Warrior Betrayed: The Sons of the Zodiac 3 (12 page)

Whatever had flared to life, whatever she’d thought she was going to prove by her little seduction attempt, was long over. It was time for a real discussion.

She could wallow in her hormones later.

Quinn took the seat opposite her on the couch and started in, no preamble. “Your mother is an immortal.”

“Themis is my mother?”

“No. Her daughter is your mother. Eirene was one of the Horae.”

“I’m a little fuzzy on my mythology.”

“It’s not a myth, Montana. It’s real.”

She sighed at the edge that tinged his words. “Look. I’m going to fumble a bit. This is all new—brand-new—to me. Can you cut me some slack?”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Fair. The Horae are three daughters of Themis and Zeus. Sisters to the Moirae.”

“The three Fates?”

“Yes. The Horae are responsible for natural justice and order.”

“But Themis is the goddess of justice?”

“As an overall concept, yes. Justice as a whole. But there are subclasses of that. Natural justice, legal justice, and so on.”

“Natural justice?”

“It’s natural justice that the animal who lingers too long over a carcass is eaten by another predator.”

“Ew.”

He nodded again, but she could see a sense of satisfaction in his gaze that she’d gotten it. “Exactly. There’s an order to the world. A logical way of being. Themis has overall control of it, in a broad sense, but she’s allowed her offspring to control the various pieces.”

“So what is my mother?”

“Eirene is the personification of peace.”

“But how is that possible? I’ve seen her, Quinn. She’s frail and sickly. She won’t let me take her to a doctor, or call one in to look at her.”

“She fell, Montana.”

“Oh my God! When?” She scrambled to the edge of the couch, a desperate longing to find Eirene simply forcing her into action.

“Montana.” Quinn’s hand on her arm held her in place on the couch. “Stop. I didn’t mean an actual fall. Like today. I meant she fell. From Mount Olympus.”

“She what?”

“When she married a mortal. She abdicated her role and fell. She’s no longer immortal.”

“Like a fallen angel?”

“Of sorts. It’s not quite the same thing, but you’re getting the basic picture.”

“Okay. Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt on this one—and I’m not even remotely saying I am—but how the hell does someone fall from being a goddess?”

“It’s not all that hard, from what I understand. You simply make a choice. That’s all it takes.”

Montana’s thoughts raced with the implications. “They sure as hell didn’t teach us that one in Greek mythology lessons.”

“It kind of makes sense when you think about it. Choice is a powerful thing. Oddly simplistic, but a very fundamental power afforded all of us.”

Even as every rational thing inside of her suggested she hightail it out of there as fast as she could, a part of her thought his words made sense. An even smaller—yet insistent—part believed him.

“Look. I know it’s hard to digest, but it’s what happened.”

“And Themis just let her go?”

“I don’t have all the details. It was a very private matter, but even gods talk. Her sisters were devastated when she abdicated her role. They’ve shared that with other immortals over the years.”

“So who replaced her?”

“No one.”

“But if she’s the keeper of peace, that can’t be possible.”

Quinn let out a harsh bark of laughter. The sound was so raw—so bleak—it pulled her from her thoughts. At the matched look in his dark chocolate eyes, Montana felt the overwhelming urge to touch him.

To comfort him.

Before she could, he was off the couch and pacing the room. “Have you looked at the state of the world over the last four decades?”

“But humanity has always had problems.” Montana fought for some rational explanation—for
something
to explain what couldn’t possibly be true. “Come on. There were more deaths during World War II than any time in human history. If what you say is true, she was still a goddess then.”

“Yes, but humanity has gotten more and more depraved with their warfare. More sinister.”

“Humans haven’t changed. Just the tools to see their plans through. If you are who you say you are—if you’ve lived the lifetimes you claim to—you have to know that.”

“Oh, I do know it. But even I can see it’s gotten worse.”

“Humans haven’t exactly shown their best sides to the world. The history books are full of that.”

“But don’t you think the world’s gotten significantly more dire in the last forty years?”

“I’m sorry, but I just find that hard to believe.”

“It’s because of your mother’s abdication.”

He couldn’t be serious. Even people who weren’t overly familiar with history knew that humans had been finding new and interesting ways to kill, maim and destroy one another for millions of years. “That’s an awful lot to lay at the feet of one person, Quinn.”

“I’m laying it at the feet of a goddess, not a person.”

“Well, now that she’s a mortal, she’s going to die. What’s Themis’s grand plan then?”

“I suspect she’s decided it’s you.”

“Me?” Montana’s eyes darted around the room, the sudden tensing of her shoulders suggesting she wanted a way out.

Well, there wasn’t a way out if his suspicions were correct and he’d be damned if he was going to sugar-coat it.

“Add it up. If you haven’t been immortal all along—and that little appendix story was too quick not to believe—then you’re becoming an immortal.”

“Don’t you think I’d have known that? Felt it?”

“I know we talked about it yesterday, but I want you to really think about it. Have things changed lately?”

He saw her glance down at her thumb and he followed her gaze, wondering what was suddenly so fascinating. Before he could analyze it, Montana snapped her attention right back to him. “Oh, I don’t know. Other than a deranged killer’s after me and I’ve suddenly garnered the bodyguard services of an immortal? Is that what you mean?”

He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing she was acting so sarcastic, but Quinn also decided it couldn’t be all bad. It at least suggested she had decided to believe him.

Or so he hoped.

“Montana—” Before he could finish, there was a loud knock on the door.

“Quinn! Can I come in?”

Quinn groaned inwardly before hollering back, “Enter!”

“Callie told me you brought a woman with you who was injured and Brody and the guys just got back and—”

The owner of the voice—Ava—stopped in the center of the room. Their Leo Warrior’s wife stared at Montana. “Callie and Ilsa told me you were hurt. Why are you sitting up?”

Ava rushed over to the couch to wrap her arm around Montana. As she fussed, Quinn could see his Warrior brothers hovering in the doorway. He shot one gaze at Montana, still wrapped in the thin blanket, and then tossed his brothers the evil eye. They all seemed to get it, as he heard a few mumbled words and a hollered, “Callie!” before all of them moved back into the hallway.

“I’m Ava. I heard what happened to you. How can you possibly look so good right now?”

Montana lifted her shoulders in confusion, but before she could say anything, Ava barreled right on through the conversation. “Come with me and I’ll get you fixed up. Callie’s got the poultice ready for you.”

“I don’t think—”

“It won’t hurt that bad and it will heal you up right away.”

“No, I mean, I am healed.”

“What?” Ava dropped Montana’s arm and turned toward Quinn. “Why didn’t you tell them? Ilsa and Callie are really worried about her.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know she was an immortal?”

“I didn’t know either,” Montana interjected, “if it makes you feel any better.”

Ava whirled back toward Montana and for the briefest moment—the tiniest, nanosecond, really—Quinn wished for the old mousy Ava. The one who wasn’t bossing all of them around like some annoying older sister.

“I saw that look, Quinn.”

With eyebrows raised to the ceiling, he let out a groan. “Of course you did. Were eyes in the back of your head one of the gifts Themis threw your way on your turning?”

A very delicate middle finger shot back at him while Ava wrapped her free arm around Montana’s shoulder. “Come on with me. I’ll get you some clothes and I’d still like Callie to take another look at you.”

Montana shot him a look of helplessness, but she followed Ava anyway.

Ava dropped the middle finger and had the graciousness to look contrite as she led Montana from the room. “I’ll bring her right back. I promise. Don’t worry.” Seeing the lightning-quick change in Brody’s sweetheart’s soul, Quinn immediately felt bad about wishing she was her old, mortal self.

As soon as Ava had Montana out of the library, Grey, Brody, Kane, and Drake barreled into the room.

The curtain of awkwardness Quinn had been fighting for six months descended over his thoughts and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Did you get him?”

Brody shook his head, disgust riding high on his cover-model-perfect cheekbones. “Fucker got past us. I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d say he had the same skills we do.”

Quinn weighed the idea in his mind. “You think so?”

Brody nodded as the other guys took up spots around the room. It didn’t escape Quinn’s notice Kane took the seat farthest away.

Damn, but they just couldn’t seem to get their groove back. Quinn knew it was his fault—his oh-so-helpful reaction when Kane and Ilsa needed him to port to the Underworld had put a permanent riff in their relationship.

But fuck it if Quinn could figure out if Kane was cold to him, or if it was an outgrowth of his own standoffishness.

And when the
fuck
had he turned into such a girl that he was even thinking about shit like this?

Brody slammed a meaty fist into his shoulder. “Yo, bro? You there?”

“Yeah. Sorry. And sorry I brought her here.”

“Where else were you going to bring her?” The Leo’s puzzled gaze stared back at him.

“Yeah, but here? What if she was a threat?”

Brody shrugged. “Like Kane and I haven’t done the same. Besides, everyone in this house knows how to take care of himself.”

“Or herself,” Kane added for good measure.

“So, as I was saying,” Brody continued, effectively closing the door on the subject of Quinn’s questionable choices, “I did think it might be one of us, until Callie filled us in on the spikes in her back. Not our style.”

Grey added, “And while it sounds like it could be the work of an immortal, I haven’t heard word one about someone horning in on our territory.”

“But the spikes,” Quinn pressed. “The way they exploded. It’s too much like the textbooks.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be.” Grey shook his head. “I see shit all the time, Quinn. Stuff that would blow your hair back and make the goons on Mount Olympus cry with jealousy.”

Quinn had to acknowledge Grey’s words. The gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus hadn’t quite caught on that humans weren’t exactly bumbling around in the dark any longer. They might not have immortality but they weren’t clueless, either. And they sure-as-hell knew how to do some damage to each other.

“Okay. I get it, but play it out for me. What if this
is
the work of an immortal? I realize no one’s seen that shit in millennia, but…”

“One of us would have known. Ajax has been gone for a year now. Who else is there?” Kane’s eyes briefly jerked toward Brody as he mentioned the Leo’s brother, executed by Enyo the year prior when he’d apparently grown greedy and outlived his usefulness to the goddess of war.

If Quinn wasn’t mistaken, Brody’s blue gaze dulled and his usually smiling mouth formed a straight line, but that was all the reaction he gave to the mention of his brother by birth.

“There’ve been other defections over the years. Ajax wasn’t the only one.” Quinn thought of all the Warriors over the years who were no longer under Themis’s command. Several had been lured away by the power their physical strength and immortal bodies offered. A few had simply decided their life in service to selfish humans just wasn’t worth it. And still others had been killed in the course of battle.

They were immortal in a basic sense, but all of them knew decapitation would be the end of their existence.

Even Themis couldn’t fix that immutable law.

“You keep up with them, don’t you?” Drake probed.

“In a sense.” Quinn thought about what he
did
know. “I have files on all of them, but for the ones who don’t want to be found my files are woefully thin.”

“Okay. Let’s look at this from a different angle.” Grey settled himself on the couch after pacing the room several times over. “What exactly happened to Montana in the park?”

Quinn took them through the events up until they were all together again.

“These are the spikes?” Grey pointed to the small metal bowl still sitting next to the couch.

“Yep.” Quinn nodded, the image of those spikes being pulled from Montana’s skin sending a renewed wave of anger rushing through him. Pulse pounding, he pointed toward the bowl Grey had picked up. “Thirteen fucking spikes. If there was any single thing that made me think it was one of us, it’s the number.”

“Too coincidental?” Brody asked.

“Fucking-A.” Quinn nodded. “It’s just too neat for my taste.”

“It’s also a clue,” Drake added. “And where there’s one, there’ll be more.”

“Fuck.” Grey let out an exhale of breath in clear agreement with the assessment as he lifted a piece of metal from the bowl.

They all turned to look at their Aries, but not before Quinn realized what he was doing. “Are you out of your mind? Those were embedded in her skin. What the hell are you touching them for?”

There was no easy retort, no smart-ass remark, not even a cocky grin. Grey held up one of the larger pieces, holding it gingerly between the tips of his fingers. “Did you and Callie look at these when she was removing them?”

“No.” Quinn shook his head. “The only goal was to get them out.”

“Well, take a look at this.” Grey held his hand out.

Quinn took the piece—one of the longest fragments Callie had removed. As he flipped it over, he immediately saw what Grey saw.

“Holy shit.”

Mind whirling, Quinn didn’t know what to make of the proof he held in his hands. Even though the slice of metal had broken clean from its counterparts, it still clearly held a good portion of the symbol it was imprinted with.

“Here. Give me the rest of them.” Quinn laid them on top of the table, grateful Callie had inadvertently left behind a package of gauze. As he put the pieces together like a puzzle, awareness pricked his nerve endings with increasing intensity.

Then once he placed the last piece on top of the gauze, those fingers of awareness gripped him at the base of his neck and wouldn’t let go.

In bold script, carved into the reassembled pieces of hard steel, was the ancient symbol of the bull. A round circle with two horns that speared off of it, the symbolism unmistakable.

Quinn had seen it for thousands of years.

He wore a matched symbol on his forearm.

“Does this hurt?”

“No. Honest.” Montana felt Callie probing around her back and inwardly marveled at the fact that the immense pain she’d felt not long ago had vanished as if it had never been.

“And you’re not an immortal?” Ava asked her for what felt like the twenty-fifth time.

Despite the repeated badgering, Montana couldn’t help but like the small woman who fluttered around like a mother hen. “To the best of my knowledge, no. How could I be something I’m having a hard time believing in?”

“But all the evidence points to you being one, if the way you just healed is any indication,” Ilsa interjected. Turning toward Ava, she quickly explained the last hour and what had unfolded down in the library.

Montana listened but didn’t say anything. She was torn between continued shock at the marvels of her own body, puzzled confusion as to why this had suddenly happened and a surprisingly easy sense of comfort with these women.

Truth be told, she genuinely liked Ava, Ilsa and Callie and she’d only been in their company for an hour.

Of course, she’d spent that hour practically naked and suffering from some magically disappearing wound, so Montana figured that had to do something on the bonding-o-meter.

But what the hell did she know?

Her best friend was her gay male secretary, her mother had abandoned her, her father had abandoned her emotionally and she’d spent her life surrounded by people paid to do her bidding. She wasn’t exactly an expert in the friend department.

“I want to look in some of the scrolls downstairs,” Callie announced, her abrupt change in direction jarring Montana from her thoughts. “Ilsa, I need your help. You’re better versed in any loopholes.”

Ilsa gave a wry grin. “I
am
a loophole, sister.”

“My point exactly.”

The two women bustled out of the room and Montana was surprised to realize their discussion of scrolls and mystical loopholes hadn’t actually fazed her.

“It’s sort of like falling down the rabbit hole, isn’t it?” Ava took a seat next to her in the spare bedroom Callie and Ilsa had originally fashioned as a makeshift triage ward. A pile of bandages sat on one of the end tables and the nasty-smelling poultice Callie had made sat next to it in the Tupperware bowl.

It was the Tupperware that did it.

A crazy giggle bubbled up from the depths of her throat and Montana pointed at the end table. “I had no idea…immortals went to…to…to Tupp…Tupperware parties.”

The laughter kept coming and she had no way of holding it back. “How do you get people to keep coming to them?”

“What?” Montana didn’t miss the bemused expression in Ava’s kind, brown gaze.

“The whole pay it forward thing. I have a house party and invite six of my friends.” The giggles kept coming, but they were slowly subsiding into half laughs mixed with hiccups. “And then those friends have a party and invite six friends. If you’re immortal, how do you get new blood?”

The word blood sent her into another fit of hysterics. “Or do the vampires keep making new women to hostess for you?”

Ava patted her arm and Montana felt her settle herself on the bed. “Despite the weirdness happening all around us, I’ve yet to see or meet—or even hear of, come to think of it—any vampires. And it’s At-Home-Chef, not Tupperware. And finally, I’m afraid to say, it’s my contribution to the household and the result of being roped into several of those parties you just referred to. Although,” Ava added thoughtfully, “the witches who live next door are lovely and I suspect they’d hostess a party if we asked them to.”

Montana heard the kindness underneath the nonsense and felt her throat tighten on a wave of tears. “Wi-witches?”

“Yes.” Ava hesitated a beat, allowing that little tidbit to sink in.

“Wow.”

“It’s okay, Montana. I know it’s overwhelming.” Ava reached forward and pulled her close, and Montana was surprised by the strength in her small form. “It’s a lot to take in. Not all that long ago, I was in the same boat. There’s just no preparing for it.”

“Two days ago I was just me.”