by Bea Paige
“Love,” he says, dropping his head. “I’m in love with you and it’s killing me knowing I can’t touch you, knowing I want to touch you again, even now when it could lead to your death.”
“Is that what happened to Carlotta?”
Gabe’s head snaps up. “Mihr,” he growls.
“Is it?” I press.
“Yes, I suppose so. Carlotta belonged to someone called Rhain, a powerful member of Clan Lux. She was one of his household. It was a long time ago, before you. She let me take from her, not enough to kill her, but enough to hurt her nonetheless. Enough to take her youth, enough to make her old before her time. Oddly, it was never painful for her. Perhaps that’s why it was easier for me to take? I don’t know. Even when I knew it was wrong, I did it anyway. That is who I am, Fern… Fuck, I shouldn’t be here.” Gabe backs away, his eyes wide with fright.
“Stop!” I say. “Do you feel regret?”
“Of course I do. She didn’t deserve it.” Gabe scrapes a hand over his face. “I am damaged beyond repair, Fern. Life and death are so mixed up that I have no idea which side I belong to anymore. The only thing I do know is that I have loved you from the very moment I saw you singing on the rooftop of the building where you work.”
“You heard me sing?” No one, not even Dani, has heard me sing. It’s something I do in private. Something solely for me.
“Yes. It was so beautiful. I wished I’d sung with you then. Perhaps you’d be my Harmonia now and I’d be able to touch you like Mihr can…” He pauses a moment, catching his breath, which seems to have noticeably quickened the nearer I stand to him.
“I think I would have lost myself to the darkness a long time ago had it not been for you.”
“Gabe…” I reach out to touch his face, my fingertips so close I can feel the heat from his skin. His words should scare me. But I’m not afraid.
I feel alive. This strange kind of sensation slides over my skin the longer I am in his presence. Is this the Marking? Was this how Carlotta felt? Am I falling into the same trap?
My fingers hover over his cheek. I can feel the warmth of his breath flutter against my skin, but when that heat turns to ice my hand falls away, only to be captured by something soft, velvety. I look down to see my hand cupped in his feathers. Their touch ignites something in me and my body thrums with an almost painful desire. I close my eyes, not able to trust myself because I know if I look at Gabe’s haunted face I’ll walk straight into his arms and certain death, and neither of us will have the strength to fight it.
“I am not a good person, Fern. If I were, then I wouldn’t be standing here now knowing that in a few minutes you will be suffering for it. I should walk away for good. I should disavow myself and send someone else to take my place. But I can’t. I wasn’t able to do it back when I first saw you, and I’m not able to do it now. It is taking everything I’ve got not to touch you, kiss you, make love to you. Fuck, I want you so bad my skin burns with it. I burn for you, Fern. You should be scared of me, because I am.”
I waver on my feet. Not because the inhibitor is wearing off, but because his words are having a profound effect on me. For a moment there is nothing but silence. But it isn’t a lonely silence, it’s a loaded silence, a heavy silence, a silence full of possibility and thick with attraction and a desire so heavy I want to succumb to it. I open my eyes and stare at Gabe, ready to face whatever happens next.
“I’m not scared of you. Despite the lives you’ve taken, despite what you’re capable of, I am not afraid of you now. For a long time, I hated your voice even though I appreciated the beauty of it. When you came to take Natasha’s baby boy… I hated you then.”
“Fern, please…” Gabe flinches.
“I’m not finished,” I say, my fingers folding over the feathers pulling away from my hand. “There is truth to the saying that eyes are the windows to the soul. You have the same eyes as that baby. Even though I hate that you took his life, I understand now why you did. I saw what it cost you. What it still costs you. The scars you bear may not be visible, but that doesn’t mean to say they’re not there. Your heart isn’t as black as you believe. It can’t be when you hurt so much.”
Gabe spins on his feet, turning away from me. His whole body is shaking. I step up behind him and place my hands on his folded wings, instinctively knowing that this part of him can’t harm me. I run my fingers over the firm bone covered in soft feathers that arch towards the floor. Gabe lets out a low moan, but he doesn’t move away.
Without thinking a moment more, I press my whole length up against his folded wings, palms and cheek, hips and breasts against silky, soft feathers.
“Fern, please,” Gabe begs. “I am so close to losing control. I don’t have the strength to walk away.”
But I don’t move. I can’t. Gabe is not the only one who is finding it hard to leave. It’s impossible for me to do that now. It’s as though I am bound to him by some invisible force. It wraps around us both, holding us tightly together in our desire and despair, but it’s more than that. There is something happening between us that goes beyond this physical attraction, beyond the Marking. I don’t understand it, but I’m unable to ignore it.
“Fern, you must walk away. I’m begging you. Please, GO!”
“I don’t want to,” I say, running my hands over the firm curve of his wing, my fingertips brushing against Gabe’s back. Even that slightest of touch has my senses overloading.
“I know everyone is saying it’s dangerous. I know what my physical reaction to you would be without the inhibitor. I know what you did to Carlotta, what you took from her, but I can’t walk away, Gabe. I can’t. I don’t want to,” I repeat.
In a rush of air and feathers, Gabe spins on his feet and pulls me against his chest, his hungry mouth finding mine. He kisses me like a desperate man, a man who knows that this may be his one and only chance to appease the darkness in him or stoke it. Either way, I am lost.
My reaction is immediate and overwhelming.
Pain skirts the edges of pleasure as Gabe’s tongue spears my lips, as his teeth clash against mine in his haste to devour me. I return the kiss with equal passion, my hands fisting his hair, my body pressing up against his. I can feel the hard length of his desire and push up against him, rocking my hips against his. Dark spots float behind my closed eyelids and blades of ice run over my skin but it isn’t enough to slice through the connection between us. A tiny voice in the back of my head is mewling in protest, but the voice is weak, drowned out by the sudden erratic thumping of my heart and the pulse of pleasure between my legs. Gabe’s teeth pull against my bottom lip, biting just this side of pain whilst his hand moves to my breast and his thumb rolls over my nipple.
Pleasure sears my skin whilst death creeps up my spine.
The combination is intoxicating, and I am falling into a whirlpool of dancing light edged with black flames. They flicker around us both. He is as burnt by them as I am.
Pleasure and pain.
Light and dark.
Life and death.
Swirling around us, drawing us together, not pushing us apart. I can feel the edges of his own pain slide up against mine.
“Fern…” He calls my name. It sounds so far away but I can still hear the love in it, and the darkness.
This is hurting him as much as it is pleasing him. We both dance along the fine line between what is wrong and what feels right. I’m not sure which side is winning, or if it even matters.
I want his touch. I want his kiss. I want his love. I want his darkness as much as he wants my light.
The link between us, surrounding us, tightens as Gabe’s wings fold around me once more. I feel weightless. My senses are heightened so much so that beyond the cold creep of his touch something else lies in wait. It feels warm, it feels welcoming. With every kiss, with every slide of his lips across mine, with every touch of his hand roaming my body, it feels as though another layer is being revealed. Heat followed by ice followed by warmth, all wrappe
d up in this Angel of Death who screams life just as loudly.
This isn’t wrong. This doesn’t feel like death at all. I feel different. I feel more.
I feel alive.
Gabe lifts me up, encouraging me to wrap my leg around his waist. I do. He kneels down, his hand finding the roundness of my arse as he yanks me against him. Once, twice he thrusts his hips against me. But this friction, it’s not enough. I pull my lips away from his, yanking at his top. He growls, a low rumble rolling up his throat. Then realising what I want, what I need, he rips his t-shirt off, revealing a muscled chest. I gasp. Tattooed over his right pec is a single, perfectly formed bluebell. I reach up to touch it, my fingers grazing over the petals. Gabe captures my fingers, bringing them to his lips. He draws my middle finger into his mouth, his tongue swirling around and around before his teeth graze against my skin as he pulls it free from his lips. Then, without any warning he tips me backwards, lays me on the floor, grasps my wrists and pulls them above my head before crushing his mouth against mine. White heat explodes behind my eyes and I am completely lost.
Warmth blankets my chest.
Ice-blades slide over my skin.
Flames lick at my belly.
Pleasure and pain fight for my attention. I want it all.
I don’t care if this is death. Let it fucking take me.
“GABE, NO!” Ether shouts, his voice ripping through my skull. It’s so loud, too loud. Gabe is wrenched from my arms. Shock registers on his face as Ether chucks him over his shoulder and rushes with him out of the room.
“FERN!” Gabe roars.
Despite death’s grasp, I get up and stumble after him, the floor tipping beneath my feet. My legs buckle, my vision blurs and a wave of pain so intense crashes over me that I lose my sight for a moment. I expect to hit the ground, but I don’t. Once again, I find myself in Mihr’s arms.
“Fern, Life damn it, why didn’t you listen to me?” he says, picking me up.
But I can’t answer. A searing, burning, life-changing pain rips through my abdomen and up through my chest, a fire so hot its ice-cold flames burn every millimetre of my skin.
The last thing I hear before darkness takes me is Gabe’s broken voice, and he is singing.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mihr
It has been five days since Fern collapsed in my arms, but it may as well have been a lifetime.
I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t think straight. I can barely even breathe. My muscles ache, even my heart pounds a different beat. I feel sick.
I’ve never known torture like it. I understand now what it truly feels like to be a prisoner in Queen Adrielle’s castle. I understand what pure fear is. I see it on Ether’s face, on Gabe’s, and even though I want to kill him for what he has done, I have no fight left to do even that. His own guilt is enough of a punishment. My own guilt is weighing heavy on my shoulders.
Why didn’t she listen to me? Why did any of us believe it would be okay? Why, in all that is Life, did we think Gabe would be able to control himself? More to the point, why did we leave her with him? We are all to blame.
Gabe for his kiss of death.
Ether for ignoring his own judgement.
Tillan for believing Fern should be able to choose.
Fern for thinking she was never in danger.
And me for letting her walk into death’s jaws.
None of Tillan’s elixirs have worked. She has gone through every combination she can think of, but all for nothing. Every day we have taken Fern to the ground, watched as the blue veins wound around her body. Yet they don’t seem to be able to regenerate her either.
She is being torn apart with pain in front of our eyes and there is nothing any of us can do about it. She is dying, and it isn’t peaceful, or gentle. Her screams of pain and hours of hallucinations and nonsensical mumblings tear at my skin, bury into my muscle and score my bones. Sweat pours from her greying skin. Her nails are broken from gripping so hard to the mattress she lies upon. Her muscles are rigid, her pulse rapid, her breathing shallow.
“Mihr, I am running out of ideas. The elixirs are useless, she isn’t regenerating. I don’t know how else to help her,” Tillan says gently. The tone of her voice tells me she is defeated. I turn on her.
“Think of something else. You’re supposed to be the wisest of us all. You’re supposed to know what to do!” I sign angrily.
Ether enters the room behind her. He looks just as grey as I do, as Fern does.
“This isn’t Tillan’s fault,” he says.
“No, it’s mine,” Gabe says, as he follows Ether into the room. To look at him you would think he was dying too. I wish he were.
“Don’t come near her,” I seethe, my fingers shaking with anger. “You’ve done enough damage.”
“She’s too far gone for his presence to make any difference now,” Tillan says.
“I don’t care, I don’t want him anywhere near her,” I say, punctuating the air with my fingers. Gabe flinches but he takes my anger, absorbs it. My friend, my brother, is now someone I can’t bear to look at. My wings shoot out from my back, shielding Fern from everyone bar me. She groans, her body convulses. Leaning over, I press my hand against her bare arm. Her skin is clammy, cold. My touch does nothing to warm it. I’ve been trying for days, running my hands over her skin. Tillan had thought it might help, given the Harmonious bond. But it hasn’t. Nothing has.
“Fern, can you hear me? It’s Mihr, we are all here. Don’t leave us just yet,” I rasp, the sound of my speaking voice unfamiliar to me after so long.
“Mihr…” Ether starts. I know he’s surprised to hear me speak, even though I broke my centuries of silence when I sang to Fern almost a week ago.
“I thought if she heard my voice…”
“You thought she’d suddenly wake up and throw herself into your arms, just by the sound of your voice?” Gabe says, a note of derision in his voice.
I stand, my wings snapping back into place as I whirl on my feet and stalk towards him. “You dare to ridicule me after what you’ve done? Look at the pain she’s in just because you couldn’t control yourself,” I say, poking my finger into his chest. “Look what your selfishness, your weakness, has done. You don’t love her, how can you when this is what you’ve done? LOOK AT HER!” I shout. Gabe and Ether flinch as my anger finally finds its release with a voice that hasn’t uttered any words since I took that first life.
“I tried to walk away. Mihr, I tried,” Gabe says, punching his fist into his chest. “Something in here stopped me. I couldn’t do it. Fern couldn’t either. Something was happening between us. It didn’t feel wrong. I can’t explain it… I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t think you should have stopped us…”
“Not stopped you?! Are you fucking insane, Gabe? You were killing her!”
“No, no I wasn’t. It felt different.”
“Different to Carlotta? Different to the hundreds, thousands of lives you’ve taken?!” I press, anger and pain and hopelessness leaking out of me now.
“Yes. Yes, it was,” he insists, stepping closer to me.
“Get out of here, Gabe, before I rip your head from your shoulders!” I shout.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Ether pull up to his full height, even though it seems to hurt him to do so.
“Fight, try and kill each other if you must, but I for one am done with your shit. We have ALL failed Fern. Now we have to fix this mess,” Ether snaps. “Let us try and regenerate her again.”
Both Gabe and I are breathing heavily, both on the cusp of brawling again.
“Ether, it doesn’t work,” I say.
“Then what else can we do? Perhaps we should take her back to her home. There might be somebody there that can help her.”
“NO!” both Gabe and I say simultaneously. At least Fern remaining with us is something we agree on.
“That creature is still out there. Besides, nothing I have seen in the place where Fern works has ever been abl
e to bring back those people I released from life. They try, this race of people Fern has lived among, but to no avail. We will not find a cure there,” Gabe adds.
“You still believe she can be helped?” I say. “Are you so blind that you cannot see what is right in front of you?”
Gabe opens his mouth to respond but behind us Fern starts to shout incoherently. The words are jumbled, backwards. Her head thrashes as she fights against the pain. I forget my argument with Gabe and rush to her side. Placing one palm against her head, and one against her chest to hold her steady, I bend down and whisper in her ear.
“Hush now, Fern. I’m here. We all are. Try to hold on.”
I stare at her beautiful face that is now losing colour rapidly. If she is going to die, then she won’t be doing it here in Tillan’s house. It isn’t sacred enough. Making a decision, I scoop her up into my arms and stand.
“I’m taking her to the temple. This will not be the place her life comes to an end,” I say. Gabe and Ether exchange looks, then step aside, their faces ashen.
Ether lays a hand on my shoulder. “Gabe and I will come with you.”
“As you wish.”
“I would like to attend too,” Tillan adds, her eyes softening as she looks at Fern.
“No. This is our responsibility. Thank you for trying, Tillan.” I dip my head, acknowledging her efforts, then leave. She doesn’t try to protest.
Stepping out onto Tillan’s balcony, I can see that the sky is still its usual deep pink; the only difference marking it night instead of day is the fact that the rest of Clan Vitae are sleeping. In Utero, our body clocks run in time with this place we call home. During the day, the veins within the soft, spongy ground light up blue. At night, their light dims to a barely perceived glow like they are now. I’m desperate for sleep, having ignored my own body clock these past five days. Perhaps I shall finally have the strength to sleep for eternity now all hopes of a future are gone. Adjusting Fern in my arms and holding her tightly against my chest, I launch into the air.