Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
I felt one of my eyes go squinty at the description, but I let him continue his story.
“My brother has always refused to hide what he is, and she recognized the same thing in him that he saw in her.”
He meant magic, I thought.
“They struck up a conversation, the cruise ship was on an overnight stay there, and at some point, between that afternoon and the next morning, relations were had that resulted in your existence.”
My jaw found its way to persevere that time and it dropped as low as it was able to.
I was the child of a one-night stand between two gods.
I… I….
I laughed.
I laughed, and I bent over to pet Duncan again because I didn’t know what else to do. My boy gave my arm a lick in reply. I didn’t think he knew what to do with me either.
Fortunately, Franklin continued the second my laughter waned. “One month later, my brother received a letter in the mail—which I read, he has his sentimental moments and kept it—from the woman stating that she was expecting. Verbal contact was made, and your DNA donor, who called herself Isha, made her wishes known. She believed she wasn’t in a position to have a child, my brother felt the same, and they agreed that she would find… adequate parents to raise the child.”
“They were more than adequate,” I said, not sure if I was angry, sad, or both, mixed in with some surprise. But I needed to make that point real clear.
“I’m very pleased to hear that,” the elder acknowledged almost gently. “My brother eventually admitted that he reached out to you over the years, though he stipulated that it has been some time since his last visitation—up until his most recent, I suppose.”
“Visit?” Henri asked in a dull voice.
“Those terrible night visits he’s been subjecting us to,” Franklin huffed. “The obsidian blocks him from reaching out to Nina directly, and he has no finesse with dream walking. Before you started hiding yourself, he was able to find you more easily and directly.” He grumbled, “Dreams are not his natural domain.”
My brain ran through his info dump. About the bracelet. About the visits in dreams that weren’t dreams that I’d always known were more than they seemed.
I lined up the events in my head. The last time I had had one of those “dreams,” they had been before I’d started wearing my bracelet. Since then, I rarely slept without it. If that had been blocking him from “finding me” directly, there would’ve been no way he’d been able to dream visit again. Hmm.
“So that is him waking us up in the middle of the night?” I asked.
“It is. I’ve made it clear he’s to stop that immediately.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, thinking about the gnomes’ hints. “Why’s he doing that? And how can he if I wear my bracelet? Because he knows where I’m at now?”
“I may have given him my thoughts on his choices. I may have told him what he and that Isha did is unforgiveable.” Franklin stopped fidgeting. His expression went intent. “You have the right idea, Nina. He knows where our ranch is, and because he can’t find you directly, his telegraphing in sleep is more like… using a sledgehammer with a gift he could never use well in the first place. Think of it as him screaming into the abyss in a way.” A slight sneer tilted his mouth. “Or a grown man throwing a tantrum at being ignored.”
That made surprising sense, but a part of me refused to react to him going out of his way. But the first part of Franklin’s statement raised a question that I couldn’t keep to myself. “Do you know if he has other children?”
“Not still on this earth. His last child was easily a millennia ago.” A stricken look crossed the elder’s face. “It’s difficult.”
Seemed to me like there was more to that, and the elder didn’t let me down.
“After your first child, you have the groundwork for what to expect. You know in advance that they’ll age while you don’t, that they’ll pass on, while you have to continue to live with a part of you missing….” The older man’s throat worked. “It never gets easier. No matter how many times you go through it, losing a child doesn’t become more bearable. They don’t start to mean less even being aware of the inevitable.
“Each loss takes a bite out of you, and eventually, there isn’t much more you can afford to lose,” my biological surprise uncle stated carefully.
Too carefully.
I’d swear his eyes sparkled in the dim lighting.
“A thousand years ago, when my last daughter passed, and my brother’s son did as well, we made a vow to each other, while we were at our lowest, that we were done with children, who would only grow up to break our hearts. And I’m sorry for that, Nina. I don’t think our agreement had anything to do with the decision he and your… DNA donor made, but if there was the slightest chance it did, I beg you to forgive me.”