Fate Forgotten (18 page)

Voices rose from the other end of the hall, and Eve followed them to the library. The door was mostly closed. As though someone had meant for it to be shut, but had been too hurried to be sure it had.

“You must just love all of this,” Garrit was saying.

“You would too, if you’d had the experiences with him and his brethren I did.” Adam, gloating. Of course. Eve stopped with her hand on the door to listen. “Arrogant upstarts and usurpers is all they are. Hanging around looking for scraps. It’s long past time for them to go, and it’s people like you who allow them to maintain a presence. So yes, I do love it. And who can blame me?”

“We trusted him—them—with everything.”

Adam laughed. “I won’t say they don’t have their uses.” His voice hardened. “But their time is over. What more proof do you need that I’m not a threat to you or yours? Or at the very least, less a threat than the one that’s been under your roof.”

Garrit sighed and she felt his frustration, his exhaustion. “I don’t know.”

“When you find out, be sure to let me know.” Footsteps shifted toward her and Eve backed away from the door. Too slow. Adam pulled it open before she’d gone more than two steps. He smirked.
Eavesdropping? Really?

She flushed.
As if you don’t do it constantly.

He laughed out loud, and she saw Garrit over his shoulder. “I hope you heard something you liked, sister of mine. Or at least something useful.” And then he brushed past her, whistling.

“Abby.” Garrit rubbed his face. “Are you packed?”

“I am. You aren’t.” She walked into the library and pulled the door shut behind her, making sure it latched. “What was all this about?”

He shook his head. “I’m still trying to figure that out, myself.”

“Has Adam done something?”

“
Non.
” Garrit stood up and smiled, taking her hands. “I’d better go pack.” He kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry, Abby. It will all sort itself out.”

She watched him go and turned back to the window. It was raining again. It was always raining. Winter rains were the worst. Why didn’t it ever snow anymore?

Because the gods are cranky, that’s why,
Adam said.

Eavesdropping? Really?

He chuckled in the back of her mind.
It’s my house. If I can’t eavesdrop here, where can I?

She sat down, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her head ached.
This is all so impossible.

Adam was silent for a moment, and she felt the discomfort around her temples ease with the touch of his mind, bleeding the pain away.
Not impossible, Eve. Just a bit more complicated than it should be. But I can’t imagine anything has ever been simple for you.

Why are you being so nice to me?

He sighed.
I promised myself when you arrived that I wouldn’t talk to you, wouldn’t reach for you, wouldn’t allow myself to be alone in the room with you. I was going to be coldly polite, and nothing more. But this is something I can’t fight, Eve.

You’re married, Adam. You have a son. You made your choices.

I hadn’t intended on falling in love with you, Eve.

She shook her head.
Don’t say that. Don’t tell me that you love me. I’ve made my choices too. And even if I hadn’t, I would never choose you.

She felt his wince, and a lash of pain before he buried it.
Never is a long time for you and me, Eve.
The kindness had left his mental tone. He was angry now. Hurt.
Don’t make me any promises you can’t keep.

I’m sorry.
She hated hurting him. Didn’t like to cause him pain. Especially now, when he had clearly changed so much. She should have been encouraging him, helping him, and instead she was just driving him away, back into the bitterness she remembered from their earliest days. But there was nothing else she could do. Not while Michael watched her so closely.
This is the way it has to be. The way it is. We both know that.

He didn’t respond.

She closed her eyes and curled up in the chair. She didn’t understand why God had made them this way. Why God had made
him
this way. It seemed a cruel thing to allow him to love her at all, if she could never love him back. She wished again for the first time in a long time that she had known God, that he hadn’t died at her creation. That someone could give her answers to the questions that chased her from life to life.

When she looked out the window again, the rain had turned into snow. She hoped the weather wouldn’t delay their departure. It would be best for everyone if she and Garrit got back home.

She went to find Alex, and then to spend what time was left with her family.

On the train the next morning she dreamt of the Garden. Of those first days, when Adam had tried to coerce her into being his wife. Of the moment when his coercion had nearly become rape, and when that failed, violence. She dreamed of the first night she had spent outside of the cave, hidden from Adam within Reu’s arms. How had she not known then how Reu cared for her? How he loved her? She had been too innocent even to recognize her own feelings, she supposed. And those first days, before the fruit, the only person’s thoughts she could hear were Adam’s.

She dreamed of the days after the Garden had burned, when they had wandered across new lands, following the great river north with the lions to help hunt, and later the dogs. It seemed to her, when she woke, that she was still wandering somehow. France was the closest thing to a home she had, but she had spent so little time with her DeLeon family. It was a wonder they remembered her at all. And she had always taken for granted that they would.

The train rocked and she checked on Alex, nudging his mind into a deeper sleep. Garrit kissed the top of her head and left them to go find something to eat.

“
Excusez-moi, madame.
” A man sat down across from her, he looked old and worn away. But she could see in his eyes that his mind was still keen. He was lean, and brown like the desert, and he smiled at her like a doting grandfather.

Something stirred in the back of her mind, a memory she couldn’t quite place. She smiled back to keep from frowning. By his accent, he clearly wasn’t French. “Hello.”

“Ah!” His eyes lit. “I am grateful. My English is much better than my French. I used to be quite fluent in Latin, but I fear I lost my touch.”

But it seemed even English was not his first language. He spoke it liquidly, but with the intonation of someone unused to it. She thought perhaps it was a Hindi accent, but she hadn’t spent nearly as much time in that part of the world as she had in the west. Or perhaps it was Arabic.

“Where are you from?”

“A complicated question,” he said. “With many answers. But I believe it is safe for me to say that I am not from here.”

She laughed. There was something about this man. She couldn’t quite take any kind of offense. And she was curious in spite of herself. He seemed so familiar, if only she could remember… “Then, you’ve traveled a lot?”

“I have traveled in the past,” he agreed, smiling again. “From Egypt to France to India and China and back again.”

“What brings you to France now?” Something about the question amused him, but she wasn’t sure why. When she tried to find out, to read it from the surface of his mind, it was blank but for the emotion.

“I’ve come as a favor to a friend. He is worried about his family and hoped I would check in on them.” His eyes shifted to Alex, asleep beside her. She thought he seemed curious. “Family is not what it used to be anymore. Things have changed so much.”

“You must be very close to your friend.”

“He’s like a son to me, yes. I would do anything to help him or those he loves.”

She smiled. “Then perhaps the most important parts of family are still preserved. Caring for one another, protecting one another. Love.”

“Love.” The man leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He looked much older then, the lines around his mouth and eyes deeply pronounced, as though carved in stone. “Love is not always so simple a thing. Without it, a family is broken, but it is not enough by itself to create family, to protect it, to maintain it.”

She thought of Adam and his love for Mia. The love that wasn’t enough. She frowned and looked out the window. “And sometimes love divides us more than it draws us together.”

“You sound as though you speak from experience.”

She shook her head. “A friend of mine. He loves his wife, but he loves another more. Do you believe in soul mates,
monsieur?
Two people, fated to be together?”

He leaned forward, studying her face. “I have seen the power of love. The strength of it. There are times when it is an unstoppable force. As real and as purposeful as gravity, or magnetism. I have seen men sacrifice everything for love, betray their own fathers, betray their own wives. But I have not found any proof that any man was made for any singular woman since Adam and Eve.”

“Adam and Eve.” Her stomach twisted.

She fussed with the blanket that covered Alex as an excuse to look away. The myth was so pervasive. What was that saying about Frenchmen? Fifty thousand can’t be wrong? But they had been, hadn’t they? And how could Michael, God’s archangel, be wrong? Why would he threaten her, inspire a fear bone deep, soul deep? But if the angels had a role in the Church, why would they propagate such a lie? Why would they endorse a bible full of false truths?

“Do you believe that? The literal creation?”

The man chuckled. “I believe in a greater God who made this world, yes. But as to the book of Genesis, there are many things left unexplained. Untold.”

Hearing the truth wasn’t as reassuring as she had hoped. She sighed. “Yes.”

He laughed again, and offered her his hand. “My name is Horus Amon.”

“Abigail. My son is Alex.” When she shook his hand, she tried to see his mind again, but it was still blank. So odd. The only other person she’d encountered with such a mind had been Thorgrim, and that had been a long time ago. “You’re not at all Scandinavian, are you?”

“Not at all.” He seemed amused again, his eyes were almost knowing. As if he had seen so much for so long that there was little that could surprise or shock him. As if he knew exactly what she was thinking before she thought it. “But I traveled there, once. They are a very fine people.”

“I haven’t been that far north in a long time.” She stopped herself before she said she had family there. She had family everywhere. This man might have been her family, for all she knew.

Garrit arrived, then, with pretzels and water, and a pair of sandwiches wrapped in cellophane. “They didn’t have any cereal left, but I thought perhaps the banana would serve Alex.” He noticed Horus and fell silent. A muscle along his jaw twitched, and he handed her one of the sandwiches. “I thought you would prefer the turkey.”

“Thank you.” She took the food from him. “Allow me to introduce my husband, Garrit, Mr. Amon.”

Horus smiled. “I was just speaking with your wife. She is very kind, a very lovely woman.”

“I think so, too.” Garrit did not shake his hand, but nodded. It seemed to Eve that he was almost wary. “Have we met before,
Monsieur
Amon?”

“Please, you may call me Horus.” He seemed to be studying Garrit, measuring him. “I think you would be a difficult man to forget, sir. Not unlike your wife.”

Garrit was looking at him the same way, the food forgotten in his lap as soon as he was seated. “What brings you to France,
monsieur?
”

“I come on behalf of a friend, to see his family. He worries for them, but does not think they would appreciate his presence.”

Something in Garrit’s face changed, and Eve felt a wave of anger that made her flinch. “Is something wrong?”

He shook his head, and when he spoke there was no hint of distress to his tone. He even smiled politely. “May I ask the name of your friend?”

“Of course.” Horus said, smiling again. And Eve thought somehow he knew Garrit’s outrage. Had read it even more easily than she. “He is called Lars Owen. I don’t suppose either one of you could help direct me to the House of Lions?”

Chapter Eighteen: Future