Roman shook his head. “It was never your destiny to stop him, Uncle. It was mine. It has always been mine.” But what his destiny was to be beyond that point, Roman Fortuna had no clue.
He’d long ago learned the truth that possessing magic was all well and good. But destiny directed the lives of all humans, whether they had magic or not. And all a man could do, really, was the best he could do. To make the wisest choices possible and know those choices were the threads with which destiny wove the very fabric of his life.
Chapter 15
“Are you sure I’m not being crazy?”
They’d settled on a plan, and now Meghan was having second thoughts. The day had been hot and humid, the kind of southern summer day that inspired images of iced sweet tea and shady elms. They had the tea and were using the gazebo in place of the elms.
The irony of Meghan’s having doubts now, of course, was that it was mostly her plan in the first place.
“Yes.” Ryan cupped her face. “The more I think about it, the more I’m warming to it.”
“It is kind of over the top.” Meghan bit her lower lip. Jeremy reached out and rubbed his finger over her lip, his gentle way of stopping her from hurting herself.
“Under the circumstances, little tiger, I’d say over the top is definitely called for.”
When Meghan had told Ryan and Jeremy what she wanted to do, she could see they didn’t quite understand, yet they did what they could to show her, using Jeremy’s laptop, some examples to go by.
That they’d help her even without understanding, or necessarily agreeing with her, said a great deal about their love for her.
Her reasoning had been simple. The Fortuna men, for whatever reason, had evolved into the kind of males she’d read about in history books, the kind that had existed here, in this world, in medieval times. Since her adolescence, she’d immersed herself in history. The homeland was separate but not, after all, completely cut off.
No, it’s only these modern times the Concilium seems to be so uninformed about.
The two self-called warlocks fancied themselves men of an earlier age. The power was all in their hands and women were good only for slacking appetites or popping out heirs.
Cheri had told her that the Fortuna brothers she’d encountered had been genuinely shocked when she’d used her magic. Meghan knew she needed to shock these two brothers—Mario and Pietro—as well.
Mario had tried to steal into her thoughts and, instead, had inadvertently left his own impressed upon her mind. She’d discovered much about them and shared it all with her men. Mario and Pietro were the second set of three sets of twins born to Gregor Fortuna. Of the two, Mario was dominant, by personality and by magic, as his was slightly stronger than his brother’s.
His original plan had been for him and his brother to seduce her. Then, when they’d arrived and known she was in her workshop, the only area of her home that was warded against unwanted intrusions, he’d made an assumption, and then he’d come up with his second plan.
He assumed she’d already been claimed by Ryan and Jeremy, and he’d decided to drug her, by giving her a truth serum, to learn from her where the men were. Mario believed they’d left her in the workroom, protected by their magic.
Those two Fortunas might not be as powerful as her, and they certainly weren’t as powerful as her, Ryan, and Jeremy combined. But they possessed enough magic to be deadly to any or all of them.
Meghan also couldn’t forget about the unknown entity. Someone else had used magic to protect her from the Fortunas, just as someone had reinforced Cheri’s protection spell, old words that fear for the life of an innocent had pulled from her.
“It’s okay to be nervous,” Ryan said. He had hold of her left hand and kissed it.
“It’s the waiting that’s the hardest, Meghan.” Jeremy repeated his brother’s gesture with her right.
“I want to do all I can to convince them that their course is pointless. I don’t want to kill them.” Magic should never be used to take a life, although she understood that, when faced with evil, sometimes there was no choice but to do just that.
“Even though they want to kill all of us?” Ryan tilted his head to the side as he asked that.
“Yes, even though. I can’t help but think they are the way they are because they’ve been twisted. I felt the darkness within them, and I knew it wasn’t all them. There was a darkness there that belonged to another.”
“Sweetheart? It all comes down to destiny and choices.” Jeremy leaned in and kissed her head. “Every person alive is where they are because of the choices they’ve made. Nobody is raised by perfect parents. No one has a perfect childhood. Sure, some people are born with mental illness and can’t be held accountable. But that isn’t always the case, and it’s not what’s happened here.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“We’re going to give them the chance to walk away. You know we are. But, baby?” Ryan gave her hand a little squeeze. “If it comes down to a choice between you or them? They’re going down because we will not lose you.”
Meghan heard the ferocity in Ryan’s tone. She also understood the apprehension within her was tied to the fact that she felt the same way when it came to her men.
She’d kill to protect their lives. That was her choice, and in that moment, she really didn’t care if she suffered after the fact or not.
A slight tingle in the air alerted her. Because she knew she wasn’t the only one who’d use symbolism, she kept her eyes on the tree line. Last time, they’d come to her from there. The dense forest beside her house held symbolism, also from medieval times. How many ogres or other monsters were rumored to hide in the dark depths of the woods?
Ryan and Jeremy each squeezed her hands. Then they were gone—just out of sight but still there. Meghan swallowed hard and left the gazebo. She walked to the middle of her lawn, her gaze still trained on the tree line, and waited.
They entered with a clap of thunder and stood for a moment. Pietro’s gaze was trained on her while Mario’s swept her yard.
“Are they afraid to face us, then?” He nodded. “They should be.”
“No, they’re not afraid at all. I asked for this moment.” She spread her hands. “You don’t have to do this. There’s no reason to. You cannot prevent the Prophesy from coming to fruition by killing us. We’re together now. It’s done. All you will accomplish if you continue is to make a choice from which there is no escape. Save yourselves while you can.”
“Oh, please. It’s sweet—the little woman begging for the lives of her men and all. Isn’t it sweet, Pietro?”
“It is. Sweet—sweet and pointless. But don’t worry. We’ll kill you first, so you don’t have to suffer by watching those two Latents die.”
“I’m not worried. And they’re not Latents. They’re Gifted. As am I.”
She raised her arms, and dark clouds appeared in the sky, blocking out the sun. The wind rose, growing steadily from a small breeze to a strong, storm-pending wind. Lightning slashed the sky. The casual jeans and tee she’d had on vanished, replaced by a gown of white silk, layer upon layer stitched with golden threads and decorated with tiny golden five-point stars. Her hair, which had been blowing loose in the wind, arranged itself into a French braid. Finally, in her right hand, appeared a staff—what she’d learned a “magic” staff would look like.
She felt the ripple, unsurprised when her men appeared, Ryan on her left and Jeremy on her right. They’d chosen costumes for themselves as well—white billowy shirts open to the navel and form-hugging brown breeches of soft leather.
A shiver of déjà vu rippled over her skin, and she saw them as they’d been eons ago, in another life, and as they were today.
“Aye, just like last time.” Jeremy’s words sent an electric caress down her back.
There, and then gone, the sense that they’d lived and loved, not just once but many times, filled her senses with not only confidence but also a feeling of destiny.
A wave of Meghan’s wand sent the energy harmlessly into the heavens.
Pietro howled, a rage erupting from him that had power of its own. A large boulder hurled toward them. Jeremy growled, deflecting the boulder to crash onto the road.
First one and then the other of the brothers sent wave after wave of magic—sticks, lightning bolts, and even tiny balls of fire. Each salvo drew a defensive response from Ryan and then Jeremy.
Meghan stayed still, as if she needed to do just that to maintain the theatrics.
“Stop this now!” Ryan drowned Pietro’s fireballs with a large, spewing fire hose. “You can’t win!”
“I will win!” Mario screamed the words. “Die, bastard!” The shaft of magic came faster, more potent, and was aimed directly for Ryan. A shield materialized in Ryan’s hand, deflecting most of the force, but some of it knocked him to his knees.
Meghan screamed, and Jeremy swore.
“I’m all right.” Ryan evaporated the shield and surged to his feet. “It’s time to end this.”
Meghan gave him her hand when he reached for it, evaporating her staff. Jeremy took her other hand. It had been Jeremy who’d come up with the end game move—a play on an old cliché that he said was only fitting. They wouldn’t kill their enemy unless there was no choice. Now she saw there was a choice.
Meghan spoke, giving her men a moment to gather their power. “You clearly haven’t been successful creatures as men. Perhaps you’d fare better as rodents!”
They worked together, the three of them, melding their magic for one of the most powerful feats of magic—energy transformation.
The brothers were not turned into toads, as fairy tale lore would have it, but field mice.
They’d live, of course, but there was no reversal of this magic unless the three of them reversed it themselves.
Mario and Pietro turned wide, horrified gazes on each other, and then each squeaked, the transformation complete. A loud pop sounded as the space their bodies had occupied shrank from the size of two men to the size of a couple of field mice.
The mice seemed frozen in terror. A giant falcon appeared from out of nowhere, diving toward the mice, and then soared off, one small rodent impaled on each of its mighty talons.
* * * *
“Did we do that?” Jeremy’s shock matched Ryan’s. “Tell me we didn’t do that!”
“I didn’t even have the thought of them being a falcon’s dinner.” Ryan exhaled. He blinked, reverting to his own clothing, even as he saw his brother and his woman do the same.
“We didn’t do that.” Meghan turned to Ryan. “Let me see.” She didn’t give him a chance to show her. She lifted his shirt. Faint marks marred his chest where Mario’s magic had penetrated his defenses. She leaned forward and placed two kisses on his bruised flesh. The discomfort, and the bruising, vanished.
“You sound very certain, little tiger,” Jeremy said.
The moment the falcon had disappeared from view, the tempest quieted and the sunshine returned. The remnants of the giant boulder, which moments before had lain strewn across the road, also were no more.
A vehicle passed on its way into Paisley. Ryan knew that, to the rest of the world, nothing at all had happened here.
They’d created a bubble inside which their confrontation with the Fortunas had taken place. No one without power was the wiser as to what had just taken place.
“I am certain—and confused.” She looked at Jeremy and then Ryan. “First, what made us decide to turn them into mice in the first place? Thinking about it now, that seems like a dumb thing to do.”
“I’m not sure where the idea came from.” Jeremy frowned. “It just occurred to me.”
“And we both thought it was fitting,” Ryan said, “even though the idea hadn’t been in the backs of any of our minds previously.” No, the truth was they’d decided to give the Fortuna brothers every opportunity to stop. But if they refused, they knew they’d have only one choice.
Kill or be killed.
“Cheri said that both Max and Tony had begun to think of Vincente and Emilio as snakes. When they let loose with their final salvos, Max had called them snakes...”
“And they turned into snakes?” Ryan guessed.
Meghan met his gaze. He could read the uncertainty in hers. “Snakes that were immediately consumed by a shark that broke the surface of the ocean, leapt, and gobbled them down.”
“I’m sensing a common theme here,” Jeremy said.
“But what could be the point? That...person we don’t know about has stepped in again? Four times now? Why?”
“Maybe to save us from ourselves,” Ryan said. “We were ready to kill those two, to protect you, and ourselves.”
“And we both know you felt the same, little tiger.”
“We had a friend in college who became a cop.” Ryan drew Meghan closer, so that she was within his arms. “We still see him from time to time. About two years ago, he killed a man. It was ruled a justifiable use of force, and he’d acted to protect the lives of innocent people. But he was having a hard time dealing with it.”
“Killing should never be easy,” Jeremy said. “And maybe the whole point is that now we don’t have that stain on our souls.”
“Do you know what, Jer? I think you’re right.” He looked down into Meghan’s eyes. He could see she was still worried.
“I think we need to get together with the others,” Meghan said. “Diana’s going to be the next one to face trouble, and I think it’s going to be more of a trial for her, in a way.”
“Because she’s the last, and the remaining set of Fortuna brothers are going to be coming into the situation really pissed?” Ryan asked.
Meghan nodded. “And because of the three of us, she’s the one I’d give the single sword to, if there was only one.”
“Fierce, is she?”
Meghan chuckled. “A guy where she works, some jerk she can’t stand, once called her ‘hell on heels.’ I was insulted for her, but apparently she took it as a compliment. But here’s the thing that worries me. I’m not sure she’ll be able to share that sword.”
Ryan felt a vibration in his pocket. He reached in and pulled his phone out. The display told him who was calling. Tempted to let it go to voice mail, he nevertheless answered.
“Hello, Kolm. What can I do for you?”
Ryan listened as the man spoke. Nothing about Samuel Kolm was turning out to be the way he expected.
“I’m not certain that this is a good time.” The man’s response was...interesting. “All right, then I guess we’ll see you shortly.”
“Now what?” Jeremy asked.
Ryan met his brother’s gaze. “Samuel Kolm will be here shortly. And he wants to talk to you.”
Chapter 16
“Anything you have to say to me, you can say to the three of us together.”
Meghan didn’t need to use her magic to know that Jeremy felt off kilter. His nerves fairly danced in the air between them. Since Mr. Kolm had arrived within minutes of his phone call, they were all a little on edge. She’d left getting settled in the gazebo to the men and had gone into the house to bring out some sweet tea.
At the last minute, before going outside, tray in hands, she’d added some sugar cookies, the very, very good kind from a bakery in the city. If the business did an inventory each night, their till would not be off. She’d left money for them in the register.
Now she sat between Ryan and Jeremy, a hand held by each, facing a man who didn’t look like she imagined a medium would.
“After our dinner yesterday, I finally understood what my friend had been trying to tell me. It’s a balancing act I have to do, you see. I have to be careful
of the people I allow into my sphere, of the people I open myself up to.”
“Your friend...is someone no longer among the living.” Ryan spoke softly and slowly. When Mr. Kolm seemed to struggle, she leaned forward.
“No one but us—well, us and whoever is near you right now— will hear what you have to say.”
He shook his head and she thought his smile a little sad. “I know I can trust you. I’m sorry I’m being so guarded.” He met Ryan’s gaze. “Yes, my friend’s name is Oscar. He’s been gone for a long time. He died in 1863. We’ve been friends for a few years now. He wanders, but always comes when I need him, and sometimes, as he did a few months ago, he comes when I don’t expect him to.”
“And he has a message for me?”
Mr. Kolm looked at Jeremy. “He’s free to walk the planes between what we refer to as linear time. For him, all time is happening at the same time and in the same place. It’s a concept that can give a man a headache, let me tell you. In one of his wanderings, he met a couple who’d died in a car accident twenty-seven years ago, in time as we measure it.”
“I don’t know if I want you to tell me anything more.”
Beside her, Jeremy had gone stiff. Mr. Kolm was leaning forward. Jeremy’s stark admission apparently had set the older man at ease.
“It is because of their interest that I sought you out, why we were dining together yesterday evening, and why I was able to pass on a warning to you.” He sat back and surveyed them all. “Everything turned out well, I take it?”
“Yes.” Ryan was nearly as tense as his brother.
“I cannot force you to take the message I’ve been given for you, Mr. Jones. But I hope you will. It’s a gift that many people in your position wish they could receive.”
Jeremy’s stone-like stillness hurt her heart. He seemed to be staring off into space—or maybe he was peering deep within himself. When he finally moved, it was to jerk his head once, a nod of agreement that wasn’t so much filled with reluctance as it was pain.
The Gifted 2: Passions Aflame (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 14
