The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

5.5 - Why

She had halted a bit, before saying his name. Had nearly uttered the other, the first name of which she had grown so fond, but thought it would be better to call him by the name he’d given to the court.

He shook his head, though, with a faint smile. “Rider. Still Rider.”

While his gaze was cast down to the floor, for a second, she ventured finally to look upon his eyes, the lowered lids. She felt her heart rate steadying somewhat, falling back into their wonted dynamic together: the war of words, of wits, waged always between them, stopping just when the game seemed to come close to being serious somehow. Tried to forget that this moment was different, as it was to be the last. “Why?” she asked.

His gaze lifted again; she froze beneath the heat. “That’s who I am. Not who I should be. The truth, not the myth,” he replied, eyes sinking boldly, softly into hers. “Not the champion—just the man.”

She willed herself to keep his gaze. “One in the same, after today.”

He wagged his head again. “Not yet.”

Cloe canted hers, the curious tilt they knew so well. “Why’s that?”

Rider paused. Turned to the nearest wall, against which stood a humble stool. He went to take a seat, and Cloe’s heart hastened again—he meant to stay awhile? Why? She couldn’t bring herself to ask, or disinvite him, though she knew she probably should. So took a seat upon the bed herself, facing him from across the tiny room.

He sat with elbows braced against his knees, staring into his hands, as if reading the story from the lines upon his palms. “My mother named me Perseus with high hopes for the hero I’d become. She was a woman of vision, or so she believed—a woman of deep faith. However tragically misplaced it might’ve been.”

Cloe watched him closely. “And your father?”

His hands clenched into fists upon the instant; he glared at the floor, with a hatred that threatened to break it in half and release all the fires of hell. “I don’t like to speak of my father.”

The glare was nothing short of terrifying, though she did have to admit that Rider looked mightily ravishing like that. All riled up. Which made her not exactly sorry that she’d mentioned it.

She cleared her throat, both to hopefully snap him out of his rage, and to shut up her shamefully, passionately human reaction.

Neither had been achieved, but she spoke anyway. “So your mother had high hopes for you?”

Rider bowed his head, in a deep nod that seemed also a gesture of mourning. “She did. And I believed her, for as long as she lived, till I learned just how wrong she had been. About me. About everything.”

Cloe could have asked a million questions, but she bit her tongue. Afraid that anything she asked might unleash hellfire again. Besides, her passions for him just intensified with every word he spoke, with every little thing she learned about him. Best to keep it to a minimum.

Why was he telling her this anyway? Why was he here?

He shifted from the tangent of his mother’s dying day, returning to the question of her hopes for him. “She had foretold that I would be a hero of renown, to be remembered all throughout the ages. Set for a life of noble deeds, of fame and fortune. And…” his voice trailed into momentary silence, as he raised his gaze toward hers, “…an epic love.”

And at that, every vessel in her heart burst, every fiber breaking, bleeding brutally and beautifully at once. Was he trying to torture her? He knew how she felt, now. After what she had said today, before she’d bidden him that first farewell. She wished it’d been the last. She had survived, that time, but wasn’t sure whether she could anymore.