“Should I?”
Sam gives a faint smile. “You just found out that I’m only partly human, and you ask me if you should scream for help? Really, Laurel, you are something else. I have never met a girl like you before.”
Daringly, I throw my head back to get a better look at him. “Then we can shake hands, because you are something else too. Never met someone quite like you. It looks like we are each other’s equals.”
Sam twists his lips. “Not even close. I’m a threat to you.”
“Then tell me why I should feel threatened? You won’t hurt me, Sam. You hurt people who hurt me.”
He lets out a short laugh. “Don’t turn me into a hero or some deity.” The bitterness drips from his words, and he tousles his hair in apparent frustration. “I am a carrier of leftovers, fragments, genes of long ago. My DNA, the structure… it’s a mess on the inside. Flammable. You have no idea what’s going on inside me right now, how hard it is to keep myself under control at this moment. I’m a half-blood, a failure… a monster.”
“You’re not a failure, Sam. And I don’t care what name you give yourself anyway. That night when you saved me from Julien you were my hero.”
“I almost killed him, Laurel. Murdered him! The only thing I wanted to do was to tear that piece of shit to bits. You might not be scared, but I am. Scared of myself, and not because of who I am now, but because of what I am becoming.”
“What you are becoming? What do you mean? You’re just Sam.”
With a ferocious look he raises his hand, which I interpret to be a stop sign, and I don’t dare to open my mouth again. He walks a couple of steps away from me. “You couldn’t let it go, could you? Lou… I bow to him.”
“Lou?” I look at him, confused. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“Come on, Laurel. You’re an intelligent girl, but not even you can put all the pieces together with a Google search. By now you should know that if you want to deceive me, you should really try harder.”
“But, how…”
“When I visited you that night at the shelter, Lou tried to look right through me. He saw something, but he didn’t know what it was, or he didn’t believe it when it finally stood in front of him and looked him right in the eye. He is of Greek descent, a philosopher. He is an inexhaustible source of knowledge on the Hellenes, the mythological world, and if you combine that with your determination and,” his lips press into a small line, “experience, then there’s only one possible outcome: a very explosive and dangero…”
“Laurel! Where are you?”
Maude’s voice resounds over the beach.
“Go upstairs!”
I move closer to Sam. “You can’t leave me now. Or take me with you.”
Sam looks like he’s just had a taste of vinegar. “You are crazy if you think you want to come with me. It could cost you your life. I tried to be with you, Laurel, but it will never work.”
It feels like I am trying to swallow a hand full of nails. “So the wedding is still on?”
Between his eyebrows a deep wrinkle appears. “Please, don’t do this,” he whispers.
“Okay. If you tell me that it’s over—that there’s nothing between us—then I walk away right now. But then you have to stay away from me, you hear me? You don’t get to save me from cinemas, chairlifts, no more surprise visits like tonight… I can’t go on like this, Sam.”
“I have to protect you!”
“Protect me from what?”
“It’s not a fairytale, Laurel!” he shouts. For a moment, he gets distracted as he looks over my shoulder. Then he focuses on me again and takes another step closer to me. I back away. “So you are afraid of me? Good, hold on to that feeling. Because I live in a world of revenge and retribution, power games, deception, deceit, and destruction. And if you’re not constantly on your guard or if you don’t listen, then you’ll be mercilessly punished or you’ll be left in the shadow realm for the rest of your life, disabled and soulless, surrounded by three nights without a ray of sunshine.”
My blood turns cold.
“What isn’t a fairytale?” Maude asks.
Slowly, I draw away from Sam. Maude’s happy face is before me.
“I saw your sandals at the top of the stairs, and for a second I was afraid I had to call the lifeguards. I couldn’t see you in all this fog, but I heard your voices.”
I try to smile, but my jaw feels cramped.
“Holy cow, Laurel,” she says. “You’re shaking. Are you okay?”
“Y-yes. I’m just cold, that’s all.”
My rasping voice clearly reveals my anxiety. My eyes wander to Sam. He is standing there untouched and emotionless after voicing the intimidating words he just hurled at me.
Maude shifts her attention to Sam. “Look who we have here… Did your razor slip?”
“Hello, Maude,” he says, expressionless.
“I thought you were on a vacation? We wanted to hire your band for Laurel’s birthday.”
“I’m the only one who’s back.”
Maude finally starts to realize something is going on. “Am I disturbing some secret rendezvous on the bea…?”
“No,” I quickly interrupt her. “Sam was about to leave.”
Maude puts her hand on his upper arm. “Are you sure you’re leaving? We could use a couple of alpha males up there,” she says flirtatiously.
“I’m lousy company, trust me.”
“Too bad.” Hips swaying, she starts back up the stairs. “Don’t stay away too much longer, Laurel. You’re missed.”
“I’ll be right up.”
I wrap my arms around myself and walk toward the water. Lukewarm waves lap over my feet. The fog is still thickening. Sam’s eerie words keep echoing in my head. “That thing you said about a triple night… is it true?” I whisper. I don’t turn around, but I know he’s standing right behind me.
“I will always protect you, no matter what,” Sam answers, calm once again. “That’s a promise.”
“So I’m condemned to you regardless, I’m just not allowed to care about you?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“That’s quite a lot to ask from somebody.”
“I’ll keep my distance, Laurel,” he says softly.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Why do you have this obsessive need to protect me?” I turn around. “Do you already know if something’s going to happen? Don’t you have the gift of foresight? Is that why you always keep an eye on me?”
All of a sudden I am terrified. The image of the wolf foaming at the mouth crawls into a dark place in my mind and curls up there to stay. I rub my scar and anxiously look at Sam.
He points at the terrace with his chin. “Go back to your party.”
Sam stretches his hand out to me and angrily I take a step back. The water now reaches to my knees. “How can you expect me to go to a party after all of this?” I say with a lump in my throat. “Do you really think I can ever have any kind of enjoyment again now that I know just how dangerous your world is?”
I tremble from anger and sadness at the same time.
“You’re safe, we just need to keep our distance. We can’t be together.”
“Yeah, I know that by now,” I snap at him. “And who protects you?”
He falls silent for a moment. “Are you concerned about me?” he asks, surprised.
“And what if that is the case?” I snarl again. “Does that happen to be illegal in your world? Am I going to be locked away in the shadow realm?”
He softly smiles. “No.”
“Sam, there is so much more I want to know about you.”
“You’ll get your answers,” he says hoarsely. “But not tonight, okay? You’ve knocked me off-balance here. I need some time to think this over.”
I don’t want anything more than t
o hold him, but the only thing I can seem to do is nod.
“And now you have to get out of that cold ocean before I get you out myself.”
The image of him throwing me over his shoulder comes to mind, and I smile. I walk out of the water, and together we stroll toward the stairs.
“So you still hang out with her?”
“Who?”
“Maude.”
“She’s a friend, Sam.”
He growls, and I ignore it. Inside me the conflict arises again. On the one hand there is emotion, and on the other there’s ration, and they keep trying to drown each other out. But whichever voice I decide to listen to, both have their downsides—one leaves me with a broken heart and the other ending—well, Sam just vividly painted it for me. Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m in front of him, and I throw my hands around his neck. “Promise me this isn’t the last time.”
Sam’s arm slides around my waist, and we stand there for what seems to be an eternity. Our hearts beat against each other. He pulls my hands from his neck.
I blink my eyes, waiting for a response, and when he remains silent, I continue to walk up the stairs. Tears prickle my eyes.
“Thank you,” he calls after me.
I look back at him. He’s still standing in the sand, looking up. I’m pretty sure he isn’t thanking me for poking my nose into his family affairs. I frown. “For what?”
He shrugs. “For not running away, I think. For your concern.”
“I care about you, Sam. Even if that’s wrong.” I fly up the stairs, pick up my shoes, and walk over to my birthday party.
29
laurel
For what seems like the hundredth time, I toss and turn in bed. I can’t fall asleep, and with a sigh I turn on the bedside lamp. I grab the book from my nightstand and try to make sense of the letters, but I keep re-reading the same sentence over and over again because my mind is not on the story. With a frustrated groan, I throw the book through the room. I don’t want to read.
I want to see Sam.
I don’t give a crap about his DNA, because everything feels right when we’re together—no matter how different we are. I have seen him now and I know what I want. Now I need to know what he wants.
I slip into a pair of jeans hanging over my desk chair and slide my feet into my ballet flats. From my closet I grab a T-shirt that only covers half of my scar. By now, Sam knows it’s there, so I don’t even worry about it anymore. I snatch my keys from my desk, sneak down the stairs, and slip out of the house.
Outside it has barely cooled down, but the fog is humid and thick. I run to the restaurant and pass through the refrigerator, where I grab a box from a shelf and then run to the van.
At a snail’s pace, I drive through a pea soupy fog that completely blocks my view. I hope I can find the service road—otherwise I’ll be risking my life for nothing. I feel caught in a triple night, and even though I have no idea what those ominous words mean, they might mean something like this.
Then my eye falls on the gas gauge.
“Dang!” I curse.
For a second, I consider going back, but then I see the tree trunk in my high beams and I howl in excitement. With my engine racing, I bounce past the tree giants and through the potholes. At the same time, a new fear arises. What if he sends me away? What if he has a fit?
I park my car next to Sam’s and anxiously I get out. My knees feel weak. Only now am I aware of how ridiculous it is to come this time of night. He’s probably asleep. The fog is rising from the lake and the moon is shrouded in clouds. It seems like the perfect night for vampires and werewolves to come out. And then I remember with hilarious horror what is inside of the log cabin.
He is sitting on the deck as though he is expecting me. I stop walking. I even stop breathing. My heart is racing as though I just ran a marathon, and I curse myself for being such a coward.
Sam’s eyes meet mine, but he doesn’t greet me. And I don’t have the guts to come any closer without an invitation. But one is not forthcoming.
“Is this your idea of giving someone time? Three and a half hours?”
“No,” I say.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be out on the road in the sea fog?”
“Fog, a triple night, dangerous friends… apparently I like to live on the edge.”
“What are you doing here, Laurel?”
“I’m bringing you some leftover birthday cake.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Well, you’re up, aren’t you?”
“You shouldn’t be here; it’s too dangerous. You’re playing with fire.”
I shrug. “I survived the drive.”
He gives me a long and hard stare. “I wasn’t talking about the drive.”
The threat in those words doesn’t escape me. I had kind of expected that he wouldn’t pull me against him and kiss me senseless, but I hadn’t expected having to leave this soon either. Hesitantly, I take one step closer and place the cake box on the porch before I turn around and walk away. This is starting to get old.
With tears in my eyes, I get behind the wheel and start the engine. I exhale slowly, leaning my head against the headrest. How could I be so stupid to not give him any time? How…
With a chilling shriek, I sit back up straight when I feel a warm hand touching my arm.
“Don’t be scared, it’s just me.” Sam sticks his head inside the car and turns off the clattering engine. The peaceful silence of the night falls over us once again. Peaceful is a relative word, and the hoot of an owl reminds me of the surrounding forest and the precarious situation I’m in. He pries my fingers off the steering wheel, but I reinforce my grip. “Come on,” he says, “work with me.”
“Please,” I say, softly resisting, “let me go. You’re right, I shouldn’t have come here.” Undeterred, Sam continues to unhook my grip on the wheel. “It’s dangerous, you just said that yourself.”
“As is driving without gas in thick fog and not knowing where the fog lights are.”
In silence, we walk back to the porch. Sam holds my hand and I stare at it. It’s weird to look at—and it feels painful, as if my fingers were caught in a vise. “Can you please let go of my hand?”
Sam looks at our intertwined fingers. “Oiphō.” He lets go immediately.
I don’t understand what he is saying, but judging by the intonation it’s a dirty word. I stretch my fingers to make sure my phalanges are still intact and massage my white knuckles and fingers.
His furrowed brow reveals his concern. “You okay?”
No, I’m not okay. Not in any possible way. Why do you have to be a demigod?
“Why can’t you just let me go?”
“Because you forgot to tell me what kind of cake you brought me,” he answers laconically.
“Carrot. Listen, if you could maybe lend me some money and tell me where I can find the nearest gas station, then I’ll get out of your way.”
“You’re not leaving here anytime soon. You’re going to sit this fog out.”
Frowning, I look up at him. “Should I be worried?”
“Yeah, but I’ve warned you about that.” He looks down at me with a smile. “Relax. As soon as the fog has disappeared, I’ll get you some gas, show you the location of the basic controls, and you’ll be on your way.”
Moments later, we are sitting on the steps of the wooden deck. In silence, we stare ahead of us, the box with the cake standing between us. I glance into my mug. The coffee looks really black. I take a sip and blink. It’s definitely the darkest, boldest coffee I have ever tasted.
“I don’t have any soy milk.”
I smile briefly. “That’s okay.”
Silence.
“It makes me furious that nothing seems to scare you, no matter what I say or do. Before I left, you p
romised me that you wouldn’t talk to anyone about what you’ve heard. You didn’t keep that promise.”
Especially that last sentence gets to me. It hurts to hear him say that I have betrayed his trust in me. That I have disappointed him.
“Does a promise mean so little to you that you break it so easily?”
A tear slips out from the corner of my eye, and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. “No,” I whisper. I think about the promises I have made to myself. I have kept all three of them.
Sam lets out a long sigh. “How can you be taking all of this so calmly?”
My laugh is harsh and short. “It must be my alternative personality, but believe me, there was nothing calm about me the past few days.”
“I should have talked to you before I left, but after everything that happened that night, I didn’t want to burden you with my rotten background.”
Again, my eyes are drawn to the bite mark on his arm. It looks awful. “What exactly have you done in those mountains? You mentioned a sports game earlier, but you look rather… rather…”
“Beat up?”
“Your words, not mine. I’ve seen you fighting, remember? It doesn’t seem like an easy job to beat you up.”
Sam smiles and pushes a strand of my tousled hair behind my ear. His fingertips slide from my ear. “Laurel,” he whispers.
My stomach reacts to his touch and my softly spoken name. He inhales deeply and shifts his weight. Eases back.
“We had a ritual to honor our grandfather, and also our parents. You would call it the Olympic Games.”
“Ancestors, you mean?”
“No, I mean parents.”
“But you descend from Apollon, right?”
“Yeah, I do. He’s my father.”
The coffee mug slips out of my hands and smashes onto the wood. My mouth falls open as I stare at the mystical figure sitting next to me, who is increasingly out of my reach. Becoming more divine by the minute. “Your f-father?”
“George raised me, but Apollon is my biological father.”
“What about your mom?”
“Phaedra is my real mother.”
House of Guardians Page 29
