“I do not wish to remember this or remind you of it, my love, but when you came into my study carrying your birthday gift, the look on your face…” He shook his head. “I felt your hurt and I felt it so deeply, I must have felt it just as keenly as you did.”
My hand tensed harder and I felt tears sting my nose. “Honey.”
“You are my other half, Cora.”
I felt the tears fill my eyes. “Oh, baby,” I whispered.
“These people, your people,” he tipped his head to the side to indicate the patrons of the coffee house, “they see this or sense it. This magic we have. This connection of souls. They do not understand it but they sense it.”
I felt my brows rise. “Do you think?”
“Yes, I do.”
“But… what would Minerva get out of that?”
“What she has got for the last five years since I met the other you. The opportunity to feed on my frustration, my heartbreak. It isn’t an entire kingdom filled with despair but it’s something. And if she did this, she would have my lifetime of frustration for I would never have you.”
“But if the blue mist –”
“She toys,” Tor interrupted me. “What, my sweet, is worse than not having the love you always knew you would have?” He didn’t wait for my answer but answered himself. “What is worse is having it for a time and then having it taken away. My father taught me that with nearly every day he existed without one of his wives.”
Oh God. He was right.
“So, you don’t think Cora is behind this?” I asked.
“I am uncertain. What I think is that Cora is as lazy as she is unkind as she is greedy. What I think is that Cora does care… too much… for my brother which would provide added evidence that she is not the other half to my soul for she would not feel this way about Dash if she was. I have always found this strange for I, until I met you, have never held feelings for any other than her and until we came to your world, I thought you were her. This,” he squeezed my hand, “would explain her feelings for my brother.”
This was true.
Tor continued, “What I also think is that Cora may have colluded with Minerva for some gain or so she herself would not have a lifetime of watching her sister and her love be wildly happy together. What I think is that she may be sly but she has nowhere near the sharp wit you have. What I think is that Minerva chose that Cora carefully, and in doing so chose you carefully, knowing all this would happen. What I think is that Cora would convince herself she could play Minerva but Minerva is manipulating Cora and feeding off her unrequited love or her greed or her malice or all three.”
“But that would mean you think Cora would bring down the curse,” I remarked.
He shook his head. “I couldn’t imagine even Cora would do that. She knows how the curse works. She knows me. I did not consent to meet her until after I re-secured my birthright. She knew the warrior I was. She would know I would do everything in my power to stop the curse. It is my conjecture that Cora agreed to leave that world so as not to have to watch my brother with her sister and she would assume I would stop the curse. Either way, her being here would mean she wouldn’t be in Minerva’s clutches therefore the curse would never fully culminate.”
“Maybe she didn’t do any of that, Tor. Wouldn’t Minerva just do as she wished to toy with whoever she wanted?”
“The gods are all-powerful, my love. The she-god, whose power is immense but it comes from her own conjured magic, is not. Regardless, all the gods grant us free will and we use it as we see fit, for right or for wrong. Minerva, however, capitalizes on the wrong. She insinuates herself and manipulates. She needs a being to make the wrong choices, or she uses malicious means to guide the weak to make wrong choices so that she can exploit those choices. And the other Cora, as I think you know, sweets, is very good at making the wrong choices.”
Something hit me. “Do you think she had something to do with Rosa being at her house the day of the wedding?”
“Yes,” Tor answered promptly. “It could be payment for Minerva agreeing to take her to your world.”
“But that would start the curse! She’d have to know that,” I cried.
“This would be a hideous thing to do, even for Cora, sending her delicate sister into the clutches of Minerva but I think you have learned that Cora is not above doing something hideous, even to her own sister. That said, she would also know that I would see to it that Rosa was rescued, which I did.”
The entirety of my body froze except my eyes. They blinked.
Then I whispered, “What?”
Tor studied me and as he did so I could actually feel the blood rushing to my face as the mounting anger rushed hot through my veins.
“Cora, love, listen to me,” he urged, his hand holding mine so firmly I had no hope of pulling mine away which pissed… me… off.
“She’s been rescued?” I asked, my voice quiet and trembling with anger.
“Yes,” he answered and my eyes narrowed. “Orlando was faltering. I sent him a missive and called him to Bellebryn. I met with him and my warriors, in secret from you, and we devised a strategy. They carried this out and it was successful. Rosa was delivered safely to her parents some weeks past. Since then, she has been engaged in the re-planning of her wedding. She and her parents were asking after you but I sent a missive explaining you were not yourself and when you were better, I would take you to her.”
Hmm. It seemed during his days away from me my warrior prince had been busy.
The big, fat jerk!
“She was rescued some weeks past,” I stated softly.
His hand gave mine a gentle tug. “Cora –”
“She was rescued some weeks past!” I shouted and felt the eyes of the customers swing our way.
“Cora, calm down,” Tor commanded tersely.
“Calm down? Are you nuts?” I snapped. “I was worried sick! And you lied to me, telling me nothing had changed! Leading me, I might add, to believe my sister was in the evil clutches of a she-god!”
I felt more attention come our way as Tor leaned closer to me over the table.
“And I did not know that you were you,” he reminded me. “And you did not one thing to stop Rosa from seeing Dash. I know now you didn’t do anything because you had just woken in a new world. I thought then that you didn’t do anything because you were her. I could only assume you did this because you meant Rosa harm. I could also speculate that you were united with Minerva for some despicable purpose. Because of this, I could not give you that information. You must understand that.”
“What I understand, Tor,” I hissed, trying and failing to pull my hand from his which pissed me off even more because I was sick of how bloody, stinking strong he was, “is that we’ve been here and you’ve known I was me for two and a half days and you did not share this information with me!” I was fairly shouting my last and his hand gave mine a rough jerk.
“And why, my love, do you think that is? Perhaps because you’re reacting the way you’re reacting right now? Or, could it be that I had hurt you gravely prior to us coming to this world, so gravely, you fled from me and I watched you tumble down a flight of marble, bloody stairs, smashing your head and bruising your body in the process? Bruises you still carry on a beautiful body that is bearing my child? A child we were both extremely fortunate didn’t abort upon this accident? And, just after that, holding you unconscious in my arms and wondering if you’d ever wake up, suddenly I was in a new world, with you angry and hurt, pushing me away. And, by the gods, I’d just come to understand you were who you are and I was in love with you so perhaps I had other things on my mind than the fact that your sister is happy, healthy and has decided to change her wedding bouquet from orange blossoms and jasmine to roses and daisies because she thinks the scent of jasmine will clash violently with the blossoms?”
I stared at him.
Then I breathed, “You’re in love with me?”
“Gods, Cora, I just told you you’re t
he other half to my soul.”
“You’re in love with me?” I repeated.
He leaned back in his chair then tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling to which he muttered, “Deliver me.”
“Tor,” I called, tugging his hand lightly and feeling something swelling inside me, swelling fast, so fast, I was going to burst at any second.
He looked at me and raised his brows.
“Everything is right in your world,” I told him quietly.
“Yes, Cora, everything is right in my world.”
“The curse is no longer pending. Rosa is saved,” I went on.
“Yes, love, I just told you that.”
“So if we can get back, get Dash safely married to Rosa, then the land will be safe for our generation.”
“And you married to me,” he stated firmly.
“And me married to you,” I whispered softly.
He glared at me.
“Then all will be well,” I whispered.
“Yes, Cora, all will be well,” he semi-repeated with obvious strained patience.
“So that means,” I kept whispering, “I can tell Mom and Dad and Phoebe that, when I go back with you, it will just be you and our child and me and my sister, alive and happy, in a fairytale land and they’ll feel better letting me go.”
I watched Tor’s body go still. Then I watched his face get soft and his eyes get warm.
Then he whispered, “Yes, my love, that’s what it means.”
“That will make me feel better,” I whispered back.
He stared at me about a nanosecond before, without letting my hand go, he stood, rounded the table, pulled me out of my chair and into his arms where he plastered me to his body and laid a wet, hot, fantastic and very long kiss on me which I returned all the while melting into his arms.
When he lifted his head I looked in his eyes and whispered, “I love you, my prince.”
At my words, Tor smiled his freaking unbelievably beautiful smile.
Then we were hit with a wave of sound when a loud, spontaneous cheer went up in the coffee house.
“All right, dawg!” some guy yelled.
I felt heat hit my cheeks and I pulled in my lips. Tor’s smile just got bigger.
“Jeez, you guys, seriously, you keep that up, you need to get a room, like, pronto,” Phoebe said and I turned my head to see my grinning friend, her friend Brianna who I had met a couple of times and another woman joining our table.
The other woman was gazing with open fascination at Tor and I knew she was the Circe back in the other world’s friend. And I knew she knew Tor was from a parallel universe.
And I also knew that my crazy life was about to get better… or decidedly worse.
Oh boy.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Torn Away
I was sitting on the armchair in my living room, feet up on the coffee table, legs bent, pad of paper on my knees, making lists. Tor was stretched out on the couch, his fingers wrapped around a bottle of beer that was resting on his abs, his eyes on a baseball game on the TV.
So… totally… a man.
This was after our conversation with Phoebe, Brianna and Marlene. It was after we had gone by the mall to get Tor a cell. And after we had come home, Tor stopping blocks away and getting out of the car to walk back just in case the apartment was under surveillance (somehow, he was standing outside my door by the time I got in the driver’s seat, drove home, found a place to park on the street and walked up to my apartment proving he wasn’t just strong, my man was fast and, I hoped, stealthy). I’d made Tor a dinner of spiral pasta, spaghetti sauce with meatballs, garlic bread, salad and beer (for him, diet root beer, for me) and Tor had shared he liked this meal far more than bologna sandwiches and Cheetos. Obviously, we followed dinner with red velvet cake because that cake could be a week old and it would still kick ass.
At the coffee house, we had learned from Phoebe that Noc had not given her anything.
Not that first thing.
Except he appeared pissed that, first, she was there and not Cora (as anyone who was getting the boot would be) and second, that he was getting the boot without explanation and for what appeared to be no reason. She’d tried to pry but he was closed up tight and after his hand gripped the handle of the suitcase, he didn’t hang around long.
She did stress, however, that he appeared pissed but she got the sense he felt relief and that mostly he just wanted his stuff. She also reported that he seemed distracted, acted like he had better things to do and that he just wanted to get the hell out of there.
This was a disappointment but not unexpected.
What was not a disappointment but was a shock (some of that shock good, as in possibly very good, some of it was bad, as in really bad) was all that we learned from Marlene.
First, we learned that the alternate Circe, in an effort to bring back the, uh, real Circe, had gone all out to find a witch in this world who would be able to bring the real Circe back to her world (how’s that for confusing?).
Then we learned, thankfully, as Tor confirmed from Marlene’s additional information, that this world was, indeed, Korwahk. And the witch had provided the information that there weren’t an infinite number of worlds. There was Tor’s and there was ours.
Then it was confirmed that Circe was sent back not by the witch. Circe’s King Lahn had found some means to transport her back to him. However, the witch had, with great confidence, assured Circe’s father who assured Marlene that Circe was safely back where she wanted to be. However, although the witch did not send Circe back, Marlene was relatively certain (relatively, yikes!) that she had the power to send Tor and I back.
And Marlene had also, prior to meeting with us, called Circe’s Dad, found out the location and swung by this witch’s trailer (yes, trailer) only to discover she was no longer there. In fact, the whole trailer was gone.
This was bad.
What was a surprise was that Marlene had said the witch was old, she was blind and her name was Clarabelle.
At that, I gasped and Tor’s eyes sliced to me. He showed and shared no response even when I quizzed him about it later in the car telling him I thought this was good news.
His reply was simply, “You are not the other Cora, this Noc is not me and this witch is not the other Clarabelle. We have no idea of her character. What we do know is she is a witch and anyone who dabbles in magic is suspect. We must tread cautiously.”
I had to admit, I was totally down with that.
I questioned Marlene more about Circe’s other world and learned that what Tor and Phoebe had said was true. Things for Circe, like me, had not started out all that great with Circe and her King Lahn and this was to say the least (she was, indeed, hunted, “claimed”, as in raped by this King Lahn, then installed as his queen) but somehow he rallied, they ended up getting on well, as in very well, so well she was desperately in love with him, desperately heartbroken when she’d left him, totally into having his child and apparently blissfully happy when she got back, gave him twins and was living her life like a queen (literally). She was so happy, she was apparently totally fine with leaving everything behind and living with this guy in his primitive world for the rest of her natural born days.
The semi-good news about all this was that apparently, Circe’s Dad had been able to get a message to her in her world and she was able to return one, setting her Dad (and Marlene’s) mind at-ease about her situation. The reason this was semi-good news was that, although Circe had been back there for awhile, communications between worlds were unpredictable and although Marlene told me that Circe’s Dad kept trying and Circe had promised her Dad she would too, he had not heard from her again.
This sucked. However, where there was hope well… there was hope.
Obviously, Queen Circe (or Queen Circe, the True Golden Warrior Queen of Korwahk, how’s that for a kickass title?), her brute king and their growing brood didn’t take vacations in Seattle which also sucked. We learned from Ma
rlene the reason Circe did not go back and forth was because the witch Clarabelle informed Circe’s father, and the other Circe (who was, more news, a sorceress) corroborated this, that it took vast amounts of power to travel between worlds. There was not only little communication with the other world, what little there was was random, not in anyone’s control and therefore the witch did not know who was controlling the travel from the other side and she could not guarantee she could get messages from there or to there to bring anyone back. And even if she did, it would be a one way trip as, once she brought them here, she couldn’t get them home as getting them here would use up all her magic. It would take decades for her magic to recover enough for her to attempt another trip.
See? Totally sucked.
So, when Circe made her decision to send the message to her father that she was staying, this meant Circe knew it was King Lahn’s world or her own.
Circe chose King Lahn.
I got where she was coming from though I would have preferred to be able to travel back and forth at will say, having my child in my world where medicine was more advanced and so my parents could meet him or her and, of course, when the Oscars pre-shows were on because that was my most favorite event of the year (it was all about the dresses and, I might add, the hairstyles and jewelry).
Alas, this was not possible.
But I’d already made my choice, no matter how difficult. And I made it because Tor could not be a prince in my world, his people depended on him and he’d expended great effort (and had the scars to prove it) to rebuild his kingdom. I couldn’t ask him to give up enjoying the triumphant result of something he felt so strongly about he gave it five years of his sweat and blood and his efforts to regain it were marked on his face and body nor could I ask him to give up the eventual succession to rule a kingdom that was his birthright.
I was an administrative assistant, only Dave depended on me and the only wounds I ever got were from paper cuts.
I didn’t think about my parents or Phoebe or Dave or the Oscar pre-shows or any of that. I couldn’t. I had to focus. I was in love. I was pregnant. My man was far away from his family, who he cared about, and his people, who depended on him.