Her sisters shared the same birthday. They’d met at their cabin, their secret private glen, which was a real place in this non-magical realm but that stood protected by magic. Their celebration had been joyous as the sense of destiny, of something waiting just around the corner, had touched them all more profoundly than ever.
The sound of children laughing and running snapped Cheri back to the present. It was nearly time for her last staff meeting.
A tiny bit of static electricity, a shimmer of awareness, skittered across her flesh. Cheri recognized the sensation for what it was. Tilting her head to the side, she closed out all else, focusing on that thread of power, trying to perceive just what…and her attention was drawn to her desk drawer, the one holding her purse.
Heart pounding, she reached for the handle, her fingers pausing in midair for one breath of time. This could be the moment I’ve been waiting for. Then she opened the drawer, picked up her purse, and opened it.
The envelope lay atop everything else, an envelope she’d never seen before. Beige in color, it bore a name that even she recognized.
“Carstairs Cruise Lines?” Cheri had stayed at a Carstairs Hotel her first night in this realm—right here in New York City.
She took out the envelope and opened it. Inside was a ticket, along with a confirmation letter. She looked at both quickly.
Apparently she was doing something this summer—beginning Sunday, she would be on a cruise.
“What do you have there, girlfriend?” Ginger Mann, first grade teacher and one of Cheri’s best friends here in New York, strolled into the room and didn’t stop until she stood beside her and was looking at what she held.
“A cruise? Lucky you! Hey, how come I didn’t know about this?”
Cheri grinned at Ginger, whose ready smile and warm heart had drawn her that very first day she’d reported for work. Ginger had been the first teacher on staff to reach out to her, and their personalities meshed. Cheri admired Ginger’s giving nature, her easy laugh, and her sense of style. The woman always looked chic, the jewel tones she loved always showing off her caramel-colored complexion to perfection.
Ginger had been a joy and an asset whenever Cheri had gone clothes shopping—something Ginger loved to do. Knowing Cheri had no family close by, Ginger had invited her along to holiday celebrations, helping to fill the gap of loneliness she felt so keenly at times.
She turned her attention back to her friend. Cheri had gotten very good at thinking on her feet since she’d been in this realm. “It was a last-minute decision. A wild hair.”
Ginger waggled her finger at her. “You do know that hurricane season is from June to November, right? And that Bermuda lies right in one of the most common tracks for such storms, right?”
Cheri couldn’t tell the woman that she didn’t need to worry about that—ever. Instead, she shrugged and grinned. “I got a great deal.” And if Ginger wanted the details, she’d show her the receipt that was just now nestled behind the letter in her hand, showing what a phenomenal deal it had been, indeed.
It wouldn’t be much of a lie. I did get a good deal. It cost me nothing.
The fare had, of course, been paid. Magic wasn’t thievery, after all. It just had been paid by the Concilium, and not by her.
“Uh-huh. I think that old adage about something being too good to be true applies here. All the trouble those cruise lines have been having lately with weather woes and mechanical woes and illnesses—I guess it makes sense that they’d have a huge sale going on.”
“I’ve never been on a cruise before. And since this one leaves from right here in New York so I don’t need to fly anywhere, I thought it would be fun.”
Ginger sighed. “Look at me tossing a wet blanket on your vacation plans. My momma is right. Sometimes I don’t think before I open my big trap.”
“I won’t tell your momma,” Cheri said.
Because she’d put on such a serious face, Ginger laughed. She picked up the ticket and then tisked. “Day after tomorrow? We better hit the stores tonight and tomorrow morning, to make sure you’re ready.” Then she got a gleam in her eye that warned Cheri of trouble. “We’re going to deck you out so fine that when you meet your prince charming—and you will—he won’t be able to resist you!”
Cheri shook her head. “Then you’re going to have to find a way to turn me from a size sixteen and a half to a size zero.” Cheri’s biggest personal heartbreak since coming to this realm had to do with the very real fact that most men—and most other women, too—felt perfectly free to debase a person based on their physical appearance. They even had a term for it. They called it “body shaming.”
In Cheri’s mind, the fact that they had a term for it was shameful in itself.
Nothing she’d ever experienced in her life had prepared her for the very harsh treatment she’d received at the hands of total strangers.
“Miss Ambrose, shame on you. There is nothing wrong with how you look, woman. You are beautiful—outside, inside, every side. You need to own that as a fact, girlfriend. And when you meet the man meant to be yours, he’ll only see that beauty.”
“I know I’m beautiful.” At least I always considered myself so back in the homeland. “But not too many people here in New York agree with us on the matter.”
Cheri didn’t, on purpose, address the concept of this cruise being where she would meet her “prince charming.”
The reason she’d been sent to this realm in the first place—the reason her friends had been sent here—was to fulfill the first unification prophecy. She knew, with the certainty born of magic, that she would indeed meet the two men meant to be her mates on this cruise.
But they were men of this realm, and she was very much afraid that they’d take one look at her, turn their backs, and then run, not walk, away.
Chapter 2
The lifeboat drill behind them, Max Tanner and Anthony Delvecchio—best friends since their first day of college—headed toward the bar on the fantail of the Carstairs Cruise Line’s newest cruise ship, the Eugenia.
“There sure are a lot of people on this ship.”
Max turned his head and grinned at Tony. “So it would seem. Do you know we’ve done so many things together in the twelve years we’ve been best friends. We went to college together then medical school together. All the while, both of us were working for that same modeling agency that paid for it all. We did our residencies together and applied for and then accepted those first positions together in Chicago. Now we’ve transferred, together, to New York City, to the same hospital again.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “We’ve even, on two very memorable occasions, shared a woman.” Then he straightened and laughed. “But this is our first vacation together.”
Tony snorted. “Hell, Max, it’s our first vacation since college, period.”
“Yes, it is. And you were the one who drew ‘cruise to Bermuda’ out of the hat when we realized the hospital screwed up the dates on us.” It really was the damndest thing. They’d been informed by letter that they needed to report for work Monday, June twenty-ninth. So they packed up and moved to New York, quickly realized that sharing an apartment made perfect financial sense, chose one, moved in…and then had each gotten a letter that the hospital had erred and they were to begin their positions on July twentieth, not June twenty-ninth.
Suddenly they were faced with three weeks with nothing to do. So they’d decided to take a two-week vacation. They’d both saved faithfully over the years and could certainly afford the cost of a trip. And really, Max thought, a vacation for two of the three weeks before they began their rotations was a hell of a good idea. Who knew how busy they’d be once they began? Both of them surgeons—he trauma and Tony thoracic—they had only to look back on their last three years in Chicago to know it could be a long time before they had breathing room again.
“Well, I may have drawn that piece of paper out of the hat, but I sure as hell didn’t put it in there in the first place.” Tony met h
is gaze.
Max felt his right eyebrow go up. “You had to have. I didn’t put it in there.”
“Right.” Tony laughed. “Well, we’re here. I’ve heard that being on one of these babies isn’t anything like being on a canoe or rowboat. I just hope to hell that’s true.”
Max had almost forgotten about Tony having told him he didn’t go fishing with his dad because the small boats made him seasick.
If neither of us put that slip into the bowl, how the hell did it get there?
“Gents! I know just the thing to wipe those landlubbers’ scowls off your faces! You each need a Bermuda Hurricane!” The bartender’s mustachioed grin looked a bit evil to Max.
Tony snickered. “We might, but it depends.” He answered for both of them. “What’s in them?”
They’d both noticed the large hourglass-shaped glasses so many passengers held, containing an innocuous-looking pink beverage and garnished with cherries and those little umbrellas. Max figured they were some sort of rite of passage—and then nearly groaned aloud at his own bad mental pun.
“A little of this, a little of that. Rum, and juice, and a sprinkle of magic to ensure a stress-free vacation!”
“Sounds like just what we need. Two, please,” Tony said. “The first round is on me.” He handed the bartender his boarding card. When they’d received their cards and were told that the vessel was cashless, they’d both figured out they’d best keep their wits about them.
It would be awfully easy to go overboard—I’m just full of bad puns today—with the ease of shipboard transactions.
Max wasn’t worried. They’d both developed solid money sense over the years. He half turned, his gaze scanning the growing group of passengers, his senses taking in the party atmosphere—as talking, laughing, and island music crowded out the usual stress-filled New York air. The cruise line’s job, from this moment on, was to make this a ship a vacation destination in and of itself.
Damned if they weren’t succeeding.
As he brought his gaze back, a couple of women stood out from the rest. Their tight, supple bodies peeked through their come-fuck-me sundresses. One blonde, the other brunette, hair and makeup worthy of a couple of supermodels, Max could tell the pair had spotted him and Tony and were sizing them up.
He felt like prey in a jungle, his back fairly itching with the metaphorical target that suddenly appeared there. Thank God I’m wearing sunglasses.
He turned his back on them and lowered his voice so only Tony could hear him. “We’ve been targeted.”
“Aw, fuck. Already? Who and where?”
“Light and dark, nearly naked dresses, eight o’clock.”
The bartender set two drinks on the counter, and Tony scooped them up and then headed in the opposite direction from the women giving them the twice-over.
He handed one drink to Max. “I wonder if we’d feel different about those babes over there if we hadn’t had those five years working for Vivian’s agency?”
Vivian Alder ran a modeling agency that covered much of the Midwest. They’d gone to her on a lark, thinking if they could get some work in, they might help defray the cost of college. Neither of them had wanted to burden their parents with the expense, nor had they thought graduating owing hundreds of thousands of dollars would be a good idea.
It still embarrassed Max to recall the woman’s reaction. They were both, according to her, a couple of hardy slices of Grade A prime. The next few years had taught them some very valuable lessons.
Neither of them was drawn to the kind of women who’d traded in their characters for appearance.
Give me a plus-size gal with a good heart over these scrawny fashionistas any day.
He recalled how he’d behaved before working for the woman and how he’d been in those first testosterone-baiting months of the job. Max sighed. “It saddens and shames me to say we probably would.”
“I feel the same,” Tony said. “I’m glad we had that particular education. Think of the time we’d waste giving in to our baser selves, going for the packaging and not what’s inside.”
“Yeah. As far as I see it, we have two options. We can pretend we’re gay—or we can just not see them.”
Tony laughed, as Max had expected. They always tossed out the “gay” option—a private joke to them. They each had a sibling who was gay, and they were both more than fine with that. “Option two is best.”
“I agree.” Max didn’t like lying, even if it was in a good cause. “Come on, let’s grab a place by the railing. We’ll be sailing soon, and I want to be right there when we pass Lady Liberty. I’ve heard the view of her from the river is the best.”
“That sounds like a plan to me. Plus, it’ll put me in a really good position, just in case this big ship isn’t any better than my dad’s fishing boat and I end up tossing my cookies.”
Max couldn’t explain it exactly, but he felt positive that seasickness would not be visiting his best friend—not just during this cruise, but ever again.
* * * *
“Here you go, Mr. Ridgway.” Cheri set a glass on the table in front of the elderly gentleman.
“Thank you, Miss Ambrose. You’re as kind as my granddaughter Kira said you were. Imagine, my running into you here! I don’t expect you to take care of this old man, but I am grateful for your assistance earlier during the lifeboat drill.”
Cheri felt color kiss her cheeks. “It’s been my great honor to be of help today, sir. Please, call me Cheri. I was raised to have respect for those who’ve endured the test of time.”
Mr. Ridgeway chuckled. “There are days, Cheri, when I keenly feel all of those time tests I’ve endured, and so I thank you again.” He raised his glass. “To my great-granddaughter’s second grade teacher. May you truly reap all the blessings you’ve sown in life.”
Cheri drank to the gentleman’s toast, even though she didn’t feel she deserved such praise. If anyone deserved kudos, it was his granddaughter, herself.
Kira Blaine was the single mother of Louisa Blaine, one of Cheri’s pupils the year before this last one. Kira worked two jobs to provide for her daughter, clearly the center of her life. For her part, Louisa was a beautiful child with a heart full of love and a thirsty, seeking mind.
She’d recognized the pair the first time she’d set eyes on them, of course. They were descendants of the Chosen—those members of the Gifted who’d stayed behind at the time of the Great Separation, to do all they could to protect the people from the Scorned.
That had been eons ago, when the earth had been new and her human inhabitants had been just beginning to form complex societies.
Because they’d stayed behind—to protect the people as best as they could against those who’d scorned the Gifted’s tradition of peaceful coexistence and sought to rule all—they’d not had access, through the ages, to the kind of mating that ensured the passage of their power. With each succeeding generation, the magic within these descendants diminished.
In this day, there were but a scant handful of truly powered Gifted Ones left in this realm. Cheri hadn’t met any of them yet, or any of the most powerful of the Scorned, either. But she’d met a few of those with that tiny trace of power. She’d been able to sense the ember of magic hidden deep within their consciousness. Her thoughts went back to the hours before she’d left the homeland.
And so after many generations, what is left of those who sacrificed the future of their lines are people with exceptional talents. Artists, athletes, people who rise to the top with seeming little effort. That is their legacy—the legacy of the Gifted. Once in great while, of course, and under extraordinary circumstances, these special ones are capable of reaching the power within them and capable of magic.
Cheri had remembered every word spoken by the Sylph that day, six years before. And she’d recognized several such people in her time here, since. The same was true of those who’d rebelled, spurned by society, because they’d been bent on the greedy subjugation of all life on earth. Th
ey had caused the war that had split humanity. Their power, too, had diminished. One other bit of information given her that day had surprised her.
Not all of the descendants of the Scorned were skewed toward evil—just as not all the descendants of the Chosen or, indeed, even all of the Gifted were only good.
As was true with human nature, there was good and evil in every race, in every calling, and in every sphere. As life was lived by each being, decisions had to be taken and choices made.
Cheri brought her attention back to Mr. Ridgeway. “Your granddaughter is a wonderful mother, Mr. Ridgeway.”
“She is, indeed.” He brought his glass to his lips and took another sip through the straw. “Please, won’t you sit and join me for the cast off? We’ll be passing the Statue of Liberty on our way to the sea. Unless, of course, you’d rather get a better view of the Lady by standing at the rail.”
It already looked to Cheri as if people had packed themselves in at the rail tighter than sardines in a can. She turned to Mr. Ridgeway. “Thank you. I’d appreciate sitting with you.” She knew only two things about the kind gentleman who turned his attention to all the people milling about, already partying heartily.
The first was that he’d been widowed five years before, and the second was that his wife must have been the descendant with power. Arthur Ridgeway was an exceptional human being, as far as she was concerned, but he didn’t have that inner ember. He wasn’t a descendant of the Chosen. Those genes must have come down through his wife.
Cheri made herself comfortable in the mesh chair and, like the man beside her, scanned the crowd that seemed to be growing by the minute.
“I look at all these young people, the excitement running through them, and I remember the first cruise I ever took—that was way back when I was just twenty and in the company of my parents—before my father lost everything due to bad investments. I met my Dorothy on that cruise.” He tilted his head to the side. “Perhaps you’ll meet your future husband on this one.”
The Gifted 1: Passions Awakening (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 2