by Gina Kincade
"It's a nice dream."
"It's not going to just be a dream," he yelled, the first time she could remember him ever raising his voice to her in such a way, as he shook her, then crushed her lips with his, making her tears flow with abandon.
"I have to go," she said, her hands in fists at his back, afraid to touch him, desperate to get out of his arms, away from him, lest she talk herself into staying, risking whatever was going on with him, or worse, another attack she just might not survive.
He may be head of the coven, but she didn't think he could single handedly defeat it. She was sure each and every member had vowed to his father to do whatever it took to keep him in it, and they saw her as a threat to that, just like his father had before.
How did I get here again? She thought as she pulled from him, and moved away, snatching up her shoes and retreating out of the room. She moved faster with each step, forcing herself from him, calling it life or death just to make herself keep moving. She heard him following, matching her step for step no matter her pace. I won't turn back. I won't kiss him again. Run to your car, she told herself as she flung open the door.
What she faced on the other side, though, terrified her to the point that it didn't even manage to register fully. Her mouth fell open. Her throat strained. Yet, no scream escaped her as the images before her reached her brain. Her brain denied, reacted, rationalized, and slowly came to acceptance, but in the split seconds that happened, something pushed her. Her hands grappled for anything to stop her fall. What pushed her had come from behind first, but as it rounded her, it had touched her shoulder in front and pushed her backward. Her right hand hit hard against the door frame, as her left flailed for the ground.
By the time she hit, wrist screaming at the jar and bend process, her hip hit hard wood. With a big breath forcibly released, she grabbed the door frame and pulled herself up to sitting again. Some self-preservation instinct had her looking out that door as the descriptions she'd heard years ago of these terrible beasts took on reality right before her very eyes.
She sat there, one hand clutched around her stomach, the other making imprints into the wood. She couldn't scream, couldn't blink, couldn't even breathe until her body forced her to with a rush of burning air. Her body shivered from head to toe as her vision began to blur. She refused to pass out.
She looked around her fast enough to get whiplash; Ciaran was nowhere to be seen. She figured he'd pushed her, then turned into one of them. He had to be the one now circled by all of the others. Something akin to a growl mixed with a groan and a devilish shriek began to emanate from them all, she guessed, as the hideous sound unlike anything she'd ever heard hit her ears.
At one point, they moved in a strange, circular dance around each other, though there was nothing graceful about how these vile things moved. The noise merged into a repulsive, beastly song, growing so loud her hands flew to cover her ears, signaling again, stronger, the pain of her injuries. She blinked, several times finally, her brain still adjusting to the reality before her. None of these things fought. The beasts, because she had no good word for them, just moved around each other, making their heinous noises while she merely gasped for air.
Years ago, when she'd been far from home, on another continent, in fact, her mother had come for a visit to her school. Ciaran's dad's dime, of course, with claims of seeing her daughter's school, as if they were all normal. At first, she'd assumed her mother there to make sure she was okay, to help her nurse her broken heart over the loss of Ciaran. What had actually happened had been hours of her mother's frantic talking matched with Allanah's arguments of disbelief as her mother told her about Ciaran and his family legacy. Yes, she'd told her of the magick, the evil, black magick the family had used for over a century, starting back in Ireland. They'd used the ancient, satanic forms of rituals to call demons, to trap them, and then force them do their bidding. Their wishes had been to build a whiskey empire at the time. So, the summoning of hellish beings became a means of getting them whatever their horrid hearts desired.
At some point in time, one of these men had gone further, cursed the entire family, so that into each generation, a demon could be ritually forced into a man in the coven, and work to transform them into a beast like no other. It had become a means of ensuring loyalty. The coven who put the beast in could also control it, if need be. When a man could at any time lose his humanity to the demon inside, to the beast he turned into, he stayed loyal; he did the coven's bidding no matter what they asked.
Still, having heard all the explanations, all the history, all the descriptions even of these beasts, what she had conjured in her mind proved nothing, nothing at all, to seeing them up close and personal. In real life, in this moment, these creatures stood before her having some kind of beastly argument she could only surmise, some sort of reprimand for Ciaran having her still at his house after their first scare tactics tonight.
The one that had to be Ciaran looked her way. So, she kept her eyes on him. In this form, she'd no idea if the man beneath would be able to fight, to save her, against the others, or even protect her against his own beast. While her body tightened up even more, and every nerve ending screamed to run, she sat there frozen, maybe in fear, but also in amazement. Besides, some shred of reason in her mind told her there would be no way to escape these things. Almost twice the size of a man, she couldn't imagine how fast they could move, or what their strength to destroy anything in their path could be. Surely no door in this house could hold them back.
Regardless, the crimson eyes staring at her, the ones that seemed to burn with actual flames right out of its head, had not left hers. The noises continued, but they had stopped moving around. At this point, she figured it all for show as every set of twelve eyes, red, bright, hideous, looked at her now, surely wondering why she didn't scream, why she didn't run, why she didn't act at all like any other woman would in such a predicament. Swoon maybe? Instead, her fear at the reality of the sight had turned into an odd fascination. After all of these years, getting to see this thing, this event, this transformation that she could only imagine, and most of the time even then still have trouble believing.
She didn't scare easy. She had means to take care of herself, and, if they had wanted to kill her, they would have by now. While her heart still beat a hundred miles an hour, and her breaths still came in burning gasps and pants, she sat there, staring back at these otherworldly creations.
Her mother had seen them. Scare tactics at some point to keep her loyal as well. She had not been wrong about the size, the hair, the build. Not a detail had she spared or gotten wrong. Guess seeing one seared the memory into one's brain. She'd seen some weird shit in her days, but this, well, this beat all. This thing had killer abs under its dark skin that looked leathery and washed with dark browns and black, maybe even burnt. She couldn't tell in the dark of night with the shadows of the house lights. The odd shape of the face, the huge mouth, proved vile yet ferocious. Yet, beyond all of that, the claws and the fangs, the long, electrified hair had her most fascinated.
The mouth hung open, as if it didn't close. Teeth, all lengths, but all sharp, all going different directions as if they didn't actually fit in the mouth, stood out, stained like the thing had smoked cigarettes every minute of every day. Unless, again, the distance and shadow from where she sat played tricks on her eyes. The hair, though, coming from the backs of the limbs, and all over the back of the torso, was so long, maybe ten or twelve inches. Matted and ratted, the crackles of light she could see like the ones caused by static electricity in the dark, kept it in motion. While the face and upper chest were also hairy, the hair there seemed short, like any other animal's would be. The bottom halves of the limbs, from say elbow to wrists, or knees to ankles, had no hair at all, but seemed to be mere bones covered with the same leathery skin as the abs.
Of course, men as powerful, so probably as vain as these, would give their creatures six packs, she thought. She snorted, some sort of unladylike la
ugh of disgust, catching even her off guard as it did her audience. They seemed to have tired of it all and left. Save for one. Her one.
All at once, the beast seemed to dissolve into thin air. Slowly, the leathery skin, the fur, it melted away save a few crackles of electricity or something, until all that was left just a few feet from her was Ciaran, naked, his shoulders slumped. Yet, looking at her, he stood upright and walked slowly toward her as she made her way to standing. Every muscle, frozen for a time after falling, protested this idea.
As he walked past her, into the house, he simply growled under his breath, "Guess you knew that, too."
"Yes, my mother told me," she said to his back.
"When?" he semi-yelled, catching himself mid-word to bring down the volume building.
"When I went away. My mother came to visit."
"To check on you. Yes, I remember. I was assured she had gone to see how you were. I'd been worried about you, in a strange place, far from everyone you knew. I knew what it was like, how horrible it was, to be alone without you, and I was still in a place I knew. So, she told you not just about the magick, but about the demons, and the beasts they create. You told me she only told you about the magick."
"Well, magick, beast, all the same thing, right? The demons are there, thanks to spells. You didn't ask me specifically."
"What the hell was I supposed to say? Hey, you know I turn into a demonic beast? Stop playing games, Allanah. What the hell? Is this some sort of game? Revenge on me?"
"What? No. I just figured you would be better off not knowing what I know, not wondering what it made me feel about you, because, honestly, I'd had time to come to some sort of terms with it. I didn't think we would ever see each other again. But, we did, and then after the party, and even tonight, I knew it couldn't last, even if I came here under the hope that it could. It couldn't. They will obviously do anything to scare me away."
"And, did they scare you away? I mean, with their actions? You know what I'm asking."
"They will never let you be with me, Ciaran. As before, it doesn't matter what we want."
"It can. Give me time. Let me figure out a way."
"That's a nice dream, as I said, but there is no way. You haven't figured it out yet, in over a decade. So, why continue to suffer with the hope of it? Face the reality given to us and move on. It's our only choice. I'm getting on a plane tomorrow. While this has been so nice, well, had nice moments in between the interruptions, it is all we are to have. Goodbye, Ciaran. Forgive me for not kissing you goodbye in the state you are in."
She turned to the door, then. It took everything in her to be strong, to just turn and leave.
"Wait," he bellowed. "Is it seeing the beast, or something else you are still not telling me, that is making you walk away?"
"There has to be something else beyond all of this? They will kill me, or both of us. They won't stop, at anything, I fear, to keep us apart. Let's just make everyone's life easy and stay apart."
She walked out the door, then, wishing with ever fiber of her being that she could tell him the rest. Especially now that his secret was out, she wished she could share all of her own, with him, with the man she loved with all of her heart. It was stupid to try to deny that fact all of these years. Seeing him, kissing him, touching him, she couldn't deny it anymore. Still, what was the point? They could never, ever be together no matter how much they shared. This world, it seemed, and the other world, conspired against them.
"What's the use," she said to no one but herself.
She let her tears flow freely as she slid into her car.
Chapter Five
Ciaran sat in the lobby of the residence in Tribeca where Allanah had bought a loft a few years back. He'd come without notice or warning. So, he sat waiting with her out for who knows how long. Despite trying to occupy his mind many times already with the grand architecture of the place, his thoughts only went back to Allanah. He rehearsed what he'd say to her as his eyes blurred to the magnificent sights around him. Midday on a Wednesday, not many came and went to distract him either.
As he sat as hunched as his build would allow, his body ached from the unfamiliar position. It fit, though. Everything about him hurt, inside and out, being put in such a precarious position by his coven. Though, thinking what was new, he knew the answer instantly. Having Allanah back in his life changed everything. She hadn't remained a dream to him. She'd appeared. He'd touched her. He'd let his heart open fully again. Yet, with the demon now, that hadn't gone well, to make the understatement of the year. Knowing what was to come, trying to convince Allanah to not only talk to him again, but to go away with him, too, didn't add anything positive or uplifting to the situation he found himself in. The task at hand seemed more daunting than any he'd encountered in his life, and he ran a billion dollar whiskey empire, among other things. Trying to do anything while being the High Priest of a coven full of shifters, while having a demon, or the spirit of one, who the hell knew exactly, living inside of him, had proven difficult beyond measure over the years. Yet, today, talking to her, this terrified him.
As the footfalls of high heels came his way, he didn't look up. He sat, suddenly engrossed in the gold and brown pattern of the marble flooring. While the heels could have been on anyone, he'd heard the hushed whispers of the doorman, and noticed the angry way they hit the floor, not moving fast, but steady, like the death march of an angry prisoner. He couldn't blame her.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she said, voice low, both in volume and tone.
He looked up into her face, then, a mix at the moment of pale and flushed despite her golden tan.
"I had to see you?"
"All about you, then, is it? Did you consider at all what your family, if we have to call them that, might do if they found you here? I'd like the building, my loft, to stay standing. I'd prefer to not end up traumatizing any of my neighbors, many of which are famous."
"They are not coming here. I promise. Can we please go up to your loft and talk?" he begged, the words leaving an acidic taste in his mouth. His demon didn't like it. He didn't like it. But, for her, he'd tried to make himself appear as docile, as downhearted, as he could look and sound for a big scary guy she'd last seen as a monster.
"No. I need you to leave. Now. Or, I can have the doorman call in security. The fucking National Guard, if necessary."
"Please, Allanah. I promise you, nothing is going to happen here. I spoke to all of them. I made my wishes clear, I am the High...their leader and boss, for... whatever's sake. They are not coming for you or me. I bought us some time. I have their word, which has to stand for something given my position."
"No," she simply stated, the hands that had been clenched into fists at her side riding up so she could cross her arms over her chest.
"Allanah," he said, standing to his full height, trying not to crowd her when she took a half a step back, but to get close enough to emphasize his words without alarming anyone else. "We need to talk. I know I don't deserve it after what they put you through at my place, but after what I found out you knew all of these years, don't you think I maybe deserve some time at least, to talk, to ask a few questions. Please. I will beg. I will follow any conditions you may have."
"My condition is safety, for me and the others in this building. Kids live here. You can't guarantee me that."
"I can. You just have to take my word on it."
"I can't," she said, still standing to the side of him, talking in something just above a whisper, her hands clenched into fists still even wrapped up in her arms tight to her chest so that he had to ignore the way they pushed her breasts up and together. "Please leave."
"What will it take, Allanah?"
"There is nothing you could do or say to make me change my mind. I want you to leave. Now."
"Is it your physical safety, or that of your heart, you are most concerned with? Do you not trust yourself with me? Can you not keep your distance," he egged her on, going for the part of her t
hat took on any challenge, one of the things he first fell in love with her for, and the one thing he guiltily exploited to get his way with her, then and now. Whatever it took to get her to talk to him.
"My heart is fine. And, believe it or not, I can keep my distance from you. I've had years of practice."
"Yes, when I'm across the country, or even a few continents away. It is easy then. But, can you keep your hands to yourself when I'm in the same room? You couldn't the other night."
"No, I couldn't, not until I was attacked."
"And yet, even after that—"
"Fine, not until I saw what you really were with my own eyes, then. I mean, I knew, had this vague idea, but to see it, to see all of them—"
"Then, what is inside me, what I can become, has changed your mind?"
"No. Yes. No. I don't think so. What the others become has, though. You are all connected somehow, I assume at least, and they come, they threaten. I don't believe for a second they wouldn't hurt me no matter how hard you fight them. I'm not stupid. I know you would fight to your death for me. I honestly believe that, but...listen, I know what you are doing here, this game you are playing to convince me to go with you. You are trying to force me to prove myself. You know me all too well, you think."
"I did at one time," he said. "Maybe not now, but with everything in me, with every breath I take, I would like to again. Please, Allanah, give me a chance. I just want to talk. I know I'm asking a lot, but no one is coming after me. Not this time. We have a deal, my coven and I, which I will explain to you if you just let me come up and talk. Just let me plead my case. I have a proposition of sorts. Besides, do you really think with the position my family holds in the business world, that in public they are going to do anything here to chance exposing themselves? They haven't for centuries, why would they now? But, if you don't trust that, then trust me. Please."