The Three Fates of Ryan Love (20 page)

R
yan had taken Sabelle into the bedroom holding her hand. Coming out, she walked alone. She wasn't surprised. She didn't even blame him. She'd been living a lie since she came. It didn't matter to Ryan that she wished it had been true—that she could stay and live as a human. That making love to him had been worth dying for, if that's what waited around the bend.

She deserved the anger that shimmered around all that muscle. She deserved the hurt that nested beneath her breastbone. The one that felt like her heart breaking. She hadn't trusted him with the truth about what she intended, and now, because of her omission, he thought everything she'd told him was a lie.

Ryan went straight to the kitchen and took a fresh beer from the fridge. Joel poured another whiskey, setting it in front of him with a quick pat on his shoulder, a gesture of commiseration that startled them all. Sabelle's glass was still full, but the wine had grown warm. She felt Ryan's gaze on her face as she sipped it and grimaced. Without asking, he took the glass, dumped it, and poured her a fresh one. No one spoke. Sabelle wished it would stay that way.

“Why don't we all take a step back,” Elijah said in his ever-reasonable voice.

“I got a better idea,” Ryan said. “Why don't the two of you tell me what any of this has to do with you? Why did you call her? Signal her? Whatever the hell you did. How do you know about us? About
her
?”

“Fair enough,” Elijah said.

From the look on his face, Ryan didn't care if it was fair or not. He wanted answers and he obviously didn't want them from Sabelle.

Calmly Elijah pulled a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and handed it to Ryan. “You might need that fist later for something worse than walls.”

Scowling, Ryan accepted it and placed the bag over his raw knuckles. Joel took a long draw from his beer and chased it with the whiskey. Something glittered in his eyes that Sabelle recognized. Intuition rushed her, planting the idea before she had time to doubt.

“You're from the Beyond,” she breathed, staring at him in astonishment. She didn't know why she was so surprised, but she hadn't expected it.

Ryan's head snapped up, eyes hard and narrowed.

“That's why you know so much,” Sabelle went on, sure she was right. “That's why you're so hostile.”

“I'm
hostile
because you used this man like you had the
right.
”

Sabelle flinched but she shot back, “I saved his life. I risked my life to do it.”

Joel shifted his glare to Ryan. “From the look on his face, I'd say that's not good enough. You only helped him to help yourself.”

Suddenly furious, Sabelle leaned forward. “You don't know anything about me or why I—”

“Did you blow up Love's?”

Ryan's question was spoken so softly, his voice so deep, that it took her a moment to parse the melodic words into meaning.

“What?” she said as the breath went out of her. Then the full impact of the accusation hit her. “Is that . . . You think I'm capable of that? You think I would do such a horrible thing?”

“You think you're bad enough to take over the
fate of the world
. Who knows what else you can do.”

“No,” she said angrily. “I didn't blow up Love's. If you think I would, then you don't know me at all.”

“There's the rub,” he said with a bitter laugh. “I guess I
don't
know you at all.”

Her heart was breaking but she didn't look away. She held his gaze, chin up, pride and hurt and fury right there for him to see.

“You may not have lit the fuse, but what happened at Love's happened because of you,” Joel butted in.

“Or because of you,” she said pointedly. “And now you're afraid the Sisters will come looking for me and find you.”

Joel gave a mean chuckle. “That ship has sailed already, hasn't it, sweetheart? Aisa knows where you are, doesn't she?”

Sabelle's mouth snapped shut. Ryan looked ready to start hitting things again and Joel seemed a likely choice. Instead, he moved to her side, strong, solid, and so distant that he might have been on the other side of the universe.

“That true?” he asked. “You've seen her here?”

Reluctantly, Sabelle nodded. “In the café, when you left to use the restroom. She threatened me. She said she'd kill a seer every hour until I returned. I'm pretty sure she murdered my friend.”

Her voice hitched and a burning lump of emotion lodged in her throat. She blinked back tears, knowing they'd be scorned by these three men who didn't trust her.

“You didn't think that was something you should share?” Ryan asked. “We were having such a moment.”

His sarcasm whipped her. She could feel his disappointment, his stewing resentment, his sense of betrayal. Her
should have
list had already grown long, but she added one more item to it because he was right. She should have told him that, too. She hadn't because she'd been afraid. Afraid that repeating Aisa's threat would make it come true. Afraid that Ryan would turn back when she was so close to her destination. Joel took another drink from his beer, exchanging a look with Elijah.

“You have something to add?” Ryan asked. “Spit it out. I'm out of patience.”

“Only that Aisa's lying,” Elijah said.

“About?”

“Killing seers. She can't. She didn't.”

Sabelle shook her head. “I know what I saw.”

“You saw what Aisa wanted you to see.”

“She had Nadia with her and she'd been tortured.”

“Who's Nadia?” Joel asked.

“Who are
you
?” Sabelle countered, feeling like a cornered animal. “
What
are you? You're not human.”

“No more than you are,” Joel agreed.

The room grew very quiet. Elijah took his seat beside Joel and put his hand on Joel's leg in silent support.

“Are you from the Beyond or not?” Ryan demanded.

Elijah answered. “I was born in San Diego, Joel was born in Denver. He isn't from the Beyond and Aisa may not have tracked Sabelle to this cabin yet, but she will eventually. It was always her plan.”

Ryan's eyes became glacial. Sabelle felt their frosty burn as he turned her way. Sabelle felt light-headed. She braced herself against a chair.

“What do you mean? There was
no plan
. I made the decision to come here in a split second. Aisa didn't even know.”

“Aisa sent you,” Joel said. “To find us.”

“I'm here with you because
you called me
,” she cried, feeling like she was talking in circles that would never make sense. “And what possible reason could Aisa have for sending me? I'm a valuable possession she'd never risk losing if she could help it.”

Joel bit his lower lip and shook his head. “We're talking about Aisa. She'll have many reasons.”

“Like?”

“We pose a threat she wants to nip in the bud and she knew her little seer would lead her to our doorstep.”

Sabelle laughed coldly. “You could never be a threat to Aisa.”

Joel said nothing, but his confidence shook Sabelle's.

“She couldn't have known,” Sabelle insisted. “I didn't even know until I was on the way.”

Elijah's expression held pity, not malice. “How did you escape, Sabelle? No seer has ever made it out of the Beyond alive before.”

Sabelle's mouth was dry and the room felt suddenly hot. She sipped the cold wine, tasting nothing but her own fear.

“If you think Aisa sent her, why would you call her here?” Ryan asked, suspicion thick in his voice. “That doesn't make sense.”

“Sabelle was destined to come here no matter what we did,” Elijah answered. “Joel and I simply tried to control the circumstances. We wanted to bring her under our terms. Sabelle isn't the only one who wants to see Aisa brought down. We've been waiting for the chance for a long time.”

“How do you even know about Aisa or the Beyond if you're not part of it?” Ryan demanded. Sabelle nodded. It was a good question, one she wanted answered as well.

Elijah raised his brows at Joel. The older man made a disgruntled sound and splashed more whiskey in his glass. He held the bottle out, but Ryan shook his head. “Suit yourself,” Joel muttered. He drank, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and scowled at Sabelle.

“Do you know why the Sisters can't cross over from the Beyond, but you can?” he asked.

Sabelle narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out where he was going with that question and how it might trip her up in its winding path. He wanted to make her the enemy and she had made it very easy for him to paint her in a villainous light.

Warily, she answered, “The Sisters are goddesses. I always assumed that was the reason.”

“It is, in a way. Was a time when they made themselves frequent guests here, though. They liked to go native, mix with the simple folk. Do what they do best.”

“Change the fate of humans?” she asked.

“Well, they certainly did that enough, but that's not what I'm talking about. They came for a bit of action.”

Sabelle wasn't following and she felt this must be an important point. Ryan reached for the whiskey and poured some in his glass, hesitated, and poured some more.

“Fornication, sweetheart,” Joel went on. “They liked the sex and they discovered it had benefits.”

Sabelle's face grew hot. She could feel Ryan watching her but she didn't look at him, couldn't look at him.

“Do you know what benefits I'm talking about?” Joel asked slyly.

She shook her head, sensing the trap, but unable to make out the trip line. “Love?” she asked tentatively.

Joel laughed. For the first time, it didn't sound mean. “The Sisters wouldn't know love if it bit off their noses. They came wanting something they could take to the bank. Something that had worth in the Beyond.”

Elijah was watching her, too. She felt like a butterfly spread wide on a pin board.

Joel went on. “The Three have been around for longer than we can conceive. One of the perks of being a goddess, I guess. The trouble is, they started running out of juice. They'd seen so many years, so much of the past and present, so much future, that they couldn't keep it straight anymore. They couldn't tell visions of the future from memories of the past. They couldn't determine fate because they didn't have a clue what it should be.”

Sabelle frowned, turning each word and fitting it into a picture that had begun forming in her head so long ago that filling it in had become second nature.

“As you can imagine, it was a problem, the Sisters of Fate not being able to tell yesterday from tomorrow. Their power hinges on their accuracy. If they can't prove their worth . . . well, the Beyond has little use for burned-out goddesses.”

Sabelle knew the truth of that. The Sisters constantly worried that their power had been compromised. At one time, even the gods feared them. Sabelle didn't know for a fact, but she suspected that fear was no more.

“It infuriates them when our visions are filled with everyday people,” she murmured. “They don't care if a push here or there could save the lives of hundreds—unless one of those hundreds is destined to be a king.”

Joel nodded. “You can see their problem. If they couldn't see the future, they didn't have a future to worry about. So they came up with a contingency plan. They decided on a little road trip to earth.”

“Get to the point,” Ryan said.

“The Sisters got themselves knocked up.”

Confused, Sabelle looked at Ryan. “Knocked up?”

“Pregnant,” he clarified.

She hadn't thought his eyes could look colder, but the word frosted them green and hardened them. She knew why. She'd told him she couldn't get pregnant. She'd believed it to be true, but now Ryan thought it another lie in the long list she'd told.

She shook her head, but she couldn't dispute any of this when she didn't know the truth herself. Besides, something else was coming. Something big. Something she didn't have time to brace for.

“They mated with humans,” Elijah said softly. “And created seers of their own blood.”

Joel added in steely voice, “Three little goddess babies. Seers who weren't corrupted by all that had happened in the past.”

Sabelle's knees wobbled and her vision blurred. Ryan took her glass and guided her to a chair. Once she'd sat, he gave the wine back and Joel went on.

“The kiddies weren't as skilled as their mommas and the Sisters realized they'd need more to make up the difference. Quantity to compensate for quality. So they came back and did it again. And again. It wasn't hard finding men to mate with them. What human male can resist a goddess?”

Ryan stiffened, drank. Said nothing. Sabelle was too stunned to speak. Stunned and bewildered. What had happened to these children? Sabelle had never seen them. If they truly existed, they'd been hidden away.