“It’s true,” I shrugged. “I know you want to protect my brother, that isn’t the problem. It’s that you’re willing to remove what little Dune has left in order to keep this legion successful.”
“Keep it successful?” he laughed loudly. I scrunched my nose as his blaring noise made my cheeks warm. “It hasn’t ever been successful, Lady Irene,” he dragged out my name for emphasis. “You have to see that what you’re doing is incredibly dangerous, and that your participation is unnecessary.”
“Is that what this is about?” I stepped up from the bookshelf, the place I had been leaning against for the past several minutes, and neared him with my hands on my hips. “You’re worried about me?” I waited for him to answer, but instead, he lowered his head momentarily. Looking back up at me, he had the same sorrowful look he carried the night of Scarlet’s Halloween party. “You don’t think I should go. Do you?” I let the silence filter in, and then I looked around at everyone else. “Do any of you?”
Not my dad, not Julian, not even my aunt would say a word. They wouldn’t even shake their heads or nod in agreement. They all wanted me to stay home, but none of them had the confidence to say so. Were they worried about me? About my baby? I’m sure they were. But it felt like more than just fear.
“You have to come,” Cole said with certainty in his voice as he and Lydia came through the kitchen. He glanced over me briefly, then set eyes to all the others in the room. “She’s our Lady,” he tried to hide his grin, but I caught it just before he straightened his posture to speak again. “She’s important to all of us, and we’re not willing to put her in danger.” I noticed my dad nodding out the corner of my eye, and when I looked, Julian was doing the same. It gave me the chills. “Unfortunately,” he glanced back to Lydia, who was carrying one of Ralston’s giant, ancient books, and eyed her to bring it forward. Pinning his eyes to mine, Cole made it clear, “You have to be there, at my side, when the stone is put to rest.”
Julian sighed sarcastically, but Tristan, well, he just walked out of the room and went to the porch. The screen door snapped shut as the room took on the night air.
“Let me talk to him,” Bryn said as she passed by me. I nodded and then went to sit at the kitchen table. My dad joined me a minute later.
“I don’t see why it’s bothering him so much,” I shook my head. Picking at my nails, I sat there looking over the floral tablecloth, remembering the blueberry cheesecake and the salvia. I laughed a little, but it only made me miss Dylan more.
“He cares for you,” my dad told. “Waking your brother is the last thing we planned to do before leaving for the Isle.”
I nodded along.
“It’s getting very real, for all of us,” he folded his hands together and leaned onto his elbows. “And I don’t think anyone expected a baby.”
“Oh, yeah,” I mumbled. “Surprise.”
My dad laughed, leaning back as he crossed his arms. “That’s about what your mother said to me when she got pregnant with your brother.”
“Not expected, huh?”
“Not quite,” he shook his head, still smiling, though. Glancing over me, he asked, “Does he know?”
I nodded.
My dad let out the air in his lungs, and then his eyes found my aunt as she walked in the room.
“I just made these,” she pulled a plate of white chocolate, macadamia nut cookie bars from the fridge. “Help yourselves,” she smiled as she set the dish on the table between us. It took Julian about two seconds to come in and take one. His big smile reminiscent of Elliot’s.
“Thank you,” he said to my aunt before going out to the backyard with Erik. They must have been discussing Dylan’s arrival. I heard them say Iliana’s name, followed by something about a private car.
“What do you think Dune wants with Nerissa?” I leaned over the dish and took a cookie bar. I loved macadamia nuts, and my aunt knew. “Because,” I took a bite and kept talking, “if we can understand him better, then we can help him, and resolve all these threats. It worked with Lorcan.”
My dad’s eyes trailed to the table, then to the floor. “What did you say he was after?” my dad looked up to me. “In the meadows when he appeared to you?”
“He said there was something inside of me, something that could lead him to what he was owed,” I recalled. “It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled as I shook my head in disapproval. “The darkness isn’t part of me anymore.”
My dad’s brow crinkled in thought as Charlotte came into the room, shouting back at Caleb in the living room.
“Just get the one you want, I don’t care,” she shook her head at me.
“What’s that?” I asked.
With a smile, she turned from the fridge and said, “Pizza.”
“I think you eat more than me,” I joked.
Charlotte popped the cap off the Snapple bottle and gave me a grin. I despised her as she swayed out of the room, never gaining a pound.
“Hey,” I studied my dad after remembering the likeness he remarked upon between my sister and his. He hummed in response. “You told me once that Markus stole your sister away.” He nodded. “But he couldn’t leave the island.”
My dad sat up and shook his head like he wanted to say something, but that he needed a minute to find the right words. “The memories I have of my sister are irreplaceable,” he remembered. “Nerissa was beautiful, lively, admired by all. And Markus,” my dad sighed, “I believe he loved her.”
“Really?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“When he earned a seat on the council, he gifted her a pendant. She sent it back to him, though.”
“A pendant?” Like the one I was wearing?
“It’s a crest, a symbol of unity.”
Yep, that’s the one.
“I don’t know how my sister got to Isle Lore, if that’s truly where she is,” he breathed out a slow sigh. “I just hope that she never suffered.”
“But what if she’s alive?” I popped the lid off my Snapple.
“It’s in the past, love.”
“But—”
“The past.” My dad tightened his jaw, then informed me, “Dylan will arrive in the morning, protected by Iliana and Elliot’s personal guards. You should rest tonight. As much as possible.”
I looked around the place and then rubbed my arms for warmth. The front door was still open from when Tristan went out. Bryn would try to make him feel better about everything, that much I knew. But Tristan wasn’t the kind of man who would change his mind after a conversation. Chances were, that he’d oppose me going the entire trip. Cole, busily going over things with Erik in the living room, insisted I go. The quelling wouldn’t work otherwise. I wanted to understand more about the ritual that I was now a solid part of, but I also just wanted to sleep.
“I should get home,” I whispered in that still space of a house I once adored. Now, looking around at the fear and the worry, the negative energy that permeated every inch of those once lovely walls, I just wanted to leave.
My dad nodded and then stood. “Do you have a car here?” he asked. I shook my head.
“Take mine,” my aunt told. “Come back in the morning, first thing. We have a lot to go over.”
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
By the time I got to my apartment, it was nearly midnight. I parked my aunt’s car beside mine, then dragged my feet up the stairs. As tired as I was, something seemed to be tugging at my attention. Inside, just after I closed the door, I got a chill and turned to face the window—and an irresistible image of Elliot.
My eyelids were heavy as I dropped my shoulder bag to the floor and slowly went over to my dreamy Lord.
“I said I was fine,” I mumbled, my hands in his chest. “You know you can go,” I whispered now, words were all but a breath. Elliot took a step back, and I bit my lip, grabbing onto the edge of his shirt. “One more night,” I agreed. Getting close to him, I peered up and could see the confusion in his eyes. I nodded, coaxing him on, but he took hold of
my wrists and pushed my hands down. “What? Tired of me?” I laughed, rubbing my eyes as I tried to keep my balance. “Then go. Just disappear like you always do,” I waved him off as I went toward the sofa. Getting ready to plop down and close my eyes for the night, I swayed further away from him.
“I don’t want to leave,” he more or less pleaded. I turned to face him so quickly that I almost tripped over my feet.
“Elliot?” I gasped. My heart pounded like thunder, the air in my lungs slithering out slowly to leave me empty in so many ways. I reached up for him, even though he was at least ten feet away, and felt at the air as though I could touch him. “You’re… you’re really here?”
My Lord had a humble smile now, turning up the corner of his lips in a delicious way. The bewilderment wasn’t entirely over like I had hoped. No matter, I was so happy to see him in the flesh.
“Don’t go away,” I rushed at him in regret. “I meant that for the other you—the dreamy you.” Shut up. I bit my lip. “Not that you aren’t dreamy,” my eyes traveled over his face, to his neck, then his chest. “I mean, the you that my mind created, I guess,” and, thankfully, he stopped me from talking.
“Irene,” he spoke, and I could feel myself starting to melt. He peered up to me from beneath his pressing brow, and his smile lengthened. “I’m here, just like you asked.”
“I’m really glad,” I told him as I twisted my ankle around in anticipation for what all he had to say.
Looking to the sofa, he gestured to sit. “Could I?”
I nodded, “Of course.”
We sat down together and the silence crept in like a cold breeze. Then, just when I started to speak, he did the same. We laughed, and then I waited for him to say the first word.
“I have good days and I have bad days,” his eyes moved around the room as he spoke. I watched him, eager to reach over and touch the man I had wanted to ravage for the past couple of months, but I—somehow—kept still. Leaning over his knees, the man’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I’ve lost control more times than I can count. I haven’t learned to resist.”
With my knees up against my chest, I was huddled into a tight and safe position. It gave me peace as I listened to my Lord speak of his troubles. From this position, I could also feel my baby move around a little more. Elliot knew about her, but he probably didn’t know how soon she was arriving. Or how much she had grown as of late.
“Maybe you shouldn’t try to control it,” I offered, but as he looked to me, with the sullen eyes of a broken man, I realized he had already crossed a point of no return. “Do you remember how you showed me the snowflakes?” I asked him, lowering my knees and moving just an inch closer as I faced him better. He turned to me and nodded. “You taught me how to do something I didn’t know I could do. Maybe I can help you.”
He didn’t hesitate to refuse. “I won’t put you in danger like that.”
“Well, then,” I thought of how else I could help him. I took a deep breath and pulled my sweater tighter around my body. “Could you tell me more about it?” Again, he had a look of uncertainty in his eyes as he nearly said no. “Please,” I leaned closer, rolling my lip between my teeth to steady my mind. His nose scrunched for a second, then he leaned away as he turned to fully face me. “She’s like you,” I put my hand on my belly as I looked down at the growing bump. “She’ll have the same darkness, the same fears. I won’t watch her unravel.”
Again, he scrunched his nose. “Um,” he stammered, shaking his head in doubt. “Alright,” he reluctantly agreed with an uneasy grin. “What do you want to know?”
Where to begin?
“When did you discover the darkness?”
Elliot looked around in thought. “I think I was probably four or five. I started to have these really terrible nightmares, ones that left me unable to sleep for days at a time. I’d wander the halls of the Manor, searching for anything to keep my mind occupied and awake in the deep of the night.” Listening to him recall this moment in his youth was bittersweet. It might have been my youth, without the nightmares, I liked to think. But the Manor, the cold nights… it should have been my childhood as well. “Eventually, I found that one of the groundskeepers would come before dawn to trim the rose bushes and water the vines. One morning, he asked me why I was awake so early. We talked until the sunrise, then again the next morning.” Elliot’s eyes met mine now as he started to smile in a tender, innocent way that gave me an eerie feeling. “After about a year of this, I asked my mother about the man, and why I never saw him during the day. She told me that he wasn’t real, that I shouldn’t make things up.” Elliot sighed. His hands were clamped tight together in his lap now, and his entwined fingers had begun to turn white. “I told her about the man, things I shouldn’t have known, things about his daughter. And the look on her face,” his eyes left mine as I could see his jaw tighten in disgust. “She called me a liar, but she knew! She knew him, she knew I had seen him,” he spoke through his teeth as that same gray smoke from the cottage began to rise up over his shoulders. I leaned back, scooting away from him on that little sofa as my eyes pinned the darkness. “It was her own father, Irene!”
“Yes,” I mumbled, covering my mouth with my hand as I wished he’d snap out of the memory. And sure enough, Elliot finally noticed my terror, my discomfort, and he shook off the memory with a sigh. The smoke retreated and I slid back into my seat and let the fear fade away.
Elliot stood and paced firmly toward the door.
“Wait,” I got up and called to him. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t expect that.”
“Would it have been better if it were orbs?” he growled at me.
“That isn’t fair.”
“It hasn’t been very fair for me either.”
I straightened my back and pressed my lips together as I thought of the right words. “I want you to stay,” I told him. It was the truth. I had missed him for too long, and he needed to be near for the baby in the least. Whether he and I could work things out on a personal level or not was something to handle for another time. For now, however, we owed our baby girl the strength of a good home. Elliot, proud and stuck up as usual, huffed and took another step toward the door. “You idiot, just stay,” I crossed my arms tight. I couldn’t believe I had just said those words. And neither could he. When he faced me, with eyes bigger than I had ever seen, I nearly laughed. “What don’t you understand?”
“Me?” he cocked his head. “Don’t you know what you’re getting yourself into?”
“You didn’t have a problem with it back in Frostmoor,” my brow arched so sharply it sort of hurt. “You slept with me—twice—and then declared me yours. You would have married me, and you would have stood at my side every single day, wouldn’t you have?”
“You don’t know that,” was all he could say.
“Tell me I’m wrong?” I shouted. “Tell me you weren’t prepared to make me your wife and keep that weird dark fog all locked away inside of you until it someday broke free. Tearing you apart. Breaking our bond, our love. My heart,” I shook my head as my eyes began to gloss over. I hated that I was constantly emotional as of late, but this was a moment I couldn’t’ blame on the pregnancy. I was hurt. I was heartbroken from the way he had pushed me away. “You came into my life and demanded I be your Lady, and then you got scared. And you left me, and I know you feel like you had to, but I can help you.”
“You can’t help with this, Irene,” he had a warning glare in his eyes. “You can’t make this better. You can’t take it away.”
“I don’t want to take it away,” I caught a tear before it fell. I wasn’t going to stand there and cry while he kept his posture perfectly firm. “I want you to learn to use it. To be in balance with it.”
Elliot’s lips curled n a sinister grin. “You think there’s balance here?” his voice lifted in that small room. “You think it’ll be something I can manipulate to my own advantage? It controls me. It always will.”
With those last words, my Lor
d stormed out of the apartment and slammed the door. I could hear him mumble to himself as he took a seat on the little deck area right outside the kitchen window. He wasn’t leaving just yet, but he needed space. And I guess I did too. I made my way over to the bed and sort of just collapsed onto it. I still had my jeans on, but I didn’t care. I pulled the plush pillow up under my head and closed my eyes.
The sunlight warmed my face as I brushed the hair from my sight. Rubbing my eyes, I could hear Elliot pace around in his clunky boots. Back and forth, again and again; he just kept crossing over the apartment with purpose.
“What’s the hurry?” I yawned.
“You’re up,” he smiled, though I was still trying to clear the sleep from my eyes. He came over to me and stood there like he had something to say. “I want to stay too,” he told with a kind smile, a humble smile like only he could own. I scooted over and he sat at my side. “And yes,” he leaned over me and moved the wispy strands of hair from my face. “I would like to have married you.”
I got tingles all over my body.
Feeling his hand in mine, I held onto him as he went to mess with my hair again. He just sat there for a second, taking in the sight of me, tangled and fresh, with eyes that did not judge. I brought his hand down to my lips and kissed his palm. The baby moved a little then, and I started to giggle.
“What is it?” he scanned me over with a gleeful smile.
“She’s moving. Do you want to feel her?”
Taking a sharp inhale, Elliot leaned back just enough to remove himself from the moment. I, however, still holding his hand, pulled him close and made him feel the baby.
“I don’t want—”
“Stop thinking you’re going to hurt someone and just be,” I shrugged. I leaned up against the shelving at my back and watched him feel our daughter move. It was still a new experience for me, but the astonishment on his face, that bright blue happiness in his eyes, gave me all the satisfaction I could hope for.
“Are you nervous?” he asked me, quietly, intimately.
Witherstone- Wings of My Legion Page 13