by Kristie Cook
I couldn’t answer, knowing how horrible the consequences would have been for them. I just stared at the floor, which swam through the tears I blinked back.
So he turned on Tristan. “And if you could have just let her know you were okay, she wouldn’t have gone in the first place!”
“I know. I take full responsibility for it,” Tristan replied gruffly. “But you shouldn’t have left her. What were you thinking?”
Owen raised his eyebrows at Tristan’s accusing tone and went on such a rampage, I never would have thought him capable of it. He threw his hands in the air as he advanced on Tristan.
“What was I thinking? I was thinking she could stay put for ten minutes and keep herself safe! I was thinking she’d been through hell the last seven-and-a-half years and she actually wanted to celebrate something for the first time since. I was thinking I saw a glimpse of the old Alexis who no one has seen since that day we left her at the damn safe house begging you not to go! I was thinking I didn’t want to disappoint her, even with such a little thing, after all the big disappointments she’s had to suffer!”
“Ah! Like me leaving her? Of not being able to get back because I sat in my own hell?” Tristan leaned forward, their faces less than a foot apart. His voice rose. “Say it, Owen. Say it like it is. It’s my fault she suffered! Say what you’re thinking!”
“That’s not what I’m thinking!” Owen bellowed, his hands balling into fists at his sides. “It’s my fault! I didn’t bring you back to her. I didn’t keep you safe. I had to come back and tell her I thought you were dead. And ever since, I’ve had to see her misery, hear her screaming in her sleep from the other side of the house, watch her fall apart at the seams and know it’s my fault. I’ve had to look at her and know she wished I’d been the one who didn’t come back!”
I stared at him, my eyes wide with disbelief and confusion. How had he twisted it into this?
“Owen, stop it.” I tried to put emotion behind the words so he would hear me and come to his senses, but my voice sounded small over the lump in my throat. He ignored me, still glaring at Tristan.
“You don’t know what it’s like to have her look at you and feel like you’re the person who made her whole world fall apart.”
“I do know what it’s like!” Tristan barked. “I’ve watched it for the last week!”
Owen’s jaw dropped. “A week? You’ve been back a week and made her go through that? Do you have any idea just how bad this week has been for her?”
“No, I don’t fully know. But you have no idea what it’s been like for me. To see you be the one who can take care of her…to see you at the park with my wife, playing with my son, because I don’t know if I’ll be overcome with the urge to kill them!” Tristan pounded the counter, adding yet another crack to the granite. I felt like he’d hit me, like I’d been punched in the gut with his words.
“Stop it! Both of you!” I finally yelled. “This is nonsense. I’m standing right here. Stop talking about me like I’m not. And stop being so damn stupid!”
They both finally shut up and looked at me as if they just remembered I was even in the room.
“Owen, you’re completely wrong. Yes, I was pissed off. I was pissed off at everyone—at Tristan, at Mom, at myself, at the Amadis, at the whole damn world! But I knew the blame was all on those bastard Daemoni who killed Stefan, who took Tristan, who took my whole life away!” I swiped at the tears and drew in a ragged breath. “But, really, I just want to be over it. Tristan’s back. We’ll be with Dorian soon. Just let me be happy! I’m happy now, okay?”
I stomped into the bedroom and threw myself on the bed. After a few minutes, Tristan sat next to me and pulled me into his arms as I continued to cry.
“You just said you were happy,” he said quietly.
“I am happy, damn it!”
He chuckled. I did, too, through the tears.
“So why are you crying?”
“Because I feel absolutely horrible for both of you. I never meant for Owen to feel like I blamed him. And I had no idea what you saw at the park and how that must have made you feel.” The cold, hard feeling from last night started working its way in again. “I hate them! I hate them for ruining our lives. I hate them for doing this to us.”
“Ma lykita,” he murmured, “they haven’t ruined our lives. Not as long as we don’t let them. We’ve had to live through hell for a while, but we don’t have to let that ruin everything. We have many years ahead of us still. Many more than what they’ve taken.”
We sat in silence for a minute or two. Well, he sat silently. I sniffled and pulled in noisy breaths, trying to stop the tears.
“How do you do it?” I finally asked.
“Do what?”
“Keep living through horrific shit like this and still be able to say that?”
“Ah.” He kissed the top of my head. “Because it’s been proven to me time and again that it can and does get better. After all, I have you. Again.”
I sighed heavily and caressed his cheek, trying not to let the anger well up again as my fingertips slid over the nasty scar. “I love you.”
“See? How can I hold onto anger when I get to hear that from your lips?”
I wiped the tears off my face, inhaled deeply and headed back to the kitchen.
Owen still stood where he had been, his head bent over, looking at me through his lashes. He reminded me of Dorian when he had to tell Mom and me he’d been in another fight—guilty for disappointing us but not for the actual action.
“Sorry, Alex—,” he started, but I held my hand up to stop him.
“I’m sorry, Owen,” I said. He opened his mouth to say something, but I went on, needing to relieve him of his unnecessary guilt. “I’m sorry I ever made you feel that way. I admit I sometimes wondered how you made it back and not Tristan. But I didn’t blame you for any of it. Of course I wished he’d come back and probably more than any of the others. But he’s my husband, Owen. He was—is—my life. He’ll always be my first concern. That’s just how it is. But that doesn’t mean I wished you’d never come back. You’re like a brother to me. Stefan was like a dad. I wished none of you ever left in the first place, but you did and shit happened. It’s done now. Over with. Tristan’s here. You’re here. I get two out of three. Let’s just put it behind us, okay?”
Owen studied my face for a moment, looked at Tristan and then back at me. He finally relaxed and slumped back against the counter.
“Okay. It’s in the past.” He pretended to pick up some imaginary object and throw it over his head, behind him. Then he looked at Tristan. “We’re good?”
“We’re good, bro,” Tristan said. Owen showed Tristan the latest male bonding handshake—the fist bump.
“So…what’s up, little sis from a different miss?” Owen asked me, back to his normal self.
“A real celebration dinner?” I offered. “We have these beautiful steaks and all….”
He smiled. “I’ll accept that.”
I blew out a sigh of relief and got to work. Owen and Tristan stayed in the kitchen with me, Tristan helping me cook and Owen updating us on the consequences of my escapade last night.
“The Daemoni are really going ballistic now that the two of you are back together. I guess that blonde vampire chick went on a rampage. Apparently, your blood, Alexis, is like a super-potent energy drink for vampires. It made her more powerful than usual and we had to do some damage control.”
I didn’t really want to know what he meant and I appreciated that he didn’t explain.
“Do they know we’re here?” Tristan asked.
“No, they still don’t know about this house. But as soon as they can get to one or both of you, they will. And they know once they’ve got one of you, they’ve got the other now. Rina wants us to go to your house in Atlanta. It’s probably safer there than here.”
Tristan stopped slicing onions—he’d always taken that job because they didn’t make him cry like they did to me and he
’d naturally resumed it, just like old times—and stared at the counter for a few seconds. Apparently, he was exploring and weighing the options. Then he nodded.
“That’ll work perfectly with the plan,” he said, expertly moving the knife again.
“The plan Rina wants you to work on?” I asked. I’d passed on the message earlier, but I’d been too distracted to ask him what plan.
“Yeah,” he answered distractedly, focused on whatever he had brewing in his mind. “There will be a fire. We’ll have to make sure it’s complete, so when they find no bodies, they still could think they were burnt to ashes. Maybe an explosion.”
I stopped in my tracks, holding the plate of steaks in front of me. “What? You’re going to blow up my house?”
“After the Ang’dora, A.K. Emerson can no longer exist,” he said simply, as if this fact were obvious. He took the steaks from me and headed outside to the grill. I just stared after him.
It should have been obvious, that I could no longer be the author. Not with the changes I would go through. But I really hadn’t thought about everything that far. It bothered me how he said it so easily. Of course, he probably wouldn’t ever understand how much I had needed to be A.K. Emerson, how important that part of me was. He hadn’t been around for any of her existence.
I shook off the troubled feeling. Logic told me we would have to kill her—fake my death. Tristan would know the best solution because that was one of his abilities. And I’d been ready to give her up last night. With the last book complete, I could let go. Apparently, I would have to let go. Besides, I enjoyed the writing—not actually being a famous author.
“With no bodies, we leave the possibility open of a disappearance, just in case anyone recognizes you in the future,” Tristan said when he came back into the kitchen. “However…we will have her reunited with the father of her son and married first.”
I felt my face light up and opened my mouth but Owen shook his head before I could say anything.
“Too dangerous,” he said. “Just moving you two to Atlanta will be bad enough.”
“Just some pictures and a slip to the media right before we have to disappear,” Tristan said. He looked at me and grinned. “We’ll make those assholes eat their words.”
I smiled back, but then sighed. “But she’ll never get to be Mrs. Tristan Knight.”
“Why not?” Tristan asked.
“Because then we can’t use that name later, right?”
He shrugged. “It’s just a name. You know it doesn’t mean anything. I picked it as a kind of tongue-in-cheek thing.”
Owen and I both looked at him expectantly, neither of us getting it.
“Tristan, the knight who fell in love with the one he could never have,” Tristan said.
“Tristan and Isolde?” I asked, stifling a laugh. “That’s where you got your name?”
“Just the Knight part. I chose Tristan for a reason, but the last names come and go.” He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “So if you want the author to be Mrs. Tristan Knight, then we’ll do it. You will always be Alexis Ames, anyway. I can even be Tristan Ames.”
I laughed. “I know that makes sense, since you really are an Ames anyway, but it’s not happening. To me, you are Tristan Knight and I’ve waited forever to be your Mrs. I’ll keep Alexis Knight for myself. So you’ll need to be someone different for the author.”
He wrapped his arms around me and whispered in my ear, “Whatever you want, my love. To me, you’ll always be ma lykita.”
“So…pictures,” Owen said, obviously as a reminder of his presence. “We’ll take care of those tomorrow, before heading to Atlanta. I’ll need to get a camera.”
“We’ll need to go to Miami, too,” Tristan said.
“Dude! Did you not hear me? Getting you two to Atlanta is bad enough. That’s all.”
“Rina’s orders. Didn’t she tell you?”
Owen exhaled a frustrated sigh. “She just said to make sure you got your affairs in order. I didn’t know it meant a stop in Miami.”
“That’s where a lot of my affairs are,” Tristan said. “It won’t take long. We’ll go tomorrow. You can take pictures of the author and her beau while we’re there. Then we’ll head to Atlanta the next morning.”
“This will be fun,” Owen muttered, the sarcasm heavy. He shook his head slowly. “Sophia and Rina will meet us in Atlanta. I think they’re leaving in the morning and will get in late tomorrow night.”
“That’s ludicrous!” Tristan growled. “They should stay at the island. Do they realize how much danger they’re putting themselves in?”
Owen nodded. “I know, but they want to be here. And we’re going to need all the help we can get…just in case….”
He glanced over at me.
“This is so absurd,” I said. “They shouldn’t be coming if they’re putting their lives at risk—from me or anyone else. I thought the whole point of me being here is to keep me away from them.”
“Sophia was coming no matter what. She never meant for you to be alone for long, but she wanted to make sure Dorian was safe first,” Owen said. “And I guess Rina’s decided she needs to be here, too.”
“So we just lay low in Atlanta for another couple weeks?” I asked, remembering Mom saying the Ang’dora takes several weeks to complete. “What about Dorian?”
“Dorian’s in the safest place he could be,” Owen answered. “And Rina’s not sure about it taking that long. From what I’ve told them, they think you’re going faster than usual. That’s why they’re coming so soon.”
Once they settled on a plan, they both started talking enthusiastically about my abilities and the Ang’dora. According to my ancestors’ experiences, I should have been gaining power gradually, but as far as I knew, I couldn’t do anything I couldn’t do before, except see farther and run faster.
“You can flash, right?” Owen asked. “That’s how you got back last night.”
“Huh?” I asked, confused.
“No, I brought her back by myself,” Tristan said.
“You can flash with someone else?” Owen sounded impressed.
Tristan shrugged. “Never have before, but I guess so. It was necessary and it just happened.”
“Huh. Cool. Alexis, have you even tried?”
I looked at him as if he’d just asked me to fly. He may as well have—for me, flashing seemed nearly as impossible. “I don’t even know what to do.”
“Just think of where you want to be and let yourself go. If the desire to be there is strong enough, it just happens.” He nodded at the balcony. “See if you can get out there.”
“I thought the shield prevented flashing.”
“We can flash within it, just not through it. No going in and out.”
I furrowed my brows and narrowed my eyes, concentrating hard on wanting to be on the balcony, but nothing happened. I felt like an idiot.
“Guess not,” Tristan said with a chuckle. I shot a look at him. “But you look adorable trying.”
He winked at me and I forgave him…I couldn’t remember the problem.
“We’ll try some things in the morning,” Owen suggested. “You might have powers you just don’t know about yet and it would be good to know before we go on this insane trip to Miami. Of course, we’ll all have to go. I’m not leaving either of you alone.”
Neither Tristan nor I argued with his point. Only a major catastrophe could split us up right now. We weren’t willing to take the chance of another long-term or permanent separation.
Tristan retrieved the steaks from the grill while Owen and I gathered the rest of the food and took it out to the balcony. With plans made, Tristan and Owen slipped into a lighter conversation, discussing topics requiring a Y-chromosome to understand, or at least, to care about. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Tristan while they talked. I still couldn’t believe he sat right here next to me. And Tristan constantly touched me—my hand, my leg, my back, somewhere—as if he, too, wanted to be sure I really sat
by his side.
Owen caught Tristan up on all the things that had gone on in the human world…well, mostly the sports world. Then they talked about the newest cars. Tristan’s eyes lit up when he discussed what he should get to replace the Ferrari. Owen had brought the car back from Key West this morning, he said, but the Daemoni had left it in ruins.
“I’ll take the damaged goods,” Owen offered. “There’s nothing I can’t fix.”
“I think we can work that out,” Tristan said, glancing at me and back at Owen. “It’s the least I can do.”
“I like that car,” I protested. Tristan fingered the key on my necklace.
“As long as you have that key, we can get whatever you want.” He winked again. He knew how to make me forget to argue with him.
“Cool. That car’s a chick magnet,” Owen said, grinning.
“Yes, it is.” Tristan chuckled. He seemed to be remembering something that didn’t include me because he gave me a guilty look. “Although…I found motorcycles attract the best ones.”
“We definitely need to get a new Harley,” I said with a laugh.
Owen shrugged. “I think I can make-do with the Ferrari.”
I looked at him and chuckled. Although I’d never considered him as attractive as Tristan, he was far from ugly. He could be pushing a shopping cart around as his only wheels and a number of girls would jump right in. He could probably get just about any girl simply by existing. Not only because he was good-looking, but because he was just so good. “Owen, you can’t seriously have any problems attracting girls.”
“Attracting isn’t really the issue.” He sighed. “I just haven’t found the right one.”
“Never? That’s kind of sad. And you’re how old?” I could be that way with Owen. He was like a brother—the older brother I’d always wanted, someone to stand up to the kids who teased me because I wouldn’t do it myself.
“I’m only sixty-eight.”
“Really? I thought you were ancient like everyone else.” Oops! I threw my hand to my mouth and looked guiltily at Tristan. He just chuckled. “You don’t look sixty-eight, of course, but you do look a tad older than when I met you. By a couple years, anyway.”