Destiny's Wrath (Destiny Series - Book 3) by Straight, Nancy (manga ereader txt) 📕

“But I don’t want to lose you.”

“I know, son. If you ever need me, I’ll be right here. But never sell this land. When your son and your grandson are of age, you tell them the same. This land stays in the Meyers family. Never take this cabin down. Your mother and I will be here, I just know it.”

Max’s flashback faded away. I was speechless.

Max nodded. “Now I get it. When my parents died, just a day or two after their funeral, Gramps sat me down and told me I could never sell this place. Gramps told me his grandfather had made him make the same promise. He said I was the sixth generation to own the land; that a trust had been set up by him to pay the taxes on it for the next hundred years, that no matter what I did with my life, this land stayed in the family. At the time I thought he was talking about my parents’ house. I told him I couldn’t live there, so he offered to let me stay with him until I figured out where I wanted to live. But he made me promise that day never to sell this land. It was mine now, but to never sell.”

I had to say it out loud, “Gramps was our great grandson. Fate is a strange thing.”

I thought back to when I first met Joe. “When I met Gramps at the nursing home, I had an instant draw to him. After you came back in my life, I assumed that subconsciously I’d seen something of you, in him. That was why I’d befriended him, that somehow, deep down, I had just known that he was a part of you. I never dreamed that he was a part of both of us.”

We stood a long time in our embrace, knowing that we had found our way to our souls’ home. Through the Council, the Cabinet, Samael, threats from police – no matter what was thrown our way, we never wavered, our love for each other never diminished. This cabin was a beacon to us, bringing us home.

The words rolled from me, “It waited for us because I love you more deeply than one lifetime will allow.”

He began nuzzling my neck, stroking my hair, and setting my skin on fire with his touch. I became euphoric as I thought of all the times we lay here on rainy afternoons, enjoying the seclusion, wrapping ourselves up with each other. “Max, we’ve done it. That dream I had of you for so many years, you told me we would achieve Empathy, Trust, Virtue and Passion. We did it. It’s all over.”

Max questioned me with his eyes but didn’t speak. I started rattling them all off, “Courage was what brought us together. Stepping in front of the gun to protect the little kid was how I earned Courage.”

“I felt Passion leaking out of every pore of my body the day you returned from Afghanistan. Not the passion of a new love, but the passion of one lost then found when hope of doing so was a long shot.”

“When we found out Bert was being held hostage by Samael, you Empathized for him, we both did. We knew what he was going through, and, worse yet, we knew what would happen as soon as the Council found out about him. I think in that moment, we must have achieved Empathy and didn’t even realize.”

“When Samael refused to leave Bert, we wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. We invited Samael back into our lives – refusing to let him hurt Bert. We both knew it might have meant sharing the rest of our lives with him. That was the right decision for the world, even though it could have meant certain death for you. So, Virtue was the pillar that Renny knew we’d achieved; she didn’t even notice that we got Empathy at the same time.”

“Once I killed Samael, I believed we’d get Trust by just trusting that he was gone forever, that we’d destroyed him. But Trust really came when both the Council and the Cabinet came together and gave their trust to us. They trusted that we would not use these new found superpowers to damage the universe or individuals’ destinies. Max – we did it.”

“So everything we had to accomplish is done?” I could feel a sadness wash over him. I could see it. It was as if the universe had finally revealed all of its secrets. I knew that the Council and Cabinet had always been, I knew that in the past there had been many like Samael – he and the rest of his kind were really gone for good.

“Don’t you see? We’re free. All the challenges we faced – we did it. Do you remember when we lived here before? That was the lifetime that we accomplished nothing, that we just basked in each other, enjoyed each other. Do you see why we’ve returned?”

Max raised his hand to my face and gently brushed his knuckles on my cheek. He looked in my eyes, deep and long, as if he hadn’t seen them in a long time. “If this is our last lifetime together, I think we should make the most of it.”

He eased his arms around me, resting his palms on the small of my back. I could feel his gentle caress on my skin, as he rested his chin on the top of my head. “How do we make time stand still?”

“I think you’re looking at this the wrong way. You’re just considering human life. When this one’s over, we won’t lose another twenty years in the next lifetime trying to find each other. We’ll never lose each other again. Our fate is tied for all time as of right now.”

“You’re right, Laruen. It is our destiny.”

The End

Thank you so much for going on this journey with me!