"I told you I had to work that convention," Sydney had said, clearly affronted. "And besides, you weren"t even home when I got up this morning." She had narrowed her eyes at that point. "Where were you, anyway?"
Gavin had been amused when William"s ears turned red and he became unnecessarily fascinated with the pattern on the curtains on the other side of the room. He had been impressed despite himself when Sydney finally wheedled the truth out of the less-than-forthcoming Fate.
"The karaoke bar? You went home with some random guy you picked up at the karaoke bar? And spent the night?" She had been utterly indignant.
Gavin had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing out loud.
"He wasn"t random. It was Mitch." His voice had softened when he said the name. Even Gavin had recognized the signs of an unrequited crush.
"Oh, William," Sydney had said at that point, shifting so she sat more closely to him. She slid one hand under both of his and stroked the top one with her other hand. "Not Mitch. You know how he is. He"ll never commit to a relationship. Why do you torture yourself so?"
"I didn"t know Fates were interested in relationships," Gavin had commented at that point. His input had been rewarded with cold looks from both Sydney and William.
"Of course we"re interested in relationships. Everyone wants to feel loved. It"s just extremely difficult for a Fate to find. Most of our a.s.sociation is with our charges and humans, and humans of course do not understand our world. Besides, they all live such short lives. It"s so hard when it"s time to let them go."
This distracted Sydney from William"s transgressions the night before. She seemed to comprehend for the first time that William believed the same thing Gavin did, or at least, that William believed he also was not human.
"You are too human," Sydney had insisted. "And so am I." She had stolen a glance at Gavin, who lounged in the plush, taupe chair, with his feet also propped on the coffee table. "Him, I"m not so sure about."
Gavin had lifted an eyebrow in polite disbelief. "You can"t believe you and William are not human, yet you"re convinced I"m not?"
Sydney had shaken her head. "You were obviously sent from h.e.l.l. To torture me for some past transgression. I"m not sure what it was I did to deserve this, but I swear, whatever it was, I"ll never do it again."
It had taken him several heartbeats to realize she was speaking tongue-in-cheek. He had scowled at that point, and coolly suggested William had best explain, before Gavin simply carted her into a back room and showed her just how not-human he was.
The Fate had obviously dealt with his fair share of Rakshasa, because he immediately launched into a stilted tale of how Sydney"s great-great-great-grandmother had once been a Chala, but she had never actually mated with a shifter as she was supposed to and blah, blah, blah.
Gavin dozed off at some point during the explanation, which took an exceptionally long time because Sydney was determined not to believe any of it. He was jolted awake by the sound of her gently sobbing onto William"s shoulder as he held her in his arms and patted her back, murmuring rea.s.suring words. Gavin felt an unnatural urge to tug her from William"s arms and offer his own comfort. He decided it was because she was a Chala, and he had been the one to claim her. She was his to comfort. Why was the d.a.m.ned Fate still there anyway?
"Why haven"t you left?"
William gave him a dirty look. Sydney pushed herself away from his chest and sat up, wiping her tearstained cheeks with the back of her hand. A tissue appeared in William"s hand and he offered it to her. She used it to mop her face and blow her nose.
"Why is he asking you that?" she wanted to know.
"Because you"re mine to protect now, not his. A Fate is only a.s.signed to a Chala long enough for her to find a mate. I"m your mate, so why is he still here?"
"Is that true?" she asked William, followed immediately with, "How did you get to be my, er, Fate, anyway?"
The smile William offered was genuine. "I was the luckiest of all the Fates."
Sydney"s lips twitched, and Gavin felt an interesting sense of relief that she was no longer outright crying.
"So you"re not human. Were you ever?"
Gavin watched as a nostalgic look washed over the Fate"s features.
"Yes. A very long time ago. During a time when men of my persuasion did not garner much respect."
"What? Like yesterday?" Gavin interjected.
William glared. "You happen to be one of those people who doesn"t respect my s.e.xual persuasion."
Gavin shrugged. "I don"t give a s.h.i.t what you do, or who you do it with. All I care about is who she"s sleeping with." He stabbed his finger in Sydney"s direction.
Sydney threw him a nasty look before turning her focus to William. "How did you become a Fate?"
"The decision is pre-determined, practically from birth. Only those who have the utmost respect for humanity, who believe unfailingly in the good of others, are selected. Well, were. It"s been quite a long time since a Fate has been created. Our purpose in this world is to protect the Chala, and as all of us here are aware, there aren"t many job openings these days."
Gavin growled when the man glanced in his direction.
"So is what he said true?" Sydney wanted to know. "You"ll leave when I find my, er, mate?"
The look on her face caused a stab of guilt to slice through Gavin. d.a.m.n it, this wasn"t his fault. It was the way of their world.
William sighed heavily. "Normally, yes. But your circ.u.mstances are different . . ." He lifted his gaze to glare at Gavin. "Although it is entirely possible that you and this cursed Rakshasa are not truly mated."
"That"s a relief," Sydney muttered.
Gavin threw her a dark look and said, "Not likely. I tasted your blood. You are a Chala. The other option was for me to eat you. Since I didn"t do that, we"re obviously mated."
Once again, she looked to William for confirmation.
"Well, normally Rakshasa do eat Chala, if they come across one," he admitted. "Or at least kill them. The last thing they want is for the world to become populated with more Light Ones."
"Maybe I"m not really a Chala," Sydney said, a twinge of hopefulness in her voice. "You said I wasn"t born the normal way. Maybe I"m . . . I don"t know. Some kind of anomaly."
Gavin supposed he ought to be glad she had moved from a.s.suming she was human to believing she was an anomaly. But by that point, he was tired and irritated by how exceptionally long it had taken for her to come to such a conclusion. And she still had yet to accept the fact that she was his mate.
"You aren"t a b.l.o.o.d.y anomaly," he snapped, just as William said, "Actually, you are an anomaly." Gavin scowled. William ignored him.
"First of all, cursed or not, you should not be attracted to him," William said, jabbing his finger at Gavin.
"I"m not," Sydney said, even as her cheeks heated.
Gavin"s grin was lecherous.
"And secondly, if a cursed Rakshasa feels the urge to mate with a Chala, then Prim was a far more impressive Fate than even I gave her credit for."
"You have no f.u.c.king idea," Gavin growled, as he thrust himself from the chair and began prowling the room like a caged animal.
"Why don"t you enlighten us?" William said. When Gavin didn"t speak, William slyly suggested he might actually believe Gavin"s claim if he explained how he came upon his curse in the first place.
He snagged his gla.s.s of wine from the coffee table and drained it before resuming his prowling. "I was the leader of the North American Rakshasa pack, for a time," he finally admitted. He stole a quick glance at his audience. Sydney looked horrified, which was annoying since she did not even truly comprehend how bad that really was. William looked oddly sympathetic.
"We pillaged unchecked for almost a century. I"ve killed countless Chala in my time. Your Fate said it earlier and he"s right. I singlehandedly managed to nearly decimate the population." Why he admitted this to the Chala who was meant to be his mate, he had no idea. He glanced at the wine and wondered if William had added a truth-telling potion to his gla.s.s. He wouldn"t put it past the Fate.
"And with the decimation of the Chala comes the decimation of the Light Ones," William explained quietly, his gaze on Gavin. "Rakshasa are unfortunately stronger and better warriors than Light Ones. By reducing the population, it makes it easy for the Rakshasa to overcome them, and eventually, wipe them out altogether."
"What happens if the Light Ones are wiped out?" Sydney asked.
Gavin shrugged one shoulder and watched as William refilled his winegla.s.s. "Eventually, I imagine, so would the human population be wiped out. They are, after all, a delicacy to us. And such easy prey. Without the Light Ones to protect them, they become lambs to our wolves."
"You say "our" as if you"re still a Rakshasa," Sydney pointed out. "But you didn"t eat me or kill me or whatever. You just licked my wound." She shuddered. "And acted like you liked it." She made a face.
"I did like it," Gavin retorted. "And my saliva healed your wound, which is even more proof that you are my mate. And to answer your unasked question, that"s part of the curse. Your Fate"s dear friend Prim cursed me to feel all the emotions, the needs, the conscience of a Light One, while maintaining all of my Rakshasa mentality. I still want to eat you. I still crave the taste of human blood in my mouth. I simply can"t do anything about it, and in fact, I"m compelled to protect those I crave, and to kill my own kind in the process. Curses are not very pleasant bedfellows." He twisted his lips into a wry smile, picked up the refilled winegla.s.s, and drank deeply.
"Why?" William asked. "Why did Prim curse you, instead of simply killing you?"
"For one thing, she wasn"t foolish enough to believe she actually could kill me," Gavin said without a trace of overconfidence. What he said was simply the truth.
"She had been a.s.signed to one of the last dozen or so Chala left in the world. By then I"d made it my personal mission to destroy every last one of you. It was . . . a game to me, I suppose. But Prim proved to be a worthy adversary. She always kept one step ahead of me. I admit, it was fun, tracking her and her unmated Chala. I doubt they slept very well, for those few years." He could feel the lure of the old memories, simmering just below the surface of the curse, which roared at him for his past transgressions.
"But then the Chala met her mate, and Prim knew her time with her Chala was limited. While Prim had been a worthy adversary, the Chala"s mate would not be. She actually tried to keep them from mating, but it was, I suspect, a love union and they refused to be kept apart. Eventually, Prim"s time was up, and so was her Chala"s. Prim was furious, and vowed to seek revenge."
"Wait," Sydney said, sitting on the edge of her seat, listening as rapturously as if he were telling a fascinating and harrowing fairytale. He found it interesting she wasn"t more horrified by what he"d done. And to her own kind, no less. h.e.l.l, he might have killed the Chala who was her great-great-great grandmother.
"But Prim didn"t curse you then. And you killed her Chala. And probably the Chala"s mate."
"I didn"t kill the mate. He killed himself. The Light One"s curse, I guess. If a Light One is lucky enough to mate to a Chala, and that Chala dies, the Light One more often than not kills himself out of despair."
"That"s stupid," Sydney said so flatly that Gavin had to laugh.
"Don"t believe in love that runs so deeply, Chala?" he mocked.
"No, I don"t. Plus, it"s stupid to kill yourself just because your mate died. You"ll get over it eventually, and find someone else, no matter how in love you were."
"Interesting perspective. I"m glad to know you"ll find a way to carry on, should I die an untimely death."
"That would be no problem for me," Sydney retorted, "since I"m not your mate. So how was Prim able to exact her revenge?"
Gavin frowned and opened his mouth to argue that she was too his mate, but he knew it was a useless argument. She would figure it out, once she carried his babe in her belly.
"Prim holds a grudge. It took her another three decades, but she finally exacted her revenge. She got herself a.s.signed to what truly, quite possibly was one of the last Chala in North America." He frowned as he studied Sydney"s features. Maybe that Chala had been her great-great-great-grandmother. But he hadn"t killed that particular Chala. She was the only one who got away, before Prim cursed him. The irony of his current situation did not escape him.
"She even used that Chala as bait, to lure me to her. I had grown rather c.o.c.ky and over-sure of myself, so I had no fear that Prim would have come up with a way to lay truth to her words. Fates are not usually so cunning as Prim."
"What happened?" Sydney asked breathlessly.
Gavin had an interesting urge to give her the fantastical story she obviously craved. But he told her the truth instead. "I met Prim in a local tavern, where I knew she was hiding her Chala. She wanted to meet me, face to face, I a.s.sumed, to attempt to negotiate for the life of her Chala. I agreed to meet her simply out of amus.e.m.e.nt. She rendered me immobile, just like your Fate, William, here did earlier, and then she began her little chant, reciting the curse. By the time the immobility wore off, the curse had taken effect. I was rendered utterly unable to harm a human, a Light One, or a Chala, even though I still had the urge to do so. Prim paraded her Chala right in front of me and out the tavern doors, and I was unable to do a d.a.m.n thing about it." Gavin sipped at his wine, the memories swirling in his head. He hadn"t spoken of that incident in so long, doing so now made it feel as real as if it had happened yesterday, instead of two hundred years ago. The frustration, the anger, and most of all, the disbelief.
William had a confused look on his face. "As I recall, Prim"s last Chala a.s.signment was-"
Gavin cut him off.
"It doesn"t really matter, does it? I lost my ability to kill Chala, and with it, my status as the leader of the Rakshasa. It took me another few years of frustration and pain to figure out the other side of the curse: that I was supposed to kill my own brothers and sisters, to protect humanity. It wasn"t good enough for Prim that I was simply unable to kill innocents any longer. She took it a step further and set me up so I would potentially be the one to decimate my own kind. What comes around, and all that, I suppose." He drained the gla.s.s of wine, as he recalled the first brother he"d killed, his own actual, blood brother. If Prim only knew how much pain she had caused him over the years.
"I have got to learn that curse," William said in awe.
Gavin scowled and wished he could decimate William. But it was impossible, of course. Fates couldn"t die, because Fates weren"t really alive in the first place. If he snapped William"s neck, the Fate would just disappear and reappear a few hours later, healthy and whole as ever.
"Let me see if I understand this correctly," Sydney said, her face screwed up in obvious concentration. "Chala are so important to humanity that they are a.s.signed Fates who protect them?"
William and Gavin both nodded.
"Fates obviously have some magical powers or something, which help them to protect the Chala."
Again, both men nodded.
"Do Chala have any magical powers of their own?"
Gavin shrugged and looked to William for an answer. "Chala are shifters, too, although you lost the ability to shape-shift many, many centuries ago. But you still have magic in your system, and it manifests itself in other ways."
"Why can"t Chala shape-shift?" Sydney asked, sounding confused.
"Because your responsibility is to produce children. More Chala and more Light Ones to protect humanity. The ability to change form was lost over time because so few Chala actually did it, since they were more often than not either pregnant or taking care of a newborn."
"So Chala are baby-making factories?"
Both men nodded again.
"So the Fate protects the Chala until her mate comes along. Then the protection is handed over to the mate, who may or may not be capable of the job?"
Gavin and William exchanged an uneasy glance before both nodded. Sydney"s tone had changed from confused to . . . determined. Possibly bordering on angry.
"And the Chala is just supposed to hang out, let everyone else fight her battles, and then play the good little barefoot and pregnant housewife, and hope her husband can protect her from all the bad shifters in the world, while she continues to pop out little shifter babies. Am I right?"
Gavin nodded again, pleased that she"d been able to sum it up so succinctly, while William looked extremely uncomfortable.
"Sydney, you don"t quite understand-"
She cut William off with a slash of her hand through the air. Gavin could have sworn he felt a shimmer of magic, which he found intriguing. The little Chala was growing up, and quickly, it would seem.
"Oh, I think I understand perfectly," she said, as she pushed off the couch and strode around the coffee table to stand directly in front of Gavin. She stabbed him in the chest with her finger.
"I am not a baby-making factory, do you understand me? My sole purpose in this world is not-I repeat-not to spread my legs and produce a gaggle of children for you. And I will be d.a.m.ned if I"m going to sit back and let either one of you protect me from some unknown terror. I want to protect myself. And if you aren"t willing to teach me, I"ll find someone who will. Now, if you"ll excuse me, I"m going to bed. Good night." And with that, she turned and flounced out of the room.
Gavin turned to William with a questioning look in his eye. He was annoyed to see that the Fate looked amused. "Why are you laughing?" he demanded irritably. "She was talking to you too, you know."
"I know," William said. "Because I taught her to be that way." And then he laughed, a great booming laugh that fit his large physique much better than the muumuu did.
Chapter 4.