Purpose (21 page)

“This will be fun,” Owen muttered, the
sarcasm heavy. He shook his head slowly. “Sophia and Rina will meet
us in Atlanta. I think they’re leaving in the morning and will get
in late tomorrow night.”

“That’s ludicrous!” Tristan growled. “They
should stay at the island. Do they realize how much danger they’re
putting themselves in?”

Owen nodded. “I know, but they want to be
here. And we’re going to need all the help we can get…just in
case….”

He glanced over at me.

“This is so absurd,” I said. “They shouldn’t
be coming if they’re putting their lives at risk—from me or anyone
else. I thought the whole point of me being here is to keep me away
from them.”

“Sophia was coming no matter what. She never
meant for you to be alone for long, but she wanted to make sure
Dorian was safe first,” Owen said. “And I guess Rina’s decided she
needs to be here, too.”

“So we just lay low in Atlanta for another
couple
weeks
?” I asked, remembering Mom saying the
Ang’dora
takes several weeks to complete. “What about
Dorian?”

“Dorian’s in the safest place he could be,”
Owen answered. “And Rina’s not sure about it taking that long. From
what I’ve told them, they think you’re going faster than usual.
That’s why they’re coming so soon.”

Once they settled on a plan, they both
started talking enthusiastically about my abilities and the
Ang’dora
. According to my ancestors’ experiences, I should
have been gaining power gradually, but as far as I knew, I couldn’t
do anything I couldn’t do before, except see farther and run
faster.

“You can flash, right?” Owen asked. “That’s
how you got back last night.”

“Huh?” I asked, confused.

“No, I brought her back by myself,” Tristan
said.

“You can flash with someone else?” Owen
sounded impressed.

Tristan shrugged. “Never have before, but I
guess so. It was necessary and it just happened.”

“Huh. Cool. Alexis, have you even tried?”

I looked at him as if he’d just asked me to
fly. He may as well have—for me, flashing seemed nearly as
impossible. “I don’t even know what to do.”

“Just think of where you want to be and let
yourself go. If the desire to be there is strong enough, it just
happens.” He nodded at the balcony. “See if you can get out
there.”

“I thought the shield prevented
flashing.”

“We can flash within it, just not through it.
No going in and out.”

I furrowed my brows and narrowed my eyes,
concentrating hard on wanting to be on the balcony, but nothing
happened. I felt like an idiot.

“Guess not,” Tristan said with a chuckle. I
shot a look at him. “But you look adorable trying.”

He winked at me and I forgave him…I couldn’t
remember the problem.

“We’ll try some things in the morning,” Owen
suggested. “You might have powers you just don’t know about yet and
it would be good to know before we go on this insane trip to Miami.
Of course, we’ll all have to go. I’m not leaving either of you
alone.”

Neither Tristan nor I argued with his point.
Only a major catastrophe could split us up right now. We weren’t
willing to take the chance of another long-term or permanent
separation.

Tristan retrieved the steaks from the grill
while Owen and I gathered the rest of the food and took it out to
the balcony. With plans made, Tristan and Owen slipped into a
lighter conversation, discussing topics requiring a Y-chromosome to
understand, or at least, to care about. I couldn’t keep my eyes off
Tristan while they talked. I still couldn’t believe he sat right
here next to me. And Tristan constantly touched me—my hand, my leg,
my back,
somewhere
—as if he, too, wanted to be sure I really
sat by his side.

Owen caught Tristan up on all the things that
had gone on in the human world…well, mostly the sports world. Then
they talked about the newest cars. Tristan’s eyes lit up when he
discussed what he should get to replace the Ferrari. Owen had
brought the car back from Key West this morning, he said, but the
Daemoni had left it in ruins.

“I’ll take the damaged goods,” Owen offered.
“There’s nothing I can’t fix.”

“I think we can work that out,” Tristan said,
glancing at me and back at Owen. “It’s the least I can do.”

“I
like
that car,” I protested.
Tristan fingered the key on my necklace.

“As long as you have that key, we can get
whatever you want.” He winked again. He knew how to make me forget
to argue with him.

“Cool. That car’s a chick magnet,” Owen said,
grinning.

“Yes, it is.” Tristan chuckled. He seemed to
be remembering something that didn’t include me because he gave me
a guilty look. “Although…I found motorcycles attract the best
ones.”

“We definitely need to get a new Harley,” I
said with a laugh.

Owen shrugged. “I think I can make-do with
the Ferrari.”

I looked at him and chuckled. Although I’d
never considered him as attractive as Tristan, he was far from
ugly. He could be pushing a shopping cart around as his only wheels
and a number of girls would jump right in. He could probably get
just about any girl simply by existing. Not only because he was
good-looking, but because he was just so
good
. “Owen, you
can’t seriously have any problems attracting girls.”

“Attracting isn’t really the issue.” He
sighed. “I just haven’t found the right one.”

“Never? That’s kind of sad. And you’re how
old?” I could be that way with Owen. He
was
like a
brother—the older brother I’d always wanted, someone to stand up to
the kids who teased me because I wouldn’t do it myself.

“I’m only sixty-eight.”

“
Really?
I thought you were ancient
like everyone else.”
Oops!
I threw my hand to my mouth and
looked guiltily at Tristan. He just chuckled. “You don’t look
sixty-eight, of course, but you do look a
tad
older than
when I met you. By a couple years, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, unlike you guys, I still age.
Just very slowly.”

“You just don’t seem like you’re almost
seventy, though. Mom doesn’t seem like her real age, but she
feels
older than she looks. So does Rina. You know what I
mean? But you don’t.”

He pondered my question for a moment. “I look
it at this way—if I get to look young, why not enjoy it and act
like it, too? I have the looks, the body and the expectation to
live carefree like a twenty-five-year-old bachelor. I’ll eventually
have to act older and mature to match my looks, and I’ll be old and
decrepit one of these days, so why not make the most of it
now?”

“That’s what I’m talking about.” Tristan held
his fist up and they bumped knuckles again. I rolled my eyes.

“
You’re
not a bachelor,” I reminded
Tristan. “And you have a family. You have to be mature
now
.”

“Ah, just a little…and just for a few years.
Then you and I can go back to living like young newlyweds.” He
grinned and gave me a squeeze.

And that’s when it hit me—the whole not-aging
thing. I was changing over and that meant I would look and feel
like I was perpetually in my mid-twenties, based on how I looked
right now. Experience would develop my mind and my emotions, but my
body would never change. I’d always thought I would be like Mom and
Rina—mature yet timeless. Owen and Tristan had a great outlook on
the situation, but…they were male. What male ever wants to grow up?
They had a life men dream about—to know what they do at
sixty-eight, or even two-hundred-sixty-eight, but be allowed to
live the life of a twenty-two-year-old. Of course, I had a man
every woman dreams about—worldly and wise, considerate and loving,
yet forever young. And devastatingly gorgeous, of course.

“Hmm…we don’t ever have to
stop
living
like newlyweds,” I said, smiling impishly at him. And nearly
forgetting Owen was even there.

“Oooh-kaay…time for me to go,” Owen said,
pushing himself away from the table. “Thanks for the steak, Alexis.
I have to admit, I was a little worried. I’d forgotten you even
knew how to cook.”

Tristan looked at me with his eyebrows
raised. I just shrugged. I hadn’t cooked anything except hot dogs,
macaroni and cheese, and eggs since he had left. I’d been a little
worried myself as I prepared the steaks and roasted potatoes,
hoping I hadn’t forgotten how to cook a real meal.

“What? Did you think I’d burn the house down
or something?”

“Nah. Just food poisoning. But I’m still
alive. And it was even delicious.”

I threw my arms around his waist. “Thank you,
Owen. For everything.”

“It’s good to see you happy again,” he said,
hugging me back.

“Am I forgiven then?”

“Hmm…yeah, I guess.” He chuckled. “It’s not
like I could hold a grudge against
you
. Just, uh, do us all
a favor—don’t
ever
do that again.”

I frowned. “Sorry, but I can’t promise that.
Considering the circumstances, I’d do it all over again, even if I
knew the outcome would be different.”

Owen shook his head. “You
like
making
my life difficult?”

“I thought I kept it interesting,” I
teased.

“I don’t like
that
kind of
interesting.”

“Well, I might have saved an innocent girl
from a horrific ending.”

They both looked at me expectantly, so I
quickly gave them the whole story. I shivered at the thought of
what would have happened to her if I hadn’t been driving by that
particular alley when I did. Then I realized those vampires had
probably had their meal anyway, maybe not with her but with
someone. My stomach rolled with that thought.

“If it’s the girl I think it was, she’s not
so innocent,” Owen said.

“What do you mean? They were pushing her
around, treating her like…like dinner. She was scared to
death.”

“Oh, she was scared, all right. But she was
one of them. They were pissed at her for…” Owen clamped his mouth
shut, pursing his lips together. Then he shrugged and finished.
“For whatever reason they think they have.”

“But she wasn’t a vampire.” I stopped to
think about it, but now found it difficult to know for sure. After
all, these things were still new to me. Maybe I hadn’t seen her as
clearly as the others. “I don’t think, anyway.”

Owen shook his head. “No, not a bloodsucker.
A Were.”

I inhaled sharply and blew the air out with
an “Oh!” and then “Wow!”

“Yeah. That rampage they all went on—they
took most of it out on her.”

I stared at him, blinking several times. I
didn’t know whether to feel sorry for the girl now or not. I
couldn’t believe the Daemoni would turn on their own kind, but then
again, they were evil. How could I ever understand them or explain
their actions?

“Just wait until you’ve changed before you
try to be a hero again,” Owen said, his hand on the latch of the
screen door. “For my sake.”

“I
can
promise you that. But I sure
wish I’d known if I had any powers, like you think. I really
would’ve loved flattening that bitch against the wall after what
she said about my mother.”

Owen still laughed as he walked out to the
brush and disappeared.

After Owen left, Tristan and I sat on the
balcony while I caught him up on my life. I told him about being
bed-ridden for several months while pregnant and he asked about the
delivery. I explained as best as I could. Dorian had been a
preemie, arriving after a long, painful labor and birth—I passed
out for part of it—followed by the heavy disappointment of no baby
girl. Tristan pulled me into his lap and held me while I cried
about it again.

I’d cried a lot today for someone who was
supposed to be so happy now. My emotions ran wild, almost like
Swirly still messed with me from a distance. But I had a feeling
that either the situation or the
Ang’dora
itself really
caused the havoc.

Once the tears dried, we talked about my
books—he said he’d read them all in the week he’d been back in the
real world—and all the events that went along with them. I couldn’t
tell him a whole lot, but he asked questions to jog my memory.

“Your fans love you and the books. There are
tons of sites on the Internet,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, I guess. I haven’t paid much attention
to them in a long time. Sometimes they were rude and insensitive
and I couldn’t take it. There was this one girl, though—her name is
Sonya, if I remember right—and she was my ‘biggest fan.’” I wiggled
my fingers in the air to mark the quotations. “She followed us to
every signing, release party and interview. I never had any
particular bad vibes from her, but she worried my agent and
publicist, so they took out a restraining order against her.”

“I saw her posts online. She doesn’t hold it
against you. She’s still very fond of you.”

“Really? Well, that’s a relief. I always felt
kind of bad about the whole thing.”

“Don’t feel too badly. She
is
a
little…fanatic. Her posts greatly outnumber everyone else’s, which
is why I remember her. And she’s determined your characters are
real. She’s more fascinated with the lore than you are.”

I groaned. “I hope she doesn’t dig too deeply
and find out just how right she is.”

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t worry about it.
People have been interested in vamps for centuries. The
bloodsuckers tend to stay away from them.”

“Really? Why? I thought it would be the
opposite—they’d want to get rid of the curious.”

He shrugged. “They can’t get rid of them all
and they tend to be friends. So as soon as there are signs one has
been the victim of a vampire, there are humans out looking for
them, either wanting to become one or wanting to kill them. They
make life a little difficult for the vamps…the hunting is easier,
but that just brings more attention.”