“I wasn’t sure what you’d remember at first,” he said, his voice deep and soft and smooth. “I wanted to give you some time.”
“I didn’t remember any of this life at first. Only the other one. The one we changed.”
He turned me around to face him, and I wasn’t about to let him go. I locked my arms around him and looked up, way up, into his darkly shimmering eyes.
“I’m surprised,” he said, seeming, well, surprised. “I thought you’d forget that life for a while. I didn’t know if you’d ever remember it, remember us, so I decided to start school all over again.” He grinned, and it shot through me like an arrow. “I had every intention of wooing you all over again.”
I laughed, so relieved and thrilled to have him in my arms again, I felt giddy for the first time that day. Usually, giddy was rather normal for me. “It wouldn’t have taken much,” I said.
Jared looked up as Cameron stepped to us, his expression challenging, and I wanted to groan aloud. He had sensed Jared coming. He could do that. They both could do that. Sense each other from afar. It was apparently an angel thing.
“I was willing to forgive what you are when you first showed up,” Cameron said. “But not now, Reaper.”
Darn it. We were back to calling Jared Reaper.
He started to step toward him, but his mother walked back out again. She walked right up to Jared and put her hand on his face as though she were dreaming. I knew the feeling. “I remember,” she said. “I prayed that you’d come for me, that you’d save Cameron, and you did.”
“Mom, go back inside,” Cameron said.
She ignored him and kept staring. Kept touching his face. Jared didn’t mind, but her son did not share that kind of patience. He pulled her away from him and stepped close.
“Cameron,” I said, getting between them. “If you’ll remember what happened the last time you two fought, you’ll know that you’re not going to hurt him.”
Jared spoke softly behind me, clearly amused. “No, it hurt. Just not for long.”
I pressed my mouth and started over. “You’re not going to kill him.”
“I don’t want to kill him,” Cameron said, squishing me as he pressed forward. “Where’s the fun in that?” He had morphed into the old Cameron. His transformation was complete. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about that.
“Son!” Cameron’s dad came out.
He was so different from Cameron. Where Cameron was tall and blond with ice blue eyes, Cameron’s dad was stocky, dark, with eyes so dark, they looked black. His mother was blond, though, but I was certain he got most of his attributes from his actual father, the archangel Jophiel. That was the one thing you could always count on in a nephilim. Extreme height. Cameron had supernatural strength and speed to go with it, all the better to do his job, I supposed.
Mr. Lusk tugged at his son, then glanced at Jared and nodded. “Your Grace,” he said, his tone reverent.
Cameron’s, not so much. “If the war was really stopped,” he said, “then why are you still here?”
And that was quite possibly the biggest mystery in all of this. If we’d won, if we’d truly changed the past and stopped the war before it ever started, then why was he here? I hadn’t wanted to ask it, not even internally, I was so grateful for the fact that he was. That he’d stayed or come back. Whatever he’d done, he was still the most beautiful thing on two legs.
Everyone came out to watch the showdown. They poured out of the dining hall, my parents and grandparents included. And the sheriff who might or might not remember Jared was on our side.
“We won, right?” someone asked. It was Brooklyn’s mom, a beautiful African American woman, tiny with spiked hair and a button nose I’d always loved. Comparing her to her husband was much like comparing Mr. Lusk to Cameron. Her husband was tall and pale, thin and very handsome. “Lorelei did it.”
He started to answer, but I interrupted. “No, I didn’t.” I gestured to everyone standing around me. “We did. All of us together, including a girl named Kenya from Maine. And of course, my granddad Mac.”
Mac offered me a sheepish grin.
“He did all the hard work.”
“I could never have done it without you. What you kids did,” he began, but he had to pause and gather himself. After a moment, he said, “What you kids did was extraordinary. The memories of that time are coming back to us. To all of us.”
“But, it won’t happen again, right?” she asked again. “It’s over. The prophecies have come to pass.”
Jared nodded. “They have come to pass. My brethren are calling it the War that Never Was and Never Will Be. I think that’s a pretty good indication of things to come.”
Relief washed over every face there. My grandparents looked at me with stars in their eyes, and I still couldn’t believe how I’d treated them in this reality. I had a lot to make up for and I looked forward to every minute of it.
“Then why are you still here?” Cameron said, pushing the subject, his anger still not quite abated.
“It’s a gift,” he said, staring down at me. Then he looked at everyone. “If you’ll have me, I have been given permission to live among you. Something about bravery in battle. I can live as one of you, be human. Kind of. I can’t grow old.” Then he cast his gaze toward the ground as though suddenly unsure. “So they fixed that, too,” he said softly. His next words were so soft, I barely heard them. “Be still.”