Cimmerian Shade: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Collection

by Kiki Howell

  And she reminded him of a princess, which he wasn’t sure how to broach with her. Was that complimentary? Was it sexist? But he could imagine her in one of those long dresses, her hair elaborately braided, and how she’d sit on a throne to rule with kindness and mercy, something that was also rare nowadays. Or maybe it always had been.

  For seven days, he’d shown her who he was, making her guess who his favorite bands were, reading snippets from books and making her guess the writer or the novel, even opening the closet and revealing his Class A uniform with all the medals on it. He hadn’t looked at it in months. Not since meeting the president and getting the Medal of Honor. That had seemed like a lifetime ago, and, yes, he’d been grateful and honored to receive the medal. But he’d been haunted too, since everyone in his unit had died, making him feel that his efforts to save them had been in vain.

  He had felt ashamed and guilty every day of his life since then. And he’d even told Adala about that. She’d looked like she wanted to touch him afterward, maybe hug him. But she’d offered her consoling eyes and, although he couldn’t quite remember what she’d said, it had been perfect. No pity. No trying to fix him. Just empathy.

  He’d told her embarrassing things too, things he didn’t even talk about in group therapy. How he couldn’t breathe in certain situations. Her eyes had widened and she’d said, “Me too.”

  She’d told him how in 1952 she’d been out for a flight—it still baffled him to think she’d had wings—and that she’d been netted. Literally. Caught in the sky, plummeting to earth to be imprisoned for weeks on end. She’d been trapped by the US Air Force, and a Dr. Hardt—she called him Dr. Heartless and Aaron agreed—had run experiments on her, cutting off her fingers, toes, a foot, watching them grow back.

  Aaron had felt close to tears when she talked about how the scientist had been using her to try to make a supreme soldier with rejuvenating powers like hers. But the science was nothing like it is now. And Dr. Hardt and his team had basically tortured her for months for nothing. Nothing, that is, until he’d cut off her wings. How she’d tried to warn the doctor that she couldn’t grow her feathered appendages back. But the supposed scientist had never listened to her.

  Strapped down with an iron that made her nearly anaphylactic, a team of so-called scientists had taken her wings from her.

  So, she understood how he couldn’t breathe in certain circumstances. Besides the torture, and even though she’d been beyond angry, when she’d been turned into a Valkyrie, the scientists who had touched her afterward died as a result.

  Aaron thought it fair, but it weighed on Adala. She felt terrible for it, even if it had been the way to escape. Ironically, her sister had broken into the New Mexico base—maybe Area 51?—that night, trying to save her, but Adala had accidentally done that on her own.

  Adala then told Aaron how her sister, Madde, had cut off her own wings so she wouldn’t feel like a complete outsider compared to the other dísir. How brave Madde was, how noble. But, even after years of therapy, even with her sister’s stoic love and affection, Adala still had a hard time breathing in certain spaces, around certain people.

  Talking to Adala about his own overwhelming panic and fear didn’t humiliate him the way he’d thought it would. Maybe because she could more than understand. He hoped she felt that from him—deep understanding and sympathy.

  God, everything about her made him feel good.

  And tonight was getting better than good, with her showing him all the things she liked, her hobbies, who she was. She’d already shocked him by flying into the backyard on Gus, her huge Pegasus. She used some sort of magic, even though she’d said it wasn’t magic, to conceal him, tied to a tree and happily munching on the lawn. Aaron had petted his velvet-soft nose, while shaking his head at Gus’s giant black wings.

  But now they were inside, she was playing some kind of classical music she smilingly said he should know, and unzipped a leather satchel.

  “I shouldn’t show you this.”

  He frowned at her. “You have to show me. It’s the rules.”

  She laughed and he lost his breath. Every time she smiled or chuckled, he couldn’t breathe and felt a little dizzy. Not like a panic attack. Nothing like that. He felt as if something had pushed him hard in the chest. Not in a painful way, but she bowled him over because he hadn’t expected anyone could be this...beautiful.

  “Besides, I showed you all the Harry Potter collector cards I have,” he said. “You now know what a complete nerd I am. It’s only fair you show me something embarrassing.”

  She shook her head while she softly kept chuckling. She was on the other side of the coffee table, while he sat on the couch. He wished she would get closer, but she always created distance. Except, while meeting Gus, she hadn’t noticed since she was tying the big guy to the tree, and Aaron had gotten so close to her while she’d had her back to him that he’d felt her body’s warmth, smelled that spring-lilac scent that was only her.

  He knew it was risky to do such things, getting close, but he couldn’t help it. He ached so badly to touch her.

  She took a big breath. “Okay. Are you ready?”

  She knelt on her shins as Aaron nodded.

  She slowly took out a little handkerchief. It was pink with darker pink flowers at the corners. She laid it on the coffee table and pulled out a yellow one with white daisies on it.

  “I—goddess, this is so embarrassing to admit—I embroider.”

  He picked up the yellow cloth. “You made this?” His fingers fumbled over the soft satin thread.

  “Yes.” She kept putting handkerchief after handkerchief on the table.

  “Why are you embarrassed?” He looked closer at the designs. “This is amazing.”

  “Because...” She bit her lip. God, he loved it when she did that. She reached into the satchel and extracted a frame with shreds of fabric between the glass. After placing it down on top of everything else, she said, “Because of this. This was my first embroidery piece.”

  He didn’t move at first, realizing that what he was looking at was probably hundreds of years old. His heart beat too fast. But then slowly he reached for the wooden frame and picked it up. Between the glass plates was a strip of cloth, sepia-colored from time, with golden animals in circles.

  “This is a dragon, isn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “Are dragons real?”

  She nodded again and smiled. “We have two in the basement of our home in Ireland.”

  He almost dropped the frame but clutched at it. “They’re real? Really? They’re real?”

  She softly chuckled. “I might be able to figure out a way to take you to them. Show them to you.”

  He released a huge breath. “That’s...holy shi—schmitt.” He glanced down at the embroidered cloth, fragments missing because it was so old. But it was beautiful, nonetheless. “Why are you embarrassed of this? This...this is amazing. You have amazing talent—”

  “Stop it.” She rolled her eyes.

  He pointed a finger at her. “I told you you’d get in real trouble if you ever doubted me and rolled your eyes like that.”

  She smiled at his teasing.

  “I think this is truly spectacular. I’m honored you’d show me.”

  “I still embroider. I’m a weirdo throwback of another time.”

  “I think everyone should have a hobby like embroidery.”

  “Going to pick it up then?” She arched a black brow.

  He loved it when she challenged him, her cheeks glowing pink, her hazel eyes sparkling.

  He nodded and looked down at the dragons. “I might.” He laughed. “I’d be nowhere near as good as you. This is your first piece?”

  She nodded.

  “When did you make it?”

  “Hmm...must have been around the year ten fifty-sevenish. Somewhere in there.”

  He wondered if he was smiling too much. He loved how old she was, which sounded weird, he knew, but he couldn’t help
it. “Edward the Confessor was King of England.”

  She glanced up from her embroidery. “Yes, I think so.”

  “What was that like? Living through all of that?”

  She bit her lip, a dusky pink glow on her cheeks. “I’ll tell you, if...”

  “If?”

  “If you consider teaching. You’d be so good at it, Aaron.”

  He tensed, frustration pouring through him. He’d told her that originally he’d wanted to teach. Before he had these weird panic-attack things. He liked high-school students, and he had all the right credentials. He just didn’t have the right brain any longer, one that wouldn’t freak out whenever he found himself in a closed classroom.

  Her eyes widened when she read his expression. “I mean, teach online.”

  He blinked. He’d never thought of teaching online. Jesus, the answer was so simple, and it took a medieval princess-like woman to tell him.

  She licked her lips, which he always liked. “At least think about it.”

  He nodded. Oh, he would consider online teaching. It sounded perfect.

  “I can’t believe your first embroidery piece is this good.” He glanced at the fine stitches again. “If it were my first piece, I’d probably make a whole bunch of knots and be proud of that.”

  She smiled.

  He sighed as he gently put the ancient embroidery back on the table and examined her other pieces. “Ever going to tell me who’s playing?”

  “Give up?”

  He nodded and smiled as he gazed back at her.

  “Do you know Radiohead?”

  He shook his head. “This isn’t Radiohead.”

  “It’s their lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood. He’s the composer. I love this piece, ‘Polymorphia.’”

  Aaron’s heart squeezed itself and yet felt like it expanded at the same time. It was slightly painful and so good. He inhaled again, listening to the sad piece of music, loving it because, yeah, it was good, but he’d always think of it as attached to Adala. That made him happy.

  “And I brought my favorite foods too.” She smiled as she rose to fetch another satchel, this one wicker and the perfect basket-shape for a picnic. “Let’s eat here, on the floor.”

  He scooted down to her level, wondering if his face would hurt later from all this smiling. It often did after she left.

  She unlatched the wicker basket and bashfully smiled at him. “Okay, keep in mind, I’m just a simple girl from the medieval ages, so I’m a plain-Jane when it comes to food.”

  She retracted a thick and yeasty-smelling loaf of crusty bread with a wooden cutting board and a leather-sheathed knife, then out came a container with an aromatic cheese.

  She pointed at the also-crusty cheese. “That’s goats cheese. Do you have a problem with goat’s milk?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “You’ve never had it before?”

  “But I want to.”

  She smiled then bit her lip as she found a glass container holding varying greens and few flowers. “Those are herbs from Cévennes.”

  “France?”

  She nodded and got out a few cheese knives and thick blue pottery cups.

  “You picked these up from France? Today?”

  She nodded again, reaching in her basket for a tall pottery-looking bottle with a cork on top. “Right before I came here. They were in this little meadow. So pretty. I picked up these currants too.” She showed him some scarlet berries in a Ziploc bag and set it on the table. “Everything should be fresh still. Gus flew pretty fast.”

  “That’s...wow.”

  She smiled and pointed at the bottle. “That’s mead. I made it two years ago. Should be pretty strong by now.” She shrugged then waved with her delicate long fingers over the table. “It’s simple. But that’s me.”

  He wondered how to tell her that she was anything but simple. Sure, maybe compared to some chefs in big cities, these basic ingredients would be considered simple. But this was absolutely perfect. Sitting on the floor in front of a coffee table, spread with the most exquisite tapestry or whatever it might be called, and the handkerchiefs displayed the delicious-smelling food with a woman who took his breath away was the most outlandishly beautiful moment of his life.

  “It’s so good”—she sliced two thick pieces of bread—“if you kind of schmootz the cheese into the bread and then sprinkle the herbs on top.” She showed him what she meant and took a bite. “It’s so good.”

  He copied her and took a bite for himself. He could taste the French meadow, the light creaminess of the cheese, and the earth from the bread. He closed his eyes, savoring this moment and taste, thinking of Adala in a meadow picking wild herbs.

  “Oh, and, ah—” She wouldn’t look at him as she held her cheese-schmootzed bread close to her mouth, chewing, a pink glow in her cheeks growing, becoming redder. “Sam, Samuella, you know Luke’s girlfriend?”

  “Yeah?”

  “She bought a piece of land outside Salem for her unicorn. It’s nice. Big, clean stables. She’s already worked it so humans only see a horse and not a unicorn. And so...I figured I’d stable Gus there, maybe sleep in a room there too. It’s for humans, that room, not for a horse. But if I stayed...we could talk as late as we want.” She glanced up, her cheeks getting redder. “If you want to, that is.” She looked away again, avoiding eye contact.

  Oh, he wanted to. He wanted too much, he knew. He’d had a few talks with himself about how futile it was to fall for a Valkyrie, how touching her would kill him, even if he sometimes thought so little of his own life, he’d end it just for a touch.

  But at that second, none of it mattered. She made him happy with her shy smiles and medieval-princess looks. She made him happy by listening to him and getting to know him without judging him. She made him happy because he liked everything about her. Except, of course, that he couldn’t touch her.

  He nodded and tried to look encouraging without being too excited. Especially because he wanted to jump on top of the table and shout to anyone who listened that she was staying close to him.

  He’d have to discipline himself to keep his hands to himself because the ache to touch her was going to grow and grow.

  ADALA’S HEART NEARLY exploded as she held a red-wrapped present against her chest. “Wha-what is this?” She glanced at the one clue he’d given her about the present—a white ostrich feather that looked like it was attached to a headband. She touched the soft fluffy down, glancing at Aaron with curiosity.

  He smiled like a little boy at Christmas. But this was all for her. “I wanted to repay you for helping me find online teaching jobs and setting up the Skype interviews. I can’t thank you enough. So, it’s—ah, hell—I hope you don’t think it’s stupid. You said you were busy during the era of the flappers but always wanted to be one. I had Sam help me find a costume that hopefully will fit you. I”—he shrugged his wide shoulders—“I rented a Model-T and thought we could go for a spin. I know you don’t want to be around crowds, so we could drive around the neighborhood, just the two of us, giving you a chance to be a flapper.”

  After two weeks of daily chatting, laughing, making dinner, and eating, Adala wasn’t sure how to describe how she felt about Aaron. Instead of her infatuation subsiding, like she’d hoped, it had grown. Often, she wondered if he’d catch her staring at him because the man seemed to get more and more handsome every day. He was intriguing, interesting, intelligent, and utterly baffling with his thoughtfulness. And now this? He was catering to her every want and desire. How could she not fall even more?

  “I got a suit too, so you won’t be alone. Well, Sam, again, helped me pick it out. I look like an Irish gangster.”

  She laughed and took a step closer to him, then rethought her careless actions, stepping back.

  “This is...it’s amazing! Amazing!”

  “Sam said she could come over and help with makeup if you want to do that too.”

  It was nice of Sam to offer. She and Luke
had been very kind, inviting Aaron and her to a couple dinners together. But Adala liked it best when she was alone with Aaron, as stalkery as that sounded.

  “You rented a Model-T?”

  He nodded. “It’s in the garage. But if you don’t want to—”

  “No!” She stopped herself from touching his hand, but barely. There’d been too many times she’d come so close to touching him. The more comfortable she got, the harder it was to remind herself not to reach out for him. “I want to do this. This is so much fun! I can’t believe it. Should we be gangsters? Or...no! Let’s be bootleggers!”

  His smiled emerged again, bright and beautiful, making his face glow. “Yeah. Oh, I got some booze for this too.”

  “Booze, great word.”

  He softly chuckled. “We’ll make a run for the border, see.” He tried to sound very 1920s, a little nasal, the accent a little more clipped.

  She laughed and felt the white fluffy feather again, wondering what kind of flapper dress Aaron picked out for her. “This is so much fun.”

  “You have to sound like a flapper girl. I’m not going to be the only one doing the twenties-talk thing.”

  She clutched the headband and still-boxed present to her chest even more. “This is just berries, Aaron. Just berries.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “It’s the bee’s knees, that’s for sure.”

  He chuckled. “I love it. That’s awesome. Teach me more sayings from that time.”

  “I will. In the car, while we drink and drive—”

  He made an appalled face.

  “Right. That’s probably a little too twenties.”

  He laughed. “But I like the spirit.”

  “Let’s get dressed and drive in our hayburner.” From the confused look on his face, she added, “That’s a gas-guzzling car.”

  “Ah.” He smiled once more, the look so good on him. “Yeah, that’s jake.”

  She squealed. “You know that one? I love that one.”