by Amy Marie
Before I could ask what she was going to say, Fizz suggested, “Shall we go into your office, sir?”
But I wanted to know. My what? Lorde was my what?
“Yes, good idea.”
“Why his office and not the living room?” I asked in a bored tone. I didn’t think the room we adjourned to mattered at all.
“No one goes into his office. The cleaning staff doesn’t touch it. The only people allowed in there are your mother and father,” Fizz explained.
I stopped in my tracks, frowning with my bewilderment. “What?”
“We’ll explain in the office,” Fizz stated and grabbed my arm, forcing me to continue moving. He’d never acted like this with me without reason, and this scared me, putting me on edge.
“What the hell?” I finally sputtered when Fizz dropped me into a seat in front of the massive desk. He continued to stand next to me, a hand on my shoulder, and I briefly wondered if he did that to keep me in place.
“I told you! I told you to take the threat seriously!” my father snarled, pacing behind his desk. Other than Fizz, he was the only one standing since my mother sat next to me in the other chair. That was odd, too, since she normally lounged on the couch closest to the fireplace with a throw blanket covering her legs.
My fear grew. “Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on here?” I shouted. “Why is this place safe, and the rest of the house isn’t? Why are you all freaking out over what happened this morning? I’ve had those kinds of feelings about people before. This isn’t anything new, yet you’re all acting like the end of the world has landed at our doorstep!” I turned my face up to stare at Fizz. “And what the fuck do you know that you haven’t told me?”
He smirked. The asshole actually smirked at me. “A lot.”
What the actual fuck? I tried to get up, but his hand held me down. “Let go,” I seethed.
“No, you are going to sit down and listen to what we have to say.”
“Let. Me. Go.” Each word was spoken slowly and in a deadly calm voice, however, he still did not remove his hand. In a fight, no matter if I fought dirty or clean, Fizz would wipe the floor with me. At this point, I didn’t care. Grabbing his hand, I tried to pull it off of me, but his fingers clutched the material of my shirt and held on tightly.
Bending at the waist, Fizz came nose to nose with me. “You are going to sit there, shut up, and listen to what your father has to say.”
“You’re fired!”
He looked amused. “You can’t actually fire me.”
“I pay you, I’m pretty sure I can.”
“No, the company hired me, and it’s the company I have the contract with, so you can’t fire me. As written in my contract, it would take a vote from the entire board to fire me, which is like an act of congress. Good luck with that.” He chuckled.
“What?” How did I not know this? Sure, my father is the one who initially hired Fizz, but how did I not know that little stipulation?
“If we can get on with this,” my father interrupted.
“Whatever.” At this point, if I wasn’t going to beat them, I might as well listen to what they had to say. My mom patted my arm closest to her. I didn’t want her comfort, yet I didn’t shrug it off or stop her. Moving back on topic, I declared, “This morning was nothing. I’ve had feelings like that before. There. Discussed. May I go home now?” Not that I was entirely comfortable returning to my apartment, but I wasn’t going to admit that to this group.
“No, not whatever and not discussed.” My father slammed his fist on his desk, making the pencil holder rattle and a few papers float to the floor.
“Calm down, Christoph,” Mom spoke softly, her voice melodic and gentle amidst the chaos.
Nodding, Dad ran both hands over his face, through his hair, and linked them together on the back of his neck as he blew out a deep breath. He looked both annoyed and scared. I’d never seen the wrinkles on his forehead so pronounced when he frowned. When had my father aged? Before now, he could have told people he was fifteen years younger than he was, and any number of strangers would have believed him. Not today, not now.
“What?” I demanded. I knew they were hiding something from me.
“The times you’ve had feelings like that before, have they ever been that strong or violent?” my father questioned, acting as though I hadn’t acted like a world-class spoiled brat a moment ago.
“No, but I’ve also never passed out for two days or fought my shift like I did last week.”
“When you were a kid, you used to love shifting. We had to tell you time and time again to be careful. Sometimes, you weren’t, but you never got caught. And then the kidnapping threats came, and we had to keep a closer eye on you because we knew someone was watching you,” my mother interjected.
I frowned, bewildered by what any of this had to do with what happened this morning. “I remember. It’s not that I don’t—”
Dad interrupted, “Wait.” He sounded tired and slumped into the chair behind his desk. “She’s not done.”
“I know you think shifting is some sort of punishment or curse, but sometimes, it’s the opposite. Sometimes, there is a blessing in the trials,” Mom continued. “When you were a boy, you told me you felt a pull toward a graveyard. You used to hate going into those things, said you could feel the dead surrounding you, and you didn’t like it. There were times when you would do whatever you could to avoid them, even walking a block out of your way. That day was different.”
“I remember. I stopped in the middle of crossing the street to go the opposite way of the cemetery, and something called to me. I thought I heard my name. So, I turned around, and before I knew it, I was standing over a freshly dug grave and found another kid. I wound up shifting and flew home to get help. Dad was the only one home because you were at some auxiliary meeting. I didn’t want to leave him. I felt bad that he fell in.”
“He didn’t fall in,” Dad said. “Someone pushed him in.”
Anger raced through my entire being. What the hell was wrong with me? That kid had been a stranger, and after that, I never saw him again. When I believed I had control over my emotions, I demanded, “What does this have to do with me?”
“This morning, you had a weird reaction to the maid, correct?”
“No, I thought I would panic everyone and enjoy a round of twenty questions,” I deadpanned.
“Was it the same as that day?” my father asked.
Groaning, I rolled my eyes. “Maybe?” I remembered my reaction, but time had skewed it all.
“Think about it,” my mother urged. Was it me, or were they trying to tell me something without actually telling me?
I leaned back in the chair and tilted my head back to rest against the hard wood that reached far higher than any part of my body, staring up at the ceiling, praying it would save me from this ordeal. It didn’t. “I don’t know.” I sat there for a few minutes, comparing my reaction to the boy with that of the woman. “No. With the kid, I felt the need to shift, but I didn’t necessarily want to leave him. Today, I wanted to run away and hide. I’ve felt a little like that around Mrs. Jeffries, but not that extreme. More like a be careful vibe instead of a we need to escape now vibe. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Pat Jeffries?” Mom gasped, her eyes immediately going to my father, her hand covering her mouth.
“Yes.” That one word was spoken hesitantly, and as more of a question than anything. Didn’t my dad feel the same things I did?
He answered my unspoken question himself, “Not everyone has the gift you do. All of us can sense other shifters or when someone or something is different. Your gift exceeds that. Your grandfather noticed it first. He was concerned we would try to cocoon you and warned us against that. He didn’t have the gift, but his father did. With Pat, I knew she wasn’t a normal person, but that’s the extent of what I could tell you. She’s been a good friend to your mother, and I was friends with her husband, Harry, before he passed away
.”
I still didn’t understand what they were getting at, but learning my father couldn’t sense everything I could, surprised me. Then again, it would also explain how the mystery maid had been able to come over to their house on more than one occasion without being thrown out. “I didn’t say she wasn’t good, I just say I always felt odd around her. So, what does this have to do with anything? Why bring up that kid?”
“What do you know about swans?” Dad questioned.
Was I really about to get a biology lesson? “They migrate, there are several different kinds, varying in color and size. Mute Swans, which we transform into, are the less vocal of the swans, but they can still make noise when they want or need to. In England, only the queen is allowed to eat them, although there is no record of her or any of the royal family doing so for over a century. In the United States, they are considered an invasive species. At one point, in Europe, swan populations were on the decline, but not any longer,” I repeated what I’d learned years ago in a bored tone.
“What about their mating habits?”
I squirmed. I suspected I knew where he was going with this, but it didn’t mean I was comfortable with it. Mom and Dad loved each other more than life itself. My grandparents were the same. But they had each found their mates, and when you found your pair, you didn’t want to live without them. It was the same as swans in the wild. “They mate for life. While the majority of them are male/female pairings, all female and all male pairings have been seen. They don’t care about gender. When they find their mate, that’s usually it for them. There have been times when a pairing will divorce or separate for a short period of time. Also, if a swan loses its mate, after a mourning period, the swan could try to find a new pair. It doesn’t always happen like that, though.” Did my voice really sound as breathless and choked as I thought it did?
“When you find your mate, the urge to shift and show off is too much to resist, and after, this all-encompassing peace takes over,” my father explained.
A thrumming pulsed in my ears, and I felt hot.
Dad stared pointedly at me. “What if I told you, the boy you found was Lorde?”
Forgotten was the panic, and instead, I sat up a little straighter. Lorde? My Lorde? Well, not mine…but Lorde? Lorde was in the hole. Lorde had been pushed in the hole by someone else. The fury rampaging within me had me gripping the arms of the chair, my fingers digging into the dark wood, my nails clawing through the varnish coating. “What?” I snarled, unable to swallow my emotions this time. The urge to find whoever had done that to him and to teach them a lesson overwhelmed me. It mattered not that he had grown up and was an adult now, someone who could more than likely take care of himself.
Fizz dropped his hand onto my shoulder again. “Calm down.”
Just as I opened my mouth to argue with him, my father spoke, “He’s your mate.”
I stared at him like he’d lost his mind. If the boy was indeed Lorde, yes, I had the urge to shift, and now, my swan was entirely at peace around him, but… No, it couldn’t be right. He couldn’t be my… It wasn’t possible. I didn’t believe in that stuff. It wasn’t going to happen for me.
Yet, even as I thought of every reason why it couldn’t be true, the swan inside me preened and assured me it was. It was what he had been waiting for me to realize since the moment I set eyes on Lorde again.
“No, you told me to stay away from him,” I tried to argue, to find some way to disavow everything they said.
“I only did that because there were other circumstances at play. We had already been receiving threats, and after looking into Lorde, I discovered he tended to find himself in a lot of trouble. Bullies attacked him repeatedly, he got into multiple fights, and one of his bullies threw him into the grave. I knew you would be drawn to him, but I didn’t know at the time whether he was being used to trap you or just had a string of bad luck.”
The swan agreed and begged me to listen to reason. Panic welled within me, threatening to take me down.
“I have to go.” I couldn’t breathe, and the entire room was folding in on me, crushing me. I had to get out of there, to escape.
“We’re not done,” Dad yelled.
I didn’t listen and yanked open the door. I ran through the house as if the hounds of hell were biting at my feet. Hearing them follow me, I ran faster and out the front door. Knowing I didn’t have the keys to the car, I shifted and flew away, thankful for once I could transform at will.
A mate.
I had a mate.
Lorde was my mate.
Chapter 20
Lorde
I didn’t know how long I sat on that beach, watching the waves rolling in. At first, I tried not to think of anything, to force my mind to go blank, but it didn’t last. My thoughts kept drifting to the stories I was compelled to listen to when a child, to Max, and to what my aunt had said. I no longer knew what was right and wrong, what was truth and fiction.
Yes, I could look at that collection of drivel the Grimm duo put together, and beyond a shadow of a doubt, everything was fiction. Yes, there might be a grain of truth, the infinitesimal thread that connected make-believe to reality, but for the most part, the tales were nothing except fantastical creations made up in the imaginations of individuals.
Discerning that one was easy, but real life, my life, I could no longer discern top from bottom. I was drowning on dry land.
If I were smart, I wouldn’t think about any of this. I would do what I came here to do and then run away. Once Max was gone, my mother would no longer have a need for me.
I sucked in a breath and held it. Bugger! I thought about that again. My mother would no longer have a need for me. Why did my mother need me to kill him? Why couldn’t she do it herself? Was I overthinking this?
I tried to remember what she said to me when I was younger. “Lorde, this is your destiny, your purpose. No one else can do this because it is what you were born for.” No one else?
There was only one person I could talk to, but did I dare? Could I trust Pat? I still wasn’t certain. “Bollocks! Why?” I cried out to the sky and the water, hoping they might give me the answers I sought, knowing they wouldn’t.
Then, majestically, a large white bird glided down from the sky, drifting lower and lower as it made multiple passes in front of me. Soon, with its wings flapping, it landed gracefully and dunked its head under the water, popping up a second later. A swan. Snow white feathers, a long regal neck, and a black mask and nob above an orange beak. Max. I wasn’t sure how I knew or why I was so confident, but I was. This was Max.
He shook his body, droplets scattering around him. The water had to be frigid considering the temperatures had been hovering in and around the forties since I’d arrived. Bloody Americans and their Fahrenheit. Granted, I was one too, but I’d been in England so long, I was more at home using Celsius.
The bird floated closer to the shoreline, staring at me. Should I call out? If I did, how would he react? What would this man do when he found out why I’d been sent here in the first place? I rubbed the ache in my chest, thinking about his reaction. I was going to lose him. One way or another, I was going to lose the man I’d come to love.
Less than a week and I’d already fallen under his spell. No. It all happened in an instant. His eyes pulled me in, and when I saw him in person, everything clicked into place. He was my other half. I fought it, wishing to please my mother, but I couldn’t resist any longer. I could no more kill this man than cut off my own arm.
Max’s gaze shifted to somewhere over my shoulder, and I heard the faint sound of someone walking toward me, stomping on the grass growing on the dune I sat upon. Without looking, I said, “Aunt Pat.”
“I thought I might find you here.” She sat down next to me, keeping her gaze on the water and the swan. “Hello, Max.”
Max lifted his wings, flapping them as he honked. Turning, he moved his wings more, and soon it appeared he was running on the water, gaining altitude, and then he
was gone.
“Brilliant. Why did you do that?” I spat.
“He was going to figure it out sooner or later.”
“And if he decides to ban me from his life now?”
“Does it matter? You’re here to do a job, right?”
“No!” I yelled, my hands bunched into fists. I dragged my knees up and rested my forehead against them. In a quieter voice, I repeated, “No.”
“No? I thought—”
“You are incorrect.”
“Lorde…” she stopped.
“What?” I pressed.
“I’m going to tell you a story. I want you to listen and not interrupt.”
Under my breath, I said a simple protection spell just in case she tried something. Although her magic was stronger, and she had more spells in her repertoire, it would offer a small level of protection against anything she might throw at me, at least temporarily. Turning my head, I peeked at her from under my elbow. “Okay.” I saw her small smile.
“When I was born, I was the throw-away. My mother already had your mother and Virginia, she didn’t need me, but she still taught me the basics of magic. I annoyed her more often than not. Most days, she spent her time with Virginia and Kelly, leaving me to teach myself. I was left for hours in the library. In one of the books, I found a potion that, when drunk, would give me the ability to learn faster and retain more. Basically, it was supposed to give me a photographic memory with the bonus that it would allow me to understand things I didn’t before. I had to wait until I knew Mom would be out of the house for a while. I wasn’t allowed to use the kitchen, and sure as hell wasn’t allowed to use any of her special herbs or jars. I did it anyway. It tasted horrendous, and instead of making me smart, I don’t think I’ve ever vomited that much before or since.”
“Ew,” I gagged.
“You’re telling me. I was the one to experience it.”
“Did it make you smarter?”
She shook her head. “No. My dad helped me clean everything up and made it appear as though I’d done nothing wrong. He even put me to bed and nursed me back to health. My mother didn’t care I was sick. Sometimes, I wonder how she would have acted had I been on my deathbed. In my heart, I believe she couldn’t have cared less. Like I said, I was the throwaway. Dad was a linguist. He used to work with me, teaching me what he could about languages. About seven years after my debacle with the potion, Dad passed away, and I found myself in the library. Mom had taken Virginia and Kelly on a trip to Germany to meet with someone. Instead of going to the funeral, they boarded a plane an hour before. And don’t think they couldn’t change their tickets because they’d been purchased in advance, it wouldn’t be true. They bought them, the day after Dad died. To them, he may have been nothing except a sperm donor, but to me, he was my world. I was crushed. There weren’t many at the funeral, only about thirty or so, but they all had a wonderful tale to share about my father. And when the service ended, I returned to an empty house alone. It was my job, according to my mother, to box up all of his clothes and possessions and either toss or donate them.”