by I. T. Lucas
“Really? Then why thrall my memories or compel me to silence? I can just promise to keep quiet.”
“It’s done to ensure that you don’t blurt it out unintentionally, and that you can’t reveal the information even under duress.”
“Right. You need to tell me about those enemies of yours. That’s also something I need to consider before I give you my consent.”
Was she implying that he couldn’t protect her?
“You have nothing to fear from them. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
“Nevertheless, I need to know what I’m getting myself into.”
“Does it have to be now?”
“No. There is no rush.”
As Cassandra sent the text, he leaned over the phone. “I’m not reading your text. I just wanted to see Geraldine’s picture, but there are none.”
“My mother hates having her picture taken. In the few I managed to snap, she either looks away or turns her back to the camera.”
“Didn’t you find that suspicious?”
She shrugged. “Some people are camera shy.”
“Immortals more than anyone else.”
“Why?”
“Just think about it. We don’t change. A picture taken fifty years ago would look exactly like a picture taken today. It’s a dead giveaway.”
“I just had a thought. What if my mother is a Dormant like me and just looks young? Can she go through transition?”
“I don’t know. She might be too old even though she doesn’t look it.”
“Who makes that call?”
“Our doctor.”
“Right. You told me that you have one who specializes in transitioning Dormants.”
“Among other things.”
“How can we find out whether my mother is an immortal?”
75
Cassandra
Onegus let go of her hand and got to his feet. “If we can get a good picture of her face, our in-house hacker can run it through DMV records using a facial recognition program.” He pulled two bottles of water from the fridge. “If a driver’s license with her picture pops out more than once, decades apart, that would prove it.” He handed her a bottle.
“Thanks.” She unscrewed the top and took a long swig. “You assume that she changed her name.”
“She would have had to. That’s what we do.”
“We might have to corner her and take it when she doesn’t expect it.”
Onegus sat back on the couch, braced his elbows on his knees, and leaned forward. “There is also the cut or scratch test I told you about. If she heals rapidly, that’s even better proof than the driver’s license. Does she get sick? Flu? Colds?”
Staring at his bunching biceps, she had a hard time concentrating. Perhaps she should give him his shirt back and put on the dress.
Taking another sip from the water, she tried to focus on his face and not ogle his chest and arms. “Frankly, I don’t remember her ever getting sick, but that’s not a proof either. She might just have a good immune system. And as for your other suggestion, I can’t just go up to my mother with a knife in hand and cut her or scratch her. What about the super hearing? We can go up to my room and talk about immortals. If my mother can hear us, she would get anxious.”
Onegus winced. “Provided that she knows and remembers that she’s not aging.”
Yeah, with her memory issues, she might have come up with a fantastic story to explain her youthful appearance.
“Could the memory loss be the result of the transition?”
Onegus rubbed his jaw. “Not likely, but stasis can.”
“What’s that?”
“Immortals can go into stasis and stay in that state for thousands of years. We have a clan member who was buried alive in an earthquake. She woke up over five thousand years later, when they built an apartment complex over the place she was buried in, and a pipe burst. Emerging from her stasis, she didn’t know who she was or where she came from. Somehow, the Fates guided her to us, and with time she regained her memories.”
Cassandra shook her head. “My mother can’t be that ancient. Could a short stasis have done that?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“How did she turn immortal in the first place? Did she hook up with some random immortal male who didn’t use protection?”
He nodded. “It’s possible. We have a clan member who was induced by a random hookup. Many immortal males don’t use condoms because we can’t get or transmit diseases, and our fertility rate is so low that pregnancy is not an issue either. I’m just more cautious than others.”
“Right.” She rubbed her temple. “I’m getting a headache from all this speculating. I need to go home, take a shower, and sleep until noon.”
“I also need to get back to work.” He looked at her with those intense blue eyes of his. “So, what will it be? Thralling, compulsion, or staying here until you transition?”
She looked around the small room. “Definitely compulsion. I would go nuts in here, and I need to be at work on Monday.”
“Very well.” He pushed to his feet. “I’ll call Eleanor.”
“What for?”
“She’s a compeller, and she happens to be down the corridor.”
“Can’t you do it?”
“Compulsion is a very rare talent, which I don’t possess. I can only thrall. Do you still want to be compelled?”
“Yes. I want to own my memories, good and bad. After watching my mother suffering from memory issues all my life, I can’t tolerate the thought of losing my memory. It terrifies me.”
“Oh, Cassy.” He crouched next to her and took her hands. “I should have realized that memory is precious to you.”
“That’s okay. Just call Eleanor in here, and let’s get it over with. Compulsion is scary too, but not as scary as the alternative.”
“The cabin is still on the table.”
“Yeah, well. You can’t leave until after your boss’s birthday, and I can’t wait in this room until you can. Besides, I can’t take a vacation that long.”
He nodded. “I’ll get Eleanor.”
“Hold on.” She pulled his shirt over her head and handed it to him. “I don’t want her ogling my guy.”
His eyes riveted to her bare breasts, he swallowed. “Now, I can’t move.”
Laughing, she gave him a slight shove. “Go. I need to get dressed.”
76
Onegus
Onegus found Eleanor in Arwel’s suite, alone.
“Where is Alfie?”
She looked up from the monitor she’d been staring at. “He went upstairs to shower and change.”
“He shouldn’t leave you alone here.”
She rolled her eyes, which he found disrespectful. It was okay when Cassandra did that, but not from an underling.
“I know not to open the door to Emmett’s cell without backup. Alfie is going to get his breakfast, and I’m going to bring it to him.”
“Has Emmett been behaving?”
“Yep. He hasn’t given me any trouble at all.”
Onegus glanced at the screen. Emmett was up, sitting on the couch with a book in his hands. “What’s he reading?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Arwel brought him a bunch of books. He likes to read.”
“Good for him.” Onegus rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I need your help. I need you to compel Cassandra not to reveal anything about us.”
A smile bloomed on Eleanor’s thin face. “Sure thing, boss. Is she your one?” She rose to her feet.
“I don’t know yet. Cassandra is great. She’s everything I ever wanted in a woman, a mate, but love is a foreign concept to me. At least romantic love. And she’s not going to settle for anything less than everything.”
He had no clue why he was sharing his inner struggle with Eleanor. Perhaps because he still viewed her as an outsider, an objective observer who would not interject her own feelings into the situation.
“C
assandra shouldn’t settle for anything less than your love and devotion, and neither should you. Take your time. That’s the only advice I can give you.” She smiled sadly. “My romantic track record doesn’t qualify me as an expert.”
“Yeah, mine neither.”
“What’s Cassandra’s talent?”
He chuckled. “She blows things up when she gets mad.”
Eleanor grinned. “My kind of girl.”
When they walked into the room, Cassandra rose to her feet and offered Eleanor her hand. “Good morning.” She smiled. “I hope Onegus didn’t drag you out of bed.”
She was dressed in her evening gown and the stilettos with the red soles, looking like a magazine cover model, even without any makeup and her hair in a messy bun.
“I was already up.” Eleanor shook her hand. “Let’s get comfortable.” She motioned to the couch.
As the two women sat down, Eleanor lifted her eyes to Onegus. “Compulsion needs to be very precise. Do you want me to exclude you from the compulsion not to mention immortals, Dormants, and this place?”
“Good idea. Also include fangs and venom. And an override clause. Cassandra can talk about everything when I’m around and approve.”
“Okay. That’s going to be a bit tricky. I need a moment to formulate it precisely.”
“Take as long as you need,” Cassandra said. “I don’t want you to compel me to do or not do anything other than what’s absolutely necessary.”
Eleanor nodded. “Look into my eyes and listen carefully. Until I release you, you are not allowed to say, write, type, whisper, or mime the following words: immortal, Dormant, fangs, and venom. You are not allowed to tell anyone the location of this building. If anyone asks, you were driven here, and you didn’t pay attention to where you were taken. You are allowed to say that it was somewhere downtown. Also, don’t repeat any of the names you’ve heard while attending the wedding. However, if you are with Onegus and he allows it, you can talk about all those things that you are not allowed to mention when he’s not around.”
“Is that all?” Cassandra asked.
Eleanor turned to Onegus. “I think I covered everything. Anything you want me to add?”
“We forgot gods and goddesses, but that’s fine. It’s meaningless without the rest.”
“Let’s test it.” Eleanor smiled at Cassandra. “Tell me what’s special about Onegus.”
“He’s handsome, charming, smart, bossy, and he has teeth that elongate and eyes that glow.” Cassandra smirked. “You didn’t think of everything.”
“Oops.” Eleanor looked at Onegus. “Should I include that?”
He shook his head. “That’s fine. Who’s going to believe it, right?”
“I’m not going to tell anyone.” Cassandra pushed to her stiletto-clad feet. “If we are done, I would like to get home before my neighbors wake up and see me arriving in the morning wearing an evening dress.”
77
Cassandra
“You know what I’m thankful for?” Cassandra opened the passenger side window to let the fresh morning air in.
Onegus turned to look at her and smiled. “Letting Kevin persuade you to attend the gala so that you could meet me?”
“That too.” He was so full of himself, but in a charming and disarming way that she had to admit she adored. “Contrary to what you believe, not everything revolves around you. This one is about me. I’m glad to finally understand where my strange power comes from, and that I’m not a witch.”
He arched a brow. “Is that what you thought it was?”
“What else could I think? It terrified me. I could hurt people.” And she had, but she wasn’t ready to share that with him yet. “I was desperate to get rid of it, or at least learn to control it. I tried meditation, I even tried relaxants. But I didn’t have the patience for meditating, and relaxants made me sleepy. I even read books on magic, but they were either a bunch of nonsense or impossible to understand.”
“You should talk to Sylvia. Perhaps she can train you.”
“I would like that.”
His expression turned serious. “There is still so much I need to tell you. I wish we could go away for a few days.”
“I would like that too.” Cassandra sighed. “I feel like a slave to my work.”
“You said that you often take work home.”
“What about it?”
“We could go away together someplace nice, and you could dedicate a few hours a day to work, but we can have fun the rest of the time.”
“That’s a great idea, except I can’t do everything that needs to be done in a few hours a day. It’s not going to be fun for you to wait for me to finish my work.”
“True.” He turned to look at her again. “Then maybe you can stay with me for a few days? You’ll do your work, and I’ll do mine, but at least we will be together.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she would try to make it work, but then her mother’s face flashed in front of her, and she knew she couldn’t do that.
“I can’t leave my mother alone.”
“Not even for a few days?”
“Two or three, but no longer than that.” She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “That’s another thing you should consider. My mother and I are a package deal.”
He grimaced. “Does that mean that she would have to live with us?”
“Either that or next door. She needs me.”
“I’m okay with next door.”
Cassandra shook her head. “Look at us. We are planning the rest of our lives as if everything is settled when, in fact, nothing is.”
He reached over the center console and took her hand. “One step at a time, Cassy. First, you need to decide when you want to start working on your transition.”
It wasn’t only about the when, but also about the who. Was Onegus the one?
He squeezed her hand. “A penny for your thoughts.”
“You said that my inducer should be the man, or immortal, who I chose to spend the rest of my life with. What if things don’t work out between us?”
For a brief moment, Onegus looked as if she’d slapped him, but he recuperated quickly, and when he spoke, he sounded as calm and collected as usual. “We are great together, and I don’t foresee that changing, but if, Fates forbid, something happens, and we part ways, you can choose someone else. Eleanor wasn’t romantically involved with the guy who induced her. He was just a hookup, but later they gave a relationship a try. It didn’t work out, and now she’s on the prowl, looking for her one and only.”
Cassandra blew out a breath. “I hope our relationship will keep on growing stronger, but knowing that agreeing to the induction doesn’t mean a life-long commitment is a relief.”
When he stopped at the gate to her community, she waved at the guard who recognized her and let them through without asking to see Onegus’s driver’s license.
A couple of moments later, Onegus pulled up in front of her house and turned the engine off.
A muscle ticked in his jaw when he turned to look at her. “Other than Eleanor, there was only one other female Dormant who didn’t mate her inducer. Neither of them had known that she was a Dormant, and when she started transitioning, he was long gone. All the other transitioned Dormants are happily mated to their inducers.”
He hadn’t told her he loved her yet, but he was upset because she needed an exit clause?
Sometimes it was difficult to understand the way men thought, and apparently, that included immortals who’d been around long enough to think with their brains and not their male hormones.
“I hope we will be one of those happy couples, but we are not there yet.” She pinned him with a hard stare. “Do you love me, Onegus?”
When he swallowed, she shook her head. “That’s what I thought.” Leaning toward him, she put her hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I don’t believe in love at first sight, and I don’t expect you to fall in love with me in one week. By the same token, y
ou can’t expect me to commit to you after such a short time.”
He nodded. “I’ve never been in love, so I don’t know whether what I feel for you is love. What I know, however, is that I’ve never enjoyed being with a woman as much as I enjoy being with you, and that when I’m not with you, I can’t wait until we meet again.”
“I feel the same.” Leaning over, she kissed his cheek. “For now, that will do, and it’s a good start.”
Dear reader,
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Isabell
COMING UP NEXT
The Children of the Gods Book 52
Dark Power Convergence
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The Children of the Gods Series
THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS ORIGINS
1: Goddess’s Choice
When gods and immortals still ruled the ancient world, one young goddess risked everything for love.
