Lily reached for his hand and lowered it to her mouth, kissing his palm. Then she placed his hand over her heart, closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.
Chase turned around and our eyes connected. His looked guilty. I stepped out of the doorway and back into the hall.
“She’s like a sister to me, Dell,” he lied, quietly closing the door. “I feel the same way you do, it’s nothing more.”
“Do you lie to yourself about it too, or are you just lying to me so that I don’t turn you into a toad or place some horrible curse on you?”
Chase smiled. “You wouldn’t do that. Deep down you love me.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked him, crossing my arms. “I don’t even like you.”
Chase held my gaze, his unwavering.
I sighed. “Fine. I love both you and Lily. No matter which way you slice this, Chase, bottom line is that Lily isn’t your sister. You’re attracted to her. I can smell it and…honestly? It’s sort of creepy.”
“What should I do?”
Well, that shocked the hell out of me. “You’re asking me for advice?”
Chase reached back and touched the back of his head. “You’re right,” he chuckled. “Don’t know what I was thinking. I guess that fall down the stairs did more damage than I thought. That was the protection spell I take it?”
“Yeah.”
Chases eyes drifted down towards my dick. I swear I felt my balls draw up. It was if they were trying to tuck themselves behind Mr. Happy.
“Now I understand why you’re so hot to remove that spell,” he said, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“You’d be wrong,” I told him, surprising even myself. But the truth was that I was doing this more for Alex than I was for myself. Yes, I wanted more of her. Yes, I wanted to bury myself inside of her, to fuck her seven ways from Sunday, to make love to her until we were sore and spent. But more than that, I wanted to give her what she deserved. I wanted to give her the life she was meant to have, a real life, free of the influence of magic.
“You expect me to believe that you don’t want to fuck Alex?”
“So, is that what you fantasize about doing to Lily?” I countered. “Fucking her?”
Chase’s eyes grew cold. He took a step closer to me and lowered his voice. “I can control myself, and I don’t need the threat of some spell hanging over my head to do it.”
Score one for Chase.
“Lily hasn’t even begun to test your control,” I told him. “You know Lily. She’s relentless. In the end she gets what she wants.”
“Yeah? Well, she doesn’t want me.”
I reached up and tapped his nose. “This broken?”
Chase batted my hand away. “Cut it out. I can smell it. I’m the only guy here even close to her age, Dell.”
“You’re ten, almost eleven years older. That’s not it and you know it.”
“I’m…convenient, that’s all. She’ll be gone soon, off to Texas I imagine. You know what they say…”
“Everything’s bigger in Texas?”
Chase cuffed me on the side of the head. “I was thinking out of sight, out of mind.”
“Right.”
Denial. Apparently it ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Chapter Twenty-one
The light from the moon poured in through the bedroom window. It was bright and full against the pitch-black sky. A soft breeze drifted in cooling my blazing hot skin. I was covered in a slick sheen of perspiration and so was Alex, her body writhing beneath mine, responsive and ripe. Her breasts tasted of salt, her lips tasted like honey. Sweet. Delicious.
The air around us was heavy, the energy building, growing, just as I was growing, long and hard and oh-so-thick. And I was there where I wanted to be, where I needed to be. The desire was burning. Our love-making becoming increasingly frenzied, out of control. I was close to bursting. Alex was panting, her breaths ragged as she held on, arching up, angling her hips.
I could feel my beast rising. There was a flash of fang. Sweat from my forehead dripped into my eyes and the night was suddenly bleeding red. Hunger. Passion. Uncontrollable. Undeniable.
“Mine,” I growled, then I sheathed myself inside of her.
Alex screamed.
I woke with a start, the sun-filled room a stark contrast from the darkness that had filled my dream.
“It’s burning! It’s burning!” cried Alex as she clawed and ripped at her nightshirt. “Help me!” She scrambled from the bed, squinting. Alex fell to the floor, her cries rapidly turning into huge painful sobs.
“What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong!”
I jumped out of the bed to join her on the floor and tried to gather her up in my arms.
“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. “Stay…stay away! It’s too much…too much.”
I barely registered the pounding of footsteps on the stairs and in the hallway. It wasn’t until they were in my room, all of them shouting at once, Mom, Dad, and Chris, the now blackened sphere in his right hand. The spell… It had been broken and there were consequences, consequences I’d failed to anticipate.
Trust in the magic.
“What have you done!” shouted Chris, moving further into the room. He tried to get past me, to Alex, but I blocked his path.
“The protection, it’s gone. I think she might be in withdrawl,” I told him, lowering my voice, trying to remain calm for Alex’s sake. I lifted the sphere up so that he could inspect it. “It looks different, yeah?”
“Yes!” he shouted, pushing me aside, reaching for Alex.
“Stop yelling! No yelling. No yelling. No yelling. Shh. Shh.” She was almost in a fetal position now, rocking back and forth, her eyes closed.
“Utulu,” I whispered, then watched Alex slip into a state of quiet unconsciousness.
“What the fuck did you do to her!” he shouted, placing his hand in the center of my chest and giving me a good shove.
I shielded and absorbed the force. “We don’t have time for this now,” I told him, pulling the sheet off of the bed and covering Alex’s now naked body.
“What kind of withdrawl?” asked my mother, always practical.
“Magical withdrawl. I should have thought of the possibility earlier. It just didn’t occur to me that anyone would…”
The echo of Basta’s voice drifted through my mind. How many times had he said it to me over the years? When you’re facing an opponent, trying to anticipate their next move, don’t ask yourself what you would do. You already know that. Ask what you wouldn’t and be prepared to do the unimaginable. That’s how you win. That’s how you become a master.
“Damn it!”
“I don’t understand. Explain,” demanded Chris.
I ran my hand over my face. “Whoever did the protection spell, they didn’t bother to instill a process to take her down slowly. She’s lived in what amounts to a protective bubble her entire life. She’s on sensory overload.”
“Like walking into the sunlight after sitting in a dark theater?” Mom offered.
“Exactly. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, it’s all going to be overwhelming.”
“Then why the hell did you tell me to bring this thing and… Why was she naked in your bed?” roared Chris.
“Chris, calm down,” soothed Mom. “They’re in love with one another. You remember how it was—”
“That true?” He stepped closer to me. We were toe to toe. He was shorter than I was, but wiry and feisty as all get out.
“Yes,” I replied, looking him straight in the eye.
“Then you fix this,” he ground out, his entire body trembling, whether out of anger or fear I wasn’t certain. Maybe it was out of both.
“I’ll shield her, then bring her down gradually. But it’s going to take time and it’s going to take my focus.”
Chris nodded. “Get started. You do whatever you have to do. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“I’m not going to lose her. I can’t.”
>
“Neither can I,” I assured him. “Now, let me do my job. Leave us. A breakfast tray would be good. Leave it outside the door. Don’t knock. If I’m not out by lunch, prepare a lunch tray.”
“Will do,” said my father. “Come on, folks, let’s clear out.”
By now Lily and Chase were lurking in the hallway. They moved back. Mom and Dad stepped out to join them.
Chris didn’t budge. “I’m not leaving her.”
“You made me promise,” I reminded him. Elu Ezubu Arhis Sube’u. A blast of ice-cold air rose up from within me, propelling Chris backwards, out into the hallway until he was pinned against the far wall.
“Holy shit!” whispered Lily.
I walked over to the bedroom door. “I keep my promises,” I said. Then I stepped out of the way and slammed it shut.
Chapter Twenty-two
When I reached up to wipe the sweat from my brow I noticed that my hand was trembling. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing to steady myself. Instead, I stumbled back, bumping into a bedside table and knocking over a lamp.
“Is everything all right?”
It was Chris, he was just outside the door. I’d sealed it right after I’d ejected everyone from the room, right before I placed Alex in thrall, shielded her, then started the desensitization process. Taking down the level of protection around her slowly, assessing her reaction, absorbing any discomfort, it had been a painstakingly slow process and I was close to exhaustion.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” I called out, forcing down the bile that was rising up in my throat, burning the back of it.
“It’s been close to thirty-six hours, Dell. You haven’t even come out to eat. Open the door.”
I glanced over towards Alex. She was floating about three feet off of the bed, nude, so that nothing touched her skin. Her eyes were open but vacant. She wasn’t seeing through them, I was. I was seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling. The shield around her was completely lowered now. The sound of the lamp crashing had produced a normal startle response. I turned the overhead light on, the one attached to the ceiling fan. I set the fan on low. As the blades moved overhead I could feel the breeze rush down and over her skin. It had grown warm in the room and the gentle wind the fan produced was cooling, comforting.
The next step was to release her and get her cleaned and fed. We’d gotten through the worst of it. I gradually lowered her back to the bed then sat down alongside her, running my hands down the length of her slender arms. I leaned down, my mouth hovering above hers. I whispered softly, “Come back to yourself. Come back to me.”
A sweetly tender smile graced her lips as she opened her eyes and looked at me.
“I’m all right,” she said, reaching up to cup the side of my face in the palm of her hand.
“I know.”
“I could feel you inside of me, holding me. I…”
“Shh. You’ve been through a lot. You need to bathe, eat, rest.”
Alex sat up. “Are you kidding? I feel fabulous!”
“Trust me, you could use a bath,” I laughed, standing up so that I could retrieve her robe from the chair.
I reached down towards the robe then paused. My vision was clouding over, my legs felt like rubber. I shook my head to clear it. I was supposed to be doing something, but I suddenly couldn’t remember what that something was…
“Dell?”
“Huh?”
“Dell, what’s wrong?” She was beside me on the floor, her face filled with concern. “Dell? Dell!”
I wanted to tell her not to worry. I wanted to tell her that everything would be all right, that I’d be all right. But the world was fading to black, spinning out of control, and I couldn’t seem to form the words.
My shields weren’t strong enough anymore to hold up and I’d weakened myself to the point that I could no longer hold on. The last thing I heard was Alex’s voice as she cried out for help followed by the sound of the splintering doorframe.
Chapter Twenty-three
“His vital signs have stabilized,” I heard my mother say. “I think he’s just exhausted.”
“I’m so sorry,” whispered Alex, her voice thick with remorse. “This is all my fault.”
“I know it’s hard to remember sometimes, dear. It’s hard for me to remember, but Dell’s immortal, he’s healing himself. He just needs rest…and time.”
“You need rest too,” interjected Chris. “You haven’t slept for almost two days.”
“I’m not leaving him. He wouldn’t leave me. He…” a sob caught in Alex’s throat.
“I have to check on Luna,” Mom said.
“Violet—”
“No. We’ve been through this, Chris. There’s nothing more that I can do. She doesn’t want to see you. I don’t know why, but she’s been very clear on that point.”
“She doesn’t want you to remember her this way. That’s what she said the night she arrived,” interjected Alex. “How long have you and Luna been friends?”
“We were never friends,” he replied, his voice sounding almost hollow.
“Then why did she feel the need to protect me?” Alex asked.
“Because I’d failed to. Because I was with her when your mother was killed and you were kidnapped. I was with Luna…”
My mother sighed. “It’s not like you had a choice. It’s not like you could have stopped—”
“That’s just it!” he yelled. “I never asked her to stop coming. I enjoyed it, Violet. I may be a street rat, but I’m not totally stupid. What Luna and I had…it never could have amounted to anything. I was one of what… dozens…hundreds. I loved Isabelle. I loved her with all my heart but…”
He was crying now, his voice cracking, its pitch high and unsteady.
“You loved Luna, too,” finished Alex softly.
“Chris,” soothed by mother, “it was a long time ago. Let it go. Forgive yourself. Forgive Luna. Move on.”
He laughed. “Move on. I don’t know how.”
“It’s too late for you to save Isabelle, Chris. Nothing you do will bring her back. But you have your daughter back, and you have a second chance. Don’t let it pass by.”
“A second chance to do what?”
“To save the woman you love.”
“I thought you said that there was nothing more you could do for her?”
“There isn’t. Luna is dying because she isn’t feeding. She hasn’t for a very, very long time. Not since that night.”
“The night Isabelle died? I want to see her,” Chris said again. “Let me see her, Violet.”
“I let you in there and then what?”
“I’ll do what’s right,” he said.
“And what’s right, Christian? Are you going to sit there and hold her hand while she dies? Is that what’s right?”
“I don’t know,” he growled, frustrated.
“You know,” replied Mom, “you’re just afraid to be honest with yourself.”
“That’s not true!” he protested.
“It is true. Have you sat on the fence for so many years that the splinters have crawled up your ass and lodged themselves into your brain?”
“Violet!”
“Christian! Do you love her?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s always been that simple,” rebutted Mom. “Stop being an idiot. Save her. Save yourself.”
Save yourself.
Everything began to slip away, voices fading into the darkness as I drifted deeper into a rejuvenating sleep. In my minds eye I could see it, a small bright light, the miniature ball of fire that, when I was healed, would show me the way home, the way back.
Chapter Twenty-four
When I woke up, I was alone. That shouldn’t have surprised me, and it shouldn’t have disappointed me, but it did. I glanced at the bedside clock. It was close to midnight. The room was dark except for the stream of light that poured in from the half-open bathroom door.
I could hear the show
er running and the exotic aroma of clove drifted out. I climbed out of the bed intent on joining Alex. Stripping my clothes off, I let them fall carelessly to the floor. As I crossed the threshold I could see her through the glass doors that surrounded the shower stall, she was standing in the midst of a blanket of steam, water sheeting down her luscious body, washing away the soap. I took a moment to admire the line of her back, the curve of her ass, and her long, slender legs, legs that I intended to wrap around my waist.
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