Dark Awakening: Echoes of Destiny (The Children Of The Gods #88)

71. Drova

71

DROVA

D rova paced the length of her living room, feeling like a caged animal.

She'd never liked being cooped up in the house, and now it was a virtual prison.

With the windows and sliding door open, she could hear the distant sounds of celebration from the village square. The laughter and music carried on the afternoon breeze, taunting her with what she was missing.

With a frustrated sigh, she stepped out into the backyard. The ground was cool beneath her bare feet, but as she neared the fence, the cuff on her wrist began to vibrate, growing warm against her skin.

"Fuck," she cursed, retreating back toward the house.

The buzz subsided, but the irritation remained, bubbling just beneath the surface of her skin.

Back inside, Drova flopped onto the couch, her eyes drawn to the clock on the wall. The entire village was at the welcome party for the prince, celebrating the arrival of Ell-rom and Morelle, Annani's siblings from her father's side.

They were proof that the legends about the Kra-ell crown princess falling in love with the gods' crown prince had been true. Grudgingly, Drova had to admit that the love story between the rebels was romantic.

The Kra-ell weren't supposed to believe in romance or love other than the love for the tribe, the queen, and the Mother of All Life, but it was such bullshit that she couldn't believe generations of Kra-ell had accepted it as fact.

She'd felt the stirrings of love, and it wasn't just lusting or like or curiosity.

She was in love with Pavel, and his indifference hurt like the desolation of the Valley of the Shamed.

After what she had done to him, the chances that he would ever think of her as a possible partner had turned from slim to none.

According to Kra-ell tradition, she could invite him to her bed, and he would be obligated to accept her invitation, but that wasn't what she wanted. Despite all of her talk of the Kra-ell living their traditional lives, Drova didn't approve of their antiquated breeding practices.

Sex was more than just for making babies, and seeing her mother with Phinas had opened her mind to the possibility of having just one chosen partner, instead of selecting several interchangeable males and never letting herself feel deeply for any of them.

At the sound of the doorbell ringing, Drova frowned, wondering who it could be. Surely not her mother or Phinas because they would just come in, and anyone looking for them knew that they were at the celebration.

As she walked over to the door, she was ready to snap at the idiot who'd come looking for her mother, but as she opened it and saw Pavel, the words died on her lips.

He stood on her doorstep, a bottle of vodka in one hand, cranberry juice in the other, and a conspiratorial grin on his handsome face.

"What are you doing here?" Drova looked pointedly at the booze.

Her mother didn't mind if she drank a little, but Pavel still thought that she was a little girl, so his showing up with vodka didn't add up.

He shrugged, holding up the bottles. "I came to keep you company."

No way . Not after what she had done to him.

"Why are you being nice to me after I told you to eat dirt?"

"You came back and told me to stop." He lifted the bottles again. "Are you going to let me in, or should I find myself a different drinking buddy?"

After a moment's hesitation, Drova stepped aside and motioned for Pavel to enter. She watched him warily as he made his way to the kitchen, setting the bottles on the counter and rummaging through the cabinets for glasses.

"You know," Pavel said, his back to her as he poured the drinks, "what you did wasn't cool. But I forgive you. You came to me hoping for help, and I told you to turn yourself in. That wasn't what you were expecting, and you were disappointed. People do stupid things when they're backed into a corner."

Drova leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. "Is that supposed to be an apology? Because it sounds more like an accusation."

Pavel turned, offering her a glass. "It's neither. It's just an observation. Here, drink up. You look like you could use it."

Drova accepted the glass and took a sip, enjoying the burn of the vodka that was tempered by the sweetness of the cranberry juice. "Why are you here, Pavel? Shouldn't you be at the party with your buddies, checking out the prince?"

Pavel shrugged, taking a drink from his own glass. "Parties aren't really my scene. I don't like crowds, and I can't eat their food, so what's the point, right?"

He walked into the living room and sat on the couch. When she followed and sat on the opposite side, an awkward silence fell between them, broken only by the clink of ice in their glasses.

Finally, Drova spoke. "For what it's worth, I am sorry for doing that to you."

Pavel nodded. "You are very powerful."

So that was why he was there. He finally realized what she'd been trying to tell him. "Yes, I am, and my power is still growing. That's why I have this." She lifted the wrist with the cuff. "They don't want me to roam the village freely and compel people to do whatever I want them to do. Anyone who comes to the house will be told to wear the compulsion-filtering earpieces."

Suddenly noticing that Pavel's long hair was loose around his shoulders and not tied at the back the way it usually was, Drova narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you wearing them now?"

"I am," he admitted. "But I'm glad that you didn't try anything before you knew."

She pinned him with a hard stare. "So, this visit was a test?"

"Yes." He took a sip from his drink. "I want us to be friends, Drova, but I needed to find out first if I can trust you. Friends don't mess with each other's minds."

Drova swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. "Are we friends, Pavel?"

He shrugged. "It's up to you. I like you, but you still need to prove yourself to me."

She snorted. "You will never trust me completely. I'm Igor's daughter. Until today, you didn't know that I'd inherited his powers, so you were willing to let me hang around, but now that you know I'm just like him, can you ever consider me your friend?"

His expression turned serious. "You are nothing like him, Drova. And I want to make sure that you never turn into another Igor. I think you are a good person, but you are still very young, and you need to surround yourself with people who will keep you in check so you don't get drunk on power. Your mother is a good influence, but she is not enough. You need someone you can talk to who will not judge you and instead help you examine your beliefs."

What he was offering was precisely what she craved. In fact, it made her suspicious.

"Can you read minds?"

He chuckled. "I can't, but I'm very good at reading people. You look desperate for someone to listen to you. That's what I'm here for."

It irked to hear him say that she was desperate for anything, but Drova couldn't deny the truth. Besides, Pavel was offering to spend a lot of time with her, and she wasn't going to say no to that.

"Thank you. I appreciate your offer, and I accept it."

"Excellent." He pushed to his feet and walked over to the kitchen counter where he had left the two bottles he'd brought.

Drova's glass was still mostly full, and she took another small sip before putting it back on the coffee table. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." He put the bottles on the table and sat down.

"You and your buddies have been talking about the same things that are bothering me, but when I tried to raise awareness of our discontent, you were alarmed and accused me of being stupid. Why?"

He sighed. "Because we shouldn't rebel against the people who saved our sorry asses, offered us a choice of how and where we wanted to live, and who have accepted us into their community. even though everything about us is alien to them."

"They needed us for protection." Drova picked up her glass.

"That's how they justified it to themselves. It doesn't make them the villains. When we spit in their faces and do harm to their community, it makes us the villains."

Drova felt her cheeks getting warm. "None of what I have done was serious."

He lifted a brow. "That's why you are under house arrest instead of in a cell in the dungeon."

Imagining herself locked up behind bars, Drova barely suppressed a shiver. "So, what was all that talk you and your friends engaged in? Was it just shooting the breeze?"

"No." He poured himself a new drink. "We were discussing options for our future, and while doing that, we were talking about all the things we didn't like about life in the village. I'm sorry if you got the impression that we wanted to rebel against the immortals. That was never on the table. We just want to come up with a good solution for everyone."

Drova swirled the remnants of her drink. "So, what's your grand plan? Do we just forget who we are, what makes us Kra-ell?"

Pavel shook his head. "It's not about forgetting. It's about adapting. Finding a way to honor our past while embracing our future. We can take the best of our traditions, the core of who we are, and find new ways to express it that fit with the situation we're in now."