by Amy B. Nixon
“My evocation’s fucking perfect. I’m a Dustrikke, remember?”
Okay, I knew I sounded snobbish and my voice was unambiguously nagging, but he was acting like we were friends who were having a casual chat. We weren’t friends.
He reached across the table and grabbed my hand.
A muffled gasping sound escaped my throat as my chest rose and my lungs filled with so much air, it felt like I was soaring above the ground. All of my negativity flew out of me. I sensed a weird sort of alleviation, like someone had relieved my chest of something invisible that had been pressing on it up until a second ago.
“You’re using your Sentinel powers on me.”
I noted the obvious, but my voice was even and flat, as if I was simply voicing out a trivial statement.
He nodded. “I don’t want you to get angry.”
“Why would I get angry?”
“The other reason I came to talk to you is Monika.”
I attempted to pull my hand away when I heard his sister’s name, but he tightened his grip. And just like that, the new irritation that spun in me at the mention of Monika’s name was erased from my system. He was selecting all my negative emotions and pressing the Delete button.
“I know you’re hurting, but please hear her out.”
Blinking slowly, I shook my head. “I’m not hurting.”
“Yes, you are. A blend of disappointment, anguish and wrath were oozing from you. I know it might look like she betrayed you. Please talk to her. Give her a chance to explain.”
“Okay,” I said, even though I wasn’t willing to talk to Monika.
Could he sense my unwillingness? Was unwillingness an emotion? I still felt reluctance, so the answer was probably no.
He rose from the chair, finally letting go. As soon as he broke the physical contact, said blend of emotions returned in its full fucking capacity, thrashing against my core all at once. Furthermore, I was infuriated because he’d just tried to manipulate my emotions and steal my free will – the most basic of all human rights.
“Go tell Monika I’ve listened to enough of her bullshit and I have no intention of hearing more of it! And don’t use that Sentinel manipulation on me ever again!”
“Learyn, please calm down and come with me. She keeps beating herself up over Gabriella’s death.”
“Blow me!” I growled the words in his direction, kicked back my chair, and stormed out of the Dining Hall. It was becoming a tradition.
***
The room was overtaken by silence, broken only by the crackling of flames, dancing on top of numerous candles positioned on two ancient candelabras. They stood on both sides of a huge grand piano. Its lids were closed, and the entire body was covered in black, reflecting each candle’s soft glow.
I had never played piano, and I wasn’t one of those people who irritatingly hit the keys to produce out-of-tune clanking whenever they saw a piano somewhere. Though, for some reason, I was pulled towards it by the urge to touch the instrument.
Walking over to the long bench, I sat on the end of its leather seat before carefully lifting the smaller lid above the keys.
To my surprise, it was lightweight and strangely contrasting with the piano’s gigantic frame. I saw a golden logo etched on the inner side – a symbol resembling an ancient lyre carved above the words Steinway & Sons. Cautiously tracing the lyre with my index finger, I smiled at the memory of the music coming out of this instrument. Closing my eyes, I could almost recall the beauty of the melody, which had echoed through corridors and cells, resonating off the cold dungeon walls.
“You just had to go and create another mess, didn’t you, hacker?”
A familiar baritone whisper filled the air and made me tremble with a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety.
I opened my eyes. Dann was sitting on the bench beside me. His uncle and Monika’s mom had obviously informed the rest of the Council about my actions. Was he talking about my hacking incident? Or something else? Honestly, I had lost the count of all the messes I had created since coming to Norway.
But how had I walked all the way from my room to the dungeons without remembering it?
His emotionless expression was withholding answers. I grew uneasy. Why did he have the ability to erase all traces of emotion like that?
“Am I dreaming?” I asked, holding my breath.
“Yes.”
“Did you Wander into my nightmare and kiss me in my sleep in December?”
His face darkened. “Yes. I was worried about you being affected by your incident with the Nøkk. After you blew me off, I thought you might feel calmer and more willing to talk about it later, therefore I Wandered into your dream to check up on you.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer him. I didn’t want to think about how real that kiss had felt, or how nice the many kisses we’d shared after it had been. So, I simply jumped to another one of the many questions that had been bothering me.
“What does your uncle know about Amyria?”
“Each time I asked, he simply said it’s something the Nøkk had made up. I believe him, because I’ve searched for information on the subject and I didn’t find anything.”
I waited, but he stopped there, which meant Aurora hadn’t looped in the Council about our second time visiting the Nøkk.
“How did you find me when I accidentally Apertured on the night after my birthday? Even if everyone in the castle had gone searching for me, you wouldn’t have been able to cover so much ground for days.”
“I asked Vee Selvig for help. Álfar of all races are expert hunters. I gave her your questionnaire sheet, and she used her magic to track your exact whereabouts.”
Although it was a logical explanation, it seemed strange to ask Vee when he had all sorts of magical creatures under his command.
“Why didn’t you ask one of your guards to track me? Or… I don’t know, someone older with more magical experience?”
“I have personal reasons for choosing her.”
Personal reasons? He didn’t elaborate, so I shot another question.
“What do you know about the Valraven?”
“It’s an old myth some Danes believe in.”
The fuck? Aurora hadn’t told him even about that?
“What if it’s not a myth?”
He sighed, reached out and placed his hand over mine.
“Learyn, our world is already filled with such diverse, lethal danger. There’s no need to decorate it further by adding fictional monsters to the shadows.”
I looked down as his long fingers curled over my hand and gave me a light, comforting squeeze. I had already given into another guy’s comforting caresses, believed him blindly, and allowed him to shatter me. Jerking away from his touch, I got up and walked to the piano’s opposite side.
“Am I one of your insipid playthings?”
“Excuse me?”
“Am I one of the girls you’re fooling around with?”
“I’m not fooling around with anyone,” he said immediately. I was about to continue showering him with questions, but he was quicker. “I’m also not married or engaged, or pursuing a romantic interest in the face of someone else. So, before you ask, I didn’t cheat on someone or use you as a substitute to another.”
“I wasn’t going to ask that, but thanks for clarifying things.” My self-defenses automatically kicked in, but then something in particular caught my attention. “Do you really consider a kiss as cheating?”
He was quiet for a while and I couldn’t understand why. It was a simple question. Then again, I couldn’t quite understand why I felt the need to ask, because I shouldn’t have cared about his opinion on the matters of infidelity.
“I consider even the thought of a kiss as cheating,” he replied after a few moments; and for whatever motive, I secretly sighed with relief. “What gave you the impression of insipid playthings? I thought you didn’t see me as a snobbish dick anymore.”
Taken aback by his words, I remained silent. Had I managed
to strike a nerve? Did he still feel bad about what I had called him a few months ago? Even after I had apologized? I had to pick my next words in a way that wouldn’t make me sound like a stupid, smitten girl. So, I slowly paced around the piano and leaned forward on its closed upper lid, resting against the curved dent of its body and buying myself time to think.
“I may have heard something about the whole playthings deal somewhere.”
He raised his eyebrows in what seemed like a sincere surprise.
“I can’t think of a reason as to why someone would make such accusations about me.”
I rolled my eyes, giving up on the theater.
“Ask your heartless bitch of a sister.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Ah, it all becomes clearer now.”
I didn’t reply. He ran his fingers across the keys, producing a string of quiet, melodic tunes that quickly faded away.
“My sister doesn’t let others in easily.”
“Really, Dann? Did you just try to defend her? With that argument?”
“Aurora was a twelve-year-old child when she saw our parents get mauled to death, their insides ripped out by claws and fangs. When you’re just old enough to understand what monstrosities you’ve witnessed, it changes you forever. I know what she’s done to you. It was a poor decision on her behalf, but she’s not the heartless bitch you believe her to be. She has many reasons for acting a bit too overprotective, quite like you do.” I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “You’re overprotective of everyone around you and mainly of yourself.”
Of everyone? Was I? Thinking about it now, maybe I had acted overprotective around him regarding Vee, Monika, my aunt and even Gabriella and Aurora – once in that nightmare and a few times when I’d been awake. And maybe I had gotten a bit heated over the Húsvættir and their rights. That didn’t really mean I was overprotective of everyone around me.
But overprotective of myself?
How the fuck had he figured that part out? It wasn’t like I went on telling people I had trust issues thanks to shitty relationships with friends and ex-boyfriends. Or how when I eventually felt like trusting someone new, Monika fucked up royally.
“Maybe. Or maybe I just don’t live up to people’s expectations of what a Dustrikke should be.”
The Eitrhals instantly tripled in weight, heavy and uncomfortable.
“Black magic makes you dangerous to yourself and to others,” he spoke softly, despite the sinister note in that statement. “Learning how to control it is difficult even without bearing everyone’s high expectations of your last name. I don’t know what imbecile made you the way you are, but underneath this protective dome of vulgar wrath and mordacity you’ve built around yourself is a spellbinding power, which streams brighter than the northern lights.”
Okay, I had to give it to him.
A, I was wow-ed by that statement. B, nobody had ever compared me to something so beautiful. C, he was unbelievably perspicacious. It was irritating.
“How can you tell my ex is an imbecile or that he’s responsible for me being unladylike? Do you assume Shakespeare’s saying Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned can be applied to every female with an attitude?”
“Shakespeare didn’t write that, William Congreve did; and the phrase is actually wrongfully transcribed due to hypercorrection. But to answer your question – you’re not dating anyone here, you didn’t pull away from me in your dream or on that staircase, you were unnaturally bothered because I secretly watched you from afar the day you arrived in November, you have trust issues, and you’re awfully suspicious of the reason why I kissed you. You are the way you are because of a bad relationship, and the guy is evidently an imbecile because he let you go.”
I was baffled by his conclusions. Baffled and annoyed.
“That was cute. You don’t know me,” I added with a bitter tone, pretending I hadn’t heard his Shakespeare comment.
“Right now, you think your privacy has been invaded and your feelings have been exposed.”
FML! Once again, he read me like an open book!
Everyone, literally everyone, had made me think I was the worst human on the freaking planet. That I didn’t deserve a normal relationship in my life because there was something wrong with me. Scratch that, most days I had believed everything was wrong with me, so I had eventually stopped trying long before coming to Norway. All the while, Dann acted like he was the fucking Learyn-Whisperer, deciphering me to the last function in the code of my being!
He slid off the bench and approached me.
Without a pair of high heels, I felt smaller than usual as his tall frame came closer, towering over mine. Trapped in the piano’s crease, I didn’t have any room to run when he reached me. Catching those pale blue eyes, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to run.
I was drawn to him, regardless of knowing he was right when he said I felt invaded. I really did. But somehow, I preferred being invaded by him next to every other guy I knew.
Quietly admitting it only to myself, I liked him. I liked many things in him. Maybe I was too hurt and too proud to admit it after he kissed me on that staircase, but I was sure I had more than platonic sympathies for him.
Which was exactly what made me uneasy about his closeness. Dann was practically my teacher.
In spite of it, somehow all my cons were sent into oblivion the second his hands caught my waist. Feeling the warmth and reassurance in his touch even through my clothes, I immediately forgot why this was wrong. He lifted me on top of the closed lid and our eyes met evenly. The height difference was no longer a factor, and I saw myself falling into his stare’s picturesque heavens. Like before, I was rendered asunder. The arctic blue tore me, making its way through every single defensive wall. Feeling mesmerized, I couldn’t break away from his grasp.
Some long-forgotten brain cell woke up from a hypnotized slumber.
“We can’t.” My voice was barely a whisper, as if my own body rebelled against the words. “I mean, we can, but we shouldn’t. I’m your student. Kind of. It should be against the rules.”
“I’ve never seen you abide by the rules before.”
“Don’t you want to abide by them?” I asked, but what I wanted to ask was whether he’d really want to break rules with me.
He leaned in, and in the blink of an eye his lips found mine. They were just as soft, warm and gentle as I remembered them. No longer thinking clearly, I immediately responded. I kissed him back resolutely and without any hesitation, giving into the pleasant sensations he awoke in me once again – warmth and safety.
I parted my lips, welcoming him for another kiss, and he lightly drew his tongue over the tip of mine, sending shivers into every fiber of my being.
Unlike the tear-stained saltiness I remembered, this time he tasted deliciously sweet to a point of intoxication. Locking my hands behind his neck, I tried to draw him closer. His fingers moved from my waist, tracing the length of my spine up and down, and his tongue slipped into my mouth again. It was moist and gentle, caressing mine and massaging it. His fingertips electrified my spinal cord while his French kisses melted me, and I couldn’t help but recall what had come to my mind back on that staircase – he created the most beautiful paradoxes.
How had I grown to resent the idea of kissing someone ever again? I had forgotten just how damn good a make out session felt like. Now that he was reminding me, every single axon in my brain silently begged him to never let me go.
I was probably delirious, but I craved more of this insanity.
Right on cue, his body flattened against mine in the curve of the piano, and his teeth grazed my lower lip. He sucked on it, simultaneously painting swirls with the tip of his tongue, and a stream of hot waves lit my skin on fire. An unexpected moan escaped me before I could stop it. One of his arms circled back around my waist, pressing our bodies closer. His other hand trailed into the back of my neck, and he stopped nibbling on my bottom lip just to cover my mouth with soft kisses.
Oh, fu
ck! How could I have resented this?
I let my own hands untangle, sliding over the outer side of his lean, slightly muscular shoulders, biceps, elbows. Tracing down his arms and moving over to his chest, my fingers met the vibrating thumps of his galloping heartbeat. I gasped, breaking the kiss.
That’s when I truly believed it. He couldn’t have been playing me. Somehow, Dann saw through me and knew I was broken. If he didn’t really care, he wouldn’t have been this gentle and cautious while his heartbeat was going crazy. He would have acted rough, surrendering to impulses, without giving a fuck about me.
As if hearing my thoughts, he stroked the back of my neck and kissed me again. Sensually, slowly, in overwhelming ways that made me forget about my insecurities.
Tingling sensations spilled over my entire being. They sparked me to life after I had spent so much time in a torpid, apathetic state of mind when it came down to being intimate with someone. Gliding my fingertips back up across his collarbone, neck, chin, I made sure my sense of touch wouldn’t become numb in one place, so I kept moving my fingers and exploring the lines, curves and hollows on his face.
His lips danced with such skillful delicacy over mine, I let him carry them along my jawline. Opposite to what I had gone through weeks ago, I didn’t feel like something was missing, unlike when I had been asleep and seeking them. Just like then, he buried his face in my hair. The heat of his breath made me shudder before his lips softly brushed against the hollow of my neck. A tidal wave of liquid fire rushed through my veins, bringing back a long-forgotten sensation of arousal. I instinctively wrapped my legs around his body, pressing as tightly to him as I could while sitting at the edge. Arching against him and tilting my head to the side to expose my skin further, I unraveled in heavenly bliss while he left a string of tender kisses heading towards my shoulder.
I had completely forgotten we were in my dream. Pulling back to meet his eyes, I was glad there was a sturdy surface under me, because my legs wouldn’t have been able to support my own weight.
Before my vision could regain focus, his lips pressed onto mine again, sucking away whatever sanity I still had left in me. Being insane felt fucking divine. I wanted to keep kissing him and prolong this dream till the sands of time stopped running. And that was a problem which nearly ruined everything – all of this was happening in a dream.
