The kid dropped to his feet and shuffled toward the door. While Titus sipped the juice, which tasted like heaven, he watched Callia watch her son. He didn’t need to read minds to know what she was thinking. Her I love you and I don’t know what to do to help you expression was written clearly on her face.
“I’ll be back to sing to you later, smart guy,” Phin said as he pushed up on his long legs and scrubbed a hand through his short dark hair. “And this time I’ll serenade you with my pristine tenor. You want ‘T.N.T.’ or ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’?”
“If you’re gonna come back here and sing, I want a lobotomy.”
Phin winked at Callia. “He’s delirious with excitement.”
Titus’s head fell back against the pillow as Phin headed out the door. “I’m gonna need more drugs. Preferably whatever you gave me before that knocked me out.”
Callia turned and looked down at him, her hands on her slim hips, her eyebrows lifted in amusement. A stethoscope was slung around her neck and a pen was tucked behind her left ear. One he bet she probably forgot she’d put there. “I only gave you enough to keep you asleep during the surgery. With that head wound, I’d prefer not to give you more than you need.”
Surgery. Shit. It really had been bad. No wonder his ribs hurt like hell. “What did you have to do?”
She sat on the side of his bed. He shifted his legs out of the way so she wouldn’t accidentally touch him. “You had a punctured lung, couple of broken ribs, and I had to stitch you up from the inside out. It wasn’t pretty, but the last time I checked, the wounds were healing well. Your superhero Argonaut genes come in handy in a crisis.”
Yeah, no shit. “What about my head?”
“There was some pressure on the left side of your brain. I didn’t want to drain it if I didn’t have to. Now that you’re awake, I think it’s going to be okay.”
Titus nodded and rubbed his fingers through the long hair over the back of his scalp, cringing when he felt the tender bump.
One corner of Callia’s mouth turned up at the edge. “Zander said you’d be pissed if I had to shave your head. You have him to thank that I didn’t.”
Titus lowered his hand. “How’d you get Zander to agree to bring Max to the Misos colony? That’s where we are, right?”
Callia sighed, but this time was careful to guard her thoughts. “He’s not happy with me about that, actually. We argued about it as I was rushing to get here to help you.”
Because Callia was a descendent of the ancient Horae, the goddesses of balance and justice, her son, Max, was a valuable asset in the war between good and evil. While it was a risk for even Callia to be in the human realm, it was an even bigger risk for Max. He’d been taken from Callia and Zander as a baby and raised by Atalanta, the vengeful goddess who had only one goal: to see Argolea and the Argonauts destroyed. The Argonauts had successfully rescued Max from Atalanta’s clutches months ago, and since then he’d been kept safe in Argolea, which was the one realm Atalanta couldn’t access. But Titus knew from being around Zander that things weren’t all rosy at home these days. Max was struggling with the adjustment. And the strain was evident on Callia’s face.
“Zander’s just worried,” Titus said, hoping to ease a little of her anxiety.
“Zander’s right to be worried,” she said. “Every day that goes by, Max is slipping farther and farther away from us. I hoped coming to the colony, where we can keep him safe and he could feel like he was a part of things, would help.” She looked toward the door with longing. “But I guess that was a pipe dream, huh?”
“Callia, I—”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, pushing to her feet and reaching out to squeeze his bare arm. “We’ll all survive.”
A jolt of emotions rippled through Titus, drew him forward on the bed with a gasp, and hurled him back against the mattress with a crack. The cup flew from his hand. Air whooshed out of his lungs as pain encircled his chest and tightened with the force of a boa constrictor.
“Oh my gods, Titus.” Callia immediately let go, stepped back.
The pain dissipated as soon as she released him, and he breathed through clenched teeth as the emotions followed suit.
“You feel, don’t you?” Callia asked in small voice. “I suspected, but I wasn’t sure. That’s why you wear gloves all the time. I am so sorry. I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” he managed to say, even as the residual effects of the transfer left him feeling like a limp noodle. “I’m used to it.”
“All the time?” she asked. “Has there ever been a time when you’ve touched someone and not felt what they feel?”
There had been. Feeling others’ emotions wasn’t part of his gift. It was a curse. A hundred-year-old curse he’d been damned with because of what he’d done.
“Not that I can remember,” he lied, not wanting to talk about it, let alone remember. “Lucky me, huh?”
“Oh, Titus.”
He could handle just about anything except pity. He pushed himself up in the bed. “It’s okay, really. Just”—he managed a weak smile—“don’t do that again.”