spoken too soon.
“Last night was amazing,” he said shyly. “I knew it would be worth the wait.”
“The wait?”
“I always wanted my first time to be…with you,” he admitted with trepidation and shrugged his shoulders. “Dating other girls just seemed pointless…”
“But how could you have known?” I furrowed my brow, perplexed. “I just got here.”
“I fell in love with you the moment you appeared to me in your reveries.” His tender eyes finally met mine, “I knew you were
“You lost me. Who’s
“You’re…Paramour,” he answered.
“Isn’t that a band?” I wondered out loud.
“The prophecy – your prophecy,” he tried again, his eyes filling with admiration and tender conviction as he met my gaze. “It said that your ‘Paramour’, which means lover or partner in life, would be a great warrior; bred to lead an army of men, but destined solely for you. It said that you would make a great sacrifice for him…even if that meant losing everything.”
“A sacrifice…” I breathed, still tasting the pomegranate on my lips and feeling the solid determination in my heart. “Why are you just telling me this now?”
“I didn’t want to sway your path,” he retorted, “and if you were truly meant for someone else, well…I needed to know. Letting you go would have been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I would have done it…for you.”
“I think I’ve always known I was meant to be with you,” I divulged. “For the longest time, I thought you were just a dream. You were the only light in my dark past; the only person I looked forward to seeing. The one thing no one could ever take away from me. Even if you weren’t real it didn’t matter, because you were…mine.”
“Yes, I am,” he grinned down at me and kissed me again.
“So where exactly is this omnipotent prophecy everyone’s raving about?” I asked jokingly, “I want to see if I’m going to win the lottery.”
Although I was joking, it was slightly unnerving that my entire life had been scripted for me already. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. And the fact that everyone else seemed to know more about it than me didn’t help. I planned on doing some research on the subject once I got back to Lorelei.
“You guys are the definition of the ‘Walk of Shame’,” Ricker chuckled, casually popping a piece of cheese toast into his mouth. We had returned to the villa at precisely the same moment my roommates had made the decision to come searching for us. Before we had taken three steps into the living room, we were subjected to a strict lecture from Carmen and Ricker explaining how certain they were that we’d been killed, stuffed, and were at that very moment being displayed on Nadia’s living room mantle. Thankfully, Natasha and Charon had left earlier that morning for a meeting on campus.
Carmen circled us with a critical eye; pecking at my hair and brushing off Finn’s sand-coated shirt.
“All the signs are there: messy hair, guilt-ridden faces, and wrinkled, sandy clothes from last night.” She chastised us with a disapproving frown and then whispered in my ear with a conspiring grin, “Not to mention the shit-eating grin on your face.”
“You guys leave them alone,” Willow scolded them and draped a supportive arm around me.
“They deserved a night to themselves.”
“And now I deserve a shower,” I laughed and inspected the travesty that was my appearance.
“Agreed,” Finn grinned down at his own sandy clothes.
“Just make sure you two behave up there,” Carmen wiggled her eyebrows before Willow elbowed her in the ribs.
“I’m not making any promises,” I winked at them as we climbed the stairs. I had a feeling that our love life had already been a topic of conversation, so why not torture them a little more and keep them guessing? When we reached my bedroom door, Finn hugged me tightly and kissed my cheek lovingly.
“Last night was the best night of my life,” he said.
“Me too,” I agreed with a goofy-feeling smile.
“I knew it!” an eavesdropping Phoebe screeched, as we heard her feet scrambling back down the stairs to tell everyone else what we’d said. I rolled my eyes as I shut my bedroom door and began to undress.
The hot shower felt so good I stood in there for what seemed like hours. The rolling steam and lavender body wash I’d brought infused my senses and relaxed my muscles. I replayed my night with Finn in my head again and shivered. I couldn’t believe I’d lost my virginity. But at the same time, there was no one else in the entire world that I would entrust that part of myself with, so it felt completely right. I shivered again as I realized the gravity of what we had done. I was his and he was mine. No matter what challenges this Chosen life threw our way, we would tackle it and come out stronger. Together.
Chapter 20
It wasn’t the cold stone floor that pressed into my bare shoulders or the pounding of my head that woke me. It wasn’t even the uncomfortable way my left leg was tucked up under my body, or the vague knowledge that there was blood trickling down my temple. It was the sound of her voice as it exploded inside my head, awakening the tightly twisted rage that had been woven within my heart.
“The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout,” Nadia’s breath heated the side of my face as she ruined one of my favorite childhood nursery rhymes. I felt a slight tickling sensation on my right arm, jerking it spastically in an effort to rid my body of an unknown invader before my eyes flew open.
“Get away from me!” I growled at her. The fact that I was in a reverie did nothing to dull my irrational panic, as the tickling on my arm remained despite my attempt to swat at it. My movements were measured and labored, and I groaned when my hand completely missed my arm; instead flopping down onto my stomach. My panic quickly changed to a very rational fear as I laid eyes on the dark brown spider that was making its way up my forearm.
“I wouldn’t fight her if I were you,” Nadia wore a sharp grin as she crossed her arms over a gray silk blouse and watched the spider with tenderness. A shiver ran down my spine as I swallowed and tried to suppress my rising hysteria. It was just a spider, a simple, harmless insect. So what if it had eight hairy legs and black beady eyes? I was a thousand times larger and a million times smarter.
Unfortunately for me, something about those eight legs trumped any amount of intelligence or size.
“She’s a Darwin bark spider,” Nadia explained proudly through dark plum lipstick. “Isn’t she beautiful? She chose me to be her master.”
“You should
“I found her magnificent silk web spanning the banks of my river,” she sighed. “I would watch for hours as she expertly weaved her deadly web. She’s the perfect predator.”
So her role model was a spider. How fitting. My arms shook involuntarily as the tiny torture device made its way around my forearm, and stopped in the crook of my elbow. Its thick body was only the size of a quarter, but I could see the black hair covering its eight legs quite clearly. I could also feel the bile collecting in my throat, on its way to the outside world. I pushed it down and fought to harden myself.
“Get it off of me,” I demanded with what I hoped was an unimpressed tone.
“It can also kill with one bite of its venom,” she cackled knowingly. So much for the ‘its-just-a-spider’ angle. “And these are her children.”
Nadia swept her arm out to the suddenly crowded room I now found myself in. My vision zeroed in on at
