Forged by Fate
( Fate of the Gods - 1 )
Amalia Dillin
After Adam fell, God made Eve to protect the world. — Adam has pursued Eve since the dawn of creation, intent on using her power to create a new world and make himself its God. Throughout history, Eve has thwarted him, determined to protect the world and all of creation. Unknown to her, the Norse god Thor has been sent by the Council of Gods to keep her from Adam's influence, and more, to protect the interests of the gods themselves. But this time, Adam is after something more than just Eve's power — he desires her too, body and soul, even if it means the destruction of the world. Eve cannot allow it, but as one generation melds into the next, she begins to wonder if Adam might be a man she could love.
Every god, from each of the world's pantheons, mythologies, and religions — they’re all real in this enthralling fantasy romance that spans centuries.
Forged by Fate
Fate of the Gods 1
by
Amalia Dillin
For my family and friends, who read, and reread, and read again; and for Adam, who always believed this day would come, and encouraged me, every day, to put on my authorpants and go to work.
Chapter One: Present-Day France
Eve stood under the water, letting the heat relax muscles tense with worry. Showers were one of her favorite things in the modern world. All indoor plumbing, really. She loved not having to fetch water in buckets, heat it over flame, and dump it into basins to wash. It took forever, and the water became so filthy so quickly. Showers were much more efficient.
She massaged the shampoo into her scalp, closing her eyes and imagining one more layer of the filth from her past washing down the drain. Some of her last lives hadn’t been nearly so set on the value of cleanliness. South America hadn’t agreed with her, certainly. And the asylum of her last life had hardly been ideal. She rubbed at her wrists, but the scars were gone, and she shook her head, forcing her thoughts away from that memory. She didn’t want to think of that any more than she wanted to dwell on her argument with Garrit.
The way he had looked at her last night, as if she were a stranger. Only it had been mixed with betrayal too.
Eve sighed and turned off the water. She hadn’t expected him to take it so hard. After all, these were all truths his family knew, her family, too. These were her people in a way no others were. If anyone should have been able to understand—but he had been gray-faced when he left the night before. And he hadn’t yet come back.
She twisted the excess water from her hair and stepped out of the tub.
Garrit leaned silently against the sink, his arms crossed over his chest, dressed in a crisp gray suit for work. His lips were pressed into a thin line but he unbent enough to pass her a towel. She wrapped it around her body, suffering the feeling of exposure with little joy. Self-consciousness was not a gift she had ever learned to appreciate nor was the feeling of nakedness. Adam’s fault, both.
“I didn’t realize you were back,” she said quietly, using a second towel to blot the water from her hair.
“I slept in one of the spare rooms.” He studied her for a moment, his eyes narrowing as if he were looking for some outward sign of the truth that he had missed during the year they’d lived together. “Why didn’t you tell me, Abby?”
She should have. A month ago when he proposed. She should have told him then that she was Eve, before she had accepted. “It doesn’t change anything. I loved you before I knew you were a DeLeon, and then I loved you even more because of it. And now, knowing I’m Eve, you’re looking at me as though I’m some kind of monster.”
Exactly what she hadn’t wanted. In her experience with the few husbands she had trusted with her secret, there had always been a period of adjustment. Denial. Misunderstanding. Betrayal. It was to be expected. But he was Ryam’s descendent. His family knew the truth. Kept boxes of her things in a vault in the basement. That was supposed to make all of this easier. He wasn’t supposed to be looking at her this way. He was supposed to love her, still, in spite of it all.
“You’re my ancestor.” His jaw tightened and he looked away, seeming to stare at the tile. “It’s incestuous.”
She shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His head came up, dark eyes made darker still with emotion. “Maybe you should enlighten me then, Abby, because this is all just a little bit overwhelming.”
She forced herself to swallow the angry retort that came to mind, and spoke evenly. “It was over five hundred years ago that I married into this family, Garrit. So many generations removed, that I can’t even count them. And even if it weren’t, even if I were your sister, I’m genetically perfect. Our children would be healthy, more resistant to disease, with strong minds.”
He stared at her again, and she saw in his face that he was wondering how many brothers she had married in her past lives. Enough that she knew what would happen if she did. Maybe that was too many. She tried to ignore it and twisted the towel around her hair, flipping it up over her head. She shivered now that the steam had dissipated. Freezing didn’t improve her mood.
“I don’t understand any of this.”
She recognized that tone. The honest confusion and fear. Her whole body softened and she reached for him, hoping something of the love she felt for him could cross between them, reassure him. But he shook his head, raising a hand to ward her off. He paced halfway to the door and stopped.
“Most people wouldn’t even bother to try to understand.” She kept her voice gentle, though she didn’t think he noticed. He seemed too wrapped up in his head, trying to unravel the knot of their shared history. Her existence, after all, gave new meaning to his. “But you know the story, Garrit. Your family has the truth. Nobody could have known that I would turn up now and meet you.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be truth. It was supposed to be légende. Family lore, rien de plus.”
They’d had enough arguments for her to know it was never a good sign when he slipped into French. He’d always done her the courtesy of speaking English in the past, no matter how irritated he’d been. He preferred to save his French for flirtation and similar intimacies. Not that he wasn’t above using it to exclude others, either, knowing she spoke it as fluently as he did, but alone with him in the bathroom, that clearly wasn’t the case this time.
Maybe she had been away longer than she’d realized. Too long away from her family. From home. Or maybe this modern world just made everyone forget the truths of the past. Was that the price of hot running water? She rubbed at her wet face and wondered if it was worth it, even while she tried to find the words to make him see reason.
“All legend is based on truth. I thought that you of all people understood that. You’re part of an incredibly illustrious family, going back all the way to Creation, to the Garden—”
“It’s myth, Abby. Creation is a myth!”
“Part of your myth is standing in front of you in a towel!” She was wet, and miserable, and he hadn’t even had the courtesy to shut the bathroom door before shouting at her. “Tell me that the thousands of lives I’ve lived are all lies.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what you are.”
She bit her lip. “This is why I didn’t tell you.”
“It’s all been a lie, then? From the moment you knew my name.”
“I hardly run about the earth advertising my reincarnations!” Her voice had risen, but she couldn’t bring it back under control. Of all people, he should have known better than to think such a thing. “My feelings, me, our relationship, none of that has been a lie.”
“I’m just supposed to accept this? Sans hésitation, without r
eserve?” he asked.
“Your parents didn’t seem to be upset by it.”
“Mon Dieu!” She flinched. Cursing in French was even worse than grasping for words. “That’s just great, Abby. You tell my parents but you don’t think to tell your fiancé.”
“I didn’t tell them. They put the facts together themselves, just like you.” Only faster. And with less drama. They, at least, had understood and been happy.
His jaw clenched. “Your portrait. In the hall.”
“Yes. My portrait.” He would come to terms with it, or he wouldn’t, but she was shivering and he was blocking the door. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get dressed.”
He shook his head, and stepped out of her way. She knew he was still staring after her, even when she had shut the door to the bedroom they shared.
The towel had loosened, and she rewrapped it over her breasts, leaning against the door. She half-hoped he would follow, but even if he had wanted to, he was already late. He’d leave, go to work, see to his business and give them both space to breathe. Time to settle.
She sighed. That damned portrait. She’d known it was only a matter of time before he noticed, but somehow she hadn’t seen him responding this way. She probably should have, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it would be a problem. She was still the same woman, after all. Abby or Helen, Anessa or Mary. She was still Eve. Names were nothing more than a different way to count her lives.
All things considered, it could have gone a lot worse. She was always pleased when the result of her confessions was not the threat of an insane asylum and medication, or an attempt to burn her at the stake for witchcraft. But this was her home. The land she had settled in with her people after leaving the Garden behind. The one place on this earth where she was permitted to be Eve, always. To be rejected here, however slight, made her heart ache.
That evening, Eve sat alone in the family library. It was her favorite retreat. The best place to lose herself for hours, determined as she was not to crowd Garrit. He’d find her when he was ready to see her. When he could look at her without seeing her as a ghost.
The shelves were overflowing with books, except for the one glass case from which she’d chosen the volume in her hands. That set of shelves was devoted to family history and impeccably maintained. Copied and recopied editions of books and manuscripts and even what had once been scrolls, every one given the space to air.
Eve turned the page. It was a reproduction of an old manuscript, written by her second DeLeon husband, Lord Ryam, centuries ago. Still, the volume was musty and old in its own right, and the leather binding flaked in her hands. Mostly, it tallied sheaves of grain and calves born, but there was the occasional personal reference. The births of her own children and grandchildren, and the incredible wealth of crops during the first year of their marriage. There had been so much rain, that year. She remembered it distinctly. But somehow the land had absorbed it all and turned it into a rich harvest.
Their estate had been very wealthy, then. Garrit and his father still cultivated the vineyard, of course, and the wine they sold had afforded his parents a good living, but Garrit’s real wealth came from investments and banking. Things she knew very little about, despite the significant advantages of reincarnation and telepathy. Or maybe it was because of them that she never found the accumulation of large amounts of wealth to be important. It wasn’t as though she could bring it with her.
The book was dry, but it kept her mind off other things. Filling her thoughts with easy noise without resurrecting memories. She’d been dreaming about the mental ward again. When it had felt as though she had been lost in her own mind. She certainly had a new sympathy for those diagnosed with dementia.
A knock on the door interrupted the thought. Garrit hesitated for a moment in the doorway before he crossed the room and sat down in the matching wingback chair opposite her own. She closed the book in her lap and set it aside. He looked less tense now that he was home from work, though he hadn’t changed out of his suit yet, which wasn’t exactly the best sign.
He pulled his tie free from his collar and draped it over the arm of his chair. “I’m not here to apologize.”
She leaned back in her seat. “I wasn’t expecting it.”
He seemed to stare at the fireplace. Eve couldn’t get used to the fact that it was gas instead of wood, and rarely lit it. What was the fun in flipping a switch on the wall? Even worse, it came with a remote control, which Garrit took from the end table beside his chair, toying with it.
“One minute, the woman I was making love to was just a woman, and then I happen into the hall and see you staring at me from a canvas.” He pressed a button and the fire whooshed to life, the flicker of light and shadow playing across his cheek, turning his frown into a scowl. “I don’t even know how I missed it all this time.”
“I’m still just a woman, Garrit.”
“The woman.” He tossed the controller away and ran his fingers through his hair. “Eve. The mother of all of us. Literally and figuratively.”
“I’m just the only one who lived,” she said gently. “Not the only one who mothered.”
“But you’re still our mother, our grand-mère, as Anessa, wife of the Marquis DeLeon.” He laughed and shifted in his seat. His face was almost gray. “I’m sleeping with my grandmother.”
“Five hundred years is at least seventeen generations removed. You would lose count before you finished listing the greats before my name. I’ve been born a squalling infant, grown old and died five times since.”
He studied her for a long minute, and she followed the emotions behind it, but not the thoughts. Discomfort. Embarrassment. Admiration. She had learned long ago how to filter the words from the feelings, and only hear what she wanted to listen to. She’d never yet heard Garrit’s thoughts, projected accidentally. But she felt his love, his grudging acceptance.
“I just need some time to get used to the idea.”
The ache in her chest eased. “I understand.”
He cleared his throat. “My parents called.”
“How are they?”
He shrugged. “Plutôt bien. They’re on their way here for dinner. And they’re bringing someone, they said. What would you like to serve?”
Eve tried not to smile. How many more thousands of years would it be before men stopped asking her to make dinner? Or before she tired of playing that role? “Why don’t we order something in from town? Turkish, perhaps.”
He rose, moving to the door, then paused. “Lord Ryam’s journal is in the cabinet. If you want to take a look at something other than bunches of grapes and genealogy of the livestock. He had plenty to say about you.”
“Thank you.”
Garrit shut the door behind him.
Drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair, Eve stared at the cabinet. She’d shared this house with Garrit for over a year, in that time making liberal use of the library for her entertainment. How had she missed a journal written by her husband? For that matter, how had she not known about it when she lived as Ryam’s wife?
She crossed the room to the cabinet, carefully opening the glass door and walking her fingers along the spine of each book. The journal was bound in plain leather, the only marking on the spine an imprint of the dates he had lived. Now that she knew to look for it, it was clear what it was.
She removed it, letting it fall open in her hands. Clearly, it had been reproduced; it wasn’t written in Ryam’s hand, though his name appeared on the inside of the front cover. She wondered what had become of the original, if it was kept somewhere sealed in a cabinet in the basement with the other relics of her past, locked away from the general populace. Trinkets and tokens she had wanted to keep and shipped or mailed over lifetimes to this house to be stored.
She went back to her chair and sat down, holding the journal in her hands. As if it held some piece of the man who had died so long ago. The man who had loved and protected her, regardless of the shame she had brought with
her.
It had only been her last life when she had lost herself in those lives, her pasts twisting together, crowding out sanity with memories of days long gone, men long dead. Only this life when she had felt herself whole again, grounded in the present, her fractured mind healed. She missed Ryam, missed the comfort of her memories. Missed the life they had lived together, indoor plumbing notwithstanding. She missed it, but she wanted to stay whole for a little longer; she wanted to keep her sanity.
She couldn’t bring herself to read it.
Chapter Two: Creation
Be Filled With My Spirit, And Breathe.
She gasped. Blood rushed through her body, pricking and tingling and roaring through her ears. Air filled her lungs, too much, too thick, too full, each breath more suffocating than the last. The comfort of darkness shattered into blinding light and the world pressed down upon her in all its living glory. The void, the blessed void, was gone.
“Eve?”
The light became blurred, round shapes and pink colors, and a pair of hard gray eyes. She touched her face, then stopped and stared at her fingers. Her hand. Her arm. Body and blood and flesh. She was flesh.
Another hand, darker and thicker than her own, pushed her arm away. “Can you hear me?”
She looked back at the eyes. The face. The wide, moving lips, just that much darker than the rest. There was another noise, whimpering and sorrowful. She was making it.
“Don’t be afraid, Eve.”
Arms slipped beneath her, cradling her and lifting her up. The world spun and Eve closed her eyes to stop it. Darkness. She knew darkness, the absence of everything, but even with her eyes shut, light still reached her, faded and flickering and red. She could still feel the movement, but at least it was only a gentle sway.
“There’s a storm coming.” The other spoke, holding her close, warm skin pressed to her own. She tried to concentrate on the voice, but there was so much noise. The roar of her blood, the thumping in her chest, steady and dull, and more voices, indistinct and buzzing. “We’ll be safe in the caves, even without God to protect us.”
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