Scintillate

by Tracy Clark

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Out of respect, maybe? I always loved that idea. Of giving props to the moon just for being there. Just for shining.”

  He looked at me with a heavy-lidded gaze. “I could bow to it for the way it shines on your hair,” he said. “Like silver stars spilling over your dark curls. You’re beautiful, Cora. You shine.”

  I leaned into his shoulder. “And every night,” I continued, a bit breathy, “she would stand for a moment at her south-facing door in Denmark, gazing out toward her beloved Africa.” I curled my fingers around his arm. “I know I’ll do that when I go back home. Face east. Face Ireland. And think of you.” It hurt my heart to think of it.

  Tell him the truth.

  He coaxed me to sit cross-legged on the thick gray velvet couch, with our knees touching. His hands rested on his thighs, palms up, like an offering. I placed my hands over his, reveled in the familiar swirl of energy around our skin and the light music of his pulse under my fingertips. We stared into each other’s eyes. His eyes were so familiar and yet so uncharted, like a well-studied map to a place I’d never been.

  Knee to knee, palm to palm, soul to soul. When we first met, I was too shy to stare into his eyes for longer than a few dreamy seconds. I felt so bare, so…seen. Now I had no fear of Finn’s eyes. They were toasty warm and filled with humor and life-lust. They spoke love when he looked at me.

  After a few moments, an incredible thing happened: the conversation of our heart rates slowed, then synced. Our pulses fired at exactly the same time, thrumming softly in unison through our hands. “Do you feel that?” I asked, almost afraid it would stop if I moved or spoke or even breathed.

  He smiled. “Every time I’m near you.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  Tell him. “Finn, I—”

  He broke the connection and grazed his fingers over my collarbone, sending rolling heat down my arms. I found myself tilting my neck to the side as his hand brushed whisper-light over my skin, so feathery, it was excruciatingly pleasurable. I sighed when he wound his fingers into the curls at the nape of my neck.

  “Pleased with yourself?” I whispered, noticing the satisfied smile on his face.

  “I’m pleased I make you feel good. I’m pleased with how you react to me.” He touched my lips with two fingers, tracing the contours. They parted involuntarily. “I could watch you all day, luv,” he murmured against my mouth.

  His full lips melted into mine, his tongue teasing. My breath hitched when his kisses traveled from my lips to my neck, behind my ear. “I’ll never tire of the sounds you make,” he whispered.

  My back arched against the pillows of the couch. He hovered over me, his aura pulsating with the warm orange-red fire of desire, tinted with the yellow of his affection. He was a sunset shining on me, warming me. Igniting my cravings.

  As we kissed, my leg wrapped around his thigh, and I pulled him closer. Any restraint he had been showing fell away with the full contact of our bodies. I was pinned between the plush softness of the couch and his firm, muscled body. It was like sinking together into the top of a storm cloud. He pressed against me and kissed with more hunger. I moaned softly.

  “That…sound,” Finn gasped. “I want more.”

  My lips roamed down his neck to the soft crook where his tattoo flared out. I still hadn’t seen it entirely. And I wanted to. Badly. I wanted to rip his shirt open and follow the spirals, trace them with my mouth.

  Buttons skittered across my body. I realized I had yanked his shirt open to his waist. Shocked, I looked up to see him staring down at me more intensely than he ever had, full of love tinged with a fury that had nothing to do with anger. He was beautiful. Smooth lines and waves. The tattoo swirled over the right side of his chest, arching up onto his neck.

  I tasted the stars.

  We writhed together, arms and legs a tangle of need. It was as if we couldn’t get close enough. My soul opened to him. My desire to give him everything I had was overwhelming. This is what love is. Two storm-drenched, raging streams merging together, blending into one. I lost myself in the tide, surrendering to the overpowering current.

  He whispered my name over and over, like an incantation. “Cora. Cora. God, I love you.”

  I fell into him. Into an abyss of need. So excruciatingly good it hurt. I couldn’t breathe. I felt faint, as if I were dissolving—dissolving into him, a comet hurtling into the sun, losing its own fire.

  My ecstasy morphed into panic. A sharp spike of adrenaline consumed the rush of passion. I was coming out of myself.

  Being drained of all that I was.

  Dying.

  I was a flame plunged into ice water. Biting cold tore at my insides. The numbness was so severe, I could barely feel my hands and feet. I gulped for air, my lungs and chest aching as if I were kicking for a surface that would never come.

  “You’re killing me,” I choked out, my voice a whisper.

  Finn’s beautiful mouth was still locked on mine, his kisses strong, pulling me even deeper into him. I lost myself. There was agony in coming apart like that, at being reeled away from myself.

  My leaden arms pushed against his smooth chest, but he was unmovable. Any strength I had, I used to bring my knee up into him. I clawed and struggled, but it was like moving a mountain. Somehow, I rolled out from under him, falling to the floor onto my hands and knees, my dark curls bleeding onto the red carpet beneath me. When I looked up, I couldn’t see Finn. He was nothing but shadow. I could see only his aura. The brilliant, blinding, pure white light of it.

  Forty

  F

  inn’s face appeared closer to me now, dazed and rapturous. His eyes were as clouded as that night in my bedroom. My eyes registered the full view of the triple spiral on his chest. Did he realize he had his arms outstretched? That the light burst from his fingertips like some kind of sorcerer?

  I tried to move my heavy body, terror and survival instinct telling me to get away from him. I couldn’t feel my hands at all, though they supported me on the carpet. The room swung in and out of focus as I struggled to stay upright. Fearful thoughts struck like lightning. Searing. Burning away everything I thought I knew about Finn.

  He had taken from me. Robbed me of my energy, the very essence of my life. His aura glowed with nothing but white light. Like that man in the park. He and my…my Finn, they were the same!

  I tried to crawl backward, away from him, and fell onto my butt, burning my elbows on the thick carpet. Each breath was like sucking air through the eye of a sharp needle. His euphoric expression changed slowly, too slowly, to one of concern. He rushed to my side and dropped to his knees in front of me.

  “Why do you look like that?” he whispered. “Don’t you feel what I feel, Cora?” He ran his hands over his head and looked to the ceiling. “Amazing!” Then he looked down at me again and took my face in his burning hands.

  I had no energy left to fight him. No strength left to fend him off. I couldn’t even lift my arms. “Please, please don’t,” I choked out.

  “No one ever told me love was so beautifully grand, so exquisite.” He bent to kiss me, and even then, even as I came undone, even as I faded from myself, I loved his sweet words, his lips on mine. I could not fight. He was killing me. And something inside me still loved.

  Suddenly, someone yanked us apart.

  Ina shoved Finn away and stood over me, shielding me from his white glare. I closed my eyes and collapsed, rolling to my side, curling in on myself. I was so cold. This must be what people feel like when they bleed to death.

  “Clancy!” she screamed, while putting two fingers to the pulse point on my neck.

  I opened my eyes briefly when Uncle Clancy burst into the room, noted his shocked face as he looked from me to Finn. “What’s happened?” he asked.

  “Oh, shut up! We all knew this would happen. Get her out of here!”

  Clancy scooped me up off the floor and carried me to the door. I began to slip out of consciousne
ss but fought my eyes open to look at Finn. I couldn’t believe he would hurt me like he had. He attempted to push past his mother. His long fingers reached out, clawed the air for me.

  His mother’s voice was angry. She pointed at Clancy. “Out! Now! Get her on the next plane back to America. Get her back to her father. We can’t keep her safe here. She was never safe here.” Her voice softened then. “That girl’s not safe anywhere.”

  Ina touched Finn’s cheek. Her words followed me down the long hallway. “Oh, son, look what she’s done to you.”

  Forty-One

  I

  awoke in the back of a horse-drawn buggy, swaddled in a scratchy wool blanket smelling of wet animal. I had no idea how much time had passed. Warmth slowly flowed back into my body but only at my core. It was a small bit of coal smoldering inside my belly. I could barely move or stay awake. I stared up at the incredible scattering of stars and thought that if I wanted to, I could fall into them. Into forever.

  The rhythmic sway of the buggy rocked me like a baby. Each clop of the horse’s hooves took me farther from Rising Sun Manor and from Finn. One thought of him and my heart exploded, countless bursts of light competing with the stars.

  His mother had said I wasn’t safe. She must’ve known what he was capable of. But then why did she say I had done something to him? What kind of human steals the aura of another like a greedy child grabbing candy and then blames the candy?

  The Arrazi. The ones wiping out the Scintilla.

  I was so naive.

  Thieving Ireland. My happiness was stolen. My beliefs about how the world worked—those had been taken, too. I had come no closer to finding my mother than I was back at home with a box of treasures scattered across my floor. I wanted to be home, safe, with my dad. I never should have left.

  Warm tears seeped into my temples as I closed my eyes and drifted away.

  I came to as I was being carried across a crunchy gravel walkway. Outlines of trees rose above me like black clouds. At my side, Clancy’s deep voice whispered, “Praise be, he didn’t sleep with her. It was a holy show back there, though.” He snorted. “That’s what happens when you send a boy to do a man’s job. It’s a good thing, aye, works in our favor. Can’t have the maiden spoiled. This is good.”

  An icy fear clutched my belly. I pushed as hard as I could away from the arms that carried me and fell to the gravel. It bit hard into my cheek and lip. I tasted the iron tang of blood. For a moment, I could only see black shoes in front of me, and even that image faded in and out. It had taken everything I had to push away.

  I willed my chin upward and tried to focus on the blurry faces. But all of my strength evaporated when I saw the man who had been carrying me. He’d finally caught me. He yanked me to my feet like a rag doll, holding my shoulders so hard I was sure I’d wear the bruise of his fingertips forever. He looked hungrily into my eyes, his smile curling up fast and sinister. “Just a taste? She’s taunted me for months. You’re the only reason I held back.”

  “You and I both know you’re lying, Griffin. You didn’t hold back. You’re glowing like a fookin’ candle. You took lives like you were taking seconds at dinner. You took from her in America, and had you gone too far and killed her, I’d have killed you.”

  Griffin looked down, contrite, but his hands still clutched me like a vise. “May I?”

  Clancy waved him on. Answered with a nonchalant air, as if the man had simply asked for seconds of beef stew.

  I was overcome by confusion and the bitter stab of Clancy’s betrayal. I tried to kick my feet but wasn’t even sure they left the ground. My aura yanked violently into Griffin’s. I could not swallow. Could not catch my breath. It was like having an enormous hole ripped into my chest and bleeding into thin air. I was evaporating. Slipping away to the spiraled heavens.

  Forty-Two

  I

  woke swallowed up in a plush, comfortable bed. When I opened my eyes, it appeared as though someone had turned the calendar back about five hundred years. An ornate canopy of thick toile swirled overhead, gathering into a gold-sculpted cap in the center. The posts of the bed were wider around than my legs and carved with figures I couldn’t see clearly in the flickering candlelight. I stared groggily at the candle. A dark wick, skirted in blue, rose to a dancing orange flame, fading to white like an aura.

  I bolted upright. My head spun, and a wave of nausea rolled in my belly.

  The memory of what happened to me, the sick certainty that I wasn’t safe, hit me full force. I jumped out of the bed, fell to my knees, and crawled to the door. Gripping the doorknob, I hauled myself to standing and jiggled the knob. Locked. There were no windows in the room, except for an opening in the wooden door—roughly the size of a torso—which was barred. Another piece of wood on the other side of the bars stopped me from being able to see through.

  I fought my rising panic. It made me sick to think of my father’s misery. His fears had come true. Guilt coursed through me. No wonder he’d clipped my wings. Look what I had done at the first hint of freedom.

  Clancy…he was supposed to get me out of harm’s way. That’s what Ina told him to do. Put me on a plane to America, back to my dad. But he hadn’t. Instead, he brought me here. He let that man Griffin feed off me.

  A sheen of sweat broke out on my upper lip as everything became clear. I’d heard the name Griffin before. He was the family friend Finn had been staying with in America, the one who worked at the hospital. My insides roiled. Was I destined to die like the woman in the park? Griffin stole her flame. Snuffed her out like a candle.

  The way Finn almost did to me.

  Did he know? Had he known all along and kept it from me? I remembered the constant ball of a secret in his aura, and how I’d wished to know what it was. But I’d been intent on keeping my own secret. I never thought his might be as big. Or so devastating.

  My knees wobbled. I grasped the edge of the bed and bent forward, taking deep breaths, willing my dizziness to go away. Using a footstool to hoist myself up, I climbed back between the sheets. The air smelled faintly of warm lemons and herbs. A tray with a pot of tea sat on the nightstand with a delicate china cup and a full silver tea service. I lifted one small, gleaming lid to find sparkling cubes of sugar. My tongue ran over my parched lips. A carafe held ice water, and though I was suspicious of anything offered, I couldn’t resist. If they wanted me dead, it was not going to be by poison. I gulped down two glasses.

  I had no way of knowing what time it was, whether it was day or night or even how much time had passed since I arrived. I was depleted to my core, far weaker than I’d been when I was ravaged by fever in the hospital. I pushed myself into the crisp sheets and curled up on my side against the pillows, thinking a body as terrified as mine, a mind as chaotic as mine, and a heart as broken as mine would never sleep.

  A woman’s voice woke me. “Drink the tea.”

  I rubbed my eyes and focused on the lady standing next to the bed. Real, actual daylight cast shafts of gold across her high cheekbones and on the floor at her feet. I glanced around for the source, then followed her eyes to the ceiling.

  “Skylights,” she explained. “Too too high to fly.” Oh yeah, this woman definitely had ghosts. They crowded her eyes.

  She reached for the silver teapot. “Here,” she said, handing me the tiny cup filled with warm tea. “To help.”

  I eyed it dubiously but took a few sips while she watched with eyes like cracked green leaves. “Little bird, little pet…how did they trap it?” She wasn’t asking me. It was more like a conversation with her invisible friend. I set the cup down and spoke slowly, as one should do with a crazy person.

  “How—do—I—get—out—of—here?”

  Her eyes snapped from the cup I held back up to my face. “You don’t.”

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and grumbled, “We’ll see about that.”

  She didn’t look very strong. Lanky. Like a teenager, though I could see she’d passed that more than a co
uple of decades ago. She was as pale and flimsy as thin paper. I could totally take her. I’d follow her to the door and jump her. Hot adrenaline pumped into my blood at the thought. I set my cup gently on its matching saucer. My fists clenched at my sides.

  “What are you? My babysitter?”

  The look that passed her face was pure pity. “No.” Then she mumbled something in Irish.

  “What did you say?” I asked, irritated, ready to tackle her and get the hell out of there.

  She clasped her delicate hands together and took a deep preparatory breath, like she was about to deliver the Gettysburg Address, but all that came was a weak breeze of words. “We are birds in the same cage.”

  Forty-Three

  “L

  ook, lady,” I said, right up in her face, close enough to maybe break through her cobwebs. “I’m not staying here. I have no intention of hanging around and letting these guys feed off me.”

  The woman laughed. In. My. Face. A fit of giggles I feared might shake loose what little glue held her sanity together.

  “Where are we?”

  The woman reached for a strand of her long hair, holding it between two fingers like a cigarette. She slid her fingers down to the ends, where she began plucking furiously at the tips, which were already a frayed mess. “We’re in the cave of the dragon,” she sang.

  This woman was going to be of zero help.

  “More tea,” she commanded with sudden urgency, shoving the cup into my face.

  I knocked it to the ground, where it splintered into pieces. “I don’t want the damn tea!”

  She flew frantically to a cupboard, got out another cup, and poured it full. “Drink the tea. Drink. Drink it until you can see me.”

  “Until I can see you?” I suddenly realized the absence of aura. I couldn’t see her colors, which caused a surge of panic in me.

  She nodded emphatically. “Tea and sleep. Sleep and tea. It’s the only way to come back to life.”