Goddess Legacy: Goddess Series Book 1 (10 page)

“What’s wrong with talking now? We’re alone.”

He shook his head with a serious look on his face and put his finger to his mouth. “How long have you lived here?” he asked in a casual manner.

“All my life.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. Was his car bugged or something?

“Do you like living here?”

“Yes. The heat is horrible this time of year, and we get a lot of storms, but they never really bother me.”

“I noticed,” he said with a short laugh.

“How about you? Do you like living here?” She figured that was a safe question.

“Yes. Things are definitely looking up.”

She didn’t know what to make of that, nor did she know what else to say.

“I stayed up too late watching baseball last night. What did you do?”

Why was he trying to fill the silence? “I, er, had a date.”

“Really? With who?” He tried to sound passive, but his eyes betrayed him.

“A guy I went to school with. We’re going out again when he gets back from vacation.” She didn’t know why she said this.

He was staring at the road, but now his eyebrows were furrowed. River wanted to ask her something, but what?

“So, did you have fun?” He tried to sound causal, but she got a sneaking suspension that
that
wasn’t the question he wanted to ask.

“Yes.” She wasn’t going into any specifics with him about her date.

“So is this guy your boyfriend?” There was the question he wanted to ask.

She avoided the yes or no response. “Last night was our first date,” she qualified.

“Oh.” He seemed pleased by this, which took her by surprise, though she hid any reaction.

Since he asked her if Adin was her boyfriend, she figured she should use this opportunity to inquire about his personal life, for Calli’s sake.

“What about you? Anyone special in your life?” she asked as she leaned back in her seat and folded her arms against her chest.

River chuckled. “As a matter of fact, there is.”

She frowned at his response. Calli wouldn’t be happy about this.

River let a short laugh slip out before he could compose himself. “You look sad. Were you hoping I was going to say no?” he teased.

She scrambled for a response that would let her off the hook while not betraying Calli in the process. She realized that wouldn’t be entirely possible, but she would say what she could. “Well, I have this
friend
who is interested in you.”

“You have a lot of friends.”

Not really. She figured he knew exactly who she was talking about. “I’m not giving you anymore than that. It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re not available.”

He shook his head, and with a smile, said, “No…no, I’m not.”

She didn’t say anything. She still felt bad for Calli. Hopefully, she wasn’t too invested in any particular fantasy about River. She would just have to wait until he was available. Boys their age tended to change girlfriends more often than they changed their shoes. She would get her chance, eventually.

“So…do you
like
this mystery man who took you out last night?” he said when Legacy didn’t comment.

“Yeah,” she said, and shrugged her shoulders.

River liked that. He just grinned and said, “Hmmm…”

She wanted to get the focus off her. “Do
you
like that special person in your life?” she asked, throwing his question right back at him.

“Of course.” He nodded and smiled. No, that wasn’t really a smile. It looked more like a smirk. Smirk? What had he meant by that?

Luckily, that was a nonissue since they were pulling into the parking lot of the restaurant. River shut off the engine, and she started to get out. He walked around to her side to get her door, but she had already stepped out of the car.

“You should’ve let me do that,” he chided, but shut her door once she was clear of it. He led the way into the restaurant and approached the hostess. “I have reservations for two.”

“Name?” She sounded detached, but her eyes popped when she looked up.

“Rysaor.”

“This way,” she announced, and they followed her to a table at the end of the restaurant.

Once they were safely seated and had placed their orders, she figured now was the time to start. “So what do you know?” she bluntly asked.

“Look, I really don’t know how to do this,” he stalled.

“Just start at the beginning,” she encouraged.

He took a deep breath and leaned toward her. “Okay, when I saw you on Saturday, I noticed the resemblance. But I didn’t understand why.”

“Is that why you looked at me funny?”

He laughed. “I didn’t realize I had. I apologize if I came off as a jerk.”

“You didn’t,” she lied. “Go on.”

“Well, when I saw you, I figured you were probably related to Dora, but I really had no idea she was your mother.”

Legacy waited for him to continue. She wanted him to tell her everything he was willing to before she started with specific questions.

“Had I known you were her daughter, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

“Why?”

“Because I really don’t know her.”

“But you know of her.”

“Yes.”

Ugh, this was like pulling teeth. “What do you know?”

“Maybe I should tell you about my family. That may help explain things.”

Good idea. She could compare what he told her to what Lissa had told her the other day. “All right.” She waited for him to begin again, but he hesitated.

“I’m really not supposed to talk about this,” he finally said. “As much as I want to tell you everything I know, I’m not going to be able to. It’s not that I don’t want to—I want to help. Really, I do, but there are some things that are too private and too involved to tell just anyone. I need to get some things straight myself.”

“Jeez. First, Lissa tells me cryptic things, and now you.”

“Lissa?”

“My guardian. It’s a long story. One I’d be happy to tell you all about
after
you tell me what you know.”

River took a deep breath and then started. “What do you know about Greek mythology?”

Apparently not as much as everybody else. “Not much.”

“My family came over from Greece, and they still have many connections. My dad still lives there.”

“I heard about that,” she said in encouragement for him to continue.

“This is going to sound crazy, but the story is my family descends from the Greek gods.” River put his elbow on the table and let his head fall into his hand, covering his eyes.

Oh gods, he believed the same things Lissa had told her. “I see.”

“No, you don’t. The thing is, we have certain
abilities
that the average person does not.”

“Abilities?”

“Yes. They seem to be linked to puberty or adolescence and manifest to a complete state by one’s eighteenth birthday.”

Eighteenth birthday? She felt her face turn white and her breathing accelerated. He heard the change in her breathing and looked up.

“Don’t worry. I’m told it’s nothing too scary.” He misunderstood her expression.

Neither one of them realized how close they were leaning toward each other until the waitress returned with their food. They both sat upright in their chairs and smiled at the server as she put their pasta dishes in front of them. They both began eating, though Legacy really didn’t feel like it. She felt a little queasy, actually. Once the waitress was several feet away again, she continued.

“What do you mean exactly by
abilities?
”

“I’m not sure.” He shrugged as he placed his fork on his plate and then looked up at her. “I don’t turn eighteen until the fall, so I can’t speak from personal experience. But if you read up on Greek mythology, you’ll learn about the abilities of those gods, or mythical figures, and get a pretty good idea.”

“Are you saying that
I
might have some special abilities?”

“No, I’m not saying you
might
—I’m saying you will.”

Wow. Just, wow. Hadn’t Lissa told her she would be going through changes? Gods, was this what she’d been talking about? Was Legacy going to have some magical abilities? She couldn’t even think about that right now. “And what about my mother?”

River sighed. “I saw her in Greece when I was there last year. I didn’t speak to her, but she was visiting my dad.”

Her brain was churning. River saw her mom? Just last year? She really was alive, but why would she be in Greece? She ignored the obvious answer.

He put his hands in his lap and leaned closer to her like he’d done before the waitress delivered their food. He cocked his head to the side and smiled. He responded as if the questions in her head were clearly displayed on her face.

“I don’t know for sure, but I was under the impression they knew each other really well.”

“Why do you think that?” She was barely able to speak. Her words came out in a whisper, but somehow, he heard her.

“Because I heard my dad tell her not to worry, to not lose hope, that he’d take care of it. I don’t know what they were talking about, but she seemed relieved by his support in whatever it was.”

She stared at him in total shock, but was determined to get as much information as she could. She needed to tell him what she knew. Maybe something she said would trigger something for him.

She put down her fork and took a deep breath to prepare to spill what she knew.

“I just turned seventeen this past Friday. Up until that night, I was under the impression my parents died in a car accident when I was a baby. Lissa told me my mom didn’t die back then, that she left to protect me because I was turning, er,
changing
into a goddess. And now you’ve told me the same thing.” She looked down and shook her head at the strangeness of the whole situation, struggling to find some sense in all this.

“You’re ascending,” he said so matter-of-factly.

Her head flew up to meet his gaze. “How do you know that? Why do you know that? What does that even mean? This is all just so crazy.”

“Because I am too. Only my ascension will be happening sooner than yours. October fifteenth to be exact.”

“Your eighteenth birthday?” she guessed. She could hardly believe what she was saying, what she was accepting. Her body felt numb, but as she stared at River, his body seemed relaxed.

“Yes.”

“Is that all you have to say about it?”

“For now. I think I should take you back home.” His mood seemed to shift before her eyes. His relaxed façade transformed to one of concern, if she was reading him correctly.

“I want to hear more about you, about this.”

“In time. I’ve said enough for one night.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You’ve only scratched the surface!”

“Look, Legacy, when I told you earlier that I knew everything, I was being honest. I do know everything. About
me.
Which apparently involves your mother on some level. But I don’t know everything about you. What little I did know about you didn’t prepare me for how you fit into all of this. I realize now that I know much more than I thought I did, and I’m not ready to tell you.”

“That’s not fair!” she exploded, and then looked around the restaurant to make sure no one had heard her.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to tell you. I just think this is something that’s going to have to come out in stages, and of course, we’ll have to be careful where we talk.” River smiled as he said this, and she didn’t understand why.

“Why didn’t you want to talk about this in your car? Is it bugged?” she asked with heavy sarcasm.

“Er, no, my car’s not bugged. I didn’t want to talk about it then because we were still close to your house.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s too complicated to explain now, but long story short, you’re being watched and listened to.” He stood and looked down at her. “I will tell you this, though. Lissa was right. You’ll be a goddess one day. You need to prepare yourself for that.”

She stared at him incredulously, unable to speak.

“And while I’m handing out advice, stay away from my mother. She’s evil.”

Chapter Six

While Driving to Calli’s house after work on Thursday, Legacy thought about her most recent dream. It was similar to the previous one, but there were a few changes.

Instead of a forest, there were two fields. And, technically, she hadn’t seen the tornado, but she knew it was coming for her. She could see the black clouds, and she could hear the roar. She’d been standing in one field when she first saw the clouds and looked down into the grass. She had dropped her car keys, so she’d bent down to pick them up before she ran to her car. But as she hunched over, she noticed her keys landed in the field in the middle of three huge snake holes. Frightened, she ran for her car without the keys.

When she got to her car across the street in the second field, she noticed the blonde girl from her last dream sitting in the passenger seat. She opened her eyes wide, scary wide, and screamed for her to go back and get the keys.

“Hurry! Do it now! You must go back!” the girl had screamed frantically at her.

She had turned and ran back into the field where her keys were. But when she got there, she’d woken up.

She still didn’t know what to make of the dreams. But she had more important things to digest. Over the last few days, she‘d gone to work, but never talked to River about their conversation. His mom had kept him busy. Almost too busy, but she figured she was just being paranoid. Legacy really didn’t know what to make of what he said about her being
evil
. She remembered how she’d looked at her that day in the basement and figured that maybe River’s comment about her was loosely related to her overprotective nature. Any teenage boy with an overprotective mom probably viewed her as evil—it was all relative.

On the surface, she knew she should probably be asking all kinds of questions, but honestly, as each day passed, she was getting more and more excited about her second date with Adin. That was why she was staying the night with Calli tonight. They were going to talk girl stuff and keep her from jumping out of her skin with excitement.