Unmade (Unborn #4) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,32
written all over his face. “I do not believe that she gave us up for her own benefit. There was no way to keep us, and even in her Dark state, she knew it. In the memory I saw—the one Muses pulled forth from my mind of the day I was born—she looked panicked, distraught at the decision she had to make. Oz was the one that took me from her and entrusted me to Demeter. Did you know that?” He shook his head. “He swore to help keep me safe, and for his loyalty to both her and me, he lost his wings.”
“So it was Oz who helped her?”
“Yes. And it cost him greatly.”
Sean grew silent for a moment, processing what I had told him. “The Oz out there? The broody one with the face I’d like to break?”
“They are one and the same, yes.”
“Well, that’s a mindfuck…”
“As someone whose mind has been fucked, I do not believe it is, though I understand your reaction.”
He looked at me for a moment, uncertain how to take what I had said. But when I allowed a smile to break through my stern façade, he laughed yet again.
“And I thought I had a dark sense of humor.”
“I am darkness incarnate, though you should expect no less from the Princess of the Underworld.”
He nodded, green eyes sparkling in the firelight. But that sparkle waned as the moment passed and his mind became clouded by doubt and questions.
“I believe you, Khara—that Oz helped our mother. But what I don’t understand is why he left you with Demeter? Why not just take you away?”
“Where could he have gone? And how could he have raised an infant without being found out?” I asked in challenge. “Demeter is the goddess of nature and life. She could provide for me in a way he simply could not.”
“How could he have just abandoned you to her, though?” he asked, still working through the Dark One's motives and actions. “How was that keeping you safe for Mother?”
“Oz was smart enough to know that, if he had visited, it would certainly have drawn attention—far more attention than Demeter adopting an orphaned child. No one would have suspicions about that, but a male Light One toting around a newborn? Surely that would have been atypical at best.”
“But how…” he replied, his words drifting off as he stood to pace the room, “...how could he just leave you like that?” Sean’s eyes drifted to me, and the sadness in them was endless. “I am glad that you were not raised as I was, Khara, but I wish I had known you, been able to share this life with you—my sister...”
My chest tightened ever so slightly. “I wish I had known you all before recently. But that was not to be, and we both know why—even if it was all for naught.”
He nodded and looked away. “So you’re telling me that I owe Oz my thanks, aren’t you?”
“That is a strong possibility, Brother. But I will not share that with him. It can be our secret.”
Those green eyes met mine again, and the smile that accompanied his gaze was unlike anything I had ever seen from him. It was bright and beautiful and full of mischief. I wanted to see him wear it all the time.
“That would be great. Oz is kind of a prick about shit like that, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Yes, humility does not seem to be one of his greater traits.”
That smile I so enjoyed on him faltered. “Do you still love him, Khara? Like you did the night you saved him—before he turned Dark?”
I pondered his question for a moment before replying. “I do not know what I feel for Oz. It is a complicated, ever-changing beast that I cannot quite catch and identify, but I wish to chase it for eternity regardless.”
The smile returned. “I can relate to that far more than you’ll ever know.”
“The one you care for—the one the others have referenced—is she like this? Something you do not fully understand but feel compelled to seek nonetheless?”
He choked on a laugh. “Something like that, yeah. But we might be less complicated than you and the Dark One, which is really saying something given our situation.”
“Would I like her?”
He cocked his head as he assessed me, weighing my question. “She’s a two-sided coin, so it’s hard to say. One side would adore you, that much I know. The other…I’m not sure. There’s only one way to find