Authors: Linda Lamberson
“That’s not fair,” I replied, fighting back my tears.
“And what you’ve been doing since your return is? Hiding information from me? Making decisions about
my
life without consulting me?
That’s
fair?” he shouted, slamming his fist on the table, making the glass of water jump a bit.
I really didn’t want to have this conversation right now—not while Quinn was drunk, not in front of Dylan and Minerva.
“Quinn, I think we should talk about this tomorrow—after you’ve slept this off.”
“Oh, now you want to tell me when I should go to bed?” he shot back. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not a child.”
Oh yeah? Well you’re certainly acting like one right now!
I wanted to scream, but I knew that would only make matters worse.
“Fine,” I said. Exasperated, I threw my hands up. “Sleep. Don’t sleep. Do whatever you want.”
“Evie, what I
want
is for you to be honest with me. But you can’t do that, can you? Tell me, can I trust you anymore?”
“Quinn, I had the best of intentions at heart, but I made a mistake. I’m sorry. I was wrong, and I won’t do it again.”
“You were wrong,” Quinn repeated slowly.
“Yes, I was wrong.”
“Did you hear that Dylan?” Quinn asked, grinning crookedly, his mood instantly improving. “K.C. admitted she was
wrong
. Ever think you’d hear those words out of her mouth?”
Dylan chuckled. “It must be
killing
her to admit that.”
“Yup!” Quinn kept grinning as he turned and tried focusing his gaze on me again.
“Happy now?” I asked wryly.
“A little bit,” Quinn said smugly. He stood up, lost his balance, and fell back into the booth, hitting his head against the windowsill. “Ouch.”
“That’s gonna leave a mark,” Dylan noted, still chuckling.
“C’mon.” I sighed, walking over to Quinn. “Let’s go upstairs so I can fix you up.”
Quinn leaned into Dylan and whispered loudly, “Do you think that’s code for ‘make-up sex’?”
Dylan cracked up and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “I don’t know, is it?”
“Not when you’re drunk,” I muttered quietly under my breath. Dylan chuckled again.
“Are we taking the shortcut?” Quinn asked me.
“It’s probably safer than having you try to climb an entire flight of stairs at the moment,” I replied.
“Agreed.” Quinn turned to Dylan. “Hey, man, thanks for hanging with me.”
“Any time, man, any time,” Dylan replied. “But next time, let’s leave the bar fight out of it, okay?”
“And how about the bar too?” I shot him a nasty look, which only made him laugh again.
“Have fun, K.C.”
“Yeah, right—fun cleaning up your mess,” I snapped.
“Hey, the same could be said for what I’ve been doing the last few hours,” Dylan replied.
“We have
way
different opinions on that.” I shook my head in disapproval and teleported Quinn to his room. He fell back onto the mattress, and I began to slowly undress him. Even drunk and beat up, he still looked sexy as ever.
How does he do it?
I sighed in frustration, but I had no right to be mad at him. I was the one who pushed him to do something rash and reckless—to rebel against me, against us. I checked out the newly acquired bump on the back his head; it wasn’t too bad. I healed it in a matter of seconds, along with his battered eye and lip. The real healing would come tomorrow, and I wasn’t talking about his hangover. Tomorrow, I’d have to take the steps to heal
us.
I pulled the covers up over him and kissed Quinn goodnight on his forehead.
“I still love you, you know,” he mumbled to me.
“And I still love you.”
“Evie?” Quinn opened his eyes and tried his best to focus on my face.
“Hmm?”
“I don’t want to become one of them.”
“You won’t. We’ll find a way to stop it—
together.”
Not wanting to see either Dylan or Minerva, I stayed with Quinn all night. I thought about the young dolphin, Quinn’s actions tonight, and my actions—or, more accurately, my omissions—over the last couple of days.
Tomorrow was another day. One day closer to the attack. And, hopefully, one day closer to getting Quinn’s blood back. Tomorrow, I’d tell Quinn everything.
Quinn moaned when he woke up the next morning. “My head.” He placed his arm over his eyes, shielding them from the sunlight streaming in through the windows. “What time is it?”
“Eight-thirty in the morning,” I said rather gingerly. I was enjoying this—probably a little too much.
“I feel like I was run over by a bulldozer.”
“How much did you drink last night?”
“Too much,” he whined. “But,” he turned his head slowly towards me, “not enough to make me forget you admitted you were wrong.”
“Of all the things I said that
would
be the one thing you remembered, wouldn’t it?”
Quinn chuckled slightly and then winced. “Ow,” he moaned. “Remind me never to go drinking with Dylan again.”
“Don’t worry, I will,” I replied. “Do you want me to take care of that hangover?”
He sighed in relief. “I thought you’d never offer.”
I leaned over, my left hand hovering over his head, and healed him. “Here.” I reached across him and grabbed the glass of water on his bedside table. “You’d better drink this anyway.”
Quinn downed the glass and felt his lip. He looked at me appreciatively.
“Yeah, I took care of that too—and your eye. More?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
I filled up the glass with cold water from his bathroom sink and brought it to his bedside. He downed that entire glass as well.
“Feel better?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“So, what possessed you to go out last night, get wasted, and start a fight?”
“I was so mad—at you, at the situation … I was freaked out at the thought of becoming one of them.” He cringed. “It was all too much, and I just needed to get away from it all. I needed to escape.”
“Quinn, believe me, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth right away. I only wanted to protect you from it. I was afraid you wouldn’t handle the news very well—and, I guess I was right.” I eyed him shrewdly.
“But,” I continued, “I will own up to my mistake. I tried to do what I thought was best under the circumstances, but obviously, that wasn’t the right thing to do. And, I promise I’ll be up front with you from here on out. I’ll do it your way from now on.”
“Evie, I don’t want it to only be my way or your way. I want it to be
our
way.”
“Yeah, well, you may reconsider that once you hear everything I have to say. I’m not sure what Dylan or Minerva told you, but I can promise you there’s a lot more crazy stuff going on they don’t even know about yet—stuff I’m having trouble dealing with, much less talking about.” I sighed.
Quinn embraced me and kissed the top of my head. “Maybe I’d handle the crazy stuff a little better if you were up front with me—if you gave me the chance to talk to you about it, to ask you questions, to understand the options before it’s too late for me to even be part of the discussion.” He sighed. “Evie, more than ever, we’ve got to be able to trust each other completely—and, right now, we don’t.”
“I trust you.”
“Not enough to include me in what’s going on.”
“That wasn’t a trust issue, Quinn. Besides, you weren’t the only one I kept in the dark, you know.”
“Your hiding this from Dylan doesn’t make me feel any better. He’s my Shepherd now. He needs to know everything too. But, Evie,
we’re
the ones who are truly in this together—you and me. And when you keep this stuff from me, all it does it push me away. You have to tell me what’s going on. You have to believe in me enough to trust me to be able to handle this. I may
only
be a human, but I’m not weak.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “No more hiding, no more sugarcoating. Nothing but the truth from now on—but on one condition.”
“What condition?” he asked skeptically.
“The truth should be doled out in doses. I don’t want you freaking out again, so I don’t want to tell you more than you can handle at any given time.”
“Then you have to let
me
be the judge of how much I can handle at any given moment.”
“Only if you promise not to get drunk again if you’ve overestimated yourself.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” I agreed. “And you’re ready to hear the truth now?”
Quinn swallowed hard and nodded his head.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go to the Falls.”
I teleported Quinn to the Falls with care, fully aware of the makeshift “security system” Dylan had developed until we could figure out a more permanent solution for keeping out unwanted visitors. He’d stacked two-dozen palm-sized river rocks in a specific cairn formation directly in front of the portal door so that an uninformed trespasser would topple them over upon arrival. Only Dylan knew the rock pattern (another request of mine). It wasn’t foolproof, but it was the best any of us could come up with for the time being. As long as the cairn was undisturbed, I felt safer—I think we all did.
Quinn and I and sat down in grass. I thought the daylight might make everything sound a bit less scary—like watching a horror movie with the lights on.
“So?” he asked, sitting across from me.
“So,” I said, taking another deep breath. “What Dylan blurted out yesterday was right. The Servants took your blood because they need it to perform a conversion ritual that will end your life and turn you into one of them, a Servant—forever.” There, I’d said it out loud. I told him. I bit my bottom lip and waited anxiously for his response.
“Why me?” he asked with a twisted expression.
“It has to do with our connection—our being true soul mates. Initially, I think the Servants were worried about us getting stronger—that together we’d be able to stop any chance they had of ruling all the Realms. And because of that, I think they wanted to break our connection before we were able to bond—first, by killing me, and then by targeting you. But they changed their minds about you along the way. From what I’ve been told, they now want to capitalize on the strength you’ve gained from our bond, as well as your inside knowledge of Shepherds, and use it as a vital part of their efforts to wage and win a war to take control of the Realms.”
“But you and I would both become stronger through our bond. So even if they succeeded in converting me, wouldn’t we just end up neutralizing each other?” Quinn asked.
“Apparently, they’ve thought of that too.” I sighed.
“That’s why they want to eliminate you.” He nodded with a new understanding of how I fit into the equation. “But,” he continued as a puzzled expression appeared on his face, “they tried that once already, and it didn’t work. Our connection was too strong. It still is.”
“That’s when I was a human. This is my last ride in this body. If they eliminate me now, my soul will still exist, but I won’t—at least, not this version of me that you fell in love with. Besides, conversion will break our bond permanently.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“And the Servants need my blood to convert me?”
I nodded. “It’s part of the ritual.”
“And by getting my blood back, we can stop them from performing this ritual?”
“This time, yes. The Servants have to prepare your blood, but that takes time. And once it’s ready, they have only until the next full moon to perform the ceremony.”
“And the next full moon is on July eighteenth?” Quinn asked anxiously.
I nodded again with a frown. “Which gives us twenty-eight days, not counting today.”
“Whoa.” He sighed in disbelief and ran his hands through his hair. “That’s a lot to take in.” He took a deep breath. “So, that’s it? Get my blood back and I’m in the clear for a while?”
“Ideally. But to be on the safe side, I don’t want you to be anywhere near the Servants’ grasp come the full moon.”
“You want me to stay up here and hide,” Quinn stated. I had to give him credit; he caught on fast.
“Not here. Another portal—a new one.”
“Where is it?”
“I’m not sure, actually. Dylan is in charge of finding it. I told him to keep its location a secret from all of us until it’s time.”
“That’s very double-oh-seven.” Quinn flashed me a look, which suggested I might be taking this a bit too far.
“The fewer who know, the better. It’s for your protection.”
“So we get back my blood and stash me in some hole in the sky a few days before the next full moon.”
“That’s the idea.”
“And this ‘plan’ of yours—where does your safety fit into it?” Quinn asked.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet. My main concern right now is keeping you safe.”
“I’m not going to stand by and let you get hurt again.”
His reaction was so sweet and sincere, it made me smile.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Quinn grimaced.
“Like what?” I was confused.
“Like I’m a naïve kid who doesn’t know what you’re up against. Like I don’t know how real the danger we’re
both
in is. I was there in the field with you last April. I felt the electric shocks that ripped through your body. And you took one of those bastards out—they’ve got to be seriously pissed off about that.”
“Quinn,
you’re
the one the Servants want to convert. Let’s just get through the next full moon and then we’ll worry about me, okay?”
“No, not okay,” he harrumphed. “You are
not
a sacrificial lamb, Evie, so stop making yourself out to be one. There’s no prize for being a martyr.” He stood up, stripped off his boxers, and dove into the water before I could reply.
I knew he needed some time to digest everything he’d learned over the past twelve hours, so I teleported back to Quinn’s to get Dylan. Now that Quinn knew the basics of the game plan, I could explain it to Dylan, and we could hammer out the nuts and bolts of our strategy.
Not surprisingly, I found him with Minerva. The two were hanging out on lounge chairs on the patio. I took a deep breath, not exactly sure what I was going to say.