Secret Worlds (276 page)

She kissed his hands. She looked up at him, her expression vulnerable. “You love me, right? Not Boudica? I couldn’t bear to fight for a love I can’t get.”

She thought she was unloved? “Diana, you are loved. I love you, more than I ever loved anyone else, more than my own soul.” He pressed one hard kiss to her mouth. “She was special to me, and she brought me to you. But I didn’t know what love was then.
You
taught me that.”

She smiled up at him, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“You were right,” he said. “What we had then was strong, but neither of us was ready to truly love. She, because of her daughters and her cause, and I, because I hadn’t met you yet.”

The smile she gave him was brilliant. When he looked down at her, he saw a future that he’d never known to hope for. But an errant thought sucked the breath from him. She was
mortal.
How long could she possibly live? He couldn’t survive losing her again.

“Diana, doona worry, we’ll find a way to make you immortal like me. And if no’, when you die, so will I.”

She looked at him quizzically. “When I die, you will, too?”

“I’ll find a way.” That, he was absolutely certain of. There would be no more penance with the Mythean Guard, and there would be no more life without her. It would be with her, or it wouldn’t be at all.

“You won’t have to.” She reached up to stroke his cheek and he leaned into her hand. “Because of the strength of my soul, Andrasta gave me the option of the same type of immortality that you have. I want to be with you, so I took it.”

Hope blossomed within him, a light that he hadn’t felt in millennia. “Really?”

“Of course. It was no decision at all.”

A grin spread across his face. It had been an impossible situation, yet Diana had managed it. “All right, then—let’s get out of here. We’ve got some living to do.”

Boudica is the historical figure who most captivated me from a young age. She was brave, strong, and she fought against incredible odds. Her story stuck in my mind for years. It was only natural that she become the heroine of
Braving Fate.
I wanted to create a world where Boudica could have a happy ending. The only way to do that without messing with history too much was to bring her back through reincarnation and give her the life she deserved. If you’re interested in learning which history I portrayed accurately and where I outright lied to improve the story, please read on…

Boudica was one of Britain’s greatest warriors. Most of what I said about her is true according to archaeology and history (take this with a grain of salt—scholars do their best to learn the truth about the past, but some of it is always shrouded in fog). One place that I fudged a bit was the fate of her daughters. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, when the Romans attacked Boudica’s kingdom following the death of her husband Prasutagus, they whipped Boudica and raped her daughters. This does not happen to her daughters in
Braving Fate
. Instead, I had the Romans killed them outright. I made this decision because it suited the story better. Also, I invented the names of her daughters, as they were not recorded by history. Aela and Calea, however, are Celtic names.

Boudica waged a year-long campaign across Britain. She united several Celtic kingdoms and succeeded in destroying several Roman settlements. She nearly evicted the Romans. The fate of her campaign, and of the Romans’ endeavors in Britain, relied upon the final battle mentioned in this book. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon how you look at it, she failed and died shortly thereafter.

There are two theories about Boudica’s death. Tacitus states that she poisoned herself, while the Roman historian Cassius Dio writes that she died of illness. Suicide suited the Boudica of
Braving Fate
. Would her fate have been as I described it had she been captured by the Romans? I wouldn’t be surprised, as I borrowed that fate from France’s Celtic hero Vercingetorix.

As for her enemy, Gaius Seutonius Paullinus? He actually survived the battle. However, he didn’t have a son that he brought onto the battlefield with him. We can also assume that he didn’t do any of the crazy stuff that I said he did in Erebus.

Cadan Trinovante is not a historic figure. However, the Celtic Trinovante kingdom was located to the south of the Iceni kingdom and was one of the kingdoms that joined Boudica in her revolt. Cadan is a Celtic name, and Cadan has carried his kingdom’s name as his surname. His village, Camulodunum, was real and was destroyed by the Romans. In an interesting twist of fate that did not make it into the book, the Boudica of history attacked the newly built Roman fort at Camulodunum during her year-long attack of Roman forts.

I had the hardest time deciding on a place to spur Diana’s memory about her past. I settled on Verulamium, which was a Roman fort during Boudica’s time and is located near Watling Street, one place that historians believe may have been the location of her final battle. Boudica destroyed this Roman settlement while attempting to evict the Romans from Britain, though Diana doesn’t yet make the connection with Boudica when she sees Verulamium because she doesn’t think she could possibly be one of Britain’s most famous warriors.

Finally, Andrasta and the Celtic gods of Otherworld. Andrasta was Boudica’s patron goddess and the Icenic goddess of victory. She is one of hundreds of Celtic gods from dozens of kingdoms and tribes. However, the Celts weren’t one people in one place at one time. Rather, they were a culture that originated in central Europe and spread out to encompass most of Europe and the British Isles during the first millennium B.C. They spoke many languages and worshiped many gods, but were linked by their material culture and advanced use of metalwork. They were known to the Romans and the Greeks as great warriors.

Soulceress, Book 2 in the Mythean Arcana Series

A man desperate to save his soul and a woman forced to live as a renegade must team up to fight a deadly battle, one in which choices will be made and secrets revealed that could tear them apart.

http://www.amazon.com/Soulceress-Mythean-Arcana-Book-2-ebook/dp/B00O4CPOUQ/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Before becoming a romance novelist, Linsey Hall was a nautical archaeologist who studied shipwrecks from Hawaii and the Yukon to the UK and the Mediterranean. She credits the historical romances of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s with her love of history and her career as an archaeologist. After a decade of tromping around the globe in search of old bits of stuff that people left lying about, she settled down and started penning her own romance novels. Her debut series, the Mythean Arcana, draws upon her love of history and the paranormal elements that she can’t help but include.

www.LinseyHall.com

“I’m not going.”

I carefully lowered the mascara brush from near my eye lash to avoid a black nose and glanced at my roommate Serenity, now leaning against the bathroom door. Her tanned legs were bare except for a pair of pajama shorts, and she stood with her arms crossed in over her Dallas Cowboys t-shirt. Despite the fact the team hadn’t won a SuperBowl in almost two decades, she still clung to her fandom. She always did love an underdog.

“You have to.” I widened my eyes and gave her a pleading expression. “You can’t just abandon me with all those tech heads. I’ll have no idea what they are talking about.”

Her rich, husky chuckle bounced off the blue tile walls. “You’ll be fine, Cassi.”

“No, I won’t. This project is a chance that we can have something classish together.”

“Classish? Is that even a word?” She shook her head, and mahogany hair cascaded over her shoulders in a tumbled mess.

“I’m a writer. I can make words up.” I waved my hand dismissively. “Besides, you’re avoiding. Why now? You were so excited about this.”

Her brown eyes narrowed at me, and her jaw was set with her pouty lips pressed together. “That’s before I realized Mercer Chaplin would be overseeing this.”

I sighed, and my insides tingled just at the thought of his picture. “That was a surprise. A good one. You can get some guidance from one of the Social Media geniuses of our age.”

“That’s more of what you want,” Serenity said. “I’d be fine without anything from him.”

“Why not? He’s fascinating. Only twenty-nine and he’s one of the biggest names in the industry. This is our chance to get some bonus points before we get thrown out into the world.”

“I don’t want bonus points from him.”

“What about the other two companies?” I tugged on her arm. “Come on, this is your chance to show the world your talent. I bet you’ll be running this project by the end.”

Serenity smirked. “Not with Mercer there. He doesn’t let anyone steal the spotlight. Probably why he’s the only representative for all three companies.”

“What do you have against him?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “You’ve seen the interviews. He’s an arrogant asshole.”

“So is the football team. They don’t stop you from doing what you want.”

“If they were in charge, they might.”

I sighed and let my head droop. “I was really looking forward to this. It won’t be the same without you. Would you really leave me alone?”

Serenity raised an eyebrow. “This won’t work.”

“I don’t see what you are worried about. This this is so big, I doubt Mercer will have much time to spare more than a few words for either of us.”

“You have no idea.”

“Are you really willing to give up the intern credit just because you hate him? This is something you’ve been dreaming of since our sophomore year.” I crossed my arms. “Seems kind of stupid to me.”

Serenity chewed at her bottom lip. Got her. I kept the triumphant smile from my face and gazed at her with the question hanging in the air between us. If there was anything Serenity hated in the world, it was being called stupid.

“Fine,” she grumbled.

I grinned and bounced on the balls of my feet. “Good. Now hurry up and get ready. We’re going to be late.”

“You better be done getting ready before I am. You have a head start,” she called as she hurried to her bedroom.

I finished applying my mascara and took a brush to my mass of red hair until it hung in a silky sheet down my back. A kiss of fire, an old boyfriend had called me. Little had he known how much of a role fire had played in my life.

I sat the brush down on the granite counter with a click that echoed through the bathroom. No, it had played with my old life, not here and not now. Once I graduated, my family would swoop in to pull me back into their world filled with flame and myth. Until then, I planned to enjoy every minute of college life I had left.

My hazel eyes changed to amber as I smacked my lips, now glittery with gloss, and grinned into the mirror. Something was beginning today. I could feel it.

Serenity stopped outside the door, now filly dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that read “Nerd Girls are Sexy.” “What are you doing still playing around in the bathroom?”

I giggled at her and sprinted to the door, grabbing my keys along the way. We hopped into my car and took off to the University.

The red microfiber seats in the multi-tiered auditorium had all but filled up by the time we arrived. We squeezed past a couple of guys behind the last row. I sighed and leaned back against the scratchy cloth that covered the wall. It looked as though we would have to stand for the presentation. I waved my hand over my damp neck from the beads of sweat that formed as the heat thickened the air.

The overhead lights dimmed around us, and the hum of hundreds of voices died away. A girl walked across the stage in a tan pencil skirt and high pumps. I blinked in surprise. I knew Sheridan from a few of the classes we both attended. We’d both gravitated on the edges of each other’s social circles. Still, I would have thought she would’ve mentioned to everyone she knew that she’d been named spokesperson of this little project. She tossed her blonde hair off her shoulder and straightened the note cards on the podium.

“Good morning, everyone,” she said, leaning into the microphone. She flashed a dazzling smile to the crowd. “This is an amazing turnout. I didn’t even think we had this many people sign up.”

A chuckled traveled through the crowd. The truth was, not even a quarter of the audience was participating. The application process had been stringent and lasted for almost two years when Nerida University had first announced it. The board had chosen only the brightest to represent the college. Luckily, I had been one considered one of those. The rest had come to catch a glimpse of Mercer Chaplin.

“I know all of you are looking forward to embarking on this adventure as much as I am,” Sheridan continued. “So, without much further ado, I’ll introduce our guest and head of the Proprius Project. As the CEO of the Instafriend network, Mr. Chaplin is an inspiration to all of us. Let’s give him a round of applause.”

The music the played over the speakers mixed with the cheers that filled the room. He walked across the stage like he owned it. The gigantic screen above the stage pasted his face for even us in the nosebleed section to see. His black hair was pulled back into a neat pony tail that brushed the top of his shirt collar. The suit he wore sat on his athletic body in just the perfect way. He flashed his straight, white teeth at the audience as he took the podium.

“Nerida University,” he said. “This is quite a greeting.”

The cheers grew even more deafening, and he raised a hand. The noise settled to a low murmur. He cleared his throat and grinned as his gaze traveled up the tiers of the auditorium.

“It’s great to see you’re all as excited about this project as I am.”

Serenity snorted and crossed her arms. I elbowed her. I didn’t know what her problem with Mercer was, but she’s wasn’t going to waste my ogling time with snide sounds.

“Imagine a world where people could travel the world, become anything they wanted, all from the convenience of their own homes.” He chuckled. “Sounds like a wild dream, huh?”