Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
His skin was a luminous gold, and hers was a bronzy brown.
On second thought, they had the same jawline too.
Now that I paid attention, The Centurion looked the least like them. His skin color was the lightest, and he wasn’t built as muscularly as they were. I didn’t think he was as tall as they were either, and his hair was short and dark blond. They were spread across the rainbow.
HE WAS THEIR BROTHER. I just knew it. Alex had said he had siblings. Plural. He had to be. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
I was going to faint.
There were people who believed they were related, but most thought that they couldn’t be because of their varying skin colors, like genetics didn’t do what genetics wanted to do.
Like their existence even made sense in the first place.
But they were. If you looked hard enough. They had never appeared at the same place and time, for a reason, I was pretty sure now.
And my mouth was open in surprise right when the woman, The Woman, looked over in my direction at the same time that Alex did. They were talking about me, or about the situation, that was for sure. But she was looking at me.
I lifted my hand and waved.
The Primordial—THE PRIMORDIAL—waved back. She didn’t hesitate. And it wasn’t a half-assed wave either. It was a real one.
She was waving at me.
Oh man. Play it cool, play it cool, play it cool.
The Defender shook his head and rolled his eyes before his mouth started moving and he said who knew what to his sister.
I couldn’t believe it. If I asked about The Centurion would he tell me the truth? Why was he telling me all this in the first place?
She turned her attention back to Alexander and said a few more things, crossing her arms over her chest.
She really was magnificent. I wanted to be her when I grew up.
I kept watching as Alex talked, and they went back and forth, a frown forming as she listened and staying there even as she spoke. At one point, she put her hand on his shoulder, then around the back of his neck, her expression growing more distressed.
Standing there like a fucking creeper, I witnessed them talk a little more, seeing them both glance toward me again too.
And in a move that would haunt me for probably the rest of my life, I gave them a peace sign.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever done a peace sign before.
And I knew I was going to regret it when he blinked and stared.
The Primordial smiled at least.
I thought about letting the curtain drop back in place, but I kept standing there. Unfortunately, a moment later, they nodded at each other, and he stepped forward and they hugged. They hugged. Like normal people. And in the blink of an eye, she shot straight into the sky like a missile.
Alex turned slowly back toward the house and met my gaze. He shook his head.
Shit.
He was still shaking it as he came in and stopped just over the threshold, so unbelievably handsome it was a little irritating. How the hell had he gotten through life without someone looking at him and knowing he was different than the rest of us normals?
“What the hell was that?” he asked.
Yeah, he’d brought it up. “I panicked,” I muttered.
He pressed his lips together, blinking slowly.
This was going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Even if I never saw him again after this, I was never going to forget. I blinked right back at him, my soul shriveling up by the millisecond.
I’d given The Primordial a peace sign.
Some people could pull them off, and I wasn’t one of them, and we all knew it.
My voice was the size of a Smurf. “She’s like a god, okay?”
This motherfucker was still blinking at me. His voice sounded funny as he said, “We’re basically the same.”
“Not really.”
Another blink. “Yes, really.”
I closed one eye. “No, I don’t think so.”
That finally got me the stink eye.
“She’s Earth’s Champion,” I kept going.
Those purple eyes settled on me, glowing faintly. “And I’m… what?”
“You’re cool too, but everyone feels like they know her. She’s the face of the Trinity. You’re the one who, well, no one even really knows what your face looks like because it’s never been captured that well. Twenty percent more of the population started recycling and reusing after that speech she gave about climate change. I compost because of her.” I used to compost because of her. Oh, that made my heart hurt. I held my breath so I wouldn’t make a peep at the reminder of what had happened. I couldn’t change anything about it. I couldn’t magically get my things back.
But I was alive.
And I still wanted to cry. And knowing and accepting both was fine.