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I also hadn’t had the opportunity to take my bag with me when Hecate dragged me onto the night road, meaning my cell phone and wallet were back in Shreveport with the boys.
This night kept getting better and better.
“You said my dad sent you, but my dad died eighteen months ago.”
As if this guy didn’t know. He had to know. Demis had special powers; they had gifts. “Julian?”
Leo nodded, crossing his muscular arms over the broad expanse of his chest. My attention was briefly diverted. Seth made unfairly beautiful children.
“Leo, you know Julian wasn’t your real dad, right?”
Not that I’d ever doubted Seth was his father, but when I said this, Leo’s eyes darkened, clouding from light gray to a stormy-charcoal shade. “Get out of my house.” He yanked open the bathroom door, letting a wave of cool air waft in.
“You know, though. You must know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about or who you are, but you don’t get to come in here and tell me my father wasn’t my father. Get out.” He grabbed my arm roughly and dragged me back into his bedroom, and kept hauling me through his apartment until we reached the front door. Before he could toss me on the street, I hurled myself at the door, leaning my whole weight against it to at least temporarily block him from getting the thing open.
He took a look at me, all of five-foot-seven and a hundred and thirty pounds, and gave a derisive snort.
“Yeah, okay, dude, I get it. You can move me. But first can you listen?”
“Suddenly you want to talk? I asked who you were in the bathroom, and you just avoided my questions.” He shook his head in two violent jerks of the chin. “Now you can go willingly, or you can go hard. I can tell you you’re not going to like the second option.”
Oh, so we were threatening now?
Bring it, son.
“I am Tallulah Corentine. I am the North American Rain Chaser, disciple of Seth. I control storms, and so help me gods if you ever threaten me again, I will shove a lightning bolt so far up your ass you’ll be sneezing pure energy for a month. Am. I. Clear?”
Now he was listening and no longer trying to get by me.
“Seth?” h
e asked.
“Your father.”
He took a step back, looking dizzy, and braced himself with a hand against the wall. “My father’s name was Julian.”
I shook my head, relaxing slightly now that I knew he wasn’t going to forcibly remove me from the apartment. The last thing I’d expected was that I’d need to play therapist and explain to Leo who his real father was. Demis usually knew.
Where was Sido when I needed her? Who better to explain the situation than Leo’s own half-sister and someone who knew what it was like to have a god for a parent? I had parents I hadn’t seen in twenty years. The only reason I knew they were still alive was because the temple sent them a gift every year on my birthday as thanks for providing them a new Rain Chaser.
I didn’t know if they wanted to see me or if they tried to communicate with me. All interaction between temple brats and their former families was forbidden. Guess they worried we’d go rogue and abandon our positions if we knew our parents missed us or something.
Or maybe they didn’t care. Maybe they were glad to be rid of us.
Either way I didn’t know how to empathize with what Leo was feeling right now. I had no frame of reference for this kind of emotional wallop.
“I assumed you knew.” I touched his bare arm tentatively, assuming he would pull away, but instead he leaned into my palm, still braced against the hallway wall.
“Are you trying to tell me the god of the storm is my father?”
Gently squeezing his biceps, I confirmed his statement with a nod. “He had a relationship with your mother. You were the result.”
“I’m thirty-two years old.” His voice had a faint, pained wheeze to it. “Why am I only finding this out now? Why…why are you telling me?”
No kidding, right? Who better to break potentially life-altering news to you than a complete stranger who appeared in your apartment without warning?
