The Star Child (The Star Child Series) (12 page)

She seemed to choose her words carefully before answering. “While I am an artist, I did not paint these. I am much better than this.” She indicated the art on the walls around her with a casual toss of her hair. “You asked why we came to find you, why I sought you out. It is because of these pictures.

“If a father finds drawings on a cave wall depicting his daughter, married to an unknown man, it is only natural that he should try to find out as much about that man as possible. That desire would be even more intense when this picture appears next to it.” She took one more step to complete the circle.

I had believed that the likeness of us was the last. However, now I gazed upon a final painting. It showed me, blocking Calienta under a thunderous sky, my arm curled possessively around her; Cabhan was poised to attack us both.

“These drawings were created over one thousand years ago. They foretold of your coming, Kellen, before you were even born.”

CHAPTER NINE

KING KELLEN

“Lady, I don’t know what kind of line you’re trying to feed me here, but I’m not buying any of it.” Shock coursed through me. She’d disarmed me with her stories and I’d let my guard down around her. Now she was showing me things about myself, things that I’d neither dreamed nor imagined.

Me,
a king
? And worse,
married
? What could she have been thinking, telling me these things? I was just a kid after all, not even a man.

But you’ve never been “just a kid”.
My heart hurt as Gran’s voice echoed in my head.

“What happened to ‘I’ll listen and do my best to understand’?” Calienta demanded, her voice rising as she threw my own words back at me.

My anger and impatience diffused slightly. She was right. As far-fetched as it sounded, I’d promised to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Look, I’m sorry. But how can any of this even be true? What do you mean, these were created thousands of years ago?”

“I want to tell you more, Kellen, but I cannot here. It is not safe for us to stay in this place. Please come with me.”

Taking my hand without my permission, she glanced around uneasily before pulling me toward a small alcove. Once inside, I thought I heard a crowd of people entering the area that we’d left. Grabbing the handle of the blade in my pocket, I moved to step out of our hiding place, but Calienta yanked me back with unexpected strength.

She looked at me fiercely, motioning for my silence. She touched her hand to a spot on the wall that was covered with intricate etchings and suddenly, the floor began to move and we were being propelled upward, through several feet of dirt. Calienta grabbed my forearm as we started to move and continued to hold on, keeping me as still as possible during the ascent. We began to slow.

When our climb stopped, we were still about five feet from the opening, so it took some creative climbing to get out of the hole. Calienta had to pull me out in the end.

When we finally made it out, we were back on Gran’s property and a trap door, covered in mossy grass, was slowly closing in on itself. After a few moments, the door simply shut on its own, having been pulled back down again, it seemed, by an intricate lever system. It was now invisible, having blended into the surrounding blades of grass.

Before I could comment, Calienta pulled at my arm and urged me toward the house. We were almost there when she stopped, held her hand in the air, and pointed to the right of the house, where there was a wooded area.

Trying to figure out what she was up to, I squinted in the direction that she was pointing. Slowly at first, dirt started to fly up in the air, shooting every which way. It looked as though an animal was digging a small ditch from under the surface. Only the sound of moving earth filled the air as a small opening was created.

Calienta turned and I realized that she was guiding the creation of this path. She extended her delicate arms until the path formed an arc in front of the house and effectively surrounded it.

A snap of her fingers and the void in the ground was filled with water from the natural spring that ran by the house. It wasn’t a lot of water, but it was enough to fill the opening about a quarter of the way.

She shrugged. “They will not cross it.” Abruptly she was pulling on my hand again and leading me swiftly to the house.

“Who won’t cross it? What’s all this about?”

Once we were inside, she locked the door and closed the curtains. These tasks completed, she seemed relieved. I’d have to find out why. The fact that there was more to the story would be obvious to even the dimmest of bulbs.

Without a word, I went to put on a pot of coffee. I’d sort of assumed that I wouldn’t be going to bed anytime soon, despite my oppressing exhaustion. Calienta paced in the small dining room.

After a few moments of silence, which I would’ve normally preferred, even I needed to speak up. “You show up, take me into this hole in the earth, put on some home movies, and excavate my front yard. I’d continue the conversation, but I feel like you might be up next, what do you think?”

“I have already told you about my family. You now know what we are, but you think this is all something I have made up, or maybe even a dream.”

“Of course I think it’s a dream. You probably know that I got some money. It would’ve been easy for you to drug me, maybe get your hands on some of my inheritance.”

Her eyes narrowed and my empty coffee cup exploded in my hand. However, before a single shard could touch me, the pieces changed direction in mid-air, returning to their original design. The cup was whole once again.

Forcing myself to remain standing, I nonchalantly raised an eyebrow. Her anger pulsed within the room and I found myself feeling a little bit afraid once again. “Or not?”

My brain was laboring for an alternative explanation about what I’d seen and heard, but was coming up empty. Glancing at the cup in my hand, I decided to play it safe by choosing another from the cabinet. Gingerly, I sat the survivor in the sink. I poured myself a cup of the good stuff from the still brewing pot into the new cup, scalding the burner in the process.

“There are other creatures out there that would do us harm. However, they will not cross the water. I connected it with the spring to protect the house,” she explained.

Taking my coffee, I walked into the living room without responding, turning on more lights as I went. Not having directed my cleaning efforts at the downstairs yet, I found that I was pleased that Gran’s things were still here. After the strange turn of events that my life had taken in the past few weeks, seeing these familiar things calmed me now as I walked over to the fireplace and opened the flue.

“I thought I’d light a fire.” Without looking at her, I turned around to direct my search to the kitchen to get the matches. After rummaging through a few drawers, I finally found them sitting on top of a small stack of back copies of the
Irish Times
.

Grabbing a four-year-old edition from the aged wooden countertop, along with the matches, I headed back to start a fire. However, by the time I walked into the living room, there was already a blazing fire, and Calienta was sitting on a blanket in front of it, warming her hands.

She’d changed into some of my clothes. She wore my faded gray sweatpants and my old Oxford pullover. Those clothes suited her, and it pleased me that my clothing graced her skin.

My eyebrows rose again. “You’re pretty resourceful, MacGyver. Do you want to use some chewing gum and twine to make us some hot chocolate and break us out of the compound?”

There was that crinkle between her brows again that was starting to get to me; my eighties references were lost on her, though technically they should be lost on me as well. There was so much we didn’t have in common. Would I even be able to relate to her? I wasn’t sure where to begin.

We’d managed conversation up until this point, but we came from different worlds. Then when you added to the mix that she was a beautiful girl and I was…well…
not
beautiful… You get the idea.

“I’m very sorry. Please, won’t you tell me the rest?” I took a seat beside her, keeping some distance between us.

“But you do not believe me, Kellen, and if you cannot believe what I have told you, there is little point to the rest.” She sounded sad; I was disappointing her. I picked up on the letdown that I’d been the cause of.

“Even you have to admit that this is a lot to take in. I didn’t even know that you truly existed before this night.”

She nodded in agreement, and we sat in silence for a time as I waited for her to speak. The fire crackled, warmth spilling inside the cheerful room with its wooden beams and rustic wood floor. Only the floral couch and chair made the room appear slightly modernized.

“I forget that you do not really know about me, that I am a stranger to you,” she admitted.

I said nothing, preferring to let her speak, to listen to her dulcet tones as she told her story.

“I have known about you for years. Before you were even born, it was foretold that you would come here. I have dreamed about you and who you would become. I have waited to speak to you for so long–”

“What did you want to say?”

“I wanted to hear you talk. I have felt such a connection to you throughout all of these years. It is not the same when you are not here.”

“You could have come to visit me in New York,” I told her. “That would have meant a lot to me.”

“I cannot really see you clearly there. It is only when you are here, closer in proximity to my home.”

I nodded, not sure that I understood but suddenly wanting to give her my support. I hadn’t meant to upset her; I didn’t like it.

“You aren’t the only one. I tried to find you after that first day. I asked Gran about you. I didn’t know how to get to you.”

“I know, Kellen. My father went to your gran and told her everything. She has watched over you all these years, knowing that one day I would come. All of this would have been so much easier if she were here. I doubt you would have struggled half as much with this information.”

Laughing, I shook my head. “No, I think I still would have struggled with it.” I found myself again getting lost in the depths of her eyes.

She seemed blurry to me, out of focus. There was something bigger than the both of us drawing us together. Something was waiting for me to give in and believe in this girl, this
goddess
.

There was an almost tangible connection here. I’d waited my entire life not having someone special in it and now I did. It was that easy. All I had to do was believe in her.

She looked into my eyes, which I was sure portrayed my newfound understanding, and smiled. I returned her smile. What did I have to lose after all?
Everything
.

“Tell me more about what’s happening with your brother.”

Once she was certain of my commitment, she began to talk. “My brother blames my father for the loss of his love. He has had years to ruminate on all of this.”

“What’s this evil that you spoke of?”

“We do not know, but we can sense it and know that it is powerful. We also know that it has control over my brother.”

“Did your father always know this about Cabhan? Did he always know that he’d turn, uh…” I searched for the most appropriate words. “…to the Dark Side?”

“He did not know until he came upon the cave one day during one of his many early attempts to rescue his family. And he still did not know what any of it meant until I was born, when it became clear to him that the images that he saw were not history but prophecy. After Cabhan left, he brought me to the cave. He wanted me to know.”

“But where do I fit in? The picture on the wall, the two of us, what does it all mean?”

“From what my father was able to find out, it appears that my brother will gain enough power to rule Earth.”

“Earth, as in the entire planet? Man, can’t this guy get over it already? People get dumped all the time.”

She smiled, clearly finding my perspective amusing. “For us, the change—the impact, if you will—that love has on us is permanent. Once we fall in love, it cannot be undone. It is painful being away from those you love once you fall in love with them.”

Scratching my head, I tried to take all of this in, all while thinking longingly of breakfast. Here she was talking about the destruction of the planet and all I could focus on was my stomach.

“What is it that I’m supposed to do to stop your brother?” I was hoping for some planet-saving tips. Not having much experience with evil forces, unless you considered my family, I’d need all the help I could get.

“No one knows.”

Damn, I was afraid of that.

“The reason that I came here, to tell you all this, is because you are destined to stop Cabhan. I do not know why and I do not know how. I only know what has been foreseen.”

For some reason, I believed her. That didn’t mean that I knew what to do with the information she was giving me. “And you’re somehow destined to be with me?”

She nodded. Calienta was as confused about all of this as I was, didn’t ask for this, and wasn’t looking for any of it.

Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled her to me and pressed my lips against her own. Her mouth was hot and it seared my skin as if it was burned. Kissing her was incredible, unbelievable, though my experience was definitely limited. She tasted like sugar cookies and summer all in one. I never wanted to stop; yet our lips had only met when a loud crack of thunder broke us apart.

Calienta rolled her eyes. “My father,” she muttered. “He is so interfering.”

“Is he this way with all the guys you date?” That was intimidating, although I didn’t want to admit it.

“I have not dated anyone. When you are immortal, your options are limited.”

This scrap of information made me happier than it should have. I waited until she moved a little away from me before punching my fist in the air triumphantly.
Yes!