Love is Fear

by Caroline Hanson

  It felt sad, somehow. She could believe a tragedy had happened here. Val stood at the edge of the water and looked out, trying to guess where the colony might have been, how far underwater it might be—assuming anything was left after four-hundred years.

  The sun was setting, the late afternoon fading to night. Val was cold, a chill suddenly crossing her skin. She shivered, and Lucas wrapped an arm around her waist, moving into her so that his body blocked the wind.

  He rested his chin on top of her head, his hands clasped in front of her, and she snuggled into his sweater, enjoying how warm he was. The solidity of his body. The moment was just so…normal.

  Being this close to him, and knowing how they had spent the previous night, turned her on. Made her want to leave here and go back to bed.

  He tilted her chin up and looked down at her, a small smile on his lips. “This will not take long. And then we can go.”

  Her heart fluttered as he bent down to kiss her. He kissed her slowly, the barest slide of his tongue across the seam of her lips. His grip tightened, as if holding on to her would keep him from doing more. And then he stopped, raised his head, looked back out at the water. Reluctantly, she followed his gaze.

  “The shore has eroded a thousand feet since 1850,” Lucas said. “The settlers built their fort 300 years before that. The original settlement is long gone.” A pause. “Their things are probably still on the bottom of the ocean.”

  “What things?” Val asked.

  Lucas let her go, took a step away from her, glaring at something behind her. “Why is he here?” His voice snapped out like a long, leather whip, and Val looked behind her, trying to figure out who Lucas was talking to.

  Rachel was coming toward them, Jack walking beside her. Jack looked murderous. Val looked at Lucas. He looked murderous, too.

  Oh, fuck!

  “You didn’t tell me it was invitation-only,” Rachel said with a brittle smile. She bit her lip and looked to the ground, almost hunching-in on herself—she’d made a mistake. She knew it, and there would be repercussions. And frankly, Val was glad.

  In addition to the monstrous black mark of almost killing her, bringing Jack here to Lucas, like two dogs and one bone, was not only super uncomfortable and distracting, but it wouldn’t end well. Like body-bag-bad.

  “What are you doing?” Val said to Rachel, moving towards her. “Are you trying to get him killed?”

  All Rachel did was stir the pot and try to get Val, and the people she loved, killed. Rachel looked a bit stunned, but didn’t respond, appealing to Lucas for help.

  “No!” Val snarled at her angrily. “I’m talking to you. What are you doing? Why would you bring him here?” She was going towards Rachel like a hurricane—though, Lord only knew what she’d do when she got there. Tug her hair? Have a catfight? And Rachel took a step back, hands raised, mouth slightly open in shock.

  If she says something about me being a kitten with claws, I’ll deck the bitch. Val reached down and grabbed a large rock in her hand as she advanced towards Rachel. Was she really going to hit her with a rock?

  “I won’t touch her,” Rachel said, still moving away from Val until Jack crossed in front of her, two feet from Val’s face. Val jerked to a halt like there was an invisible barrier between her and Jack.

  “Valerie. I want to talk to you. Alone,” Jack said, voice cold with fury.

  “That is not happening,” Lucas said darkly, and Val jumped, shocked that his voice was so close behind her.

  Val whirled around and poked Lucas hard in his invincible and gorgeously-ripped stomach. He made a slight ‘oomph’ sound, which she knew he only did for her benefit, since it didn’t hurt. If he had wanted to, he could have made his flesh so hard she would have broken a nail.

  “Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t do!” Val said and poked him again. He was right behind her, no doubt would have stopped her before she could get within scratching distance of Rachel.

  He looked down at her, a small frown of confusion on his face. As though she were a terrier nipping at his shoes, and he wasn’t sure if he should kick her away or wait until she got sick of gnawing on him.

  “And you!” She turned back to Jack. “I don’t want to talk to you, anyway.”

  “Val, don’t be petty. This is serious,” Jack said.

  Rachel winced at Jack’s words and put a hand out towards him.

  “Petty? Me? After the crap you said to me? I want you out of here. I want you gone! I may never want to speak to you again.”

  “You heard her, take him back to where you found him,” Lucas said to Rachel. Val heard the smug triumph in his voice. Rachel stared at Lucas for a moment, oddly indecisive.

  Jack looked at Val entreatingly. “Look, we both said things we regret. That’s what happens. We’re family. This could be life or death. If something happens to you…you know. You know I would—”

  Valerie wanted to kill him. “You always play that card with me. What my death would do to you. Why do I care? You don’t give a shit what your death will do to me. You think he won’t kill you? He makes Hitler look like a guy who just had a bad hobby!” She was shouting.

  Jack turned away, and it seemed like it cost him. He was biting back some vicious comment, and she just knew it was along the lines of ‘then how the hell can you fuck him? ’ He stalked away from her, a dozen feet, maybe a little more.

  Val put her hands in her hair, fisting them tightly like she would rip her hair out, feeling like a petulant child. “Fine. Then don’t talk to me. And leave Lucas alone. Don’t provoke him. And, for the record, if anyone calls me something pet-like or baby-like, I’m gonna lose it!”

  “Well, we would not wish to wave a flag before the bull. Let us go,” Lucas said. Jack cast a deadly look at Lucas, and then back to Val. The question was there, on his face: Did you fuck him?

  Val turned away in disgust, already knowing she’d made the wrong decision, staring out at the water where the Roanoke settlement might be moldering away at the bottom of the ocean even as they stood here and argued.

  There was a part of her that wanted to hurt Jack, tell him she’d screwed Lucas and wasso dehydrated and sore, she thought she wouldn’t pee for a week. No, she’d say she had been in his bed for a week! Ugh. There was a lot of pain there. She was sick of him hurting her and knowing she could hurt him, too.

  That was the trouble with family. They knew exactly how to tear each other down. They could rip out each other’s hearts faster than a vampire, so long as they chose the rightly-wrong words.

  Rachel said something, then cleared her throat and tried again. “Let’s go that way. I can feel something over there,” she said and pointed into the surrounding forest. Rachelstarted walking, and Jack went with her.

  Val turned, finding Lucas staring at her, a look more cold and forbidding than anything she had ever seen. It was like they were back at the Challenge—he was unapproachable and untouchable.

  Oooh, I just compared him to Hitler. And Hitler had been the nice guy. No nookie for me tonight. He turned and walked away, leaving her behind. How the hell was she going to apologize to him? Flowers? Candy? A blow job?

  What could she say to him? They were here trying to find the handful of Others who he hadn’t managed to slaughter. He’d done evil things—there was no erasing that. She couldn’t ignore it. And he hadn’t reformed. He hadn’t even offered to reform, and frankly, she had not asked him to. Because he wouldn’t?

  At some point between his saving her life and giving her a capital ‘O’, she’d made the decision that she was an exception. He might kill everyone else. But not her. Reality meet Valerie Dearborn. Lucas was a monster! Wasn’t he? Could she have slept with him if she really thought he was evil? She just didn’t know.

  This day couldn’t get any worse, she thought, as she miserably trailed behind them.

  Chapter 18

  They walked into the forest, through the trees, Rachel in the lead, looking for some sort of psychic clue.
At least that was the impression Val gathered. No one was particularly forthcoming. She tried to calm down, feeling jittery from…everything. Her confrontation with Jack just now. Seeing him again after their disastrous trip to Hawaii. From the knowledge that she and Lucas had to have some sort of conversation about what she’d said—which may or may not be fixable by oral sex.

  And finally, because Lucas and Jack were on a collision course. It was unavoidable. And the outcome was a problem. No bookie in the world would bet on Jack. The odds weren’t even a million to one. David and Goliath, the tortoise and the hare—all that was bullshit. In real life, the tortoise got turned into a hairbrush and David got squished, just likeJack would.

  Could she prevent it somehow?

  There would be no dissuading Jack. He had never listened to her. That wasn’t how their relationship worked. There was no equal footing between them. He had a mission and he pursued it. Yeah, every now-and-again, Val got in the way, and they had a romantic interlude, but really, Jack had his mission, and there was no wavering.

  Lucas would just have to be magnanimous enough to keep Jack alive. So I’m gonna be on my knees forever. The truth was that she’d forgotten her problems for a little while. The post-orgasmic glow had made everything seem farther away. I’m a fucking idiot, and my life just got more complicated than ever.

  Leaves crackled underfoot, and she had to step around patches of mud, all that remained from the last winter storm.

  Lucas said, “When the settlers were here, they arrived in the worst drought the area had experienced in 800 years. Their food supplies were gone. They did not get along well with the natives, and no further ships came from England for three years. Famine is a terrible thing.” Val wanted to know more, but Rachel jumped in, saying to Val, “If you were up on your abilities, you’d be able to help”—slight pause—“probably.”

  “Thanks for the caveat. Really?” Val asked, allowing herself to be distracted. It’d be kind of cool to be in ‘the know. ’ For once.

  Rachel stopped in a clearing and looked around. They all fell silent while Rachel walked around the area. It was a large space, maybe a hundred yards of bare earth. Trees surrounded them on all sides, but there were no rocks or even grass in the clearing. Just dirt and mud.

  “How come you’re doing this and not Lucas?” Val asked, curious.

  Rachel smiled at her. “Because I’m the witch.”

  Valerie’s mouth dropped open. “You’re a witch?” You mean W instead of B?

  Lucas raised an eyebrow and said lazily, “Why else would she be alive after the trouble she’s caused?”

  Her mouth went dry. “I thought….” Val felt sick at her probable misunderstanding. “I thought it was affection. That you let her live because you liked or… maybe even cared for her,” Val said.

  Lucas stared at Valerie with a blank expression, as though the words hadn’t even registered. As though love had a definition he had never been able to comprehend. She’d called him Hitler, and, at first, he’d looked a little irritated. She’d wondered if she’d hurt his feelings, but now it was clear— she hadn’t. Emotionally, there was no one home.

  I better be wrong, or else I just boned a soulless monster.

  Her ribcage seemed to contract, like a giant fist squeezing tight. Val hadn’t realized what a cornerstone his not killing Rachel had been. Sure, he’d said it was for leverage over Marion, but she’d thought it was something real. A sign of his humanity.

  Nope. No sign.

  “There should be trees in this clearing,” Lucas said. “There once was. And look at the pattern. The precise circle. This is not a natural formation. Nor is it recent.”

  Rachel tilted her head side to side. “Yeah…there is something here. But it’s funky.”

  “Could you be more specific?” Val asked. It was getting cold. The night, her heart, everything beginning to freeze.

  “Give her a minute,” Jack snapped.

  Val wanted to kill him. He did not just take Rachel’s side over hers. “Her girlfriend killed your parents! She almost killed me. And you’re going to defend her? Are you fucking high?” she yelled, totally at the end of her patience.

  Jack stared at her, all expression wiped off his face. “She’s not the most dangerous person here. Not by a long shot.”

  “Neither are you. But that doesn’t mean you can trust her. Why the fuck do you keep going to her?”

  “And I’m supposed to trust you? This all goes back to him. And here you are…canoodling with the fucker! We were supposed to do this together.” He took a step closer to her.

  “Yeah, I think we discussed that rightbefore you called me a whore. Believe it or not, that didn’t make me want to spend more time with you.”

  Lucas appeared between them, moving so fast she could feel a slight breeze as he displaced the air around them. “Say another word, and I shall take you from here myself, Jack. We can leave here and forget all about the Fey in ten minutes, depending upon what we learn.”

  Jack shook his head, then turned and stalked away from them.

  Rachel raised her brows and started talking to Lucas, kicking the dirt at the same time. “There was definitely a spell done here. A big one. And it was of the…more elemental variety shall we say.”

  “Fey,” Lucas said flatly. “Cerdewellyn, perhaps.”

  “Who’s he, and what does ‘elemental’ mean?” Jack asked.

  “Cerdewellyn was the King of the Fey. He should be dead. But one never knows with the Fey. And ‘elemental’ is a tactful way of saying there was sex involved in the ritual. And blood,” he said ‘blood’ tonelessly. So tonelessly, it reminded Val that he was a vampire and liked to have a splash of it on his cereal. Assuming he ate cereal.

  Note to self, don’t go to breakfast with Lucas.

  “If you think he’s dead, how could he have done it?” Val asked.

  He turned and approached her, so she had to look up at him. Maybe making sure she really heard him. “I killed him. Chopped off his head and ran him through the heart with a sword. That is typically permanent for one of the Others. But he was old. Far older than I and, at one time, much more powerful. But as the centuries passed, the Fey weakened. When I slew him, I had expected it to be permanent. Only later was I told that he survived. Someone saw him.”

  Her heart was pounding. He was making a point. But damned if she knew what it was. That he liked chopping off heads?

  Curiosity got the best of her. “Who saw him?”

  Lucas turned to look at her, not at Jack, focused only on her. “Marion.”

  God damn it. How did I let myself sleep with him?

  Rachel turned around and looked back at them, hands on her hips. “Marion hooked up with the Fey King? I didn’t know that. Good for her.” She sounded genuinely pleased.

  “You don’t care that your ex was with someone else?” Jack asked her, staring at Valerie. He’d ignored Marion’s name, as though it hadn’t been said. Val didn’t trust his disinterest for a moment.

  Rachel gave him a huge smile and looked pointedly at Val then Lucas, “No. Do you? I told you, I’m done with the mommy set. She was hard work. If she managed to get someone like him to look after her for a while, kudos to her.”

  “Marion was not with Cerdewellyn, but his queen.”

  Rachel snorted. “A lesbian to the very end. Once she went ‘chick’, she never wanted—“

  “What have you found?” Lucas said.

  Rachel cleared her throat rather theatrically. “Something went seriously wrong with the spell. There was a lot of magic here. There still is, actually. It’s dormant, though. Get the right trigger and something big will happen. It’s like we’re walking over a minefield of magic out here. I don’t know whose fault it was… but my money is on the witch.”

  Lucas walked close to her, looking from Rachel to the tree line and back again. “Why?”

  “Because the magic feels Fey. The witch created the spell, like building a lock. The Fey should have
had a key. But their magic, the key, is here. So, it didn’t fucking fit. That’s probably why nothing is growing here. It’s like a magical Chernobyl.”

  “So, are they dead?” Jack asked blandly, like if she said yes he could leave here and go get a drink.

  Rachel tsked. “Don’t know. Maybe. I could try to check.”

  Lucas nodded slowly at Rachel, clearly thinking something through. “What is your guess? No matter how unlikely. We know the Fey were here. We know they did a spell, and it failed. And we know that they are now gone. What about their belongings and their dead? Would they all be at the bottom of the ocean?”

  “I suspect it would have been a spell to establish this as their new home. Open a gateway into the Fey world. But it’s not open.”

  “Then they would all be trapped?” Lucas said.

  “Do you want me to check?” Rachel asked, then continued in a sing-song voice, “It’s just a teensy drop. And I promise not to taste.” She winked at Val.

  It reminded her of the night Rachel almost killed her. Val took a step back, heart pounding in sudden fear. I shouldn’t be playing with the big boys.

  Lucas walked away, into the clearing, looking up at the trees and pivoting slowly in a circle like he was taking-in the view. “Rachel would need your blood, Valerie. Yours and hers, to do a re-creation spell. That would give her a vision of what happened.” If he were human, this would be the spot where he took a deep breath, but he wasn’t. So, this was the small break when he made like a momentary statue. “I do not want your blood spilled.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jack said.

  “Your blood would be useless. It must be from an Other. And not a vampire. As with most of these things, it takes a pair. One person to make the offering another to perform the magic.” Lucas looked at Jack superiorly, and Val knew Jack wanted to shank him.

  “How much blood are we talking about here?” Val asked unhappily. A vision of blood gushing all over the ground made her feel a little sick. She really hated the sight of blood.

  Especially mine. Plus, this was blood spilled in a really non-sexy way.