I had never seen Holt lose his temper. Now he stepped forward. “Logan, what did you do?” Holt demanded.
“Logan....” Susan said.
“Lets go into the living room and give them some privacy,” said Samuel.
“No,” Holt and Logan shouted at the same time.
“I want witnesses,” Logan yelled.
“I want a sane guy around,” Holt muttered.
“Please tell me you didn’t do what I think you did,” said Susan to Logan. She was sitting next to me by the chip bowl. I hadn’t stopped eating. I still hadn’t fully understood what was going on.
“Logan,” said Holt again. “What did you do?”
“I did the only thing I could. The thing that you should have done a long time ago. I tried to get rid of her.”
I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Now I knew: it was Logan we were going to start looking for. It was Logan himself who had invited the Water Sprite to Maine.
“Logan....” I breathed.
“Oh, don’t be pathetic,” Logan shot at me. “You know you aren’t supposed to be here. You think you have to wait around and choose, because that’s what they’ve led you to believe. You don’t HAVE a choice. The Summer Court doesn’t want you.”
“Logan, stop it now,” said Holt, grabbing his brother by the shirt. Logan grabbed Holt’s wrists. “You don’t like it that someone finally dared to tell her the truth instead of the lies you tell her? Has no one told her that she CAN’T marry you unless Samuel agrees? And look at Samuel,” he screamed. Samuel was still leaning against the counter; he hadn’t moved. “He isn’t going to.”
Samuel unfolded his arms. “You sent a Water Sprite after Autumn?” His voice was filled with rage.
“And why would you drag us into it?” Leslie demanded.
“Because you didn’t want them together any more than I did. You tried to get her to choose Samuel. You threatened her. At least you tried to handle it. And, you said the Water Sprite was dead when it wasn’t. Are you seriously going to tell me that was an accident?”
“Yes,” cried Lydia. “It certainly wasn’t calculated to kill her. We would never try to kill her,” she said, her eyes boring into Samuel’s.
I felt sick. Logan was Holt’s brother. And they were fighting, because of me.
“You would have thanked me if the Water Sprite had taken her. Then everything would have gone back to normal, to the way it was before she ruined it.”
I had thought Mrs. Cheshire was the only one who was against Holt’s interest in me, but it had hit closer to home. His own family, his own brother, was against it. I couldn’t think of anything that would have hurt Holt more.
Logan’s face was pale, with two bright red spots of color on either cheek. “Brother, you must come to your senses,” said Logan. “Before it’s too late.”
“Logan.” Of all the people to speak up it was Samuel who said, “My mother should not have done what she did.”
“You mother is right and a brilliant Queen,” Logan raged. “She did what was necessary to protect her family. To protect OUR way of life. The One Black Rose is sacred, and here that girl is with two” – he didn’t even bother to use my name – “and she flouts both, pitting two families against each other? It will not be tolerated. The One Black Rose is what we live by. It is HOW we live. It cannot be in the hands of someone who would treat it so callously.
“How did I ever?” I tried to ask, but Susan hushed me, and she was right. I didn’t want Logan’s rage directed at me any more than it already was.
“Logan, it’s not her fault. This has never happened before,” said Holt. Even now, when he knew his own family was against me, he was trying to defend me because he valued truth above everything else.
“It has only happened because you let it,” Logan growled.
He walked out. I had expected him to keep arguing, not to give up, but he just left. Everyone stared after him in silence.
Susan stood up and hugged me. I didn’t realize how much I needed it until her comforting arms wrapped around me. I leaned my head against her shoulder. My face burned with shame.
Logan was right. I was still just an ordinary girl. What right did I have to wreak havoc on the lives of Fairies? I should have jumped at the chance of becoming immortal. And all I had to do was accept a Rose. But I hadn’t done it.
Without a word Lydia and Leslie left. Susan pulled back and looked at me. “Are you alright?” she asked.
I wanted to look Susan in the eye and tell her that I was fine, but I couldn’t. Instead I found my eyes traveling to Holt, who was staring at the floor. If I had thought Mrs. Cheshire’s disapproval of our being together was bad, I couldn’t even imagine how much worse it was for him to absorb Logan’s hatred of the idea.
Samuel was still standing by the counter, quiet. I met his eyes. They were filled with something I couldn’t read. For a second I thought it might be sadness. Then he looked away. “You two should talk,” he muttered, and grabbing Susan’s arm he propelled her out of the room. I put my hand to my stomach, breathless.
Now I was alone with Holt.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I got up and went to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. Gingerly, he wrapped one arm around me, but it felt cold.
“It’s not your fault,” he muttered.
“I never should have come here,” I cried. “None of this would have happened. Your families wouldn’t be torn apart because of some silly girl.”
That woke Holt up a little. “You are not some silly girl. We can’t control what other people think or do. No matter how much we might like to, it’s out of our hands.”
“But Holt, he’s your family,” I whispered.
Holt nodded, looking a little stunned. His brother had been trying to kill the girl he loved.
Holt looked down at me. His eyes were hollow. His arm was still around my waist. Slowly, so that I saw him coming and had a very long time to think about what I would do before he got there, Holt lowered his head to mine.
My breath stopped, my eyes were locked on his face. I had kissed a couple of guys before, but it had never been serious, it had all just been good fun. Mostly, it hadn’t felt like much. The one guy who drooled a little was unpleasant, but the others weren’t that bad.
I had imagined a million times what it would be like to kiss Holt. Sometimes, when we were in the same room, I had found my eyes straying to his lips. I had always blushed and looked away, but eventually my eyes had always found their way back there. I had tried to envision what it would be like to have his lips touch mine, and now it was actually happening.
What I had imagined didn’t come close to the real thing. I felt safe and warm. Comfortable and excited. Most of all, I felt loved. It was a wonderful, soft feeling, spreading from my lips to my whole body. Not having much experience at kissing, when he pulled away I worried that I had done something wrong. But he smiled and kissed the bridge of my nose.
“I have to go after Logan,” he said. His voice was husky and gentle. He valued his family above all else and Logan, the closest family he had, didn’t approve of me. Yet here he was, still choosing me.
“Okay,” I said, blinking.
He laughed softly.
“Come on,” he said. He took my hand and led me out. When we got outside we could see that Logan had taken Holt’s car, which meant we had to walk. Hand in hand we started away from Samuel’s house.
Screeching tires brought my attention away from Holt and back to the road. Car lights were speeding towards us. I gasped. Holt shoved me out of the way and I tumbled to the side of the road with him on top of me. He was so fast that he caught us both before we hit the ground, and instead of slamming into the dirt we landed gently. The car spend past us and into the distance, heading towards Castleton.
Holt’s his face was white. “We have to get you home,” he said. He jumped to his feet, then pulled me up. I dusted myself off.
“Are you okay?” he asked, cupping my chee
k in his warm hand.
“Sure,” I said. “Nothing like a little game of chicken to get the blood going.” Holt laughed.
He walked quickly after that. He never looked at me; instead his eyes darted around, seeing everything. I didn’t want to ask him who he thought had just tried to run us over. The car was silver.
Once we had reached my house he hurried me up to the porch. There were no lights on, so Carley and Nick probably weren’t there. But just as we were about to go inside, Logan’s voice came from behind us.
“So you’re still protecting her, even after it almost destroys our family?” The hurt in his voice was unmistakable, but there was threat there as well.
I spun around. I couldn’t see anything at first, just a bright light coming from the center of the driveway.
I squinted, trying to see Logan through the fairy magic. He stood in the road, light gathering around his hands.
“Logan,” Holt said, moving down the steps. I didn’t want him to move away from me, but I knew that the closer he got to Logan, the more quickly he could grab his younger brother if Logan did something stupid.
“Stop this,” said Holt flatly. “I’m always going to protect Autumn. No matter what.”
Hearing him say that warmed my heart. I ignored the little nagging part of me that said that he hadn’t been there when the Water Sprite first showed up, a Water Sprite helped by Holt’s own brother. He had come back, anyway, and surely that was all that mattered.
“We can’t have this fighting,” said Holt. “I’m not going to let anyone I care about be hurt. Not Autumn, not you, not anyone.”
“It’s not entirely up to you is it, brother?” asked Logan. The magic around his hands was casting his face in a creepy shadow.
Without warning, plants sprang up around us. A pungent fragrance surrounded me, filling my nostrils, and I found it hard to breathe. Holt, now standing between his brother and me, shimmered with his own light. I fell to my knees, unable to take the spell. Through eyes that were closing I saw both Roths radiating with power, the air around them sparkling with magic.
Logan, oblivious to everything but his anger, sent a green stream of magic cascading at Holt. I don’t know if he was trying to hurt him, it certainly looked like it, but Holt was older, stronger, and more experienced, and he had no trouble deflecting the magic away from himself. Unfortunately, I had moved aside, trying to stay out of the range of their battle, and Holt could no longer see exactly where I was. The powerful stream ricocheted off away from him and slanted, hurtling towards me. I had no time to get out of the way.
It hit me square in the chest. I was aware that both Holt and Logan stopped fighting after that. I was aware of the pebbles and dirt under my knees as I slowly collapsed. I was aware of pain. Fighting the Water Sprite had been hard and I would have lost, but it didn’t hurt like this did. This was what I would expect a tiny bomb going off in my chest to feel like. The pain was sweet and filling and terrible.
I heard Logan screaming. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. Holt was leaning over me, frantically trying to think of a way to save me. I looked up at him, and if I hadn’t been in so much pain I would have smiled. But I was dying.
“I love you,” I whispered. “It’s okay. I love you.”
Vaguely I heard Logan say something to Holt. It didn’t sound real, though, because in reality Logan would never have told Holt to make me into a Fairy, to give me the flower to save me.
I woke up sometime later. It was still dark. I was lying in a bed of dark flowers. All around me I smelled the wonderful warmth of roses.
I gasped; I hadn’t died after all! They must have figured out a way to save me! I felt incredible, like I was walking on air and had never been so alive. I raised my head and saw Holt sitting nearby with his head was in his hands. He looked up as I stirred.
“Holt,” I said. “It’s wonderful! I feel fine; please don’t worry. I love you and I feel fine.”
I could say it now. What had happened with Logan and what it always meant to me when I saw Holt’s face made my choice clear. Even if when I was with Samuel I felt an attraction, it was Holt that I loved.
He was looking at me with pain in his eyes. I started to sit up and smile, but something was wrong. I felt different somehow. Not bad, but not the same. Without thinking I looked down and gasped when I saw my hand. In it was the most delicate of flowers. It was dark and trembling, every color of the rainbow. The first thought that came to my mind was that I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.
The second was that I was clutching Holt’s One Black Rose. I was a Fairy.
*****
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