What was taking so long?
With one arm wrapped around her waist, Callia chewed on her thumbnail and paced the corridor outside the Council chambers. Her nerves were in high gear. Sickness welled in her stomach. There’d been some kind of commotion in the chamber just after she’d left the room, but Casey hadn’t let her go in and now she was going out of her mind wondering what the hell was happening.
Just when she was ready to plow through the wall to see what was going on, the chamber door pulled open and Titus stepped through the small opening.
He closed the door quickly at his back. Didn’t look happy. If anything, he looked pissed and…seriously disturbed. He moved to stand in front of her, but he didn’t speak.
“Where is Zander?” Callia asked.
“Inside. He can’t…” Titus paused. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to talk to him just yet.”
What the hell did that mean? Callia’s nerves jumped. “Titus, what did my father say in there?”
He looked down at her hands, now hanging by her sides, hesitated, then reached for them. He winced when he touched her, and she remembered the way he’d gone down to his knees in the cave when he’d touched her then. He never touched anyone—not on purpose—so the fact he was initiating contact now sent her anxiety into the out-of-this-world category. “Titus?”
He drew in a deep breath and focused on her hands. “Callia, he made a deal to save your life. You…There were complications during the delivery. He says if he hadn’t done it, you would have died.”
“What kind of deal?”
His eyes came up level with hers. Hazel eyes that saw so much and yet not enough. “Your life for your son’s.”
Her life. One for another. The truth she’d dreaded was real. “So he really is dead.”
“I…”
The unease across his face drew her eyebrows together. “Titus, what?”
“Simon doesn’t know. The child was…alive…when the god left with him. He hasn’t seen either since.”
Her chest squeezed so tight she gasped. Her baby had been alive. He hadn’t died on that Greek mountain, in the middle of an earthquake, as she’d been led to believe. How could she not have known? Why hadn’t she felt it? And what would any god want with her child?
“Who?” she asked. “Who was it?”
“Callia—”
“Don’t placate me, Titus.” She wrenched her hands from his grip. “Tell me who it was.”
His jaw twitched, and she saw in his eyes that he didn’t want to tell her, but finally he said, “Atalanta.”
Her vision turned red and her pulse pounded in her veins. Before he could stop her, she flung the double doors open and spotted her father, still standing in the center of the circle, eyes wide and afraid as she advanced on him.
“Callia,” Titus called at her back. “Wait—”
“Callia,” Simon said, holding his hands up. “Just listen to what I have to say.”
“You son of a bitch. How could you?”
Voices echoed around her. She was aware there were other people in the room and that they were shouting, but she couldn’t make out their words. All she felt was pain. All she saw was betrayal. All she knew was the one person she’d trusted had done the unspeakable.
Arms locked tight around her waist and pulled her back. She struggled, but they were made of steel and unrelenting. The buzz in her head made it hard to hear, but the haze over her vision was dimming, and slowly she realized her father was on his knees, his face red and scratched.
“Calm down, Callia,” Titus hissed in her ear. She zeroed in on her father’s face. She’d hit him. Hard, from the looks of it.
Her father lifted his head. Guilt and remorse reflected deeply in his eyes. “You have to understand, it was the only thing I could do.”
She braced her hands against the arm wrapped around her waist and tried to push free. “You gave my son to a monster!”
Her father shook his head. Dropped it. “I know. I know. But you would have died otherwise. And the child. I thought he was dead.”
“He was alive!”
“I…” He cringed. “I didn’t know that until they left. You have to believe me.”
Disgust roiled through her. Contempt for his words. But as she stared at her father, kneeling on the Alpha seal in the center of the circle with Lucian behind him and all of the Argonauts watching, the red haze dissipated. And her image of him as the honorable and unbreakable lord dissolved too.
Her body still vibrated, but she stopped fighting Titus. He whispered something in her ear, something she didn’t hear, then slowly eased her to the floor. But he didn’t completely let go of her, and from the corner of her eye she saw Theron was holding Zander back in the same way. And she realized that was why he hadn’t come out to talk to her as he’d promised.
“Why?” she asked, focusing on her father once more. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Simon shook his head. “I couldn’t. It was part of the agreement. She put a curse on you that limited your lifespan if I ever uttered a word to you about it.”
She glanced at Zander, who still looked ready to commit murder. Zander was the only other one who’d known she was pregnant, and her father had effectively separated them so no one would know what had happened.
The rage washed out of her, leaving behind pity and disdain.
“Let go of me, Titus,” she mumbled. “I’m not going to attack him again.”
Titus let go and stepped back, but he didn’t go far.
“Why me?” Callia asked her father. “Why my child? The Argonauts have been reproducing for thousands of years. What was so special about my baby?”
Her father sat back on his heels, reached up and rubbed two shaky hands over his face. If it was possible to look more guilty, he did then. But he didn’t answer. And in the silence dread pooled in Callia’s stomach.
“What else aren’t you telling me?” she asked hesitantly.
“I loved your mother,” Simon muttered. “When she died…”
Callia had been only seven when Anna had died. The Royal Healer had succumbed to something as ordinary as pneumonia. And her with a stronger immune system than most. It had never made sense. But looking back, a lot then hadn’t made sense. Something had happened between her parents. Something that had broken Anna’s will to live and tainted their marriage.
She stared into her father’s sad eyes as her mind spun. Why would Atalanta want her son over the hundreds of other Argonaut offspring over the years? Only one answer made sense.
“You’re not my real father, are you?”
Simon’s eyes fell closed. She ignored the pain in his features because right now she didn’t care. Right now there were more important things to discuss.
“Who?” she asked. “Who did she have an affair with?” She glanced around the room. “One of the Argonauts? You’ve hated them for so long. Was that why you didn’t want me to be with Zander?”
Unease churned in her stomach as her gaze settled on Zander, still being restrained by Theron. He was the oldest of the Argonauts, and he had probably known her mother, but her instinct said it hadn’t been him. She glanced at the others. They were all at least two hundred years old. She was only forty. It could be any one of them. It made sense. Argonaut lineage from both sides. Would that give a child enhanced powers?
“I…” Her father’s broken voice pulled her attention his way again. He sniffled. Swiped his forearm over his face. “If Anna hadn’t been a healer, none of this would have happened.”
Callia froze. And links, connections, threads she’d had no idea were entwined became crystal clear. The skin on the back of her neck, right at the base of her hairline, tingled.
She ran her fingers up under her hair, over the marking Lena had pointed out when she’d been at the colony. The one that was oddly…like the one on Isadora’s thigh.