Jason downed the potion in one gulp. The vile liquid left an acrid bitterness in his mouth. No amount of tongue sloshing got rid of the awful taste. He shoved the mug at Miller, wondering if this was payback for the intrusion.
With his fist clutching the crystal, Jason brought it about a foot from his chest. And he thought of Daria. He thought of her lovely smile, her pretty laughter, and the sweet gaze of her eyes when she sat across from him during dinner.
A dazzling white beam began to emanate from inside his fist. It grew larger, enveloping his hand, then larger still until it encompassed his entire body. Then he began to change his form. For a brief second, the tattoo on the back of his left shoulder pulsed in pain. Then it subsided. His clothes transformed into his black trench and boots, and his hair grew long.
As his body left the mortal plane and transported to Daria, he heard Miller’s voice and fading expletive.
“Shit! Don’t take the crystal with you. It’s Baccarat!”
Blackness drowned Jason, blinding him. He stopped to rub his wrists, the weight on them dragging down his shoulders. The atmosphere hung thick, laboring his breath and pulling each step back as though he waded through glue. With each additional stride, his movements became more fluid and soon he strode through the darkness with confidence. Except he didn’t know where he headed.
Nothing differentiated the darkness. No sounds permeated the never-ending abyss. Yet this was where the crystal brought him. Somewhere in this inky expanse, Damien had hidden Daria.
Jason continued walking, hoping he headed in the right direction. He didn’t know how long he walked. Time had no meaning here. Suddenly, he stilled, not even daring to breathe. He felt her.
Jason.
Daria called his name. He was sure of it. Though faint at first, her voice grew louder, its pull stronger. Until despite his blindness, he sidestepped to the right, certain she beckoned to him, oblivious to the increasing pain on his wrists.
When her essence surrounded him, he stopped and took a chance. Though she seemed to encompass the air around him, her singular voice had come from directly ahead. He called forth a blast of energy and ruptured the never-ending void before him.
Wood splinters, broken glass, and bent metal littered the floor. Daria barely glanced at the debris. She stared at the door as acceptance, that final, painful emotion punched her in the stomach.
She’d never get out of this room, never leave. She dropped her face into her hands and sank down on the bed as she tried to get a grip on the overwhelming turmoil threatening to unleash a flood of tears from her eyes. Her emotions and reason wrestled for control.
Everything in the room that could be lifted had already been smashed to bits. But no matter what she threw at the door or windows, she found no escape. Not even a scratch. Now there was nothing left to throw, nothing left to help her escape.
She stared at the four walls of her bedroom prison. Perhaps prison was better than creatures coming to eat her. At least she was still alive. But Jason had said he’d protect her. Where was he now when she needed him the most?
“Jason . . . where are you?”
She sighed. It was stupid to hope for him. He was simply a representative of his House, he had said. She was just an assignment. He hung around because it was his duty, not because he wanted to.
Then why did he say all those things? She wanted to pummel him with her fists while asking that question. If he hadn’t meant it, he shouldn’t have said it. It made him a hypocrite.
But in her heart of hearts, she wanted him to mean it. She didn’t want it to be a pretty lie.
Daria lifted her chin. She deserved to hear the truth. To do that, she needed to get out of here.
She marched to the bedroom door and pounded on the wood. “Damien Hellerman! Let me out right now!”
A few seconds later, she heard a knock. Daria jumped and backed up in alarm as the door opened. In came Damien, as if on cue.
“Well?” he asked, hands on his hips. “Have you given my proposal some thought? Because this is your fate.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, eyeing him in suspicion.
“You’ve been single your whole life and now suddenly everyone who is anyone wants to marry you. And there’s something in you that just can’t turn us away. Am I right?”
He couldn’t know about the loneliness that ate away at her, the emptiness inside that compelled her to join the matchmaking service. Yet his words indicated he did. As though he knew the auspicious one had these feelings. Were that true, it meant she could fall in love with anyone right now.
Then maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it was just her time.
“Everyone has something likeable about him,” Daria pointed out, not about to fall for Damien’s trap. “That’s just human nature.”
“But you’ve been feeling especially lonely lately. Maybe even unfulfilled in your life. It’s because you’re nearing maturation. You’re ready to find a mate. You need to get married.”
His words struck her with their truth. Maturation. Jason had used the same word, confiding that she would have powers then. Except he hadn’t known what powers she would develop. Maybe Damien did.
“What happens at maturation?”
Damien shrugged. “No one really knows. None of the auspicious ones have lived long enough to share. But,” he emphasized, “it means you can marry. That’s all that matters to me. So what do you say? Ready?”
Ready, indeed. Rage boiled her blood and she searched for something to throw at him. Her lifelong happiness held as much importance as an errand he planned to finish.
“Marriage is for the rest of your life. It’s not child’s play.” Ire continued to bubble inside her. Damien had proposed but didn’t take it seriously. It was all one big joke for him. She wasn’t even worthy of a homework assignment.
Damien laughed. “Listen to yourself. Are you my mother? Look,” he began, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back down to sit on the bed. “I’m the oldest son. You’re the auspicious one. This is meant to be. We’re a match made in Heaven—Hell—whatever.”
Her face twisted with disbelief as she haughtily declared, “I don’t do Hell.”
“We can live with the humans. I don’t mind.”
Daria rolled her eyes and groaned. Nothing got through this man’s thick skull.
“I don’t want to marry you!” she practically screamed.
“But you’d marry Jason if he asked you?” he glowered.
His question threw her off guard. She hadn’t even thought about it because Jason hadn’t proposed.
“He doesn’t want to marry me,” she answered dully.
Indignation rose in Damien’s glittering black eyes and Daria wondered if it was for her benefit. “That son of—”
The words had barely left Damien’s lips when her dresser imploded through the wall, drowning out Daria’s scream. The wood shrank and streamed through a tiny pinhole in the wall by an invisible vacuum on the other side. Then the wall began to disappear.
The hole grew larger, taller, until it expanded from floor to ceiling with the edges fading into blurriness. Damien stood and scowled at the hole through narrowed eyes, his lips curling in disgust. Nothing lay beyond the wall except an impenetrable darkness.
Within the infinite black space came an outline of a man. The blackness surrounded him like turbid water, a goo that clung to every cranny of his person.
A boot came into the room first, round-toed and black. Then she saw the hem of the pant leg, also black. The long leg that followed was cut off by a skirt—no, a jacket . . . the hem of a jacket. A trench coat.
Daria’s heart raced and she held her breath in anticipation. When she saw the silver buckles fastened around the coat, the wristbands around the hands, she stared into the atmosphere beyon
d, waiting. Knowing.
Jason stepped through the gap in the wall.
The hair on the nape of Daria’s neck stood up as chills streaked down her arms and legs. Even her nose and ears numbed as though a winter wind had blown through. Fear crawled up her spine, sending goose bumps rippling across her skin.
With the dark frown on his brow, the narrowed eyes hiding behind his long hair, and the deliberate, looming steps toward Damien, nothing about this man made her feel safe. Innate terror from his power flooded her soul.
Yet unlike that night in the alleyway, an ember deep inside her heart had ignited. Jason had come for her. Sure, he loved that woman from five hundred years ago and had wanted to marry her, but he had promised to protect Daria. Here he stood, making good on that promise.
Though she hadn’t made a move, Damien stuck out his arm to block her. “It’s been a long time.”
“Damien,” Jason acknowledged with a nod.
The two men’s presence filled the room. Their immense power charged the tense air and electrified the atmosphere. She found it hard to breathe. Unease crept through her body, chilling her.
Their eyes grazed over each other the way a lion watched a prancing gazelle—fearful of disturbing the brush yet hungry for the kill. Who would strike first?
For a few interminable seconds, neither said anything. Then Damien broke the silence by asking, “How do you plan to get back up there?”
“Let me worry about that. Let her go.”
Daria’s glance darted from one man to the next, trying to understand the exchange going on. Damien kept staring at Jason’s wrists, but Daria didn’t see anything beyond the black bands.
“You’ve always been such a party-pooper,” Damien sulked. “Now you’re here to ruin my fun.”
With his eyes never straying from Damien, Jason held out his hand to her. “Let’s go.”
Fear froze her. His commanding voice didn’t give the option for refusal, but she couldn’t walk into the lion’s den for fear he’d consume her. Torn between wanting to run and hide and wanting the safety his hand provided, Daria continued to stand there, dumb and immobile.
Damien made the decision for her by blocking her way and challenging Jason with a smirk. “Try and take her from me.”
She never saw them move.
Fire shot from Damien’s hand and lightning burst from Jason’s. The two forces collided in a ball of white sparks and orange flames.
Her eyes flew to the opening in the wall. If she ran for it, maybe she could make it out before either Jason or Damien could react. But even now she couldn’t see anything despite the fake sun still shining from the window. Jason had entered from the unknown and that nothingness scared her.
She focused her attention back on the two fighting. Suddenly, a blazing light exploded from the two powers and Daria twisted around, burying her face against the blankets. A wave of heat, akin to a tropical summer, washed over her.
When she turned around, Damien rested against the wall, his hand covering his heart. Jason stood in front of her, his eyes on Damien, but his hand reached out to her once again.
“Come with me.” When she still didn’t move, Jason turned to give her a loving smile, one that swept away the fear in her heart. The Jason she had met in the sports bar and who had ordered take-out had returned. “I promised I’d protect you, remember? Now let’s get out of here.”
Half-stumbling and half-running, Daria fled to Jason. Tears of relief stung her eyes. The moment she reached him, his arm wound around her, shielding her from Damien. The lump in her throat disappeared and warmth flooded her.
“Don’t let go of me,” he told her. Together, they walked toward that blackness beyond the room’s walls. She shrank closer to him as they approached.
“See you soon,” Damien called as darkness engulfed them.
Blinded by the sudden darkness, Daria tried to control the fear surging through her. The thick, inky atmosphere confined her, making it hard to breathe. “Jason?”
“I’m right here.” His hand tightened on her waist, yet his voice sounded small and far away. If she didn’t have him right by her side, she would worry they had separated. She glided her hands up his chest, fingertips trailing over the metal buckles of his coat, around the narrowed collar until she touched the slope of his jaw. Her hands continued upward, grazing his eyes and nose in butterfly caresses.
“You came for me,” she breathed, cupping his face.
She felt his smile on her fingertips. Then he kissed them. “Of course.” His hands pulled her close. “Damien didn’t do anything, did he?”
She shook her head and then realized he couldn’t see. “No. He locked me up and told me some stories. Oh, and he proposed.”
He stiffened and grabbed her arms. “What did you say? You didn’t say yes, did you?” His fingers dug into her flesh and the urgency in his voice hurt more than if he hadn’t said anything at all.
What did he have to be upset about? She still wrestled with the knowledge of his love for the last auspicious one.
“Answer me!”
Against her better judgment, she pushed him away. “At least he wants to marry me. You . . . you . . .”
To Daria’s dismay and embarrassment, tears flooded her eyes. What could she say? That he didn’t want to marry her? He had never said he wanted to in the first place. They’d known each other for what? Two, three days? Saying he hadn’t proposed made her sound like the idiot she was. Her heart wrenched and she cried harder.
“Sweetheart,” he beseeched, reaching for her.
“Don’t touch me!”
Now she sounded hysterical on top of it all. She couldn’t help it. As the words began pouring from her mouth, she knew she had lost all her pride when it came to this man.
“Damien told me everything,” she sobbed. “I know all about how you were going to run away with her. You wanted to marry her, too!”
Since meeting Jason, she had changed. Daria had relied on no one all these years. Losing her parents at sixteen had made her independent, driven, and brought her the success she had now. It had also left her guarded. She didn’t want people to get too close. If they did, she’d come to rely on them. Then they might leave and she’d be left alone anyway.
But for some strange reason, she had decided to let Jason in. Maybe it was because she had almost died. And Jason was there, available, and openhearted. So she took that leap of faith to find love. She didn’t know what she expected out of it all. Clearly too much, too soon.
Though ashamed of her jealousy and expectations, the words had tumbled out anyway. Now she wanted to crawl into a hole and die of humiliation.
Strong arms reached around her. She struggled against them, but they wrapped her in warmth, imprisoning her. A metal buckle jabbed her eye and she shifted her face, crying into his chest. His big hands stroked her hair and back.
When her cries had calmed and only a catch remained in her breath, he continued to hold her as though they had all the time in the world and wasn’t stuck in some godforsaken place where the sun never shone. His heart beat steadily against her ear and the rhythm soothed the last remnants of her frustration.
“So, Damien told you about Alice.” He sounded resigned, tired, and a bit sad.
Alice. The name made her more real. No longer was it some random girl also born under certain stars.
“She’s been gone for five hundred years.” She heard him swallow. “But everyone seems to want to bring her up lately.” Pain sprinkled his whispered words. “Alice was sweet, gentle, and very kind. I was walking death after I lost her. I wandered the known world, aimless, not knowing what to do, where to go. Until you.”
The need to apologize for dredging up those memories made her heart skip. He continued to stroke her hair, comforting her. Yet Daria felt h
e was the one who needed the comfort now.
“You gave me hope that I could make up for my mistakes,” he breathed. “I saw you in your crib and when you smiled at me, I saw a way to redeem myself.”
The rejection was coming. She could hear it approaching with the pace of a high-speed train racing to the end of a track that plunged off a cliff. Daria wanted to block her ears. She didn’t want to hear that she was a means for him to feel better about himself, a way to make up for his past. She hadn’t finally let down the wall around her heart to be hurt like this.
“I will never let anything happen to you, Daria. I will stay by your side and protect you until my last breath.”
Daria closed her eyes, allowing the agonizing words to sink in. No mention of love. No mention of even caring for her. Guilt drove him. Guilt for not saving Alice.
“I’m a homework assignment,” she confirmed, feeling dead inside.
She waited to hear vehement denials or laughter at her ridiculous notion, because she wanted to believe otherwise. Her own statement set her up for disappointment. Craving reassurance was a mistake. Maybe he’d crush that small flame of hope that ignited every time his glance did funny things to her stomach, or when his touch sent tingles down to her knees. She hated the effect he had on her even as she craved it.
Like me. Think of me as more than merely an assignment. Tell me I mean something to you.
Instead, Jason sighed. “At first,” he finally admitted.
Disappointment stung every pore of her body. Forced again to recognize she meant nothing to him, she couldn’t stop herself from plunging into a larger pond of despair.
“You two loved each other?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied, his voice barely audible.
The quiet assertion rang in her ears and smothered the last of her romantic thoughts, leaving her void of the love she hoped to have. Berating herself for being a fool, Daria bit the inside of her lip to keep it from quivering. She asked for it and she would bear the pain.
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