style="font-size:15px;"> “It’s not up to us to decide,” Lena started, trying as usual to unruffle her. But Val was having none of it.
“You always take her side,” she raged. Which was totally wrong, Aurora thought. Lena was more fair than anyone in the Nine Realms, and Val knew it. But before she could say anything, Val turned on her.
“It’s never going to work, anyway. What can you do in a day?” The thought seemed to relax her and she smiled, that smug, entitled smile that had always infuriated Aurora. “He’s mine and he always has been. He’s a warrior—he’ll choose to fight. I’ll see you at dawn.”
Val tossed back her gleaming black hair and flounced off, back toward the guardhouse and the bridge.
Lena watched her, her face troubled. Then she sighed and turned to Aurora, with her soft dress rippling in the wind. “I really do think...”
Aurora shook her head. “Oh, please, Lena, don’t lecture me. I couldn’t let Val take him. Why should he have to fight and die so young? I know it’s not right for him.”
“You mean, she’s not right for him?” Lena suggested gently. Aurora didn’t have to speak; her scarlet cheeks were all her sister needed for confirmation. “And you are? Aurora, he’s a mortal.”
“That never stopped half the gods,” Aurora retorted.
“Aurora,” Lena chided.
“You know it’s true,” Aurora muttered.
“It is true,” Lena admitted, fair as always. “But that kind of thing generally doesn’t end happily. For anyone,” she added with a slight emphasis. “Does he even know what you are?”
Aurora squirmed. “I tried to tell him,” she said, but her voice didn’t sound convincing even to herself.
“Well, what do you think is going to happen when...” Lena stopped herself. “No, never mind that now. Just tell me what I can do.”
That was Lena; no matter what, her sister was always supportive. Aurora felt a rush of love for her.
Her sister knew the intricacies of the past, and the past was where Aurora needed to go.
She looked out at two swans gliding on the pond, nuzzling each other with long necks. So happy, so peaceful...mated for eternity.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said hopefully. “There is something you can do. I think if I can take Luke back to where it all started to go wrong—I mean, where he started on this path—I think he’ll be able to choose with a clear head.”
“And when was that?” Lena looked suspicious.
“High school,” Aurora admitted.
“Oh, Aurora...” Now Lena’s face was troubled, and Aurora knew that Lena had not forgotten what had happened.
“I know,” Aurora said defensively. “But I’m older now.”
Not that she was much older; the difference between sixteen and twenty-eight didn’t mean much in terms of infinity, but she had been living as a high school girl at the time and it had always amazed Aurora how quickly you could get wrapped up in the emotions of the age you were portraying.
“But it nearly destroyed you,” Lena said gently.
“It will be different this time,” Aurora insisted. “And that’s when it happened, so that’s when it has to be.”
Lena looked across the emerald grass of the field toward the guardhouse, where Val had disappeared in a huff. “You know that...”
“She’ll be there, yes, I know. Lena, I have to.” She looked at her older sister with wide, appealing eyes. “I don’t want him to die.”
Lena sighed. “Remember, it’s his choice.”
“I’ll remember,” Aurora promised.
“Then come,” Lena said, and held out her hand, and they stepped into the wind.
The clock alarm was blaring “Oops!...I Did It Again” on the bedside table. Luke rolled over in his bed, groaning. Maybe if he didn’t open his eyes it wouldn’t really be morning.
That happy illusion was shattered by pounding on the bedroom door and Nona’s voice calling crisply. “Out of that bed, Luke Mars. Breakfast is on the table.”
“Coming, Nona,” he called through a gravelly voice, and rolled over just enough to hit the snooze alarm, silencing the song.
He’d been having the dream again—three incredibly hot women, a blonde, a redhead and a dark one, standing around his bed fighting over him. Sometimes they were his age, sometimes they were older, somewhere in their twenties: but always the same women and they were always, always hot.
Very distracting. But he couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t be late today. Too much was riding on it.
He raced through showering, dressing and breakfast, Nona scolding him about playing chicken with Time. But driving his Jeep on the way to school he finally had a moment to think, and his thoughts went straight to the dream.
He’d been having it forever. The night before the day he made captain of the team, the night before he scored fourteen unexpected points for an upset over Poly High and won the CSF championship...
He smiled at the memory; that had been an especially good night. But the smile quickly faded as he remembered that he’d also had the dream the night before his parents died in the crash. That night the red-haired girl in the middle had been crying and he’d woken with a feeling of dread that lasted all day until he was pulled out of class and told the news.
It always meant something big, the dream, something really, really good or something really, really bad.
But there had been something different about it this time. He tried to put himself back in the sensation of it. For one thing, he had been older, a man; his body had been bigger, stronger. He’d even noticed he had a couple of kick-ass tattoos. It had seemed like he was...a cop? Some kind of cop. That felt good somehow; he liked the idea of being able to fight bad guys, do detective work. He hit the brake a little too hard at the stop sign, startled at his own thought.
What was he thinking? He was a football player; all the big schools were circling. Of course he was going to play ball, that was the way it was.
He shook his head. Weird.
Luke pulled the Jeep into the parking lot of Pacific High, a sprawling, Spanish-style fortress that had been a monastery in older San Francisco days. He caught the admiring looks from other guys in their barely functional beaters. Car envy. Sure, he had a great car; it was his because his parents had died.
Trade you the Jeep for my parents any day, he thought at the boys as he grabbed his backpack from the back and hustled for the gate.
* * *
