Maybe Fate: A Novel (New Adult Paranormal Romance)

by Brint, Cynthia

  The explosion was loud, I covered my ears and ducked away with a scream. Nethiun, no!

  Looking back, I saw the giant hole in the ground where the man I loved had been only seconds ago. My heart was jittery, hands covering my mouth. “Nethiun! Oh, God, no! No, no!”

  His voice came from above; relaxed, if a bit tired. “Really, we don't need to do this, Ethlyn.”

  “Oh,” he growled, whipping his head back to see the man floating in the sky. “We really do.”

  My relief was short lived. Stumbling back down the grass, I watched in distress as Ethlyn zipped into the air after Nethiun.

  They were a blur, vanishing here or there, darting around to avoid or attack. I didn't want to watch, but it was impossible to look away.

  Why, why are they doing this? They don't need to fight!

  Nethiun was faster, as far as I could tell. Before, when I had seen them tangle, I hadn't witnessed the pale-eyed twaelin striking back.

  This time, I had a front row seat.

  He flickered in behind Ethlyn, his smirk solid. Ripping fingers and blackened energy sank into the man's shoulder.

  Ethlyn screamed, a sound so awful I shook in my guts. I couldn't move, couldn't do anything as Nethiun tore a chunk from his target.

  “Stop! You need to stop, please!”

  They didn't listen, they didn't even look.

  Grunting, Ethlyn spun away, holding where I thought he should have been bleeding. But there was no blood, or if there had been, it was drowned out by a cut that hinted at something flowing and blue inside of him.

  What... what is that?

  Nethiun vanished again, leaving Ethlyn spinning in place. It wasn't long before the blonde appeared, flashing in with his palm aiming.

  The ball of light exploded, catching the other twaelin in his back. Ethlyn roared, eyes wild as he hit the earth.

  He's outmatched, why is he fighting?

  Nethiun flickered in beside the crumpled man, his face too amused. He's enjoying this, they both are, aren't they?

  “You should have left,” Nethiun sighed, wistful. Reaching down, he grabbed Ethlyn, lifting him by the front of his jacket.

  With gold eyes like lava, Ethlyn swung his arm, grazing Nethiun's cheek as a cat might. The cut was small, red blood dripping. “Shut up, just shut up,” he hissed.

  Frowning, Nethiun slammed his fist into Ethlyn's abdomen, then dropped him to the ground. Touching his face, he eyed the crimson on his fingers. “Tsk, a surface wound.” With a horrible smile, he lifted his hand, crackling onyx burning in the center. “Either way, I hope your Corpse King is ready for you to be useless for a bit.”

  “Stop!” I shouted, my legs pumping to take me over to the pair. Nethiun, hearing my voice, glanced my way.

  It was a clear mistake.

  With a quick movement, Ethlyn rushed forward, slamming his head into the man. Taking him to the earth, his palm came down, a razor that left a baseball sized wound in Nethiun's side.

  I hadn't heard him in pain before, it was something I never wanted to hear again.

  Sobbing in panic, I arrived as Ethlyn punched him in the jaw, sending him hard back into the ground. “Stop it, stop! Please!”

  I didn't know what I was going to do. I surprised us all when I shoved into Ethlyn, trying to knock him off of Nethiun. The man I loved looked dazed.

  Wide-eyed, Ethlyn scoffed at me and grabbed me by the wrist. I winced, slamming my foot into his knee, but he didn't seem to feel it.

  Nethiun was flat on his back, stunned by the violent attacks. I hoped he wasn't too hurt, but my worry shifted when Ethlyn climbed to his feet.

  “What do you think you can do?” he asked me; voice soft, menacing.

  Tears made my eyes blurry, but I didn't miss when I slapped him across the face. “What's wrong with you? Why are you doing this?” I shouted.

  He stared at me, face tweaking into a sneer, even with the bitter sadness in his eyes. “I'm showing you what we can do, what we are. Look at us, at this.” Holding me so tight it hurt, he pulled me close, gesturing to the awful missing chunk in his shoulder. Inside, it was a rippling world of blue energy, nothing human at all.

  “This,” he hissed, “is what we are. This is what you're falling in love with, monsters who can't die. We can't die,” he repeated, eyes wild, crazed. “And we can't ever be human, even when we do whatever it takes to make them happy, to answer promises.”

  I didn't know what he meant, I thought he might be on the verge of cracking. Shaking my head, crimson hair flying, I tried to hit him again. “Just stop, just end this and leave us alone, please! Fighting like this, it's awful! Even if you can't die, doesn't it hurt?”

  “Does it hurt?” He laughed; manic, it set my cells alive with warning bells. He still held my arm, and easily, to my absolute terror and disgust, he brought my fingers into the wound. “Of course it hurts! But what does pain matter, what does anything matter, when you can't die?” He laughed again, looking me right in the eye. “When you're immortal, nothing can scare you. Nothing.”

  I wanted to say more, but I was shaking with absolute anxiety. I was scared, truly scared, and any words I had vanished.

  No, no, this is all wrong! How did this go so wrong?

  His gash, it felt... warm.

  Inside of me, I felt a flicker of something. It was odd, a hot ball that I thought meant I would vomit. Instead, it grew, an electric current that raced through me until it rolled down my limbs.

  It slid down the arm that was buried in Ethlyn, and together, we shared a look of surprise.

  But then his look quickly changed to that of dire pain.

  Screaming, he fell to his knees, desperately yanking at my arm to get me away. But I couldn't let go, it was like a magnet was keeping me stuck inside the revealed world of blue and white energy.

  No, what's happened? What is this!?

  Stunned, I looked on as something in me, something that was me, sucked hungrily at the power inside of Ethlyn.

  I was pulsing with it, with him, and unable to cut off from it. “No,” I whispered, helpless as I knew I was doing something impossible.

  Somehow, I was killing him.

  Reaching up, he tried again to push me away. That time, as I stared into the pure fear boiling in his face, I grit my teeth and ripped away with another sob. “No,” I heard myself say, though I couldn't feel my mouth move. “No, no no.”

  Ethlyn shivered, hugging himself hard as he dragged his body across the ground, away from me. “How,” he asked me, staring with such horror. I'd never been on the other side of such a look.

  I hated it, I hated it so much.

  “How, how did you do that?” he asked again, backpedaling until he was crouched, panting beside an orange tree.

  Around us, the rain that had been threatening for so long finally began to fall. I felt it hit my cheeks, my shoulders, washing down my limbs where no hint of blood or blue remained.

  Nethiun was watching us, as he had been for some time. He was holding his side, saying nothing.

  I turned his way, wondering what I had done. What I was.

  Ethlyn made a pained grunt, then with apparent difficulty, for it took him longer than I had ever seen, he flashed out of existence. Running away, running from me.

  I didn't remember falling to the ground, only that I was kneeling in mud. Arms surrounded me, Nethiun holding me close. “No,” I cried, shutting my eyes as tears mixed with warm rain. “No, don't touch me, I might hurt you, too.”

  “Shh,” he said, and that was all.

  What else could he have even said?

  Chapter 19.

  Nethiun

  What had happened, what I had seen...

  It
was impossible.

  Yet, I knew in that moment as I watched Gale draining Ethlyn towards the brink of destruction, what my Mistress had dreamed of.

  What her prediction of dread, her vision of Gale Everette, had meant.

  In true, terrible conciseness, I knew the truth...

  And I loathed it.

  Holding the girl close, I listened to her rattled crying. She'd been at it for some time, the rain soaking us as I kept her close, thought about my next move.

  It's over now, everything I've been gaining, I'm about to lose it.

  “Shh,” I said to her again, for what had to be the fourth time. “Calm down, everything is fine.”

  “I'm a monster,” she sniffled. “A terrible thing, I'm not human.”

  “You're very human,” I said softly, soaking in her emotional distress and hating it even as I did so. I didn't recall ever wanting a human to be happy, but for Gale, it was all I desired.

  She said nothing for some time, simply trembling in the rain. “I'm going to take you to your dorm,” I whispered.

  “I can't go back, I'm not—”

  “Yes,” I interrupted her. “You're going back, because everything is fine. You're not a monster, Gale,” I said firmly. Reaching for her, I tilted her chin and forced her gaze to mine. I wanted to say more, but instead, I kissed her forehead gently.

  Her arms wound around me, embracing me as hard as she could. “Nethiun, how did I do that? I'm not crazy, that happened, right? I felt it, something in me as reaching, trying to take everything he was, into me.”

  I don't know, I have no answers, I thought sadly. But this, this is what I felt, I know that. When we made love, that thing was like a black hole... her energy wanted to consume ME. I'd thought I'd imagined it, but...

  But now it would change everything, this information.

  “Come on,” I said. Lifting her to her feet, I glanced around. “We'll talk about this another time.”

  Gale was silent, only leaning into me as we shifted through to my reality, then back into hers. Standing in the alley between buildings on her campus, I looked up at the dark sky. “You're going to get asked why you're soaked, it hasn't been raining here still.”

  “I don't care. Who cares about that?”

  Frowning, I walked with her to her dorms, thankful it was late enough that no one was out to stare at us.

  When we were in the hall, I turned her towards me. “Gale, listen. Please try to relax, alright? What happened was intense, you're right, but Ethlyn will be fine. You didn't kill him, not at all.”

  If that idiot hadn't started a fight, this wouldn't have even happened.

  It was too easy to be angry at him, even though I knew I was wrong. If Gale had this power, whatever it was, it would have come out eventually.

  But I would have had more time, more...

  More of her.

  Hindsight was useless, in the end.

  The girl I loved, for what else could I possibly call it, looked up at me with her beautiful features twisted in pain. “And you, you're alright?”

  Blinking, I looked down, gesturing at the place the wound was; the area was already covered up by human skin. “It'll heal quickly, trust me. Now, go inside, dry off before you become sick and get yourself in worse shape than me.”

  Her mouth almost smiled. Almost.

  She vanished into her room, and soon, I flickered away as well.

  I had no choice.

  ****

  I would have delayed, if I thought it would have helped. I wasn't so naive.

  On bent knee, I appeared before my Mistress, my Queen of Dreams. With my head hung as low as it could be, I waited for her to acknowledge me.

  The whisper sound of her satin shifting when she adjusted on her throne was as loud as a siren to me. “Nethiun, what are you here to report?”

  Don't tell her, don't tell her, don't...

  But she would find out, one way or another. If I dared to keep this from her—something I had never, until that moment, considered doing—I knew it would be my downfall.

  A servant who can't be trusted is one not worth keeping around.

  Hating myself, hating everything about what I was, I parted my lips reluctantly. “Gale Everette has almost destroyed Ethlyn. The girl can drain our energy, somehow... somehow she can kill us.”

  The silence above me was painful.

  “Yes,” she sighed. “That sounds right. I had a suspicion, but I wanted it confirmed. In my very own dream, I felt myself turned to nothing. She was my source of dread, now I know why.”

  Again, there was a long moment. I didn't want to look at her. I didn't need to see her face.

  When she reached down, long nails guiding my gaze upwards, I didn't resist. Her elegant face, those melting, flat eyes that were the color of blood. My Mistress watched me fiercely, even with such a cool expression.

  Her glossy lips spread. The words I had expected, yet longed to never hear, flowed to me like poison.

  “Go now, and kill Gale Everette.”

  Chapter 20.

  Gale Everette

  Becky's face could not have been more surprised when she saw me. If I hadn't been so numb, so nauseous, it would have been funny.

  “Gale! What happened to you?” Jumping to her feet, dressed in only a thick sweater and some thin shorts, I knew she had been preparing for bed.

  Looking down at myself, I watched the water dripping on the floor. “A lot.”

  “You're soaked,” she gasped, looking at me, reading me too quickly. “How did this happen?”

  Lifting my arms, I stared at them like they belonged to someone else. “I... fell.”

  “You fell?”

  “Into the pond, in the park. Yeah.”

  Becky looked me straight in the eye, but she didn't breathe a word about my obvious lie. “We need to get you out of these, dry you off. You're going to get horribly sick otherwise. Come on.”

  I didn't fight her. Letting her strip me, I did everything she said; arms up, head down, step out of those shoes... I did it all.

  I didn't even have the heart to feel shame, being naked in front of her. I think she noticed that the most, I could feel how she was eyeing me warily.

  She didn't ask me anymore questions until she'd gotten me dried off with a towel, and stuffed into my familiar warm sweats.

  For some time, she left. When she returned, she had a mug she'd filled with hot water from the jug in the hall. Dropping a tea bag in it, she gently forced the steaming cup into my hands.

  “Now,” she said crisply, sitting on my bed beside me, “what is all this about?”

  How could I even begin to explain it?

  “It's nothing.”

  “Gale, the face you're making means something happened.”

  Tilting my head down, I inhaled the steam. Yes, something happened. Something awful and beyond any logical scope.

  She seemed to sense my reluctance. With a soft, soothing voice, she spoke again. “Gale, I have a strong hunch this is about you and Nethiun.”

  It's about him, and everything, and...

  “Did something happen between you two? Did you have a fight?”

  I didn't like the guessing game, but I didn't have a desire to speak.

  Sighing, she reached out and hugged me close. Putting her chin on my head, she whispered. “I have another suspicion, but I've been afraid to ask about it. It's been on my mind all day.”

  Once more, I had nothing to say. I imagined she had to be getting frustrated with me. I felt bad about that, but there was no discussion to be had.

  Becky pulled away, staring at the side of my face through my curtain of hair. “I saw you with Ethan today. I
n the food court, that is.”

  Finally, I turned and looked at her. “You... saw us?” Of course, we drew enough attention. I was stupid, thinking that place was private enough.

  “Yeah, I did.” I expected her to be angry. Upset, at the very least. All I could see was a strangely remorseful glow in her blue eyes. “Listen, Gale... I don't know what happened to you tonight, but I'm not a dummy. I have an idea what's going on.”

  Shifting on the bed, clutching the mug, I couldn't look away. “You do?” She does?

  Shrugging, she tugged at a thick curl of hair. “Ethan has a thing for you. It was obvious even that first night you met him at the club. He went from hot on me, to cold in just a day.”

  My eyebrows trickled upwards. “Oh, uh.”

  “Like I said, it's okay.” Her smile was so understanding, it was like razors in my blood. “He likes you. It isn't what I expected—not to be mean, I swear!—I just... I'm not used to guys burning out on me.” Laughing sheepishly, she glanced away. “I'm always the one to toss them aside.”

  She thinks Ethan left her for me... she doesn't know, can't know, that I told him to back off of her.

  But is she wrong? Didn't he tell me how he felt?

  It was depressingly funny, how small that situation seemed, now.

  “Listen,” she said, turning back and placing her hands on my shoulders. “I care about you too much to fight over someone. So, if you like him back, I won't get in your way.”

  I was surprised my tongue didn't simply fall out. “Oh, Becky, no. I don't—that isn't—Ethan and I aren't going to...” Thinking about him was terrible, his face kept contorting into that mask of pain and fear. She's too nice to me, she thinks I'm worked up over guy trouble and she's even willing to give me a pass to date the man she told me she thought she was falling in love with.

  More than ever, I wanted to tell her everything. To grab her hands and explain about the twaelin, about Nethiun, about our English teacher...