Dark Secrets Unveiled (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance Book 45)

by I. T. Lucas

  “Thank you,” Sari whispered through a tight throat.

  She wasn’t a great believer in the power of prayer, but she was desperate enough to give anything a try.

  Crouching in front of her, Alena put her hands on her knees. “We will hold the first group prayer today at dinner, with you leading it, and Mother will give David her blessing at the same time.” Her sister smiled. “The prayer will turbocharge the blessing and vice versa.”

  It sounded good in theory, but Sari couldn’t be in two places at once. “Can we do the blessing first and then the prayer? That way I can take part in both.”

  Annani shook her head. “I need to be alone with David when I give him my blessing.”

  That sounded suspicious. “Why?”

  “When I bless a Dormant, I focus all of my positive energy directly into him or her.” Annani cast Sari an apologetic smile. “If there is anyone else with me in the room, my focus will split.” She took Sari’s hand. “We all want what is best for David, and in this case, it is best for you to lead the prayer while I bless him.”

  Hopefully, her mother was as sincere as she sounded, and her so-called blessing wasn’t an excuse to be alone with David.

  It was a nasty thought, and Sari shoved it away.

  Her mother would never do anything to cause her anguish, and therefore she would do nothing to harm David.

  Sari looked at Alena. “I guess that I’m leading the prayer at dinner.” She turned to Syssi. “I will need help with that. I’ve never led a prayer before.”

  “Kian and I are here for you. Whatever you need, it is yours.”

  35

  Eleanor

  “That was out of this world.” Eleanor grinned at the guy who’d hooked her up to the virtual reality machine.

  What was his name? Barry? Bernard? Bartolommeo? He had stayed with her throughout the experience, monitoring her vitals.

  “I haven’t had this much fun in ages. Hell, I’ve never had that much fun.”

  It was hard to remember what was part of the virtual adventure and what was her real life. Both worlds felt equally solid, or rather equally confusing, and the line between the two was blurry.

  Heck, her real life was way more bizarre than the virtual adventure, but it was not nearly as exciting. In the real world, she never would have had the courage to do what she had done in the virtual one. And the best part was that throughout the adventure she hadn't been aware of the danger not being real, and she had still kicked it like a real badass.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” The guy started to remove the wires attached to her body.

  “It felt so real.” She peeled off one sticky pad and moved to the next.

  The door opened, and William walked in together with Kri. “How did it go?”

  “Awesome.” Eleanor rose to her feet. “I had the best time of my life.”

  Kri grinned. “I want to do that with Michael. He’s going to have a blast.”

  Eleanor elbowed her. “I bet you want to do the uncensored version with him.”

  The exhilaration of the chase had left her in a heightened state of arousal, and Kri was probably experiencing the same.

  Before the virtual experience, Eleanor had believed herself to be the cautious type, and she’d avoided danger whenever possible, but her avatar had helped her discover that she had the heart of a warrior, and that danger excited her.

  “Naturally. The adrenaline rush left me horny as hell.” Kri put her hand on William’s shoulder. “If you don’t need me, I would like to go home and do something about it.”

  William blushed. “I need your feedback, but I can start with Eleanor, and you can come back later whenever it’s convenient for you.”

  “Thanks.” Kri clapped him on the back and then offered her hand to Eleanor. “It was a pleasure playing with you.”

  “Same here. We should do that again.”

  “Definitely.”

  The three of them parted ways next to the big workroom, with Kri rushing out toward the elevators, and Eleanor following William into his office at the back of it.

  He cleared his throat. “I feel awkward asking this, but were there any sexual themes left in the program? I thought that my guys removed all of them.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “But you and Kri seemed very excited in a very particular way.”

  Given the casual attitude most other immortals had toward sex, William’s embarrassment was sweet, even refreshing.

  Eleanor leaned back in her chair. “Have you heard of combat rush?”

  “Warriors talk about it.” He turned his gaze to his monitor. “Some men get aroused in dangerous situations.”

  “That’s what happened to Kri and me.”

  “It’s supposedly caused by a surge in testosterone produced during battle, but I didn’t think that females might react in the same way. The chemistry is different.”

  Eleanor shrugged. “Maybe it’s the adrenaline, or perhaps Kri and I have more testosterone than other females. I’m not a doctor.”

  “Neither am I.” William swiveled the laptop toward her. “I assembled a list of questions, but if you can think of anything else, please add it in the comments field in the end. Your feedback will help us improve the program.”

  “No problem.”

  What she would rather have done was call Greggory and have wild phone sex with him, but since her line wasn’t private, that wasn’t going to happen.

  William pushed to his feet. “I’ll be in the other room if you need me.”

  Eleanor lifted her hand. “Hold on. I want to ask you something.”

  He sat back down. “Ask away.”

  “What about the tap on my phone? The goddess compelled everyone to adhere to the accord, so there is no more need to monitor my calls to Greggory.”

  William was a smart guy, and it didn’t take him long to figure out why she needed privacy for those calls.

  A cute blush coloring his cheeks, he nodded. “You are right, but I can’t do that without getting permission first. I have to call the boss.”

  “I hope that by boss, you mean Onegus, not Kian.”

  He regarded her with suspicious eyes. “What difference does it make?”

  Eleanor shifted in her chair. “It seems like too trivial a request to bother Kian with, and I don’t want him to get annoyed with me.”

  “He won’t mind. I’ll send him a text, and all he will have to do is answer yes or no.” William rose to his feet. “He will be much angrier if I don’t ask him first.”

  “In that case, go ahead.” She waved him off. “I don’t want Kian to get mad at either of us.”

  As William left the room, Eleanor let out a breath. Despite the signing of the accord and Annani’s compulsion ensuring everyone’s adherence to it, Kian would most likely say no. The guy was suspicious bordering on paranoid, and he didn’t like her.

  With a sigh, she started answering William’s questions, which regrettably didn’t come with multiple choice answers. Each one required a detailed, written summary. Kri had done the smart thing by finding an excuse not to do it.

  When William returned, she was done with about ten percent of the questionnaire.

  “Kian approved your request.” He rounded the desk and sat down. “I’ll call the security office right now and ask them to terminate the tap on your line. It will be removed from the dedicated security to the clan’s regular vault.”

  “I thought that you would remove the tap completely. After all, I can’t call anyone other than Greggory and people in the village, so there is no reason to leave the tap on.”

  “All calls made from clan phones are recorded, but the recordings are placed in a virtual vault that no one accesses unless there is a very good reason for it. Your calls will be completely private.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Who decides what’s a very good reason to open the vault?”

  “Edna. If something happens, like a clan member goes missing, or in the case of a criminal inves
tigation, she can be petitioned to grant access to the recordings in the vault. She would never do that lightly.”

  “I don’t like it, but I get it. It’s a good security measure.”

  “I agree. We didn’t have anything like that until recently. Turner suggested it, and we implemented it right away.”

  “But if everyone knows that their phone calls are being recorded, which I assume that they do since you are telling me about it, they will just use burner phones to make calls they want to remain private.”

  “True, but criminal activity is not a big concern in the village. A clan member getting abducted is.”

  “What are the chances of that?”

  “Slim, but it’s happened before. Not that Amanda’s phone calls being recorded would have helped us find her.”

  Amanda had been kidnapped?

  “How did you find her? And who took her?”

  William smiled. “That’s one hell of a story.” He pulled out his phone. “But first, let me take care of your phone tap.”

  36

  Sari

  Sari appreciated her family’s support, but she was glad when Kian and Syssi had left with Amanda and Alena so she could go back to David’s room. Annani had stayed behind to keep her company, and she invited her to join her.

  “I hope that you don’t mind.” Sari pulled a chair out for her mother and another for herself. “But I get even more anxious whenever I’m not right here by David’s side.”

  “I do not mind, my child. You need me, and I want to be here for you.” She smiled. “Besides, Bridget said that Turner hearing people tell him stories helped him cling to life. I could talk for several months and not run out of fascinating tales to keep David engaged.”

  “I bet. If it was up to me, he would probably be bored.”

  “I am sure that is not true.”

  “It is. My life is not very exciting. I can talk on and on about the businesses I run for the clan, but I doubt David would find that interesting.” Sari sighed. “Right now, though, I would have given anything for less excitement. I hate feeling helpless.”

  “You are not helpless, Sari. You have me, and I will not let David perish. You have my word.”

  “I wish I could believe it.”

  “You can.” Her mother patted her knee. “There are forces in the universe you know nothing about.”

  “And you do?”

  Annani smiled. “I have seen enough to know that my knowledge is extremely limited, and I am humble enough to admit it.”

  Sari chuckled. “The word humble and you do not belong in the same sentence.”

  Looking at Sari down her nose, Annani rearranged her skirt. “I do not flaunt my humility as a way to make myself appear grander, but I am smart enough to realize that my seemingly vast knowledge is not even a speck of dust in the enormity of cosmic reality. Regrettably, many human scientists lack humility, and so do you. If you admit that you do not know everything, you will open yourself to hope and trust.”

  Perhaps her mother was right and Sari needed a dose of humility. It was pride in her intellect that prevented her from trusting the Fates and their plans for her, and the same pride made her doubt her mother’s promise.

  With that realization, a sense of relief settled upon her. It was okay to hope, to believe that everything would end well. It wasn’t stupid, or naive.

  “Thank you.” She took her mother’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “That helped.”

  “I am glad. Now let me tell you a story that both you and David will find fascinating.”

  Sari’s head whipped toward her mother. “Are you going to finally tell me what really happened between you and David?”

  Annani nodded. “Not David, but a man called Gudbrand who might have been his prior incarnation. I did not want to tell you the story because it is not one I am proud of, and also because it might taint your relationship with David. But Alena convinced me that you need to know.”

  Thank you, Alena. “She is right. Guessing what it could have been is much worse.”

  Annani grimaced. “I am not sure. Gudbrand was my lover.”

  “I know that already. But as you’ve said, David is not Gudbrand.”

  “No, he is not. And the more I get to know him, the less he reminds me of Gudbrand. In fact, I am not even sure that it was him. Gudbrand was arrogant and selfish, while David is none of those things.”

  “He might have worked on improving his character throughout his subsequent incarnations. Isn’t that the entire purpose of the never-ending cycle? Through its own suffering, the soul learns to be compassionate and selfless.”

  “I do believe that is the purpose, but Gudbrand did not learn anything useful during that lifetime. It ended prematurely.”

  David had suspected that, as had Sari. “At your hands?”

  Annani shook her head. “My hands did not wield the sword that dealt him the fatal wound, but they might as well have. Gudbrand was enraged, and in that state, I was not able to control his mind. Instead, I thralled his brother to defend me. He killed him.”

  Sari’s eyes widened. “That’s awful. Now I understand why you were reluctant to tell us the story. You must feel so guilty.”

  “I do.”

  “Did you command the brother to kill him?”

  “I commanded him to defend me, but in the state they both were, the outcome could not have been anything else. Gudbrand and Olek were both berserkers. Do you know what that means?”

  “Fierce warriors?”

  “They were trained to enter a trance-like fury on the battlefield, but a strong enough trigger could cause them to slip into that state at other times as well.”

  “What happened?”

  “Olek’s wife died in childbirth while Gudbrand was with me. He came charging in and demanded that I return her to him.”

  “Was he insane with grief?”

  “I am sure he was. But there was more to it than that. Everyone believed that I was a powerful priestess of Frella, and when he saw me glow, he was convinced that I was a demoness and could pull his wife from the great beyond. Needless to say, he was disappointed when I told him that I did not have her.”

  “He attacked you?”

  “Yes, and Gudbrand jumped to my defense, not because he wanted to save me, but because he wanted to kill me himself and spare Olek from Frella’s fury. At least that was what he said to his brother.”

  “Why did he want to kill you?”

  “I will never know. Olek surprised us while we were in the throes of passion, and the sudden intrusion broke my hold on Gudbrand’s mind. They both saw my glow and thought that I was a demoness. I couldn’t regain control of Gudbrand, and I was only able to thrall Olek.”

  Sari shook her head. The man David was now would have never reacted like that, and she had a hard time believing that he had been capable of killing a defenseless woman, a woman to whom he had just made love, even then. “I get it that primitive people were extremely superstitious and feared everything that was different, but he was your lover. He knew that you were a good person. Was your glowing skin enough of a reason for him to want to kill you?”

  As much as it bothered her to know that David’s prior incarnation had been her mother’s lover, his actions bothered her even more. Perhaps it had been a mistake to let herself fall for him so quickly. She didn’t really know David, and apparently, under the civilized and compassionate outer layer lay something dark and dangerous.

  “He was not thinking straight while in the berserker mode. To this day, I wonder what went through his mind and why he turned on me. Gudbrand might have believed that I had somehow caused Astrid's death, or he could have felt guilty for not being there for his brother in his time of need, or perhaps he just feared me. He also might have been bluffing to get Olek to stand down. Since I could not enter his mind in the state he was in, I will never know the real reason. Long story short, Gudbrand was older and stronger, but Olek delivered the killing blow.”

 
; Even after all the years that had passed, Annani’s eyes were full of pain as she told her story.

  Was it guilt? Or had she loved Gudbrand?

  “Did you love him?”

  “Khiann was the only man I ever loved, but I was fond of Gudbrand despite his shortcomings. He was strong, smart, and the future chieftain of his clan. I wanted him to father my child. Instead, I got him killed and ruined his brother’s life. Olek never got over the guilt of killing Gudbrand.”

  “Did he become the chieftain?”

  “If he did not get himself killed, then I am sure he did. I did not stay around to find out. I took my Odus and moved on.”

  37

  David

  David found it strange and disconcerting to return to his body. After floating above it, talking with Jonah, and seeing and hearing everything that went on, the darkness and silence felt like being in a grave.

  Is that what you want for me, Jonah?

  Was he even alive?

  Yeah, otherwise, he would be floating toward the light instead of being trapped in darkness.

  Finally, he had proof of near-death experience being real, but he couldn’t share it with anyone. The good part was that he no longer feared death. The bad part was that he craved it.

  If not for Sari, he would have never agreed to go back to his body. Her love for him and his concern for her kept him tethered to this world.

  He missed her so much. If he could at least hear her voice, it would brighten the horrible darkness he was in.

  As if someone had heard his prayer, he suddenly heard her say, “David is not Gudbrand.”

  It must have been a hallucination. Gudbrand was someone he’d dreamt about. There was no way Sari could know that name.

  “No, he is not,” he heard the goddess answer. There was no mistaking Annani’s voice. It was what people imagined angels sounded like. “And the more I get to know him, the less he reminds me of Gudbrand. In fact, I am not even sure that it was him. Gudbrand was arrogant and selfish, while David is none of those things.”