Page 83 of Deathless
He lunged forward, and Mila pivoted, bringing her sword around in a defensive arc that would have worked against a real threat. Zeus caught the wooden blade in his palm and smiled.
"Better. Your footwork is improving."
My hands had gone numb on the pistol grip. Beside me, Jasper held the katana two-handed. The sutured shoulder had to be screaming, but he stood rigid, every tendon pulled taut, staring at Mila like the floor had opened under him.
Zeus looked up at us over Mila's shoulder. "Ah," he said. "We have guests."
Mila spun around, raising the wooden sword. She stilled as she looked from Jasper's blade to the blood on both of us to the pistol in my hand.
Then she looked at my face.
The wooden sword clattered to the floor.
"Diego!"
She ran straight at me and I barely had time to shove my pistol into my waistband before she hit me. She locked her arms around my waist and pressed her face into my stomach, and held on.
I hovered over her, hands suspended above her head. She'd dropped her weapon and run to me. After a week with Zeus, after everything, she'd run to me.
Jasper's breath caught behind me, something low that he swallowed before it became anything. I'd slept beside this man for weeks. I knew every noise he made in the dark.
"Pequeña," I managed. The word scraped out wrecked.
She pulled back just enough to look up at me. She studied the blood on my side, the torn fabric, the bandage taped across my ribs. "You're hurt."
"I'm okay."
"You're bleeding." She turned to Jasper and ran the same assessment, top to bottom, the way she'd scanned threats at the farmhouse. "You're both bleeding."
"We had a rough trip," I said. I settled my torn-up hands on her shoulders. She was solid under my palms. She was here. "But we're okay."
She stiffened against me and turned back toward Zeus.
Zeus stood slowly and brushed off his knees. "It's alright, Eight. They're not here to hurt you." He looked at me. "Are you, Diego?"
"No," I said. I held her tighter. "Never."
"Patéras said you'd come," Mila said. She twisted her fingers in my shirt. "He said you'd think I needed rescuing."
The wordPatérashit me like a fist to the sternum. She'd never called me anything. No tío Diego, no warmth when she said my name. But she called ZeusPatéraslike it came naturally. Like it had always been true.
I glanced at Jasper. The color had drained out of his face. He stood rigid with the katana, and I could read the hit in every locked joint, every white knuckle. She called someone else father, and he stood there and took it.
"Do you?" I asked her. "Need rescuing?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked at Zeus, then back at me. "I don't know."
The honest answer would have broken her. So I just held on and kept my mouth shut.
Zeus moved to stand beside her. He rested his hand on her shoulder, and she leaned into the contact, a reflex she carried in her body without knowing it.
"Why don't we all sit down?" Zeus said. "You're both bleeding. We should tend to those wounds before we continue this conversation."
Jasper hadn't moved. The katana hung at his side, and Mila stood close enough to touch, but he kept still, like one wrong step would send her running. She kept her fingers in my shirt.
"Eight," Zeus started.
"Mila," Jasper said, low and rough.
