Mads swallows as she takes this all in. “I’m sorry,” she says weakly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“You’re here for me now,” I reply, “and that’s what matters.” Straightening up and pushing my hair behind my ears, I say, “So do you want to go say hello to the others? To Peyton?”
“Yes,” she replies without missing a beat. “If…you know, if he still wants to see me.”
“Of course he does,” I tell her. “He’s been beside himself ever since they changed you. Let’s not keep him waiting.”
We head down the hallway, Mads leaning on me a little. She reminds me of a small child about to meet new people for the first time. In a sense, I suppose she is. “I’m nervous,” she admits when we reach the top of the stairs.
“Don’t be,” I murmur. “I’m right here with you.”
That seems to reinvigorate her somewhat, and we pick up the pace as we descend to the ground floor. Outside in the yard, I can see the justice twins leaning against the fence, engaged in conversation with Michael. The smell of food wafts in from the kitchen, and I can hear mum explaining to Ruby how to tell when steak is done cooking. Peering into the living room, I see Peyton still on the couch. He might as well be a statue, he’s in the exact same position I left him in. Storm is standing by the bay window, arms crossed as he surveys the outside of the house.
I clear my throat, and that finally gets their attention. Storm turns around and, seeing Mads, bristles defensively. “It’s all right,” I assure him, putting up my hands. “She’s okay now. She’s fine.”
Peyton lifts his head and stares at Mads like he’s seeing her for the first time. His eyes are wide, and his mouth is opening and closing, but no sound comes out. “Hey,” Mads says quietly, raising a tentative hand to him.
“Hey,” he echoes, sounding like he can’t quite believe his eyes.
“Karma…woke me up,” Mads explains, wrapping her arms around herself. “It’s not all back yet, but I remember a lot of it. I remember you.”
Peyton looks like a man in a dream as he slowly gets to his feet, moving across the room unsteadily and lifting a hand to brush Mads’s shoulder. “It’s really you?” he asks quietly.
I see a flash of the old Mads then when she grins up at him and replies, “You tell me.” Then she pulls him down into a kiss that seems to catch him off guard, wrapping her arms around his neck while Peyton eagerly reciprocates. They stay like that for a long time, to the point where it might be awkward, but I can’t bring myself to make any sarcastic comments. Seeing them happy together again is worth the discomfort. Storm is watching the exchange too, and I could swear I see the corner of his mouth twitch up when his violet eyes meet mine. I wink at him, making him break into a smile big enough to send warm fuzzies up and down my spine.
Finally, Peyton pulls away, taking Mads’s hands in his own as he turns to me. “I can’t believe you did it, sis,” he says. “Remind me never to underestimate you again.”
I snort and wave him off. “Like that’s ever going to happen, Pey.”
“Is that Madison we hear in there?” comes Hugo’s booming voice, and I turn to see him and Damien making their way in from the dining room.
“Damn right, it is,” Peyton replies, and I watch as my other brothers swarm around the happy couple, buzzing with relief and excitement. Mum follows soon after, Ruby trailing behind her, and I’m left to stand back and watch the reunion with a contented smile on my face. I’m so distracted that I don’t even realize Storm has approached me until he slips his hand into mine, his thumb brushing gently over my palm.
I look up at him, and he meets my eyes. “You did well, little one,” he tells me.
“I did what I had to,” I reply simply. It’s the truth, and right now, it’s all that needs to be said.
There’s a long moment of silence, and then he glances in the direction of the stairs; realising he probably wants to talk, I allow him to lead me away from the celebrating crowd. They’re going to have a lot to catch up on. There will be time for me to talk to my friend after she’s readjusted to her life here. I can’t imagine what she’s going through right now, having had her memories taken away and then shoved back in like it’s some kind of game. She and Peyton should be able to have their time together, I reason, and besides, it’s not like I’m going anywhere…
As much as, on some level, I might want to.
If Storm picks up on my ruminations, he doesn’t give me any indication. He’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, but he can be difficult to read if he wants to be; I don’t know if he even realises how caught up in his own thoughts he can get sometimes. I guess we’re two of a kind in that regard. It looks like he has something on his mind, but I know better than to press him on it. He’ll talk to me if he wants to.
“Watch the painting,” I warn him as we reach the top of the stairs.
“It’s all right,” Storm replies, squeezing my hand. “I already learned that lesson the hard way.”
I raise my eyebrows at him teasingly. “Are you telling me the higher god of weather got caught off guard by an enchanted painting?”
Storm gives me a haughty frown, but there’s a gleam in his violet eyes that tells me he’s teasing. Shit, I missed that look. “Your family has quite the…collection of artifacts,” he observes noncommittally. “It’s impressive.”
“You were in jail for four hundred years,” I remind him. “You probably think that cars and cell phone cameras are impressive.”
“We had access to the news in there, you know,” Storm replies defensively. “I mean, not all of it, but… The important stuff always had a way of getting through to us. Blame it on the fact that there were always new people being brought in.”
“I still can’t imagine spending all that time in there,” I confess as we approach my room, blissfully not being attacked by the painting this time. Maybe it’s finally learning that higher gods aren’t to be trifled with? “To watch the whole world evolving around you, but not be able to take part in it… It must have been incredibly lonely.”
“It was,” Storm replies, not sugarcoating it. “There were times when all I wanted to do was be outside again. Times I would have sold my soul just for a chance to take a breath of fresh air or put my feet in a stream.” He shakes his head as I pull open the door to my room, and he has to duck a little so as not to bump into the doorframe. Storm is a tall guy. “Sometimes I wasn’t even sure if I would even…if I would even make it. Part of me wanted to give up then and there, just to make the isolation stop.” He shrugs his broad shoulders, giving me a melancholy smile. “Immortality has its downsides, you know.”
“So I’m learning,” I admit, “again and again and again.” I sigh, dropping onto my bed, feeling suddenly, overwhelmingly tired. “This whole thing feels like one long nightmare,” I confess, looking up at him. “It’s like one thing ends and another starts, except every time is worse than the last.” I clench my hands into fists and then relax them, my eyes wandering over the intricate vine patterns that now run up my arms. “Was this what it was like for you back there?”
Storm looks thoughtful, giving me a slow nod before sitting down on the bed next to me. I feel almost ridiculous, sitting here with him in my childhood bedroom, a holdover from a time when everything felt easy and the stakes were never too high. Seeing this all-powerful being in contrast to the innocence of my past feels strange, somehow…foreign. Yet Storm’s expression isn’t unkind, and as he looks around, I could swear I almost see a hint of admiration on his face. “It was,” he replies finally, turning to look at me. “You think there’s only so much you can take, and the next thing you know, something else is happening. Something worse.” He reaches a hand up and brushes the backs of his knuckles over my cheek. His touch is reverent, almost worshipful, and it’s intimidating and alluring all at the same time. I feel a fresh swarm of butterflies in my stomach at the feeling of his warm skin against mine, and have to resist the urge to lean into his touch.
“How did you get through it?” I ask him, almost afraid to know the answer. Storm is stronger than I am, bolder than I am, more decisive than I am. He was raised as a higher god, with the responsibilities to match. His life has been nothing but suffering and pain at the hands of his conniving relatives. He has the stomach for this life, and the willpower to push forward, even when the world feels like it’s collapsing all around him.
I don’t have that. I’m weak.
“I found you,” Storm replies huskily, his voice low and heady. Startled, I meet his purple gaze, pointedly aware of the fact that his hand is still on my face, that our bodies are within inches of each other. “Before I met you,” he says carefully, “I thought that the soft part of me, the…the gentle part, had died. A long time ago. It’s a necessary evil when you’ve lived through the things I have. It’s the way things have to be—you protect what’s yours, you do what you have to do, and you don’t let anyone too close.” Storm takes a ragged breath, a lock of black hair falling into his face as he drops his head. I resist the urge to reach out and brush it out of the way, too entranced by his words to make myself move. “But then…you showed up. You, with your fire, and your energy, and your determination…” He shakes his head, meeting my eyes once more. “Your light. That’s what it was, Karma. It was like you brought light back into my life when I had been living in darkness for so long.”
I can feel my heart pounding in my ears, adrenaline rushing through me in a cold wave as the intensity of what Storm is saying hits home. “You…really think that?” I ask him quietly.
Storm nods slowly, the look on his face brooking no argument. “When I first sent you to retrieve that crystal,” he says, “I wasn’t expecting you to come back. Many don’t. And the ones that do…aren’t like you.” He runs his hand down my arm until it meets my own, his fingers intertwining with mine. “You were special. I think I knew that from the minute I first saw you. But the prison makes people cold. That’s what the adopted higher gods do: they take away our humanity. So when you came back out of that river, holding that crystal and looking like you were ready to take on the world in order to get out of there…” Storm runs a hand through his hair, looking like words are failing him. “That was when I knew I was in trouble.”
I give him a dry laugh, looking down at my lap and realising that my hands are shaking. Storm tightens his grip on me the slightest bit, his big hands steadying mine. “You must not have great taste in women, then,” I joke, unsure what to do with the praise.
Storm shakes his head grimly. “Hardly,” he says in that low voice, taking my chin in his free hand and turning me to look at him. The affection in his eyes is enough to make my stomach turn to mush. “I love you, Karma,” he tells me, his thumb brushing gently over my bottom lip. “And when this is over, I want to be with you.”
In spite of the rush of warmth that I feel, the overwhelming desire to tell him yes, I can also feel something coiling up in the pit of my stomach, a resistance that I’ve become familiar with over the past few days. My face falls, and I can feel my shoulders tense up even in spite of myself. “Killian and Seth,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
