Fate of the Gods 01 - Forged by Fate (40 page)

Eve shook her head.
She’s your wife, Adam. And it’s your first Christmas. You should be together. It isn’t right for you to go—

Enough, Eve.
The sharpness of his reply surprised her, and she was sure he felt it because when he continued his tone had softened.
Please. Just let me go. I’ll make it up to her.

The anguish in his thoughts made her flinch, and she withdrew from his mind. She didn’t hear what Mia said after that, or what he said in reply. But she saw him set her away and walk to the car.

He looked at Eve, their eyes meeting through the glass. His expression was unreadable. She winced at another pang in her stomach. He got in the car, waving to Mia, and then pulled away.

Poor Mia. She looked as though she was going to cry, watching the car disappear. Maybe it wouldn’t be so wrong, just this once…

She found her mother’s thoughts in the bedroom, suggesting gently that she should look for her daughter. It was only a few moments until Anne Watson came out of the manor and Mia all but tripped into her arms.

Eve turned away from the window, and sat back down with her book. Her father still snored in the armchair in the corner, oblivious to everything that had happened. Oblivious to his daughter crying outside in his wife’s arms. Eve envied him. She sighed and reached for her brother. If he was leaving Mia this way, really leaving her, she would never forgive him. He had promised he wouldn’t hurt her. He had married her. That wasn’t something he could turn his back on. Mia loved him.

His mind was a maelstrom of regret and sorrow. And something else. Something which distressed him more than anything else. She felt him bury it beneath all the other emotions. Walling it with anger and pain.

Adam?

His mind stilled, abruptly blank.
Give my regards to your husband.

Adam, I don’t understand.

I had to leave. It’s for the best.

The day before Christmas? With some specious excuse about work?

Kinder than the truth, in this instance. Don’t worry, Eve. Your sister is resilient. She’ll forgive me.

Why?

Why didn’t you tell Garrit you could reach me this way? Why didn’t you tell him you spoke to me directly about that journal, to remind me to return it?

She tried not to let her frustration show, but he chuckled in the back of her mind all the same.

It didn’t seem important. He knows I can feel you. Sense you.

You didn’t tell him because you knew he’d resent it.

What does that have to do with Mia?

It’s none of your business, Eve.

She’s my sister! You gave me your word you wouldn’t hurt her.

And I haven’t.

She’s crying in my mother’s arms!

Adam sighed, losing some of his control. And suddenly she felt what he had been trying to hide, heat and sorrow filled her body. So strong it overwhelmed her.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know she was your sister when I met her.

She tried to withdraw, to filter it out, but his mind held hers fast, and he wouldn’t let her go. So much heartbreak, like an ache in her soul, a knife cutting through her heart. And then the pain dropped, shifting lower.

My Eve,
he said,
my love.

She must’ve cried out because Garrit came into the room. He was never far from her these days. “Abby?”

“No!” The baby kicked and then moved, and she felt the wetness of her water breaking. A true contraction made her double over in pain.

Adam released her immediately, and Garrit’s arms wrapped around her as she gasped from the shock. “Abby, what’s happened? What is it?”

Call the doctor, you fool. She’s having your son!
Garrit spun to grab the phone, but he didn’t seem to notice that Adam’s voice had come from inside his own mind.

Thunder rolled in time with her next contraction, though the sky was blue, and Adam’s presence disappeared completely from her thoughts. She could have sworn she felt something else, hard and sharp and burning fire, but then that was gone too.

It was an easy birth, as Eve had assured him it would be. Garrit sat on the edge of the hospital bed as she cradled the baby against her chest, dry and fed and sleeping.

“He’s beautiful.”

She smiled. “He looks like a DeLeon. I expect he’ll even have your eyes when he’s grown.”

Garrit stroked her hair back from her face and stared down at the sleeping baby. “Hopefully he’ll have his mother’s grace.”

“Who needs grace when they have DeLeon charm and good looks?”

He chuckled and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

The door opened and Mia peeked in, her face flushed with excitement. “Can we see, yet? Please, Abby!”

She smiled. “Quietly, please, Mia. He’s sleeping.”

Her sister closed the door as softly as possible and tiptoed across the room to peer down at the baby. “I can’t believe I’m an aunt!” She sighed. “I wish Ethan hadn’t missed this.”

Eve’s smile faded. Mia didn’t seem to notice, but Garrit did. He squeezed her hand, and she felt his reassurance. “You’ll just have to tell him about it,” she managed to say. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have gone if it weren’t important.”

Mia waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, I’ll live. It just means I get one more year of ripping open my presents like a little girl before I have to pretend to be dignified about it.”

“Ethan’s too, if you like,” Garrit said.

Eve frowned at him, but Mia laughed. “Serves him right for missing Christmas. Maybe I will. You’re so lucky, Abby. I bet Garrit won’t let those stuffed shirts he works for drag him away from you now.”

“Not for anything.” He smiled. “It’s my son’s first Christmas.”

“Oh!” Mia clapped her hand over her mouth when the exclamation came out louder than anything else in the room. “Oh no! We haven’t gotten him any presents!”

“I don’t think he’ll notice,” she laughed. “He barely even registers that anything exists beyond his own nose.”

“What are you going to name him, Abby?”

She looked at Garrit. His brow creased as he studied the baby thoughtfully.

“We hadn’t decided yet. I thought we’d have another week or two. A family name, I think. If Garrit will choose one.”

“Alexandre,” he said softly, and then he smiled at her. “Let’s call him Alexandre Ryam.”

She felt tears prick her eyes. Alexandre had been one of Adam’s names, when she lived as Helen. The name he had earned for his bravery, for a selfless act. Garrit couldn’t have known what he suggested, not really, but it seemed fitting, somehow, after Adam’s departure. “That sounds perfect.”

Mia touched the baby’s hand with a finger. Alexandre wrapped his little fist around it, even as he slept. “I’m going to be your most favorite aunt, Alex. You can come visit me whenever you want, and I promise I won’t make you do anything except play. And when you have brothers and sisters, I won’t make you share any of your toys with them. I’m going to spoil you rotten.”

“Why don’t you go get Mum and Dad, Mia?”

She sighed. “Do I have to?”

“Please?”

Mia left, and Garrit tore his gaze from the baby to look at Eve. “What happened to Ethan? In all the commotion I honestly didn’t think of him.”

“He left just before.” She fussed with the baby’s blanket as an excuse not to meet Garrit’s eyes.

The memory of what Adam had revealed to her was still raw. The way he had held her to his will in that moment, showing her the love which had overtaken him, though he knew she couldn’t return it. And even if she hadn’t been married, his awareness that she would have refused him, had no choice but to refuse him. It was a love laced with agony, and her heart broke for him.

“I would have sworn he was with us when I called the doctor, and we raced you to the hospital.”

She shook her head, looking up at him, her lips pressed into a thin line. He studied her expression for a moment, and she waited for him to understand.

When it came, he turned his face away, and the muscles along his jaw revealed the clenching of his teeth. “He knew you were going into labor because he was in your head. He was in my head.”

“I saw him drive off, and Mia was so upset.”

He was still stiff, and his eyes were dark with a mix of emotions. “Why did he leave?”

It wasn’t a question she wanted to answer honestly. “He said to give you his regards. That it was for the best that he go.” That he loved me. That he was leaving for me. For Mia, too, so he wouldn’t betray his love to her. To be faithful to both of us, she realized.

Garrit nodded. “If you speak with him again,” the words came out resentfully, “give him my gratitude.”

She dropped her gaze back to the baby, then her parents came into the room with Mia, and René and Juliette, and she was spared the problem of answering him.

Eve woke in the dark, gasping. The dream had not been this vivid since she had lived as Helen, and she pressed her hand against her womb, the phantom sword a fire in her belly. She reached to touch Alex, sleeping peacefully in his bassinet, to reassure herself he was still breathing and warm and safe. The doctors had insisted on keeping them overnight, to give her body time to rest, though how much of it was Garrit’s worry and how much a medical necessity she didn’t know. But Alex was well, his mind the pleasant susurrus of infant dreams, swirls of colors and impressions. Undisturbed.

“For the moment.”

The voice froze her, cold and hard, and the burn in her womb throbbed painfully. Michael stepped forward from the shadow, white wings folded neatly to his back, gleaming so brightly she wondered how she had not seen him until now. The Archangel laid a pale hand over Alex’s fluttering heart.

“But that can change swiftly, Eve. And I would not even need the sword to steal the breath from your son’s body.” The hand rose higher, hovering over Alex’s mouth and nose, but not quite touching. “Should I kill him for this treachery, to remind you of the risks you take? Evidently dreaming of the death that will come no longer suffices.”

“No,” she whispered, lurching forward and knocking the cradle away. “I haven’t forgotten! I need no reminder!”

“But you soften toward your brother.” Michael’s eyes met hers, glowing with blue fire.

“No!” She stepped between Alex and the angel, hiding the baby behind her. As if that would stop Michael. As if he could not force her to do anything he wished. Her gaze fell to the sword at his hip. “I am in love with my husband. Adam has no power here. No power over me!”

Lightning flashed outside, thunder crackling like fireworks. Michael’s eyes narrowed, his head turning to the window. Rain pelted against the glass, turning to hail in the space of a heartbeat. The angel’s nostril’s flared, and Eve felt his fury wash over her, blistering her thoughts. Her hands went to her temples and she fell to her knees with a strangled cry, gripping her skull.

He glanced back at her again, his lip curling. “If you let him touch you, there will be no power on earth that will stop me from delivering your punishment.” He bent down, bringing his face to hers, so near she could smell the brimstone of his skin. “You and all your people will die.”

Before she could respond, Michael was gone. The sound of the rain against the window seemed to quench the fire in her soul, though she did not have the strength to rise. Her whole body trembled, and she dropped her face to the tile floor, her eyes flooding with tears.

Never
, she promised herself, shaking with silent sobs.
Never.