The Powerful Pride of an Immortal (Immortal Supers Book 4), Kurtis Eckstein [books to read for self improvement .TXT] 📗

Or else, Lily needed to give Heidi a reason to stay. A way for it to work for her too.

Lily couldn’t decide which was worse.

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Sam Archer

April 13, 2735 – 3 Hours Later – Early Evening

I took a deep breath as I slowly chopped up the bell peppers in front of me, my focus mostly internal, my mind elsewhere. I was currently making dinner for everyone, getting everything ready to bake some enchiladas – Heidi’s favorite. Yet I was pretty much maneuvering the knife on autopilot.

I had so much on my mind right now.

Technically, I should be thrilled, since it appeared the impossible had really happened – Lily could heal now. Like, faster than Heidi even, Lily could heal.

That was a huge deal! It was a miracle!

And even though I hadn’t been given access to my superpower evaluation yet, I knew it could only mean one thing – when I was in Lily’s body, I brought my regeneration superpower with me, and when I returned to my own body, I left it behind.

Of course, I was still a regenerator myself, but that implied that I’d given Lily a superpower she wasn’t born with. As if in preparation for my astral form to take over a new body, I’d modified hers to become my new vessel, with me ultimately leaving it in better condition than I’d found it when I returned to my own body.

The implications were mind-boggling.

And also kind of scary, because my eyes might imply something too. That I would end up with her problem in the near future. And what if I lacked the same control she’d spent over a year developing? What if I accidentally burned someone, or worse?

And yet, all that wasn’t even the worst of what was on my mind right now.

For one, three days ago had been a close one with Lexi. Too close. After Nick left, she just assumed that I wasn’t going to accept her offer, getting down to more serious business – not literally…unfortunately – and I managed to keep my mouth shut.

It was a major problem, because the line between friend and lover was really starting to blur with both of the Stockton sisters, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Like, holding hands for example. Platonic friends of the opposite sex really didn’t do that kind of thing, and yet I’d gotten pretty comfortable doing so whenever it seemed appropriate. Or just allowing it to happen, whenever my hand was taken by either of them.

Granted, Heidi had been kind of distant for the last few days, and I had no idea why. I figured that fixing her one of her favorite meals might help cheer her up a little. And if not, maybe I’d take the time later to sit down and talk with her. Make sure everything was going alright.

Of course, that just exacerbated the primary problem.

I cared about them.

Probably more than I should. And I also wanted them. Really bad.

But, even that wasn’t the worst of my concerns right now, because an entirely different issue had come up not even a few hours ago.

A call from Dr. Hawthorne…

About Eden’s DNA…

She was mine of course. That wasn’t the problem. And of course, she wasn’t biologically linked to Freya, even though it was her egg and her body that allowed Eden to come into the world a second time.

However, her DNA wasn’t natural.

It was just as artificial as Rose’s, being about half mine, a little less than half from her actual mother – my previous wife – and something like nine percent from an unknown source.

Dammit, how was this possible?!

My little girl wasn’t created in a lab!

And yet, the evidence suggested otherwise. Even though I knew for a fact my previous wife carried Eden for the full nine months, from beginning to end, and even though she was definitely my kid biologically, the evidence suggested she didn’t originate naturally.

She was an experiment, just like Rose was an experiment.

Shit.

Dr. Hawthorne found out sooner than today, but waited to call us for a few reasons. First, he got busy with other things, so he put Eden’s medical record stuff off for a few days. In a normal situation, he would have signed and had everything filed to the state by the end of the day, but because of our unique circumstances, he intended on taking a closer look at everything, including Eden’s DNA.

After all, Freya would go down as her mother, but wouldn’t be genetically her mother, so investigating Eden’s DNA in detail was a must, as well as determining the best way to handle possibly fabricating an artificial code. Not to mention, Eden would supposedly be a seven-year-old in less than a year, which meant we had to fabricate her birth year to match what her age would be.

But now what?

What did this mean? What did it imply? How was it possible?

So many questions.

Ultimately, there wasn’t anything we could do about the situation, and I definitely didn’t want to talk about it with anyone right now, so Freya and Lily had given me my space. I wasn’t sure Lexi or Heidi knew yet, but I suspected they’d find out soon enough.

In the end, it didn’t change how I felt about my kids. I still loved them the same. But it did cause me a lot of anxiety knowing someone created them behind my back. I mean, did my wife know? Surely not. But then, did she go in for a checkup, only to have a rogue doctor do something to her?

Even with technology back then, that kind of thing might be theoretically possible. Nanomachines or something used to genetically modify an embryo or whatever.

Dammit.

Movement in the corner of my eye prompted me to focus my second-sight toward the stairs, seeing Heidi coming down, wearing ripped jeans, a shiny gold sequins top, and some pretty heavy makeup around the eyes.

Damn, she looked hot.

The amount of makeup she was wearing seemed a