Emerge: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance

by Lena Mae Hill

  “It’s you,” Xander’s voice said, an edge of accusation to it.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s obvious,” he said, his tone mocking the one I’d used when I’d said those words about him being Neil’s biological son.

  “He’s right,” Peyton said. “This all started when you joined us.”

  “How do we find the other three hosts?” Eliot asked.

  “You must find the fire giant first,” Heimdall said. “Cast out the giant from your midst. That is your first task.”

  I wanted to look around, but my body seemed bound in an immobile, limbo state. Still, I could feel the presence of each of my stepsiblings around me. I did not, however, sense any fiery giants from hell.

  My money was on Xander.

  “Who’s the demon?” Finn asked. “Or fire giant, or whatever it’s called.”

  “It has been trying to destroy me since I arrived in Midgard,” Heimdall said. “It draws near even now. You must rid yourself of it before you leave Midgard, or it will follow you onto the bridge and destroy it.”

  “And that’s bad,” Zeke said.

  “Your world and everything in it will be destroyed if the gods cannot cross Bifrost to fight the giants at Ragnarok.”

  Heimdall began to spin in the air, his reflection shimmering on the water around us even when he moved so fast he was only a blur. “Find my final pieces and prepare yourself for Bifrost. When you need me again, you know how to call forth my form.”

  “You’re leaving?” Peyton asked, her voice filled with the anguish that gripped me at the same moment.

  “I am a part of you,” Heimdall said. “I chose you. I cannot leave. When you are together, you will feel whole as I become whole. But be wary of those who would come between you and divide you. You must stay united as long as you can. You will lose a part of me in another world, even as you gain yet one more. One will betray the others, and one will fall prey to the trickster.”

  Suddenly, he wavered in the air, then shrank to the size of one blinding pinprick of light. After a second, rays of golden light shot out in every direction, and then he blinked out. The same impossible blast of wind that had started the vision exploded from the center of the hot tub again, like a mini bomb blast that knocked us all backwards. My hands slipped from my brothers’ and clutched at empty water.

  I looked around at my new family. They all appeared as shaken as I felt. Even Xander’s usual surly scowl had been replaced by a stunned blankness.

  My heart hammered in my chest, and my head spun with all I’d just seen and heard. Fantastical things. I wanted to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming, but the hot water bubbling around me, the cool breeze drifting across the deck, and the raven perched on the roof told me that it was real. I knew now that the ravens were sent here to watch us by Odin, the Norse father god. I had read that in the books in Neil’s library. I knew about Heimdall, too. It was impossible, yes, but not a dream.

  And not a hallucination, either. The others had seen it, too. I wasn’t going crazy. I wasn’t losing my sanity. It had happened. And unlike my mother, I was surrounded by people who believed me. People who had shared my experience. More than anything, I wanted to go to my mother, to tell her how very sorry I was that I’d never believed her. To beg forgiveness for judging her the way everyone else had. She wasn’t crazy, and yet her own daughter had dismissed her as easily as a stranger—more easily than a stranger.

  As a stranger on the internet, Neil had believed. At last, I understood what had puzzled me for so long. She hadn’t known Neil well enough to love him when they got married, but she’d found the one person in the world who gave her what she needed, the one thing I hadn’t given her all those years. Validation. After all those years, she’d probably started doubting her own sanity. I understood why she’d grabbed on so tight, held so fast, to the one person who told her that not only was she sane, she was important and gifted. If only I’d known…

  “I’m going to talk to my mom,” I said, standing and stepping out of the tub. My earlier insecurity about taking off my clothes in front of the group seemed ridiculous now. It was just a body. They’d all seen my boob at the beach, anyway. Now, none of it mattered. It was just skin. Everyone had it.

  “Anyone else think we should visit the hospital where that thing came through to begin with?” Peyton asked behind me, but I didn’t stay for the answers. I grabbed her robe and ducked inside, running up the winding stairs to the second story.

  Mom wasn’t in our bedroom. A snake of panic wound around my spinal column as I raced down the hall, calling her name. There were a lot of rooms up here. Our room, another guest room, the bathroom shared by the two rooms. Zeke’s room, Peyton’s, Finn’s, Eliot’s, Xander’s. I didn’t think about their privacy, just opened each door. I knew they were all down in the hot tub, anyway.

  I’d been in most of the rooms already. When I opened Eliot’s door, his room looked just like I imagined it would be, and that comforted me somehow. He wasn’t the way I imagined when I met him, with all those girls. But his room was like a fancy computer lab. Three huge monitors sat at an angle on his desk, so he could see all three at once when seated in the ergonomic black leather chair. The buttons and gadgets on the desk below the monitors looked like something you’d find in the cockpit of a spaceship.

  The only thing unexpected was his bed. It was king-sized and unmade, with wine-colored sheets tangled up in a tan comforter at the foot of the bed. It gave me a second’s pause, the maturity of that bedding. Those were adult sheets, and I suddenly wondered how many girls he’d brought here to do adult things under those sheets. I didn’t know what I expected—Star Wars sheets?—but it was not this. Seeing them made me feel young and insufficient somehow. Shame twisted in my belly, and I turned away and hurried down the hall, not surprised to try Xander’s knob and find his door locked.

  On the next floor, I ran down the hall, opening all the rooms except the studio, which was locked. I found my mother in the library, lying on a brown leather couch with a book open in her lap.

  “Mom,” I said, rushing to her side and wedging myself onto the sliver of couch beside her.

  “Hi, Gwen,” she said, flipping a page.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, a sob choking my words.

  “For what?” she asked, setting her book across her lap and smiling up at me.

  “For not listening to you,” I said. “For not believing. I’m sorry that all along, I thought you were seeing things that weren’t there. You must have felt so helpless and alone. I can’t even imagine. I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  Mom marked her place in the book with a finger and closed it. “What’s all this about?”

  “I believe you,” I whispered. “I just wanted you to know that.”

  “I thought you always believed. That’s why you came with me when it was time to run. To keep the world from ending.”

  Shame closed off my throat, and I shook my head. Somehow, she’d never realized that I didn’t believe her. I must have been a better actor than I thought because I always went along to appease her, so she wouldn’t have a screaming freak-out in the parking lot of a Taco Bell. Not because I believed there were giants chasing us.

  “Why else would you have come with me?” she asked, a frown creasing her forehead.

  Knowing that she believed in me all that time, all those years, when I didn’t believe in her, was worse than the alternative. It was one thing for her to go through life knowing the world around her thought she was crazy. The last thing she needed was to know her daughter had also thought that. I couldn’t unburden myself and ask forgiveness if it would hurt her more. This was my shame to bear.

  “Because I love you.” It was the simple truth that had never wavered.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Gwen

  Heimdall’s words echoed through my mind as I rejoined the rest of my family, of myself. One of them would be lost. One of them would betray me.

  Th
e thought gnawed at me as I returned to the back deck. I had a pretty good idea of which one would betray me. It was harder not to trust him than I expected, though. He was an ass, but…still. It was hard to hate someone you knew. It was hard to stop myself from trusting him as I got to know him.

  And what if it wasn’t Xander? I stepped through the sliding doors onto the back deck. The night was warmer than recent ones. A gentle salt breeze stirred my hair, and the distant lapping of gentle waves soothed my frayed nerves. The others were all there, deep in conversation. My eyes moved from one of them to the next.

  Sweet, shy, warm Finn would never betray me. He didn’t have it in him.

  Fun, protective, easygoing Zeke had saved my life at the beach that day.

  Peyton wouldn’t believe in deceit. She was accepting of everyone and straightforward about who she was.

  My eyes fell on Eliot. He was unpredictable. More unpredictable than Xander.

  Yes, Xander was a total pig ninety percent of the time, but I could count on him to be that way. I knew not to trust him, but some part of me did, anyway. And that part was growing all the time. Maybe that was my downfall. I would be betrayed even knowing better, because I couldn’t help but feel I was beginning to understand him.

  But Eliot, with his rumpled sheets and his secret smiles, his intense eyes and logical mind…I just didn’t know. He might be persuaded that something else made sense. Hosting gods didn’t seem like something he’d easily accept and wrap his mind around.

  “Do I need to carry you to the tub again, your highness?” Xander asked, his stormy grey eyes fixing on mine as he swung around. “Or are you going to run away again?”

  “You’re one to talk,” I said, moving across the deck toward the edge of the wooden hot tub. This time, it didn’t feel like nothing, as it had after seeing the god. But it was easier than the first time, even with all their eyes on me. I could do it. They were all undressed, too.

  Xander snorted. “I’m still here. Where were you just a minute ago? Or when Dad was telling us about our fucked up family?”

  His words hit me like ice water.

  “You told me to leave.”

  “And you did,” he said. “There’s no reason to come back now. Run away, little girl. Just like your mommy. We got this.”

  Forcing my lip not to tremble, I peeled off my robe and discarded it in a nearby chair. My t-shirt clung to my body, and I was sure they could see the abnormal darkness beneath the clinging, wet fabric. They fell silent, all of them watching as I climbed the three wooden steps that matched the hot tub’s siding. I knew what he wanted, what he expected. But I wasn’t going to give it to him.

  If Hester Prynn could bear her scarlet letter, I could bear my scarlet scars.

  I wouldn’t cower inside a robe or slip into the tub quickly to hide under the water. They thought I was a coward. They didn’t know what the fire giant had already cost me. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the edge of my T-shirt and peeled it over my head, dropped it to the deck behind me, and stood exposed for all to see.

  My eyes locked on Xander’s, and I spread out my arms. “Here I am,” I said, the words snapping off my tongue like cracking ice. “Take your best shot. What do you have to say about me now? I’m deformed, I’m scared, I’m a pig? What else you got?”

  “Gwen…” Peyton whispered, her fingertips covering her perfect lips.

  I pinched the skin around my waist, forever mottled with red, angry splotches. “I know, right? It’s disgusting. So maybe I’m not perfect like all of you. You think you’re so tough, Xander? You’ve got all the money in the world, a powerful father, and a team of siblings to have your back. Maybe I am stupid and naïve. But I fight my own battles, and I’m not running away. I’ve already survived a fire giant. So let’s have it.” I gestured for him to throw his worst at me.

  No one spoke. For a moment, I was unbreakable. Whatever he said, I could take it.

  Xander’s eyes didn’t accept the invitation to critique my body. Instead, they stayed locked on mine. My stomach trembled at the intensity of his stare. That gaze penetrated farther than clothes, farther than scars and flesh, into my bones, my soul. It said more than his words ever could. It said I was nothing but a little girl throwing a tantrum. That I wasn’t worth fighting.

  He chuckled softly, then lifted his hands from the water and began a slow clap.

  My anger had crested like a wave, and now it came crashing down. I forced myself to stay upright, not to race for the house, run up to my room, and hide my face in the pillow. My eyes stung. My throat ached. But I would rather cry in front of him than hide. I’d been hiding all my life, and I was done. I’d challenged him, and as much as I might regret it, I wasn’t going to back out now.

  “Thank you,” I said through clenched teeth, and I bowed at the waist, even though it made my stomach roil, as if I were about to hurl into their luxury hot tub.

  Trying to salvage what little dignity I had left, I stepped slowly into the tub, feeling both defeated and relieved to drop his gaze. When I’d slid into the water, I could breathe again.

  Peyton gave me a sympathetic, encouraging smile, and Finn gave me a slight approving nod. That was worse than judgment. If I hadn’t broken down from Xander’s cruelty, I might under the weight of their kindness. Their pity made me feel small.

  My eyes met Zeke’s, and a shock went through me. He didn’t look scornful or disgusted to have seen my imperfect body. He looked ravenous.

  My breath caught, and I pulled my eyes away. I found myself turning last to Eliot, waiting for his response. His eyes were bright with curiosity.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I was burned in a fire,” I said flatly.

  “Your mom mentioned that,” he said. “That your dad died fighting a fire giant.”

  “I was supposed to die with him, but I lived,” I said, turning to the others, but especially Xander. “So don’t tell me I can’t fight a giant with you. Because I’ve already won once.”

  “You didn’t win. You escaped,” Xander said with a smirk. “Hey, look at that. Another time you ran away.”

  “Dude, shut up,” Zeke said. He turned to me, his blue eyes serious for once. His hands found my shoulders and turned me toward him, holding onto me with that steady, strong grip that made me feel safer than anything in the world. “We’re not going anywhere without you.”

  Xander snorted.

  “I’d hate to give you another black eye when you’re just getting over the last one,” Zeke said, glowering at his brother as he sat back, pulling me in close beside him. I could feel the hardness of his muscled body, his bare skin against mine, and I couldn’t breathe.

  “You gave him that?” I asked when I’d caught my breath.

  “What? No,” Zeke said with a crooked smile. “I’d never hit my brother.”

  Suddenly, Peyton started giggling, and a second later, I did, too. Zeke joined in and then the twins. And for a second, it was okay. It was okay that I didn’t know how to talk to people, that I’d lost this fight to Xander, that he didn’t laugh with us. It was okay that my mother had married Neil, making me related to these boys whose touch made me breathless. It was even okay that a god was stuck inside us, that a giant was trying to roast us to death. We had each other, and for a moment, it felt like enough.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Gwen

  It seemed strange to go back to school the next day. Did fractured gods attend human school? Did they shrink from mean girls, wear thrift store clothes, and plan shopping trips to Boston that weekend to stock up on cuter outfits? Did fragments of gods roam the halls of every school or just ours? Did other dads collect their broken pieces like archeologists unearthing shards of ancient pottery, trying to fit them back together?

  Wednesday passed in a blur. I tried to focus in class, but my mind oscillated between fearfulness at the dire prophecies, suspicions about my own siblings, and denial that any of it was real. A giant wolf that was going to eat the
gods? Other worlds?

  Now that we were aware of what we were housing, we didn’t seem to be causing any miniature natural disasters, which was good. Xander had ditched, so we were one short at lunch, anyway. I’d just about let out my breath when Joaquin came swaggering in. I choked on my milk, my face igniting with heat. Crap. I’d almost forgotten I’d have to see him at school every day. After seeing him as I had, it was hard to look him in the eye.

  “Hey, Gwennie,” he said, strolling over to our table and dropping into an empty seat across from me. He flipped his floppy blonde hair back and wiggled his eyebrows at me. “How’s my favorite little voyeur?”

  I stared at my meatloaf as if I might find actual meat in it.

  “Dude, don’t even,” Zeke said, sliding an arm possessively around my shoulders.

  “Hey, chill,” Joaquin said, holding up both hands. “No judgement here. I enjoy a little peep show as much as the next person.”

  Eliot sighed. “Go away, Joaquin.”

  “Hey, I’m just saying,” Joaquin said. “I think Gwen owes me a little peek at the goods, don’t you? I mean, she got to see mine. It’s only fair, dude.”

  Zeke’s body stiffened. “Walk away now,” he said, his voice low and harder than I’d ever heard it.

  “Okay, okay, I’m going,” Joaquin said, standing. “You may have them all fooled because you look like a sweet little angel, Gwen, but I know you liked what you saw.”

  He grabbed his crotch and stuck out his obscenely long tongue, wagging it at me and winking before he sauntered off to harass Eliot’s abandoned lady-friends.

  “You okay?” Zeke asked, his arm still around me.

  “Fine,” I said, my face still burning. I barely knew Joaquin, but I had to admit, I had been admiring him under the shower. He wasn’t all big and brawny like Zeke, but he was built like a surfer. He looked good.

  But there was no way in hell he was ever seeing my “goods.”

  After school I rode home with Eliot and Finn. My phone arrived in the mail, and Eliot helped me activate it. Then we did homework and discussed how we could recognize, summon, or diagnose a giant among us. That night at dinner, Zeke invited me to watch him play football on Saturday.