Chapter Thirty

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Five months later…

The lights over the fleet (fleet, as in, four of them) of moving trucks in the garage went out panel by panel, the only one staying illuminated being the one by the front door and I knew Pop was closing down for the night.

In my office at the back, I shoved the last invoice in an envelope, checked that the address could be seen in the window and licked it closed.

Pop moved through the doorway and I smiled at him.

“Just need to stamp this then I’m off home to change. I’ll meet you at the party.”

The other Circe was leaving and we were having a going away party. She was taking the money Pop had given her, I had given her and the boys had collected for her (with a little training, she’d taken over the office for me while I was gone, she was good at it and the place was not the mess I’d worried it would be) and she was going to New Orleans. She was going there because she’d read about it and wanted to see it, in fact, when not searching for ways to get me home and working in the office, she read about a lot of her new world and she wanted to explore as much of it as she could see. And New Orleans was a good choice, seeing as she’d see a whole heckuva a lot of the country driving there from Seattle (Pop, by the by, taught her to drive).

And she was also going there because an old buddy of Pop’s had a job opening in his office at his tow truck company. Pop recommended her (or, kinda, me) and called in a favor to get her hired.

Unfortunately, I’d met this old buddy of Pop’s a couple of times when I was young so he was going to get a surprise when I walked in (but didn’t walk in) to meet him for the first time and he would have a Circe who wasn’t Circe.

Pop said he would explain things after it happened and his friend Buster got to know Circe. He thought this was wise. My twin agreed. I didn’t bother arguing. Those two were two peas in a pod and ganged up on me frequently and, frankly, I didn’t have it in me anymore to give any lip. They wanted to give Buster a heart attack? I wasn’t going to stop them.

I put the stamp on the envelope, grabbed the other four I’d done and put them in my out tray which wasn’t really an out tray, as such, since it would be my (now) fat ass that would waddle out of the garage and put them in the mailbox at the end of the block tomorrow. Still, I liked my outbox even if it was me who dealt with the out as well as the in.

I started to switch off my computer but saw Pop had settled in one of the two cracked, vinyl seats in front of me.

“Darlin’, we gotta talk,” he declared.

Oh shit.

I didn’t want to do this. In fact, I’d successfully avoided doing this for five months. I was hoping to hold out for five more months or, maybe, fifty years.

“Not now, we’ll be late,” I told him, hitting the button on my mouse to click the shut down on my machine.

“Now, Circe, uh… the other Circe’ll understand.”

Seriously, it was weird there being two me’s.

I looked at him. Then I took in his look. It was his determined look.

Then I determined we weren’t going to talk, now or ever.

“Pop –”

Like it was since I was a child, Pop’s determination when it came to him saying what he had to say and hearing what I had to say was a lot more determined than mine could ever be.

“Circe, darlin’, what gives?” he leaned toward me. “You ain’t right.”

I switched off my monitor and declared. “I’m fine.”

I started to get out of my chair when Pop’s words arrested me.

“Girl, do you not think I know heartache when I see it? Damn, darlin’, I’ve seen it every day of my life for twenty-five years starin’ back at me right in the mirror.”

My (now) fat ass plonked back into the chair and I looked at Pop.

“And now,” he went on, “I see it every time I look at you.” He lifted a hand and knocked his knuckles on my desk before sitting back and demanding, “So, no more foolin’. What… gives?”

“Pop,” I whispered.

“Circe,” Pop stated firmly.

“Pop!” I snapped.

“Circe!” Pop clipped back.

Shit!

I stared at him. He took my stare and raised it with an eyebrow lift.

Then I shook my head. “I don’t –”

Pop cut in. “You love that asshole.”

I blinked. Then the pain knifed through me. Then I looked away.

After a moment, Pop muttered, “Shee-it. You do. You love that asshole.”

I looked back at him.

He knew. Yeah, he knew.

We’d never discussed it. The other Circe had told me her story in total (and it was worse than I imagined and I imagined it being bad). I had not shared mine. She didn’t pry. But she knew the Korwahk and their practices and she watched me like a hawk, like my father did since I figured she’d shared (not to mention I’d disappeared for months so he was gun shy). But she didn’t pry. I’d seen those two with their heads together, starting with a few times in the beginning when I came home but it was growing more and more frequently lately.

They’d orchestrated this. It was a wonder she wasn’t there browbeating me right along with Pop.

By the way, the other me could be annoying. She was sweet and she was funny but she was also seriously annoying.

“Circe, start talkin’ or I’ll talk for you,” Pop warned.

“Yeah?” I asked sharply. “You and Circe, you both think you’ve got it figured out, do you?”

“What I got figured out, child, is that is the first time I’ve seen you spit fire at me in five fuckin’ months. And my Circe could spit fire when she had tonsillitis. She could spit fire at Larry, who was six foot five, weighed three hundred pounds and had a meaty fist bigger than her head. She could handle my crew of twelve guys without them knowin’ they were bein’ handled. That fire, girl, it’s been gone and Circe and me, your friend Marlene, we thought it was because…” he stopped, his jaw flexed at the thought of me being violated then he started again, “but it ain’t. It ain’t that. I don’t see pain in your eyes from memories that are torturin’ you. I see a different kinda pain, darlin’, one I recognize, one I know, one that lives in me.”

“Can we not talk about this?” I asked quietly.

“No, we been not talkin’ about this for five months and you ain’t snappin’ outta it. Now tell me, girl, did you fall in love with him?”

I licked my lips. Then I closed my eyes.

Then I opened them and whispered, “Yes.”

He tipped his head to look at the ceiling, muttering, “Shee-it. Circe warned me this crap happened.”

“Pop –” I started but he tipped his head back to me.

“So why the fuck you come home?”

I blinked. “What?”

“You went to the doc, there was time. You coulda had that kid you’re carryin’ taken care of…” I knew my eyes flashed at the very mention of abortion when he pointed right at me. “That. That right there. You want this kid. That asshole didn’t force that child on you; you’re carrying it for him. You made that baby and you liked doin’ it. Am I wrong?”

Oh God. Seriously. With my Pop, I didn’t want to go there.

“Pop –”

“Answer me, am I wrong?”

“No,” I bit off.

“I fuckin’ knew it,” he clipped.

“Pop –”

He interrupted me again. “So why’d you come back?”

“It doesn’t matter why,” I returned swiftly.

“It sure as fuck does ‘cause you, Circe, girl, you… you are the product of your mother and me. I didn’t love that one before death and all this time after it for foolish reasons. I did it ‘cause you got a love like that it does… not… die. And I’m tellin’ you, darlin’, I took that bullet instead ‘a her, she would be lookin’ at you with that same dead in her eyes as I’m lookin’ at you with now. The same dead that’s in your eyes as you’re lookin’ at me. We Quinns, we don’t fall in love. We fall in love. And you, girl, you’re in love so what I wanna know is, why the fuck you used up all your magical power, pixie dust and shit and came home when you got his baby inside you and you couldn’t know that you’d ever get back?”

I couldn’t hold up against his words so I didn’t. I just told him because I might as well get it over with.

“He found out I wasn’t from his world.”

“So?”

“He thought I was… wrong. A changeling. He thought I bewitched him. They’re different, primitive. But even here… it’s only because you’re you and you’re my Pop and you love the way you love that you got it with Circe and what happened with me. Any other man, the Circe that came here would be screwed. Not you. She was lucky. I…” I sucked in breath and finished, “was not so lucky.”

“So he don’t listen?”

“He listened, he just didn’t believe me.”

“So you told him and then what?” Pop asked.

“I… well, I guess I spirited myself away.”

“Right then?” Pop pushed and I blinked again.

“No, um… maybe a few hours later.”

He shook his head. “Right, well, gotta say, girl, as much as I don’t wanna give that asshole nothin’, this I can see. This shit… it’s fuckin’ nuts. Took me a few days to sort my head out when Circe told me what was goin’ on. Thought you’d gone ‘round the bend. You think for a second to give that asshole a day or two to come to terms with this shit before you hightailed your… pregnant, I might add… ass outta there?”

I stared at him and I did this because no, no I had not.

He shook his head but his eyes never left me. “No, you didn’t. Not my Circe.” He looked to the ceiling and said, “Shee-it,” again before his gaze came back to me. “You’ll never change. Always leadin’ with your heart, lettin’ your emotions get the better of you and not thinkin’ with your head.”

I’d heard that before.

“Pop –”

He leaned forward again. “Girl, you listen to your father.”

Oh shit. He was worse than Diandra when he had something to say.

He kept at me. “I do not want to lose you. I’ll tell you that right now, you go again, it would break my heart. But you go, I would know you went and that grandbaby of mine would have his daddy and you… you would have him too. And I can see by that dead in your eyes that if you went back, you’d have what I had, what I’ve held precious all these years, what I had with your mother before she was lost to us. And I know this, darlin’, I had to go to a whole other fuckin’ world where primitive people lived and I had to piss in the trees and take a shit by a river, I do not fuckin’ care. Your mother was there, that is where I’d fuckin’ be.”

My eyes filled with tears and I whispered, “Pop.”

“And I’ll go on to tell you this, it would be a hard drive, the hardest in my life, but you want me to take you, I’ll drive you to that witch and I’ll hug you hard before you go but you’ll go knowin’ that even though I’ll miss you, I’ll be happy for you, knowin’ you had what I lost.”

I closed my eyes and looked away.

Then I said to the wall. “You don’t get it. He… it was… the whole thing was hard, being with him, adapting to that world, but I stuck by him.” I looked back at Pop. “I stuck by him with every trial thrown at me and when I say that, Pop, I mean I watched women plunging knives in their stomachs and men having their legs cut off and heads sliced clean from their bodies.” Pop’s eyes got big but I kept going. “And I took a man’s life… well, one and half men actually but… whatever. I stuck by it. I stuck by Lahn. Through everything that world and he threw at me. He had one trial, Pop, one and he didn’t have to witness anything that turned his stomach, he didn’t take his first life, he didn’t get betrayed by someone he cared about and nearly lose his life because of it. He just had to believe in me. Simple. Just believe in me. He didn’t. He killed what I felt for him. He killed it dead. I don’t have the power to go back and Circe doesn’t have the power to send me. And I’m not going to that witch, Pop. I’m never going back. I’ll miss it, I made friends, I had a pet tigress who could talk to me and I was a fucking queen for God’s sake. Life was strange and it was insane but it was also good. But I’m not going back. Ever. If what he killed in me never comes alive again, so be it. I’ll have what you had and I’ll make do. I’ll have his child and just like you, that’s going to be good enough for me.”

Pop stared at me and I held his eyes.

Then he came to the realization he’d come to often in my life and that was the fact that when I made up my mind about something, when my heart led me down the path I was determined to take, he wasn’t going to be able to sway me.

I knew this when he asked, “You were a queen?”

I closed my eyes, sucked in breath then opened them. “Yes, the true, golden warrior queen of the Korwahk nation.”

He blinked then muttered, “Holy fuck.”

“Damn straight,” I muttered back and, fuck me, I did it proudly.

He kept staring at me. Then he asked, “Girl, how do you kill half a man? They got half men there?”

I relaxed. Then I grinned.

Then I said, “Pick me up for Circe’s party, I’ll tell you stories on the way there.”

He shook his head as he stood, muttering, “Not sure I wanna know.”

This was probably wise.

His eyes came to me.

“But I’m gonna listen,” he said softly.

Yep, that was Pop. He’d always listen.

“Then I’ll tell you,” I said softly back.

He nodded. Then, “His name was Lahn?”

I clenched my teeth to battle the pain. When I had it in check, I nodded. “Dax Lahn, king of Korwahk and the mightiest warrior of the Korwahk Horde.”

Pop’s lips twitched. Then he noted, “Girl, you aimed high. Proud ‘a you, catchin’ the eye of a king.”

I rolled my eyes.

Pop moved to the door and I opened the drawer with my purse in it. As I was standing, I noticed he hadn’t moved through and I stopped and looked at him.

“You sure, darlin’?” he whispered.

I nodded. I was sure. Very sure. It hurt, every day, all day.

But I was sure.

He nodded back. “Pick you up in an hour,” he muttered and moved away.

I waddled out behind him.

Truth be told, I wasn’t that fat. I was doing yoga and taking walks every day and eating right because I might have a six foot seven (in future) warrior growing inside me and he needed the proper nutrients.

Just as a golden girl would need.

So I took care of myself.

I hadn’t learned the sex, I refused to know, hadn’t even glanced at the ultrasound and flatly refused to hear any news except to learn if the baby was growing healthy or not (he or she was).

I wasn’t admitting to myself why but I knew I did it because if I was still in Korwahk, Lahn and I wouldn’t know until the golden moment.

So here, I didn’t want to know either.

I moved to the door, turned out the lights in my office and met my father at the front door he was holding open for me.

Then I went home to put on my new pregnancy dress and say good-bye to the other me as she started her life in her new world.

* * * * *

I looked out the window at the rain as my best friend Marlene deep breathed in front of me.

“No kidding?” she asked.

My eyes went to her and I shook my head.

I’d just told her what I’d told Pop about loving Lahn and why I left anyway. This included the stories I’d shared with him on the ride there (and through his first three beers at the party) stories of Ghost, Diandra, Narinda, Zahnin and Sabine, challenges for the Dax and bloody fights in a tent.

Amongst other things.

She was freaking out and binge drinking.

I was deciding that my tactic of talking about it didn’t make me feel any better and also deciding I was her ride home (as well as Pop’s, I’d already confiscated his keys, they were in my purse).

“Wow,” Marlene breathed. “So… he was hot?”

I looked out the window. “Very hot.”

“And he was good in –” she started.

I cut her off not looking at her. “Very.”

“Girl,” she drawled out so the one word syllable had seven.

I sighed.

Her hand touched my arm and I felt her get close so I looked to her to see her face had grown soft.

God, I loved Marlene.

“Honey, are you sure you don’t want to go to that witch?” she asked quietly.

Except, right then, I didn’t love her so much.

“I told you, no.”

“Circe, really, I don’t know. You have a baby on the way.”

“I know and it’s still no.”

Her eyebrows went up. “But maybe he’s back there pining for you, kicking himself that he screwed things up, wanting you home. Maybe he’s worried about you, where you are, where his baby is, wondering if you’re both all right. Did you think of that?”

No, I hadn’t. Though Lahn pining for me was a joke. He was probably raping and pillaging and cutting people up with his sword.

And he had the Xacto to turn to.

“I don’t care,” I replied. “But, no, in truth, I haven’t thought of that but Lahn is not the kind of man who pines. He can get what he needs from a variety of women and he can have another wife in a less than a year and a half. And most of the women he could chose from would be panting to have him. He’ll be just fine.”

“Cir –”

I pulled my arm from her hold but grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Really, honestly, honey, like I said… no. He’ll be fine, I’ll be fine and my baby will be fine. No witch. No going back. And I want another baby shower after I have this kid and at that one…” I grinned, “you serve alcohol.”

She stared at me. Then she grinned back.

Marlene was over the moon she was giving me my shower. She’d been planning it since she found out I was keeping the baby which was the day she first saw me back and learned I was pregnant. Half of Seattle was attending. She’d asked my friends, her friends, her friend’s friends and had probably put an announcement in the paper with an open invitation (just as long as they brought gifts). When I’d registered at the baby store, she’d jerked the scanner thing out of my hand, made my selections and I could swear I saw drool on her lip once, she was so rabid. She was baby bonkers. She couldn’t wait for me to have this kid.

Okay, I was back to loving Marlene.

Therefore, I let her hand go, pulled her in my arms and hugged her.

“Love you, baby,” I whispered in her ear, she gave me a squeeze and whispered the same words back.

I pulled away and turned my head when I heard my father shout, “Time for fuckin’ cake!” and I saw him walk out of Ernie’s kitchen (Ernie was one of Pop’s best friends, Pop and his boys ate lunch at Ernie’s greasy spoon practically every day if their move was even a little close to it and therefore Circe’s party was at Ernie’s).

He had a big, rectangular cake in his hands, the kind with white frosting, thick frosting swirls around the edges and massive frosting flowers, these yellow. His face was brightly illuminated by the candles burning on the cake and his eyes were brightly lit at the thought he’d soon be eating birthday cake.

Seriously, my Pop was birthday cake mad. He’d serve birthday cake with candles if a new day dawned if he could.

He walked toward Circe and he was, for some reason, starting a chorus of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.

I looked to Circe who was beaming.

She was happy, no doubt about it. She was safe in this world, my friends and family had accepted her (and our story, weirdly) without qualm (well, by the time I got there they had).

She was no longer the toy of a tyrant or the plaything of a ship full of pirates.

She was free.

This was good.

Very good.

Two good things came out of this. Circe was smiling, her eyes alight and I had a life I knew I’d hold precious currently kicking in my belly.

I smiled.

“Circe?” Marlene called and I turned to look at her.

She looked alarmed.

“Circe!” she shrieked and I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn’t get words to come out and everything, Marlene, the restaurant behind her, the booths, everything was… it was…

It was melting!

Oh fuck!

My head snapped to my father.

“Pop!” I screamed but nothing came out even as I saw the wavy vision of him drop the cake to the ground and start running my way.

He didn’t make it.

All had gone black.

Then it went bright with sparkling shots of pure gold.

Then I was standing in the middle of a cham, a fire burning behind me and a woman with wild, ratty-assed hair wearing a rough sarong tied around her neck fell in a dead faint to the stone at my feet.

I saw movement in the shadows.

It came toward me.

I looked up as it formed into a man’s body and when I did I looked into Lahn’s dark eyes.

“No,” I whispered as he kept coming at me.

I lifted a shaky hand, palm up toward him as my eyes drifted down to the woman at my feet. She was out like a light.

She’d depleted her magic bringing me back.

My eyes went back to Lahn to see he was upon me, the hard muscle of his chest at my palm. I took a step back, he moved fast as lightning and I was lifted in his arms.

I arched my back and screamed, “No!”

“Rayloo, kah rahna fauna,” he whispered, his arms going tight and strong as iron.

I closed my eyes hard and my body went slack in his arms.

“No,” I whispered.

Then we were out of the cham, my ass was on a horse and I felt Lahn immediately swing up behind me.

I opened my eyes to see the Avenue of the Gods in front of me and feel Lahkan under me.

Lahn’s arm got tight around my protruding ribs, he bent me low to Lahkan’s back, he buried his heels in his steed and we shot down the avenue toward Korwahn.

Fuck.