Matter of Truth, A (34 page)

When my mother walks into the private room Astrid reserved
for us at her favorite Elvin restaurant, my stomach decides we’re on a roller
coaster. She looks around the loud room, clutching her handbag close.

She came. My mother came to my engagement dinner. And I have
no idea how I feel about it.

I’m rooted to the spot below me, Jonah’s hand on my back as
he laughs at something Moira Graystone has just said. I’ve got my goddaughter
Emily in my arms and all I can do is simply stare at the woman I grew up with
but hardly know .

Abigail Lilywhite finally spies me and winds her way through
the room until she reaches us. She clears her throat and nearly forces herself
to smile. “Hello, Chloe. You’re looking good this evening.”

No . . . no comment about being too thin? My hair not being
right?

Jonah nudges me and I blink hard. “Um . . . hi, Mom.”

Karl and Moira know how things are between me and my
parents, so our awkward greeting doesn’t faze anymore. Moira simply reclaims
her daughter and, after saying hi to my mom, too, she and her husband wander
over to where Zthane and Giuliana are talking to Cora and Raul.

“I’m glad you could come tonight,” Jonah tells her.

It’s then I notice her smile is brittle, like she’s
completely afraid to do the wrong thing. Say the wrong thing. So I step forward
and hug my mother. “Me, too,” I whisper in her ear.

Her thin body trembles, like she’s holding in too much
emotion. “As am I.”

Tonight, we’ll add more bricks to our foundation together.

Dinner is wonderful. Everyone is so happy for us, even
though we get teased for getting engaged more times than most couples. Astrid
and Cameron are so cute together (despite their vehement protests that they
are, in fact, not a couple), as are Cora and Raul. Will and Callie spend the
entire time bickering and it’s so adorable I just want to pinch their cheeks. I
get at least twenty hugs from Emily, and the sweetest picture of me and Jonah
she drew. Caleb takes care of my mother. Outside of Kellan, everyone I love
most is in this room tonight.

Speaking of . . . “I love you,” I tell Jonah.

He kisses me, prompting lots of glasses to clink. We laugh
and for once, everything is perfect. Incandescent. Free. Like we have a right
to this bliss. Like . . . maybe everything is going to work out after all.

Midway through dessert, I excuse myself to go to the small
ladies’ room across the restaurant. I practically glide across the floor, the
biggest, goofiest grin filling my face.

I am in love and I don’t care who knows it.

It isn’t until I’m washing my hands that I become aware of
someone standing behind me. “You’re a tough one to get alone,” he says, voice
distorted and wheezy. “So many people looking out for you. Even here, in this
place of gluttony.”

I stare at him for a moment in the mirror before turning
around slowly. I don’t even allow myself to feel vindicated in this moment. I’m
. . . freaked out, to be honest.

“Hello, Jens,” I say.

His thin lips curl into a smile. It is, in no way, pleasant.
“Hello, little Creator. How lovely you look today.”

I quickly survey my surroundings. There is no one else in
the bathroom. A singular window is off to the side, propped open, no doubt, by
Jens. A door leading back to the restaurant opposite the window. It is not an
ideal place to launch at attack, but it is doable. Collateral damage will be
minimal.

“Come now.” He’s close enough now to drag his fingers across
my arm. “Let us talk together for a few moments, you and I.”

Shivers of disgust flare up and down my arms. His skin, it’s
. . . dry, papery. Tiny white flakes remain where his fingers have lain.

I have to fight my nausea back.

The moment my hand moves, his swipes out and grabs it. He’s
strong, almost unnaturally so. Within less than a second, the bones in my
fingers break like tiny twigs under a giant’s feet.

The pain is blinding. All I can do is gasp, because it’s
more than a punch to the gut. It’s a godsdamn cannon ball and I can’t even make
a sound out of shock.

“I have always liked this about you.” His eyes are beetles,
flat and black. Lifeless. “How you are so willing to take risks. An entire
restaurant filled with sentient life, including those that you cohabitate with
and have feelings for, and yet you are willing to blow me and this room up
without a second thought.”

My other hand angles, but he catches that one, too,
crunching more small bones like they’re nothing. OH MY GODS OH MY GODS. Searing
pain tears through every nerve ending in my body. He slams me back against the
sink, the hard porcelain unforgiving against my hipbones.

This time the urge to scream out in agony consumes me, but
before I can, one of his papery, disgusting hands clamps over my mouth.

“Can you do it, little Creator? Can you simply think of a
change, and make it so?”

Why is . . . why . . . how . . . I shake my head
desperately, but it’s hard, so hard to think of anything else but the pain
raging through me. I need . . . must . . . cage? No—will him out—

Gods, I can’t
think
.

Jens clamps down harder the fragile fragments left intact in
one of my hands. Darkness swarms my vision. “We cannot converse if you keep
trying to attack me. Be a good girl and show some respect.”

He removes his hand from my mouth slowly. Tiny white flakes
rain down between us. “Jens . . . why . . .?” Even to me, my voice is slurred.

“Do you really not know?” he asks, amused. “Can you not feel
it?”

Any attempt at coherent thought is countered with various
pressure adjustments against my still trapped hand.

“Oh, little Creator. I’m worse than disappointed. You should
know that appearances are
always
deceptive.”

I’m teetering on the edge of blackness. “Who . . . not . . .
Jens?”

He closes in on me; a putrid smell threatens to overwhelm
the remaining, functional senses I’ve got going for me. He taps my forehand
with a long finger. “Think, little Creator. Think. You can figure it out.
You’re a bright girl.” That ugly smile of his curves upward once more. “Shall I
let you in on a secret?”

I actually throw up now. Between the pain and the smell, I
can’t stop myself.

If Jens, or whoever this is, is bothered by the rancid
remains of my recently consumed dinner all over his shirt, he doesn’t let on.
“We have been in the midst of a game together for some time now. It has been
droll, this game of cat and mouse we play. In the spirit of our burgeoning
relationship, tonight will be all about riddles. You have asked me a question,
and I was gracious enough to give you a clue. Now, it is my turn. Tell me,
little Creator. Which one is out there right now? What is the name it goes by?”

I struggle to focus, but all I want to do is to let myself
fall into darkness. What . . . what is he talking about?

Surprisingly, the pressure on my ruined hand relents
momentarily. Jens leans forward, his ashy lips too close to my ear. Nausea
rushes back like a tsunami. “I have to admit, I cannot tell those two apart.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. “All I can see is that
they are two halves of a whole.”

Is he . . . Jonah? He’s asking about Jonah? I struggle,
panicked, but lights flash before my eyes as my hand is refolded tightly into
his.

“Abominations.” And now his lips do make contact, on the
space right before my ear; bile surges once more up my throat. “Fate should not
have allowed that.
I
would not have allowed that. Once, such perversions
would have become tributes. Offerings of appeasement.”

My eyes, already unfocused and swinging wildly, land for a
brief moment on his hand, still holding mine in a vise-like grip. There’s a
signet ring on the pinky. This is Jens’ ring. Every single time I’ve ever seen
him, he’s been wearing this ring.

This is Jens, and yet it is not. Because Jens . . . Jens
knew the difference between Jonah and Kellan.

I wish Caleb were still in my head, to tell me what to do.
Tell me who is here with me. I close my eyes, let myself sink into the abyss
threatening to take me, but a sharp crack against my face forces me back up
once more. “My patience wears thin,” the Jens person says.

I think he might have shattered my cheekbone, too. “I’ll die
. . . before I . . .” I pull in a shuddery breath.

Jens smiles, and then laughs. It is not Jens’ laugh. It is
sly, old, filled with countless atrocities and immeasurable power. “Oh, no,
little Creator. There will be no death allowed for you, not for some time now.
I cannot guarantee that for those nearby, though.”

My concentration, on the verge of coherency, is shattered
once more as he clamps down on both of my hands. I gasp, “Don’t . . . please .
. . don’t hurt them . . .”

“It is beneath you to try to protect those who are inferior,
and yet you still try. You are a Creator; every life is beneath you. Dealing
death is not to be feared. It is to be revered.”

I start to cry. Flat out cry.

He leans close again. “I can smell how much you wish to
destroy me. It is intoxicating. Exhilarating.” He caresses my cheek with his
lips. The shudder wracking my body turns epileptic. “I will look forward to
encouraging you to give into that side of yourself.”

I try to speak, to tell him to fuck off, but he squeezes
even harder. Blurry lights invade the darkness in my vision. “Did you know that
pain can help? You just have not learned this lesson yet.” His nose traces my
neck as he pulls in a long, deep breath. “You are trying so hard right now to
overcome me. You are vibrating with power, so much so, and yet . . . it is
still contained by such a fragile vessel. I wish I could be inside you right
now, feel what you are feeling. It would be almost humbling. Exciting.” He
pauses, licks my neck, as if he is tasting something new.

My knees nearly give out. Bile resurges in the back of my
throat.

“Can you feel my excitement?” he wheezes softly.

I fight. As hard as I can. I kick and will everything in me
to crash against him, but it’s no use. The pain is blocking me from doing
anything with my powers.

I’m nothing but a rag doll in his hands.

“Soon enough,” he murmurs, licking once more from the base
of my neck all the way to my forehead. “Soon enough, little one.”

He releases my hands so suddenly I nearly crash to the
floor. In desperation, I attempt to yank the stall doors off their hinges to
use as weapons against him, but he wraps a hand around my throat and presses
the other against my forehead. A loud squealing sound roars through my mind and
then my entire being. I’ve never heard anything like it before.

It’s deafening.

The doors before me suspend in mid-air. Jens yanks me off my
feet so my toes dangle limply against the ground. Just as I begin to lose
consciousness, I watch the doors slide back into position, as if they’d never
been yanked off in the first place.

How . . . how is this possible?

“Tonight is not our night. Until it’s time, sweet dreams,”
he murmurs.

The sound in my mind ratchets up a thousand decibels until I
am pain personified. I shatter over and over again until, thankfully,
everything fades to blessed black.

While writing is a very solitary process, a book cannot be
successful without a team. To my editor, Natasha Tomic, my agent, Pam van
Hylckama Vlieg, and my publicist, KP Simmon, I’m lucky to have such a strong
team behind me. Thanks for believing in me and for everything you do for me and
my stories. It makes all the difference. While I’m at it . . . Carly Stevens,
this cover? I’m still sighing and swooning over it. And Julie Titus? Your
formatting skills make me so happy.
Grazie
to you all, ladies—you’re
simply the best around.

Fact: I have some of the best critique partners and beta
readers around. Tracy Cooper, Andrea Johnston, Vilma Gonzalez, Megan O’Connell,
and Cherisse Nadal, I cannot thank you guys enough for all the time, love,
suggestions, feedback, and encouragements you’ve given this book and these
characters. All the love to you guys.

I also have an amazing street team—guys, I pinch myself
every day because I am so very lucky to have such dedicated, wonderful fans.
Thank you for everything you all do for me. Please know that I’m eternally
grateful for each and every one of you. I also feel incredibly lucky to have so
many book bloggers championing the Fate series—thank you all so much. There are
a few I’d like to send specific shout-outs to, who have really made this
journey special: Natasha at Natasha is a Book Junkie, Vilma at Vilma’s Book
Blog, Cristina at Cristina’s Book Reviews, Ana at The Book Hookup, Megan at
Paperbook Princess, Jessica at Lovin’ Los Libros, Caitlin at The Road is You,
Chelsea at Starbucks & Books Obsession, Meredith at Pandora’s Books, and
Kathryn and Shelley at TSK TSK What to Read. Ladies, your tireless support and
pimping of my books means so very, very much to me.

To my three boys and husband, I love you guys more than all
the cupcakes in the world. Thanks for putting up with all my crazy writing
hours. Mom and Dad? Thanks for always believing in me as a writer. To my
friends and family who reach out and support me as I chase my dreams, I adore
you all.

Last, but certainly not least, to you, dear readers . . .
all the thanks to you from the bottom of my heart.