Krista watched my movement and grimaced. "How's the shoulder?"
“I won't be doing any dancing,” I said. “To be fair, if it wasn't the shoulder, it would be the fever and if it wasn't the fever, it would be the heels."
She smiled, though I had the feeling she didn’t find this funny.
I had a hard time paying attention to the ceremony. Instead, I watched my friends: Krista, with her expansive tattoos, orange hair, and shimmering gown, dabbed at her eyes with a wad of tissue; Jaesung looked both polished and jittery in his tux. His hair was fantastic as ever, but I missed his glasses.
The ceremony ended, and I wobbled into the courtyard, for once relieved by the biting cold. It cleared some of the fog from my brain, and though my fever hadn’t returned, the snowbanks near the spiky wrought-iron fence were tempting. I don’t know why I found this cemetery more inviting than the reception hall, but I imagined sitting behind one of those massive headstones, letting the chill freeze out the pain in my shoulder.
I leaned against the rough stone wall and watched guests file across the street. All of them smiled and talked, connected by this confirmation that life as they knew it still moved forward, right on track. I couldn’t imagine what my own wedding might look like. Unbalanced. All the guests would be the groom’s and I’d walk down the aisle alone, with no father to escort me. No one wanted to watch that. Just as well it would never happen.
A shadow moved at the back of the cemetery, fleet enough to have been a cat or a bird. I squinted, tracing its path behind a small outbuilding. Something about that shadow had not been right.
“Sorry, excuse me?”
The soft voice startled me. I whirled around to find a woman standing a few feet away, leaning sideways as if she’d been trying to catch my eye. I felt the burn in my shoulder and grimaced.
“Sorry, sorry!” The woman’s dark brown hair fluffed around a pale, freckled face. Despite being at least ten years older than me, there was something almost cute about her small mouth and huge brown eyes. “Hi, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Are you Helena?”
I blinked at her, hesitant to take the mittened hand she extended. There was nothing Sorcerer-like about her, but Isaac had mentioned his boss was a woman.
She looked overstimulated. Breaths puffed from her lips in rapid intervals, and the hand that wasn’t extended tapped at her deep pink trench coat. It was the pattern of cat silhouettes on her tights that finally tipped me off.
“Alina?”
“Yeah! Hi! Sorry!” She said, relief breaking over her face as I took her hand. “I was looking for you. Sorry. Kris said you might have trouble getting to the reception hall?”
Noting her trembling fingers, I doubted my injuries were the only reason Krista had sent Alina after me. She probably wanted to make sure her girlfriend had someone to talk to. I winced. Alina had been through a wedding before, as the bride. And that hadn’t turned out as planned. We were two awkward peas in an uncomfortable pod.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, pushing myself off the iron fence. “I think I need to get in there and hide in a corner.”
Alina nodded vehemently and took my elbow. I was grateful for the balance—these shoes, they were the worst part of all of this. I could stand the pantyhose that kept rolling down my abdomen if only I could exchange the heels for something less hazardous.
We skirted the edge of the darkened ballroom, circumventing the ghosts of tables and sheet-covered folding chairs. Alina installed me on a stool at the end of the open bar. It was almost like my favorite seat in the kitchen at Ruff Patch, a lovely corner where I could lean back against the join of the brick wall and the cool expanse of counter. I groaned in relief as I nudged my shoes off my feet.
Alina grinned at me, hopping up onto the stool next to me. “Shoe-gasm,” she said, and with a little wiggle, two clunks sounded below her stool. “Oh my God. Yes. So good.” She flagged the bartender. “Two bellinis, please.”
The black-aproned woman turned away to make the drinks, and Alina winked at me. “I know you’re, like, barely eighteen, but they’re not gonna ask questions. And you look like you could use a painkiller.”
I tried to smile, but it was lost on her. She fidgeted with her purse, looking this way and that, her foot jittering. The room was filling up, people finding seats and piling more and more boxes and bags on a table in the corner.
“Crap,” she said, fingering a thick bit of plastic-wrapped paper in her purse. “I didn’t think people would bring actual presents. I did research on Korean wedding customs and I thought we were supposed to bring an envelope of money. I even went to the bank to get new bills and kept the plastic wrapping so the envelope didn’t get dirty—”
I accepted my drink from the bartender. “Nobody will be mad at an envelope full of cash,” I said. The drink was cold, sweet, and bubbly.
Her eyes were huge, and she began tearing up the napkin under her drink. “Do you think? I didn’t know. I mean, all Kris said is that Gene’s family from Korea was flying in and I had no idea whether that meant the wedding would be traditional, but I guess Sanadzi’s family wouldn’t do that? Maybe I should warn her mom about the wild goose?”
“Wild-” I set down my glass. “Alina, I don’t think there’s a wild goose involved in any of the wedding plans.”
“Right? They’re probably doing the wooden one if they’re doing it, which maybe they’re not.”
I saw the shadow on the bar and glanced up, catching Jaesung’s reflection in the curve of my champagne glass.
“We’re going full western on this one,” he said, shrugging off his jacket. “No geese, no walnuts, no piggy-back rides. But I’m sure envelopes full of cash will be accepted.” He stopped behind me, tossing the suit jacket over the bar. He was close enough to put off heat.
His presence was gravity. I leaned back and he met my weight without discussion. The metal tab of his suspenders pressed into my good shoulder, but it was worth the way he squared up to my back, one hand going to my hip.
A peppery musk cut through the general smells of crowd and clean linen. It took a second to identify it as something Jaesung was wearing. I’d gotten used to his normal smell, its hints of sweat and city and cold air. This was warmer, intentionally seductive. Good thing my back was to him. If the purpose of that scent was to make me want to bury my face in his neck, it was succeeding.
“Where’s Kris?” Alina asked, and took a gulp of her bellini.
“Helping Sanadzi do something arcane to her dress, I don’t know. She’ll be out soon. Miss Martin? What happened to your shoes this time?”
“We broke up.”
I felt the shake of a chuckle against my back. His hand on my hip tightened, and he tugged me around on the swiveling top of the barstool until I faced him. He pointed behind him, across the dance floor. “There's a bucket of flip-flops over there for dancing. Think you can commit?”
I set down my bellini. “Did you say flip-flops?” I pressed a hand to the tiny folds on the front of his shirt. “My kingdom for a flip-flop.”
“Your kingdom?” he said, lifting his hand to cup my elbow, mimicking my mock dramatic pose. “My God. What will you give me for two?”
“Publicly?”
Alina giggled. Jaesung flexed his eyebrows, but there was a flush on his neck as he dropped my arm and strode purposefully across the dance floor.
“Shut up,” Alina said, grinning over at me. “You two are adorable!”
I knew what she thought, and denying it was getting exhausting. Worse, it was starting to feel like another lie. Especially when a treacherous satisfaction snuck in at the sight of him, white shirt and suspenders and tattoo and fantastic hair, digging through a bin of sparkly flip-flops. For me.
There was a hunter in me that watched with senses wide open, taking in his solid shoulders and warm skin, tasting the scent he’d left in the air and remembering the low vibration of his voice against my back. Despite all my protests, that hunter was growling ‘mine’.
Still, even Jaesung couldn’t distract me completely. A niggling nervousness still prodded at my brain. I needed to figure out what that shadow in the graveyard had been. Preferably before Jaesung got back and distracted me all over again.
I downed the rest of my drink, excused myself, and made my way along the wall to the hallway. The women’s restroom sported a marble-topped makeup table and one of those enormous mirrors surrounded by lightbulbs.
I wish they'd been off. I looked like shit. The dress was nice, and given the ornate caftans and floor-length velvet skirts I’d seen on Sanadzi’s family, the color clash made no difference, but my skin was practically gray. Even the makeup and hair-styling failed to disguise my dark circles and the scrape across my cheek.
I sank into the curvy chair and folded my good arm across the marble. The next best thing to scouting on foot was doing it in my spirit form. I closed my eyes and I stepped out of myself.
It was nice to walk so easily. I trotted unseen through the closed door and down the hallway, passing beneath a blazing exit sign. Outside, night had taken hold, and the snow glowed blue beneath the partial moon. I loped around the building, wove between the cars in the parking lot, and scanned every dark corner for any sign of magic.
I stopped at the front of the building. A few guests smoked on the front stoop. Across the street, the cemetery drew my eye again. Something was in there. I was sure.
Across the street I went, and through the wrought iron bars. Grave markers rose before me, some of them new, some so old the words had weathered away. I hopped onto one of the big concrete tombs, translucent paws barely obscuring the carving beneath. No trace of power graced the woods, no moving shadows. Still I was convinced. Someone was here.
Pain exploded in my shoulder, and someone in the room with my body screamed.
I pivoted on four paws. Had someone snuck by me? Was my body being attacked? Had I even remembered to lock the door?
I sprinted across the street, straight through the wall. My shoulder was in agony so harsh I could barely focus. I barreled into the hallway. A clutch of raven-haired women huddled at the door of the bathroom. I breezed past them, leapt through the crouching form of a woman in a dress, only to find myself on my injured side, the chair tilted over.
I leapt into my body, shocking myself into a gasp. Control reasserted itself on my real limbs with a jerk.
“Hello, hello?” the woman above me said, her voice accented. “Hello, please?”
I forced my eyes open. The woman's slender hands fluttered around me without touching.
“Okay? Are you okay?” she said. People in the doorway were whispering in what I guessed was rapid Korean.
I made myself twist onto my good side and push to my knees, then my feet. The orange scarf had slid off my shoulder, which was once again seeping a thin line of blood. The woman crouching next to me pulled a packet of tissues from her purse, pressing them into my hands with wide eyes.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Her frantic expression eased. There was something familiar in her face. Of course, she'd be related to Jaesung. Still, her fashion was sort of off. She was in her early twenties, but her lavender dress was a confection of ruffles that looked more appropriate for a twelve-year-old.
Then an older woman separated herself from the crowd. That she was Jaesung’s mother would have been obvious to a complete stranger. They had the same elegant jawline, the same mouth, the same long, slender proportions. He'd even inherited her slight widow's peak, and a dimple in her bottom lip suggested the presence of largish canines. In her floor-length wine-colored dress, she looked like someone who belonged at a high-class cocktail party, or performing at an opera. She didn't look like a piano tutor.
She took both my hands in hers, her perfect eyebrows pinching as she took in my injuries.
“My son looking for you,” she said, and unlike Jaesung, her English had a thick Korean accent. “I’m Sooyoung, Jaesungie’s mother.”
“Hi,” I said, though it was through a grimace. “Sorry, I’m—still sort of….”
“You come sit down,” she said. “This kind of bruise? You should not standing up so much. Come on. We take care of you, okay?”
She patted my hand, then swept up the scarf and tucked it around my shoulders. Winding my good arm around hers, Jaesung’s mother pulled me to the door.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I sat with the Korean side of the family at dinner. Jaesung and Krista sat with the wedding party, and Alina seemed to have been adopted by one of Sanadzi’s crystal-wearing cousins.
There had been a brief round of introductions in English at various levels of competency, and Sooyoung expounded on their relationships and hobbies. She was solicitous, refusing to let me reach for anything farther than my water glass. Through the niceness, it was hard to determine what she was like.
Was she doing this because part of her responded to a bruised-up girl? Or had Jaesung told her about my mom? My family, really. There was no way to know, and I was glad when dinner ended. I escaped to my dark corner at the bar, sparkly purple flip-flops smacking at my heels.
The lights dropped out, all but a few spotlights and the candles that flickered in centerpiece jars. The background music that had been playing surged, then dropped off as the best man stepped into the pool of light on the dance floor, microphone in hand.
“Hey,” Jaesung slipped from the crowd, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it to the stool next to me. “Do me a favor?” He extended his wrist, cuffs loose and flopping.
“You want me to roll them up?”
“Yeah, flat if you can.”
I took the sleeve, and he stepped in, hip bumping against my knee.
“So, you met Mom,” he said.
“Yeah, she’s very…. She wouldn’t let me cut my meat.”
He shook his head. “Sounds like her. She loves adopting people. Half my high school friends called her Mom.”
I nodded, not wanting to tell him how little I wanted a replacement Mom right now. I reached for the other cuff, just as everyone laughed at something in the best man’s speech.
“You’re, um, maybe you can let me look at that a sec?” he said, plucking at my orange shawl. “I think you’re leaking.”
I glanced down, spying the dark stain blotting the silk. “Shit.”
“It’s on the back too,” he said. “Come on.”
A few minutes later, we were in the powder room. Jaesung wet a paper towel and wrung it out as I eased myself onto the counter, not trusting the spindly chair that had betrayed me before. He leaned into my knees and dabbed at the cut, head bent close to mine. His brows were drawn, and there was a measure of hesitation in the hand braced on my thigh.
It felt strange. Jaesung was here with me, like the friends we claimed to be when the truth didn't build walls between us. Even then, we were learning to care for each other through the barriers. Something in me reached for him, eager to know what we'd be without any secrets. I think he was reaching too.
“Thanks,” I said. “You know there’s stuff I can’t tell you, but you’re here anyway and, you know. Thanks.”
His lips flattened into something that wasn’t quite a smile, and he chucked the paper towel into the trash. I blinked, wondering where the flicker of temper came from.
“What?”
He leaned into the counter, hands braced on either side of me. His head hung, then shook. He lifted his hand in a shrug and dropped it to the counter with a slap.
“What?” I demanded again.
“I don’t know, Hel.” He looked back up. “I get that there’s shit I can’t know, and maybe I could accept that if you weren’t...” He gestured to my face and shoulder. Both hands found my knees, squeezing for emphasis. “I hate this. Just sitting here and not knowing how to stop it from happening.”
I shook my head. “It’s not something you can protect me from.”
&nbs
p; “I know that!” he said, one hand going into his hair in frustration. “Trust me, I know you’re a thousand times better equipped to protect yourself than me. That doesn’t mean I’m just going to dick around while some asshole tries to kill you. At the moment, I can’t do anything but patch the holes, and I am not satisfied with that.”
He snagged another paper towel and drenched it, wringing it out more violently than necessary.
“You’re not just patching holes.” I caught his hand on the way to my shoulder. Unable to meet his eyes, I focused on the ridge of his collarbone under the dress shirt. “There’s stuff that’s too messed up to fix, maybe ever, but the things you guys have done are… When Mom and I first planned to run, I had no idea what to hope for. I couldn’t envision the life I wanted because I couldn’t imagine anything that didn't involve being scared and angry all the time. Because of you, I can. Now I know what I would want.”
He set aside the paper towel. “If…?”
The bitterness in my laugh was unintentional. “If I were dumb enough to hope for it?”
“Stop.” He moved some hair from my face, fingers light across my temple. I drew a slow breath, wondering why now, with him in front of me, I felt more fatalistic than ever. I couldn’t help it. Everything I wanted was right there in front of me—six feet of solid, warm harbor—and I was walking away.
“Hey.” His voice was softer now, the backs of his fingers warm over my ear. “You’re okay.”
He settled his weight against the counter, hips between my knees, and his belt pressed into my thighs. The slight pinch of it was not uncomfortable. I managed a smile.
“I can’t decide if letting you under my skin was the best or worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“Me neither.”
Unleash (Spellhounds Book 1) Page 22