Free Evolution (Demon's Grail Book 2) by Amy Cross Page B

start trudging toward the trees. “Sometimes you have to ignore all the grand prophecies and just focus on simple things like where to get your next meal. There'll come a time to fight spiders, but right now I need to hunt rabbits.” Stopping, I stare ahead into the darkness, and for a moment I can't help feeling the weight of history resting on my shoulders. “No,” I continue finally, turning back to Jonathan, “I can't resist. None of us can, not when it comes to destiny and fate. If the Book of Gothos says I'll die at Karakh, then I guess I'll die there. It's already sealed.”
    “The Book of Gothos doesn't say anything about me,” he points out.
    “Why would it?”
    “Patrick and Sophie were my parents too,” he points out. “It's almost as if you have this grand role carved out, and I'm surplus to requirements. Maybe whoever wrote the book understood that I'm never going to be a warrior.”
    “Yeah, well...” I pause for a moment. “You'll feel the anger in your soul eventually. I know I did, a long time ago. And when it comes... You won't be able to remember what you were like without it. You'll feel like a new person.”

Jonathan
     
    “She's tense,” Absalom mutters, watching as Abby carries her pitcher toward the river. After a moment, he turns to me. “Has she said anything to you about what's wrong?”
    “She doesn't want to talk much,” I reply. “Not since we left Jagadoon. I think maybe she's just thinking about what's to come. While she was training, she could focus on that, but now...” My voice trails off for a moment as I watch Abby in the distance, framed against the night sky as she kneels to collect water. “I think the whole situation is weighing heavily on her mind.”
    “As it should,” Absalom replies. “I guess you still don't really understand everything that's happening.”
    “Six months ago I was a librarian living a boring life in New York,” I remind him. “Now I'm sitting here far from home, far from the world I know, trying to come to terms with the idea that I'm the son of a vampire.” I pause for a moment. “While Abby was training her body at Jagadoon, I spent six months reading the Book of Gothos over and over, trying to understand it all, but I still feel just as lost. Maybe I should have joined Abby and Oncephalus and worked on becoming a warrior instead.”
    “We had to prioritize Abby. We thought...” He pauses, as if he was about to say something he'd have regretted. “You'll have a role to play soon. When we get to Gothos we'll be able to find out what's happening, the council will undoubtedly have learned more about the spiders' intentions and they'll have come up with some plans. Obviously those plans will be flawed and I'll have to fix them, but at least it's a start. To be honest, Jonathan, your existence caught us all by surprise, and so far you seem...”
    “More human than vampire?”
    “Abby reminds me of Patrick,” he continues. “I never met Sophie, your mother, but I suspect you take more after her.”
    “Abby doesn't want to talk about her at all.”
    “I'm not surprised by that,” he replies. “Sophie died not long after she gave birth to you both. Neither of you really met her, she was just the human who happened to get caught up in all of this.”
    “Is that really all she was?” I ask. “I get that Patrick was this great, powerful vampire who'd fought in a load of wars, and I get that people feared him and that he had this prophecy attached to his life. There seems to have been a lot of focus on him, but why was he drawn to Sophie? Out of all the human women he could have fallen for, why her ?”
    “Love, I suppose.”
    “Abby keeps telling me she wishes I could have met our father,” I continue, “and I do wish I'd met him, but if I had to choose between meeting either him or Sophie, I think I'd choose her.”
    “You would?” He frowns. “Why?”
    “Because I feel I can read about Patrick and know everything about