Falling Under

by Gwen Hayes

  All I had left were animal cookies, which I liked, especially the pink ones, but I was coveting the chocolate chip cookies that everyone else had. Looking at my cards, it was obvious I wasn’t going to win one in this hand either.

  “Don’t even think about it, Theia,” Haden said. His voice, still full of mischief, also sounded relaxed.

  “Think about what?”

  “I see you eyeing my chocolate chip stack.”

  “I am not,” I protested. Weakly.

  He shared a small smile with me and it spilled over my soul like sunshine poking through the clouds.

  Donny pushed two cookies into the middle of the kitchen table. “I told you we should have played for clothes, Theia. Just think, you could be eating cupcakes right now. Of course, you’d be completely naked and eating cupcakes, but at least there would be sugar involved.”

  Haden blushed again and tried to hide it behind his cards. I was used to Donny’s brassy comments and they normally didn’t bother me. When I stuck out my tongue at her, I realized they didn’t bother me in front of the company either. She inferred nakedness—my nakedness—in front of three boys, one of them Haden, and I didn’t really care. I was having too much fun.

  The kitchen seemed homier, pleasant and well lit. I brought my iPhone dock downstairs and we put Donny’s phone on it for music. The table was small for six of us, but we all crowded around it amiably. Mike and Ame were the quietest of the bunch, although part of me thought it was because Ame was putting all her energies into being a cardsharp. Gabe was really good at putting everyone at ease and keeping us joking, and he excelled at keeping Donny in line. And Haden sat next to me.

  I felt . . . happy.

  “So, Mike,” Donny began, “if you weren’t here being fleeced by Amelia, what would you be doing tonight?”

  Amelia and I leaned forward. It was an interesting question. He’d been so quiet, not really coming to life at all unless food was mentioned. He understood the trig, so he had functioning brain cells, but I couldn’t help but feel that personality-wise he was sort of like a block of tofu. He didn’t have one of his own; instead, he absorbed everyone else’s.

  Mike shrugged for an answer, and I sat back in my chair and exchanged an exasperated look with Donny. Ame, on the other hand, pinned her with a “shut up now” look, but Donny pretended not to notice.

  “What do you like to do?” Donny tried again. “Besides eat.” Because Lord knew he’d done enough of that to qualify for an Olympic event.

  “I like video games.”

  Donny waited for more words that didn’t come and then answered, “Ame can kick everybody’s ass at Call of Duty.”

  “Really?” All three boys answered, suddenly very interested in the blushing Ame. It was another of her contradictions. She was very concerned with world peace—yet she excelled at first-person shooter games.

  “I guess I picked the wrong girl,” Gabe muttered. I couldn’t see Donny’s hand, but judging from his harsh curse, she pinched him under the table.

  Mike looked at Amelia a little longer than usual, the skin above his nose creasing like maybe he was surprised to see her or something. She looked over her cards at him and smiled shyly.

  I wondered if that was all it would take.

  Another deal. Another bad deal for me. I folded. Again. And after Haden put his last cupcake in, he leaned towards me with a chocolate chip cookie between his fingers.

  I leaned towards him too, as if we were alone in a room full of people. “Are you teasing me?”

  Our faces were very close and he smiled, completely unguarded and without a whiff of his sardonic attitude. “I feel sorry for you is all.”

  I took the cookie, and even though we didn’t touch each other, a brush of our hands couldn’t have felt more electric.

  “Dude, you can’t give her your cookies,” complained Mike.

  I took a quick bite before anyone made me give it back.

  “Cheater,” Mike teased.

  “You’re going to ruin it for the rest of us, man,” said Gabe, looking directly at Donny. “Now they’re all going to expect to be coddled.”

  Donny rolled her eyes and raised him another cookie.

  By the end of the hand, everyone conceded that Amelia was by far the best of us. With our admission of not being worthy, she granted each of us a cupcake, since she’d won them all.

  I couldn’t remember having a better time while I listened to Gabe and Haden discuss baseball as they cleaned the kitchen. Mike, still a little clueless if you asked me, and Amelia had sunroom duty, and Donny came with me to put the music away.

  “The sneetches are growing on me,” Donny said, flopping on my bed. “I feel so dirty.”

  “How do you think Ame and Mike are getting on?” I asked.

  “He’s a little . . . slow on the uptake. I’m not sure I understand the draw.”

  I had to agree, unfortunately. “What do you think of Haden?”

  “Honestly?” She stood and walked to the door.

  I held my breath.

  “He’s out of my league. I can’t get a handle on the guy. Sometimes he seems so into you, and other times he’s . . . sort of the Antichrist.”

  “That about sums him up,” I agreed, joining her.

  We got to the stairs and she stopped me. “How do you feel about him? That’s the important thing.”

  I shrugged. “Up is down. Down is up.”

  “And that means . . . ?”

  “I’m probably half in love with a boy I don’t really like.”

  Donny nodded. I had a feeling she understood exactly what I was saying.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It shouldn’t have been surprising to wake up someplace other than my bed, but it always surprised me nonetheless.

  “I have to admit, the trollop dress was becoming, but I find your virginal nightgown pushes the blood through my veins with greater force.”

  I rewarded Haden with a sidelong glance. No longer dressed in his jeans, he seemed older again in his Regency-era finery. And he definitely didn’t have the shy-boy look in his eyes anymore. He was back to his devious self, yet a sadness tinged him.

  “Thank you,” I replied, as though it was a compliment and not a poke at my always apparent bashfulness. If I was completely honest with myself, I’d worn the gown a little bit on purpose. I could have gone to sleep in sweatpants and combat boots—but I chose to continue wearing the nightgown.

  I took in my surroundings. The riverbank again, I decided, though instead of sunshine, twilight cast a bluish lens to the scenery. “The river is beautiful.”

  “Is it?” He raked a hand through his thick hair. He was at odds again. “It’s called Fleuve des Larmes. It’s a river of tears, lamb, the tears of mothers. You’ll notice it never recedes from the banks, as there is always plenty of misery to feed it. A never-ending bounty of pain has always been bestowed upon mothers.”

  I inhaled sharply at his description.

  “My world is no place for you, Theia.”

  Straightening my spine, I put aside the anguished look on his face and persevered. “Tell me about the night you fell from the sky.”

  Haden’s dark eyes flashed. “I wish you’d never seen that.” He closed his eyes against the unwanted memory, but we both knew he still saw it. We both did.

  “I gave you the afternoon, Haden. It’s past time that you explained everything to me. I deserve to know what is going on. I know there are billions of things I don’t understand about where I am right now as opposed to where we were this afternoon. And I know, for you and me, it started with you falling from the sky.”

  As if to show I had all the time in the world, I eased onto my side, bending my elbow and propping my head on my hand.

  Resigned but not defeated, he lowered himself to the ground in front of me. “It was a penance of sorts. For coming to your realm. The first time a person goes through the veil that separates our worlds, they burn. And now there will be another kind of penance
, only I fear it’s you who will pay the price.”

  A shiver coursed down my spine. “What is my price?”

  Haden shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s why I hoped you’d stay away.”

  “Why didn’t I burn the first time I came here?”

  “You’re not really here. You know that.”

  I shook my head. “The roses . . . my stained nightgown . . . if I’m not here . . .”

  “You’re going to have to suspend your disbelief enough to accept that your body is not here, but you are. It doesn’t fit the parameters of the science you know and understand from your world—it barely fits the parameters of what I understand from mine. We’re not supposed to be able to be here together, but we are. Sometimes the lines that separate our realms must bleed a little to allow for it. I guess that’s why you can keep the roses.”

  I sighed. “All right. I’ll try to understand that I’ll never fully understand that. But why . . . Why do you . . . Why are you so . . . whenever we get close . . . ?”

  He interrupted me. “I thought if I pushed you far enough, perhaps you’d be safe.”

  Pushed me far enough. Is that what he did when he kissed that girl’s neck so that I felt the sensation of his lips without the reward of his affection? “Haden, you pushed me away only after you drew me to you—time and again.”

  “I never claimed to be very good at staying away,” he agreed. “I need to get better at it, though.”

  “Why?”

  “My original purpose, the errand that brought me into your universe, is of very dark origins. The closer we become, the more embroiled in my future I fear you are. I won’t have that.”

  The sound of the rolling river filled the silence while I gathered courage to ask what he seemed unwilling to divulge, knowing that at the heart of it he’d just told me he didn’t want me in his future. On a shaky exhale, I asked, “What is your errand?”

  He squeezed his eyes and his face tightened. “I’m to fetch a bride. A human bride.”

  My heart clutched. A bride. That’s how all gothic fairy tales end, with a girl in white. And of course he didn’t want me.

  “You should take greater care with your thoughts. One can read them easily just by watching your face. I have already told you that I want you, lamb. Not abducting you to the underworld as my kidnapped bride is not a rejection, though I can see you take it as one.”

  My mind stopped trying to process and just halted all thought. “This is the underworld?”

  “Part of it, yes.”

  “And you are going to abduct a human . . . bride?”

  “Again, yes.”

  “What does that make you, then, Haden?”

  “Why, I suppose that makes me a monster, Theia.” He paused. “I came to your realm to take you.”

  It should have been no surprise. Either he was from a world I didn’t understand or my mental health was in jeopardy. In either case, no good would come of the night I watched the burning man fall from the sky.

  He wished he could show her the memory of the very first time he’d laid eyes upon her. A random moment, his window to her world, and yet it had pierced his excuse for a soul as if it were destiny. As if she were his destiny. A thousand times he’d looked through the realms, but one glimpse had forever changed their paths.

  And now, she reclined on the grass before him, pure and heavenly. Like a treat, a present to open, an offering, while his blood hummed with unspeakable urges.

  But beneath his appetite, a yearning for more than just slaking his thirst thrived despite all reason. He would give his life for her. To ensure her safety, her happiness, her soul.

  God only knew which compulsion would be stronger in the end.

  His eyes darkened and his gaze intensified, causing an answering flutter deep in my belly. My thoughts scattered just when I needed to be most vigilant. Closing my eyes against the onslaught of his stare, I hoped to regain the balance I would need to get some answers, tangible ones.

  With my eyes still closed, Haden told me, “My father was human, but my mother is . . . not.” He took a breath. “She’s a demon.”

  My eyes opened like a snapped shade. “Demon?”

  He looked away sheepishly, embarrassed by his heritage.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m half demon. And I live in the underworld. And you’re smack-dab in the middle of it. How does waking up sound now?”

  I shook my head numbly. “No, tell me what it really means.”

  “I don’t know what it means.” He reached to pull a blade of grass from my hair. “I belong to neither world, yet I’m pulled to both. Demons by nature don’t have a large range of emotions. We’re impulsive and egocentric. Some have stronger . . . issues than others. My human capacity for human emotion coupled with my demon capacity for . . . Let’s just say demons aren’t known for controlling their urges. It’s a bad combination. Very, very bad.”

  “The school bell.”

  “Aye, the school bell. I didn’t even know I was doing it at first.” He looked to the clouds for answers. “You gave Mike your number and I saw red, Theia. I didn’t consciously set the hell noise into motion; it just erupted from my fury.” Haden hung his head in shame. “So many people hurt because of me.”

  Before he could stop me, I touched his arm. The feel of his skin on my fingertips was electric. He flinched, but I grabbed his forearm and held. We stared at the place where our skin met and his chest heaved.

  “I wish you hadn’t done that,” he said simply, and yet the world hadn’t come crashing down around us. “My feelings for you, lamb . . . I swear I never want to hurt you, but I don’t know how to rein myself in. The jealousy, the joy, the lust . . . one second of heedlessness and I could ruin us both, destroying everything and everyone around us.”

  He was obviously shaken, and I knew he wanted me to understand and to agree with him. Of course, finding out he was part demon should have sent me scurrying for the nearest exit. Whatever he was or wasn’t, underneath, at his core, he was a scared boy. A human boy. One who didn’t understand his own emotions any better than I understood mine.

  “Do you have . . . a tail?”

  He chuckled. “No.”

  “Horns?” I winced, but he shook his head. “Scales?”

  He pressed his fingers to my lips, the first time he’d willingly touched me. “No cloven feet, no discolored skin, or strange appendages of any sort.”

  “Fangs, then?”

  “No,” he said on a laugh.

  “Then what makes you demon . . . ish?”

  “Aside from the fact that I live in a realm of hell, you mean?”

  “Yes, aside from that.” I rolled my eyes. He was trying my patience, and it wasn’t nice. After all, I wasn’t the one who dropped the demon bomb into the conversation; the least he could have done was give me a reasonable explanation. “I obviously knew you were different, Haden. Prior to today, the word ‘demon’ meant something else to me.”

  “My demonic attributes are all on the inside, love. I employ the Lure to draw others to me.”

  He didn’t need to explain what the Lure was. His intoxicating, spicy scent, the promise of sin in his chocolate eyes, the sculpted muscular shape of his frame—he was the embodiment of enticement. The way he incited a maelstrom of reckless need throughout my body. So, I was a plaything, like the other girls.

  “The Lure is our weapon of choice. Humans cannot resist the temptation, you see. My kind don’t resort to violence or bloodshed. We get what we need by offering ourselves.”

  “What do your kind need, Haden?” The air was so thick, like it was humid with meaning instead of moisture.

  Haden stroked my cheek lightly, his gentleness contrasting with his dangerous words. “Our power is fed by your kind. Your energy . . . your essence . . . eventually, your soul.”

  His magic, what he called the Lure, ribboned around me, smooth as satin yet taut and strong. I rested my cheek in his hand and brea
thed in the temptation he offered, my essence no longer my concern. When Haden touched me, I felt a peace I’d never known before. I suppose there were worse ways to go, yet it rankled that I was neither the first nor the last for him. That I was simply one of the masses and not special.

  Soup du jour.

  Though I was clearly drowning, words formed and were spoken. “How do you feed?”

  He spoke softly, leaning into me and murmuring into my hair. As if we were ordinary lovers, stealing a moment along the bank of a river, and not a demon stealing the soul of an innocent on a grassy knoll in hell. “We take what’s offered through touch—intimate caresses and kissing, but mostly—” He faltered and then his hand stroked my arm. “My mother is a type of succubus. Do you know what that is?”

  “No,” I whispered. Being so close to him was intoxicating.

  “She’s a sex demon. She . . .”

  “I get it.” I didn’t want to hear about sex demons. I wished he would lie down next to me and pull me into his arms. I wanted to be surrounded, with no escape. “Are you going to . . . ?”

  Picking up my hand, he kissed my knuckles, his features full of mischief. “No, lamb. No, I’m not going feed from you.”

  So, I wasn’t the same as all the other girls after all. I was found lacking.

  “Your eyes are burning holes into my flesh, Theia. You would rather I let loose the demon and devour you?” His words were menacing, yet his tone was teasing and playful.

  No.

  Yes.

  His face changed. A mask of Haden briefly took its place and I shrank away. Uncomfortable static buzzed between us, a precursor to imminent high voltage. Like yesterday, when he looked at Amelia, and the other day in the courtyard with Noelle and Brittany. Not like the electrical charge I usually felt around him. Instead, it grated on my nerves, making me nauseated. I edged away from him. Then just as quickly, it was gone. Haden smiled brightly, himself again.