The Last Oracle (19 page)

“On another note, I was thinking...you might like to try something new?"

Valeria’s face lit in an amused smile as she leaned back and kissed his hand.

“What did you have in mind? Blindfolds already?”
 she asked, lowering her voice with a playful hint of seduction.

“Actually, I
was
thinking about,” he kissed her neck again, “perhaps, a few new experiences,” he said suggestively.

She raised her eyebrows. “Like what?” Her insecurity kicked in, and she suddenly wished she had been more knowledgeable about the art of seduction before they married. Blindfolds were one thing, but there was a whole other world of seduction out there that she’d yet to experience, and felt suddenly shy and inadequate.

Alex laughed and raised a brow. “Nothing like
that
. I think we do pretty well in that arena.”

“You would tell me if we weren’t, right?”

Releasing a long, carefree laugh, he wrapped his arms around her adoringly and soon she found herself smiling. “Yes, I think we do more than just
very
nicely!” he said, his lower lip barely brushing her neck, in exquisite torture.

“So, you said you wanted to try something new?” She trusted Alex and, whatever he wanted to try, she would be a good sport.

“No, I said I thought
you
might like to try something new,” he corrected, with a hint of amusement. “Like a trip off the island for a few weeks before we meet our family in Puerto Rico.”

Valeria yawned sleepily. Baths did that to her, despite the lingering desire she felt just from being within the folds of Alex’s arms. Although they seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time in bed making love and then napping, they were also hiking and snorkeling daily. Sometimes, she had a pull in her gut and she wondered if they were supposed to be doing something more important. She wondered if that was what Lars and the others had suggested.

She pushed that thought to the back of her mind. They were on their honeymoon, and what were honeymoons for but making love and spending as much time as possible in each other’s arms? Life would require other things of them later. Now was their time. Besides, Alex had spent 3,000 years waiting for this, and she was certain she could spend a lifetime, or more, living this wonderful misty life in the forest…as long as she didn’t think of their lost cottage.

“Puerto Rico?
That’s months off yet,” she said.

Alex laughed again. “No, love,
it’s weeks away.”

She narrowed her eyes. The trip to Puerto Rico was for her birthday, which was near the end of October. They were married in July.

“Isn’t it August?”

He laughed again, but this time, she noticed just a hint of tension in him. “It’s mid-October.”

“No—it can’t possibly be!” She went through the weeks in her mind. It seemed like only a few weeks and she couldn’t possibly imagine that months had passed. She felt the tug of time passing and the knowledge of a secret darkness that they would soon have to explore. She wasn’t ready to think of any of that and so she pushed it aside.

“I am sorry to tell you that time has gone by entirely too fast here with you.” He brushed his mouth along her lower lip and, seeing her concern, he added, “Don’t worry. The honeymoon is definitely not over! I just thought we could try a few new experiences. I would like to take you scuba diving…” He waited, and when she didn’t object, he
continued, “And then I thought we would go to St. Lucia for a week of luxury and room service alone, before heading up to meet the family.”

The part about diving was the last of what she heard and she turned around to face him.

“I thought to dive you had to go through a certification course.”

“Yes, well, you can do a resort course where a dive master guides you through a trial.”

“Who would do that?”

“Me.”

“You? Alex, I thought you were afraid of water and then I see you snorkeling every day and now I discover that you can teach scuba diving.”

“We all handle our fears differently. I’m not a fan of the open sea, but here in the bathwater of the Caribbean is a completely different story. I know you’ll love it. I did get my certification specifically so that I could share this experience with you.”

“When did you learn to dive?”

“Last spring,” he said, avoiding the fact that it was when she was with another man. Maybe he needed a challenge like that to keep his attention from the loss.

“Oh, while we were apart.”

“Yes, well, after our experience last fall when we both almost drowned again—and would have, if not for Caleb—I realized that it might be a valuable skill for us both to learn. Besides, we hadn't completely ruled out scuba for a rescue if it came to it in Delos.”

Valeria’s brows pulled down and she analyzed his face for a moment. She tilted her head. “I just realized something about you, my beautiful husband...” She bit her lip and held up his left hand as evidence. “Who, by the way, still does not have a wedding ring,” she teased, weaving her fingers with his as her tone became more serious. “You never lie to me, but you often withhold the full truth.” She kissed his hand.

He narrowed an eye and looked at her for a moment, and then, seeing her certainty, he lifted a shoulder and tilted his head in slight acquiescence.

“You should tell me,” she said softly.

He looked away and shook his head. “Not now.
Maybe later.”

“Later then,” she acquiesced. “Let’s see…you said something about another island?”

“St. Lucia,” he said, glad that the subject had changed.

“Why St. Lucia?”

“It’s one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean.”

She kissed his fingertips. “And what makes one lush paradise in the sea different from any other?”

He moved the fingers of his other hand along the edge of her face and then pulled her in for a kiss. He stared into her eyes, lost in his love for her. There was something different about her, he was certain of that. Something more confident—more knowing. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Alex?”

“Yes?”

“St. Lucia?”

“I’m sorry, beautiful!” He drew a deep breath. “Apart from being your run-of-the-mill paradise with an artists’ colony, the Pitons are breathtaking!”

“The Pitons?” she asked.

“Yes. The Pitons are twin volcanoes that surge up almost a half mile out of the Caribbean. Actually, they are volcanic plugs—a landform created by hardened magma within an active volcano.”

“All right,” she said hesitantly. “But do you really want to leave here?” she asked reluctantly.

The corners of his mouth curved upward as he brushed her hair back from her face. “I thought we could go diving tomorrow, and then the next day we’ll fly out to St. Lucia. It’s near the end of the long chain of islands, and I think we can risk a luxury hotel there, which will offer us all the privacy we’ll need. I just thought it would be nice to have a change of scenery.”

“Hmm.
 Well, let me just tell you...” Valeria’s eyes followed her fingers as they trailed from Alex’s face, down his chest, and then disappeared beneath the water, causing him to gasp at her new boldness. She said, “I’ve got all the scenery I need right here!”

Alex moaned, as he leaned in to kiss her. “I guess a few more hours here wouldn’t hurt.”

The next morning, she ate breakfast in bed, reading, while Alex—who had eaten hours before—lay next to her wearing faded jeans, a gray T-shirt, and black-rimmed glasses, mulling over financials on his laptop. She glanced over, appreciating the view.

“Why do you wear glasses?” she asked.

He smiled. “I don’t need them. I have perfect vision, but they magnify the screen so that I have a bigger picture. With the glasses, I get three screens on one. Then I allow my intuition to guide me.”

“Interesting!” she said, as she took a bite of her frittata and looked back down at her book. She lowered her brows as she read, “
I come from there, where I would gladly return. And now, love has moved me and compels me to speak.”

Alex smiled, adding, “Beatrice’s words to Dante. I didn’t know you were reading
The Divine Comedy
.”

“I’ve read everything else here!” Then Valeria shook her head. “If Beatrice really loved Dante why would she gladly return to Paradiso without him? It wouldn’t be Paradiso without you! I would have written it, ‘I come from there, where I would gladly return—if not for your absence.’”

At that, Alex laughed joyfully, put down his computer, and pulled her into his arms.

Later, they drove down the hill and then sailed around the island. They stopped at a beach and Valeria immediately noticed it was not nearly as nice as where they typically snorkeled. The sand was darker and the water was choppier.

“Why don’t you snorkel for a bit while I set out the gear?”

She nodded and stuck her toes into the light surf, wearing a paisley blue bikini and a deep tan. She tied her hair in a ponytail, stepped further into the water, and pulled on her fins, snorkel, and mask. There were reefs, but the snorkeling was not nearly as impressive as at other parts of the island. The water was choppy and all she saw were tiny clown fish. After about twenty minutes, she swam back to the shore.

“I’m guessing this will be about right,” he said, as he fastened a weighted belt around her and lifted a single tank onto her back. She shivered as she pushed her arms through the straps, remembering their dangerous swim out of Delos. Her breathing had been too heavy and she had run out of air. She had fought Alex to surface, risking being caught in the current and taken deep into the cave, never to escape. If not for Alex’s quick reflexes, they would both be dead. She shuddered and Alex held her for a moment, knowing why her fears were surfacing.

“Beautiful, I wouldn’t suggest this if I didn’t honestly believe you would enjoy it,” he said, but she could sense his hesitation. She decided that he was merely responding to her apprehension, and so she nodded again, but said nothing.

Alex continued, “Let’s sit in the water so that we can go over a few things.” He walked into the water a few yards and they knelt, while her face was still above the surface. “All right, well, I know you know how to clear your mask and your snorkel. Clearing your mouthpiece is similar to clearing a snorkel—except simpler. Just blow out and it clears.”

Then he ran through the rest of the basics, including the hand signals that she needed to know.

“Alright,” she said, wondering what she had really gotten herself into.

“We’ll stay fairly close to shore. Ready?”

“Yes,” she said spitting out the rough water that had splashed her. She was already shivering.

“Remember to control your breathing. But if your air runs low, we can always snorkel back, so it’s no big deal, okay?”

“Alright.”

She pulled down her mask, put the mouthpiece in, and followed Alex. Within seconds, they were in another world—a calm, but vibrant, world—that resembled a well-lit aquarium that was abundant in sea life that she hadn’t seen while snorkeling. The water didn’t seem to be deep at all. In fact, she felt like she could almost stand up and reach the surface. Although she was certain, due to her earlier snorkeling, that the water was at least twenty feet deep.

The white sand beneath them was marbled with sunlight, and the colors of the fish, the coral—everything—was brilliant. Alex turned and pointed to Valeria’s right, where a sea turtle swam by; she couldn’t help but feel thrilled at the sighting. They continued over the gentle waves of white sand and between two giant pieces of coral, easily ten feet tall and almost as wide. Alex gave her the hand sign that indicated danger and pointed to a yellow and white striped fish with numerous spine-like appendages, well camouflaged by the coral.

They swam along a sand path between the coral. Although Valeria felt calm, she could hear her own breathing and knew it was entirely too fast. Alex lifted a finger indicating that she should wait, and he went to the coral and came back. He took her hand and opened her fingers, and then, from a few inches above, he dropped a tiny creature that resembled a thorny octopus. It drifted the few inches into her hand.

The creature felt so delicate and was so beautiful that Valeria immediately fell in love with it—and diving. Alex returned the creature to the coral and they swam for another twenty minutes before Alex signaled that it was time to return. Valeria was surprised that she was disappointed.

As they crawled up onto the beach, the weight of the tank and belt made it so that she didn’t have the strength to get out of the water. The mild tide pulled her back in, and then the next wave brought her back onto the sand and she began crawling again, only to be washed back out a few feet. Alex was quick to pull her to the sand and remove the near-empty tank from her back. She stood, with her legs feeling like rubber, and stepped through the sand like a drunk.

The experience hadn’t felt tiring, but now she was exhausted. Alex went to the sailboat and pulled out a beach chair and a towel, and then built a fire to warm her.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, as he took a spear gun and went back into the surf. Within five minutes, he returned with a large purple fish. They sat by the fire and roasted fish on skewers and drank cold beer.

That night, back at their cabin, they lay on the hammock under the stars. The nerves, and the exertion of the day, had caused her to sleep several hours when they returned. Now, she felt the enormous joy of being exactly where she wanted to be, with exactly whom she wanted to be with.

“Alex, Mani said something when you were—well, out of it after the fire.” Valeria glanced at Alex. “He talked about how difficult it was for you to live with my deaths so often.”

He nodded, quickly pushing those images away. “It was the dream of this life that made it possible for me to survive.” He kissed her hair and said softly, “Still, the reality is far more fulfilling than I ever dreamed it could be.”

“I can’t imagine what you must have gone through.” She swallowed. “But I guess I’m wondering about something else Mani said. He said that he couldn’t imagine you were so patient with me when all the time you felt the pressure of my impending mortality.” Alex didn’t respond. “I wouldn’t want you worrying about me, if there was something that we needed to do so that you could feel the same way I do.”

He turned and kissed her. “And how do you feel here?”

She leaned into Alex’s shoulder. “I feel safe…and loved.”

He stroked her hair. “That’s my intention.” He smiled, pleased. “Really, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. I mean, even with the fire, all indications are that you are immortal. Your recovery from the plague and pneumonia—and hypothermia—were all extraordinary, indicating the type of recovery we would expect from an immortal.” He sighed lightly. “Not to mention your eye color and, if that isn’t enough, you’ve swam in the River Styx without even a heel exposed—Achilles has nothing on you!”

Valeria thought for a moment. “Then why were you so concerned about me at the wedding?”

It was Alex’s turn to think. “I guess you are a new genus of us, and we aren’t quite certain how your body will respond to health challenges.” They watched as a shooting star moved across the sky. “I’m confident that you can survive anything.”

Valeria secretly made a wish on the star that everything would stay as beautiful and safe with Alex as it was now. “Tell me about your family.”

“The family?”

“No.
Your
family. I’ll never get to meet them, but I want to feel like I know them,” she said.

He pulled her in closer and they stared at the stars.

“My father was an adventurer. He was an extraordinary worker and a dreamer. Mother was his perfect mate—his symbolon. Mother had the most beautiful auburn hair. Father said she had the face of an angel. Certainly to me she did,” he paused in his reverie.

“Antonia was two years younger than me. We never seemed to have the sibling rivalry that most children have.”

“Did she look like you?” Valeria asked in a sleepy voice.

“No. At least, I don’t think so. She was a tiny thing with a face that could be one minute filled with mischievousness, and the next completely angelic.” He sighed. “She was a feisty thing...always wanting to wrestle—which I did inform her was completely inappropriate for a girl,” he said in a teasing tone that made Valeria giggle. He sighed. “She was my closest friend…until Mani.”

“What happened to them?” she asked, unsure if she wanted to ruin the mood, but needing to know.

“We knew there were troops coming for me, so we hid in the forest. I was terrified for my family’s safety and determined that I would give myself up to Aegemon’s troops to save them. Father insisted that if one of us left, it would be the end of our family forever. Finally, I lied to him. I told him that I had seen a vision, and that I would go and we would all be reunited. When the troops came, I left. Father came out, ready to fight, but mother convinced him that I would be back. As fate would have it, father was right—I never saw them again.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It was a long time ago,” he said casually. “Father was quite an amazing man. He was passionate about what he was passionate about…and that was his family, especially my mother. She was most definitely his symbolon.”

“You had visions of the troops? I thought—”

He stopped and pulled back in surprise. “No, it wasn't my vision.”

She brushed her hand lovingly over his chest. “Whose vision was it then?”

“I actually don’t recall. It could have been any of them—maybe even all of them.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Mother, Father, and Antonia were all oracles.”

Valeria rolled up on an elbow, her eyes growing wide. “
You were a family of oracles?”
She pulled her brows down in confusion.

“Yes. Didn’t I tell you that?”

She shook her head. “No. Never.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter anymore because they’re all gone.”

“Alex, I remember you told me that your family feared for your sanity, due to your visions.” She glanced up at him. “I guess that made me believe that they were mortal.”

“Their visions were more like,” he pursed his lips in thought, “intuition. They didn’t think of it as odd.
Whereas, my visions gave me a violent physical response. Also, my visions were,” he shrugged, “much more...precise and vivid.”

He hadn’t been completely honest. It was only his visions of her in danger that gave him the violent reactions. And the other concern was that, since she had been with him during this lifetime and she had survived her twenty-seventh birthday, he had not had another vision. Most of the time, he allowed himself to believe that it was because she was no longer in danger. But after the very real danger with Aegemon almost a year before, then with her collapse in New York, and even their threat in Delos—not to mention the incident with the fire at the cottage—Alex was concerned that he would no longer have visions of her safety. Perhaps he was too distracted. Or, perhaps, none of those events would have been fatal.

“So, what happened to your family?” She turned to face him. “Do you know?”

He shook his head. “No. I assume that Aegemon’s troops came back for them eventually. I heard that Father took an arrow to the heart on Morgana. I also assume that he had been trying to defend Mother and Antonia. But everything was so grown over by the time I returned, that I’ve never discovered where he was buried.” Alex looked into the distance attempting to disguise an old ache with a casual tone.

Valeria brushed the side of his face. “I’m sorry, Alex.” She changed the subject. “You said there were some things that needed to be done so that we can live without hiding. Can I ask what they are?”

“We need to discover who is responsible for the fire. And there’s an old friend who can help us. The only problem is we will need to…bring him back into the picture.”

“Myrdd?” she asked.

This time, it was Alex’s eyes that widened in surprise.
“Yes, exactly!”