Goddess in the Middle (26 page)

“Because I wasn’t honest with you at the hospital yesterday.” Amity’s voice had fallen into that soothing cadence. “Obviously you remember Rom. This is his cousin, Remy. They’re my bodyguards and my lovers.”

Spoken so bluntly, the words made Perrin’s eyes widen even more. And it was even more powerful for the fact that it was true. Having Amity say the words made it more real somehow. And made it that much more believable.

“
Both
…” She shook her head, as if trying to get her brain to think how she wanted. “But…”

Finally her eyes narrowed and she looked at Rom. “Are you going to hurt me?”

His heart twisted at the resigned expectation in her voice and he knew Remy had barely bitten back a vicious curse aimed not at Perrin, but at the man who’d made her fear so deeply.

“We will never hurt you, Perrin.” He wanted her to hear the vow in his voice, wanted her to know the truth in his words. “And we won’t allow anyone to hurt you ever again.”

Perrin began to blink rapidly and Rom could scent tears forming. But she didn’t let one fall. Then her chin tilted up. “I’ve learned that you can’t trust anyone. Most especially men.”

He couldn’t blame her for that. “Do you trust Amity?”

A slight pause. “I did.”

Amity winced and he wanted to reach for her, but he didn’t want to startle Perrin. She reminded him of a terrified rabbit, frozen in the sights of a predator. “No. You do. You know she’s done nothing except try to help you. And she has. I know you’re confused right now. I completely understand. But if you can’t trust me, then trust her.”

Perrin held Rom’s gaze for several long seconds, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Remy had taken his cues from Rom and stood stock still behind him.

Sal was still out of sight in the hallway but Rom knew he was waiting, as well.

Finally Perrin took a deep breath. “I do trust Amity.”

Rom nodded. “Then let her explain. Because I think we all deserve an explanation.”

Perrin turned to face Amity again, and Rom bit back the curse that flew to the tip of his tongue.

Absolutely fucking amazing. No wonder the woman had demanded to see Amity. She’d been the recipient of a miracle, after all. One that had almost completely removed the scars from her face.

***

Amity couldn’t stop staring.

Blessed Goddess, she hadn’t realized…

Perrin must have thought she’d finally gone mad when she’d looked in the mirror this morning. Or maybe she thought she hadn’t yet woken up from a dream.

Her face…

Yes, you could still tell she’d sustained some damage to her face, but the scarring was now minimal.

Perrin looked almost normal. No wonder she’d felt so drained last night. She hadn’t meant to heal quite so much.

And now she was faced with a huge problem. One she wouldn’t be able to explain away as just a remarkable ability by Perrin’s body or an experimental treatment.

This was miracle territory.

And Perrin knew it.

“Amity.” Perrin’s gaze pleaded with her to explain what had happened. “What did you do to me?”

Blessed Goddess, what did she say? What
could
she say?

The truth was out of the question. Telling a woman who had no idea there was magic in the world that she’d cured her with Goddess powers probably wasn’t the smartest idea in the world.

Then again, what other explanation could she give?

“What if—” Amity took a deep breath as Perrin watched her avidly. “What if I told you I could do things people might think of as…” Did she dare use the word magic? Or simply explain it as power? “As impossible?”

Perrin just stared at her for several seconds. Then she blinked and took a deep breath. “My mother claimed my grandmother could heal her headaches just by putting her hand on her head. Is it… Are you like that? Like a faith healer?”

That would be the easy way out, wouldn’t it? Let Perrin believe in this simple lie because the truth was so much harder to comprehend.

And so much more dangerous. She couldn’t really tell her the truth. Well, she
shouldn’t
tell her the truth. Amity’s existence relied on her ability to keep her true nature hidden.

But… Amity didn’t want to lie to her. Perrin didn’t deserve it. After all she’d been through, Perrin would be able to tell that Amity was lying. And Perrin would hate her for it.

Amity had spent months getting Perrin to trust her. She didn’t want to lose that trust now. Especially not since she had the ability to give Perrin back a normal life. If she managed to live through the next day.

“Yes, it’s kind of like that but.…”

How did you tell someone you were an ancient deity without them thinking you were crazy? Or they’d gone off the deep end?

Perrin’s gaze narrowed, and Amity felt her own tears start to form. Damn it, this
so
wasn’t fair.

Suddenly, Rom reached for her hand and squeezed. “Tell her. We’ll deal with the fallout.” He smiled. “Then we’ll introduce her to Sal.”

Her own smile cracked her lips and she nodded before catching and holding Perrin’s gaze again. “My name hasn’t always been Amity. I was born Munthukh, Goddess of Health, more than three thousand years ago in the region you now know as Tuscany, Italy. For a thousand years, the Etruscan pantheon was worshipped. Until the Roman deities usurped our roles and most of our power.”

Amity paused to gauge Perrin’s mood, but the other woman just continued to stare at her.

“I’ve worked most of my life as a healer and most recently as a healthcare provider. I’ve taken care of the sick and the dying my entire life, but the longer I’ve lived, the less powerful I’ve become. I still try to be useful where I can. For the last several hundred years, I haven’t been able to provide more than fleeting comfort for those dying slow, horrible deaths. And then about fifteen years ago, I discovered the new profession of medical aesthetician. And I realized that I could still provide a meaningful service.”

Amity stopped, biting her bottom lip until it hurt, watching Perrin’s eyes for any hint of impending hysteria.

It wasn’t every day the woman you trusted to heal your body after a horrific attack told you she was an ancient goddess.

Perrin had every right to tell her she was crazy. Gods, this had been a disas—

“Prove it.” Perrin’s voice had calmed, though Amity still heard a slight tremor running through it.

“How?”

“Are your absent scars not proof enough?” Rom asked.

“They should be, shouldn’t they?” Perrin hadn’t taken her eyes off Amity. “But I need something I can touch, something tangible.”

“How about a little show and tell?”

Sal’s voice sounded in the hall a second before he appeared in the doorway to the room, goat legs and horns in plain sight.

Perrin’s sharp gasp filled the room but she held her ground. Sal didn’t come any closer, just leaned against the door jamb, arms crossed over his chest as he looked back at her.

Perrin blinked several times before she turned back to Amity.

“I’d like three fingers of whiskey and a couple shots of Jägermeister. And then I think we need to talk about my dream about someone named Karn.”

“How the hell did he find out about Perrin?”

“And why the hell would he even approach her? She’s useless to him.”

“Unless he planned to take her and use her as leverage against Amity.”

“Then why hasn’t he sent a de—ah, sent someone to take her?”

“And how the hell did he even find Perrin?”

“No idea, but I think it’s time to get some answers.”

Amity had listened to Remy, Rom, and Sal circle back and forth for the past several minutes while Perrin sipped her whiskey and Jägermeister and stared at Sal. Mostly at Sal’s horns.

The woman was fascinated more by those horns than by Sal’s legs, which had been known to cause grown men to feel faint.

Amity wondered if Perrin was going into shock, but she didn’t look pale.

She looked amazed.

“So, Perrin,” Sal asked when Rom and Remy finally paused in their conversation, “you wanna touch ’em?”

Amity cringed at the
salbinelli
’s teasing question, knowing Sal wasn’t trying to embarrass Perrin. It was just how he was.

But Perrin had been through—

“I would love to, if you don’t mind. Are they bone or cartilage?”

Sal leaned forward across the table so Perrin could reach out and touch him. “Bone. They grew in when I was in my twenties and I’ve had them ever since.”

After caressing the blunt little obtrusions for a few seconds, Perrin sat back, shaking her head.

“Amazing.” Then she turned to Remy and Rom. “So what exactly can you two do? I’m assuming since Amity is a goddess and Sal’s a
salbinelli
and that a God has been visiting me in my dreams, you two must have some special power, or you wouldn’t get to hang with the cool kids.”

Sal snorted out a laugh and Amity hid a smile as Remy and Rom exchanged a glance. It was their secret to tell, but Amity hoped they would. At this point, what could it hurt?

Perrin already knew much more than most other
eteri
.

“We’re
lucani
versipelli
,” Rom answered after Remy nodded. “Wolf skinshifters.”

Perrin didn’t miss a beat. “You mean werewolves.”

“Some people call us that, yeah.”

“Huh.” She sipped at her Jäger again before pushing the half-finished glass aside. Then she did the same with the almost empty whiskey glass. “So now what? What are you going to do to keep Charun off Amity’s back?”

Amity reached for Perrin’s hand and squeezed. “We’ll make sure you’re safe, no matter what.”

“Charun doesn’t want to hurt me. Actually…”

“Actually what?”

Perrin frowned. “He seemed kind of lonely if you ask me.”

Amity didn’t know what to say to that. After all Perrin had been through, Amity had thought Perrin might think of Charun as the Boogeyman. Instead, she felt sorry for him. Amity felt it beneath Perrin’s fear and confusion.

“What makes you say that?”

Shrugging, Perrin shook her head. “I don’t know. Just a feeling. I’m probably wrong. The dream, or whatever, was just so freaky. So real and yet… I knew it wasn’t. I never believed anything like magic, like
salbinelli
,” she turned to Sal with a wry look, “or werewolves were possible. I just couldn’t imagine things that are so far out of the box. So maybe my perceptions are a little off.”

“Don’t doubt what you feel,” Remy said. “I understand why you may be a little gun-shy about trusting your instincts, but you weren’t wrong about Amity. You can trust us. What else did you sense during your dream?”

She loved these men. So strong. So amazingly perceptive. How she wished they could be hers forever.

Though it could never be. She had no successor to whom she could pass her powers, what little remained, anyway. And she would not give them up when she could still use them to help people.

With war brewing between the Etruscans and the
Mal
, her people would need her powers.

And Cat would need Remy and Rom.

No, when this was done, and Charun was dealt with, however that came to be, then she needed to break her ties with these men.

Even if it broke her heart.

“So we’re agreed?”

Rom’s question brought her back into the conversation, which she’d been listening to with half an ear.

Remy and Rom wanted to bring Perrin with them. They didn’t want to leave her alone, in case Charun sent someone after her while they were gone. And they all thought she might be of use against Charun. He had seemed to take a special interest in Perrin. Maybe they’d learn more with her by their side.

Perrin squeezed her hand and nodded when Amity looked at her. Excitement shone from her eyes. No fear at all.

For her, this must seem like an amazing adventure. An almost unbelievable one.

Amity only wished everything wasn’t moving quite so fast.

“We’re agreed,” she said. “Perrin comes along.”

***

Remy knew something was eating at Amity. He just couldn’t figure out what.

As X and Cal led them along a barely passable trail in a thickly wooded forest near Hawk Mountain, Remy wanted to pull Amity aside and find out what was wrong.

Considering he was wearing his pelt, that would’ve been a good trick.

She’d had something on her mind since they’d left Sal’s. Something that made her distance herself from them. She hadn’t made it obvious, but she’d been careful not to get close to either of them.

She’d stuck by Perrin’s side the entire time, which he totally understood. But her normal placid attitude had been replaced by stress. Again, not a shocker. This whole situation was a fucked-up mess.

Still, Remy felt her distance like a void in his gut. The warmth he associated with her, the heat she directed at him and Rom, was missing. He didn’t like it and his wolf hated it.

He wanted to stick to her side, rub against her legs and mark her as his. As theirs. Rom felt the same way, except he wanted to sandwich her between them and fuck her until none of them could see straight.

The images coming from Rom, combined with his own anxiety, made him work twice as hard to keep his attention on their surroundings.

They walked through thickly forested state gamelands. No homes, no buildings. Just trees and rocks. And a palpable sense of magic whose location he couldn’t pin down. He didn’t sense any danger, just a very old, very powerful force.

Amity had to have picked up on it but she hadn’t said anything. By the time they reached the spot where the building should have been, Remy felt ready to crawl out of his skin.

Until his eyes realized what he was seeing.

“Wow.”

Rom spoke for both of them.

“I didn’t realize this still existed.” Amity’s hushed response drew Remy’s attention back to her. Even she looked dumbstruck. “It’s been so long since… How did you know about this place, X?”

“My mother is Etruscan, Lady Amity. She’d learned its location years ago.”

“What is this place?” Rom said.

“Artumes’s circle.” Amity’s voice had dropped almost to a whisper. “I haven’t been here in more than a century. Didn’t think anyone kept it up.”

From what Remy could see, no one had.

If an
eteri
had stumbled on this place, they might have thought it was nothing more than a rise in the earth. If they’d looked closer, they might have seen the stone foundation. Or they might have dismissed it as a natural outcropping of rocks.

You had to be standing right next to the structure to realize that what you were looking at was man-made.

Some people called them fairy mounds and believed they were the gateway to fairyland. Some believed the indigenous American tribes had used them as burial mounds centuries ago. Others had more far-fetched explanations.

This one, as Amity had indicated, was man-made.

“What’s an Artumes’s circle?” Perrin asked.

Amity gave Perrin a bittersweet smile. “Artumes is another goddess and this is where she was worshipped for many years by the Etruscan
Fata
. The mound was Artumes’s home. And the circle,” Amity pointed into the forest, “is right beyond that stand of trees.”

“And what exactly are the
Fata
?” Perrin was shaking her head as if she were trying to get the information to settle.

“Sorry. I guess you would call them the fairy races.”

Perrin’s mouth dropped open for a second before she closed it again. “You mean like Tinker Bell?”

Amity began to laugh and sounded much closer to normal. “Not like… Well, actually some do kind of look like Tinker Bell. But the
Fata
are pretty diverse. Sal is
Fata
. So are the
folletti
, who have wings. And the
linchetti
, who have pointed ears.”

Remy watched Perrin as she took in that information like she was swallowing a bitter bill. Finally she sighed and shook her head. Again. “Okay. At the risk of blowing what little brain I have left, I’m going to ask one more question. So what’s the circle?”

Amity took Perrin’s hand and started to walk again, following X and Cal into the trees. “It’s probably just better if I show you.”

Remy was about to follow them when he caught a whiff of human.

He stopped, eyes narrowed as he sniffed the air. The scent was faint but he knew he wasn’t mistaking it for something else.

Humans. Headed straight for them.

From this distance he couldn’t tell if they were
Mal
. Only one way to find out.

Remy growled low in his throat and sent Rom a mental warning just before he melted into the forest and backtracked.

He knew Rom was cursing him for breaking away and going off on his own but Rom wouldn’t leave Amity’s side.

Making sure he stayed hidden, Remy used all his senses to try to figure out if these men—two of them—were innocuous hikers or something more sinister.

Turns out he only needed one. As soon as he came within a hundred yards, he knew these guys weren’t here to bird-watch.

They stank like
Mal
. The hint of rot that underlaid their natural scent grew more potent the closer he got.

Remy stood motionless in a thick stand of brush, his fur blending in perfectly. They didn’t know he was there. He could’ve ripped out their throats before they knew what was going on. He had a hard time getting his wolf not to lunge. Not because they didn’t deserve it but because Cole would want them alive for questioning.

And so did Remy. He wanted to look into their eyes when he told them they’d never take him and Rom alive. They would fight to the death because they had something worth living for, and it wasn’t revenge.

He began to retreat, to circle back and meet up with Rom. He’d need Rom’s help to take care of these guys. They couldn’t be allowed to get anywhere near Amity.

To be on the safe side, Remy made a wider circle on his way back. And that’s when he scented the third man.

And this one didn’t smell
Mal
. He just smelled… wrong.

Remy had never come across anything like it before. Etruscan but different. Powerful. Wrong.

Wrong how, he couldn’t say. This guy was trouble. And he was close.

Remy tried to get a lock on his location, but it was almost like something was interfering with his tracking ability.

As if the guy had a deflecting spell. Remy had never heard of one, but then maybe his mother just hadn’t gotten around to teaching it to him. Or maybe his mother hadn’t known about it either.

Who the
fuck
was this guy?

Using every skill his father and uncle had ever taught him about being a wolf, Remy began to move silently through the brush. He wanted to get a look at this guy, wanted to get closer. He needed to look at the guy, see his eyes, his face.

But he had to find him first.

His scent seemed to be everywhere, but nowhere, in particular.

Where the fuck was he?

Silently, Remy stalked a ghost. He slid away from the two
Mal
who had stopped moving forward and appeared to be waiting for instructions, probably from Remy’s ghost.

Sending a silent warning to Rom, Remy circled the area, tightening the circle every time.

Shit, the guy was closer to Amity than he’d thought.

He knew Rom had already started back, but Remy was faster on four feet. He shot off, no longer caring about making noise.

The men following them knew they were here.

Remy had nearly made it back to Amity when he heard her call out, “Perrin, stay behind me. X, we need to go now.”

Remy poured on speed, making sure he sounded like a freight train coming through the woods, heard Rom do the same. Maybe it would give the guy pause.

Remy’s heart nearly stopped when he burst into the clearing. A placid pool lay in the center, the outer edge ringed by thirteen centuries-old oak trees.

On the far side of the pond, Amity stood over Cal’s crumpled body as Perrin shakily brandished a pair of blades that had to be Cal’s. Behind Perrin, X slumped against a large boulder that seemed to have been thrust up out of the earth from below. Remy didn’t see any blood on X, but the guy was clearly dazed.

In front of them stood a male who couldn’t be more than twenty, his dark hair frat-boy short, his Etruscan features set in stoic lines. He held one hand stretched toward Perrin and Amity as if he were beckoning them to come with him.

Remy didn’t stop to think. The man smelled dangerous and stood much too close to Amity and Perrin. He raced toward the man with the intention of taking him down—

And found himself sprawled on the ground when a powerful force shoved at him. It picked him up off his feet and blew him yards away. Luckily he didn’t hit any tree trunks on the way or his insides might be spilling out right now.

This
scassacazzo
was strong. And not just physically. He vibrated with power.

“There you are.” The guy’s tone sounded like they’d just met during a social event. One where they weren’t trying to kill each other. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Remy. And you too, Rom. So glad you could join the party.”

“Run,” Amity pleaded and it took a few seconds before Remy realized she was talking to him. “Please. He’s only here for the two of you. Get out now.”