by Nikki Kelly
I pulled away, unable to find the words to express my fears, my pupils growing wide and worried.
Jonah stopped, and his Adam’s apple bulged as he swallowed. “Are you scared of me?”
“No,” I whispered.
Tentatively, Jonah tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear, waiting, now with the utmost patience, for me to tell him how I felt.
“I’ve…” I flushed. “I’ve never done this before.”
A small, almost relieved snort escaped Jonah’s lungs. “That makes two of us, beautiful.”
I furrowed my brow. “You’re seriously trying to tell me you’ve never had sex before? You?”
Jonah didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he pulled a throw off the couch and spread it across my shoulders. “Sorry,” he said. “That’s not what I meant.” He brushed the edge of a butterfly beside my eye, and then contemplatively with his fingertip he traced my facial features, only stopping when he reached the middle of my bottom lip. Then, and only then, did he finally finish: “But never like this.”
Reassured, and wanting nothing in the world more, I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding, and I nodded.
His huge hazel eyes never left mine as, more slowly, he peeled away my dress, which cascaded to the floor, leaving me bare but shrouded by the blanket. Pressing his steely body against mine, Jonah brought the blanket around us both, and we collapsed to the floor wrapped in each other’s arms.
And what little I had left for him to take, I gladly gave him.…
* * *
A PIPE ORGAN RESOUNDED, causing me to stir in my sleep.
Uri—my fantastic white mare from a bygone life—manifested in the void of my unconscious mind. Her big, beautiful eyes glowed, her nostrils flared, and she reared. As her hooves lifted, her thick mane stopped flowing, and the shine on her glossy fur faded to matte. The life sucked out of her, Uri became inanimate before me, as if she were somehow carved out of wood.
Thick, colorful strokes painted tack onto her white coat, followed by pastel flowers that bloomed across the bridle at her forehead. A garland of pink roses grew over her body like vines, dressing her for show. A twisted golden pole appeared, sinking through the saddle, and the wooden replica of my once best friend started to bob up and down.
In time with the unmistakable sound of the fairground music, three more horses, painted in blue, green, and orange, joined her on the carousel, and now, with renewed life, round and round she went.
As bells began to ring, chiming in time with the organ, the image faded away. In the dark recesses of my mind, paint spilled, turning the backdrop from black to white.
Charcoal drew upon the newly white page, sketching a hillside, tree branches, and the basic outline of people scattered at the base of the tree.
What was this?
Suddenly, the scene began to animate like a stop-motion film.
The characters darted, disappearing and reappearing on the stage. From the bottom lip of the scene, the outline of a man’s body appeared, his limbs moving bit by bit with each new frame until he jumped high, disappearing out of sight in the top left corner. Three frames later he reappeared, rejoining the story, towering over another person down on the ground.
Up until now the film had been black-and-white, but as the figure leaning over the body turned his head, bright red paint ran down the scene before the whole thing turned to black.
The fairground music faded, and a single sweet voice began to sing, manipulating me into thinking it was now safe. The blackness lightened and the chilling character was gone, replaced by a faceless man and woman sitting on the ground. Though the lyrics were different, the melody was familiar. It was the notes of the song that had once belonged to Gabriel and me.
Once again the image flickered to black and a three-dimensional figure began to draw itself, starting with a large circle colored white inside, followed by a smaller one that sat atop the first like a head on a round figure. Two upside-down triangles appeared inside the head, and though the image was white on black, the triangles—the eyes—lit up bright green.
It was so quiet now.
It was so still.
The figure blurred, the chalk was brushed away, and whatever story had been trying to be told finished. I woke up, my conscious freed, but “The End” never came.
ELEVEN
I WOKE UP CONVULSING, Jonah’s arms draped around my shoulders. I gasped, and Jonah’s palm pressed down on my chest.
“Lailah?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
He pulled me against his torso in an effort to help stop my trembling. I couldn’t respond, as the last few moments of the vision had knocked the wind out of me. Dizzy and disoriented, I was able to ignore the fact that I had awoken wrapped up in Jonah, completely naked.
“Take three deep breaths,” he said.
I listened to him and concentrated.
One.
Two.
“That’s it. In through your nose, out through your mouth,” he said calmly.
Three.
I closed my eyes, but in the darkness the green triangles flashed. My body tensed, and my toes curled against Jonah’s calf as I tried to escape the image.
“You’re freezing.” Jonah pulled the edges of the red knitted throw together, helping to cover us both more tightly. When I said nothing, he pressed again. “Nightmare?”
My feet were like two blocks of ice and I tried to rub them together to warm myself, but my blood ran cold.
“I need to get dressed.” Still shivering, I stood. He didn’t protest and rose with me, taking the throw from around his back and tucking me inside, covering me completely.
I made my way to the table, feeling his eyes boring through my back as I sorted through the clothes Brooke had left for me. I pieced together an outfit, using the time to steady my nerves.
Once I’d calmed, I peered over my shoulder to Jonah, who still stood stark naked. My eyes on his, I released my grasp on the blanket, and the throw fell to the floor. Though he otherwise appeared unaffected, his breath hitched unmistakably.
A sudden dread crept under my skin. I turned my face before a single tear splashed down my cheek, and though I didn’t know why, I knew that my sadness belonged to him.
I began to dress, and as I reached behind my back to fasten the clasp on my bra, my fingers met Jonah’s.
He straightened the straps at my shoulders before he skillfully skimmed my curves. He turned me around, holding on to my waist. He murmured, “Stop trying to distract me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I traced his defined muscles, wondering if there was really any point in rehashing the visions with him. Finally, I rested my hands at his chest, sighed, and then whispered, “I love you.” My words were not meant to be an answer to his question, but little did I know that it was the most honest answer I could have given.
I didn’t wait for a reply, assuming those were three words that didn’t exist in Jonah’s vocabulary, though last night the way he had held me, the way he had touched me, couldn’t have felt like anything but.
No response came and we both turned our attention to dressing. I pulled on a pair of black jeans and a plain T-shirt.
After wriggling my feet into leather ankle boots, I reached for the square mirror set on the table and found the crystal hairpin on the sofa, tossed aside by Jonah at some point last night. He’d been more focused on me, covering my scars with his kisses as though he were trying to use his lips to take away the afflictions riddling my skin, and I’d let him. I’d been utterly immersed in him as he’d stripped me bare, and the only thing that had managed to pull me out of the surreal embrace was when the back of his hands had once again grazed the edge of the butterfly mask. He’d wanted to peel it away, but I’d stopped him.
Though the jagged scar Frederic had left running down my back had bothered me once, it didn’t anymore. The same could be said for every last mark that brandished my body. If they had once caused me concern, they didn’t any l
onger.
Jonah had seized up when he’d reached my midriff and the sight of the scars created at his hand. Though he’d once called them ugly, I couldn’t have disagreed with him more. He was alive because of them, and I wore the lashes like a badge of honor.
While the mask was still in one piece, as I looked in the handheld mirror, I could see that none of the fabric butterflies had managed to survive. Brooke would be mad, but I knew she’d insist on making more even though the truth was that the painted mask was easier to wear without them.
I folded the red throw and rested it on the couch beside Jonah. “You said all I was missing was a cape. Looks like you found me one.”
Jonah ruffled his disheveled hair. “Lailah—”
“Nothing about me is normal, Jonah, and that includes my dreams.”
“Jeez, you went white as a ghost, you started fading in and out like you did—”
“Under the old oak tree,” I said, finishing his sentence. I then reached across the sofa to open the shutters, letting the morning sun shine through. “I used to dream about my past.” I laughed sarcastically. “I guess you could say that I used to dream about the beginning. Today I was dreaming about the end.”
“The end?” he echoed.
“Yes.” Since that first sketch appeared in my vision on the hilltop, I’d known that what was being drawn before me was my final scene; each vision I’d had since had only depicted the same.
Jonah stared at me, expressionless. “Explain.”
I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to take away from the night we had just spent together. So wonderful, but so wicked—one night with Jonah would never be enough. The light bounced and reflected off the crystal hairpin as I fiddled with it. “When we came out of the third, at the cliff edge, I experienced a vision, but it wasn’t of the past, it was of the future. There were ghostlike shadows of people, and you were there, but then there was someone else.… I’m not sure who, but he called my name.”
“He?” Jonah cut in.
“It was a deep voice, too deep to belong to a woman, and then I was falling.” I shook my head, trying to recall the detail. “It happened again in the pub, but different. There were these hands … dressed in black gloves, and then above them there were two bright-green triangles.” I scowled as my mind backtracked and then came full circle, recalling the haunting sounds and images from this morning’s dream. “I don’t understand how it all fits together, and I don’t need to, because I feel it, Jonah. I feel it in my bones. What I’m seeing, what I’m dreaming … it is the end.… It’s the day I die.”
Jonah’s eyes fell to the carpet, and when they returned to me, their hazel had turned blood-red. “What about just now? What did you dream, Lailah?”
I played with the hairpin, but then Jonah’s hand was over the top of mine, forcing me to be still. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. What does it even matter?”
“Just tell me.”
Taking my hand from under his, I slid the hairpin into place in the strands above my right ear. “There was music, really old fairground music. And Uri appeared.” I paused. “My horse. I once had a horse in my first life, did I ever tell you that?”
Jonah shook his head.
“I guess there’s a lot we don’t know about each other.”
“I know everything I need to. It’s not a prerequisite to have shared a past in order to share a future, you know.”
Why was he talking like this? I thought I’d made myself clear. “I told you before, I don’t have a future. Which makes this conversation pointless. The details don’t matter.”
Before I could walk away, Jonah had me by the elbow, tugging me back toward him. “I need to know.”
“Why? So you can save me?” I snorted. “There is no saving me, Jonah. Not this time.”
Jonah growled in such a way that the hairs on my arm stood on end.
I said, “I should have died in the third, but you had to come wading in and drag me back here—”
“Yeah, and you seem real grateful.”
“‘Thank you’ is the last thing you’ll be hearing from me.” My eyes narrowed. “You really want to know how I did it? How I was able to save you? I offered myself. I exchanged my existence for yours. I took your place.”
“Bullshit,” he said flatly. When I didn’t argue back, he only became more agitated. “Exactly who the hell do you think you made a deal with?”
“The universe.” I shrugged. “God.”
“We both know damn well you’re not religious. Try again, beautiful.”
“What’s religion got to do with God?”
Jonah shook his head. “So now what? You suddenly believe in some illusive, invisible force, so much so, in fact, that you’re prepared to let it play puppet master with your life because you think you owe it something?” When I didn’t reply immediately, Jonah cursed under his breath. “There’s nothing wrong with having faith, beautiful, but there are better places to put it.”
“Such as?”
His hand found my cheek then, and looking me square in the eye, he said, “Me.”
“I do have faith in you, but I’ve learned to manage my expectations. There are three words you just can’t give me, Jonah. They’re beyond you.”
My Vampire released me. “You need me to say them that badly?” he said.
He’d misunderstood.
I clarified for him. “I’m talking about ‘happily ever after.’ There will be only two words printed on the last page of my story. Two words, six letters, that simply spell out ‘The End.’” I quietly added in a whisper, “Maybe, when all this is over, it’s all I will deserve.”
Jonah turned away from me as he swallowed my bitter pill, and a defiant growl rose in his throat. “Managing your expectations, huh? Nice, beautiful.”
I didn’t need to be connected by blood to sense I had pissed him off. The veins in his neck jutted out, and his fangs cracked, making it impossible to disguise his anger.
“There is nothing that is beyond me,” he started, and the arrogant look on his face took me back to the Jonah I’d first known. But then he stopped, catching himself.
“Go on,” I said, “don’t hold back on my account. You always get the last word, remember? It’s the reason we’re all in this mess, and I’m starting to think it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with your distaste for losing.”
Vampires move fast, but this was blinding. He hoisted me up and his hot mouth was against mine before the last syllable left my lips. His kiss was hard, and it was endless, and it branded me as his.
His hands tangled in my hair, and he released me only when the taste of my blood spread across his tongue. Bringing his finger to my bottom lip, he blotted where he’d nipped me. As he exhaled, he said, “If you’re right, if there is a God, then even if he’s the one holding all the cards, I won’t fold. At the end, I’ll be the one to deliver the only three words that matter.”
Jonah surprised me, and I struggled to keep it together as I broke away. One more minute in his company and I might start to believe him.
I stumbled out the door of Little Blue. As I stepped into the path of the rising sun, countless crystals rose up and out of my body. The hairpin reflected and refracted the rays at every angle. Encapsulated by the light, to Jonah behind me, and to Phelan’s men in front of me, I became invisible.
Though what Jonah and the Sealgaire believed in was different, each one did believe in something; they all had faith. So even though I could not be seen, they knew that I was still there.
TWELVE
I KNOCKED ON THE DOOR of the motor home and Ruadhan answered. “Good morning,” he said, inviting me inside.
I greeted him and made my way into the living room, where Gabriel sat holding a mug of fresh coffee. He rose from his chair, an unsure smile welcoming me, and I stalled to return it, noticing how tired he looked. Angels, fallen or otherwise, were able to sleep, but the bags under his eyes suggested that he seldom did.
Just then, Brooke hit the side of the front door frame, using it to stop her momentum as she hurtled inside. Not expecting all three of us to be loitering in the living room, she gave a sheepish grin, but there was an underlying smugness to the way she puckered her lips when she said, “What?” I knew Brooke well enough to know that there was only one possible reason for it—a guy. She was like the cat that got the cream, and I was just about to ask her which particular brand of dairy she’d just treated herself to when Ruadhan said, “And exactly where have you been all night?”
Brooke was too busy giving me the once-over to reply immediately to Ruadhan, and I wondered if she could tell just by looking at me that I’d spent the night with Jonah. Would Gabriel know? Nothing on the outside of my skin was any different, but the same could not be said for what hid just below the surface.
“You promised me,” Ruadhan scowled, refocusing Brooke’s attention.
“I was with Lailah all night,” she said, meeting my eye, almost daring me to call her bluff.
Gabriel’s chest heaved with a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to think I’d spent the evening alone with Jonah. It was for Gabriel, then, not Brooke, that I went along with her lie. My mind turned to the events of last night—to Cameron. “Have you seen Phelan this morning?”
“Ah, I thought my ears were burning,” Phelan said, letting himself in. Dressed head to toe in camouflage print, he looked even more militant than usual. Tattoos, some of them recent, worked their way up and round his neck, covering the extra scars he had received while I was away.
“What’s going on?” Gabriel asked, rolling up the sleeves of his dark cardigan.