Reluctant Gods (The Awakening Book 2)

by Keri Armstrong

  Mine, on the other hand....

  My thoughts were interrupted when I realized the redhead was still speaking to me. And from the words he spoke, I could tell I had missed a lot of the conversation.

  “...Azkuran is finally in agreement with Nassir, regarding Ammon. But they are yet undecided about your friend, the mutt…” he paused, thinking. “Nathan? Is that his name?”

  “What?”

  Red sighed, obviously tired he had to repeat himself. “Azkuran and Nassir are undecided about the mutt.” His eyes sparkled with amusement while he delivered the rest. “It appeared he was playing both sides.”

  “Both sides of what?” Oh, Nathan. What have you done?

  Red smiled at me, and to my complete shock, gently touched my scarred face. I flinched on instinct but he continued to stroke it.

  “You really are something, Phoebe,” he mused. “Even without Izzara’s former beauty, you still inspire men to great acts of bravery and treachery alike.”

  I frowned. He wasn’t making much sense but, since he settled more comfortably beside me, I suspected I was about to find out.

  He grinned. “Shall I tell you?” he asked in an excited whisper.

  I hated it, but said ‘yes’ anyway.

  His eyes sparkled like a twelve-year-old about to spill the middle grade secrets.

  “Nathan’s family is one of the original serving families,” he began. “They are descended from us of course.” He made a moue of disgust then. “One of our own mixed with one of his genetic experiments.”

  He shuddered dramatically. “Can you imagine?” He laughed then resumed his story. “The DNA traitor thought to enhance his creation by inseminating one of the females. He claimed they would be more loyal servants if they believed themselves to be family.”

  At this, he really did appear to be as disgusted as I felt, though I suspect our reasons were different.

  “And if you were wondering what she was, she was a chupacabra. Not our finest work,” he added, shrugging. “But they still have their purpose.

  Chupacabra? So that’s why I couldn’t figure out whether it was a dog, wolf, or coyote.

  “We’ve always known you’d be back,” he continued. “You’d attempted to come back a few times before, do you remember? Always looking for your children.” He looked at my face, his own brightly curious.

  My lungs suddenly felt constricted by iron bands. Why hadn’t I considered it before? If I truly were her reincarnation, might I have come back before now? All those lost ancestors of mine….

  “What happened? Do you know?” I asked quickly.

  His brows rose. “Pity. You don’t recall.” He shrugged. “Every attempt that was made was ill-fated. Sometimes it was you, sometimes a member of your family. We always made sure they didn’t get out alive after what Ammon had done. He couldn’t be trusted. He had to be punished.”

  Oh God, oh God, oh God. “Then why not just kill him instead of my family?” I shouted.

  He grinned, a shark’s grin full of large, sharp teeth. He moved down next to my face. “Because they were tasty.”

  His laughter boomed as I squeezed my eye shut and turned my head, my heart pounding so loud he could probably hear it.

  He lightly punched my arm. “Just kidding.”

  I looked back quickly, gasping. My arms strained against the straps. I wanted to hurt him so badly.

  He laughed some more and gave me a little cluck under the chin. “Ammon was still one of us. More or less. And his technology was unique. He was useful. Besides, it wasn’t time for all to awaken, and we knew that as long as there was the carrot of Izzara’s return to dangle, he would remain in his position.

  “Each generation, we sought out those who might be next and kept them from reaching their destination. This time, Nathan’s father had been entrusted the task of locating you and bringing you to us before our treacherous brethren, who believe this planet should be shared not ruled, could get to you.”

  Okay, this was becoming more frightening and interesting by the minute.

  “Yet Nathan learned about your history a long way back, and kept that information to himself,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I suspect that at first, it was just for leverage. He planned on turning you over to Ammon, for provisions of sanctuary, but later, as it turned out, he kept his mouth shut out of love.” He delivered that with keen eyes waiting for my reaction.

  It was all I could do not to close my eye. It burned as I tried to piece together what he said. Was Nathan in love with Sara, too? Why did that seem to bother me more than anything else he’d said so far?

  “I don’t understand,” I said flatly, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing me ache.

  Red smiled. “Really? While you two were attending the human school, he fell in luuurve and couldn’t bring himself to betray you.”

  “Me?” I blurted. My limbs felt heavy against the table. There was no need to strap me down. I didn’t think I could move if I wanted to.

  “Yes, you, little bird. Nathan was still in danger from his abusive father, but now he wanted to protect you, so he had to become more creative.”

  His eyes still sparkled and I couldn’t quite decipher if he approved or not.

  “When you started your quest to find these caves, he made a deal with Tsamiti.”

  My nostrils flared. That name I knew. “What deal?”

  “Tsamiti was a gifted mage who could read Nathan well. He knew Nathan had found Izzara. But Nathan also knew that Tsamiti despised Ammon, because Ammon’s negligence had caused the death of Tsamiti’s entire family. So, Nathan told Tsamiti Sara was Izzara. He knew Tsamiti would kill her, instead of you.”

  Everything inside me went numb.

  I could recall the very first time I saw Nathan, when and where we met. How comfortable I felt around him from the start. And all the lunches, all the quiet conversations we shared in the library about our favorite books and authors. Or when, on especially rough days, I would just run to the beach and he was always a couple of feet beside me, offering me his silent strength and support.

  He was always there and I cherished him as a friend, always. Not that I didn’t find him cute, I just never allowed myself to fantasize anything more. And to think he could have feelings for me was beyond comprehension for me still.

  I always figured we bonded over shared misery. We were both scarred, and people treated us differently because of it. We were always on the outside, watching the world go forward without us.

  But even with all that, I still couldn’t fathom he could think to sacrifice Sara in such a manner. He knew how much she meant to me. This betrayal, this pain. It was too deep for tears.

  I just stared up at the ceiling, while Red stared down at me, waiting.

  “How do you know all this?” I suddenly asked.

  “Oh, we have our ways of extracting the truth out of people.” He gave a nasty smile.

  I was preparing to ask for details I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know, when the door opened again and the Asian woman walked in.

  She didn’t look happy.

  Red moved off the side of the table. “Just in time, Liang.”

  She continued to stand by the door as he extracted a couple of vials and a syringe from the cabinets.

  I watched with dread while he made a concoction then returned by my side.

  He leaned toward me, depressing a syringe in my vein, surprisingly gentle. “Now we learn about you, little Phoebe,” he said, still pleasant. “What is your story?”

  Twenty-One

  Living my life at times was tough. Reliving every part of my life all at once was the stuff of nightmares.

  But there was this voice that guided me through it. Asking questions, pushing forward, and I showed him everything he asked of me.

  Sara and I were at a zoo with Gran. Sara was petting a pony and begging gran to buy us one for our birthday. We were about five.

  Mean girls surrounded
me, laughing and poking at me, calling me names. I started to cry.

  Nathan sat across from me and made a comment that made me laugh so hard, I spat my drink in his face, and his shocked face was so comical it only made me laugh harder. He joined in.

  The first year of high school. I was walking a long corridor. I clutched my English book so hard my fingers hurt. I could feel all eyes on me, snickering, pointing, gossiping. But then there was Sara, holding my arm, standing like a force of nature beside me. It was us against the world, always.

  I was bored. And gran was cooking something on the stove. I wanted to see what it was. I could barely lift it. Hot! It Burns! I can’t see. It burns so bad. Please, can someone help me?

  My parents in a coffin. Packing our bags. Moving again.

  Older, stranger images. My sister was crying. “You mustn’t! I’ve seen your future!”

  “We will run away. You will see. All will be well.”

  A blade flashed and I watched in horror as my hand flew across the room, my children screaming behind me.

  I screamed and opened my eye. That was some strange dream.

  And then it all came back to me, where I was and what happened right before I went out. I jerked upward but was caught in a web of straps.

  It wasn’t a dream. It was a hallucination from the drugs they’d injected into me.

  The redhead leaned against the wall. When he saw me conscious, he smiled and came to stand next to me. “Good morning, sleepy head,” he said, unstrapping me.

  He helped me to sit. I used the liberty to swing my legs to the side and immediately realized that I was wearing some type of soft gown, a bit like a long hospital gown but one that, thankfully, snapped all the way down the front and didn’t leave me mooning anyone.

  I ran my hands down the front of it and looked quickly at Red in reproach. He laughed. “Don’t worry. It wasn’t me. Your modesty is safe. Only female staff attend to females.” He put a hand around my elbow. “Here, try to stand.”

  I huffed, still not happy with his answer. As I landed on my feet, though, I was glad for the support of his hand. I was so stiff it took me a moment to lose the robot routine.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I told you we had ways of extracting the truth.” He held out his hand.

  “Let me properly introduce myself. My name is Cian.”

  I frowned, not taking his hand. Instead, I pointed at my own head. “So what’s the verdict?”

  He shrugged again, letting his hand fall to his side, clearly not heartbroken at my lack of warmth. “Time will tell.”

  I noticed a proper bandage had been placed around my arm, and the cut on my hand that Caleb had made had also been cleaned.

  They must not want me to bleed to death before they decided to kill me.

  Lucky, lucky me.

  “Can I see Nathan?” I blurted. In spite of how shaken I was from what Cian had told me, I wanted to speak to him. I needed to learn the truth from his mouth.

  “That is not allowed.”

  “Please,” I begged, even though I knew it was a lost cause. “I’ll do anything you ask.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Anything?”

  Crap. I just nodded. I couldn’t back down now.

  Silence stretched between us while he stared at me. After a few beats he said, “I’ll let you see him, if you promise you will say ‘yes’ when a certain question arises.”

  “What question?” I asked back.

  He shook his head. “No. This is the deal at hand, take it or leave it.”

  “How will I know which question? And why do you want my acceptance anyway, since we both know you guys can do to me pretty much whatever you want,” I said.

  “That is for me to know. And when the time comes, you will understand what you must do.”

  I really hated this guy.

  “So?” he prompted, even though he knew he had me.

  “Fine.” I raised my arms in surrender. “Whatever you want.”

  He nodded like the deal was struck. “Come on then,” he opened the door and I stepped outside with him.

  Our trip was short since Nathan was right next door, so I didn’t have a lot of time to think about what kind of devil’s pact I’d just made. I just wanted to hear the truth from Nathan, and maybe figure out a way out of here once I was free to move.

  Cian punched in a set of codes and door unlocked. He gestured for me to go in first.

  I ran to the bed where Nathan was neatly strapped, wearing a long gown similar to the one I wore.

  The woman whom I’d earlier thought looked like she might be Indian or Middle-Eastern frowned when she saw us enter. “What is this?”

  “Kiya, it’s all right. I let her see him.”

  “Azkuran wouldn’t allow that,” she argued.

  “Well he is not in here, is he? So, leave us,” Cian snapped.

  Despite her thermo-nuclear glare, the woman obeyed.

  Nathan’s eyes were closed but he thrashed about as if here were locked in some kind of nightmare. I dreaded the answer but still, I had to know.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  I did a quick scan and as far as I could see, his injuries were all either partly to completely healed. Even the gash around his neck was now just an angry pink scar.

  “Same thing we did with you.” Cian approached a monitor and I followed a few steps behind him. With a few strokes, he enlarged it. On it, I could clearly see images, unknown people, and harsh interaction. And never-ending fighting.

  I nearly fell when I realized what I was seeing.

  This was what Nathan experienced, this was his life.

  It was horrible yet I couldn’t look away.

  I saw him as a child. I could tell it was him by the too large, sad eyes and the cow-licked hair. Even then he had that air of solemnity. He was holding a little girl in a filthy, dark room while she cried. There was something about the way she held her head and never focused on anything that confused me, until I realized she was blind. The door of their room opened with a loud bang and an enraged man entered. He looked a little like Nathan, only bigger. The man snarled then shifted into something... not quite a wolf, nor a coyote. It had to be a chupacabra.

  It charged, swiping Nathan, hard, with his claws. The view shifted, showing Nathan on the floor covering the girl with his own body, shielding her from the attack.

  “His sister,” Cian said casually. “I could tell from your session that he hadn’t spoken of her to you.”

  My fingers clenched into a fist. On the bed, Nathan’s body arched in time to every swipe of the claws across his back on the screen.

  The images changed, but they all showed a constant display of abuse and fear.

  The next showed his sister as a teenager. She was really beautiful, almost a female version of Nathan but with some slight differences in the nose and mouth. She was screaming, begging Nathan to stay put while their father took her away. Nathan tried to fight but he was outnumbered.

  “When you’re shunned by the leader, it’s open season from the rest of the pack,” Cian explained. His voice was too cheerful and I wanted to hit him.

  Only when the images started to blur did I realize I was crying.

  Nathan was chained to a bed and the alpha of the pack, his bloody father, was slashing him, ‘disciplining’ him over some imagined slight. Then pouring salt so the wounds wouldn’t disappear but leave scars, while Nathan’s sister lay chained, naked and crying in a bed next to him. The door to that room opened and two men walked in.

  Nathan’s father smiled at them. “This one’s a little messy, but he’ll still serve. I’ll even give you discount. Money changed hands, and their father left while the men started to undress.

  My empty stomach heaved. “Shut it off,” I screamed at Cian. “Pull him out.”

  “We have to be sure we didn’t miss anything,” he calmly replied. “Besides, you haven’t seen the best part yet.”

&nbs
p; I shoved him as I ran over to Nathan and tried to wake him.

  “That won’t help,” Cian said, sounding bored.

  “Then please, do something—” I looked over my shoulder to beg some more but my attention was caught by the screen.

  My own image filled the monitor. I was on the beach, strands of hair from my wig blowing in the wind while I pulled out a sandwich from a paper bag and handed it to Nathan. I remembered the day. I’d met up with him there while I had lunch between classes.

  This time, that scene took my breath away. I looked beautiful.

  But that was impossible.

  “It’s how he sees you,” Cian said, guessing the reason for my shock. He laughed. “They say love is blind, so I guess that’s true enough.”

  I was still so stunned I didn’t even react to the insult.

  I just stared at the monitor. Looking closely at Nathan’s projected image, I could see it then. What I’d always missed in his eyes because Gran and life both had taught me to give up hoping to ever see that in any man’s eyes.

  All the pain, all the longing was in his gaze, but when the me in the monitor looked up from her sandwich, his face changed back to shy, passive Nathan. The quiet companion.

  The next image somehow stunned me even more. It was much more recent.

  I was coming out of the library just as Nathan was starting to shift. He was midway, suddenly grown larger in his clothes. He seemed in pain, as if it cost him to stop halfway in order to keep me from slipping on the ice.

  Cian waved the image away. “I think that’s enough now. Reruns are boring.”

  Reruns. My shoulders sank as it finally dawned on me that this wasn’t the first time Nathan had been subjected to this torture.

  Of course it wasn’t. It was why I was here in the first place, to verify it all. Lightheaded, I leaned against the side of the bed-slash-exam table.

  Cian came over and injected a vial of milky white liquid into Nathan. The thrashing stopped and Nathan’s breathing slowly relaxed.