by Tenaya Jayne
He put his hands on his face and thought about Sabra. What did she see when she looked at him? What did he look like? It seemed as if his face rebuilt itself around her. A smile curved his lips. She obviously liked what she saw.
His stomach fluttered. She would be here soon, or probably. If she could get away. The soft, dreamy nature of his thoughts came down with a hard bump. He was going to lose her tonight, because he was going to tell her the truth. He surely didn’t want to.
She didn’t come running. She walked slowly, methodically. He watched her, his heart pulling tight. The moonlight slid through her hair, over her flawless skin, and glimmered in her purple eyes. There was something very different about her. He always saw her physically exerting herself, defiant energy bursting from her. But now, she was serene.
He would have moved toward her, but found he was momentarily frozen. She was a goddess, and she was out here to be with him. She spotted him, their eyes locking. A slow smile spread her perfect lips. He smiled back. A degree of heat flashed in her eyes. This was such a bad idea, worse than the nights before it.
What was going to happen? What did she want? What did she expect? He’d never been physically intimate with anyone. He’d never met anyone he wanted, until her. But he couldn’t have her. Even though she wanted him back. He had to tell her the truth. She wouldn’t want him after that. He sighed. Those fantasies would only ever be just fantasies.
She walked bravely up to him and stopped a mere foot away. “Shreve.”
“Sabra.” His throat was so dry.
She continued to smile. “Thank you for helping me today. I appreciate your advice. I’ve thought about it a lot.”
He sort of heard what she said. “You’re gorgeous.”
She blushed and looked down for a moment. “So are you,” she whispered.
“What do you see when you look at me?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I look like?”
She smirked. “Don’t you know? Don’t you have a mirror?”
“Not really. I have a shard from a broken mirror. I haven’t looked at myself in a while.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Where do you live?”
“In the Wolf’s Wood. Next to the dryad graveyard. Would you like to see?”
“Yes.” She held her hand out to him.
He looked down at it and clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m sorry. I can’t touch you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to so much.”
“That makes no sense.”
He smiled sadly. “Doesn’t it?”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, the heat there hadn’t banked, it surged. “It makes sense. You’re denying nature. Why?”
“Asher told me about Gahu.”
The desire in her eyes turned instantly into anger. “I didn’t choose him!”
“I know that.”
She turned and stomped a few paces away, then she turned on him again. “I don’t know anything about you, except your name, and the way you make me feel. But I have this…” She pressed her hand under her sternum. “This…certainty.”
“I have a certainty as well. I am certain that what I’m going to tell you tonight is going to turn whatever you feel for me into hatred.”
She came toward him again. “Then don’t tell me.”
“I have to.”
“No you don’t. I probably won’t win the tournament. But I will die trying. Because I refuse to live like this. As some man’s property. But you, you’re in my dreams. I watch the sun move over the sky, wishing it would hurry up, so I can come to you. I want you, whoever you are. We connected. I know you felt it, too. I think about how I don’t have much time left and what time I do have, I want to spend with you.”
It was too much. The force was too strong, and her words pulled him into a current he couldn’t fight. He wrapped his arms around her. She tilted her head up and closed her eyes, her lips parting. He groaned as the pull took him under. He pressed his lips against hers. It was his first kiss. How could something so soft have such gravity? His mouth was closed, but hers was slightly open. Her lips pressed harder until he opened his mouth and took more. The second his tongue touched hers, she gasped and sucked the air from his lungs. She pulled at him, dragging him closer, until there was no space between them. It was over. He couldn’t fight this. He was totally lost, going down in flames. Her hands gripped his shoulders tightly, still trying to pull him closer. Something exploded in his head, and he was desperate for more, for everything. He moved his mouth to her throat. He was going to eat her up. His hands ran over her body, greedy and fast.
“Slow down,” she whispered. “I’m not going anywhere, and I want everything. I want all there is of you.”
Slow down. Slow down. He repeated her words in his head. Slow down... No. Stop. Stop now! He had to tell her the truth. If he didn’t, and things went further physically, and then she found out, she would hate him even more. And he’d deserve that. She had to know who she was with, otherwise, it just felt deceitful to him. Like he was stealing something.
His breath shuddered from his lungs. “You want all there is of me, except the truth.”
She looked up at him. He saw the fire in her eyes lessen by degrees, replaced by confusion.
It was the very last thing he wanted to do, but he let go and took a step back from her. “Listen to me, Sabra. I never meant to interfere in your life. I never meant to see you again. That night, you ran past me…something changed in me when we ran together. I didn’t know it would be like that.”
“I felt your remorse that night,” she said. “I didn’t understand it. I still don’t.”
“Listen to my voice. You said you recognized my voice.”
She shivered, and her eyes widened, then she shook her head. He groaned. This was the end, and he wasn’t ready for it to be the end.
“Look at my face.” He pushed his real face out.
Shock and horror flooded her wide eyes. “No.” her voice was barely audible. “No!”
“I’m so sorry…for Sophie.”
“Don’t say her name, you bastard!” she shouted. “Don’t ever say her name!”
She reared up and punched him in the face. His head snapped back, lights exploding behind his eyes. He exhaled raggedly and rotated his jaw.
“You’ve got a nerve putting your hands on me.” She was practically vibrating with indignation.
“I’m sorry.”
She turned on her heel, marched three steps, and stopped. She hung her head, and her shoulders slumped. Then she threw her head back, exhaling an odd kind of strangled cry. She looked back at him, her eyes fathomless. He felt his face shiver and shift back again to the face she naturally brought out of him. She turned all the way around and took two steps back toward him. He didn’t move. He would take whatever pain and punishment she wanted to serve to him.
Color rushed into her cheeks. “This is so wrong… How could you? What have you done to me? You’ve got a nerve putting your hands on me,” she repeated. Her whole body trembled. “Do it again,” she whispered.
“What?”
She slapped him in the face. It stung and made his ears pop. But as he opened his eyes to look back at her, she grabbed him roughly around the back of the neck and pulled his head down, kissing him hard. Shock lasted only a second, then vanished behind violent lust. She kissed him so hot and so forcefully, until neither of them could breathe. His mind spun, and his body went into a rage equal to hers. She shuddered against him, but then she jerked her head back, and everything stopped as quickly as it had started.
Her lips were puffy and bruised. Her chin trembled. She looked long and direct into his eyes. “You were right.” Her voice shook. “I hate you. Almost as much as I hate myself.” She backed away. “Goodbye.”
She turned and ran.
He fell to his knees. “Sabra!” His voice tore through the forest. The sound w
as fury, desire, anguish, and a plea all at once.
****
She stopped, panting, and braced her hand against a tree when she heard him call her name. Her heart clenched and rebelled. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t the truth. And how? How had she just done that? How had she faced her enemy and still wanted him? Her traitorous body screamed and clawed, still on fire for him. She felt sick. Her stomach twisted. She pushed off again, running as fast as she could, all the way home. She didn’t pay any mind to anything or anyone around her as she ran through the entrance of the mountain and up the stairs to her front door.
She burst into the living room, out of breath, surprising Gahu, who was sitting on the couch. She was horrified and jerked up short as he faced her. Shit! Why was he here now?! She felt exposed. How was she to cover the raging storm inside her and act normal?
“What are you doing here so late?”
“I was waiting for you. Where have you been at such an hour?” he demanded.
She took a steadying breath. “I was…I was running. I like running by myself at night.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You were alone?”
“Of course. What’s the problem?”
He surveyed her closely. She panicked. Could he sense her physical state? He walked to her and caught her up in his arms, pressing himself against her. Gah, not this! He was like acid on a burn.
“Your body’s running hot, Sabra. Why is that? You’re craving.”
She pushed him back. “Don’t embarrass me. It’s not my fault…I…I was thinking about you.” It felt like the most disgusting, dirtiest lie she’d ever told.
He smiled and grabbed her again, hauling her toward her bedroom. Fine, whatever. She thought. This will end my insanity. It’s what I deserve.
He booted the door shut and bore down on her, kissing her mouth. She closed her eyes tight and tried to give in. He tasted wrong. He felt wrong. He moved wrong. She began shaking again, but it wasn’t like the way she’d been with Shreve. Now she was shaking with revulsion.
“Don’t be afraid,” Gahu said. “Just trust me. I’ll fulfill your desires.”
Fat chance. Her shaking ratcheted up a notch. I desire my enemy.
He pulled at her clothes. This kind of substitution was a mistake, and she’d already more than filled her quota of mistakes for the day. She couldn’t do this. It was a betrayal of herself. Rejection she couldn’t fight against welled up inside her. Her stomach twisted again. “Wait. I’m not ready.”
“You’re more than ready.” He pressed his hand on her abdomen under her navel where the fire burned hottest.
“Physically maybe, but I don’t want to.”
He ignored her protest and grabbed at the waist of her pants.
“I said no!”
“Stop it, Sabra. Relax. I’m going to ease your craving. I know it must hurt.”
It did. It ached. But it was nothing to the pain in her heart. Her stomach churned harder. No. Everywhere he touched her cried out no. Something snapped inside her.
“Gahu?”
The deadly tone of her voice caught his attention. He looked into her face.
“I lied when I said I was thinking about you. I wasn’t. I’m sorry. I can’t be the woman you want. I’m never going to submit to you.”
His cheeks flushed red, and his eyes flared. “We’ll see about that, you’re mine.” He growled and tore her shirt open. “You’re about to learn what that means.”
She would have fought him off, but her vision clouded as he assaulted her. She saw Shreve, the way he looked waiting for her, the way he kissed her…who he really was. Her eyes focused back on Gahu. She was disgusted, distraught, and heartbroken. Her stomach pitched. Her body jerked forward, and she vomited on him.
His eyes bugged in shock, and he stepped back, his intentions of having a good time evaporated. He grimaced, seeing his shirt was covered with vomit.
“Wha… What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”
She wiped her mouth. “Apparently. You should leave.”
He did. Quickly. Sabra fell into a momentary numbness as she cleaned herself, and the floor, and went to bed. She lay on her back, looking at the moonlight spilling into her room through the window. She hurt all over. She wasn’t sick, at least not the way Gahu thought. Her body still ached for Shreve. She was too hot. She kicked her blanket off and stood. She leaned on the window’s edge and took a deep breath of the cool night air. It brought no comfort. He was out there.
She turned away and laid back down, pressing her hands to her head. “Forgive me, Sophie, I didn’t know. I never would have…I hate him. I know I promised I would avenge you, but I can’t. I have no one to exact justice on for you. Only Shreve. And I can’t…”
Her mind pulled deep into her memories of that night. Finding Sophie dead in the aftermath of revelry of the Aluka Circle. And there was Shreve with his other face. She could never forget what he’d said. She remembered everything about that moment with perfect clarity. She’d asked if he was Sophie’s killer.
“No. But I didn’t help her, either.”
“You’re one of them, aren’t you? The Aluka circle?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“I am no one, yet. But someday, I will stop all of you. If the rest of Regia cannot stop you, then the wolves will. And I will lead them.”
“Good luck to you then. My condolences on your loss. What is your name?”
“Sabra, and don’t you forget it.”
“I can assure you, I won’t.”
She groaned and rolled over onto her stomach, burying her face in her pillow. She believed him. She believed him then, and she believed him now. He didn’t kill Sophie. She’d run with him, twice. They connected on that deep spiritual plane only wolves could. In that state, she trusted him so much, she’d even fallen asleep next to him!
Still, the nerve of him! He’d known who she was all along. He’d played with her. Deceived her. Made a fool of her. It was unforgivable. Wasn’t it?
What was he? She’d run with him. He was a wolf. But he shifted, too. The green eyes, the black hair, the face that made her throat dry with wanting—was that the real him? Or was it the other one? The face she knew in her nightmares, the face her hate was attached to? No matter, it was his face and just seeing it on him aimed and shot deep into her heart. A direct hit on her softest place with cruel, surgical accuracy.
Memories of her sister assailed her. “I will never see him again, Sophie. I promise.”
Her ears rung with the phantom of his voice as he called her name, and she did something she’d sworn she never would again… She cried.
In the morning, Sabra locked herself in her room and didn’t leave it for days.
Chapter Eleven
“I don’t want to leave you.” Syrus held her face in his hands.
“I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not.” He ran his finger gently under her eye. “You’re so tired.”
Forest pressed her palm against his chest. “You’ll know if something’s wrong. Rahaxeris got back last night, he’ll be over here soon. You need to go to work.”
He leaned down and kissed her deeply. He put his hand over hers. “You know how to reach me.”
Tesla bumped into their legs. Syrus smiled down at her and lifted her up. She clung around his neck. Her hands lit up. He rubbed them, and the energy quieted under his touch. He kissed her cheek.
“Be a good girl for mommy.”
She nodded.
He set her down and kissed Forest again before leaving for work. After he left, Tesla stood by the front door, and began to cry.
“It’s all right, sweetheart. He’ll be back later.”
She wasn’t consoled. Forest picked her up, wincing as her daughter’s hands stung and burned her. She began kicking and thrashing. Forest set her back down. She turned away and toddled to her room. Forest watched her retreat, a singular kind of pain spreading through her chest. This pain was new, but Forest was beco
ming increasingly familiar with it. It pleaded desperately and stretched out like an endless thread of desolation pulled right through her core. This pain wasn’t sharp with peaks and valleys, it was constant without an end in sight. As it pulled through, it snagged and unraveled her.
She followed Tesla to her room. The doorframe was hard against her back as she sat on the floor and watched her daughter. Various toys lay scattered around. Since Tesla had aged, the reasons or patterns to her actions and play made no sense to Forest. She watched her, tried to analyze and understand, but since the incident with the flower, she knew Tesla didn’t see the world the same way she did.
Forest tried to engage and play with her. Sometimes she hit on the right thing and Tesla would stick with her for a while, but those moments were few and far between. She longed so greatly, more than any desire she’d ever felt, for her daughter to know that she loved her. Hand in hand with that desire, was the longing that her child would love her in return. She thought it unnatural that she should have doubts on such things, yet they were there, like shadows in the corners.
“Would you like to listen to some music, Tesla?”
Tesla made no show that she had heard. Forest crossed to the other side of the room and turned on the stereo. Her little hands stopped stacking the blocks. She looked up, her eyes wide. Forest sat next to her as the classical flute music filled the room.
Forest smiled at her. “Music. Do you like it?”
Tesla blinked a few times. She covered her ears with her hands and then removed them, put them back, and removed them again. Her face relaxed, and she closed her eyes. Forest breathed a sigh of relief. She liked it.
After a few moments, the flutes and wind instruments were joined with the string section. Tesla’s eyes flew open at the sound of the violins. She cringed inward, her hands now pressing hard against her ears, and screamed at the top of her lungs.