Page 29 of Faithless
Torr only chuckled as he poured coffee for both of us. Our food came out a short while later and we dug in, mostly quiet as we ate. None of it was terrible, but my dads definitely wouldn’t approve of the eggs. They were small, and the yolks were pale. I could imagine Jandro walking back to the kitchen himself with a lecture on how to raise chickens properly so they gave you large, nutritionally-dense eggs.
The activity in the room didn’t change much as we ate. The guy sitting at the bar left halfway through our meal. The three men at the table talked quietly among themselves as they nursed cups of coffee.
We finished our food and the whole pot of coffee without incident. Torr and I locked eyes when the bartender cleared our plates.
“Don’t say it,” Torr warned.
“Now what?” I said at the same time.
“Damn it.” He laughed and playfully kicked me under the table.
“It’s nearly noon, right? Morning’s almost over. What do we—”
The front door opened, spilling light into the room. The brightness of the outside was quickly blocked off though, by the dark figure stepping into the room.
And by the massive black wolf at their side.
Holy shit.I was too stunned to let the words leave my mouth, especially as the figure and their wolf turned toward us and headed straight for our table.
Neither Torr or I moved when the two of them paused in front of us. The figure lowered their hood, revealing herself to be a dark-haired woman. She looked to be a few years older than me, possibly in her early thirties.
“May I sit?” the woman asked in a soft voice.
“Um, sure.” She could only be the one we were waiting on, so what else could I say?
Before I could scoot on the bench to make room for her, Torr got up and gestured to his bench, offering her his seat. “You can talk to both of us easier this way.” He slid in next to me, and I was grateful for his presence at my side.
“Thank you,” the woman said politely, sliding into the free seat with all the grace and poise of a princess. Her wolf jumped onto the bench beside her and rested its head in her lap.
Looking straight at her now, it dawned on me that she was really pretty. Naturally so, yes, but she also made herself that way. Her eyebrows were perfectly shaped and filled in, and her long, curling lashes were clearly extensions. Aside from her lashes and brows, there was no hair on her face, like she even removed the soft peach fuzz that every human being had. She wore no makeup, but her face was a smooth, pristine canvas.
“My name is Gwen,” she said in that soft, polite voice. “And this is Lupa.”
The wolf lifted her head at the sound of her name, looking at her human expectantly for a moment before laying her head back down.
“I’m Aurora. I go by Rori,” I said. “This is Torrance.”
“Torr,” he said with a small wave.
“So you’re our, um, contact?” I broached.
“I suppose I am,” Gwen said with a small shrug. “Lupa brought me here. She said I would find the woman who is the light and the man who is her guard.”
Torr glanced at me, his brow furrowed in confusion and I laughed softly. “Aurora is a type of light,” I told him. “You know, like the aurora borealis?”
“The what now?”
“You know, the northern lights. Those greenish-blue lights in the sky that happen near the north pole? Those are auroras.”
“Huh,” he mused. “I never knew that.”
Aurora is also a goddess of dawn.The ancient, feminine voice trailing gently over my brain was not Astarte’s. It took me a second to realize it was Lupa, the wolf. She propped her head on the table and gave us a sweet, doggy smile.You’re touched by gods not only through your parents, child, but in your name.
Torr and I looked at each other first before glancing at Gwen across the table. “Well, I’m glad we’re not the only ones who can hear that.”
Gwen smiled, her shoulders relaxing. She’d been so poised since the moment she walked in, I hadn’t realized she’d also been stiff as well. “It’s a trip, isn’t it, when you first hear them in your head.”
“I actually believed I was hallucinating,” I admitted. “Until my mom let me know that the same thing happened to her and my dads.”
