by Liz Schulte
“Nice,” he said in a scathing tone. “There was no passion, no hunger. That lack of feeling must translate to other areas. How could you possibly be satisfied? Frankly, I’m amazed if you haven’t fallen asleep from boredom.”
He might as well have set fire to my face. It wasn’t that I was unfeeling, but I wasn’t one to let emotions control my life. Michael was a good person and that was more important than passion. “There was plenty of passion for me. I enjoyed it. And my sex life is none of your business.”
“Whatever you say, princess.” The air between us crackled like static, and Cheney kept advancing.
“Don’t call me princess,” I whispered.
He was so close our noses were touching. The furious intensity in his eyes made my heart beat faster and my mouth went dry.
“Has he ever kissed you until you couldn’t catch your breath? Possessed you until there was no other thought in your head except for him? Set you aflame with no more than his gaze upon you?”
All words vacated my head and my whole body burned. I couldn’t even remember who we were talking about. The gold gleamed in his eyes, and I wanted to grab his head and pull it to mine. My flesh wanted to feel exactly what he said. Without my brain’s permission though, my head shook no in the slightest of movements.
“Do you want me to show you what that’s like?” His stare smoldered. My lips parted slightly, throbbing with anticipation.
God, yes, I wanted him to. I couldn’t say who broke first. My body pressed upon his; his mouth ground against mine. His tongue traced my lips then slipped into my mouth and teased my tongue. He crushed me against his hard, lean muscles, and I laced my hands around the nape of his neck and pulled his mouth harder against mine.
He shifted back slightly, but I pushed harder into him immediately, unable to bear breaking contact. His mouth moved with mine in renewed urgency. His hips ground against my pelvis, and fire erupted inside of me. A moan formed deep in my throat. He lifted me up, pinning me between him and the wall. His mouth slid down my neck, leaving a trail of heat, making me gasp. Every part of me burned from the inside out. I wrapped my legs around him. He pulled my tank over my head, and his mouth found my breasts. I arched back, moaning, as he teased my hardening nipples with his teeth and tongue.
Then his mouth was on mine again in a deliberate, frank kiss that left no question about what he wanted. I slid back down the wall until my feet were on the floor. I wasn’t sure my legs would’ve supported me if he hadn’t still been pressed hard against me. He traced the outside of my ear with his tongue and nibbled my ear lobe before pulling it into his mouth and sucking hard.
“If you want to stop …” his hot breath whispered.
I turned my mouth to his, kissing him just as hard and deliberately as he kissed me. He stepped back, his chest rising with his breath, lust filling his eyes. He extended his hand to me and an image flooded my mind.
It was the night my parents died. I was inside our home as it crumbled around me. Glass shattered, walls disintegrated, and pipes burst as I knelt on the floor in my favorite dress that had tiny purple flowers embroidered all over it. I held my head in my hands, rocking back and forth. I didn’t care that the house was falling down. I didn’t care if I died. They were gone. Gone.
A voice I knew as well as my own spoke, but I couldn’t place his face.
“Selene, come with me.”
The familiar man stood in the midst of the storm offering me his hand, saving me from myself.
“Selene?” The real voice tried to break into my memory, but I ignored it.
I took his hand. We walked out as the house collapsed to the ground behind us. His expression never changed. He didn’t look angry or upset, just stoic. He walked me away from the rubble but didn’t offer any words of comfort. Yet my tears dried just knowing he was there. My grandmother waited in a car outside.
“She doesn’t need to remember this,” he said coolly.
Grandma nodded, and he put me in the car, fastening the seat belt around me.
I didn’t want to let go of his hand, so I clung to it. “I want to go with you,” I said.
He pulled his hand from mine and shut the door. “Take care of her,” he told Grandma, never taking his eyes from mine.
Grandma drove away, and he became smaller and smaller, though I could still feel his eyes on me.
It wasn’t enough.
“Selene!” The real voice demanded I come back to it.
I opened my eyes. I was lying on the floor, and Cheney was leaning over me, concern coloring his face.
“You were here before,” I croaked, my mind spinning.
Cheney rocked back on his heels, looking at me cautiously. “Yes.”
“You got me out of the house the night they died.”
He nodded slowly.
“You left me. I asked you to stay, and you left.” All the hurt I felt that night rushed through me. My eyes welled as I stood—Cheney stood as well. The room spun and I thought I might throw up for a moment. I pressed my hands to my knees, taking deep breaths until I knew I could straighten without passing out while the anger inside of me grew.
“You made your choice, Selene. You wanted to do this. It was too late to take it back.” Cheney waited until I was upright to speak, but his voice was harsh and bitter.
“So you abandoned me.” I didn’t know why I was so upset, but I was. It felt like he’d broken my trust on a level I didn’t understand.
“Damn it, Selene. What did you expect me to do? You were a bloody child. I couldn’t keep you. I had to find somewhere for you to go, so I hunted down your only living relative. I told you not to do this. I told you to stay with me. You left me first!”
“You swore you’d protect me!” I shouted.
“And you promised you would never leave,” he shouted back.
“My parents had just died, and you gave me away to a stranger like I was nothing.”
“They weren’t your parents.”
“What?”
“They were the couple you were placed with. They weren’t your parents. That stranger, however, was—is—your family!”
“You were my family!” I screamed. Raw emotions overtook me, but I had no facts or memories to help me understand them. I didn’t know what I was talking about, yet words spilled from my mouth as if I had bottled them up for years.
Cheney’s eyes widened, and all anger dissipated from them. “Selene?” He tilted my head up toward him and searched my eyes.
“Don’t touch me.” I slapped away his hand.
“Do you remember?” He didn’t back off at all. “How much do you remember?”
“Only that night,” I snapped.
Cheney closed his eyes and sighed. “Call your coven and get them over here tonight. We’re doing this now. I’m not dealing with this shit anymore.”
“Doing what?” I demanded, having problems focusing on anything but what I felt.
“Awakening your other half.”
“In my house?”
He looked around the room. “You’re right, the studio would be better. Have them meet us there.”
“They don’t even know you.”
“Tonight, Selene!” He stalked off down the hallway and slammed the bathroom door. A moment later I heard the shower running.
I pulled out my cell phone and called Devin.
“Hello?” she answered, sounding rushed as normal. So very normal it made me sad.
“Hey,” I said weakly.
“Selene! I’ve been thinking about you. How’s your grandmother? How’s being back home? Have you seen Michael yet? When’s our next meeting? Am I asking too many questions?” She chuckled.
I couldn’t help but smile. “She’s fine. Strange. Sort of. Soon. Never,” I rattled off the answers to her questions in order.
Devin laughed. “You were always good at following my rambles.”
“Yeah …” I wasn’t sure how to bring this up. I wasn’t even sure this was what I w
anted. “I need to see you guys tonight. Can you meet me at the studio?”
“Is everything okay? I have some stuff going on, but I can cancel if you need me.”
“It’s a long, long story, but here’s the gist: my grandma’s a witch and I’m in trouble. I’ll fill you in on everything once we’re together.”
“Whatever you need, we’ll be there. You know that.”
“Okay, we might have a big spell to cast.”
“What spell?”
“We’ll discuss it later—but it’s not bad. It’s to help me remember. I haven’t quite figured out which one to use yet. It may be an undoing spell or a memory spell. I have to do some research. What time can you be there?”
“Nine?”
“Sounds good. I’ll call the other girls.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, I promise. It’s been a stressful couple days. See you tonight.”
“Stay strong. I’ll see you then.”
My conversations with Jess, Leslie, and Kat went pretty much the same way. They all canceled their plans, promising to meet me at the studio at nine. I went into the kitchen and made myself a sandwich, though I had no appetite. Stewie rubbed up against my leg and meowed loudly. I picked him up, burying my face in the soft orange and white fur on his neck while he purred. I didn’t hear Cheney come out, but I felt him watching me.
“Tonight at nine,” I said quietly. “I need the book.”
“Selene—” he started, but I cut him off.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Just give me the book, and we’ll get this over with so I can get on with my life.”
The book appeared in his hand. I reached to take it, and he grabbed my wrist in a blink. “I’m sorry.” Sincerity swam in his eyes and laced his voice.
“For what?”
“For everything. For how I acted, for not stopping you, for not staying with you, for—” He let out a slow breath. “For so many things.”
My eyes filled with tears that my pride wouldn’t let fall. “I don’t know why I feel what I feel. It’s confusing. My mind knows you’re a stranger and that I have a life I love, but—”
“But?”
“But these memories feel like they’re a part of me.”
“Because they are,” he said soothingly, but his words did nothing to relieve my confusion or doubt. “Will you come somewhere with me before we go tonight?”
I looked at him. He no longer frightened me. The last memory had taken care of that. Now when I saw him, he looked like security, safety. I sighed and my heart clenched again. The practical voice in my mind still insisted that Cheney was a stranger, yet I nodded and let him pull me close.
I tore myself away from Cheney and looked around. It was a nice house, a really nice house. Floor to ceiling windows covered an entire wall and looked out over trees and mountains. The room had oversized comfortable-looking couches and chairs, a grand piano, and off to the side, a dining room table that could easily seat twelve. I turned the other direction and saw a large chef’s kitchen filled with shiny, stainless steel. There was a hallway off to the left. I wandered down it, and Cheney made no move to follow me. I found three good-sized bedrooms, each with their own baths. I looked out the window in one of the bedrooms to see a pool glowing up from below.
A haunting melody floated in from the other room. It surrounded me like a blanket and filled my heart with longing. The sound carried me back to the living room where Cheney sat at the piano, his eyes closed and hands gracefully moving over the keys. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata filled the entire house with a yearning whisper. The emotion of the song was raw and tactile, a lover’s sigh that brought tears to my eyes. I sat on the piano bench with my back to his—our breath in sync. The music moved through him and into me with the slight, fluid motions of his body as he played. Each deliberate, melancholy note stirred a loss deep within my soul. My eyes closed and my head rested against him as tears streamed from my eyes. I couldn’t think, could only feel. The same part of me that angered so quickly with him was filled with consuming grief at being deprived of him. He played the last chords, and when they died away, the house filled with heavy silence.
“That’s my favorite song,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said. “I learned it for you a long time ago.”
Everything unspoken between us made saying the words impossible. Cheney drove me absolutely insane. He was bossy, arrogant, manipulative—and despite my efforts, I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
But he was crazy about some girl who didn’t exist.
I released the sigh I’d been holding. “What was I like?”
“A lot like you are now.”
“Don’t say that. Tell me what I was really like. If doing this tonight brings back my other half, tomorrow morning I’ll be a completely different person. I want to know what to expect. Was I nice?”
“You were very nice. You’ve always had a big heart. You cared more for other people than yourself. You’re brave, confident, just, funny, temperamental, argumentative, alluring, charismatic, and you drove me mad from the moment I met you.”
I liked the feel of his back vibrating against mine as he spoke, even though I doubted the truth of what he told me.
“How am I different?”
“You’re definitely more flexible now.” I smiled and waited for him to continue. “You have more patience, a better grasp on controlling your emotions—most of the time—and you’re more cautious. Other than that I still see many of the qualities you had before in you now.”
“How did we meet?”
“I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Please.”
“I was on a hunt, and you were in the forest completely naked twirling under the moon.”
“I can think of worse things to be doing,” I said honestly.
“Well, I enjoyed it,” Cheney said dryly. “Or I did until I noticed all the other men I was hunting with watching you as well. Then, of course, I yelled at you.”
“Naturally.”
“I tried to make you put on my coat, which you absolutely refused to do. You said if I was embarrassed, I could avert my eyes. You informed me in no uncertain terms that I should continue on my little hunt and leave you to commune with the goddess.”
“Did you leave?”
“No, I sent the rest of them on their way and I stayed.”
“Did I take that well?”
“You ignored me. Even when it started to rain, you continued right on doing what you were doing. When you finished, I was soaked and you were glowing. You were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I walked you home very much against your will, but we talked. That night changed everything.”
She sounded great—but nothing like me. I would never dance naked in the woods. I would never let all of those people leer at me. “What will you do if she never comes back?”
“Who?”
“The girl you knew. What if tonight doesn’t work? What if I don’t get my memories back?”
“You say that like you aren’t the same person.”
“I am not the same person. I don’t share those memories. Even if I did, what makes you think my life here hasn’t changed me?”
“The memories will come back.”
“What if they don’t?”
“Then we’ll make new ones—”Cheney sighed like he couldn’t bear to say whatever else he needed to. He shook his head. “It’s time to go.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Absolutely,” he said with the confidence I didn’t have. His arms wrapped around me and I waited for the dizzying pull, but it didn’t come.
“Cheney?”
“Yeah?”
“Are we going?”
“Soon.” His arms tightened and his lips brushed my hair. “You didn’t say what you thought of the house.”
“It’s lovely.”
“Would it be acceptable to you?”
“Acceptable as wha
t?”
“Our place to stay while we come up with a plan. You can’t go back to your house after tonight. They’ll be looking for you there, especially when they feel your magic.”
“How long do you think we’ll be here?”
“I don’t know.”
“I won’t leave Stewie.”
“The cat will be here when we come back tonight.” He squeezed me a little tighter and I closed my eyes shut. When I opened them, the studio was dark and silent. I gave Cheney the keys to unlock the front door while I got the lights. It seemed like a lifetime since I’d taught a class or seen my friends. Was I really giving all this up? I sat on the floor and opened Grandma’s Book of Shadows. I needed to find a spell that would work.
The book was a fountain of hand-scrawled information but seemed to have no order. It would take ages to find the correct spell. There was no way we could do this tonight. Relief washed over me. I’d received a reprieve.
“Looking for the spell?” Cheney asked.
“This will take hours to read through.”
“I know. I read while you slept last night.”
“You read this entire book?”
“Yeah, we needed to find the spell. Do you want me to show you?”
I offered him the book, my stomach sinking. Cheney flipped right to the correct page and handed the book back. It was an undoing spell and actually rather simple in its nature. “This doesn’t seem too bad. I have everything on hand.”
“Simple, yet powerful. It should do the trick.”
The bell of the door chimed. “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee,” I muttered.
Cheney smiled. “John Donne,” he said the same time Kat and Jess walked into the studio laughing.
“Selene, you whore. What’s so important we had to meet tonight?” Jessica asked before she noticed Cheney.
Kat looked at Cheney with an arched brow then back at me. “Hey, pretty lady. You going to introduce us to your friend?” She gave me a look that said that’s not Michael.
“Kat, Jess, this is Cheney. Cheney, these are two of my best friends, Kat and Jess.”