Lacing Shadows
Page 6
“God, Asia, let it go. Would have been nice if you cared so much before you tricked me.”
“I do care, Jess. Just not the way you wanted me to. Maybe I would have if you hadn’t been so damned pushy. I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time and that you’ve been so lonely, but trying to force yourself on anyone, no matter why or how… that’s never okay.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, you can say that because you don’t know what it’s like.”
“I can say that because it’s the truth. Tell them what you’ve told me. Make your case. Defend yourself, damn it!”
“Why? So I can get sent back to the pack that abused me like someone’s chew toy? Or maybe I can just go on my merry way, alone. Again. I can’t do that anymore.”
A stab of pity entered Nati’s heart. But the law was the law.
Jiddo stared at Jesse for a long time, the mask concealing his feelings. “So be it.”
Reaching a hand toward Jesse, Jiddo’s fingertips glowed gold. At the same time, Jesse’s chest lit up. A silver light flowed from him into Jiddo’s palm. The air crackled with Jiddo’s power. Nati felt the presence of Anubis all around her, making the fine hairs on her skin stand straight.
“Jesse, witness the weight of your deeds since the time the wolf spirit entered your heart.”
The silver light consolidated into a transparent image of a beating heart. Jiddo place it on the scale.
Weighed against the feather, the plate holding the heart dipped, but only by a small amount.
The occasional pops and snaps of the logs burning to embers in their stone circle were the only sounds in the cave. Her eyes burned from the smoke building up. It seemed as if everyone in the small space held one collective breath.
Then Asia stifled a small sob, and Nati wished she could comfort her.
Jesse didn’t even look up.
Finally, Jiddo passed his judgment.
*
Guilt, sorrow, sympathy—all these emotions choked Asia, writhing through her chest like a bucketful of worms. Yet, in the depths of her heart, she knew she’d done the right thing. She wouldn’t have been able to help Jesse eliminate any innocent pack, least of all Nati’s. Likewise, Asia couldn’t stand idly by if execution was the verdict against him.
Jiddo’s voice was strong when he spoke. “You are fortunate, Jesse. Your heart isn’t as heavy as I feared. Misguided though your actions were, you are not a lost soul. Therefore, I offer you a choice. You may remain in our territory if you renounce the Cain spirit and all the abilities that accompany it. Otherwise, leave this place in peace with your wolf spirit. This will allow you to survive as a lone wolf; however, you must surrender your telepathic gift. We can’t in good conscience risk that you will repeat your transgressions elsewhere.”
Jesse’s chin lifted. Instead of looking at his judge, his gaze connected with Asia’s. He cleared his throat. “I have nowhere else to go, and I don’t want to start over.” His eyes pierced her. “If it won’t make you too uncomfortable, I’d like to stay.”
It would be awkward having to see Jesse around campus, especially with the way things had progressed with Nati. A selfish part of Asia wanted to avoid that unpleasantness, but she couldn’t condemn Jesse to a life of cold solitude either.
Also, if they ran him out, even minus his telepathy, would he take more violent measures to force some other girl to be his mate? At least if he were here, they could keep an eye on him and support him if he would accept it.
“Okay.” As soon as she said the word, a wave of dizziness spun the cave around her.
Jiddo’s voice sounded as if it reached out to her from surround-sound speakers. “So be it.”
The silver ribbon flowed out of Jesse again. Tendrils of light snaked up toward the cave ceiling and vanished into the rock and earth. The stream lifted Jesse up onto his knees. His head flopped back, and his face tightened as if he were fighting pain. Tears spilled down his cheeks. When the last flicker of energy disappeared, he slumped back onto his heels.
The wolves flanking Jiddo whined but held their positions. It was as if they were expressing sadness for Jesse’s loss. Nati and Asim both solemnly bowed their heads.
Asia swayed on her feet, suddenly feeling warm. The contrasts of color in the cave deepened, and the fire changed from yellow to a blue tone. The wolves seemed to glow, like golden statues, against the shadows behind them.
“Nati? Asim? I don’t feel right.” Bracing herself against the wall with one hand, she rubbed her temple with the other. Her pulse throbbed in her head like tribal drums. “What’s wrong with me?”
Jiddo answered her. “You have shown great cunning, compassion, and honor this night. These are the traits embodied by the line of Anubis. Will you allow the spirit of the jackal to join with you?”
Asia closed her eyes and gave herself over to the amplified sounds, the smoky and earthy aromas, and the surge of energy roaring through her veins. Her voice floated out on a whisper. “Yes.”
*
Exhausted and feeling empty, Jesse looked up to see that a wolf head hovered over Asia. Her eyes popped open. Golden lights poured out of them, bathing her in their glow. When the lights faded, he stared into the eyes of the girl he had sort of loved, except now she was transformed into a jackal.
Her girlfriend, the guy behind Jesse, and the masked leader shifted into jackal forms, along with the others. The elder led the pack in a symphonic howl, welcoming Asia into their family.
Jesse had never felt so alone in his life.
9.
Weeks later, the winter break was drawing to a close. Asia had spent most of the month-long holiday on campus. She wanted to spend time with Nati, Asim, and her new pack. The other person she stayed for was stretching next to a fence post at the end of the Rail Trail. It would be an adventure to see how far she and Jesse could make it through the fresh layer of snow now that the cold temperatures bothered her less.
“You sure you want to do this? You don’t have to babysit me.”
“I’m not, and if I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have texted you. Come on.”
The situation with Jesse was still awkward at times. Getting to this point took many long conversations with dozens of questions: Had she been faking everything during their time together? Had he stressed her so much that he pushed her toward another woman? What was wrong with him, and what was so great about Nati?
Losing Asia seemed more upsetting to him than losing his wolf spirit. Now, he seemed resigned to their altered relationship status because it was better than no relationship at all.
When Jiddo had invited him to spend New Year’s Eve with the pack, Jesse had gone speechless with gratitude. Asim had balked, but Jiddo had silenced him with a glance. “He needs guidance, not contempt. Perhaps he can learn a different way than what he was shown before.”
Now, the afternoon sun streaming through snow-capped evergreens made the run easier to bear. Jesse and Asia finished only a mile-and-a-half loop in the thirty minutes they could stand the sub-freezing weather.
Their teeth were chattering by the time they reached their cars.
“Where are you headed now?” Jesse opened his door and leaned his arms on the roof to talk to her as she leaned against her driver’s side.
“Back to my room. Nati’s meeting me there.” The absence of Asia’s suitemates had been heavenly. She and Nati had tossed around the idea of sharing a place off campus next fall. “What are you getting up to?”
“Work. Dinner shift. Stop in if you want. I’ll hook you up. Shouldn’t be busy.”
“Ooh, will that cute townie be on tonight? You should ask her out. She’s into you. She’s got that look.” Asia made a mock-sexy face, complete with duck lips.
“Jeez, Asia. First my babysitter, now you’re matchmaking?” But his grin said he didn’t mind the attention or the friendship.
“Whatever.” She tossed a handful of snow at him. “Later.”
Back at the dorm, she had left the doors unloc
ked. When she walked into her room, Nati, curled up on Asia’s bed, was surrounded by books, with her silver laptop open on the floor.
Asia began to peel off layers of sweaty clothing.
Nati looked up from the page she was reading and smiled. “Wow. Maybe you want to say hi before we get down and dirty?”
“Haha. If you’re into clammy skin and sweat stink, I’m all yours.”
“Yeah, how about you shower, and I’ll clean up this mess.” She laughed and wrinkled her nose.
As Asia undressed in the en-suite bathroom, she thought back over the time she’d spent with Nati since the transformation. She could have flipped out about Asia helping Jesse during his “trial,” not to mention the continued friendship with him. But after some frosty moments between the two women, she had come to understand that Asia’s sole interest was in her.
Through the uncertainty, Nati had never pressed her. No matter how steamy their kisses or embraces became, she always let Asia set the pace. Her hands never strayed anywhere uninvited. If Asia so much as flinched, she would kiss her forehead and back off immediately. The result was that Asia invited more. Wanted more. She felt safe and knew exactly how far she was prepared to go.
Wrapped in a towel, she gazed at Nati from the bathroom entrance. She was lounging in a pair of snug shorts and a gray hoodie. Asia knew that beneath the hoodie, she probably had on a lacy camisole, if that.
Asia’s eyes traced the sensual curve of Nati’s full hip and down the gentle arcs of her smooth calves. Her skin heated. She felt the familiar awakening of her body as she contemplated the amazingly patient woman before her. Conflicted between a sudden shyness and desire, she knocked on the doorjamb. “Hey.”
She glanced over her shoulder and swept her amber hair off her face. “What’s up?”
“Um… I won’t be sweaty much longer. I mean, um… you could join me. If you wanted to.”
A grin slowly lit Nati’s face. “You sure?”
Asia nodded and stepped backward toward the shower stall. Her eyes drank Nati in, and her breath became shallower with each item of clothing she shed.
Stepping beneath the rain of water, she closed her eyes, feeling the drops cascade over her, in eager anticipation of Nati’s gentle touch. Now that Asia had embraced her wolf and found the mate her spirit craved, she smiled, knowing it had all been worth the wait.
The End
A freelance writer from upstate New York, Andrea Stanet has been published online and in print since the late 90s. In addition, she works as a tutor and editor. She is currently submitting a middle-grade fantasy novel and a new-adult, urban fantasy novella for publication. Other recently published works include “Under the Mattress” in the anthology Urban Harvest: Tales of the Paranormal in New York City and “Lucid” in the anthology Stalkers.
http://andreastanet.com
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© Copyright 2014 Andrea Stanet
Eternal Guard
Tina Smith
The Mired Heart
Three seconds can change everything. One day you can be headed in one direction and all of a sudden in a flash it changes, you can be knocked to the side and wake up on a completely different course. Everything you knew is seen from a different angle, a more damaged one and nothing is ever the same. As the dust settles, it begins to rain, turning ashes to dust. Droplets fill a swamp around you and then its stops—but it isn’t over.
Sometimes I have a dream. I am fighting, attacking the person who hurt me. I lash out—I fight back, but no matter how hard I kick or hit, it’s never enough. My therapist back in Hanover said it was just repressed anger. I did feel like my hands were tied but no matter how much I fought it was never enough; it never did any good.
The worse thing about grief is that it’s not a proactive process. You can’t fight it; it’s a horrid entity that creeps through you and squeezes you inch by inch. It’s a muddy cesspool that you either wade your way through for months or you just wallow in it, overcome by the heaviness. Perhaps it dries sticking you there forever in its grip, sometimes for the rest of your life.
Everything you see and do is weighted like the mud itself has seeped into your system, your eyes are caked with it and it overwhelms your senses like a disease. The more you struggle against it the further you sink. I was up to my neck and I knew—had known—for months, that I would now willingly become part of the cesspit myself. I was dissolving into it. I had stopped struggling, the swamp was devouring me.
From the outlook it might have seemed impulsive to run from the dorm that night but my intention was certain; had been since the moment my life changed. It was inevitable. What I didn’t count on was that at the very last minute somebody would pull me from the sinking marsh right before my head went under the mud.
*
It was almost fall, that time before the leaves had completely abandoned the trees. I was running through the park at night. The cold breeze whipped my ears. There were smarter ways to do it. But I was done, I’d had all I could take. Despite my resolve, salty tears still streamed down my cheeks. I saw it through the darkness, the large curved bridge and I heard the trickle of the river below. I knew from my psychology class that in the second you jump you realize all the things that are wrong with your life are fixable. But you can’t reverse death.
My toes pressed the muddy earth under my bare feet. I climbed up and stood on the edge, the damp mossy brick under my feet. The cold air burnt my throat as the steam from my breath misted. This was it. My first year of college and I was jumping.
I couldn’t take it anymore: the misery, the weight of the mud.
I froze my icy toes over the edge, the chill on my naked legs. I knew if I waited too long I would chicken out, and nothing would be alright. It never was. More tears spilled from my swollen eyes. Tragedy changes who you are. The mud would never leave my veins, not even if I wanted it out.
I took one foot from the eroded brick wall and dangled my toes over the edge, above the freezing river, my heart beating. I counted to three, I bent my leg ready to push myself but as I sprang a hand grabbed my arm. My legs hit the brick as I was dragged back to the bridge—somebody had me.
“Let me go!” I grabbed at his fist, trying to tug it away.
“No, no!” A man in a black coat grappled with me.
“Ahhh!” I yelled. His cold hand clasped my mouth, strangling my scream as he pulled me up.
“For someone who wants to die, she seems rather upset,” another stockier man jested casually as he stood at the foot of the bridge.
“Shut up,” the first man replied vehemently, holding me in his grip as my calves grazed the wall.
“When you’re done playing with her, I’ll be at the house.” The pale stocky man walked off.
I remained frozen under the first man’s grasp, wondering with burgeoning fear what was going on. He was young and much taller than me, his light brown eyes visible even in the dim.
“I’m not going to hurt you, okay.” He loosened his grip. “Don’t scream.”
I stilled until he released me. I glanced at his sculpted face and tried to run but he pulled me back. I thrashed but his grip was solid, I felt pathetically weak. He pulled me to him and looked deep into my eyes, in the darkness. My heart was thumping fast inside my chest.
“Tell me, why would a young and pretty thing like you want to attempt to end her life?”
I swear his caramel eyes glimmered. Like he could understand! Though, maybe he could. His eyes avoided mine for a moment.
“Haven’t you ever wanted it all to just go away?” I confessed bravely, as I sniffed back tears and my heart raced faster inside my chest.
He smiled a little with the corner of his handsome mouth and a shiver ran down my spine. I tried to pull away and run, but he still clasped me. I threw a hit but he grabbed my wrist firmly with icy fingers.
“You need to go home, little
girl,” he advised through gritted teeth.
“Then let me go,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to tug free.
He let go so suddenly that I fell back to the ground with a thump in the undergrowth. When I looked up he was gone. I twisted my head about expecting to see him at any moment, shuffling backward on the ground turning in the leaves, searching for him. I scanned the dark woodland park in every direction. Frightened I got up and began to run, unsure of where I was going, but I knew that if I kept running I would eventually reach the street.
I stumbled forward, over a rock hurting my foot and landing on my chest. I grimaced, and reached for my ankle. My grazed hand felt for the stick that had gouged my skin and I grabbed it and yanked it away.
I touched the damp warmth of blood burning my skin. When I heard the leaves rustle, I wondered if he was after me as I struggled up and continued to run frantically for the street. I could see the yellow glow of the street lights ahead. When I reached the path I had a minute to think where I was. I started back towards the dorms, and had made it a few hurried paces when suddenly I was grabbed again, dragged back into the trees on the edge of the park; my breath caught.
I whimpered as the stocky man held me against a tree. My eyes were closed and I felt his cold rough finger trace my neck. A tear ran down my cheek and I trembled as I felt his finger glide up my cheek and wipe it away from under my closed lashes. I dared look at him in the dim glow of street lights, frightened to realize as I saw into his grey eyes that it wasn’t the first caramel eyed man I looked for him, with a terrified cry, fighting against the stocky man but I was tightly restricted in his vice-like grip.