“Sure you were.” She dragged him toward the bed and sat next to him, turning herself so that her knees pressed into his thigh. She reached out and stroked his cheek, and somehow that touch meant more than what they’d done in the darkened pub last night.
“Maybe at first,” he said. “When I still acted like a god. But then I saw you. And everything changed. I became… different. I felt things.”
“Maybe that’s not so bad.”
He laughed, low and bitter. “It puts me halfway between god and mortal. I’m neither one, not fully.”
Not as emotionless and stalwart as a god, capable of seeing things through without being swayed by emotion. It was a shitty way to live, but it was their way. Nor could he feel as strongly as mortals seemed to. Except where Ana was concerned.
He had the suspicion that what he felt for her now, if he were mortal, would be something like what they called love. Yet it was just out of his reach.
“What’d it feel like when you were a god? Just… nothing?” she asked.
He frowned, his brow scrunched. “Before I met you, it’s like the world was in gray. Crisp and clear, so that I knew exactly what was going on and what I should do about it. Yet victory was hollow, so I never fully understood why I was the god of war. Then I saw you. Everything was in color suddenly, but blurred.” He could still remember how strange his chest had felt. As if his heart had actually registered something, though it was physiologically impossible.
“Why do you think I was the one who made you feel emotion?”
He dragged a hand through his hair, frowned. He’d barely known her then, but had seen something in her, something that drew him to her still.
“I don’t know, but it’s what I’ve learned about you now, in the present, that has me feeling like I’m walking backward on a tightrope, desperately trying to reach the other side. Where you are.?
?? And that the tightrope might snap at any moment, dropping him into the mess that they’d created of their lives.
“I fucked up, Cam.” Her voice was raw. “Back then. I didn’t know what was going on. My confusion and fear all lead me to Otherworld. I’m sorry about that, for the position it put you in.”
He picked up her wrist, and when she tried to jerk it free, he didn’t let go. He didn’t touch her scar or look at it, but he didn’t let go.
“The other gods led you to Otherworld,” Cam said.
Ana shivered. “They’d have killed my family. Going to Otherworld, as awful it was, saved them. They lived long lives, even if I didn’t get to see them. Now they’re in Otherworld, and they’re different. A shadow of their former selves. Like the gods. Emotionless.”
“But at least they had their lives,” Cam said.
Ana pushed the thought of her brothers away. It hurt too much to contemplate for very long. Instead, she asked, “What kind of Mythean did you become?”
“When I realized that I couldn’t kill you, I knew I wasn’t fit for Otherworld. So I went to Druantia for the potion that turned me into a demigod.”
“So you’re a demigod.”
“Yeah. Not quite as strong as I was, but not dead either. The catch being that I could no longer use my bow. Which I hate like hell.”
She nodded. That would have sucked. “But you must have loved earth when you arrived.”
He frowned. “I didn’t know what to expect, and it was more than I ever could have imagined. I knew that something was wrong in Otherworld, and I ran. I did it to try to save you, but at the end of the day, I was running.”
“I don’t—”
“No, Ana. I was born with all the power of a god, and I ran. I could have stayed, tried to figure another way around our problem and done what I was born to do. But I didn’t. I haven’t lived the life I was supposed to.”
“You came to earth, where you’ve done an enormous amount of good with your company.”
“We’re trying to do an enormous amount of good. We haven’t actually done it yet. There’s a difference.”
“Maybe not yet with this company, but you’ve been on earth two thousand years. This can’t be your first attempt.”
He sighed. “It’s not. But they’re substitutes for what I should have been doing. I realize that now.”
“No, you’ve done good here. We all have our paths to tread.”