Appointed Read online

  “Do you want me to pee in your bed?” Jewl asked quietly, but with a hint of agitation in her tone.

  Anj couldn’t help but laugh. “That would be one way to mark your territory.” After their crazy night in the underworld, it was hard to let her out of his presence, but he knew he had to let her go. Once he was positive she was unharmed from Lucien's attempted theft of her magic, he left her so she could get ready for the day. He made breakfast.

  Chapter Two

  Zes could get used to falling asleep next to Cheyenne every night and having her be there again when he woke in the morning. The curves of her body fit perfectly within his arms. He especially loved the way she curled into him as she slept, and every time he moved, she would move with him as if her body subconsciously needed him. The term making love finally made sense to him now because he certainly felt loved. He never wanted it to fade.

  Yes, everything was moving fast, but it was right. It had to be. The two had been through so much together. He’d nearly died when Lucien kidnapped them and brought them to the underworld. Cheyenne had had the chance to run at Zes’s expense, but she chose to save him. The demons had hurt him, tortured him actually, and without her help, they would have taken everything further. It cost her more than just her life to save him. She’d sold herself to Lucien, agreed to be his bride, which was a huge sacrifice on her part. How could Zes not mean something to her?

  The scar where the demons had branded him burned on his arm, the only remaining physical reminder he had from the whole experience. If it didn’t throb dully with pain practically all the time, he’d probably have blacked the whole thing out of his mind and called it nothing more than a bad dream. That’s what Cheyenne pretended to do, and he envied her for it. The trauma was an unspoken bond between the two of them, but always present. He didn’t mind not talking about it, though. He preferred it that way. Even Anj had given up on the idea of trying to get Zes to share his feelings. Only one more person still tried, and that was the school counselor. Zes was pretty sure she was close to giving up. Their appointments were being spaced further apart, and they spent more time talking about classes than anything important.

  Footsteps sounded overhead. Zes slowly sat up in bed as he tried to figure out who they belonged to, then relaxed when he realized it was only Anj. Paranoid was the last thing Zes wanted to be, but the boys’ mother was unpredictable. She may have said she’d be out of town for the next four days, but that didn’t mean she’d actually stay away the entire time. More often than not, her trips were cut short because she worried about her poor, blind Anj.

  For a moment, he listened to his brother walk around in the kitchen, which was directly over Zes’s bedroom. Then he lay back down to snuggle next to his beautiful girlfriend. Considering how early Anj had retreated to his bedroom last night, Zes was surprised it had taken his brother so long to wake up and get moving. He was usually a morning person. Maybe he finally had a good night’s sleep. It wasn’t his business either way.

  Cheyenne stirred and rolled toward him, urging him to lie back down as she put light pressure on his chest with her hand. He gently stroked her cheek with a few fingers, and her blue eyes opened.

  “Morning,” she said with a small, adorable blush. She wrapped the bed sheets around her chest and sat up.

  He stared at her with a smile.

  “Morning!”

  She giggled and then stopped when Anj’s footsteps paused. The water also started to run in both the sink and the shower in the upstairs bathroom, which meant someone else was in the house too.

  “Something wrong? You look a little spooked,” Zes asked, running a hand down her bare arms.

  “He got quiet. I wasn’t sure if he heard something or—”

  “He’s getting pots. Not even his hearing is so good he can hear us talking down here, babe.” He gave her a small, reassuring nod.

  “Pots, right.”

  “Relax,” he said. He didn’t quite know how to tell her he doubted Anj would care.

  They trusted each other’s judgment, and now that Zes understood love a lot more, he understood the many risks Anj had taken with Jewl. Granted, Zes also didn’t know what his brother did in his dysfunctional relationship. It wasn’t polite of Zes to assume, but Anj and Jewl had been together for a long time. Something had to have happened between them, right? It was just another thing the brothers didn’t talk about, however. Kind of a shame, because this was one of those moments Zes wouldn’t have minded sharing. They were brothers, best friends; weren’t they supposed to tell each other important things like their firsts? He shrugged it off. It’s probably some kind of guy code thing.

  Cheyenne lay down again. “You’re right, I should. I just don’t want them to spoil the moment.”

  “Then don’t let them,” he said.

  “D-do you think your mom’s home?”

  Zes laughed. “No way. Not if he’s getting pots. Mom hates it when he tries to use the stove. When she’s around, he’s only allowed to use the microwave, and even then I think that’s lucky because she’ll find some kind of an excuse to keep him away from it.”

  “It’s like she wants to make him helpless.”

  “She can control it. Mom needs that to feel secure.” He shrugged, trying to not make a big deal about it, but Cheyenne wasn’t going to let it drop.

  She looked into his eyes. “Why?”

  “It’s just what she does. When Dad died, it was hard on all of us. Everything changed so fast. By controlling my brother’s life, Mom thinks she can keep living in the glory days of when Dad was still around. That’s my theory at least.”

  “And you—”

  “Take care of the family. I don’t mind. She needs someone to help hold her up, and so does Anj since he blames himself for the whole thing. Even though it wasn’t his fault.”

  “What did happen to your dad? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking. Just, if you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen. I want to know everything about you, and I worry about you and—”

  Zes silenced her with a soft kiss on the lips. “You’re sweet. I haven’t brought it up much because I’m never sure what to say. It’s taboo inside the house so we’ve gotten used to not saying a word, talking like he was never here. I think it helps Mom feel less alone.”

  “I won’t pry anymore,” Cheyenne said.

  Don’t shut her out. He took in a deep breath. “We were eight. Anj and I were playing outside in the rain. He likes mud, something about the texture, and one of our favorite games has always been saving the worms from puddles. Anyway, we were outside in the garden, and all of a sudden Anj started talking about how he could see. Naturally, I was confused because he’s been blind since birth, and at the time, his magic hadn’t kicked in to its full potential. I tried to get him to explain what he was talking about, and he started walking away, following after some kind of blue door? Granted, he didn’t say it was blue because he didn’t know what the color looked like at the time, but the way he described it led me to that conclusion.

  “Anyway, I turned away from him for one second to do something, and he was gone. Like that.” He snapped a finger. “I told my parents what happened. They both freaked out. Dad ran outside, and then he was gone too. That was the last time I saw him alive.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Part of him wanted to brush the words off because they were ones he was tired of hearing. Her sympathy was appreciated, though. It felt real from her when so many others’ words were insincere.

  Slowly, Zes shook his head. “Dad was found a few hours later, lying facedown in the middle of the backyard. We still don’t know what exactly happened to him. Autopsy never came back conclusive, so I’m pretty sure cause of death involved magic. Anj was missing for a week and a half. We didn’t know if he was alive or dead. In anger my—”

  He stopped, unsure if he should keep going. When he glanced over at Cheyenne, and saw her blue eyes wide and filled with tears, he decided to take a leap and tell her somet
hing he’d never shared with anyone. His mom and his brother knew, but only because they had lived it with him.

  He took in another breath and then exhaled slowly, closing his eyes. “In anger, my mother said it was my fault. For a long time, she held it against me. It took five years for her to forgive me and realize it was just one of those things that happened, but sometimes… sometimes I wonder if she was right.”

  “Why do you think that?” Cheyenne asked.

  “Because if I could have stopped Anj from disappearing, then it wouldn’t have happened. It’s always been my job to keep watch over him so he doesn’t get hurt. You might not understand, but—”

  “I understand the logic behind what you’re saying, Zes, but one thing I’m learning through my time here at Vala is that things aren’t going to always make sense. And sometimes, things happen that you can’t control. Maybe you could have stopped him, maybe you couldn’t have.”

  “And if I continue to beat myself up over it, I’ll keep missing out and blah, blah, blah.” Zes rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard this before. We both have.”

  “We?”

  “My brother and I.”

  “Oh.”

  He lowered his voice. “I can’t let him carry the guilt by himself. He might not act like it, but he’s trying to atone for what happened just as much as I am.”

  Cheyenne kissed him on the lips, deeply. One of her hands ran through his hair, and she paused to touch the small horns on his head. They were the only reminder he had of his half-satyr heritage that came from his biological father — a man he’d never met and never wanted to. Anj didn’t have horns. It was the only way to tell the two apart based on appearance alone, assuming a person didn’t notice the blank look in Anj’s eyes.

  “You do what you need to feel right inside, but don’t forget there are people who love you,” Cheyenne said.

  “I love you,” he whispered, and kissed her again with just as much passion.

  Chapter Three

  Everything was back to normal. After breakfast, Anj and Jewl reconciled, and life went back to being as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Zes still did not know about Anj’s trip to the underworld, and Anj planned to keep it that way. His brother had gone through more than enough drama recently. Why give him another reason to worry? Zes already had a lot on his plate.

  Anj lay on the couch in the living room, holding Jewl in his arms. He sighed, feeling his entire body go heavy with exhaustion. The night before was still affecting him. There were so many questions about Jewl, about why Lucien wanted to take her Divine heritage, and about why the Elders wanted Anj to stay away from her. Okay, so they didn’t tell me I had to stay away from her. But not telling her everything would be a death sentence for our relationship. As Mr. Thantos had always told him, a relationship was worthless without trust.

  “Tell me more about your family,” Anj said as he traced the curve of Jewl’s earlobe.

  She sighed. “That’s kind of the last thing I want to talk about.”

  “I’m just curious. Ever since we had our talk, I feel like I finally get to explore a whole new you.” He paused and kissed her jawline softly. “You know me. I want to know it all, especially when it comes to you.”

  “Even though I’m not that interesting,” she stated.

  “I find you plenty interesting. You’re the most fascinating thing for me to study.”

  “Flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere, dear, sorry.”

  “I’m not flattering. I’m being honest! We’ve opened a new door by sharing with one another. I want to go through it.” He took one of her springy, blonde coils and looped it around his fingers, loving the feel of it against his skin. So soft and silky; it was one of his favorite features about her. When he used his sight spell to take in the platinum color, her beauty magnified. White was one of his favorite colors because it was such a huge contrast to black. Even more so, it fascinated him that white was the presence of all colors of light at once, rather than the absence of them. There was so much beauty in it.

  Jewl touched his cheek then rubbed her hand against it slowly. “It’s not something I’m completely ready for. Will you tell me more about yours if I do?”

  “Seems like an even trade. That can be arranged.” And he loved being able to share with her, no longer having to hold back. There was so much he wanted to say. The hard part was figuring out where to begin.

  “I’m not quite sure what to tell you that you don’t already know,” she said, and he felt her body roll toward him and could sense her gaze on him.

  He could always tell when he was being looked at, like some kind of sixth sense. Most of the time it didn’t bother him, not anymore. Any time he felt self-conscious, he told himself there must be a lot of good things about him to look at. Why else would people stare so much?

  Anj thought for a moment about what he wanted to know the most. “I want to know more about what happened between your mother and father. It might help me understand your magic more as well as why you’re so afraid of it.”

  “My father was lost at sea, shipwrecked. Somehow he made it to my mother’s island. Nine months later I popped out,” she said, rushing through her words.

  “You’ve told me that much. Elaborate, please? What made your father unfaithful to your stepmother?”

  “I hate how you’ve worded it,” she mumbled. “In my eyes, he’s never been unfaithful to her because he’s always been in love with her. My mother is Aphrodite, goddess of love. She definitely doesn’t believe in love, though. She’s more like a goddess of lust, flaunting her assets so to speak, and using her magic to manipulate others into giving her what she wants. Her magic makes people fall in love with her. So basically, she saw my dad, wanted him, and made him want her back. This went on for two years until he finally broke free, and he’s never forgiven himself for it. Do you get why it scares me now? I haven’t learned how to use that kind of magic. The only thing I’ve been taught is how to control my ability to summon magic from the stones.”

  “So what made you stop doubting me when it came to my feelings for you? What convinced you that you were no longer bewitching me into being in love with you?” he asked, trying not to be insulted by her implication, again, that he didn’t truly love her. Anj didn’t feel strong emotions often, so Jewl should have known better than to doubt the integrity of them from the beginning. Then again, she should have done a lot of things differently from the beginning. But if I point it out to her, we’ll fight, and I’m tired of doing that. Mr. Thantos said to learn to let things go. Now is as good as any time to practice.

  Jewl didn’t say anything for a while. Anj didn’t do well with long, awkward silences. Quiet in general isolated him from everything, because when he could hear nothing, he couldn’t “see” anything either. Some kind of ambient noise needed to be present or he lost his sense of where he was.

  So instead of focusing on her silence and how it created a huge void, he paid attention to the sounds of the house. The dryer was running in the basement, which meant Zes was doing laundry. The TV was on as well, an action movie involving cars as Anj heard the distinct sound of tires squealing and obnoxiously loud techno music. He could barely make out giggling from Cheyenne so the two of them were no doubt doing couple-like things. Anj had lost count of all the times they’d made out on the couch in front of him because they thought he wouldn’t notice. Gross. The sound of two people sucking face was distinct and not something easy to hide.

  Jewl took a long time to answer his question, and he tried to not think about why that was the case. Sometimes he wanted to be one of the mind readers at school.

  “Mom and I had a talk,” Jewl said, finally breaking up the silence and giving him something to focus on instead of the loud thump of the stereo in the basement.

  “Again, you’ve told me this before. I’m looking for something new.”

  “You’re pushy.”

  “I can’t help it, I’m curious.” He tried to give
her a playful smile so she knew he was only joking. Whether or not it was actually playful in appearance was another story. Visually expressing his emotions wasn’t something Anj was all that good at. It was a new art he was working on by using his sight spell. He’d always known to smile when happy, frown when not, but for a long time he didn’t know there were so many different kinds of smiles and frowns and expressions that could mean a lot of things.

  Jewl dug a finger into his side, poking him hard but teasingly. She only poked him in the side if she was joking. If she were mad, she would have done it in his chest.

  “She told me what I’d feel if it wasn’t real and that I’d know when I kissed you. Okay? Happy now?”

  “Yes,” he said, and turned his face toward hers. He brushed his lips over her cheeks, looking for her lips so he could kiss her. She opened her mouth, deepening it.

  “So what do you feel now? Still any doubts?” he asked in a soft, seductive tone.

  “It might take a few more to figure it out for sure.” She kissed him again, letting it linger this time. Instinctively, his eyes closed and he pressed in closer to her, and that was when the phone rang. He groaned when it continued to do so. Why couldn’t Zes pick it up? Maybe if he didn’t play his movies so loud, he’d be able to hear it.

  With a loud, exasperated sigh, Anj reached behind him for the cordless phone on the end table. It took a little fumbling since Jewl was in his way, but he got it right before the answering machine picked up the call.

  “Hello?” he said, wondering who would call on a Sunday evening.

  “Anjy, darling,” his mom said on the other end.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, everything is fine, honey. I just wanted to call and check in with you boys and make sure you were okay.”