by I. T. Lucas
What if the radiation made her face melt off? Callie felt like giggling hysterically at the absurd notion. Or was it? The goddess was glowing. Didn’t it imply some form of radiation?
Brundar nudged her, reminding her of her manners.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Clan Mother.” She whispered the words Brundar had instructed her to say.
The goddess reached for her clammy hand and clasped it. “Call me Annani. Clan Mother is a title I tolerate at ceremonies. I am not too fond of it in private.”
“Oh,” was the only response Callie could come up with. Brilliant.
The goddess turned to look at Brundar. “You may leave us. I want a few moments alone with your mate. I will summon you when we are done.”
He bowed, ignoring Callie’s panicked expression. “As you wish, Clan Mother.” He turned on his heel and left.
The traitor.
When the door closed behind him, the goddess sighed. “You have your work cut out for you, child. That boy needs to loosen up, and you seem like the right girl to pull that stick out of his backside.”
Shocked, Callie looked up at the goddess’s smiling face.
The goddess waved a hand. “Do not look so shocked. You know I am right.”
Callie swallowed. “I guess,” she whispered.
“Use your outside voice, Calypso,” the esteemed Clan Mother singsonged the tune from a Saturday Night Live skit.
Callie giggled, the frog in her throat shrinking. “I would’ve never expected a goddess to watch television.”
Annani rolled her eyes. “How else am I going to learn all about popular culture? Besides, I enjoy a good laugh. That skit is so funny.”
“It is.” It was also vulgar, but apparently, the goddess was no prude.
“You are probably wondering why I wanted to see you.”
Callie nodded. “Brundar said you wanted to get to know me.”
“Yes. It is a rare opportunity for me to welcome a new member to my clan who is not of my line. A new blood, if you will. I do not know if Brundar explained how important it is to us to find people like you. Especially females who could become the mothers of new genetic lines.”
“He told me a lot, but I don’t remember everything. It was so much to absorb. But I understand that those who are your descendants can’t intermarry, and that up until recently there weren’t any other known immortals other than your clan and your enemies the Doomers, who are all male and are obviously not considered good marriage material.”
“That is it in a nutshell. You understand perfectly. Now tell me about yourself, including how you and Brundar found each other.” The goddess smirked. “If I ask him, I will get a three-word answer at best. I would rather hear the story from you.”
Callie took a deep breath and decided to tell the goddess everything. After all, she had nothing to hide or be ashamed of, and even if she had, it would be foolish to tell half-truths to a goddess who might be able to read her mind.
“You are a very brave young woman,” Annani said after Callie was done.
She felt herself blush at the undeserved compliment. “It’s very kind of you, but I’m not. I just did what I had to survive.” She looked into the goddess’s warm eyes. “You are the brave one. I know you are a goddess and that you are very powerful, but from what Brundar told me I understand that you were still a young girl when you lost the love of your life and then your entire family. If I were you, I would’ve crawled into a hole and waited to die.”
As sadness replaced the mirth in Annani’s eyes, Callie regretted letting herself blabber like that.
“That is exactly what I did, child. But at some point, I realized it was selfish. I was the only survivor of an advanced civilization, and without me and the knowledge I carried humanity would be lost for thousands of years. I had to do all I could to preserve my people’s legacy and help humanity evolve.”
“As I said, you were incredibly courageous to take on such a monumental task, and at such a young age, despite the despair that must’ve weighed you down.”
“My despair was illuminated by a tiny glimmer of hope, and it was enough to keep me going. It still does.”
“The hope for humanity?”
Annani tilted her head as if deliberating whether she should answer or not. “Not only that. It was more personal than that.”
What could it be? Brundar had said that the goddess had vowed to never love again. So that could not have been it. “Do you hope some of your people survived? Or maybe got away?”
“No, child. At the beginning I did. But after I’d learned all the facts I knew they were all gone.”
The goddess sighed and smiled a sad smile. “It happened before I escaped, while I was still in mourning and inconsolable in my grief. An old human fortuneteller came to see me. She was quite famous for her abilities, so I agreed to hear her out even though I did not want to talk to anyone other than my parents and my best friend, Gulan.”
Annani let go of Callie’s hand and wiped a lone tear from the corner of her eye. “The fortuneteller told me not to despair because all was not lost. I cannot say more because she made me swear to never repeat this to anyone, and I am not foolish enough to disregard the words of a seer, even a human one.”
Callie could understand that. If the foretelling was so important that it had kept Annani going for thousands of years, she was right to follow the seer’s instructions to the letter and not jinx it in any way.
“I hope it was okay for you to tell me even this little.”
Annani nodded. “I do not know why I did. I never told anyone.” She smiled. “There must be something special about you.”
Callie put a hand over her heart. “I will never repeat this to anyone. Your secret is safe with me.”
The goddess leaned and kissed her cheek. “I know, child.”
Chapter 64: Brundar
Calypso didn’t say much as Brundar picked her up from Kian’s penthouse. She seemed dazed, which was understandable following her first encounter with Annani.
The goddess’s presence was unnerving even to her own descendants, let alone to a girl who’d known nothing of their world up until the day before yesterday.
“Are you okay?” he asked as they entered the elevator.
“Yes. I don’t know how my head didn’t explode yet, but somehow I’m holding it together.”
He pulled her into his arms. “You are stronger than you realize.”
She leaned her forehead on his chest. “I’m not all that strong. I have you to lean on.”
Her words filled him with immense satisfaction. “Always.” He kissed the top of her head.
Calypso lifted her eyes to him. “And you have me to lean on too. I hope you realize that. It’s no longer just your brother and you. I’m your family too.”
Brundar tightened his arms around her, then let her go as the elevator doors opened.
Hand in hand, they walked down the corridor to what would be, from now on, their home. At least until he applied for a house in the village.
Would Anandur stay with them? Did he want to keep his brother as a roommate?
Brundar didn’t mind, but those kinds of decisions were no longer his own. It would be up to Calypso. His future was with her.
However, there was one more thing Brundar needed to do before he could think of a future with his mate without a dark cloud hanging over his head.
Back in the apartment, he sat Calypso on the couch and then poured himself a hefty serving of whiskey.
She lifted a brow. “Isn’t it a bit early for that?”
“Anytime after five in the afternoon is not too early.”
She laughed. “I guess for Scots it never is.”
“Aye.” He saluted. “I would offer you a drink, but all we have are beers and whiskey.”
“I’ll settle for a glass of water.”
He went back to the kitchen, filled a tall glass for her, then came back to sit next to her on the couch.
�
��I need to tell you something, and it’s not going to be easy for me.”
She put a hand on his thigh. “You don’t need to tell me anything that makes you uncomfortable.”
He shook his head. “There should be no secrets between mates. Not big ones, anyway. If I don’t tell you, it will keep bothering me until I do.”
She nodded, but her eyes betrayed her trepidation. He wondered what Calypso was imagining his big secret was to make her so fearful.
“Remember when I told you about what happened to me when I was a kid?”
“Of course.” She let out a breath, which he took to mean that this wasn’t what she’d thought he was about to tell her.
“I didn’t tell you everything. No one other than Anandur knows what happened. Not even our mother.”
She frowned. “Are you sure you want to tell me?”
The more outs she was giving him, the more determined he was to tell her. “Yes, I am. It was more than a severe beating. I was violated by someone I thought of as my best friend.”
She nodded as if his confession didn’t come as a surprise to her. “I guessed as much.”
It was a tremendous relief. The worst part about telling Calypso was fear of her reaction. If she’d responded with horror or pity, it would have crushed him.
“How did you know?”
“Your aversion to touch. A beating, no matter how severe, wouldn’t have caused it.” She took his hand and lifted it to her lips for a kiss. “Thank you for telling me. Your trust means a lot to me.”
He closed his eyes for a split second, thanking the Fates for the gift that was Calypso. Somehow she’d managed to turn this difficult moment and the memory of a vile act into something positive—a gift of trust.
“That’s not the end of the story. Anandur saved me from further violation by the rest of the gang that had attacked me, he killed them all.”
“How old was he?”
“He was already a grown man, a warrior. If not for him, I would’ve died. It was before my transition, I was still human, and a weak human at that.”
Calypso’s lip quivered, and tears pooled at the corners of her eyes before spilling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I wanted to be strong for you, but imagining a young boy tortured and murdered, I just can’t handle it. I’m so sorry.”
He pulled her into his arms. “Thanks to Anandur it didn’t happen. But my family had to flee in the middle of the night, leaving everything behind. The villagers were coming to avenge their sons, and there were too few of us to defend our homes. After that, Annani decreed that we all needed to move to one location, far away from any human settlements. It took us decades of hardship to build our home in Scotland. And it was all my fault.”
She pushed on his chest. “It wasn’t your fault. You were a boy, a victim.”
He shook his head. “If I had listened to my mother and stayed away from the humans, none of that would have happened.”
“First of all, you were a young boy. Show me one preteen who listens to his mother. Secondly, it might have saved your clan from worse things. What happened to you was tragic and awful, but it forced your family to build a strong, defendable home. So maybe you should think of it as thanks to you and not because of you.”
She was so adorable when berating him for putting himself down.
At that moment, he loved her more than ever. “I love you, Calypso. You are like an explosion of light that obliterates my darkness. I couldn’t hold on to it even if I tried.”
The indignation in her eyes gave way to the sweetest expression. She cupped his cheek. “This is the power of love. It is the antidote to darkness.”
“I agree.”
As long as he was on a roll, he should get it all out. “There is more.”
Calypso flinched.
He squeezed her hand. “No more tragedies, I promise. But you might get angry after you hear my last confession.”
“What is it?”
“When I first met you at the club, I couldn’t just let you go. You were married, off limits to me, but I peeked into Shawn’s mind and knew you weren’t safe with him. I watched over you ever since.” He smoothed his hand over his jaw. “It was straight out stalker behavior, but I couldn’t help myself. I guess I knew on a subconscious level that you were my fated one.”
Again, Calypso didn’t look shocked or surprised. “Did you park across the street from my house?”
He nodded.
“I felt it. I would look out the window and get this peaceful feeling as if someone was watching over me. I thought it was just my imagination.”
“So you’re not mad?”
“Mad? No way, I’m grateful. Knowing that I was never really alone during those hard times is such a relief.”
“You are never going to be alone again. Not as long as I breathe. We are one.”
She cuddled up to him. “Always and forever.”
Chapter 65: Turner
Death.
The bastard finally came to collect, much earlier than Turner had been expecting him.
Forty-six was too young to die.
For a civilian.
As a soldier in an elite commando unit, he hadn’t expected to live long, but then he was no longer one—hadn’t been for a long time. Turner had been retired for a good number of years, and even before that, his field days had been a distant memory. His tactical abilities had become apparent early on in his military career, making him a much more valuable asset with a pen and paper behind the desk than with a rifle behind enemy lines.
The irony wasn’t lost on him.
With a rifle, he would have had much less blood on his hands than what he’d accomplished from behind the fucking desk. As a brilliant tactician, Turner had no doubt that his missions had resulted in lower casualties compared to missions planned by others, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t sent many to their deaths.
Knowingly.
He had an uncanny ability to predict the precise outcome of every mission. Unfortunately, he could count those with no lives lost on the fingers of one hand.
Over the course of his military career, and later as a civilian operator, Turner had fed the Grim Reaper countless lives. But the monster wasn’t satisfied with that offering. He came back for Turner with one of his most deadly hatchets.
Lung cancer.
Turner had never smoked, had never shared an office with a smoker, and as far as he knew, he hadn’t been exposed to any toxic substances either. He watched what he put in his mouth, kept a gruelingly intense workout routine, and was a black belt in several martial arts disciplines.
One of the advantages of being a single man who didn’t date much was plenty of free time. His lifestyle had been Spartan. He’d kept to his strict regimen, believing it would keep him in good shape and healthy into old age.
But fate was a vindictive bitch.
The disease had come out of the blue. A persistent cough that had finally prompted him to see a doctor, leading to the diagnosis less than a week later.
Not that death was imminent, with treatments he could forestall the fucker for a years, maybe even for good, but Turner refused to live under his dark shadow.
He wasn’t ready to go.
What had he done with his life?
A lot for others, but very little for himself.
And yet, if Turner cared to be honest with himself, he had to admit that this wasn’t entirely true. Even though his job had been about the most complicated rescue and extraction operations, seemingly a noble task, he’d done it because he’d loved the game.
Outsmarting the enemy had given him the kind of satisfaction he couldn’t derive from anything else; he lived for the thrill, and the collateral damage hadn’t bothered him too much.
He was an analytical man, not an emotional one.
Even now, facing the possibility of his own premature death, Turner didn’t feel despair or anger. He wasn’t even overly surprised. But that didn’t mean he was going to throw in the towel and a
ccept defeat. That wasn’t his style.
He was Turner, the guy who always found another angle, another solution.
There was no cure for what he had. The doctor had talked about treatment and remission, not a cure. But that didn’t mean there was no other way to cheat death.
Permanently.
It was a long shot.
Turner had always suspected that there were hidden forces at work behind the seemingly unpredictable machinations of global affairs, and that what was considered occult often had a scientific explanation, albeit one yet to be discovered.
Apparently, the mythological gods hadn’t been the construct of human imagination, but an advanced species that had become extinct.
Kian and Andrew hadn't shared many details with him, but after further investigation, Tuner had deduced the rest by putting the puzzle pieces together.
A very small portion of the human population carried their immortal genes. Those lucky humans tended to exhibit a wide array of paranormal talents with varying strengths.
The only thing that had made Andrew special was his ability to tell truth from lie. A useful trick that Turner had exploited on more than one occasion during the years Andrew had served under him. But that little trick was nothing in comparison to what Turner could do.
Of course, that didn’t mean he was a Dormant carrier of immortal genes, but there was a small chance that he was.
A chance was all he was going to ask for, and Kian was going to give it to him.
Willingly or not.
Turner wasn’t above blackmail, on the contrary, it was one of the better tools in his arsenal. Kian needed to keep his people’s existence secret, and Turner was more than happy to comply.
For a price.
A chance at immortality.
Victor Turner still had a lot of living to do.
The end… for now.
Turner's story is coming up next!
Book 17
DARK OPERATIVE:
A Shadow of Death
