12. Zeke
Twelve
Zeke
Three Years Later
My phone rang, and Diego flashed on the screen. I could already hear in my head how the call would play out. He’d ask me how it was going, I’d hesitate then say fine , and he’d say, It doesn’t sound like you’re fine. What’s up? I’d make him tell me why he called, he’d circle back to what I was hiding, and one of these days I’d spill because I really wanted to tell someone about what had happened over the last few years.
Especially since I’d ignored most of his calls for a while now, and those we did have, I cut short before I could say too much. The weekend I spent with him and Astrid at their place in New York was cleansing, but also a trial to hide things not even they would understand.
I sent the call to voicemail, and guilt whispered through me. It wasn’t as though it was unusual for me to go weeks or even months without talking to him or his she’s-just-a-friend-no-really, Astrid. But there weren’t many people I could call friend , and I hated intentionally avoiding either one of them.
My mom used to tell me, “You’re not here by accident. There’s no obstacle too big. No dream you can’t accomplish.”
She was talking about the militia she was certain my father had built. Not that she’d seen the man since I was conceived, and I certainly never met him. But apparently he’d told her just enough about his army and how they’d step in when the world fell apart, that she believed I would command by his side.
My phone buzzed again, this time with a text from Diego that had a picture of a puppy.
Diego: This is the dog.
Me: She’s adorable. Astrid’s going to love her.
He was getting Astrid a therapy dog. I didn’t understand why a dog was good therapy for a woman who was terrified of them. Then again, I’d treated my trauma by crawling into a bottle and living there, so I wasn’t as well versed on what was good for me as the people who had degrees in psychology and had recently finished their residencies.
Too bad all their brain training hadn’t helped them figure out how completely they wanted each other.
Diego: I hope so. BTW, don’t answer my text right after you screen me.
Busted.
I played out another fake conversation with him in my head, since I couldn’t have a real one. Hey, you know how my mom thought I’d be some sort of general in my dad’s civil war? How she trained me for it my entire life? Turns out the gods think something similar, but in a magical way, instead of in a cache-of-firearms-and-ammo kind of way. Oh, yeah. Did I mention the gods Astrid worships are real,, and they’re even bigger assholes than the stories say?
Because that would be a good conversation to have with a man who had the power to have me committed. I still struggled with the reality of it after three years, and I’d seen one of those gods do things that couldn’t be explained any other way besides magic . I’d seen hints of my own power.
That last part was both the most bothersome and the most fantastic of all the revelations.
I pushed my phone to the other side of the scarred wooden table I sat at and turned my attention back to the sketchpad in front of me. That short exchange had tugged me out of a wonderful place of focus, and I wanted to lose myself in my work again.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and extended my senses through the familiar. The drafting chair I sat on, with wheels that rolled too much and thin spots in the leather. The lingering scent of fire and coal, and the hint of burnt metal that lingered on my tongue. The brush of a breeze coming in from the bar doors at the other end of the room, and the creaking of the trees tapping on a tin roof.
This part of the crafting experience hadn’t changed with the revelations Finn laid on me. What I could do that was mine alone was the same now as it had been before learning about gods and prophecies. The same as before I lost Mom. A little darker, maybe. A little more directed. But this design work was what I had picked for me.
I pushed everything else aside, pressed the tip of my pencil to paper, and let the image flow out of me. As more and more lines layered on each other, I was looking at the rough sketch of a handgrip for a gun. Aluminum would work best. This one had a Celtic knot sort of design in the middle, but I wove Norse runes around the edges.
I had no idea what any of the characters meant, only that some were never-ending lines and others were straight, sharp angles that cut off abruptly. They meant something , though.
That was one of the things I learned first about myself when all this crashed into my life. The person who taught me smithing also taught me how to do enchantments, and I hadn’t realized it. Apparently, I was one of the few non-elf or fae people in the world with the ability to forge and repair their weapons.
As the design grew more detailed, I fell deeper into the creation process. When I was like this, nothing mattered but the art. I could ignore prophecies I didn’t want to be a part of. I could ignore the dull ache of pain from losing Mom. Yes, it had been years ago, and she and I had our disagreements—I didn’t give a fuck who my sperm donor was—but she’d always been there for me. Until right before my twentieth?—
“Hey.” A familiar voice yanked me out of a hole I didn’t want to be tumbling into. Finn pointed at the art without touching the page. “You do that, and you’ll summon powers you don’t mean to.”
I forced myself to chuckle. “What, like a god or something?”
Finn was both the reason I was losing my mind and my other link to sanity, outside of my art. He’d come along when I was at my lowest.
And saved me by cursing me with the knowledge that I was supposed to be a god. I didn’t want to be a part of that bullshit.
“I sure as fuck hope not. You don’t want a god in your debt,” he said.
I’d make a joke about I’m in your debt , but he didn’t think stuff like that was funny. He swore I didn’t owe him, but if the wrong fate overheard me, suddenly it would be true.
Instead, I asked, “What does it really do?”
“I don’t know. It’s your design.”
“Does it say anything?” If I worked without intention, what came of the experience was always a surprise.
“Pretty sure it says, Don’t mishandle my weapon unless you want me to shoot my load. ”
Finn wasn’t anything like I expected a god to be. Not that I’d spent a lot of time thinking about gods before I met him, beyond the vengeful AR-15-wielding savior so many of the people in my past pledged their allegiance to. But Finn didn’t want to be worshiped, and he didn’t demand attention when he walked in a room.
He made a lot of dick jokes, and he liked to fuck.
I could appreciate that, and my laugh came more easily this time. “I’m thinking it doesn’t say that.”
“Then you have to make it and find out what it means. There’s probably protection in there, as well as connection,” he said.
That was a safe guess, since it seemed I worked both of those things into most of what I made. I set the sketch aside, to give him my attention. “What’s up?”
He slid into the space between me and the desk and scooted up to sit on the empty spot on the table. Placing a boot on my chair, between my legs, he nudged me back to look me in the eye. “That’s my line,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”
I shook my head. When he came into my life, he told me, hey, you’re half a prophecy and so am I. There’s another person like you out there. Equal but opposite. You’re going to kill them to become a god. Or they’ll kill you. But that second one isn’t happening, because you have me. “Same old same old.”
Because I slipped into those thoughts too often. I had no desire to become a god, especially if it meant killing someone else to get there. I wanted to enchant objects with protection and connection on them, each its own work of art.
Finn twisted his mouth.
“I swear, if you tell me I’ll learn to accept my fate…” I let the thought trail off, not having a threat to go with it. We had this conversation too often.
“No. I’m done with that.”
Uh-huh.
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Finn’s assurance was nice, but he’d figure out a new angle in a couple of days. A new way to try to convince me my future would be kill or be killed .
Not that I minded most of what he said. He taught me so much, and it had been hard to believe at first. That there was real magic in the world. That even that hadn’t been enough to save Mom?—
“After all this time, you’re out of words?” I teased.
“Fuck you, pretty boy.” His tone was playful too. He slipped from the table, to lean in and brush his lips over mine.
Had I traded one distraction for another? Given up drinking for incredible sex? I’d like to think no , but getting physical was Finn’s go-to when I shut down, so maybe.
I leaned into the kiss, and he gripped the back of my neck, capturing me and holding me in place while he nibbled my lips, then lay a series of bites along my jaw.
Heat and need flowed between us, wiping away most of my other thoughts. If he had wanted something more from this—love or commitment—I couldn’t offer that. Yes, we were friends, and he was almost a mentor when he wanted to be, but the sex was only that.
He slept with other people. I would too if someone caught my eye. Not that anyone had.
Right now, the only thing I wanted to think about, the only thing I wanted to matter, was how good it felt to have Finn’s mouth roaming along my jaw, while I licked up his neck to nip his ear. He straddled my leg and tightened his grip on my neck.
After having my focus shattered multiple times and enjoying the resulting tumbles into… other things, I didn’t have the patience for drawn-out anything. Each time he probed my mouth with his tongue, I grew harder.
From the intensity he ground against me with, he wasn’t feeling patient either.
I dropped a hand below his waist, to stroke his erection through his trousers.
He jerked against my touch, and let go of my neck to fumble with his button and zipper.
When I gripped his shaft, he let out a long groan that I felt in my toes and that made my own dick jerk in response. I freed him and ran a loose grip from the base up, to draw his foreskin over the head of his cock. I always enjoyed the extra grunts of pleasure he made when I did that.
Our lips stayed locked together, while I stroked him. I was barely aware of my hips grinding in the chair, in time with the way he rode my leg. I swore I could feel the same things he did. Not because of some sort of magic, but because we were both wrapped up in the moment.
Finn rested a hand on my arm and paused in kissing long enough to say, “If you keep going, I’m gonna make a mess real soon.”
“Good.” Like I gave a fuck about a mess. “It’ll wipe up.” I needed to feel his release almost as desperately as I ached for my own. I squeezed harder. Stroked faster. Pumped with his groans and the way he rocked against me.
Finn jerked against my hand, and the sounds he made grew more punctuated. Until he stalled. A warm, sticky spurt hit my skin, and then another and another, as he shuddered under my attention. He let out a long, deep sigh, spilling on my wrist and my leg and his own pants.
I was ready to fuck a hole in something, but his release was a light reprieve.
My body tensed in anticipation when he gave me one more kiss. He slid from my lap, and kissed down my torso, through my shirt. He undid my jeans as he moved, and I scooted my ass forward in my seat and leaned back.
Then he was on his knees between my legs. He teased my cock through denim until I was humping the air and clenching my toes.
“Enough teasing.” I pushed the words out through gritted teeth.
He gave me an infuriatingly sexy smirk and finally exposed me, drew his thumb over the head, and smeared a few drops of precum over my skin.
Fuuuuuuck .
Finn held my gaze as he took me in his mouth, and the world narrowed to a single point of focus—how incredible his lips felt, wrapped around me. He sucked and licked and squeezed, making me jerk against his touch.
All the playing and seeing him climax already had me close to orgasm. The pleasure built quickly, until I could barely do more than grunt and work my hips. “I’m gonna come.”
The warning spurred him on, and he dove into his task with full enthusiasm.
Climax washed over me, and I was barely aware of coming in his mouth. Only sensation mattered. I lingered in the haze of rainbows and stars that surged in my thoughts, and the rush that tingled over my entire body.
As the explosion of desire softened, the world swam into focus again. The dribble down Finn’s chin. The way my breath rasped from my lungs. The slowing of his touch before he licked my dick clean, sending another shudder through me as he pulled away.
Fucking incredible.
Finn pressed his forehead to my shin. “We’ll figure this out.” His voice was soft.
And the moment was ruined. His words meant, I’ll convince you that you have to do this god thing or die , and I wasn’t any more interested than before. Though, if the alternative was death…
Who the fuck came up with these stupid fucking prophecies?