I watch his apprehensive stride back and forth several times before I decide to go to him. I know what his reservations are. I worry about the same things. We can finally be together in all ways. It is the epitome of everything I never thought I would have. Surely he never thought he would have it as well. Since the day he was old enough to understand, relationships were never something he could embrace. Thinking, I know we both are getting something we never thought possible. Flutters fill my stomach and erotic images mix with tender ones. It seems I may combust.
Lana and Bec stand behind me watching the beautiful, worried man pace like he is heading for a death sentence. “By the witches, look at how riled up he is,” Bec says.
Lana laughs. “He’s like a teenager on prom night.” Lana claps me on the shoulder.
She is referring to a story from the old world—my mother’s story of her own prom night. She did not spare any details when she told me the tale for the first time. She told me about the puffy, shiny dresses and the awkward dancing, which was more like a forced swaying. She spoke of sweaty-palmed boys that expected things after paying for all of the prom paraphernalia. A lump forms in the back of my throat. I turn and look at the girls with wild eyes.
“Just go, Emma. It’s so not a big deal,” Lana says. “Remember if all else fails, use your tongue.”
I push past her playfully as I head for the door. I hear her laugh behind me and shoot her a huge grin over my shoulder. Bec bites her lip and then bursts out laughing. My smile does not fade when I step outside, though I am acutely aware of my clothing choices. The lagoon was our first stop after Finn left. My hair, with the soot washed away, smells of homemade soap and waves down my back. I wear an old but clean shirt and black pants that hug my curves. I feel like myself, I am comfortable.
As I walk toward Finn’s house I see darklings staring and it disconcerts me. Though their faces are friendly and some even smile and wave, I know they do not fully trust me the way Bec and Lana do. It will take time and patience, and I am okay with that because I know what I am and what I am not. I am a part of this circle. I wince when I think of how many days I cut this same path to Finn’s house. Except then, I was clutching a bleeding palm to keep my dark magic buried, terrified I would harm someone without my consent. They were torturous days when pain was what got me through because my emotions faltered. I suppress a shiver.
When I reach Finn’s door I sigh, thinking Lana could have taught me how to better deal with my insanely fluttering heart. I paid attention every time anyone spoke of relations with male darklings, but this, what Finn and I have, is so different from that. I pull my hair over my shoulders and blow out a huge breath. I do not bother knocking, I open the door quickly and shut it behind me. Finn stops mid-step and looks shocked to see me.
Suddenly, I feel out of place—like maybe I should have let him come to me when he is ready. I think he might have changed his mind. About us. About what he wants for us. Forever is a long time. I inwardly chastise myself for assuming.
I fidget with my hands, a human gesture that I now have no control over—no acting now. “How was your trip? I saw you,” I say. My voice sounds awkward, which serves to make me even more anxious. “You are pacing like you are nervous,” I add. I take a step forward. Finn exhales. A lock of hair falls into his eyes. I still see him sweep his gaze from my face down my body and back up again. His lips form an O as he blows out another deep breath. He scrubs both hands down his face then puts his hands on his hips.
“My trip was fine. I’m back and alive…for now,” he says. He swallows audibly. “I’ve been imagining this in my head for so long—you and me together. Embarrassingly enough, I’ve fantasized about it from the very moment I laid eyes on you,” Finn says, voice low and gravelly. He shoots a cautious glance around the room, as if he is worried someone might hear him. “I know I said I wanted to be in love with you, but with absolutely nothing stopping us, would you mind very much if we made love right now? I can’t stand this feeling anymore. Some people have sex because they want to, or they feel like it, but how I feel about you is different. It’s beyond a need. I feel like I might die if I don’t make you mine. I’m going crazy. I want you, Emma. I want all of you. Right now.” I see it on his face, how much this costs to ask. He thinks I will turn him down, like I do not feel the same way about him. I laugh because his sentiments match mine and we are on the exact same page.
I watch his shoulders relax and spy a glimmer of hope in his silver brown eyes. “You are wrong about one thing. There is something stopping us from making love right now,” I tell him, a smile on my face. His lips purse and his forehead crinkles with concern. He walks up and grasps a strand of my hair in between his fingers. It causes my smile to widen and my stomach to flip—completely over.
“What?” he asks, genuinely scared I will refuse him. I hike my thumb to his window. His head jerks to look out the window.
First he is alarmed and scans for anything dangerous. I know the second he sees what I am referring to because his mouth drops open. I shake my head and laugh so hard I can barely breathe. The girls are in my window. Lana is making crude gestures, jerking her bent arms up and down while humping the air. Her eyes are closed and her lips pucker awkwardly. Bec is sucking her pointer finger, pulling it in and out of her mouth in slow motion.
Finn’s face draws up into a disgusted amused grimace. “Don’t they have anything else to do?” he asks.
When I catch my breath, I surprise Finn by taking his face in my hands and bring my lips to his. His warm body feels solid. It is like a string is attached to him. It draws me to him—pulls me to what I desire most in the world. He breaks our kiss and sets me away at arms length, shaking his head. I know why he holds back. I peek out the window and see Lana and Bec gaping. I throw my arms out, palms up and shrug my shoulders. Knowing their darkling eyesight is keen, I mouth the words, “What can you do?”
Finn tilts his head sideways, one eyebrow raised. “If you are through putting on a show for your friends, I’d like to get down to business,” he says, voice gruff. His tone snaps me back into our previous conversation. Butterflies invade my stomach. I walk over and sit on his bed, the same as mine, except larger. Most importantly, it is hidden from my window. As I look around the room, that is so Finn, I cannot help but imagine my things intermingled with his. When my eyes find him, he looks at me like I am the most important person on the planet, emotion blazing in his eyes. No one looks at me like this. I feel my cheeks flush with excitement and anticipation.
“Oh,” I say, raising my voice in question. The promise in his gaze encompasses me, a dim fire turns into a roaring blaze. Finn is in tune with my desires so much that he turns around and starts fiddling with a device on his table. It is a futile attempt to distract his thoughts, and my thoughts from everything else. I hear metal clanking together, piercing the silence between us.
“I have to take you somewhere and show you something,” Finn says. He pauses, does not turn around, and continues tinkering. I stare at his broad back wondering what more he could possibly show me. “I’m not sure how you’ll respond, but I think it might help…” His voice trails off, leaving my thoughts swirling. He glances over his shoulder with a sly smile. Finn has opened my eyes to so many things in the short time I have known him, though I know no one else would be able to show me exactly what I need to see.
“Help me with what exactly?” I ask. He crosses to me and holds out his hand—it shakes until I wrap my hand in his and stand.
“Trust me?” he says while scooping up a bag and grabbing his weapons. I wonder if he trusts himself.
I sigh loudly. “I trust you,” I tell him. “I guess right now is not on your mind anymore,” I say, disappointment lacing my words. A heavy knife clatters to the ground and he bends to pick it up without responding. I have never seen Finn act so erratically. In the past, before he would leave to use darklings he would seem on edge and distant, but how he acts now is unlike anything else. He is a bundle
of nerves. I stay silent for fear of making him even more jumpy.
We go into the forest while many of the darklings stare at us from the border. I do not see or hear Lana, and a momentary bubble of fear wells. I feel their eyes on me—on us. For the first time, Finn does not hide anything from them. He laces his fingers with mine and keeps me by his side, confirming what they all accused me of to begin with. I feel self-conscious for a moment. The heat from his hand warms my body and no amount of awkwardness in the world could pull me away from him. I squeeze his hand and he turns to smile down at me. It is not the distressed smile he wears when we first met, nor the calculating one he wears when he deals with the witches. It is a happy one. A smile that says his heart and his hands can finally grasp what they want most. I smile back at him, hoping he knows I know. That I always knew, even when I did not understand why.
When he turns his head back to the trail, I decide to break our silence. “Finn, I feel like there is so much I must tell you.” My leg brushes some of the wild, black bushes of the forest.
Finn nods. “There is much I must tell you too, but first I want to give you this gift of sorts.”
“You need not give me gifts to win my affection,” I admit, teasing him.
“If I live a million years I don’t think I’ll be worthy of your affection.” The tone of his voice goes gentler. “I feel like a monster for wanting you as badly as I do, Emma.” As he says this, his eyes glow white.
I stumble out of his grip and back away a few paces. I close my eyes to rid the image of Liam that burns in my mind. I know that male darklings are not as easy to cure of their magic. With Finn still absent of love, I know his dark magic is closer than it usually is. Onyx stones only quell dark magic in female darklings. If he feels as strongly for me as I do him, I know how badly his insides are thrashing about, how deeply the magic is calling to him. His eyes return to their silvery brown shade, and worry creases his forehead.
I take a step toward him to lace my hand with his. “I am sorry…it startled me,” I say. He mumbles a frustrated apology.
Finn asks few questions about my time in The Enchanted Palace. I do not know if I could answer them honestly if he did, anyways. Sadness hung over my head and wrapped my body so wholly then, that I push most of it away. The few things, like the sun or the cool breezes, that I do like to remember are not real—thus not worth mentioning. I do try to picture these things through my mother’s eyes back when those menial things were real. It is the only way I can think back of my time with Liam with any sort of joy.
“I won’t be like this for long…if I’m lucky,” Finn says. My mind wanders as we meander through the black, shining forest.
“So confident that you will have all six back, are you not?” I ask. We stop walking.
“I am.” Finn clears his throat to draw my attention to what lies before us.
It is my home. Not the house I lived in with my mother for eighteen years, but the home that sheltered me, that held so many memories I feel I do not have space for them all. I have not been back here since the night my mother was taken. Since she paid for my life with hers. Tears spring to my eyes as my heart jaggedly beats. It is the most bittersweet moment of my life. The fields surrounding my house are bare. Savages do not creep behind trees or by windows anymore. Liam called them off. All that is left is good and full. I step from the safety of the forests and am no longer non-existent. As I wander closer to the house, I hear Finn’s footsteps falling lightly behind me. He says nothing as I examine every detail. It is a place so familiar, yet so foreign at the same time. Looking at the house I see the large white slats are weathered and yellow curtains still frame the windows. My mother said she left the house as it was in the old world, before magic wiped out everything. As I lost my emotions during my childhood, I never understood why it mattered. Now, looking at the gardening tools by the garden and the tire swing hanging from the large black tree, I am grateful.
Finn breaks the silence. “I kept it how she had it. I’ve been coming back here to check on the house and make sure it stayed as it was,” he says.
I turn, and he is hanging his head. I never gave this house a second thought after I ran from it and Finn, knowing I would want nothing more than to be able to see this again, made sure it was untouched. He has cared for the person I would become from the beginning. Like my mother, he anticipated I would rise above my fate. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and face him.
“Thank you. Thank you for all of this,” I say. Thank you seems like a trivial thing to say. “You have given me my life back. You believed in me from the start.” I shake my head briefly. “I will never be able to repay you for your kindness even if I lived a million years,” I say, offering his words back to him.
He does not speak. He produces a key from his pocket and places it in my hand. I walk up the steps of the porch, anticipating the slight squeak when my foot lands on the third step. I unlock the door and enter my home. It is exactly the same, yet has an alien feel without my mother’s voice echoing down the halls. I peek around doorways cautiously until I enter my room. A shudder wracks my body as I glance at the furniture because it forces me to remember my room in Liam’s palace. My gaze lands on my headboard and the intricately carved hearts. I sit down on the bed and trace them like I did so many times in the past. The lights that have not worked since the old world, flicker throughout the house. I look up and see the lamp that has always been merely a decoration light up. Finn peeks in and smiles widely at me.
“Awesome! It works,” he says, while flicking a switch on the wall. “I’ve been working on a machine that will power the house for a while now. It runs off the magic currents in the air,” he says, not hiding the smug satisfaction that his latest invention actually works. “The house was already wired for it. I just had to implant different wiring to the generator outside. It took me a while to figure out what power source would be most effective, but it should have been obvious.”
Finn is so caught up and excited about the lights, that it is contagious. I walk over to the lamp and switch it off and then on again. I am amazed at what he is capable of.
He reaches out and brushes a stray strand of hair out of my eyes. “I can see you so perfectly right now…in the light.” His voice is a low, rough rumble. I bring my thumb up and trace his perfectly separated lips softly.
“I take it back. I might know a way to repay you,” I say. I bite my lip. His mouth turns up into a heart-stopping grin, his eyes crinkling at the corner. I lace my arms around his lower back in an embrace and rest my head against his wide chest. I listen to his heartbeat and his breathing for several long moments.
Something shiny catches my eye. It lies on the wooden floor next to my bed. I reluctantly break our embrace and pick it up.
“A piece of my mirror,” I say out loud. I know he will not understand the meaning of my broken mirror, but I try to explain anyway. I swallow and try to make sense of that fateful night in my head. “I broke a mirror the night the dark witches came for me. It shattered.” I wave my hand to indicate where it fell. He nods his understanding. “My mother thought I felt anger…and maybe I did, but I threw the mirror. There were a million pieces scattered about.”
My voice hitches as I compare the broken shards to my life. The small piece of glass pierces my thumb and blood wells there. I place the tiny shard on my desk and pinch my fingers together to staunch the bleeding. I think of the blood as the last of the bad memories leaving my system. I do not want the bad anymore. I turn and see Finn watching me. The tenderness in his expression amazes me.
“Start a new life with me, Emma. We can make our own memories. All new, all shiny and perfect—and full,” he says.
“Yes,” I say simply. “I want it to be that easy.” I pull back a small sob and try to compose myself. Finn sighs, swallows audibly, and crosses to me. His large hands wrap around my waist, circling it almost completely. I feel protected. I feel wanted.
He leans down and places a kiss-but-not-r
eally on the corner of my mouth. “You have to breathe for yourself before you can breathe for someone else. Once you take that second step, you realize how deep you are in—you’ll suffocate without the other person,” he says tenderly. He brushes my sides as he brings both hands up to cradle my face. “I’ve already taken that second step, Emma. I will suffocate without you,” his voice cracks.
It is there, the emotion that is so coveted. It is surfacing with Finn’s blazing confession. He knows exactly what to say. His words match my feelings precisely. I realize I am holding my breath, not breathing, suffocating. Finn’s eyes are full of intent.
“Everything you just said, I feel. Everything you are, I want. Everything you offer, I accept. Everything that will come, I embrace,” I tell him.
Finn takes the bottom of my shirt and gently tugs it over my head. My blond waves obscure my vision until I brush them out of my eyes. His gaze is hungry as he watches me right my hair. I smile and lightly bring his shirt up as high as I am able. He takes it from me and pulls it over his head when it is out of my reach. He tosses it to the floor without taking his eyes off mine. His tan, brawny chest rises and falls as he pushes quick breaths past his parted lips.
I am so affected by his body that it confounds me I was ever passive about it. He is perfect in all ways. I cannot stop my hands as they automatically run along the front of his stomach. He sucks in a breath and holds it. I look up at him in question. I remember that while he is experienced, he is still a virgin, something I am no longer able to claim. I cannot give him what Liam has stripped from me. I push Liam’s image from my mind and concentrate on the man in front of me and the way my body responds solely to his words.
He scrubs a hand over his mouth and then grabs my wrists. “I’m not used to this,” he explains. “In the past I haven’t felt anything for the other person.” He guides my hands with his over the sleek planes of his chest and shoulders. “I certainly didn’t worry about pleasing another in the least. This,” he touches my bare shoulders. He brings his fingertips down to graze my breasts. His fingers that work so deftly on machines are a soft caress against my skin. A soft moan escapes my lips. Finn’s reaction is immediate. His hands dip down to the button on my pants as his knees hit the floor. “Has never been allowed. I’ve never even desired it with another, until you. I want nothing more than your pleasure.”
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