by Ainsley Shay
“Any word from Blacwin,” Snow asked on our walk to Boots to pick up a pizza. Chandler and Snow walked hand in hand. When I looked at her and saw the look in her eyes, I knew she was feeling guilty for being so happy.
“Sore subject, Snow,” Chandler said, and brought their joined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
I took her other hand. “It’s okay.” There was no way I would steal any of her happiness. Because of her, I’d been able to remain mostly sane. She’s the one responsible for keeping the normalcy, what’s left of it, in my life during the last few months. Chandler and I had talked before she came over and decided not to tell Snow what I was destined for, at least not tonight.
Snow looped her arm through mine. “Something tells me there’s going to be happy news soon.”
I laughed. “You sound like a fortune cookie.”
She lifted her chin and huffed. “Laugh all you want, but I mean it.”
I wanted to believe her, so badly I did. But, my hope was tied to an unraveling rope. It had been over a month since Blacwin called. When I had heard his voice, that hope had been restored. Now, after all this time without any word, faith had slowly eroded and was replaced with a harsh reality. Chandler had even stopped talking about him. When I had asked him questions about Blacwin or Skelside, his answers had become shorter and shorter, until one day, a couple of weeks ago, he said, “You can’t live everyday waiting for him to return.” His eyes were filled with sadness as he crushed my heart. It killed me to know Chandler had given up on Blacwin. There was nothing left to say after that. “I know you do,” I told Snow.
“Tonight is supposed to be a happy celebration!” Chandler said.
Grateful for the change in topic, I said, “Yes, it is!” The words felt forced and I hated myself for it. Snow hadn’t noticed. She skipped ahead of us. Her arms waving in the air as she sang, “Happy Birthday, to me!”
Chandler looked at me with sad eyes. His mouth opened to say something that may, or may not have been comforting, but I shook my head. “Don’t.” He held up his hands and nodded. His steps quickened as he caught up to Snow. He scooped her up from behind and twirled her around. Her usual contagious laugh drifted past me, bringing only a hint of a smile to my lips. I said a silent prayer for Blacwin to return safely, and if he never returned, I prayed he was not suffering.
Chandler lowered Snow to the ground. She turned and ran toward me. Her hand outstretched and grasping for mine. She pulled me toward Boot’s. “Come, sweet friend! We must eat our favorite dish until our bellies want to burst.” Now, I was truly laughing.
We brought the pizza back to my apartment, turned up the music, danced, and ate until our bellies wanted to burst. It felt good just to let go. After pizza, I announced that I was making a cake for the birthday girl; vanilla with sprinkles and chocolate chips mixed into the batter. The three of us stood around the bowl and filled spoonfuls of the sweet goop into our mouths. It went without saying the baked cake was very small since we ate most of the batter. There was barely enough room for the candles. Chandler counted out eighteen, plunged the bundle into the cupcake-sized cake and lit them. We sang happy birthday and split the piece into thirds.
“Okay guys, I’ve waited long enough, where are the presents?”
“Ever so subtle,” Chandler teased. He got up, went into the kitchen, and came back with a card.
Snow squealed, snatched it out of his hand, and ripped it open. A gift certificate fell into her lap. “I’m going shopping!” She held up the gift certificate, it was to the vintage shop.
I looked at Chandler. “You did good.”
“I know my girl.”
Chandler and I watched her as she read the card. “Aww...that’s so nice.” She leaned over and kissed him.
I handed her the small wrapped gift. She torn off the paper and lifted the lid. “No way!” She pulled out the dragonfly charm. “Where are my Docs?” She crawled to the front door where her boots were. After clipping on the charm, she held it up for us to see. “I love it.” She scampered over and hugged me.
We lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling. “Guys,” said Snow.
“Yeah?”
“This was the best birthday ever.”
“Yeah, right,” I challenged.
“I’m serious! So serious, that I’m really upset I have to go. My mom wants me there in the morning to go with her to get stuff for my party and help set up.”
Chandler and I walked her to her car at the curb. We hugged goodbye. I went back upstairs to give Chandler and her their smoochie time. As I closed the door behind me, something drew me to the dagger. I took it out of the box and removed the cloth. My reflection was distorted in the mirrored blade. I was destined to kill someone with this. Grasping the hilt, I stabbed the air upward. I adjusted my hand on the hilt and stabbed downward. I closed my eyes and imagined the blade slicing through flesh. My stomach roiled at the thought.
“What are you doing?”
So lost in the disgust of my own thoughts, I hadn’t heard Chandler come in. With the dagger still in my hand, I whirled on him. “What? Nothing!” I hurried to wrap the dagger and put it back in the box.
Chandler stopped me, his calm hand over my shaky one. “Hey, it’s all right.” His voice was soft and understanding. “Iris.”
“Yeah,” I said, as I looked up at him.
“Know that whatever happens, however all this shit goes down, I’ll never leave your side.”
As comforting as his words were, I wasn’t sure it was a promise he was going to be able to keep. I nodded. “Thanks.”
“Let’s put this thing away and watch a movie.” He put the dagger back in the box and replaced it in the closet. “I was thinking something funny, old, black and white...got any ideas?” He was really making an effort to take my mind off things.
“Haha...every movie is in black and white.” Shifting my brain from murder mode to movie mode proved to be easier than I would have thought possible. The art of not thinking about what’s eating you most; that should be a book, I thought.
“Haha, yourself!”
Obviously murder was still on my brain when I suggested, “What about Arsenic and Old Lace?”
“Perfect.” He put the movie into the DVD and we settled on the couch. His phone and mine chirped a few minutes later with a text from Snow that she made it home. “I can’t promise I’m going to stay awake for the whole movie,” he said.
“I promise you, I won’t,” I said. It had been a long day with no sleep.
When I woke up, the TV was off and Chandler had moved to the floor. I checked my phone and saw that it was one in the morning. I got up and brushed my teeth. After changing into a tank top, I crawled into bed. I begged sleep to, take possession of me again.
It did.
Until...
29
...Blacwin’s strong arm curled around my waist. I smiled in the dark. His warm breath tickled my neck. I started to wake, but refused to let consciousness steal me away from the dream that felt so real. Even the scent of him was vivid: rain, leather, and the other scent I could never place until now, spiced honey, complicated and sweet.
“Are you having a pleasant dream?” someone asked. They sounded far away.
I nodded in response. I may have even whispered, “Yes.” But I didn’t know if that was part of the dream. The dream began to fade and I fought to keep it alive. Then, all at once, it was gone.
“I’ve been watching you sleep for over an hour.”
This time, the whispered voice was close. Slowly, I opened my eyes. Nothing could have seemed more like a dream than that moment. I blinked and tried to clear the vision that for months I’d wished to see. It couldn’t be. But it was. I reached out to touch him, and when the tips of my fingers touched his jawline, tears instantly filled my eyes. He had come home safe and I had never been so grateful for anything in all my life. I lay perfectly still, afraid that if I moved he’d disappear. I just stared at him in disbelief a
nd wonder.
“You looked too peaceful to wake. But, I couldn’t take it anymore, I needed to hold you, to touch you, to do this—”
Blacwin bent and his lips slid over mine.
When he pulled back, he smiled. “You’re really here,” I said.
He brushed my hair away from my face. “There’s nothing that could stop me from coming back to you.”
The way he looked at me was stronger than the Earth’s gravitational pull, which kept me from floating away into the abyss of stars above. Every cell in my body exploded. Blacwin was really here. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life. It was as if the components of all my past lives, and this recently acquired one, had been combined and constricted into this one moment. I sat up and wrapped my arms around his neck. I never wanted to let him go.
When he kissed me again, it was sensual and soft at first and then slowly escalated. I opened my mouth to him. He rolled me onto my back and leaned over me. “There will never be enough time together to express how much I’ve missed you.”
I melted all over again. I thought I knew how desperately I’d wanted him to return, but it was then I realized not only how much I missed him while he was gone, but I knew I was in love with him. I had experienced the feeling only in my nightmares. But, even then, it had never felt this strong or untamable.
His eyes caught on the pendant in the hollow of my throat. Brilliant chills surfaced as he slid his hand down the center of my chest. “Beautiful,” he whispered as he stared at my body. He bent and brushed his lips over mine. The sweet torture was more than I could stand as he moved his lips from mine, to my cheek then my neck. My back arched to accept whatever he was offering. Breathing became a chore to concentrate on as he stroked my body.
“Devouring you all at once would be wrong.” His voice was raspy and low in my ear.
I wanted to protest but there was nothing I wanted more. My body ached for him to consume every part of me. I said nothing as he positioned himself next to me. I draped my leg across his. He gingerly ran his fingers over my thigh.
“You have no idea how I’ve worried,” I said.
“I know. I wanted to reach out—but I couldn’t.”
I didn’t ask why. If he said as much, I believed he had good reason. “But you’re here now.”
He faced me. I could see the anguish in the thin lines of his face. Blacwin gently traced my cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ll never leave you again.”
It was truth time; no matter how dire, I had to be straight with him. “Don’t promise me that until you hear what I’ve learned since you’ve been gone.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
There was no hiding the main blow of it all. I blurted it out, “I’m the only one who can kill Darenfys.” The long moment of silence was enough to fill every one of my cells with dread. I was grateful for the darkness that surrounded us. But, the moonlit sky traced a line of light over his face. I looked away. I didn’t want to see the disgust that would be etched there. I had to know that it was more than he could handle. Chandler, being my brother, felt more compelled to be at my side. Blacwin had only his love for me, and that was about to be put to the test.
“I know.”
Dumbfounded, my thoughts deciphered those two words. “How?” Did it matter? Because those were not the words I had been expecting to hear, confidence propelled me. “And you still came back?”
“Of course.” He cupped my chin and turned my head to look at him. “I love you, Iris. I’ve never stopped.” He guided his thumb over my mouth. I parted my lips. “You could slaughter a thousand men, and I promise to always love you.” He lowered his mouth to mine. Sliding his hand down my arm, he laced his fingers through mine.
I ran my other hand up his back and curled my fingers in his hair. Our mouths moved together in a slow rhythm that drove me wild. The moment was heated with passion, love, and a desperate yearning from the time we had spent apart. We knew so little about each other, but the thread that tethered us was unbreakable. When the kiss ended, we were both breathless. My voice felt as raw as my nerves when I spoke my next words. “I love you.”
When he kissed me again, it was all I could do not to fall apart. More times than I could count, my world had been torn apart. Then, there were moments like this, which made me whole again...a sliver of time that made everything feel right. It was in that instant I realized all is not without fear, vulnerability, and love. It’s in those things that make living possible at all. Blacwin was proof of that.
The seal of our lips broke. He pulled back just enough that we could look at each other. “I know there’s so much we need to talk about. But, just for these few hours until the sun comes up, let me hold you and try to make the useless effort of satisfying my need for you.” My wordless acknowledgment was all he needed. He shifted and settled his body over mine. His hands cupped my face. His dark-eyed gaze set fire to my soul. “Useless indeed; I have been satisfied with many things in my life, but my need for you will never be one of them.”
I brushed his hair back from his face and pulled him down to me.
30
The sun streamed through the French door. I stretched. My hand touched nothing but an empty space. Panic flooded me. Blacwin? Was it all a dream? The door to the bathroom opened. Blacwin stood there. He was shirtless and beautiful. It was enough to make any girl cry, and I was.
“What’s wrong?” Blacwin was at my side in a few strides.
I shook my head. “I thought...I thought it was a dream.”
He lifted me onto his lap. “It most definitely was not a dream.” He wiped at the tear running down my face.
When I glanced over his shoulder, it should have dawned on me sooner that we may have had a voyeur in the early morning hours, but I was too caught up in the moment to have noticed. “Where’s Chandler?”
“He left when I got here. I guess he went home.”
“He probably misses it. He’s slept on my couch—which is really only considered a love seat—for weeks, and he never once complained that he was not in his bed.” I let my head fall onto Blacwin’s shoulder.
“He would rather have been here.”
I wanted to stay curled up against him the whole day. But, there was so much to catch up on. “I have so much to tell you. I don’t even know where to start.”
“We have all day.” He lowered me to the bed and lied beside me.
I took a deep breath. “Carina left me Adelina’s journal. Everything is in there. So much more than I ever could have thought possible.”
We sat facing each other. He rested his hand on my knee. “Tell me.”
I placed my hand on his. “Blacwin, I found my mom.” I wanted to show him...right now! Drive to Adelina’s house, drag him out to the garden, and show him. He had spent so many nights at that house and he hadn’t even known.
“I thought your mom had disappeared?” He propped himself onto his elbow and leaned over me.
“She did—” that was the difficult part, “—Adelina turned her into one of her statues.” There was no stopping me now— “All the those statues in Adelina’s house weren’t carved—they had all once breathed the air we breathe and walked the streets we walked—” breathe “—all of them were turned into stone by Adelina’s hand.”
Blacwin didn’t say anything for a long time. “I didn’t know.”
“There’s a way to being her back.” I told him what had to be done.
“Then we need to bargain with her.”
“The only thing I have is the medallion. She wants it back—”
“Then we give it back to her.”
“Chandler hid it. He was afraid if I gave it to her, then all the bargaining and power would be in her hands.”
“Good job, Chandler,” he said under his breath.
“We need to find a way to get her to agree to bring back you mom.”
The only time I’d seen Adelina was in my nightmares. “It’s like she’s inv
isible. Finding her won’t be easy.” I huffed. “And I would think getting some of her blood would prove to be almost impossible, along with confiscating her carving knife.” I thought about Carina and her child. “There are only two statues at Adelina’s house that haven’t been broken.”
“Please tell me one of them is your mom.”
I nodded. “Yeah. And the other is Carina’s daughter.”
“Carina had a child?”
I told him what Chandler had said about her daughter. “Adelina turned her own niece into stone. Carina really isn’t bad. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not the nicest person. She does her sister’s crap, but I think she’s hoping one day, maybe, Adelina will give her daughter back.” It was sick to think about and I felt even sicker to voice it.
“That’s evil at its finest.”
I got up to get the brooch. “Carina gave this back to me.” He took it from my hand. “It was my mom’s.”
“It’s your tattoo.”
“Yeah,” I said, pleased he’d remembered.
I told him Mr. Yves had been attacked, how Peter had gotten involved; he was the one who had delivered the brooch. I even read some of the journal entries to him. It seemed like hours had passed when I was done.
I wanted him to share where he’d gone and what he’d done; but before I could, he took my hand and said, “Introduce me to your mom.” More than thrilled, I jumped up and wrapped my arms around his neck.
We hurried and got dressed. I wasn’t sure what we’d be in store for this time and I tried not to have any expectations, except the one that my mother was still in one piece.
She was.
31
I had only one more day until I would be mature enough to kill Lord Darenfys.
Blacwin had left a little after ten in the morning. He said he had to make some preparations. When I called Chandler, he said the same thing. I didn’t know what that meant. I thought we had everything we needed to fight the dark side: the dagger and well...me. Each of them had insisted I spend my last day of being a “normal girl” with my “normal friend”. At the mention of normal, I had laughed. I was far from being normal. As for Snow, normal wasn’t even in her vocabulary.