Chapter 4
Who sucked in the loudest breath? Ranko or me? Grandma Sto all but jumped and clapped her hands faster, and small yips of delight flowed from her. Why the woman was so thrilled about the twist to my life contorted my mind.
“Grandma, stop it.” Ranko’s harshness caught us all off guard and actually worked. Earned him a one-eyed death glare that only a parental figure could give, though.
“Boy, I will still turn you over my knee.”
“Sorry, Grandma Sto, but this is all too much.”
All too much? Understatement and half. The cloud told me he was my biological father. Could a cloud be a father?
“Who are you?” Ranko moved in front of me, pressing in on me, all but knocking me down. Wouldn’t have taken much. My legs felt like jelly wobbling around on a spoon after being extracted from its jar.
“Where is Jilyss?” The voice asked again.
“My sister died six years ago. Who are you?” Uncle Lal’s voice held his typical choked-up sound when Mom’s name was mentioned.
“Why did I not feel her death? I should have. She was mine. I was hers.”
She was mine. I was hers. What the heck did that mean? Mom never belonged to anyone. Not even my Dad. She would have kicked his Succubus’ ass if he dared tell someone she did.
“You lie,” Rannko said, “you do not know my Mother.”
“You are her family. I know that, because I knew each of you when I allowed my Chosen to continue her life among her world.”
Continue her life? The guy made no sense. He spoke as if he owned my Mom. Mom never would have gone for any of this. And Ranko was right. This . . . This . . . THING had to be lying.
“You are no one.” I found my voice.
“Son, you stand there as if you are in a cloud of mist when I am the mist.”
“I’m afraid you are right, whoever you are.” Grandma Sto’s voice still held little girl giggles, but the bouncing had ceased. “My daughter never spoke of what happened those few days she went missing.”
“Mom went missing?” I shifted my attention to Ranko. “When was this?”
“Right around your conception.” Grandma Sto supplied. “When she returned, she secluded herself in her and your Dad’s room and only allowed me in.”
“Is this true, Ranko?”
Ranko’s steady gaze answered me more than his words did. “Yes. Dad was beside himself until Grandma Stol managed to get Mom to speak to him. When he came back out, it was with Mom at his side, and she held the most beautiful glow. It was as if she was back to her normal self. Dad instructed each of us to never ask her about what took place and to never mention it again. We did as told. It was reinforced when you came along and then again when you became older and realized you were different than the rest of us.”
“What did you do to my mom?” I spun, trying to find someone to face, but there was nothing but gray mist. A cloudish figure.
“Sweet, Sweet Jilyss, was my Chosen. Our time together was amazing. I am sure she would say the same, but her heart truly belonged to another, and I knew that. But I had responsibilities to my kind, as she did hers.” The cloud reshaped itself into a face with downward-slanted cheeks and huge sunken-in eyes. “We made an agreement and parted ways, but I never forgot her. Never regretted my decision to let her go, but I knew it was what made her the happiest, which made it easier for me. I never expected to find that our son would not know about me. Or that I would have failed to notice she was in danger. What happened to my Sweet, Sweet Jilyss?”
I didn’t want to know the answer to what lurked inside my mind, but I still asked the question anyway. “You speak of responsibilities; what was yours?”
“My son had been prophesied to be the fulfiller of the Moloch Prophecy.” Great. I’d been a bargaining chip. My birth father needed me, and Mom wanted to return to the family she had and loved. I was nothing more than a bargaining chip to the future for him and a way back to what she longed for.
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