Days of Borrowed Pasts Read online

  “Ayla, you burn every single notebook you fill,” he interrupted. “And you’ve never needed matches to do it. Just seems like you might have some kind of fire starter ability, which would explain why the gods want you dead so badly. Fire and water are the two most powerful traits among our race.”

  When the sun and the moon fall in love, they create a storm that no power on Earth can control.

  Ayla swallowed and shook her head, but Thomas held her in his gaze, those icy blue eyes inquisitive but compassionate. “I can’t,” she lied.

  Thomas stepped closer to her even though they were alone and no one could possibly overhear them. Ayla wanted to cower in the shadows, maybe, even, to hide from him in the darkness. She’d been hiding for so long that it seemed second nature to her now, even if part of her was beginning to trust this young god.

  But Thomas didn’t threaten her. He pulled off the dark brown coat he wore and handed it to her. “You need a better coat then. You’re going to freeze out here.”

  Ayla stared stupidly at the coat he’d placed in her hands as he began walking toward the mostly deserted highway. She could still feel the heat from his body wrapped inside the leather and fleece, and she shivered as a cold gust of wind blew past her. The windbreaker she wore wouldn’t fit him, though, but Thomas looked back at her and called out, “Put it on. And don’t even think of trying to give it back to me.”

  She slid her backpack to the ground and shrugged into the coat, which was far too big for her, but for the first time in weeks, she was warm. Suspicions prickled the back of her mind as she watched the handsome god reach the edge of the highway, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. The breeze ruffled his hair, and as headlights rounded the curve in the road, he pulled a hand free to wave the driver down.

  But saving her life, providing her shelter and food and his own coat to keep her warm… this god wanted something from her, and whatever it was, he most likely knew the cost was high.

  The truck driver pulled over and Thomas called to her, so she picked up her backpack again and ran to them. If he was right, and they weren’t far from Nashville, she’d be finding out soon enough what this lost god wanted from her, and what he would do if she refused to give it.

  The driver dropped them off at a truck stop outside of Nashville, and Thomas found a payphone near the showers to call his friend. She waited until he’d placed the handset back on the cradle before asking him, “Why not use your key to bring us to your friend’s house?”

  “Because I’m not exactly sure where he lives at the moment,” Thomas answered. “He’s been moving around a lot the past few years.”

  “He can’t possibly be another lost god,” Ayla whispered. “I didn’t think there were that many of us to begin with.”

  Thomas took a deep breath and looked around to make sure they were alone then said, “Let me show you something.” He rolled up his sleeve and extended his forearm, which bore a three-inch scar that began just inside his elbow.

  “What happened?” Ayla gasped.

  “Hunters,” he explained. “Caught up to me in San Antonio a few years ago, and there were three of them that I knew about. I disoriented them and ran, but another hunter was hiding behind a dumpster and jumped out at me as I passed by. He had a knife in his hand, so I lifted my arm to protect myself, and this happened. But that hunter obviously didn’t kill me.”

  “Okay,” Ayla said, “I’ll play along. First of all, how are you disorienting them? You did that to the blond woman back in the hotel, didn’t you? And secondly, why would a god hunter let you live? And why was he armed with only a knife?”

  “All good questions,” Thomas told her, that impish grin returning. “We should go wait for Leon outside.”

  “Thomas,” Ayla hissed. “Who is Leon, and what does your scar have to do with anything?”

  That grin widened as he told her, “Leon’s the asshole who gave it to me.”

  Thomas turned away from her and walked outside while Ayla gaped at his back, wondering if he were only joking or insane or maybe a bit of both. When he didn’t return for her, she reluctantly joined him outside, but she crossed her arms angrily and glared at him. He tried to ignore her but quickly broke down and laughed.

  “I hope that means we’re not really waiting on a hunter,” Ayla told him. Her first question, the one about his ability to disorient people, was mostly forgotten with the shocking revelation that he expected her to trust a hunter.

  “Former,” he clarified. “And we most certainly are.”

  “Thomas,” she groaned. “When you asked me to trust you about your friend, I was expecting a god, not a hunter.”

  But Thomas cut her off, asking, “What’s the difference? Both sides generally want us dead, right?”

  “Yeah, but a few gods will leave us alone. No hunter will.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, but when Leon caught me off guard, he not only didn’t kill me, he helped me escape the other hunters. When we were out of San Antonio, he told me he’d been trying to get out of the League for years, but they’re practically a cult.”

  “Why did he cut you then?”

  “Ask him when he gets here.”

  “I’m asking you now,” Ayla retorted.

  Thomas squinted at her but gave up. “Because he originally wanted my blood to —”

  “Ew,” Ayla interrupted. “Why?”

  “Are you incapable of letting anyone finish a story?”

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “He wanted my blood because he’d figured out I’m a lost god, and he needed it for a specific reason. But, as it turned out, I’m not the right lost god.”

  Ayla stood up straighter and said, “I don’t like where this is going.”

  “Hey,” Thomas assured her, “I’ve already promised you I won’t hurt you, and I won’t let anyone hurt you either. Besides, I don’t think Leon was as close as he thought he was.”

  “To what?” she asked quietly.

  Thomas opened his mouth but headlights flashed on them as a brown Silverado pulled into the lot. Behind the wheel, a man with shockingly white hair tipped in fluorescent blue waved impatiently in Thomas’s direction.

  “And that,” Thomas said instead, “is Leon. If he hits on you, feel free to smite him.”

  Ayla laughed and shook her head. “I’m not in the habit of smiting people for any reason. Besides, I don’t think humans have hit on gods since the Dark Ages.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed. “But with Leon, you never know.”

  Leon, who had rolled down his window, tilted his head at the goddess as they approached his truck and shot her a flirtatious grin. Thomas sighed again and muttered, “Haven’t even introduced you, and he’s starting already.”

  “He’s what… thirty? I’ll just tell him he’s too old for me,” Ayla joked.

  Thomas snorted and said, “I don’t think that’s ever stopped him from trying.”

  “Shut up, Tommy,” Leon warned him.

  “Tommy?” Ayla repeated.

  “Don’t,” he warned the hunter. “You know I hate that.”

  Leon waved him off then winked at Ayla. “For someone who’s at least half a millennium old, he can be awfully childish.”

  “Maybe because you keep calling him by a name he doesn’t like,” Ayla shot back.

  Thomas opened the passenger side door for her and as she put her foot on the running board, he advised her, “Sit in the back. Trust me, you don’t want to be near this bastard.”

  Leon thought that was terribly funny, and for the first time in her long life, Ayla seriously considered smiting someone.

  Thomas slammed the door closed and yanked on his seatbelt, glaring at Leon as if to warn him against calling him “Tommy” again, or maybe warning him against antagonizing the goddess sitting behind them. Leon glanced at her in his rearview mirror and said, “Tommy says you’re —”

  But Leon was cut off when Thomas punched his arm, which caused Leon to s
werve as he backed out of the parking spot. “What the hell was that for?” he asked innocently.

  “You know what that was for,” Thomas snapped.

  “It’s a habit, okay?” Leon claimed. He glanced at Ayla again and said, “So what are you a goddess of?”

  “Moon,” she answered, although she watched Thomas’s face to see if he’d correct her, but the god kept his attention fixed on the dark highway ahead of them.

  “And?” Leon asked.

  “And what?”

  “Tommy —” but Leon stopped himself before Thomas could hit him again. “Thomas wouldn’t have hunted you down if you weren’t a lost god, so what else?”

  Thomas grunted and mumbled, “Why are you such an ass?”

  “It’s a fair question,” Leon responded with a shrug. “You helped her out, didn’t you? It’s not like we’re asking for something without giving anything in return.”

  “I, um…” Ayla scrambled for a lie, even though it meant she’d be lying to Thomas as well, but she trusted Leon as much as she trusted any human, which was not at all. “What exactly do you need me for?”

  “We’ll get to that,” Leon told her.

  “Then why would I tell you anything about myself when you’re not even honest with me?”

  “How am I lying?” Leon asked.

  “You’re hiding an awful lot of information,” she insisted.

  “As are you.”

  Thomas shot the former hunter a look that she thought said, “That’s what you get for being an asshole.”

  “Fair enough,” Leon decided. “But I’d rather have this conversation when I’m not driving, just in case Thomas decides to hit me again.”

  “Why did you want out of the League?” Ayla asked him.

  “Believe it or not, chasing after gods all the time isn’t as fun as you might think,” Leon told her.

  “Somehow,” Ayla countered, “I don’t think you’re risking your life over fun.”

  Leon glanced at her in the rearview mirror and sighed while Thomas shrugged and said, “Just tell her. What difference does it make if she knows?”

  “It’s the demigods,” Leon explained. “They’re part human, and when the League decided to go after them, too, I began to question what our real priorities are.”

  “They’re like us lost gods,” Ayla acknowledged. “Caught between worlds.”

  “Except both humans and gods view them as the worst kind of abomination,” Leon said. “A betrayal of both races. When they sent me after a woman who had no powers at all, who seemed completely human, I had to get out. I warned her to take her kids and run, and I ran myself.”

  “And you needed Thomas’s blood because…” Ayla trailed off, hoping Leon would fill in the blank, but he fell silent, too. “All right,” she continued, “then that demigoddess? Any of the demigods or the gods who want no part in this war… where could they possibly go that you hunters wouldn’t find them? There are more of you all the time, and it seems like there are fewer of us to fight back.”

  “We’re trapped,” Thomas agreed quietly. “And that’s exactly what they wanted.”

  Ayla glanced at Leon, hoping he had some insight, some trick up his sleeve to provide them all with a safer place to hide until the war was over. But Leon just kept his eyes on the road and offered no hope or solutions.

  Once, centuries before, she’d had an escape. All gods had a world where they could hide and rest, a world where they belonged, a world that had originally been theirs. But Ayla made the tragic mistake of returning to Earth to save her sister, and it was then her mother disappeared, stuck forever behind a veil Ayla could no longer cross. She’d been trying to find a way to reopen the veil for three centuries now, but it had been sealed by a spell that only the League knew, and only that spell could open the door.

  But slamming the door closed so no one could cross meant that if it were ever reopened, the gods who had been trapped beyond it could return to Earth.

  And after three centuries of imprisonment, they would come seeking revenge.

  Chapter Five

  I sleep, and in my dreams, the sun and the moon cry for me. They hear my prayers, and they weep. When I die, they’ll lift me into the heavens, and they will weep for me no more.

  Ayla slept.

  She dreamed of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and the wind whipped her mother’s long blond hair around her face. She knelt beside her and took her daughter’s hand, bringing it to her soft pink lips where she placed a gentle kiss on her palm then pointed to the sun. Ayla smiled and asked the sun to chase away the fog so the sailors at sea could see the rocks jutting from the ocean near the shore.

  The sun smiled back at her and the fog burned away.

  The sailors who’d gone off course because they couldn’t see the coastline adjusted their sails so they could reach the port, and her mother held her hand and told her it was time to go home.

  Sunshine caressed her cheek and told her it was time to wake up. Ayla stirred and groggily, unhappily, opened her eyes. She blinked a few times before slowly sitting up and deciding she really should find Thomas. When they’d arrived at Leon’s apartment, Thomas had insisted she finally get some rest, and she’d been too tired to argue. But that meant she still had no idea why Leon had allowed Thomas to live, or why they’d become friends at all.

  Voices snuck into her room from beneath the closed door, and although she strained to decipher words, they were muffled and garbled, so she pulled the door open and found them both standing in the kitchen, Leon’s arms crossed over his chest, and in the t-shirt he now wore, she could see the black Polynesian turtle tattooed on his forearm. She glanced up at his face then back at the tattoo then tried to look away before he caught her, but she was too late.

  “What?” he asked. “I don’t look Polynesian?”

  Ayla shrugged even though she had been thinking that. And she certainly shouldn’t be judging someone’s ancestry based on his appearance. She, of all people, knew better, so she only mentioned the other surprising aspect of his tattoo. “It’s pagan. I’ve never met a hunter who embraced his pagan ancestry.”

  Leon just laughed and told her, “I left the League, remember?”

  Ayla pointed to the turtle tattoo and asked, “Because of the demigods. But that ties you directly to a Polynesian pantheon.”

  “Do you know what the turtle represents?” he asked.

  Ayla tilted her head as she stared at the tattoo, trying to remember its significance from her little contact with any of the Polynesian gods. She hadn’t grown up in that part of the world, and there weren’t many Polynesian gods left. “Life… or fertility?”

  “My grandfather was Marquesan, and in their culture, it was a symbol of unity,” Leon explained. “Most humans ignore the war between gods and men, and sometimes, maybe even forget it’s still going on. But once we touch the world of gods, we can never forget. It becomes a part of us, and the only hope someone like me can have of moving on is that the war will end with some sort of compromise rather than extermination.”

  “Gods like Thomas and me have been waiting a long time,” Ayla replied. “The only thing that’s changed is that your weapons have gotten deadlier.”

  “Gods can wipe out entire regions,” Leon argued. “We’re still far outmatched and over-powered.”

  “I’ve never wiped out a village or hurt anyone if it wasn’t self-defense,” Ayla said. “And I’ve never said some gods haven’t earned their fates. But you humans declared war on all of us, even those who’d been your protectors.”

  Leon ran his fingers through his bleached hair and nodded. “I realize it was a mistake now, Ayla. In our defense, it’s not exactly obvious which gods are hell-bent on enslaving us, and which are trying to help us. Besides, god hunters like to pretend they’re martyrs, but this isn’t about our survival anymore. It’s a contest that no one can win.”

  Ayla glanced at Thomas’s arm, the scar that served as her reminder that Leon might hold h
is own key to providing an exit from the mayhem gods and men had created. “Last night, you said you didn’t want to explain why you needed his blood yet. We’re no longer in your truck, and apparently, this has something to do with me now.”

  Thomas and Leon exchanged a wary glance, and Ayla folded her arms, partly angry because she sensed they would try to get out of telling her what was going on, and partly fearful that they would finally tell her what was going on.

  Leon extended his arm and showed her the turtle tattoo again before telling her, “I heard of a secret spell, one that only League Masters knew, and Thomas and I are hoping it’s our ticket out of this war we don’t want to be a part of anymore.”

  She hadn’t been prepared for this answer, and it threatened to choke the air from her lungs, rip her heart from her chest, and all the while, instilling hope within her for the first time in centuries. Every god had heard the same rumor, the same story about how the Otherworld had been sealed off, but reopening it had become a story, a legend, a myth itself.

  “What kind of spell?” Ayla whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” Leon admitted. “I only know part of it, and without the missing ingredients, it’ll never work. But I know we need the power inherent in a lost god. It’s not that Thomas’s blood didn’t work, but it wasn’t enough. I think I’ll need you both.”

  “To do what?” she pressed, even though she already knew the answer. But she had to hear him say it.

  “We think,” Thomas said, “it will reopen the veil.”

  Ayla’s arms fell by her side, her heart already reaching toward the impenetrable wall that kept her separated from the one goddess she loved above all others, the goddess who’d taught her that compassion never required a price and should be given freely. Perhaps this god and former hunter were no closer to opening the veil than she’d ever been, but if there was even a possibility it could work, they had her cooperation.

  But Leon moved the curtain above his kitchen table and peered outside the window, glancing over his shoulder toward Thomas. “Are you sure no one followed you?”