Imprisoned Gods - G. Bailey Page 0,82
little bit.
"And that's the price to know all your secrets?" I ask, well aware of the way he is looking at me, the sweet musky smell of whiskey on his breath as he awaits my answer.
"Not them all, but some, yes," he replies. Damn, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. “What do you say? I promise you will love the party." His hand finds itself on my shoulder, resting there, and damn I can't say it doesn't feel good when he is touching me. What the hell is in this drink? I take the bottle off him, drinking more before answering. I need something else to focus on that isn’t Storm before I do something stupid like kiss him. God, now I can’t stop thinking about what he tastes like. Whiskey and bad decisions most likely.
"You have a date then," I say, knowing I’m too curious to say no to that. It’s like hovering peanut butter in my face and expecting me not to want it. God help me. I have a date with one of the most attractive and charming men I have ever met. They say curiosity killed the cat, and I'm not even a cat, but curiosity has the better of me. Or Storm's abs do. I'm not sure which one it is. "Now out with it, what are you?"
"A higher god. The god of weather to be precise," he calmly tells me, and I nearly choke on thin air as I try to even process that. I grab his hand, turning it over and not seeing the dragon mark they all have. “Our parents both named us in the literal sense. Another thing we have in common.”
"You don't have that mark, so that can't be true," I say, lifting his hand and turning it over. I can see his other hand, knowing it’s not there. I must be shocked, because I don’t even realise I’m holding Storm’s giant hand until he links our fingers. My hand fits almost perfectly into his, like a tiny little doll slotting in a pocket.
"They gave themselves marks as a reminder of my betrayal and to erase their history," he tells me as he takes the bottle back. "My adoptive brothers and sisters would never want to forget what happened between us."
"Holy Batman, you really are a higher god," I mutter as he drinks more and hands me the bottle like he knows I need a drink. His eyes leave me and go to the painting above the fireplace, the faces are hauntingly bright in the dim room.
"Yes.”
"What happened to you?" I softly ask, because I can sense a little bit about his fear. I never understood what I was feeling from his fear before, but it makes some sense now. He fears family.
"I was the first born of all my siblings, and somewhat grew up alone as my parents couldn’t have any more children. My mother, a very powerful goddess of life, adopted my twin sisters and blessed them with incredible powers like my own. I was ten. My adopted twin brothers were born three years later by the same human mother who gave up my sisters. My parents gave them powers and made them immortal like us. One big happy family…what a joke that ended up being. I helped my parents bring them up, told them it didn’t matter that we weren’t related by blood; they were my family. My father, a god of earth, died when I was eighteen. It was a price of giving my adopted siblings all that power and immortality. My mother passed away from sadness not much later.
“I ended up alone, bringing up two sets of twins with insane powers that were hard to control, immortality that they wasted. This was around four hundred years ago, if you want to know my age. We were not the only ones with powers, but no one could challenge us, so we naturally became the leaders. Therefore, the title ‘higher gods’ was founded," he pauses, clearing his throat and holding a hand out for the bottle. After a long drink, he carries on with his story as I’m stuck in shock and silence. "We ruled peacefully for a long time, happy with our lives...well, so I thought. I found out my adopted brothers and sisters had a secret place, a building where they experimented and tortured both gods and humans. I believe the powers my parents gave them made them cruel and insane. They became monsters.