“What a crock of shit.”
“Agreed.”
Theodora drops the ring box then pushes to her feet. “Well, I’d better get going.”
“Are you going to be OK? Shall I get Donovan or Max?”
She shakes her head. “No. I actually think I need some time alone. Thanks for breakfast, Cosmo.”
I follow as she crosses the room towards the door. Follow like a stray looking for scraps. She pauses and I almost walk into her. Something crackles between us.
“Was that Lumina?” She really is a fucking Goddess.
“Yes,” she says so quietly, it’s almost a whisper.
“And it jumped from you to me? Or the other way around?”
Theodora is silent for a moment, then shakes her head. “We…we made it between us.”
We what now?
“I…I can help you with your Lumina too? Like the others?”
“Apparently.”
Fuuuck. My mind flashes on all the oversharing Donovan has done about how he refills her Lumina reservoir.
“If you need, er, more…” Gods, I’m pathetic. “If there is a time when you’re desperate and don’t have a better option. I’ll be here for you.”
Into the strange and strained atmosphere, a slight shimmer appears. I can hardly breathe.
She doesn’t move either.
The shimmer grows, glitters, surges.
Surges between us.
And then, I don’t know if it’s Theo making a conscious decision, or the magical essence inside her, but she rests a hand on my lapel and slowly pulls me closer.
And grazes her lips against mine.
And I nearly lose my mind.
I’m on a tilt-a-whirl made of amethyst crystals and light. Spinning, spinning. Images of past flash by. Mostly bad, mostly ugly, and only tiny fractals of good. My veins fill with liquid gold. My past doesn't disappear, but the offenses lose their edge, sanded down by the force of her essence.
Then she withdraws. This Goddess. This Queen.
She’s out the door without another word.
I fall to my knees and cry like a baby.
47
For a day when the troops march to possible death, it’s starting off startlingly hum-drum.
Shit, shower and shave.
Then Dono and I head up to see Cosmo.
