“We’ll see you tomorrow,” my mother said to him as she mostly carried me down the metal lined hall, away from Lewis and his gaze which had become hungry. The bond ache made me shake more than the tattoos did, but neither one of us struggled against my mother, even though I knew that he felt the pull as strongly as I did.
He would be at the party, along with the other one, Raoul, House of Grasse, who was apparently an alternate for Lewis as my Intended. At the party Lewis and I would dance together and my fingers would burn while he wrapped his hands around my waist.
That night I dreamed that Lewis held me in his arms, gazing into my eyes while he whispered to me, love, desire, and forever. I woke up with my heart pounding and threw the sheets back, trying to hang onto the dream. I couldn’t sleep after that, not when there was so much life stirring everywhere, stirring I could feel inside of me.
All day I found myself remembering my dream, at least as much of it as I could and missing Lewis. The sun shone brightly through the kitchen windows almost making the black and white room cheerful as I sat at the table with my mother and Satan. Everyone was so happy that it made me nervous, like we were about to run out of our happy streak. Yeah, because getting tattoos was so happy. I grinned at my mother as she announced that the caterers from the city would be there at three. I loved the caterers. I loved Satan and his big bald head with beautiful runes circling his skull. I loved my mother who seemed almost happy sitting in the kitchen drinking her tea with her long black hair falling over her shoulders.
After three there would only be a few more hours before I could see Lewis, could dance with him. I frowned as I thought about the dancing, well, the what-to-wear while I was dancing. Luckily, Snowy came over after breakfast to figure it out. After we discussed the pros and cons of various outfits the topic turned to Smoke. Snowy was resigned to the fact that they’d have to be there in the same place at the same time, but she still pouted about it.
“You don’t hate him,” I said, almost positive that she didn’t.
“He didn’t used to talk to me when I ignored him, now he talks even when I pretend he’s invisible. He used to pretend like I was invisible back at me. It worked. Now I feel like a completely odious witch for treating him like… well, anyway. It’ll be fine. It’ll pass. Smoke will get the idea eventually. I didn’t know he’d be so tenacious about me, but it’s like he’s getting a kick out of showing how nice he can be when I treat him like crap. Seriously. I had no idea he was so stubborn.” She sounded more dreamy than irritated about it.
“Remind me why you can’t see him again?”
She rolled her eyes. “If I break the Code with him then he’s toast. Demon fodder.” She wrinkled her nose. “Anything less dramatic wouldn’t be worth not kissing him. Did I tell you the time we were sitting in his basement watching some old Conan Barbarian thing—totally ridiculous by-the-way—and while we ate ice cream we…” her voice faded out and she scowled at my closet, like it was all its fault she couldn’t find anything awesome for me to wear.
“Demon fodder, huh? That would suck.” It would. Death by Samaliel was something I’d considered many times since I’d come home, safe, sort of, but still, feeling less safe the more I knew about what was out there and how easily it might come here if I didn’t have awesome protectors like Satan willing to live in my basement. Of course she didn’t know, she only knew what Devlin had told her. I had to wonder if Devlin really had seen Smoke go up in, well, smoke, or if he was playing a sick, you-can’t-date-other-guys-after-I’m-dead game.
After that Snowy took off, to pout alone probably so I spent the rest of the day mostly staying out of the way of the people who set up tents, tables, and metal pillars that didn’t seem to do anything besides look impressive. It was amazing to see that spring had a firm grip on the earth, that everything was so alive, growing like crazy, like it knew it had to rush and bloom before winter came again.
“Dari, why aren’t you dressed yet?” Snowy asked as I was innocently stealing a fruit cup from the elaborate display in the outside tent.
It scared me half to death, you know, since I was trying to be sneaky. “Nothing, just waiting to see Lewis.”
“Time for that later,” Snowy said, dragging me inside. “When Lewis comes you need to be cute. Believe me, you’re going to need the help of some serious cosmetics if you want to look half as good as your cousins.”
“Cousins?” I asked halfway up the stairs to my room.
“Everyone in Sanders who is acquainted with the dark side of nature is coming, as well as your multitude of relatives. This is a big deal.”
“What was I thinking of, getting tattoos yesterday when I was supposed to be preparing for this party instead,” I said wondering what cousins I’d never met. There could be hundreds of them, beautiful, perfect Wilds who would make me look normal without intervention. The thing is, I didn’t have a problem with looking normal, or even plain actually. Who cared about that when there was that silky soft grass coming up outside, when the trees were getting fuzzy with furled leaves, when the air smelled like life and joy, and when Lewis was coming?
Snowy sighed as she stood me in front of my mother’s awesome vanity. “All right, it is kind of lame that your recovery period is practically nil, but after a few dances in the arms of your soulmate I’m sure you’ll look great.” Her eyes gleamed slightly. “And I don’t think Valerie is going to be the only one seething with envy.”
“Let the jealousy begin,” I said, sitting down in my mother’s pristine all white bedroom and compared my face to Snowy’s. She was beautiful, pale, with wide eyes that shifted from green to hazel and back again. Her perfect heart face, the mouth that was like a rosebud in her nude lipstick, it was a face that proclaimed beauty, purity, desirability, and I wondered if she’d spent longer than usual on her makeup knowing that Smoke would be there. I sighed for her and shifted to my own face. My eyes were nice, slanted slightly thanks to my father. My mouth was too big, my skin had freckles from my time spent at camp, but what I liked most was my smile. I didn’t look gorgeous like Snowy, but I looked happier. Besides that was my blue hair, recently reblued that brought out the blue in my eyes.
Snowy turned her attention to the contents of the vanity and gasped when she saw my mother’s stash. I wasn’t exactly immune to the rows and rows of pretty sparkly powders and lipsticks either. Snowy was going to enjoy herself. When she was finished and I had on a diaphanous fairy skirt of various shades of pink and blue, that swooped down to my ankles while my heart shaped wrap blouse from my father’s house made me feel like a ballet dancer, I looked beautiful with perfect dewy skin, a mouth ripe and kissable, enormous eyes surrounded by thick lashes, really stunning, but I didn’t look Wild at all, particularly not with the hair.
I twirled in front of the mirror and laughed as the girl who belonged to the spring and the woods laughed with me.
I’d almost forgotten how long it took to get pretty. The musicians were playing the first chords of their electric guitars as I came downstairs. I hadn’t expected electric guitars at a Wild event. As far as I could tell, Wilds were strictly violin people. When I stepped outside with Snowy, she squeezed my arm while she squealed about the band. I looked in the fading light at the group on the low platform. Jackson was up there, adjusting a microphone nervously. When he finally picked up a guitar, I knew where I’d seen the rest of the band members, outside of the Slide House the first time I’d ever been there, in Satan’s car. They were snobs, the kind of Wilds that made me want to wear my shoes unlaced just to drive them crazy, and they were here at my party.
“I can’t get over the fact that you got the Screaming Monkeys to come here. I’ve been dying to go to a Screaming Monkey’s concert,” Snowy said, trying not to stare, but still totally staring. “Do you think they’d give me an autograph?”
“Um, those are Wilds,” I said lamely.
She stared at me with her large eyes. “They can’t help that, and they’re not all Wilds. I th
ink one of them is a Hotblood and the other two are normal.” She turned away from me.
“Sure, come on,” I said dragging her up to the stage. They weren’t really playing yet, still tuning up and running scales.
“Hey, band people,” I said, loud enough to be heard over their instruments, so you know, really loudly which I wasn’t exactly comfortable with, but hey, it was for Snowy.
The band leader raised an eyebrow as he looked me up and down, his perfectly mussed hair in the identical disarray it had been in the last time I’d seen him.
“Yes?” he asked, only it was a mockery more than a question. It was amazing that you could say one word and come across that condescending.
“I’d like autographs from the band for my friend and a photograph with her in it.” I looked at Snowy with a frown. “I don’t have a camera though.”
“Here,” Jackson said, coming up to me and handing me the small silvery thing that buzzed with energy that I was very careful not to disturb. He explained button stuff before he stepped up with the others in the group. He still looked different from them, less cold, hard, and perfect. I liked him much better.
I pushed the button, but there didn’t seem to be any effect. I was staring at the small, ridiculously complicated contraption when someone stepped behind me close enough that I could feel the brush of his jacket. I inhaled deeply as I leaned back, closing my eyes as I fought the instantaneous bond desire that blanked my brain for just a moment before his soul sprang into life, surrounding me, drowning me, making everything else disappear.
“Do you need a hand?” he asked.
“Um,” I mumbled trying to remember how to use words. “No, it’s a camera, how complicated could it be?” I straightened up so that I could function, or whatever pushing a button all by myself was.
He laughed, an unbelievably beautiful laugh, just loud enough for me to hear and encouraged goosebumps that had nothing to do with the temperature. I took a picture that displayed on the screen while I held my breath before I turned around to see Lewis, standing there like he had all the time in the world to wait for me.
He looked Wild, I thought with a slight pang as I studied his immaculate suit, perfectly sculpted to every muscle and curve. He was still taller than me but was leaner with more angles to his face that made him look older. Not, fifty-year-old older, but maybe a college guy.
“You look nice,” I said as I stared at his chest, wondering how I’d dared to touch him like I’d wanted to, almost wishing he were unconscious so that I could smooth my hands over his skin, rest my head on his chest. He smiled at me, raising an eyebrow.
“Only nice? I suppose if I wanted to match you I’d be wearing tights and a tunic with my hair full of last year’s leaves. Somehow that would make me look otherworldly and untouchable.” He touched me when he said that, only a brush on the shoulder where my silk blouse covered up my skin but still. The spark of his soul at that contact had me lit up like a Hotblood burning out.
I swallowed, wondering how his soul had snuck up on me when I should have felt it as he came closer. “You have the untouchable part right. I should have taken advantage of you when you were unconscious. Where is my dad?” I asked stretching on my tiptoes to look over his shoulders, searching the crowd that seemed twice as large as it had a moment before. He was the only one I could think that would block Lewis’ soul from me. If I thought about that then maybe I wouldn’t think about how much I wanted to be close to Lewis when he looked like that.
He grinned at me, a look that was so openly hungry that I felt a growl climb up my throat inspired by bloodlust, a need to finish the bond or something else.
“So, your friend probably won’t have any photos if you keep hanging onto my camera,” Jackson said, pulling it out of my tight fingers. “You guys can dance now. The music is playing. That will look less awkward than him staring at you like…anyway, you should probably dance. Don’t forget, five inches,” he added with a wink.
I looked at Jackson, his face so like Devlin’s that I felt off, weird until Lewis took my hand, the one that had held Jackson’s camera. My fingers burned, my toes curled, my heart beat, and I felt like flying as his hand tightened on mine before he put his other hand on my waist and pulled me into a dance that I vaguely noticed was a mix of Samba, Meringue with a little bit of Argentine thrown in for fun.
I forgot about the people, about everything past the circle of his arms as we danced on the spring grass beneath a million twinkle lights. Soul sight flickered, blending with everything I saw, his eyes, his lips, the strands of hair that escaped from the carefully controlled Wild hair-do, his eyes luminous, the green, brown and golden specks subtle, needing closer inspection. The darker green of his soul sang and spun inside of him with every beat of his heart, every step he took as we moved together. My soul pressed at my fingertips, searching for the response of his soul, the soul that called for me the way mine cried for his. When our souls collided we became one person, as though he were only an extension of myself and every move, breath, thought, feeling I had. The night stretched above us, around us, the night and the whirling universe of his soul as I drowned in him, his life and pure energy that wrapped me, filled me, completed me. Like the life, the spring that erupted all around us, the layers of perfection built, growing, exploded exponentially as we moved as one.
I didn’t understand why Lewis stopped moving, why he stepped away from me until with a lurch the contact broke leaving me feeling like the world had tipped sideways, throwing me off into a big black nothing.
My mother’s voice pierced the moment of misery as she stood beside my father, staring at me with cold dark blue eyes that gave nothing away.
“Your father wishes to dance with you.” Her words were accompanied with a brief smile for Lewis that didn’t touch her eyes.
I let my dad lead me into a dance but my eyes followed Lewis, not believing it when he gave his arm to my mother and did an entirely appropriate dance that somehow didn’t look ridiculous with the squeal of electric guitars behind it.
The band, I realized belatedly, wasn’t that bad. The singer, the intentionally mussed Wild, had a gravelly voice that penetrated down my spine and made me wonder what kind of Wild gifts he had. I watched with impatient jealousy as Lewis led my mother into a dance that should have been mine.
“You’re astonishing,” my father said in that melodious voice that I couldn’t help but pay attention to. I glanced up at his silver eyes, noting his faint smile.
“Yeah? Pretty awesome that I didn’t die from the tattoos,” I said with a grin, for a moment almost not noticing Lewis and my mother.
“You’ve been able to maintain the unfinished bond. You both suffer greatly from it. Why do you hold back when you so blatantly adore him?” he asked as he spun me beneath his arm.
I shook my head feeling a rush of uncertainty that I didn’t want to deal with, not that day, not when everything was finally going so well.
“We’re waiting for things to settle down. I want to be sure.” I beamed up at him. “You’re right, though. I am sure. When he saved us from Samaliel he sacrificed himself without a second thought. Now that my life runes are finished, now that I know I’m not going to die sometime soon, I’m ready.” I bit my lip as I looked up at my father who looked more silvery and magical than normal. “I don’t know how it works, though. I mean,” I said feeling a blush climb up my cheeks, “I know that I need his blood in my veins, but is there more than that? Do people accidentally become blood bound without meaning to in war or something?”
He shook his head, smoothing my hair down, the blue color too bright and synthetic in his fingers. “The two of you are perfectly matched. Without that, you would not be half blood bound, but simply mingled. He’s a blood worker. Every mark they make has meaning. However he binds you, if he chooses to do so, will reveal his intent towards you. He has held back so long. I do wonder what he is waiting for. Perhaps he knows something I do not know.”
Lewis loo
ked up at me, across the grass, and in his eyes I saw the world, everything that I could ever want and more. My heart danced in my chest as he looked at me offering me everything he had and was, openly, for everyone to see.
“He loves me,” I whispered, then closed my eyes tight as I held the memory of that look close to my heart. How could one look do that to me? I believed that his heart beat with mine, that he would protect me with his last breath for no reason other than that he would rather die than lose me.
“So soon,” my father breathed, words that I heard and understood as an acknowledgement that his daughter wasn’t a child anymore.
I squeezed his hand and smiled up at him, the lights past him, feeling my heart in my chest so light and bright that I would float away at any moment. My tattoos were nearing an end, my training was well begun, and Lewis loved me.
“It’s okay,” I said patting his lean cheek. “Lewis will take care of me the same way I’ll take care of him. He’s more than proven himself to be worthy.”
He looked through me piercingly before he nodded solemnly, and in that look I could see age, time and the weight of an entire world. The weight of the world hung above us as we danced silently, subdued as we circled the grass. I felt sad when the music stopped, as though there had been a goodbye in that dance, a goodbye when we hadn’t had enough time together.
“May I?” a lazy voice drawled.
I turned and saw Matthew, a man with wrinkles across his cheeks and forehead, while his eyes glittered in tan skin, so different from my father, so human and clearly mortal while my father had no age, no time touching his features unless you counted his eyes. I blinked, focusing on his soul, trying to see what he was and saw nothing.
“Of course, Carve,” my father answered with a regal nod, handing me over to my Trainer.
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