Keirah shifted so she faced him. His arm was still wrapped around her, except now it consumed the skin on her lower back. She looked up at him, trying to read his eyes.
“Why?” she asked him softly. “Why me? Why am I yours?”
“Fate, my sweet,” he said, taking in every detail her face provided him. He lifted his hand from her back and gently swept a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear. “We’re, uh, supposed to be together.” He brought his fingers back to her face and traced her firm jaw line before moving to caress her bottom lip with the pad of his index fingertip. She closed her eyes and she felt the tip of his nose touch the bridge of hers. She sighed then and was surprised it was one of contentment rather than resignation.
24
All Reese thought about for the rest of Friday night and the majority of Saturday was Ollo and what he had told her. She couldn’t decide whether or not to believe him, if she was some oracle, if Gabe was the devil’s son. It seemed ridiculous to consider that as truth, but every time she brushed it off as impossible, a glimmer of her most recent vision blacked out everything else and she couldn’t help but be jolted into possibly believing him.
Who was Ollo anyway? Besides a drunk jerk who dressed like a stylish forest-dweller and had no problem throwing her over his shoulder like he was some kind of Neanderthal. Dionysus immediately sprung to mind, but for some reason, Reese thought that was too easy. He mentioned being her trainer, but what did that even mean? Did the oracle of Delphi have a trainer during that period? She had taken Greek mythology as a freshman and couldn’t remember. He certainly wasn’t charming, unless one found snark, cynicism, and sarcasm swoon-worthy.
Saturday afternoon, her mother dragged Reese to an emergency facial, worried that her daughter’s uncharacteristic stress would cause permanent wrinkles.
“And everyone knows smile wrinkles are the lesser of two evils since you at least enjoyed something while getting them,” her mother said on the way over.
Normally, Reese would have rolled her eyes in amusement at her mother’s typical vanity, but she remembered her vision and couldn’t help but be grateful that her mother was not only alive but cared enough about her to schedule an impromptu facial with Cara—who didn’t even work on Saturdays—to make her feel better. Reese still wasn’t sure if her visions were a possible reality, but if they were, she promised herself she would do everything in her power to prevent her family’s death from happening.
When the pair got home at just after four in the afternoon, both feeling refreshed, Reese was surprised to see a familiar Rolls Royce parked in front of their home. There was only one person she knew that drove a Rolls Royce… Reese tilted her head forward to try and get a better view of the silhouette in the driver’s seat and nearly choked on her own spit when she noticed the feathered hair and the long nose. What was Henry doing here?
“I’ll be right back, Mom,” Reese murmured as she stepped out of the car once her mom pulled into the garage.
“Is that a boy in there, darling?” Edina asked, eyes twinkling. “Do you know him? Did you meet him last night at the party? Oh sweetie, why didn’t you tell me?”
Reese ignored her as she headed to the driver’s side of the car. When Henry noticed her, he rolled down his window, a knowing smirk on his face.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him. She didn’t try to mask the suspicion in her voice even if it did make her sound ruder than she intended.
“I take it Ollo told you everything?” he asked, cocking a brow.
She rubbed her lips together, unsure how to proceed. On the one hand, she liked how direct Henry was being, which meant she wouldn’t have to ask a bunch of questions to get to the point. On the other, if Henry was also certain this was real, it meant that her vision was true, which meant that sometime in the future her family was going to die.
“He told me things,” she finally replied. “Doesn’t mean I understand what they mean.”
Henry’s smirk deepened. “Get in,” he said, jutting his chin to the passenger seat of his car.
Reese furrowed her brow. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Training.”
“I suppose I have no choice?”
“You always have a choice, Reese,” he said. “But I can assure you that attending this training session and all the ones that follow will be beneficial to you.” The added and your family was left unspoken, but Reese heard it clearly.
After she ran into her house to tell her mother she’d be gone for a few hours—Edina seemed more excited about it than Reese was—she grabbed a light jacket and headed out the door. When she was in the passenger seat, she buckled herself in while Henry started the car and drove off.
“How did you get in here?” Reese asked. “It’s a gated community and I know my parents didn’t call the booth and put your name on the approved visitors list.”
Henry glanced at her with a look that seemed to say, Please. Do you know who I am?
Reese rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked out the window. “Since I’m in the know now, can you please tell me how I know you?”
There was a heavy silence as Henry drove out of Onyx Court. Reese thought he wasn’t going to answer and as such, began to think of safe questions to fill the quiet. The only problem was Reese wasn’t sure what was and wasn’t safe anymore. When she finally found one—what was his favorite color?—she opened her mouth to speak, but without knowing, he interrupted her.
“We do know each other,” he said in his soft voice. His dark eyes were fixed on the road ahead of him so Reese could freely look at his profile without him noticing. There was another moment of silence and she could practically hear him attempt to formulate his next words. “Reese, what Ollo told you regarding your power is true. You have visions which will come to fruition at some point in the future. It was only a matter of awakening that power. Your importance in the upcoming war between angels and demons is not exaggerated. But let me also make something clear. Your power has traveled throughout time waiting for the appropriate point to awaken who you really are. You are always beautiful and almost always fair-haired due to society’s misconception that darkness represents intelligence, red represents passion, and light represents purity and innocence.” His lips curled up for the briefest of smiles. “You will never go unnoticed because of your beauty, and yet no one will expect you to be as powerful as you are. In essence, you are hiding in plain sight.”
“Okay.” She paused, taking a deep breath. She had been reincarnated? Did that even exist? Did that mean she had past lives or was it only her power that traveled through each body rather than her soul? “That still doesn’t explain how we know each other.”
“I’m what you might call a guardian,” Henry said, coming to a red light. “I ferry your power to the next body, the next soul, and at some point in your academic career, we might meet and our lives become intertwined.”
“So, if Ollo’s my trainer, does that mean I know him too? Because I don’t feel the same recognition of him as I do with you.”
“Ollo has never had any contact with the Oracle of Delphi until you,” Henry replied. “After the original, Pythia, died, he refused to know any of them until her power was awakened.”
“Gabe knows who I am,” she said suddenly. “I don’t know how, but he knows who I am.”
Henry nodded as though this wasn’t news to him. “He always knows who you are,” he said. “Freewill is important to God. He can’t stop the war from happening but that doesn’t mean He can’t help, which is why He created you and your abilities. However, supernatural beings know who you are and what you can do, and they’ll try and tempt you to choose their side. God can’t stop them and He can’t stop you. There have been times in the past where you have chosen Gabe, but because you weren’t awakened, it didn’t matter.”
“Can they tell that my powers are awakened?” she asked.
“No. That’s why it’s essential you be
careful around him. Gabe is a master of seduction and you are an innocent. Once that purity is given, it can’t be rescinded. You have chosen your side.”
“So, I have to sleep with someone?” Reese asked, feeling her face flush. “What does that accomplish?”
“Depending on who you give yourself to, your visions reflect the side you have chosen. For example, if you choose to sleep with Gabe, your visions will start to benefit what he wants out of this war. A weakness in the angels’ strategy, the identity of the Black Wing, something that would help them win.”
“So it’s my choice to sleep with someone then, right?” Reese asked.
“No one can force you or else it won’t work. But be warned: Gabe has never forced you in the past and I’m certain he won’t do so in the future. You have loved him, dearie, and he has loved you too.”
“Gabe can love?” Reese asked, whipping her head from the window to face him. Her mouth hung open.
Henry smirked. “There is no such thing as pure evil and no such thing as pure good,” he murmured.
“What if I don’t sleep with anyone?” she asked.
“More power to you.”
Reese pressed her lips together and tilted her head to the side. Ollo’s voice suddenly started reciting Henry’s story and her eyes widened. He had been with her since the beginning, watching her grow up, fall in love and die. Was she the mortal he had given up Heaven for? If so, she would definitely need time to think about this. The concept of true love and sacrificing everything for that love was hard for her to comprehend only because she had never met anyone worth sacrificing that for. If she was that girl, she didn’t think she could do the same for him. She didn’t know him well enough.
“Am I—” Wait, how did she want to ask this? She couldn’t just ask him directly because there was a chance it wasn’t her and she didn’t want to seem conceited. But she had to know. “Would you consider me mortal?”
She watched his lips curl up again and his dark eyes sparkled as though he knew exactly what she meant. “You are more than a mere mortal, Reese,” he answered.
Before she could ask him to explain, Henry pulled up to the currently closed Bacchus’s Brewery. “Go inside,” he told her. “Ollo is expecting you. I’ll be back in three hours.”
“Three hours?” she asked. “I thought I was just an oracle who had visions.”
“Oracles are never just oracles,” he told her with his mysterious smile.
The minute Reese walked into the bar, she heard some movement coming from the basement. A crash and then a swear word emitted by a familiar drawl. She rolled her eyes as she headed down the staircase in a hurry. Just because he annoyed her didn’t mean she wanted him to get hurt. That much, at least.
“Goddammit.”
Reese’s eyes took in the large basement as she stopped on the bottom stair. Besides a few crates of alcohol pushed up against the wall, the floor was completely bare. Targets were posted against the wall and there was a bow and a set of arrows in the center of the room. Her fingers itched to touch the bow.
A groan caused Reese’s eyes to snap to the ground where she found a pair of legs sticking out from behind the crates. She clenched her jaw as she made her way over to them and wasn’t surprised in the slightest to find Ollo on his back, a silver flask on the floor next to him, the contents on the tile and, from the looks of it, on his shirt. He was wearing essentially the same thing he wore Friday night except his jacket was nowhere to be found and his shirt—she thought it was technically a tunic—looked like it was made from scratchy wool. The pocket watch hung from his vest but wasn’t anywhere near the alcohol. His brown hair was especially straggly, his blue-brown eyes hooded. He reeked of alcohol and there were dribbles of the liquid dancing between the fuzz on the lower half of his face.
“Jesus Christ,” Reese said when he finally noticed her presence. “You’re drunk.”
“Morning, darl,” he slurred.
“It’s five o’clock in the afternoon,” she snapped. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to be training me, yet here you are, smelling like inebriated death, too drunk to stand up. You realize there’s a war coming, don’t you? And somehow, for some reason, I have particular responsibilities in this war that I’m not even sure about, and the one man who can actually help me is too concerned about getting more booze into his bloodstream. How can you be so selfish?”
Ollo furrowed his brow, locking eyes with her. He sat up so his weight rested on his forearms. “Darl, I’ve been alive since I don’t know how long,” he mumbled. “I’ve had to live with a lot in my life. Don’t claim I’m selfish when you don’t even know me.”
“I don’t know you,” she agreed. “Henry told me you avoided me throughout my lives because you refused to train me unless my power was awakened. Now that it is, you can’t even sit up. I take it has something to do with archery, right? Thank God I took archery as an elective sophomore year so I could opt out of PE. I’m sure those classes will do much better than you ever could.”
Reese spun around and marched to the waiting bow. The desire to grab it overwhelmed her, so she reached for it, taking it in her right hand. Even in her archery classes, she never felt the surge of rightness—like finding a missing piece of her—until this moment. She wondered if it had to do with her new power. Grabbing an arrow with her left hand, she tried to remember the instructions from class: dominant eye, like her hand, was left, which meant she had to draw the arrow back with her left hand. She made sure her feet were shoulder-width apart and her toes, like her right shoulder, were pointed at the target.
Now that her body took the proper stance, she pointed the bow toward the cement floor, ready to cock the arrow. She placed the shaft of the arrow on the rest. Her fingers worked from memory—they attached the arrow to the bow. Those nimble fingers curled around the string and gently drew it back as she raised the bow up. Closing her right eye, she focused on the target and released …
… too far to the left.
It would be a long three hours.
Two and a half hours passed much faster than Reese originally thought. She had gotten better at aiming, but still hadn’t managed to hit a target. Her fingers were starting to blister and her left arm was much sorer than her right one. She was on her last arrow before she had to collect them and start all over again, and she wanted to hit the red.
Just as she got into her stance, a firm but gentle hand pressed down on her shoulder.
“Relax your shoulder, darl,” a voice said from behind her. She was surprised she hadn’t jumped at his abrupt arrival, that, as insane as it sounded, she actually felt comfortable with him already. In all honesty, besides glancing back at him every now and then to ensure he hadn’t choked on his own vomit, she hadn’t noticed him much. She could smell his breath as it touched her neck, and while it was still tainted with liquor, there was something else, something minty. It was … nice. “Your grip too.” She felt the tip of his chin graze her shoulder, felt individual locks of his hair dance on her skin, the point of his nose scraping her earlobe. If he pursed his lips, she knew they’d be on her neck.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she loosened her hold on the string.
“What’s it look like, darl?” he asked in a low rumble. “Training you.”
“It’s about time,” she couldn’t help but retort.
“Breathe in,” he instructed her. He waited until she did before whispering, “And release.”
Reese knew exactly what he meant. As she exhaled, she released the arrow and watched as it hit the outer red circle. A big smile eclipsed her face and she started jumping up and down.
“Did you see that?” she asked Ollo, turning to face him. He had backed up a couple of steps during her impromptu victory dance. “I did it! I hit red!”
There was an enigmatic smile on his lips as he looked at her through his hair. “You really are an innocent, aren’t you?” he murmured. He sounded like he was talking to himself rat
her than to her, but Reese didn’t care.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. Couldn’t he let her be happy with her accomplishment for a full minute before he ruined it?
“Think about what you’re training for, darl,” Ollo said. “A war is coming. God gave you this ability to never miss your mark with a bow and arrow in order to protect you from the dangers that will threaten you because of who you are. With practice, you’ll be the best archer in battle. Too bad you’d be bringing a knife to a gun fight. Let me give you some advice you’d best listen to if you want to stay alive, darl: keep your head down, your mouth shut, and even when you’re asleep, keep your eyes open.”
“Sound advice from a trainer who only decides to show up once the session is almost over,” Reese growled. “And not only that, he’s too drunk to care. I know you don’t care about anything except numbing your pain because you can’t handle the world right now, but I have a lot at stake in this war and apparently, you’re the only one who can help me.”
“That’s not true,” he remarked quietly.
“If someone else can help me—”
“I care.” He paused. as she watched a muscle in his sharp jaw popped. “I promise I’ll be sober during our sessions.”
Reese bit back a snarky response. He was trying. Instead, she locked eyes with him. “I know there’s a war coming,” she said. “I’ve seen—” she cut herself off, her voice quivering unexpectedly. “Just let me enjoy little moments of happiness while I still can.”
Ollo said nothin and then, after a moment of thinking, extended his right hand. She looked at the big hand, callused and rough. It was twice the size of hers and could probably break every bone in her hand with just one squeeze. And yet, Reese reached out until her hand slipped in his. She was surprised how warm it was and chose, at that moment, to believe him.
“Here,” he said after releasing her hand, giving her a wrinkled newspaper. “You’re going to want to get familiar with Onyx’s newest citizen.”
Awaken: Book 1 of the Dark Paradise Trilogy Page 19