Forgotten Days (Fate's Intent Book 6) (17 page)

“You’re asking me to forget.”

“I’m not asking you to forget. I’m asking you to live that happily ever after Ellie wants you to have. I don’t want you to live your life in despair because of her.”

“You say that like you mean nothing to me.”

“Well, don’t I?”

“Of course not! Your father to my child. We created her.”

There was a pause as I continued to be upset and he was hesitant to say anything else but he did. “I love you, Jay.”

I looked back and a tear ran down my cheek. “I think you’re a little late to tell me that.”

Kole laughed and looked away. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I was never allowed to.”

“Well, I love you too.”

Kole turned towards me and held out his hand. I reached for it and the moment I felt the cold, my hand started to get that transparent form like he was, starting at my fingertips and moving towards my arm. “We could be together, all three of us like a family again, if that’s what you wanted.”

I was taking slow breaths as I watched my arm start to fade. I thought about what he meant very seriously and wanted to go until I thought of one thing that made me pull away. “I can’t. Troy needs me.”

Kole smiled and moved his hand back. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. You’ve chosen what you know is right and you’ll live happy now.”

I smiled back when I realized he was right. We’d see each other again someday. This wasn’t forever and the sadness for it started to melt away. “You better go before you get in trouble.”

“Yeah, I should. I’ll never forget about you, Jay and we’ll be waiting.”

“Tell her I love her and I’ll never forget either.”

“I will.” Kole appeared standing up and was about to turn away.

“Wait! Can you do what she did? Just for a moment?”

Kole smiled slightly as his form gained more color and I wrapped my arms around him. “Good-bye.”

Kole brought one arm around me and lifted my head up to him by my chin. He looked into my eyes for a moment then kissed my lips. “Good-bye.”

He turned back to his transparent form and disappeared from sight. I paused there for a moment and knew that things would look up. My life wasn’t all bad because I knew I had Troy. I smiled just from thinking of him and decided to join the others back inside but when I turned, I was startled to see Troy sitting on the top step with his back to the wall. “Troy!”

He looked up, his expression was blank. “I’m taking you away from them. You deserve to be happy.”

“What?” I sat across from him. “I’m with you. I am happy.”

“But you love him.”

I paused. “You heard me?”

“I heard enough. If he makes you happy, you should go with him.”

“No! I want to be with you! We just started our lives together and I wouldn’t trade that for anything! How could you even say that to me?”

“What about Ellie?”

I started to get a little choked up thinking about it but still knew my decision. “She’ll wait for me. Our separation won’t be forever. Right now, I just want it to be us. I love you and I plan to spend the rest of my life with you. Please. Don’t regret loving me.”

Troy quickly leaned in and kissed me. “I will never regret loving you.”

“Then I don’t want to hear you talk like that again. I won’t be able to handle it. I’m happy with you. I honestly am.”

He kissed me again. “Then I won’t. I just don’t want you to live here but dream about being somewhere else. It’ll keep you miserable.”

“Then I won’t. As long as you’re with me, I’d never dream about being somewhere else.”

“Come on.”

We made our way back down into the shelter and it was quiet like no one has even been talking since I was gone. Troy took his original seat at one end by Ruby and I plopped myself down next to Izin with a smile, waiting for him to notice me. “Shall we get started then?”

“What happened to you, Jaylyn? You’re kind of freaking us out.” Ruby said.

“What? Nothing. It’s just been a long night for all of us so I’d thought we’d end it happy.” I looked over at Izin with my smile and held out my hand.

“You mean, happy for me after following a brief moment of aversion from the rest of you?”

I laughed as I reached down and took his hand, instead of waiting for him. “Got to love that sense of humor.” I pushed up his sleeve, showing a long thick scar on his forearm and put my hand on it as best I could. It was quiet as my eyes started to glow and Izin just couldn’t look away.

In only a few seconds, I removed my hand and my eyes faded back. Izin looked down at his arm and just couldn’t believe it. The scarring was gone.

“Proof enough for you?”

“I could have used someone like you a long time ago.”

“May I continue?”

Izin didn’t reply. He pushed up his sleeve on the other side as far as it would go to about the elbow, revealing another long thick scar the length of his forearm. The others tried to repel from saying anything as I laid my hand flat on it and my eyes started glowing again until it was time to see the extent of the damage.

I didn’t have to say anything. I just looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Izin sighed to my look and started to unbutton the front of his coat. “You’re going to regret this later.”

“Then I guess it’s good you’re talking to a group that has seen many things a normal person has not.”

Izin sighed again while he turned his back to everyone and started undoing the front of his shirt. “Maybe but it’s something entirely different to see a living torture victim.”

He pulled the shirt down off his shoulders and we saw scarring across his back like some kind of lashes and his muscles tensed up. We kept from saying anything again and kept our reactions of surprise in silence.

I looked back at the others before I stepped up behind him and placed my hands on his back. “Try and relax.”

He took a deep breath as my eyes started to glow again. The straight line scars crisscrossing over his shoulder blades started to fade and disappear.

“Turn around now?”

“If you all promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t feel bad for me. I’ve lived like this for a long time and have gotten used to being this way. I don’t want you to think I regret anything.”

There was a pause as everyone looked around at each other and Zayden nodded to me. I nodded back and turned to Izin. “We promise.”

He took another deep breath and slowly turned around, facing the fire. It was hard for us to react in silence this time. There were a few gasps and heavy breath intakes while we looked upon his bare torso.

For being in his fifties he was very fit, still showing signs of defined muscles at his abdomen and chest but what we couldn’t seem to turn our eyes away from was the scars placed like the wings of a butterfly along his body. From the top of his shoulder, he had a downward angle scar on each side going down to the base of his chest muscle. Below that, he had two scars shaping the line of his ribs all the way around to his sides and several downward scars angled over the top of his abdomen inverted towards his bellybutton.

“I’d hate to use the childish phrase ‘I told you so’ but I did.”

“It’s all my fault.” Aleksander muttered.

“Yes, actually. It is!”

“All right.” I cut in with a smile as I stepped in front of Izin, drawing his attention back to me. “Let’s not go down that road. He’s apologized, you accepted and we’re moving on.”

I put my hands on him as my eyes started to glow and Izin sighed. “You’re absolutely right. Like I said, I don’t regret it. My choice is a reason why you’re here.” He looked over at Adele and she shared a look with her father. “Though I wasn’t expecting this. I knew you had a daughter, Aleks but I was surprised to find out she grew to become an Assassin. I really didn’t think you would have allowed that.”

“You say that like I had a choice in the matter.” He looked over at Adele again and she just smiled. “Once we moved into the manor, she met them.” Ruby and I laughed. “Gwen already had them looking forward to being her successors and she was drawn into it.”

“Happily drawn, father.” Adele smiled.

“Yes, great and Gwen wasn’t exactly helping the situation, being extremely encouraging as she was so I had really no choice but to accept.”

“That’s because she knew the potential Adele possessed.” Ruby said. “She couldn’t let that opportunity pass.”

“Yes, well, because of that, they’ve been training since they were nine.”

Izin was surprised. “Nine, really? I thought Gwen wasn’t supposed to start training them until they turned fifteen.”

“She wasn’t. They did a lot of it on their own but they’ve learned mostly everything they know from Jaylyn’s brother. He trained them in close combat aggressively for four months when they were eleven until they abused his teachings and took it out on those around them. He stopped for a while after that.”

“What happened?” Troy asked, curious to know

“Ah, let’s not talk about that.” I said while healing Izin.

Darius laughed. “Oh, well, if she doesn’t want us to know then you have to tell us!”

Aleksander smiled as he looked over Adele and she sighed, knowing he was going to tell them. “Well, they had a problem being around people since their minds were always on a fight so school was a bit difficult. They kept to themselves for the most part and that freaked people out enough until one day a group of six decided to confront them. I wasn’t there but apparently within thirty seconds, all six of them were on the ground with a broken something and these three were still on their feet without a scratch. I had to go down there myself and take them home.”

“You make it sound like we were wrong.” Adele said.

“Because you were! You could have killed them easily and you were just kids.”

“Oh, shit.” Zayden muttered. “I do remember reading about that in her journal.”

“Did you punish them?” Troy asked.

Adele sighed and rolled her eyes. “Of course he did. Jaylyn was living with us then because it was after her father died and Ruby was just sent home to Gwen so that meant nothing happened to her.” Ruby laughed because it was true. “But Jaylyn and I were locked in our rooms for an entire week without being able to see each other and he wouldn’t let Ruby visit either. The only outside contact I got was when I could hear Jaylyn and Trever fighting in the next room.”

“And I thought it would have been good for you.” Aleksander sighed. “But I was very, very wrong.”

Darius laughed. “Why, what happened?”

“It made us proud.” I said while I was just moving down to Izin’s abdomen. “And that’s when the dreams started.”

“What dreams?” Zayden asked. “Oh, the first kills, right.”

“Which we’re not going to talk about.” Adele quickly added.

“What?” Izin saw them looking at each other and I guess he didn’t know about this.

“She’s the one that killed Waylin.” Zayden said.

Izin’s eyes widened and he seemed overly curious about the news. “What? And you married her?”

“I put that behind me. I almost lost her once because I dwelt on the past. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Zayden took Adele’s hand in his and no one said anything else until I finally moved my hands from Izin’s body and my eyes faded. “How’s that?”

Izin looked down and was just stunned. “Kathryn is going to freak.”

“That’s not the only thing she’ll be doing.” Ruby smiled while looking at him.

“Ruby!” Adele bursts out.

“What? She’s not! You’re in very good shape for being—”

Izin laughed. “Go ahead and say it—old.”

“I wasn’t going to say old. You don’t even look your age, that’s a plus. She’s lucky is all. If I wasn’t married—”

“And there was no risk of killing him.” I abruptly added with a laugh.

“Oh, yeah.” Ruby muttered. “And that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Izin asked.

We looked around at each other and Darius seemed to be the only one comfortable talking about it. “You kind of know already. She has a touch of death that’s fueled by emotions of anger. She could kill you through sex.”

“Really but not you? I know you haven’t gone this long.”

Darius laughed and shared a look with Ruby. “It happens when she’s with me but I have a stronger resistance than others so it doesn’t really effect me.”

“And it’s not all the time.” Ruby said, looking at Darius. “Just when—” She paused like she didn’t want to go on.

“She’s in control.” Darius finished for her.

“Okay. I think that’s enough.” I said, turning back to Izin. “Is that all of them?”

Izin nodded as he picked up his shirt and started to put it back on. “Yes, actually, thank you. If you want to think it, my father was generous enough to leave my legs so that I could still be presentable on my feet. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to walk around on my own for a while. He’s always been kind to me.”

Everyone laughed quietly.

“I really hope that was a joke.” I said.