stone glow in my hand?
“My Goddess,” he whispered softly. “My love, my
twin...” He nodded. “The connection you and I felt – I felt it,
too. Felt it so strongly. The love of centuries, millennia of
wanting you. Needing you. But...I was so afraid. Afraid I was
wrong – that the attraction I'd built up in my head was a lie.
That I would force you to risk your life as I'd done to Jana,
to Victoria. That I'd be mistaken – that I'd be wrong. Leaving
you dead. That's why I acted the way I did to you. I wanted
to push you away. I wanted you to hate me because then I
wouldn't be a threat to you. But the more I pushed you away,
the harder you tried...”
“Reverse psychology,” I shot him a smile, trying to
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cheer him up. “If you'd come up to me and just told me you
were desperately in love with me, I'd probably have been
weirded out and never talked to you again.”
“Hindsight...”
“Then what you said about being the Fire God to the
Veteri,” I said, “that was real?”
Chance kissed me then, and my whole body reacted
once again to the heat of fire that shot through me. The spark
between us was instant, and I felt his reluctant longing give
way to the love he held back from me. He was scared. I could
feel it. I felt him shake slightly, as he gently touched my face,
unable to believe I was truly there in front of him. “I tried
not to fall in love with you. I tried to keep you away from
me, but fate has brought us together. Like it once did, my
love.” He bent down to kiss me again, and as his face came
closer to mine, I could see the fire burning in his eyes. And
when we kissed it was the most gentle kiss, and a kiss that
almost felt like a farewell.
I opened my eyes and the fire was gone from his.
“Because I love you, I have to try again. I have to tear
myself away from you again, Mac. Until I’m certain. Until
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you’re certain. I can’t risk…no, I can’t face losing you in the
flames, too. Not you, Mac. I’ll choose another before I put
you through the test, if I have to…”
Chance pulled away, and I felt a sudden chill. I felt
we had finally broke through our wall, but now it seems there
was another.
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Chapter 15
I spent that night in a haze of confusion, trying to
make sense of all that had happened. I had seen a book – a
stone. I was told that I could be a goddess. I had heard of
truthsayers and seers, of Olympus and Hades, of all these
words I knew only from my history textbook, words that had
no real meanings before today. For once I was relieved to
find the familiar post-it on the door telling me that my
mother would be otherwise engaged for the evening;
apparently, the Cutter Imperial was having a wedding or a
reception at least every other night. I didn't mind. I needed
the time to process what was going on, to try and screw my
head back on.
On the one hand, everything that I had heard and seen
today was incredible. If somebody – my mother, my friend,
anyone – had come up to me and told me half of what I had
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experienced in the past couple of days, I would have called
them crazy. Was I crazy? I had hallucinated the fire, perhaps
– and if I had hallucinated that, then what was to say I hadn't
imagined the stone and the book, imagined flying through
space.
But another part of me felt that each new question
that burned in my brain was also an answer – answers to
questions that had dogged me my whole life without my
even knowing it. Why was it that I felt such a strong
connection to certain stones – why did they glow in my
hand? Why was it that I had felt so attracted to the flames at
the luau the other night? Why had we moved here – out of
all the islands in the world? What if there was some force
calling us here, calling me and my mother to this mysterious
place, summoning me to fill the role of Vesta?
No, that was unbelievable, I told myself. I wasn't a
goddess at all. I was just a normal girl.
And yet something in me, buried as deep as the
memories of a dream, told me that all that I had seen and
experienced today was real. That it was, in a sense, more real
than any part of the life I had lived before now – as if all else
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was a dream, and this – this was the reality.
I couldn't concentrate. I had walked up and down the
length of our cottage too many times – and I certainly wasn't
going to be able to get any homework done in this state. And
so I decided to clear my head and take a walk along the beach
– perhaps the calm lapping of the waves would give me some
answers. Perhaps the book would have some answers. I
stared at the tome mournfully as I placed it into my tote bag
– I couldn't bring myself to open it just yet. Touching the
book would confirm to me that I
