Magic and Shadows: A Collection of YA Fantasy and Paranormal Romances

by T. M. Franklin

I wasn’t sure how, but part of me felt Loki’s darkness growing. I closed my eyes and focused on the feeling of him and sent him light. I wasn’t sure how I knew to do it or how it even worked, but after a moment I felt him grow brighter and the darkness slink away from the new light.

  I opened my eyes and found Troy staring at me in shock. “You just used your powers.”

  I nodded my head. “How did you know?”

  “You glowed,” he whispered.

  I looked around the restaurant, but no one else seemed to notice. “Sorry, I didn’t know you could tell when I was using it.”

  “Why did you just use it?”

  “I felt the darkness growing in Loki.”

  “You can feel him from here?”

  “I can feel everyone I am connected to,” I whispered, “even you.”

  “You can feel me?”

  “I can feel your energy and the light and darkness that you carry.”

  He cringed. “That’s not something I wish you to see.”

  “You carry as much darkness as I do,” I whispered.

  “Only because you took on some of Loki’s.”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps I always had it and I just let go some of my light and exposed it.”

  “It’s not surprising that Loki’s darkness would be growing right now,” he whispered.

  “What? Why is that?”

  “You left him. He loves you and he told you that he loves you and you still left him to live on a completely different world and even gave him a restriction on when he could see you. That would cause darkness in any man.”

  I hadn’t thought about all of that. I felt terrible, but I couldn’t change my mind now. If there was only a way for me to ease his pain, I would. “Do you think poorly of me for my decision?” I asked Troy softly. I couldn’t look at him so I looked at my hands on the table instead.

  He reached across and took my hand in his. “How could I think poorly of you when your decision gives me the chance to get to know you and to date you?”

  Our food came out and we didn’t talk much as we ate. I felt comfortable around Troy, but I was still worried about what he needed to tell me. Could they be children of gods? There were some who on occasion lay with a mortal of Midgard. Or was he just gifted like I was? Maybe his gift was something silly so he was embarrassed to show me.

  “Let’s go,” he said with a smile and held out his hand. I let him take my hand and instead of going to the car he led me to a shop a few blocks down the street.

  “What is this?” I asked curiously.

  “This is a dessert shop.”

  “Sugary desserts?” I asked nervously. I wasn’t too big on those yet.

  “Don’t worry, this isn’t that sugary.” He opened the door and let me walk in ahead of him. There were a ton of different types of desserts. I looked at each one and read the names with increasing interest. Troy ordered for us and the man behind the counter put something in a bag and then handed him two small cartons of milk. “Let’s sit over there,” Troy suggested and pointed towards an empty booth in the back. I sat down in the booth and he sat across from me. He set one of the milks in front of me and took out a brown cookie with piece of chocolate in it. “This is a chocolate chip cookie and is considered a favorite treat here.”

  I took it from him and bit into it. It was sweet, but very good as well. He opened the milk and I took a drink. The milk cut down on the sweetness and made it a perfect dessert. “This is wonderful,” I said honestly and took another bite.

  “I’m glad that you like it so much.”

  “Thank you for our date tonight.”

  He leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “Thank you for agreeing to go on a date with me.”

  “I’m sorry for my behavior earlier.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

  “This darkness is going to take a bit of time to adjust to,” I admitted.

  “We can learn to handle it together,” he suggested with a smile.

  I nodded my head happily and finished my cookie. “What now?”

  “Now we head home,” he said cheerfully. Why was he so happy that our date was over? I was actually sad. He linked hands with me and we walked back to the car. The streets weren’t as busy anymore and I was grateful for that. I didn’t like being around so many people at one time. Troy opened my car door for me and shut it once I was inside. I remembered that being called manners or chivalry or something like that.

  Once we were home and inside, he gently pushed me against the back of the door and kissed me deeply. “You are gorgeous,” he whispered. “I am one lucky guy.”

  “And I think I should have waited until later to come over,” Drake said from the couch.

  Heat rushed to my cheeks and I felt incredibly embarrassed that he had watched us kiss. I squeezed around Troy and ran up the stairs to my room to change clothes.

  “You could have warned me you were in here,” Troy said angrily to Drake.

  “You should have noticed that I was sitting on your couch. I’m not exactly a small person.”

  “You’re right, I should have been more observant.”

  “I don’t blame you. It would be hard to focus with a beautiful woman like that in front of me.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Part of me wanted to hide in the room so I wouldn’t have to face Drake after he caught us kissing. I knew I would miss out on their conversations if I stayed here though. I jogged down the stairs and sat on the couch at the other end from Drake. “What’s up, guys?”

  “How was your date?” Drake asked me.

  “It was good. I really like chocolate chip cookies and milk.”

  He laughed. “Everybody does.”

  “I need to learn to bake them,” I said adamantly.

  “You’re going to make Troy fat,” Drake warned me. “He’s going to be eating sweets and good food and he won’t know what to do with himself. He might actually have to start going running with me.”

  “I go running,” Troy said defensively, “I just don’t like running with you because you’re always challenging me.”

  “You just can’t keep up with me because you’re so out of shape.”

  “I guess I’ll have to start working out too,” I whispered sadly.

  “What?” Troy asked.

  “I didn’t have to work out on Asgard because the food was basically just enough to nourish me. It’s hard to explain, but the food is almost magical in a sense and contains nutrients, but not anything extra. The only time people get fat there is if they drink too much mead and don’t exercise. Food here is very fattening, though.” I felt like I’d already gained some weight since being here and I really didn’t like it.

  “Did you talk to headquarters about that idea I suggested?” Drake asked Troy.

  “I’m going to talk to them when I get back to work.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Just work stuff,” Troy said.

  “If we break up and I can’t work, I’m going to have to go live in the woods,” I whispered to myself.

  “No way!” Drake yelled. “If Troy ever lost his mind and broke up with you, you could just come live with me.”

  “We had one date and you’re already talking about her living with you,” Troy accused Drake.

  “Hey, I’m not going to let one of my friends live in the woods just because you’re an idiot.” His comment made me smile. I liked knowing Drake considered me his friend.

  “I didn’t do anything, so you can’t call me an idiot,” Troy countered.

  “Well, if you did, it would make you an idiot. And you don’t have a great track record.”

  “I think it’s time you two ‘fessed up to your identities and what you know,” I said with crossed arms, stopping their bickering.

  Drake looked at me in shock and then looked at Troy and asked, “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing yet,” he said with a scowl.


  “You two are way too laid-back for coming into contact with beings who aren’t from this world,” I told them, “And I want answers.”

  Troy sat down and Drake heaved a heavy sigh. “There are some things we can’t tell you,” Drake started, “Because they’re classified and…”

  “Bullcrap,” I said and interrupted him. “You tell me everything or I leave.”

  “Leave?” Troy asked in shock, his posture stiffening.

  I nodded my head and gave him my serious look. “I’m not going to live with someone who withholds information from me.”

  “Where do we start?” Troy asked Drake.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about you tell me what god you’ve met before,” I said to Troy.

  “Well, the first god I met was Odin when I was a child,” Troy said, “but since then, I’ve met others from other religions.”

  “Other religions?” I asked him in shock. “What do you mean, other religions? There are other gods?”

  “I’ve met Ares,” Drake said.

  “Who is that?” I asked softly.

  “He is the God of War for the Greeks,” Drake explained.

  A God of War? I hadn’t heard of this before. “Maybe it was an Aesir who just gave you a fake name,” I suggested, even though I didn’t even believe that.

  “This is actually part of our job,” Troy admitted. “We are supposed to contact all of these supernatural beings and find out their intentions towards Earth.”

  “I thought you were just a cop,” I whispered.

  He shook his head.

  “So you didn’t come to the hospital because it was part of your job?”

  “No, we came because someone saw the Bifrost for a moment before you landed and I felt it connect with Earth,” he whispered, “but at the time, we weren’t sure what it was other than another world’s transportation system.”

  I felt sick. Had everything been a lie? How could he feel the Bifrost?

  “Alys,” Troy whispered. “Are you alright? You look sick.”

  “You thought I was an alien,” I whispered.

  “No, the doctors tested your blood and confirmed you were human. We thought an alien had stolen you and erased your memory.”

  In a sense that was what happened.

  “You didn’t say anything to me about it,” I reminded him.

  “If they had erased your memory, I didn’t want to expose their existence to you.”

  “Do these other gods live here?”

  “Some.”

  Did Odin know? It didn’t seem likely that he did. How could these beings have hidden themselves from them?

  “Our job requires us to travel to their worlds from time to time,” Drake told me, “Which is why sometimes we will be gone for more than a day.”

  “Have you been to the nine worlds?” I asked them.

  They both shook their heads.

  “We didn’t know much about the Norse until you brought Thor and Loki here to fight the Dark Elves,” Troy admitted.

  “But you said you met Odin…”

  “I didn’t know who he was at the time. I didn’t know until a few years later that it was Odin.”

  “How did you meet him?” I asked Troy.

  “He’s my father.”

  The world fell away. Troy was half Aesir. He was an heir to Asgard. Jord would be furious if she knew. How could Thor and Loki not have recognized his blood? How did Odin not?

  “Alys!” Troy shouted, bringing me to the present.

  “How come you don’t have powers?” I asked. “Even half Aesir have powers.”

  “I have powers,” he said, “but they’re limited.”

  “How come Odin didn’t recognize you?”

  “I hid my aura from him,” he admitted.

  Being able to do that required a lot of power. “What powers do you have?” I asked him.

  “I told you that I want you to learn about them as we date,” he reminded me.

  “Can you erase memories?” I asked him.

  “No.”

  Good. I didn’t need him messing with my memories when I didn’t know.

  “Why haven’t you traveled to Asgard?” I asked him. If I had been half Aesir, I would have tried as soon as I could.

  “I can’t figure out which of the nine it is and I didn’t want to travel to the wrong world,” he admitted to me.

  “Wait, you can travel on the Bifrost?” Drake asked him.

  Troy shrugged. “I should be able to. I can sense it, but I haven’t tried.”

  “Jord is going to freak out,” I whispered. She hated when Odin had a mistress.

  “Let’s keep this between us for now,” Troy suggested.

  Could I hide this from them? This was big news. This was something Odin would want to know.

  “What about you?” I asked Drake.

  “I’m only a quarter god. My dad was half god from Orunmila, who is an Orisha of the Yoruba.”

  None of that made sense to me, but it meant there was another group of gods out there as well.

  “So I’m the only normal one,” I whispered and then laughed.

  “No,” Troy said. “You’re half as well.”

  “No, I’m not. You even said the doctors confirmed I’m human,” I reminded him.

  “They can’t detect when you are half,” he informed me.

  “So if you think I’m half, then whose am I?” I asked him angrily. There was no way that I was part god.

  “We don’t know. I think that you should ask Odin why he really took you to Asgard,” Troy suggested.

  Oh no, if I was Odin’s that meant that Troy and I were siblings. No, I couldn’t be Odin’s because the others would have figured it out while I was on Asgard.

  “I’m not Aesir,” I whispered, “because they would have sensed that.”

  “No, but it means Odin wasn’t truthful about what happened to your parents,” Drake said softly, as if it would help lessen the blow that gave me.

  This was too much. This was ridiculous. There was no way this was true. Had Odin betrayed my parents and stolen me?

  A dark-skinned man appeared in the room and I could immediately see the resemblance between Drake and him. “Drake, we need to speak,” the man said with a thick accent.

  “Of course, Grandfather,” Drake said and led him out to the backyard.

  “Are you okay?” Troy asked me.

  “No. No, I’m not. This is too much. This is insane. This is ridiculous.”

  “Why don’t we summon Odin and have him confirm all of this and then we can move on from there,” Troy suggested.

  Part of me didn’t want to know. Part of me wanted to stay in the dark about the truth to my past and what had happened to cause Odin to bring me to Asgard.

  “Odin,” I whispered.

  He appeared in front of me and smiled warmly. “It hasn’t even been a full day and you already miss me?”

  “Odin,” I whispered to him with shaking hands, “do you know this man?” I pointed to Troy and refused to look at him.

  Odin looked at Troy and said, “He’s the one you chose to live with here.”

  “Look closer,” I told him. I don’t know how I knew, but I felt it when Troy exposed his aura. It was like a warm, gentle wind against my skin.

  Odin cursed and said, “I didn’t know you were born.”

  “I know,” Troy said. “My mother convinced me to hide myself from you.”

  “She told me she lost the baby,” he explained.

  “Odin, what happened to my parents?” I asked him. “Why did you bring me to Asgard?”

  Odin looked up at the ceiling and I thought he wasn’t going to tell me, but he took a deep breath and began. “Your father and I never got along. He would fight me whatever chance he got, but luckily, he couldn’t travel to the Nine Worlds. When I was visiting Midgard one day, I happened upon him and his mistress and, as usual, we got into a fight. I ended up killing him and then his mistress attacked m
e. I was enraged and killed her as well. I immediately regretted my actions, but it was too late to do anything about it. It was only after the fight ended that I discovered you. I felt responsible for you and so I took you to Asgard with me. I couldn’t bear to let you die because of my mistake.”

  He had killed my parents! My parents were dead.

  “Who was my father?” I asked him.

  “He was known as the God of the Sun and went by the name Apollo.”

  “That’s why your gift is light,” Troy whispered in shock.

  I wanted it to be a lie. I wanted this to be false, but I felt it within my soul that it was the truth. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked him. Why had he withheld it from me for so long?

  “I was ashamed of myself for losing control. I am sorry, Alys. If I could change the past, I would.”

  “So, I’m not a Daughter of Asgard. I’m a daughter of…I don’t even know what they call their place.”

  “Olympus,” Troy said.

  “No, even though your blood may not be Aesir, you are still the Daughter of Asgard. You still have our blessings and love,” Odin said earnestly.

  “Troy is a Son of Asgard,” I whispered.

  “He is,” Odin nodded.

  “At least we aren’t related,” Troy offered with a smile.

  That was a good thing.

  “I’m sorry,” Odin said and took my hands in his. “I truly am.”

  Even though my heart felt broken and I felt betrayed, I couldn’t fault Odin for withholding such information. I was still furious, but I held too much love for Odin to shun him.

  “I believe you,” I whispered.

  Part of me wanted to scream at him and hit him, but I shoved it down. I would deal with these feelings later.

  He hugged me and said, “Is there anything you want? Is there some way I can pay you for this?”

  “Can you give me the ability to travel the Bifrost?” I asked him.

  His eyebrows furrowed and he said, “No, but I can give Troy that ability.”

  “I already have it.”

  “I’ll allow you one boon,” Odin told me, “that you may take anytime you wish. Troy, you and I will speak later.” He disappeared and I dropped to my knees on the ground.

  Everything I knew was wrong. Everything I thought I knew was a lie. I didn’t even know anything anymore. I had no knowledge of reality. My father had lied to me about everything. He had killed my true parents.