Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (194 page)

“He makes me so mad. He thinks he can control my life, but he can’t. I won’t let him,” she said. “Why won’t he just leave us alone? I don’t understand it.”

“It doesn’t matter what stupid ideas your father comes up with. They won’t work. I love you and I won’t let your father come between us.” I felt Claire freeze. I glanced behind me, worried that either her dad or another one of his lackey suitors had followed us out, but I saw no one. Looking back at Claire, I saw her head come up, her eyes wide and teary.

“You’ve never said that before,” she whispered.

Confused, I replayed the words in my mind. Claire didn’t wait for me to figure it out. “You said you loved me.”

Her words struck me. Had I really never said those words out loud before? I had thought them at least a thousand times, probably more. I loved everything about her. I always had.

“Do you really mean it?” she asked.

I was amazed that she even had to ask. “Of course I do.”

Claire grinned. Her earlier anger had disappeared completely. “I love you, too.”

I already knew Claire loved me, but hearing her say it was electrifying. Her reaction to me a second ago made perfect sense now. The world around me had disappeared in the face of her love. Wishing this feeling would last forever, I promised myself that I would tell her everyday how much I loved her. I never wanted her to forget, either. Music from Claire’s party drifted out to us, but we were happy to stay where we were.

Reaching her lips up to me, Claire sealed her love with mine. My hands pulled her against me more tightly as our mouths moved together. A rush of debilitating pain swept through me, but I didn’t care. The chill of the night disappeared beneath the heat of our bodies pressed together. As my hands traced down the curve of her back I lost myself in her. Our lips finally parted and I pulled Claire against me, partly because she was keeping me upright, but mostly because I never wanted to lose contact with her again. Our heavy breaths misted the air around us. Neither of us was thinking about her father anymore. The only thing that mattered was that we loved each other. That was stronger than anything that would come against us.

At least I hoped it was.

M
y dad stood checking
the shears he was holding. I led the first sheep up onto the platform, patting its head as it calmly waited for spring shearing to begin. “Claire didn’t want to come watch?” my dad asked. “You two are practically inseparable these days.”

This was the first weekend in months that we wouldn’t spend together. “The sheep don’t seem to like Claire very much,” I said. At least not when we were together. Claire tried to help me bottle feed one of the early lambs last week. I started out trying to show her how to hold the lamb and position the bottle, but little Ayashe kept squirming and kicking so much that it was impossible to get her to eat. It wasn’t until I went to get a blanket to wrap around the lamb’s body that she finally settled down. The second I put my hand on Claire’s shoulder to see how she was doing, Ayashe starting wiggling again.

My dad had seen the whole thing, and he laughed as he remembered it, now. “Claire just needs to spend more time around them. I bet they’re jealous of her. Animals can be like that.”

I wasn’t convinced. I knew Claire had already added it to her list of strange things we couldn’t explain.

“Things seem to be going pretty well between you and Claire,” Dad said. I nodded. “That’s good. Your mother worried about you, you know? Thought you spent too much time alone. Now we can barely get a chance to talk to you without Claire being two steps behind. But it’s good. I’m glad you two are getting along so well.”

I didn’t say anything. Nothing he was saying was new. Claire and I had been together for almost a year, now. I knew my dad well enough to know that this idle chatter was leading up to what he really wanted to say.

“How serious are things between you two?” Dad finally asked. “I know your mom and I have both talked to you about sex, but I also know it’s easy to forget what your parents say when you’re with the girl you love.”

Not this again. I had already had to endure being cornered on my eighteenth birthday by Claire’s dad. He flat out told me that if I had sex with his daughter he would call the police and have me arrested now that I was eighteen and Claire wasn’t. I wasn’t sure that would really stick, but if anyone could find a way to convince a judge, it would be Thomas Brant. Added to that were loving, but serious threats from my own mom, and less forceful, but more meaningful words of wisdom from my dad. Plus the fact that even though kissing Claire got easier every time I did it, I was pretty sure sex would, at the very least, knock me out. I was going to have to work up to that somehow.

“Dad, we’re not sleeping together.” That was as much discussion as I was interested in having about that topic.

My dad nodded. There was no questioning in his face. I never lied to him. He took what I said at face value and moved on. “You’re leaving for college after this coming summer, and, well, I want to know what you’re planning when it comes to Claire.”

A grin spread across my face before I could stop it, making my dad regard me closely. “I plan on marrying her,” I said.

Nodding as if he had expected that, he stroked the sheep standing in front of him. “That’s what I figured you would say. You realize that she still has another year of high school left, right?”

“Of course I do, Dad. I’m planning on asking her next summer after she graduates. We can get married, and then we’ll go back to Las Cruses for school,” I said.

“You’ll have to ask the Elders for permission first,” he said.

The Elders. I hadn’t even thought about them. I didn’t want to think about them. “Dad, you don’t really expect me to go to the Elders and ask permission, do you? Getting Thomas to agree is going to be hard enough. The Elders’ permission really doesn’t mean anything anymore.”

“It’s part of your heritage, Uriah. You need to respect that.” The serious set of his jaw told me how much he meant what he had just said. Tradition was very important to him. His family had lived here for centuries. Myth and legend were a part of him just as much as me and Mom were. Going against tradition would be like going against him. I didn’t want to do that to him. If he wanted to see us speak to the Elders, I would consider it.

“But, Dad, if I go to the Elders next summer, they’ll make us wait a year before we get married. That would make it two years from now. I don’t want to wait that long. I would have to ask Claire to marry me this summer,” I said. I wanted to spend my life with her more than anything, but was she ready to have me propose to her? Was I?

“That would be your choice, then. You need to think about what you’re ready to do, and what you’re not willing to wait for,” Dad said. “And you need to consider that other things could stand in your way. More than just time. You have to be ready for everything that might come at you, not just Thomas or the Elders.”

What other things? My dad had always tried to teach me what he thought I would need to know. Physical combat that he learned in the military, shooting, shearing sheep, being a good person that others would respect. The lessons I had learned from him were countless, but I didn’t understand what he was trying to say. I knew Thomas would fight me when I asked to marry Claire, but what else could there possibly be?

“I think that going to the Elders would help you, Uriah. Quaile can help you. I really think you should consider it.” Dad folded his arms across his chest then, having said what needed to be said.

“I’ll think about it, okay?”

Dad nodded, probably expecting that I would eventually do as he asked. I usually did. Not because I believed in stories about the Trickster or the legendary love of Twin Souls, but because I loved and respected him. Eventually I always saw the wisdom in what he wanted me to do. Facing the Elders, though, made me more than a little nervous. The shaman, Quaile Faimin, was a beast of a woman on her best day. I wasn’t sure how my dad thought she could help me, but he was right about these kinds of things more often than not.

“Well, we better get started,” Dad said. “I’ll do the first batch then I’ll hand the shears over to you. I want to see you get the whole coat off in six minutes this year. Last year it took you eight.”

“Six minutes? That’s how fast professionals do it. I can’t shear a sheep that fast.”

“I can do it in six minutes,” he said. “I’m no professional.”

“No, you’ve just been shearing sheep for forty years, that’s all.” Not a professional? Yeah right. My dad was one of the best sheep handlers around. Except for a tour in the Marines in his twenties, he had spent his entire life around sheep.

“Just watch me first, and when it’s your turn, do what I did. It’s not that hard.”

My dad’s confidence in me was always welcome, but I think it was a little misplaced this time. I just shook my head, though. “I’ll try, Dad, but I’m not making any promises.”

Satisfied with that, the electric shears buzzed to life and my dad started carving the wool away in one big piece. I kept an eye on my watch as he did. Five minutes and fifty-eight seconds later, the first whole piece was off. Not a professional, my foot. We went on like that all morning, me leading the sheep to my dad, and him buzzing away their thick winter coats. The stack of fluffy white next to us grew.

Rubbing his shoulder and wincing, he said, “My arms getting tired. One more for me, and then it’s your turn.”

“Alright, but don’t get your hopes up too high, all right.”

“Just do your best.”

Hoping to test his six minutes, I grabbed the largest sheep in the pen and led him over. Dad smiled at my choice. He knew why I had chosen this one. Holding the sheep with one hand, he turned the shears on and brought them close to the sheep’s shoulder. Before he could start, though, something snapped in the shears and the whole thing started twitching wildly. My dad sighed and shook his head.

“I left the screwdriver in the barn. I’ll be right back,” Dad said.

We were out in the far field, today, at least a quarter-mile from the house. It would take him a while to get all the way back up to the barn, fix the shears, and make it back to me. I figured I might as well do something useful while I waited so I started bundling up the wool Dad had already cut. I was halfway through the pile when I heard something coming from the barn. The barn was so far away, I shouldn’t have been able to hear anything that was happening in it, but I knew instinctively that was where the sound had come from.

Standing very still, I listened again. It was faint, but I could hear my name being called. It sounded like my dad. There was something wrong with his voice. The sound came again, louder, more urgent. Something was definitely wrong. He needed me. An anguished cry sent me rocketing over the fence and toward the barn. Before the sound faded, I had sprinted the entire distance, stumbling into the barn to find my dad lying on the floor in agony.

“Uriah, what happened?” my mom was asking, shaking my shoulder to try and get me to respond.

I looked up at her then down at my dad. I was holding his head and shoulders in my lap. I didn’t remember coming over to him, or kneeling down, or trying to pick him up.

“Uriah, what happened?” Mom repeated hysterically. Tears were running down her cheeks as she stared at her husband. “We heard you screaming and ran out to find you like this. What happened?”

I didn’t remember screaming either. “I…I don’t know, Mom.” I shook my head, but my thoughts stayed murky. “I can’t remember. I ran up to the barn when I heard Dad calling my name. But I don’t remember what happened after I saw him.”

“It’s just the trauma, Uriah. Focus on your dad, right now,” Sophia, the local nurse, said.

I looked up and started when I saw her. I hadn’t even realized she was here. She was busy working on my dad as she spoke. Stethoscope in her ears and an aspirin bottle open next to her, it looked like she had already been working for a few minutes. I had forgotten she was even at the house today.

“What’s wrong with him?” I finally asked. I could still see the pain in his eyes, but the glassy film that was there now clouded them so much.

“It’s his heart. I think he had a heart attack. I gave him some aspirin, but his vitals aren’t good. I already called an ambulance. They’ll be here soon,” Sophia said. The grim determination in her face barely hid the panic.

Mom was crying and squeezing Dad’s hand as she whispered that everything was going to be all right. I couldn’t even focus enough to do that. A heart attack. I should have seen it earlier. He kept rubbing his shoulder and wincing when he took too deep of a breath. I knew his heart was weak. I should have recognized the signs. I thought he was just getting tired. He had been working too hard lately.

“I should have seen it,” I said to myself.

“Hush, Uriah. You can’t think like that,” Sophia said. She pressed the stethoscope against his chest again and listened. Her frown wasn't very optimistic. Mom started crying and I could see my hands shaking, but I couldn’t feel them. I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

“You said you heard your dad calling you?” Sophia asked, trying to keep me from losing it. “Where were you?”

“In the far field. The shears broke, and Dad came up here to fix them. I heard him calling my name and I ran to him,” I said. How had I gotten up here so fast?

“You heard him all the way out there? We didn’t hear him yell anything,” Sophia said.

Confusion crowded in with my fear. “I know I heard him,” I said. Sophia wasn’t paying much attention to me anymore. She was staring at my dad like I was. He was lying too still now. I could barely even see his chest moving anymore. I couldn’t lose him. Tears started falling down my cheeks.

Sophia looked over at me, her eyes desperate to offer me something. “Just stay calm, Uriah. The ambulance will be here in a few minutes.”

I tried. I really tried to stay calm. How did we go from talking about whether or not my dad was a professional shearer to him lying in the dirt? I felt so responsible for not seeing the warning signs earlier. Sophia had to do something to save him. She kept listening to his heart, telling us the ambulance would be there any minute. Mom was crying. She told Dad over and over again that she loved him. I just sat there with tears running down my face, wondering if this was my fault.