Chapter Nineteen
Ekon
The humidity was killer. Ekon had never felt so lethargic in his life. Heat like they had in Paraguay clearly wasn’t something his body liked. He had even considered for a minute he could be pregnant, but his animals assured him he wasn’t.
Something to be thankful for when he didn’t like the idea of a child growing inside him when he didn’t know what it would do to the growing baby.
He walked a little farther into the garden that smelled like a little bit of heaven with all the blooms and herbs growing, clutching the first journal under his arm.
They had set it aside a week ago, and as time went on the harder it was becoming to find the energy to look deeper when he was struggling with the initial discovery.
Fae blood, but whose? Why had it taken so long to manifest itself?
Ekon wasn’t sure where the driving force that had brought him this far had disappeared to. Was it his mating to Mao? Had that taken away the urgency? The need to know who or what had changed him. Only had it changed, or was it just the dragging heat sapping his energy?
His mate was right, the more he—they—searched, the more questions came without answers.
Because of this, Mao had gone out this morning with his mom to see if they could locate Featherman—when Ekon has asked what his name was everyone had given him blank looks—and see if he would come to Ekon.
Ideas of trampling around the forest weren’t high on his list of things he wanted to do with his waning energy.
Snakes. Place was probably full of them.
He shuddered and eyed the ground warily, looking for anything slithering around, then he spotted a bench sitting under a large tree and he ambled to it and sat down when it looked safe.
He breathed out in relief at the blessed shade.
The heat had his clothes sticking to him, and if not for the fact the house always had someone inside he’d have gone around in just his boxer briefs.
It was taking a bit of getting used to being—how had Mao put it?
—mothered. It was a pleasant feeling to be so accepted with no limits.
It didn’t make up for his past, nothing could.
Yet it felt like the Fates had stepped in and given him what was sadly lacking.
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand before he used the hem of his T-shirt to tug the journal from under his arm and place it in his lap.
He took a deep, muggy breath and, using his T-shirt he opened the journal and looked at the elegant script that wasn’t English, possibly a fae language. It didn’t matter when his brain could interpret with no effort. Freaky, but whatever worked.
They came like the thieves they were in the darkness and shrouded themselves in powerful magic.
It didn’t wake my own as it knew it wouldn’t harm us.
Then it was too late, they took what they wanted and left me for dead.
Their mistake when they are witless fools.
I hunted them easily through the human realm and found where they hide their atrocities against all kind.
Ekon felt the throb of an open wound in the center of his being as he read on. Was it his pain? He didn’t think so.
There seems to be no purpose to their madness, or one I can see. The crude documents they leave detail experiments and their failure. So many deaths, and I carry each soul now as their protector in the afterlife. It has become my purpose as I watch and wait for the child who is me.
“Is that why you kept my file hidden in this journal? Am I your child? Did you know I wasn’t a failure?” he asked aloud.
“What was that?” A deep, rich, accented voice asked from a part of undergrowth.
Ekon jerked to standing, his animals not alerting him to any presence. A man with deep honey skin and startling green eyes, dressed in a feather coat materialized in front of him.
His mouth dropped open as he appeared to unfold, reaching well over six and a half feet.
The house was warded, and the gate was locked with a keypad entry, and there was a high wall enclosing the property.
Not that any of that would stop an assassin, but the magic would hurt to penetrate.
The man had clearly made no sound as he’d arrived—from thin air.
Were the magic wards of his making? He had a faint recollection of Felix mentioning something when he first arrived.
With the tiredness it was hard to recall.
“I believe you are looking for me.” His accent was as thick as molasses. He inclined his head to where the journal had landed at Elon’s booted feet.
“You’re Featherman,” Ekon exclaimed, blushing so hard it added to his humidity issue at how alarmed he sounded.
Deep chuckles and another head bob.
Ekon sat back down hard and winced. “Did I… did I summon you?” How else was he here? No one can just materialize from thin air, can they?
“Do you mind if I sit?”
Ekon shuffled down on the seat and seeing the journal, reached for it without thinking. He grimaced and dropped it on his lap, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity.
“It holds the pain of many between the pages.”
How the hell would you know, you haven’t touched it? Ekon kept that to himself, then wasn’t so sure when the man chuckled once more making himself comfortable. The feather coat looked heavy and very warm.
“Aren’t you boiling in that coat?” he asked when he wasn’t sure what exactly to say now the man was here. It wasn’t like he’d rehearsed for this. His mind was a tangle of questions more complicated than a spider's web.
“No.” He smiled softly. “There are no wrong questions. All you need to do is speak and they will come the way they need to.”
They weren’t touching, but Ekon felt a shift in the air, like it was preparing for a thunderstorm. It was electric against his skin. Unsure the man wasn’t doing something to him, Ekon waited for his animals' concern, when none came, he sighed in confusion.
“I mean you no harm.” The gentle expression never changed.
“See, it's hard to believe that when most people that told me that meant the exact opposite.”
His eyes were like a whirlpool of greens moving, shifting, and changing as he held Ekon’s gaze and stroked but one finger over the back of the hand closest to him. The magic connection was instant, and with it came knowledge that he spoke the truth.
The finger was gone a moment later, and Ekon could still feel the magical impression it left behind. “How did you do that?”
The feathers rustled as his shoulders rose and fell. “Magic, it uses your energy—"
“Seems as I’ve got very little of that of late, maybe that’s why whatever is inside me is on the blink.”
The look of confusion had Ekon smiling. “Not working properly.”
“Ah, yes. Except there is nothing wrong with your magic.”
He sounded adamant but so was Ekon, there was something wrong. He didn’t know what, just that there was. “Why do you say that when it feels off to me. Surely I would know? If it isn’t as you say, then can you help me understand it?” he asked with an urgency that felt forced from within.
He was already shaking his head before Ekon had finished talking. “What you seek is an ancient when you have been touched and blessed by one.”
The urge to punch something had Ekon rise and reach to pluck the journal up off his lap. He didn’t notice the pain with his mind in turmoil. He dropped it where he’d been sitting and paced away from the shade of the tree, immediately feeling the muggy heat hit him like a wet blanket.
He swung back around and frowned at the smiling man.
“How is this a blessing when it was done against my will? When this eternal fae turned to dust then somehow that dust—ash—embedded itself inside me. Explain that to me please, because someone damn well needs to.” Exhausted all of a sudden at the spurt of temper he went back nudged the journal aside, and sat back down.
“I see your dilemma. I will need to seek my own answers before I can give you more.” The finger brushed the back of Ekon’s hand, and those eyes were a whirlpool again. This time the touch was different, it didn’t offer reassurance. And Ekon snatched his hand away.
Needing to put distance between them, he stomped off, sucked in a muggy breath, expelled it then swung back to ask, “What was that?” He was talking to an empty seat.
“What the fuck?” He searched the garden, where the guy had come from—or where he thought he’d come from—and found nothing. He even tried his magic to feel for the guy and gave up when he was sure a snake had slithered through the under growth.
He returned to the seat and glanced down. Eyes widening, he cussed up a storm at the missing journal. “Fuck me!”
“I would, but Mom is right behind me.” Mao said striding from the house looking far fresher than Ekon who had been no farther than the garden. How does he do that when I look and feel like a damp rag?
“Did you see Featherman? Damn light-fingered ass has wandered off with my journal!”
Mao blinked slowly as if trying to compute what Ekon was saying. “Featherman was here? Are you sure it was him?”
“Isn’t that just what I said?” Ekon shook his head. “Big man dressed in a feather coat with these weird swirling green eyes. Is that him?”
“Sounds like it,” Mao said, eyes narrowing, glancing around the garden.
“The man appeared out of nowhere, and I turn around for a second, and he’s gone again with my things!”
“Well, fuck me.”
“My sentiments exactly, especially when I know I’m gonna have to go trekking in the jungle to find him. Because this is just too damn much.”