“We met the night you were attacked.” Reign moved around her and bowed to her neighbor.
“You lied to me.” Alexis pointed a finger at the woman. “I asked you—”
“Yes, yes. I lied because you weren’t ready for the truth. Now, you are.”
Alexis stepped closer to Mrs. Kelly. Anger made her head throb in time with her racing heart. She needed to hit something . . . badly. “You're lucky someone taught me to respect my elders.”
The old woman smiled and a twinkle sparked in her eyes. “You didn’t come here to pummel me, Alexis. You came for answers.”
She did and that’s the only reason she didn’t turn around and march back across the street. Alexis grabbed Reign’s hand and braced herself against the flood of emotions. Puzzlement and worry overrode Reign’s anger and desire. “I. Can. Feel. Him. Right now, he’s worried about me, about my sanity. He thinks he’s pushed me too hard and he thinks . . . I’m not real. I’m a lie?” She glanced up and looked into his startled eyes. “Why would you think I'm not real?”
His gaze skimmed her body, and more intimate emotions rushed from him, making her blush.
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Kelly cleared her throat breaking their connection. “The question isn’t what are you, Alexis. Rather, it’s what is he?”
Aged brown eyes studied him. Still holding his hand, Alexis felt his rising tension. Suddenly, he released her and pulled her behind him. She elbowed him in the ribs to move, but all she received was a grunt.
She heard Mrs. Kelly sigh. “Both of you get in here. It’s too cool to chat on the porch.”
They stepped into the foyer and followed their host into her living room. She sat in a padded rocking chair near the window. Alexis sat opposite her while Reign stood close by.
“Well, sir? What are you? Or don’t you know what you are? Come here.” She seemed to say all of her words at once.
“We came here to find out what I am, not him,” Alexis stated.
“I know what you are. You’re a null.”
A strangled sound came from Reign.
“Ah, you know what a null is.” Mrs. Kelly stripped off her gloves and waved a finger at him.
“Well, would someone care to tell me?” Alexis tried to keep the anger out of her voice.
Her hostess’s gaze landed on her, and her mouth opened to speak, but Reign’s angry voice cut her off.
“A null is a slave of the Egyptian Gods. The first condemned souls of the underworld. They serve their masters forever, touching none but the one they served. How can she be a null? They are trapped, bonded forever to Duat.”
“True, but early on, a few escaped. I am a descendant . . . as is Alexis. Your family and mine descend from one of those nulls.”
Alexis couldn’t string the multitude of questions clogging her brain into words, much less sentences.
Mrs. Kelly turned her attention to Reign. “The question still remains, what are you, sir? Or shall I say what do you think you are?” Her fingers steepled under her double chin.
“I am a warrior, a mercenary,” he answered cautiously.
“Oh, you're a lot more than that.” Mrs. Kelly held out her hand. “Alexis doesn’t know how to use her gift. I do. I can tell you exactly what you are.”
Indecision crossed his features, but he took a step forward. Alexis wanted to pull him back to her side and protect this immense warrior from a little old lady. But if he was strong enough to know, then so was she.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Walking toward the woman reminded Reign of his first march on a Viking encampment. Roman was next to him. They were only fifteen summers and didn’t think they would greet sixteen. And though neither dared show it, they were afraid.
Her steely gaze never wavered; neither did her extended hand or the strength of her convictions. She believed what she said. He didn’t know whether to hope she was correct or pray she wasn’t.
Too soon, he towered over her withered frame. Her white hair haloed her weathered features. His heart beat wildly in his chest when he placed his much larger hand in her palm. Gnarled, bony fingers gripped him tightly, surprising him with their strength, as did the subtle power shifting across his skin, sinking into his muscles, stripping through him layer by layer.
Alexis came to stand next to him. Not caring what she was or wasn’t, he wrapped his free arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. Minutes passed before the old woman released him. Her once steady hands shook, and she slumped in her chair.
“Well,” Alexis said.
Aged, watery eyes landed on him. “You are a god.”
“I am not. What you feel is borrowed from the goddess Nephythys.” This old woman couldn’t tell the difference.
“Little of her paltry energy flows through you. The vis’Ra you wield is yours. Yours alone. You, Reign Nicolis, are an Egyptian God.” Her eyes narrowed, and a grimace crossed her weathered face. “A powerful one too.”
He dropped to his haunches. “What game do you play?” he murmured. “I have been her slave for two thousand years, bound against my will.” He raised his voice. “If I were a god do you think I would have stayed!” The house rocked, and dust circled the air.
She laughed. “Oh, so mere humans can shout and shake the foundation of my house.” Merriment danced in her eyes. “Your powers were bound, they still are, but not as tightly as they once were.”
“Who bound them?” Alexis asked.
“Another God. A parent of yours perhaps.”
“My parents were not gods. My father was a warrior. My mother-” He never knew, but his father called her his goddess. He rose to his feet and marched from the house.
Alexis’s steps raced behind him, but he couldn’t slow down. His churning thoughts wouldn’t let him. Thoughts of his mother crowded everything else.
A tiled mural of her decorated the wall in the dining hall of his childhood home so all could see her beauty. His father said she was Grecian. That is why her skin was a lovely tan, her hair an unusual brown, and her eyes, amber. They took after their father, in build, temperament, strength, and visage. Nothing from their mother, much to his father’s regret. It was as if she bestowed miniature replicas upon him, then died.
She was not a god. Just a woman. Grecian, not Egyptian, he chanted.
The Vanquished roared in his head and yanked him to a halt. He pivoted. One hundred feet away, Alexis stood by the gate of the house. Damn the Vanquished, he didn’t want to be near her. Near anyone. Sheer will enabled him to take five more steps before he flashed back to her side.
Strong arms wrapped around his neck. Gentle fingers threaded through his hair and caressed his scalp. His heart unclenched and the voices calmed. Alexis tipped her head up. He brought his head down and rested his forehead against hers.
“Where did you think you were going?” she murmured.
Instead of answering, he sipped from her lips in a long, slow kiss that promised paradise. His hands tightened on her hips and he hauled her flush against him.
Alexis groaned and slanted her lips over his.
Nowhere—that’s where he was going—without her. Reign peeled his lips away and drew a ragged breath. He guided her through the gate. Before entering the house, Reign looked over his shoulder and met the gaze of their neighbor. She stood on her porch watching them and waved seconds before he slammed the door closed.
***
Reign wouldn’t talk to her. He stalked upstairs and paced like a newly captured tiger displayed for the first time. Please burned Alexis’s tongue, but she wouldn’t beg. He would share his feelings with her freely or not at all.
It surprised her that she wanted him to share, even though she knew it was a deep dark well which may drown her. How many layers could a man have? Touching Reign exposed her to many. They whirled around and through her so fast she couldn’t count them all.
But she wanted to, needed to. Was this compulsion or something worse? Could she be falling for the man she swore she
would use. Separate her heart from her genitals.
“I did say that less than twenty-four hours ago, right? That was me? And I was in my right mind,” she murmured. “Can’t blame it on him or being a null.” Shit!
She couldn’t fall for him. The man was an immortal, an Egyptian god according to Mrs. Kelly. He was also a fugitive. She risked everything by having him here in her home. Her stomach knotted.
Alexis grabbed her purse and left the house. Fresh air, a brisk walk, and a good meal always cleared her head. And her favorite diner was only five blocks away.
She brought a newspaper from the newsstand and found an empty table in the back, away from the crowded middle. It didn’t take long for a cold wind to circulate around her. Maybe a brisk walk is what he also needed. She sighed and snatched up the menu.
“What to feed a god?” she mumbled. When the waitress arrived, she ordered two tall stacks of pancakes and two steak and eggs combo platters with bacon. She added a pot of coffee and a carafe of O.J. The waitress gave her a crazed look. “I’m expecting someone.”
She flipped through the newspaper, pretending to read, but she couldn’t concentrate. Not when she could feel him sitting opposite her.
The waitress returned with coffee and silverware. Alexis waited for the woman to walk away. A quick scan of the room confirmed no one watched. She glanced at the empty chair opposite her. “I know you're here. Can you appear, please?”
One second the chair was empty, the next his body filled her view. His placid face gave nothing away.
“My apologies for my behavior earlier. There was no reason for me to ignore you.”
“Then why did you?” She fixed both of them a cup of coffee and mixed in a liberal amount of amaretto creamer.
“The Vanquished—”
“No. Don’t blame your behavior on your ghosts. You did it, not them.”
Alexis swore his eyes turned neon blue before he closed them. A muscle in his jaw flexed angrily, while his hands curled into meaty fists on the table. His frustration reached out to her. She stretched across the table and stroked the back of his hand until his palm opened. Then slid the coffee cup into his grasp. “Drink,” she ordered, staring into his now clear eyes.
Reign studied the milky confection with suspicion.
“It’s not poison.” Alexis raised her mug and took a mouthful. He copied her and though he didn’t smile, his scowl softened.
“It’ll grow on you.” The food arrived, along with toast, bacon, and a caddy of jam. Reign’s ravenous expression halted her from digging in. “When was the last time you had a meal?”
“Two thousand years ago.”
Ookaaay.
“I figured you were hungry by now.” She picked up her fork and started to eat.
“I do not feel hunger when I am faded, however, I thank you.” He studied everything in front of him.
“There’s no special way to eat it. Just pick up your fork and start.”
Reign picked up the utensils. He watched her and then mimicked her table manners. So much for teaching the barbarian how to eat. Like a parent forcing a picky child to sample all the food on their plate, she watched as he tried everything. When he looked up with a smile on his face, her heart lurched.
“Why don’t you believe Mrs. Kelly?” she asked when he had nearly cleaned his plate.
He looked up from his food and nailed her with a hostile stare. “Because it is not possible.”
“Why?” She pushed not letting him off the hook.
“I know who I am and what I am not.”
“She said one of your parents—”
“My parents were human.”
“Are you sure? Because parents lie.” Grandparents too.
He shook his head. “My father would not lie.”
“How do you know? It’s not like you can ask him. Or maybe you can?”
“What did you say?” Tension deepened his voice. He leaned in.
“What if your father was like you and Roman? What if he’s alive and living a quiet existence in some village in Thrace?” She shrugged and refilled her coffee cup.
Reign stood so fast his chair flipped over. Conversations stopped and all eyes turned to them.
“My father is dead. This I know because I saw the man who cut him down a second before I killed the bastard.” He stomped from the diner, leaving her stunned, and the crowd whispering.
“Have you lost your damn mind?”
Alexis glanced up. Paul snatched Reign’s chair off the floor and plopped down in front of her. Dumbstruck, she stared into his furious face.
“You're harboring a fugitive! I came in here for breakfast and find you and that criminal!”
“A-a-a.” Her mouth opened, but no words escaped. She had none. What the hell was he doing here, on the opposite side of town where he lived? Paul glanced over his shoulder at a blond waiting impatiently for him by the exit.
Dick following pussy. She’d laugh at the irony if she wasn’t wading neck deep in shit.
“Is he worth your career, huh? Worth losing everything you worked for?” Head cocked to the side, his livid features said more than his words.
Nothing was worth that, especially not a man. Her heart squeezed painfully. “No…” But what good would it do to hand him to the police again only to have him vanish from prison and end up on her doorstep once more? She wanted to explain, but no one would believe this situation.
“I don’t want to know what the hell is going on with you two—”
Yeah, he did. She could tell by the jealous glare sweeping over her.
“—you’ve got twenty-four hours to turn him in or I go to my captain.” He left the restaurant with the blond and turned in the opposite direction Reign had taken.
Twenty-four hours. She had that long to sever the ties that kept Reign with her and arrest him. Oh, and somehow find a way to keep him locked in a two-by-four cell.
Alexis trekked back to the house alone, but she hadn’t been there five minutes when the doorbell rang. Mrs. Kelly stood on her porch.
“I have a few quotes from some contractors to finish the work on your grandmother’s house.” She waved some paper in front of Alexis’s face.
Alexis stepped aside. Mrs. Kelly glided past her. She removed her sweater and unwrapped the scarf from around her steel-colored hair. “October feels colder this year. Mark my words, winter will come earlier and stay longer. I don’t know how my bones will take it.” She stopped to listen to the pacing upstairs.
Alexis didn’t buy the gentile grandmother routine. “How old are you, Mrs. Kelly?”
“Old.” She lowered herself onto the sofa. “Much older than I look, but not older than Reign. I came to ask when were you planning to leave for the Vineyard and if I could join you on the drive?”
The Vineyard? Crap! The anniversary dinner. “My mother sent you an invitation?” Alexis couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
“Yes, I received an invitation.”
Why would Gloria send you an invitation?
“Hah! I can tell by that look on your face what you're thinking. I called her and told her to invite me. That woman can teach a class in stubbornness. It was her job, her right to tell you what you are, but she never believed. Stubborn and stupid. We warned her, your grandmother and I tried to tell her what she was. She didn’t want to hear it. Nothing we said fit in with her plans to marry Martin.”
“Why are you really here?” Alexis leaned against the archway and waited for Mrs. Kelly to answer.
The elder sighed. “I came here to tell you the truth. All of it. You are so much more than your mother. You can handle what she couldn’t.”
Alexis didn’t want to hear this, but good manners prevented her from stopping her neighbor from continuing. “Then tell me and get the hell out.”
“Before we were nulls, we were Eidos, Elementals not slaves. Our race was the first, here before the gods and man arrived. We were the spark of life in the primordial seas, the heat t
hat made the volcanoes flow, and the oxygen in the air until they came. All of them, Egyptian, Greeks, Romans, they came from the cosmos, saw what we could be and stole that energy from us. From rulers to slaves. Some of us escaped with our powers, stayed hidden within the changing landscape of earth until we were no longer hunted.”
“Are my brothers nulls too?”
“No, all Elementals were women, as all nulls are females.
“Why now? All this time, I’ve never felt anyone’s emotions when I’ve touched them. So why now?” She punctuated the last sentence with a fist pounding the air.
“There is always a trigger. Reign must’ve been yours.” Mrs. Kelly shrugged.
That was easy enough to believe. “Are you done with the history lesson? Because all you’ve told me is what we once were.”
A gleam sparkled in her eyes. “I will tell you what I know. A war is coming, Alexis. And there are more sides than the two presently on the battlefield.”
“You come here with more tales.” Reign appeared across from them.
“You call them tales. I know they’re the truth. You would too if you just accept it.”
“Accept?” He threw back his head and gave a single, abrasive laugh. “All my life I’ve accepted what the fates have decried. No longer.”
Abruptly, he pivoted toward the door, his blade glowing in his hand. “Stay here,” he ordered.
Alexis almost obeyed. She jumped up and followed him. Halfway to the door, he paused. His sword vanished.
“It is Roman.” He yanked opened the door and sure enough, Roman Nicolis stood on her porch. The two men were so similar yet so different. Roman with his short haircut, clean-shaven face, designer clothes, was slick and polished corporate America. While Reign with his long shaggy hair, whiskers shadowing his jaw, weathered jeans and faded tee was a rougher, harsher version. Slightly taller, a little bit brawnier, Reign was just more.
“We need to talk, alone.” Roman stepped into the house.
Alexis’s hands landed on her hips. “This is my house and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Mrs. Kelly cut between the brothers. She gave Roman an appraising look before turning to Reign and Alexis. “I’ve said my peace, now it’s time for me to return to my corner of the world.” She took Alexis’s hand. “I’m here when you need me, dear. No matter the time.” The steel in her voice matched the strength in her hands and the determination in her gaze. Mrs. Kelly pulled Alexis into a tight embrace and then sailed through the open door.
Everlasting (Descendants of Ra: Book 2) Page 18
