A sardonic smile twisted his lips, and a chill raced down her spine. “That’s an interesting offer.”
“It’s a lot of prestige.” The words tumbled from Ana’s lips. He had to agree. He had to.
“Ana,” Cam said, warning in his voice.
But she ignored him, her tongue running away from her mind in her desperation to convince him. This was her last, her only, chance. “It’s not the most exciting place in the universe, but Otherworld is lovely. And you’d be a god. The respect and fear people show you is great.” He had to agree it wa
s a good deal.
“Being a god does sound good,” he said, that strange smile still cutting across his face. “But I’m —”
The rubber-band snap of many gods appearing in the living room made Ana’s knees weaken. They filled the space, a dozen or more of the most powerful gods in Otherworld crowded into the room. Their eyes found her before she could count them all, and every expression was darker than the last. Logan looked on with interest, and she remembered that he was the only person besides her who could see Cam.
Her heart almost burst from her chest when she caught sight of Hafgan and Arawn, the kings of Otherworld. Their eyes zeroed in on her and they stalked toward her.
“Ana, your time is up,” Hafgan said, his voice carrying the low roll of thunder. “You’re coming back to Otherworld, to Blackmoor, where you’ll live out your punishment.”
The tor. Where she’d be chained to the granite in the wind and the rain and the snow to fully realize her stupidity and pride. As the thought flashed in her mind, she felt Cam back away from her. The cold slick of sweat broke out on her skin and she spun to face him.
Her jaw dropped when he plucked the blue-fletched arrow out of her quiver. The one they’d already anointed with the demigod potion.
“Cam, no!” She reached out to stop him.
So fast that she could barely follow the motion of his hands, Cam plucked her bow off the ground and nocked the arrow. She was staring down the shaft of her own arrow.
He shot. Pain exploded in her chest where the arrow struck, and his face, twisted with determination and horror, was the last thing she saw before she collapsed.
The sticky warmth of her blood pooled beneath her back as her vision went black. Unidentifiable noises echoed in her ears, but she couldn’t decipher words. She felt her power leaving like a physical thing, draining out with her blood. Was someone touching her? She tried to move her hand but couldn’t.
Cam? Her last thoughts raced across her mind as the chill spread out from her chest. Cam had chosen Otherworld over her, or for her. So hard to tell, the way her thoughts tumbled in her mind, each grappling to be the truth. Fears and hopes, all worthless now. But one thing stood clear in her fading mind. With all her options taken away, she realized that what she really wanted, more than life on earth or any of the exciting things she’d longed for, was him.
And now he would be trapped in Otherworld, chained to a tor on Blackmoor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Seconds slowed to hours as the room erupted into shouts and chaos. An invisible hand squeezed Cam’s throat as his gaze locked on Ana’s body. She seemed to fall in slow motion, the blue-fletched arrow protruding from her chest and her eyes wide with surprise. The bow that had felt so natural and wonderful in his hands now felt unfamiliar. Foreign and evil.
The thud of her body hitting the ground spurred him into action. He was at her side in moments, his hands tangled in her hair, his chest and mind on fire. Her mouth was slack, her eyes half closed. Not dead. Not yet. And thus the gods couldn’t see him. The sight of the blood that pooled beneath her body struck his mind like a blow and wrapped his heart in barbed wire.
Familiar. He’d done it to save her, but that didn’t take away the horror of watching her die. Or the eerie feeling that he’d watched her die before. He blinked the vision away.
She went still barely a second later, and the uproar in the room swelled. Hands yanked him back, away from Ana.
“Camulos.” The booming voice echoed through the room, but he could barely hear it. His gaze was still glued to Ana. Movement surged toward him as the gods closed in. Another pair of hands jerked him roughly, and he realized that he’d be dragged to Otherworld any moment.
He panicked. His gaze jerked around the room until it landed on the only other person who didn’t have a reason to hurt Ana. Take care of her, he pleaded with his eyes.
The other gods ignored her now, assuming her soul would arrive in Otherworld, as his had after he’d been shot so many years ago. She’d be safe, as long as they didn’t know about the potion that would turn her into a demigod.
But Logan’s face was blank, and before he received a response, Cam felt the jerk of being forced through the aether and back to Otherworld. It had been centuries since he’d aetherwalked—demigods were some of the Mytheans who lacked the ability—and the light head and queasy stomach sent him to his knees when he felt the ground beneath his feet again.
His head spun as he tried to focus his gaze on the gods surrounding him. They’d taken him directly to Blackmoor, to endure the fate they’d had planned for Ana. She’d only tried to escape. He actually had. And they could see that he was a god again. If anyone deserved to be imprisoned in Otherworld’s most desolate moor, windswept and miserable, it was he.
But even in the worst part of Otherworld, he realized how wrong he’d been to run. Power surged through his veins, singing along his nerve endings and clearing his mind. He was meant for this. No matter how wrong Otherworld felt to him, being restored to godhood felt as natural as breathing.
“Camulos. You ran from Otherworld.”
Cam’s eyes jerked to the god who possessed the booming voice. Hafgan. King of the Otherworld, with Arawn, the other king, standing next to him. Large black birds of all sorts circled in the sky above, flying low beneath the heavy clouds and buffeted by the roaring winds. Freezing rain would come soon, and here, even a god was susceptible to the misery.