Chapter Fourteen

“Why are we here?” They were sitting in a library. Not any library but one that was dusty with books that looked like they went back further than the Earth.

“We’re looking for whatever is eating at you.”

“Ha ha.” She blew on a large tomb dust stirred the air making her cough.

The Librarian looked at her. He had an eye tick that was funny and disturbing at the same time. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers; the library was pristine.

“Why didn’t you do that in the first place?”

“You keep your library how you like it, and I’ll do the same with mine.” He put his nose up in the air and walked away.

She turned to look at Lucca, but he was concentrating hard on not letting his twitching lips become a laugh. She slumped low in the wood chair thinking that her rear was going to pay for this later when the chair became padded. She gave a sound of pure frustration, and he lost it. His laughter was loud, bold and masculine. It touched all the right places, suddenly she wanted to be in bed.

“Young lady if you mess up my chair you bought it.”

What was he complaining about now? Wait… what? Her cheeks pinked as she understood what he was talking about. She slid a little further down in the chair and wondered if going to the floor and crawling under the table had merit.

“So, we’re looking for ancient bad guys?”

“Yes. That’s where we are starting.”

“Starting?”

“Most of the ancients didn’t really want to destroy the Earth; they wanted to take it over. This one says he wants to destroy, but maybe he just wants to own it.”

“It’s not a toy.”

“I know, read.”

She flipped over the tomb in front of her scanning the pages. Her eyes began to cross before she was half way through, and her brain was over saturated with gods and goddess and demons. Closing the first one, she went to the next.

“What about Nyx she seems like an interesting character? Her father was Chaos.”

“Nyx is the darkness. She fights for it constantly losing every time daylight returns to the Earth. Why would she be interested in the wind or destroying the Earth?”

She shrugged, “I’ve got nothing here. I would think the only people interested in the wind would be the wind itself.”

He looked at her mouth slightly open before he stood up and retrieved an even bigger tomb bringing it to their table. He flipped to a large section named the winds.

“There are gods of the wind?”

He shook his head yes. “According to myth, there were four of them, one for each wind, the east, west, south, and north. Here’s where it gets interesting. I haven’t heard of the wind gods for centuries except for Aquilo, the god of the north wind.”

“Alright let’s say Aquilo is trying to kill me? Why? What’s in it for him to destroy me and destroy the world?”

“What if he doesn’t want you dead he only wants control of all the winds?”

“He can’t have it. I’m the guardian of… Okay, that makes a certain type of sense. I would be upset if I were the wind god, and then I was told I had to share my powers, but why kill me.”

She stood up and began to pace moving back and forth as Lucca stared at her.

“Who said he was trying to kill you? Maybe you simply assumed it.” The Librarian asked her as he passed behind her.

“Who is he and who asked for his input? Although he may be right. I simply assumed that the person tied to me was trying to kill me.”

“Good point but someone is trying to kill you.”

“What if it’s two different entities?”

“There’s only one way find out.”

“How’s that? She gave him a look that was wary.

She should be wary; she wasn’t going to like this at all.

“We find Aquilo.”

“You want me to go on a hunt for some mystical god of the wind that doesn’t exist? Lucca, love…” She stopped at her own words when he took a deep indrawn breath. Did she love him? Of course not. She adored him, loved how he felt touching her, kissing her, making love to her, but that wasn’t love.

She carried on as if she never had a slip of the tongue. “You realize how crazy that sounds, right?”

“Well, we could sit here for hours going over these ancient tombs and talk to the Librarian. He might be willing to go for take out.”

“I feel like there was a hint of blackmail in that statement, but let’s go track down a wind god. I do love useless pursuits.”

“That’s my menace.”

“Where are we going to start?” They walked out the library. She never turned around to look at it again, the street and the library disappeared as Lucca pulled onto a side street.

He brought the car to idle and looked into her eyes.

“No, hell no. Isn’t this where I came in?”

“Glad to have you back.”

“This is a bad idea, a very bad one. Stop the car let’s talk about this.”

“Let’s talk while we drive.”

“We need clothes, suitcases; those darn shakes you force down me every day. We have to go back to our house.”

“Our house?”

“You’re trying to confuse me. Stop trying to confuse me and take me back.”

“To the library?”

“No, you know where I want to go.”

“Where?”

“To… to your house.” Darn him. He was making her crazy. She was thinking things she shouldn’t be thinking, and the last thing she wanted was for him to get too attached she might have two freaks after her. No, two were not better than one.

She sat back with a huff and placed her hands over her breasts. It would be awhile before he saw the perfect beauty of her small chest.

“The Created mate for life. I mate for life.”

She turned her head to look at him channeling evil. He laughed so hard she thought he was going to have to pull over or wreck.

“Menace I’m officially scared of you.”

“Hmpf.” He should be scared of her so why were her lips twitching and her cheeks burning as she tried not to smile. Stubborn male.

“I’m not talking to you.”

“Then I’ll take to you. Grab your little cooler in the back you haven’t had a shake in over a day. You need the nutrients.

“Thanks, mom.”

“You’re welcome baby.” His voice came out light, and high pitched like he was female.

She laughed not able to hold it in any longer. Turning around in the seat, she grabbed the cooler that was big enough for two shakes. She pulled one out and watched as another took its place. There was no way she was going to ask.

“Now I was telling you about mating.”

“Why do you mate for life?”

“It’s the animals they use to enhance our DNA. There’s a large part of the galaxy that mates for life. Then there are some that avoid looking for their mates, so they are not bound to one partner for the rest of their lives.”

“I can see it from both points of view.”

“Tell me.”

She took a sip of her shake and watched the road ahead of them. He was turning onto the highway taking her to the place she didn’t want to go. Why? Because it was the place where she might lose him.

“Let’s say I believe that there is one special person meant for you. There’s this excitement that you may meet them as well as this dread deep in your belly that you will meet them. That push and pull could drive someone crazy. Let’s assume that you meet them. Why don’t we use us as the test subject?

“You’ve been living life, doing whoever you want to.”

“Menace.”

“Truth. You could have any female in the world and not worry about it. You could also walk away whenever you want to. That’s called living your life on your own terms.”

“There’s also another name for it.”

She turned and raised a brow.

“Loneliness. If you’re not invested, then the other person isn’t invested enough to stay when times get tough.”

She swallowed hard and then ignored what he said. “Now you run across your mate. The one person you are destined to love with all your heart forever. Whoever you were seeing whatever you were doing doesn’t matter anymore.”

She had a point he hadn’t thought about his business since he met her.

“You know I’m right, but it gets worse. Her enemies become yours. Her trouble's likes and dislikes become something you think about. You worry about her health.” She raised her shake without realizing what she was doing, and he smiled.

“What if she doesn’t want you? The attraction may only be a one-way street. Then what will you do? Your heart is taken while she’s flitting around from male to male.”

“Do you really think mating works that way?”

“It could.” She was defiant. “I’m full.” She put her half-empty shake in the cup holder and closed her eyes.

He stroked a hand through her honey-colored hair and thought about how he had held it in his hands when she took his cock into her mouth. Then he remembered how he stroked it when she was sleep. How touching her made him feel. His menace, his lips quirked upward. She wasn’t going to make things easy for him.

Winning her heart would be a battle, but it would be worth the fight. To know that every night her small body would be tucked around his much bigger frame. He wanted to be that knight in shining armor on the white horse coming to save her. Would she want to stay when she finally understood what it meant to be Created?

He didn’t know, just like he didn’t know if he could let her go. Already he wanted to sink is fangs into her shoulder and claim her as his forever, but he didn’t have the right without her permission.

He let out a sigh as he changed lanes on the highway. Soon they would be getting off.

“There’s another reason not to look for a mate.” Her voice was soft and filled with sleep.

“Tell me.” The car was dark now only the taillight of another car and the headlights of the car behind them gave any real reflection.

“What happens if one of them dies? Everyone dies eventually. How do you go on with your life if you’ve lost your perfect partner, the other half of your soul?”

His heart seized as her real reason came out. Was she worried about herself? Probably not she was honest and unselfish. Then she was worried about him, and his heart seized again. She didn’t think she was going to make it, and she was worried that she would leave him alone shattered and broken.

He wanted to deny that anything like that could happen, but this was life; it never played fair.

“That’s a possibility. Either one of us could die. If we’re still using us as an example, you could die, but so could I. I can’t speak for anyone else, not on this subject matter, so my next words are simply how I feel. I would rather touch heaven and know the joy of having been paired with my other half for a little while than spend the rest of my life wondering what heaven looked and felt like.”

He pulled the car over to a roadside diner while her violet eyes blazed with thought as she looked at him.