?And yes. . . it fucking hurts. Nana built him up like he was a savior. Telling me his stories of howgoodhe was. How not all males are like the sun devil. Letting me believe that maybe – despite not being able to have true physical contact – one day,one fucking day, there was someone good and trustworthy and gentle and uncaring that I was broken and ugly. That I’d be able to actually trust another male enough to just be near without holding my breath waiting for when I need to unlock every door to defend myself.
?I hadn’t cared before. I forced myself to be content with being alone for the rest of my life. I willed my body and mind tonot care, to not be effected, to not react to those carnal feelings and to not give a single shit about my body or how it was viewed.
?But Nana kept saying how good he was, and Ms. Elaycia had always said physical contact and connection is essential, and my stupid sixteen-year-old brain thought that maybe he wouldn’t care about all my faults.
?I stop in my tracks, right in front of his motherfucking house, and glare hatefully at it. Needles pricking within my nose but I refuse to shed a single tear over the loss of a juvenile’s dream.
?It’s not fair.
?But it’s never fair.
?It never will be fair.
?“Mavyllora.” I don’t move. His voice isn’t drawling this time. I wish I just kept walking. “Will you look at me?”
?No.
?After everything I had just felt and have been thinking about. After what had just happened in Darian’s rooms.
?“I need you to look at me,” he says quietly.Gently. Just like Nana fucking said he could be. “Please.”
?I tilt my head back and stare at the dark sky. The only lights are from the scones beside the front door of his house and above. Stars gleaming with the nearly full moon rising behind me. It will be a full moon tomorrow, on the fifteenth, six days before the winter solstice.
?“Darian isn’t,” I whisper into the air. Breathing it to life because I had thought. . . but three is enough. Three is too much.
?A pinprick of a memory – a feeling, a want, a wish – appears from the shadows of my mind. The reason I did not want to admit out loud who my fated were. The reason I did not want to say it.
?I need to rip my soul out.
?I can feel him drawing closer. His blood humming with a need to rush but his blood art keeps it flowing calmly. His heart beating steadily. Even though his aura is flooding. I can see the ribbons of it colored in an array. Black, white, blue, green, red. Thunder and blood drifting with it and surrounding me.
?His body heat reaches me now that he’s closer and his aura and scent encloses around me. The stars above twinkle and then one of them shoots through the sky. I contemplate making a wish to a dying star. Maybe another curse will be better.
?He’s so close I can tell if I were to shift my weight I’d feel his chest against my back.
?What a twisted joke.
?Tortured, abused, and molested with a curse making it so no one can touch me and yet I don’t have just one, just two, justthree, but four fated. Most likely five because fate and karma and the universe and my fucked up soul and whatever monster I was in a past life andeverything else. . . points to them five.
?And I remember the fated death blow on the field. I told myself it was mild curiosity for why I intervened. That I would probably be saddened because Mr. Kyros would be dead and I wasn’t able to speak with him further.
?But I looked at Varian first. His stance not relaxing like Mr. Kyros’s did. Then I glanced at Castiel whose body was accepting the fate. Then to the blood demon.
?Thorne who was at the very front line with his double pointed staff and blood humming aura. He had looked. . . he had looked like Darian. The demon and angel both not just accepting this blood fate that was written, but teeming with awantfor it.
?They were ready to die on that battlefield not because that was their fate and they were accepting it, but because they wanted to die.
?Why?
?Even Callahan with his soul and thoughts I can see does not want to die. But them. . . ?
?“You weren’t supposed to be her,” he breathes. His words sounding right above my ear. I’m sure he had to lower his head quite a bit with his tall-ass self. “Esmirra knew.”
?I shut my eyes and slowly straighten my head. I can feel my hair dragging along his chest so I’m careful to keep my body ridged to keep from pressing back into him.
?Of course, Nana knew. The first time she had told me about herboywas after I had already been there for a couple weeks. We had been making tonics in the kitchen, her over by the cauldron hanging above the fire and me on the counter hanging herbs to dry. Randomly, breaking the peaceful silence we had as we worked, she said fate is always set. The destinations are always set, no matter what path – or destiny – we choose to get there.
?Fated are the same. They are already connected, sometimes long before we are even born, it’s simply getting to the point when you realize the tie is there.
