And the bastard knew it.
Lucien and I used to be friends – closer than brothers – almost inseparable.
Until our Selection, we were practically family. After Selection, I lost my best friend. It wasn’t as if I got a choice where I was placed. Lucien knew the same as me. He knew we could play Soldier and dream all we wanted, but in the end, the Primary chose where we went.
Lucien was selected to be a Scholar – an honorable profession in our society. But me? I was chosen to be what Lucien has always wanted to be – a Soldier. Aurelia’s Soldier to be exact, and in that decision, one day I would get what I wanted more than anything on this earth – to be Aurelia’s husband. Not that she knew it. Or would accept it for that matter.
She wouldn’t accept me – that I knew for certain. In her mind whomever the Primary chose for her wouldn’t be an option. Ever.
She would never willfully bind herself to me.
Aurelia was not the type of woman who liked to be told what to do, and in a matriarchal society such as ours, usually that wasn’t a bad thing. But Aurelia hated the life she was born into. Hated what she was destined for. Hated her eyes which have dictated her fate from the first day they fluttered open.
Those pale, pupilless orbs cemented her Seer status, cemented her fate to have her eyes forcibly removed from her head, cemented her destiny as an Oracle.
And cemented her hate for me.
Lucien knew how much I cared for her. He knew it from the very first day I heard her argue with her mother.
‘I would rather eat a pinecone than wear that silly corset, Mother. There is absolutely no reason to adhere to a societal norm of a society in which I have no interest in participating.’
She was ten, and I was twelve years old, and I knew then that I loved her, would do anything for her. But that was before I was a Soldier. Before Julian lost his mind and his sense of right and wrong. Before I seriously debated committing treason.
Now, my love would come at a price – a price I never wanted her to pay. If I did what I’d set out to do, Aurelia would be in danger.
Lucien crowded her, putting himself in her space much further than polite society would allow, but Aurelia didn’t appear to mind one bit. She gazed up at him, grinning, happy – until she felt my eyes on her. Aurelia turned her head to me, and her blush paled as her smile fell. A look of fear passed over her, and she dropped her head to stare at the vegetables she was purchasing from the market vendor. She thought I’d tell on her or cause a scene.
Oh, how wrong she was.
To fight the urge to rip his head off, I turned away from the woman I coveted more than anything on this planet and tried to school my features into something resembling calm.
I didn’t hate Lucien. I envied him. Because he had her love. He had her trust. He had her, and while I could possibly one day have her future, I wouldn’t be her first love. I wouldn’t be her first anything except for maybe her first hate.
* * *
“Rhys, I need to talk to you,” a voice called from behind me. Lucien’s voice.
Of course, he needed to talk to me.
I stopped my quick clip through the thick forest. I was on my way to the cliff top. I needed to fly, to be free, if just for a little while. So naturally, I would get stopped when I am a meager inch away from losing my ever-loving mind.
“What do you need, Lucien?” I said, not turning around. I didn’t want to see his smug, gloating smile. I’d probably punch it right off his stupid face.
“I have a problem. I’m pretty sure you’re the only person I can trust.”
“You can’t trust me. You shouldn’t even talk to me. I sure as hell don’t want to talk to you. Congratulations, you won. She loves you. You’d better love her back, and as long as you do, you don’t get to ask a damn thing from me.”
I’d made up my mind about a few things. I had to fix my brother, Julian – one way or another – and then I had to leave. I couldn’t watch them together for the rest of my life.
I’d go insane.
“How long do you think they are going to wait for her to decide, Rhys? She has pushed and pushed as long as she can, but soon enough they won’t ask anymore. They’ll decide for her. She’s… they… she’s carrying my child,” he breathed, the words gushed past his lips and sliced into my chest.
Lucien’s young face was lined in worry and fear. Had I ever looked that young? Had I ever been that earnest? Did he honestly think I wouldn’t rip him apart?
“We married in secret months ago. We’ve kept it a secret from everyone, but she will start to show soon enough. As soon as we can, we’re leaving here. But I need help…”
He said more about the Aegis, about Aurelia, about malicious leaders. But I didn’t pay much attention to him. The only thing that ran through my head was Lucien’s voice telling me I’d never have her.
She’s carrying my child. We married in secret.
Soon, thankfully soon, a strange buzzing took over the thoughts in my head, and I heard nothing at all as I left him behind me. My phase ripped through me, the burn of my Fireskin chased away his voice, the ache of my wings bursting from my back providing me my refuge as I soared off the cliff. The wind whipped through my feathers and past my ears and drowned out everything.
If only for a moment.
5
No One Said I Wasn’t Self Aware
AURELIA - 1855
Mother stood between me and my escape, her face lined in disapproval bordering on disgust. Mother didn’t understand me. I’m not even sure she loved me. In fact, I was sure she didn’t. In all my life, I have never garnered a smile from her, never a kind word or gentle touch. I wasn’t hugged or confided in or anything resembling the families I watched in our community. My family shunned me in private and scolded me in public.
Don’t run. Don’t speak so loudly. Remember your manners. Act like a lady. Do what you’re told.
After a while, I quit trying to please them. Quit trying to be what my sister was to them. Quit trying to make them something they weren’t. Quit trying to make them my family.
It didn’t help that I knew what would happen before it did, or that I knew when humans in the next town – or three towns over for that matter – would pass away. I was always going to be on the outside. My pale mint-green pupilless eyes made me a pariah in my own home. The Seer part of the equation was just icing on the cake.
It was five o’clock – close to supper time, but it didn’t matter for me. I ate my meals separately from them, never within touching distance of my mother or father or sister. But still, she stood, barring my exit. I wondered if I tried to touch her if she’d still stand between me and my freedom. If I yelled and screamed and caused a stir, would she still keep me here?
Perhaps she would, but then again, maybe she wouldn’t have. I doubt she held me any more than she had to when I was a baby, it was doubtful she’d let me come within a foot of her now.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked as if she had the right to do so. She may have given birth to me, she may have fed me, but she never gave me love.
Never.
“I’m leaving this house to go see my husband, Mother,” I said to her stunned face. I would’ve admitted I was with child, but honestly, given the puce tinge to her face, she might combust where she stood.
“Hu-husband? Have you lost your mind, Aurelia? You have no right to take a husband! You are to be an Oracle. Your Soldier will be chosen for you. You know the rules, child! How could you be so careless?”
Oracle. As if I would ever willingly subject myself to the horrors of that job title.
“Careless? The Oracle position is not my only option, Mother. I can choose exile, which I would prefer since it is the only god-forsaken choice I get to make! I would rather make my own fate than take the life someone dictates for me. You should know better, Mother. I don’t do what I’m told very well, now do I?”
“You think they will just let you go? Silly,
little girl,” she said shaking her head, pity all over her face.
“I spoke to Nicola myself. She said I was allowed to choose for myself as long as I did it before maturity.”
“Nicola isn’t who I am worried about,” she muttered and then her eyes widened when she realized she’d said it out loud.
So it isn’t Nicola she’s worried about. But if not Nicola, then she has to mean Iva.
Iva – our leader, our Primary – is not someone I ever wished to tangle with. She is the ultimate reason I didn’t want to be an Oracle in the first place. Bluntly, she frightened me – down to my very bones. I felt an ominous sense of dread every single time I stepped within three feet of her. It was as if she carried the weight of a thousand souls.
She felt stained in death.
There was no way I would ever be an Oracle with her as my leader and no way I would willingly hand that woman the knife to cut out my eyes. I still couldn’t fathom how we had progressed so much as a society and still followed that barbaric practice.
I like where my eyes are, thank-you-very-much.
“Did you ever consider, that perhaps I see much more than you give me credit for?”
My mother sighed a deep shuddering breath.
“That, my dear, has always been the problem. You see too much,” she whispered and stepped out of my way.
“If you are set on going, I would go sooner rather than later. Take your young man and leave this place before it is too late.”
Her voice, so heavy with foreboding sent a chill down my spine. It was the kindest she had ever been to me, and I had no idea what to do with her words.
“We are trying to leave before the week is out. Do you think this is enough time?” I asked.
“I hope so,” is all she said before leaving me alone to decide. Deciding between my family who had given me life – but not an ounce of love – and a man who not only gave me the love and affection I so desperately craved but the child in my belly as well.
It was no contest. I opened the thick oak door and walked toward my future.
AURELIA
It takes no time at all to get undressed and in the shower. The bathroom in itself is just as opulent as the rest of the place. Like everywhere else in the house, the shower is stocked for guests. Salon shampoos and conditioners, high-end body washes and even shower poofs. I am normally picky (who are we kidding – I’m always picky) about what products I use since I have waist-length hair that tends to knot if the conditioner isn’t heavy enough. But Evan knows me probably better than anyone and has the whole bathroom stocked with my stuff.
I speedily wash the blood off my arms and neck with the super expensive ginger and orange oil body wash. I shampoo my hair twice, because lord knows what’s in it, and use a handful of conditioner to tame the wavy locks into submission. She even has my favorite brand of razor carefully stowed in the custom shower shelf that is inlayed with rough tiles interspersed with pearlescent accents.
I turn off the immensely huge, if not awesome shower, start to towel off and open my huge duffle. I swear I could fit a body in this bag. In it I have stocked five bags of beef jerky (chipotle flavor), and my favorite ‘Fuck My Liver’ flask of Jameson Irish Whisky. I also have three full outfits with shoes and jewelry, underwear, a makeup bag complete with brushes, applicators, and all my usual products. Last, but not least, I have about a quarter million dollars in varied bills and a manila envelope containing a whole new identity.
I take the time to dry my hair, having found a high-end hair dryer in the vanity drawer, and put on the bare minimum makeup of BB cream, bronzer, mascara, and lip balm. I dutch braid my hair in a long side tail over my shoulder, and I pull out a gray bra and panty set quickly tugging the lace up my legs. I then don the gray boyfriend fit tee shirt, distressed blue jeans with the frayed holes in both knees, and I slide on dark brown, suede, t-strap sandals. I clasp my favorite sterling silver feather necklace around my neck, fasten silver hoops in my ears and slide on a stack of bangles.
I throw open the bathroom door to find all the candles blown out and the room empty. The room is lit by one lone bedside lamp, and the bedspread is depressed on one side where I assume Rhys had sat for a bit. Despite being what I wanted, I’m disappointed to not see Rhys there. I glance at the bedside clock and note it’s early in a new day. I’m bone tired, but I need answers now that I’m done pouting in the bathroom.
Hey, no one said I wasn’t self-aware.
I head up the stairs to the fourth-floor loft, jingling my bangles the whole way. I’m doing this because I’m trying to let Evan and West know I’m coming so they’ll stop making out and put some fucking clothes on. Just like everything else, I just know what I’m going to catch them doing, and I’d rather not see it in person. The vivid Technicolor in my mind is plenty, trust me. I’m pretty sure those two have been dating for a while behind everyone’s backs. How she kept it from me, I’m not sure.
It makes me wonder how much she’s hiding. She’s missed sparring sessions, and has generally been MIA for the last month.
I jingle the bracelets harder, but just like everything else, my warning goes unheeded, and I see way more of my friend's boob than I need to. On the upside, West has a very nice ass, and I can attest he has tattoos just about everywhere. I rest my shoulder on the doorframe being careful to look anywhere but their direction and shake my wrist as hard as I can. Nothing.
“Did the loud as shit jingling not tip you off I was coming?” I ask as I hear them startle apart and start pulling on clothes as hastily as they can.
I scold West’s turned back as he tucks himself back into his low-riding jeans, “I could have been anyone in this house, you know. I could have been her dad, I could have been the enemy, anyone. Stop thinking with your dick and pick a room with a door, you fucking moron.” He growls at me through a good-natured smile, but his eyes swiftly pull to my best friend and the look in them says it all.
He loves her.
Deeply.
I have never been jealous of Evan. In all the time we have been friends, I have always respected her, but I have never wanted her life. I guess there is a first time for everything because a sharp stab of envy fills me at that look. I used to get that same look from Lucien.
I used to revel in that look and know I was the most precious thing in someone’s world.
I miss it.
I push my bitterness to the side and turn my head to my best friend in the whole world and scold her ass too.
“The loft? Really? You knew I was coming, jerk, and while you do have a fabulous rack, I don’t swing that way and I don’t need to see it.” There. A little joke and the world’s back to rights again.
“Sorry. The time got away from us,” she shrugs.
“Evidently,” I chuckle. “So you two are together? I take it that’s not new.” She shakes her head with a sheepish look on her face, brushing errant curls out of her eyes.
“Mazel tov. Maybe sometime you can talk to me about it, you know when the threat of death isn’t so imminent. Sound like a plan?” Evan lets her smile answer for her.
“So, while I’d love to scrub out my brain with bleach to erase what I’ve just seen, it’s not an option right now. Two questions. Where’s Rhys? And what the fuck are all these people doing here? Go.”
“I think Rhys is in the game room getting to know the guys, and Dad’s personal guard is here because there’s been some serious unrest going on in our community. I talked to Dad a little bit before you got here, and there have been attacks on Wraith families in the surrounding states. Five families are unaccounted for, one in Tucson, two in New Mexico, one in Cortez, and one in Colorado Springs. Dad thinks the shit is about to hit the fan here, so as soon as he can get some shit handled, we’re all leaving. Dad wanted me to extend the invitation to you and Rhys as well.”
She’s leaving something out. I know she is, but I’ll needle her later about it when her Goliath is not in the room.
“Why didn’t he
say anything earlier?”
“I think it’s just Dad being cautious. Never can be too paranoid when it comes to times of war. You know that.”
I do. Even your own family can turn on you if you’re not too careful.
We make our way down to the game room, the sounds just as raucous as before, only when I arrive, the conversation doesn’t halt like a bad 80’s teen movie record scratch. Each of the men continues what they’re doing as if I’m not here. I notice Rhys across the room talking to John; his body is held in such a way, I know I don’t want to interrupt them. I plop down on a barstool at the edge of the room and survey each of the men.
Across the pool table, sitting on the smaller of the two couches are two men slightly removed from the rest of the guards. They are arguing in murmured tones in a Portuguese dialect I don’t recognize. The one on the left of the couch has smooth, coppery brown skin, full almost pouty lips, an overgrown head of black curly hair and pale green eyes that speak of a beautifully mixed heritage. He’s dressed very casually in a plain navy shirt, ripped jeans and brown leather motorcycle boots.
The one on the right is most assuredly Asian, but the sharper cheekbones and fuller lips denote Korean lineage. His eyes and hair are black as night, and he’s dressed in a crisp coal black suit that is at odds with the heavy fall of hair across his eye. He looks pissed as hell, his voice going quieter as his gestures and words turn sharper.
At the pool table in front of me are two men dueling with trash talk and taking the piss out of one another. The man at the head of the table is lining up his shot, the tight red shirt stretching across his impressive back. His rich mocha skin almost glows in the overhead table light. He laughs at his friend and a blindingly white smile stretches across his full lips, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
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