Fate Forgotten (27 page)

“Private security.” Was she delirious again? She could have imagined him, brought him to life and projected his presence to her family. She could have lost her mind again, and not even realized it.

“You’re awake. This is real.”

“I wish you couldn’t hear me.”

He smiled Thorgrim’s smile. “I can understand why.”

“You just remind me so much of him—” her voice broke, and she took a ragged breath. “It’s hard to remember that you aren’t him. That I’m living a different life. That I’m married to another man.”

“I know.” He held her hand in both of his again. “I could tell, even at your wedding rehearsal. And if it weren’t for your brother, I wouldn’t have returned.”

She wondered if he realized he was lying. He meant it so sincerely. He wanted to believe it so badly. Just like she wanted to believe that she was only holding his hand to keep the pain away. Just like she wanted to believe that nothing had happened in the woods.

“Nothing did happen,” he said.

“Only because of Adam.” Was that why? Was that the reason? It seemed almost impossible, but also exactly the wrong kind of truth. She swore. “He did it on purpose.”

His face darkened and his gaze shifted toward the window. Thunder rumbled outside. He seemed to be concentrating on his breathing, but his nostrils flared, and she felt his anger.

Horus came into the room, and without a word Lars stood and the brown man slipped into his place. His hands were cool and dry. Together, they watched Lars walk to the window. He stood stiffly, everything about his posture radiating his frustration, his disgust, his fury. Rain splashed against the glass, and Eve felt her sight blur with memory. It was too similar to those days in the ward with the ghost of Thorgrim she’d brought to life. How he had hated seeing her so helpless. It was too much, and the memories began swimming up. The room darkened to dirty gray walls and ugly tile, and the window behind Lars grew bars.

“Lars,” Horus called. She could hear the alarm in his voice, but it was distant.

Did you really think I’d let you have her? That I would stand by and do nothing to stop you?

It was Adam’s voice. And with it came the pain. Until she fell back into the dark, rolled up in it. It was a relief to feel nothing at all.

“He did this to himself, knowing that she would suffer. To cause her to suffer.” It was Horus she heard, speaking calmly. For some reason she thought they had been fighting again, but she couldn’t remember hearing anything else. “Perhaps it would be prudent to reconsider your position, Garrit.”

She didn’t open her eyes yet. It was too great an effort just to focus on the voices. Why were they always fighting over her bed? Couldn’t they see she was trying to sleep? Trying to rest? She liked the dark. She had always liked the dark. Since her creation, it had been a comfort to her. Blackness and silence. It was the first time she had thought of the void in thousands of years.

A hand brushed over her forehead. She didn’t know whose. For that matter, who really was this Horus? Lars at least was family. He belonged well enough. But Horus Amon made no sense to her. Who was he that he seemed to know how best to treat her? That Garrit listened to him and he spoke with authority? Garrit didn’t even listen to her!

There was a chuckle. Thorgrim’s laugh. “She must be feeling better.”

“How can you tell?” Garrit’s voice was low, but she could feel his envy. He wished he could feel her the way the other two could. Know her as well as they did. Spending so much time with Lars was making him feel inadequate, insecure, and it drove him crazy. How had his father done it all these years? Formed a relationship with him? A friendship?

“She’s becoming much more coherent. Watch your thoughts, Garrit. Conscious or not, she’s reading you like a book.” And then Thorgrim whispered in her ear. “Come back to us.”

But she couldn’t go back to Thorgrim. Thorgrim was dead and gone. Just like all the others. Every life a new husband. Every life another death. It was almost worse when she loved them. The ones she hadn’t loved, who hadn’t loved her, they hadn’t been as difficult to lose. They had been easier to mourn. Thorgrim had been different though.

No. Not Thorgrim. Lars. Thorgrim’s descendent. Thorgrim’s descendent who loved her? And she felt something. Something she shouldn’t. She was married. She had a son. Isn’t that what she had told Adam? How could he have done this to her? Couldn’t he have done something less painful? Knocked himself in the head, instead of getting smashed by a bus? What were they all worried about anyway? It wasn’t as though she could die. Nothing could hurt her that badly. Certainly not Adam.

Or was Adam the exception to the rule?

“Wouldn’t we all like to know,” Lars mumbled. She barely heard him.

She wished he would stop listening to her thoughts. Wished that she could steady her mind enough to prevent it. Bad enough that Adam eavesdropped. Adam. She had to talk to Adam.

“Not until you’re well, Eve. It will only hurt you more, now.”

Eve. He called her Eve. Lars did. Thorgrim never had. She had always been his Tora. They had been named for the same god. Thor, the god of thunder. A hot-headed drunk and immensely strong. Later there had been something about a hammer. But that had been long after she had lived and died and returned to the south. Generations after she had been made to worship those gods.

“What a god is, and what his people believe him to be, are not often the same things,” Lars said. “You should know that better than most.”

No. She didn’t know. She had never known God at all.

She opened her eyes. Lars sat beside her. Garrit and Horus were no longer in the room. She hadn’t heard them leave.

He smiled, but there was something sad about it. “Welcome back.”

She stretched gingerly against sore muscles and the bruises all over her body. She wasn’t as stiff this time. And she didn’t think she was as sore, though that might have been due to Lars’s hand on hers. She didn’t want him to release her, but she should have. “Am I back?”

“Stay out of your brother’s head, and you should be.” He let go of her hand then, watching her with narrowed eyes. “How do you feel?”

There was no shock of pain, though she had braced for it. Just a dull ache from her head to her heels. She fingered the bruises on her ribs. They hurt much less. “Better.”

Lars nodded and stood up, walking to the door. But he paused before he opened it, his hand on the knob, and glanced back at her. “By the way. Thor only drank so much because he was heartbroken.”

She blinked. “I thought Thor was married.”

“Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, it just doesn’t work out the way you hope it will.”

He left before she could respond and she heard him call for Garrit. While she waited for her husband, she wondered if Lars was talking about himself, or the god.

Chapter Twenty-seven: Future

Adam kept finding himself back at the airport. Over and over and over again, he would arrive there, and over and over and over again he would deny himself the ticket he wanted to purchase, substituting something else, somewhere else. He started buying land, for no real discernible reason, all over the world. Every time he found himself at the airport with the intention of going back to North America to see her, he went somewhere else and purchased property.

Maybe it was the challenge of getting people to sell things they didn’t want to let go of. Maybe it was just the distraction. Maybe it was the fact that he could never have what he wanted. He would never be rid of the gods, and he would never be rid of the angels, and he would never be rid of this longing for Eve that he couldn’t satisfy, and he would never have the world the way he had dreamed—any hope he might have still nursed stripped away with his promise to Michael. Never have it, except for what he could buy.

So he bought more land, on every continent, including significant portions of Antarctica for no other reason than just to have it. The population was exploding and it would only be a matter of time before humanity found a way to adapt itself to that wasteland, or adapt the wasteland to itself. Hadn’t they walked on Mars, after all? And what were snow and ice and cold on Earth to Mars?

He thought about leaving Earth altogether. It would be an easy thing to manipulate any test, any board of directors, any system into sending him away. But he couldn’t bring himself to go that far. He couldn’t bring himself to leave her behind. Leave the range of her thoughts, or leave the world he had been born to, that had been made for him. It was one thing to avoid her, but to not have the option to see her or find her was unthinkable, intolerable.

When the manor in France known as DeLeon Castle was put up for sale, his interest in real estate made it impossible for him not to notice. The idea that it could ever be sold had never occurred to him, and he had to look twice at the listing before he realized exactly what he was seeing.

Those damned Lions. Couldn’t he have one life where they didn’t foul things up for him somehow? And where was Thor to prevent this kind of foolishness? This was exactly the kind of thing he was supposed to be responsible for. Watching over that family and keeping them from ruining themselves, or Eve. He swore and called the agent handling the sale.

“This is Mr. Carraig, calling for information on the DeLeon property.” Adam assumed that the man would know him. He was the largest private land owner in the world by now, twice over. That kind of thing didn’t go unnoticed in the circles who handled sales of old and prestigious properties.

“
Monsieur
Carraig, a pleasure! Are you interested in making an offer?”

“Ten million above your highest. I don’t care how much it is, and if they counter, ten million above that.”

The agent nearly choked. “Of course,
monsieur
. Would you like to arrange a viewing of the estate?”

“No.” He didn’t care about seeing it. He’d seen too much of it in his past life. Though he was curious if the family would stop him from crossing onto their lands now that they were selling it. Fools. How was Eve supposed to find them if they sold her home? What could have possessed them? “Yes. Yes, I would like to see the estate, and I’d also like to meet with the family, if that can be arranged. As soon as possible.”

“
Oui, bien sûr
. I’m sure the family would be happy to meet with you. They are quite attached to the estate, you know. I’m afraid the sale does have some provisos. The land must be kept intact, and undeveloped. It is an historic landmark.”

“Do I strike you as the kind of buyer who cares all that much for development? Whatever the stipulations are, I’m happy to agree. Draw up the papers and arrange the meeting for tomorrow.”

“
Monsieur
, I will speak with them, but I cannot promise a meeting for tomorrow. Perhaps next week—”

“Tomorrow, Mr. Laurent. Tell them it is on behalf of their Lady.”

“Of course,
monsieur
, I will do as you ask.”

It was clear by his tone that he didn’t have the faintest idea of the meaning, but Adam didn’t care. As long as he passed on the message, he was certain that the DeLeons would find the time to meet with him on his terms.

“Excellent. I’ll be in touch with your office tomorrow then. If you would be so kind as to drop me a note with the time of the meeting after you’ve spoken with your clients.”

“
Oui.
I look forward to doing business together.”

No doubt. He was about to put several millions of dollars into his pocket in commission. “Thank you.”

He disconnected and sighed, rubbing his forehead. Eve wasn’t going to be happy about this, if she didn’t already know. Maybe he would wait to tell her until after he had taken care of it and ensured it remained in her possession. Though how on earth he was going to accomplish it he didn’t know.

There was no real way to ensure that any material wealth or goods were passed on to their future selves. The laws and legal systems didn’t allow for that sort of thing. He had researched it extensively. The best he had managed to come up with was a lock box with a Swiss institution, where as Ethan he had given strict instructions that the box be awarded to the man who presented them with the key, and no other, to be held indefinitely by them until such a time as the key was presented, and that had required a team of lawyers to make foolproof in his will.