Braving Fate (The Mythean Arcana 1)

Cadan strode down the wide hallway, the figures in the paintings on the wall glaring at him as he stalked past.

Space. He just needed some space. The lassie was going to be a problem. Her presence was a force he hadn’t felt in nearly two thousand years and seeing her had been like a punch to the gut. This new version of Boudica could really fuck with his equilibrium.

He tore off his shirt and threw it against the wall as he stalked into the empty workout room that the Praesidium kept for guardians. Various pieces of workout equipment were scattered around the space, but it was the tear-shaped punching bag hanging from the ceiling that caught his eye.

Frustration was best exorcised in physical activity. And if it couldn’t be exorcised between the sheets, which it could not, it’d have to be here, beating the hell out of something to help repress the memory of her struggling beneath him. The thought made sweat break out on his skin and his palms itch to touch her again.

He laid into the punching bag. She was not an option. Two thousand years ago, his love for Boudica had distracted him and he hadn’t been able to protect her. She’d died. In the cold and the dirt. When she recovered her memory of that, she’d blame him for his failure. She’d be right to. Worse, he’d be that much closer to losing her.

No, damn it, he’d lost her long ago. Best to accept it.

He hit the punching bag harder, causing the last of the screws to come loose and the bag to bounce off the nearby wall. Shite.

“What’d that bag ever do to you?” The voice came from behind him at the open door. Warren. “Want to spar? You’ve killed the damn thing.”

Perfect. Just what he needed—someone to hit him back. He swung around to face his friend, who stood in the open door of the big room. “Aye, all right then.” He hopped lightly up and down, rolling his head to loosen up.

Warren stepped onto the floor mat that roughly marked the sparring area of the gym. They started off circling each other, looking for the best opening. They’d been doing this for centuries, and though he knew Warren’s few weaknesses and many strengths, he could never tell when something might be off one day that would give him an edge.

“How’d it go, bringing Diana in?”

“Diana’s her name? Figures. Classic, like she looks.”

“Just heard it from Lea. So, she fancy you?” Warren threw a low punch at his ribs, his fist fast and almost accurate.

Cadan dodged it and barked out a bitter laugh. “Nay. She was too busy screaming and running or whimpering and cowering.”

He grimaced at the memory of her looking at him as though he were the same as the demons who had chased her across Edinburgh. What the hell had made Boudica’s soul choose the small redhead? Boudica had been an excellent strategist, but you wouldn’t know it by her choice of Diana for her next life. Hell, did Boudica even get to choose? Or was it just fate that had made Diana a reincarnate? He had no idea, but whatever she’d been reborn to accomplish, Diana wasn’t nearly strong enough to do it.

“Huh. Well, I guess you canna expect her to be exactly like Boudica,” Warren said as he landed a punch to Cadan’s cheek that made lights burst behind his eyelids.

Aye, she was nothing like what he’d expected. From her lithe form and rounded curves to her fine features, she was nothing like the woman that he had known. Boudica had been magnificent—strong and tall, beautiful in a harsh way. Her passion and dogged commitment had shone like a beacon, drawing those around her to her cause.

The woman he’d just rescued was a mouse. A delicate, intriguing mouse, but a cowering mouse nonetheless. Despite the difference, something deep within him had recognized her. It had clutched at his insides and been impossible to ignore. It made him want, but his world would eat her alive unless he could keep his cock in his pants and his mind on protecting her.

“Have you heard anything new? This is worse than it seems, isn’t it?” he asked Warren.

When Warren had said that the tragedy that haunted Boudica’s first life could follow her to this one, he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Hell, he still didn’t want to believe it.

But after seeing three demons stalking her, he didn’t have a choice. Tragedy, that spectral wraith with the crimson claws, had most certainly stalked Boudica in life. And now Boudica had returned, destined to perish. Yet again.

What the hell was his withered heart supposed to do with that? Fate was a bastard. It gave him back the love of his life, twisted into a totally different person, and then threatened to take her away almost immediately.

“Aye, Cadan, someone like Boudica isn’t reborn for a picnic. That’s why she has to remember who she was as soon as possible.”

“Gods damn it.” That’s what he was afraid of. He didn’t want her to remember the horror of that night. To have to suffer that pain again.

To suffer with her. Her suicide had broken him. She’d left him. With one quick plunge of the knife, she’d just left. It had taken centuries to get over her. He’d vowed to himself that he’d never fall for a woman like that again, and he hadn’t. Whenever the loneliness became too much, or he’d just wanted to lose himself in someone else, it was easy to find someone for the night. But it ended there.

And now she was back. He couldn’t let the past repeat itself. He was supposed to be able to protect his woman, and his failure two thousand years ago had been eating at him like a poison.

“You still care for her, do you no’?”

“Nay.” Losing his heart to her again was not an option. He wouldn’t survive losing her again. Oh, his body would, but the rest of him wouldn’t. His soul and mind would be done.

Warren’s brow scrunched, and seeing his opportunity, Cadan delivered a punch to his jaw that made Warren stumble backward.

Warren shook the pain away. “Good, so I suppose you doona mind if I have a go? Even terrified out of her mind, she was a looker.”