“So you don’t trust your mother?” he asked, curious.
“I trust her with my life,” I answered firmly. “But I don’t trust the same people that she does.”
“And who does she trust that you don’t?” Brennan inquired hesitantly.
“Hades.” I chanced a look at his face and found him to be as astonished as I figured he would be.
“As in… the god of the Underworld?” he asked incredulously.
“The one and the same.”
“So, everything that you’ve told me is real. We’re part of mythology. Only mythology isn’t myth at all. It’s reality.” Each word he said was carefully enunciated and slowly spoken. I nodded silently.
“And you personally know the god of the Underworld. And I would assume that you know magic as well, since you are the daughter of a witch.”
“A very powerful witch, yes.” I nodded again. “And yes, I know some magic.”
“Is there anything else that I should know?” he asked, his face betraying his nervousness. I hesitated, then nodded.
“There are all kinds of things that you should know. But we don’t have time to get into everything right now. The most important thing you should know is that my father is dangerous. He wants to kill me. And since he’s seen you with me and I’m certain that he recognized who you really are, you are in danger now, too.”
Brennan nodded. “I figured out that part for myself.” He turned to me, his handsome face showing not fear, but concern.
“How long have you been running from him?”
I felt my shoulders drop dejectedly. I couldn’t help it. “Long enough.”
He opened his arms and pulled me into them, holding me close. Breathing into my hair, he said, “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’m here now. And I’ll help you however I can.”
I closed my eyes and was surprised to find hot tears welling behind my lids. It had been so long since I had succumbed to weakness or vulnerability of any sort. But so help me… letting him hold me felt so incredibly good right now.
“You can’t help me,” I whispered. “No one can.”
“But I can try,” he said grittily. “And I’m very determined.” I felt him smile into my hair and I couldn’t help but smile, too. He had no idea what he had just gotten into, but there was no help for it now.
“We need to decide where to go,” I finally said, reluctantly pulling away from him. “He must have found my house so we can’t go back there. Now that he’s seen you, he’s probably hunting down your house at this very moment. We can’t go there, either. Do you live with your father?”
He shook his head. “No. I live in an apartment in town- near the college.”
“Well, that’s something good at least. We won’t have to worry about your dad. And we won’t have to explain your upcoming absence.”
“My absence?” he raised an eyebrow.
I swallowed. “You’re going to have to stay away from your family for a bit. You don’t want to lead Mormo to them.”
He nodded. “Good thinking. Where should we go?”
I studied his face for a second. He was handsome, calm and perfectly willing to believe everything I had just told him as fact. His hazel eyes returned my stare without flinching and I found that I could get lost in his eyes. They were truly beautiful. I shook those useless thoughts from my head. Thinking like that wasn’t going to help us right now.
“You know,” I pondered, looking around us once again. “We could just stay right here for the time being. It’s remote, there is no one here right now and there’s quite a few buildings we could stay in.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Here? We won’t have beds, a kitchen… did I mention beds?”
“Were you expecting a Four Seasons?” I snapped grumpily. “I can conjure just about anything you can think of, including a pillow-top king size bed, if that’s what you want. If you’re into retro things, I can get you a waterbed. If you want cutting edge, I can get you one of those foam mattress things that don’t bounce. Whatever you want, I can do. You won’t be exactly roughing it.”
“Seriously?” He looked impressed. “You can create an entire king size bed out of thin air?”
I felt exasperated, but reined it in. There’s no way that he could possibly know what I was capable of. Sighing, I studied the line of buildings to our left. There was a row of empty restaurants, a house of mirrors, a medical check point and a haunted house. I zeroed back in on the haunted house. Perfect.
“Come with me,” I murmured, walking straight toward it.
Brennan stayed by my elbow as we approached the spooky gray-sided home with the faux rickety steps. I knew from experience that the stairs were designed to creak as you climbed them. During the season, bats and cobwebs hung from the porch, but it was bare now and completely clean.
“Here?” Brennan asked incredulously. “You want to sleep in the haunted house? Aren’t you afraid of nightmares?”
I looked at him dubiously. “Seriously? I’ve seen things in real life that would make your head spin. There’s nothing in this house that could possibly scare me unless my father is standing on the other side of the door.”
I pointed at the black painted door and it flew open, banging into the wall behind it.
“And he’s not,” I observed. “So, we’re good.”
To his credit, once again, Brennan didn’t even flinch at the use of my other-worldly abilities. Instead, he grinned.
“I’m going to enjoy getting to know you,” he announced. “This is going to be fun.”
“Fun?” I questioned. “Do you enjoy getting chased by a psychotic madman?”
He shook his head. “Nope. But I enjoy camping out with beautiful women.”
He beamed a huge smile at me and I couldn’t help but feel warmed from the inside out. He thought I was beautiful. And why did that make me so happy? Most men found me beautiful. Why did Brennan’s opinion matter so much?
I sighed. Because he was probably my soul mate. I had a feeling that I was going to get tired of using that as an excuse for everything, even if it did turn out to be true.
We stepped inside and except for the light shining in through the two front windows, it was completely dark. We were in a large foyer, but it was hard to see anything else. The darkness was shadowy. I snapped my fingers and the lights came on.
“Impressive,” Brennan acknowledged. “But maybe we should have left it dark. The ambience in here is sort of spooky-chic, don’t you think?”
He was right. The empty, quiet amusement park attraction was creepy, to say the least. And not creepy because of the decorations, but creepy because of the stillness, the emptiness. It was meant to be filled with screaming patrons.
The track that the little train cars traveled on was quiet, the cars apparently stored in another room. I carefully stepped over one metal rail and walked quickly along the track. There had to be a bedroom of sorts in this place.
Brennan followed behind me and I felt his presence with every breath that he took. It was as if we had an invisible tie that bound him to me or vice versa. It pulled us towards each other and it was difficult to resist.
At the end of a darkened hallway, the track passed through a grotesque bedroom taken straight from an old horror movie. A mannequin hung from a noose, dangling in the middle of the room. Red blood-like paint was splattered all over her. Her lifeless eyes seemed to watch us as I examined the rest of our surroundings.
A dusty bed was pushed against the back wall, covered in plastic black spiders. Perfect. Nothing said a good night’s rest like arachnids, fake or otherwise. Another dead ‘body’ was lying on the floor next to the bed in a pool of dried red paint. Apparently, this room was meant to portray a murder scene.
“Charming,” Brennan muttered.
“My thoughts exactly,” I answered. “Let’s clean this place up a bit, shall we?”
I pictured how I wanted the room to be, with a fluffy clean bed, roaring fireplace, picnic basket full of food and lush carpet. Immediately, it was so. I kicked off my shoes and wiggled my toes in the soft rug beneath my feet.
Brennan stared at me in astonishment.
“You’re kind of handy to have around, you know that?” He tried to act cool and nonchalant, but I could see the truth in his eyes. He was shaken. And just a little bit terrified. As if to distract himself, he strolled over to the picnic basket and rifled through it, popping a ripe strawberry into his mouth.
Wanting to prove a point, I blurred into motion and pinned him against the wall. With my mouth hovering a scant inch over his, I spoke very softly, very succinctly.
“I don’t want you to mistake something,” I murmured against his lips. “I’m very dangerous. Don’t forget that. It is something that I can’t help. I am very, very drawn to you. Perhaps we are soul mates, perhaps we aren’t. I guess time will tell. But in the meantime, we need to tread carefully. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
His chest was hard beneath my fingers, the muscles tight and sinewy. He gazed down at me, his hazel eyes golden in the light.
“I don’t think you want to hurt me,” he observed. “So I’m not all that afraid. And besides, I’m a demi, too, remember?”
I almost snorted as I backed up just a bit. “You’re a demi who didn’t even know that he was a demi until today. You have no idea how to tap into your abilities or your strengths. You’re the same as a mortal at this point.”
His gaze flickered. “But I am mortal. Right?”
I nodded. “Yes, you are.”
Confusion flitted across his features. “And you’re not?”
“No. I’m not. Because both of my parents are immortal, I am immortal too. You would have to appeal to Zeus for immortality.” I gulped, because the sudden thought of being separated from Brennan for eternity caused my chest to constrict.
I felt his breathing quicken beneath my fingertips.
“I don’t want to be away from you,” he admitted, mirroring my own thoughts. It brought a lump to my throat that I couldn’t swallow. “Not for a day and definitely not forever. How would I go about appealing to Zeus?”
“You’d have to travel to Mount Olympus in the Spiritlands,” I told him. “But we don’t have time right this moment. For now, we should probably concentrate on acquainting you with your skills.”
He looked at me with interest. “I’m ready any time you are.”
“I practice magic on a full stomach the best,” I quipped. “Let’s eat first.”
He shrugged and grabbed my hand, pulling me back to the picnic basket.
“I can’t help but notice that there’s only one bed,” he said slyly, grinning as he eyed it.
“Because only one will fit in this room,” I explained. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“I would never,” he replied a little over-zealously and I laughed.