by M. Leighton
Who is this obnoxious creature and what have you done with Madly? I groaned inwardly.
As we started off toward the center of campus, Kellina fell back from her place beside Aidan to speak to me.
“I had no idea you were such a prankster,” she teased.
I frowned at her.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play dumb,” she smiled, playfully bumping my shoulder with her own. “I know it was you.”
I stopped.
“Seriously, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Kellina looked into my eyes, obviously searching for something, something like the truth. When she found what she was looking for, I saw confusion cloud her pretty, soft green eyes.
“You mean you didn’t leave the flowers?”
A little tingle of apprehension skittered down my spine.
“Flowers? What flowers?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Kellina frowned deeply.
“This morning, there was a huge bunch of daisies at the end of the path that I take through the woods to get to school. Since we talked about it last night, I thought for sure it was you playing with me.”
“No, it wasn’t me, Kellina.”
“That’s really strange, don’t you think? Maybe someone overheard us talking…”
I tried to sound casual, but all the while my mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to figure out what to do next.
“Maybe,” I agreed vaguely.
I still didn’t know if it was such a good idea to tell her the whole story. I needed to think on that for a while, maybe even talk to Jackson about it. As much as I loathed seeking him out again, he was sort of my partner in all of this and I felt like his input would be particularly valuable.
“Could it have been that boy that you said has a crush on you? What was his name?”
“Eh,” she said, looking doubtful. “Dustin? He’s probably allergic to the forest. And the outdoors. And flowers. And sports. He’s more the academic type. Now, if someone had grown me flowers, like some weird hybrid, I’d totally think it was Dustin,” she chuckled.
I wasn’t convinced.
“What’s his last name? I don’t think I even know any Dustins.”
“Hyden. Dustin Hyden. He’s really sweet, just kind of…backwards.”
“Oh,” I said, resuming our walk toward the quad. “What’s he look like?”
I saw Kellina look ahead, toward Aidan. Her lips tilted up at the corners. It was obvious that, in her head, she was comparing him to Aidan. I’m sure he came up short. Aidan was really good looking, so most guys paled in comparison. I doubted the brainy Dustin Hyden was an exception.
“He’s got dark hair and brown eyes I think. He wears glasses and he’s still got braces. He just got them last year I think.”
A light bulb went off.
“Is he kind of skinny?”
“Yeah. Why? Do you know him?”
“I saw a guy like that last night. Was he at the party?”
Kellina shook her head.
“I didn’t see him, but I wasn’t really looking for him either.”
A hmm was my only response.
Just then, Aidan slowed, dropping back to Kellina’s right side. I knew our conversation was over.
“Ohmigod!” I cried.
“What?” Kellina said, looking alarmed.
“I left my, um, homework back in the… I’ll be back,” I stammered and then I was off.
I turned and bolted back to the dorm and went straight to Jackson’s room. When I knocked on the door and didn’t get an immediate response, I let myself into my room and went through the adjoining door.
His room was empty and I growled in frustration. Why was it that he showed up at all the wrong times, but couldn’t manage to hang around for all the right ones?
I left his room, slamming the door angrily behind me and then I stomped out into the hall, turning to lock our door behind me. I had just jerked the key out of the lock and was turning to leave when I saw him. It was as if he had just appeared, materializing out of thin, quiet air.
Dressed in black, as per his Sentinel’s usual, Jackson was leaning up against the wall across from my door, his arms laid casually over his chest, his feet crossed at the ankles. He looked the picture of nonchalance.
There was nothing nonchalant about my reaction, though. Courtesy of my impromptu visit that morning, I knew what perfection lay beneath his clothes and, more unnerving, I knew what his warm, chiseled lips tasted like. Sometimes, it felt like that knowledge might be the death of me.
He said nothing, simply watched me from beneath heavy lids, his cerulean eyes taking me in. I, too, said nothing, partly because he’d startled me and partly because, when I saw his eyes shift to my mouth, it literally stole my breath. It was as if I could feel his lips on mine, like we were back in the woods and his breath was fanning my face. When his eyes met mine again, they were sparkling hot and I would have sworn he was remembering that moment, too.
We stood like that—facing off across the hall, staring at one another, lost once more in a bubble of our own making—for quite some time before Jackson finally spoke.
“Looking for me, Princess?”
He said it so quietly and his voice was so low, it sounded like little more than a loud whisper. I swallowed the cotton in my mouth before I answered.
“Actually, I was. Where were you?”
One side of Jackson’s mouth tipped up into a quirk.
“Watching you,” he said, pushing away from the wall. “I’m always watching you.”
I don’t know if he intended for his words to be so provocative, but they were. The implication of what he was saying slid over me like a soothing yet tantalizing blanket of dark silk. They caused a fine tremor to work its way down my back and fade off into my legs.
“I, uh, I needed to talk to you about Kellina.”
“What about Kellina?” he said, taking a step forward, bringing him that much closer to me.
“I saw her just a few minutes ago. She sort of accused me of playing a joke on her.”
“A joke?”
“Yeah. She found some daisies in the woods this morning and she thought I’d put them there as a prank after telling her Wolfhardt’s story last night.”
Jackson’s sleepy eyes became instantly more alert and I knew that wherever else his mind had been drifting, I had his full attention now. His mind was present and accounted for.
“Tell me exactly what she said,” he commanded, unfolding his arms and putting his hands on his slim hips.
So I did.
“I’ll have a detail of Sentinels watch the kid. We don’t want to spook him if he’s not involved. In the meantime, let’s do this. Since it’s a school day, we can take a quick trip to the woods, see if your bracelet reacts in any way, and—”
“Why would it? It should only react in the presence of the spirit, right?”
“Right, but we don’t know exactly where Wolfhardt’s spirit is. For all we know, he might be hovering in the forest or near his descendant. Or even inside his descendant. Nothing like this has ever happened. In all our history, Lore have only ever been caught in their original form. We’ve never had them escape prison before.”
“But I thought you read the law?”
“I did. And I’ve been extensively trained for this, but it’s just that there isn’t a lot of information about this situation. Only hypotheses.”
I couldn’t help but grin.
“Ooo, good word.”
I must’ve caught him off guard with my teasing, because he actually smiled. It was the kind of smile that I used to see all the time, the genuine and relaxed kind. The kind that made me feel like I could fly.
“I know, right?”
My smile grew. I could feel it pinching the corners of my eyes as his reaction turned my insides to mush.
As quickly as it had come about, Jackson’s smile faded, almost as if he’d been slapped. He cleared h
is throat and was once again all business.
“Madly, this is serious. It’s all up to us—well, mostly you actually—and we’re very nearly flying blind.”
I sighed.
“I know. I’m sorry. And you know I’ll try whatever, do whatever to recapture the Lore and save Atlas.”
“I know you will. So let’s start with the woods and go from there.”
“Ok.”
“And then it’s back to school for you. If you keep skipping, your teachers are bound to get suspicious.”
“You’re my RA. Tell them I passed out and you had to give me mouth-to-mouth.”
When Jackson’s eyes darkened, I thought he was angry because I continued to joke. But as I looked into the intense black of his dilated pupils, I thought I saw a quick flash of something else. For a moment, all the air left the hallway and I was lost.
He recovered rapidly, much more rapidly than I.
“How about just going to class? There’s an idea.”
He rolled his eyes in such an overly exasperated way that it softened the blow of his harsh and sarcastic words.
“Come on,” he said, gesturing toward the door.
As I followed him, I marveled at both the similarities and the differences between this Jackson and the one I used to know. It was hard to believe that they could both co-exist in there, but I was more convinced than ever that they did. I’d seen too many glimpses of the old Jackson, the one I had adored above all others. The problem was, why did Jackson hide him from me?
The walk was brisk and quiet until we got to the mouth of the main path that led through the forest. Jackson stopped.
“Even if she cuts straight through the woods instead of following the path, I think she’d still come out right here.”
Together, we stepped onto the path. The air was several degrees cooler than it was out in the sunshine, but it still had that unmistakable kiss of moisture that assured me the sea was nearby. I could smell the dark notes of the forest flora mixed with the sweet scent of jasmine, an aroma that seemed always to permeate the humid air of Slumber.
We walked forward slowly, both of us looking left and right, scanning the forest floor. I tried to focus my attention on my wrist, on the feel of my bracelet as it touched my skin there, but a large part of all my senses were attuned to the man at my side, as they always were when Jackson was around. It seemed as though the air between us literally crackled with awareness. It felt dense and heavy and highly-charged, like late evening when a storm is rolling in.
As he moved beside me, I felt a tugging, as if he pulled me along with him—two magnets, drawn together and held in place by an invisible force.
The hair on my arms stood at attention.
“There,” Jackson said, pulling me from my silent reverie.
He walked off the path a few feet and squatted. I bent over him, looking at the half dozen daisy petals scattered through the dirt and leaves.
Jackson picked up four of the delicate drops and stood, turning toward me. With his free hand, he took my fingers in his and laid the thin white ovals on my palm, folding my hand into a fist over them.
His hand was big and warm and I felt the contact all the way down to my core, as if his fingers touched me everywhere.
“This is something he touched. Maybe it can help,” he said quietly, looking down into my face.
“O-ok,” I mumbled, totally distracted by how beautiful he was.
I wanted to sigh at the picture of Jackson standing so tall and proud in front of me. A single ray of sunshine broke through the leaves to slant across his face, making his black hair shine and his skin look like smooth, gilded steel.
“Let’s keep walking,” he said, turning and urging me forward, still holding on to me.
After a few steps, when Jackson finally released my hand, I wanted to reach out and grab it back so badly that my fingers actually tingled with it. But I refrained. Instead, I tried unsuccessfully to focus on anything but Jackson.
When it became clear that the forest held nothing else that was significant or noteworthy to either me or my bracelet, we circled back around.
Even though we didn’t talk much and nothing was really happening, I was sad to see my time with Jackson come to an end. Every day that passed seemed to further solidify that Jackson was somehow becoming a part of me, like he was the missing puzzle piece, moving snugly into place.
Once I was back at school, it wasn’t until I saw Kellina that I remembered I’d failed to ask Jackson about the wisdom of telling her the truth. For that oversight, I spent most of the hour-long Calculus class pondering the decision. In the end, however, I managed to convince myself that it would be better for her to know the whole story, the real story, than to try and keep it from her.
It was with that in mind that, later, I forced Jersey and Aidan to wait with me at the cafeteria entrance so that we could grab Kellina as soon as she came through the double doors.
“Do you think this is really the best idea, Madly?”
It was Aidan who expressed his concern as we waited.
I shrugged.
“I don’t see that we have any choice. She’ll be safer if she knows just how serious this is.”
“Yeah, but what if she doesn’t believe you? Or worse, what if she does, but she thinks we’re freaks and she refuses to see me anymore?”
That irritated me.
“Aidan, this is bigger than your stupid crush. This is important. We have to catch Wolfhardt so that we can try to free my parents and save Atlas.”
I saw the muscle at his jaw tick with his pique. Aidan had very little temper, but when it got stirred up… Watch out!
“First of all, it’s not a stupid crush. You have no idea what’s going on.”
“Actually, I think I do.”
“Oh, yeah. And what’s that?”
“You’ve tied to her.”
Aidan looked surprised. He obviously didn’t think I recognized the signs. Unfortunately, I knew them all too well. And now I knew of them firsthand.
“Well then you know it’s not a stupid crush.”
I sighed.
“I know. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he agreed, looking out over my head as his ire died off. Finally, he looked back at me, concern starting to creep into his eyes. “You’re not mad?”
“Mad? Why would I be mad?”
Aidan snorted.
“Because of…well, because of us.”
He was worried that I thought he’d abandoned me, left me and our future for a human. In a way he had, but it was nothing he could control. I had no more desire to see him bound in misery to me than I had to be bound in misery to him. Luckily, our relationship problems were the least of our worries at the moment. We’d have plenty of time to sort it all out later.
“It’s not like you did it on purpose,” I said consolingly. “Besides, we’ll have plenty of time to figure all that out later. We’ve got a planet to save first.”
Aidan took a deep breath.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Me, too,” I said under my breath.
When Kellina came through the doors, we snatched her out of the crowd and took her outside to a grassy spot in the sun where we could talk privately. The four of us sat facing each other, forming a circle.
Kellina looked around the group with a dubious eye.
“We’re not having a séance, are we?”
“Why are you a witch? ‘Cause you’ve totally put a spell on me,” Aidan declared cheekily.
Jersey burst out laughing.
“Oh. My. Gosh. I can’t believe you just said that. Could you be any cheesier?”
Aidan looked around the group, wide-eyed and innocent.
“What? I’m man enough to totally pull that line off.”
Jersey continued to laugh. Kellina just smiled prettily.
“Whatever,” I said.
I met Aidan’s eyes and, despite the
teasing light in them, I saw how serious he was. He winked at me and I smiled. It appeared that we were both in for a bumpy ride.
It wasn’t a little thing to defy Mer customs, especially for royalty. It wasn’t acceptable for any reason—not for love, not for the mating tie that binds two people together for all eternity, not for anything.
As if on cue, Jackson’s face popped into my mind. Like a rude subway patron, I brusquely pushed him aside and forced my mind back to the task at hand.
“Kellina, I’ve got some things to tell you. They are very important things, but they might be a little hard for you to believe, ok?”
Kellina smiled at me then at Aidan. She thought I was getting ready to tell her a doozy, I’m sure.
I took a deep breath and jumped in head first.
“Jersey, Aidan and I are Merfolk. Our home is called Atlas and it lies several miles off the coast beneath the sea. We are the offspring of the angel Neptune. God chose our race to be the keepers of the evil spirits of supernatural creatures. They are called Lore.
“Thousands of years ago, two fallen angels, Lucifer and Proserpine, created demonic minions that have black hearts, unnatural powers and many shapes. When Lucifer took over the Underworld and cast Proserpine out, she came to Neptune for his help. Neptune agreed to help her on the condition that she tell him all she knew of the creatures. Eventually she did, and Neptune devised a system for imprisonment that the Mer have used to this very day to contain the Lore.
“Proserpine used pearls to travel to and from the Underworld because they were hearty enough to withstand the fires of Hell, yet weak enough that she could break free from inside them. Her special pearls, however, were too strong for lesser creatures to escape, so they are the basis for capturing and containing the Lore in Atlas. I am wearing one of only four in existence.”
I showed her my bracelet, with its ebony pearl in the center.
“Normally the pearl is silvery white, but it turns black when there is a breach in the containment system. All four bracelets are linked to one another and to Atlas. My parents, Warden Major and Warden Queen of Atlas, each have one and there is one stored within Atlas, reserved for my betrothed, the Prince of Atlas.”