Warrior Rising (Goddess Summoning #6)(46)

“Where did the berserker come from before he cursed your life?”

“Zeus,” Achilles said. “He sent the berserker when I made my choice. First he offered a long, happy life filled with the love of a fine woman and the respect of my family and friends. I would die of old age and my fame would mean naught but to my family.”

“That sounds like an amazing future. Many people would give almost anything to know that their lives would be fulfilled by love and family,” Kat said.

“I took the second choice. I chose a short, but glorious life of constant battle. I will die on the battlefield before the great walls of Troy shortly after the death of your noble brother, Hector. My life will be bereft of love. No children will carry the burden of my blood in their veins. But even without those things, my name will be remembered in all parts of the civilized world for thousands of years to come.”

Kat didn’t say anything. What could she say? You made a crappy, immature decision. She didn’t need to say anything like that. It was already more than obvious that the mature Achilles—the man he’d grown into—knew deep in his soul that the childlike version of him had made a serious mistake.

“Which one would you have chosen, Princess?”

* * *

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Achilles’ question threw her off guard. Kat wasn’t used to being asked the “if you could change your life decisions would you” questions. She was the shrink. She did the asking. She glanced up at the scarred warrior walking beside her. He was waiting attentively for her answer, as if it truly mattered to him.

“It’s different for girls,” she said, trying to reason through her answer and be as honest with him as possible. “If someone had given my teenage self the choice you were given it wouldn’t have been any choice at all. I didn’t want to be a great warrior.” She smiled at him. “I still don’t. But had I been given the choice between… say…” Kat paused, considering. “Well, between your first choice, which was basically to have a happy life fulfilled by all the normal things: marriage, family, home, blah, blah, or to have something heart-stopping, breathtaking and utterly ridiculously romantic. Like maybe a torrid, passionate love affair with someone who was completely taboo but whose love would flame forever in my soul even if it burned me out when I was still young.” Kat clutched her hands over her bosom dramatically and gave an exaggerated sigh, which made Achilles chuckle. “I probably would have taken the ridiculous romantic choice, and then regretted it when I grew the hell up.”

“You would regret love?”

“Fire-hot passion with someone because he’s off-limits isn’t love; it’s a little girl’s fairy tale idea of love. Plus now that I’m a grown woman I know that it’s possible to have both if you choose wisely.”

“Both?”

“Yeah, you can have a fiery passion for someone that can actually last, and he doesn’t have to be the bad boy Mommy wouldn’t let you date. It has to be the kind of fire that is fed with reality—as in communication and respect and such—versus the fantasy of…” She hesitated, wanting to refer to Romeo and Juliet, and finally finished with, “the fantasy of love, or rather lust, at first sight.” She looked up at him to see if she’d totally lost her audience, but he was still watching her with an intent, curious expression on his scarred face. “It’s a little like the fact that you could have had both, too.”

“Explain.”

His abrupt tone said Kat might have pushed too far, but she figured there was no going back now…

“You’re an amazing warrior and a great leader without the berserker. In just the couple of days I’ve been here I’ve seen you stand up to the king of an entire nation, lead your men, who follow you with complete loyalty, and beat four warriors at the same time. You did all of that without the berserker.”

Achilles didn’t speak for several moments, and when he did his voice was hollow with regret. “It is not possible to turn back the wheel of time.”

“Yeah, guess not…” Kat said as a vision of the queen of Olympus played through her mind.

Kat quickly decided missing running water and the Internet was nothing compared to not having grocery stores. True to his word, Achilles had tossed the bass at the feet of Aetnia and barked an order at her to cook it before he muttered something about “seeing to Odysseus” and striding away, leaving Kat frowning at his broad back and trying to ignore the dead fish eyes.

Aetnia, of course, instantly jumped to, grabbing the fish and hurrying off to do whatever it is one did to real fish to get them filleted and ready for the deli case and eventually the skillet.

“I need a drink,” Kat said. And before she could so much as enter Achilles’ tent in hopes that the pitcher of wine had been refilled, another maidservant seemed to magically materialize at her side, offering a goblet full of a lovely red. “Oh, thanks!” Kat smiled at her.

The young woman blushed and bobbled a sweet curtsey. “Anything for you, Princess!” Then she retreated back across the little clearing that separated Achilles’ tent from the others and joined a group of women who were sitting together mending what looked from the distance like articles of clothing while they threw her curious glances and whispered among themselves.

Kat sighed and sat on the bench beside Achilles’ tent. Well, she was playing princess. That probably meant that she shouldn’t go over to the group of women and try to make friends. She wasn’t a mythology expert, but that didn’t mean she was utterly a moron about ancient history. Nobility didn’t mix with servants. Period. That was already more than obvious by the way the women were reacting to Jacky’s new, outspoken persona. Clearly Polyxena was the only noble war-prize bride in the Myrmidon camp. Logically if there were others, they would have shown up to commiserate. The smartest thing to do would be to keep as low a profile as possible and stay away from the other women, avoiding unanswerable questions as well as escape plots.