Faded Realms

by C. R. Jane

  “I just got home a few hours ago.”

  We stand there awkwardly staring at each other until finally Damon looks away, taking a long draw out of the bottle as he does so. I can’t stand this tension between us and I walk over to him, throwing my arms around him. He smells like liquor, but I don’t care.

  “Are you going to leave me?” he asks, his voice sounding heartbroken in its drunken stupor.

  “Never,” I tell him, running a hand through his hair. I pull the bottle gently from his hands and lead him to his bedroom where I help him into bed. Although I know there must be something wrong with the fact that I’ve just left Mason’s bed and now am in Damon’s, I cuddle up next to him nevertheless. He slips into a deep sleep right away, entwined with me so closely that I don’t know where he stops, and I begin. I’m still tired from healing and jet lag, but my mind doesn't let me sleep. It whirls and swirls as I think about the damage I seem to be doing to all of their lives. Have I always been a harbinger of bad things for them? Am I somehow their curse rather than the salvation that they claim I am? As the twilight melts into a dark and foreboding night, I wonder if I will have the strength necessary to leave them before the damage becomes too great.

  Damon was gone when I woke up, and I couldn’t help but cry. The stress of everything was getting to me so when Lexi called asking if I wanted to have a girl’s day, I didn’t hesitate. I could tell that everything inside of Mason didn’t want to let me go, but he bit the inside of his cheek and didn’t saying anything to discourage me. He must have sensed that Damon and I hadn’t had the best night. The only concession he asks me to make is to have Shelton drive us, which I don’t object to. It’s not exactly a hardship driving around with Shelton.

  Lexi asks him to take us to Soho and away we go. It’s a bright, crisp day and as always, I’m in awe of all the different things New York has to offer. We pass a hotdog stand and my stomach gives a growl despite the fact that we ate breakfast at a little bakery just a few hours ago. A trinket shop catches my eye to the right of us and I nudge Lexi to walk over to it. As we approach, she starts to ooh and ahh over the bright colorful scarves available for purchase. I leave her to her admiration and walk further into the store. There’s the smoky scent of incense in the air, and the lighting is dim. It reminds me of a gypsy shop like in the books I’ve read about. There’s candles and vials of gold sparkles bragging that they can make you look ten years younger. Right next to the glitter there’s also a basket of shrunken heads, and I avoid looking too closely at them.

  All of a sudden, I feel a tug towards the back of the store. I brace my feet, remembering the unwelcome surprise I got in the Louvre. But just like then, it’s like I can’t hold myself back and I walk forward towards a dimly lit hallway in the back of the store. I look back at Lexi, opening my mouth to call her, and then change my mind, my curiosity at what is waiting for me calling me forward.

  If I thought that the front of the store resembled a gypsy shop, the front doesn’t hold a candle to the room I’ve found myself in. Silken scarves are draped along the ceiling. There’s a reddish glow lighting the room. The incense and candle smoke are so heavy that it’s a little hard to breathe.

  I look around expecting to see a shop owner or even a little old lady bent over a table with playing cards, ready to read my fortune. But there’s no one around. Still feeling the strange tug, I walk to the far side of the room. There’s a collection of small drawings framed in heavy, antique gold frames arranged on a table. My hand shaking, I push aside some of the pictures until I find the one that I was obviously meant to find.

  A drawing of me.

  In the drawing I’m reclined on a settee, my face full of a lovestruck expression as I gaze up to the man arched above me. It’s the same creature as in the Louvre, a mashup of my angel, my incubus, and my fae. Our lips are a hairsbreadth apart as we breathe each other. The drawing is so intricate that I can almost feel the passion the two figures have for each other. Looking at the drawing there’s almost no doubt that its of me. Or perhaps I have a doppelganger running around the world that has been inspiring pieces of art. I would almost feel relieved if it turned out that I had a look-alike somewhere out there. Then maybe she could take over all of my problems.

  The chains rattle on my beloved creature as I sketch. The noise no longer bothers me although the fact that the chains exist at all do.

  “Idiot,” I whisper to myself, not understanding why I’m having feelings of compassion for this slave.

  “Eva,” the creature whispers and I avoid his gaze, knowing he will be able to see my confusion where he is concerned if I look at him.

  As I sketch, he seems to come alive under my fingertips. I’ve studied him so much that I don’t even have to look at him anymore to get any of the details right. The curve of his jaw appears after a moment, followed by the stately grace of his charcoal wings that are flicked with silver and never cease to enthrall me.

  Every day I fall more and more. Even knowing the consequences, I can’t seem to stop myself. He’s become a drug that I need more and more of. I can’t even go days without seeing him.

  I get stuck trying to draw his full, pouty lips. They’re slightly oversized and I’ve found myself more than once fantasizing about what they would feel like against mine. I glance at him, wanting to make sure that I’m getting the lips perfect, and I find him watching me. Always watching me….

  I trace the features of the man draped over me in the drawing. He has Damon’s full lips, Beckham’s golden coloring, and Mason’s eyes. I inexplicably miss this being, and a feeling of dread passes over me so strong that I can’t help but push the drawing away so roughly that it sends papers flying off the table, and shatters two of the frames.

  I rush out of the room, almost bowling over the startled store clerk who is finally making an appearance.

  “Ma’am,” she calls out, but I don’t stop.

  Throwing a few dollars on the checkout counter to hopefully cover the cost of the two broken frames, I grab Lexi, and hurry out of the store.

  “Eva?” she asks questioningly, looking around to see what the threat is. I don’t answer her, and I don’t stop until we are a few blocks away. Dropping her hand, I pull on my hair in frustration and let out a small shriek that garners quite a few stares from people passing us on the sidewalk.

  “What am I missing?” I rage, throwing my hands up in the air. “I was a queen, my kingdom fell because of a curse, I have a past with at least two men, and I have a madman that is obsessed with me. I get all of that. But why does that only feel like a small part of the puzzle?” I cry.

  Lexi is silent next to me, probably backing away, scared of the fact that I’m letting my crazy out.

  “Let’s go home,” I say with a sigh, suddenly desperate to get back into the arms of one of the guys. I need someone to ground me, to bring me back to the present since the past keeps trying to claw its way into my life.

  I call Shelton to come pick us up as we walk, wanting to get away from the area as fast as possible.

  When he arrives, we hurriedly get in the car and I tersely ask him to take us back to Damon and Mason’s penthouse. Shelton looks at me questioningly but doesn’t say anything, obviously reading the signs that I’m not in the mood to talk.

  “Will you be fine getting home?” I ask Lexi as I get out of the car. Shelton knows to keep my friend safe at all costs, but I still get nervous every time she’s away from me. She nods, looking distracted by something, and I worry that I’ve pushed her away with my earlier temper tantrum. I say goodbye and hurry inside, keeping my face down in an effort to avoid the paparazzi that constantly haunt our building.

  The penthouse is quiet when I walk in, but I can feel Damon’s presence somewhere nearby. As I walk deeper inside, I hear the clang of weights and head towards the gym. As I step inside I see Damon with headphones on, doing chest presses. There’s a light sheen of sweat covering his shirtless torso and I feel a rush of heat rise inside of me. D
amon has always been the perfect specimen, but ever since we returned from China he’s been a madman training mercilessly to prepare for our next showdown against Aiden.

  Although Damon has headphones on, I know with his angelic hearing that he heard me most likely before I even came through the front door. He ignores me though, and I wonder if I’ve irrevocably broken this fragile thing between the four of us before it really began.

  Leaving him to continue to work out, I walk to the front room and curl up on the couch. I wrap myself in a blanket and contemplate the meaning of the painting in Paris and the drawings from today. Exhausted from the emotional turmoil I’m feeling, I fall in to a deep sleep.

  “Eva,” comes Aiden’s voice, and I open my eyes in shock. Sitting upright I recognize the garden from my palace in Fairie. He’s in my dreams again.

  “Eva,” comes the voice again, and although I want to run, I walk towards where the voice is coming from. He’s leaning against a tree, a solitary red rose in his hand.

  “How are you, my darling?” he asks.

  He’s in his dream form again, all the monstrous traits he possesses in real life hidden from sight. He’s tall, dark, and handsome, and as usual I feel a connection to him. It’s like I can’t shake the hold he has on me. It pales in comparison to the ones I feel with Damon, Mason, and Beckham....but still, it’s there.

  “Don’t you think that this little obsession you have with me is getting a tad bit old?” I throw at him, ignoring the fact that I actually feel the urge to tell him my troubles as if he’s a dear confidant, rather than a murderer and the psychotic destroyer of an entire world.

  He laughs at me humorlessly. “Obsession, is that what you’re calling it? Oh Eva, obsession doesn’t even begin to cover the depth of my feelings for you. You are mine. You have always been mine. You will always be mine. There is no other that has existed or will exist that can take your place. It’s inevitable that we will be together.”

  He walks slowly towards me and I freeze, unable to breathe as he trails the rose across the exposed skin of my chest. Looking down I realize that he’s dressed me in a blood red dress that matches the rose, complete with a corset top that leaves little to the imagination when it comes to my ample cleavage.

  “Don’t you want to know why I’ve brought you here?” he asks, in an amused voice.

  “Not especially,” I say, going for a disinterested tone as I press the boundaries of my brain, trying to find a way to wake myself up from the dream.

  “What’s coming is going to change everything you know. You will need me there,” he says, ignoring my earlier comment.

  “What’s coming?” I ask him, the question slipping out of my lips before I can stop it.

  His eyes gleam in victory. “What will you give me in exchange for the information?”

  I roll my eyes and start to walk away. There has to be some way out of this dream.

  He trails after me as I walk, searching my surroundings for something that looks off like Lexi taught me.

  “You’re not going to find anything,” he comments. “You aren’t getting out of here until I let you.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I mutter under my breath. I start to look around for something sharp, anything that will help shock my body out of the dream. There of course are no sharp rocks anywhere. There’s nothing...nothing but the rose still in Aiden’s hand. Knowing Aiden it will still have the thorns on it. I remember from my time with him that he always loved what the rose represented, that with beautiful things comes pain.

  I guess I should have gotten the hint.

  I walk towards Aiden, catching him off guard by my about face. I stand in front of him and reach up to touch his face. He’s held captive in my gaze, and I feel his sharp inhale of breath at my touch. While I have him distracted wondering what I’m going to do next, I reach down and take the rose from his hand. He lets it go without a fight, his lips beginning to move towards mine. Right before our lips meet, I prick my finger harshly on one of the thorns on the rose.

  I wake up with a gasp, my body shaking from the adrenaline rush brought forward from my dream. I attempt to bring myself back to the present, gazing around the room to convince myself that I haven’t left the penthouse, that I’m not back in Aiden’s dreamscape. I squeeze my hands into fists and give a small cry as I feel something sharp dig into my palm, drawing blood. Looking down at my right hand, I cry out in horror. I’m gripping a red rose.

  7

  Damon

  I’m an asshole. That’s the only explanation I have for why I’m continuing to torture Eva by keeping my distance. It literally hurts my soul to keep doing this but I’m irrationally angry. Angry at the universe who seems to like to give me good things only to yank it away.

  I want her. I want her so badly that my days are filled with thoughts of her, wondering what she’s doing, who she’s with...which one of my brothers have fucked her today. My nights are filled with nightmares where she’s picked someone else. I can always see her in the distance and I fly after her, begging her to change her mind, only for her to stay constantly out of reach. Needless to say, I haven’t been sleeping well.

  I walked into the penthouse this morning and was assaulted by her breathy moans as Mason made love to her. Jealousy, hatred...love, it’s hard to understand how they can all exist within me all together. But they do. I knew what would happen when Mason took Eva to Paris with him, and my imagination went into overdrive while they were away, haunted by images of her intertwined with him in bed. I drank more than I have in my entire existence during the trip, trying to chase the images away. Nothing worked. Actually hearing the noises was more than I could take however and I crept right back out of the penthouse, desperate for them not to know that I was there. I had told Mason I was going to be gone all day for football meetings, so who could blame him for taking advantage. I would have done the same thing in his shoes.

  Strangely, I didn’t hate Mason and Beckham. I couldn’t blame them for wanting her, for needing her. They were my brothers and I understood how impossible it was to resist her lure. It was Eva that I was struggling with my feelings for. The agony of being away from her after she was kidnapped by the Reverend and then Aiden stayed with me, reminding me of the impossibility of ever leaving her, and I hated it. I hated feeling like I needed her, that I depended on her to survive when just a few months ago I had been fine. Empty...but fine.

  Life with her was a mix of extreme highs and lows. One day could be the best of my life while another could be the worst. Yet I knew from when she disappeared that the pain I was currently experiencing about our relationship would be magnified a million times over if she ever left my life for good. She was like the most radical form of heroin, once you got a taste of her, you were addicted, unable to stop. I didn’t want to walk away. In fact, I doubted whether I even had it in me to walk away.

  I pause at the door of the penthouse, using my advanced hearing to make sure that I wouldn’t get any nasty surprises this time. I hadn’t been paying attention this morning when I came home and it’s not a mistake I’m going to repeat now that Mason and Beckham have both taken their relationship with Eva to the next level. It’s quiet aside from the noise from a show on the television, so I risk going in. I’m torn between hoping that Eva is home and alone, to hoping that she’s not and I can continue to hide from our current problems. I saw some of the security guards we hired stationed at the end of the hallway though, and in the lobby when I came in, meaning that she’s probably home.

  When I walk inside, I immediately feel her presence. I heard Eva mentioning it to Beckham the other day that she had started to sense when we were near and the same thing has been happening to me. I always know when she’s nearby. In this case she’s on the couch, her head bent over the laptop I bought her. I’m sure she’s working on homework. I haven’t told her how much I admire the fact that she’s so dedicated to getting her degree, even if it's insignificant in the grand scheme of all we’ve discovere
d about who she is.

  She looks up at me as I walk in. As always, I’m pulled in by her crystalline eyes. She’s the most stunning creation that I’ve ever seen. I will never get tired of looking at her.

  “Hi,” she says timidly, and I hate that I’ve done that to our relationship, that I’ve made her feel insecure.

  “Hi,” I reply lamely, not sure what to say. “I’ll be in the gym,” I finally tell her, starting to stride quickly out of the room.

  She bursts into tears before I can leave. The sight of her distress has me racing to her side. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” I ask her frantically, checking her over for any injury.

  “Am I that awful that you can’t even be in the same room with me?” she sobs. “I can’t stand you being mad at me anymore.”

  I can’t stand seeing her cry. I think back to how miserable I’ve been the last few months, between her disappearing and then seeing her with Beckham, I haven’t allowed myself one minute of happiness. The happiness that I know is within reach if I just get rid of my pride and let my defenses down. She takes both my hands in hers and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with the feeling of the purest love I’ve ever felt. It slides through my veins, pushing out any pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. There’s only happiness, there’s only joy...there’s only Eva.

  When the feeling subsides, my whole body is tingling. I know I’ll remember that moment for the rest of my life. I look at her in awe. “What was that?”

  Her eyes are puffy from crying and her face is still streaked with tears, but she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  “That’s my love for you,” she whispers, bringing my hands to her lips and giving them a light kiss. “There’s no end to it. It grows every day. I will love you forever no matter what you decide about our relationship,” she says.

  Suddenly nothing else matters. I’m only torturing myself by continuing to act this way. I knew what I signed up for with Eva from almost the very start. I knew she was in love with both of them as well as me. But if she’s capable of loving me like that, even with the feelings she has for them, well...there’s not a chance I would ever find someone who would love me like that. I doubt almost anyone in the history of time will ever be lucky enough to experience something like this. I’m an idiot for pushing it away for even a second. There was no ulterior motive in her feelings for me, no guile, no stipulations for her love. It just was.