Rogue Soul (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 3) (34 page)

Cam turned and cursed. Druantia shrieked and waved her arms. Tree limbs followed her motion, whipping out to knock Cam off his feet. Another swooped and yanked Logan off his. Druantia surged free and waved her arms, sending the oak limbs into a whipping frenzy that targeted Ana’s friends.

“Is that the witch who enchanted this forest?” Cora yelled as she ducked beneath a branch.

“Yes!” shouted Cam as he rose to his feet and sighted an arrow at Druantia. He shot, but she didn’t fall, just laughed maniacally with the arrow protruding from her chest.

“You can’t kill me,” she screamed, a wild, feral look in her eyes. “These trees feed me from the power and emotion trapped inside them.
Your
power!”

 
Cora stopped chanting to yell, “Make her bleed! Into the ground! Her blood is needed to seal our spell.”
 

Of course. Blood sacrifice had been needed to create these trees. It was required to end them as well. Druantia screeched and waved her arms once again, directing a hail of flailing tree limbs that struck Cadan and Esha off their feet, as well as several Pechs. It was chaos below, yet Ana was trapped up here.
 

“Please,” she whispered to the tree. “Please release me. I’ll free you. I’ll free you all.”

She felt the tree’s resistance and begged again. It shuddered and dropped her, and she had a feeling that it was the strength of her desire to be freed that had done the trick, not her plea. With hard ground finally beneath her feet, she yanked out three arrows and cut down the three Pechs closing in on her. She ran toward Cam, who fought off whipping tree limbs as he tried to get another clean shot on Druantia.

“Cam!” Ana screamed at him. “Use your sword. I’ll cover you.”

He had to be the one to take Druantia’s blood, and an arrow would never be enough. Cam plucked the short sword from the scabbard at his waist. Ana ran up behind him, shooting at the tree limbs to make them snap back temporarily. Cam advanced on Druantia, who still waved her arms frantically to direct the trees. But with Ana as cover, the tree limbs couldn’t land a decent hit.
 

When Cam neared Druantia, a tree limb swiped him across the back, opening a great wound that poured blood. Druantia laughed and sent another limb at him. He dodged, but not before it sliced his arm.
 

Finally, he reached her. Cam kicked Druantia to the ground and stabbed her through the chest so that the sword pinned her to the ground, her blood soaking into the dirt. She shrieked and writhed, but wouldn’t die.

But the tree limbs stopped fighting, and Ana felt their relief like a physical thing. The witches chanted louder, faster, as Druantia’s blood soaked into the earth. The Pechs stopped fighting, but the tree trunks didn’t snap as they were supposed to.

Free us.
Ana heard it again and turned toward her tree. The magic just needed a boost.
 

She ran toward her tree, pulling her borrowed short sword from the scabbard at her hip. She took a great swing at the trunk as if the sword were an ax. It sank an inch into the wood, and Druantia howled louder. But a reverberation flowed through the forest, stretching outward toward all the trees.
 

The Caoineag finally stopped screeching, and with the silence, the witches’ chants carried through the forest. Suddenly, the sound of cracking wood punctuated the chants. The trees began to topple.
 

Ana darted toward the witches and Cam to get out of the way of falling trees, hoping that they wouldn’t topple toward the witches creating the magic. It worked. The warriors stood in a cluster as the great oaks crashed to the ground around them.
 

Ana looked down at Druantia. She lay still now, with hatred gleaming in her eyes. When she caught sight of Ana looking at her, she gritted her teeth and swung her arm in an arc. So quick that she barely saw it coming, the branch of an oak swung toward her, whipping around until it pierced her through the chest.

Incredible pain tore through her as the limb yanked free of her flesh, leaving a great gaping hole. Through the pain, Ana swore she could feel the oak’s regret. But all she could see was the glee on Druantia’s face.
 

Ana fell to her knees, then toppled backward, lying so that in some cruel twist of fate, she could watch Druantia’s face as her blood seeped into the earth in an ugly parallel of what had happened here so many years ago.

The distant sound of Cam’s roar of pain echoed through her as he fell to his knees beside her.
 

Mortal.
She truly was mortal enough to die. Trees crashed around her, the ground trembling with the impact.
 

She felt Cam’s shaking hand on her cheek, tilting her face toward him. “Ana, Ana, Ana.”
 

She tried to talk, but could only cough.

“Damn it, Ana, I love you.” Pain laced every syllable.

He loved her?

“You’re so close to having a life on earth. Fight this,” he said, grief for her loss clear on his face.

Fight it? There was no way to fight a giant hole in her chest. She would die.
 

Though her vision was going black, she caught sight of her tree looming behind Cam. So close to the rest of her soul and to Cam, yet so far away.

Her tree stood strong, as if waiting for its compatriots. Finally, as Ana’s vision became nothing but a blur, the trunk began to crack and lean. The oak crashed to the ground, and as it did, a
whoosh
of something glorious filled Ana’s being. It filled in the hole created by Druantia’s last strike until the pain was but a memory. It continued to flow through her, filling holes she hadn’t known existed.
 

Her soul.
Half of it had been trapped in that tree, and she’d never had any idea she’d been missing it. But everything was so much brighter now, so much fuller. And she was healing. As a Mythean would. No longer mortal.

She gasped, the first decent breath she’d taken since her wound, and opened her eyes to see Druantia’s withered form. She was halfway to mummification. Within seconds, she was nothing but dust, as if she’d aged 2,600 years in a minute. Behind her, Ana could see the wisps of souls flying from the downed trees, up into the air and away toward freedom and peace.

“Cam.” The words were rough in her throat.

“Ana, you’re healing.” His voice was awed.
 

She turned her head to look at Cam. His cheeks were wet.

She reached a shaking arm up to touch his face. She could see him now. Could really, truly see him. In the light of understanding and their past. All the hesitation that she’d felt over her feelings hadn’t been about him. They’d been about her. About her being unable to feel so much because she lacked half her soul. But, oh, how that had changed.
 

With the last oak fallen, the witches ceased chanting and silence fell upon the forest.
 

“Cam, I—”

His voice rode over hers, thick with concern. “We need to get you back to the university.”
 

“We all need to get back,” Cora said. “The worst is over, but the forest must settle. It’s dangerous here.”

Cam nodded and swept her up. Ana realized that the time for speaking her heart had passed.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Cam laid Ana upon the bed in the infirmary at the university, worry wrapped around his heart like barbed wire.

“I’m fine.” She coughed, a bit of blood marring her lips.

“You’re not.” He pushed gently on her shoulders when she tried to sit.

Behind him, Esha demanded that a nurse help her sister, while Cora helped a wounded Vivienne to the bed in front of her. Bright light shone through the windows, illuminating the long room studded with narrow beds placed at regular intervals. Healers rushed to the beds, inspecting Vivienne’s crushed torso, a testament to the strength of the Pechs.

Cam felt a pair of hands brush at the wound in his back. Another healer. He reached around, pushing them away. “Help Ana first.”

“Really, I’m fine,” Ana said. “I think the other Dryad souls helped me heal. I’m a bit tender is all. See to Cam’s back. And Aurora’s arm.”

“We’ll be able to save it,” the healer said from two beds down. He was a huge man, burly with great ham-like hands. Yet he was delicate and gentle when he touched Aurora. “It’s not entirely severed.”

“She’ll be all right, won’t she?” Worry was thick in Esha’s tone as she hovered at her sister’s bedside. The Chairman yowled his support.

“Shu- up,” Aurora slurred. “F-fine.”

“You’re not fucking fine and you know it,” Esha shot back.

“She’ll be fine,” the healer said.
 

The rest of their party sat on or leaned against hospital beds that were lined up along the wall of the white-on-white room. A third healer tended to the deep gash on Cadan’s chest while Diana looked on worriedly. Fiona held an icepack to her bruised face. Aerten stood off to the side, shell shocked, and Cam wondered vaguely if she felt as overwhelmed as he did. Loki hadn’t returned with them, but Cam wasn’t surprised. He must have followed Druantia to the clearing, though why he’d helped them was still a mystery.

Cam wanted like hell to get Ana alone, but he needed her checked by a healer first. A second later, a small, gray-haired woman bustled over from where she’d been tending Cadan to check on Ana. She looked like she should be baking cookies for her grandchildren, but in Cam’s estimation, age meant experience, and the more of it, the better.

“I really am fine,” Ana said as the woman inspected her abdomen. The skin was unblemished and smooth.

“Aye, you are. Right as rain.” The healer looked up at Cam. “You can let her up now, son. And you can let me tend to that arm and back.”

Cam scowled, then realized that his blood was dripping to the floor and he was feeling vaguely lightheaded.
 

“Just a few butterfly bandages. I’ll heal up soon.” Sooner, now that he was a god again.
 

“All you need is a bit of a spell, and you’ll be all right,” the healer said from behind him.

A vague warmth spread across his back where she touched him. He realized he wasn’t in the jungle anymore, treating himself haphazardly with whatever he had on hand. The university had a top-notch healing staff.

“Good as new.” The grandmotherly healer came around to his front. “Most of you can go. Aurora and Vivienne will need to stay. It’ll be a while before they’re healed.”

“But they’ll be fine, right?” Ana asked as she sat up.
 

She was the most beautiful, most precious thing that Cam had ever seen, and his heart expanded just to look at her.

“Aye, they’ll all be fine. It’ll just take some time to heal those bones and reattach that arm.”

“Thank you, everyone,” Cam said, gratitude thick in his throat.

“Well, then. I suppose I can ask if it worked?” Warren asked.
 

“Yes.” Cam’s voice was a little strained. Ana reached for his hand, and he squeezed hers.

Aerten rubbed her temple, then shook her head. “Yes. I… yes. It worked. I need to go. To see someone. I—I’ll see you all later. And—thank you.”

With a last blind glance around the room, Aerten disappeared. Otherworld would be in a frenzy right now, but Cam didn’t care. The rest of the group was filtering out of the room, limping or walking tall. But all would be healed soon, thank fate.

“Let’s get out of here.” He helped Ana stand.

“Definitely.” She nodded and grinned.

He wrapped an arm around her and aetherwalked them to the Amazon. Damn, it was good to be able to do that again.
 

The sun was setting over the canopy when they arrived on the deck of the
Clara G.
,
and long shadows were being cast across the dark river. The boat was still tied off to the dock space he’d rented before they’d left. There were vessels on all sides of them, but none were inhabited at the moment. The familiar howling and rustling of the jungle animals was a welcome taste of home, and something in Cam’s chest loosened. Being home, with Ana, who he’d never expected to see again, much less fall in love with, felt perfect.

Ana looked around at the boat and the jungle. “We’re back on your boat?”

“It’s not the finest accommodations, but it’s home.” He grinned.

“Good point. I like your home. And it’s not like I have one of my own now that I’m no longer a god. I’m starting from square one.”

He pulled her to him and hugged her close, reveling in the feel of her whole and healthy. “You have one now.”

“Do I?”

“Didn’t you hear me in the forest? I love you, Ana. I probably have for a long time, but I couldn’t feel it. But I feel everything now, and most of that is love for you.”

She wriggled so that she could meet his eyes. “Really?”

“Of course.” He pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “I’ve been hiding from my fate. Hanging out alone in the jungle, ignoring life. You have such a passion for it that you made me realize I’d lost mine. Of course I love you.”

“Good. Because likewise. One of those trees in the forest was me. Or at least half of me. Part of my soul was trapped within. When it finally fell and I was whole again, I realized I loved you.”