Closing her eyes, she pictured Dayal’s orb in their clasped hands. As it grew she drew on the feeling of Aeval’s home she had absorbed earlier. It was all about the feeling, the sensation of the place she wanted to go that moved them, although there was no real direction to go and no actual movement. Their minds conjured the sensation of flying because they must be moving to go somewhere, right?
In a flash they were there. Loti gaped at the wonder world of alien colors and glowing textures. She reached out to touch a dandelion-like fluff of phosphorescence. Wolf snatched her hand back and scanned the environment as if he expected an attack.
“Loti,” Aeval’s voice was dreamy and distant. She turned and the fae and her world were hazy. “Wolf. When all seems lost and the moment is darkest, remember your purpose is not to save everyone.”
Her blue wings unfurled in a silent shimmer as she and her world faded. “And remember that I loved you always. Maybe one day you can forgive me and we can all be free.”
And she was gone. The fae world was gone, replaced by a blackness. Loti closed her eyes and shivered as the long forgotten memory of another life gurgled to the surface, icy cold and startling. The beautiful, blue-haired Aeval and another man with shoulder-length black hair fluttering in an evening breeze as he laughed and sipped from a golden goblet. His features were muted, indistinct, but her heart knew she loved him, once. Loved him and Aeval, and…another…very much. She sobbed tears of joy and brokenness at the sight of them together, an overwhelming sense of loss constricting her chest.
“Take us back,” Wolf murmured into her neck.
With effort she didn’t think she had in her, she focused until they flashed into existence in the middle of the meadow and she threw her arms around Wolf’s neck.
“Did you feel all of that? Did you see all of it?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The walk back to the round house was quiet, Wolf with a death grip on Loti’s hand as Asparas led the way.
Loti broke the silence. “Who will be queen now that your grandmother is gone?”
Asparas shrugged her shoulders. “Me, I suppose. It should be Mother, but no one knows where she is.”
Loti glanced up at Wolf, wiggling her numb fingers and he relaxed his hold on her. “Did we lose any time?”
He studied the Milky Way, arching his neck to look up. “No. I think time lapsed the same for us as here.”
“Yes,” Asparas said, “you were only gone a few minutes.” She examined her fingernails as they weaved their way through the moon garden.
Loti wondered at the inconsistency. If she slipped time when she was in the nadis, why didn’t it happen tonight?
Maybe because I was with you?
She jerked her head up and pressed her lips together.
“Will you see John tonight? Before you leave?” Asparas stood at the entrance to the roundhouse, her hands clasped in front of her.
“Why is this so important to you?” Loti put a hand on her hip, one eye twitching. Wolf kneaded her shoulders.
“I think John means something to Asparas,” Wolf whispered.
Asparas narrowed her eyes at Wolf, glaring. “Of course he means something to me.”
“I mean truly means something to you.” He waved his hand as if annoyed at her. “You fae are fickle. One day he’s the love of your life, the next you couldn’t care less, but John is different, isn’t he?”
Pink blotches heated up her cheeks and she huffed, yanking the door open and the attendants scurried after her. The door hung open for a second, and then an attendant popped halfway through the doorway and jerked it closed. Loti covered her eyes with one hand.
“I know I said I would see him before we left, but I don’t know.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know if I can. I’m…I think I’m shutting down. I can’t think.”
Wolf rubbed her upper arms and kissed her temple. She dropped the hand covering her eyes and stared up at him with a weary frown.
“You don’t have to.” Wolf’s face lost its hard edges and Loti sighed with relief.
“But I said I would.” She scratched her nose. “I should keep my word.”
“Loti, you don’t have any obligation to him. He wronged you. You have every right to just walk away.” His eyes held hers in a gentle way.
“But,” Loti drew the word out.
“But what?” Wolf stopped rubbing her arms and cupped her elbows.
“That sounded like it had a ‘but’ on the end of it.” Loti wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned into him, wanting more touch. He held her close, stroking her back and the soothing pulse brought her close to tears. This is ridiculous. I don’t want to cry any damn more.
“No, no ‘but’.” He kissed her hair.
“I don’t know how to express what I’m feeling. There seem to be no right words.”
“You don’t have to say a thing.” Wolf dropped the thin shield he had been holding—the mild, everyday shield he used to protect her from his errant thoughts and feelings.
She had learned to keep a similar veil between them. Everyone had random thoughts that no one should have to endure, and the two of them had learned to filter them out. Loti dropped hers, so they were open to one another and the mix of anger and sadness, steeped in a child’s pain and love drifted through him. He sighed and clutched her tight.
“I’m so sorry, darling. So, so sorry.” To Wolf, her vulnerability was such a foreign thing, and so was the loneliness that she sought to drown in activity. The loneliness confused him. He was here. She wasn’t alone.
I can’t explain it. I thought it started when my sister first became ill, but is it possible it’s always been a part of me? Maybe something to do with what Aeval showed me tonight?
He closed his eyes and they inhaled through their nose at the exact same time without meaning to. When they exhaled together, they felt a sense of expansion in a place of stillness, a room for the loneliness to breathe. With Wolf, she had courage to free it from its prison behind mental brick walls. Over the years, she thought she could bury it out of existence, but all she managed to do was cleave to it until it got in the way of everything else. Was it loneliness born of grief or—worse? If her father couldn’t love her enough to stick around, to fight to come back to her, then who ever could?
Wolf kissed the salty tear on her cheek away. “It was never, ever about you.” He kissed the other cheek.
“That’s the thing.” And she cried despite her best efforts not to, leeching out the old poison in his arms, under the stars.
“I want to go home, Wolf.” Loti whispered into his chest.
“Then we’re out of here.” He took her hand and led her past the stone retaining wall. They followed the rose bushes up to the straw bale cabin, where Asparas sat on the single step at the door.
“Please.” Her eyes were round and sorrowful. “You have to forgive him. It wasn’t his fault.” Her words came faster and faster. “He didn’t want me to tell you this, but when I brought him here, I gave him fae wine.” She wrung her hands and her eyes darted from Wolf to Loti.
Wolf shook his head in disgust. “I figured.” At Loti’s pinched brow, he added, “It makes you forget yourself.”
“It didn’t make him forget who he was or his family, or anything like that, but it made him lose track of time and…want to stay here.” She looked away. “I didn’t want him to leave.” With an effort, she lifted her face to them and rose up. “You have to believe me. He was hurt and very, very sad and I thought I was helping him. I thought he would get over it if he had enough time and…” she glanced away, her pretty features twisting in agony, “love.”
Loti’s mouth hung open, but Wolf’s face was locked down. “I don’t have sympathy for you or for him.” He stepped close to the fae and stared down at her with menacing eyes. “Your kind meddles far too much in people’s lives. Do you not understand the harm you’ve done?”
“I do,” she whispered.
“Please, don’t
judge her too harshly,” John’s voice came from the direction of the rose bushes. He walked up the hill, his shoulders hunched over uncertain strides. “She did what she did out of love, the only kind of love she understands.”
Asparas burst into tears and crumbled into John’s arms. He held her for a moment, then whispered in her ear. She nodded, wiping the tears from her cheeks with slow fingers as she gazed into his eyes. She looked over her shoulder and smiled through misery at Loti and Wolf. “I am truly sorry for your pain. It was never my intention to hurt anyone.”
Wolf huffed. “No, it was your intention to satisfy your own desires.” He fished out a pack of Camels from inside his jacket and tapped it on the heel of his hand. “Without any thought for the people involved and how it would affect them.” He stepped away from them, lighting a match and cupping the end of a cigarette.
Loti stood considering the fae as she walked away, her long white hair brushing her heart-shaped bottom as it swayed. Feeling eyes on her, Loti turned her attention back to John, her father—once upon a time.
“How can I explain it, Loti?” John sank to the step where Asparas had been and held his head in his hands as he talked. “I was lost. I knew on some level I needed to get myself together for your sake, and for your mother’s, but I didn’t know how. I failed Calla. I failed you. I failed your mother. I should have done so much more to save her, but I didn’t. I should have done more, been there for you.”
Wolf opened his mouth to reprimand him, but Loti waved him back. He retreated, reluctantly.
“Asparas nursed me back to health and had been giving me the fae wine the entire time. I had no idea how much time had passed and had lost all sense of reality, in a way.” He rubbed his face hard and looked up, his golden-brown hair mussed.
“By the time I ventured off the colony property, three years had passed. I panicked, not knowing how to explain to your mother where I’d been and why. And, in the meantime, I’d fallen in love with Asparas.” His guilt was etched in the lines around his mouth and eyes. “Asparas told him that she was checking in on you and your mother and that all was well. I figured you were better off.”
“All was not well.” Loti lowered herself to the step beside him, her eyes haunted. “It was so not well.”
The agony on his face was too much for her to bear. She jumped up and paced, and found herself talking about her mother’s downward spiral into prescriptions and alcohol. “She still has a problem, but is in complete denial.”
With hollow eyes, John dropped his hands to his thighs. “I’m so, so sorry I left you to that. I had no idea.”
“If you had bothered to come home,” she snapped. Then she fluttered tired hands. “Never mind. It’s done. It’s all done.” Turning her back on him, she lifted her eyes to the pre-dawn sky. The back of her neck prickled. Wolf rubbed his.
“We need to go to ground, soon,” he said.
“Why do vampires still say that?” Loti huffed. “You don’t actually go to ground, you know. What the hell?” She stalked over to him and he tilted his head at her. “You sleep in a bed, for Christ’s sake.”
He reached for her hand and she slapped his away. His eyes widened slightly, but he said nothing.
“Loti, I don’t want to cause any more problems for you.” John stood up. “Please don’t take your agitation with me out on Wolf.”
Loti glared at her father, but then stared at the ground. When she looked up at Wolf, he raised one eyebrow and she half-way smiled as she threaded her fingers between his. For a moment, his and her fingers lost their individual identity. They simultaneously squeezed.
“There’s no way we can work through all of this in one night.” She yawned. “We need to get some sleep and then we’re going home.” She leaned into Wolf. “I need some time.”
John ventured an unsure smile. “I’m glad you were willing to talk to me at all.”
Wolf scratched at his neck. “We need to sleep,” was all he said.
“I’ll go, now.” John hesitated, then held out his arms. Wolf stiffened, but Loti dropped his hand and walked into her daddy’s embrace. His arms were cautious at first, as if he were afraid he might break her, then he gave in and crushed her close. She squeezed her eyes tight as the confusing wave of relief and anxiety crashed over her.
“Shhh, baby girl.” At her father’s quieting words, her heart palpitated, tripping over itself as she inhaled his aftershave and out of nowhere the scent of musty wool. The world went dark and she was somewhere else.
“Whatever you do, don’t make a sound, baby girl.” Her father’s face leaned close, one finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. Then she was in a dark space, scratchy wool rubbing against her cheek with a line of light on the floor. A shadow passed by. Strange voices asked questions. Her father’s reassuringly deep voice answered. She couldn’t make out the words, but they were followed by her father’s laugh. She clutched her little knees as she knelt on the floor, trying to be quiet. She swallowed the hiccupping sobs as her little chest shook. She wiped the tears and snot off her cheeks and upper lip.
“Loti?” Her father held her at arm’s length. “What’s wrong?”
Her eyes popped open to the Vermont woods. She jerked out of his grasp and ran back to Wolf, who tucked her into his side. A tear ran down John’s cheek, and then he grimaced, clutching a hand to his stomach.
“What is it, baby girl?”
Loti sobbed at her father’s old pet name for her. “I…I don’t know. It was a flashback.” She glanced at Wolf, who squeezed her tight. “I was in a closet, I think.”
John’s eyes went wide as he struggled to suppress a burp, turning away and covering his mouth. When he looked back at her his eyes narrowed, his cheeks pale. “I’d forgotten about that.” He clutched his head with one hand and grimaced, then jerked his head up with incredulous eyes.
“I don’t remember anything other than being terrified in a dark space and trying not to make noise.” Her mouth tightened into a worried frown and she stepped towards her father. “You told me not to make a sound.”
John rubbed his arm, glancing at it with unseeing eyes. “It’s coming back to me. There were these people. I don’t know who they were, but something told me to keep you out of sight when they showed up. I don’t know what they really wanted, but they claimed to be Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
“You think they were looking for Loti?” Wolf asked.
John staggered sideways, but caught himself with a hand on the cabin. “I think so. They never asked specific questions, just general ones. You know, like they were being friendly. ‘Do you have a family? Don’t you want your children to be safe? To know God?’ That kind of stuff.”
Wolf stared at John, then gazed at Loti making her way to her father.
The closet. Is that why you’re afraid of close spaces?
Maybe. I never knew why I was in that closet, just had that awful memory. Sometimes had nightmares about it.
Wolf nodded slowly with thoughtful eyes on John. “You just remembered this now?”
John’s eyes went wild and his mouth contorted. “Holy shit, Loti! They came after us! They drove us off the road.” His face tightened and he grabbed his chest, beads of sweat rising on his forehead. Slumping into the wall, he cried out. “I didn’t—” He slid down the wall as Loti raced the rest of the way to his side.
“Daddy!” She let her eyes soften so his aura popped to the surface. “Who? The Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
He mouthed soundless words as she touched his pallid cheek. “You’re having a heart attack, at least that’s what it looks like.”
Wolf was behind her with his arms around her waist even as she laid her hands on John’s chest.
He gasped as if finally catching his breath. “Wait, I need to tell you…I remembered…oh, God…”
Loti braced herself as cosmic energy vibrated through her, jarring her spine as it flowed through Wolf from the ground and the sky and through their heart center into John. His face so
ftened and relaxed as it bleached out in glowing white, but it wasn’t working. His prana drifted toward the crown of his head and unfurled into the night.
Loti screamed in wordless desperation. Wasn’t she supposed to be the ultimate healer, able to heal bodies and minds? Isn’t that what Calisto had said? Damn it all to hell! Doors flew open and shimmering fae, iridescent wings whirling in a rainbow of light, coalesced around them.
“John!” Asparas dropped to her knees, cradling his head in her lap.
The fae closed her eyes and a cloud of sparkling gold enveloped him. Loti thought his prana moved away from his head and hope floated, but it was only for the briefest of moments, and then it continued its placid journey back to the source. Without warning, he exploded in a flash of searing light that tossed Loti and Wolf and the rest of the fae backward like they were paper dolls.
Wolf twisted mid-air with Loti in his arms and shot straight up. The fae landed in glittering thumps, Asparas slamming into a paper birch and thudding to the ground. Groans and curses echoed through the woods.
“What happened?” Loti asked Wolf as they hung suspended high above the trees.
“I have no fucking idea.”
Loti strained and writhed around, trying to see where her father was. “Where did he go?”
Wolf descended in slow increments, scanning the cabin and surrounding area. “He’s gone. There’s nothing left.”
“But where did he go?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“She’s sick,” Rachel snapped into her cell phone. She listened while she ground her teeth and drummed her fingers on the armrest. “I don’t know what else to tell you. She is not well. I couldn’t get her out of bed today.” Rachel glanced over at Heather sitting on Nan’s couch. She paged through a magazine, peering up through heavy lashes every now and again.
“Uh huh.” Rachel rolled her eyes. “I think cancelling tomorrow’s session would be best.” She glanced at her watch. “What else could you possibly have to ask her?” She shifted in her seat and yanked the throw pillow out from behind her and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and landed without a sound on the green living room carpet.
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