by Rowan Larke
“Clarissa,” he whispered. Adoration, hope, and fear wove into the sound of her name . If he could just will her to live, he would. The Dom continued, taking the measures that might just save Clarissa's life, and Jason felt his body begin to weigh him down. His mind spun—the sudden relief of fear, the overwhelming hope she'd be all right—until he felt too dizzy to stand. With relief, he gave way and let it carry him into unconsciousness, where he didn't have to deal with it anymore.
34
Rowan Larke
Chapter Eight
Tamiel walked away, leaving Clarissa alone. Sadness beyond words filled his inhuman eyes, and she stared at him, confused. “What now?”
“Normally this would be where I walk you through your life and show you the decisions you've made. Only this time…you have to do it yourself.” She saw Tamiel's hands clench and unclench at his sides, the only evidence of his frustration.
“Why?” Not that she really understood what he meant, but being different had never worked out really well for her in the past.
Tamiel snorted. His body was so tense, and Clarissa wanted to reach a hand out and ease whatever pain he was bracing himself against. “It's my fault,” he said, and the words were wrenched out of him. “I screwed up, and somehow you're tied up in it. So I can't help you.”
He sounded anguished, and Clarissa did reach out this time to touch his cheek. His eyes closed, as if her gentle touch were a slap. “Whatever you did…after this punishment, do you think you'll forgive yourself?”
Tamiel smiled tightly. “Probably not.”
She laughed, and it occurred to her it might hurt his feelings, but she couldn't help it.
“Whatever you are, you're an awful lot like me.”
“Your journey will be done. After this.” Tamiel nodded at something behind her, and she turned to peer over her shoulder. It looked like a thicket of rainbow-colored brambles threaded with gold and silver. They glinted as if kissed by a source of light she couldn't see, but the tunnel the brambles formed was dark.
“I have to go through there?” She didn't look back at him—it was too hard to meet his anguished gaze. Besides, the tunnel held her attention. She was captivated. Tamiel's breath grazed her neck when he spoke again. “You do. It will be frightening. Humbling. I can't be with you, but my words can.” She turned to him at that. Faced him, trying
A Love Neverending
35
to commit his face to her memory. The way his lips moved to form the words. As if remembering those details would help her remember what he said. “What you will see is the life you've already lived. You can't change anything. And none of it can hurt you now.”
When Tamiel's gaze flitted over her shoulder, Clarissa followed suit, and she noticed the tunnel seemed to have inched closer. She shuddered. If she didn't go to it, it would come for her.
“Just remember, it is all past. Own what you did. It makes a difference.”
Then the tunnel was upon her. Tamiel curled his fingers around her wrist, holding her to him for a moment more. “Please don't forget, Clarissa. Normally I'd be there, and talk you through. The voice you will hear is unsympathetic. I am not. I wish you didn't have to do this alone.”
The sound of a whip lashed through the air around them, and Tamiel flinched. She looked and saw the thorny vine coiled around his wrist, digging deep into his flesh. He released his hold on her slowly. Not cowed by the pain he was obviously in, he only let go when he was ready.
“Thank you,” Clarissa murmured, and Tamiel winced again. She held his gaze for a moment. “I forgive you.”
“It's my fuckup that got you here.” His voice rumbled. “I wasn't there. I was supposed to be there for him, and I wasn't.”
Clarissa shook her head, but he disappeared as the tunnel swallowed her whole. Once inside, the brambles were like arms, cradling her, ushering her forward. She realized what they were, slowly—the ties that bound her to her life, the reality she'd always known. A single crimson line wove through the center of it. When she reached the end of the tunnel, the brambles released her, dropping her into a cold, empty void.
“This is what you wanted.” The thunderous voice spoke, and the words echoed around her, the only thing left to keep her company as the glistening colors faded away.
36
Rowan Larke
Chapter Nine
Ghosts don't dream.
It was a truth Jason had come to accept after his first few weeks of being dead. Something was missing in their makeup, something physical or emotional—but they simply didn't wander during their sleep state the way mortals did.
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer sitting over Clarissa's body but sprawled across the sofa in her office area. Clarissa was over him, staring at him, and the only explanation he could imagine was that he was dreaming. It couldn't possibly be real. He stared at her, drinking in each familiar feature. The softness of her cheeks, the angle of her jaw, and her wide, soulful eyes framed by thick lashes. Clarissa. He wanted to say her name aloud, have her turn to look at him, to watch her face light with the smile he knew so well. But he was too afraid. What if she still didn't hear him? What if she did hear him, turned, and gave him a blistering glare instead? It was no less than he deserved, God knew. As he admitted his fear, she began to turn her head, and terror lodged in his throat. Clarissa…don't… Yet the thought—the hope—that she'd be able to see him was almost greater than his fear. To be seen meant he was real. Valid. Oh God. He steeled himself for her reaction. Or lack thereof. For whatever might happen.
Her gaze touched his face. A caress. A kindness. Her lips parted on a sigh, and her eyes softened—that expression of adoration he'd seen from her so many times but never really been able to believe. “Jason,” she whispered, and her voice broke on the word. “Oh, Jason.” She closed her eyes, and he wasn't surprised to see tears caught on her lashes like dew on a spiderweb.
“Clarissa,” he whispered, reaching out with a tentative finger to wipe them away. Bracing himself for the lack of contact, he gasped with an almost obscene pleasure when he felt the soft resistance of her flesh. Her eyes flew open as he pushed the tears away, and he stared into their
A Love Neverending
37
hazel depths, transfixed. “You're here,” he whispered. Joy—fierce and overwhelming—battled with guilt and disappointment.
She should still be alive.
She would be, if not for him.
“Jason.” She reached for him, touched his shoulder with a shaking hand. “You're real.”
Jason swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. Three years since someone had said his name. Since he'd been anything near “real”. “Oh God, Clarissa.”
He wanted to take her in his arms. Wanted to hold her and cradle her and kiss her… He wanted to throw himself at her feet and apologize for everything. For the mess he'd made of their entire lives.
She inched toward him. “Jason,” she whispered. “I missed you so much.” Then she was in his arms, her head resting against his chest, and he was pressing kisses into her hair, holding her tighter than she should be able to bear.
He moaned, unable to put words to his emotions. She was there. She could see him. She could touch him. And he could touch her. Without thinking, he lowered toward her, and she turned in his arms so his hungry mouth found hers.
* * * *
She moaned into his mouth. Into his kiss. Leaning into his embrace, she felt her body relax, even as her heart raced. She'd missed him. Oh God. She'd missed him. His slight stubble grazed her face, his lips coaxing her to react. To narrow her focus to him. Only him. It worked. It always worked.
He withdrew from her kiss, and she felt cold without him. “I'm sorry,” he whispered.
“Sorry?” she asked.
“For everything,” he murmured into her hair. “For dying.” He paused, and Clarissa's stomach flipped inside her body. She wanted to stop him from talking now.
“Jason.” His name
was barely audible, as if emotion had robbed her of her voice. She pushed him away, and coldness kissed her skin where his warmth had been. She resisted the urge to drag him back toward her, and she also didn't meet his eyes. Don't engage. “I don't…” She wrung her hands. How many times had she practiced what she'd say to him, if she had the
38
Rowan Larke
chance? How many times had she pleaded her case? Relived the night in her mind and come up with a thousand different alternatives?
No matter how much she did it, though, when she'd finished, the end result had still been the same. Jason was still dead.
“And it's still my fault.” She hadn't meant to say that aloud, but when she did, she flicked her gaze at him, trying to gauge his reaction. She expected him to look angry, all his hostility aimed at her. What he did look, however, was stunned.
“It wasn't your fault, Clarissa.”
Despite how certain he sounded, she didn't believe him. She couldn't. “It had to be, Jason. If you were happier…if I hadn't pushed so hard. If we hadn't fought that night…” She trailed off, the same futile anger and frustration filling her. As always, it fell away, leaving her with nothing but blame.
“It wasn't you, Clarissa.” He shrugged his shoulders, the way he always did when he admitted something he didn't want to. Shouldering a burden. “It wasn't like you did or didn't do something.”
She shook her head. That wasn't true. It couldn't be. “Jason, we were together for two years. I loved you. You never showed any indication you were—” Her voice stalled. She couldn't say it. The elephant in the room between them. She could talk about it; she just refused to say the word.
Jason, seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, though. “Suicidal, Clarissa. That's what I was. And of course I didn't show any signs when I was with you. When you were around, I didn't feel it.”
She deflated. He'd just proven her point. “So if I'd been there…you wouldn't have done it.”
“Not that day. But it would have happened.”
She shook her head. “No. If I'd been there, you wouldn't have done it. And you would have shaken off that mood, and you'd have been fine. You wouldn't have died.”
Jason didn't yell. His voice dropped about an octave and got all cool around the edges. It was the only indication he ever gave that he was mad. “It wasn't a mood I could shake off. It isn't like I woke up one morning and thought 'Hey, I'd really like to die today.' It's the way I thought every day. Every day, and all the time. It was never a matter of if; it was a matter of when.”
A Love Neverending
39
Something inside her broke at his words. Her tears flowed faster, and her stomach hurt, as if every pain she'd ever felt gathered there and festered. “But why?” She launched the words at him. Her voice was guttural, ragged with the screams she wanted to loose but couldn't. “You had everything. The club, great friends… me. ” Her voice broke on the final word, and she kept talking to cover it up. “I must have let you down if you were willing to walk away from it all.”
Jason inhaled like she'd wounded him. “It had nothing to do with you, Clarissa.”
“It sure as fuck felt like it, Jason.” Anger. Oh, the rage she had no idea she carried inside her whipped alive at his words. “It sure felt like it was about me when I found your body. When I made funeral arrangements. When I woke up every morning and wondered where you were, why you weren't beside me. When I remembered why, and had to deal with it all over again.”
“Oh shit.” He turned to face her. His face filled her field of vision, so she had no choice but to look into his brown eyes. To hear his words. “Clarissa, I was suicidal before we met. All through high school. All those friends I had? They weren't people I bared my soul to. They were distractions. Because when they were around—when we were talking and hanging out and shooting up—I wasn't thinking about dying.” His breath fanned over her face as he gasped for air, as if his admission had been as difficult as running a race. Maybe it had been. Clarissa absorbed it, a lightbulb of understanding flickering inside her head. She could almost see what he meant. But he'd been hers, and she'd loved him, and he'd done it anyway. “Didn't it matter?” she asked him. “That I loved you?”
He flinched as if she'd hit him, but she wasn't going to let him go without answering.
“It mattered,” he said finally. “It's why it took me two years to do it.” He brushed a piece of hair off her face, but she knew he just wanted to touch her. She wanted him to touch her too.
“I made the decision to kill myself before I ever met you, Clarissa. When you left that day…I realized I had the opportunity. And if I didn't do it then, it'd be too late.”
It was too confusing. Too overwhelming. She didn't understand, but what he was saying sort of made sense too. If it were anyone but Jason saying it. Anyone but him and she'd be able to reconcile what he was saying with what he'd done. But she'd loved him. Loved him beyond reason, and he'd left her. Willingly. Without saying good-bye or discussing it, he'd just gone.
40
Rowan Larke
“I didn't do it to hurt you, Clarissa.” Once again, Jason seemed to know just what she was thinking. He sounded frazzled too, because she didn't understand. She didn't really want to. She took a breath, trying to steady herself.
“You have to understand, love. I did think about you in that moment.”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. Seriously? That was supposed to make it better? He considered her, thought about her, about how much it would fucking hurt to lose him, and he did it anyway. She opened her mouth to tell him off, but he just kept talking.
“It wasn't like I thought about how hurt you'd be. Or angry. Or sad. My thoughts were more along the lines of how much better off you'd be without me. I thought about how much you loved me and how badly I could fuck you up because of it. I was a party boy. I was fun when we went clubbing, but I knew nothing about running one. And D'Light—it was your dream. Your big dream. I was going to fuck it up. Dealing coke out of the bathrooms or busting someone's ass when I bounced them. I was going to ruin your dream. I had to stop myself from doing that.”
“You were…protecting me?” She didn't want to understand, hadn't she decided that? But she could see the picture he was painting. She could understand how someone who'd made up his mind to die would be freaked-out by what they'd had. Because what they'd had was so good. And if he were so sure he was going to mess it up…
Clarissa shook her head, trying to dislodge the thoughts. She didn't want to understand. She didn't want to sympathize. But she did. She stared at that beautiful man she'd shared so much with, and she realized that the entire time, he'd been terrified. She touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers, and she could feel something inside her breaking. Walls she'd built to protect herself, anger and frustration and disappointment…all of it curdling like milk left in the sun.
“Goddammit, Jason. I wanted you to stay with me.”
Jason nodded. “I know that now. Hell, I can even see how wrong my thinking was then. But at the time? I just thought about how bad I was going to hurt you. How I was going to take everything down with me when I did it too. If I didn't kill myself, I'd have married you. I bought the ring.” A smile slipped across his face then, the sort of smile she'd never seen on him in life. Peaceful. “And that's when it started again. That's when I realized I'd fallen too hard for you, and I needed to save you. I had to get away from you, before I took you down with me. If we got
A Love Neverending
41
married, we'd have kids. How bad would I have screwed them up?” He met her gaze, pleading with his eyes for her to understand. “I had to stop myself.”
Much as she didn't want to, she understood. “I should've stopped you.” The words were a whisper. She didn't believe them anymore. Didn't believe she could have stopped him, and that was both a blessing and a curse. She collapsed back into his arms. For a long moment, she was content to be held,
and when she spoke, she changed the subject. “Am I…dead?” A sound caught her attention, and she tilted her head to listen for it. “I think…someone's calling me, Jason.”
42
Rowan Larke
Chapter Ten
Jason propped himself up on one arm and turned to look through the doorway of the office to where her body lay sprawled on the floor. The Dom still knelt over her, performing CPR. Mihai kept muttering under his breath, words Jason couldn't hear, though the sound of them was familiar. Like a chant.
Clarissa—the one beside him—reached toward her abandoned body. “I think…” she whispered…but the rest of her words were lost as she wavered in the air before him. “I'm…not quite dead.” The realization hit them both at the same time. “He's going to bring me back.”
Her eyes, wide and terrified, met his.
Tears filled his eyes, blocking her from view. “Go, love.” His throat closed over the words, but he managed to force them out.
“What happens to you if I do?”
He grinned at the steely tone of her voice, blinked away his tears, and met her gaze. “I don't know.” He shook his head. “Maybe I'll stay here, haunting the club forevermore.” He shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “Usually ghosts are sticking around for some unfinished business…something they regret.” He touched her cheek, unsurprised when his fingers felt only the barest resistance. “The only thing I ever regretted leaving was you. So maybe I'll move on now, to whatever is next.”
Clarissa's eyes filled, and he could see her weighing the options. He could also see she wouldn't be strong enough to fight the Dom's efforts for much longer. “If I go, this might be it?”
Despite the way his stomach roiled with the idea, Jason held her gaze while he nodded. She had a chance to live—he wasn't going to take it away from her. “Kiss me,” she whispered, and her voice was steel and need and pain, and he could do nothing but obey.