“What kind of difference?”
“In how you felt about me. You admitted that part of my charm might have been the fact that I couldn’t die.”
“Yeah,” Max said with a long, deep sigh, his arms tight around her. “I’ve thought a lot about that. What it all comes down to, though, is that love is a risk, plain and simple. And everybody has to die someday. I mean, everybody’s human.”
“Even vampires can die,” Kristina said, thinking of a story her mother had once told her, about the original vampires. They’d called themselves the Brotherhood and had become blood-drinkers on the island continent of Atlantis, while participating in a scientific experiment. They had grown weary, after many thousands of years, and willed their own deaths.
Max raised himself on one elbow and looked down at her. “Really? How? Do they have to be shot with a silver bullet?”
Kristina didn’t laugh, though the thought was ludicrous enough to provoke a certain grim amusement. “That’s werewolves, and I don’t even know if it’s true, because I’ve never encountered one. Vampires must have blood, of course, and they can be killed by fire, by sunlight, and by having a stake driven through their hearts, just like in the movies. They have one other known vulnerability as well—the blood of warlocks is poisonous to them. Given a sufficient dose, they will slip into something resembling a coma and gradually die of starvation.” She stroked his cheek, where a five o’clock shadow had sprouted. “Can’t we talk about something else?”
“I’m sorry,” Max said. “I should have left the subject alone.” He touched the tip of her nose. “Are you hungry? Believe it or not, they have room service in this place. No doubt everything comes by dogsled.”
Kristina laughed. “Hungry? After that dinner your mother served today? I may never need to eat again!”
“Well,” Max said, resting on his elbows, “I’m starved.” Kristina fell back with a groan and pulled the covers over her head, and Max reached for the phone on the bedside table and called the restaurant in the lodge. She was hiding in the bathroom—up to her chin in bubbles in an old claw-foot tub actually—when his late-night snack was delivered.
He joined her, after dispensing with the food, a devilish glint shimmering in his eyes. With a growl, he flung off his robe, which came with the room, and stepped into the bath, nearly causing the water to overflow.
They made love again, there in the tub, and got the floor so wet in the process that Kristina figured the bathroom would be a skating rink by morning, if they let the fire go out.
Eliette liked staying at her grandparents’ house. She enjoyed sleeping in the room that had been her daddy’s once, and still had some of his things in it. She liked floating boats on the duck pond, though she and Bree weren’t allowed to go near it unless an adult was with them. She especially liked all the sounds—people talking quietly in a nearby room, soft music playing somewhere, the creaks and squeaks as the old house settled itself for a winter’s night. In the morning there would still be a crowd, but just like always, Grandmother and Gramps would belong only to her and Bree, for that special Friday.
They would start by going out to breakfast, just the four of them. Even Daddy wasn’t invited on those outings, or Aunt Gweneth. Bree and Eliette could order anything they wanted to eat—even a chocolate sundae or a com dog, if they chose—but they always picked scrambled eggs and orange juice and waffles.
Then, once they were all full, they would get back into Grandmother’s Volvo—Gramps didn’t drive anymore because he had a disease in his eyes, and every year it was harder for him to see—and drive to a big mall called South Center. There they went into practically every store, choosing presents for their daddy, for Aunt Gweneth and Aunt Elaine and their Arizona grandparents, Molly and Jim. They even bought stuff for each other, one going off to shop with Grandmother while the other went with Gramps.
They’d have lunch then—they usually went to a Mexican place close to the mall—and in the afternoon they saw a movie.
By the time they got back to the big brick house, they always had lots of packages, and Gramps always took a long nap before dinner. Grandmother ordered out, then sat down in her favorite chair and put her feet up, sipping tea and dozing a little. Bree and Eliette were usually pretty tired, too, but they were too excited to sleep. After supper, though, and their baths, they would barely get into their pajamas before they crashed.
Eliette smiled, just to think about it. It was so much fun.
She closed her eyes, willing herself to drift off. In the twin bed across from hers, Bree was sound asleep. But she was smiling, too.
Eliette snuggled down deeper in the covers. It was a cold night, and the weather man had said it might snow. That was relatively rare in Seattle, and Eliette hoped there would be such a deluge that they wouldn’t have school again until after Christmas.
Fat chance.
Thinking about Christmas made her think about the awful brass monkey Aunt Gweneth had bought for Daddy at the flea market. It was already wrapped, first in bright red paper and then in that heavy brown stuff, and tucked away on a shelf in one of the cabinets in their garage. On Christmas Eve, Aunt Gweneth said, Santa Claus would bring it inside and put it under the tree.
Eliette made a face. She didn’t like the monkey any more than Bree did; it was ugly, and besides, it gave her a creepy feeling. She didn’t regard herself as a sneaky sort of kid, but if that doorstop thingy had been handy just then, she might have carried it out and dumped it in the duck pond.
“Kristina can’t do magic anymore,” Bree said from the other bed, startling Eliette. She’d been convinced her sister was asleep.
“That’s okay,” Eliette answered, feeling the need to put in a good word for the ordinary. “Most people can’t anyway.”
“Do you like her?”
Eliette considered. “Yeah. Do you?”
Bree nodded; it was a good thing Eliette was looking. Half the time the kid just assumed you could hear her shaking her head. “She’s going to go away, though, so I guess I’d better not like her too much.”
Eliette felt alarmed. Ever since her mom had died, she’d been trying to make herself stop needing people, but it hadn’t worked very well. “What makes you say a silly thing like that?”
“An angel told me.”
Eliette made a contemptuous sound. “Angels don’t go around delivering messages, like Federal Express or somebody.”
“Yes, they do,” Bree insisted. “Grandmother told me that’s what the word angel means—a messenger. And I saw one.”
“Okay,” Eliette scoffed. “When did you see this angel? And what did it look like?”
“Not it—she. She was pretty, like one of those dolls nobody wants you to touch. She had yellow hair and blue eyes and a ruffly dress with lots of lace trimming. I saw her the night Kristina came to stay in our guest room, when I got up to go to the bathroom.”
Eliette felt a chill. Angels were scary, as far as she was concerned. “You ate too much pumpkin pie,” she said. “Either that, or you’ve been dreaming. Or both.”
“No,” Bree insisted. “She was real. She told me she had a sister, too.”
Eliette sighed, but she pulled the covers up to her chin at the same time. “This angel really had a lot to say, it seems to me. On top of all this, she told you Kristina was going away?”
“To marry a king,” Bree said with awe and not a little sorrow.
Eliette felt sad, too. She hadn’t wanted Kristina around at first, but lately she’d been counting on her staying and marrying Daddy and being their stepmother. “I don’t want her to go,” she said.
“Me, neither,” Bree answered. “But grown-ups do what they want to.”
Eliette nodded. That was certainly true enough. Some adults didn’t even seem to see little kids; it was as though they were invisible or something. But Kristina wasn’t like that—she noticed people, whether they were big or small—and if she went away, Eliette would miss her more than she cared to a
dmit.
She was getting really tired, because it had been a long day. Thanksgiving always was, she thought. When a person got to be seven, they started to see a pattern in things like that.
“Go to sleep,” she said to Bree. “We’ve got to get up early.”
Bree yawned loudly. “I’m going to buy Kristina something really beautiful. Then, even if she marries that king, she’ll remember us.”
Eliette’s throat felt tight. She gulped and let her eyes drift half closed. After a few moments she thought she saw a blond angel through her thick lashes, standing at the foot of the bed and smiling. She was just as Bree had described her, but in a blink she was gone.
Eliette told herself she was dreaming and soon enough, she truly was.
In the morning Max and Kristina ate a room-service breakfast in bed, made love, then got dressed and went outside into a fresh fall of snow. They made snow angels and flung balls of the stuff at each other and laughed like kids. They didn’t go inside until they were breathless and so cold that their feet and hands were numb.
They made love again and then slept, warm and sated.
That evening, after having dinner in the lodge restaurant, they joined half a dozen other guests for a sleigh ride over perfect, moon-washed snow. It was a magical experience, and Kristina thought she would remember the singular music of the horses’ harness bells for the rest of her life.
It was an idyllic weekend, but it went by very fast, as such interludes always do. On Sunday night they sat together on the rug in front of the fireplace in their cabin, the room still resonating faintly with the power of their lovemaking, like a concert hall after a great symphony has been played.
Max took Kristina’s hand, and she knew the moment had arrived, that the enchantment was over, the spell broken.
He said her name, running his thumb lightly over her knuckles. Then he whispered, “Marry me.”
She looked away in a useless attempt to hide the tears that burned in her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to marry Max Kilcarragh, but she dare not accept his proposal. She had already pledged her life, perhaps her very soul, to another.
Max caught her chin in his hand and made her look at him, though gently. With the pad of his thumb, he smoothed away the tears, then touched her lower lip, leaving behind the taste of salt. “Was that a ‘no’?”
“I can’t,” Kristina whispered. It was agony to say the words, to turn down her greatest desire, her shining dream.
He let his forehead rest against hers for a moment, and his broad shoulders moved in a great sigh that broke Kristina’s already fractured heart.
“Because?” Max prompted.
“Because I’m going to be Dathan’s mate.”
He stared at her. “The warlock?”
Kristina only nodded. There was no point in explaining. Max pushed to his feet, abandoning her, ripping himself away. “You came here and slept with me, knowing that? That you were going straight from my bed to his?” Kristina could not speak. She merely nodded again.
Max began gathering their things, his motions wild, furious, full of hurt, and Kristina offered no protest, no words of consolation. There was nothing to be said.
79
Kristina and Max had left their cozy cabin at the mountain lodge far behind before either of them spoke. The atmosphere in the Blazer was thick with tension, and a fresh snowfall enclosed them in white gloom.
“Why didn’t you just leave me alone in the first place?” Max ground out. He didn’t look at her; understandably, he was keeping his eyes on the slippery, treacherous road.
Kristina bit her lower lip for a moment before answering. She wanted to cry—no, to sob and wail—but somehow she held onto her composure. “You make it sound as though I sought you out and deliberately led you on. I was in love with you, Max—and I always will be.”
The sound he made was low and contemptuous. “And all along you intended to mate with that—thing.”
A shiver moved down Kristina’s spine, and it had nothing to do with the cold that had somehow settled in the marrow of her bones, despite the Blazer’s more than adequate heating system. It was dangerous to speak of creatures like Dathan in such a desultory way, especially for Max. The warlock was already jealous of him.
“It wasn’t like that at all,” she said evenly. There was no way to assuage Max’s pain, or her own, but she owed him some kind of explanation. Even though anything she might say would probably only serve to deepen his sense of betrayal.
The snow was blinding now, and traffic slowed to a crawl, then a full stop before Max replied. “What was it like, then?”
A state trooper approached the driver’s side, and Max rolled down the window. Kristina held her tongue.
“Sorry, folks,” the policeman told them, shivering but genial. “The pass is closed. You’ll have to turn back and find a place to wait out the storm.” Through the weather-fogged windshield, Kristina saw other cars making U-turns and heading in the opposite direction. Soon enough, Max and Kristina were going that way, too.
“Great,” Max murmured. “Couldn’t you just zap us back to Seattle or something?”
Kristina folded her arms and blinked back tears. “You know I can’t,” she said, shrinking into the seat.
Max reached for his cell phone and punched a single button. A moment later he was talking. “Hi, Mom—it’s Max. Listen, the pass is closed, so we aren’t going to make it back tonight. Will you explain to the girls? And be sure they understand that everything is okay?” There was a brief pause, then Max smiled, and the expression bruised Kristina’s heart somehow because it wasn’t, might never be, directed at her. “Thanks, Mom. See you.”
The cordiality was gone from Max’s voice and manner when he glanced at Kristina, after replacing the cell phone in its little plastic bracket on the dashboard. “I guess we’re stuck with each other, for tonight at least.”
Kristina pretended to be looking out the passenger window and quickly dashed at her tears with the back of one hand. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t have to spend the night in the Blazer, with so many people turning back,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t hear the slight sniffle she hadn’t been able to disguise.
They were lucky, as it turned out. Their room at the mountain lodge had not yet been rented, though the whole place was full.
Kristina sensed the fine hand of Valerian, or perhaps her mother, at work, but mental efforts to summon either of them met with resounding failure. With their help she and Max could have been, as he’d put it, “zapped” back to Seattle.
Max carried the bags back in and rebuilt the fire. The bed had not been made up, since they’d left the lodge well past check-out time.
“I meant it when I said I loved you,” Kristina said, huddling inside her coat and staying very near the door, as if to bolt. It was a silly urge, she soon realized—after all, where could she go? Besides, this wasn’t Michael she was dealing with, it was Max, her beloved, sensible, mentally healthy Max. No matter how angry he might be, or how hurt, she had nothing to fear from him.
He turned from the hearth and rose, shedding his ski jacket and tossing it aside. “Call it off, Kristina,” he said, his dark gaze holding hers. “If you mean what you say, then tell the warlock there won’t be a wedding.”
Kristina flushed. “I can’t,” she said, wishing with everything inside her, everything she was and would ever be, that she could. “I promised.”
“Break your promise.”
She shook her head. She could not tell him, even now, why she had made her heinous bargain with Dathan—to save Eliette and Bree from possession. That was worth whatever she might have to suffer in consequence of the pact and, as much as she longed to be free to marry Max instead, she hoped with all her soul that the warlock would succeed.
“At least tell me why,” Max said. He went to the service bar and rummaged for a beer and a diet cola.
At last Kristina removed her coat and crossed the room to accept the can of soda, wh
ich Max knew she preferred over every beverage except water and herbal tea.
“You were right,” Kristina conceded miserably, “when you said I should never have let things get started between us in the first place. I can’t begin to explain the kind of danger I’ve put you in, not to mention your children. I’m doing this to protect you, Max, all of you—and that’s all I can or will say about it.”
He sighed and shoved his free hand through his hair. “Doesn’t it matter that we love each other?”
She sat down in one of the chairs near the hearth, still feeling chilled, and Max perched on the arm. “Of course it matters. It’s the whole reason we have to say good-bye.” Kristina raised her eyes to his face. There was one thing she had to tell him, even though he probably wouldn’t believe her. “We were in love once before,” she said very softly. “A long time ago. It was a star-crossed match, just like now.”
Max’s brow furrowed into a frown. The hurt was still plainly visible in his eyes, but he was calmer than before. “I think I’d remember that,” he said, sounding bewildered.
Kristina smiled, though her heart was breaking, falling apart bit by fragile, splintered bit. “Not necessarily. Your name wasn’t Max Kilcarragh then—it was Gilbert Bradford. You were the Duke of Cheltingham, Michael’s elder brother.”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “Reincarnation?”
“Sort of. It’s really more complicated than that. Time is not linear, so human beings actually exist in all their various incarnations at once. They’re usually not aware of it, of course.”
Max set the beer aside. “I was—am—Gilbert? The good guy?”
Kristina laughed. “Yes. And probably a lot of other people, too.”
He frowned. “Is this what Albert Einstein was talking about with his theory of relativity?”
“In a way,” she agreed.
Max was silent, absorbing it all.
Kristina took a sip of her diet cola, wishing it were something stronger, a potion capable of quelling the terrible heartbreak she felt. “It would seem,” she said carefully, “that we simply aren’t destined to be together.” The next part was one of the most difficult things she had ever had to say. “Very likely, Sandy is your true mate, for all of time.”
The Black Rose Chronicles Page 120