by A. R. Kahler
I try to tell myself it’s not lying so much as twisting the truth. Giving her hope.
The woman’s still not looking at me. Her eyes are transfixed on the Death card. She’s staring at it like it’s some viper waiting to attack. I really wish someone would make a deck where Death is called “Happy Change” or “End to Suffering” or something more accurate like that. Explaining it to the public is getting old. Granted, in this case it actually does mean someone’s going to die. Potentially.
Heroin’s not something to mess around with.
She points to the skeleton card with a shaky finger.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “It just means things are changing. But hey, that’s life, right? It’s always changing.”
She just smiles timidly and nods.
I should tell her about her son. I should warn her about her bastard ex-husband. I should, but then she wouldn’t leave a nice tip in my little glass jar, because the truth hits too close to home. And I can tell she already knows. The worry lines carved into her forehead, the way she twitched the moment I set down the less appetizing cards. A great deal of telling fortunes isn’t reading cards but reading the story inscribed in the questioner’s features, their ticks and tells. Most people already know what I’m going to tell them. Which is why I don’t always point it out.
She stands. Before she goes, she pulls out a five and rolls it up, then places it discreetly in my tip jar.
“Thank you,” she says. She’s got the voice of someone hanging on by a thread, grasping for any hope she can find. Like most people who come to me. God, if only Mab had warned me just how depressing the job could be.
I do my best to smile comfortingly, even though my stomach drops at the way her hand shakes.
Warning her wouldn’t make a difference. That’s kind of my mantra. I can’t change someone else’s life. I can’t even change mine.
Still, as she walks off, I can’t help but feel like a bitch for not trying.
I slide the cards back into the deck and start shuffling, staring idly out onto the promenade. There are still people lined up at the sparkly green ticket booth to my right, and the noise and congestion closer to the tent is starting to fade out. Another full house, another night of flawless acts and standing ovations. If only I could take some pride in that. If only I didn’t feel like I was waiting for the ax to fall.
Kingston didn’t say much the rest of the afternoon. And for my part, I didn’t press him. The headache from that morning kept getting worse, and no amount of water or coffee or meds took the edge off. Pride is pretty much the only thing keeping me from asking Kingston to soothe it, but right now, with the ache that’s nestled happily behind my temples, I might just cave.
I tell myself it’s pride and not lack of trust, but I have to be honest with myself; a small part of me isn’t so certain that if I allow him to use his magic on me, he won’t just erase the whole Austin thing to save himself a great deal of inner trauma. When I hear the fabric rustle behind me, I immediately tense up and stop shuffling.
“Hey, pretty lady,” Kingston says. “Care to tell my future?”
“You scared the shit out of me,” I say, but I’m smiling. The twist in his voice makes me think maybe everything’s back to normal, at least from his standpoint. I put the deck back on the table and reach my hands up and behind me, wrapping him in an awkward reverse hug.
“I see a mysterious woman,” I say. I should probably close the curtain of the booth before a punter looks in, but the risk is minimal. The fire artists are walking up and down the dirt promenade, breathing and whirling billows of flame that draw in the crowd like moths to, well, a flame. Any sort of PDA in the fortune booth is far less appealing than the spectacle outside. “She spells trouble.”
He chuckles, the vibration rolling from his lips down my neck. I shiver in spite of the layers of tulle and velvet.
“They always are,” he says. Then he bites my neck.
I slap the side of his face. Gently, of course. Can’t mar the star magician right before the show.
“Cool it, loverboy,” I say.
He nips me once more before standing. He reaches over and pulls the drawcord, and the velvet curtains separating us from the public close. The booth goes dark as night.
Before I can say anything, he pulls me up from the chair and pins me to the table, making the whole thing creak with our weight. His fingers are in my hair and one hand is tight on my hip. His lips are hot on mine and my skin is on fire. I hate myself for the little moan that escapes my lips as he presses himself tighter to me. But then his lips cover mine and the thought vanishes.
“Aren’t you going on soon?” I mutter against his lips.
He bites my lower lip and doesn’t let go when he mumbles, “I’ve got five minutes.”
I laugh, but I don’t push him off. I place a hand to his jaw while the other reaches down to the back of his leg, pressing him even closer. Now, he’s the one who lets out a little moan. I grin. Point: Vivienne. The fire he’s sending through my bones spreads, making my skin shiver. It’s not just desire: I mean, it is that, but there’s more to it, more than carnal need or whatever the hell I’m usually gripped with. It tingles. The ache in my head transforms, becomes a rush like a second heartbeat. I know he’s not using magic, but that’s what it feels like. The tingling spreads from my lips into my chest, wraps around my heart and then wings out into my arms, through my fingertips, and all I want is him closer, closer.
Kingston gasps against my neck as the tingle becomes a hum. I grip him tighter, dig my fingers into his skin, no longer caring if I leave a bruise. My brain is spinning, spinning, and the darkness behind my eyes is filled with stars.
“Vivienne, what …” he says, his hands suddenly clenching tight. The pain is a spark inside me. One that feels insanely, ridiculously good. The heat is a fire, the stars a sun. I need him. Now. I need to tear him apart. It’s only when he starts to push me away that my eyes flutter open and I realize it isn’t just my desire making me see stars.
My hands are glowing in the dark of the booth.
I yelp. My grip releases and he steps back to the wall behind him. The moment there’s space between us, the light goes out, leaving only shadow and shaking breath.
The seconds stretch. Outside the booth, I hear the jugglers calling the audience into the tent. Kingston should be backstage now, circled up with the rest of the troupe. I should be with him. But neither of us moves or speaks. There’s just the ragged rush of blood pumping through my veins, the weighted question I’m too terrified to ask.
After a few moments pass, he asks for me.
“Viv … what was that?” I’ve only heard him frightened once before. Just once. He’s faced down the end of the world and kept his nonchalant air. The quake in his voice confirms the worst.
I can’t answer him. Of course I can’t answer him—I have no fucking clue what just happened. But in the back of my mind, I know that’s a lie. We both know what that was. But neither of us wants to admit it. So much for my powers being kept under lock and contract.
“I don’t …” I say. I can’t finish the sentence, and I don’t have to. He knows just as much about it as I do.
Maybe more.
“We should tell Mab,” he says. I can only imagine how thrilled she’ll be at another visit and another kink in her carefully preened contracts.
I nod. He doesn’t see it, of course, but I can’t speak. All I can see is the look in Lilith’s eyes the moment I gave over to that flood of power, the shock and fear and pain. The tingling is gone, but I don’t trust myself to move. I definitely don’t trust myself to touch him. Not now. Ever again? The thought flitters through my head like a curse.
“I need to go,” he says.
I hear him move and can almost feel him shift closer to hug me before he stops himself. Even in the darkness, I can imagine his brown eyes are filled with concern. At least, I hope it’s concern. I don’t want to believe he could be looking at m
e with shock or fear. Or disgust.
“I’ll talk to her,” he says. “Just don’t … don’t …”
He sighs and ducks from the booth. I sit there in the dark, staring at my hands, and wait for them to glow again, wait for something to make sense.
They don’t. Nothing does.
“Shit,” I whisper. It sounds like a sob.
The ache in my head is back, and I start shaking uncontrollably. This is too much, too much. The Broken King is coming for you. Maybe I should let him take me.
Before I lose control and hurt someone.
*
Kingston doesn’t come back. I don’t see him during intermission or after the final curtain call. He isn’t changing out back when I find Melody and Sara and offer to buy the wine tonight. He isn’t anywhere to be seen, and Mab’s just as absent. And so I sit beside Mel and Sara and try to pretend nothing happened. I try to drink away the ache in my head for fear that if I let it go, it will lead to something else. I try to laugh as the Shifters joke, try to convince myself that maybe this is them letting me into their world again. But when the night dies down and the fire is ashes and everyone is making out or passed out, I’m hit with the terrible realization that I’m still on the outside. And without Kingston, I’ve got nothing.
It sickens me, really, and not just the wine and the headache. As I walk back to my trailer, I’m acutely aware of how isolated I am: not just from the people around me, but from my past. I have nothing to hold on to, nothing to make me feel complete. And that—my mind swirls—that makes me want to know more. I don’t want to be the girl that’s with the guy because without him she’s nothing. I want to be the girl who’s with the guy because she’s powerful and he’s powerful and they’re powerful together.
I have no memories of what I was. And right now, I have no one to hold me here. I am drunk and adrift, and right now I just wish I could go back to the beginning and undo coming here. Because I’m alone. I’m alone, and it feels like it’s only going to get worse from here on out.
I curl up in bed and stare at my hands in the dark. The headache throbs.
“I just want to know,” I whisper.
And between my fingertips—a spark.
Chapter Seven
Bad Blood
“What did you find out?”
Kingston pauses in the door, clearly surprised I’m awake at this hour of the day. I would be surprised at myself too, if not for the whole neighbor-being-a-yoga-addict thing. My head’s ringing, but not with the same intensity as yesterday. It just feels like a hangover. I hope it’s just a hangover.
“Nothing,” he says. He steps inside and lets the door close behind him. He looks like he didn’t sleep at all.
“Nothing?”
He shrugs and moves over to the bed, sits down beside me. Our fingers touch.
“We went over your contract line by line. Everything’s still in order. Your powers are still under lock and key.”
“Should be.” I twine my fingers around his. He reaches back. “Any chance you can tell me what those powers are?”
After that initial spark last night, I wasn’t able to summon another flare up. Just a headache that threatened to tilt into a full-on migraine had I not passed out soon after.
Kingston shakes his head.
“You know the rules,” he says. “You didn’t want to know about them. So I can’t tell you.”
“Fuck the rules,” I retort, but I know what he’s saying is concrete. He couldn’t tell me even if he wanted to. “What I don’t know could kill you.”
He squeezes my fingers. That alone makes me feel a little better; he’s not treating me like I’m dangerous, so maybe I’m not.
“Calm down,” he says. “You can’t kill me. Contractual impossibility, remember?”
“Tell that to whoever killed Roman and Sabina,” I say bitterly. All this time, I thought Lilith was the threat. What if it’s me? What if these powers are dangerous to the ones I love?
“Their contracts were jeopardized,” he says. “You know that. Mab went through everyone’s contracts and cleaned it all up. We’re safe. Seriously. Whatever happened last night was a flare-up, a fluke. Perfectly harmless.
Right, I think. Because he didn’t feel what was going on in my head, that insatiable desire to pull him so close we became one, the need to rip him limb from limb to make him mine. I shake my head. If that’s not dangerous, I don’t know what is.
“You aren’t dangerous,” he says. He brushes a finger under my chin and turns my face toward him. “And you aren’t going to hurt me.” He leans over and kisses me. The desire from before is still there; I can feel something deep in my chest, something stirring with energy. But now that I know it’s there, I keep it locked up. At least I tell myself I can keep it locked up.
“See?” he says when he leans back. “I’m not bacon.”
I roll my eyes.
“I’m going to prove it to you.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls something out.
“Are those handcuffs?” I ask. He grins devilishly. They’re silver and covered in pink fur.
Kingston nods, his grin widening.
“Melody lent them to me,” he says.
I can’t imagine Mel owning anything with pink fur, but I’ve no doubt those are, in fact, hers. Or Sara’s.
“You’re going to use these on me,” he says. He leans over and nips the tip of my nose. “My bunk. 10 p.m. Body chocolate, champagne, and these babies.”
I can’t help but giggle at how ridiculous this is.
“You’re responding to the threat of me being dangerous with bondage?” I ask.
He nods.
“It’s about trust,” he says. The grin’s still there, but his words are serious. “I trust you won’t hurt me in the throes of passion. And I can’t think of any better way of proving that to you than by example.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“And you love me,” he says. He leans over and kisses me, then hops off the bed.
“I’ve got to go help Mab interview concessionaires. See you tonight.” He winks and then leaves, taking the fuzzy handcuffs with him.
For a while, I just sit there with a stupid grin on my face. Clearly, he’s over the Austin thing. But then the giddiness starts to fade. Because I’m still left with a bunch of questions. I’m still left with a headache that’s threatening to tear me apart. But at least things are on the mend. If Kingston’s not worried, I won’t let myself worry. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let myself forget.
*
Kingston wasn’t kidding about the body chocolate and champagne. Or the handcuffs.
My heart is still pounding and my skin is still sticky from chocolate, but then he runs a finger down my stomach and the remaining syrup vanishes, my whole body clean in an instant. He, I’m pleased to note, doesn’t do the same for himself. I roll on top of him and stare down, a smile on my face. He’s grinning like a schoolboy. His hair is a tangle and his breathing is heavy. He puts a hand on the back of my leg. His touch is fire.
“You’re amazing,” he says. His eyes slide over my skin, and for the first time all day I finally feel like I belong in this show of sex and intrigue. No layers of old-lady shawls. Just a strand of chunky necklaces around my neck and others scattered on the black satin sheets.
“You too,” I say, then lean over and lick a stray bit of chocolate from his chest. He practically purrs under my touch.
He’s grinning when I sit up. The handcuffs dangle from his headboard. After the chocolate came out, they were deemed unnecessary. My head is swimming from sex and champagne, and for the first time all day the headache is dulled, barely a throb in the corner of my consciousness.
“That proves it,” he says.
“What?” I ask.
He chuckles.
“You aren’t dangerous. Well, except for your nails.” He raises his eyebrows and looks down at his chest, to the long red marks raked there.
I chuckle and scr
atch him again. A small drip of blood appears. The sight of it makes my heart leap.
“Ouch,” he says. A second later he flips me over and crouches above me, his hips pressed against mine. “Don’t make me punish you for bad behavior,” he warns playfully.
“Please do,” I start to say, but then he’s kissing me and the desire to talk is gone. I close my eyes and arch myself to him and let the movement take over. But in the back of my mind, I’m acutely aware of the cut on his chest and that vanished drip of blood.
* * *
The linoleum is red beneath my knees, red and flowing, and I know it should be white. And cold. Linoleum should be cold. Not warm like this. Not wet.
But it’s not the floor that’s bleeding—no. That’s the girl in the corner, the girl I can only stare at. She’s quiet. She’s not moving. Not anymore. Her shirt is red. Red, like the floor.
“I thought you were dead,” he says. I look up and there’s the guy. I know him. Somehow. We played video games in his living room. We went to the same college. His name flutters around my head on silent wings, but I can’t catch it. Slicked brown hair, blue eyes, muscular frame. “After your sister died.”
Except I know he’s not saying “died.” I see his other words.
“… was murdered.”
I look at the girl in the corner. Her brown hair is curled, but you can’t tell—not under the blood matting it down.
Claire.
Her name is Claire.
“I thought you were—”
But then someone snorts and rolls over, and I’m back in bed, staring wide-eyed at the dark wall. My heart is racing in my chest, louder than drums or blood in my ears. Kingston settles behind me.
“I have a sister,” I say to the darkness. “Claire.”
*
I’m out the door a minute later.
The night is cold and clear, the grounds dark. Empty. I don’t know what time it is and I don’t care. No one’s awake.
