Icarus; The Kindred (A Paranormal Romance)

by J. S. Chancellor

"Listen to me," he pleads. "I took so many precautions to keep you from getting hurt. The guns were all unloaded, the other guards were sent away. Everyone was under explicit instructions. You were not to be harmed!"

  "Get away from her!"

  I cry even harder as I hear Jacelynd. This is it. It's over. Checkmate. Trinity's won. I led my husband to his death. A death that will cost him more than his immortal life, it will cost him his immortal soul. All because I wouldn't listen.

  Clouds, dark and turbulent, swiftly fall like a blanket over the field and the breeze picks up. Energy floats on the air, thick and unnerving.

  Trinity rises, yelling over the howl of the sudden wind, "She still needs my blood, Jacelynd. She will die if she doesn't draw from me."

  Jacelynd nears us and I see the faint glimmer of emerald fire flickering in his eyes. When he speaks, his fangs are bared to their fullest. "Have you no mercy? Even for one you claim to love? What you've done to her is unforgiveable and yet still, she has shown you more kindness than you will ever deserve."

  "I was not the cause of this," Trinity yells.

  "But you are! You set the trap. You allowed Iris to get this close to her. You Tithed Jessica to you, knowing full well what it would mean."

  Trinity glances frantically between Jace and me. "She is dying, Jacelynd!"

  "You hold her life in your hands, Tristan."

  "No!" Trinity barks, "Tell her to take from me!"

  Jacelynd remains silent.

  Trinity kneels to cradle me in his arms. "No, not like this! I will not lose you!"

  I am too weak to fight his hold, but I refuse his wrist a second time.

  "Damn it, Jessica, drink!" Trinity cries, agony obvious in his tone. "I will let you go—both of you. Please, look at me." He steers my gaze to him and whispers as though he doesn't want Jace to hear him. "The night we went riding and got caught in the storm—before all of this." There is desperation in his voice, his eyes those of a lost little boy, frightened and alone.

  "Jessica, I do love you. I promised you that night I would show you how much I love you one day, and today I will make good on that promise. I swear to you, drink from me and I will let both of you go. No more games. Or lies. I will fight Jacelynd on my own terms when the time comes. And it will come soon enough, but please, please, if you love him like you once told me you did—if you will not do this for me, then do it for him."

  "How can … I … believe you?"

  Trinity leans down and gently sweeps his lips over mine. He is trembling and his kiss is soft and sincere. As he does this, he frees the blade from my chest, leaving me nearly unconscious from the shock, and opens his jugular. He pulls back enough to let the blood pour into my mouth.

  I keep my eyes squeezed shut, because I don't want to look at Jacelynd. Trinity's blood tastes warm and sweet, his hold too intimate. I cry hard as I let his blood fuel me, letting go of everything that has been threatening to fall apart around me. I am too exhausted to carry on, to bear this.

  When I finally feel the majority of the pain dissolve, I pull away but can't make my limbs move. Trinity must know this because he rises and places me in Jacelynd's arms.

  "Go," Trinity says quietly. "Take the Hummer. No one will follow you tonight." He sounds more drained than I have ever heard him and when I brave a glance, I am stunned to see his face wet with tears.

  Jace walks a few feet before he turns around suddenly. "Are you leaving here?"

  Trinity doesn't answer immediately. "I'm going home."

  "Probably a good idea not to go back into Callmadus."

  Trinity wants to be mad, I can tell, but he's too shaken. "Explosives?"

  "Consider it Damian's way of finishing what Iris started. He's never liked going anywhere alone. The afterlife is no exception."

  Trinity doesn't say anything as Jace turns from him. He just stares at us as we cross the edge of the forest.

  I just want everything to go away—the pain, the confusion and the hole that grows deeper in the core my being. I can't stop crying, couldn't even if I wanted to. Having my world turned upside down, discovering that my life as I know it is a lie—that I have a son and a husband, that all made me weepy. Speaking with my son made me vulnerable, but this … this has no name. I am truly broken. And so very, very tired.

  Neither of us says anything while we make our way back to where we stashed the Hummer. Liv, Blake and Quinn rush to their feet when we come into the open.

  "Where's Damian?" Blake asks.

  "Iris left him with irreparable damage. He was minutes from dying when I found him."

  With a stifled cry, Blake turns away from us to rest his head against a tree and I hear Liv sniffling.

  "Is Jessica all right?" Quinn asks.

  Liv interrupts, "Iris was waiting for her. I thought Jessi was right behind me, but I heard her scream … " Liv trails off.

  "Jessi is still breathing and right now, that's enough for me," Jace says softly.

  A tremendous explosion rocks the forest; the noise startles me. Jacelynd hugs me tighter to him. A moment later, the ground below us shakes like an earthquake.

  "Holy hell!" Quinn and Blake both look around panicked.

  Jacelynd says calmly, "Damian asked me to avenge him. I did."

  "Is Trinity dead?" Liv asks.

  "Not yet. I need him to make it to the gate."

  Love Comes Again

  Quinn drives until his leg bothers him too badly. Liv takes his place and eventually we make our way somewhere. I don't know where, because I haven't bothered to look out the windows or ask. I don't care. I haven't spoken a word.

  I am mildly aware of someone saying my name in an Irish accent as Jace gets out of the Hummer with me in his arms.

  "After all this time," an elderly woman whispers. "Oh, poor thing is covered in blood. Is she unwell?"

  "My liege, please, come in, come in. Let's get this sorted out indoors, shall we?" A gentle, if not elderly, male voice says.

  I am vaguely aware of us going inside and the brief conversation that ensues. Jacelynd leaves the details of the last few weeks for the others to convey to our hosts. I am guessing this is somewhere Jacelynd has been before, because he knows where he is going when he excuses us for the night.

  Once we get to the bathroom, he sits on the edge of the tub and turns on the water. I don't care enough to check the temperature. I feel numb as I wash away the blood. All of my wounds are completely healed, even my hands, but my insides ache like I have the flu, which I clearly recall having as a human—whether they are my memories or not. And there is a nagging pressure in my chest where Iris lodged the knife. I am rubbing it absently with the heel of my hand when Jace speaks.

  "You can still feel it?" he asks quietly.

  I barely nod.

  Jace motions for me to lay back and he rinses the blood out of my hair. As light as my hair is, there will still be traces left of it tomorrow. But I cannot fathom tomorrow. It's like a giant gulf—a dark expanse stretched beyond what I know is real. I don't know if I'm brave enough to step out. I thought I was. I was arrogantly sure of myself and now …

  He helps me up and wraps a towel around me. When we enter the bedroom, part of my brain registers that he goes to a closet and pulls out clothes for the two of us. They have tags and he tears them off before handing them to me. That same part of my brain makes the ridiculous observation that this means they haven't been washed.

  "I know you hate wearing clothes before they've been washed, but it's all we have for now," Jace says apologetically.

  I smile because it is oddly comforting that he knows this about me. Odder still, my smile seems to trigger something in him and he clears his throat before saying that he is leaving me to get changed. He takes a handful of clothes for himself and walks back through the door to the small living room that adjoins the bedroom we're in.

  I don't follow him because this must be his way of dealing with everything that's happened and if he needs a moment without having to ba
bysit me, then who am I not to grant it to him?

  After I am finished, I turn off the lights and walk around the sitting room to find there are sliding glass doors that lead outside to a deck. I see the clothes he had been wearing—Trinity's clothes—are in the wastebasket.

  I sit in the dark near the sliding door, just far enough from where he is that he can't see me. And I watch. He stays deathly still for a long time, leaning down with his hands spread wide on the railing, looking at the woods. Thunder cracks in the distance and quick flashes of lightning illuminate the forest, but the full moon is large and pale enough that I can see the deck and Jace clearly. He finally lowers his head into his right palm and, after a moment, falls to his knees.

  I don't move immediately, unsure of whether I should go to him or give him space, but when his cries reach my ears and consequently my heart, I rouse from my stupor.

  He doesn't stir when I open the door or when I kneel beside him. A couple seconds pass before he feels my hand on his shoulder. He looks up at me and the restraint is gone. His expression matches the sound of his unbridled anguish and before he has a chance to move, I crawl into his lap and hold him.

  He'd worked so hard at holding back, in every way imaginable—even his tears before were governed. Now, the tightness of his grip alone is enough to show me that he's grappling with the same things I am—fear, loss and love so deep I cannot fathom its limits.

  It's a while before his chest stops heaving and he quiets enough to look at me. When he does, he touches my face like it's the first time he's seen me in ten years, tracing every line, caressing my skin with the tips of his fingers. His eyes, reflecting the moonlight, seem … changed. Something is present that wasn't there before and I want so desperately to share it with him.

  He takes my hands in his and explores them with the same intimacy, then moves up my arms and to my shoulders, sweeping his hands over the curves of my muscles.

  My breath catches as he runs his hand over my collarbone, then stops at the center of my chest, just above the neck of my shirt. There is a scar not too far from there. The one he took note of that night at the hotel. He touches it like he's committing it to memory.

  "I used to lie awake for hours, wondering where you were, what you were doing, right then, at that moment," he says hoarsely.

  I lift part of my shirt and pull the waistband of my pants aside to show him my left hipbone. There is a second scar there, not too big. "Same night. Same rifle."

  I expect him to grimace, or maybe even look away, but he doesn't. He moves his hand to my hip and places his palm over the scar, all the while remaining silent.

  "What are you thinking?" I ask, afraid of his answer.

  "I am remembering a thousand conversations," he says slowly, "in which I failed to hear what you were telling me."

  "If you're taking seriously what Trinity said, about my not sharing things with you—"

  He cuts me off gently. "But he's right. Do you know what we were … what I was lecturing you about in the dream you mentioned?"

  "I don't remember. I never particularly liked that part."

  He leaves his hand on my hip and moves the other to my neck, his fingers intermingled with my wet hair. "You were trying to tell me how amazing your run had just been. After centuries together, it's not like that was the first time you'd ever tried to tell me. I was always too concerned with baseless fears to listen."

  I laugh lightly as a crack of thunder shakes the deck. "Nice timing. So am I to take it that you didn't approve of my favored running time?"

  "No," he says below his breath, "I gave you hell for it." He pauses before changing the subject. "We intercepted, a couple months ago, a hand-to-hand combat training video that was on its way to final editing. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to it, but Damian grabbed me by the arm as I passed him on the couch and when I turned around I caught the same glimpse of bright blond hair that I saw racing through the woods that day … "

  As he speaks, I grow all too aware of which video he is talking about and come to understand, completely, why Damian would think me the one who betrayed them.

  " … I'm sorry, Jessi, I knew you'd made Covenant. I needed to hear you say it—how you would say it."

  This is the same thing Trinity did when he asked if I really cared. He knew the answer … he just wanted to hear how I would say the words.

  I smile sadly. "Why didn't you just ask me?"

  "Fear of the answer."

  I don't blame him for this. Really. You should see the video. It makes blowing off a set of cuffs look like a walk in the park. "Jace, I don't remember who I was before, but I can imagine seeing that would shock you. It—"

  "I've always known how strong you are. I've seen a handful of those moves before." He leans up, his voice nearly a whisper as he cups my chin. "Blake and Quinn taught you some of them before we met and then afterwards when I wasn't around. You might have learned the subtleties from your training as an assassin, but the core of your strength was, and is, purely the foundation you already had. A foundation that has absolutely nothing to do with your donor's past."

  I don't anticipate this from him and all I can think to ask is, "If you weren't around, how could you have seen them before?"

  "As far as they were concerned, I wasn't there. But, I watched from time to time. I don't think you ever knew."

  "Why were you so guarded? Why was I?" As I ask, I notice the same crook in Lucan's smile is sometimes present in Jacelynd's.

  "Tomorrow always had the unspoken promise of safety. Tomorrow I could let go because things would be different, our world would change and I wouldn't have to worry about you. Tomorrow, I wouldn't have the constant fear of coming home to my family being slaughtered. Had I known what tomorrow would hold for you, I … "

  The rain, a light mist before, now falls harder, soaking us both. I see the grief and loss in his eyes, hear it in his faltering voice, and I can take no more. I press my mouth passionately against his, cutting him off. And for several minutes, a longing I could never have imagined that is rivaled only by the chaotic storm that rages around us is expressed through his hands and mine as we desperately cling to each other.

  Even still, every touch is laden with the knowledge that tomorrow is far from over. Jacelynd has promised his eternity to the darkness for a mere whisper of a chance of saving our world. Our son will be turned against us by an enemy who has taken more than we had to give and in the midst of it all, we lost a close friend. Though I don't remember our past, Damian's presence is missed and I can tell he was dearly loved. Even, at one time, by me.

  I pull away suddenly. "Go get your shoes on."

  Jacelynd looks at me in question.

  "Hurry, the storm will be over soon." I rise and lower my hand to help him up. A shy smile spreads across his face as he realizes what I'm planning and he reaches for the sliding glass door.

  After grabbing shoes and making our way quietly outside while the others are in the kitchen still talking, we run. We run through the forest, among the brilliant flashes of lightning and loud rumbles of thunder that I have so come to favor over stillness and solitude. We run until our legs can't carry us any farther and the rain has passed, leaving us soaked and sodden.

  Jacelynd, laughing, grabs me as we approach a mossy spot at the base of a large tree and we both collapse. We lie there wordless for a while, winded, and revel in the shelter of the woods.

  "That was incredible," Jace says sheepishly. He has his head propped on one elbow. "Is it always like this?"

  I roll over and grin up at him. "When you run with me it will be."

  He kisses me sweetly. "I should have list—"

  "No." I push him onto his back and straddle him. "No more 'should have's. I'm here, Jacelynd. I'm not a memory and this is not a dream." I tug at his shirt, unfastening the three first buttons as I talk. "Don't look through me trying to focus on the past and how things could have gone." I lean down and kiss his chest, smiling when I have to fight fo
r control of his hands as I do so.

  "My lady, you have me pinned, I fear," he says teasingly.

  The smoothness of his words makes me wonder if he didn't once address me so formally. "Like you couldn't get out of this if you wanted to."

  He looks at me wantonly, his wrists gathered in my hands above his head. "I haven't the slightest intention of it."

  Okay, my insides feel like mush and I'm good to get his shirt completely unbuttoned. Have I mentioned how Jacelynd's built? I've noticed it before, but now I notice. His muscles are defined, not from hanging out in the gym like Trinity, but from serious training. Blake said the tattoo I adore on Jacelynd's neck is a war mark and I slowly realize that this is more than a mere flesh-and-bone being who lies beneath me—more than any mere immortal. Jacelynd is a warrior prince, selfless and eternally giving. And he has chosen me. He searched for me for ten long, exhausting years with no thought of his own happiness or his own pleasure. I see no reason why I can't start making that up to him. Right now.

  I torturously kiss him. Every inch of his chest and arms, purposely leaving his pants where they are, though I'll say that I'm not so cautious as to keep my lower body from pressing encouragingly against his.

  He's good at keeping his hands to himself, at first, despite his breathing being at fever pitch. But, as I suspected, this does not last.

  He grabs the waistband of my pants like he did at Callmadus, but this time he deftly slides them down my thighs, moaning upon discovery that I have forgone underwear. Restraint no longer becomes me and I take off my shirt while he struggles with his wet jeans and his boxers that have gotten tangled in the soggy denim. I can't help but laugh.

  "Have we done this outside before?" I ask, still on top of him.

  "No," he breathes, still fussing with his pants.

  "Why on Earth not?" I bathe his neck with kisses and allow my hands free reign of him. Considering where they decide to roam, this does nothing but frustrate him. When this finally begins to frustrate me, too, I reach to help him free his legs.

  The second the jeans are off, he snatches me by the waist and rolls me onto my back on the moss. He smiles wide. "You think you're clever."