Vala Heritage Read online

  A tiny smile formed on his lips. “And she's super pretty. She makes me think of a good angel, all glowy and sparkly. I can see it, the sparkles.”

  “Thus the name. Interesting.”

  “She reminds me of the blue door. I like it and I get the peanut butter feeling again.”

  “Smooth, silky truth in a jar.” She sighed, wishing it could only be so simple.

  “Does he make you feel that way?”

  Did what she feel for Anj seem true? Her heart ached for him, yearned even. And he made her nervous and excited all at once. But truth? That was harder for her to figure out. But she was also much more jaded than Teague. “I think so, but it's hard to tell because there are so many butterflies.”

  “You mean the tinglies?”

  “Sure.” A good enough description for the sensation.

  “Those are nice, too. Sparkles makes me tingly, too. I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't feel like I can tell her she makes me happy like this. It's weird to do that, right?”

  “What? Sharing how you feel about her? I don't think so. If more people shared what they were really thinking, the world would be a lot better off.”

  He chewed on his lower lip. “But is it too soon? I heard somewhere once that going fast is a bad thing. A lot of people find it scary.”

  “If you like her, then you might as well tell her. Especially if it's to the point where watching her with someone else makes you angry. At least then you can say you were honest,” she said.

  He sighed and threw his head back. “Why does everything have to be hard?”

  Why do you have to keep saying everything that's on my mind? “When I find out, I'll tell you.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Her hands roamed over the soft blue fabric of her dress. Jewl wasn't usually a fan of them, but Anj had said to look nice. While she had a number of cute blouses and sweaters to wear that would have been equally as acceptable, she wanted to go all out. He had that kind of an effect on her. Besides, the weather was surprisingly warm. Probably the last time it would be until the spring. And she had amazing legs she felt like showing off.

  The dress was casual, and fell to just under her knees. She put on a light jacket that matched, and then went to go meet everyone in the lobby. Zes and Cheyenne were busy talking. She worried for a moment maybe she was a bit too overdressed because they wore jeans and t-shirts.

  “He'll be right out. He's angsting over his hair,” Zes said, shaking his head before returning his attention to his girlfriend.

  Five minutes later, Anj stepped through the boys’ side door wearing a dark navy dress shirt and a khaki tie that matched his pants. She couldn't remember the last time he'd worn one of those. His dark hair was smoothed down, styled so that she could actually see his face for a change.

  “Whoa,” Cheyenne said.

  “I'll say,” Jewl agreed.

  Zes snorted. “Pu-lease.”

  Cheyenne stared up at him, cupping his chin in her hand so she could pull him down for a soft kiss. “Don't be jealous. I'm surprised, nothing more.”

  “Okay, good. Because if you think he cleans up nice…”

  Jewl decided to stop paying attention to their conversation, though she doubted they'd be talking for much longer. Gross. She was glad Anj wasn't interested in elaborate amounts of PDA. Though she would have loved to kiss him again. The lingering heat from homecoming was still fresh in her mind.

  “Walk me to the car?” Anj offered her his arm. They walked out together, and the four were soon on the road heading into town, only they didn't stop there. Soon they were on the freeway, traveling away from their small, secluded home to the next city over.

  The extra thirty minutes of driving were well worth it because they were in something actually resembling civilization. There was a large movie theater showing all of the latest releases and a mall. In the distance, she saw buildings higher than three stories tall.

  “Surprised?” Anj asked.

  She nodded, her eyes wide. They parked at the mall. It was much larger than she had been expecting with a fancy glass entryway. She got out and went to his side, so she could guide him along. He wouldn't know his way around there, and it touched her that he would put himself on unfamiliar ground to please her. In all of her time at Vala, she'd yet to visit that area, the big, metropolitan area that was hours away, sure, but not anywhere nearby.

  “Meet back at the theater entrance in about three hours?” Zes glanced at his watch.

  His brother nodded and pointed toward the large glass doors. “This way. We have reservations for a place called 'Enjoy'.”

  ****

  They didn't start their talk until after dinner. Disappointed at first, Jewl soon found she was glad that the two could have a good meal together without any drama spoiling her appetite. It made her more nervous, though. If they had been eating during their much needed tell-all, she'd be able to use her foot as a crutch for comfort. It gave her something to do with her hands, as well as something to put in her mouth to stop her from saying something rash. As he paid for their bill and gestured for her to take his hand, her stomach went queasy.

  “You're unhappy,” Anj said as they stepped out into the mall.

  “No, I'm not,” she said.

  “Yes, you are because you're squeezing my hand awfully hard. It hurts.”

  She let go of him and was about to say something sarcastic, but stopped when he grabbed her again. Firm, but comforting.

  “I'm not letting you run away this time. No more walls. Talk to me,” he said.

  “We still need to talk.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “I kind of want to get it out of the way, so it's not looming over our heads anymore.”

  He nodded and smiled. “Then I guess I'll stop putting it off. Since this was my idea, I can go first.”

  Jewl let out a quiet laugh. “I appreciate it.”

  Anj didn't say anything. A small “hmm” could be heard but beyond that he was silent as they walked through the mall. He opened his mouth a few times as if he were actually going to start talking, but closed it again.

  “I'm sorry, this is a lot harder to say than I thought it would be. It's not easy to put into words. I have this silly fear that you're going to think I'm crazy. Stupid, right? Given the world we live in, all of the other things we've seen and done, what could possibly be insane now?” He took in a deep breath. “I'm one of the Fates.”

  She stared at him, unsure of how to react. As much as she wanted to believe him, it wasn't an easy thing for her to do. “Funny, because you don't look like an old woman with one eye.”

  “Now, dear. What do we know about mythology? It's never quite what we expect it to be. Once upon a time, there may have been a Fate who had one eye and was an old woman. I'm sure she was creepy and interesting enough to keep people talking about her for years, but it's just a story. Being a Fate is a lot more complicated.”

  “Are you going to explain these complications?” she asked, glancing at him briefly before her eyes wandered to the windows of the stores. It'd been such a long time since she last went to a mall. She felt like a kid all over again; it was almost distracting from their conversation. Maybe that had been his intention all along.

  Leading him to the middle of the mall, she found a bench where they could sit. A large fountain was in front of them and putting on an impressive multi-colored light show in blue, red and green. Nearby was a carousel playing music. Not quiet, which she knew he would like. But there wasn't so much going on around her to keep her mind from wandering. The last thing she wanted was to miss something important because she saw a pair of cute shoes.

  His magic flared alive around his eyes and he stared at the fountain in front of them. “I'm glad I have your attention, but don't you want to walk around and get yourself a treat? Or simply walk off dinner?”

  “We can do that later. You need to elaborate on all of this.”

  With a sigh, he closed his eyes. “Yes, I s
uppose I do. I opened this can of worms, didn't I?”

  “You did. Take your time. We still have a lot of time before we have to meet with your brother.”

  “I know,” he whispered and then took another deep breath. “Being a Fate is a biological gift. It's passed down to one descendent, from generation to generation. There are more than just three of us. I would say about one in a million people are given the gift which sounds like a lot, but it’s not. I inherited it from my father.”

  “Which one?” she asked, unsure if this was a path he wanted to go down. The bitterness the twins felt about their family life was obvious every time the topic came up, and so it was always one she avoided. Still her curiosity was getting the best of her. The most he'd ever told her was that his mother had been raped one morning and that was why the twins didn't look anything like the man she had married. She knew it was painful for him to talk about

  “Which of my fathers? You know I only call one man Dad. The other isn't anything more than a sperm donor as far as I'm concerned.”

  “Yeah. But you said it was a biological gift.” She was even more confused. The last she checked, the twins had the man who conceived them and the man who raised them—two different people. What Anj was implying, though, didn't make any sense to her.

  He nodded. “It is. My satyr genetics comes from the man who attacked my mother, my magic from her, but there's a phenomena that happens on occasion when a woman… knows… two different men in the same day. Sometimes they both take a part in the conception. I'm trying to keep things delicate, but I'm not sure I'm explaining it clearly.”

  “Basically, you're saying that since your mom had relations with two guys in one day, they both had a winning soldier infiltrate her base?” Jewl said, raising an eyebrow. This was harder to believe than the Fate part. No wonder he kept so much of his past life from her.

  He cracked a smile. “I think you've caught on. This isn't something Zes knows. I only found out recently because of the elder Fates. We can talk about that another day, maybe. What you need to know for now is I got it from my dad. It's something he chose me for, and someday when we — I — have children, I'll choose one of them to carry on the tradition. Originally I thought it was something I got because I was born blind, to compensate. But I'm starting to think there was another reason. Maybe because I'm the youngest? Or maybe he flipped a coin and it unfortunately fell on me.”

  We. He was going to say we. Choosing to ignore his slip up for now, she decided to ask something more important. “So what exactly does it mean to be a Fate then? Since the story is apparently false.”

  “We see memories. Sometimes they're our own, other times they belong to different people. It depends on the Fate. The memory could be from the past, the present or the future. It can come as a vision or a dream. Everyone sees things differently.”

  “You see through dreams,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze. Everything was starting to fall into place. Anj had always had a difficult time with sleeping. More often than not he lived on a handful of hours a night. Enough to function, but not anything considered restful. He'd mentioned seeing things in his dreams before which is often where he claimed his warnings came from. She'd never known what to think of his ability. At least it sort of made sense.

  He nodded, and she could have sworn he sighed with relief. “I see the future, and occasionally the present. I've never seen the past, but it's rare enough I have dreams about two different time frames. Most only have one. On top of that, I see the memories of others. Very rarely are they ever mine. In fact, anything that involves me is usually incredibly vague. Almost everything I see is abstract enough as it is, but even more so then. Nothing is solid or set in stone. More often than not if I dream it, it'll happen in some way, shape or form.”

  “This is a lot to take in,” she admitted.

  “I know and I didn't want to just drop this huge bombshell on you. But I'm also not stupid. The elders have rules. If they aren't obeyed, bad things happen. One rule is that a Fate is not allowed to talk about what they are or about what we see in great detail. A small warning at the most, a hint, but we can't let people know for obvious reasons.”

  “So then why—”

  Anj took in a deep breath. “One exception is allowed.”

  “And that is?”

  “I can tell one person who's important to me and only one. Someone I know I can confide in to help me cope.”

  Jewl's fists clenched at her side wanting nothing more than to punch him. “Why did you tell me this part now? Don't you think you should have started with that major warning?”

  He shook his head, “No because I know you would have tried to talk me out of it and forced me to tell Zes instead. You're both equally important to me, but he's my brother. I will always have him no matter what. I love you. And I'll do anything to stay together. Telling you is the only way we can. Don't pretend that this would work if I didn't. He'll understand why I can't talk about things. You won't. Besides, I want it to be you.”

  Angry tears filled her eyes. “You're putting a lot of pressure on me. What if we don't stay together? What if something goes wrong and you hate me? What if you don't like my secrets?” Now she really had to tell him. Not because she wanted to let him in on these dark areas of her life anymore, but because she owed him that much.

  “You're being over-dramatic. We aren't together now, but no matter what happens we'll always be a part of each other’s life. I told you. I love you.”

  “It's still not fair.”

  He shrugged, “Not much about love is, I don't think. I'm sorry if not asking your permission first bothered you, but I still stand by the decision. Nothing you do or say is going to make me regret it.”

  “Don't be too sure,” she mumbled.

  Standing, he pulled her along with him. “Try me. Come on. Let's move around again. I think it'll help you recollect yourself.”

  Scowling, she reluctantly followed his lead. How was she going to tell him? He made it seem so easy, just blurting everything out in the open. Why couldn't she have the same kind of guts? Start talking. It'll all get out eventually. Pausing to look at a few of the new books available, she squeezed his hand even harder than before. So much so that his body tensed up and she heard him take in a sharp breath, but otherwise he didn't react.

  “I'm Divine.”

  “Tell me something I didn't know already. You are beautiful, sweet and amazing,” he said with a coy smile.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Anj placed his other hand on top of hers, and the touch relaxed her grip. “Thank you. I'm glad I can feel things in my fingers again. As for the other thing, I'm shocked but if that's what you're worried about me hating you over, then I don't know if I should be insulted or not.”

  All she could do was shrug.

  “And you didn't tell me this earlier, why?”

  She stared up at him in disbelief, her eyes narrowed. “Did you really just ask me that?”

  “Yes, I believe I did.” The smile was back.

  She sighed, not wanting to play games with him.

  “You kind of have a stigma against the Divine thanks to your mentor Mr. Thantos. I didn't know how you were going to react to your girlfriend being one. Besides, the last thing I want is for a big deal to be made about it. Nobody outside of a few of the teachers knows.” And she wouldn't bother explaining that Cheyenne knew as well because that was something he wouldn't understand, she was sure of it.

  “Because I love you, I would have accepted it. You're not stuck up or entitled. I get along with Chey just fine despite her heritage.”

  “I know, but there's more to it.” How did she word this? How was she going to tell him what she was actually afraid of? What if he did end up hating her?

  When she didn't continue right away, he started to stroke her wrist gently with his fingers. “Whatever it is, it can't be as bad as you think. This is going a lot better than I imagined it would. I thought maybe you were a mass m
urderer or a puppy kicker or something a lot worse.”

  Her eyes closed and she let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. “My mother is Aphrodite. She bewitched my father into loving her just by looking at him and she's picked me as her heir.”

  “Thus you being Divine, we've established this. I'm not quite getting what's so bad about-”

  “Being her heir means I gain her magic.”

  “I'm not following-”

  “Do you really love me Anj? When did you realize you felt that way about me? I mean, when we met I yelled at you and accused you of lying about your blindness. I threw an apple at your head, and then as soon as you were conscious you asked me out on a date. Isn't that weird to you?”

  “Everything about us is-”

  “Weird, I know. But are you understanding what I'm saying here? At all?”

  When she looked at his face, he was as expressionless as ever. He was so hard to read sometimes. While his hand never left hers, she felt a new kind of tension in it. And then he still didn't talk, which was not like him. Anj always had something to say.

  Finally, he opened his mouth. “You're implying that what I feel for you is not my own doing.”

  She couldn't answer him. If she said anything, she might start crying. The tears were there, she felt them in her eyes and her throat.

  He sighed, “I see. And you didn't want to bring this up sooner because?”

  “Our relationship is so delicate. I like what we have, I do. I wanted it to last as long as possible. I don't want you to be my slave, though.”

  “I regret standing for this conversation.”

  “I can find another bench.”

  Anj shook his head. “No, I'll be okay. What I need to do is think.”

  Her eyes averted down to the floor. Yup, I've messed this all up. “You're mad, and I understand that. Just know that if I did put you under a spell I didn't mean to. Whatever this magic is, I don't know how to use it or control it. Nor do I know when it started. Maybe it didn't happen right away.”