Fate's Exchange (Twisted Fate, Book 1)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The Brothers

The Mortal Realm

Walking away from Alyssa after our date was challenging. Each step I took down the path brought me farther from her home, and away from the bedroom window I was tempted to climb through, just to talk or even watch her sleep. I missed a meeting with the Brothers tonight to be with her, but duties seemed so trivial now.

How could I think of duty when my lips tingled with the fresh memory of the pureness I found in her kisses?

I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my jeans, and I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other without falling—it was all I could do not to turn back, rush to her side, and envelop her in my arms. What would it be like, not to have to leave or say goodbye? To have more than a week—or five days, as the case was—to love someone? Humans did it all the time. They were free to do it: fall in love, get married, have kids. Even when it ended in divorce, the beginning was always grand, full of love and adventure and the I-don't-ever-want-to-leave-you sensation overwhelming me now.

"Can you still deny that you are getting too close to the girl?"

My stride faltered, and I sighed, my breath blowing out as a cloud in the air. The First Brother stepped out of the darkness concealing him, a small passage between two houses that provided the perfect vantage point of Alyssa's front porch. I stopped walking and faced him, not willing to hide—there was no point now. He knew the line had been crossed, just as I knew had been inevitable.

For a moment, foolish as it was, I thought I might have more time to enjoy what I had accepted to be my own failure. Just a few days longer was all I wanted, just long enough to keep her safe. After thousands of years fulfilling orders only He understood, obeying without questioning, it didn't seem like too much to ask. Humans were always in love—it was a part of who they were.

But it was too much to ask for one of our kind.

"Brother?"

Looking up from his feet, I saw he wasn't wearing his robe, but a pair of light khakis and polo shirt with a navy dinner jacket. Tilting my head to study him, I couldn't help but wonder whose duties had required the change: his or mine. Was I special now? Or was I an afterthought?

I met his gaze and shrugged. "What do you want me to say?"

He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket and shook his head, an impolite snort escaping into the silence of the night. I held my breath and waited for his condemnation, likely to be the last words we would speak to one another. My kind was too unforgiving, even more so of each other than humans, for it to be any other way. You had one chance to do what was right, and if you made a mistake, you didn't get another—it was over.

"Do not say anything to implicate yourself, Brother," he said, and looked up to the moonless sky. "I'm quite certain what I saw was... a trick of light."

A pass?

Why? I bit my tongue between my teeth to keep from doing exactly what he said not to. I knew, even without the confirming scowl on his face, how hard the words had been for him to say, let alone mean. The Brother of Judgement didn't show mercy—I'd worked side-by-side with him too long to forget that.

Yet that was exactly what he was doing.

I studied him, puzzled, watching him as intently as he watched me. This isn't a choice he made for himself. The only thing that he'd sacrifice his beliefs for—an order he felt obliged to obey—had swayed his infamous resolve for justice. The Sisters? Him? Voicing my questions out loud would undoubtedly shatter the pretense he wished to keep. I was the first to look away, too afraid he'd read the guilt and see through to the truth I wanted—needed—to keep for myself: I loved the girl. Alyssa. And my kind couldn't lie.

Love of a human would mean banishment to the Lake of Fire, if we didn't fall first. Exiled to live an eternal existence at the bottommost level of Hell, waiting for judgement that would never arrive, no matter how much it was desired. In fact, the more it was craved, the better the punishment became. In a word, torture.

"Why are you here?" Gazing at the ground to watch the pebbles my boots scattered from their resting place, there was so much more that I wanted to say, to confess. Of all the Brothers, we had always been the closest. We were the eldest.

"I've just come from the Sisters."

"You went to them?" I gasped, forgetting in my surprise that I'd meant to hold back. "Nobody goes to them, Brother, not even Him. They come to you. How did you find them?" Clearing my throat, I shook my head and tried to regulate the speed of my voice. "How was it?"

"Enlightening." He looked away, guarded.

I gulped, the silence becoming profound between us. That which we avoided grafted a chasm between us more firmly than words. "You can't tell me, can you?"

"It's not—no. I'm afraid that I can't do that." He looked back at me, somber. "Anything that girl learns may negate all that has been done."

"That's not cryptic at all." I rolled my eyes, the sarcasm a characteristic of the teenagers I'd been surrounded by. Before my recent integration, I never would have considered speaking in such a way, but now... Well, sometimes I found it fitting.

A shadow of a smile splayed across his lips. "This week, you won't be judged. His back will be turned to your actions, as will mine."

"Why?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "She's important enough, I guess."

"So, what am I supposed to do?" I scratched the back of my head and watched an array of indecision cross over his face.

"She has to be reminded of her death," he said a few minutes later. "Take her to the place where it started, Brother, so that she can recall what's happened and what her past decisions have led to."

"You can't be serious." My hands dropped to my sides and I felt like my stomach had plunged out from under me. "That's cruel. Why would you even suggest that to me?"

"Because it needs to be done."

"How do I do this? It's not like I can tell her who I am. Besides the crazy, she'll never have anything to do with me again." Hunching my shoulders and narrowing my eyes, I knew he was enjoying this, making me squirm. The First didn't want her to hurt—none of us would—but he enjoyed the effect what was being asked had on me.

"You're concerned with how she'll see you?" The First raised his eyebrow, a hint of humour in his eyes as he watched me.

"I'm concerned that I won't be able to help her with what I was sent here to accomplish." I rolled my head to relieve the tension in my neck. I don't want to be the source of her pain.

"So, you haven't forgotten your duties."

"I'm going to choose not to say anything 'incriminating' and settle instead on asking what is needed."

"Just make sure that she sees where it all began." He stepped back into the shadows, calling over his shoulder, "It's vital to her final choices, Brother. There will be no more chances."

"Then I will need a car!" I yelled after him.

The First paused, looking upward. After a minute he glanced back and held my gaze, and slowly nodded. "Very well. I'll arrange it for you."

"By tomorrow?"

"Yes." He nodded and then turned back. "Just do as you're told, Brother. Make sure you take her back to the woods."

I watched him until he was gone, and then twirled in a circle, my hair fisted in my hands. There would be no judgement or damnation for my actions. I just had to force the one person who had ever made me think for myself to relive what was probably the most hurtful experience she'd ever known.

I'd rather endure the Lake of Fire.