“No offense, but I don’t really care about the rest of their story, Deva. All I care about is how he survived being her mate. Can it happen again?”
“For you, you mean,” she said. I hazarded a glance her way. Her lower lip was trapped between her teeth, the flesh pale from the pressure, but she appeared hopeful. “I don’t know.”
“How many of these immortals are you on a first-name basis with?” I asked. I wasn’t about to give up this chance, if there even was a chance. I wanted her badly enough to risk pissing off a few gods or demi-gods or whatever they were to have her.
“Four of them are my parents. I could start with them, but the bloodline—”
“I get it. We need to stay on track here. I’m willing to wait. I just want to make sure you’re on the same page with me. You’re not giving up on me, trying to pawn me off as someone else’s soul mate. I’m yours, okay?”
Some of the tension inside me eased.
“Okay.”
“Good.”
I reached for her hand again and she twined her fingers into mine, holding on like she never wanted to let go. I wasn’t about to fucking let go, either. After a few more miles, I glanced at her.
“So, back to this part about Llyr being tortured. I’d love to hear more about that. I feel like it would be in my best interest to know what not to do to get on your dad’s bad side.”
She groaned. “I’d really rather not revisit that whole ordeal. But the short version is that we weren’t supposed to have sex, we did, and Dad caught us. I’m pretty sure you’re safe because Dad’s gotten over the whole me-having-sex issue by now.”
“Well, that explains why Llyr was such a dick last night. What’s Ozzie’s excuse?”
“Ozzie just knows them too well from the band to bow to them. He also had a run-in with Dad before he was free from Meri’s control. I think Dad’s still making amends for that.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever bow to your dad. I hope that’s all right. I understand overprotective, but he’s an ass for not giving you the freedom to live your life. How long have you had to deal with that? Your whole life?”
She gave me a worried look, her bottom lip locked between her teeth again. “Only the past year,” she said softly.
I blinked at her. “That’s not that bad, I guess. Since that war the guys keep talking about, right?”
She nodded and fixed her gaze back on the road. The hound ahead of us had slowed and was gradually slipping between cars to the right. I signaled and merged into the next lane to keep behind it.
We exited onto the highway leading east away from the Bay, but it didn’t give me any better clue where the hounds were taking us. From here, we’d hit the interstate in about an hour, and who knew where after that? It depended on whether we went north or south, or bypassed the interstate completely and headed straight for the mountains and Yosemite.
Deva’s sudden silence worried me, though. She stared out the window, still gnawing at her lower lip. For someone immortal, she had an endearing set of vulnerabilities that seemed to crop up almost daily. Yet she always took them in stride.
I wanted to get her back on track with her life story, but sensed that pushing more now would be counterproductive. Instead I gently squeezed her hand. “What is it, angel? You’re miles away.”
She tore her gaze from the passing landscape and took a long, shaky breath. “I need to tell you something, but I’ve been avoiding it because I know it’ll probably force distance between us. Now that we might have a chance to really be together, I want to stay close to you. But if I don’t tell you, it’s like lying, and I can’t do that either.”
Her words all came out in a rush, and when I glanced from the road to her, she was giving me a sheepish, but hopeful smile. Still, my heart raced. Whatever was eating at her had to be heavy as fuck, considering all the crazy shit she’d willingly divulged already.
“I can’t promise I won’t freak out, but I want to know everything you want to tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it. One thing I’m sure of is that I want you, and I think the boundaries of my own that I’ve shattered over the last few days help prove I’m willing to open my mind.”
She tightened her fingers until I feared she’d break my hand, but I squeezed back, hoping my hold on her would make up for how I had to keep my eyes on the road.
“I don’t exactly look my age, Bodhi. The circumstances surrounding my birth are unusual, even for the higher races.”
I frowned at her. “I figured as much. None of the guys look their age, either, except Keagan. He told me everything.”
Her eyes widened. “Everything?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Well, almost. He was a gentleman and refused to tell me how old you are. But my grandmother always said it wasn’t polite to ask a woman’s age, so whatever it is, I don’t care. I’m prepared for a crazy age difference.”
“Even if it’s crazier than you think?” she asked, her words still tinged with caution.
“Okay, now you’re starting to worry me. How fucking crazy can it be?”
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Twenty-six.”
“There are twenty-five years between us.” She paused and I started speak, but she held up a hand. “I’m younger than you, Bodhi. A lot younger.”
It didn’t take a genius to do the math, but my brain still rejected the answer. “That’s not . . .”
“Not possible?” she asked. “Is any of this possible, by your standards? This is how different we are. You wanted my life story—well, there it is. I was conceived by force, stolen from my mother’s womb, and stuck in a tank in a lab for the first five months I existed. All of that began a year and a half ago, give or take a week.
“When my dad broke free of the enemy’s mind control, everything changed. The war began soon after, and during the course of it, I got tangled up in some powerful time magic that forced me to grow. I was born and grew up in a single day—the Spring Equinox, and the same day the war was fought and won. Ozzie protected me until it was over.”
I had trouble forming coherent thoughts. I swallowed a bout of nausea that fought with arousal as the filthy memories from the last two days barreled through my mind. I tried to make myself believe it was motion sickness, but I was fucking driving.
Push through it, I told myself, and for some crazy reason wished like hell that Keagan was here to talk some sense into me. I knew he’d do it too. I forced myself to affect a civil tone, although my mind was rejecting everything I’d just learned.
“Keagan and the others know that you’re . . . how old exactly? Tell me, because if you don’t say it, I don’t think I’ll believe it.”
In a shaky voice, she said, “I turned one on the Spring Equinox.”
11
Bodhi
Horns blared as I veered across two lanes of traffic. Gravel kicked up behind the wheels of my truck when I hit the shoulder and slammed on the brakes. I wrenched the door open and stumbled out, rounding the front of the truck and bending over, my hands braced on my knees as I struggled with vertigo.
I didn’t throw up. Some part of me seemed to keep insisting I was being a pussy—oddly, it sounded like Keagan’s voice in my head, which only made me laugh hysterically. But that mental berating somehow calmed the roiling confusion threatening to throw me into full-on panic.
I remained there, cackling like a fucking idiot on the side of the highway for several minutes before Deva’s door opened and she stepped out. Her boots crunched across the gravel and my gaze automatically slipped up her body. I gripped my knees tighter and shook my head in disbelief as I took in her luscious curves wrapped in snug leather.
“There is no fucking way,” I said. “Also, I’m going to fucking kill Keagan for not telling me.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. But I’m not lying. Chronologically, I am a year old.”
“Age is just a number,” I muttered. The argument had already been on the tip of my tongue before she b
lew my mind with her little revelation. Shouldn’t it apply here too? Her world followed different rules, and I was a part of it whether I liked it or not. Still, I was struggling like hell to hold onto what made me human.
Being in love with a girl who hadn’t even existed two years ago just didn’t track.
But here I was, faced with her naked fear, her crazy, beautiful eyes already glassy with unshed tears as she waited for the other shoe to drop.
When the first tear escaped, it was like the world shattered around me. I didn’t give a fuck about numbers. I surged forward and wrapped one arm around her waist, the other hand clutching the back of her head, and I kissed her, at a loss for any other way to express how little I really cared now that clarity had resumed.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and trembled against me. As her tears fell into my mouth, I realized she was sobbing and I pulled away.
“Angel, you have to know by now that I’m all in. Even after that first night, I knew I would never want to let you go. I also knew I’d need to acclimate to the whole situation. I just didn’t count on there being so many fucking reality checks. Bear with me, all right?”
I brushed my thumbs over her wet cheeks and bent down a little to meet her eyes.
She swiped at them and nodded. “I didn’t mean to cry, and I know this must be hard for you. The last thing I want to do is push you into something you’re not ready for.”
I chuckled at that. “It’s not like I knocked you up and we’re driving to Vegas for a shotgun wedding. I’m fucking determined to be whatever you need, one way or the other. You’ll just have to be a little patient while my brain catches up. This . . .” I exhaled and shook my head, then raked my fingers through my hair. “This little bomb you just dropped is a doozy, but I take it the others already know, so it feels weird for me to take issue with it when they don’t.”
“Maybe they should,” she muttered. “I feel so lost half the time. What I know and what I can do are so at odds. I kind of wish I could be more like you, you know?”
“I’m probably the last person you should pattern your life after. I’m aimless. I do what feels good in the moment most of the time, except for the things that really count, and I second-guess myself about those, even though I’ve always believed my instincts don’t lie. I don’t think they’re lying about you, either, but diving in blind is a good way to break your neck. Thank you for telling me the truth. You have no idea how much that means to me.”
Her lower lip shook and she looked on the verge of breaking into tears again. I didn’t think more words would help, so I did the only thing I could think of.
I kissed her again, holding her face between my hands and pressing my mouth to hers, capturing that full, sweet bottom lip between mine before sliding my tongue between her teeth. She sighed and opened up to me as she tilted her head back and let me deepen the kiss.
The traffic roared by us, whipping up wind that tangled her long hair around our heads. The strands tickled my cheeks, and when I pulled away, I realized that roaring was my pulse pounding in my ears. The wind was wild and real, coming from the north. There was no way the sparse traffic could cause gusts this strong, nor carry her scent. I saw a matching wildness in her eyes, a wish that sank into my soul, leaving me guilty as fuck when I tore myself away and opened her door for her.
She wanted more, and I had no doubt that if I’d insisted on making love right here on the side of the highway, she’d have said yes despite the consequences. As I walked around the truck and climbed back in, I had the craziest feeling that I’d just made a huge mistake not giving into that urge, even if it would’ve destroyed me.
When I started the truck, I looked out the window and broke into laughter. The hounds were all sitting in a row, lined up on the white painted line at the edge of the pavement, patiently waiting.
“They’re nothing if not consistent. Did you call them back?”
She sniffled and shook her head. “No, but I think they’re attuned to my needs somehow. And to the needs of whoever they’re linked to. We’d have never found you and Keagan the other night if he hadn’t been linked to Jewel.”
As I pulled back onto the road, they all took off again in a blur, four purple streaks flowing as fast as the wind ahead of us.
“What are you laughing about?” Deva asked.
“The fact that you named Keagan’s hound Jewel. You have no idea how funny that is, do you?”
“Enlighten me,” she said, giving me a sideways glance.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and handed it to her. “Pull up my music app and do a search for Jewel, you’ll see.”
I hit the knob to turn on my stereo while she did as I asked. Within a few minutes, the sweet, melodic strains of the song flooded the cab and Deva laughed. “This does not sound at all like something Keagan would enjoy, but I kind of love it for that.”
“I think a serenade is in order when we stop,” I said, and the delighted grin she gave me was enough to set the world right once more.
12
Bodhi
We spent the next hour singing along to my playlist, pausing only for Deva to call Ozzie with an update on direction. The hounds seemed to be leading us off the highway and along the route into Yosemite. The temperature dropped the farther we climbed the gradually winding roads.
Our slow pace would at least allow the others time to close the distance between us. My rumbling stomach prompted Deva to fish in the cooler in the backseat without even asking. She handed me one of the sandwiches the hotel kitchen had packed up for us before we’d left, along with a can of cold soda.
“You must be psychic,” I said, eagerly biting into the enormous roast beef monstrosity.
She chuckled. “I have ears.” She chowed down on her own sandwich, making cute noises of pleasure that I filed away. It seemed like she had a different sound of appreciation for everything, whether it was sex or food or soaking in a bath. Even the sounds she made with me were different than the ones she made with the other guys.
“Jesus, woman, you act like you’ve never had a sandwich in your life.”
“None this good,” she said around a mouthful of food. “It wasn’t something on the menu where I grew up, and the hospital food doesn’t really count.”
Right, the age thing. I supposed she probably had a lot of little things that she’d never experienced before.
“Have you ever been on a road trip like this?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Have you ever seen snow before?”
“Nope.”
“Good, because you’re about to.”
I nodded ahead at the bank of dark clouds hanging over the mountains. It was mid-April, but at this elevation, snow was still a likelihood, and it looked like we were probably driving straight into a brewing storm. Ahead of us, the hounds seemed unfazed, but they’d slowed the pace to match ours.
“You might want to give the guys a call and warn them. If it looks bad, we should make plans to stop for the night.”
She was on the phone with Ozzie again, relaying the weather report when a heavy gust of wind slammed into the truck, forcing me to hold tighter to the steering wheel to keep it on the road.
“Ozzie,” she said into the phone, her voice quavering. “It might be too dangerous for the bus in this weather.”
The first wet droplets smacked hard into the windshield, and within a few more yards, they turned icy. Deva was carefully listening, and I was dying to know what the consensus was. She nodded and closed her eyes as though concentrating.
“I feel it, yes,” she whispered. “North wind. No, you know I can’t control it; my turul magic isn’t strong enough.”
She paused and held the phone up to the windshield, snapping a picture of the increasingly grim scene outside the truck. I had the wipers slapping at full speed against the sleet obscuring most of the road ahead of us, and as we went around a tight turn, the tires skidded on the icy road. My stomach lurched.
�
��It’s more than the wind,” I said. “Unless you guys can somehow control an entire cold front, we’re in for a treacherous ride. I didn’t expect to come up this way, or I’d have insisted on a set of chains.”
After a few more minutes of one-sided conversation amounting to Deva’s monosyllabic replies to whatever lecture Ozzie was giving her, she sighed and glanced at me. Her brows were tight with worry and her eyes wide. She shook her head.
“No, don’t drift to us. If you’re going to stop down the mountain, I think Bodhi would rather you stay with his mother. I can protect him. I have the hounds.” She paused and raised her brows at me.
Startled by the level of worry in her eyes, I nodded. Hell yes, they should stay with Mom. I’d seen what Deva could do to one of the bad hounds. I had no doubt we could hold our own.
“Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll call you when we get there.”
Ahead of us, all four hounds suddenly fell back to trotting in a row ahead of the truck.
“Get where?” I asked after she’d hung up.
“We’re not far from a cabin one of Ozzie’s dragon friends owns up here. He wants us to stop and wait out the storm. As soon as it’s safe for them to come, they’ll meet us there and we can continue on together. While we’re there, I want to try again to get a stronger link to the hounds to see if I can get some idea where they’re leading us.”
I exhaled, relieved that we wouldn’t have to endure the dangerous conditions for much longer. She may be immortal, but I wasn’t.
“Where to? Are the hounds going to lead us there?” I asked.
She shook her head and held up the phone again. “Nope. Ozzie gave me an address.”
Just then the GPS chimed in, telling me I was on the fastest route and we would arrive in half an hour.
“Thank fuck,” I said, jabbing my finger at the heater and cranking it up to full blast. It was starting to get fucking cold, but now I potentially had an entire night with Deva all to myself.
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