James,
Please forgive me.
I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye.
Thank you.
I love you.
James still wasn’t back. For all I knew, he was with Xian now. For all I knew, he was dead. They were silly things to think. In fact, all of my thoughts seemed stupid. I couldn’t articulate a thing to say to him, so I wadded the paper up and decided maybe some things were better left unsaid. He would figure it out when he got back and saw the empty room.
“Lilith!” Janna’s voice chased me down the hall before I’d even taken three steps out the door. “I’m happy to see you. I need to talk.”
I glanced at the window, where the sun was starting to slip away. There wasn’t time. I’d already waited too long in hopes of having some sort of goodbye. “I was just going for a walk.” I lied. “What is it?”
“A walk sounds good.” She looked around like she was expecting someone, though the house was still as usual. “Outside.”
“Well…” I hesitated. “I don’t have long.”
“It won’t take long.” Janna promised. She looked nervous, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was so urgent.
She was quiet the whole way downstairs, refusing to answer my questions even when I told her she was staring to worry me. As soon as the door shut behind us, I rounded on her. “Janna!” I snapped. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m scared…” She laughed. “It’s silly.”
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened.” I tried my best not to sound like her mother, but her illusory answer didn’t give me a lot to go on.
She hefted a sigh. “I’m…I’m in love with my sister’s boyfriend.” She lifted her eyes very cautiously to mine, gauging my reaction. I could feel the guilt radiating off of her, like a red, indomitable heat that threatened to sweep me in with it.
I blinked. “Olias?”
“Of course, Olias.” She moaned, covering her face with her hands. Her words were muffled when she asked, “Who else?”
I thought back to hearing her last night…her voice had seemed flirtatious then. I had not really considered it, but now it made sense. She’d suggested that Olias might know something…that he could help us for the right price. “You can’t be serious.”
Janna scowled, a furrow forming between her expertly shaped eyebrows. “Don’t mock me, Lilith. You’re my friend. You’re supposed to be supportive about this stuff.”
“Yeah, well, I’m new at this friend thing.”
A groan split the quiet night. Janna dropped her face into her hands, defeated; a curtain of dark hair separated her from my judgment. “Oh God. I’m done for. Julius will kill me. My mother will kill me. Quick, tell me it will be alright!”
I rolled my eyes, only because she couldn’t see me, but she would have heard the scream I wanted to let loose. “What even led you to realize this?” I pulled her hands from her face, and she looked at me with those wide brown eyes full of fear. A single tear track marked her cheek. “I mean, are you sure that you really love him?”
“We’ve been seeing each other since the night of the funeral.”
“Janna!” I couldn’t bite back my shock. Nor could I keep the repulsion off my face.
“Don’t you judge me, Lilith. The funeral brought back a lot of painful memories for both of us, and I don’t know what happened, but we just sort of fell together.”
I remembered her drinking, laughing. She’d covered her pain well. “Ok.” I said. “First things first, stop crying.”
“I’m not crying!” Janna straightened, wiping at her face indignantly.
“Olias should be leaving soon, right? So maybe this will sort itself out?”
Janna studied me until deciding I was serious. Then her eyes narrowed with something like disgust. “That’s what you think?” She snapped. “That he will just leave and everything will go back to normal?” My silence answered for me. She laughed, an unusually harsh sound, and jumped to her feet. “I was wrong about you.” The revelation was sour, proven by the twist of her lips. “All this time I thought you would change things. I thought you could change us. But you can’t change anything, Lilith, because you refuse to do anything to help yourself. You were running from your problems from the minute you came into James’ life. I should have known… it’s who you are, what you do. If something gets tough, you back down. You run away without looking back. And you always will. But the worst thing is you expect that’s what other people should do too.” She shook her head, and I saw another silver tear roll down her cheek. “You’re pathetic!”
She turned on her heel and ran, so fast that I lost track of which way she even went. The right thing to do would be to follow her, to apologize for taking her admission so casually, to listen to what she had to say. But I couldn’t move. Her words had cut me in a way I wasn’t used to…they made me ache straight to the bone. No, it wasn’t her words…it was the truth behind them. Even as she had tried to tell me about her worries, seeking comfort, I had been impatient, thinking of running. It was exhausting, all this running away. But it needed done, one last time.
I stood and nearly fell over when a sudden rush of wind knocked me off balance. A tell-tale chill inched along my spine, but by the time I turned, I was alone. There was only the statuesque wolves and trickling fountain. A piece of paper, folded crisply in half, lay where I’d just been sitting.
I unfolded it with trembling fingers; I knew that handwriting, the way it screamed of a practiced hand, one that had required centuries to perfect the loops and edges of a gothic style.
What’s a King without his Queen? I have something that belongs to the beasts you’re residing with. Coincidentally, they have you. You see where I’m going with this? If you don’t want your new friends becoming orphans, you’d best make sure I get what belongs to me. Come home to me, Lilith, and I will let the old woman go. I was rather fond of that girl…she reminded me of her sister. If you don’t come fetch the red-head, then the little one is next. With love,
Xian.
I read it twice and then stared at the paper.
I’d have thought he was bluffing, but for the simple fact that the queen hadn’t been at dinner. My stomach sank. He’d caused their father’s death, he’d killed their sister, and now he had their mother?
Xian had been here, behind me, just as he had been the night before. James was nowhere to be found. He could have killed me there or dragged me back himself. Instead, he was forcing my hand, making me play his game.
I knew my way through the maze by now. Even with panic sitting on my chest, I made it through. Alone in the woods again, my panic only grew with a spike of adrenaline. He was going to kill her. Xian was many things, each one more horrid than the next, but he wasn’t a liar. His word was good, and he’d make due on his promise to kill her. The fact that he’d not given me a deadline was bad.
I ran as fast as I could. I ran toward him even more quickly than I’d run away from him, for longer than I’d have imagined possible, dodging obstacles like hanging branches and jumping over fallen logs, my mind a tangled fury of questions. I thanked the Lord or the nymphs of the forest or whoever had trod a path deep into the heart of the woods.
Where was he keeping her? How had he gotten her in the first place? How could my father let this happen? Each question led me to another one, and the answers were nowhere to be found so I shut down. I pushed myself until my legs felt like jelly and my vision blurred. I pushed myself even when I felt I would collapse, when I was sure my lungs would burst, and in spite of the heaving of my chest. I ran until I felt nothing…until I wasn’t even sure I was still alive.
My feet got twisted up in the roots of an old tree and I fell. Pain blossomed through me as the wind was knocked out of me.
I’m still alive.
But was the queen? I stared at the sky, trying to see through the canopy of leaves at the top, the corners of my vision turning black. I could feel something warm and
wet trickle down my arm, but the pounding in my head made it seem irrelevant.
Dazed, I lay there, staring into the abyss of night.
Get up.
It would be so easy to lay there, to look at the darkness of night until it was indistinguishable from the darkness of my own mind. I could just forget the world all together…its ugly cruelty, its evil and its pain.
There was something moving in the trees nearby. I considered staying there, but I could feel someone was close. I jumped to my feet to see a young woman. When she noticed my presence she stopped as though barred from taking another step, staring at me with a wild expression. Her dark hair clung to her glossy lips. She opened her mouth to speak, but the language that came out was a far cry from English, and her haste made her tongue thick. I took a step closer, trying to catch onto whatever she was saying.
A twig snapped and the woman bristled like it was a gunshot. Xian’s teeth sank into her neck, blood dripping onto the white satin of her dress. She sagged against him, the life fleeing her svelte body. “Stop!” I yelled, trying to steal his attention. Without moving, he turned his eyes upon me, and against the stranger’s pale neck, his lips quirked into a smile. “Xian, stop!” I yelled. “I’m here! I’m coming back!”
He pulled away and gave the girl a gentle tap on the shoulder that sent her onto the ground in an immobile heap. He smiled, licking his lips. “Got my letter, did you love?”
“I’m here.” I panted, still breathless. “I’m coming back.”
“Lovely. Celebrate with a drink?” His eyes flickered to the body on the ground suggestively. I shuddered.
“You don’t have to hurt anyone else.” I pleaded.
“She’s already hurt. A bit more won’t kill her. Go ahead.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Let’s go home. I’m tired.”
“Oh, come now, Lili, you can’t tell me you don’t want it. Just a little taste...it’s been so long…”
“No.”
“One sip and all your problems will disappear.” The appeal of that statement was obviously false. I didn’t understand what he wanted. I’d come back to him, just like he wanted. Was he going to make me send the rest of my short life paying for it?
I stared at him in unabashed disdain. “Alright, then.” He closed the space between us and grabbed my hand, lifted my wrist to his lips, and bit.
I couldn’t help but cry out…It wasn’t the first thing I’d expected. He grinned when our eyes connected and then dragged me toward the woman on the ground. I stumbled and landed on my knees in a pathetic heap. “Drink.” He commanded.
I shook my head. “Come on. You need it. You deserve it.”
“I said no.” My voice bore the edge of steel, but Xian was unperturbed by that.
“Your choice.” He knelt down, swept the girl into his arms, and found her neck again. She groaned in pain, but didn’t have any energy to swat him away. Mere seconds later he pulled away, grabbed my wrist, and pressed it to her mouth. When I realized his intent I tried to move away, but he pulled me in, squeezing my wrist tighter to allow my blood to drip onto her lips. A small sound escaped her, a curious mix of pain and pleasure, and he released me. I scrambled to my feet in horror, staring at the corpse-like figure in his arms. Any moment she would open her eyes and—
Her eyes flew open as the thought crossed my mind, and she took in her surroundings before sitting up. Her tongue flicked out over her lips, hungrily sopping up the traces of my blood. “Welcome back,” Xian said, pushing her away from him with a crooked smile. He grabbed me again and trudged forward, confident in his direction. The girl sat there on the ground, still, looking at her hands as if they’d changed. Her eyes locked on mine, desperate and hungry, but she stayed there still, too weak to move.
My mind was a maelstrom of thoughts: terror and disgust and sorrow. I didn’t even pay any attention to the path we took. I only knew that we arrived at the gates in a matter of minutes, and I kept on with him despite my spinning head. When the door shut, something clicked and I rounded on him. “What have you done with Calista?” I demanded. My fury took precedence over everything else.
“She’s resting.” He replied coolly. “Safe.”
“I want to see her.”
“Of course you do.” He looked amused. “But first, I think there’s someone else you should see.”
Xian led me past the staircase. My heart turned to stone.
He was taking me to my father’s room. My father, who had publicly disowned me, refusing to negotiate on my behalf. It was the reason Xian was free to torment me as he had the past few weeks; my Father no longer cared what happened to me. But had his apathy turned to hatred? What would he do to me? Would he kill me or worse?
Xian pushed open the door. I expected to see my father standing there with his back toward me, too ashamed to even look in my general direction. But he wasn’t there. I looked all around the seemingly empty room. I’d never been here before. The irony hit me that perhaps that was because this was where you went to die. “Go on,” Xian prodded. He leaned casually against the door frame, one leg swung in front of the other, his arms crossed. “He’s here somewhere.”
I glared at him, but stepped further into the cavernous chamber, looking around. There was something strange going on. I couldn’t quite determine what. I took another cautious step, but nothing happened. I turned to tell Xian that the room was empty when I saw it, the hand sticking out from under the bed. My breath hitched in my chest, but I edged forward with a mounting sense of dread.
I knew, from the first moment I saw that hand, what I would find. But knowing what to expect did not help keep back the scream when I saw it. My father’s body on the floor face down, a carved wooden stake protruding from his back.
“He didn’t care about you, Lilith.” Xian whispered in my ear. He had sneaked up behind me in an instant, and now his hand was on my shoulder, with just a little too much pressure. He wasn’t comforting me. He was reminding me that even now, after I’d run away and been driven back, I belonged to him. “He didn’t want you back. I hope you understand…I had to do it.”
I stared, transfixed, at my father’s corpse. After everything we’d been through, with our unconventional relationship, I expected that his death wouldn’t have bothered me. But it was something I’d never expected; He was going to live forever. It was me who was finite, me who would one day cease to exist. I didn’t doubt my father wouldn’t mourn that loss. And yet, seeing him stabbed in the back by the only person he had ever trusted…I felt unseasonably sad.
My chest seized, my throat constricting around this inexplicable grief. “You’re sick.” It was all I could manage without my voice breaking. That was a satisfaction I’d not give him.
“Oh, come now. You know how horrid he was. He’s the reason you ran away…” Xian rested his chin on my shoulder, letting his arms circle me. “He’s the reason you left me. It’s no great loss.” I choked on a dry sob. “A man who doesn’t care for his own daughter is hardly a man at all.”
I wanted to cry. Being here, back where I’d started as if nothing had changed, was just too much. It was like everything I’d fought for, everything I’d done, the people I’d met, and the person I’d become had never happened. I’d tried and failed. That shouldn’t make me feel so desperately hopeless, but it did. Because I’d known love, and I’d had a friend. Now they were gone and all I had was the memory of them. Now all I had was Xian. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want him to see me do it. “Calista.” I demanded.
“Of course.” He disentangled himself from me. “Come with me.”
But I could only stare, transfixed, at where my father lay on the ground in a pool of his own dark, poisonous blood. Xian smirked, just the slightest bit, before turning his back on me. I knew what he was doing…he was giving me a moment alone, to finish what wasn’t, to say the things that had been left unsaid, to pay my respects. I didn’t know if I had any respect for him, alive or dead. There was something, an inexp
licable sort of emotion that had been the foundation of our entire relationship…I’d never been able to figure out what exactly that was. “You were never really much of a father.” I said, bending down to be closer to him. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but Xian could. “I always thought maybe that’s what love was…just guarded and distant.” I pulled the stake from his back, slowly regaining inch by inch of the blood-soaked weapon. I slid it up my sleeve in one discreet, fluid motion. “But I don’t think you knew what that was either.”
I cast one last glance at my father, disgusted, cold, and numb, before following Xian out into the foyer. He held out a hand, but I pressed my arms around myself, trying to fight off the hollow feeling that threatened to steal what tattered fragments were left of my resolve. I followed him up the steps, around the corner, and then I knew where we were going…my room.
I recognized the man who stood guard at my door, his arms crossed and his expression bored. His name was Evan, and he’d been less than cruel. I’d actually sort of seen him as a peaceable man. Now he straightened when he saw Xian and then grinned at me. There seemed to be something on his lips, something he couldn’t wait to say, but a second glance at Xian gave him pause to think better of it. There was a new addition to the door—a shiny brass padlock, which Xian opened with a key procured from his pocket. When it swung open, I was almost too scared to enter. I let go of my fear when I saw her huddled in the corner.
“Lilith?” Her voice was still strong, imperial. She was a queen by marriage, but she possessed a queen’s charming dignity by birth. I ran to her side and fell to my knees to assess the damage.
“I’m so sorry!” I hoped she could see my sincerity in the dimly lit room. “I never meant for this to happen.”
“What happened?” She grabbed me by the upper arms in desperation and looked me over, casting a harried glance over my shoulder. “James? My children?” There was a hard edge of desperation in her voice.
The Celestial Kiss Page 27