What a Goddess Wants (20 page)

“Long time no see, Caligo. Maybe not long enough. What’re you doing here, half blood?”

Ah, yes. Some things never changed, for good or worse. “I need to get to Invol.”

Eli’s eyebrows rose, shock evident on his features. “And why the hell would you want to do that?”

“You don’t need to know. Just get the fuck out of my way.”

Eli snorted, shaking his head. “Yeah, well, I don’t think you want to take that tone with me, boy. You know the rules. No one goes to Invol and no one comes out. Even a half blood like you should be able to understand that. What makes you think you’re special?”

Cal didn’t think he was special. Never had. Too many people had been oh, so happy to tell him how very not-special he was growing up.

This was why Cal stayed away, though he knew his absence hurt his mother.

Well, that was going to change. Why should he let the assholes dictate his life any longer? He was older now. Stronger. Possibly stronger than most because of his mixed blood.

But now wasn’t the time to do a self-psychoanalysis. When he’d made sure Tessa was safe, then maybe he’d set a few new rules at home.

For right now, though, he’d start small.

Shaking off the remaining nausea, he stepped right into Eli’s face. The other man barely came up to his nose. Huh. Cal had never realized that before. Something else to thank his mom for.

“Get outta my face, Sentinel. I’ve got somewhere to be.”

Cal’s use of Eli’s title was deliberate, and Eli stiffened at the insult. Before Cal had left Cimmeria, he’d risen above Eli in the ranks of the Cimmerian guard. Yeah, he’d been that good.

That’s right, buddy. I was farther up the food chain than you, and you know it.

Cal’s rank rubbed most of the guard the wrong way, but his dad remained a high-ranking officer and few would willingly cross him. When that mess with Juliana had happened, not even his dad had been able to control the shit storm and he’d never questioned Cal’s decision to leave Cimmeria for earth.

But Cal still held the rank of Watchman, one step above Sentinel.

So suck on that, Eli.

Apparently Eli didn’t like the taste because his mouth pursed and his expression turned sour. Suddenly, Cal didn’t want to play this game anymore. He just didn’t have the time for it.

“Eli—”

“Yeah, fine, whatever.” Eli moved to the side, staring out into the forest, his expression blank. “It’s your funeral, Cal.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not my death I’m worried about.”

Fuck, he had a goddamned big mouth. Eli’s gaze sharpened on Cal again.

“What have you gotten yourself involved in? And why do you need to go to Invol because of it?”

Cal very nearly told Eli to go fuck himself, but before the words could escape, he bit them back. Many years earlier, he and Eli had been friends. Good friends. Eli was a few years younger, but they’d grown up together, trained together. Eli had been one of the only people, in addition to his parents and a very few others, who’d stuck up for Cal before he’d left. That was probably the reason Eli was still stuck as a Sentinel.

Cal needed to remember that not everyone had turned their backs on him. And that they’d suffered consequences as well.

He shook his head. “I can’t talk about it, Eli. I just need to get there unnoticed and then I have to go back. A life depends on this.”

Eli snorted. “You always did have a soft heart, Cal. It’s gonna get you killed one of these days.”

No, he didn’t have a soft heart. His heart was titanium.

Except for one small spot where a gorgeous blonde Etruscan goddess had slipped into it.

“Fine, just… be careful, Cal,” Eli said. “Invol’s not for the faint of heart. You can be lost there. Or so I’ve heard.”

Cal paused, hearing no trace of sarcasm or bitterness in Eli’s voice. “Thanks for the warning.” He meant that sincerely because he was about to break a pact that had held for two millennia, and he probably would get himself killed doing it. “But I can’t
not
go. It’s too important.”

“Then I hope you accomplish whatever it is you came to do.”

Before he realized what he was about to do, Eli dug the end of his staff into the ground.

A loud crack rent the air, and a lightning bolt appeared out of nowhere to strike the ground at the spot Eli’s staff had marked. The jagged edges of the lightning didn’t fade. Instead, they widened until the brilliant flash became a constant blinding glow.

When the gate was finally big enough for a man to step through, Cal caught a whiff of the stench pouring through. The light and the smell combined to make his eyes tear up. What the hell was that smell?

“Damn it, Eli. You’re gonna take a lot of shit for this if anyone finds out you opened this gate for me.”

Eli just shrugged. “Then I guess you better not tell anyone. Here, take this.” Eli whipped something out of the pack on his back and held out a cloak, complete with hood. “You’re gonna need it.”

Shit. That’s what he smelled. Ozone. Fucking ozone. His gaze narrowed as he watched the sunlight pour out of Invol, gilding everything it touched.

You’ll be toast if you walk through there, you idiot. You’re crazy. You’ve finally lost it.

But if he didn’t, Charun would eventually catch up to Tessa and he’d take her. And she’d be gone from Cal forever.

He knew he wouldn’t want to live if that happened. He was screwed either way. At least if he walked through that gate, Tessa might live.

Hell, what was life without one really bad sunburn?

“Try not to get extra crispy, Cal.” Eli’s mocking words held an undertone of caution. “And stay close to the gate. I’ll hold it open for as long as you need me to, but I won’t be able to come in after you. I don’t have another cloak.”

“If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, assume I’m not coming. And Eli… thanks.”

Eli just nodded. “No skin off my nose. Don’t do anything stupid and maybe you can save your ass.”

***

“Are you positive this is something you absolutely have to do?”

Tessa huffed as X asked the same question for the tenth or eleventh time. Sal stood in the center of the living room, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for Tessa to give him the word. She didn’t want to force X to go with her, but neither did she want to go alone.

Besides, she was a little worried about what Cal would do when he got back and found out she’d left. She didn’t want to leave X to bear his brother’s wrath and she could admit, at least to herself, that neither did she want to face Cal alone when he caught up with her.

If that made her a coward… well, okay, she could live with that.

“X, it’s two in the afternoon. Charun doesn’t attack during the height of the day.” At least she hoped he wouldn’t. “I’ll be fine.”

Which should be true. Especially where she was going.

X just stared at her for several very long seconds before he sighed.

“All right, Sal. You heard the lady.” X crossed his arms over his chest. “Beam me up, Scotty.”

“Always the comedian,” Salvatorus grumbled. “Watch out, kid, or I’ll ship you to Antarctica. Without your clothes.”

X didn’t even flinch. “Yeah, well, that’d be kinder than what Cal’s gonna do to me.”

“Oh, suck it up, kid.”

X opened his mouth to respond but Sal already had his spell in motion. In the blink of an eye, X was winked away from the space where he had been standing to Frentani’s. At least she assumed that was where Salvatorus had sent him. She wouldn’t put it past the
salbinelli
to give X a detour through a snowbank somewhere.

When he turned to her, she gave him a smile. “Thank you, Salvatorus. I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me these past few days.”

Smiling, he swept a low bow. “Lady Tessa, sweetheart, it’s always my pleasure.” When he rose, though, his expression was deadly serious. “That said, don’t go doing anything stupid. X is right. Cal will go ballistic if anything happens to you. The man has more than a passing fancy for you, and that’s something he doesn’t have often. Be safe.”

A little glow from the thought that Cal cared about her as more than just a job suffused her body with heat. She bent down to press a kiss to Sal’s stubbled cheek. “Thank you. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

Salvatorus nodded as he touched the center of her chest just above her breasts, and the world flickered around her and went black.

When color returned to the world, she blinked and brought everything back into focus. And gasped when she realized X had his hands in the air as if he was being robbed and Dr. Eric Frentani held a gun aimed at X’s head.

“Nice of you to arrive in time to save my head from being blown off, Lady Tessa.”

She rolled her eyes at X’s smart-ass remark but turned to face the doctor with a smile. “Please forgive my late arrival and my unannounced guest. And I apologize in advance for his mouth. Eric, this is Extasis. X, this is Dr. Eric Frentani.”

Eric lowered the weapon immediately, gave X a short, sharp nod as a greeting, then turned to her with a much warmer expression.

“I’m just glad you were able to get here, Tessa,” Eric said as he took her hand and led her through the dimly lit halls of the underground facility that served as the hospital for the
Fata
. “I’ve put Flavia closer to the surgery room in case there are complications. She’s had a rough time, as you know.”

The cool yellow walls, the color of the first light of day, reflected the low light and created a calm, tranquil atmosphere that never failed to make Tessa smile.

Several rooms branched off the main hall, none of them occupied at the moment except for the one at the end, where Tessa could hear Flavia’s heavy breathing.

“How far along is she?” Tessa asked before they reached the door.

“Eight centimeters. And it’s taken a damn long time for her to get there. I told her she might want to wait to call you but she’s scared. I asked her if she wanted to call a friend to wait with her but… Well, I still haven’t been able to get her to tell me where she’s from.”

“No need to push her, Eric. She’ll come around to trusting us eventually.”

At least Tessa hoped she would. The little
gianes
had shown up at Salvatorus’s door about two months earlier. Timid, underweight, and barely vocal, she refused to say where she was from, where her family was, or who the father of the baby was.

At first Sal had thought maybe she’d sustained a head trauma that could explain her reluctance to speak. But when she’d refused to see a doctor, he’d called in Tessa.

The wood elf had immediately known who Tessa was, bowing and calling her by her proper name. But the girl still wouldn’t tell Tessa any more than she’d told Salvatorus.

“She’ll be glad to see you, Tessa. I was afraid she was going to give me a hassle when it came time to push if you weren’t here.”

Knowing X had trailed along behind them, Tessa turned to motion him forward. “Maybe you’d like to rest in one of the other roo—”

“Don’t even think about it, Lady Tessa.” X shook his head. “When Cal catches up to us and finds out I let you out of my sight, I’m a dead man. Don’t condemn me to that, please.”

She laughed at the exaggerated expression of fear on his face that contrasted with the twinkle in his eye. “You’re as bad as your brother. You just have sneakier ways of getting what you want. Fine, just stay out of the way, okay, X?”

“Is there something going on you want to tell me about, Tessa?”

Eric stared down at her, concern darkening the light blue of his eyes. Born to
Enu
parents—the human branch of the two magical Etruscans races—and blessed with the Goddess Gift of healing, Eric was a gorgeous man.

Tall and broad, he exuded health and confidence. He never got angry or flustered, never raised his voice. His features were sharply masculine and devastatingly handsome. The scruff of a golden brown beard gave him a rakish edge, and his always-in-need-of-a-trim caramel brown hair had subtle waves women wanted to sink their fingers into.

If she was looking for a hunk, he’d fill the bill.
If
she was looking. Which she wasn’t. At least, she hadn’t been.

Until Cal.

She gave Eric a friendly smile, not wishing to encourage him in any way. Since the first time she’d met him, he’d made it perfectly clear he was interested in her. Not as a goddess, but as a woman.

His eyes held the same heat Cal’s did. But Eric evoked none of the passion one look from Cal managed. Thinking about Cal made her tension level ratchet up another notch, and Flavia couldn’t afford for Tessa to be distracted.

“Nothing we need to discuss now, Eric. But thanks for asking.” She gave him another smile to soften her rejection. “Now, I think I’ll just go talk to Flavia.”

***

Cal woke to the sound of a child’s laughter.