Falling Light (Game of Shadows #2)(44)

Astra sucked a tooth and glanced at the wrench. She wanted to beat on him. She wanted to yell at him some more.

She wanted to say, Idiot. Blockhead. Are you getting my point? Don’t you think you overreacted a bit? All Mary said was she didn’t want to shoot a gun again. Make your damned peace. What happened was not that big of a deal.

But for Michael, for some reason it was, and she feared she knew why.

She feared he had gone and fallen in love, that somewhere in that maddening fortress of his, he had been nursing irrelevant and treacherously distracting fantasies. That he was sulking because his feelings were hurt.

Oh God, why did her tools and companions have to be so young and at the mercy of their human hormones, right when they most needed their focus and commitment? Would she really have to kill them after all, despite her impassioned lecture to Michael about rediscovering the sacredness of life? Distasteful as it was, she had to consider it.

On their home world, twinned pairs of soul mates were born at the same moment. Here on Earth, they were born and reborn in lifetimes that were compatible to each other’s. At least, they had been born at compatible times when their spirits hadn’t been damaged, as Mary’s had been.

During gestation, their human parents grew sensitive to the unique vibration of their energies. With a few notable exceptions, they tended to bear the same, or similar, names throughout history.

Now that Mary was whole again, if Michael and Mary died, they would be reborn, and Astra had every reason to hope for a new, more amenable start to their lives than what they had suffered in this one. With two new, healthy young children, she would have a far greater chance to control and shape their attitudes and destinies.

Gabriel and Raphael had managed a near seamless partnership. She had never seen a pair so closely connected as those two rapscallions, and it had all come about quite naturally. Time and again, they had been born as brothers, until their last sad, short life when they had been born as princes. The Deceiver had them imprisoned in the White Tower of London “for their own safety” until he could destroy them in secret and shove their bodies under a staircase where animals gnawed on their bones.

Tragic though it was, that was the only lifetime the Deceiver had successfully taken any of their group as children. Locating Mary and Michael again after their rebirth would be a dangerous scramble, but Astra had more talent than the Deceiver for hearing the vibrations of recurring dreams that their kind experienced during childhood.

Starting over would be a calculated risk. She could find Michael and Mary, snatch them from their birth parents, and raise them together like siblings.

Of course, nothing would destroy their spiritual connection. She wouldn’t think of attempting such a sacrilegious act. But they would be pair-bonded from an early age.

By the time they would be old enough to be effective in a fight, she could have them trained until they were a seamless partnership, as Gabriel and Raphael had been. That would bypass any maudlin irrelevancies like sex or romantic feelings that might get them all destroyed.

Her shoulders sagged. If she took that path, it would involve more decades of waiting and patient effort. She would have to watch as the Deceiver took control of the Presidency. He already stood at the brink, ready to shape this world again to fit his vision of conquest. Once he gained control, it would become easier for him to take it again and again as each new President took office.

How exhausting.

Also, the thought of raising two young, energetic children at her age made her want to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over her head.

Just staying alive took all of her enormous, sustained will and continual work at rejuvenation. It also took the generous, daily offering of energy from the living entities that surrounded her. The trees, bushes, the island and Lake, the spirits of air and water, the rich, life-sustaining dirt and the ancient rocks that were the bones of this planet, all sustained her in her purpose.

She had committed herself to remembering so much, not only for her people but also for this adopted world, but she had forgotten how to die. Somewhere deep inside, though, her body knew better and longed to return to the earth. She was so tired that drawing each breath was a conscious choice. Only Creator knew how long she might have to wait for all four of them to be in one area again, awake and aware and able to do battle.

Besides, taking Michael’s and Mary’s lives didn’t feel right, no matter what kind of brutal sense it made or how she was tempted.

They were flawed and inconvenient tools, but wasn’t she just as flawed and just as inconvenient? Who could say that they would become any better in their next life or the lifetime after that?

How twisted had her reality become if she had to kill them to keep them safe?

Over the centuries, she had watched Michael’s spirit grow more edged and feral without Mary’s presence to balance and temper him. Astra had been poised to kill him as a child because of his potential danger to society. She had also been relieved he had responded to her so that she never had to make that choice.

She would wait and hope he still responded to her. Maybe she had pushed him hard enough already. She sucked on her withered cheeks and said nothing more.

Besides, she had warned him enough over the years. Now she had to sit back and trust him to remember.

Soul mates did not always equate with romantic love.

Balanced energies did not always equate with compatibility. Opposites not only attracted. They also repelled. Completion did not guarantee hearts and flowers, or even friendship.