by Susan Stoker
Roman opened his mouth to respond, but a voice behind them interrupted before he could get out whatever it was he’d wanted to say.
“Give me your wallets or I’ll blow your goddamn heads off.”
8
Rin froze in Roman’s arms, eyes wide. They both turned their heads to see a man standing behind them. He was wearing jeans and a black hoodie that was pulled low over his forehead. He was wearing black gloves and had a gun pointed at them. When he bared his teeth, Rin could see they were crooked and stained. It was obvious, even to her, that he was a long-time drug user of some sort.
He was beyond scary looking and that was even before Rin looked down the barrel of the gun that was pointed at her face.
Rin’s mind blanked. She had no idea what to do. Hell, she didn’t even have her wallet on her. It was in her purse back in the ballroom. She hadn’t even thought about bringing it with her when she’d left earlier with Roman.
Just as she began to panic, Roman spoke. “Easy, man. You can have it.” He held up his hands to show he was unarmed and the loss of his arms around her made Rin shiver.
“No funny business or I’ll blow a hole through your girlfriend,” the thug warned.
Roman didn’t so much as look at her, but kept eye contact with the man with the gun and slowly moved one hand to the back of his pants to grab his wallet. He slid it out of his pocket and instead of handing it over, opened it and pulled out the meager number of bills that were in there. He held them out to the man.
“Here. It’s all the cash I’ve got on me.”
The gun didn’t waver as the guy snatched the money out of Roman’s hand. “Credit cards too,” he snarled.
Again, with no hesitation, Roman did as the man asked, pulling three credit cards out of their slots in his wallet and passing them over.
Thinking this was going to be over soon, the fastest robbery in history, Rin felt herself breathing deeply in slight relief.
Then the man with the gun turned to her. “Yours too, bitch.”
“I don’t have my purse with me. I’d give the whole thing to you if I had it. Swear.” The response was immediate and genuine. The last thing she wanted to do was get in an argument with this guy. She would’ve had no problem handing it over if she had it. Life was too short and suddenly held too much promise to worry about trying to save a couple bucks.
“Don’t fuck with me!”
“She’s not,” Roman tried to reassure the man quickly. “We left the hotel back there without it. We’re just talking a walk.”
The man’s eyes narrowed on them. Rin had no idea what he was looking for. She was wearing black slacks and her yellow cashmere sweater that was way too dressy to be hanging out on this bench in the city, but was completely appropriate for the celebration going on a couple blocks away. Roman looked just as firmly middle-class. They weren’t wearing expensive watches or jewelry.
As soon as the thought entered her mind, the man barked out, “Give me that ring then.”
Rin couldn’t help it. The thought of losing their family legacy, of letting MacKenzie down—who’d only loaned it to her, telling her a little of the story about how long it’d taken for the ring to be paired back up with some mysterious sword—made her put her other hand over her fingers, as if hiding the ring from the thief would do any good.
She shook her head in horror. “No, please. It’s been in my family for thousands of years.”
“All the more reason to hand it over, bitch.” The scary man in the hoodie waved the gun at Roman. “Unless you want me to kill him.”
Rin couldn’t breathe. A minute ago she’d begun to think she’d found everything she’d ever wanted in her life. But now, she was afraid it was going to be taken from her before she’d even had it in the first place.
Roman’s life was way more important than the poesy ring. She’d choose him over the jewelry every day and twice on Sunday. Every single time.
She started tugging at her finger, looking down at the ring, which was still glowing crimson. The tears in her eyes made everything blurry and she frantically tried to remove the ring. But of course, the damn thing seemed to be glued to her finger. She couldn’t get it past her knuckle. Tears sprang to her eyes as she tried to force it off.
“Come on, you’ve got my money, take it and go,” Roman tried to reason with the man.
“Give it, bitch!” the man snarled.
“I’m trying! It’s stuck,” Rin sobbed, tugging harder at the ring.
Rin looked up at the thief. His eyes held not one shred of humanity. They were cold, dark, and deadly.
She knew without a doubt that he was going to kill one or both of them. Even if she gave him the ring, she somehow sensed they were both going to die anyway.
Despite knowing that, she still tried to remove the poesy ring. She swung her gaze to Roman. He wasn’t looking at her, as she’d hoped. She needed to see what she now knew was love in his eyes, once more before she died.
No, Roman’s gaze was fixed on the gun.
Rin pulled hard at the ring, and as usual, her clumsiness got the best of her. She jerked to the side and hit her elbow on the back of the bench. Her movements were enough to startle the man with the gun and he took a small step backward.
It was as if time slowed down. Rin felt just like she was in one of her nightmares. She recognized the helpless feeling, the sense of doom. She opened her mouth to protest what she sensed Roman was about to do, but she was too late.
He launched himself over the back of the bench as if he’d done it every day of his life. Rin heard the pistol go off, then grunts as the men fell onto the concrete behind the bench. Roman was on top of the punk and they were both struggling for control over the gun.
A screech came out of her mouth and she looked around frantically for something to help Roman with. Seeing nothing, not even a piece of trash she could use to try to bash the bad guy’s head with, she started screaming for help, hoping one of the few people they’d seen as they’d been walking would come and investigate or call for the police.
The fight continued in front of her, and Rin heard Roman telling her to run, but she couldn’t. Her feet were glued to the ground. She didn’t want to stay, but she couldn’t leave.
For a moment, it looked like the thug was going to get the upper hand, but Roman was a big man, and strong. He punched him hard, twice.
After the third punch in the face, the man in the hoodie finally went limp under Roman.
It had all happened so fast, but Rin still felt as if everything was in slow motion. Roman eased himself off of the guy and whipped his head around at the same time, obviously trying to find her. When he saw her, his shoulders relaxed just a bit. “You okay?” His voice was low and gravelly. He had a trickle of blood coming out of the side of his mouth where the thug must’ve gotten in a lucky hit.
Rin nodded wordlessly, too shocked by the fog that seemed to be rolling in around her. The wispy smoke curled around her feet, but instead of crawling up her body, like it usually did in her dreams, it continued across the four or so feet separating her from Roman and started winding its way around his body.
He didn’t seem to notice the weird smoke. He turned back to the bench, and Rin, and looked down at the ground, under where they’d been sitting together minutes earlier. Roman, still on his knees next to the man who’d tried to kill him, leaned over and picked something up off the ground.
Rin kept her eyes on his face and the smoke that had now risen to envelop his upper body. She jolted with his next words.
“My reward.”
Rin looked down at the hand Roman was holding out to her. The poesy ring was resting in his palm, glowing bright crimson.
It must’ve finally popped off in her struggle to remove it when she’d fallen against the back of the bench and she hadn’t noticed in the melee that had followed.
Rin remembered what she and Roman had been talking about before they’d been robbed. His dream. The princess. Slaying the dr
agon.
As he knelt on the ground in front of her, his arm outstretched, holding the ring, he looked exactly like the prince he’d aspired to be his entire life. Her prince. Her man.
Roman coughed and then Rin heard a gurgle. Her eyes flew up to his in alarm.
“Call the police, Varinia. If he comes to, I won’t be able to do anything about it.”
With those words, Roman tilted to the side, caught himself with his hand, then fell the rest of the way to the pavement and rolled over to his back, still coughing weakly.
The weird smoke stayed with him as he fell and formed a sort of see-through blanket over his torso.
“Roman!” The word was merely a breath of air out of Rin’s lungs, but he heard her. His head turned to her as she scrambled to his side. A small dark stain was spreading on the right side of his chest. Not knowing what else to do, Rin put both hands over it and pressed down, hard. “Don’t die, Roman! Oh my God, please. Don’t leave me alone. I just found you. You are him. I don’t know how it happened but somehow it did. Please…”
Roman groaned as her hands pressed into the gunshot wound and he grimaced. But his eyes stayed on hers as he spoke, his voice tortured and pained. “When I was sixteen, I wrote a poem. It’s awful, but I was compelled to write it. Now I know why.”
The tears fell unchecked down Rin’s cheeks as she listened to the only man she’d ever love whisper the most amazing words she’d ever hear. She didn’t pay attention to the sirens in the background, nor the people who were coming out of the shadows of the night to help deal with the thug on the ground next to them. She only saw Roman. Only heard his words.
He coughed once, more blood coming up from his lungs, then reached up and grabbed hold of one of her hands. He tugged at it, and Rin, not wanting to hurt him further, allowed him to remove it from his chest. She kept the other hand where it was, trying to keep any more of his blood from spilling out onto the unforgiving pavement. Roman placed the ring into her palm and closed her fingers around it as he recited the long ago words he’d penned in a low, wavering voice filled with pain.
“I don’t know you, but I see your face in the clouds.
I’ve never met you, but your smile fills my soul.
Some hear words, I only hear you calling to me.
Time might separate us, but it can’t deny the bond we share.
With dreams only of you, I close my eyes.”
Roman coughed again, more blood oozing out of his mouth, but still his eyes never left hers, and the peppermint-scented wood smoke continued to swirl around them. His voice was barely a whisper now, but it was as if he was screaming the words at her. “I love you, Varinia Velt. Twenty-four, twenty-five, or seventy-two years old. I love you.”
Rin opened her mouth to tell him she loved him too, but his eyes closed and she felt his entire body go lax under her.
“Nooooo!” she moaned, clutching her fist with the ring inside to her heart, even as she put more of her weight on her other hand on his chest.
“I’ve got him now, ma’am, please move back,” a stern voice commanded from her left.
Rin looked up, hardly able to see through the tears in her eyes, and saw a man in a blue uniform shirt kneeling next to them. She quickly glanced around. The police were handcuffing the man who’d held them up and the medics were checking him over.
There were two other EMTs standing behind her and Roman, waiting for her to move so they could help him.
The EMT next to her gently pushed her hand away from Roman’s chest and put his own over the hole as soon as hers cleared it. He started barking orders to the men behind her, but Rin didn’t hear any of it. She stood and backed away, clutching the ring to her chest with both hands now, not taking her eyes from Roman’s. The eerie mist continued to swirl around him, but the EMTs didn’t even seem to notice.
The poem he’d recited to her might as well have come from the depths of her own soul.
I don’t know you, but I see your face in the clouds.
I’ve never met you, but your smile fills my soul.
Some hear words, I only hear you calling to me.
Time might separate us, but it can’t deny the bond we share.
With dreams only of you, I close my eyes.
It was exactly what had been happening in her dreams forever. She couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not after just finding him.
Rin watched as the EMTs loaded Roman onto a stretcher and carried him to the back of an ambulance, the misty fog rolling right along with them. The doors shut behind them and the vehicle pulled away from the scene, taking the only man she’d ever love with it.
“Ma’am? I’m Sergeant Wright. I understand you were the other victim here? Is any of that blood yours?”
Rin looked down at herself. Her hands were covered in Roman’s blood and it was smeared on her beautiful yellow sweater. She shook her head, but didn’t say anything more, couldn’t say anything more through a throat that was so closed off, it was a miracle she was still breathing.
“Good. I’m glad you weren’t hurt. I need to get your statement. Can you tell me what happened tonight?”
What happened? Rin knew he wasn’t talking about the miracle of finding her one true love. Knew he didn’t care about how two souls had managed to find each other even though the odds were against them. The police officer didn’t want to know about the fog or poems or rings. She sighed and took a deep breath.
She needed to get to Roman. And the only way to do that was to tell the officer what she knew. Then she could go to the hospital. All thoughts of her birthday party, sister, and mom were gone. Roman was the only thing that mattered.
Rin slid the bloody ring she’d been clutching onto her finger and closed her eyes for a moment at the jolt of energy she felt racing down her arm into her chest. Roman. She felt him with her even when he wasn’t physically there.
She looked down. The poesy ring was still crimson. It gave her hope. Surely if Roman died, the ring would go back to being dark gray again.
Sometime between them sitting on the bench and now, Rin had realized that the ring was about her. Her and Roman. Not her mom. Not Tina. Maybe not even MacKenzie.
Somehow her ancestors, going back to the original owner of the ring, Theodosia, had meant for her to have the ring. She’d grown up the way she had, all to make her compatible with Roman. Oh, there were a lot of ways they were different, but the bottom line was that if she had been brought up as Tina had been, she never would’ve appealed to Roman, and vice versa. She would’ve lost out and the ring would’ve stayed dark.
Rin turned to the cop, wanting to get this over with. She needed to get to the hospital. “We were sitting on the bench talking…”
9
Rin sat in a fake leather chair in the emergency waiting room at the best trauma center in the city. She’d washed her hands, but was still wearing her bloody sweater. Her mom had urged her to go home and change, but Rin wasn’t about to leave the hospital.
The last two hours had been a whirlwind. She’d gone back to the ballroom to grab her purse and keys so she could get to Roman, but had run into her mom, who’d promptly freaked out, rightly so, at the sight of her daughter covered in blood.
Rin didn’t think they would leave the party, but Cassia caught a glimpse of the ring on her daughter’s finger. It was a brilliant scarlet that couldn’t be missed.
Her mom grabbed hold of the ring and looked into Rin’s eyes. “It’s red.”
She’d nodded.
“Tina?” Cassia asked, turning to her other daughter.
Tina had merely shaken her head, telling her mom that it wasn’t red because of any feeling she’d had with any of the men she’d met that night.
Without another word, Cassia and Tina had insisted on coming to the hospital with her.
Rin wasn’t surprised her mom immediately figured out Roman was the man she’d been hoping to find for Tina her entire life. She was a woman who’d grown up hearing stories about instant loves
through the ages, so hearing Rin say she loved a man she’d met for the first time that night wasn’t even a blip on her weird-o-meter. It was almost as if she wasn’t surprised at all, but Rin knew her mom’s head had to be reeling, learning that it wasn’t Tina who was the key to breaking the curse, but Rin.
They’d raced to the hospital, only to find out that Roman’s family had already been called. None of the staff would talk to Rin, since she wasn’t a relative. She had to wait until his family got there, and since they had to drive over from Pennsylvania, it would be a few hours.
Roman’s brothers arrived first, surprisingly quickly considering where they’d had to travel from. Rin would’ve been able to point them out as being related to Roman in a heartbeat if she didn’t already know they were going to be showing up. They were both tall and handsome with dark hair, just like their brother. They had the same noses and seriously looked alike enough to almost be triplets.
They burst through the doors like their Roman namesakes might have done when entering into battle. Mouths drawn into tight lines, worry furrowing their brows. Rin didn’t move, feeling awkward for the first time. She didn’t know these men, they didn’t know her.
Luckily, Cassia didn’t have any reservations.
She approached the two men, introducing herself as the mother of Roman’s girlfriend, and telling them that anything they could find out from the hospital staff would be appreciated, since they wouldn’t tell them anything because they weren’t related to Roman. The two men were obviously stressed out and devastated after hearing their big brother had been shot, but after they’d glanced over to where Cassia indicated, and saw Rin, they merely nodded in agreement before heading to the counter to speak to the employee sitting there.
Rin knew she looked like hell, but she couldn’t imagine leaving the hospital for even a moment to go home and change. She glanced down at the ring, which she’d been obsessively turning on her finger over and over. Still crimson. Thank God. It gave her the small spark of hope she needed to know that Roman was still alive.
