Warrior Rising (Goddess Summoning #6)(58)

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.”