were not words often used in the same sentence. Granted, there were reasons for that, but not necessarily reasons his friends agreed with. “Don’t do anything that will complicate things. It’s complicated enough on its own. Just keep her away from the main house during the day and keep her and her sister in your sights.”
“You don’t have to tell me how to do my job,” Max said, sounding a little affronted.
“No. Of course not,” Jackson conceded quickly. “I know you’ve been trained very well by your father and by Ram. He wouldn’t have you here in the house if you weren’t.”
“You know, it’s strange when I think of my great-granddad doing the job I’m now doing for you all those years ago,” Max said. “I find that to be weirder, believe it or not, than knowing who and what you are. There’s a sort of eeriness to it.”
That made Jackson laugh. “You know, your granddad said something very similar to me when it was his turn to watch over us.” That gave Jackson pause as he remembered Menes’s memories and felt the things that Menes felt. It hadn’t been until he was propositioning Marissa that he had gotten an inkling of the grief that had led to Menes’s last death. It disturbed him, the idea that he could be so swept away by the emotions of his counterpart. How had Menes’s host felt about what was happening? How could he have possibly been in agreement with that course of action?
And yet, as the Blending took deeper root inside him, as Menes’s memories and personality became a part of him, it was as though the lines between them were starting to blur. He felt it most in moments like this, when he fully felt a memory, such as speaking with Max’s great-grandfather. And while Menes had instigated a lot of what had happened before with Marissa, he had been very present for all of it, and most definitely a part of the way he had taken command of her, touched her … wanted her until every cell was screaming for it.
But, of course, it was very likely that it would be a cold day in hell before that happened now. Being asked to die wasn’t exactly whispering sweet nothings expression on his faceioihly into a girl’s ear.
No wait. Scratch that. A woman’s ear. Marissa was all woman. There was no mistaking her for anything else. She had no sweet girlish behaviors, no naiveté. And perhaps that was a part of the problem. She was jaded on some level she refused to show him. Oh, she was still a believer in romance and true love, but not for herself. She would believe it for anyone else, she would counsel accordingly, but something was holding her back from allowing herself to feel what she wanted to feel. There was something … some intangible thing …
“Jackson?”
Jackson started when he realized Ram was talking to him. He had completely tuned him and Max out. Looking more than a little sheepish, he apologized. That seemed to amuse Ram to no end.
“It’s like this every time. You never get tired of the chase, do you?” he asked.
That made Jackson grin like an idiot. Now here was something he agreed with Menes on fully. The chase. The seduction. The oh-so-sweet victory.
“This is only the second time I have come ahead of Hatshepsut with the intention of choosing a host for her. She was … very reluctant to return to the mortal world that time as well. It had hurt her deeply, leaving our child behind. She has not wanted another since then, and I doubt that will have changed now,” he said with a dark sort of frown. Jackson had never really put much thought into it before, but he wanted children. When the time was appropriate of course, but if this queen of theirs did not want children, what could they possibly do to change her mind, knowing the grief and loss she had suffered? And that brought him to another question. Did Bodywalkers give birth to mortals or other Bodywalkers?
Our children spring from our host’s mortal bodies. They are everything mortal and we leave them behind when we go, never to know them again unless, one day, we discover the actual death and find our way into the afterlife. We tend to outlive them before we pass, which is equally difficult. It takes ancient rituals and a complex mummification process, most of which are lost