Kat heard Jacky’s muttering before she opened her eyes. She was saying something that had to do with “Christ on a cracker” and “no goddamn sense.” Kat smiled. If she’d died and gone to hell, at least Jacky had come with her. Again. She opened her eyes.
“Hey,” she croaked. “I thought you watched your language when you were on duty.”
Immediately Jacky bent over her, simultaneously taking her pulse and wiping her face with a cool cloth.
“Katrina, honey, are you back with me?”
“If you’re calling me honey it must be bad. Did I lose a leg or something?”
“Oh, thank the sweet weeping baby Jesus, it is you.” Jacky kissed her square on the lips. “Don’t you ever, ever scare me like that again.”
“Well, hell, Jacky. It’s not like I asked those disgusting things to attack me.”
“Okay, I want you to count my fingers.” Jacky held up three fingers like a baseball umpire.
“You have three fingers, just like Yoda. By the by, if you don’t get a manicure soon and trim those things you’re going to resemble him even more closely.” Kat batted weakly at her friend’s hand. “Do I have to sleep with you to get something to drink?”
“Thankfully, no, because your breath is really nasty right now.” Jacky turned to the side table and poured water from a pitcher into a cup, then helped Kat drink from it.
“No wonder. Man, I so feel like shit.”
“Well, for a woman who’s been in a coma for four days, you’re lookin’ remarkably and surprisingly alive.”
“Four days!” She gasped between long gulps of water.
“Easy. It’ll make you feel sick if you drink too much.”
“I already feel sick.”
“You’ll feel worse. And you may puke.”
She took one more drink and then reluctantly gave Jacky the cup and lay back on her pillow. “Four days, Jacky? Why? Achilles’ mom healed me from the poison. Well, at least I thought she did.”
“She did. Or rather Thetis did what she could despite your ‘remarkably breakable human shell’ as Athena put it. You had to do the rest of the recovery by yourself.”
“Athena was here?”
“Yep. All three of them have been. Well, four actually, if you count Achilles’ mom, who was with him when he carried you—half dead and totally freaking me out—into camp four days ago.”
“Huh. I feel special.”
Jacky rolled her eyes. “You are special,” Jacky used air quotes around the word. “When we get home I’ll send the short bus for you.”
“Hey wait. If all of the goddesses were here why didn’t they just use their powers to zap me awake?”
“I did mention that. And perhaps not in the nicest of tones.”
“You? Being short and crabby with someone? I’m so shocked. Imagine that not going over well with goddesses.”
“Nevertheless, apparently the bogey monster that grabbed you had more than a touch of magic behind it. The goddesses couldn’t negate all of it. Your humanity had to fight it off by your own damn self.”
“Bet that made you grumpy.” Kat grinned at her best friend.
“Perhaps a little.” She took Kat’s hand and squeezed it. “I am so glad you didn’t die on me.”
“Me too.” Kat squeezed back. “Sorry I scared you.”
“That’s okay. I’ve decided you owe me shoes.”
“Shoes?”
“Remember your gorgeous pair of red patent leather stiletto pumps I’ve lusted after?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m through lusting.”
“Jeesh, you are a mean nurse.”
“Thank you. Now tell me what the hell bit you.”
“I have no clue. One second I was walking along the beach trying to find Achilles, the next I saw something in the water so I stopped to look. Then this tentacle thing grabbed me and stung me, which paralyzed my leg. Then I got grabbed and stung again and again, which is when I pushed the panic button and yelled for Venus.” Remembering, Kat touched the locket that still hung between her breasts and shivered. “Those things were seriously gross. All undulating and rat-tail-like, and there were literally hundreds of them swarming me.”
Jacky’s face looked like she’d just eaten a lemon. “Jesus god! Rat-tail-like? That is so vile!”
“Yeah, and they were pulling me out into deep water to feed me to what looked like their gigantic mama when Achilles materialized, changed into the berserker and kicked ass. Then his mom touched me and I passed out. The end. But didn’t Achilles tell you most of that already?”
“Uh, no. Achilles has been Mr. Big and Broody since he brought you back and has barely spoken two words to anyone. Even Patroklos can’t talk to him. Actually Patroklos has had a lot on his mind and I think he’s tired of tryin’ to get Achilles to do more than grunt and growl.”
“Jacky, are you making the boy crazy?”
“No. Patroklos and I are fine. Better than fine. It’s the battle he’s not fighting and stuff like that getting to him. But as long as Achilles doesn’t fight—Patroklos doesn’t fight, so I’m not really worried about it.” Jacky made a dismissive gesture. “Anyway, my woman’s intuition, which is quite good, says Achilles is brooding because you saw him turn into the Big Bad and he thinks you’re gonna run shriekin’ from him now. Of course you don’t have enough sense to do that, which I tried to explain to him, but he wasn’t listenin’. Actually that night I think he might have been drinking heavily. But whatever.”
“Maybe you should go get him and I’ll explain to him myself how little sense I have.”
“That’s a good idea,” Jacky said. Then she added. “Kat, he did change into that berserker thing completely, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Kat said softly.
“It was awful.”
Jacky didn’t phrase it like a question, but Kat nodded her head. “It was absolutely awful. It wasn’t him anymore. Whatever it is that possesses him isn’t even human. It can’t be.”
“But he was himself when he brought you back to camp,” Jacky said.
“His mom called to him, and then did something with the water and it was like it washed the berserker away.”
“Which you’re interpreting to mean that the thing can actually be controlled. Am I right?”
“Aren’t you always right?”
Jacky snorted. “I’ll go get your grumpy-ass man.” Before she left the tent she looked back at Kat. “Promise you’ll be careful.”
“Promise.”
“You know I love you.”
“You know I love you, too, Jacky.”
Jacky managed to smile through her worry as she ducked out of the tent.
Kat was just thinking about how awful her hair must look and trying to run her fingers through it when Achilles’ bulk filled the entrance of the tent. His gaze went straight to her. She smiled. “I do believe I owe you a big thank you for saving my life. Actually you and your mom.” When he didn’t say anything, but just continued to stare at her, she babbled on. “Your mom’s gorgeous, by the way. And she seems like a lovely person, ur, I mean, goddess. If she’s still here I’d love to meet her. Formally. After I look decent.”
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“You must be having problems with your sight. You should have Ja—I mean Melia look at your eyes. Her bedside manner leaves something to be desired, but she’s an excellent nurse.”
Achilles’ lips twitched up just a little at the edges. “Melia is fiercely loyal to you. And my mother has returned to the depths. She cannot bide on dry land for long.” He paused, grasped his hands behind his back, then let them fall to his sides, then, as if he didn’t know what to do with them, ran one hand through his hair, before finally saying, “You do not owe me your gratitude for saving your life. It was not me who fought the creatures.”
Kat kept her gaze meeting his. “I know that, but it was you who showed up for the fight. Plus, I’ll bet you could have beaten those nasty things without the berserker.”
“No.” He spoke slowly as if he wanted to be certain she understood. “I could not have defeated the creatures without the berserker. The poison that almost killed you would have taken me. The berserker is what made me invulnerable to it.”
“Well, then, I’m glad the berserker was there.”
“How can you say that? I became a monster—a monster who would have raped you and left you for dead.”
“But you didn’t. You came back. You stopped the monster.”
“Because my mother, a sea goddess, intervened!”
“Maybe,” Kat said reasonably. “But maybe you can learn to stop the monster.”
“I don’t believe that is possible.”
“Did you ever believe you would make love to a woman without the berserker possessing you?” she asked.
“No.” He hesitated. “No, I did not.”
“What happened between us wasn’t a dream. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do know that,” he admitted.
“Then doesn’t what I’m saying make sense?”
“You are an oracle of the goddess Athena. You have powers other women do not. That is why you can touch me and I remain a man.”
Kat automatically opened her mouth to tell him what utter crap that was. Then she closed it. She couldn’t tell him.
And it hit her—why not? None of the goddesses had told her she couldn’t. No one had said she needed to keep her real identity from Achilles. It was just the general Greek camp she had to fool. For a second she wished she could talk to Jacky first, but then again, she didn’t really need to ask her BFF. Jacky was nothing if she wasn’t honest. She told the truth—even when she shouldn’t. It was part of what Kat loved about her. Plus, it was just plain stupid to keep this from Achilles. If she didn’t trust him enough to trust him with her identity, she shouldn’t have had sex with him. Everyone’s mother even knew that.
“Achilles, would you please come closer? I need to talk to you about this oracle-of-the-goddess thing.”
Achilles walked through the bed curtain with a mixture of hesitation and anticipation. It was obvious that he wanted to touch her, that he needed to touch her. It was just as obvious as the fact that he was afraid to get too close to her in case she rejected him. She held out her hand and smiled. “Would you sit beside me?”
The only thing about his guarded expression that changed was the relief that showed in his eyes. He sat beside her gingerly, taking her hand as if it were a butterfly. Then he surprised her by kissing it.
He spoke still looking down at her hand, circling the place he’d kissed with his thumb. “When the monster left me and I saw you lying there I thought you were lost to me.” Then he looked up and met her eyes and she was shocked by the depth of sadness within his. “I do not think I could bear losing you, too.”
That was the moment Kat stopped lying to herself. This wasn’t just a mission. He wasn’t a project she’d taken on for someone else. Somehow, regardless of time and worlds and logic, Achilles was Kat’s destiny. She was bound to him as she’d never come close to being bound to any man in her world. And she didn’t want to leave him. The realization was as freeing as it was daunting. Jacky was definitely going to kill her.
Kat had to clear her throat before she could speak.
“I’m not who you think I am.”
“You aren’t Polyxena? But the servants recognize you as their princess.”
“Okay, I want to ask you to listen to me. Just let me say this, and if you start to not believe me because you think it sounds crazy, keep in mind how crazy it sounds that you can be possessed by a monster.”
Achilles frowned at her but said, “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Good. The truth is that this”—Kat gestured down at her body—“is Polyxena, Princess of Troy’s body. But this”—she closed her fist over her heart—“the soul inside the body, doesn’t belong to Polyxena. At least it hasn’t since the day Odysseus came to Hera’s temple.”
“I do not understand.”
“The day I came to you Polyxena and her maidservant, Melia, were killed by Agamemnon’s men as they sacked Hera’s temple. That same day, in another time and another world, I was also killed in an accident, along with my best friend. Venus was watching me, so she grabbed our souls and ended up putting them in Polyxena and Melia’s bodies.” She hurried on before he could say anything. “No, it doesn’t make much sense to me, either. The part I understand the most is that the goddesses wanted me here.” She paused on the verge of admitting to him that she was supposed to keep him out of the war so that Troy could win. But how could she ever tell him that? Kat drew a deep breath. “They wanted me here for you. Athena and Venus and Hera all believe that your fate should be changed, and they think I can help you change it.”
As she spoke, Achilles had become more and more still. He didn’t pull his hand from hers and he didn’t look away from her steady gaze.
“You come from another world?”
“I don’t know if it’s exactly another world, but it is another time. It’s the future.” She managed a little smile. “A really long way in the future—like a couple thousand years or so.”
“And in your future do they know my name?”
“Yes, they do.”
He dropped her hand and stood, turning his back to her. “Then how can you or the goddesses believe my fate can be changed? It has already happened!”
Kat thought about it and found the answer easily. “It’s fiction.”
He turned back to her. “Fiction? Explain.”
“The stories of you and your time are told as fiction in our time—mythology to be specific. Stories that aren’t true—that either never happened, or happened and then were exaggerated over time. Okay, here’s a prime example. In my time people believe that you could have been immortal, you were completely invulnerable, except in your heel. You were struck by an arrow in your heel, which was your downfall.”
“My heel?” He looked down at his very normal-looking foot.
“Your heel,” she repeated. “You’re so famous for it that the tendon that runs behind the ankle,” Kat pushed the bedclothes back from her leg and pointed at the tendon, “is known as the Achilles tendon all over my world.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Exactly my point. Well, unless you tell me that the only way you can actually be killed is to be shot or stabbed or whatever through your heel.”
“The heel isn’t even a vulnerable area of the body. Slice the tendon and a man can usually be defeated because he’s fighting without the use of one leg, but the wound alone won’t kill him.”
“So your heel isn’t invulnerable.”
“No.”
“And you’re not immortal.”
“Of course not.”
“Okay, and how about this—fiction has it that Troy is defeated by a gigantic, hollow horse filled with Greeks. They sneak into the city inside the belly of the fake horse.”
“You jest.”
“I’m serious as a heart attack.”
“But a giant hollow horse is silliness.”
“Again, do you see my point? You and the Trojan War are written about in history, but the facts of your life and the war are mixed up and amplified with myths, so what really happens to you could, in actuality, be much different than the fate written about you.”
“And what is that fate?”
Kat didn’t look away from his piercing blue gaze. “You die here at Troy in this, the last year of the Trojan War.”
