“I need my mentor.” He grasped her hand with his clammy ones. “Call … George.
"Darius?" Alísun leaned over the seat to check his pulse, forcing him to look at her. "Are you close to your Proving, dear?"
He nodded.
"What?" Allie fumbled for her phone. "That’s not possible. It’s way too soon! "
"He’s not quite there yet, but it’s definitely coming. We need to get him back home to George." Alísun helped ease Darius back in his seat, resting his head on Allie's shoulder.
“He’ll be fine," Alísun said, smoothing her hand over his forehead. "Don’t worry, Darius. We’ll get you home as soon as we can."
Darius grasped the queen's hand. "Has it started? I need George. I can’t do this without him.”
"Relax. It hasn’t started. You’re a bit young for this, but you still have time. It is important that you stay calm right now.”
Allie finally managed to get her phone out of her pocket and hastily dialed George’s number. "Hello? George?" she breathed into the phone. "It’s Darius. He doesn’t look good, what do I do? We're in Atlanta … yes, our flight leaves soon." Allie closed her eyes as she listened to George's instructions to keep Darius calm and quiet.
"He'll be okay, won't he?" she asked. She wasn't prepared to help Darius with this. She didn’t even understand what was happening.
"Just get him here," George said. "Now."
Chapter Fourteen
“How is he doing?” Sasha watched as Darius made a beeline for the door after class, his phone clutched in hand.
“Freaked out and not talking to me.” Allie sighed. “It’s weird. We’ve never had anything come between us like this.”
“Entering a Proving at his age, he must be terrified.”
“It’s killing me that I can’t help him.” Allie felt caught in a weird timeout. Back home and in class again, nothing felt real. Except the waiting. Waiting to hear from Jayesh about their next move. Waiting and watching Darius with no insight into what he was going through.
“He’ll be okay, Allie. He’ll talk when he’s ready.”
“I just stay nearby in case he needs me,” Allie murmured. He’d been sick since they got home. “I’m going to go see if he’s okay. I’ll catch up with you later.” She followed her Syntrophos from the building and across the campus quad.
Allie paused, watching Darius pace across the snow-dusted lawn, oblivious of the cold as he spoke to his mentor on the phone. The bond buzzed within her. He was upset. She was jogging to his side before she’d even made a conscious decision to do so. He needed her.
“I’ll talk to you later, George,” Darius said as she approached.
“Can we please talk?" She took his hand, hot with fever, and headed back inside the humanities building. She had one more class before she was done for the day. An art history lecture she’d been looking forward to all semester. But none of that mattered now.
“Everything okay with George?” she asked. He was Darius’s mentor and brother-in-law. They’d trained together since Darius was five years old.
“Fine, just making plans.”
He was petrified. And doing a piss poor job of hiding it.
“Let’s get a coffee. We have time before my next class.” She led him to the coffee cart she was pretty sure she single-handedly kept in business.
After her freshman year, Allie and Naeemah came to terms with the battle over her diet. Naeemah finally relented and promised not to touch Allie’s coffee. The trade off was she had to behave in every other aspect of her nutrition. She typically adhered to it—most of the time.
“You're scaring me, Dare. I know this doesn’t really concern me. It’s something you and your mentor have to get through together, but I want to help,” Allie said as they took their seats at a small corner table.
“Everything concerns you.” He attempted a smile, but he was so quiet and aloof these days, it scared her. “It’s nothing, really. I’m fine.” He coughed into a napkin.
Allie suppressed a tremor of terror when she saw spots of blood smeared on it.
“Liar.” She tried to return his smile but was equally unsuccessful. “You know I’m not going to give it a rest, so you might as well tell me what’s going on. Why are you sick? I don’t understand.”
“It’s nothing. Not in light of the whole Soma takeover.” He shrugged, absently shredding a napkin into a thousand pieces.
“Darius.” She took his hand. “Nothing that affects you this way is unimportant.”
“Ahh, don’t give me those Syntrophos eyes, Red. I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“Our bond goes both ways, Dare. If you hurt, I hurt.” She moved closer, lowering her voice. “Now tell me. Why are you sick? We don’t get sick.”
“George says it’s expected with a Proving at my age.” He shrugged and took a scalding gulp of coffee.
“In all the years since my Awakening, no one has ever given me a straight answer about what a Proving even is. Like it’s an inside secret I’m not privy to yet. All I know is that it's an extension of an Awakening. And it’s supposed to happen at a time when you’re ready for it. A time when you’re a lot older than you are now. This isn’t right. You are way too young.”
“The time between an Awakening and a Proving is just a reprieve, and it’s different for everyone. It happens when it happens, Allie. That’s all I can really tell you.”
“Bullshit, Darius. You are scared to death. I can feel it in our bond. You’re sick. Weak. Terrified. I can’t ignore that. Please don’t ask me to.”
“This is why I didn’t tell you,” he said, continuing to shred his napkin into little brown paper balls.
“Tell me what?”
“We’ve been preparing for my Proving for almost a year. George knew it was coming, but we thought I had a lot more time.”
"A year? Like a whole year and you didn't tell me? Darius we are partners. We don't keep secrets in this relationship." She wanted to hug him and shake him at the same time. “How do I keep missing the important things in my friends’ lives? I should be seeing this stuff coming at us.”
“You’re too close. It’s like the way you don’t always notice how big Kahlynn’s gotten because you see her everyday. Your gift just doesn’t notice it.”
“I call bullshit. What’s the point of seeing the future if you can’t help your friends?”
"I thought I had more time, Allie," he said, his eyes huge with the kind of fear he would never let anyone else see.
“This is why you’ve been so sick?”
He nodded. “The vomiting, coughing up blood, sleeplessness, they’re all signs that it’s almost here.”
“But you’re going to be okay, right?” she asked.
“Eventually. But my Proving is coming a good five or ten decades too early.” He shook his head. “I’m not okay with that. The symptoms I’m having are because I’m so young. It doesn’t happen like this for everyone. My power is ready. My mind is ready, but my body isn’t quite there yet.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’ll have to wait and see, I guess. It’s like an Awakening.”
“All you can do is get through it and figure out what to do later?”
“Exactly.
“This is because of me, isn’t it?” She frowned. “Something about our bond has accelerated your Proving.”
“It’s not your fault, Allie. You did not cause this, the same way you didn’t bring this bond down on us either.”
“And if I ask George, what’s he going to say?” Allie prodded.
“Well, George is pretty sure our bond has something to do with it.”
“I’m so sorry, Darius.” She closed her eyes in resignation. She was always hurting the people she loved despite her best efforts to protect them. “You didn’t ask for this.”
“Neither did you. And if I could go back and undo this bond with you, I wouldn’t. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Me t
oo.” She smiled. Darius was her ride or die guy. She couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t by her side. Come hell or high water, they would get through this.
“I don’t care what George says, Darius Proving early is not your fault.” Emma’s eyes flashed with fury. “And if he has implied otherwise, I’ll be having a little chat with him.”
“Don’t be angry with him, Emma.” Allie stared out the gym window across the lawn at the little cottage where she and Darius lived. “He’s just trying to get Darius through this.”
“It’s no one’s fault, Allie.” Emma stepped behind her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We reach our Proving when it’s time. It happens when it happens.”
“I expected mine to be early, but not his.” She leaned back, resting her head on her mentor’s shoulder.
“He will get through it.”
“And you will tell me when my Proving is near?” Allie turned to face her. “Like the minute you know?” She pleaded with her eyes. She couldn’t be blindsided by this.
“It is my job as your mentor to pay attention to the signs. I will see it and when I am confident it’s coming, I will warn you. We’ve always planned for an early Proving. We will be ready when the time comes.”
“Will I be sick like Darius?”
“I don’t think so, but I can’t guarantee it.”
“What does it really mean, Emma?” Allie returned to sit on the ridiculously expensive white leather chair. She leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees. “What am I supposed to Prove?”
“It’s a continuation of— ”
“I know all that.” Allie waved her hand. “But what does that actually mean? What are the consequences?”
“When the Proving comes upon you, it means you have nearly mastered your power. It means you have one last hurdle to jump before you will have complete control over your power and your gifts. It is the last step toward adulthood.”
“He’s barely thirty years old.” She sat back with a sigh. “He’s the poster child for Peter Pan syndrome. Darius is not an adult. He is not ready for this. Has my power through our bond pushed him into this way too soon?”
“No, Allie. It doesn’t work like that.”
“George seems to think I'm to blame. How do you know I'm not? Syntrophos bonds are so rare. A few years ago, we didn't know much about it.”
“And you think that when you and Darius bonded, and Sasha and Quinn—my own son—bonded, that we didn’t look into it? That we haven’t spent the last four years uncovering every detail we could about the Syntrophos bond?”
“Fair point. What have you discovered?”
“Nothing that would indicate what you suspect. There is simply no way you have brought this down on Darius.”
“So you’re saying if Darius had never met me, he’d still be facing an early Proving right now?”
Emma’s brow furrowed in frustration. “Not … necessarily,” she admitted.
“Exactly.” Allie twisted her hands in her lap.
“You and your bond are a contributing factor, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is ready. The circumstances of his life have played out in a way that makes him naturally ready for his Proving. Had you never met, those circumstances would be different, and he might not be ready. But the bottom line is it’s not your fault.”
Allie nodded, still not convinced. The concept of the Proving still evaded her. There was something about it she failed to wrap her mind around. Something important.
Chapter Fifteen
“Feeling better?” Allie grasped Darius’s hand as they headed into their favorite restaurant near school.
“Yes.” He smiled, looking more like himself again. Some of his color had returned in the last few days. “I think I’m actually hungry.”
“That’s a good sign, right?” She was desperate for him to pull through this. She hated feeling so useless, and she knew her constant hovering was driving him insane.
“As long as I don’t throw it all back up after.” He waved at George across the restaurant, heading to join him and his family.
“Hey, Lennox.” Allie slid into the booth beside Seamas and George’s daughter. Dressed in her Cliffton Academy uniform, she reminded Allie of a version of herself from another lifetime. Cynical and a bit of a wild child, Lennox and Allie were good friends, despite the years between them. A product of Soma, Lennox had grown up without the benefit of family and friends. When Quinn and Santi made their daring escape from Soma, they refused to leave Lennox behind and arranged for her escape as well.
“We’ve already ordered,” George said, “but we haven’t been here long.” He waved the waitress over.
"Hi there, handsome, what can I get you?" The waitress immediately gave her full attention to Darius, practically sitting in his lap.
Allie and Lennox shared a silent fit of giggles. Women were always throwing themselves at Darius. Most of the time he was eager to catch them, but he so wasn’t feeling it today.
“He looks like he’s going to puke again,” Lennox whispered behind her menu.
“Poor guy.” Allie stifled her laughter. “I think he might actually be embarrassed.”
The waitress was absolutely besotted with him. She was a sweet, innocent girl, just looking for love anywhere she could find it. Allie’s clairvoyant gift allowed her to see those kinds of things in the people she encountered. She could see right down to the root of a person’s true character and know who they were at their core. Darius had recently learned that their bond allowed him to see some of the same details, but on a much smaller scale.
"I’ll just have the soup of the day and some bread, please,” Darius said, his ears turning bright red at her blatant attention.
Allie kicked him under the table.
“Oh, and a dozen hot wings with blue cheese, a basket of cheese sticks, and a coke," Darius added.
Allie cleared her throat.
"And a slice of cheesecake, too."
"And you?" The waitress turned her nose up at Allie.
"Caesar salad with extra chicken and a bowl of vegetable soup," Allie said, staring at the menu. "And a lemonade, please. I’ll probably need a to-go box, too."
"To-go box?” Lennox wrinkled her nose after the waitress left to get their drinks. “I feel so sorry for you, Allie. Dads, I don't ever have to eat like that, do I?" She turned to George and Seamas for confirmation.
"It wouldn't hurt when you're a little older if you put some effort into a clean diet," George said. "It will make you stronger."
"It sucks, Len. Don't listen to him." Allie loaded up a dinner roll with copious amounts of butter.
"It's all about moderation, sweetheart." Seamas eyed Allie with raised brows. "We've worked hard these last few years to get you where you are now. Your diet is fine. You've made a lot of sacrifices in your recovery. Food shouldn't be one of them."
"We could talk about a not-so-strict clean diet, Seamas," George said. "Our daughter is seventeen now; it would help—“
"I finally have my power under control for the first time since I was thirteen," Lennox said. "I'm more than good with that."
After suffering an early Awakening, Lennox had to work hard to maintain control of her power. She’d worked with Seamas for hours every day since she joined their family. She flourished under Seamas’s experience and after nearly four years, she was progressing normally.
"The effort now will save you a lot of worry later," Darius said.
Everyone looked at him like he had three heads. "Coming from you, I don't quite know how to take that," George said.
"I'm just saying, a little more discipline now would go a long way in preparing her for things later in life."
"Uncle D?" Lennox frowned at him. "Are you sure you’re feeling all right?"
"He's fine." Allie assured the girl. "He's just having a tough time lately." Allie didn't want to worry her. Lennox had been through enough in her short life to last her an eternity. She didn't need gloomy ta
lk of unexpected Provings wearing her down. After her escape from Soma, Lennox fell head over heels for her new dads. She'd bonded with Seamas on sight and with George not long after. But she'd struggled to acclimate to the kind of idyllic childhood her new fathers tried to give her. To look at her now, you'd never know she'd spent her early years training for a life in slavery.
"Seriously, what's the point in salad?" Lennox wrinkled her nose as the waitress placed a bowl of greens in front of Allie. "How can you get through a day eating rabbit food? I think I'm too much of a carnivore for clean diets.” She dove into her bloody steak.
"Salad is the devil." Allie shoved her plate aside. She'd take it home for lunch tomorrow. "Naeemah makes it hard to enjoy a night of splurging. She’s hit every restaurant in town so no matter what I order, this is what they bring me. So we have a system." She met Darius's high five without looking. She nodded at him. "We split his food and take mine to go.”
"I'm sure Mom knows exactly what we're doing,” Darius said, “but Allie sticks to her clean diet most of the time because it does help."
"But when I don't, I do so with great gusto." Allie dipped her spicy wings into the cool blue cheese, her stomach rumbling in anticipation.
"You guys are adorable." Lennox smirked. "You should totally hook up."
"Hey, now, what do you know about hooking up?" George grumbled.
“Aw, Dad, you’re so cute. I know things. And these two should totally be together," Lennox insisted.
"We are together as Syntrophos," Darius said, picking at his breadsticks and leaving his soup untouched. "Any more togetherness between us would be way too much togetherness for anyone."
"Damn straight," Allie agreed. But her heart sank at the sight of him barely touching his food. He might be feeling better, but he was still scared.
Emerge- The Heir Page 10
