Immortally Yours, An Urban Fantasy Romance (Monster MASH, Book 1) (23 page)

But I couldn't avoid this. Not anymore. And besides, I had to go see Kosta. I could only imagine what he had in store for me.
 

Chapter Fifteen

I changed out of my scrubs and into a pair of rust-colored new army uniform pants. Might as well try to look official. Events were in motion. I couldn't deny it.
 

Naturally, I had no idea where I'd left the belt portion of the pants, so I just smoothed my white tank top over the copper button.
 

The matching field jacket hung in the back of my locker. It was stiff from lack of use, practically new. I shrugged that on as well.
 

The first prophecy has come true. The armies are on the move and unbalanced.
 

It still felt like a dream. I wished it was. I could use a few z's. We'd been in surgery all night and into today. My eyes felt like somebody had rubbed them with sandpaper.
 

The heat of the day had already gone from stifling to unbearable. I squinted against the suns and kept my heavy head up as I hiked next door to Kosta's office.
 

Shirley was on the phone when I walked in. She sat at her desk, banging a pencil about 180 miles an hour. Her fiery hair was curling out of its loose twist. A fan blew the hot air around, solving absolutely nothing. "Try looking under Fiction-Human-Irrelevant."
 

"Is Kosta in there?" I asked, aiming for his office.
 

"No." She swung her chair toward me and lowered the phone. "He had to deal with an issue in post-op." She tucked the pencil behind her ear and held a finger up. "But don't leave."
 

Phone propped between her chin and her shoulder, she turned back to her desk and began shuffling through the closest of about six different stacks of files. The top papers fluttered in the artificial breeze. "I have something on Galen you're going to want to see."
 

"Something good?" I asked. See? I could be hopeful.
 

Shirley's forehead wrinkled. "Depends on your point of view." The phone squawked and Shirley yanked it up to her ear. "Yes. I'm still waiting." She frowned as she listened. "You didn't find it?" She rolled her eyes. "Try Fiction-Human-Anthropological."
 

She sighed, her eyes flicking to me. "I'm trying to get a few things for the new TV," she explained. "Tell me. How do you think the army film depot would file season one of
Dynasty
?"
 

Geez. I didn't know. "Couldn't you get
True Blood
instead?"
 

Shirley pointed a warning finger at me. "That is why I'm not telling anybody about this."
 

"Okay. Fine." I rubbed at my eyes. No need to get testy.
 

"Just keep looking. I'll call you back," she said, hanging up and resting her head on her desk. "This deal's costing me an entire case of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies. With my luck, we're probably going to end up getting season three of
Green Acres
."
 

"Ooh." I liked
Green Acres.
"Remember when Oliver rented a rooster?"
 

"You're not helping, Doc."
 

"I'm just glad to hear Galen has Girl Scout cookies."
 

"He doesn't," she said, shoving through the paperwork littering her desk. "Besides, I can't trade anything from the visiting officers' tent. I get one case of cookies a year from my great-great-great-niece. One. And I refuse to accept substandard entertainment."
 

"Hey, you could get a romantic comedy. Something about a surly Spartan who finds love."
 

She gave me a long look. "I don't think that exists. Besides, Kosta doesn't watch movies. He's going to flip when he finds out we have a TV." She shook her head. "Something's going down. He hasn't even noticed the television, and Kosta notices
everything
."
 

Like we needed any more issues. "Do you have any idea what's going on with him?"
 

"Not yet."
 

She stopped at a brown file on top of the largest teetering stack. "Here it is. Galen's medical history file."
 

"At last," I said as she handed it to me.
 

"It came with the final transfer paperwork."
 

"What?" He was leaving? I felt a keen sense of loss. He couldn't walk away—we couldn't end it. Not now. Besides, a new oracle was coming down. I needed him.
 

"No worries, babe," Shirley said, reading my face. "He's still getting transferred in. This is the army we're talking about."
 

Okay. Well. For once it was working in our favor. I leaned against the edge of her desk and cracked open the file. It was thick, as it should be for a man who had been at war for nearly five centuries.
 

Clipped to the top was his original intake picture, from when he was a new recruit. Only this happened to be a photo of a very large, very detailed full-body oil painting, and he was completely naked.
 

He was larger, sexier, and more cut that I'd ever imagined, and believe me, I could imagine quite a bit.
 

I slammed the file shut as a shivery warmth shot through me. No doubt, Galen would be happy to strip for me in person, but I felt kind of funny lusting after his picture with Shirley sitting right there.
 

"What?" Shirley asked.
 

I went a little breathless. "There's a naked picture. Right on top."
 

"Like you haven't already seen Galen's goods," she snorted.
 

"Why does everybody think that?" I asked, resisting the urge to crack open the file again. "You didn't look, did you?"
 

"I'm not a doctor."
 

"Right." I said, leaning away from her and opening it once again. The medical files I was used to seeing had drawings or photos of old injuries, when they were relevant. I'd never seen a healthy, full-on nude shot.
 

Naturally, they'd posed him like the Greek demi-god he was—his wide shoulders squared, a well-defined arm holding aloft a sword.
 

It was completely unnecessary. Not to mention mouth-watering delicious.
 

He had deeply tanned skin over hard lean muscle. His smooth chest tapered down to a narrow stretch of hair that began just below his belly button and—
my, my, my
.
 

He could make a girl forget her good sense.
 

I was never going to be able to get Galen's naked body out of my mind—not that I wanted to.
 

"You are cracking me up." Shirley sat tapping the phone receiver against her shoulder. "It's just an identification photo."
 

"That's right." In person, he would be even better. The gods certainly had no qualms when it came to nakedness. "I can't imagine posing for such a bare intake picture."
 

She grinned. "You never would have survived the old regulations. We used to have to wrestle a boar to prove our worth."
 

"Pass."
 

"No kidding. Those things stink."
 

"I'm glad they made a few changes before I was recruited," I said in the understatement of the year.
 

Shirley jumped as the phone rang. "MASH 3063rd. Sergeant Macdha here."
 

I opened the file again, more tingly under the collar than I should have been. While Shirley talked, I folded the photo in half and slipped it into my pocket.
 

The man was built to command and conquer, on the battlefield and in the bedroom.
 

Seven hells. I had to stop thinking about sex.
 

It might be easier if I'd actually had any in the last ten years. Or if Galen and I could manage to finish what we'd started.
 

I moved on to the main folder. Inside, handwritten reports on thick parchment paper detailed the rise of a decorated—and damaged—war hero. He'd been wounded 112 times before the day he'd died on my table. Galen had received the Soldier's Medal twice for conspicuous gallantry by risking his immortal life in situations that went beyond the call of duty. It was the new army equivalent of the Medal of Honor. I was both amazed and humbled at Galen's courage.
 

And as I made my way to the more modern, typed accounts, I couldn't help but wonder how he'd survived this long.
 

He'd been terribly wounded. I'd seen the scars streaking across his chest. There had to be others as well. But he still believed in peace. He had hope. I didn't understand it.
 

"Did you see his lineage?" Shirley asked.
 

"No," I said, shuffling through the pages. All I saw were military reports.
 

"It's the page right under the naked picture," she said, still on the phone.
 

No wonder I'd missed it.
 

And Shirley said she hadn't looked.
 

"Hello?" She asked the person on the other line. "Yes, I'm still here."
 

I shuffled faster. A demi-god's lineage was the key to his divinity. Well, if you considered them divine. I didn't. They were a different form of supernatural creature, really.
 

They had powers, like Marius or Rodger or even me. Only they were stronger, and the pure gods had a definite complex.
 

I flipped to the front and found a yellowed parchment page. It was a hand-drawn family tree. Nothing fancy. It was obviously done by a medieval intake officer.
 

Galen of Delphi had been born in 1473 to Aletheia, the Greek goddess of truth.
 

No kidding. I lowered the file. It made sense. He could see people. I'd bet anything that was his special power. He had a heightened sense of what people were feeling and what they needed.
 

He'd certainly gotten to me.
 

But what about Galen himself? If he could read people so well, why had I seen such overwhelming loneliness inside him?
 

I wondered if he still felt that way now, surrounded by my friends. Or if he was alone in a crowd, like me.
 

His father was listed only as Santo, a mortal lieutenant in the Ottoman–Venetian War. I wondered how much attention young Galen of Delphi had received from Aletheia. Goddesses weren't known for their mothering skills, and his father had been fighting against the Greeks.
 

I flipped to the report on his latest injury. He'd been with a special operations unit doing reconnaissance right on top of a huge hell vent, about ten miles from our camp. No notations about bronze weapons, or who had stabbed him. I couldn't imagine what our army would be doing near any entrances to Hades.
 

Galen was no match for a demon—none of us was. That's why the old and new gods were so powerful—they were willing to step in and use their supernatural gifts to hold back the forces of the underworld. And if that meant they interfered in the lives of the rest of us, it was a price we were willing to pay.
 

"I wish I knew what this meant, Shirl," I said, closing the file and hugging it to my chest. And how the knife fit in.
 

She didn't hear me, of course. She was still busy on the phone, this time with the supply depot. I was glad to see she had her ledger sheets out and was filing her own orders.
 

The door banged open as Horace rushed in. "Hurry," he said, bobbing up and down, sprinkling the floor with glitter. "They're going to announce the second oracle!"
 

"Are you sure?" I asked, pushing off the desk, excited and nervous as well. Six days seemed fast. Maybe they wanted to take more time with this.
 

Shirley hung up on supply. "Let's go," she said, grabbing her purse from under her desk.
 

"Wow." This was really it. My nerves tangled and my knees went weak. They'd better not start talking about a doctor who drinks orange soda is supposed to slay a dragon or something.
 

Or that I was destined to lust after a smoking-hot demi-god for the rest of my life.
 

Come to think of it, that last one might not be half bad.
 

Shirley and I jogged for the mess tent while Horace zigzagged across camp, banging on doors and alerting clerks and mechanics, maintenance staffers and technicians. He skipped the post-op tent, which was good because I could hear Kosta out back, cussing.
 

As if he had problems.
 

The mess tent was packed with bodies. Everyone was talking at once. Shirley broke away from me and headed for the serving area. The food was gone. Now rows of people sat on long steel counters. The room was at least ten degrees warmer than Shirley's office and I felt the sweat against the back of my neck as I jostled toward the tables where Galen and I had sat before.
 

After a few false starts, I spotted his wide shoulders and strong profile. He held a hand up. My insides fluttered. He looked the same as he did in that file photo, and for the first time I could clearly imagine his hard body under those special forces blacks.
 

Shake it off
. Yeah, right. I could practically feel the heat radiating from that man.
 

He caught my eye, and a wave of desire sluiced through me.
 

He sat back down, his body spread wide. As soon as I reached him, he closed his legs and eased over so that I'd have a seat.
 

"It should be anytime now," he said, assessing me as an unspoken question hung between us. He knew something had changed. Damn it. I was an open book. Or maybe he was just a little too good at sensing the truth.