Touching Fire (Touch Saga) (23 page)

I couldn’t understand it, but I swallowed audibly. “Just how old is he?”

“Darling, I cannot even tell you how old I am.”

Then came the most dreaded
question of all. “Does Acheron have kids? Other than Lally.”
And are they all as crazy?

Odalyn
exhaled and rolled her gaze heavenward. “To know that, I would first need to know the number of children I have and the number of children they have and so on and so forth.”

“So you don’t
know?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, love. But I will tell you this,
he has never brought any of them to my attention. Lally is his most recent as far as I know.”

“So he and Celia only have the one?”

“Oh I’m certain Celia has others, but as I said, Lally is the youngest to date.”

I had no idea how to take
in any of this information. On one hand, I was all jazzed by the fact that I had siblings. Hopefully none were as loony as Lally, but it was exciting all the same. On the other hand, my dad was a man-whore, which apparently ran in the family.

“You think we are awful for being so … loose
, with our morals,” Odalyn teased.

I shrugged. “I don’t judge.”

“My dear girl.” She set her cup down and faced me squarely. “We are sin embodied. Without us, mankind would have ceased to exist before they were even created. We are everywhere. That would be impossible to accomplish if we were not many.”

So you multiply like
rabbits?
Yeah, I kept that to myself.

“So do you grow like … people?” Even I had to frown at the way that came out. “Like your children, do they grow—?”

“For the first few centuries. Then the aging gets slower until you’re barely aging at all.”

I thought of Isaiah and his rapid aging the first year. It hadn’t happened since, but there were still times when it was impossible to tell his age just by looking at him.
I started to wonder how Garrison did it. How he managed to boost his growth like that and only for that one year. How was Isaiah able to keep his mentality? By all sense, he should have been an infant in the body of a ten year old. But his mentality had grown with him. The whole thing never made sense to me, but Isaiah was proof. Sitting there across from my grandmother, I couldn’t help wonder if maybe, just maybe, Isaiah was one of them … one of me. But he’d been called human enough times to squish that theory.

“Can I ask you something else?” I said slowly.

“You may.”

“
Why do you think Ashton invited you to meet me?” Especially after he made me swear not to tell anyone who I was. Granted, he hadn’t really told them either, but for someone who wanted me to be part of a secret, he hadn’t wasted much time introducing me to his family—evidently a very small part of, but still a part.

Odalyn grinned a little. “I thought that would be obvious, love.” Her smile broadened
at my bemused expression. “He is proud of you. He may even love you. That is a huge feat in our world. But I also think it is because of what you are that makes you so special.”

I suddenly wished I hadn’t asked.

“What’s that?”

“Come now.” She tilted her head to the side. “
I can smell the human in you from a mile away.”

I stiffened. “What?”

She ignored my squeak. “There are rules against us procreating with mortals. We can influence them. We can corrupt them. But we are in no way permitted to physically harm or touch them. Offspring of such a union are mutated abominations. They are frowned upon and banished from our world. I do not know how Acheron accomplished to create you, but he will regret it.”

Wow. Way to make me feel warm and fuzzy, Grams,
I thought.

“
Because of the guard?” I asked instead.

“
Yes, but also because of the fact that what he has done is highly illegal. Also, how can you belong if you do not know where you belong? Do you belong with the humans? How long before they sense that you are not one of them? How long before they realize you do not age? Eventually, your human will die and every lover after will do so as well, and you will be alone. Yet you do not belong here, not with your human blood. You will never be accepted.”

It was impossible to hate her, to even get angry, when I knew she was right.
Truthfully, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I could deny it, say that I belonged where I wanted to belong, but she was right, neither world felt right and I didn’t really belong to either. I could have flown into a fit of rage. Maybe have thrown the tea in her face, or at the very least have thrown the set at the wall. It would have been satisfying. I even considered it, but I didn’t have the energy. I just wanted to sleep.

“You are angry with me,” she said calmly, but with a hint of remorse. “I do not say it to be hurtful, love.”

I met her gaze. “I’m not. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

For a moment, she actually looked sad. She even opened her mouth as though to respond when another voice interrupted us.

“There you are, Mom.” Vinnie poked her head into the room. “I thought maybe you’d left.”

“
I was just having a nice little chat with our guest.”

Vinnie’s gaze shifted to mine. “
I’m headed out if you’d like a lift.” The words were spoken to me, but meant for the other woman.

Odalyn rose from her seat. “That would be nice. I think Fallon and I are finished for now.” She dropped those hazel eyes to mine. “We will talk again, dearest. Perhaps not for a while, but soon.” She walked around the table towards me and lightly rested a hand on my cheek. The warmth of it sent shivers down my spine. “
Keep that pretty chin up. You are after all one of mine. We do not concede defeat easily.” With an affectionate pat, she turned and strolled to where her daughter stood, watching us.

“Later, chica,” Vinnie said
as she pushed off the doorframe and turned to follow her mother.

I gave a feeble wave I was sure neither of them witness
ed and slumped back in my seat with a defeated huff.

It was unclear how long I sat there.
It could have been five minutes, although it felt like hours. Time was an iffy thing when I noticed there were no clocks anywhere in sight. What made it even more hysterical was the fact that, while I sat there, probably looking like I was thinking something deep and profound, my mind was absolutely blank. I never thought that was a possibility, the ability to just not think anything. Yet, there I was.

I was still there when Ashton knocked softly on my still
-open door. I stole a glance in the direction of the tea set, which had miraculously vanished, before getting to my feet to face yet another distraction I didn’t want.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” He said, taking a single step over the threshold into my room.

I shook my head. “No.”

He nodded slowly. “Where’s Isaiah?”

“With Archer somewhere. Manly bonding or something. I think he misses never having friends.”

He had the decency to avert his eyes
. “Despite what you might think, I didn’t force him to stay with you. He could have left at any time. He’s the one who wanted to stay.”

“He didn’t know any better,” I retorted sharply. “He was just a kid. I wanted to put bobby pins into the light socket, but my mom never let me do it. You were supposed to protect him.”

His eyes hardened. “Perhaps, but my one and only job is and always will be to protect you. You always come first.”

I couldn’t help it, I raised an eyebrow. “Does that hand of protect
ion extend to all your kids, or am I just lucky? Your mom came to see me,” I said when he stared at me in confusion. “She wanted to know if I knew where I belonged. She also made it very clear that you were making a big mistake.”

He cursed, raking a hand back through his hair. “
I’m sorry, Fallon. I should have realized…”

“Why did you bring me here?” I swung my arms open wide. “
I don’t belong—”

“You do!” he snapped unexpectedly, making me jump.
“I have been alive for more years than you can possibly count. I have seen kings rise and fall. But do you know what I learned? That monarchies change. They grow and adapt with each new generation. I have reigned this long because I believe in those changes. I have moved my people into each new century without hesitation. Now, do you honestly believe that I wouldn’t find a place for you here in my world? Do you think that I have not thought of this moment for seventeen years? I have and I have crossed all my T’s with pain-stricken accuracy. I know what I’m doing, Fallon. This world, by the time I am finished, will be as much yours as it is mine.”

It was hard not to fall into the promises he was making, to not blindly accept that he could make it all better. But there were facts missing that I couldn’t overlook.

“What about Isaiah? Can you make this his home, too?”

Ashton sighed heavily. “
As far as we have come, we are not there yet. Isaiah is still human despite his abilities. I can’t change many millennia of prejudice.”

“But why is there prejudice? You guys aren’t even on the same planet.”

“It’s like humans like to say, the grass is always greener on the other side.” He grinned at his own joke. “We all want what we can’t have.”

“I always thought sin walked with humans, like side by side,” I said.

Ashton laughed. “Could you imagine if we were on the same plane?” He sighed and moved to the sofa. He sunk down on it and motioned for me to do the same. “Us with them…” He shook his head. “The chaos, the mayhem … the bloodshed would destroy us all. Mankind would never survive.” He looked at me and it was with a depth and heat that shot straight through me with an urgency that sent a cold chill down my spine. “Riots, Fallon. Blood on the streets. Could you imagine all our powers, unfiltered and unrestrained just rampaging through humanity? Greed, wrath, envy and pride, tearing through the streets at will?” He sucked in a sharp breath. “We are contained here.”

“But you can still cross over.”

He nodded slowly. “Only Sires and heirs can travel between the worlds, because we are the only ones in possession of a rawel and even that can only be decided by the Guild with a unanimous vote. We are also bound by our powers here never to physically cause harm. There are times when an heir gets out of control and you have mass riots and wars, but they are quickly taken under hand by their Sires, restrained and things revert. People forget. We all move on. A rawel isn’t freely given to all members of Agartha.”

I released a humorless chuckle. “You would think being unleashed on mankind would be something
a sin would want. Unlimited sinning and all.”

Ashton snorted. “We all have a place
and a duty. To become overzealous too quickly would only be the downfall of what we all need to survive. If there is no man, then there is no sin. Everything must be done in small doses. That is not to say that there aren’t those who wish for more. There is always the few, but there are still enough in our mix to outvote them. Also, that is why we have the guard. They make sure things like that don’t happen.”

“If you’re so against humans, why did you make house with my mom? Did she not smell human?”

This time, when he laughed, it was slivered with pain. “No. She smelled like oranges and that blasted chamomile hand lotion she was so fond of.” His gaze dropped to the cushion between us.

“I don’t understand you,” I murmured. “You say you loved my mom and you married her, had a family, but
you think humans are beneath you.”

“I do not think they are beneath me!” His eyes were big and round against his appalled expression.
“But I have learned the error of my ways. Your mother taught me that. No matter how good your intentions, or how hard you fight to make it work, they will never understand. To them, everything is either good or evil and you can only be good or evil. They don’t understand that we don’t have a choice in the matter. Both are in us and we are both.”

“But Isaiah already knows all this about me,” I said. “He knows everything about me and he accepts me—”

“But he won’t, not forever.” His lips thinned as sorrow took hold of his features. “I only want to protect you, Fallon. Nothing hurts worse than rejection from someone who claims to love you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to justify what my mom had done, or why she did it.
I couldn’t speak for her.

Ashton didn’t seem to need
an explanation from me.

“
I begged her not to go,” he said at last, after what felt like hours. “I told her that I would fix things. That I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, but she’d made up her mind and nothing was going to change it back.”

“She said you had secrets.” I recalled vividly the last conversation I’d had with my mother, only mere minutes before she was brutally snatched away from me.
“And that you were dangerous.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “She wasn’t kidding.”