Theon grimaced with a kind of sorrow. “Perhaps we cannot wait to be allowed on a date with one another. Perhaps tonight is as long as we can possibly wait.”
I stared at him blankly. “Theon.” I made my voice as dire as I could.
He drew a deep breath and slowly exhaled. I expected him to meet my eyes, but he closed his instead. “What if I told you that your reality is not as it seems? Nell… Do you know how I did not know the word ‘ambulance’?”
I shook my head, staring at him.
Theon continued, “My not knowing the word ‘ambulance’ is like you not knowing the word ‘harpy.’ Although a crucial term in certain circumstances, it is such a small, small element of the world at large.”
I laughed under my breath, though nothing was funny. “So, what, are you telling me all the conspiracy theorists have been right? The President really does have a shapeshifter in the Secret Service? There really is an underground race of cave-dwelling reptiles which infiltrated the central banks and now control the country’s economy?”
“No; that’s ridiculous.” His expression darkened. “These beings from other worlds have no need to dally with your social structure. Trust that we have our own problems without inventing new ones in strange lands.”
These beings from other worlds. And… and… and “we.”
My heart rampaged in my chest. I was beginning to feel cold again. Very cold.
“For the millionth time, Theon…” I took in a shuddering breath and attempted to rein in the looming panic attack. “What are you talking about?”
He scooped me up into his arms and I yelped with surprise. When he strode toward the back ledge of the cliff, I clawed at his shoulder in a near panic; the steep slope must have been at least thirty feet of rocks. Even with full use of my hands and an uncompromised center of balance, I would be nervous descending, but Theon dropped gracefully from one rock to the next. I felt like I was on the verge of vomiting just watching by the time he landed on the sandy shore at its base.
“I can show you.”
Chapter 23: Nell
For some reason, I’d expected Theon to continue walking until he reached a carriage drawn by harpies and chauffeured by a merman in a top hat. That was the world I was starting to expect of him. But his car, hidden behind a knot of weeds and sand, was a silver Honda. He should’ve at least been driving something outrageously expensive, or maybe a motorcycle, but a Honda? It was so… normal.
“You’ll have to forgive me if I ask any questions,” Theon said, stepping to my side of the vehicle and opening its door. He gestured, and I ducked inside. “I’ve never driven here before, and I’m still getting the hang of it.”
We drove onto the central strip of Beggar’s Hole, not far from the Emporium at Shoreside and Goose Pond. My jaw dropped as he hung a right into the parking deck of Broadline Towers. Nothing was more surreal than Theon Aena, born of Iphras and prince of some island called The Hearthlands, renting a freaking Honda and owning a studio apartment at Broadline Towers, which featured cookie-cutter balconies for all their guests and tiny slivers of manicured lawn.
I was staring so hard, I started when Theon appeared at my side and opened the door for me.
“You can tell me if you need me to stop.” Theon placed one warm palm on the tattered shoulder of my plaid coat. I climbed from my seat. “It is a lot. You don’t need to prove anything to me. You can just say when it’s too much.”
“You calm me down, you make me nervous. It turns out you have a Honda and an apartment; it almost makes me feel like you’re already a liar.” My fingers went to my temples; I realized I’d come to a halt, and Theon had turned to address me. “Because you have this magic pendant thing. And you can just—show up when I need you. And you can just skip down a dangerous mountainside while you hold me. And what were you doing in that cave? And how are you so hot all of the damn time?” I meant that on so many levels.
“I can’t answer all those questions in a row like that. Don’t you remember? When the stakes are high, it’s wise to go slowly?”
I cocked my head to the side, but I nodded. I supposed, if the answers to all my questions were really worthy of individual paradigm shifts, it would be smart to let Theon steer the conversation. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go. You lead.”
Theon wrapped his arm around me and we moved up the wide marble steps of the complex. He pulled the glass door open for me, and we traveled inside to the elevator. I was confused by how pedestrian this all was… and beginning to really worry about how I should react if he ended up being—if this was all—
What if he just had an apartment full of glow-in-the-dark posters of mushrooms and bongs? Or worse, what if his place was filled with dangling scarves and primitive statues and the aroma of incense, but a closer examination of the décor revealed it to be made in China? Purchased at IKEA? And he was just… certifiably insane? Maybe I was just a victim of some sympathetic delusion. Was it only a shared psychosis effect which had caused me to “see” a hallucination of Theon in the crystal?
We traipsed to a door with the number 521 on it. I held my breath. What was behind this door would determine the rest of our relationship.
Theon slid in his key, turned the knob, and gestured for me to enter.
I stepped onto the threshold and let out my breath.
It was everything from my nightmares. Posters of heavy-metal bands. A jewelry tree with dangling pendants of pentagrams and brass knuckles, the kind of things a rebellious fifteen-year-old would wear. The furniture had beer stains on it; there was an ashtray on an end table, and the pervasive odor of cigarettes. A rack of shoes in one corner displayed tattered skater shoes and platform boots in black latex. It was gothic with a vague undertone of witchcraft, like the Ouija board erected on the wall. Even worse, the furniture was all generic. A couch, two end tables, an island in the kitchenette. There was a distinct feminine feel to the color scheme, as well. Teal scarves were knotted around the burgundy drapes. An abstract statue of ebony depicting lovemaking. My stomach crawled.
“I thought you were visiting America.” My voice shook slightly and I cleared my throat. “Are you staying? Do you live here now?”
“No,” Theon answered simply. “This is very temporary.” He closed the front door and strode behind me, stripping the jacket from off my back. He hung it on his coat rack. “Considering the development with the harpies, maybe even more temporary than I had thought.”
“So you’re just on one of their ‘very temporary’ leases?”
“No. This domicile has been loaned to me by an interested third party. She didn’t want me to be staying in a cave all this time. It would be very dangerous and insecure, she said.”
“Who is—” My eyes fell to the photo collage pinned with magnets to the door of the fridge. A dark-haired woman with piercing green eyes and a garish red mouth grinned back at me like a skeleton. I was going to throw up. “So random women just give their apartments to you? I can’t believe my dad was right.”
“Your father?” Theon’s brow furrowed and his eyes glinted with anger. “The same man who accused me of being a charlatan?”
“That’s what you are, isn’t it?” Tears budded in my eyes. God, why was I crying so much lately? I had never allowed myself to cry like this before. Dad was right: I would grow up. I would realize that things were complicated. People hurt each other. People lied. “Do you really expect me to buy that you’re some prince—from The Hearthlands, which, by the way, don’t exist—and that you were living in a cave, until some random chick just gave you her house keys?”
I moved to bolt from the premises, sickened by my own stupidity, but Theon snatched my arm and pulled me back. I shrieked as an electrical pulse of pain moved through my entire body and buckled my knees.
Chapter 24: Nell
“What happened?” Theon asked me, staring down at where his hand was still connected to my arm.
“I don’t know, just let me go,” I pleaded, shaking his h
and off of my throbbing arm.
Theon released me from his grip and I crumpled to the floor. He knelt beside me and examined where he had touched me. There was a gaping tear in the fabric of my sweater dress from the talons of the… the bird. They hadn’t been harpies. They’d been large birds, explicable…
“You didn’t tell me she’d electrocuted you,” Theon whispered. “I can see it now. The wound is changing.”
My eyes swung to meet his. No, no, no. Not more harpy talk.
But Theon had already narrowed his eyes and dug his fingers into the hole in my sleeve, ripping the entire sleeve away. And he was right. It was expanding. What had once been a puncture wound now more closely resembled blood poisoning. Dark threads wove their way down my arm and over my shoulder. How was it possible that it was infected so fast?
“I have to get to a hospital. They’ll give me antibiotics. We have to go now.”
But Theon shook his head. “You don’t need “antibiotics” for this. This wound is psychic in nature. It’s attacking your minor chakras now, and will migrate to the major ones next.”
My jaw went slack. He sounded just like Zada.
“Theon. I need. To get. To a hospital. This is serious!” There aren’t even words for how over this date is. I can’t believe that Dad was right about him! Augh!
Theon nodded, still as calm as ever. “I understand,” he said. “Allow me to just try something. Believe me when I say that I’ve seen marks like these before.”
He pulled my arm out in front of us, as if we were on the verge of performing a very gentle tango, and applied his lips to it. My eyes widened. Exactly what type of healing was this?
Still, the pain began waning, and I exhaled, allowing his strange magic to do its work. The heat crept down my arm, swirling and concentrating at certain pressure points. I let him go on, my breath hitching at the occasional flick of his tongue, and then came the realization that no marks had even spread so far as he’d gone. I closed my eyes and gave in to it anyway. It felt good, and in my own stupid way, I trusted him to do the right thing. I trusted him to not hurt me.
I opened my eyes and blinked away the euphoria. When he pulled his lips away—ending with a series of kisses around the mark, blowing on it at times, and then down my entire arm, where the scar had extended—he had a dazed look in his eyes. The drugged headiness to my thoughts made me feel that I probably mirrored his expression.
“Where else did she get you?” he asked.
Wordless, I tugged my cowl-necked sweater dress to the side and revealed my shoulder. His eyes widened, though it was too near my neck for me to be able to make out much of the damage. I could only see dark red tendrils creeping onto the top of my breast.
We made steady eye contact until he descended, and I found that not being able to see him increased my arousal twofold. I shuddered as his lips whispered over my collarbone and crept along my neck, almost into my hair. My eyelashes fluttered and I rocked with vertigo at the increasing, intense heat of his healing touch.
After several seconds just staring breathlessly, my eyes flashed down to my arm and then widened. The strange scar had vanished, leaving behind no trace save the puncture wound, which had been… physical? Again as before, something rejected the notion.
“What did you do to me?” I wondered dizzily. “How did you do that?”
Theon glanced away. “Everyone has talents.”
I frowned at him. “What?”
“You know, some people are born with a genetic predisposition toward certain skills,” he continued, unable to look at me.
“Theon… Are you trying to tell me that you’re genetically predisposed to having magical kisses? Like there’s some hinge in the double-helix reserved for psychic lips, and you scored all the necessary ancestors to procure some?”
He looked at me briefly, but then away again. “I think you’re a woman of exceptional intelligence, Penelope. Deep down, you understand the relevance. When the stakes are high, it’s best to go slowly, right?”
“You can’t keep using that line.”
“You really want the truth like that? You really want it just spoken to you simply?”
“Yes,” I answered emphatically, even though this wasn’t exactly true.
“Fine.” Theon nodded, and licked his lips. “I’ll tell you the truth, then.”
Chapter 25: Nell
“There are other… dimensions,” Theon said, his voice thick and clear, as if he was having a vulnerable and emotional conversation. “They are entire worlds that run parallel to Earth, and intersect at certain points on the planet.”
I glared at Theon and seriously considered leaving immediately. “Okay. So let’s say that you’re right. Let’s say that there are other dimensions with other worlds, and they’re accessible at certain vertices. Fine. Sure. What does that have to do with—?”
I was going to blurt “you,” but the word jammed. All the puzzle pieces fell into place in the most horrible crescendo I had ever experienced.
He’d been in the cave because why the hell not? If parallel universes were real, and people were freely traveling to our planet from—from harpy planets, then why not chill in a cave during your vacation to Earth? After all, they didn’t know what we considered a vacation. Perhaps in whatever planet Theon was from, lighting a fire in a cave was an excellent excursion.
He wore fur vests because why the hell not? He didn’t understand the word “ambulance,” though he understood many simpler words, because he spoke Bleep Bloop, or whatever language from his home planet.
The guy I like is seriously telling me he’s an alien from another planet.
“So… so… your people just breathe hot air onto wounds and they heal? They’re who you come from? Some kind of kiss healer, is that what you are?” My voice hit a hysterical pitch. I scrambled up from where I had stayed seated.
“It is a lot to handle,” he explained, as if I was the crazy one. He climbed to his feet in one slow, graceful motion, and I shunted away the deep-down belief that he was something special, something different. Not human? “We can stop, if you’d like.”
I shook my head and hot tears budded in my eyes. I cupped my mouth with both hands, afraid I might make some stupid gasping noise. I just couldn’t accept this. He was insane, and he was trying to drag me into his spiral. Maybe he even had some mocked-up “evidence” of his claims used to trick countless women into fawning over the gorgeous prince from outer space, or wherever. This guy I had liked so much… had turned out to be a total creep. Why hadn’t the red flags come up sooner? Dad had seen it right away.
“I do want to stop. I want to stop talking. I want to stop… being here. I want to stop thinking about you. I want to stop wasting my Christmas holiday with some kind of con artist.” I whirled and marched toward the coat rack to collect my things.
Theon sprang after me, though he didn’t attempt to hinder my exit, thank God. I was already shaky enough as it was, and the last thing I needed was to feel his body heat radiating into me.
“Nell,” he said. “Please don’t go.” I didn’t turn around. I snatched my jacket from off the brass pole and jerked my arms through each of the sleeves with particular savagery. “If you just relax, you will see that what I am saying is no cause for alarm. We don’t intend to harm anyone. I am merely searching for the proper queen.”
“Augh, would you stop?” I exclaimed. “You’re not making this any better. A prince from another planet, who traveled here through some portal, now filming his own remake of The Bachelor? Come on! That’s just ridiculous. I suppose I’m intended to be your lucky bride tonight, huh? What, were you going to sweep me up into your arms, carry me into the bedroom, and make tender yet strategically premarital love to me on top of some stupid tie-dyed sheets, while we listen to”—I gestured around the room to all the horrible bands his other girlfriend—his real girlfriend, probably—so proudly displayed—“Cradle of freaking Filth?”
Theon frowned. “I’m confused. A
re you angry because of a hesitancy to allow critical data to enter into your concept of the universe, or are you angry because of how the abode is decorated?” A smile broke, and I found myself furious at my own urge to return the expression. He placed his hands on my arms. “I assure you that our castle is nothing like this place.”
Our… castle.
“I’m sure it’s not,” I muttered. I stepped away from him and his hands slid from my body. I broke eye contact. “I’m sure your home planet—The Hearthlands, didn’t you call it?—is populated by griffins and unicorns, and the only thing you have more than waterfalls are roses. I want to go.” I couldn’t stand to listen to any more. I just felt more and more sick to my stomach, more and more humiliated at my own mistake. “I’m sorry, Theon, but I can’t do this.” I waved my hands in the air as if to pantomime his story unfolding in the clouds. “I can’t participate in this—weird roleplaying thing you’re doing. I like regular, normal guys.”
Theon cocked his head and stepped closer. “Do you?” he whispered.
I lost my tongue for a moment and forgot why I was upset. For just a moment, the word “no” hung on my lips, and I wanted nothing more than for them to be crushed against his. I forgot his insane speech and vividly remembered the pulsation of our first kiss. I shook my head and cleared the steam from it. “Let me go.”
Theon stared down at me sadly, and then he fell back a step. His heat receded. I took a small step backward myself. “I’m going to go.”
Theon swallowed but nodded. “Then go.” His eyes flashed, but he indicated the door with a sweep of one hand. “Please.”
I stared at him, waiting, though I wasn’t sure for what. “Okay.” With that, I turned and strode toward the front door.
“I want you to be safe. If you won’t go with me, would you accept the ferry of another?”
“Oh, my God, I’ll be fine,” I grumbled, pulling the door open. Bitter cold infiltrated the apartment. “I’ll call a cab.”
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