Morgan Fewster: Goddess

The worst day of Morgan Fewster’s life was the day her parents left her behind at the zoo when she was four, because they came to pick her up again and wouldn’t let her stay with the lions. The second worst day was when her best friend moved away in Year 5. Which made today only the third worst day, though with the bright sunshine stabbing her retinas like silver blades and her mouth tasting like dead mice, Morgan thought at first that it might give the others a run for their money.

“Urgh,” she said, and flopped off the bed onto the floor. It wasn’t that continued sleep on the floor was impossible; it was just less comfortable, especially as she’d landed with her elbow under her hip, and that combined with the alarm blaring on the far side of the room made it ever-so-slightly more likely that she’d actually a) get up and b) be on time.

The sweet, sweet smell of coffee percolated its way into Morgan’s brain, and her nostrils twitched. Mmm. Coffee.

“Morgan Fewster,” Breanna called from the kitchen. “If you don’t shut that alarm off in the next ten seconds, I swear by everything good and holy, you won’t get a drop of your precious wake-up juice this morning.”

Morgan, conflicted by opposing messages in her brain, performed a stagger-flop with astounding grace and hit her nose on the bed leg as she simultaneously tried to get up and stay lying down. “Ow.”

“Five seconds!”

Clutching the throbbing nose that now matched her seared eyeballs and pounding head, Morgan disentangled herself from the sheets and stumbled across the room, flipping her phone over to silence it. She sagged against the dresser in relief, having successfully passed yet another Herculean round of Morning: Getting Up. “Coffee,” she muttered, dragging her hands over her face and through her hair. Her appearance was probably something close to the living dead right now, but as her thirst for caffeine was probably something close to a zombie’s thirst for brains, that was probably okay. Probably. She shook her head and shambled out towards the kitchen, following the smell.

Breanna, blonde hair gleaming gold in the sunshine that streamed in through the wide kitchen windows, was the picture of domestic goddessery: blue-and-white apron neatly tied around her neatly-belted waist, hair neatly twisted into a neatly-perfect bun, neatly-manicured hands pouring a neat stream of –

“Gimme gimme gimme.” Morgan made grabby motions at the mug and Breanna handed it over, lips pressed to hide amusement.

“Morning, Sunshine,” she said.

Morgan slurped the coffee down in one long mouthful, eyes streaming as it scalded her throat. Coffee, my one true love, I’ve missed you. She finished with a contented sigh and plonked the mug back on the bench. “Hi.”

Wordlessly, Breanna handed over an envelope before turning back to the sizzling frypan.

“For me?” Morgan murmured as she tore it open. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t,” Breanna replied cryptically, stirring the eggs.

Morgan wrinkled her brow as she pulled a playing card and a folded piece of paper out of the shredded envelope, then remembered what her mother had always said about frowning. Quickly, she smoothed her fingers over her forehead.

Breanna returned to slop scrambled eggs onto a pair of plates already bearing thick, rustic-style toast slathered in butter. “So,” she said, scraping out the pan, “what is it?”

Morgan flourished the contents at her. “A card that I believe is supposed to tell me I’m about to die,” she wriggled the playing card whose front bore a picture of a black-robed skeleton on a white horse, “and a Wikipedia article on bull worship.”

Breanna made a noncommittal sound as she rummaged in the drawer for cutlery, a noise somewhere between an entire orchestra tuning and a thousand plates all shattering.

“Dear heavenly elephants,” Morgan swore, squeezing her hands over her ears. “Must you?”

Breanna arched an eyebrow in her direction. “It’s Thursday. You should have been home sleeping soundly last night.”

“I was!” Morgan protested, throwing her arms wide in a gesture of intended innocence. “I slept like a baby!”

“Yes,” Breanna agreed wryly, shoving a plate across to Morgan. “Exactly like a baby: from about one a.m. until seven, with numerous awakenings in between.”

Morgan took her plate and marched to the table, nose held high. “It’s all right,” she said loftily. “I couldn’t expect you ordinary people to understand.” She flopped onto a chair and snatched at the salt shaker. “So, is it a hint?”

“Is what a hint?” said Breanna, setting the second plate of eggs down on a placemat and bracketing it with cutlery.

“Vuh car,” Morgan said around a mouthful, waving her knife at the remains of the envelope on the bench.

Breanna glanced cursorily at it on her way back to the kitchen, summoned by the popping of the toaster. “I have no idea.”

“Wew ven…” Morgan swallowed. “Who’s it’s from?”

“I went to a psychic.”

“Ooo ven—“ Morgan cut off as she breathed in egg and spluttered. After hacking and coughing for a moment in which she made a whole mental noteboard covered in metaphorical memos-to-self about not talking with a mouthful of eggs, she cleared her throat and tried again. “You went to a psychic? Also, I nearly died here, and you are heartlessly eating muffins! What is up with that, I ask you?”

“Don’t be melodramatic, you’re not dying. If falling from a third-storey window or ingesting an entire bottle of drain cleaner can’t kill you, I seriously doubt some scrambled eggs down the wrong tube will. Also,” she said, setting a glass of juice down on the table by the other plate, “you never said I shouldn’t go to a psychic. Doctors, yes; psychiatrists, yes.” She counted them off on her fingers. “Psychologists, teachers, parents. You never said anything about psychics.”

Morgan scowled. “Psychics are a bunch of…” She waved her fork vaguely.

“People who might be able to finally figure out what you are?” Breanna suggested.

“Ha ha. I don’t need figuring out,” Morgan said and shovelled another forkful of eggs into her mouth. “Mm perfec uz uh mm.”

“Just… Go see the psych, okay? She was interested in you. She might be able to help.” Breanna folded her arms over her chest and pinned Morgan with a challenging glare. “I want you to know why you can do…” She fluttered a hand in irritation. “That stuff. You need to know.”

For a moment, Morgan considered doing exactly ‘that stuff’; if she fluttered her eyelashes winningly, parted her lips just so, and widened her eyes like Bambi incarnate, all but the rocks would be unable to breathe and would beg to do her bidding. Instead, she sighed and pressed her face into her fork.

“Fine,” she said. “For you, I will suffer this fate worse than death. But if she wants to out me to the media and the paparazzi find out where we live and they lay siege to the house day and night, and our doors are broken down by people who have seen my smile and are unable to resist, and I’m carted away to some scientific laboratory so they can dissect me for testing, I’m holding you responsible.” She gave Breanna a sidelong glance, checking for remorse.

“Fine,” said Breanna, remorseless.

What am I doing wrong? Morgan heaved another deep sigh. Some days, you just can’t win. She fluttered her eyelashes at her reflection in her fork, just to make sure she still could. Her heart trilled at the sight and this time her sigh was of contentment. “Hi there, pretty girl.”

“Morgan, stop making out with your reflection and finish your breakfast. The address for the psychic is on the back of the envelope. She’s expecting you at nine.”

“At nine?” Morgan turned her innocence up full blast. “But Breanna, darling, I have school! I can’t possibly be there at nine! What a ridiculous time to make an appointment for me. And how did you know I’d go anyway?”

“One,” Breanna started, again with the counting on the fingers, “you cut school every other week for inane whatever-it-is you do, and two, I didn’t make the appointment, she did.”

“But how did—“

“Psychic, Morgan.”

“Oh.” Morgan sat back in her chair, temporarily flummoxed. “But I can’t see a psychic today, I have—David! Good morning!” she finished brightly as the third occupant of the house emerged from the hallway. Mention of anything relating to Morgan’s ‘special qualities’ always sent David into a dither and so were unofficially banned when he was around.

He peered at her suspiciously through eyes that looked weak and pale without their usual magnifying lenses. “What have you done?”

“Me?” Morgan beamed at him like a human sun. “Absolutely nothing!”

“Mm,” he disagreed, sliding in his chair. “Thanks for the eggs, hun.” This last was directed at Breanna, who stooped from her muffin-munching to nuzzle against his neck.

“Children, please,” Morgan said with longsuffering. “You have a room for that sort of sickening display.”

Breanna rolled her eyes and picked up her handbag from the chair at the head of the table. “Behave.”

“Angelically,” Morgan replied, posing with her very best saint-like expression.

Breanna rolled her eyes again and departed.

“So, really: what have you done?” David eyed her contemplatively over a mouthful of toast.

He chewed like a cow and had the same approximate intelligence, but, Morgan reflected, he could be stupidly persistent when he wanted to be. And besides. That was probably unfair to cows. “It isn’t what I’ve done,” she said, flashing him a gleaming smile. “It’s what I’m planning to do.”

He froze, fork halfway to his mouth. His eyes darted towards the front of the house where Breanna was pulling away in her dinky little hatchback. Seeing the all-clear, he reached his foot out under the table and rubbed against Morgan’s ankle. “You mean…”

Disgust filled Morgan’s stomach and she pushed her unfinished breakfast away. “No!” She really had to try harder to remember not to be charming when David was around. “You creep. Breanna, remember her? You’re practically married to her!” She stood up from the table and headed towards the bathroom.

“That didn’t seem to bother you with Simon,” David called after her, cutlery dinking against his plate.

Morgan fought the impulse to freeze. Bastard. How did he know about Simon? Besides, that was another mistake, a momentary lapse where she’d forgotten to keep her charm under control. It wasn’t like she’d meant to steal Jessie’s boyfriend.

Bastard. Whatever. She didn’t have to reply to him. Instead, she slammed the door to the bathroom and hurried to the mirror. The reflection confronting her had a serious case of bedhead and panda-eyes, but she turned a sultry smirk on it anyway, and it smirked back. “Hey there, sexy. Let’s get you looking decent.”

Her reflection willingly complied, and for the next careful hour, as she painted and brushed and sculpted and flossed, nothing was wrong with the world.

David bashing on the door broke that illusion. “Hour’s up,” he yelled. “Time to go.”

The mere thought of sharing a car with him this morning sent shudders through her, nearly making her smudge the last coat of eyeliner she was applying. “No thanks!” she called back. “I’m catching the bus this morning!” And apparently she was seeing the psychic after all, because the alternatives were car-pooling with David, or catching the school bus with Simon and Jessie, and right now, despite the imminent threat of scientific mutilation, the psychic seemed like the lesser of three evils.

David moaned at the door, something about how she could have told him earlier, and then he could have been early for work, or something equally trivial, and then he was gone in a jangle of keys and muttering and finally, the motorbike engine roaring to life in the garage.

Morgan sighed and unlocked the bathroom. She’d been keen to make an entrance this morning, too—that new fellow, Jason, he wasn’t half cute, and the bike did wonders for her reputation. Still, she’d gotten careless with David earlier, and that meant she’d have to try to avoid him as much as possible for the next twenty-four hours, since he seemed more susceptible to her charm than most. Stupid, given how besotted he was supposed to be with Breanna. Wasn’t true love supposed to protect against lust, or something like that?

Sighing at the complexity of life, Morgan snatched up her Louis Vuitton bag, gathered up the shredded envelope from the bench, and emerged into the sunshine to do one of the three things she’d promised herself she would never, under any circumstance, do: see a psychic.

Answer The Question

I tilted my head back against the pastel green wall of the day spa, relaxing just enough that I could feel every ache and pain in my body. Man, I was looking forward to this massage. 

The doorhandle on one of the client rooms twisted, and a fraction of a second before the door opened, I stiffened. Heat sang through my body and, furious, I stuffed it away, stifling a groan. Not Ty. For a brief moment I panicked, wondering if Bianca had mixed things up and booked my massage with Ty—something I’d asked never to happen again after that first time—but I forced myself to breathe and relax, keeping my eyes closed. Bianca ran her day spa with a golden heart and an iron fist; she wouldn’t do that to me. 

Still, as Ty exited the client room and crossed the waiting area, footsteps soft on the rugged floor. I felt more than heard him pause in front of me, every sense in my body standing to rigid attention. 

Steady breath in, steady breath out. Steady breath in, steady breath out. I’d managed to successfully ignore him through all of our infrequent encounters since that first massage, and today would be no different. 

In front of me, he sniffed. “I clearly need to have a word with Bianca,” he muttered, and I couldn’t tell if he was including me in his audience or not. “That lounge needs replacing, and some things around here are getting downright old and worn.”

I managed to avoid choking on my disbelief until he left the room, though I could still see the back of his head disappearing down the stairs, so doubtless he heard me. Whatever. I didn’t even care. Stupid, arrogant, jerk-faced twat. Just because he was so pretty that girls fell over themselves to be near him, he’d decided he was God’s gift to humanity. Well, I wasn’t falling for it, even if it had been the best bloody massage of my life. I was not some stupid, vapid piece of arm-candy for him to play with. Urgh. 

I slammed my head back against the wall just a little too hard, and winced. Moron! Imbecile! Arrogant peacocky slimeball!

“Ellie?” Bianca’s soothing voice halted my litany and I sighed, forcing away the negative energy encounters with Ty always left. “Your turn, honey.”

Damn him. I was going to enjoy my massage. He was not going to ruin this perfect moment of relaxation. Firmly shoving thoughts of stunningly gorgeous manwhores from mind, I followed Bianca into a treatment room. 

* * *

I slid into my regular seat at Felici’s just as Nana and Lydia, my older sister, were handing their menus to the waitress. “I’ll have the usual,” I said as the waitress raised an eyebrow at me. 

She nodded and swept away, leaving behind a cobalt blue bottle that sparkled and dripped with condensation. 

“So,” I said, pouring water for everyone, “What’s new?”

Lydia shrugged. “Nothing much. I was just moaning about how much working retail during the holiday season sucks. Though at least Ty is on this afternoon, so things won’t get deadly boring until he finishes up at six.”

The glass I was reaching for slipped, tipped, and sailed towards the floor. Nana, with characteristic lightning reflexes, caught it before it had barely left the table, deftly setting it upright and relieving me of my water-pouring duties.

“Ty works at the boutique as well?” I said, aiming for nonchalant. 

Nana smirked, and I pointedly ignored her. 

Lydia nodded. “Oh yeah. He does mornings in the spa and afternoons downstairs in the storefront.”

I made a careful mental note to avoid the boutique in the afternoons. Not that I needed much help with that; Dusk Alley was a designer boutique selling women’s clothing, jewellery and cosmetics that was at least four times out of my price range. I’d known they were affiliated with the day spa, but I hadn’t realised they shared staff. I guess it made sense, especially for the cosmetics and beauty product sales. Whatever. Irrelevant. 

I shoved the whole issue aside and turned to Nana. “So, I was thinking of hitting up the department store this afternoon. I need some clothes for work. Do you want to come?” Not only did Nana have impeccable taste, she also had an almost bottomless bank account that she had no qualms sharing with her only two surviving family members. 

She nodded decisively. “Yes,” she said. “It will be illuminating.”

My eyebrows knitted in puzzlement, but I let it pass. Nana was well known for her bizarre comments and apparently unconnected observations. “Sure,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Swing by Alley when you’re done,” Lydia said. I’m stuck there till eleven tonight. I’ll take my break when you come.”

Nana was already agreeing enthusiastically, and I groaned. So much for avoiding the place. 

Never mind. We’d go in, find Lydia, and drag her out for a break. The chances of running into Ty were entirely minimal. Everything would be fine. 

* * *

“I’ll just be a second,” I assured Nana as I ducked into the bathrooms. We’d spend a good couple of hour clothes hunting, and all of the resulting outfits were nicer than what I had on now. If we were going to stop past the boutique to collect Lydia, my chances of running into Ty were absolutely minimal, thank heavens—but I wasn’t about to give him more fodder for insults if I could avoid it. Old and tired. Prat. 

Locked safely in a stall, I surveyed my options. The navy was too formal; the silver too attention seeking. I settled on a neutral-toned skirt that showed off my butt and a red silk blouse with fluttery cap sleeves that managed to actually make me look like I had cleavage for a change. The whole outfit was sophisticated and chic yet effortless, the neutral skirt enriching the light brown of my hair and the red blouse the best possible colour for my skin tone. 

I pulled it all on, slipped on one of the many pairs of gorgeous new shoes—it was so shallow, but I did love Nana’s bank account—fluffed my hair, and headed back out. 

Nana whistled. “Don’t you look special,” she said.

I smiled distractedly, running my fingers along the blouse’s neckline. “It’s missing something,” I said. “I need something around my neck.”

Nana shrugged. “If you say so.”

I loaded my bags back into the trolley and marched off with it determinedly. Three times Nana tried to draw my attention to jewellery stores that we passed, but I knew exactly the one I was after. 

We rounded the corner: Dusk Alley. Chewing the inside of my lip and narrowing my eyes, I made a beeline for the back of the store, where their jewellery display was located. 

Nana caught up after a few moments, and eyed the dazzling array of entirely over-the-top necklaces, the lightest of which looking like it had to weigh at least a pound. “These aren’t really what you’re looking for, dear,” she observed candidly.

I shrugged, stifling my irritation at the truth of her words. “I thought they’d have a bigger range. This one’s okay,” I added, pointing out a silver-filigreed piece with a floral motif. 

Voices erupted around the end of the aisle and I froze. I will not turn around. I will not turn around. I realised I was checking myself out in the mirror to make sure the outfit was sitting right, and jerked my gaze away. “Or this one.” I reached for another necklace to my left, conveniently allowing me to turn my back on the approaching Prince of Twathood. 

Nana, of course, turned towards him. “Oh, I see. Of course.”

Was it permissible to hit grandmothers for being smug? If it had been Lydia I’d have whacked her for sure. 

“I’ll just go wait out the front, I think,” Nana continued, oblivious to my glares. “My feet, you know. And my hips. And my back.” She hobbled away to the tables out the front, looking every day of her age—which I’d never seen her do when she wasn’t up to mischief. Urgh. 

I was too busy fuming at her retreating back to realise that Ty had gotten within range. 

“Can I help you?” he said, eyes dancing. 

No. I was not looking at his stupid eyeballs. I whirled back to the jewellery display. “That one,” I said primly. “I’d like to try it on please.”

He reached for the necklace that hung just out of my reach, brushing past my shoulder in the process. I jolted at the energy his touch sent through me and ended up three feet away down the aisle. My stupid reflexes were always a little unpredictable, but they always seemed worse when he was around. This had been an utterly stupid idea. So what if he thought I looked old and tired? Why did I care what he thought? 

“Here.” 

I turned back to him, expecting to see the silver filigree. Instead, he held a ropey, glimmering creation I could have sworn wasn’t on the shelves a moment ago. It was a single necklace, but made up of tens or maybe even hundreds of strands; I couldn’t quite get a fix on it to figure it out, and the threads it was woven from seemed unnaturally fine and soft, like spider’s silk, the beads tiny and delicate as dewdrops. It glimmered gently in the fluorescent lights of the store, and I stood motionless, transfixed. 

“Do you like it?” There was a depth of emotion to Ty’s voice that I’d never heard before, and my heart skipped a beat in response. 

“Yes,” I breathed, awkwardness and irritation forgotten.

Ty beamed and my pulse skipped again. Saints, he was beautiful. Too beautiful, like a dangerous snake, but as he moved towards me with the necklace in hand, I was powerless to break the spell. 

He reached for me and I turned to face the mirror, back to him so he could fasten the jewellery around my neck. Instead, he laid one end of it across my forehead and directed me to hold it in place while he arranged the rest of the multitude of strands through the back of my hair, half catching it up in a style that seemed at once impossibly complex and incredibly simple. 

He fastened the catch on the jewellery just above my left ear and dropped a strand of hair to cover it. I stared at myself in the mirror, lost for words. The necklace—headpiece—whatever it was—had glimmered before, but in my hair it fairly shone. I felt like I was wearing a headdress made of moonlight that seemed to pulse gently in time with my breaths. 

“Stunning.” 

I glanced up at Ty in the mirror, surprised to see his eyes shining wetly. That instant was enough to break the spell, though, and I turned. “Let me show Nana,” I said. “I mean, let me see what she thinks.”

He stepped back, deferential. “Of course.”

Out the front of the store I found Lydia engaged in vibrant conversation with Nana, who sat with her back to me. Lydia’s eyes widened as she spotted me and paused midsentence. Nana twisted in her chair to see what Lydia had seen—and her hand flew to her mouth. 

“Oh,” she said as I drew close. “Oh, Elyena. You have it in your hair.”

I shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. “Oh, well,” I said, tugging on the strands across my forehead. “Ty thought he’d try something different.”

“Ty did this?” Nana asked. She turned back to her table and busied herself in her copious handbag before I could reply. 

Irritated, I snagged the necklace and tugged it down over my face. I shook my hair free from it and twisted it around to hang around my neck. There. Much better. Stupid Ty and his stupid ideas. What was he playing at, anyway? 

“There,” I snapped at the table, Lydia already engrossed in a new conversation with Ty and Nana still rummaging in her bag. Seriously, would it kill them to focus on me for more than a second? “Is that better?” I twitched the luminous white strands that trailed down my chest, still beautiful, but lacking the glorious beauty they’d had in the mirror just before. 

He narrowed his eyes critically at me. “The shirt does alluring things to your cleavage, I’ll give you that, even if it does emphasise your wide shoulders. I still wish you’d let me trim your hair, your forehead’s getting completely lost…” He trailed off under my glare. “No?”

“I meant about the necklace.” I thought my voice was remarkably calm for someone struggling against the impulse to commit homicide. 

Beside him, Lydia laughed. “I’m sorry. I’ve been training him for months, and he’s still barely housebroken.” She turned to him. “Ty, what’s our mantra? Answer the question…”

“Nothing else.” He nodded. “Answer the question, nothing else.”

They repeated it again together before dissolving into giggles. Ty reached across the table and tugged at Lydia’s hair, and she shrieked with mock outrage. Before I knew it, a chase was in flight—though I wasn’t actually sure who was chasing whom as they ducked back into the store and circled around racks and clothes stands. 

Ty caught Lydia for an instant, and I frowned in sudden realisation. This whole pantomime was starkly familiar: ten or fifteen years ago, it had been me and Lydia. My frown deepened and I watched closely for tell-tale glances or stray caresses, but as far as I could see, it was true: this wasn’t flirting, it was sibling horseplay. 

“Everything okay?” Nana’s voice cut through my thoughts and I turned, startled. 

“Hmm? Oh. Yes.” I glanced back at the two idiots still causing chaos in the store. “Everything’s… fine.” 

Nana’s eyes twinkled with something unreadable that tugged at my stomach, and I shook my head. “I’ll just, uh, go put the necklace back.”

“Yes, dear,” she said. “You can try to do that if you like.”

I rolled my eyes at her theatrics and headed for the back of the store. I tuned out Lydia and Ty’s ridiculous noise and hunted the display shelf for a place to hang the necklace. Oddly, there didn’t seem to be any empty hooks. I ran the necklace through my fingers, glancing down at where it hung limply around my neck. It was pretty—magically so—but it lacked the sparkle, the mysterious something else I’d thought it had when Ty had first put it on me. 

On a whim, I faced the mirror and tugged the necklace back up into my hair, trying to mimic the style Ty had created. Soft strands fell over my forehead and caught my hair partially up; it wasn’t quite how he’d done it, but… I tilted my head at the mirror and my heart skipped a beat. 

Slowly, tentatively, I reached up to touch the gossamer strands where they glimmered and glowed like a slipped halo.

Something solid hit me between and across the backs of my thighs. I flailed wildly for balance and found myself clinging to—his head, as he pranced wildly around the store with me on his shoulders, shouting, “Answer the question, nothing more! Answer the question, nothing more!”

Oh saints, my stomach’s showing. I tugged awkwardly at my shirt, caught between momentary embarrassment and his wildly infectious enthusiasm. “But what’s the question?” I shouted over the din. 

He laughed. “The necklace! It works!”

I laughed back, even though I had no clue what he was talking about. “Yay?”

Ty performed some complicated sort of movement that removed me from his shoulders and ended up with me in his arms. “Yay?” he said, eyes oddly serious in contrast to the frivolity of the situation.

“Well,” I said, waving my hands as vaguely as I felt, “It works, right? So yay?” I still had no idea what ‘working’ entailed, but whatever it was, apparently this was Christmas for Ty. He hugged me tightly to him and where our skin touched fire rippled through me. Saints. I’d forgotten what it felt like to have actual proper skin contact with him, not just accidental brushes I did my best to avoid. 

It was like drowning, and it was addictive, and it was probably just my imagination that my necklace halo was glowing like it might go nova and Ty was holding me, touching me, and my hands wrapped around the back of his neck and up through his hair and the air around us burst into flame with perfect, glorious pleasure. Skin. I needed his skin. 

My stomach flipped as something happened to gravity and I had a brief impression of broken plasterboard and a flash of darkness before Ty lay me down somewhere soft, and all I cared about was the touch of his skin, because it was beautiful, and perfect, and I nearly sobbed as heat soaked through me, lighting up every fibre of my being and chasing out fear and doubt and darkness—except just there, the very seat of my logic and rationality; it remained unmoved, a cold stone trying to catch my attention in the wave of heat.

“Wait,” I gasped. I needed a moment to process this. 

He ignored me, hands rubbing at my shoulders just like they had that first time in—I took in the plush-rugged floor, the pastel green walls, the ivory couches around the perimeter of the room. We were in the day spa. I struggled semi-upright. “Wait! How on earth did we…” 

He paused, and I found the gaping hole in the floor. Vague memories of a surge of power, of Ty springing upwards ten metres or more to the roof – through the roof – through the floor… I stared at him, wide-eyed, the magma flow of heat suddenly halted. “What are you?”

“Happy,” he mumbled against my shoulder.

I whacked him gently on the back of the neck. “Answer the question,” I said.

“Nothing more,” he murmured, nuzzling my neck. My skin fizzed where his lips touched, and I had to concentrate to rap him on the back of the head. 

“Yes,” I said. “Nothing more.”

He sat back, eyes clouded with lust slowly clearing. “I am what you are, love: a child of the gods. Well, I am closer than you: my mother was a true goddess. Your grandmother is the actual godling in your family.”

My heart stalled. Child of the gods? Me? Nana?

Actually, I had to admit that made a hell of a lot of sense. Nana’s bizarre observations, her uncanny sense of timing, her ridiculous physical abilities for someone her age… I blinked, unsure what was more unsettling: that my grandmother was a godling, or that it was dead easy to believe it. 

“Hold on, wait,” I said, wriggling further out from underneath Ty. “If you’re a godling, then…” I hesitated, not sure how to phrase my question, and not sure I wanted to know the answer. A godling. No wonder girls of all ages threw themselves at him. How many women had he loved in his lifetime? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? 

Cold logic was almost as good as a cold shower. “No,” I said. “No.”

“No what?”

“No I am not going to be the latest in a long line of floozies no. Not interested. I don’t care what you are, I’m not available.”

His eyes widened, body and face alike drooping in disappointment. “But Love, you feel it, I know you do.”

“Feel what?” I snapped, arms wrapped tightly around my torso. I felt nothing that he didn’t manipulate me to feel with his stupid godly powers.

“This,” he whispered, and reached out. His fingertip connected softly with the corner of my jaw, and I swallowed at the melting heat that consumed me. His finger trailed down my neck, tracing a blissful line across the hollow of my clavicle, lighting fire oh-so-carefully down my sternum. 

He pulled away and I remembered how to breathe. 

“See?” he said, still whispering. “How can you deny it?”

I shook my head, tears burning my eyes. I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I reminded myself frantically. “It isn’t real.” My nails dug into my palms as I stared into his sea green eyes, so full of sadness they seemed a mirror of my own. “Tell me…” I drew in a shaky breath. “Answer the question.”

He nodded, gaze darting across my face as though trying to unlock an enigma. 

“How many other girls?”

He frowned, and sadness turned to confusion. 

I rolled my eyes, flicking away tears with a quick finger. “Don’t give me that. How many other girls have you played this game with, made… feel like this?” I wasn’t holding my breath for his answer. I wasn’t. 

His confusion deepened. “But Love, I couldn’t.”

It was my turn to be confused. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t make someone feel like this. When I touch you, I feel what you feel. I felt it that first time, do you remember? The massage?”

Saints, how I had tried to forget. His touches had been perfectly innocent, utterly professional, but the fire they’d awoken in me had left me reeling in terror; I’d never felt anything that strong in my life. 

A tiny smile played at the corners of his mouth. “That’s when I knew.”

My heart pounded in my head, my chest—and everywhere else. “Knew what?”

He was leaning closer, lips a mere breath away, and I didn’t want to be a conquest, but Lydia hadn’t been flirting with him after all, and now that I thought about it—really and truly thought about it, without the filter of frustration and jealousy—could it be? Was I really the only girl actually losing her head over this man, the only one struggling not to throw herself at his feet?

“I knew,” he whispered against my ear, and I almost couldn’t hear him through the ecstasy echoing through my body, “that you were the one.”

“I don’t believe in soulmates,” I whispered back, eyes closed, every sense in my body standing to attention as his cheek tickled against mine.

“You don’t have to.” His lips traced my jaw and I shivered. “Your heart recognises me, Love, whether your believe in it or not.”

“Love,” I whispered, fingers tightening in his hair. “Is that what this is?”

“It could be,” he said. “If you wanted it to be.”

I luxuriated in the thought for just a moment, before another one hit me. I bolted upright, narrowly avoiding a collision with his nose. “Wait just one second here, buddy. Old? You think I look tired and old?” His words from that morning rang in my ear. “Not to mention, oh, I don’t know, my too-broad shoulders and my totally lost forehead.” I glared at him, wishing that godling powers included the ability to set someone literally on fire. 

Ty laughed, a soft, throaty chuckle that sounded far too appealing. “I knew you’d take it like that, and I confess, I half hoped you’d be provoked into responding. But if you recall, I said that some things around here were getting downright old and worn. I meant, Love, your constant indifference. Not you.”

He tracked a finger over my hairline, leaving tingling fireworks in its wake.

“That’s nice,” I said, pushing his hand away, “But what about my shoulders? And my forehead?”

He frowned, confusion plain again. “What about them?”

“You…” I squirmed, uncertain how to voice my fears aloud without sounding insecure and needy. “They’re not ‘too broad’, and, well, you know…?”

“Look at me, Love,” he said. “Am I perfect?”

YES, my heart screamed. YES YOU ARE BLOODY PERFECT. But I shoved the scrambling emotions away and forced myself to look. Cold logic; cold shower; I could do this. And true, now he mentioned it, his nose leaned a bit to one side, and one eye was slightly larger than the other, and if I was going to be utterly picky then his forehead was probably a fraction too large, and… “Oh.”

Ty softened into a smile. “Answer the question, Love.”

“Lydia’s wrong,” I said.

His eyebrows quirked. “What?”

I grinned, eyes dancing. “The answer. It’s not nothing more.”

Understanding lit his features. “Oh? Then what is it?” He whisked a finger against the tip of my nose, and my eyes rolled closed in pleasure. 

“Everything,” I said. “Everything more.”

He leaned down and kissed me, and this time, I kissed him back.