by I. T. Lucas
On their way to the underground parking structure, Turner stopped at the village square. “How did they clean it up so fast?”
“I guess it was a combined effort.”
“You think the Guardians pitched in? They were all drunk as hell last night. I was sure everyone would be passed out and nursing a hangover.”
Bridget shrugged. “Some of them might be. But don’t forget you’re talking about immortal Scotsmen. They have quite the capacity. Still, I think most of the work was done by the Odus.”
“Fascinating creatures. I would love to tinker with one and see how it’s made.”
“Not allowed. They are too precious.”
“I bet. I would hate to see the technology fall into the wrong hands. Imagine an army of them.” Victor held the elevator door open for her.
“I guess that’s why Annani prohibits it.”
The elevator lurched, going down so fast it made Bridget’s stomach uncomfortable.
“Does she have the ultimate say in everything?” Victor asked as they exited at the garage level.
“The Odus belong to her. They were a gift from her betrothed. The four serving her children are technically on loan.”
“What about other things?”
Victor opened the trunk of Bridget’s village car, as she referred to the specially modified vehicle, and dropped their luggage inside.
“It depends. She doesn't interfere in most things. But it’s up to her. So ultimately she has the final say.”
Bridget sat behind the wheel and waited until he joined her on the passenger side.
“Am I not allowed to drive this car?”
“Do you want to drive?”
“No. I just wondered.”
Bridget engaged the autonomous driving and leaned back in the driver seat. “Kian didn’t say anything to that effect.”
A grimace appeared on his face and then disappeared in a nanosecond, but she’d caught it. “What is it? Are you mad at him for yesterday?”
“No.”
Okay…
Not all was well in Victor’s world if he was back to yes or no answers.
“Let’s plot to get back at him,” she said to lighten the mood. “What can you do that he cannot compete with?”
“Die.”
Wow. It seemed Victor’s world was worse than not well. It was undergoing a major earthquake.
Why was he in such a crappy mood? Was it about last night’s unintended declaration of love?
But then only moments ago he’d seemed fine, discussing the Odus and Annani in his usual curious manner. Bridget went over every word in her head, trying to figure out what the trigger had been, but came up with nothing.
“What’s eating you, Victor? Are you sorry that you told me you loved me?”
Her question seemed to have startled him. “No, of course not. I’m glad I did that.”
“Then what? You’re worrying me.”
He looked at her with haunted eyes. “What if I’m not a Dormant?”
“That was always the most likely possibility.”
“For you. Not for me. In my gut, I believed that I was.”
“What changed?”
He shook his head, opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
Her phone rang. As a quick glance revealed Kian’s face on the screen, she pressed a button on the steering wheel to sync the call with the car’s audio system.
“Bridget.” His deep voice came booming out of the car speakers.
“Hi, Kian. I’m here with Victor.”
“Good. I need both of you. Get ready. Tonight at nine we are having the induction ceremony.”
A lump formed in Bridget’s throat. Kian had said that he wanted to do it after the wedding, but she hadn’t expected him to do it the very next day.
“What’s the rush?” She glanced at Victor.
His expression remained impassive as if the conversation didn’t concern him.
“I thought you wanted it done as soon as possible.”
“Yes, that’s true. I just didn’t expect it today.”
“Annani is leaving tomorrow, and I asked her to give Turner her blessing. She did it for Syssi and Andrew when they were transitioning; I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try it on Turner. You never know what mumbo-jumbo might actually work.”
That had finally brought out a reaction from Victor. “Thank you. I’m deeply honored that she would do that for me.”
“You should be.”
46
Turner
Ever since Turner had come to the realization that Kian must’ve bitten him, and that his newfound vigor was caused by the injection of venom, he had been wracking his brain about how to deliver the news that he wasn’t a Dormant to Bridget.
Would she accept him in her life as a human?
If the venom had indeed cured his cancer, then not all was lost. He still had a couple of healthy decades in him, which was better than what he’d had before.
But would it be enough?
Maybe in the beginning, but not for long.
The phone call from Kian was like an injection of hope, blasting the sinking sensation in Turner’s stomach to the hell where it belonged.
It seemed like becoming an immortal was still on the cards.
If Kian was going all out for him and going to such lengths as asking his mother, the goddess, to give Turner her blessing, he must’ve believed there was a chance.
Otherwise, the most he would have done was go through the motions and not make a big production out of it.
Involving the goddess was a big deal.
Things didn’t add up, though, and it bothered Turner. Perhaps the easiest way to solve the mystery was to confront Kian about what he had done and why. On the other hand, it wasn’t a good idea to piss the guy off. Especially not on a day he was about to sink those fangs of his into Turner’s neck.
Again.
Victor walked into the master bathroom and closed the door behind him. Standing in front of the mirror, he unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, then examined his neck in the small magnifying one he used for shaving.
Left side, right side, there was nothing.
Except, there probably wouldn’t be any sign of it even if Kian had bitten him. According to Bridget, the saliva of an immortal male had healing properties.
“Victor? Are you in there?” She knocked on the door.
“Yeah, you can come in.”
She pushed the door open and then gave his bare torso an appreciative look. “What are you doing?”
“I was about to shave,” he lied.
For some reason, he didn’t want to share his suspicions with her. Mainly because he had no proof other than circumstantial evidence and his sudden robust energy and sense of well-being, but also because he didn’t want to worry her or conversely raise her hopes unrealistically.
It was enough that he was letting himself cling to hope based on a conspiracy theory that might have existed only in his mind.
Bridget lifted a hand to her lips, covering them with two trembling fingers. “I’m scared, Victor. I know I should put on a strong front for you, but I can’t help it.”
He turned away from the mirror and pulled her into an embrace, gently rocking her body that was now trembling all over. “I have a good feeling about this.”
She looked up at him with misty eyes. “What kind of a feeling?”
He took a long moment to collect his thoughts. Coming up with the best way to verbalize it wasn’t easy. Victor didn’t like using expressions like gut feelings, premonitions, intuition, or knowing something in one’s heart. Those were cop-out explanations for what was in reality complicated data processing happening on the subconscious level.
He had a theory, one he’d developed as a way to explain his uncanny prediction ability.
The mind was taking in many more stimuli than the conscious brain could process and submit for acknowledgment. That information was stored somewhere for later use. But it wa
sn’t stored as raw data. The mind was trying to make sense of it, organizing it to the best of its ability, and basing the organization structure on patterns it was familiar with.
If a person glanced at a complicated diagram without knowing the first thing about its components or what it represented, whatever got registered in the subconscious would follow a familiar pattern that might have nothing to do with the original purpose of the diagram.
In a dream, it might manifest as a map, or a maze.
But the same diagram would produce an entirely different dream for the specialist who understood it.
The problem was that the subconscious didn’t share its hidden database, and the thinking part of the brain had no access to the clues it was using to make its constructs. If Turner had access to the clues his subconscious had collected and was basing his gut feeling on, he could have made a more educated prediction.
“It’s hard to explain. Especially since this is such a subjective thing.”
“Try.”
He took her by the hand and led her to the bed. Sitting down, he pulled her to sit next to him.
“What I do for a living, what I’ve been doing most of my adult life, is collecting data. Everything gets stored up here.” He pointed at his head. “But that doesn’t mean I actively remember every little piece of information. It’s just there.”
Bridget looked at him as if she was waiting for him to get to the point.
“What I’m trying to say is that my gut feeling is probably based on real facts, but I don’t have access to them. My brain picked up the appropriate tidbits, building a scenario that exists only in my subconscious mind.”
She nodded. “Go on.”
Turner smoothed his hand over the back of his head. “From the very start, I didn’t feel as if I’m being irrational about this. You know me; I’m a logical guy. I also didn’t feel suicidal. I truly believed that transitioning was a viable solution to my problem.”
“But you weren’t aware of all the factors.”
“True. I had a few moments of doubt when I learned that I needed to be young and healthy to transition. My conviction was shaken on several occasions, but it withstood the shockwaves without shattering. I still believe that I will transition, and that all will end well.”
Bridget sighed. “Are you sure your conviction is not the result of wishful thinking?”
“I can’t be sure. But sometimes there is no way around a leap of faith.”
47
Bridget
A leap of faith.
Victor, the most cerebral person Bridget had ever known, was willing to take a leap of faith, and she was incapable of joining him.
Maybe it was her medical training, maybe she was too much of a scientist at heart, or maybe she was just terrified that he was indeed a Dormant and about to walk into mortal danger, but she just couldn’t trust fate blindly and hope for the best.
Besides, her best wasn’t his.
If Victor wasn’t a Dormant, tonight was going to be an interesting experience for him, and in the event that the venom helped him in some way, a chance of a medical discovery for her. Except, Roni’s repeated attempts at transition had taught her that the venom couldn’t cure underlying medical conditions. Until Roni got better on his own, he couldn't transition.
Which should have put her at ease. Even if Victor was a Dormant, he wouldn’t transition tonight.
So why was she having a panic attack? Why did she have the absurd impulse to make love to Victor one last time before they went down to the gym because it might be her last chance to retain something of him?
It was ridiculous.
The only reason to fret was if she believed he would go into transition, which she logically had to dismiss.
Still, that gut feeling Victor had been talking about was affecting her.
For some reason, her mind and her gut were not in agreement. If Bridget listened to the mind, which she usually did, she should relax because nothing was going to happen. But if she listened to her gut, which was doing crazy flips, she should panic because it was telling her that after tonight nothing would ever be the same.
The question was whether it would be a new beginning or the end.
No clue. Not a freaking clue.
Besides, hoping to get pregnant was an even crazier leap of faith than Victor’s belief that he was going to transition successfully. She wondered what the statistical likelihood of those two remote possibilities were.
Both were terrible, but which one was worse?
Did it matter?
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Bridget forced a smile. “I have to be.”
He pulled her close against his body. “It’s going to be okay.”
Empty words.
It was out of her hands, there was only so much she could do, and she should get busy doing it.
Taking a deep breath, Bridget shifted into her productive mode. “Going into a sparring match with Kian, you need to be well rested and well fed but not too full.” She didn’t add that it might be his last meal. “I can order takeout from Aussie, a couple of juicy steaks for you and a salad for me, or we can go out. There is still plenty of time.”
“What do you want to do?”
Crumple in a heap on the floor and cry my eyes out.
Bridget had already mourned Victor once. She was an old pro at that. Except, she had to convince herself that her morbid thoughts were unwarranted. Nothing was going to happen, and she was going to keep that on a loop in her head.
Out loud she said, “It’s your day. You decide.”
“I want to spend every moment of it with you and not waste a minute on other people. Let’s order takeout. Do they deliver?”
“They can deliver to the guard station.”
“Excellent.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it.
“Didn't you want to shave?”
Bridget desperately needed a few moments alone to freak out in private.
“I’m going to take a quick shower first.”
Thank the merciful Fates. She was close to losing it in front of Victor. But she could hold it off for a couple more minutes until he got in the shower.
“I’ll place the order while you do that.”
The one good thing about Turner being a human was that he wouldn’t hear her over the noise in the shower. She could scream her head off if she wanted.
The neighbors might call the police, but that was beside the point.
Instead, she called Julian.
“Hi, Mom.”
“I need you to tell me that nothing is going to happen to Turner tonight.”
He chuckled. “You’re the one who has experience with transitioning Dormants. All I know is what you’ve told me.”
“Okay. From what I’ve told you, what are his chances of transitioning tonight?”
“None.”
“Thank you. I’ll see you at the ceremony.”
“Hold on,” he called before she had a chance to disconnect the call.
“Yes?”
“What’s going on? You sound like you’re freaking out.”
“That’s because I am. In my head, I know there is nothing to worry about, but my gut is doing somersaults. Why do you think I called you?”
“Because you needed a second opinion.”
“Right. But I’m not sure about what. Probably whether I’m sane or not.”
“You’re sane. You’re just too close, and you’re not thinking like a doctor. It’s natural. That’s why doctors shouldn’t treat family members.”
Bridget took in a deep breath. “You’re right. Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Any time.”
48
Turner
Turner felt on top of the world.
The two delicious steaks Bridget had ordered from Aussie had sated him without making him feel overstuffed, probably because he’d skipped the mash potatoes and only ate the side salad that came with the dish.
&
nbsp; After dinner, he had made love to Bridget and would have happily gone for another round, but she’d refused, claiming he needed to keep his strength up for the fight.
The only reason he hadn’t insisted was that she’d been so stressed out that he’d been unable to bring her to a climax for the first time ever.
Usually, Bridget was highly responsive, and her uninhibited nature meant that she didn’t hold anything back. But not tonight.
Tonight, she was subdued and contemplative, and every time he’d tried to reassure her that everything was going to be okay, she’d snapped at him and then apologized immediately after that.
“Are you ready, love?” he asked as she emerged from the bedroom, wearing a plain T-shirt and jeans. Apparently, the induction ceremony didn’t warrant formal attire.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Are you sure jeans are okay? Isn’t the goddess going to attend?”
He was looking forward to it. Kian would have to introduce him to the Clan Mother, and he would finally get to talk to her face to face. Not that he had any illusions about conducting a conversation with the goddess, but even if the only things he was allowed to say were hello and thank you, he would consider it a great honor.
Bridget shook her head. “Annani is not going to attend the ceremony. She will only give you her blessing if you go into transition and experience difficulty.”
“That’s disappointing. I was hoping to meet her in person. She smiled at me, you know.”
Bridget arched a brow. “When?”
“At the wedding, when you and the other bridesmaids went to change outfits, Anandur dragged me on stage to do the sword dance. The goddess was watching, and I looked at her. She looked back and smiled. I almost tripped over my own feet.” He opened the front door, led Bridget out, then locked the door behind him.
“Here you go.” He handed her the keys.
As per Bridget’s advice, he was wearing loose exercise clothes. His wallet was already in her purse.
She dropped the keys inside it. “I’m sorry that I missed it. I like watching you dance. Especially in a kilt.” She waggled her brows. “You have very nice legs.”