“Who’s been telling you stories?”
Paul didn’t answer, but a sparkle came into his eyes all the same. Gwen suspected she was about to hear a story. But, instead, Paul turned to greet both Rhein and Morgan with a handshake.
“Glad to have you home again, gentlemen.”
“Glad to be home,” Rhein said, moving up behind Gwen and slipping his arm around her shoulders. Paul raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say a word.
Morgan silently followed as they left the airport.
***
“Welcome home!”
Theresa fussed over each of them as they walked into the house and then flitted from them to the kitchen to the living room where the other children waited for food. The twins didn’t seem too terribly interested in their arrival. Anna had her nose buried in a book. But Melanie…she surprised Gwen by approaching her while she was still slipping out of her light jacket in the foyer.
“I’m glad you made it back safe.”
Gwen looked at her, half expecting her to follow those words with a sarcastic comment. But she seemed sincere. She even met Gwen’s gaze with a steady look of her own. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry about all that stuff before. Cei…” She coughed, perhaps covering a small sob. Then, she simply shook her head.
“I know,” Gwen said, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s all water under the bridge now.”
Melanie nodded. She smiled at Morgan and gave Rhein a weak smile before she slithered off back into the living room.
“Will wonders never cease?” Rhein whispered in Gwen’s ear.
The tension between Melanie and Gwen might be gone, but everything else was like something out of the Twilight Zone. Theresa was too nice, too chipper, while the twins glared holes through Gwen’s skull. She could only take it for a little while, then she needed to escape.
She slipped upstairs to her old bedroom, her things still neatly put away just as she had left them. She dug the old suitcase out from under her bed and took out the books—the one left for her on her window ledge and the one she found in Tony’s office—she thought now she knew where they had come from. Blodeuwedd had wanted her to have them. They were rare, writings by and about Welsh gods. They had her taught her what she needed to know to understand her mother and to accept who she was. Even how to control her powers. But if they fell into the wrong hands…it was time to get rid of them. She thought she might enlist Rhein’s help in starting a small bonfire later. But, for the moment, she wanted to hold on to them.
She dropped them into her school backpack and slung it over her shoulder before she climbed out of her window and onto the ladder that would take her up to the widow’s walk. She loved it up there, the history behind such a platform and the view it offered of the city. She stood at the railing and looked down on the neighborhood she once admired and abhorred because of the normalcy it represented. Tonight, she just hoped that all those people—those families—had found some happiness in their daily lives.
“There you are,” Rhein said, sliding up behind her. “I suspected you might be up here.”
“How did you know about this place?”
“I have my ways.”
“Hmm,” she said, turning into his arms, “I forgot that you used to stalk me.”
“I wouldn’t call it stalking.”
“Then what would you call it?”
“Watching.”
Gwen giggled. “What’s the difference?”
“There’s a huge difference. One is creepy. The other is…protection.”
Gwen’s giggles only multiplied. “You are full of it, you know, right?”
He shrugged, his full lips stretched into a smile. “It makes you laugh.”
She reached up and kissed him, never growing tired of the taste of him. He buried his fingers in her hair, pulling her as tight against him as two people could stand and still be separate entities. She wanted to be closer. She slid her hands under his shirt, her fingers dancing over the thick muscles of his back.
He pulled her back and guided her to the floor of the walkway, reaching behind him to grab some pillows and blankets she kept hidden in a little compartment there. If she hadn’t been so busy, she would have laughed at his practicality—and his knowledge of her hiding place. Was there anything he didn’t know about her? But she was a little occupied, remembering how his jaw muscles worked when he kissed her, memorizing the heavy jaw bone that defined the shape of his face. She didn’t want to forget what it felt like when his breathing increased as she touched him, or what the quiet little moans that escaped his lips sounded like.
Rhein pulled her down, making sure her head was cradled on a pillow before he let go. He slid his and under the bottom hem of her shirt, watching her face as his fingers created a path up along her ribs. And then he was kissing her again, telling her with his touch how desperately he didn’t want to leave her.
“I love you,” he whispered against her lips.
Normally, she would pull him in for another kiss. She was so uncomfortable with these declarations of emotion that she had never taken seriously and never really knew what to do with. But she couldn’t let herself do that this time. She pressed her fingers into his hair for the umpteenth time, convinced she would never really remember how silky his hair felt or how easily his curls separated and multiplied.
“Say it again,” she said.
He dipped his head low, touched his nose to hers before he pulled back, looked her in the eye, and said, “I love you.”
She touched his lips, a part of her needed to check to make sure it wasn’t an aberration, that he wasn’t just saying something he thought would make her do what she wanted. How touching him could prove that, she wasn’t sure, but she could see it in the glow of his aura. He was telling the truth…and she’d known that all along.
“I love you.”
It was the first time she had said those three little words aloud to anyone. They felt…foreign on her tongue. But they felt good, too.
“I love you, and I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”
“Who said you’re going to have to do without him?”
Rhein sat up in a rush, moving so that his body blocked Gwen’s from a possible threat.
“Amaethon?”
“You didn’t tell me this girl was your mate.”
“It didn’t really come up,” Rhein said, reaching his hand behind him as he felt Gwen struggle to sit up. He pulled her up and caressed her arm as she wrapped it around his neck.
“You should have said something. We could have worked out a bargain.”
“Gods don’t bargain,” Rhein said.
Amaethon smiled. “You were listening all that time ago.” Amaethon turned and walked along the widow’s walk, staring down at the city below him. “So many things have changed,” he said. “I don’t hardly know how to behave in this society.”
“It’s not so different,” Rhein said. “I can help.”
Amaethon shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Master—”
“Please don’t call me that.” Amaethon turned and looked at Rhein for a long second. “I release you from your promise to me. You may live your life as you see fit. And I…” He turned back to the city below him. “I suppose I will find someone else willing to help me acclimate to this new world.”
Rhein pulled away from Gwen and stood, his back to her so that she couldn’t see his expression. She thought for a moment that he was going to beg Amaethon to change his mind. However, he only adopted a respectful bow.
“Thank you, kind lord,” Rhein said in a low, quiet voice. “I cannot repay you for your kindness.”
Amaethon touched the top of Rhein’s head. “I wish only happiness for you, son. And I can see that remaining with her is where you will find it.”
Rhein nodded, his eyes shining as he looked over at Gwen. He held out his hand to her and she accepted it, her heart floating like her body often did on her trips to t
he round garden.
“Looks like the two of you are not the only ones getting a gift today,” Amaethon said, gesturing toward the lawn below them.
Gwen moved to the railing just in time to watch Amaethon disappear. Below them, she saw Gwydion speaking to Paul. As they talked, a dwarf owl landed on a tree branch just above their heads.
“We should go down,” Rhein said.
Gwen had never gone down that ladder quite so fast—somehow her fear of dying had disappeared after all that had happened in the last few days—and she rushed through the house and burst out the front door, as though she expected a brand new car to be waiting for her in the driveway. Rhein came up behind her, catching her before she could make her presence known to Gwydion and Paul.
“You did well,” Gwydion was saying to the dwarf owl. “I never would have expected such selflessness from you.”
He looked at Paul. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
Paul nodded without an ounce of hesitation.
Gwydion nodded. “Very well.” He waved his hand over the owl’s head, and she instantly became a beautiful redheaded woman with kind eyes. Gwen wasn’t sure what she had expected to happen next, but, somehow, it wasn’t for her to jump into Paul’s arms with such obvious joy. The kiss they shared—the only thing Gwen could compare it to was the kisses she shared and hoped to continue to share with Rhein.
She turned away. They were still her parents, so…yuck. Then, she pressed her face to his chest, wondering if it was possible to be any happier than she was in that moment.
“Gwen.”
She turned at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“Gwen, I’m so sorry for what happened between us that night, up on the widow’s walk,” she said, gesturing to the house behind them. “I let you believe that the only reason I had you—”
“It’s okay. I get it.”
“It’s not. I just…I needed you to have a reason to fight.”
“I get it.” Gwen approached her mother a little cautiously, not really sure what to expect. But Blodeuwedd welcomed into her arms with all the love and affection a child had the right to expect from a parent.
“I do love you,” Blodeuwedd whispered against her temple. And for the second time that day—the second time in her life—Gwen repeated those words back to someone.
***
“So, what now?” Paul asked as he used a stick to move around the burning lump of books in the fire. “Are you still planning on that scholarship to Columbia?”
Gwen glanced at Rhein. “I don’t know. That depends on what it means when a god releases his immortal servant from his household…or whatever.”
Rhein shrugged. “It means I am now a regular person just like your dad.”
“Just a regular person?” Gwen said, tapping the side of her head as though she had to really think that one through. “Gee, that doesn’t sound like much fun.”
Rhein pushed her shoulder, and she laughed.
“I think in that case,” she said, leaning into Rhein as she looked over at her father and mother—imagine, she had a father and a mother and they were here, with her—“I’ll just be a regular kid for a while.”
“Where are you going to live?”
“There’s plenty of room at my place,” Rhein said.
“As your father—and your case worker—I’m not sure I can approve of that arrangement,” Paul quickly said.
“Compromises, Paul,” Gwen said. “Parenthood is all about compromise.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll have to think about that one.”
But he was smiling as he said it.
~ END ~
Table of Contents
SONS of DON
Trust
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Traitor
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Redemption
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
SONS of DON Page 49