Secrets of the Starcrossed

by Clara O'Connor

  His dark eyes narrowed.

  “I’m not saying it to…” I sighed. “I realised what it was and I only had a tiny amount. I’m in my right mind. And my right mind is telling me this might be our last chance. Our only chance.”

  Please.

  He swayed. Actually swayed and then he pulled me to him once more in a kiss that was deeper and stronger than any drug.

  “Thank you,” I gasped as he moved to that corner where my neck met my shoulder and my eyelids closed as my head fell back.

  He pulled back to look at me, but before I started to panic that he was going to say no again his hands started moving up under my top, cupping my breasts, teasing the tender tips.

  “Thank you?” he laughed, repeating my words, his knee between my legs. “You will be the death of me.”

  “But what a way to go,” I finished for him before all thought ceased as his hand moved up along my inner thigh.

  There in the garden, we explored each other for the first time, both knowing it might be our last. We took it slowly, learning each other, feeling, sensing, tasting, hearing what we were together. How we moved together. Until he looked down at me and entered softly, gently.

  We were one, and it was like a kaleidoscope of colour and sense as we moved together.

  It felt like drawing a deep breath on a beautiful dawn morning, the world glowing with possibilities. It was an explosion of possibilities and beauty as I broke apart in his arms.

  “I love you.”

  His voice or mine, I wasn’t sure. We collapsed together, momentarily senseless, limbless.

  I could feel the joy pulsing through him, the wonder mirroring mine. I felt so close to him, like we had opened up a connection. A bond.

  I could feel what he could feel.

  My breath left me in a long exhale, every particle of me relaxing into the moment.

  Shock.

  I was feeling his shock, no… his horror. He was horrified.

  Pushing him off me, I scrambled away, my fist against my mouth, holding back the sobs threatening to overwhelm me as the shame and self-loathing rolled through him to me.

  Devyn stared at me in the twilight. Bulbs set into the cascade of plants on the wall had flickered on as dusk fell. Then it was as if a door slammed shut and all those emotions were gone; his face was a blank mask and I was left alone with my own bewilderment.

  I blinked. I had felt him. I had felt his emotions as if they were my own.

  “Devyn.”

  He came towards me, then grabbed a blanket from the couch and placed it around my shoulders.

  “We shouldn’t have…”

  “Please don’t say it,” I said. “I don’t think I can bear to hear you say it.”

  He pulled on his trousers and ran his hand through his tangled hair.

  I nodded, all of a sudden too tired even to pull my own clothes back on.

  Only moments ago I had been a butterfly soaring in the sunlight, glorious, beautiful, free… and now I lay broken on the ground, my wings crushed.

  Being with Devyn had been so much more than I had hoped for. It had felt like the world clicking into place and everything that left me staring at the ceiling at night, all the worry and fear of the last months, had been as nothing against the sheer beauty of being with him.

  The spectacular depth of emotion I had felt, the ecstasy, the love… not all of it had been my own. It had been other. Just like the following emotions that came crashing in, the shame and anger, had not been mine, they had been Devyn’s. I had felt Devyn’s emotions.

  My brow creased as I looked at him standing beside the patio door, watching me with heavy-lidded eyes as I tried to process everything still curled up in the alcove where he had abandoned me.

  “I felt…” I stumbled. “I felt you.”

  No reaction.

  “Devyn. Don’t do this. Tell me,” I pleaded. “I felt you, didn’t I?”

  Glass splintered and smashed into a million twinkling pieces on the floor, catching the light as they scattered across the garden.

  I gasped in shock at the violence that had exploded from him. I took in his bloodied fist, the shattered door. I started to get up to cross to him, anxious to examine the extent of the damage.

  “Stop. Don’t move.”

  My foot stilled inches from the ground. His dark head was bowed, his chest rising and falling as he inhaled deeply a couple of times.

  “Crossing to me will only get you hurt,” he said, his voice reflecting the irony he felt at his own choice of words.

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  He sighed. “You should.”

  He then began to cross the garden towards me, barefoot, still clad only in his trousers.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” I cried, alarmed.

  He shot me a weary smile.

  “A childhood spent running barefoot around the mountains and valleys prepares one for walking across the destruction of a fool.”

  Reaching down, he swung me up into his arms, blanket and all, and carried me back to the relative safety of the inner apartment before returning to gather my clothes from the garden. I could do no more than sit watching him move about like a prowling cat, his movements lean and efficient. There was no sign of the heightened emotion that had caused him to punch through a sheet glass door. In silence, I pulled on the clothes he handed back to me before standing and lifting my head determinedly.

  “Show me your hand.”

  “It’s fine,” he returned flatly.

  “It’s not fine, and I’m not leaving until you show it to me.” There was nothing more I could threaten him with, but I knew that more than anything he wanted me out of there. He put his hand out in front of him, palm up, and reluctantly turned it over to show me the damage he had inflicted on himself. Blood covered his fingers and knuckles, welling and dripping onto the impeccably polished floor.

  I crossed over to him and grasping him around the forearm resolutely dragged him across the room towards the small kitchen I had seen earlier when I explored his living space.

  Running the cold water, I pulled his hand until he stood behind me while the water washed away the worst of the blood. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck, sense his body curve into mine as we stood there and watched the evidence of his moment of madness swirl down the drain. Closing my eyes to the blood in the sink, I breathed in his closeness, a small smile tilting my lips at the sheer comfort of it, the intimacy of standing here with him, our breaths synchronising, and again I felt a small tendril of shared emotion pulse between us.

  I turned in wonder.

  “How is that possible?” I asked.

  His mouth was a thin line and the pulse went dead once more. I swallowed my disappointment and, still holding his hand, towed him over to the kitchen bar and sat him on a stool. Turning away from the sight of him still temptingly shirtless, I started pulling open drawers and shockingly bare cupboards.

  “Top left.”

  I opened the cupboard above the fridge and found what I was looking for. Returning, I sat beside him and examined the contents of the first aid kit, pulling out antiseptic and bandages.

  “Tweezers?” I clipped out.

  “I’ll get them.”

  He started to rise.

  “You’ll get blood everywhere.” Laying my palm on his bare shoulder I pushed him back down onto the stool. “Where are they?”

  “Bathroom, upstairs.”

  The bathroom was off his bedroom. I nodded and went back through the living room, trying not to take in the sight of the garden that had so enchanted me when I walked in an impossibly short time earlier. I studiously ignored the smashed door, glass-strewn patio, and the couch in the nook.

  Climbing the stairs, I reflected that the need that had heated my blood on arrival was entirely gone. Truth be told, it had never been all that strong – as effective as a torch in daylight, its amplifying effect nothing to what already existed. It was merely an excuse to pretend it was b
righter than the already blazing sun of my attraction to Devyn.

  Collecting the tweezers from the spartan bathroom took a matter of moments when I needed hours before I would feel ready to face him again. He had rejected me. Again. After… after… I was an idiot. He had made it clear time and again that he did not want me. Or at least, he might want me, but he didn’t want to want me. Time to get the message. I braced myself before entering the kitchen again.

  Taking a seat, I began carefully to remove the first splinter of glass from his knuckle. Once it was out, I laid it on a piece of tissue and lightly swabbed the blood oozing from the wound before moving on to the next piece.

  “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

  “Peachy,” I threw out blithely.

  His breath was warm on my bowed neck.

  “Cass…” he began.

  “No, really. All good,” I said, cutting him off. “Message received.”

  “What message?”

  “You know, it’s been fun, but you aren’t interested.” I was incredibly proud of the casual tone I was managing to maintain. “This was a once off; let’s put it down to the effect of my unexpectedly imminent handfast.”

  There was no response from above as I snagged another splinter and set it on the tissue, where I now had quite the little collection going.

  I felt that connection open and a questioning pulse tentatively beat across it. My head snapped up as I instinctively mirrored the action I had felt him do and slammed the walls down against it. My eyes blazed into his. At least he had the grace to look somewhat shamefaced.

  “What is that?” I demanded.

  “I…” He shook his head slightly, struggling for words.

  “You can feel what I feel?”

  “Yes,” he admitted curtly.

  “When I saw the sentinels attack you on the riverbank, I sensed a connection between you and the baby,” I said aloud as I recalled the memory I had seen.

  “Yes.”

  “Is this what it felt like?”

  “Yes.” He ran a hand through his hair again. “That was an awareness, usually triggered by danger. She was a baby; I don’t know what this is… it’s more.”

  I felt as if I… Actually, I didn’t know how I felt. As if I was the baby and the woman I had seen was my mother. The little boy screaming for me was… How could I have been so slow to realise what he had figured out almost instantly? Fidelma had been wrong. I wasn’t some random girl who happened to have magic. My dream hadn’t been her alternate present; it was the life that should have been mine. The girl he was searching for and I were one and the same.

  “Does this mean…?”

  His eyes were glowing as he nodded. “It must be.”

  “I’m her.”

  “Yes.”

  Even without the connection between us I could see he was bursting with emotion. The connection… as soon as he’d felt it he’d known. And his reaction had been to punch a door. And I knew that being with me had made him feel ashamed. My lower lip trembled and, unable to process it, I resumed my task.

  “Cass.” His soft use of my name was concerned, questioning. His good hand rose and lifted my chin until I faced him.“What is it?”

  “Why is it so bad?” I asked, sucked in by the intimacy of our closeness to betraying the cause of my dismay. “Being with me?”

  His eyes darkened. “I broke a vow. I gave up everything to find you. And I have.” His voice was velvet gravel. “You’re alive. That’s all I could have hoped for. All I ever wanted. This – you and me – cannot be. This was a mistake. If I had known… I would never have…” He steadied himself. “Cassandra, I’ve found you. I can finally take you home.”

  Cassandra? I blinked.

  “You’re saying that me being this girl means we can’t be together?”

  “Yes. We must forget this ever happened. I had no right to tonight.” At this, he kissed me softly. It was as clear a goodbye as I could imagine.

  I stood up, pushing away from him. “No. You promised. I’m leaving the city for you, for us. You can’t just change your mind.”

  “I have a duty, and that duty comes first. Always. Do you understand? I will not break my vow; I will not put anything before it. Certainly not myself. Not anything.”

  I could barely breathe as he spoke. It wasn’t that he didn’t want me. What he was saying was that no matter what was between us his duty came first, and he would never betray it for me. Though he had tried to push me away before he found out who I was, it seemed that his rejection was even more emphatic now that history and magical vows and whatever were involved. Fine.

  I needed a minute. I resumed my seat and dropped my lids to cover my eyes. I picked up his bloody hand and returned to my work, only to find I couldn’t see through the blur caused by my tears. To my horror, one escaped and splashed on the surface of the counter as I tried to blink them away.

  His hand came again, this time to cup my shoulder, and I shrugged him off. Eyes cleared, I checked his knuckle for any further evidence of glass and, finding none, started to wrap the bandage around his calloused hand. I marvelled again at how nobody noticed the slight oddities that marked him out as not being one of us, not a citizen, and certainly not an elite.

  “Catrio…” he breathed. Was that the name I’d had as a baby? Even my name wasn’t my own anymore. But he stopped himself and just said, “Cassandra.”

  “No.” I stepped back, my legs wobbly, my hand raised to keep him away. My thoughts were bouncing from one to another, careening wildly with no control. I was the girl he had come to find. That baby had been connected to the little boy, the little boy whose grief had been mindless when the connection was broken. It was a connection that had been made whole once more. And his first act was to push me away. I was alone. I’d been alone for so long. He had what he wanted, they all had what they wanted. What about what I wanted?

  I tied off the bandage, and once I was sure I had myself under control, I found my best careless tone.

  “You still expect me to leave the city with you.”

  His head jerked back up to look at me, thrown at the suggestion that for me this might no longer be a given.

  “Now more than ever. You must—” He stopped the rush of words and took a breath. “Cass, you must see you can’t stay here now. It’s too dangerous. If you are discovered, if they realise who you really are…”

  “And who am I?”

  His eyes shuttered.

  “Right,” I exhaled on a laugh that teetered on the edge of not entirely stable. “Of course, you’re not going to tell me.”

  I had no idea who I was or where I’d come from but the only thing that was clear, even from here in the dark, was that I couldn’t stay. I felt trapped, and that trap was growing ever tighter. I was no longer leaving to go towards a future I had imagined with Devyn, the only thing that had been real to me about this future beyond the city walls. But I couldn’t stay here either.

  “When do we leave then?”

  For a moment it looked as though he wanted to continue the conversation I had just drawn a line under before he conceded that I was telling him exactly what he wanted to hear.

  “You’re all right?” He wasn’t convinced by my hastily erected façade. But he had pretended to be other than his true self every day for years and now I needed to do a better job to get me through this one conversation.

  I wondered briefly what would happen if I closed my fist and punched him. I picked a spot on his face. In my mind, a punch would hit one of those high cheekbones and I probably wouldn’t come off the better of that exchange. Square on the nose, while less elegant, was my better option. At least I wouldn’t break my hand. I settled for some hefty side eye. Appearing to be over it was clearly going to be more of a process.

  “Right,” he echoed my previous response.

  He stepped away, entering the living space and coming to a stop as he inspected the same scene that had given me pause before him. I needed to leave.
Suddenly I couldn’t stand being in this space. The gleaming fake apartment where every shining surface, every piece of furniture in its groomed perfection, was a lie stood in stark contrast to the verdant garden strewn with shattered glass and its rumpled nook. The lie and the truth; it was hard to tell which one in that moment was more difficult to look at.

  There was movement as Devyn finally dragged a shirt over his broad chest and it drew my attention back to him.

  “Tomorrow then.” He moved on to the life I was somehow supposed to return to now. I had come here thinking it was the beginning of my life with Devyn and instead it had been the end. And to top it off, now, after being with Devyn, I had to stand in front of everyone and commit myself to Marcus.

  I stared at the nook. Would I go back and change what had happened, if I could? It was my own fault I had thrown myself at him, tea be damned, I’d known exactly what I was doing. I had made my own bed and my cheeks heated at the memory.

  “Is it usual…” He hesitated, each word sounding like it was dragged from him. “Is it… customary… for the couple… your cousin…?”

  I had no idea what he was trying to ask me until he glanced at the now shadowed nook. If it was possible, I blushed even harder. Good to know that despite reeling from life-changing information we were both still freaking out about what had happened out in the garden.

  “No”—I shook my head vigorously—“no. My cousin – or rather, my mother’s niece – she was in love with her match… that is, they were already into each other… ah, that is… I don’t think it works that quickly on most couples.”

  Had anyone ever in the history of the world wished harder for the ground to open up and swallow them? It seemed unlikely as I all but told the man who had walked on broken glass to get away from me that I loved him. Admittedly, technically, the broken glass had come later. But it had been a consequence of being with me. Now my thoughts were as garbled as my tongue.

  I tried again. “It’s supposed to be a gradual thing, you know”—an imp stole my tongue—“climaxing on the big day.”

  He looked startled. But catching the mischief in my eyes at my innuendo, he flashed a smile in spite of himself.