Winter Kiss

by Deborah Cooke

  Erik folded his arms across his chest, his tone reasonable and encouraging. “Because the fight roused your ire, and your body began to shift to its fighting pose.”

  Delaney nodded. “I had no idea what was happening to me or why.” He realized he had shifted from using third person to first, acknowledging that the story was about himself, but knew the pretense had been a thin one all along.

  “Puberty can be challenging for even the most informed Pyr,” agreed Erik when Delaney hesitated.

  “Which wasn’t me. The third incident was the most terrifying. I hauled kegs for a quartermaster who was provisioning a ship in the harbor. It was hard work and an endless day. He was known to not pay fairly, but my mother was in her bed and we needed to eat. I feared for her health that time, and wished to have the healer call. The healer demanded to be paid in advance.

  “And so, I spent a day and the better part of a night loading his ship. Backbreaking work, with him always insisting that it had to be done faster. The only other boy who’d taken the job collapsed on the pier in exhaustion and the quartermaster insisted he wouldn’t be paid. I was determined to not be cheated, so I kept working. When I was done, he dared to say it had been done too slowly. He cast me a penny, one penny for a shilling’s work, and made to leave.”

  Delaney took a deep breath. “I thought of my mother, alone all day and night and in who knew what state, and I was furious that I should fail her because this man was a cheat. My body shifted shape before I knew what was happening. It was dark on the pier, late and quiet, with only the sound of the lapping of the sea against the wharf and the moon casting its silver light. The change didn’t seem real to me then, but the power of the dragon form was overwhelming. My rage filled me and with my newfound strength, I attacked the quartermaster to collect my due.”

  He swallowed. “He had no chance to scream.”

  Delaney heard Ginger catch her breath and didn’t even glance her way.

  “I doubt anyone missed him,” Niall said quietly.

  Delaney couldn’t look at Ginger, couldn’t face the condemnation he knew he’d see in her eyes. His words fell more quickly. “I took his purse. I went to the healer and paid her in advance. I went home to my mother. She had worsened and there was no fire in the grate, since she hadn’t had the strength to tend the one I’d left. I rekindled it to a blaze, indifferent to the cost of the fuel, and turned to find her gaze upon me.

  “‘ You are just like him,’ she said, hatred in her tone. I told her I didn’t understand what she meant, but she pointed to my hand. The quartermaster’s blood was under my nails. She sat up, finding new strength in her terror, and pointed at me. ‘Just like him!’ she cried. ‘The Devil’s own spawn!’

  “I still didn’t understand her, but she dared me to show her what I truly was. And then I knew; I knew that she had known about this power of mine but had chosen to leave me in ignorance. And I, fourteen years of age, resented bitterly that she had not told me all she knew. I was angry that she had kept me in darkness and left me to discover the truth in my own fear.”

  He played with the cross. “So I did what she asked. I thought it the least that she deserved. In anger I shifted shape again, liking the power of my coiled tail, the gleam of my scales, the majesty of my own appearance. I turned to look upon her and she screamed in terror. By the time the healer came running, I had changed to my normal shape again. My mother was babbling about demons, only coherent when she insisted that I leave her house. The healer eyed the quartermaster’s velvet purse, the red stain under my nails, and turned her face away as she told me I’d best leave.”

  He traced a pattern on the table with one fingertip, his chest tight with the heartache of that night. “And so I did, certain I’d never go back.”

  “But you must have,” Ginger said.

  Delaney glanced up, surprised to find encouragement in her expression.

  “You have her cross,” she said. He was surprised that she had guessed the origin of the necklace.

  “I always wondered why you wore it,” Erik said. “It’s not a common symbol for the Pyr to choose for adornment.”

  Delaney looked down at the silver emblem. “It means something different to me. It reminds me of a promise I made.”

  “What happened when you went back?” Ginger asked.

  “Why did you go back?” Niall asked.

  “I heard that my mother was failing. It was years later and I had surreptitiously ensured that I knew about her health. She had borne me. She had raised me. She was my mother and I loved her, even if she couldn’t love what I was. I worried about her periods of darkness, and how she would survive them with no one to help her. So I had those I would visit and ask, and I had those who would take some coin to her or sit with her at my behest.”

  Delaney frowned. “The story spread that I had killed the quartermaster, which was true, although the details embroidered on the tale had little resemblance to the truth. The neighbors were somewhat afraid of me, then, and quick to comply with my requests. I always ensured that there was some consideration for them in it, and so I had several wary allies. The boy who had first called me Dragon Eyes was one of the most helpful.”

  He shrugged. “And so I heard when she fell more seriously ill, and so I went to her when I believed she was at her last. I had hoped we could reconcile before it was too late. I had met Donovan by then, but it would be centuries before I learned that we were more than two of a kind, that we were in fact brothers. Knowing that there were other Pyr had given me a kind of confidence and a new life, but still I yearned for my mother’s blessing. So I returned to our small home in the night, shocked after my absence by its simplicity.”

  “It hadn’t changed,” Erik guessed, “but you had.”

  Delaney nodded and swallowed. “She was sleeping when I arrived, her breath so shallow that I thought I was too late. Her hair had turned to gray and her face was creased, her knuckles swollen on her lined hands. I could see that she was smaller beneath the blankets, that she had worn to sinew and bone in this last illness, and I blamed myself for the fading of her rose. The cross was clutched in her hand, her fingers closed over it so ferociously that I knew she yet lived.”

  “I sat by the fire, listening to her sleeping breath, and waited. I was more richly attired in those days, a man where once I had been a boy. The beams seemed lower to me, the space more confining than once it had been. Twenty years had passed, but when she awakened, she knew me instantly.” He smiled sadly. “She looked me over, then asked if I had come to claim her soul.”

  Delaney paused and Ginger leaned closer. “She thought you were evil?”

  “She thought my powers were the mark of the Devil. Years before I hadn’t been able to argue with her.”

  “But by then, you had learned,” Erik said softly.

  Delaney nodded, aware of the way Ginger looked avidly between them. “I told her then that I had found others of my kind, that I was learning the powers of my body. I told her the story of the Pyr, or at least as much as I knew of it then.”

  “What’s that?” Ginger asked, and there was no denying her interest.

  The fact that she hadn’t held his nature against him before, and that she was unlikely to do so in future, warmed corners of Delaney’s heart that even the firestorm couldn’t reach.

  And that was why he had to tell her the rest of the story.

  Chapter 17

  Delaney nodded at Erik, who smiled slightly. “In the beginning,” Erik said, and the others straightened. They all knew this passage as well as they knew their own names.

  “In the beginning, there was the fire,” the Pyr said in unison.

  Delaney watched Ginger look between them in amazement, enjoying the opportunity to study her while her gaze was averted from him. Her amber earrings flashed as she moved, seemingly lit by some internal fire.

  Just as Ginger was illuminated by her inner spark. The firestorm flattered her coloring, caressing her features and illuminat
ing the sparkle of her eyes, but Delaney knew she would always have that radiance he found so attractive. She was vital, and alive, and chose to live her life actively and engaged.

  He wished with everything within him that things could have been different for them.

  “And the fire burned hot because it was cradled by the earth,” Thorolf continued.

  “The fire burned bright because it was nurtured by the air,” Niall said. “The fire burned lower only when it was quenched by the water.”

  Erik continued. “And these were the four elements of divine design, of which all would be built and with which all would be destroyed.”

  Eileen smiled, rocking Zoë as she spoke. “And the elements were placed at the cornerstones of the material world and it was good.”

  Erik surveyed Eileen, his eyes gleaming. “But the elements were alone and undefended, incapable of communicating with one another, snared within the matter that was theirs to control.” They looked as one at their sleeping child.

  Niall continued. “And so, out of the endless void was created a race of guardians whose appointed task was to protect and defend the integrity of the four sacred elements.”

  “They were given powers, the better to fulfill their responsibilities,” Thorolf said.

  Erik nodded. “They were given strength and cunning and longevity to safeguard the treasures surrendered to their stewardship. To them alone would the elements respond.”

  He paused pointedly, then Delaney and the others concluded the story in unison. “These guardians were—and are—the Pyr.”

  “Wow,” Ginger said, her bright gaze flicking to Delaney again. Her smile made his heart skip a beat and his chest clench. “What did she say to that?”

  “Not much, at least not initially,” Delaney admitted. He felt uncharacteristically expansive and leaned closer to Ginger. “She told me that my father had seduced and deceived her. She told me about wickedness and the wages of sin. She told me to repent, but then she faltered to silence, perhaps aware that I couldn’t repent of my body’s powers.”

  Delaney frowned in memory. “We sat together as the fire died to embers, only the crackle in the grate interrupting the silence between us. Her eyes closed and her breath became softer, so hard to discern that I feared she was gone. I went to her side, touched her hand, and found it colder.” He sighed. “Even after all she had said, I couldn’t imagine her being gone, despite the differences between us.”

  His words stumbled and Ginger reached for him, her hand closing over his. It was meant to be a gesture of encouragement, but the brilliant spark of the firestorm that emanated from the point of contact made Delaney close his eyes.

  He couldn’t think about his failures, not now.

  He couldn’t help but savor the sweet heat of desire that rolled through his body, and his mouth went dry. He thought of Ginger’s softness against him, her pale smooth curves, her laughter in bed, and he wanted her with a ferocity that startled him.

  He opened his eyes to find her flushed and smiling at him. Wow, she mouthed, then pretended to fan herself with her other hand. Hot stuff.

  Delaney found himself smiling at her, liking that she didn’t pull her hand away. He turned his own hand, closing his fingers over hers. The firestorm’s heat pulsed and throbbed, radiating from their interlocked hands and bathing the kitchen in golden light. He felt the delicacy of Ginger’s fingers, knew they were stronger than they appeared.

  Just as she was both delicate and strong.

  “Of course, you were sad,” she said. “She was your mom and the one who knew you best.”

  Delaney nodded. “She had loved and nurtured me as a child; she had gone without to give to me; and I hadn’t wanted our estrangement to be permanent. I held her cold hand in mine and bowed my head and regretted that things had been as they were, regretted that I had failed her and could not have done otherwise. I might have wept, but I realized that her eyes had opened and she was watching me.”

  “She hadn’t yet gone,” Erik murmured.

  “And she knew that monsters don’t have compassion,” Ginger whispered.

  Maybe that had been it. Delaney didn’t know. He swallowed, that bittersweet parting still vivid in his thoughts. “Her hand tightened every so slightly over mine, then she shook her head. ‘I cannot know the mind of God,’ she said. ‘I cannot say I know why each of us is given the burdens we carry. I cannot explain why I was so plagued by darkness in my own life, or why I found your father alluring, or how it is that I bore a son with such a taint as yours.”’

  Delaney could see that room again with startling clarity, only the firm grasp of Ginger’s fingers keeping him in the present. “She reached for the cross that hung around her neck. ‘But I must trust in the wisdom of God. I must trust that all has a purpose and that there is a divine plan. That conviction is the only thing that has carried me through the shadows. My faith has been the light in the darkness. I did my best with you. I tried my best and I can only believe that He did not assign a greater burden to me than what I could carry.”’ She removed the chain she had always worn and gave it to me, insisting that I put it around my own neck.”

  “So that’s when you got it,” Ginger murmured. Delaney saw approval in her eyes.

  “I don’t know what she expected, but no one smote me and the cross didn’t melt on contact. She looked and she waited, and then she spoke again. ‘I do not know what you are, or why you are, Delaney, but you are my son, and I have loved you best of all. I have taught you what I know, and I cannot believe that you are truly wicked, or that you are forever lost. I must trust that there is a purpose, and that maybe this tale of guardians is your truth. I cannot know. But you must promise me one thing.’ And I vowed to pledge anything to her. ‘You must wear my cross, you must remember my faith, and you must use whatever powers you have in service to goodness. ”’

  “I like that,” Ginger said. “She tried to accept your nature and accommodate it at the end. That’s love at work.”

  Delaney didn’t know. He only remembered the power of his relief, and his determination to keep that vow. “I made that promise and then she fell back, exhausted. I would have talked more, but her eyes closed. I sat with her as the fire burned down to nothing.”

  He rose to his feet and turned away, feeling vulnerable in the strength of his grief. He kept his back to the others as he composed himself, feeling the weight of Ginger’s gaze upon him. “She didn’t awaken again,” he said finally, his voice husky.

  “And you’ve never taken it off,” Ginger guessed.

  He pivoted to face her, knowing that he looked defiant. “And I never will, not until I keep my pledge to her.” He squared his shoulders. “And this is the point. You’re all so certain that you understand, that Magnus is driving my choices, that I don’t have the will to live, that you can persuade me to follow the course you would choose.”

  Delaney moved back to the table, and tapped his finger on it. Sharing his story had restored his resolve and made him determined to succeed, and he needed his fellows to see his conviction. “But this is the choice I want to make. Eliminating the Elixir is what I can do to be of service to the Pyr and to the world at large: it’s how I can be a guardian of the elements and how I can use my powers for goodness. It’s how I can fulfill that promise to my mother. And that’s why you’re not going to change my mind. I halfway think I was born to do this.”

  He let them look, let them realize the extent of his conviction, then left the kitchen before they could argue with him. Delaney headed for the barn, for livestock and manure and an opinionated rooster, for simplicity and clarity and honesty.

  It was, he knew, exactly what he could have from Ginger, if he had the audacity to ask for it. If his life had been different. If his destiny had shaped him in another way.

  But as it was, he had to have the same kind of faith his mother had possessed, and he had to do his best to make a difference.

  It was all over for Ginger.

&nbs
p; Resistance was futile. Any man who could act with honor and decency, to surrender his own life to keep a promise made to his mother on her deathbed, was a man she could love with all her heart.

  Delaney might have thought that his story would turn her against him—because he had killed the quartermaster in cold blood—but to her, the story showed that his mother had instilled good in her son. Delaney had taken care of his mother, even when they were estranged. He had gone back to see her at the end, in an attempt to reconcile. He had made the promise she’d asked of him, and he was trying to keep it.

  Delaney had been so vehement, so obviously under duress that Ginger was reminded of a wound rubbed raw. He chose the same phrases she had used the night before, but she would have known just by his manner that he was sharing his own past.

  For the first time.

  As fearful as she’d been of what he’d say, she was honored by his trust.

  And in the end, his story simply reaffirmed Ginger’s conviction that Delaney was a keeper. His mother’s acceptance of his nature—inasmuch as she had been capable of coming to terms with his reality—and his obvious relief at their reconciliation also showed her the power of love.

  Ginger liked that a lot.

  It also reminded her of her grandmother’s ability to find the good in things, to overcome adversity, to accept things as they were and to strive for something better. It made her think about accommodating a concession to ensure the greater good. It made her realize that she hadn’t done so badly growing up without her parents—she’d had love, and maybe that was all a child needed to flourish.

  She was also sure the Pyr needed more in their company who were like Delaney. Her mouth went dry when she considered how Delaney was denying his own desire and impulse to keep his promise to her. She thought about Rafferty’s poem and Magnus’s plan and knew she was the only one who could change Delaney’s mind.