Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen - Jartre
“How about we take a break from the real Sunday School lessons, and you tell me more about you?” I say, lifting my glass and taking a sip.
“Learning about me will be boring by comparison.”
“Let me be the judge. How about your last name?”
“Jones. Didn’t go digging for that in my mind?” she teases.
I smile, “I suppose not.”
“Do God’s have surnames?” she asks inquisitively. I shake my head. “That makes sense,” she nods to herself. She takes another sip and refills both of our glasses, “Well, I’m twenty-six. As you know I work at the Glitter Hole as a bartender but I’m also a performer. I’ve worked there since I was eighteen and it’s my dream job,” she says brightly.
“Working at a gay bar is your dream job?” I ask dubiously.
“Why is that so hard to believe?” she asks in offence.
“Don’t you want more out of life?”
“I just want to be happy, and that place makes me happy. Money and possessions are fleeting, but happiness is something you can’t put a price on. I get to go somewhere and work alongside my best friend and friends who have become my family and I get paid to sing and dance, which I love to do. What more could I want?”
I stare at her in awe. Just when I think I’ve begun to figure her out she proves me wrong. She’s confident, charismatic, sexy beyond my wildest dreams, intelligent, observant, strong-willed, but humble and able to appreciate the small things in life. Zarseti really did bless me with someone who is one of a kind.
“How did you end up working there?”
“I’d been living with my best friend; you might have seen him the night we met. He was the devil I was talking to.”
I nod, “I recall.” Good to know he’s just a best friend and I don’t have to kill him.
“I’d been living with him and his parents since I was sixteen, and I had decided it was time to move out and start living independently. Derrick and I would sneak in all the time and honestly no one cared about our ages. Eventually, we got jobs, but off the books until we turned twenty-one.”
“Why weren’t you living with your parents?” I ask curiously.
She takes a long sip, “They died when I was sixteen. Car crash.”
I frown sympathetically; the thing I dare call a heart squeezing uncomfortably at the thought of her being left all alone in the world.
“I’m so sorry, Gabriella.”
She smiles softly at me, “Thank you. Honestly, I don’t know which is worse, losing them or knowing it was gonna happen.”
“You foresaw it?” I ask cautiously.
“I woke up from a dream where I saw them die in a crash, and even though my skull felt like it would cave in on itself, I ran to my parents and begged them not to get in the car for a while. I was trying so hard to get them to believe me, but they just kept saying it was a nightmare and to go back to sleep.” She takes a slow breath and puts her glass on the table, “They never came home that night.”
My restraint flies out the window when I hear the pain in her voice. She doesn’t show it on her face, but I can hear it as clear as the breeze through the trees in the still of the night. I hear her pain, her guilt, and her anger. Perhaps it’s this bond forming between us, or perhaps it’s just a result of what I am, but I hear it and it pains me.
Throwing caution to the wind, I place my drink down, scoot over, and wrap my arms around her pulling her gently into my arms where she almost disappears. Almost instantly her body lulls against mine, as if knowing that’s where it belongs and my essram sings with delight when I feel her cheek nuzzle against my chest sending a glorious burn through my body. She doesn’t even try to push me away; she just lets me hold her and breathe in her sweet scent as I try to offer her what little comfort I can.
“You did everything you could,” I try to assure her, unsure if those are the right words. I’ve never tried to console anyone in my entire existence, for all I know I’m fucking it up.
“It wasn’t enough,” she says quietly.
“Believe it or not, I know how unfair life can be,” I say, placing a tender kiss a top her head.
“I don’t understand why I’ve been given this gift – if you can even call it that. I’ve had these visions for as long as I can remember, and each one is more agonising than the last, and I just don’t understand why me,” she says, the frustration evident in her voice as she fists my shirt.
I frown at her words, “You keep mentioning pain. Do all your visions leave you so agonised?”
“Every single one. As soon as I wake up it’s like there’s a tenderiser in my skull working overtime. I’ve been to every doctor and specialist, but they say there’s nothing wrong with me,” she says with disdain.
“What human medicine is aware of is equivalent to a drop in the ocean. Like I said, I only know of two people on earth with such a gift, but they’re able to handle it. I don’t know why this is happening to you, but I will try to find out for you,” I offer.
She looks up at me in surprise, “You can do that?”
“I can’t promise you anything, but I can give it a try,” I say as I tuck her hair behind her ear.
She smiles a dazzling smile that rivals the stars in the night sky. “Thank you, I’ll take anything,” she says, her words tapering off into a yawn.
Once again I find myself frowning. I’m either frowning or smiling around her, which I suppose is at least different to my usual scowl. “How much sleep have you had?”
“Um, maybe four hours.”
“Humans need more sleep than that,” I say in disapproval.
“Firstly, can you stop with the ‘human’ thing? It makes me sound like a pet or some alien. Secondly, I couldn’t sleep because I was overwhelmed from finding out the guy who fingered me the other night was a God, so excuse me,” she says curtly.
I stifle a smirk and try not to let my thoughts run away and replay that glorious night of her quivering in my arms and focus on the fact this frail woman is sleep deprived. Not caring for her undoubted protests, I lift her into my arms and make my way to the stairs.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shrieks, “Put me down, Zeus!”
“Any other fictitious lightning Gods you wish to refer to me by?” I say in irritation.
She huffs and folds her arms petulantly, “They’re the only ones I know.”
“Thank fuck for that,” I say as I carry her up the stairs and immediately have to hunch my shoulders to avoid crashing my head through the ceiling. Wouldn’t hurt, but I doubt she wants a head-size hole in her ceiling.
I carry Gabriella over to her bed, hunched over like an evil old hag in some medieval fairy tale, which causes her to snigger in my arms.
“Something funny, Starlight?”
“This is probably how Snow White felt when she was in the home of the seven dwarfs,” she chuckles.
With my arms still holding Gabriella, I telekinetically pull the covers on her bed back and lay her down gently, “You need to sleep. You may hate me calling you human, but you require sleep, and I do not.”
“You don’t sleep?” she asks in surprise.
“I do, but it’s not a necessity for function. Just a nice rest,” I explain as I pull the covers over her, noting the way her lips form a sad pout, “Is something wrong?”
“I… just don’t remember the last time someone tucked me in,” she says thoughtfully.
“I can honestly say this is a first for me.”
“Well, in the name of honesty, I’m not as tired as I seem.”
I walk around and climb onto the bed next to her, feeling the frames protest under my weight as I sit up against the headboard with my feet just hanging off the edge of the bed.
“Then I shall stay until you fall asleep, with your permission of course.”
She smiles in amusement, “Permission granted.”
She pauses for a second, but then proceeds to lift my arm – or try to – so I allow her to do so. She snuggles up against my side making my heart flutter in my chest as she wraps my arm around herself. I take a breath to contain the feelings erupting inside me; a flurry of joy and fear swirling around at war with each other as I watch her seek out my embrace. I hold her, frozen in place, unable to speak or breathe; my mind no longer able to function.
“Jartre, I still find this all unbelievable, and I still don’t understand the concept of soulmates the way you mean them, but I trust my gut, and the truth is, I’ve never felt so comfortable or safe in someone’s presence before. I only just met you, and rationale tells me this is going way too fast, but another part of me tells me that this is okay, and I can let myself feel this way. It’s confusing as fuck, but for the time being, I’m going to go with it. If that’s alright by you,” she says, choosing her words thoughtfully as her breath fans against my chest.
I gulp, feeling powerless against this mere mortal. I never wanted love again after Apaki, but Gabriella has already changed everything I thought I wanted. Now I just want her. In every selfish way a being like me can, and it scares me for so many reasons. Her mortality. Her fragility. Both good enough reasons to let her go and live a life free of me, and yet I can’t bring myself to do it, and whatever consideration I was giving to it was erased the moment she snuggled into my arms.
Can a God fall to the power of a human?
“That is more than alright by me,” I say as I pull her closer, relaxing as I feel her settle in against me.
“Also, those shoes have to go.”
Immediately I kick my shoes off and hear them drop to the carpeted floor with a thud, “Better?”
“Much,” she grins up at me.
“You truly don’t fear me, do you?” I question, looking into the depths of her glacial mint eyes.
“If I’m truly your soulmate, then why would I ever fear you?”
I raise my hand and lift it to her cheek, gently grazing the back of my fingers against her silk flesh as her eyes flutter closed.
“I don’t want you to fear me… Gabriella, I have done things… things that would make your blood run cold. Things that would make you want me out of your life forever,” I say, my words sounding pained even to my own ears. She’s trusting me with herself, and yet I’m not sure if I can be trusted. I’m no hero or Prince Charming.
She opens her eyes and looks up at me, “Why would a Goddess give you a soulmate if you were so evil?”
I sigh, “She said it was because she believed I deserve love and a chance at happiness.”
“And you said she never does anything out of malice.” I nod, “Then, I have to believe that whatever evils lay in your past, there has to be enough good in you or something that explains those evils for a Goddess to deem you worthy of happiness. If not, I’ll just have to call her up and cuss her out,” she shrugs, laying her head back down on my chest, “Gods over here pairing me up with psychos, that’s just rude.”
I chuckle and hold her close, “You’re one of a kind, Gabriella.”
“And don’t you forget it.”