PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  My thoughts are becoming a tad condescending. Maybe I shouldn’t ask some of these.

  “Where to?” Seth interrupts my thoughts.

  “Say what now?” I look up to him, and then glance around.

  How did I get to the car already?

  “Where should we go to eat?” he asks slowly.

  “Oh, right. I’m game for almost anything, you pick.”

  This may be the most torturous car ride, ever. Not only are my thoughts a mess from this weirdness, but now I’m trapped in the car with him and he smells so good, and my thoughts are going to go in the wrong direction, again.

  I crack the window.

  “How about we get something closer to town,” he suggests. “On the drive, you can ask me any of those questions you’re thinking so hard about, and I’ll answer to the best of my ability.” He smiles.

  Uh oh. I wonder how much of my thoughts he’s gotten so far today.

  “I’ll start with what I consider the easiest. Just promise not to laugh at me, please.”

  “I’ll try not to laugh, but you are a funny girl, even when you’re not trying to be. Ask away.” He flashes me a knee-knocking smile before looking back to the road, and I thank my lucky stars I’m sitting.

  “Do the Amaranthine have any special powers or abilities?” I manage to ask, but it sounds so ridiculous that I laugh. Thankfully, he does too.

  “While it’s true we are faster and stronger, no, we have no powers or abilities. If we want fire, we light a match, and if we want to fly, we buy a plane ticket.”

  I nod in response and decide on my next question. “Are there other creatures? Like fairies, werewolves, zombies, or vampires?” I never thought I would be asking these questions, and actually expect a serious answer in return.

  He doesn’t laugh like I almost expected, he just smiles. “I’ll start with the easiest, too. Zombies. Made up by someone in Hollywood, probably just to give kids nightmares. I’ve met a sorcerer before. He’s slightly weird, but you wouldn’t ever want to piss him off,” he grimaces. “There are witches everywhere, but they’re not how Hollywood portrays them. They don’t do actual magic. It’s more like herbs and spices and nature,” he taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “Trolls exist. They dislike everyone equally, and try to keep to themselves. Fairies and nymphs like Ireland and Scotland best. As far as I know, vampires are extinct,” he blows out a breath. “There are devuxen. They hate everyone and think they’re royalty. There are elves, but not like Santa’s helpers or anything. They’re much smaller. Pixies and merpeople are Hollywood creations. Shape-shifters are everywhere. Most common is wolves and cats. Cats like heat, so you’d find them the further south you go. And wolves love the colder climates of the mountains. Werewolves linked to the moon were created from someone’s imagination. If you’re really interested in this, you should talk to my father,” he shrugs.

  I’m pretty sure my face is a white as a ghost right now. I’m really trying not to freak out.

  “So, do the Amaranthine have enemies?” My voice comes out as a whisper.

  “Devuxen are the worst.” He sighs and shakes his head slightly. “They don’t like anyone at all and think the world should be rid of every other species. But they won’t go and kill everyone, they need souls to survive. Other than that, everyone sort of stays out of each other’s way. There really isn’t much to worry about.”

  I begin to stammer at his words. “What is a Devux, er, Devuxen?” I’ve heard of everything else, but not that. Not that I knew any of this shit existed.

  He glances at me from the corner of his eye. “They look like you and me,” he lifts a shoulder in a slight shrug. “The only time they show their true form is when they feed. I’ve never seen it personally, but I’ve heard that their skin turns leathery and looks like charcoal, their eyes glow red and their teeth elongate.” He shutters slightly, and I can tell this topic isn’t something he’s comfortable with.

  My breath becomes shallow and I can feel myself losing control of everything. If these creatures scare him, they must be terrible. My panic rises sky high. He reaches over and squeezes my hand. His touch is comforting, and my skin is tingling again. I feel complete with his touch, but as usual, the feeling leaves when he removes his hand.

  It feels like a calm breeze has washed over me, like a soothing warm bath that leaves me feeling relaxed and at peace.

  Weird.

  “Those Ancients in Greece, are they like Amaranthine police, or something?” I ask when I find my voice again.

  “Sort of, they do enforce our rules. We really don’t have many,” he taps his finger on the steering wheel again. “The Ancients are like a group of advisors. They help us relocate every few years and help us secure jobs. As I said earlier, they’re the oldest of our kind, and the oldest one I know, is Andrew. He’s a direct descendant of Apollo,” he looks at me with excitement in his eyes. “He’s pretty ancient, more Immortal, than Amaranthine, but he’s really cool. He told me once that he lost count of his age, somewhere around four thousand.”

  I choke again, but instead of having him pull over, I put the window down the whole way and try to take a deep breath. “Four freakin’ thousand?” Now I need more answers, and we’re coming into town. “Can we grab something from a drive-thru and just park somewhere?”

  “Sure. How about the park around the corner?” Seth asks, pointing to Casa-Taco Drive-In.

  What if Seth lives to be four thousand, like that Andrew guy? If he’s right, and I am truly his soul mate, he won’t have me for long. Grandma passed away eight months after Grandpa died. Dad said she died of a broken heart. Is that what it’ll be like for him when I go? He’ll just whittle to nothing after a few thousand years? Would he be able to find someone else to be happy with?

  The next thing I know, the car is off, and he’s grabbing our food and drinks from the back.

  When did we get the food?

  I’m in my head too much today, all thanks to Seth and his mind-blowing bomb he dropped today.

  “There’s a table over by the trees that’s empty. As long as you’re not going to yell at me, we should have privacy.” He offers a small smile.

  I guess it’s the look on my face that has him worried about my reaction, but I won’t yell. Hell, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to get my voice over a whisper.

  We head over to the table and start eating. I’m just picking at my taco. I can’t even taste the cheese I just put in my mouth. It would seem that my appetite is still sitting at the lake.

  This is so not how I imagined today going, at all.

  I mean, I had no idea what he wanted to talk about, but this was definitely not it.

  How am I supposed to word any of these other questions?

  “You could just ask me, like you ask yourself,” Seth says.

  I raise my eyes to his. “Will I ever get used to you answering my head?” I sigh, and he laughs.

  “Probably, but what do you really want to ask? You’re so anxious that it’s making me anxious, too.”

  Just then my phone beeps, and I jump and pull it out of my pocket.

  I ignore the messages glaring at me and turn my phone off.

  No more distractions.

  I take a deep breath and let it out before starting. “I’m worried about a few things. You said the oldest guy is over four thousand years old. Do all of the Amaranthine live that long?”

  “Andrew is over four thousand, but he’s lucky, and he really doesn’t do much of anything. On average, Amaranthine can live to be around four to six hundred years old. Mostly because of the things that do kill us, like beheading and some diseases,” he pauses to crumple a wrapper before continuing. “When an Amaranthine passes, if he or she is mated, the survivor soon passes, too.”

  I shiver and swallow a few times. “That being said, what does it mean for us?” I shift uncomfortable with this topic, and my wording. Us. “I don’t know what to think, honestly. But I can’t help but notice an obvious probl
em,” I pause and he raises an eyebrow. “I’m human. I won’t live to be four or six hundred. You will. Doesn’t that scare you at all?”

  “That part doesn’t scare me.” He shakes his head. “Long ago, the Immortals found that mated Immortals lived longer than those who never found their mate. It has something to do with the Ichor in their veins. When they found their soul mate, they lived almost double the life span than the unmated. Combined quantities of Ichor helped sustain them much longer. When the first Immortal found that his soul mate was human, he lived fairly close to that of an average life-span, which is much older than Andrew. But they were nervous about how long his mate would live, until after five thousand years.” He smiles. “Turns out the stronger or undiluted the Ichor is in the Immortal, the more it helps to sustain the mate, too. Those types of pairs helped create the Amaranthine race.”

  My mind is literally spinning. As if there wasn’t enough information, he has to add more confusion and crazy to the towering stack I’m already overwhelmed with.

  “And how did Amaranthines come to exist?” I ask, through the fog of information.

  “Immortal and demi god couplings,” he says.

  “Okay, what is Ichor? How do we get it, and what does it do? When will it run out, and what happens then? Being an Immortal doesn’t mean immortal?” I may have just asked too many questions.

  He smiles before explaining. “Ichor is an ethereal fluid that was gifted to the first Immortals. It mixes in our blood and body tissues. It’s what preserves our body for longer than the average human, or any human. It’s passed between mates and to any child the mates may have. The way you and I would share it would be skin to skin contact, or any intimacy we partake in.”

  I gasp and sit up straighter on the bench. I open my mouth, to tell him where he can shove that thought, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “But if I shake hands with your brother or anyone else, they won’t receive any Ichor. But touching you, my soul mate, skin-to-skin, your body will absorb it. And no, I guess it doesn’t really mean being immortal. We can be killed.”

  He keeps saying that I’m his soul mate. I can’t wrap my head around that completely.

  I ignore my reaction to a lot of things and focus on getting answers. “Can I feel or see Ichor?”

  He shakes his head slightly. “You can’t see it. My dad described it as static electricity almost, on top of the tingling.”

  “Oh . . . ” That’s what I felt before we went out on the lake. I almost feel sick to my stomach now. This is too much. “How will my body react to that stuff? I mean, am I going to look like this,” I wave my hand in front of my face, “For the next ten years or something?”

  “It’ll slow your aging process, heal some things, and strengthen your body. You won’t be as fast or as strong as a true Immortal, but faster and stronger than a human, like the Amaranthine.”

  Why is it that every time he answers one question, I think of twenty more questions to ask him?

  “Will I age faster than you?” I ask shyly. I don’t really want him to know that I’ve even thought about that. I don’t want to give him false hope that I’ve accepted this fate he seems to think is mine.

  “Not really. My parents look about the same age and she’s thirty years older than him,” he says.

  Bits of information float in my head, spelling out something terrible. “You aren’t expecting me to leave my family, are you?!” My voice rises. I know I should be quieter, but I don’t care at this point. “No! I’m sorry. I can’t be your anything, Seth. I will not give up my family.” I stand and start to back away.

  Seth jumps up and pulls me back to the table. I try to shake his grip, but it’s a useless attempt. “Jaz, please listen,” he sits next to me on the bench. “I’ve already thought about that, and Jaynie suggests we tell them when it’s noticeable that you’re not aging very much. They’ll be held to our rules of secrecy, and no one else will know they know. You won’t have to leave them, but we do move every couple years. So you’ll have to move away from them, eventually. They can come with us if they want to, or we can always come back and visit as often as you’d like.”

  I throw my arms around his neck and hug him tight. He chuckles into my hair then he slides one hand to the back of my head and moves the other to my waist. He leans into me and presses his tingling lips to mine.

  It dawns on me that we haven’t kissed since this morning.

  What a waste.

  His tongue lightly touches my bottom lip causing me to gasp from the sensation. While the kiss deepens, I feel his emotions swirling around me, and I can easily pick them out, joy, attraction and worry.

  I may not agree with the title of soul mate, but I have to admit that we are something. I’ve never been able to feel someone like this, or hear their thoughts.

  “Seth?” I end the kiss all too soon.

  “Yeah, Jaz?” he sounds as breathless as I do.

  “I absolutely hate to say this, but you should probably take me home. Before the bears come after me, and before they call the giants for help.”

  He laughs until he realizes I’m serious. Yes, Leland and Henry would ask Barry, Flynn and Tony for help, and maybe even some of the guys on Leland’s team if I don’t get home soon.

  “All right, Goldilocks, let’s get you home,” he stands slowly, and we gather up our trash then head to the car.

  As I’m getting in, I remember a comment that Skeeter made about always being able to find Seth, and what Seth was saying about not needing my number. It has to have something to do with our weird mental connection.

  I ask, and he confirms my suspicions. “We’re connected. That’s how I found your uncle’s house without asking for directions. I can follow your emotions or thoughts. I do want to trade numbers because we can’t control what we share with the other just yet. It gets easier with time.” he looks over to me and smiles sweetly as we get closer to my uncle’s.

  “Wait, are you trying to say that my emotions are like a friggin’ GPS?”

  “Not exactly,” he says with a laugh. “It’s more like playing a game of ‘hot and cold,’” he smiles.

  I nod, distractedly. At least, it’s not like if I get pissed off at something, a blinking red dot will sit over my location just for him.

  I don’t really know what it is that connects us. Maybe it’s a tether, or a chain. I snort to myself as the ‘ol’ ball and chain’ saying pops in my mind. I shake off my mental dialog and move onto my next question.

  “Is distance a problem? Like, if I go on vacation with my family somewhere, maybe out of state, would we still be able to feel and hear each other?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not sure if that theory has ever been truly tested. Mated pairs need the physical contact to keep the Ichor flowing. The longer one is apart from the other, the less potency of Ichor they receive. With the lessening of Ichor, the mates suffer from illness and mental problems as their minds and bodies start aging to their true age. Take Jaynie and her husband, for example. Jaynie is in her hundreds, and so is her husband. If one of them died, the other’s body and mind would revert to its true age. Most couples if they separate, it’s only for a handful of days. That’s what they’re willing to risk by being apart.”

  “Theoretically, would two weeks apart hurt us this summer?” I ask quietly.

  When he pulls into the driveway, he uses his finger to tilt my head in his direction.

  “We’ll make it work, I promise.” He gives me a quick peck, and I can’t take it. I want more. I wrap my arm around his neck and pull him closer as my lips assault his mouth.

  We both freeze and begin laughing a second later.

  I’m not sure which of us is more shocked. I just know that I had no intention of attacking his mouth.

  We exchange numbers, and he walks me to the door.

  “Do you want to hang out tomorrow? We can get Skeeter, she’ll love it,” he says.

  “She’s already coming over tomorrow,” I in
form him. “And you can come, too.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” He winks and leans down to kiss me. Just as he’s a whisper away, the door flings open. From the corner of my eye, I see Barry.

  “Would ya look at that,” Barry says. “Seems I messed up Pretty Boy’s moves.” He chuckles.

  I glare at him. If Seth doesn’t smack him, I will. Who does he think he is?

  “What are you doing here, Barry?” I demand.

  “Well, I wanted to go hunt you down at the lake, but Leland said to give you guys some time,” he glares at Seth, then refocuses his gaze on me. “Jaz, I cannot believe you were gonna let him kiss you, that’s just gross.”

  With that comment, Henry, Tony, and Flynn, are behind him in a flash.

  “Oh, do not start this again!” I roll my eyes. “Just go away!” Thankfully, Leland pulls the guys away from the door.

  “You have two minutes,” he warns before shutting the door.

  I groan, and Seth chuckles lightly.

  “So um, what do I call you?” I ask him quietly. I hope it’s something less dramatic than soul mate.

  He looks skyward with a smirk and rubs his chin.

  “You could call me your boyfriend,” he suggests with a smile.

  “Of course, why didn’t I think of that?” I laugh and lean up to give him a kiss. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Good luck with the bears and giants,” he chuckles as he walks towards his car.

  “Thanks,” I take a deep breath and open the door.

  There might be a blood bath this fine evening.

  Chapter 7

  More Questions

  As I twist the doorknob, I remember the promise I made to Henry. I never thought I’d actually date Seth, but I still promised I’d talk to him before it got this far. Shit! He’s so going to hate me for this. I groan as I open the door and step in.

  I’m in the house long enough to take off my shoes, before getting bombarded with questions from the annoying brutes standing in my living room. I do manage to hear a few of the questions, although I can’t tell who’s asking them.