Gwen shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Do you hear the wind talking to you? Do you talk to trees, heal dying plants? Can you manifest items out of the soil, control the weather? Can you change the direction of the wind?”
“Of course not,” she said, but the steel she’d forced into her voice before was gone. She could do some of that. She could heal plants, she could hear the trees talking to her. Did that mean she wasn’t insane?
“You’re not crazy. It’s just the powers that come with being a demigod.”
He said it with all the gentleness of a teacher, a parent. But the words were so insane that Gwen wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
“You sound like some character from a bad young adult novel.”
“And you sound like a prim little girl who has no imagination.”
Bran sighed as he again leaned toward her. He lay his head on her shoulder, the weight uncomfortable even as he loosened his grip on her thigh.
“Your mother is one of the few light goddesses—or gods, for that matter—still roaming free across the earth. She was punished some time ago, and I made the mistake of thinking that her punishment had turned her away from the light. But, alas, it turns out it didn’t.
“I eliminated all the other gods and goddesses of light, and made sure their offspring didn’t survive to do what their parents hoped was possible. I thought I was safe, that is, until the moment of your conception. Imagine my surprise…”
Bran grunted as he sat back up. He slid his hand farther up her thigh, the movement reminiscent of how Cei had touched her the night before, but having a completely different effect on her nervous system. She shuddered as she drew her legs tightly together.
Bran laughed.
“So, here’s the thing.” He turned toward her, his eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her face. “Every curse had its own, unique set of rules. The curse I placed on the sons of Don was about as airtight as any curse available. But it has one provision that can allow them to go free. A child of a human and a light god—or goddess—can free them if he or she performs a specific ritual at the mouth of Annwn.”
“A ritual?”
“Yes. You’ll find, as you navigate the waters of your heritage, that rituals are the mainstay of our culture.” A pretty coed walking past the bus stop caught his attention for a moment. He squeezed Gwen’s thigh as he watched her, almost as though he had forgotten she was there.
“What ritual?”
“What?” He glanced at her. “Oh, ritual. It’s an interesting one. I’m sure you’ll have a blast learning all the words that are required to perform it.”
“What makes you think I would, even if I knew what the ritual was? Why do I care what happens to the sons of Don?”
Bran’s face lit up. “That’s exactly what I keep saying. But everyone seems to think you are the type of person who would jump right in to save them no matter what I told you about them.”
“Who is everyone?”
“You’d be surprised how many gods and goddess there still are on this earth, my child. Not only that, but the guardians.”
“Guardians?”
“Immortals who exist to serve us.”
Gwen shook her head. “You’re so full of crap.”
“Don’t believe me? Ask your precious Cei.”
“Cei doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
Bran squeezed her thigh one last time before he let her go. “Cei has everything to do with this, my love. He’s an immortal.”
“No,” Gwen said, jumping to her feet. “Cei’s just a teenager, just like me.”
“Cei is Gwydion’s servant.”
Gwen backed up, the tempo of her head shakes matching her quick steps. “You’re lying.”
“Ask him, Gwenydd. Ask him why he’s so interested in you, why he’s been a single step behind you since the day you moved in with the Langleys. And, while you’re at it,” he said as she stood and grabbed her overnight bag, holding it out to her, “you might ask Tony why he lied about what happened in his office that day. The day I smashed his head against the side of his desk when he interrupted my search for Blodeuwedd’s diary.”
“You?”
“Who else?” He laughed again, as though her disbelief was the most amusing thing he had ever seen. “Ask Tony who it is he serves among the sons of Don.”
A pool of blood congealing on the floor flashed through Gwen’s mind. So much blood. Too much blood for the small cut that was on the back of Tony’s head when she helped him to his feet. A cut she didn’t see again, that didn’t seem to be there now.
Immortality.
It was just a fairy tale. Or was it?
“Go ask them, Gwen. Ask them what they’ve been hiding from you.”
Chapter 25
“Why did you put me with the Langleys?”
Paul didn’t turn right away, as though he was afraid of facing her. He stopped, stood stone still, but he didn’t turn.
They were standing outside his office building, dozens of people walking past them as they went about their daily business inside. It bothered Gwen, the fact that life went on as normal for so many people when her own life had just figuratively imploded.
“What do they know about me? What do they know about my parents?”
His shoulders slumped with each word, as though they were a weight pulling him down.
“Gwen,” he said quietly.
“How could they know anything about me? We only just met.”
“It’s complicated.”
“That’s an adult’s response to just about everything a kid wants to know. It’s complicated.” She slapped her hand against her hip, needing that frustrated energy to go somewhere. “Uncomplicate it, Paul.”
That’s when he turned, his lovely green eyes rimmed a bright red. He lifted a hand, reached toward her, but he didn’t move any closer to her.
“I needed you to be protected. I needed someone who could make sure that what is coming didn’t come too soon.”
“You know.”
He inclined his head slightly. “You are incredibly special, Gwen. I promised your mother I would keep you safe until you can fulfill your destiny.”
His words hit her like a punch to the stomach. She felt the whoosh of air leave her lungs as though he had actually hit her. All the trust she had thought they had built over the last six years, all the affection she imagined existed between them, evaporated in that moment. It was as if all those trips to the ice cream parlor, all those shopping trips to the mall, had never happened.
“You know my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Liar,” she gasped, her lungs burning with a lack of oxygen. “You lied to me.”
“I was protecting you.”
“You lied! You told me I could trust you. You said you were the only person on earth who had no reason to lie to me. But you did.”
“Gwen.” He stepped closer, that hand still outstretched. “Please, let me explain.”
“What explanation can change a lie? What can make this better?”
“The truth.”
“How do I know it is the truth? How do I know that it’s not just more lies to soothe things over?”
He grabbed her arm, tried to pull her into his chest, but she pulled away.
“No,” she cried. “Don’t touch me!”
“Gwen, I was only protecting you. If I had told you sooner, you wouldn’t have believed me, you wouldn’t have understood.”
“I don’t understand now.” Tears were blurring her vision, making her angry at herself for the weakness that allowed her to show him the pain that was tearing her very soul into tiny pieces. “I never trusted anyone but you. And you took that trust and…and used it. You used it to make me do what you wanted instead of trusting me back, instead of believing I could handle whatever your truth is.” She shook her head, clawing at her own face to make the tears stop. “I hate you. I never want to see you again.”
She had always known she couldn’t trust anyone but herself. He’d just proven that to her with his lies.
Gwen walked away, moving blindly into the late afternoon traffic. She didn’t know where she was going, didn’t really care. She just needed to go.
She hadn’t intended to go to the school, but the moment she saw it looming out in front of her, she knew what she was after.
Rhein came out the back door like he always did, a girl on each arm. He was laughing at something Gwen hadn’t heard, his voice carrying on the wind like the bullhorn amplification of an announcer’s voice. She stepped out from under the tree, prepared to call his name. But he seemed to sense her standing there. His gaze fell on her for a long second before he turned to his companions and whispered something that made them back away.
“What are you doing here, Gwen? I thought you were taking the weekend to recover.”
“Got bored lying in bed by myself.”
His eyebrows rose. “So you came to school?”
“I came looking for you.”
Gwen moved into him, slipping her hand up the front of his tight t-shirt in a suggestive move that had never failed to get a boy’s attention before. But there was always a first time for everything.
He grabbed her wrists and held her at a small, but insistent, distance.
“What’s really going on?”
“If you’re not interested…”
“This isn’t you, Gwen. What happened?”
She shook her head. “Nothing happened.”
He tugged at her wrists, not to pull her toward him, but to pull her under the tree. He pressed her against the trunk and stared into her eyes.
“You’ve been crying.”
She tugged one of her wrists free to rub at her face. “Since when do you care about the girls you screw?”
“Since when are you a girl I screw?”
“Since now, if you’ll stop with the inquisition.”
He shook his head. “Not interested in being the rebound boy.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Oh?” He touched a finger to the swollen patch of skin under one of her eyes. “This isn’t about something Cei did?”
Gwen slapped his hand away. “Why does everyone assume I have a thing for Cei?”
“Maybe because you do.”
“You didn’t seem to care about that yesterday.”
Gwen slipped her hand around his throat, slipping her fingers into his hair in an attempt to draw him closer to her. She pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth, and for a moment she thought he might actually respond. But then he stiffened, reaching back to pull her hand away from him again.
“Tell me what’s going on or I’ll call Cei to come pick you up.”
Gwen dropped her hands to her sides, looking away from his intense stare. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“Well, to begin with, it seems everyone but me know who my parents are.”
“Is that right?”
She glanced at him. “I realize that’s not such a big deal to someone who’s always known their parents, but it’s a big deal to me.”
“I know.”
She paused at that, a little surprised by the quick acceptance she heard in his voice.
“I’m not as callous as I might appear, Gwen.”
“Aren’t you?”
He moved closer to her, the scent of him playing havoc with her stomach. It kept doing little flips that should have been quite nauseating, but were really the opposite.
“What else happened today?”
“The Langleys, Cei, they know something about me that they’ve been hiding. And Paul, my social worker, he lied to me.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear.
“I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”
“So you came to me?”
“I just need to forget for a while, you know?”
He caught his breath, his inhalation brushing against her earlobe with the same eroticism she imagined the brush of his lips might cause. She pressed her hands to his chest almost like she was going to push him away, but it was more to feel the heat of his skin under his shirt, to feel the pounding of his heart—and it was pounding, his strong, athlete’s heart.
So much like Cei’s had done last night.
She closed her eyes, willed herself to stop thinking about Cei. She didn’t want to think about trust broken, not after Paul. But her head—her heart—wouldn’t stop going there. Even when Rhein brushed his lips along the outer edge of her jaw, she couldn’t stop remembering the taste of Cei’s lips.
Branwen.
Rhein jerked back, his head twisting to see beyond the low branches of the tree that seemed to be hanging lower than they had before. Gwen reflexively snatched at the material of his shirt, fear replacing the desire—and guilt—that had been building in her gut.
“Stay here,” Rhein said. Then he touched the tree, whispered something in a language she only vaguely recognized.
It is my duty and my honor.
Rhein was gone before Gwen could react to the sound of the tree’s voice echoing in her head. When he was, the low branches of the tall, proud oak tree moved lower to the ground, hiding her better than even the most luscious weeping willow could have done.
“She’s here for me, isn’t she?”
She is.
“Why can she hurt me, but Bran can’t?”
If Bran injures a demigod made from the light, it will automatically undo the curse that holds the sons of Don in Annwn.
Gwen nodded, trying not to analyze the fact that she was talking to a tree. Or that the tree had just confirmed the rantings of a madman.
Gwen moved closer to the curtain of branches, trying to see what was happening. She could barely make out two figures speaking in the distance, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. There was a lot of gesturing, a lot of animation, especially on the woman’s part. Neither seemed aware of Gwen anymore, as though Branwen’s purpose for being there had been forgotten for the time being. It felt…wrong.
“What is he doing?”
And then Branwen turned those amazing blue eyes in her direction, the expression on her face so dark that it almost made that supermodel face ugly.
The only thing that might have made it uglier was the right hook Rhein smashed into her perfect nose.
Then he was back, pulling her out of the tree and running toward the parking lot.
“She’ll recover quickly. We should be gone when she does.”
“Who are you?” Gwen asked as he gently shoved her into the front seat of his pick-up.
“A friend,” he said, touching her face lightly. “That’s all you really need to know.”
Chapter 26
Rhein’s family lived in an exclusive neighborhood across the street from Morgan’s million dollar home. Gwen didn’t see enough of it to really appreciate it before Rhein pulled his truck into the farthest door of a three-car garage, but she got the impression there was a lot of stone.
They entered the house through the kitchen and made their way up a stairwell tucked behind the pantry. His bedroom was huge—big enough to fit her room, Cei’s room, and most of the second floor of the Langleys’ Victorian. There was even a fireplace.
“Must be nice.”
Rhein looked around. “It’s only stuff, Gwen.”
She sank down into a leather bean bag chair and looked around at the posters on his walls—mostly of the swimsuit model type—and the few books on his bookshelves, stuffed between sports trophies. He had a sixty-inch television on one wall, a game system scattered underneath it. There were DVDs and games and CDs scattered around the room, as though he di
scarded them where he happened to be standing in the moment. There was enough furniture to furnish a small apartment, an en suite bathroom that exhibited all the best in tile and marble countertops. “Opulent” was not the word for this room.
Just stuff. Not quite how she would describe it.
“What does your dad do for a living?”
“Real estate.”
Gwen whistled under her breath. “Must be some kind of real estate.”
He turned away, but she thought she saw a blush before he did. It made her smile for the first time all afternoon.
“You should be more careful about wandering around in the city alone. If I hadn’t been there—”
“Branwen would have attacked me again. And one of these times she’ll be successful, so why fight the inevitable?”
“Do you have a death wish?”
Gwen climbed out of the bean bag and wandered to Rhein’s desk, picking up one of the many CD cases scattered over its surface. “I’m beginning to wonder what the point of fighting all this is.”
“To fulfill your destiny?”
“It seems like everyone knows more about my destiny than I do.” She set the CD case down and ran her finger over the screen of his desktop computer. It immediately sprang to life, confirming what she had assumed. It was a touch screen. “You seem to know more about all this than I do.”
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