Rogue Soul (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 3) (8 page)

He looked down at it, slender but strong. She was right. The glow had begun to fade. He stopped his eyes from following her arm back to the rest of her.
 

“I’ve been here nearly a full day. The longer I stay, the more it fades. I think it’s because I’m separated from Otherworld’s energy. It’ll be fine, really.” Her voice vibrated with excitement.

“It’s your fate. Go to the bar. I’m not responsible for you. Like I said, you’re just tagging along. One hint of the other gods on our tail and I’ll drop you.” But guilt tugged at him. Did he even mean that anymore?

Ana eyed the taut muscles of Cam’s neck as his fists clenched on the steering wheel. She’d annoyed him. She knew that her excitement sometimes did that to people, but it only really bothered her with Cam.

“Anyway,” she said, hoping to keep the subject light and unable to keep her enthusiasm tamped down. “Earth is amazing in comparison. I feel like a different person. Like my body is vibrating with all the emotion and life here on earth. Like I’m not alone anymore. I want to experience it all, and I don’t want to wait.”

“Haven’t you come to earth before now?”

“Yes. But usually for only a few hours to visit my friend Esha. I’d stay longer, but then I’d risk the gods knowing I’ve left. We go out in Edinburgh or hang out at her place. This is the longest I’ve been on earth since I was mortal, and I’ve never been to the Amazon. I wouldn't mind meeting some South American men.” She grinned.

His head whipped around, and he pinned her with an iron stare.
 

Her grin slipped away and she squeaked, “What?”
 

Though his gray eyes darkened with heat, he didn’t say anything, just turned back to the wheel.
 

Huh. He was attracted to her. But jealous also? She shivered. Did he still feel that little twinge of something from the past, like she did? No. The memories of their time together were nothing but dust—bad moments from when her life had gone off the tracks. She’d been wrong.
 

How could he possibly still be interested in her? She’d blackmailed him into helping her escape Otherworld. Not to mention the arrows she’d put through his chest before she’d become a god. She’d been desperate both times, and he’d been the one to get her out of trouble. He’d also been the one who’d gotten her
in
trouble. So perhaps they were even.

But that thing with the shower… Her hands tightened on the top of the wooden half-wall as several key parts of her heated at the memory. He really had been doing what she’d thought. She shivered again.
 

Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea. She was grateful the demons had distracted her. Of course she was.
 

Because the man had secrets. Secrets that had screwed up her life and might screw it up again. She barely knew anything about him—past life or present—and what she did know indicated he was trouble. And she was trouble when she was around him. Together, they were bad news. He’d gotten her stuck in the very place she was trying to escape.

She’d come to earth for a life. For love and adventure and excitement. To be with people who made her happy and pushed out the darkness of the past two thousand years. Not for something complicated that was more than two thousand years in the making. Not for something that had ruined her life last time she’d been on earth.

CHAPTER SIX

Cam heaved a sigh of relief when the little steamboat finally pulled up to the wharf at Havre around dusk. Night animals screeched and howled as darkness descended on the jungle.
 

Dim yellow lamps shed a sickly glow on the brown river and docks. The jumble of wooden buildings that made up Havre crowded against the wharf and were lit only slightly better, which was fortunate as too good a view of Havre would put one off their visit.

“So, this is it then?” Andrasta asked brightly as she hopped onto the dock. Her bow was still strapped to her back, quiver full, and he figured that she didn’t go anywhere without it, even if she was on the hunt for a man rather than a battle. His jaw tightened. As soon as he realized it, he forced it to relax.
 

Not his business. She could do what she wanted with her body. The fact that he was lusting after it was nothing but stupid.

But he couldn’t keep his gaze from following her up the dock, the sway in her step and the fresh scent of her dragging him along like a mutt on a leash. She was a pillar of ivory skin and golden hair that stood out like a beacon of light against the gloomy buildings. He sighed and followed the pull of her.
 

“Bar is two buildings down on the left,” he said to her back.
 

He stepped onto the shore behind her and followed her down the muddy, deserted street. Ramshackle wooden buildings rose two stories on either side of them, though Cam wouldn’t have bet that the second stories were habitable. He made a point to sleep on the
Clara G.
whenever he was in Havre. It wasn’t just the accommodation. Being around so many people for an extended time made him antsy.
 

“Sounds good. Can I buy you a drink? You know, for all the help?” she asked over her shoulder.

“You’ll owe me more than a drink.”

They’d nearly reached the door to the bar, and she turned to look at him. Her raised brow made him curse.
 

What kind of more?
it said. The wicked tilt to her lips suggested that she had an idea.

He shook his head, trying to force the thoughts away. She shrugged and turned to push into the dirty little bar.

“You do take me to the nicest places,” she said out of the corner of her mouth when he joined her in the entryway of the bar. It was twice as big as the Caipora’s Den and half as nice, which was saying something.

“Anything for you, sugar,” he said, then frowned, not knowing where the joking side of him was coming from.

“Sure.”

They approached the long bar together, Cam’s shoulders tensing as he took in the heads that swiveled to check out Andrasta. But her glow had faded to a faint luminescence of her skin. The men were looking for a different reason, and though it made something in his brain squeeze hard, he ignored it.

He let her buy him a beer from the unusually friendly bartender, who must be new if she was still so friendly in this hellhole, and then scanned the motley crowd for the person he’d come to meet. He gestured with his beer at the rangy, dark-haired man sitting at the end of the bar. “I’ve got to go talk to him. Can you keep yourself entertained?”

She grinned at him. “It’s what I came here for.”

He frowned, then left her to it.

“Harp,” he said as he approached the man who was sitting on a barstool looking longingly after the friendly bartender.
 

Harp, one of his few friends, spun to face him with a smile. “Cam! About time. Did you get it?”

Cam nodded and took a seat on the barstool next to his friend and colleague. He glanced behind him to see Andrasta talking with a hulking bodybuilder of a man. That hadn’t taken long.
 

He frowned and turned back to Harp, pulling a slip of paper from his pocket and handing it over. “Got it off Riley in a fight at the Caipora’s Den.”

“In the ring?”

He nodded, unconsciously clenching and unclenching his fist at the memory of the fight he’d been in just before Andrasta had shown up. It had felt good to hit the bastard. Better yet to get the name of the man who had the location of the
Rosa McManus
specimen. The rose had proven extraordinarily difficult to track down.
 

“Find this guy, Harp.” He nodded at the slip of paper as he passed it over. “Name’s Lorenzo. He knows where the
Rosa McManus
grows. I’ve got to go out of town for a while and won’t be able to do it. Wouldn’t go if I didn’t have to. But you know how it is.”

Harp nodded. “Got a time limit on it?”

“As soon as you can. The
Rosa McManus
sample we had turned out to be as effective as we thought. Before we realized that the bastard who gave us the first sample didn’t know where the rest grew, we’d planned to start trials next month for two different drugs. Important ones. Alzheimer's and Crohn's. I’ve been after those two for years, and our lack of enough
Rosa McManus
is the only thing that stands in the way. Call me once you’ve found Lorenzo.”

“Alzheimer’s and Crohn's? Jesus, Cam, if you sold this stuff you could make a mint.”

Cam shrugged. “Not about the fucking money. Just find him.”
 

He took a swig of his rapidly warming too-light beer and glanced over his shoulder at Andrasta. Had she just looked away from him? And was that bastard’s hand on her ass? He felt a growl rise in his throat.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll find him. When will you be back?” Harp asked.

Cam turned back to Harp and dragged a hand over his face. Fuck, she was making him crazy. “A week? Two, max. But I’m counting on you to find this guy by the time I get back. I’ve been working on this a long time. Now that we’re so close, with the key ingredient isolated, I can almost taste it.”

Ana leaned back against the bar, listening with half an ear to Kon, the Incan god of wind and rain, trying to chat her up. A babble of other languages floated through the bar. Mostly, though, she was listening to Cam’s conversation.

He was hunting down a cure for Alzheimer’s and Crohn's? And it wasn’t about the money? She’d underestimated him.
 

She caught sight of Cam swiveling to look at her and jerked her head up to look into Kon’s eyes. He really was handsome. She jumped a bit when she felt his big hand on her ass. A jolt shot up her body, illuminating her nerve endings like lanterns flicked on one by one.
 

He might not be exactly the man she wanted—as much as she hated to admit it,
that
man was sitting down the bar, talking fancy roses meant to cure diseases—but the arousal that had been riding her hard since she’d gotten to earth was pretty pleased with Kon’s advances.
 

She turned her back to Cam and smiled at Kon. He grinned down at her. He really was much more fun than the Celtic gods. But then, who wasn’t?

“Can I get another beer?”

Ana started at the sound of the voice, so rough that it dragged across her skin and made her shiver. Cam. He was standing right behind her. Her skin prickled with goose bumps. Slowly, her heart in her throat, she turned her head to look at him.

But he wasn’t looking at her. He had eyes only for the pretty bartender. But if he only had eyes for the bartender, why had he come over to Ana’s side of the bar to order his drink? She licked her lips, hoping that he’d turn to look at her.

He didn’t, though she swore she could feel the tension radiating from his stiffened muscles and the clenched fists that rested on the bar. Confused and disappointed, she turned back to Kon.

“Thanks,” Cam said as his drink was handed to him.
 

His voice sent a shiver through Ana, a sound that sucked all the noise from the rest of the room until just the echo of it remained in her head, trapping her. Unable to help herself, she glanced over her shoulder to see that he’d walked back to his friend. She felt a twinge of disappointment, then cursed herself for being an idiot.