met her line of sight but nothing else. No ground, no trees, no mountains. Nothing.
The door behind her creaked, and she turned.
“You’re awake.” Zander ducked under the doorway and frowned. “Should you be out of bed so soon?” He closed the door and crossed the floor in three long strides. “You look pale.”
Yeah, well, no shit. She’d lost a lot of blood. What the hell was he doing here?
His gray eyes searched every inch of her face. “How do you feel?”
How did she feel? Confused. Surprised. And not entirely sure she wouldn’t pass out. “What…are
you
doing here?”
He tipped her chin up with his finger, continued to look her over as if she were a science experiment. “Your eyes look good. Way better than before.” His brow creased. “Are you hungry? I bet you’re starving. They brought food up earlier, but you were still sleeping.” He turned his head toward the door. “I could go get you something if—”