Page 45 of Prometheus' Priestess

Blinking her eyes open, she began to scrounge around, looking for anything to take the edge off a headache that had just got infinitely worse.

“Paracetamol will do the trick.” She hiccupped and murmured to herself.

That was the last thing she remembered before waking up inthe bright lights of a hospitalbed.

She’d never been in a hospital before, but this one didn’t seem like the ones she’d seen on TV. For starters, it seemed to be a private room, with curtains on the window to her left and against the window at the foot of her bed. There was also achest of drawers with a vase full of sunflowers at the foot of her bed. The room smelt nice, not at all like disinfectant. The only reason she knew she was in a hospital of any kind was because she was in a gown with a plastic tagaroundher wrist noting her full name and the time she had been checked in: 1 a.m.

Holding the hand that was attached to that braceleted wrist was a dishevelled Theo, whose bloodshot eyes said he hadn’t slept at all. Not that Amarafelt like she’d slept. Her head was heavy and groggy, her throat drier than sandpaper. Her stomach and ribs felt bruised. She felt more like she’d been beaten up rather than taken care of.

“Wh—” Amara tried to clear her throat and felt like shark skin was shredding her vocal cords. Theo lifted an ice chip to her lips, which she gratefully accepted, letting the cold water soothe her, before trying again. “Whathappened?”

Theo’s eyes glanced back down. He couldn’t even look at her.

“I know you said to not come back, but I wasn’t going to abandon you when I’d emotionally ambushed you like that. That’s on me. All this is on me. You hearme?”

“What are you talkingabout?”

His calloused thumb began stroking her own and it reminded her of hours earlier, inthe café, still as equally soothing in gesture as it was irritating in texture.

“When I came by, the door was unlocked. When there was no answer, I was worried. And when I found you in the bathroom barely breathing ... I had no choice but to call the ambulance. They brought you here, pumped your stomach and are currently rehydrating you.” Theo pointed with his free hand to the IV drip on the other side of Amara’s bed that she hadn’t even noticed.

“Oh God,” Amara hung her head and tried to pull back her hand to hide her face in shame but Theo wasn’t letting go.

“It’s on me, my love, not you. Never you. I should have never left you to do thisalone.”

Amara didn’t understand what he meant, her brain still foggy. She continued to refuse to look at him until he cupped the side of her head in one of those huge hands and stroked her hair.

“It was my fault. I won’t abandon you again, ever.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she whispered as she turned her head away and fell back into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER XXIV

Prometheus had proven true to his word. He had wooed Amara with trips to all the local haunts initially, walking her back through their short history together. Reinforcing the memories. He had even taken her to the tartan shop that specialised in clans of old, only for the pair of them to find it had been closed for severalmonths.

It had been a ploy, he admitted to himself. An easy out for him if Amara could discover her lineage for herself. And while she had been disappointed, Amara had still remained hopeful.

“There’ll be other stores and answers out there somewhere. I have faith,” she told him gently, taking his hand and leading him away from the emptystorefront.

It reminded him of what she had told him the first time they had met, when she’d still been in her immortal form. Her resilience, her level of faith, after all the goddesses … after whathehad put her through, despite the fact her alchemy continued to elude her, floored him. The fact that she had also given him a chance to prove himself, hesitant as she was that he meant it, told him that she wanted to believe him a man worthy of her faith.Hewanted to believe himself worthy ofher.

Everyone who had become acquainted with Amara’s world soon became acquainted with him too, particularly the regulars at the café. The mothers with their prams swooned over him, though he never offered them more than a courteous smile, his eyes clearly for Amara. Rhonda and Bessie cooed over him too, and for them he would make time to sit with them as they regaled him with stories of their youth. When he would finally excuse himself, always after a respectable amount of time, they would turn to Amara and remark on what a wonderful man he was, which always caused her to smile. As if she was not aware.

“Oh, dear, we forgot to tell you,” Bessie said one day as Prometheus and Amara had joined their table. “We showed that tartan of yours to one of the historian enthusiasts in our prayer circle and she recognisedit!”

Prometheus and Amara both sat up to attention. Amara leaned forward expectantly.

“Did she know where it wasfrom?”

“Yes, she did! She said it was old Caledonian. What did she say that was? Oh yes, what the ancient Greeks called Scotland. She said your lineage must be of the ancestors ofold.”

“Oh,” Amara replied, a look of puzzlement on her face. Prometheus could tell it hadn’t been the answer she was expecting. In fact, it just left more questions.

“Of course, there’s not much left on the knowledge of the ancestors before the ancestors …” Rhonda chimed in, oblivious to Amara’s reaction. But Prometheus knew well what it was like to be of ancestry forgotten.

“If there are more questions there will be more answers,” he told her, reading those questions in hereyes.

“You’re right,” she said, shaking off the disappointment and smiling brightly. It didn’t quite reach her eyes but the two ladies didn’t notice. They were too busy cooing over how well matched Theo and Amara were.

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