by Emma Scott
I nodded. She was right; a week ago, I would’ve run out of the restaurant for baring myself like that.
“Thanks for not giving up on me.”
“Never.” Jana smiled gently. “Can I ask you a question? You said you used to be able to go to parties. When did that change? I know your father passed and I’m so sorry about that, Luce. I don’t know that I ever told you.”
“You told me.” I smiled back. “But no, it was earlier than that. It was…”
I searched my memory, trying to find a moment or incident that might’ve made me withdraw like the proverbial turtle into its shell. It was before Dad died. A much longer stretch of years. Centuries, even…
“It was gradual,” I said. “The negative voices in my head grew louder and I grew more tired, somehow.”
“Tired of what?”
Not having him.
The thought had risen up from the deepest recesses of my mind, like a flare, wanting to illuminate the empty spaces in me. The dream of the woman and her warrior rushed in after it, daring me to believe it was merely a remnant of Casziel’s life.
“The reason I ask…” Jana frowned. “You okay?”
“Oh, um…yes.”
“You look a little pale.”
“Fine. I promise.” I took a sip of water “What were you saying?”
“Okay, well…this might sound completely condescending so feel free to tell me to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge—but I feel sort of maternal toward you.” Jana laughed, looking a little sheepish. “It’s one hundred percent new baby hormones, I’m sure, but when you said you were going to present on Monday, I was bursting with pride. And I really, really want to see what you do, because I bet it’ll be amazing.”
The presentation. Monday, at work. That was real life.
“Thank you,” I said to Jana. “I don’t know if my idea will be any good. It feels like it’s missing something, but I’m going to go for it anyway.”
“Well? Let’s hear it,” she said and took a bite of her gyro. “I’ll be your dress rehearsal.”
“Okay. If you want…”
“I want.”
I told Jana about my shoe idea and her eyes got wider and wider as she chewed her food.
“Holy shit. Luce…”
“It’s not exactly new,” I said. “Other companies make sustainable apparel, but…”
Jana’s head was bobbing as she took a sip of water. “Bracelets and stuff but not actual shoes. Can it be done? As in, will the shoe hold together?”
I nodded. “I’ve done the research. Instead of using real rubber, plastic can also be used to create synthetic rubber polymers. No sense in robbing the forest to save the ocean.”
“I think it’s genius. But you’re right, it’s missing one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“A celebrity endorsement.” She leaned in confidentially. “My hubby plays golf at Douglaston. Since Wyatt was born, he’s been forbidden to play more than once a month. But do you know who his favorite golfing buddy is?”
“Couldn’t guess.”
“Jason Lemieux. He’s a hotshot sports agent. Has a huge roster of big-time clients under his belt. Clients like Kai Solomon.”
“Um…”
“The tennis star? Won the Australian Open and a bunch more tournaments after that.” She arched a brow. “You see where I’m going with this? I’ll force my hubs to force Jason to force his client to sign on to your shoe.”
“That’s a lot of forcing,” I said with a laugh.
“Think of the possibilities. The exposure. The more shoes we sell—”
“The more of that damn plastic gets repurposed. And every penny of profit goes right back into cleanup.” I shocked myself by offering my hand for a high five, which Jana obliged. “You have to present with me.”
She shook her head. “No, no. This is your baby. I won’t have Jason on board by Monday, anyway. It’s all you, girl.”
The thought should’ve given me hives, but the twinge of anxiety in my stomach had faded altogether.
Take that Deber and Keeb.
“Now can we talk about this?” Jana nudged the Macy’s bag under the table. “Is it really so frumpy?”
“Well…”
“Let me see.”
I wiped olive oil off my hands and held up the dress.
Jana pursed her lips and cocked her head in a mildly reproving way. “Luce, it’s gorgeous. Moreover, you love it, right?”
“I think it’s sort of perfect.”
Jana brushed her hands together. “Welp, seeing as we no longer have to wrestle with the returns line at Macy’s, we have time for dessert.”
I grinned. “Yeah, we do.”
After we finished strong Greek coffees and shared a slice of baklava, Jana gave me a hug. “Let’s do this again sometime. Please?”
“I’d like that.” I held up my bag. “We’re close to my place. I’m going to drop this off and hang it so it’s not bag-wrinkled for tomorrow.”
“An excellent idea. See you back at the office.”
We parted ways, and I went back to my apartment. I rounded the corner and stopped short. Casziel was sitting on the lowest rickety step of my staircase, his head bowed, his arms dangling off his knees.
The first emotion that swept through me was anguish because he looked like he was in terrible pain.
The second was an overwhelming, unwarranted rush of joy that he was still here.
With me.
Seventeen
I climbed the stairs and sat next to Casziel, setting my dress bag aside. “What happened?”
When he didn’t reply, I took his left arm in my hands and carefully rolled up the sleeve of the black Henley that made him look just as devastating as I suspected it would. Seven burned slices marched up his arm now, one fresh, the skin an angry red.
“This isn’t right. It’s horrible. Cas, I—” I’d laid my hand on his shoulder and he flinched away from my touch. “There’s more?”
He smiled grimly. “A souvenir.”
I tugged down the back collar of his Henley and bit back a cry. Something had been burned into his skin. Branded into him.
Anger burned in me too, swift and hot. “Come on. We’re going to take care of this.”
“Leave it, Lucy.”
“Absolutely not. This is wrong. Just…wrong.”
I offered him my hand, and he let me pull him to his feet. Inside, I dumped the bag on the floor and guided him to the couch.
“Show me.”
“You don’t want to see it.”
Based on what little I’d seen so far, that was probably true, but I fixed him with an unwavering stare. He relented with a small smile, shaking his head at a private thought, and started to remove his shirt. He winced and hissed a curse.
“Let me help.” I moved to stand in front of him. “Raise your arms.”
He obeyed, and I reached around his waist and lifted, careful to keep the material away from his back. The shirt covered his face for a moment and then it was off, ruffling the dark curls on his brow. Our eyes locked, my mouth inches from his, his bare chest brushing my breasts.
Heat rushed through me, the kind I’d read about—and craved—in romance novels for years but had never experienced. Especially not with Jeff Hastings in college. Our awkward fumbling had been a candle to my body’s fiery, visceral response to Casziel. To be in his space, this close to his shirtless and scarred skin, lit me up from the inside so fast, it stole my breath. Like the woman in the dream, I trembled with anticipation and ached with want, yearning for a release that was years in the making…
For a heartbeat, we shared the same air and then I took a step back. But I couldn’t stop staring. My eyes gorged on him, the brick wall of muscle that was his abdomen, the rounded bulge of his shoulders that tapered to defined forearms striated with veins.
I put my hands on those shoulders to turn him around—a pathetic excuse to touch him—and a cry caught in my throat, the desire s
tamped out by horror. A pentagram, about the size of a dinner plate, was burned into his back and bisected with strange lines and loops. His skin was red and raw, blackened at the edges.
“My God. What is this?”
“Ashtaroth’s mark. A reminder to whom I belong.”
I swallowed hard and blinked back tears. “You need medication. For this and for your arm. This is a human body. It can be hurt. It is hurt and you have to take care of it.”
“If you insist, Lucy Dennings.”
He sounded defeated, but maybe it was only the pain. I hurried to the bathroom and returned with a tube of Neosporin. I sat on the couch and Casziel moved to the floor, his back to me. As gently as I could, I coated the strange lines with the clear antibiotic. He never flinched, though now and then, the muscles in his back would move and bulge—he was all elegant lines and sculpted masculinity.
And familiar.
I put the medicine on his skin and touching him rekindled the fire of need that burned deep in the center of me. My fingers itched to stray, to trace his scars. I longed to kiss them, to reacquaint myself with the lines and contours of him because the sense that I’d had him before—and far more intimately—was alive and bright in me. The dream of the woman reuniting with her warrior hovered in the thickened air between us like a secret waiting to be broken open. Or the proverbial door to Narnia, waiting for me to walk through it…
You don’t have the guts, silly Lucy. Stick to your books.
I blinked out of my thoughts and Deber’s insinuations and finished tending to Casziel’s back.
“You should really go to the hospital, but I suppose that’s out of the question.” I took his arm to tend to the cuts. “Why does he do this to you?”
“To feed on the pain that comes from wounding this human body,” Casziel said. “To remind me that I am vulnerable in my human form.”
“Can he…kill you? I mean…worse than sending you to the Other Side?”
Cas didn’t reply and the mountain of things unsaid between us grew taller, more precarious. I set the medicine on the table.
“Do you want something to eat? Or maybe watch TV, to keep your mind off the pain?”
“Are you not supposed to be at work?”
“I’m taking the rest of the day off.” I fished my phone out of my bag to call the office. “I haven’t called in sick or taken a personal day since Dad passed. They’ll survive without me for one afternoon.”
And you have only a few days left on This Side.
The pang in my heart was familiar too. The woman in Japan. The girl in Russia. Both had been left feeling as if they’d come close to something real, only to have it—him—vanish into smoke. Like a dream…
I called into work, then hung up my dress for the wedding. I returned to the couch and turned on Netflix, scrolling shows.
“See anything you might like?”
Cas cocked his head. “Schitt’s Creek?”
“This is the best show ever. I’ve seen the entire series three times over.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s special to me. It’s special to a lot of people. Hilarious but so sweet too.” I moved through the episodes. “It’s about a wealthy family who loses everything and learns to love and appreciate what they have in each other, that they’re rich in all the ways that really count. Then in season three, David meets Patrick and oh my God… Their love story is so beautiful.”
I glanced down to see Casziel looking up at me, and I laughed self-consciously. “I know, I know. Me and my romance. But I just love this show so much. You interested?”
He shrugged, and I turned on a random episode, mostly to fill the silence between us. It was the one where Johnny dreams of how the Rose family’s life used to be before they lost all their money.
Of course, I had to pick the dream episode.
I thought I caught a whiff of pipe smoke and steeled myself.
“Do we live more than one lifetime?” I blurted.
Cas faltered for a split second. No one would have noticed it but me. A small tightening of his mouth. A blink, then gone again.
“No. As the poet said, you have only one wild and precious life.” He smiled, though it looked forced. Pained. “And that is the question, Lucy Dennings. What will you do with the rest of your one life after I’m gone?”
“I-I don’t know,” I said, his last words like a chill wind running through me. “Give my presentation on Monday. Hopefully, the team will take it up and we’ll rid the oceans of more plastic. Though it’s sort of like trying to bail out the Titanic with a spoon. In thirty years, there will be more plastic in the water than fish. Ninety percent of seabirds have consumed some kind of plastic waste. Ninety percent. It’s heart-breaking.”
“A tragedy.”
I knocked his shoulder. “It is a tragedy. And most people would agree, but the problem is so big, it’s hard to grasp the enormity of it.”
“And you will dedicate your life to showing them how,” Cas said, his eyes on the TV. “You will marry Guy and produce children and save the world together.”
“That’s a little presumptuous,” I said, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “I mean…I don’t know what’s going to happen at the wedding tomorrow or beyond. Honestly, I’m only going along with our plan for your sake.”
His head whipped to me. “My sake? What of yours? What of your romantic fantasies? You’ve loved Guy from afar for years—”
“I haven’t loved him. I had a crush on him, but I don’t really know him. The idea of him is stronger than the reality.”
“But we’ve broken the ice, so to speak. He serenaded you at the singing bar. He is eager to see you tomorrow. You’ll soon get to know him and see that he’s a good man.”
I frowned. “How do you know that?”
“His demons are weak. His light is bright. He is a man worthy of you, Lucy Dennings.”
I didn’t know what to say. Except that Guy was far from my thoughts and all I could think of was the ticking clock that was going to take Casziel away from me.
“What if I don’t want Guy at all? What if I want…something else?”
Cas stiffened. “What else do you want?”
I heaved a breath. “I had another lucid dream, like the Japan and Russia dreams I told you about before.”
“Okay.”
Be brave. Be brave.
I relayed the dream of the woman and her warrior. How I felt the love and desire between them. When I was finished, Cas’s eyes watched me in the glow of the TV for a long moment, his face impassive.
“And?” he said finally, his tone like a locked door.
I recoiled as if I’d been slapped, tears of frustration pricking my eyes. “And? So? I studied Mesopotamia at NYU, remember?” I inhaled and let it out in a rush. “I think the city was Larsa, you were the warrior, and the woman was…your wife.”
“Probably.”
I stared. “That’s all you have to say? Probably?”
“What do you want me to say?”
His callous dismissal hurt more than I expected. There were a thousand things I wanted him to say. To erase this longing and let me know I wasn’t crazy. That there was something real happening that wasn’t my imagination.
I crossed my arms, trying to keep my lip from trembling. “Why am I having these dreams?”
“We’ve discussed this before. We’re bonded,” he said, his voice low and heavy. “My energy is spilling into your dreams—”
“No! What about Japan and Russia? I had those long before I met you.”
“I can’t speak for how your subconscious works, Lucy Dennings,” he said bitterly, scornfully. “But if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say those dreams are manifestations of your romance novels. Romantic interludes with heroes and heroines.”
I shook my head. “You’re lying. Or there’s something you’re not telling me. You’re making me feel stupid. Like…gaslighting. Like I’m holding the truth in my hands and you keep insisting there
’s nothing there.”
“Because there is nothing there,” Cas seethed with sudden fire that flared and then burned out. “There’s nothing there,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothing left.”
My voice wavers. “I don’t think that’s true.”
His head bowed for a moment, shoulders slumped. He got off the floor and reached for the Henley.
I jumped to my feet. “Where are you going?”
“Out. Where I always go.”
“No!” I tore the shirt out of his hands, shocking him. Shocking me. “No,” I said, softer. “I don’t want you to go.”
A silence fell, thick and heavy. The TV show played on distantly, but my eyes were on Cas, memorizing him—his eyelashes that were long and thick. A sharp jawline but lips that were full and soft. And the scars on his body where he’d fought for his city. For his woman. I’d miss every part of him when he was gone—all those parts I could see and touch and all those that I could not. The invisible parts of him that I felt like I knew so deeply.
The shirt fell from my hands and I moved closer.
“So many scars.”
He nodded, watching me. “Earned in battle. But for one.”
“This one,” I said, touching the silver dollar over his heart.
“The killing stroke,” he said, his voice gruff. “That night. The last night.”
Without letting myself think, I bent and put a kiss there. His skin was warm, his pulse thundering against my lips, an echo of mine. Up, higher, I moved my mouth to the jagged slash near his throat, my tongue flickering, tasting the salt and spice of him. Up, up to his chin, his mouth…
“Lucy…”
His voice was a growl, and he gripped my hair, hauling my lips away from his. His eyes blazed in the dimness, and for a split second, we hovered in delicious, heart-pounding need, and then something in him relented. Gave in. He kissed me ferociously. Possessively. A little cry escaped me at the pure ecstasy that flooded my senses.
At last. At long last….
My lips fell open, letting him take my mouth. My warrior, invading and plundering. The biting, sucking pull of his kiss drawing me into everything that was him.