“My agenda? It’s what it has always been, to serve my master to the best of my abilities. That’s all. To serve at all costs, no matter who it might hurt in the process.”
“Even if it hurts me?”
He leaned closer to her, his lips so close to hers that she thought for a brief second that his intentions was different from what he revealed an instant later.
“You confuse me with Cei, dear, innocent Gwenydd.”
She hit him square in the center of his chest with the corner of her fist, pushing him back enough that she was able to escape the prison of his arms. She walked away, almost expecting to hear his laughter behind her.
There was no laughter. But he also didn’t try to stop her.
Chapter 21
Morgan was sitting off to one side on his own, watching Cei and his friends kick a ball around the front lawn of the school, when Gwen came out of the building. He waved to her as she stepped out into the sunlight, the peace of nature not working its magic on her for the first time. Her emotions were still roiling, something that must have been written all over her face because Morgan frowned as he pushed away from the wall and headed toward her.
“Everything okay?”
Gwen dropped her backpack on the sidewalk beside Cei’s and dropped onto her bottom, tucking her legs up underneath her. “I can’t wait for winter break.”
“It can’t come fast enough, can it?” He settled down beside her with more grace than a boy his size should have had. “Between the paper in history and all this other stuff that’s been going on, I’m pretty ready for a break, too.”
“Do you and your parents go away for the holidays?”
“To Vale, sometimes.”
“Must be nice.”
Morgan shrugged. “It’s actually kind of boring. My dad has a lot of business acquaintances that go up there that time of year, so he and my mom are constantly off having dinner or lunch with them. So, it’s not much different from any other time of the year, except my friends aren’t just across the street.”
Gwen glanced at him. “You mean Rhein.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“How long have you known him?” She focused on Cei, waved when he saw her and waved to her. “You told me once you’d known him since kindergarten, but I guess we both know that can’t be true.”
“It feels like it.” Morgan leaned toward her as one of the guys chased the ball over near them. “I have memories of him that go way back, but I don’t suppose they’re real.”
“You think someone made you think you’d known him that long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Gwen picked up a leaf that the wind blew to her and twisted it between her fingers. “Do you know anything about Rhein? I mean, anything concrete that you know to be the truth?”
Morgan shrugged. “I know he’s really good at Tetris…I mean, scary good. And he’s the one I go to when I need someone to talk to. He’s a good listener.”
“Yeah? Or he just makes you think he is so that he can get information out of you?”
Morgan looked at Gwen, the expression on his face one of hurt and confusion. “You think Rhein is using us, or something?”
“I don’t know.”
Morgan shook his head. “Some of my memories of Rhein might be false, but he’s my best friend. He’s always been there for me, especially these last weeks when I learned the truth and had to face the fact that my father’s not my father and my whole life has been a lie. He’s the only one besides you who really gets how hard all this has been.”
“He’s the only one who knows besides me and Cei.”
“Exactly.”
Gwen glanced at him. “Cei has been working with you—”
“On the magic thing. He doesn’t want to talk about anything else.”
“Like what?”
“Like, what the purpose is in me even existing. If it has to be a female to break the curse, why am I here? Was I just a genetic mistake? Was I supposed to be a girl? Or do I have some other purpose that no one’s telling me about?”
“I don’t know,” Gwen said, dropping the leaf and watching it blow away. “I hadn’t thought about it before.”
“And if I am unnecessary to the whole equation, why is Cei so intent on training me? Why do I need to learn how to master my skills?”
“Because we’re all going to break the curse together.”
“Are we?”
Gwen shrugged. “I thought so.”
Morgan looked over at Cei, watched as he dribbled the ball between his feet. “I ask him these questions, and he tells me that all I need to worry about is the here and now. He’ll inform me what comes next.”
“He said that?”
“Yeah.” Morgan focused on Gwen again. “He did say something about you, though.”
“What’s that?”
Morgan touched Gwen’s knee lightly with just the tip of his finger. “You know what I said, about how there’s just the two of us and maybe our purpose is to keep our particular race from dying out?”
Gwen nodded.
“Cei was the one who put that idea into my head. He said that it would be a shame to see us die out. That if this thing went bad, you would need someone who understood to look after you, to help you create a better race of demigods.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t explain himself.” Morgan glanced over at Cei again. “He kind of got mad when I questioned him, like he really didn’t like the subject and he’d only mentioned it for…I don’t know, ‘cause someone told him to, maybe.”
Gwen followed his gaze, watched Cei run backward as someone kicked the ball toward him. He was laughing, his eyes dancing as the sunlight caught them. So handsome…he took her breath away now just as he had the day she first saw him.
But why would he say those things?
Theresa’s minivan pulled up to the curb at that instant. Melanie honked the horn—she was still driving every day in an effort to get enough hours behind the wheel as required by the state to get her license—and Theresa waved out the passenger side window.
“Gotta go,” Gwen said, snatching her backpack up as she stood. “You coming over later?”
“No. Cei’s coming to my place.”
Gwen nodded, her first thought that Cei being gone would make it easier for her to sneak out to see Rhein. Not that she was sure she was going to go. She didn’t understand what it was Rhein wanted, let alone why it had to be so secretive. It was important to reversing the curse, shouldn’t they all be talking about it? Tony and Morgan and Cei…not just she and Rhein?
“See you later Morgan,” she said as Cei ran over and scooped up his bag.
“Yeah, later, Morg,” he said.
Cei grabbed Gwen’s hand and led her to the car, oblivious to the dark look Melanie was shooting them both in the rearview mirror as they climbed inside.
Chapter 22
“I’m going out for a little while.”
Theresa looked up from Tommy’s homework, a little frown marring her normally happy façade. “Didn’t Cei just leave?”
“Yes. He went to Morgan’s.”
“Does he know…I mean, did you tell him—”
“I’m meeting him at Morgan’s.”
Gwen hated the way the lie tasted on her tongue, but she knew Theresa would only let her go out if she thought Cei had approved of her decision. Cei was the beginning and end of every decision regarding Gwen’s safety, at least, as far as Theresa was concerned.
“Okay,” she said, turning back to the telling time worksheet she and Tommy were studying. “Be back in time for dinner.”
“I will.”
Gwen started to turn, her eye catching Anna’s as she did. The girl was watching her from behind an open novel—she always seemed to have a novel in her hands—and quickly looked away when she realized she’d been caught. It occurred to Gwen that she’d never paid much attention to what Anna was reading, which was u
nusual because she always made a note of noticing someone else’s taste in fiction. She was reading something called Gone Girl today. Gwen had never heard of it.
She grabbed a sweater and headed out, her thoughts not on the lie she had just told, or facing Cei’s wrath later when he realized that she once again slipped out on her own without telling him where she would be. But curiosity had finally gotten the better of her.
What was it that Rhein wanted to show her?
Maybe she couldn’t trust Rhein. Maybe she couldn’t trust Cei, either. But that didn’t mean she could build on what information they had.
It was growing clearer and clearer that Rhein was right. They all had their own agendas.
Tony was interested in the history of the gods and their immortals.
Theresa…she just loved the kids and liked feeling like a guardian to something special.
Blodeuwedd wanted the curse lifted so there might be a chance that Gwydion would free her from her own curse.
Bran wanted power.
Branwen wanted to keep the power she had.
Paul wanted…Gwen wasn’t quite sure yet what Paul wanted. But she was pretty convinced he wanted something.
Morgan wanted what she wanted…for everything to go back to normal.
And that left Rhein and Cei.
Both were immortal. Both had pledged their lives to serve a specific Welsh god. Both had lost a great deal to fulfill that pledge, but each seemed to come out of that sacrifice a little differently. Cei…Gwen was left with the impression that Cei regretted parts of his past. But Rhein had a sort of serenity about him when he talked about how he came to become immortal.
Rhein openly admitted he was still loyal to his master.
Cei didn’t talk about Gwydion much.
And they hated each other for reasons neither was willing to get into with Gwen. But she suspected it had to do with other demigods they had found and tried to help, to do with their past failures to break the curse.
What did that mean? Was it possible that one of them was the traitor and that the other knew? Was she just a pawn in some game the two of them were playing against each other?
Or were they as clueless about everything as she was?
One would think that if they had been trying to break this curse since the day it happened, they would know more than they were implying to her. But, maybe, they simply hadn’t made it this far all those times.
Or the rules changed from decade to decade.
Gwen wouldn’t put anything past Bran.
Gwen turned a corner. Rhein’s house—or mansion seemed to be a more appropriate description—was just two blocks farther down the road. She was so lost in thought, she barely saw the sidewalk at her feet, let alone the girl waiting just half a block away.
“Where did you think you were going?”
Gwen looked up just in time to catch Melanie’s fist with the side of her nose. She stumbled back, grateful that her injured ankle was just as strong as before, or else she would have crumpled to the ground and been a perfect target for Melanie’s rage.
“You going to play your little parlor tricks again?” Melanie demanded, charging toward her, fists raised.
Gwen ducked, barely missing a right hook to her lower jaw.
“Do we have to do this?” she asked in as calm a tone as possible. “I really have no interest in fighting you.”
“Too bad.”
Melanie swung again, narrowly missing the side of Gwen’s head. She stepped back, nearly falling off the curb and into the street as she did.
“Nobody bloodies my nose and walks away from it.”
Melanie charged again, this time raising a foot to connect with the outside of Gwen’s thigh. Gwen grunted, but stayed on her feet. She reached out to Melanie, more to catch her balance than to hurt the girl, but ended up burying her nails in the lower curve of Melanie’s jaw. Melanie cried out—almost like a cat in heat—and pressed her fingers to her jaw before her rage grew and she took another swing at Gwen. It was a wild swing, and it missed, but it also knocked Melanie off balance. She fell to the concrete, cracking the back of her head as she did.
Gwen grabbed her arm in an attempt to help Melanie to her feet, but she shoved her away.
“Leave me alone,” she said, rolling onto her side as she reached up to press a hand to the back of her head.
“I didn’t mean for you to fall.”
“I don’t care what you intended.”
“Melanie, why do you have to keep doing this? We live in the same house. We should get along.”
“I was there first,” Melanie said, her voice a little muffled. “You can’t just come into someone’s house and take over everything. You even took Cei…”
Gwen knew what she meant. She’d been in homes where she enjoyed a certain role within the family dynamic, only to have a new kid come in and turn everything upside down. As much as she tried not to, she resented it sometimes. It was hard to get used to being knocked down a few pegs after being the top dog.
“You have to know that what’s going on with me and Cei goes deeper than just a romantic thing.”
Melanie glared at Gwen even as she continued to hold the back of her head. “All I know is that it was me and the Langleys, and then it was me and Cei and the Langleys, and he actually paid attention to me. He cared about what I was doing and who I was doing it with. And then he didn’t.”
Gwen could see it, in her eyes and in the desperation of her tone. Melanie had never gotten benign male attention before. She could see it, almost as if they were her own memories, the long line of foster fathers who couldn’t have cared less about her, the foster brothers who were only interested in torturing her. Cei was the first one to offer her something more than indifference and a bullying attitude.
And she thought Gwen had taken it all away from her.
“I’m sorry,” Gwen whispered, almost wishing she had let the poor girl beat her up. If it had offered her some measure of revenge, maybe a few bruises would have been worth it.
And then, just like it had happened before, it seemed as though Gwen was being pulled into a vacuum. She felt the pressure change in her ears a split second before sound became a lost memory. Melanie’s lips moved, but Gwen could not hear a word she said.
On instinct, Gwen pushed Melanie over, shoving her into the bushes that lined the lawn of the house in front of which they had been fighting. It wasn’t a second too soon because the moment Gwen was finished, she jumped to her feet only to find herself face to face with the last person she expected to find.
Rhein.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry, Gwen,” he said quietly as he stepped aside and allowed Branwen to move around him.
“I told you we would meet again,” she said before she shoved her sword hard into the center of Gwen’s belly.
Chapter 23
“You said you wouldn’t hurt her.”
“If she’s got the power you think she does, she’ll be fine.”
“And if she doesn’t? If I was wrong?”
“Relax,” Branwen said, something like annoyance in her tone. “She’s fine.”
As though on cue, Gwen began to cough. She was barely conscious, only vaguely aware of the voices around her. Rhein. She knew his voice, knew there was something wrong with the fact that she was hearing his voice here. She didn’t even know where here was…she could feel something soft underneath her, but she could also feel a vibration, like she was in a moving vehicle.
What the hell had happened?
“Rhein?” she mumbled.
“Hey, I’m here,” she heard him say as someone took her hand. There was something not quite right…she wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something off about him.
“Where are we?”
“Try not to move, Gwen.”
“Where are we?” she asked again, not moving until he refused to answer her. She opened her eyes then, the dim light making it impossible for
her to see anything. “Are we in a car?”
“You’re hurt,” he said, his voice growing soft in that way it did when he wanted to calm her. “You need to lie still.”
“I want to know where I am and why.”
“Let me shut her up,” Branwen said from somewhere behind Rhein.
The sound of her voice sent alarm bells through Gwen. She tried to sit up, but strong hands pushed her back down.
“No one wants to hurt you, Gwen, but you have to cooperate.”
“Why are you with her? What’s going on?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s not complicated!” She pushed his hands away and sat up, but her head began to swim and her vision darkened—as though she could see anything in this dim light anyway—like she was about to pass out. She grabbed what she could, some sort of leather-like material alongside her thighs. A car seat.
“Where are we?”
Hands touched her face, but she twisted and broke free. She turned in the seat, tried to find a window to look out of, but she couldn’t see anything. She had the impression of space—a van, maybe—but that was all.
She waved her hand, and a dagger appeared in her clutched fingers.
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