by Amy Patrick
“I was taking a walk, trying to clear my head. I’m not sure what he was doing there, though I’d love to know. Maybe he was following me. Was he apprehended?”
“Not as far as I know. No one had any idea who’d done this to you, so no one’s been looking for him. I told them to find Culley just now.”
Taking in the vision of his battered face, my eyes filled with tears. “I was so scared when they carried your body in here last night,” I confessed. “I wouldn’t be able to go on if our last words to each other had been so…” I got choked up and couldn’t continue.
Lad’s eyes softened, filling with the warmth they usually held for me. His hand came up to stroke my cheek. “Ryann, I’m sorry. Culley told me you didn’t—well, I should have known better anyway. I should have listened to you when you told me he tricked you. It was just seeing you like that—I’ve been having a hard time with old memories lately. And he looks so much like Nox, I just—”
“What? No.” I shook my head, baffled. “He looks just like you. That’s why I thought it was you in the dark.”
Lad’s brows pulled together in confusion, and he winced from the pain. “What is going on here? Is he an illusionist? Is that how he tricked you?”
“I’m not sure. But I do know that Ava tricked you. She told me last night. She’s been influencing your mind—shaping and changing your memories—especially about us. What do you remember about us?”
“You’re my fiancée. We’re to be married when the mourning period for my father ends.”
I nodded. His answer was correct, but it was so clinical. There was no emotion behind it. “Lad,” I asked on a hunch. “Do you remember our first kiss?”
His gaze went to the ceiling, not seeing it but rather some faraway place and time. “Was it… I’m not sure. I think it was after I saw you with Nox on the swing in your yard. You were touching his arm. You ran your fingers through his hair, then he held you and lifted you off your feet and kissed your cheek. I remember I was furious. We argued. And then we kissed.”
A fist grabbed my heart. That was the memory she’d left him? That dirty trick I’d played in my desperation to convince Lad we were destined to be more than friends? No wonder he’d been so hostile lately. My throat felt like it was closing.
“No, Lad. That wasn’t our first kiss. What about how we met? Can you remember that?”
He nodded. “That one’s easier. You were about to be attacked by coyotes. I saved you.”
I could barely remember how to breathe now. Ava had stolen our very first meeting from his mind. Our childhood connection had been erased. As far as he was concerned, it had never happened.
“Lad,” I said, fighting a sob. “That was not the first time you saved me. We met as children. I was six. You were seven. You told me you searched for me for years after that—you were never able to forget me. Remember?”
He shook his head, then grimaced as if the motion hurt him. “I don’t… I don’t remember that.” A new light came into his eyes. “This is all Ava’s fault—my preoccupation with you and Nox, my constant anger lately. Her glamour is memory manipulation. Wow. Audun must love having her around as his personal weapon. I should never have accepted an emissary from the Dark Court—not with Nox out of the country. Audun managed to deceive him somehow.”
I stroked his blood-streaked hair, trying to calm him. “It’s over now. At least you know. And she’s gone—I sent her away. I’m sure Culley’s long gone, too.”
Lad’s eyes narrowed, his jaw tensing as he stared at me intensely. “Did he… hurt you, Ryann? Did he force you to—”
“No.” I ran my hand from his uninjured temple to his jaw, holding it tenderly. “No. I was humiliated. I was angry. And then when you thought I’d betrayed you, I was devastated. But no, he didn’t hurt me physically.”
He let out an audible breath. “I may let him live then. This isn’t over. We can’t have peace with the Dark Court while there are still dangerous Elves like those two criminals in their employ. I think the problems there are bigger than either Nox or I realized.”
I ran my hand over his chest, soothing him the way you might a fretful child who’d had a nightmare. “Shhh. It’s okay. Don’t worry about that right now. Nox can handle it. And that’s exactly what they want, I’m sure—for you to declare war on the Dark Court and blow up what you and Nox have created. They probably think they’ve won already, ruining the relationship between you two.” I swallowed hard, remembering his incensed face last night, his cruel words. “And between you and me.”
He buried his fingers in my hair, pulling my face down to his. “No, Ryann. They did not win.” He kissed me once, then spoke again, his eyes holding intense contact with mine. “I didn’t mean it when I told you to leave Altum. I don’t want you to leave—now or ever. Okay?”
I nodded. Nearly crying in relief, I pressed my lips to his, wanting to show him all the love I held for him still. A misunderstanding, some harsh words—they were painful, but they were not enough to destroy what we had. Lad kissed me back with equal passion. His groan was filled with pent-up desire.
Abruptly he broke the kiss and jerked away from me, rolling to the side of his bed and throwing up violently.
“Oh my God.” I jumped back and sent a mental message to the nearest guard to fetch Wickthorne. Lad had a concussion, no doubt. We shouldn’t have been making out when he was so badly hurt.
He rolled onto his back again, breathing heavily, his eyelids squeezed shut. I grabbed a wet cloth and pressed it to his face. He took it from my hand, wiping his mouth.
“I called for the doctor. He’ll be right here,” I assured him. “I’m so sorry.”
His eyelids opened, and he gave me the strangest look. “No. I’m sorry. I couldn’t…” He shook his head in amazement. “I can’t kiss you anymore. I was all right there for a second, but then I kept seeing you with Nox, then with Culley. You were undressed, and his hands were all over you.” Squeezing his eyes shut again, he said, “It was repulsive. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I understand,” I answered weakly as dismay chilled me to the bone like cold rain.
I did understand, but it was definitely not okay. We had a problem. A huge one. And it wasn’t going away.
A new fear struck my heart and reverberated through my bones. What if it never went away? What if Ava’s glamour had permanently damaged Lad’s brain and altered his memories of me to the point he couldn’t love me anymore? “Repulsive” was not a word I wanted my husband to associate with me for eternity.
The doctor rushed into the room followed closely by Lad’s mother. She sat on the bed next to him and took his hand, gazing directly at him in a way that told me she was talking to him, comforting him.
After a while, she and the doctor both withdrew. I went back to Lad’s side. Thanks to the Elven capacity for accelerated healing and probably to the elixir Wickthorne had given him, Lad’s wound already looked better. But there was something haunted in his eyes.
“You feeling okay now?” I asked.
His head rocked side to side on the pillow. “I don’t know what to do, Ryann.” He sounded sick and so very tired. “Maybe I just need some time. I’m sorry. It’s not fair to you. I think we should postpone the wedding.”
“No,” I yelped. Then more quietly, I said, “No. I’ll find her, Lad. Ava said she could fix it. I was too mad to listen last night, and I told her to go away. But I’ll find her.”
Lad’s hands came up to cover his face as he released an exhausted breath. “She could be back in California by now.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I slipped off his bed and headed for the door. “Wherever she is—I’m going to find her. I’ll find her and bring her back.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ava
How many flipping pine trees were there per square foot in this flipping country?
I drove along the two-lane county road leading away from Deep River, finally picking a direction and committing to
it. Since I had nowhere to go, it didn’t really matter which way I went.
I’d spent the night cruising through the small town, actually sitting in the parking lot of the Food Star for several hours before giving up and putting the car into drive again, sighing in disappointment. I wasn’t sure what I’d been hoping for exactly.
Well, there was a Sonic across the street, and I’d watched cars as they drove in, stayed for a while and left. Some of them—the ones containing teenagers—never even stopped but made a slow pass through the drive-in restaurant, looped through town, and came back again.
Not one of them had been a big red pickup truck.
I literally laughed out loud at my own stupidity. No one could solve a problem like mine. I was the problem.
The road sign said the Interstate 55 connection was three miles ahead. When I reached it, I’d have another decision to make. Which way? North toward Memphis? South to the ocean? What did it matter? No matter where I went I’d be alone, and I should be alone since the only thing I was good at was hurting people.
I pulled over to the shoulder of the road, my eyes too blurred by tears to continue. There were no buildings around and hardly any traffic at this early hour. Nothing but farms and pine trees and a row of electrical towers, standing like tin soldiers and dividing the dense tree line as if an enormous comb had come down and formed a perfect part on a mythical giant’s head.
I stared at the leggy metallic structures, my thoughts wandering. Like me, they contained a powerful, destructive force. Unlike me, they met a need in this world, providing light and heat and all sorts of useful functions.
Opening my car door and leaving it ajar, I got out and started walking through the tall grass toward the towers. I dropped my keys somewhere along the way but didn’t bother to stoop and pick them up. Someone else could find them.
Coming to the foot of the nearest tower, I tilted my head back and peered up at its peak, where cables connected it to the tower behind it and stretched across the two-lane road to the one on the other side. The electrical hum was loud but not unpleasant.
Very slowly I reached out a hand to touch the steel leg of the structure. Now the buzz vibrated through my body as well as in my ears. So much power. To give energy. To take it away.
Searching the structure, I found what I was seeking. Built into one of its legs was a sort of ladder, a lattice of metal that went all the way to the top. The ladder started high off the ground, but being Elven, I was tall enough to reach it. I chuckled to myself again. Lucky me.
Stretching my arms over my head, I jumped and caught the bottom rung with my fingers then worked my hands firmly onto it. I pulled myself up until I could hook one foot over the rung then dragged the rest of my body up onto the ladder.
Now it was just a matter of hand over hand, one foot after another until I reached the top. As I climbed, I had vivid flashbacks of another climber, another person who’d reached the furthest boundary of what he could handle. His tower of choice had been the California State Capitol building’s historic dome.
The disgraced former governor had climbed to the highest open point, the cupola, and stayed there for six hours while a police negotiator spoke to him through a megaphone—trying to persuade him that a lost re-election bid wasn’t the end of the world. The Sacramento news crews had gone to continuous coverage. Even the national news picked up a live signal of the desperate man, waiting for him to decide.
Some people thought he should jump after what he’d done. After being caught flagrantly cheating on the state’s beloved first lady, the fool had claimed he’d actually forgotten he was married. Of course no one believed the bizarre excuse.
No one but me.
The buzz up here was very loud, the electricity in the air lifting my hair around my head like dandelion fluff. I felt like I could see for miles from this height.
I’d always been a city girl, but I’d nursed a secret fascination for rural places. There was just so much… life where things grew. The air was clean, you could hear yourself think. Like this place.
It all looked so peaceful from up here—the farms with their patchwork quilt field plots and red barns and white farm houses. A herd of cows grazed just on the other side of a copse of trees, resembling tiny Playskool toys from this distance. A green tractor putted along a row of dark brown soil, maybe preparing it to nurture a new crop.
And coming down the highway in a blaze of color was a red truck.
My grip on the ladder tightened as my pulse picked up. I glanced up at the lines over my head—not close enough to touch. Then I looked down at the ground, a dizzying distance below. Certainly far enough…
The blare of a horn drew my eyes to the pickup again. It had left the road and was now tearing across the field toward the tower where I was perched. My heartbeat kept time with the constant beep beep beep of the horn that the driver was pounding.
What is that idiot doing?
His truck approached the base of the tower at such high speed, I thought he was going to hit it and take the decision out of my hands.
Instead, just before reaching it, the driver slammed on the brakes and the truck did a donut, spraying dirt and grass in a fifteen foot radius from the nubby tires. The door flew open, and out jumped the guy from the Food Star parking lot—Asher. He was shouting.
“Hey up there—Miss California—Ava, right?”
I just stared down at him, not answering. What was he doing here? How did he recognize me? Then, cutting my eyes over to my car on the side of the road, I understood.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Are you, by any chance, having a problem?”
His question was so absurd, I almost laughed. Instead, I yelled back, “I told you the other day—I don’t have any problems.” I did not want to deal with this guy right now.
He nodded and looked around, then back up at me, shading his eyes from the bright morning sun. “Yeah. Me either. Sometimes when I’m having a really great day, I like to come take a walk on a live power line myself—very invigorating. In fact, that’s why I’m here. But you seem to be on my favorite tower… and I don’t like to share. So I’m gonna have to ask you to get down.”
I stared at him a few seconds more, still processing that he was actually there talking to me. Why did he have to drive by? Why did he have to see me like this? Didn’t my life suck enough already? Apparently not. No, I had to have a hot guy witness my darkest moment.
“Why are you here?” I shouted down at him. “Why are you out driving around so early in the morning?”
He raised a brow, tactfully not asking why I was two hundred feet off the ground so early in the morning. “Some of us losers are still in high school. I was driving into town, trying to make it for the morning bell when I saw your car on the other side of the bypass with the door standing open. I pulled a u-ey and came back to check on you.”
“Well, I’m fine,” I insisted just as a gust of wind buffeted me, making my feet rock on the metal rung and my arms tighten around the steel support. My heart lurched up into my throat.
“Okay, but if it’s all the same to you, could you be ‘fine’ down here on the ground?” Asher paused as if searching for some magic persuasive words. “That way you won’t have to yell to tell me where you’re headed.” He threw his hand out to the side, gesturing toward my car. Even from here, my luggage was clearly visible in the back seat.
Where was I headed? Now that Asher was here and I’d had a moment to think and to see myself from his perspective, I realized I wasn’t headed for the ground below. Not that fast, anyway. Slowly and carefully, I climbed back down the ladder.
When my feet hit the bottom rung, Asher’s hands grabbed my hips and lifted me the rest of the way down, causing me to fall back against his chest. His rapid heartbeat nearly bruised my back.
His tone gave nothing away, though, and as I turned to face him, he smiled and let out an audible breath. “Okay then. Now that I’m officially tardy, we might as well go out to
breakfast.”
I stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “Breakfast?”
“Yeah—I don’t know about you California types, but here in Mississippi, we like to eat a meal in the morning, usually consisting of biscuits and some sort of pan-fried meat—bacon, sausage—you know. Grits are optional but recommended. There’s a great little diner on Main Street that serves them hand ground and swimming in butter.”
I had no idea what a “grit” was but the thought of biscuits and bacon had my stomach rumbling. I hadn’t eaten since the appetizers at the banquet last night.
Looking at his expectant face, I realized how adorable this guy was. And how impossible it was to go to breakfast with him.
I shook my head. “No, I… I’ve got to get going. I can’t stay around here.”
“It can’t be that bad. And even if it is, remember what I said? I’m pretty good at solving problems.”
I shook my head emphatically. “You can’t solve this one. I ruined someone’s life—two someones. Actually I have ruined lots of lives—more than I want to count. And it’s too late to fix things.”
Asher held up a staying hand. “Now that—I must disagree with. My granddaddy always says, ‘It ain’t too late till the possum puts on his pants.’”
I couldn’t stop myself—I laughed out loud. “That’s ridiculous. Does he really say that?”
He gave me a happy grin, clearly pleased with himself for cracking up the weird suicidal girl. “He sure does. And I believe it. It’s never too late to change, it’s never too late for love, and it’s never too late to say you’re sorry.” He glanced at his watch. “Sometimes, though, it gets too late for breakfast… so let’s get a move on.”
He made one of those come-along hand gestures, nodding toward his truck. I glanced at it, but my feet stayed planted. Why was he being so nice to me? I didn’t deserve it.
