“What?” he prompted, taking a step closer.
“Safe,” she said at last. “I felt safe and so happy to see you. Crazy, right?”
It was his turn to shake his head, slowly rock it from side to side as his eyes bore penetratingly into hers. “You’ll never know what it means to hear you say that, Riley.”
Without waiting for a prompt from him, she reached out and splayed her hands on his chest. She frowned at the dirty gloves staring back at her.
“I hate these stupid things,” she muttered, ripping them off and tossing them to the ground.
“Riley…”
Ignoring him, she returned her hands to the hard muscles of his chest. She touched the soft material of his shirt, completely at ease with doing so. It may have only been a few months, but she felt as though they’d been together for centuries. Openly touching him, being close to him felt as naturally as breathing.
His hands went to her waist. “My mate,” he murmured, drawing her into the possessive folds of his chest.
It didn’t matter how often he said it, those two words never failed to send a warm thrill through her. It skipped over every bump along her spine and rolled like warm honey down to the very marrow of her bones. There was never any doubt he meant it.
“What?” he said when she smiled.
Riley shook her head. “I just really like it when you say that.”
His hand cradled the side of her face, the leather cool on her skin. “I’d like nothing more than for this day to never end, but I need to get you home.”
She wanted to ask why. They could just stay there, in their tiny slice of paradise, but she knew he was right. Their time there was done and they needed to return to reality.
“We will return,” he vowed.
“In a month?” she murmured, remembering what he said about only needing to return once a month to recharge.
He shook his head. “Whenever you want, as often as you want.”
It was only that promise that helped ease the pressure inside her. She agreed, accepting the hand he offered her. He curled his fingers around hers and glanced down at the leather band she’d nearly forgotten about.
“What does it say?” she asked.
Octavian took her one hand in both of his and turned the wrist until they were both looking at the words burned into the pelt. “It’s written in the first language,” he said. “The language that came before all others and it says, body from earth, soul from fire, breath from air and life from water. To forget where you’ve begun is to forget where you will end.”
Riley touched a finger to the soft strip. “It’s beautiful.” She raised her eyes to his face. “Why do you keep it here?”
His thumb lightly grazed the curve of her heel, moving down to the center of her palm. “No one must ever come in possession of a Selkie’s pelt.” He met her gaze with a tender smile. “To capture our pelt is to capture us, to enslave us and even destroy us. Our pelt is our soul. Without it, we are nothing but dust. But should a Selkie give his pelt away freely to another, he is entrusting them with his life.” He drew her trembling hand back to his chest where he splayed it over his heart and held it there. “He is giving her the power to destroy him.”
Riley swallowed hard at the lump wedged in her throat before she was able to speak. “What are you doing, Octavian?”
He raised the sleeve on her sweater to the hideous marks on her arm. He traced the raw flesh with the pad of his thumb. “Our marks bind us the way humans bind their love through rings. It’s our symbol of completion, of finally finding the other half of our soul. It joins us as a single heart in two bodies, or it should at least.” He raised his eyes to her face, his penciled with pain. “It hurts not to see my mark on you when every fiber in my body knows you’re mine. It kills me that I can’t touch you or kiss you. This,” he touched the band around her wrist. “Is the only way I can think to be a part of you.”
Riley didn’t know what to say. Her brain was crammed full of words, but none in any real order. She was completely lost in the cavernous depths of his eyes.
I love you.
It repeated over and over in her head, becoming a silent mantra that she was too shy to voice before he did. Not that she feared his rejection. She knew he would never refuse her anything. She knew that with a certainty that was nearly frightening. It was purely the need to have someone else say it to her for once that held her tongue. All her life, she’d been the one to love unconditionally and each time, it had been thrown back into her face by both her parents. For once, just once, she wanted someone else to say it first.
Guilt and uncertainty buzzed through her like an enraged hornet’s nest.
What was she doing? Was she out of her mind? Since when did she want a relationship? Since when had it mattered that she not live the rest of her life alone? She’d decided long ago that she could never leave her father. He needed her too much, never mind the fact that no one in their right mind would put up with her supporting her father, not the way he needed, and she couldn’t blame them. A relationship happened between two people, not two people and the girl’s father. He’d put up with it for a little while and finally get fed up. She knew it. It was best if she cut things off now. It had been fun and at least she could walk away knowing she’d experienced something she probably never would again. She just prayed he wouldn’t hate her.
“Riley?” Gently, he used his gloved hand to stroke away the strands of hair brushing her cheek. “What is it?”
It was now or never.
She took a deep breath. “I can’t be with you.”
His expression became thoughtful. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t.” To avoid his eyes, she bent down and hastily stuffed her socks and shoes back on. But he was still waiting for her when she rose once more.
His brows drew together in a frown. “That’s not a very good reason.”
“I know, especially since I can’t seem to keep my hands off you. But there are things you don’t know about me and if you did… you would agree.”
His eyes narrowed. “That is highly unlikely. I turn into a very large fish once a month and you accepted me. Rest assured that there is nothing you could have possibly ever done to make me feel any different than I do right now.”
“It’s different,” she whispered. “You can’t change what you are. I can, but I choose not to.”
He frowned. “All right.” Taking her hand, he guided her to the steps and pulled her down beside him. “Okay, now tell me why you can’t be with me.”
Riley knitted her chilled fingers together and stuffed them between her thighs. “My mother left when I was five,” she told him, picking her words carefully. “She decided one day that she wasn’t ready to be a parent to two children, so she packed up and never looked back. It’s been me and my father ever since.” She hesitated, staring hard at her sneakers as though they could save her from having to say the rest. They didn’t. “My father…” She blew out a breath. “He’s a… he’s not exactly like most fathers. He’s not a bad father,” she said quickly, afraid he might get the wrong impression. “He’s just… irresponsible. Most of my life, the duty of making sure we had a home and food always fell on me, because he couldn’t keep a job. Whether he doesn’t want to or he can’t I guess doesn’t matter. I never made friends or had a relationship because I was always afraid people would notice just how bad things were at home. I dated a few times, but I always broke it off as soon as it started getting serious and I… I couldn’t handle it. I dropped out of college shortly after to support my father. I’ve basically given up everything and I’ve accepted that I can never have anything because he will always need me.”
She hadn’t meant to spill her heart and soul out to him, but he sat there so quietly, so patiently, listening to everything she said, something no one had ever done, that she couldn’t stop.
When she finally finished, she glanced up at him, petrified to see his reaction, but desperate at the same time.
He sat perfectly still, eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he stared across the lush clearing towards the other side. He had his fingers laced between his knees as he leaned forward on his elbows. It was impossible to guess what he was thinking.
“Please say something,” she whispered.
At long last, he flopped back onto his hands. “I’m trying to understand why we can’t be together.”
Riley gaped. “Didn’t you hear me?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, but none of explained why you want to leave me.”
“I don’t want to!” she exclaimed. “But I have to.”
He turned his head to her. “All right, but why?”
Riley moaned, scrubbing at her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “Because I can’t leave my father, Octavian. Ever. By the time he’s passed on and I’m finally free to have a life, I’ll be in my seventies while you… you’ll continue to look twenty. Are you really willing to wait that long for me?”
He remained pensive for a moment as he mulled over her words. His voice was gentle and unwarrantedly patient. “If what you want from me is to wait, I’ll wait. I’ll wait forever for you. There’s no question of that. I’m yours, Green-eyes, and I’ll be yours until the day I die.”
Chapter 23
“Riley?” Kyaerin smiled when Riley blinked and brought the other woman and the quiet little bistro they sat in back into focus.
“Sorry?”
Kyaerin chuckled. “You’ve been so preoccupied this afternoon. Is everything all right?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to lie and brush away the clinging pieces of her decision sinking sharp little burs into her. In the security of her mind, pushing Octavian away had been the right thing to do. It was better for him, but in the end, it was all about her heart and how much pain it could afford to suffer when he walked away. She didn’t think she could stand it. Already she had fallen so far and so fast for him that being apart was the equivalent of bathing in hot oil.
“Yes.” She nearly choked on the single word.
Kyaerin’s neatly plucked eyebrows furrowed, knotting together in the center to form a small crease. “Is it because I asked you for lunch?” she asked, hesitant. “I know this must be a bit awkward for you, having lunch with the mother of your mate and all, but—”
“No!” Riley blurted. “It’s not you. I just…” She sucked in a gulp of air. “I kind of had an argument of sorts with Octavian and…”
“Ahh!” was all Kyaerin said, sitting back. “Can I ask what it was about?”
Why not? She’d said this much. Might as well flay the rest of the fish… Riley grimaced at the analogy, especially considering the woman across from her was part fish.
Riley took a deep breath and rehashed the entire story she’d told Octavian. There was genuine understanding in Kyaerin’s warm blue eyes when she finally finished, which was not what Riley had expected. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure what she thought the other woman would do or say. She expected a whole lot of yelling, maybe some scolding, but not sympathy.
“I know this is hard for you,” Kyaerin murmured, reaching across the small, glass table separating them to take Riley’s hand. “Honestly, it wasn’t all that easy for me either when it first happened to me. I was elated, of course, but I was also wary and terrified. I’d known Liam for most of my life growing up. He was, what you humans would call, the boy next door and we did not get along. Every female, human and Selkie, within a hundred miles wanted him and he loved it. He broke hearts like it was a free for all shoe sale. He was so arrogant and nauseatingly charming. I wanted to drown him, if it were a possibility.”
Riley grinned. “So how did you go from hating him to, well…?”
“Loving him?” Kyaerin smiled, her eyes glowing with adoration. “I really was trying to drown him.”
Riley laughed. “What? How do you drown a Selkie?”
Kyaerin’s grin was mischievous. “He wasn’t in his Selkie form. You see, we’re essentially human without our tails. We need air to breathe and food to eat and unsalted water to drink. So, when I saw him tangled with some human girl on the beach, I gave into my urges and… well, anyway. Long story short, the moment I touched him, it was like I was zapped by lightning. I felt every pulse of his body course through me as though we had melted away and were replaced with a single body between us. His every breath was mine and his heartbeat strummed through me. I felt like I had died and been reborn all over again. It was incredible.”
Woven into the story, Riley leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “What happened then?”
Kyaerin shrugged. “I told him to stay away from me.”
Riley blinked. “What? I thought you said—”
“And I meant it, but just because you imprint doesn’t mean your life magically stops and you suddenly belong to this other person. It’s just like any other relationship. You need to work at it and help it grow. It’s more of an enhancement of the feelings you already have, a booster if you will. It guides you to the person you were meant to be with. It’s a commitment between souls. A Selkie can go their whole life without finding their mates and they’ll go mad or die from heartbreak. A Selkie without a mate is like a world without sunlight. It’s cold and lonely and bleak.”
“Octavian told me that finding me was like finding summer after a long, hard winter,” Riley murmured. “I thought he was just being poetic.”
Kyaerin shook her head. “I wish I could somehow explain this all better for you. It’s more complicated with you because you’re not one of the Veil Creatures. You don’t feel the imprint the way we do, not until you’ve ascended. Right now, that block is keeping you from truly feeling the full power and beauty behind the imprint, while at the same time, Octavian is feeling everything. For him, you are the center of his universe, but he can’t be with you. He can’t touch you or hold you. He can’t wipe your tears or comfort you when you need it, and that, for a mated Selkie, is the worst sort of torture. It’s like being deep fried in hot oil but being denied the luxury of death. So if it feels like he’s pushing too hard, too fast, it’s not because he’s trying to be controlling. He honestly can’t bear the thought of being without you.”
Riley turned her gaze away, guilt burning her stomach lining like battery acid. “He hasn’t pushed me,” she whispered. “He’s been so patient. I’m the one who’s the problem.”
“That isn’t true,” Kyaerin said at once. “How can anyone expect you to just jump into all this with both feet when the rest of us were born with the knowledge of our path? I think once we get that block removed, things will be different.”
“I don’t think it will be.”
Kyaerin frowned. “Why not?”
Riley, not wanting to rehash the entire thing over again, said simply, “I just really need to find a way for this imprint thing to stop so Octavian can find someone else.”
Kyaerin pursed her lips together in a line of distress. “Sweet girl, it doesn’t work that way. You can’t un-imprint. You can ask Octavian to find someone else, but knowing my son, he would never do that and I really don’t think you want him to either. Can you honestly tell me you’ll be all right with seeing him with another woman?”
No. There was no thinking necessary. The very idea made her want to punch someone, preferably the faceless woman.
“So what should I do?”
Kyaerin reached over and lightly touched Riley’s hand. “You do what you feel is best.” Kyaerin smiled, plucking up her menus. “Now, what do you think looks good, hmm?”
Riley followed suit, picking up the plastic encased booklet and flipped through it without really seeing the meals displayed. Everything looked unappealing when her stomach was in knots. She wished she’d had the guts to postpone her lunch with Kyaerin to a time when her life wasn’t so complicated. Granted, she had no idea when that would be when the whole imprinting thing wasn’t something she could switch off. What worried her most was the fact tha
t she didn’t want to switch it off. She didn’t want to stop being so important to Octavian. She didn’t want to not be a part of his life. Whenever she tried to picture her life without him, it was like standing in a cold, dark room. She couldn’t bear it. She wanted Octavian. She wanted to be with him and be a part of him.
So what the hell’s stopping you? The voice asked.
What wasn’t stopping her? He said he’d wait for her forever, okay great, except he had forever. She didn’t. By the time her father passed away and she was finally free, she’d be old while Octavian continued to look like he’d just crossed the threshold to his twenties. What was the point then? Then there was the fact that he couldn’t touch her without gloves on and if all that wasn’t bad enough, she was going to die if she didn’t finish ascending. It was all just too much.
Octavian's Undoing (Sons of Judgment) Page 26