Destiny's Revenge (Destiny Series - Book 2) Straight, Nancy (book club reads .TXT) 📖

Back to reality, I answered, “Renny, you’re right. I think I hear Lauren pulling up in the driveway. I need to talk to her.” I hung up the phone just as Samael had instructed.

“Okay Samael, you’ve got five minutes to convince me not to call her back. You had better make this good.”

“It will take longer than five minutes, but I’ll be as quick as I can. The world is in perfect balance - most of the time. Lauren is very unique: she has the power to change people’s destinies. Your friend Renny contacted her when she wasn’t supposed to. Renny caused Lauren to change a person’s destiny, I believe you knew him as Paul? When she altered the course of his life, she put several things in motion that were not supposed to have occurred.”

“The man who killed Paul was supposed to have also killed a second family. He was stopped and that family lived. They were Sylvia and Wyatt Gordon. The two are not supposed to be alive. Because their lives were not mapped beyond their own murder, the two essentially cheated death. Death has come to call on them many times since that night, and each time the two have again escaped. You may think this very lucky, but when death comes calling, someone always answers the door. Sylvia was driving late at night and death sprung out from the side of the road looking like a deer. She swerved and death took a family in a mini-van instead. One of the children in the minivan would have grown up and found a key protein that cured cancer. He and his destiny have been wiped from this earth.”

“Rewsna likes to refer to me as the Beast.” I could hear in his voice that he liked this nickname. “The truth is, my methods may not be appreciated, but someone must make sure that destinies are not altered. I could have killed Lauren three years ago. I didn’t. I spared her life while I unscrewed all the damage she had done. She was suspended in time: she did not feel pain, or death, or anything for that matter. I needed to right the wrongs she had created before she could do any more damage. I had planned to put the destinies right, then teach Lauren not to interfere.”

“Rewsna broke her free from my bond and told her half-truths. If you asked Lauren if she was hurt in any way, she would tell you that she never felt any pain.”

I could feel myself believing Samael’s words, then the image of Lauren at our campsite came back and I reminded him, “You nearly shredded her body. I saw her, I was with her. She was ripped to pieces.”

“Max, you needed to believe that it was a bear attack. It had to look convincing, so convincing, in fact, I shifted into a bear to do the assault. I can assure you I had already cut her off from her body before I did any damage, before one drop of blood was ever spilled. Lauren felt nothing.”

I relived the attack one more time, recalling the screams that echoed to me down the mountain. The screams I still carry with me. “Ahhh, Max, your perspective of the events is much worse than Lauren’s.”

“I don’t see how. She was the one who was left in pieces behind a bush.”

“I gave her a choice: a quick death or a cursed life. Incidentally, she didn’t choose either. I made the assumption she would rather live. Those screams were simply the fear of what was to happen to her, not screams during my assault.” The fear I could sense in Samael’s voice while I was on the phone with Rewsna had been replaced by stony conviction. I had a tough time believing him.

“It’s not just Renny that calls you the Beast. If you aren’t such a bad guy, why did your demons attack me and my family? Why did Lauren hide from you? If all this was for her protection, why did you target all her family and friends? I saw the marks on her neck that you put there. It looks like you tried to kill her.”

“I can assure you, if I wanted to kill her, she would be dead. I was merely giving myself enough of a headstart to get to you before she did.”

“What about tracking her down? Why the persistence? If you were only trying to help, you could have simply picked up the phone.”

“Max, do you really think it’s that easy? You are a simpleton, aren’t you? Keep in mind, every encounter I have had with your precious Lauren has left me significantly weaker, so much so that I had to develop a parasitic relationship with you. You do know she tried to murder me, right?”

“She was defending herself.”

“Right, hiding in the bushes outside my home, ambushing me without warning, and shooting at me while I was unarmed; sounds incredibly close to self defense, doesn’t it? Luckily, she hesitated and I was able to escape. I decided not to count on luck again. She took from me my ability to see others at a distance, she is able to block me and my servants from her mind. I find Lauren to be incredibly dangerous. My only option was to seek shelter in you – the one person on earth she will never permit harm to come to.”

His last words felt like a punch in the gut. I knew he was right, but when he said the words, I remembered how I had sent her away yesterday and how badly I had hurt her. “I want you out, I want you to leave her alone forever. I want my life back.”

“Well, my friend, people in hell want ice water. We don’t always get what we want.”

I picked up the phone, and he could see my action playing out before him. “No!” echoed through my head, and my hand dropped the phone involuntarily. I