by Liz K. Lorde
The off-white gown she’s wearing has delicate full-length lace sleeves and a tasteful high neckline—I say tasteful, though the material itself barely conceals her breasts, and the dress is backless.
Gloriously, temptingly backless.
Ana clearly notices the hungry way I’m eyeing her up. She doesn’t appear to dislike it.
“Cas…surely some explanations are in order,” she says as I get within a meter of her. She side steps me to check her make-up in the full-length mirror behind me. I spin around to look at the back of her dress again.
Holy fuck.
Well, we’re in a church, so if I’m going to curse then it better be the holiest of fucks.
Ana looks outstanding. I watch her reflection in the mirror watching me—waiting to see what I’ll do.
The coy smirk upon her lips almost rips me apart.
This girl is meant to be with me—was always meant to be with me.
I gesture at the door with my thumb, not breaking eye contact with Ana’s reflection.
“Mister Fiancé out there isn’t as great a shot as he thinks he is,” I explain, though I can’t help but wince as I speak. “Very nearly got the best of me, but lucky for me, Nico and some others were on their way to the church even as Yuri was filling me with lead. Turns out someone had leaked what your daddy was about to do…I’ve never been so glad to have a snitch in all my life.”
It’s the first time I’ve spoken about what happened to me in a long, long time, and it gives the look between me and Ana an intensity that wasn’t there before.
She saw what happened. Witnessed it first-hand; she is the one and only person who truly shares my pain from that night.
Ana turns around to look at me with eyes now on the verge of tears.
“I was so sure you were dead.”
I smile grimly.
“So was I, Ana. Trust me, so was I.”
There’s a long pause as we simply look at each other.
“I’ve spent the past three years looking for you, you know,” I eventually say. “I never stopped.”
Ana looks both upset and angry.
“My dad feared retribution in-kind for killing Andreas’ firstborn son, so he had me move around a lot, stay out of the spotlight—you know the drill. Well, until he—”
“Until he offed my old man, too, you mean.”
Ana takes half a step towards me, then stops when I reach out to meet her in the middle. She blushes furiously and looks away.
Honestly, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
“With both you and your father out of the way, he decided it was time for me to get married to Yuri in public. He figured there was no further risk, so it was about time he got some use out of me.”
I frown slightly. Even though I know how things work in our world, it pains me to think of anybody treating Ana as an object.
“Please tell me he didn’t say as much to your face.”
Ana grimaces as she runs her left hand up and down her right arm.
“He didn’t have to. He had me engaged to Yuri, after all. That’s all I needed to know.”
Oh, no. I don’t fucking like the sound of that at all.
“What has that fucker done—”
I pause. I don’t want to talk about Yuri when I finally have Ana in front of me once again.
“You know what, fuck him. Fuck them all. How are you, Ana?”
Ana’s eyes widen slightly, and then she bursts out laughing. I can’t help but laugh a little too.
“Oh, I’m just fine, Caspian. Never been better. Your wedding is supposed to be the best day of your life and all that.”
She pivots to avoid my arms as I take a step towards her. She’s enjoying all of this physical back-and-forth, I can tell. But I can also tell that she wants it to end.
I turn and follow her as she makes her way over to check the time on her phone. I glance over her shoulder.
Five minutes until the ceremony begins.
I risk just barely running a finger up Ana’s exposed skin.
She feels so fucking good.
I hear a sharp intake of breath from Ana before she turns and pushes me away.
“I can’t decide if that was creepy or sexy, Cas,” she says, raising an eyebrow as I, very obviously, look her up and down.
Ana blushes even more furiously than she did earlier. But then she sighs.
I don’t like the sound of that—not one bit.
“Cas, you can’t be here,” she says. Her eyes wander over to her knife. “I had something I planned to do.”
She makes for the door and I follow her.
“Believe me; murdering Yuri has been pretty high on my list of priorities up to now.”
Ana tries to open the door, but I push it firmly shut.
Between my body and the wooden grain of the church door lies the most important person in my life. I bring my head down to whisper in Ana’s ear.
“But even that notion pales in significance to how much I love you, Ana. Getting my revenge on Yuri is fucking nothing compared to being with you.”
Suddenly, a knock on the door threatens to scare the two of us half to death.
“Ana, my love, are you ready to walk down the aisle?” a woman’s voice calls. I recognize it to be Ana’s mother, Irina.
“Just a moment, mama,” Ana replies, just loudly enough for her mother to hear her through the thick wood of the door.
There’s a pause, then Ana turns within the confines of my arms to look up at me with her pale, beautiful eyes.
“Cas…”
But she says no more. Instead, Ana brings a hand up to run it through my hair and pull my mouth down to her lips, and then she’s kissing me as if her life depends on it.
Considering what she was planning to do at her own wedding, I guess it does.
I push Ana against the door, not breaking from her lips. My hands are rough and unsteady as I run them down her exposed back. Her fingers tighten as they entwine further into my hair—it’s a gloriously sweet pain that echoes the ache I feel growing in my pants.
I push my whole body against Ana so that she gets the idea, and I hear her moan a little, but then she pulls away from my lips.
Fuck, I don’t want to stop. I don’t think I can stop.
Her mother knocks on the door again, more insistent this time.
“We can’t do this here, Cas,” Ana whispers, her voice a little shaky.
“Then get the fuck out of here with me,” I reply, as if the answer was obvious all along.
Which, it certainly was to me, at least.
More knocking.
“Now or never, cuore mio,” I say.
My heart.
Because that’s what Ana is to me—and she knows it.
I watch her as she glances at the door, a frown on her face as if she’s considering something difficult.
Then she looks me dead in the eye and grins, both her eyes and slightly pointed canines gleaming.
“Fuck it, let’s go.”
Chapter 4
Ana
I take one glance at the door that my mother is banging so insistently on—knowing immediately that there is nothing I could say to her right now that would make her understand me.
Instead, I give Cas a wolfish grin.
“Fuck it, let’s go.”
We make our escape through the window. The window. Oh, how I’ve missed Cas.
My life has been missing the kind of adrenaline rush that comes from being with Caspian Andreas for three unbearably long years.
Or maybe it was simply that I wasn’t even alive.
Cas was dead for three years, and so was I.
It’s all so clear now.
I can hear mama screaming my name—she must know that something has gone terribly wrong, but I laugh raucously in response.
Cas kisses my hand as he helps me out the window, and then we’re gone, gone, gone.
I allow him to lead me full-pelt down the sidewalk
. In any other situation, a young woman in a bejeweled wedding dress and a man dressed all in black as if he were heading for a funeral—something I’ll be sure to ask Cas about when I’m not running in stiletto heels—would draw several pairs of curious eyes.
But this is New England. They care more about the centerpieces here.
Just when I feel as if my lungs may burst, or that I might break my ankle in my heels—Cas takes me around a corner where a car lies, waiting.
It’s no ’69 Spider, but it’s pretty fucking close. It’s a beautiful car.
“Your chariot awaits, my lady,” Cas says, sweeping into a bow as he opens the passenger door for me.
“Where—” I pant, struggling to get my breath back before speaking, “where did you get an Austin-Healey Sprite?”
Cas laughs as he gets into the driver’s seat and turns the key in the ignition. The engine roars to life as if it is just as happy about our escape as we are.
“I’d say fasten your seatbelt, but the Mark II has none,” he says.
I roll my eyes.
“I’ve just done the most dangerous thing of my life,” I tell him. “Seatbelts are irrelevant now. But seriously, Cas…where’d you get the car?”
“I spent the entire flight trying to locate the perfect getaway car. You won’t believe how much this baby cost me.”
“But let me guess, it was worth it, right?”
Cas pulls one hand away from the steering wheel to wrap his arm around me. I happily nestle against it.
“Sometimes the corniest lines are the truest ones, cuore mio.”
I almost melt at those words—just as I did back in the church.
I thought I was never going to hear those words again.
“Yuri will have well and truly knocked that door down by now,” Cas murmurs.
“Oh, definitely. Hope it falls on him.”
There’s a sharpness to my words that Cas notices immediately, but doesn’t comment on. I pray to God that he will still love me after he truly realizes what kind of person I’ve become.
He doesn’t know that I had planned to die at my own wedding. And I don’t think I ever want him to.
No, I’ll take that to my grave.
And yet, I know that he will see through my thoroughly hardened shell and wish to know what made me that way.
I run my hands up and down my arms, suddenly acutely aware of the not-yet-healed bruises littering my skin, barely concealed by the lace. He’ll want to know about them when he sees them.
And he deserves to know. He literally took three bullets for me.
My heart is suddenly overwrought with emotion as I look at the man I love—the man I have loved for the past eight years of my life.
“You cold, Ana?” Cas suddenly speaks, turning on the heater as he asks the question.
With the sun slowly setting, I guess I could blame my nervous shaking on that. But I don’t want to lie.
“I’m not cold,” I reply, giving Cas a small smile. “I’m just—I’m just so relieved. And I don’t even think I’m sure yet that all of this isn’t a dream meant to torture me and that I won’t wake up and that bastard Yuri will have his hands on me and—”
“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” Cas interrupts soothingly.
He pinches me, and I recoil in surprise.
“Ow!” I complain, frowning at him. “What was that for?”
He laughs, the sound lost to the wind whipping against our faces as he drives onto the interstate and picks up speed.
“They do say if you can feel pain then you’re not dreaming, my love.”
Well, if we’re sticking to that logic, then Cas is free to hurt me for the rest of my life.
There’s silence in the car for a few minutes—but it’s a peaceful, contented silence. As if, finally, the stars have aligned and all is right with the world.
“I can’t believe we’re really doing this, Cas. I can’t believe it,” I eventually murmur, barely audible against the roar of the Austin-Healey’s engine.
Cas turns his head from the road momentarily to smile warmly at me.
Oh, how I’ve missed those eyes of his. Olive green and earthy—as if every forest, field and living thing are trapped inside. Well, I suppose Caspian Andreas truly is my entire world; so it makes sense for his eyes to contain it.
The dying sun is in his hair—catching the sandy blonde strands and setting them on golden fire.
Along with his tanned skin, he looks like a god. He looks invincible.
I don’t remember him looking quite so strong.
Cas quirks an eyebrow at me questioningly.
“You’re staring, Ana. What are you thinking?”
“That you were much more—I don’t know—elvish, before.”
Cas bursts out laughing.
“And what do you mean by that? Is that a good or a bad thing?”
I giggle.
“A good thing, I swear. You were thinner and more boyish, before. I guess back then I thought you would always look like that. But now…”
“But now?”
I give him the same up-and-down look that he used to eye me up back in the church. He definitely appreciates it.
“Now you look like a man.”
Cas grins.
“All the better to steal you away, then. Glad to put all these hard-won muscles to good use!”
“As if you used them at all, Mr. Andreas. I was definitely capable of escaping out of that window all by myself.”
He gives me a sidelong glance, paired with a wicked smile, and I feel my insides heat up.
“You seemed to rather enjoy being pinned to the door, Miss Rachmanoff.”
If my insides were hot before, they’re on fire now.
But I need to cool down.
There are really some very important matters that need to be discussed before anything physical can happen. It’s important that Cas and I are on the same page—we always were before, after all. We owe it to ourselves to clear the air.
But at least for a few more minutes, I decide to keep those thoughts to myself. I tilt my head up into the setting sun, allow Cas to blare out some classic rock on the radio, and simply absorb a moment that—I can say with some certainty—I would die for.
Chapter 5
Cas
With the top of the Austin-Healey all the way down, Ana and I cruise along the interstate at what feels like a million miles an hour.
I look at the speedometer and note, with some disappointment, that I’m reaching the top speed of 75.
I look over at her and smile despite myself. I can’t believe how beautiful she looks, even after all these years.
She looks at me suddenly, intently.
“Pull over, Cas,” she says.
“Your wish is my command,” I reply.
With a tilt of the steering wheel, we pop a full 360 as the Rolling Stones are wailing something about being pleased to meet you and hoping you guessed their name.
Sympathy For the Devil.
How appropriate, I think to myself.
We look up at the same time and find ourselves at the hilariously named Tick Tock Diner.
“You hungry?” I ask her when we reach a full stop.
She smirks back. “Why do I get the feeling you’re proposing to eat something not on the menu in this joint?”
The blue green neon lights of the sign reflect off her pale skin.
I laugh. “Wouldn’t mind that at all. But, for a change, I’m hungry and would love nothing more than for you to join me.”
She hesitates at first but ultimately acquiesces, and we walk in together.
One quick look around the joint makes us both realize that we’re way overdressed for the occasion. All around us are nothing but Florida-ready retirees demanding early bird specials, “ladies who lunch” in yoga pants and order nothing but salads with “lemon on the side” for dressing (but no doubt go home and binge on Snickers bars), and drunk teenagers slobbering on disco fries to get the rotgut vodka out
of their systems.
The waitress, dressed in an ersatz tuxedo-style uniform, comes over to us.
“Someplace quiet,” I brusquely request. “And far, far away from this disaster.”
She looks to be about fifty years old, her face crinkling as snorts, motions to the left with her head, and brings us deeper into the diner. She guides us into a far-away booth that can’t be seen from the front door.
I help Ana with her dress before I sit down myself, then turn to the waitress and ask her for some coffee.
Almost instantly, she returns with a fresh pot and two mismatched ceramic cups, then pops her head around the corner again, and returns with cream and sugar.
This little ritual gives me time to look at Ana—again, something I can’t seem to get enough of doing. But as I reach out to touch her, just to make sure she’s real, she flinches and pulls back.
“Ana,” I say gently, “it’s me. It’s Cas.”
She rubs her wrist and looks down.
It’s only then that I see them—the bruises. Some of them are fresh, bright eggplant color; others are fading into various shades of yellow and blue.
Instantly, I’m flush with rage and grab her wrist.
“Who did this to you, Ana?” I demand.
She shudders, the fear in her eyes becoming evident, and quickly pulls away.
The last thing in the world that I want is to scare her. I take a deep breath and motion for the waitress to come back. When she does, I place the order confidently.
“A Belgian waffle with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry on top.”
The waitress gives a slight side-eye to Ana, no doubt curious as to how such a beautiful girl with such a slamming body could maintain that figure while eating such a high-sugar, high-carb plate of shit.
Ana, unafraid of a few nasty glances, tosses a side-eye back to the waitress, who quickly scurries away to place the order in the kitchen.
“You know,” Ana says, “I haven’t had a waffle since…”
I smirk and reach for her again. “You remember, Ana baby? Vegas…the chapel…”
Her eyes shutter, and she pulls away again. “I don’t want to talk about it.”