Liam’s body curved against my back, warming me under the cool satin sheet. He kissed my shoulder and stroked my hair.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Good.” Loved. Peaceful. Strong. My mind couldn’t settle on one emotion before another overwhelming rush of feelings swooped in and replaced the previous.
“The men are probably looking for the Stians now. They took your attack personally. To come so near our home was a slap in the face. To allow an attack on you, knowing Odin watches over you, was a failure on our part. We all failed and he is aware. The ravens followed the body to the cemetery. I don’t think they were finished.”
“I wish he wasn’t in the cemetery. I love that place.” I wouldn’t go there again.
“We had to work quickly. The cemetery seemed the obvious choice for body disposal. Oliver is with Justin, making a nuisance of himself, finding excuses to never leave. Justin’s too polite to insist he go.” He chuckled against my skin.
“Thank you for keeping him safe.”
Liam rolled me onto my back. “I will do anything for you.”
His words settled in my heart. My skin tingled and the sensation of weightlessness overcame me. Liam played with my hair. His pale green eyes softened me.
“Your eyes never went all glow in the dark Viking on me. Why?” Instinct said I didn’t excite him enough to elicit the response. Logic doused the idea. So many things about him confused me.
“For Vikings, the glow is a warning that says we’re provoked, excited or ready for action. I’m changing, I think.”
“Justin’s eyes are blue. Will they change?”
“No. The green glow is universal regardless of human eye color.”
“Okay.” Noted. Nerves itched through my chest. “You said you think you’re changing? How?”
“I feel the power tingling my skin, but I’m in control.” He placed a fist against his stomach. “The power is part of me, instead of in charge of me, when I’m with you.”
“Victoria said love strengthens you.” I smiled. “Maybe I make some things better.”
He ran his fingers through my wild hair. “You make me better. There’s so much to learn about you. I think we should spend an excessive amount of time together.”
I laughed. “Don’t pressure me.”
Something he’d said earlier came to mind. “Downstairs, you told the others you were the original three. Why do they think you’re stronger than them, even without indulging in combat and women?” I smiled. How much stronger was Liam tonight?
He shifted his weight. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“This is not a surprise. I’ll be mad later.” I forced my mind to stay open, but the urge to get dressed and never look back itched in my limbs.
“Oliver, Mason, and I are Nike’s nephews. We are the firstborn sons of her brothers.”
“Of course you are.” I rolled my eyes. He was something more than any other guy I’d ever met. That was evident the moment I saw him. I had no idea how much more until recently, but from the start, I’d known. Watching the Vikings downstairs and on their lawn, it was evident Liam was something more than them, too. The others looked at him with reverence. I’d assumed the difference was Liam’s status as Guardian or Watcher.
“That’s why you guys are saddled with keeping the balance?”
“Yes. I am Bia’s son. Mason is Kratos’s son and Oliver is of Zelus. What we do as Watchers is staggering. The world is big. Watching for new Vikings is an impossible task, especially with only three Hales left. The balance is skewed, and I don’t know how to right it. Maybe the leader will emerge soon and aid us in our role in the hierarchy.”
“How much more don’t I know about you? I changed my mind. How old are you? Be specific.”
“We are eternal.”
“Oldie.”
“Yes. There’s plenty I don’t know about you, too. See this?” He stretched a long wavy piece of hair between us. “I thought your hair was straight.”
“My hair is ridiculous.” I raked my fingers through my hair, assessing the size of missing patches. “I hope a ponytail can cover the missing pieces. I can’t explain those to Mom without sounding like I’m on drugs.”
“Let me see.” He shoved masses of swollen hair around my head. I hadn’t ironed it since before school. Humidity from the pool, the rubber swim cap, and a roll in the sheets had set the crazy free.
“Callie.” Liam shot upright, taking the sheets with him.
“Hey!” Cold air smacked my bare skin.
He jumped out of bed and shoved his legs into jeans before leaving the room.
“Where are you going? Jeez. Is my hair that bad?” I rubbed my head and pulled strands into view. If this scared him, he should see it after it air dried.
“What are you doing?” I snagged his shirt off the floor and pulled it over my head. Liam returned with a mirror taller and wider than him. The dark frame and gilded edges looked heavy. “That thing has to weigh two hundred pounds.”
“Never mind that. Come here.” He leaned the giant mirror against his wall and darted into the bathroom. This time he returned with a hand mirror. “Look.”
I examined our reflections in the mirror. Liam without a shirt, pants undone. Me in his shirt and nothing more. “We look like the cover of a romance novel.”
He smacked a kiss on the top of my head. Excitement lit his face. “Thank you.”
I slapped his crazy distracting abs.
“Look at your hair.”
“It’s hideous. I look like those goofy nymphs out back.” Those girls loved the tight jeans and windblown look. I gagged.
He gripped my waist and moved behind me, resting his chin on my head. “Look again.”
I sighed. He looked like a giant. I looked like the happiest girl on the planet.
“Here.” He pushed a mass of hair over the top of my head. “Look right here.” I pushed the hair apart with my fingers. Liam repositioned the smaller mirror until I had a clear view of the bald spot.
A gasp tore through me. I walked closer to the big mirror and dug into my hair, trying to get a better look at the place where Odin’s ravens had yanked my hair out when they’d saved my behind. Thin white lines curled on the skin beneath my hair.
“Where did it come from? Is it because we….” I shot Liam a meaningful look.
“You think I did this? Our bodies joined and my runes spread?” He smiled.
“I don’t know. I’m confused on a twenty-four/seven basis. Do you know how that feels? I was the smart kid before you came along. Why are you happy? What does this mean? Please explain it to me as if I’m a child so I have a prayer of understanding.”
His arms snaked around my waist and locked over my tummy. “This is why you see the runes. I’d ask how you’ve never seen your mark before, but I think the answer is clear.” He mussed my wild hair.
“Stop.” I swatted his hands. “I’m a Viking?”
“Ha! No. You’re a nymph.”
“What?” Images of the nymphs outside crunched my nose. “Am not.”
“This”—he tapped my little bald spot—“is a symbol I’ve seen used in conjunction with one nymph in particular.” His hand slid down my arm to entwine our fingers. “Come.”
I jogged along beside his enormous stride to a set of sliding doors on the other side of the second floor. He pressed them apart and urged me inside. Books lined the walls on floor to ceiling shelves of cherry-stained wood. Precarious stacks of dusty tomes filled the desk and windowsills. Liam dragged a cushioned chair to me. “Here. Sit.”
“I feel like we need clothes for this.” I tucked the edge of his shirt under my legs and dropped into the chair. The house was quiet, but with fifty Vikings staying there, it wouldn’t be quiet long. If anyone returned and saw us as we were, they’d know my secret. I’d planned on telling Allison about my night with Liam before the Vikings.
Liam laid a giant book across my lap. The pages were yellow at the edges and it smelled dry and dusty, like an attic. Gold letters scrolled over the open pages. “Calypso, a water nymph.” The rune from my head was positioned below the words. A picture of a woman with wild hair, wearing a white flowing robe filled the opposite page. Below her image was a small picture of a man, Hermes.
My tongue swelled in my mouth. A strangled sound escaped.
“You are special. Victoria hinted at as much but wouldn’t answer my questions directly. Everything she said was convoluted, like dealing with The Fates.” He paced the floor in bare feet. It was the most animated I’d ever seen him, and I couldn’t breathe.
“This is incredible news, Callie.” He knelt before me and gripped my thighs. “You’re a water nymph. Ha! Of course you are. There’s hope now. You’re far more durable than any human. We have a chance.” The sparkle in his eyes awed me, but he didn’t see what I saw.
I hefted the book into the air and positioned the drawing of Calypso beside my head. I shook my hair loose from behind my ears.
“Great Zeus!” Liam grabbed the book from my hand and turned his gaze on it. His pale green eyes jumped between the image on the page and my face. His shoulders slumped. “You are her heir.” Excitement drained from his voice.
“There’s more.”
His eyes stretched wider, as if I had the secret to the universe. I didn’t.
“My name is Calypso. I thought I was named after Calypso music. Mom said Bio Mom looked foreign and had an accent she couldn’t place. I thought she was from New Orleans or the Bahamas or something.”
“She named you Calypso? Callie is short for Calypso.” He rubbed his face with both palms. “Your mom kept this name, why?”
“It was all I had of Bio Mom. My mom tried to give me some history, but she didn’t know anything about Bio Mom. I bet this was why she had all those mythology books. She recognized the name and planned to tell me about it until she got weirded out. What if Bio Mom looked like her?” I tapped the drawing of Calypso.
I pulled in another deep breath. “There’s more.”
Liam’s jaw dropped open. “Tell me.”
“This is Coach Larsen from Tennessee Temple University. I knew he didn’t look like the guy on the Internet.” I tapped the smaller picture of Hermes in the bottom corner.
Liam sat on the floor, crossing his legs in front of him. “You’re the child she bore in secret. You’re the daughter of a punished nymph and the god of transitions and boundaries. You are the granddaughter of Zeus. Holy shit.”
“What’s the god of transitions and boundaries mean?” Granddaughter of Zeus, I had to think about another time. One heart-stopping revelation at a time was enough.
A dark chuckle rose. “It means he moves freely between the worlds of god and man.”
“Yep.”
Liam looked up with large, sad eyes. “This changes everything.”
“No.” I shook my head, throwing hair into my face. I wrangled wads of loose waves and hooked them around my ears. “Nothing’s changed. We have hope, remember? This is good. I’m durable.” Somehow. I wasn’t human. That was nuts, but okay, rolling with this twist. My head bobbed in acceptance. I could stay with Liam.
“The woman who delivered you at your mom’s house was likely injured escaping other Vikings.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Your mother delivered Calypso’s child. She protected a goddess.” He dropped his hand. “Someone recognized her, knew the soul she carried. I’m guessing the Stians are here now for you. I assumed the three dead girls were meant to anger the clans, but now I see the Stians are looking for you. It explains why they’ve let Justin live.”
“You said it wouldn’t serve them to kill him.”
He shrugged. Guilt riddled his face. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“That was a rotten thing to do, Liam.”
“What could you do besides put yourself in danger? We have Justin under surveillance. He’s reasonably safe.”
I narrowed my eyes. “My friends who died in grade school. We shared a birthday.”
Liam’s mouth turned down at the corners. He understood what I couldn’t say. “Someone knew Calypso went to the hospital that night. They didn’t see her leave.”
I covered my lips. “They knew she’d have a girl and there were only three born that day.”
“Only two on hospital record.”
“Who cares about me anyway?” My voice cracked. “This book is huge and I’m not even in there. Calypso has two pages out of a thousand and there’s no mention of a secret love child with Hermes.” I pushed the loss of my friends to the back of my mind. My head was quickly reaching capacity, and given the chance, I’d wallow in my misery over their fate.
“I’m sure Hermes”—he barked a laugh—“your father, arranged it this way to protect you.”
“I’m a reincarnated version of myself?” Things were getting more complicated by the second.
“Yes. We all are, if you think about it.”
I wouldn’t. Not now.
“Why do you think the other Vikings want to kill me? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Remember when I told you the nymph prophecies say a nymph will rule with the marked Viking? He is the heir of a great warrior and she is the heir of a great nymph. What greater nymph is there than the offspring of Calypso and Hermes? If they kill you, they end the prophecy. They want you dead for the same reason we thought they’d wanted Justin dead.”
Liam’s sulky face returned. “You love him because you are destined to love him.”
I blinked, working through the massive amounts of information, translating his thoughts and words to something I understood. The notion clicked and fire raged in me.
“I’m not destined to love him any other way than I do now.” I dropped to the floor where Liam sat. “Not like this. I’m destined for you. No one else. My bizarre, and frankly unbelievable, lineage is proof. You are my future.” I pressed my palms to his face and climbed into his lap, curling my ankles behind his back. “Do you hear me, Liam Hale, you stubborn, brooding man? You’re the only Viking I’ll ever love. Ever kiss. Ever touch. You own a piece of me now. Nothing can change that.” I kissed his eyelids and traced the runes on his bare chest with my fingertips.
“How can we defy fate?” His eyebrows lifted in an expression of hope.
“Like this.” I stripped away his borrowed shirt and pressed my body to his.
He growled, kissing me with unexpected fervor. “How did I not see you were a nymph?” His lips ran over my ears and jaw, stirring a pool of fire in my middle. “I’m powerless in your presence.”
“Then stop telling me my destiny. I choose my destiny. You.” I adjusted my position in his lap and enjoyed his response.
Liam lay back on the wide planked floor and pulled me down with him. “I knew you were bossy from the moment I saw you.”
“Obey my commands.” I returned his kisses. “Remove these jeans at once.”
“Yes, ma’am.”