Dark Haven Illusion (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance Book 47)

by I. T. Lucas

  “I told you.” He winked. “I have ninja skills.”

  46

  Leon

  Wearing a Henry shroud, Leon had drawn a few curious glances, but he’d smiled and waved and kept on walking. Some of those he’d encountered would doubt their sanity when they found out that Henry had been in class the entire time, but he couldn’t care less.

  Back in his room, Leon lay down on the bed and waited for Peter and Eleanor. Lunch was coming up soon, and they would probably check on him before heading to the dining hall.

  His fingers itched for his absent phone. Texting them the newest development would have been helpful.

  Safe Haven’s rule about cellphones was reason enough to hate the place, and not only because it was just one more way to isolate and control their people. Leon had lived a long time before cellphones had been invented, so not having his phone shouldn’t bother him as much, but like nearly everyone else on the planet, he’d become dependent on it, and functioning without it felt like he’d gone back in time.

  The knock on his door came a little after twelve.

  “Are you decent in there?” Peter asked.

  Leon got up and opened the door. “Come in.”

  Eleanor glanced at the rumpled bedding with a raised brow. “Have you been in here the entire time?”

  “I went to see Anastasia.” He walked over to the bed and straightened the comforter. “The room hadn’t been cleaned yet when I came back.”

  “I wonder if mine was.” Eleanor sat on the bed. “They don’t expect the guests to go back to their rooms until the evening.” She crossed her legs and leaned forward. “So, how did it go with Anastasia? Did she forgive you?”

  “I followed your advice and told her that I have feelings for her and that I want to explore them away from here, where we can be together with no limitations. I asked her to give me one week.”

  “Did she agree?” Peter asked.

  “She promised to give me an answer tonight.”

  Eleanor narrowed her eyes at him, and given how dark and small they were to begin with, she looked damn scary. “Did you mean any of it? Or was it all a lie to get her out of here?”

  “It wasn’t a lie. I want to get to know her better.”

  The woman was still glaring at him. “Is it because she’s a potential Dormant?”

  “Naturally, but I liked her even before I found out about the voices being real.”

  “You knew from the start that she might be one. Did you take the assignment hoping that she would be a nice bonus?”

  “What’s your problem, Eleanor?” Peter pushed away from the desk he’d been leaning against. “Leon did what had to be done. If Anastasia is a Dormant and starts transitioning, she can’t stay here. We need to get her out, and it has nothing to do with our original assignment.”

  She shifted her witchy eyes to the guy. “Leon doesn’t need a defender, and I asked him a question, not you.”

  He had no idea what had crawled up Eleanor’s butt. The woman had a closet full of skeletons. She had no right to judge him. “Where are you going with this? Do you disapprove of my methods?”

  Letting out an exasperated sigh, Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest. “You guys are so dense. What I was trying to ascertain was whether you’ve bonded with Anastasia, and pushing you seemed like a good strategy to get you to admit your true feelings for her.”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “How could I have bonded with her after just one night? And what does it matter anyway?”

  She shook her head. “You were in West Virginia when Richard was attempting to transition, but I thought that you’d been told. I lost count of how many times he’s been induced. Apparently, he couldn’t transition until he bonded with Stella. So if you didn’t bond with Anastasia yet, and you manage to keep it in your pants from now on or use a condom, she might not transition.”

  “I heard the rumors about Richard, but I don’t think they are true. Did you and the ex-Doomer bond before you transitioned?”

  “No. And Eva didn’t bond with Kalugal when they hooked up fifty-something years ago either. But maybe we are different.” She smirked. “Eva and I are badasses. We didn’t need to bond with a male to transition.”

  Chuckling, Peter sat down on the bed next to Eleanor and clapped her on the back. “You might be a badass, but that doesn’t change your physiology. The transition is triggered by some sort of a chemical reaction, not feelings.”

  “Oh, really?” She looked at him down her nose. “Feelings trigger the production of hormones, and those are chemicals. The bond is not just some mystical mumbo jumbo. It causes physical changes in the body, and in turn, those help induce transition.”

  “Neither of you are a doctor.” Leon put a stop to their banter. “And even Bridget doesn’t know what happens in the body during transition. So this entire discussion is irrelevant. We need to get Anastasia out of here.”

  “What if she says no?” Eleanor got to her feet. “You will have to knock her out and carry her off. Peter can thrall the guards, and I can compel anyone else we bump into to let us pass. We will steal the bus and hightail it out of here.”

  If Anastasia refused to leave, they might have to do just that. “I hope she comes of her own volition, and obviously, I have to go with her. But you two can stay behind and complete the rest of the mission.”

  Eleanor didn’t look happy. “I want out as well. My compulsion ability is pretty useless here.” She glanced at Peter. “Can you handle this on your own? Or do you need me to stay?”

  “He needs you,” Leon answered for Peter. “Unless there is no other choice, Guardians always work in pairs. You are not a Guardian, but in a pinch, you’ll do.”

  “Thanks for the compliment.” She grimaced. “Now I really feel like my life is complete.”

  She’d misunderstood.

  “You are a civilian, and yet I feel comfortable entrusting you with watching Peter’s back. I consider it a huge compliment.”

  “He’s right,” Peter said. “You are capable, and you have guts. I know that I can count on you.”

  A lovely smile lifted Eleanor’s lips. “If you actually mean it, then I’m flattered. I know that my reputation doesn’t inspire trust, and I also know that the two of you were added to the mission to keep an eye on me.”

  Peter clapped her on the back. “You haven’t disappointed us yet, and I believe that one day you will make a swell Guardian.”

  The woman actually blushed. “Thank you.”

  Leon hadn’t thought she was capable of that. Eleanor was tough as nails.

  “You’re welcome.” Peter sat back down on the bed and looked up at him. “After you get Anastasia out of here, where are you going to take her?”

  “For obvious reasons, I can’t take her to the village, but I can take her to the keep. There is another clinic there, and Bridget or Julian can take care of Anastasia there.”

  “That’s where I transitioned,” Eleanor said. “You’ll have to blindfold her on the way there, and if she makes a fuss, knock her out. The keep is still a strategic location for the clan.”

  Leon smiled. “I don’t think Anastasia will make a fuss about being blindfolded.”

  “What if she doesn’t transition and wants to come back here?” Peter asked.

  “Then I’ll deliver her here myself.”

  “Right.” Eleanor snorted. “As if that’s going to happen.”

  “If that’s what she wants, that’s what she gets. Consent is not optional.”

  Except, it was.

  He couldn’t tell Anastasia anything, let alone get her consent, before the start of her transition. She might never forgive him for that.

  47

  Richard

  While Kian and Kalugal pored over the construction plans, Richard tried to come up with a smooth way to steer the conversation toward Mey and Jin and their Chinese origins. He could use the sisters as a segue to hypothesize about the presence of immortals in the East, alerting Kia
n to the possibility without revealing Stella’s secret.

  Was it worth the risk, though?

  Stella didn’t know how many people were in the sperm donor’s community, or where they were located. Basically, she had nothing that Kian could use to search for those immortals.

  The other problem was that Kian would probably dismiss the idea. The way he saw it, Mey and Jin had been just run-of-the-mill Dormants, the descendants of the original immortals who had perished a long time ago. The only differences between them and the others were their unique abilities, and those could be attributed to that long-gone ancestor as well.

  “Is there a problem?” Kalugal asked him. “You seem concerned.”

  The guy probably thought that Richard had an issue with the blueprints.

  “There is no problem with the plans. I was just thinking about Mey and Jin.”

  His musings would appear random, but he needed to get it off his chest.

  “What about them?” Kian asked.

  “What if there is a community of immortals in the east?”

  Kian shook his head. “If there was, they wouldn’t have put their children up for adoption. Mey and Jin’s mother was a Dormant, and given the one-child policy China had at the time, she might have been forced to give them up so she could have a son.”

  “Those living in rural areas were allowed two and sometimes even three children,” Kalugal said. “Mey and Jin’s parents might have been farmers.”

  The conversation wasn’t going in the direction Richard needed it to go. “What if their mother or grandmother was a lone immortal? The grandmother could have been a former Dormant who had been induced by a random immortal male like what happened to Eva.” He looked pointedly at Kalugal. “From what I understand, the immortality gene is inherited from the mother, but some of the paranormal abilities pass through the father. If their grandmother was induced by a powerful immortal, Mey and Jin’s mother might have inherited the special abilities from him and passed them on to her children. If she later had a son, he probably has a special talent too.”

  “Interesting hypothesis.” Kalugal smoothed his hand over his jaw. “Since I obviously inherited my compulsion ability from my father, it should have occurred to me that humans who possess paranormal abilities, but who are not Dormants, inherited them from a male ancestor.”

  “Obviously.” Kian rolled up the blueprints and inserted them back into their cardboard tube. “But they are of no interest to us.”

  “Not true.” Kalugal still had that faraway look in his eyes. “A geographic location with an unusual concentration of people with paranormal abilities might indicate a presence of immortals.”

  “Not really.” Kian started up the hill. “Very few immortals have special talents for their offspring to inherit. And since our numbers are so small and our fertility so low, the impact on the population around us is negligible. The only place it could have had an impact is your father’s island. It’s home to many more immortals than humans.”

  “True. But the women who service the warriors are on birth control, and they don’t have children. Only the Dormants are allowed to conceive, and they produce other Dormants. So that’s not going to happen there. But if there is a remote village in China with a concentration of people with special abilities, that’s definitely worth investigating. If there is a community of immortals there, they could be hiding in a rural area. The big cities are too intensely monitored for immortals to hide in.”

  “They weren’t twenty-something years ago when Mey and then Jin were born,” Kian pointed out. “Back then, it would have been easier for immortals to hide in a big city.”

  “Still, I would have loved to investigate the possibility.”

  “Why?” Kian arched a brow. “You’ve never been interested in building a larger community for yourself, or even interacting with ours until you were practically forced to. What’s in it for you?”

  Kalugal shrugged. “I love a good mystery, and I’m curious. The problem is that the country is so big and populous, and information is centralized and restricted.”

  The conversation was finally getting on track, but it seemed like they had reached a dead end.

  Richard scratched his head. “Maybe the orphanage Mey and Jin were adopted from could be a good starting point.”

  “I have a better idea.” Kalugal’s eyes started glowing. “Remember the Chinese guy in Simmons’s notes? The one who’s working both sides? We can start with him and the Chinese paranormal program.”

  “I’d forgotten about him,” Kian admitted. “As usual, too much was going on at once, and it had slipped my mind.”

  “Same here. I need to contact the guy and get him to tell me all he knows.”

  “Let’s just hope he’s not an immune,” Kian said.

  “Why would he be?” Kalugal waved a dismissive hand. “Those are rare.”

  48

  Anastasia

  Ana had spent most of the day agonizing over a decision that shouldn’t have been so difficult to make.

  All Sam was asking for was one week.

  “Are you going to see him again tonight?” Margaret asked as they left the classroom.

  Ana shook her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.”

  The hallway was teaming with other community members who’d attended the same workshop, and she didn’t want to talk about Sam within anyone’s earshot.

  “Let’s grab a cup of coffee.” Margaret threaded her arm through hers.

  “Do you want to go for a walk instead? We have maybe half an hour of sunlight left.”

  “Yeah. It gets dark so early during the winter months. We can take a short stroll and come back in time for dinner.”

  “Let’s get our coats.”

  After stopping by Ana’s room first and then Margaret’s, they headed toward the side gate which opened to a path circling around the lodge and leading straight to the beach.

  Margaret swiped her keycard to open it, closed it behind her, and then Ana had to do the same. It was a safety precaution, so no one could go missing without security knowing about it.

  The area was safe, but the ocean wasn’t, and some people didn’t give it the proper respect. It looked pretty but it was dangerous, especially in the summer when it was actually possible to go for a swim, not for Ana, but for other brave souls who weren’t afraid of freezing to death or getting a foot cramp and drowning.

  “You look tense.” Margaret cast her a sidelong glance. “Are you nervous about confronting Sam?”

  She was, but not for the reasons Margaret assumed. She didn’t know that Sam had somehow snuck into their building and explained his strange behavior of this morning. If she told her about it, Margaret would rat Sam out, and he would get kicked out.

  Ana still wasn’t a hundred percent sure that she wanted to spend a week with him alone, but she wasn’t ready to give him up either.

  “A little.” She shrugged, pretending that it wasn’t what she’d been thinking about nonstop.

  “Perhaps it’s not a good idea for you to seek him out. Tammy told me that there are two super-hot guys in this crop of guests. Maybe you should give the other one a try.”

  Tammy was probably referring to Sam and his friend Devlin.

  “I think I know who she’s talking about. You should come to the lodge and check him out.” Ana regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth.

  Devlin worked with Sam, and the last thing she needed was for Margaret to get involved with him.

  “I can’t. The new project I’m working on is taking up every free minute I have.”

  Thank God.

  Smiling, Ana put her head on her friend’s shoulder. “And yet you make time for me.”

  “Of course.” Margaret wrapped an arm around her middle. “You are like a daughter to me.”

  “Little sister,” Ana corrected. “You are too young to have a daughter my age.”

  A shadow passed over Margaret’s eyes, but she forced a smil
e. “Hey, if I was a gypsy girl, I could have had you at thirteen.”

  While researching material for her workshop, Margaret had been doing some reading on the gypsy community. They had some pretty strange customs, like an annual marriage auction where girls as young as fifteen were offered as brides to the highest bidder.

  “But you are not. How long until you are done with this project?”

  “Long. The gypsies were just an anecdote. I still have a lot of research to do, and it’s so time-consuming. I’m spending hours each day in the library reading up on the subject and taking notes.”

  “If Emmett allowed us access to the internet, it would have made your life so much easier. You could find a lot of material with only a few clicks.”

  “I’ve heard about the wonders of the internet, but even if I did have access, I would still prefer actual books. There is no substitute for that.”

  Ana regarded her with a frown. “You’ve never used the internet?”

  “I’ve been in Safe Haven for a very long time. There was no internet when I joined.”

  “Of course there was. It just wasn’t widely used yet.”

  Margaret glanced at her. “I like the seclusion and isolation of Safe Haven. The outside world can be so cruel.”

  “Still, don’t you miss it sometimes?”

  Her friend shook her head. “Not at all. In here, I feel safe and cared for. Out there, I feared for my life. The only glimpses I get of the outside world are the retreat guests, and they are by and large my kind of people, so I enjoy their company. Not as much as that of the permanent members, though. I love this community.”

  As much as Ana craved the same kind of bubble to protect her from the outside world, she couldn’t imagine herself spending her entire life in Safe Haven. Even an extreme introvert like her craved seeing new people from time to time. Would the retreat guests suffice to fill that need?

  If she stayed, she would probably turn out to be like Margaret, and it scared her a little. Even though Margaret had dedicated her life to helping others, and that was noble, something about it wasn’t right. Then again, throughout history and across many nations and belief systems, monks and nuns had lived in seclusion and dedicated their lives to prayers and meditation and good deeds. Safe Haven was like a modern monastery, with the main difference being that sex was not only allowed but encouraged.