by Eve Langlais
What did it mean? What could she learn?
Slowly, carefully, she swung her legs out from under a thick comforter until they dangled over the edge of the bed. The nightgown she wore rucked around her thighs. When she stood, she noted how long it was, given only her toes peeked out from below the hem.
A real nightgown, the filmy type that billowed around her frame and covered her neck to ankle.
There was no carpet on the floor, and while she expected the stone to be chilly, when her bare feet hit it, she found it warm to the touch. Curious, she padded around the room, exploring, touching the newels of the bed, their tall spires carved with intricate vines and flowers, the wood whorled with texture. The wardrobe opened at her tug and showed itself full of garments, their colors almost jarring.
Were these truly all her things? She might have wondered longer until her gaze fell upon something. Folded on a shelf were clothes she recognized. The white tunic and leggings she’d worn so many times before in her nightmare. And there were her boots.
This really is my room.
She shut the doors to the wardrobe and leaned on them. Where to next?
She explored a narrow arch covered in a curtain and found a washroom, the cushioned seat with a hole underneath obvious. The shower with warm water a pleasant surprise. The next door she tried opened onto a vast hall lined with doors, ending with a window at one end and what appeared to be a staircase railing at the other.
Hearing voices, she ducked her head back in.
I lived in a castle? Ludicrous, surely, yet how else was she imagining all these things? Exploring further, one of the drawers in her nightstand revealed a jar of lotion and a dagger. A book was in the other, the cover blank, the leather worn and smooth. Inside the journal, more blankness as each page showed itself to be pristine.
Talk about creating more questions than answers.
Was this truly a real memory or wishful thinking?
Adara took slow steps over to the window. Intrigued about what she’d see. Afraid, too.
She peeked between the drapes and squinted at the bright light. Even then, she could see the violet-hued sky of her dream. This was the same place.
It turned out the window was actually a door to a balcony. With a hesitant step, she set foot outside and moved until she gripped the thick, stone rail. She needed that banister to hold on. Her head spun, her limbs trembled. It might have been the fact that she was several stories high. Or the crisp air.
But most likely, it had to do with the fact that she looked upon a fairytale city.
Gossamer light minarets speared the sky. Golden castles glistened. Silver ones sparkled. Impossible structures stacked and balanced in contrast to the rules of gravity.
In the air, creatures with wings that were translucent coasted and soared, their bodies that of miniature humans with bright hair and chirping voices.
“Where am I?”
“Somewhere you should not be, Forsaken One.”
An invisible force sucked at her, and she yelped, her fingers digging into the rail. A vortex at her rear yanked, and while she clawed, she lost the battle. The vacuum pulled her into a dark and cold place that stole her breath. It lasted entirely too long, long enough for her to cry out, “Why? Leave me alone.” As if this were a signal, she found herself spat out onto a gray, empty plain.
She refused to cower and stood, twirling to look for whoever had dragged her here. She found no one because she was back in part of her nightmare. The nothing place where she hid when the torture got too bad.
Except she wasn’t being tortured this time. She’d actually been remembering things. Her past. And yet something worked against her. Something—more likely someone—didn’t want her recovering her memories.
Adara shouted her defiance. “You can’t keep me ignorant forever. I will find out the truth.”
Words whispered back. “Forget the past. There is no future for the Forsaken.”
“Bullshit.” She yelled Logan’s favorite term. Was it her, or did the nothingness recoil at the vulgarity? “Whatever happened to me wasn’t my fault.”
“All your fault. You chose to break the rules. You suffered the consequences.”
“Is this about my lover?” The faceless being, the one she’d gone to meet that fateful day. “Am I being punished because we weren’t married? Because, if that’s the case, get with the times. Sex is a natural thing.”
“Aieeeeee.” The strange scream pierced the very air around her and, all of a sudden, Adara could hear many voices, shocked and whispering.
“Does she not grasp the crime?”
“She doesn’t repent.”
“Oh, for the shame of it all.”
“Stop that,” Adara cried, pressing her hands to her ears.
But the whispers kept going.
“Still a whore.”
“Why won’t she die?”
“Perhaps we should have killed her.”
“Shut up,” she yelled, spinning in circles, looking for the voices. The nothingness taunted even as their words kept coming. Blaming, shaming. “Stop it!”
The shrillness of it snapped her out of that gray place. She found herself sitting up in bed, a real bed this time. A sheen of sweat coated her skin. Her heart still pounded. The anguish of those who would condemn her followed.
She moaned. When will it ever stop?
She hugged herself and took in a shuddering breath. She was safe. She was in her room at Titus’s. The white and gold décor familiar and comforting.
No one could hurt her here.
The past was—
“Dearest, are you injured?” A disheveled Titus burst into the room, his hair not even close to coiffed, his upper body bare, his lower barely covered by hip-hugging track pants.
“Titus?” A puzzled note to the word. “Did I wake you?”
Realizing there was no danger, he dropped his fighting stance and tried to recapture his usual suaveness.
“I heard you cry out.”
“It was a dream. I didn’t realize I was being loud. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I wouldn’t want you to suffer alone.”
“You need your rest.”
“Perhaps it was fortuitous that you woke me. We have much to do.”
She flopped onto her pillows. “I guess.”
“Care to discuss what happened? I am sensing there was something different this time.”
How did he know? “It was different. It started as a flashback of my old room.”
“Are you sure it was yours?” He drew closer, interest in his gaze.
“Fairly sure. The detail…” She paused. “It felt so familiar. And real.”
“Did you recognize where you were? Did you look out a window and spot any landmarks?”
She sighed. “Know of any fairytale cities under a purple sky?”
“So the same world as the field.” He remembered that detail from the times he’d joined her in the dream.
“Yes, it was the same place.” She sat up and held out her arms. “I got a glance outside and saw a city. A huge one. So many buildings, some defying the laws of gravity.”
“Did you see any people?”
Should she tell him of the tiny fairies? Were they even real?
She shook her head. “I didn’t have time. Something yanked me out and tossed me into the gray plain. Said I wasn’t allowed to remember.”
“A trap on your memories?”
She shrugged. “I guess.” An apt explanation, even if it raised more questions. Why was someone so determined that she forget?
“The closer you get to the truth, the harder it fights to hide it.”
“Doesn’t feel like I’m getting closer.” Adara’s lips turned down. “I’m tired of fighting. I just want to remember who I am and go back to being myself.”
“In a few hours, we should have part of that wish granted.”
Titus’s words reminded her of his promise. The one to remove the tie binding them. But would
it be as easy as he claimed? “Will it really work? You know Logan doesn’t think it will.”
“More like the dog hopes it won’t. Logan would prefer to keep the mark between you.”
“He might prefer it, but he still agreed to let me remove it.”
“Because he knows, like I know, that you’re safer tied to us.”
Adara’s nose wrinkled. “How do you figure that?”
“We can protect you.”
“Really?” she drawled, and then, even knowing it was mean, she reminded him, “Hasn’t really worked all that well thus far.”
“Because you refuse to fully let us in. If you’d only let us truly join with you, and open yourself—”
“Then you’d know my every thought.” She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“As you wish. But even without the mark, we will continue to care for you.”
“Even though it’s dangerous for you both,” she countered.
“How many times do we need to reiterate our willingness to face that danger?”
“About as many times as I need to say I don’t want you to be facing it.”
Titus sighed. “So stubborn.”
“You are stubborn like your father,” a female voice said on a laughed memory, quickly heard then fading.
Adara closed her eyes and let out a shuddering breath. Immediately, the mattress at her side dipped, and cold fingers ran across her flushed features.
“Are you unwell, dearest?”
She turned her face into the hand cupping her cheek. “I’m alive.” Not really an answer.
“Yes, you are.” Titus’s thumb, the pad of it smooth, stroked her cheek.
“Are you alive?” Adara asked, opening her eyes to meet his serious blue gaze.
“Do I seem alive?”
“Yes, but Logan calls you undead.”
“Does this feel dead to you?”
He leaned close enough to press his lips against hers, a cool embrace to her heated flesh. A tingling sensation swept through her, and she didn’t immediately draw away. He took that as permission to slant his mouth over hers, a feather-light embrace that made her heart beat faster.
“Am I interrupting?” The snarled words by Logan brought a gasp, and the kiss was broken. Titus rose slowly, his lips curved into a pleased smile that only seemed to further taunt Logan’s scowl from where he stood in the doorway.
“Logan.” Adara stopped speaking after uttering his name because what could she say that would take the anger from him? There was no excuse. It had just happened.
It meant nothing.
Everything.
If she were truthful, this moment had been coming since she and Titus first met.
But the even more confusing truth was complicated. Despite Adara’s feelings for Titus, she knew the kiss could have just as easily happened with Logan. With her mouth still tingling, she was tempted to see what would happen if they kissed.
Would it make things clearer?
Or just worsen the confusion.
Chapter Sixteen
A smugness took hold of Titus and only got stronger the more Logan bristled.
The cocky wolf had thought himself the favored one with Adara. About time he realized that Adara might want something more than a primal beast who sometimes wore civilized clothes.
I am a man of culture. Experience. Manners and wealth.
He could offer Adara much more than Logan.
And no, he didn’t care to examine why he felt so strongly about Adara. From the moment he’d first heard her crying out, he’d found himself drawn. The more he knew of her, the more his fascination grew.
This despite the fact that she’d changed since that first encounter. When they initially met, she’d been fragile and broken. Titus’s instinct, which went against his vampiric nature, was to protect.
Which he’d failed at. The necromancer had captured Adara and hurt her, leaving Titus with only one choice: save her by binding them.
In doing so, Adara had changed. Not because of his blood or Logan’s. Titus saw no signs that their tainted essence had taken root in Adara. What did happen was that she’d begun to shed her timid exterior and rely more on herself. She’d taken a stand. Grew a backbone. Began to face her fears and conquer them.
The Adara now wasn’t the same woman he’d initially met. Yet that only made his feelings stronger.
Now, while he wanted to protect Adara, he also understood that he had to step away and give her the room she needed to find herself.
Because Adara needed to find out who she was.
He could wait while she went on that quest. He just wanted to be her friend while it happened. Lover would be better. The kiss gave him hope it might one day happen.
The embrace, however, had also driven a bit of a wedge between him and his adversary for her affections.
Logan simmered.
Adara, sensing his agitation, had withdrawn, and her tenseness showed in the jerkiness of her motions.
She prepared herself as if going to battle. Sitting down with grim determination to a meal Titus insisted on. He’d already eaten—from a cup. While he’d taken it from the vein the other night, it had left him feeling dissatisfied. The meals he met were vapid. Unappealing. They didn’t quench his hunger. Yet the person he wished to press his lips against wouldn’t allow it yet.
Patience.
When you lived for eons, moments passed by quickly.
Only once Adara was fed, bathed, and clothed, did they finally make plans to depart to meet with Madame Poulin. Titus chose to have Stefan drive them—mostly because having him near meant keeping an eye on him.
The large car had two rows of seats facing each other. Allowing Adara to enter first meant she chose to sit in the middle of the rear-facing seat.
A challenge.
Titus tucked onto the opposing seat, thigh almost touching the other door.
After a quick glance at the situation, Logan chose the seat opposite Adara as well, hugging the other side.
She pressed her hands on her knees, and a faint smirk quirked her lips. “Tell me more about this person we’re going to see.”
“Madame Poulin.”
“And you trust her?” Adara prompted with a sharp glance.
“Trust is a strong word.”
Logan snickered. “And that would be a no.”
At the claim, Titus shrugged. “No, I don’t trust her completely. She’s a witch who likes to play games. A trait of the old ones.”
“How old?” Adara asked.
“Very. Although, she no longer uses her previous name.” Because immortals long ago learned that to remain undetected meant dying every so often and starting again.
“What was her old name? Would I know it?” she prompted.
“Perhaps. Baba Yaga was pretty well known.” The Slavic sorceress had many quirks, as well. Some of which she couldn’t seem to shake. Such as the appearance of her store.
When the car drew to a stop outside the shop, Logan snorted. “You can’t be serious? This is where we’re going?”
Even Adara appeared a tad perturbed given she sucked on her lower lip. “Are you sure this is the place?” she asked.
Titus could understand the hesitation. A witch of Baba’s power shouldn’t have to resort to over-the-top décor. The design was utterly ridiculous, and yet uniquely Baba’s.
History books often spoke of how Baba Yaga’s home sat upon chicken legs. Even in these modern times, her store sat on stilts painted to appear as the fowl’s appendages down to the concrete-formed toes at the base. The wooden shack atop was shaped like a bowl, with a chimney that leaned, again just as the stories that claimed she favored a mortar and pestle for travel.
The front of the store flashed a neon sign—Madame Poulin’s Magical Supplies. Its green color matched the bright arrows on each step leading up to the front door.
“This is tacky,” Adara noted.
“Smells bad, too.” Logan’s nose flared.
“It gets worse inside.” The only warning Titus offered as they reached the top of the stairs and the door swung inwards with a tinkle of bells.
Scents washed out, almost too many to decipher. Having been here before, Titus recognized some of them. From reptile parts—skin being popular—to things decaying—because potion recipes just loved body parts. And then there were the herbs that tickled the nose and made even a vampire want to sneeze.
None of it was harmful, just a bit much to take in. Once the smell was overcome, the eyes were attacked next.
The inside of the shop proved just as eclectic as the outside. The tight space was crammed with every imaginable thing a witch might need. Bottles with labels slapped on them contained eye of newt, mermaid’s tears, ash of a phoenix, and more. Stiff bunches of herbs hung in bundles from the rafters, the leaves dry and ready to crinkle. Potted plants offered fresh spices and added even more smells to the mix. Bins of crystals lined one wall, more than fifty different types, the colors ranging beyond the primary ones in a rainbow.
An old-fashioned till, the kind with keys that required punching, sat atop an old kitchen table, its Formica top scratched and chipped in places. Behind the wobbly surface on a rocking chair, sat a crone wrapped in a shawl, jaw moving as she ground her gums.
She offered them a rheumy gaze. “Evening to the lords and the lady. Welcome to Madame’s shop. We have a sale today only on toads’ balls. Buy five, get the sixth free.”
Adara’s nose wrinkled. “Gross.”
The crone cackled. “Not gross at all, sweet girl. Tasty. A delicacy sure to make any male potent. Although, I don’t think you’ll have an issue there.” Lips smacked in appreciation as the old lady ogled Logan and then Titus.
Slimy as it felt, Titus knew better than to react. Baba Yaga liked to play.
“Madame, it is a pleasure to see you again.” The last time was over a century ago, and he would have preferred it took longer.
“If it isn’t the snob.” Madame sneered and showed yellowed teeth outlined in black. “What happened to ‘I’ll see you burn in hell before I return?’”
“Hell didn’t want you,” he quipped.