Goddess Legacy: Goddess Series Book 1 (Young Adult / New Adult Series)

by M. W. Muse

  “I-I don’t know what to say,” Adin said, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands on his head.

  “I asked River what his part in all this was. He wasn’t sure, but he thinks he was created out of the likeness of one of the gods that originally pursued Persephone before she was abducted. He’s that god’s attempt at a real chance with her…with me.”

  Adin shook his head. He probably couldn’t trust himself to open his mouth without yelling.

  “River said he thinks you’re the link in the prophecy, since whether you live or die will determine if he and I will be together. His mom doesn’t like me, so River thinks she may come after you. Killing you would keep me from being with him. Plus, it would destroy me emotionally before she could destroy me physically. He wanted me to warn you…somehow.”

  “I—” He stopped, shook his head. “Do you believe any of this?”

  “I believe parts of it. I think River is trying to help me. When I talked to Lissa, she didn’t deny any of it. In fact, Demeter also had priestesses who were titled Melissae. I came right out and asked her if that’s what she was.” She looked at Adin. “You even mentioned it was odd that she didn’t go out with my mom the night of her supposed death if they were such great friends.”

  “What did Lissa say?” he asked cautiously.

  “She was shocked, but when I mentioned the box in her room, she freaked out and ran to her bedroom, but it was no longer there. From the way she and River acted about the box, it can’t be anything good.”

  “So what parts do you believe, specifically?”

  “I think I am like Persephone. I think my mom left me here in Lissa’s care to keep Hades, or his likeness, from coming after me, so I could have a better destiny than Persephone did. I think my dreams are trying to warn me or help me—I’m not sure which one yet. I think Ms. Gorgos is going to try to kill me, and I think River is in love with me,” she whispered.

  Adin’s eyes turned sad. “How do you feel about him?”

  “I think he’s nice, and I consider him a friend.” She looked down at the table. Gods, this was hard. “I feel like I can talk to him without being judged, and I feel like I need to protect him from people who’d want to hurt him for being open with me.” She glanced at Adin, and he looked confused. “I don’t feel about him the way he feels about me. He knows how I feel about you, and it hurts him, but I’ve been very honest with him about that fact. He knows I want to be with you, and he’s okay with just being friends.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Legacy,” Adin said. “If he feels only half as strongly as I do for you, I know he won’t stop until he finds a way into your heart. I know this because that’s what I’d do. That’s what any man in that position would do.”

  “I told him if he couldn’t keep his feelings in line, then we couldn’t even be friends. He couldn’t stand the thought of not being friends, so he agreed. I think it was hard for him at first, but he’s been doing pretty well lately. I think, for him, the prophecy doesn’t necessarily mean now. He believes we’ll be together someday, but he’s not sure when that’ll happen. Until then he’s okay staying friends.”

  “What do you think about the prophecy?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I can understand if his family was responsible for your death how I would despise him and not want to be his friend at all, much less anything more. So I can totally see that part. But I don’t understand how I could not be with you if you were alive.” She looked down at her hands on the table. “I already feel like we were meant to be together. Forever.”

  Adin lifted up her head to meet his gaze. “I feel that way too,” he murmured. “And I felt that way long before the night of your birthday party.”

  She smiled at him, but it wasn’t a happy one. “I don’t understand how everything else can make so much sense, but I can’t accept what he said about the prophecy. I mean, I know you care about me, and I know River does too. So I can see how River thinks we’re all bonded. He feels bonded to me, and I feel bonded to you…”

  “We are bonded to each other,” Adin corrected. “River isn’t part of that.”

  “I know. But he’s still my friend.”

  Adin took her hands into his and looked down at them. “I don’t want you to be friends with him.”

  “Why?”

  “Legacy, I don’t trust him. I know you think he’s helping you with your mom, and he might be. But his intentions are not, um, honorable.” Adin’s jaw ticked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Whether or not he’s telling you the truth, he’s helping you to gain your trust. Once he has that, there’s no telling what he will do. He could turn on you and help his mother and you wouldn’t see it coming. Or,” Adin paused, “he could use that trust to get into your heart. I’ll be in college while he’s there with you every day at school. He has an ulterior motive, Legacy.”

  “I wouldn’t let that happen, and I don’t think he’d purposely try to take me from you. He knows that would hurt me, and he doesn’t want to do that. Besides, why would he want me to warn you about his mother?”

  “Because he wants me left alone since that’s apparently the only way he’ll get you,” Adin snapped.

  “But even when I was upset about you being at your dad’s, he wanted me to talk to him about it even though I could tell it hurt him to hear me talk about you like that. He wants what makes me happy, and he knows that’s you. He wants my happiness no matter what it costs him.”

  “Of course he does. If you go crying on his shoulder, he gets to be the one to console you. Then you’ll always turn to him when you need support. Legacy, he has an agenda.”

  She took a deep breath and looked away. She felt like she wasn’t getting anywhere with Adin. She wanted him to know and understand.

  “Legacy,” Adin whispered, and she looked at him. “You said something earlier that bothers me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When I asked you how you felt about River, you said you feel like he doesn’t judge you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think I judge you?”

  “No.” She shook her head, but she wasn’t entirely sure if she was being truthful. “I think you don’t understand. I want you to understand. That’s why I told you. I was really upset at the thought of making you angry, but I needed you to know. If any of this is true, then I wanted you to know about it because I want you to know about me.”

  Adin looked deep into her eyes. “You can always, always come to me. I will always be here for you. I will always listen to what you have to say. You have no idea how much I care about you. I will always try to understand whatever it is you want to tell me. But because I…because of how I feel about you, I will always, always try to protect you. Even though I will do whatever it takes to protect you, that does not mean I don’t understand.”

  She nodded, and he wrapped his arms around her.

  “I just told you that you can always come to me,” he whispered in her ear. “Now, I want to ask you to do just that. Please, Legacy. Please come to me whenever you need to, whenever you want to, whatever the reason. I want to be the one you turn to. Always. Forever,” he breathed.

  “That’s what I want too,” she whispered.

  Adin held her in his arms, rocking her gently. Even though this hadn’t been easy, she was glad to have it all out in the open.

  What seemed like an eternity later, Adin finally spoke again, but did not let her go. “What about your dreams? Are you still having them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are they always the same?” he asked, stroking her hair.

  “No. Parts of them are, but I’ve been dreaming about my hands too. They’re always different temperatures.”

  “And?” He seemed like he was waiting for her to say more.

  “And it’s odd. I’ve never dreamed about that before.”

  “But your hands are always different temperatures, Legacy.”

  She yanked
back away from him, startled. “What?”

  “Er, your hands. One is always hotter than the other.” He stared at her like he didn’t understand why she was shocked about that.

  She pulled her hands away from him, touching each one to the other arm to feel the difference. Her right one was freezing, and her left one was blazing hot. Even looking at them, she could tell the fingers on her left hand had a red tint to them.

  She grimaced. She didn’t know what to say.

  “You didn’t know this, did you?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “How long have you noticed this?”

  “Um, I don’t know for sure, but when I held your hands the night of your birthday party, I noticed it then. I guess I’ve noticed it ever since. I can’t say for sure if I noticed before your birthday. Before then I tried not to be too obvious about my feelings, so I tried not to touch you too much.”

  “Hmmmm…” She wondered if this was relevant.

  “Do you think it means something?”

  “I don’t know. It’s interesting, though.”

  She sat in silence while she pondered it. It had to mean something, but what? She couldn’t figure out what her hands had to do with anything. Unless this was part of the changes she was going through.

  “River said there are no coincidences. I’m wonder what this means.” She rubbed her hands together.

  “No coincidences,” Adin mumbled.

  She looked over at him to read his expression, but it was unfathomable. He flashed his eyes at her and smiled. Then he lifted his hand and rubbed her arm.

  “If the different hand temperatures are new, then maybe that has something to do with the changes Lissa mentioned.”

  She smiled back at Adin. He was trying and that meant a lot to her. “Possibly.”

  “What are you smiling about?” he asked, his lip twitching.

  “I’m just happy that you’re trying to understand this. I know you don’t like River, but you’re making an effort and that makes her happy.”

  “I don’t like River for many reasons, one of which is the fact that he seriously thinks he’ll take you away from me. Any man would feel threatened by that. But this isn’t about River. He may be a source of information for you, but to me, that’s all he is. This is about you, not him.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and leaned in to kiss his neck.

  Adin put his arms around her again and held her for awhile. “Will you please do something for me while I’m gone?”

  “Of course.”

  “Stay safe. I’m going to be worried enough about you as it is. I’m not going to ask you to stay away from River because I know you can’t. Just be aware that even though there may be no coincidences, not everything is always as it seems either. So please be careful. For me.”

  He said it again. Be careful. This time, they were on the exact porch that they were on in her dream.

  So was that a coincidence, or something that wasn’t as it seemed? Gods, she didn’t know. But in Adin’s arms, she knew either way it didn’t really matter.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Legacy pulled into Calli’s driveway on another dreary day. Dreary because Adin had left to go to his dad’s house. At least he’d be back tomorrow, and early enough this time that they’d made plans to go out when he returned. But she was going to use part of this time away from him to be productive…well, help Calli be productive.

  They had a summer English assignment—a paper on Hamlet—so of course Calli had waited until they only had a few weeks left of summer before she started on it. Adin helped Legacy with hers last month, so she was already finished. She’d found a copy of Kenneth Branagh’s movie version of the play and brought it with her to Calli’s house. At least they could watch the movie and follow along in the book.

  Once she was inside, she got down to business. She put in the movie, and Calli popped some popcorn. They sat quietly while they both watched, and Calli followed along with the play. When it was finally over, she got out her laptop, and they started on her paper. Legacy couldn’t remember the last time she had so little fun spending the day with Calli. The movie was great, but no one liked homework during summer break.

  “How are things with you and Zach?” she asked as Calli saved the final version of her paper.

  “So far, so good.”

  “Do you want to double when Adin gets back? We can go see the new movie that comes out next week.”

  “Ah, that sounds like fun. I’ll talk to Zach about it.”

  “I talked to Adin about River,” she said timidly, now that the dreaded homework was finished.

  “Really? What did he say?”

  “Nothing I didn’t really expect. He doesn’t trust River, but he understands why I talk to him. He wants me to come to him, though, if I ever need to talk. He thinks River has an agenda.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Does it matter if he does? I mean, he is helping you.”

  “I know. And I’ve told River how I feel about Adin. I don’t want to lead him on—even if he is helping me.”

  “Hopefully, Adin understands that.”

  “I think he does. Actually, he helped me too. I told him about the latest entry in my dream catalog, and he was the one who pointed out the reality.”

  “What’s new in your dreams?” she asked as she printed out her paper.

  “My hands are different temperatures. One is hot and the other is cold. Adin told me my hands are always like that. I asked when he noticed, and he said he did the night of my party. He couldn’t tell me if my hands were like that before that night since he was trying to control his feelings back then. But that night seems to be when all this craziness started.”

  “Well, I’ve known you for years, too, but I haven’t been trying not to touch you,” she said, laughing. “I’ve never noticed your hands like that before. In fact, the first time I did notice it was when we were at the mall, and you said it was because of your iced latte.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Interesting.

  “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know, Calli. But I think it means something. Maybe it’s part of the changes I’m going through.”

  “That’s what I think too. Are you going to talk to River about it?”

  “No. He knows too much already.”

  She decided to stay the night at Calli’s house since spending time with Calli was better than sulking about Adin at home in her bedroom.

  After a day of work, it was fun spending the evening doing girly stuff. They did makeovers, painted toenails, and talked about their boyfriends.

  Before they turned in for the night, Calli had to feed the dogs, so Legacy went outside with her. Once they were outside, they noticed the gate had not shut completely when Legacy pulled in, and one of the dogs was missing. They grabbed some flashlights and started walking down the road.

  “Spike,” Calli called out. “I hope we find him before I have to go wake up my parents.”

  As they passed River’s house, Legacy glanced over there in search of the dog. Great. He was outside, and he had to have heard them and seen the lights flashing. Just what she needed, River to see her in her pajamas. Not. He walked over to them.

  “What are you two doing out here in the dark?”

  “We’re looking for one of my dogs,” Calli said.

  “Have you checked with security? Maybe someone saw him and called.”

  They were in a gated community with security, so surely the dog hadn’t gone far.

  “No. I didn’t think about that.”

  “I’ll keep looking while you go call,” Legacy told her.

  “Okay,” Calli said, and ran back to her house.

  Legacy kept walking down the street, but she could hear River walking behind her. She so didn’t want to deal with him right now. She barely had any clothes on. She turned around and glared at him. “What?” she asked, flashing the li
ght in his face.

  He raised his hand to block the light. “I’m helping you look for the dog.”

  “I can manage,” she said as she shifted the light away from his face.

  “I know you can, but two pairs of eyes are better than one.”

  “Well, the second pair will be back out right after she calls security,” she said, putting her hand on her hip.

  River stood there staring at her. “I don’t want you out here alone,” he muttered.

  “We’re in a gated community. What can happen to me here?”

  “Did you forget my mom lives right there?” He pointed to his house.

  Crap. “I guess you have a point. I’ll go wait at Calli’s house.”

  “No, I can walk with you.”

  He wasn’t getting the hint, so she’d just have to come out and say it. “I don’t want you walking with me.”

  He walked up closer to her. “Why?”

  “Because it’s late. I’m tired. I’m in my pajamas, and it’s not appropriate.”

  “Calli has seen you in your pajamas. Think of me as a friend like she is.” He smiled.

  “But I haven’t known you as long as I’ve known her.”

  River knew she had him with that, so he was more direct. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until you are safely back indoors.”

  Ugh! “Hmph.” Stupid Prophecy. She turned and walked away from him. “Spike! Come here, boy!”

  She stomped down the street with her stalker in tow. She could tell he was still right behind her. She wanted to turn around and give him a piece of her mind, but she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to keep calm.

  They walked down to the next street where a new estate was being built. She walked around the shell of the house, swinging her flashlight in every direction. Her foot caught some of the construction debris and she tripped. River grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. She looked at his face, and he was watching the ground, making sure she had her footing before letting her go.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, concerned.

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

  Even though he let go of her arm, he was still standing right up against her. She thought he was going to step back, but he didn’t. She looked at his face again, and his eyes were shut. She stepped away from him, and he opened them.