Stone Passions Trilogy (108 page)

His jaw tightened and he had to swallow the bile that was rising up in his throat. How could no one see whose children they were? They had Ferris’s blue-green eyes and Apollo’s hair and bone structure and subtle radiance. Betrayal tore through him as he glared down at Ferris. Ignoring the look of confusion on her face, he growled, “Did you fuck him as soon as the sun rose or did you wait until I had spent a few weeks encased in stone?”

“What are you talking about?” Rhys asked with forced laughter, extricating Ferris from Armand’s arms and pulling her towards her family as Vaughn wrapped a hand around his arm to hold him back. She looked at him with wounded and confused eyes that squeezed the last drop of blood from his shredded heart.

“Armand, please,” she whispered fiercely, her eyes pleading with him to stop speaking but he couldn’t stop. Fury burned the pain and jealousy away and all he wanted to do was hurt her as badly as she hurt him.

Jerking away from his brother’s hold, handing the baby to someone, anyone, he stalked towards her, using his height to intimidate her and ignoring the feelings that made him weak. “Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out that it was my father that you slept with? That their father is Apollo?”

“What are you talking about?” Ferris pleaded, infuriating him with her incredible acting abilities. “I’ve never even met Apollo. Their father is Marick.”

Armand sneered in disbelief, “Look at them, Ferris. They have his white blond hair.”

Color stained her cheeks as her gaze darted away and he knew he was right to distrust humans, to distrust
her
. “That’s because Marick sometimes likes to pretend he's an old wizard.”

This time Melanie gasped, her eyes widening in her face as she looked between Armand, Ferris and her two offspring. Covering her mouth with her hand, she whispered, “Omari?”

“Yes,” Ferris nodded, her cheeks bright red as she avoided everyone’s gazes now. The two spawns forced their way through the crowd and wrapped their arms around Ferris, protecting her.

Jenna had tears in her eyes as she asked Ferris in a pained whisper, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Ferris met his eyes over Jenna’s shoulder and he couldn’t be in the same space as her anymore. Turning his back, he walked away before he shattered completely. Of course his father would be the one to lure Ferris away. The bastard only cared about his own pleasure. Hadn’t Apollo nearly killed Melanie when he had given her the blood of Medusa? Hadn’t he always vowed to have a human, damn everything that stood in his way, including his own son?

Even as Ferris’s words of ignorance pricked at his conscience he couldn’t let it go. He couldn’t help but feel betrayed, especially when the product of that betrayal stared at him with Ferris’s blue-green eyes. All of those warm, fuzzy feelings that had been taunting him were gone, replaced with cold, hard reality. Ferris slept with Apollo.

He was never going to get over it.

Chapter 15

Regret

Ferris was still sick to her stomach by what Armand had revealed. The look of hurt and betrayal that had filled his green eyes haunted her and she just wanted to talk to him about it, explain what happened. But how could she explain something that she hadn’t even known? The supernatural world was so different than the human world, especially when a man could live to a thousand and never age a day beyond the age of twenty-five. No one ever told her that Apollo liked to run around pretending to be a hot cowboy named Marick, who in turn like to run around pretending to be a crazy wizard named Omari. How was she supposed to have known who he was?

For so long Armand had been her destiny and they had overcome so much to be together and still it wasn’t enough. She fucked it up because she was ignorant of one very important piece of information. A shudder worked its way through her body at the idea of sleeping with both the father and the son, of loving them both. It was wrong on so many levels she wasn’t sure there was any hope for her and Armand, and that thought curdled her insides.

She didn’t know if Armand would ever be able to forgive her.

Yet, it felt as if an unbearable burden had been lifted from her shoulders when he spilled the truth of Gavin and Gwendolyn’s identities. When she had first gotten sick she didn't know what was wrong. She hadn't wanted to know because if she had thought for a moment that she was pregnant than she would have had to acknowledge the fact that she hadn’t remained faithful to Armand. It didn't matter if the events of that night were still a little fuzzy from too much wine and too much sorrow.

But then she got even sicker and Fray did the only thing he could, binding his life to hers in the hope that a dragon's strength would cure her. He's the one who realized what the problem was and by that time Ferris had been lost in a haze. She woke up in faerie realm where time moved at a much different rate. The only way to survive being pregnant with the children of a god was to be transformed into something more than human.

She had spent almost twenty years in the fantastical world, watching her children grow, and yet only three weeks had passed back home. So, even though she had stopped aging shortly after meeting Omari, technically, she was closer to fifty-one, not the thirty-one that was listed on her driver’s license. No one knew she had experienced so much and it was too complicated to explain so she didn’t tell anyone about any of it.

Instead, she used her knowledge to teach art at the local community college, preferring the smaller class size of college students. It was also the only college that would hire a teacher who looked no older than twenty-two and the only reason that happened was because the dean was a fairy. He had exquisite wings that he only showed the non-human teachers and since Ferris was technically no longer human she got to see them.

Lying back on her bed, she stared up at the ceiling, wondering if her lack of aging also made her unable to mature the same way humans seemed to mature. A small part of her felt every one of her fifty-one years but mostly she felt like a twenty-two year old girl trying to navigate her way through a darkly enchanted and ever-changing forest.

She had some amazing experiences along the way that so few humans got to have. Hell, she had given birth to demi-gods.

She didn’t remember much of the pregnancy, especially the beginning which had been spent in agony because the babies were too powerful for a human body. And then she was transformed and the metamorphosis made everything kind of hazy. Marick and Fray did everything in their power to keep her strength up, giving her their own life force to keep her tethered to the land of the living. There were so many times she could have sworn Armand was with her but she belatedly realized that was just her twisted mind playing tricks on her, offering comfort from the one man who wasn’t there to give it.

From the very beginning Marick was a very hands-on father, training them to control their power so it wouldn’t overwhelm them. She had been in awe of him and a little terrified when he demonstrated the extent of his powers. Perhaps she should have realized he was no lesser god but, honestly, it wasn’t something she really dwelt upon. He was simply Marick, the father of her children and the man who kept her alive, the man who cried when the twins had been born, his smile bright enough to light the deepest, darkest cave. He had looked at her with utter devotion and extraordinary gratitude. She had been grateful to have survived.

One of the benefits, or drawbacks, of becoming a lesser goddess was the flood of power that swamped her body and overwhelmed her, power she had learned to bury deep within. She entrusted the majority of them to Fray, who could not be corrupted by such magical power. It had taken years to learn how to shield the brilliance that emanated from her, to hide behind a human mask. At the time she had also been excited, knowing that she had time to convince Armand that she was in it for the long haul whether or not he ever gave her his nights.

Now she had to figure out how to spend eternity without a heart, since hers would always belong to Armand.

“So, you’re a mom.”

Ferris turned her head and saw her mother standing in the doorway, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. Heaving a sigh, Ferris nodded, “Yep.”

Jenna arched an eyebrow, waiting for more, but when Ferris returned to staring at the ceiling, she continued, “I never would have guessed.”

Ferris smiled slightly, “I don’t tell you guys everything.”

“Obviously,” Jenna said wryly, crossing the room and sitting down on the edge of the bed and shaking her head in bewilderment. “Ferris, why do you do this? Why do you keep so much bottled up inside? It’s not good for you.”

Ferris’s smile widened until it felt like her face might crack. If she only smiled wide enough the pain wouldn’t be able to touch her. “I’ve done alright so far.”

Jenna heaved a disgruntled sigh. “I’m your mother, Ferris, and I know so little about you, about what you’re going through, what you’ve gone through. How is it possible you have kids that look like they’re in their twenties?”

“Probably because they
are
in their twenties,” Ferris said simply. With a frown, she revised her statement, “Actually, they could be a lot older than that, depending on how much time they’ve spent in the faerie realm.”

Jenna huffed out a surprised chuckle, “You are just full of surprises, love, aren’t you?”

“A veritable jack-in-the-box,” Ferris grimaced. With a pretend scowl, she attempted to divert the conversation before it got too deep, “I hate those things. I jump every single time even though I know what’s coming.”

“Ferris.”

Her mother’s voice had a hint of warning that made Ferris chuckle. In an absurd moment of clarity, she realized she was older than her own mother. A wry smile tilted her lips at the thought. “I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Surely he didn’t expect you to remain faithful to him for sixty or seventy years, not after all of the women he’s known,” Jenna continued, ignoring Ferris’s desire to be left alone. “What if you had remained mortal? Did he expect you to live your life as a nun?”

“Of course not,” Ferris sniffed. “But it wasn’t just anyone, was it? It was his father. That is a level of disturbing that shrinks dream about. It’s what pays for their mansions and sleek cars. Can you imagine the field day a psychiatrist would have with me? Falling in love with a gargoyle and then inadvertently fucking his father?”

“Stop this, Ferris,” Jenna growled. “Stop making this a joke. Stop shutting me out.”

Ferris’s mouth snapped shut and her eyes widened in surprise as she finally looked at Jenna, really looked at her mom. Jenna’s eyes were flashing blue fire, her lips were pressed together in a thin, white line, color stained her cheeks and her pulse was fluttering madly in her throat. Slowly, Ferris rolled to a sitting position, “I’m sorry.”

“Damn it, Ferris,” Jenna growled, frustration twisting her lips and tears filling her eyes. “Stop trying to protect me. I’m your mother! For once let me just be your mom.”

As she stared at her mom, Ferris saw her life through her mother’s eyes, the little girl who always wore a smile even when her heart was battered and bruised. Having children of her own she now realized that her mom had known of her hurts, had always known, and Jenna died a little inside every time the little girl Ferris had been refused the comfort that was offered. Suddenly, Ferris remembered the strained smiles and the worried glances Jenna offered when Ferris told her mom that everything was okay but it wasn’t, the extra hugs at night after particularly hellish days. Her mom had always been there but Ferris had shut her out.

After Armand turned to stone and her little outburst, Ferris realized she had kept her mom, her family, at an even greater distance. They had been constant reminders of all that she had lost and so she had buried herself in her new life, going to school or hanging out with Marick or Ajreis. It had never even occurred to her to tell her mom about her pregnancy or watching her children grow up in an enchanted faerie land, of returning home a different person while everything around her was the same.

The armor holding her together shattered and the pain of losing Armand abruptly hit her all at once. It was even worse than when they had said goodbye nearly ten years before. Thirty years. Whatever. This time their forever after seemed even less likely. Tears filled her eyes as she rolled onto her side and curled up into a ball, unable to bear the agony of losing him so soon after finally getting him back.

A small sound escaped the back of Jenna’s throat as she murmured nonsense words and rubbed Ferris’s back, offering comfort. “It’s not your fault, sweetheart.”

“Of course it’s my fault,” Ferris choked out between sobs, feeling as if she were dying. “In a moment of weakness I let one moment of doubt enter my soul and I lost Armand forever. I knew how skittish he was and I still faltered.”

Jenna lay down on the bed behind Ferris and wrapped her arms around her daughter, holding her for a long, long time until the gut wrenching crying subsided. Stroking Ferris’s hair, Jenna softly stated, “Give him some time; goodness knows you have plenty of it. He’ll come around. You’ve said it yourself, sweetheart: he’s your destiny.”