And then it was like floating on air.
She felt so light, so airy, that she actually thought for a moment that she was floating. But it wasn’t her physical being that was moving. It was as if her soul had separated from her body and it was traveling over realms and reality, moving from the world in which she thought she existed, the world in which her body was rooted, and moved into the existence of everything.
She didn’t know how else to explain it.
There were others there, curious souls who watched her as she moved past them. She could feel their stares on her just as she might feel a touch. She didn’t know what was happening, but she liked the way it made her feel.
Gwen had never felt connected. There had never been anyone who ever made her feel as though she was a part of something special, as though she was loved above all else. Not even in Cei’s arms—as nice as that was—there wasn’t this feeling of being completed. Not until now.
This was where she belonged. It was where she had always been meant to exist.
Welcome home, a soft, female voice whispered. It was quickly followed by a dozen other voices, all speaking over one another until she couldn’t tell if it was more than one voice speaking in unison or just one, just the one voice of all living things.
And then she was standing just inside an arbor that contained a beautiful, colorful flower garden. She was dressed in a flowing white dress that was almost like something a woman might wear to marry the love of her life. Across from her were a dozen butterflies, flitting and flirting with a single, perfect red rose.
“Welcome,” a woman dressed in a lovely green gown said as she gracefully approached Gwen. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“What is this place?”
The woman smiled, a smile that was like nothing Gwen had ever seen. They say that Helen’s face launched a thousand ships…this woman’s smile could have soothed the soul of every person currently living on earth.
“This is Annwn.”
Gwen stepped back, fear bursting through her chest. “But isn’t Annwn the underworld? Isn’t it a place of torture?”
“No.” The woman reached her hand out to Gwen, gently drawing her back. “Annwn is not just the underworld, it is the essence of our beliefs. It is both heaven and hell, as you might understand them.”
“How could it be both?”
The woman cocked her head slightly, as though listening to instructions from some source Gwen could neither see nor hear. Then she smiled again.
“It’s all about perception, dear Gwenydd. If a soul is pure, like yours, then it will see Annwn like this.” She gestured around herself, indicating not only the small flower garden, but the trees and grass and chirping birds that existed outside of it. “If a soul is less than pure, then Annwn will appear very differently to that person.”
“What about the sons of Don?”
The woman’s thin lips turned down into a sad frown, an expression that should have marred her beautiful, pale features, but didn’t. In fact, it almost made her more beautiful than before.
“They are cursed. The curse has placed them in one of the darkest realms of Annwn despite the purity of their souls.”
“They’re being tortured.”
“Yes. In very dark, twisted ways.”
“I’m supposed to save them.”
The woman’s face instantly brightened. “Yes,” she said, almost like an eager child agreeing to enjoy an ice cream cone at their favorite restaurant. “You are the savior.”
Gwen stepped forward, moving past the woman into the small garden. She touched a daffodil and watched its petals open and turn toward her as though she was a nourishing sun beam. It happened again when she touched a delicate lily, a fat little marigold.
“I don’t know how to save them,” she said quietly. “I barely know how to control my…powers.”
“They are not your powers,” the woman said, almost chastising Gwen. “They are the powers of nature that are channeled through you.”
Gwen looked over at her. “But I don’t understand how they work.”
“You don’t have to understand them. You simply have to open yourself to them.” The woman seemed to glide as she crossed to a small bench that was partially hidden behind a holly bush. “It seems that you understand them more than you think you do, or you would not have come here.”
“There’s a book—”
The woman’s face brightened again, the light shining from her eyes so intense that they almost looked like burning beacons. “The Book of Secrets.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t have a title.”
“It was given to you by the Mother.”
“The Mother?”
The woman nodded eagerly. “Yes. Mother Earth, the first mother. She decided you should have it, so she gave it to Blodeuwedd to deliver to you.”
“Blodeuwedd? She left it on my window ledge?”
“Yes.” The woman smiled again, the smile of a teacher whose student has finally gotten the concept she has been teaching for too long. “Blodeuwedd watches over you. She is never far from your side.”
Gwen turned away, tears coming unbidden into her eyes. She dragged her fingers through her hair, aware that it wasn’t real, that none of this was real—but it felt so incredibly real. A butterfly flittered around her, coming in and out of her line of sight over and again. She raised her hand, offered it a finger. The butterfly immediately settled on the finger and seemed to simply stare at Gwen as she studied it.
Too surreal. This whole thing was too much for her overtaxed mind to get.
“You are important to Blodeuwedd,” the woman said. “Not only are you her child, but you represent her one chance to redeem herself for her past mistakes. If you can save the sons of Don, you will also free your mother from the curse placed on her so very long ago.”
“She plotted to kill her husband.”
“She did.” There was sadness in the woman’s voice. “And she knows what a mistake that was. But love can sometimes make a woman blind to the truth.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Gwen lowered her hand to a daisy and slipped the butterfly onto its petals. She turned, studied the woman who still sat calmly on a bench across the perimeter of the garden. “We don’t know which ritual to perform to break the curse.”
The woman lowered her head, her blonde hair falling over her face. “I understand.”
“How can I make things better for everyone if I don’t know how?”
“You will when the time comes.”
Gwen laughed. A part of her had expected that response.
“All this Zen stuff…it’s really just a bunch of crap, you know?”
“If it was ‘crap’ you wouldn’t be here, Gwenydd.”
Gwen shook her head as she crossed to the opening in the arbor. “I don’t understand,” she said, pausing. “Why me? Why now? Why couldn’t someone else have done this in the thousand or so years since the curse was first enacted? Why is it so complicated?”
“Because…”
The woman had come up behind Gwen without making a sound. She laid her hand on Gwen’s shoulder, her breath close to her ear, almost as Cei’s had been when they looked at that book together in Tony’s office.
“…we’ve been waiting for you.”
Tears again threatened. Gwen didn’t understand why. She rarely ever cried, but in the last month or so she had cried more than she had in years.
Hormones.
“I have to go,” she whispered.
“Gwen,” the woman said, grabbing her hand before she could move very far.
Gwen didn’t turn. She was afraid if she did, she wouldn’t be able to keep the tears at bay.
“Be careful,” she said softly, her tone belying the hard warning behind her words. “There are people around you who cannot be trusted. Do not let them lead you astray.”
Gwen laughed. “You don’t know who you’re talking to, do you?” She finally glanced back at the woman, caught the
bewildered look on her face. “I don’t trust. I never have.”
A profound sadness fell over the woman’s beautiful features. She lowered her head again, her hair again falling around her face, almost like a halo. When she looked up, there were tears on her cheeks.
“You are loved, Gwenydd,” she whispered. “More than you will ever know.”
“Not me.” Gwen turned and began to walk away, a walk that turned into a run.
She couldn’t get out of there—away from those words—fast enough.
Too bad they were reverberating in her mind, bouncing around with a determination that she knew would take some serious willpower to silence.
Chapter 7
Music filled the air with a ground-shaking intensity, a rap song about shoes playing through huge stereo speakers borrowed from the school gym. It was cool, cooler than it had been the last few weeks, the first hints of winter in the air. Gwen pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders as she followed Morgan and Rhein to the bonfire.
Homecoming.
Gwen had never gone to a homecoming football game, a homecoming dance, or any of the other festivities that surrounded the yearly ritual in Texas junior highs and high schools. There never seemed to be a reason for it. Homecoming was an opportunity to hang out with friends and do stupid things.
Gwen didn’t make friends. There was no point when she rarely stayed in one foster home an entire school year.
And she didn’t do stupid.
“Are you cold?” Cei asked as he slipped her arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to his side.
“Not now.”
He kissed the side of her head as they continued making their way to the center of the student parking lot where the bonfire burned. There was a lot of laughter around them, a lot of students teasing and flirting with one another as the teachers and other chaperones tried to keep things fun, but manageable.
Gwen didn’t envy them.
She spotted Ms. Dru by the snack stand, talking quite seriously with another of the teachers, one Gwen didn’t recognize. Probably discussing some aspect of history they disagreed on. Ms. Dru loved to debate. It was her one downfall that the students in Gwen’s advanced medieval history class took advantage of. One well-phrased question could often derail Ms. Dru for an entire class period.
“You want some popcorn?” Cei asked.
Gwen shook her head, but could see by the teasing light in his eye that he wasn’t going to let her get away that easily.
“It’s a tradition, Miss Reese,” he said. “You can’t go to a bonfire and not eat popcorn. Just like you can’t go to a barbecue and not eat the ribs and potato salad.”
“Is that right?”
He shrugged. “Hell if I know. I just want some.”
Gwen laughed. “Then go get some. You don’t need my permission.”
“Sure I do.” He kissed her lightly. “Be right back.”
She watched him walk away, feeling for the first time in weeks like a normal teenager. Maybe the first time ever. She was seventeen and she had a boyfriend…not just some guy she hooked up with from time to time, but a real, committed boyfriend.
It only took learning she was a demigod and he was immortal for her to finally have something normal in her life.
“You and Cei, huh?”
Morgan was watching Cei as he tried to maneuver through the crowd, stopping every few feet to greet a friend or slide around a group of rowdy teens.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“When did that happen?”
Gwen shrugged. “A few days ago.”
Someone brushed past Gwen, pushing her forward. She ran into Rhein, who had stopped a few feet in front of her to talk to a girl from her French class. He laughed as he slipped his arm around her.
“You didn’t have to run into me to get my attention, Gwen.”
“Sorry. The crowd.”
“Come on.”
Rhein took her hand and drew her away from the crowd toward a set of bleachers that had been placed for the pep rally that would take place later in the evening. No one was there now, as though they were all avoiding the area because it reminded them too much of gym class or something.
Morgan had followed, but he didn’t attempt to stay close to them. He settled on one of the low benches with his back to both the crowd and Gwen and Rhein.
“He okay?” Gwen asked.
Rhein shrugged. “He has his good days and his bad days.”
“Is he talking to his mom?”
A sad smile touched Rhein’s full lips. “She doesn’t even know what she did wrong. Morgan can’t tell her, but he also can’t look her in the eye. She pulled me aside this morning and asked if Morgan was being bullied at school, or if he’d gotten in with a bad crowd.” Rhein shook his head. “It’s really sad.”
Gwen glanced over at Morgan, but he hadn’t moved.
“Maybe someone should tell her. Maybe she could shed some light on who Morgan’s father is.”
“The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced she wouldn’t know.”
She studied Rhein’s face for a second. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had a crush on her.”
Rhein looked away. “It’s complicated, Gwen. If you’d lived as long as I have—”
“Experience doesn’t explain everything.”
“But it helps.”
Gwen started to say something, but Cei suddenly arrived behind her, the seductive aroma of freshly popped popcorn coming with him.
“What’s going on?” he asked, slipping the hand that held the popcorn coming around her shoulders. She took a handful of popcorn, making him laugh.
“Thought you didn’t want any.”
“Well, now that you’re waving it under my nose…”
“See? I knew you couldn’t resist.” He was still chuckling as he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “It’s not a party without popcorn.”
Gwen laughed too, until she looked up and saw the expression on Rhein’s face. There was something about it…not jealousy, per se, but he clearly wasn’t impressed.
“Rhein,” Cei said. “How’s it going?”
Rhein looked at Gwen for a long second before simply brushing past the two of them and going to sit beside Morgan.
“What was that?”
Gwen turned, grabbing the popcorn as he lowered his hand. “He’s worried about Morgan.”
“Isn’t everyone?”
Gwen looked up at him. “What do you think about asking Morgan’s mother who his father is?”
Cei stole a handful of popcorn and spoke between each kernel he popped into his mouth. “I think if she knew who his father was—or what Morgan is, for that matter—she would have sought out someone to help him long before this.”
“Then it’s possible the father tricked her in some way?”
“More than possible. That’s the way these things were done back in the day.”
“Back in the day?” Gwen laughed. “If I didn’t know you, I would never believe you’d lived through some of the greatest moments of history.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He moved closer to her, amusement dancing in his blue eyes. “You don’t think I’m refined enough?”
“You don’t talk like an English gentleman, that’s for sure.”
“I was an English gentleman for a very long time,” he said, nuzzling against the side of her face. “It’s very overrated.”
“Oh?”
“For instance, you would never see an English gentleman doing this.”
He slid his lips along the lower curve of her jaw, up to her ear. He grabbed the very bottom edge of her earlobe between his teeth and nibbled with just the lightest amount of pressure, sending the nerve endings in Gwen’s ear, her neck, her spine, dancing with an almost painful desire. She sighed as she moved into him, as she pressed herself against his chest, his hips.
It took her a second to catch her breath when he let her ear go.
“
I bet a few English gentlemen did that sort of thing. If not, there wouldn’t be so many Englishmen running around today.”
“Yes, but never in public.”
“True.”
She leaned her head back and found him watching her, amusement still dancing in his eyes. She loved it when he looked at her that way, loved the way it made her stomach do funny little flips. It made her hopeful.
Hope was not something a child caught in the foster system learned to hold onto.
“This is boring,” Morgan said, suddenly arriving at Cei’s shoulder. “Let’s go do some of the games.”
Cei glanced at him even as his hands came around Gwen’s waist, pulling her tighter against him. “You want to pin the tail on the donkey, Morgan?”
Morgan shrugged. “It’s better than watching the two of you make out.”
“No one asked you to watch.”
Morgan rolled his eyes. “Like anyone could avoid it.”
He walked off, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his jeans, his jacket bunched over his shoulders. Rhein followed, not looking back or acknowledging Gwen and Cei in any way.
SONS of DON Page 21
