Blessed (Book 2, The Watchers Trilogy; Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (13 page)

“Or we could try to not take things as far,” Brand suggested, but I could tell he was as resistant to that idea as I was.

“I think I’d rather just take cold showers,” I told him, pulling him back down on the bed so we could continue where we left off.

CHAPTER NINE

When I went to take a shower, Brand went downstairs to start preparing lunch. Fearing for my safety, he kept phasing into the bathroom asking, “Lilly, are you all right?”

I would simply reply, “I’m fine”, from behind the shower curtain. I think I did that at least ten times before I’d enough of it and stepped out of my shower early. I toweled off quickly and put some clothes on before he had another chance to pop in on me and check on my welfare. I understood his worry, and wished there was some way I could at least remove that burden from him. There was really only one way to do that… learn to phase by myself.

If I could do that one simple thing, Brand wouldn’t feel like he had to be with me every minute of the day to keep me out of harm’s way. Not that I minded his company; I loved it, but doing little things like taking a shower alone without having to worry about someone seeing me in a compromising position would be comforting.

By the time I made it downstairs, Brand was setting the table for lunch. He’d made poached salmon with apple-tomato chutney. I discreetly scraped the tomatoes off, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“You don’t like tomatoes?” he asked.

“No, I don’t,” I confessed, “which is really weird, because I like tomato sauce, like in spaghetti sauce or sauce on a pizza. I’m sorry I can’t eat this. It looks really pretty, like something most people would love.”

“Don’t feel like you owe me an apology, Lilly. The more I learn about what you like and don’t like, the better. I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his heartfelt statement.

“So, tell me,” I said, continuing to eat the salmon, “who is Faust and why would he want to kill me?”

“Faust is a jinn.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ve heard of genies right?”

“Like the one in the Aladdin story?”

“Yes, that’s basically a jinn. God made them after He made angels but before He made humans. When Lucifer rebelled, they joined his side and were banished down here with the rest of them. They all adopted a particular human form, but they can also travel undetected as shadows. Sometimes they like to scare humans, so they let them see their shadow forms. Humans who have seen the jinn call them shadow people.”

“Do they really grant wishes?”

“In a way,” Brand sat back in his seat, idly flaking off pieces of his salmon with his fork. “They’re able to grant two wishes to whomever they trick into making them.”

“Why would they have to trick someone? I would think most people would jump at the chance to wish for whatever they wanted.”

“A jinn’s services aren’t free. Most people lose more than they gain in the end.”

“Why only two wishes?”

“People usually use the first wish on something small, like wishing for a car or something physical that proves the jinn can do what he says. After they’re fooled into thinking they can get whatever they want for nothing, they wish for something bigger, like wealth or fame, and then the jinn has them trapped.”

“What do you mean?”

“In order to keep what they’ve wished for, they have to provide the jinn with a comfortable life. If the jinn ever leaves them, they lose everything, even more than what they lost in order to make their wishes come true.”

“Why doesn’t the jinn just wish for things for himself?”

“It doesn’t work that way. They can’t grant their own wishes, only the wishes of others.”

“So do they really live in oil lamps?”

“Not exactly.” Brand smiled at me, as if he found my naïveté endearing. “Their spirits are bound to certain objects. It’s different for each jinn. Faust’s is bound to a double-sided coin. It’s how he fools people into becoming his patron. He strikes up a conversation with someone, and tricks them into playing a game with the coin. Once the person touches it, they’re locked into a game they’ll never win.”

“So what do the people lose to get what they wish for?”

“Family and friends; everyone who ever truly cared for or loved them. They lose their old lives completely to gain the new life they wished for.” 

“Is that why they only get two wishes? So they can’t use a third one to un-wish what they asked for?”

“That’s how it usually works. Some people use the first wish more wisely and can use the second one to undo what their first wish did, but most people don’t.”

“Why would this Faust want to kill me?”

“I’m not sure,” Brand leaned his elbows on the table, pushing his plate away, completely uninterested in his lunch now. “But it might explain who’s been responsible for the accidents Will’s been saving you from.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone could have been using a jinn’s power to kill you. It makes sense. All of the accidents were planned ahead of time, and a jinn would have had the power to put all of the accidents you’ve escaped from into motion. They’re able to see into the future a small bit in order to make things that need to happen occur at specific points in time. They can set the events into motion, but since Will knew when to pull you out of harm’s way, you were never where you were supposed to be to have them affect you.”

“So how do we find this Faust?”

“I’m not sure yet. But we’ll find a way,” he reassured me. “We also need to find your grandparents. I know a private investigator in New York. I’ll call him today and get him on the case. Hopefully, it won’t take him long to locate them.”

“I never thought I’d ever get the chance to meet my mother’s parents,” I admitted, pushing my own plate of half-eaten salmon away, having lost my appetite. “My mom was always so insistent about not having them in our lives. I’d just given up hope of ever knowing who they were.”

“You do want to meet them, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “I’m just not sure if they want to meet me.”

“I’m sure once they see you in person and all grown up, they’ll love you.”

“We’ll see, I guess.” I didn’t realize until that moment how important it was for me to have my grandparents want to meet me as much as I had always wanted to meet them. The possibility of their rejection wasn’t something I had considered until now.

Brand stood from his chair and took my hand, urging me to stand. It seemed like he always knew when I needed to be hugged.

“I’ll be with you when we meet them,” he said, kissing my forehead. “Don’t look so worried, my love.”

I looked up into his warm grey eyes, reminding me of his total and complete love for me, and quickly forgot about my trepidations. I brought his lips down to mine, wanting to lose myself in him.

“Good grief, is that all the two of you do?”

I broke off the kiss at the sound of Malcolm’s agitated voice. He, Will, and Tara were standing only a couple of feet away from us.

I saw Tara prod Malcolm’s side with her elbow. “Quit picking on them. That’s what people do when they’re in love. Stop acting like a jealous fool.”

“I thought I asked you to knock first,” Brand said, putting a possessive arm across my shoulders.

“I forgot,” Malcolm shrugged, completely unapologetic about his unannounced appearance inside Brand’s home. “Besides, it wasn’t just me coming to visit.”

“I told him to bring me over,” Tara said. “He was trying to explain about angel DNA and completely lost me. I was hoping you could dumb it down for me some so I could understand.”

This was the first opportunity we had to tell Tara and Will about Allan’s findings. It was also the first time we had a chance to tell Malcolm about Allan testing my mother. Brand and I sat them all down and explained what we knew. We told them about hiring an investigator to search for my grandparents, to see if they could shed some light on my mother’s family origins.

“Wow,” Tara said when we were finished. “After all these years, you’re gonna finally meet them? What’s your mom say about that?”

“I haven’t told her,” I admitted. “I’m not sure I will until after I meet them and see what kind of people they are. I’m sure she’s had her reasons for not contacting them after all this time. After I meet them, I might not want to see them again either. If that’s the case, I don’t see any reason to tell her.”

“Ok, so who wants to explain to me what that business between Malik and Izzi was all about?” Tara asked. “Who was she so scared of going to?”

I was glad Tara asked about Izzi. I didn’t feel comfortable asking, since I was the reason she was being punished.

“Fairies have their own laws,” Brand explained. “If one of them breaks a law, they have to go before their leader, in this case Malik, and he decides their punishment. There is one particular uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean where all fairies who have committed unforgivable crimes are sent. Izzi probably wouldn’t have survived very well or very long there. So Malik took her to another island, where she could live the rest of her life out by herself.”

“She’ll die there?” I asked. I don’t know why, but I felt guilt over Izzi’s lonely fate. Intellectually, I knew it was a just sentence for trying to kill me, but emotionally I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her having to live out the rest of her days alone, on some forgotten island.

Brand squeezed my hand, knowing me well enough to realize how upset I would be by learning this new information.

“It’s only what she deserves. She’s lucky he gave her the chance to go there. If she hadn’t provided us with the information we needed, she would have been sent to the others, and I can assure you that would have been a fate much worse.”

“Well, I think I need to go check on my son,” Malcolm announced, standing from his seat at the table. “Oh,” he said, turning his attention to Brand, “before I forget. Have you had a talk with your daughter yet?”

“Why would I need to have a talk with her?” Brand asked, clueless as to what Malcolm was talking about.

“Because of all the time she and Sebastian have been spending with one another,” Malcolm’s eyes narrowed. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”

“I’ve been a little busy,” Brand said defensively. “How long has this been going on?”

“Since your trip to London. I’ve told Sebastian how I feel about it, but he won’t listen to me. Maybe if you can talk Abby into not seeing him anymore, his feelings for her will cool off.”

“I’ll have a talk with her.”

“Good. The sooner we get this handled, the better. I’ll be back tomorrow to check on Lilly.”

“I’ll be at school most of the day tomorrow,” I told him.

“Are you sure?” Brand asked me.

I loved his concern for my wellbeing, but school was important to me. The sooner I graduated, the sooner we could be married. I was even considering summer school now to make things go a little quicker, and I never thought I’d have a good enough reason to willing give up my free summers.

“Yes, I feel like going,” I told him, even though one more day of rest did sound very tempting. But I knew if I gave in to one more day it could turn into two more days or even three. The sooner I got back into a normal schedule, the better.

“Hey, you mind taking me back to my apartment?” Tara asked Malcolm, standing from her chair.

“No problem.”

Malcolm put his hand on her shoulder. He winked at me before he phased her back home.

Will sat at the table, completely silent. He’d been quiet through most of our discussion.

“Would you mind if I talked with Lilly alone?” he asked Brand.

“I’m not the one you should be asking,” Brand answered, looking to me. I could tell he was worried about something, but he didn’t say anything else. I got the distinct impression he really didn’t want me talking to Will, but was unwilling to say anything that would stop me from doing it.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Brand, kissing him to help banish whatever it was he was worrying about. I stood from my seat. “Let’s go talk outside, Will.”

Will followed me out the French doors that led to the back patio. We walked down to the lakeshore in mutual silence. When we got close to the water’s edge, I stopped and turned to face him.

“What’s bothering you?” I asked him.

“Lilly,” he said, coming to stand a little too close to me, making the conversation take on an intimate tone I wasn’t comfortable with, “have you thought about what I said to you in the hospital?”

“Thanks to you, that’s all I’ve thought about,” I said irritably.

“Then you know it’s true.”

“No,” I said, taking two involuntary steps back from Will. “I don’t know if it’s true or just your way to cast doubt on Brand’s love for me.”

“You know I love you for who you are,” he said. “At least with me you wouldn’t have to worry about becoming pregnant and dying because of it. Hell, I don’t even want you to have sex with him. How do you know you won’t end up pregnant, even if you are on birth control? It’s not one hundred percent, you know. There’s always a chance it could fail, and you could end up being killed by one of those things growing inside you. How far have you two gone, anyway? You always seem so close.”

I could feel my temper flare. “That’s none of your business, Will Allen. And you need to get the ideas you have about you and me out of your head! I thought you understood. I’m not in love with you anymore.”