Jax looked good. His jeans and shirt were a little rumpled, and he was leaning back in the chair, casual and relaxed. And he still seemed dangerous. It wasn’t fear that sent a shiver up my spine.
“Hey,” I said to Teryl.
He flashed a devilish grin. “Hey, yourself. I came back to check on you, and it looks like it was unnecessary. All I can say is, it’s about time.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. Was it that obvious? I barely resisted the urge to turn back and check my reflection in the small, decorative mirror in the hall.
I turned away to hide my red face. Teryl wasn’t known for his tact, but this was awkward enough. My feet wanted to walk back out of the room, but I stayed firmly planted. Teryl wasn’t chastising, he was teasing. I had to remember that. He was my best friend, and I loved him for his blunt honesty.
“I have an idea. Let’s head to the Thai restaurant next door and grab a bite.” I looked at Jax while I spoke, noticing how his eyes were a welcoming gray. The corner of his mouth lifted. And that fast, Teryl was forgotten as my mind went blank.
Seeing Jax smile when he was usually so serious…I sighed. He was gorgeous. And that small smile made me feel so much better.
Teryl jumped on the food idea. “I could go for some spring rolls and Pad Thai.”
Jax stood and walked over to give me a hug. I inhaled his scent. He always smelled so good. I usually preferred warmer, woodsy scents on a man, but Jax was the exception. Mentally, I ran through my fragrance list. It would have to be a blend of crisp notes, maybe ozone, mint, and a hint of vanilla. I could call it “Ice.” It would be a great seller in my shop. And the packaging…
Teryl interrupted my musings. “As soon as you’re done mooning over Jax, let me know. I’m starving.” He was tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair.
“Okay, okay. I just have to grab my purse and a jacket.” I reluctantly let go of Jax and shrugged into a dark green corduroy jacket.
We wandered downstairs and made the short trek to the restaurant. It was a blessing and a curse, having one of my favorite restaurants so close. I indulged in their meals more than I should. The owner, Mr. Li, didn’t need to ask if we wanted a booth or a table. I always wanted the booth in the farthest corner. It was dark and—crap. Did I like dark spaces because of my father’s shadow elf heritage? I returned Mr. Li’s usual warm smile with a weak one of my own, and we were quickly seated in the usual booth, me next to Jax, Teryl across from us. True to his word, he ordered spring rolls and Pad Thai. Jax ordered the Pad Preaw Wan, a sweet and sour beef with pineapple and vegetables, and I got the Thai barbeque chicken.
After our order was taken by Mr. Li’s youngest son, Teryl leaned on the table and said, “We need to finish our conversation.”
My mind rebelled, and my knee-jerk reaction was to avoid the subject. “I thought we were done. I’m a shadow elf. You’re an oracle. Jax is a gargoyle. I don’t have MacLean’s stolen souls. What else is there to talk about?” I sipped my iced tea. The brew was bitter today. They made a mean Pad Thai here, but seemed to struggle with a regular iced tea.
Teryl pressed his lips together in irritation. “Your fate, remember?”
“Right. I thought we agreed that we’d find my fate. Until then, I’m good.” It would clear up everything, and it seemed like the easiest thing to do. At this point, I was all for easy with a hefty dose of boring for good measure. I’d had enough surprises to last a lifetime.
Teryl wrapped his hands around his water glass and tapped his fingers on the side. “There’s a sense of urgency here. I think the latest turn of events might force our hand.”
“Force our hand?”
Teryl was being a serious mood killer. Things were going to get worse before they got better. Anything my father had a hand in got ugly, fast.
“Yes, we need to clear a few things up.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A few things? Would that include the shadow and light elf thing? Or what about the phoenix poofing into ash then reappearing thing? Or maybe the whole mate and alleged engagement thing? Or…” I pretended to tap my chin in thought. “How about the whole figure out my abilities thing?”
Teryl grimaced. “Okay, one at a time. Your fate will give us a better idea about your abilities.”
“Question. What do the fates look like? Are they a book? A sentence? Are they detailed, or more like a riddle? How will I know mine when I see it?”
“That’s more than one question,” Teryl said.
“It depends on the individual,” Jax answered, before I could take a breath to make a snarky remark. “Some are a few sentences long. Others are paragraphs long. I suspect yours will fall in the latter category because of your family line.”
“The royal families usually have more to their fates,” Teryl added.
“Goody for the Queen of England, then.”
“You’re royal, Elle. Jedren is the king of the shadow elves.”
I sat back and forced a smile as the owner’s wife brought our dishes. Originally from Thailand, she stood just under five feet tall and had a wide, beaming grin. She had a fondness for my lemongrass scented soaps, so I tried to bring her one when I came over. I’d forgotten today, with the chaos.
She didn’t seem to notice, because she beamed at Teryl. “I brought extra spring rolls. I know you love them.”
The shameless flirt followed their usual script to a T. “Be careful, Mrs. Li. I might sneak you away from your husband and shower you with gifts, so you’ll make them every day for me.”
She laughed and bustled back to the kitchen, glowing with pleasure.
The guys didn’t wait to dig in, but I couldn’t start eating with words like “you’re royal” hanging in the air.
“Thanks for the reminder of Daddy’s rank, Teryl. Back to the important stuff: what does a fate say? Does it outline your whole life? Tell you your job? Your favorite color? What styles look best for your body type?”
“Not quite,” Teryl said, before dipping one of his spring rolls in the restaurant’s famous plum sauce. He hummed in pleasure.
Jax got talkative. “Fates can be a few sentences about your strengths and weaknesses in life. Fates can also detail your career, your ability, and your mate. They can outline your death. It varies, but the information given is usually the most important to your life path.”
I gave him a sharp look. “So, why do you say we’re mates?”
He was calm when he said, “My fate specified you as my mate.”
I had nothing to say to that. I looked over at Teryl for help, but he wasn’t paying any attention to me. Instead, he attacked his Pad Thai like a starving man.
I could tell he was mulling over something with each quick bite, but it was Jax who spoke next. “What was your mother?”
That caught me off guard. “She was amazing, beautiful, loving…”
“Do you think…?” Teryl stopped eating and shook his head slowly. “Oh, shit.”
Now I was worried. “Why ‘oh, shit’?” In my experience, oh, shit was never good.
Jax looked at both of us. “I’m not asking about your mother’s personality. What was she?”
The shock hit me.
They had to be joking.
“Oh, no.” I shook my head, vehement in my denial. I lowered my voice when I saw a couple at a nearby table give me an odd look. “No, no, no. My mom was human. One hundred percent, grade-A human.”
“Elle,” Teryl said. “You’ve got to consider the idea.”
“No, I don’t,” I said, anger making my voice slightly hoarse. “That’s ridiculous. Even if my father stole my memories, I remember my mom perfectly clearly. I would have known if my mom wasn’t human.”
Teryl held up a placating hand. “Okay, okay. Just listen for a sec. Yesterday, when you shifted Jax to stone, that was incredible.”
I watched him, wary about where he was leading the conversation. My hands were shaking, so I sat on them.
“It’s not a common skill for a shadow
elf. And,” he flicked his gaze to Jax before looking back at me. “Only a mate should have been able to do it.”
Jax placed a hand on my thigh. “She is my mate.”
His tone brooked no argument. I was happy for the comfort, mate or not. I picked up my chopsticks and pushed the chicken around on my plate. I was no longer in the mood for my favorite spicy dish.
“At this point, I’d have to agree with you. But…” Teryl trailed off and stared at Jax.
I felt Jax stiffen with tension. He shook his head once, and then took a bite of his dinner.
“But?” I prompted.
Teryl twirled his fork nervously—the guy was hopeless with chopsticks. “You also shifted MacLean.”
Ash on my hands. Ash on the floor. It wasn’t an experience I would be able to scrub from my mind any time soon. MacLean seemed like he’d grown up to be a nice enough guy. He might have been my first crush, but I couldn’t remember why or what kind of history we’d had.
Was Teryl trying to say I had two mates? Despite the obvious chemistry and connection Jax and I shared, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be anyone’s mate. Not yet. Not until I figured out who or what I was.
I tried for nonchalant. “So, maybe because I’m not full shadow elf, I have a few quirks.” Quirks, I could handle. More skeletons in the closet? Not so much.
Teryl’s face reflected the doubts in my mind. I snuck a quick glance at Jax. He was frowning and his eyes were starting to show streaks of silver. He took a deliberate bite off his chopsticks. I sighed. It was best to get this over quickly.
“Spell it out for me What’s the significance of me shifting both guys?” I gave Jax’s thigh a quick squeeze. I didn’t think I was the only one who needed comfort.
Teryl sighed. “I’m not really sure. Shifting a phoenix is only something a light elf should be able to do. And a mate.”
“So you think I have light elf blood?” I tried to be calm about the idea. I even ate a small bite of my chicken, which I normally loved. Today it didn’t taste as good. But the heat exploding on my taste buds gave me something else to focus on.
Teryl watched us, and his face relaxed. “It’s a possibility. That’s why Jax asked what your mom was.” He resumed eating his Pad Thai as if he hadn’t dropped a bombshell.
Okay, that hurt. The thought that my mom might have been something more and I’d gone my whole life not knowing was awful. She might have taken that huge secret to her grave.
She had been truly beautiful with big blue eyes, light brown hair, and a tall, willowy frame. Her smile had been contagious. Gentle and kind and always a lady. To this day, I didn’t understand how she and my father had become a couple. It hadn’t lasted long, and I didn’t know any of the details. She hadn’t talked about it, and I hadn’t asked. I had lived with her for all but two weeks of every year, yet I couldn’t think of one strange thing I’d ever seen her do or say.
What if my father had taken some of those memories as well?
I forced another bite down my throat before saying, “Let’s say she was something…more. What does that mean for me?”
Jax’s face was unreadable, but his eyes had calmed to his usual, cool gray. “It means we need to find your fate as soon as possible.”
If it held answers, I was all for it. “Okay, let’s do it. You said the oracle should have it? This should be easy. If my mom was a light elf and my dad is a shadow elf, that can’t be all that uncommon.”
Jax cleared his throat. “Do you remember Teryl mentioning how the lines have been diluted?” When I nodded, he said, “They’re also very careful about mates and marriages between the lines. In the past, when shadow and light elves were mated and had children, the children weren’t normal.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” I joked.
Neither of them laughed.
“He’s right, Elle. Most were born with health problems and didn’t make it out of infancy. The rest had abilities so volatile…” Teryl trailed off, looking uncomfortable.
“What? They exploded? They had to be locked up?”
“They had to be killed.” Jax’s deep voice delivered the news in a near whisper, cognizant of the other customers in the restaurant.
I turned to him, horror on my face. I kept my voice as soft as his. “Killed? They killed their own kids?”
Teryl put his fork down and leaned on the table. “You have to remember, this was a few hundred years ago. They were burning people at the stake, slaughtering innocents in the town square, and killing children in infancy if they didn’t look or act right. The mind set was different. And from what I’ve read, the combination of shadow and light elves produced monsters.”
White-hot fury burned through me. “They were kids. They had no control over their genes. They killed these children because they happened to have the wrong set of parents?”
“No. They were killed because their powers were so volatile and dangerous, scores of people died.” Teryl paused when the owner came by to check on us and fish for more of Teryl’s praise. He waited until she was out of earshot before continuing. “Shadow and light elves are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Your typical yin and yang, black and white, sun and moon. You’ve heard the saying ‘opposites attract?’ In our world, opposites destroy. You put two opposites together, and you get big problems. Instead of a melding of abilities, you get an entirely new set of powers altogether. And not in a good way.
“These children were born with serious health problems. The ones who weren’t in poor health had the ability to wipe memories clean from large groups of people. They wouldn’t just remove memories, they would cause severe enough brain damage that their parents, teachers, or whoever was around, died. And then there were the kids who would set entire buildings on fire, along with the people inside.”
“Why didn’t someone work with these kids to help control their abilities?”
“It wasn’t that simple. They couldn’t get the victims back.”
“So they became monsters who had to be killed?”
I was possibly one of those monsters? Nothing like a little bad news to ruin my appetite.
Teryl picked his fork back up and twirled rice noodles around the tines. “No, they weren’t all monsters. And it’s not just the elves. Each of the lines has problems. The oracles and seers had to merge about two centuries ago. The powers were becoming so unstable and weak, it was the only way to maintain the reading of the fates and retain some of the other oracle abilities. But if the oracles and fae tried to combine lines…”
“Seers? How many lines are there?”
“True seers are all but gone.” Teryl shook his head sadly. “There weren’t many, and they began to blend with the oracles over a few generations. Gargoyles and phoenix cannot mix. The combination of stone, fire, and ash cannot bond, so the powers do not work together. Once the children turn to ash, they cannot rise again.”
I sucked in a breath. “That is the most sickening thing I’ve ever heard. How many children have been lost because someone couldn’t keep their pants zipped?”
“No, that wasn’t the problem. They didn’t know that would happen. Not at first.”
“What do you mean, ‘at first?’”
“They had no idea an alliance between certain lines would have disastrous results. And it wasn’t immediately apparent it was a genetic issue. It wasn’t until recent years geneticists were able to pinpoint the problems with combining certain bloodlines and DNA. Some aren’t compatible. It’s no different than any other disease. It can take decades for doctors to understand a condition, if ever.
“They’ve discovered which lines can mate, and which can’t. Shadow elves are compatible with gargoyle and phoenix. Light elves can also mate with gargoyles and phoenix, but not shadow elves. Fae are only compatible with fae. Oracles have already blended, so now oracles can only mate with oracles.”
“Elle.” Jax waited until I turned my head to look at him. “The royal families of each line carefully manage the all
iances. There hasn’t been a child born with problems in at least three hundred years. It was devastating for everyone, and they’ve done everything they can to prevent it from happening again.”
A tear slid down my cheek, but I quickly wiped it away. I couldn’t help it. My mixed blood made me one of the monsters. Would they kill me, too?
The owner walked up again, looking concerned. “Too spicy?” he asked, pointing to my plate and then my wet cheek.
“No, no, I love it,” I assured him, and took a big bite to prove my point. He offered a wide grin similar to his wife’s, and moved to the next table, happy once again.
“We don’t know what your mom was,” Teryl said, sounding sympathetic. “It’s just speculation at this point. Regardless, you’re next in line for the throne. If your father thought you didn’t have abilities, you wouldn’t be a viable mate. Any children of the marriage might potentially be powerless, like he assumed you were. That’s probably why your engagement to MacLean no longer stands.”
Jax brushed his thumb across my cheek. “He’s right. Until we have your fate, we can only guess. And that could cause needless worry.”
“You think?” I laughed quietly, and the sound was watery. “Is there any other combination of lines that would be able to do what I did?”
“I’m not sure,” Teryl said. “I’d have to review the history of the lines. I can get my hands on some books that would summarize them for you. But getting your fate should be our top priority.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. One thing at a time, I chanted silently. It was quickly becoming my new mantra. “So how do I find out who the oracle was?”
“I know her,” Jax said.
Finally, some good news. “Great. Do I call her? Email her? I can do it right now.”
“Wait.”
I sensed a big “but” coming.
“I know where she is, but you’ll have to go to her.”
I shrugged. “Sure, that’s not a problem. I can go tomorrow sometime. Do you have her address?”
Jax nodded slowly.
“Was it Carys?” Teryl asked Jax.
Jax nodded again.
Teryl groaned and refused to look at me. Both guys took a bite of food, so they wouldn’t have to elaborate, I suspected.
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