heard your voice on the night air that you were the female my Goddess had chosen for me some six hundred plus years ago.” “ How did she choose me? I wasn’t even alive, and I’m pretty certain most of the Taniss family line didn’t exist back then.” “Legend has it that when a Dardaptoan is born, the Goddess whispers their name, followed by the name of the one individual that Dardaptoan is destined to be with. Most of the time it is another Dardaptoan. Sometimes, it’s a Lupoiux—what you would call a werewolf. Other times it is a witch. Even had a few Rajni pairs that I have seen involve Kinds from other realms, such as an Encantado halfling.” “That’s it? No thought put into who should be together, whether they will be compatible? This goddess just says Dick will be with Jane?” “In its simplest form, yes.” “And you all don’t have problems with that? Don’t you want the right to choose who you spend your life with?” How did he make her understand that the mere idea of having that one person you were meant to be with out there waiting for you somewhere was the only way most Dardaptoans were able to continue their existences? Existences that could last more than two or three thousand years? That finding their Rajni was what most Dardaptoans planned for and anticipated? “Don’t you want to spend your life with someone who is ordained for you, who is chosen to be the one being on the entire Earth who fits you better than anyone else?” “And that’s what you think I am? I just can’t believe that.” Her hands were taut under his. Clenched around the book she still held. “If you were destined for me, you would have known that above all things I respect choices . And respect people being responsible for their own actions. I don’t respect someone who hurts someone else because of something a family member did!” “Because of what happened to your sister. I know. And I can understand that.” “How did you know about that? No one knows what happened to Mal but our family. And my father made sure of that.” “Sometimes, when I touch someone, I can feel strong events that have happened to them. Or that will happen to them. When I touched your sister earlier, I saw what had happened to her. Could see her in my mind as she lay there on the pavement beside your uncle’s green sedan. See the red and mauve team sweatshirt your sister was carrying before she was attacked. I am sorry that had to happen to her, and even sorrier still that she had to meet her Rajni this way. That Aodhan had to take her choices from her as I have done the same to you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Mickey felt her breath back up in her throat. That sweatshirt would haunt her for the rest of her life. She’d recognized it the moment she and Josey had stepped out of the stairwell in the Taniss Industries parking garage almost nine years ago. It had been hers , her sweatshirt that she wore after swim team practice every day . Mal had borrowed it that morning because it had started raining and she’d been in a hurry. Mal hadn’t wanted to be late for her classes at the university a county over from where they’d lived. The sweatshirt had been covered in her sister’s blood, and tossed forgotten in the middle of the parking lot floor. Mickey had bent down to pick it up before she’d seen her sister lying broken on the pavement by their Uncle Jason’s car. His green car. “How did you know? About the car? About the sweatshirt?” “I saw it. Just as I saw that you and I were for one another in this life.” Did she believe him? Could she? “And what does that mean, exactly? That I should give up who I am to spend my life here doing nothing? I can’t do that. I have a family, I have a plan, goals for my life that don’t include lazing around a hotel somewhere in the middle of I-don’t-know-where.” “In time...” “If you are such a big proponent of ‘in time’ why did you...make me what you