by J. Kowallis
With my other hand, I reach into my handbag and angle my body so Coll can’t see what I’m reaching for. Somehow, before he finishes his damn pigeon, I need to get him to ingest the potion. The only problem is, I’m being far too hot and cold to shake any suspicion. I’m going to have to warm up to him if I’m ever going to get close enough to dose his food.
I sigh, and set my fork down, forcing myself to say, “I’m sorry.”
Coll lazily chews on the moist meat from his plate. “Sorry? For what?”
After a deep breath, I turn to him and move an inch closer. “Ever since Bryden, I’ve been really angry. You know, I tried to come by Sera’s to help you regain your memories—which I now realize would have been impossible for me to help with—and then I just kind of accepted that I needed to let you,” I correct myself, “let all of this go. You, Sera, Emilia, the staff, and just live my life. I mean, we found Craniarann, and saved it, so I figured we were done. Then you called me, and I panicked. I hung up, and consequently continued to dodge your sisters’ calls as well. I didn’t know it was them, but honestly, even if I had known, I still I didn’t want to see you or talk to you. After what happened between us, I just didn’t want—”
“What happened between us?” he asks, popping a small piece of meat in his mouth that was pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He sucks on the tip of his thumb, slowing dragging it over his lips.
My voice catches. “You know . . . the . . . everything. Your music, the kiss in the hotel room, the night in the library. I was beginning to feel things for you I knew I would end up regretting. And I guess I figured if I accepted the distance between us and let it all stay in the past, that I could move on with my life. To be quite honest,” I tuck my hair behind my ear, “I wasn’t sure I even wanted to come tonight.”
“Ah,” he wipes his fingers on his napkin. Suddenly I realize I’m involuntarily watching everything that goes in his mouth, and comes back out again, very carefully. “So that’s why yeh were so distant back at Sera’s flat.”
I nod, glancing at his lips again. “That was a big part of it.”
When I look back up into his eyes, he scrutinizes me. Coll sets down his fork and leans closer. The smell of ginger revolves around me, but the rush of my pulse that echoed that scent when Coll used to come near, never happens. Neither does the clouding of my logic. Nothing. Just the memory of what it was like to be near him before.
“And what’s the other part?” he asks in a whisper.
I roll the glass vial around in my hand, keeping his eyes locked on mine. With my thumb and forefinger, I twist the lid off. Casual movements, carefully. I lift my arm and relax my wrist and forearm on the table. There’s only about two inches between the opening of that glass vial and Coll’s dinner plate.
The moment my lips part, ready to respond, another voice beats me to it.
“And how is the food?” Sera’s cheery, but nervous tone breaks the tension.
I slip my hand back, careful not to tip the vial and lose any of the powder inside.
Coll’s face visibly falls, and he looks to his sister. “Not as nice as the undisturbed conversation we were just havin’.”
She looks noticeably tense but tries to brush it off. Her golden hair is pulled back into a tight bun, and she stands with her hands clasped in front of her. The white sleeves of her chef’s coat are rolled up to her elbows. “Well, yeh also told me not to bother sayin’ hello and Taran, I hear, firmly disagreed with yeh. Since I like her better, I decided to oblige her.”
I smile, silently wishing I hadn’t been so adamant than she come out. “And I’m grateful to you for it,” I reply.
“So? How is it?” she asks, looking at me.
Truly ashamed, I duck my head and look at my plate. The skewered beet salad is still hanging off the end of my fork. “I’ll be honest, I haven’t even tried it yet. Is that horrible?”
“Of course, it’s not,” Coll enjoys the crunch of the endive leaves from his plate. “Your company is more stimulatin’.”
I grin nervously, turning back to Sera. I hold up a finger. “Hold on.” I reach for my fork again and quickly take a bite. The burst of flavor between the marinated white beetroots, the reduction, and the simple preparation is just brilliant. “Oh my gosh,” I say with a full mouth, attempting to chew. “That’s amazing.”
Sera smiles, seemingly avoiding Coll’s stare. “Thank yeh. I’m glad yeh like it. Well, I’ll let yeh get back to dinner. Yeh can tell me later on how yeh enjoyed the aubergine.”
“Oh, believe me,” I swallow, “I will.”
Coll’s sister takes one final look at him before offering me a look of support—slight nod of the head, pursed lips. She then turns on her heel and greets a couple other tables before heading back for the kitchen door again.
“I guess I actually better eat,” I admit.
Coll chuckles and agrees. Over the next hour, Coll asks questions about Alaric. Nothing terribly prying, just things like, “How do yeh feel now that he’s alive?” and “What’s he like?” In the same breath, I ask him about his experiences with Angie. Granted, there’s a good chance that the real Coll told Adrian everything about his time being trained by the Ravn hexen, but if there’s even a chance that I can get him to trip over his words, it would make this so much easier.
But he answers every question flawlessly.
After another half hour, I actually start to feel like he might be who he says he is. The more I think about that, the more terrified I feel. For a whole different set of reasons. If it is him, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel the same way around him. Ever.
“Wow,” I say, setting down my knife and fork. “That was truly amazing. I mean, I should have known, since I’ve actually eaten Sera’s cooking before, but this . . .” I kiss my fingertips. “Brava.”
“An-bhlasta,” Coll responds with a nod of his head.
“Yes, an-bhlasta,” I repeat in Irish. I look back at him with a smile, and for a moment, his face softens. Immediately, I’m taken back to that night in the library. The moment he admitted he’d been thinking about our kiss.
You’re right. That is where my mind is. If it makes yeh feel less flustered. It’s all I can think about.
He’d just watched me. So still. So direct.
This Coll gives me the same look. And I can’t breathe, but not for the same reason. It’s just not the same.
“It’s not quite midnight yet,” I manage to get out, “why don’t we go back to your apartment. Have a glass of wine? Maybe talk a bit more without interruptions?”
I can’t deny that I notice Coll’s eyes drop directly to my mouth. “Ms. Grim. Yeh sure know how to make a man say, hell yes.”
Eleven
My fingers can’t stop tracing over the shape of the vial in my handbag. Back and forth, pushing it between my fingers and the cloth around it. With each floor the elevator passes—the ticking by of the numbers—my heart sinks lower and beats harder. It’s not just nerves, but terror, excitement, anxiety. All of it. Slamming into me like a bullet train running on some kind of magical crack. Getting through dinner, sitting next to him, smelling him, talking to him. That had been relatively easy. Even convincing him to bring me back here. In reality, it feels like he wanted me to ask for an invite to his apartment. But, being alone with him again, with no one else around, knowing I still need to dose him with the vial I keep fiddling with . . . it’s a lethal combination of things I don’t think I’m ready for.
What’s worse? I can’t turn around now. And if I did, I’d kick myself for it. I won’t get this chance again.
“Breathe,” I whisper so softly under my breath, I barely even hear myself say it.
“Come again?” Coll asks, looking at me, his hand resting loosely in his slacks’ pocket.
Heat flushes under my cheeks and across my chest and I smile. “Nothing.” Then, I breathe because if I don’t, my head will start spinning and I will actually pass out.
The moment the doo
rs open, Coll motions for me to step into his penthouse and he follows directly behind, a hand placed firmly on my lower back. My lower . . . lower back. The tips of his fingers gently press into my hardly-there curves.
He hasn’t touched me there since that time in my hotel room. Thinking of that night makes my heart flutter more and I have to shift away from him, fearing that he might actually be able to feel my pulse thrumming through every stupid vein in my body.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been here,” I muse, looking around. My eyes catch on the piano. “Nothing’s changed much, has it?”
“What can I say?” he strips his jacket off, then follows it up with loosening his tie and threading it out from under his shirt collar. “I’ve got great taste. Why change a good thing?”
Coll unbuttons his top collar and my chest involuntarily heats up once more.
Oh shit.
I turn away from him and stride to the piano, gently caressing the surface of the keys with my fingers. Coll paces across the floor just a few feet behind me. This makes me move on, standing in front of the broad windows that gaze out over the brilliantly-lit city. In the distance I can make out Victoria Bridge and the Eye. Despite my attempts to redirect my own attention, it doesn’t take long before Coll slides his hands around my waist. His hands press into my stomach and grip my dress forcing my heart to effectively lodge itself in my throat.
Two breaths. That expanse of time is all I have before his warm lips touch my neck. My chest seizes. Throat catches. Even my ears burn. My body melts into his touch and he holds me tighter.
By the spirits. What I wouldn’t give to know he’s who I want him to be. My head tilts to the side as he sucks on my ear lobe.
I might as well fall to my knees and beg him.
Coll’s tongue drags along my skin, hot and then immediately cool as the breeze of the ceiling fan above drifts over my skin. Then his teeth graze my ear. His mouth envelopes my lobe again.
Or, I finally ask myself in the fog of my own body heat, is it someone else’s mouth? Not Coll’s? My eyes sharply open and I gasp.
“No,” I step away from him. Finally in control of my breathing once more, I turn to face him. “I mean, I just need to use your bathroom first.”
The surprise that briefly painted his face disappears and he smirks while pointing around the corner. “That way. Then make a right. First door on the left.”
I nod and give him a smile, while briefly touching my collarbone to hide the flush of pink skin I know is there. I couldn’t get into that room faster without resorting to sprinting. The moment the door closes behind me, I gasp and collapse onto the lowered toilet seat. And while my heart still pounds and my skin still pulses for him . . . after all the years of part-time boyfriends in my life, the thing I’m surprised about is that the seat of the toilet is actually down.
Leaning forward over my knees, I shake my head and place my face in my hands. I’m such an idiot. Words can’t express how much I want to leave. Get as far away from him as I can.
However, there are even fewer words to describe how much I need to feel him holding me again. Which is stupid because I don’t know who “him” is. Hours have gone by since I met him at the restaurant and I still haven’t been able to dose him with the powder Angie mixed. At this point, I don’t even know if I can. I suppose I could travel home right now. Maybe bring him some coffee in the morning as an “apology” and dose him then. The only problem with that is it’ll be daytime. He’ll immediately see his own veins turn black. And I’ll be screwed.
I reach into my handbag again and pull out the vial. Only I grab the wrong one. Instead, I pull out the liquid lipstick and with a sigh of frustration start to put it back in my bag.
Then, I stop. It finally hits me.
Quickly, I pull both cylindrical vials out and hold them up next to each other. After unscrewing the top of the powder, I pour a small amount onto the center of my palm. Then, with the doe-foot applicator of my lipstick, I mix a few dollops of the liquid makeup with the powder around in my hand. The faint granularity of the powder breaks down, mixing in perfectly with the liquid color. I look into the mirror as I apply the deep red concoction to my lips and spread it evenly.
Just a few presses of my lips, a wash of my hands, and I take one final look at myself in the mirror. The druzy stone sparkles at my collarbone under the low lights and I brace myself. I’m going to need to kiss him. Coll. Maybe Ruhmactír. Or even Frec.
Alaric was right. I need to get him in the dark for this to work. Lights out. The thought brings prickling goose bumps to the surface of my skin. I’m not sure I’m ready to see what I know deep down in my bones. The one thing I’m sure of, but I continue to fight.
Sludge coursing under his skin. The black veins.
“Oh, please let him be Coll,” I mouth faintly, knowing there’s a remote possibility that Coll might have used an auditory amplification spell to hear what I’m doing.
I stuff the rest of the powder vial into my handbag, along with the makeup and take my time getting back to Coll in the living room. I find him lounging on the couch, a glass of white wine in one hand, an open bottle of Conte Fini on the modern coffee table, and another half-filled wine glass. My arms drop to my side, the handbag dangling from my fingertips as I gaze at him with narrow eyes.
“Care for a glass?” he asks.
I touch the tip of my tongue to the corner of my mouth, purposefully drawing attention to it, and step down into the main living area. I drop my bag on the coffee table, and pause, folding my arms.
“Don’t worry. I’m not all bad,” he says.
Don’t worry. He’s not all bad.
Somehow, the words flush out a memory. Where have I heard that recently?
I do everything possible not to grimace at him. “All right. I’d love one.”
Coll leans forward to grab the other glass and stands to face me. Our fingers touch as he passes it to me, his eyes never leaving mine. Knowing I can’t afford to drink off the lipstick I just pressed onto my lips, as well as recognizing that Coll might be slipping me something just like I’m doing to him, I opt for another tactic. One I know I’m going to regret.
My eyes dance between Coll’s eyes, and his mouth. The second his lips part, the bottom one twitching ever so slightly, I lean closer and drag my fingers down the seam of his black shirt buttons. The glass of wine rests lazily in my hand.
Coll starts in, his face inching closer. I pull back by only a half inch or so. Like a game of cat and mouse. It just makes the tendons in his neck tense even more.
I drag my hand up his shirt, sliding it over the panes of his chest, over his shoulders, then underneath his shirt collar. His skin is flaming hot. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he had a fever. But his body isn’t clammy or damp.
Coll takes a fist full of the dress fabric around the back of my waist and pulls me against him.
“How about we have the wine later?” I whisper.
Coll breathes hard, gripping my hip tightly. “It’s been three months without yeh. If I put this shite off much longer, I might just set fire to me own flat.”
I try, desperately, to see some familiarity in his eyes before his lips touch mine, but the depth I once saw never surfaces. Hoping I’m wrong, hoping he’s really the one holding me—kissing me—I close my eyes. Inside I’m holding onto the meager prospect that Coll is still himself.
If he isn’t, I don’t know if I’ll handle this.
At first the kiss is slow. Some might even describe it as tender, but it feels more like the exploratory study of a hunter sizing up his prey. His tongue barely licks my lips, setting off a firestorm that courses through me. I’ll admit, it’s entirely my own decision to give in to his touches, the graze of his hands down the curves of my hips, and the lick of his tongue against my own. Not only because it’s something I have to do, but . . . I want it. For brief moments, I forget my suspicions.
I choose to.
The glass of wine t
umbles from my hand. I feel droplets of cool wine splash against my ankles. I curve against his body, running my leg around his. But it isn’t until I bite his lower lip with my canine teeth that he loses control.
Coll grips my ass, then, before lifting me up, he leans down to clutch the seam of my dress—his lips and tongue following the curve of my neck down to my décolletage as he does—and rips it up to my hip. I gasp, backing away from him slightly.
“This is a new dress.”
He looks into the depth of my eyes with a fury that stokes a blind desire inside my own veins. Very blind.
“Fix it later,” he bristles.
With my legs free to move, he lifts me by the thighs, and I wrap my legs around his waist. I should be screaming to myself. I shouldn’t have to go this far. But it’s Coll. It has to be him. And perhaps that’s why I do it. The fearful believe that it’s not.
I have to make myself believe he’s really here, pulling me against him.
Coll’s magic builds and the next thing I know, he travels us both into his dark bedroom. Something I didn’t even know was possible.
Coll never did that before. If he had the power to, why didn’t he just use a tiaseal to take us both to Lancaster?
Maybe, I think to myself as Coll’s teeth drag on my lip, he wanted you to learn. To grow.
In a violent movement, he shoves me onto the bed. Coll unfastens the remaining buttons on his shirt and tosses it to the floor before falling down onto me, his arms bracing him on the sides. With each kiss, my chest arches against his. I trickle my fingers up and down his warm rib cage, feeling each and every muscle, every rapid inhalation of his lungs.
He smells like Coll. He feels like Coll.
He has to be Coll.
In a brief moment, my eyes flutter open and I look up at the ceiling with a pleasurable gasp as Coll bites my neck.
And I hate myself for it. Because even the darkness doesn’t quite hide the horror.
His veins. I see them webbing underneath his skin. Flooded with the same black sludge I’m so afraid of.
It’s not Coll.
It’s not Coll.