by Lexi Aurora
“I know it doesn’t,” I said to him. He opened his eyes and they met mine, holding them intently.
“What do you think I should do?” he asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said in a quiet voice. “I just want you to be safe.”
“This is madness,” he said, running his hand through his hair in a show of frustration. It was then that he winced, pulling his arm forward. There was a line of blood stretching from his wrist to his forearm, fresh and welling up from a cut that had come out of nowhere. Julian looked at me, then gaped at the scratch. I felt my breath catch in my chest as another one appeared, even longer.
“My lord,” I said. “We need to—“
“I need you to leave,” he said, his eyes wide and in a panic. “I can’t—I don’t know what’s happening, but I know that it’s you.”
I took a step back, a pinch of pain lancing through my chest. He was looking at me with soft, gentle eyes, but his jaw was tight. “Please, Miss Temple, go.”
I nodded, biting my lip. For an instant, he looked down at my mouth, then back up at my eyes again. He looked sad and pained. I turned around without another word and walked away from him, back to my horse. I untied her, then climbed atop her back to ride away from Lord Castellano and his home.
Chapter 13: Julian
I stared at the scratches on my arm, suddenly completely exhausted. Everything was happening at once and there were so many things I couldn’t explain; I was terrified, yes, and frustrated that I’d had to send Fiona away. So much of what was happening had to do with her, and yet staying away from her was almost as hard as touching her had been the night it had burned me to do so. Just seeing her that morning had made my heart race in my chest, not from fear but from the rise I always got when I was in her presence.
I went inside after watching Fiona leave on her horse and went into my bedroom, shutting the door behind me and undressing. It was early—only late morning—but I felt like I wouldn’t last another minute without falling asleep, no matter what I was doing. My whole body was exhausted, overwhelmed with stress. The moment my head hit the pillow, my eyes closed and I sank into a dream, one that was dark and frightening. I was at Fiona’s house but I couldn’t find her, so I went out onto the porch to look around the street. I saw nothing, but began to follow the road in the direction of where I knew my brother had been killed, being pulled along by a tugging in my abdomen that insisted I find something. I turned the corner and saw the old woman, first, then looked over her shoulder to see my brother standing with his back to the brick wall of a building in an old alley. I started to say his name, to go to him, when I saw the woman’s hand flash for a moment before she drove a dagger into my brother’s stomach. I watched her do it again and again, turning my eyes away until the blows were over. My brother’s body dropped to the ground and I woke up just as the woman was turning to look at me.
It took me a moment to realize what I was seeing. There was a man standing at the foot of the bed—my brother. Tall as he always was, pale but not translucent as I’d heard apparitions would be.
“Jason,” I said in a soft voice, staring at him with wide eyes. I blinked several times, hoping that the figure would go away, but he just stood there at the foot of the bed and stared at me blankly. There was no expression on his face, just flatness, but there was a spark in his eyes that told me he was alive within himself somewhere.
He gestured for me to follow him. I got out of bed immediately, stumbling into my trousers. I pinched my arm, squeezing the skin between my nails in case I was dreaming, in case I needed to wake myself up. The pain made no difference; I stayed where I was, watching my brother intently as he led me out of the room. I followed him through the hallway in silence, then into my office. He crossed over to the other side of the desk, moving across the floor as if he was gliding, and I saw the whole desk shake as he put his pale hand on top of it. He gestured for me to come around to where he was standing and I did. I saw that he was tracing the locked drawer with his finger, that he was pointing to it. I looked up at him, studying his face.
“I don’t know where the key is,” I told him. “I tried—“
It was then that he banged his fist against the desk. It made a loud noise, one that made me jump where I was standing. He did it again, slowly, looking at me as he did so.
“You want me to break it?” I asked. He nodded. I looked around for something to jam the drawer open with, anything that would help me. I found a letter opener that was sharp, thick, and heavy. I slipped it inside the crack of the drawer and tried to pry it open, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried again, putting all of my muscle into it. Eventually, there was a crack, and the drawer flew open. The letter opener flew out of my hand and I let it fall to the ground, instead picking up the book that was inside the broken drawer.
I flipped through it while my brother stood behind me, looking at the book over my shoulder. I could feel his body—it wasn’t warm as it was supposed to be, but cold. He was radiating coolness like a block of ice. It made me shiver, and I took a step away from the apparition and looked through the book in my hands.
It was Father’s journal, ledgers of a sort where he wrote down his daily practices. I scanned through the pages looking for anything of interest. When I saw Markwell’s name near the end of the writing, I stopped, reading more in depth. I had a feeling that’s what Jason wanted me to do, because I felt a wash of something like approval shiver through my body, as if he was projecting his feelings onto me.
The book detailed a meeting with Markwell dated shortly before he died. I was surprised to see that there was no mention of any land deal between the two of them. Instead, there was a marriage proposal. Apparently, my father had been planning to betroth Jason to Markwell’s daughter; the pages noted that they had been close to finishing the deal, ready to propose it to both Jason and Markwell’s daughter, but had never gotten the chance to before my father died. Puzzled, I closed the book and looked over my shoulder at Jason, but he was no longer there. I swiveled around, looking for him all over the room. My heart was pounding in my chest, fear and confusion lancing through me. I quickly shut the drawer that I had broken into and left the office, going to my room to get dressed. It was minutes before I was off and to the stables, saddling my horse and climbing atop his back. I took off toward Fiona’s house at a gallop. Despite the fact that I believed it was her who had brought all of this into my life, I believed also that there was nobody else who could fix it, and maybe provide some explanation as to what I’d just gone through.
I pulled up the reigns when I got to Fiona’s house, knocking on her door in soft taps. I needed to wake her, but I didn’t want to startle her. I knew that she was just as afraid as I was of what was happening, though my own fear had increased exponentially since I’d initially seen my dead brother standing at the foot of my bed.
Chapter 14: Fiona
I knew who it was before I even answered the door. Somehow, I could sense him on the other side of the door. I opened it to see Julian staring at me, his eyes frantic, a book clasped to his chest. He brushed past me inside before I invited him, and I shut the door behind him and turned to peer at his frightened face.
“What happened?” I asked him, looking him over for injury. He was dressed casually, as if he had just woken up and hadn’t bothered to put on proper clothes before he’d left the house. His white shirt showed off the lines of his muscles underneath the fabric and I couldn’t help but let my eyes linger on his broad chest before I brought my gaze to his.
“I saw my brother,” he told me. “He came to me tonight.”
“You saw your brother, my lord?” I asked him, furrowing my brow. “But he’s—“
“Dead, I know,” said Julian, running his hands through his hair. “But he was there. I think I could have touched him. He showed me this.”
He thrust a book into my hands, an old one filled with handwritten notes. I flipped through it, not recognizing anything inside. Occasionally, Julian o
r Jason’s name would be written in the thin script and I would read the surrounding context, but it gave me no real information. I handed the book back to Julian and studied his face.
“I don’t know what this is,” I told him in a slow voice, speaking softly. “I need you to explain.”
“I don’t know what it is, either,” he said, rubbing his hand over his mouth. “It mentions Markwell. He and my father were going to arrange a marriage between Jason and Markwell’s daughter.”
“What does that mean?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said, meeting my eye. He went quiet for a moment, just staring at me.
“I’m sorry if I woke you,” he said softly. “It felt like an emergency.”
“I was awake,” I told him. In fact, I’d been in bed thinking of an encounter very much like this one, minus the fear, in which Julian came to my house in the middle of the night for another reason. Just thinking about it made me blush looking at him, and I tried to look away.
“Were you?” he asked, taking a step toward me. “Why so late?”
“I couldn’t fall asleep,” I told him. I felt like he knew what I was thinking, like my fantasies were written all over my face.
“Anything on your mind?” he asked. “Is all of this keeping you up at night?”
“There’s plenty on my mind, my lord,” I told him, staring him in the eye, my lips parted in desire. I didn’t move as he closed the gap between us, though I flinched as I expected the pain that had welled up within me the last time we had touched. Still, I felt desire coursing through my body, an attraction that was overwhelming even the fear.
Julian put his hand to my cheek tentatively, at first brushing his fingers over the skin. I felt nothing, no heat, no pain, only a current that ran from the place he’d touched down through my body, down between my thighs. When he realized he hadn’t hurt me, he tilted his face forward and touched my lips softly with his own, barely kissing me. My mouth closed around his and I sucked on his lips, hungry for his kiss. He responded by slipping his tongue into my mouth, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling my body against his to mold us together. I felt the length of his cock against my stomach, felt it pressing against me and couldn’t help but blush, even as I rubbed myself against him.
He breathed against my lips, pulled back enough to speak. “Are you sure you’re not a witch?” he asked. I smiled, sucking on his bottom lip.
“What would make you think that, my lord?” I asked innocently, smiling at him.
“I feel as though you’ve cast a spell on me,” he said, pulling back enough to look at my face. It was when he leaned in to kiss me again that everything flickered, the candles I had lit went out and so did the fire. A noise began to rise from a quiet place somewhere, a high-pitched sound like the whistle of a tea kettle which grew so loud it was almost deafening. I pulled away from Julian and clamped my hands over my ears, looking at him to see that he was doing the same, his eyes wide. It was a few minutes later before the sound died, and I stared at Julian for a long moment.
“Something doesn’t want us together,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” I told him. He shook his head, then pulled me in for another kiss that was soft and sensual. The sound started again but we continued in spite of it, our mouths growing hungry, our kiss deepening until the sound grew unbearable. He pulled away then, sighing.
“I finally get to touch you and now this,” he said, his voice frustrated. He ran his hand through his hair, looking at my face. I gave him a smile, despite my own frustration.
“You’ve been thinking about touching me for a while now, my lord?”
He stared at me, at my lips, then bit his own. “Since the moment we met in that back garden,” he said in a soft voice. “My desire to kiss you has been urgent and impossible to ignore, Miss Temple.”
I bit my lip, staring at him and blushing before I gestured him into the living room. I sat down on the sofa and he sat across from me so that we weren’t in danger of touching.
“I should tell you about everything that happened with your brother,” I told him. “Everything I know.”
Julian nodded.
“I’m ready,” he said, and I sighed.
Chapter 15: Julian
“I have to tell you something first,” she said, looking me in the eye. “Something that you already know.”
“What’s that?” I asked her, captivated by her face. If I was honest with myself, I was not prepared to have this conversation. I was too distracted by Fiona, by her lips and her body, having her so close and not being able to touch her. She’d tasted like honey and tea, and had smelled like a faint hint of lavender. If I’d had the time, I would have wrapped her in my arms and breathed her in completely, or better yet, undressed her and enjoyed the scent of her bare skin instead.
“What I do here…” she said, trailing off and looking around. “It’s not real. I have tricks.”
I nodded. “But something real is happening.”
She nodded, biting her lip. She looked nervous and afraid, and I wanted nothing more than to go to her and comfort her with my arms. Her eyes on mine were almost unbearable, especially given the hint of desire below her current fear, the way she’d pressed her body against mine in an invitation once she’d felt how hard I was.
“I can’t control it,” she said. “It started with your brother, at the party. The horseshoe that fell into the fire, the candles…”
“You weren’t controlling any of those,” I said. She shook her head no.
“And then when your brother came to me the first time, there were more noises, noises that I didn’t recognize,” she said. Her voice was almost shaking. “And the window shattered. I got scared—I told Jason that your father went away.”
“But Jason came back,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “And the next time he came, the cold came with him. I’d never felt such cold in my life. It was like being surrounded by death.”
She shivered visibly. I stood up and grabbed a blanket that was folded on the back of the chair I was sitting in and went to her, tucking it around her body. She watched as I did so, her face close to mine, and I couldn’t help but to give her a soft, brief kiss before I sat back down. She looked at me with her lips still parted, her eyes full of longing.
“Tell me about the night that Jason died,” I said. “He was here, wasn’t he?”
She nodded. “But I don’t remember anything. He showed up and then… I woke up the next morning with no memory of what had happened. I’ve tried to remember.”
“So you don’t know what time he left?” I asked her, disappointed. I believed her when she said that she didn’t remember the last night Jason was alive. The frustration on her face, the confusion, was real. She was struggling to remember.
She shook her head. “That was the night I had the dream.”
“About me,” I said. She nodded.
“These strange dreams,” I said. “We’ve all been having them. But my brother showing up, showing me the book—that was no dream, Fiona. I swear it was real.”
“I believe you,” she said, studying my face. “May I see the book again?”
I nodded, handing it to her. I made sure our fingers brushed slightly as I passed the book into her hands, just so that I could feel a hint of her skin on mine. She smiled at me. I was glad that it didn’t burn anymore just to touch her, that we might be limited on what we could do and how far we could go but I could still brush her skin with mine every once in a while.
Fiona looked through the book, flipping through the pages. She seemed to stop near the end where Markwell’s name had caught my eye.
“Markwell,” she said, then looked up at me. “A marriage?”
“I didn’t know about it,” I said. “Markwell and my father were planning to marry Jason to Markwell’s daughter.”
“But your father died first,” she said.
I nodded. “And then Jason…”
A
look of sympathy crossed her face. “My lord—“
“It’s okay,” I said, dragging my teeth over my bottom lip. I leaned back in the chair, looking up at the high tin ceiling. Then I looked back at Fiona.
“We need to talk to Markwell,” I said. She raised her eyebrows at me. “Obviously Jason was close to something. I didn’t believe him at first, but after all of this—something is happening here.”
“So what do we do about Markwell?” she asked.
“We’ll throw a party,” I said. “I’ll throw a party. You can do a séance.”
Fiona stared at me. “And then what?”
“I want to see how he reacts if you pretend to contact my father,” I said.