Amalia Dillin - Forged by Fate

Eve stood under the water, letting the heat relax muscles tense with worry. Showers were one of her favorite things in the modern world. All indoor plumbing, really. She loved not having to fetch water in buckets, heat it over flame, and dump it into basins to wash. It took forever, and the water became so filthy so quickly. Showers were much more efficient.

She massaged the shampoo into her scalp, closing her eyes and imagining one more layer of the filth from her past washing down the drain. Some of her last lives hadn’t been nearly so set on the value of cleanliness. South America hadn’t agreed with her, certainly. And the asylum of her last life had hardly been ideal. She rubbed at her wrists, but the scars were gone, and she shook her head, forcing her thoughts away from that memory. She didn’t want to think of that any more than she wanted to dwell on her argument with Garrit.

The way he had looked at her last night, as if she were a stranger. Only it had been mixed with betrayal too.

Eve sighed and turned off the water. She hadn’t expected him to take it so hard. After all, these were all truths his family knew, her family, too. These were her people in a way no others were. If anyone should have been able to understand—but he had been gray-faced when he left the night before. And he hadn’t yet come back.

She twisted the excess water from her hair and stepped out of the tub.

Garrit leaned silently against the sink, his arms crossed over his chest, dressed in a crisp gray suit for work. His lips were pressed into a thin line but he unbent enough to pass her a towel. She wrapped it around her body, suffering the feeling of exposure with little joy. Self-consciousness was not a gift she had ever learned to appreciate nor was the feeling of nakedness. Adam’s fault, both.

“I didn’t realize you were back,” she said quietly, using a second towel to blot the water from her hair.

“I slept in one of the spare rooms.” He studied her for a moment, his eyes narrowing as if he were looking for some outward sign of the truth that he had missed during the year they’d lived together. “Why didn’t you tell me, Abby?”

She should have. A month ago when he proposed. She should have told him then that she was Eve, before she had accepted. “It doesn’t change anything. I loved you before I knew you were a DeLeon, and then I loved you even more because of it. And now, knowing I’m Eve, you’re looking at me as though I’m some kind of monster.”

Exactly what she hadn’t wanted. In her experience with the few husbands she had trusted with her secret, there had always been a period of adjustment. Denial. Misunderstanding. Betrayal. It was to be expected. But he was Ryam’s descendent. His family knew the truth. Kept boxes of her things in a vault in the basement. That was supposed to make all of this easier. He wasn’t supposed to be looking at her this way. He was supposed to love her, still, in spite of it all.

“You’re my ancestor.” His jaw tightened and he looked away, seeming to stare at the tile. “It’s incestuous.”

She shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His head came up, dark eyes made darker still with emotion. “Maybe you should enlighten me then, Abby, because this is all just a little bit overwhelming.”

She forced herself to swallow the angry retort that came to mind, and spoke evenly. “It was over five hundred years ago that I married into this family, Garrit. So many generations removed, that I can’t even count them. And even if it weren’t, even if I were your sister, I’m genetically perfect. Our children would be healthy, more resistant to disease, with strong minds.”

He stared at her again, and she saw in his face that he was wondering how many brothers she had married in her past lives. Enough that she knew what would happen if she did. Maybe that was too many. She tried to ignore it and twisted the towel around her hair, flipping it up over her head. She shivered now that the steam had dissipated. Freezing didn’t improve her mood.

“I don’t understand any of this.”

She recognized that tone. The honest confusion and fear. Her whole body softened and she reached for him, hoping something of the love she felt for him could cross between them, reassure him. But he shook his head, raising a hand to ward her off. He paced halfway to the door and stopped.

“Most people wouldn’t even bother to try to understand.” She kept her voice gentle, though she didn’t think he noticed. He seemed too wrapped up in his head, trying to unravel the knot of their shared history. Her existence, after all, gave new meaning to his. “But you know the story, Garrit. Your family has the truth. Nobody could have known that I would turn up now and meet you.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be truth. It was supposed to be légende. Family lore, rien de plus. ”

They’d had enough arguments for her to know it was never a good sign when he slipped into French. He’d always done her the courtesy of speaking English in the past, no matter how irritated he’d been. He preferred to save his French for flirtation and similar intimacies. Not that he wasn’t above using it to exclude others, either, knowing she spoke it as fluently as he did, but alone with him in the bathroom, that clearly wasn’t the case this time.

Maybe she had been away longer than she’d realized. Too long away from her family. From home. Or maybe this modern world just made everyone forget the truths of the past. Was that the price of hot running water? She rubbed at her wet face and wondered if it was worth it, even while she tried to find the words to make him see reason.

“All legend is based on truth. I thought that you of all people understood that. You’re part of an incredibly illustrious family, going back all the way to Creation, to the Garden—”

“It’s myth , Abby. Creation is a myth!”

“Part of your myth is standing in front of you in a towel!” She was wet, and miserable, and he hadn’t even had the courtesy to shut the bathroom door before shouting at her. “Tell me that the thousands of lives I’ve lived are all lies.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you are.”

She bit her lip. “This is why I didn’t tell you.”

“It’s all been a lie, then? From the moment you knew my name.”

“I hardly run about the earth advertising my reincarnations!” Her voice had risen, but she couldn’t bring it back under control. Of all people, he should have known better than to think such a thing. “My feelings, me, our relationship, none of that has been a lie.”

“I’m just supposed to accept this? Sans hésitation, without reserve?” he asked.

“Your parents didn’t seem to be upset by it.”

“ Mon Dieu! ” She flinched. Cursing in French was even worse than grasping for words. “That’s just great, Abby. You tell my parents but you don’t think to tell your fiancé.”

“I didn’t tell them. They put the facts together themselves, just like you.” Only faster. And with less drama. They, at least, had understood and been happy.

His jaw clenched. “Your portrait. In the hall.”

“Yes. My portrait.” He would come to terms with it, or he wouldn’t, but she was shivering and he was blocking the door. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get dressed.”