It wasn’t like she could tell him to stop. While she was engrossed in what he was saying, nothing was making sense to her. Her head hurt like hell, and it felt like everything was a dream. But there wasn’t any reason why she shouldn’t believe any of it...
God, she thought, closing her eyes. Make up your damn mind!
The mental shouting didn’t help any.
“The earth does not let those who do not belong know of its powers. You are connected to Talon in such a way that even the earth cannot hold you two apart. Why is this, you might ask? Well, without permission, you cannot be together. Yet you are. There are no such things as Fates. As Gods. As superhumans. Nothing like that, minion.
“Instead? We have witches, demons. Angels –“
“You said there aren’t any gods, though,” she said, face scrunching up. What he said made sense – probably because her subconscious was trying to tell her that she had known this all her life.
“There are none, dear. Others may tell you there are, but anyone like us should know that there is not. Angels are the counterpart of demons. I do not mean like an angel of god, or the good to the evil,” he tittered, laughing delicately. Vladimir reached behind and pulled out a hankie, twirling it between his hands.
“Then what do you mean?”
“Demons and angels are counterparts. They must come together, but only when they know they have found the right one. Think of you and Talon. You care for him, are probably coming to love him. These feelings are natural, and even though you may not believe in true love, or even love at first site… I can see that you are in love with him,” he said softly, like he was remembering something sad, or something…painful. Jamie flushed and looked away.
But she didn’t deny anything he said.
“Demons are evil. To a point. The earth needs grace and purity to survive, and it would not start its own death by tainting the very things it needs to survive. So the witches made demons. Created them. Yet, they controlled them.”
A smile flitted around the edge of his pink-with-lip-gloss lips. “Until a law was passed by the king.”
“King?” she asked. Like, King Arthur? Jamie wondered if the rules of the world she knew still applied to the rules of the world she was learning. Would she have to live under a monarchy now? Her stomach turned. It hadn’t hit her until now how much her life was really going to change.
“Yes, we have a king. But he is missing,” he said sadly. “Lucian and Talon have taken over for the time being, but it has been so long… Jamie, our people are broken. We may seem like working people, high-tech people, modern people, but we are still as old-fashioned as we used to be. The warriors that protect us – Talon is one of them, or used to be. Such high powering people are not meant to be fighting. He gave up so much for our world.”
Jamie swallowed, biting her lip. Talon was the equivalent of a king, then. Her stomach turned.
“How did he get taken, then? He was put through so much!” she said angrily, fisting her hands in her lap. “Why did no one go after him?”
“No one knew that he had been taken. It had been his vacation, and he had requested that no one hound him or bother him.”
Jamie barely kept her tongue as she stared across the room in a stony silence.
“It is good that you are angry on his behalf,” he commented, looking at her with a faraway look. She clenched her hands in her lap and forced herself to stay calm.
“What was the king like?” she asked as a distraction.
Sorrow flashed through his sparkling eyes. “The king was...great. Mighty. Magnificent. Have you ever heard of that series, Narnia?” he asked, twisting the hankie even more.
Jamie nodded, thinking of the giant lion that the movie had so revolved around. Her head hurt from all the thinking it was doing. She couldn’t honestly believe all of this, could she? Jamie rubbed her shoulder slowly, struggling to get her head around everything.
“Well, our king is much like that lion. But not an animal,” he said, tittering. “I don’t know about you, but when I think ‘king’, I think England, or monarchy. Either way, though, our king is nothing like those frilly wearing kinds that we see