The next day he went out with the ATV, saying he was going hunting, and since he went on these expeditions a few times a week, I didn’t think all that much of it.
But then he returned carrying a beautiful pine tree, a little bit taller than he was, and I realized he had given me my present, the one thing I’d really wanted all along.
“How did you know I wanted a Christmas tree?” I asked, watching as he settled it in a corner of the living room. It had a stand made of two pieces of wood attached to the bottom of the trunk, so he must have stopped at the garage first to hammer those on before coming to the house.
“I guessed. I saw the look in your eyes when you were talking about Christmas, and….” His shoulders lifted, and he reached out to make a minute adjustment so the tree sat more squarely in the corner. “I thought you should have some sort of holiday, even if it can’t be like what you were used to.”
“It’s perfect,” I said sincerely. And it was, especially because I knew Jace wasn’t Christian, and might not have even had a tree while he was growing up. But he’d still realized how important following these traditions was to me.
“Glad you like it.” He stepped back a few feet from the tree, looking at it with narrowed eyes, as if making sure it stood as straight as it possibly could. “I didn’t have anything to use as a bowl, so I’m not sure how we’ll keep it fresh.”
“I’ll get some paper towels and dampen them, then wrap them around the bottom of the trunk. It should work okay.” I gazed at the tree, wondering what to do to decorate it. Go to town and raid the nearest Michael’s? No, that wouldn’t work, even if I could convince Jace to take me on such a frivolous expedition. The Heat had struck in late September, and even a store as gung-ho for Christmas as Michael’s wouldn’t have had any decorations out then. Should we raid random houses along Upper Canyon Road and see if they had any boxes of Christmas decorations hidden in their garages?
That sounded even worse.
Then I remembered the jars of popping corn in the pantry. Perfect. Old-fashioned, but it suited the way we were living now. “We can make popcorn strings, and I’ll use one of the spare Mexican blankets in the linen closet to wrap around the base. It’ll look great.”
Jace nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll try not to eat all the popcorn before you get it on the string.”
“Better not,” I warned him, and went to kiss him on the cheek before heading off to the kitchen. I had no idea how much popcorn to make to cover a seven-foot tree, but I got the feeling I was about to find out.
A good deal, as it turned out, and although Jace didn’t eat all of it, or even anything close, I did catch him popping quite a few kernels into his mouth as he worked at making his own strings to decorate the tree. It was so lovely being there with him in the living room, a fire blazing away in the hearth, candles burning on the tables and on the mantelpiece of twisted juniper, that I couldn’t even get angry about the way a good portion of the popcorn in his bowl was going into his mouth rather than onto the thread he held. Then again, maybe that had something to do with the half bottle of wine we’d brought out here with us after we were done eating dinner.
Either way, I was feeling more than a little mellow as we hung the popcorn strings on the tree, then topped it with a five-pointed star that Jace had fashioned out of aluminum foil and tied on with some extra thread.
“I want to make a wish,” I said.
“Is that a tradition?” he asked. “To make a wish when you put the star on the tree?”
“I don’t know if it was for everyone. But we always did it in my family.” A flicker of sadness went over me then as I thought of all those family Christmases when I was younger, the wrapping paper strewn everywhere, hot cocoa for Devin and me and coffee for my parents. Regret, too, that they’d never get to meet Jace. I had a feeling they would have liked him.
“All right,” he said. “What’s your wish?”
So many I could have made — that the world would somehow heal itself, that the Dying had never happened. Those things were out of my hands, though, so I wished for the one thing I truly wanted that was reasonable. “I wish that it will always be like this — the two of us here, together.”
A glow touched his dark eyes, a glow that had nothing to do with the flicker of the fireplace or the gleam of the candles all around us. “I think I can make that wish come true.”
He moved close, pulling me into his arms, and then he was kissing me, mouth warm, lips insistent against mine. Just like the first time we’d kissed, I could taste the wine on his tongue, and heat flamed through me, awakening a deep throbbing in my core. I knew this was one night when we wouldn’t fall asleep exhausted without touching one another.
No, we were hurrying down the hallway to the bedroom, laughing at the chilly air, Jace fumbling with the logs so he could get the fire going.
“You should have come in here right after dinner like you were supposed to,” I teased him.
“I would have, except someone insisted I come with her to make popcorn strings.”
“Oh, right. Well, I hope that won’t take you too long.” I pulled the sweater I wore over my head, followed by the long-sleeved T-shirt I had on underneath. It was cold enough that I broke out in goose bumps, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. While Jace was busy with the lighter, his back to me, I took off my boots, then stepped out of my jeans. All that remained were my socks and my bra and panties, and I made short work of those.
When he turned around, his mouth dropped slightly. “Damn, Jessica.” He took in a breath, then added, his voice husky, “You are so beautiful.”
Heat went over me, despite how cold it was in the room. “Th-thanks,” I said, my teeth chattering slightly. “Now come over here so I can tell you the same thing.”
He was across the room in a flash, my fingers working the buttons of his flannel shirt while he undid his belt buckle and then the buttons of his Levi’s. Oh, how I loved the smooth, heavy muscles of his chest, his flat stomach. If anything, he’d gotten bigger and harder during his months here, probably from all the manual labor.
Speaking of bigger and harder….
I sank to my knees, stroking him, and then brought him into my mouth, tasting salt and a faint, faint musk. He moaned and tipped his head back, his fingers tightening on my shoulders. “Man, Jessica,” he breathed. “I’ll have to remember to bring you Christmas trees more often.”
Chuckling, I continued to move my hand up and down his shaft, my tongue swiping over him. After that, he didn’t seem capable of speech, only continued to hold on to me, until he pulled himself from my mouth and raised me to my feet, then pushed me down on the bed, his hands warm on my ass.
We didn’t have sex in this position very often, but I loved it when we did. He pushed into me, hands shifting slightly so they were wrapped around my hips as he rocked against me, in me, and I gasped, my own palms flat on the bed as I took him in, took all of him, pushing deeper, stronger, until I felt the throbbing warmth growing within me and knew I was close…so close.
As was Jace, because I felt him clench, then cry out, and as he released, I did so as well, my body clamping down on him, pulsing, squeezing. I gasped. “Oh, God, Jace….”
That was about all I could manage before I collapsed on the bed. He slid down next to me, his chest heaving, and then pulled me against him. How perfect the warmth of his skin, the way our bodies fit together. We held each other in silence like that for a few moments, and then he said,
“Happy?”
I didn’t even have to stop to think. “I’ve never been this happy.”
He kissed me then, not fiercely as he had before, but with a touch of his lips to my skin as soft as a snowflake settling there. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To make you happy.”
Because I could already feel myself slipping into sleep, I didn’t really stop to puzzle that out, how he could’ve always wanted such a thing when we’d only known each other for less than two months. Instead, I cradled my h
ead against his chest, and let myself drift into darkness.
Chapter Seventeen
Voices in the darkness woke me. I blinked and sat up, holding myself still for a second or two, since the room wanted to spin around me. For some reason, I felt positively thick-headed, like the one time in college I’d tried an over-the-counter sleep aid because I was stressed from exams and the breakup with Colin, and I was having a hard time falling asleep. That didn’t make sense, though, since I hadn’t had anything more than a glass of wine with dinner, and another one while we were in the living room, making popcorn strings.
Instinctively, I reached to my right, where Jace should have been sleeping. But the bed was empty, although I knew we couldn’t have been asleep for too long, as the fire was still burning brightly. Dutchie was passed out in front of it, nose and tail almost touching, her heavy breaths not quite a snore.
Once again I heard that strange murmur, and I sat very still, ears straining to make out individual words. But the voices were far enough off that I couldn’t catch anything, although one of them sounded like it could be Jace. Had he gotten up and tested the radio, and this time actually made contact with someone? I would have thought he’d come and wake me up for something that momentous, but maybe he’d thought it best to let me sleep.
I blinked, fighting off the last of that strange drowsiness, pushed back the covers, retrieved my panties from where they were lying on the floor, and then went to the closet to get my flannel sleep shirt and thick robe. Yes, lying naked next to each other was very romantic, but by the time 4 a.m. rolled around, it was also damn cold. Luckily, Jace didn’t seem to mind the sleep shirt, which was covered in penguins. One time he even told me he thought it was cute. He could have been lying, but I think it was more that he wanted me to know he thought I was sexy no matter what I might be wearing to bed.
As I tied the robe around me, I went to the doorway, then paused. The voices should have been coming from my right, down the hall in the direction of the office. But they weren’t — instead, they seemed to originate in the living room.
That didn’t make any sense. Even if the unthinkable had happened and another survivor had shown up on our doorstep, I should have heard something, no matter how deeply asleep I was. If nothing else, Dutchie would have barked her head off. But she was passed out on the floor of the bedroom, so conked she looked like someone had drugged her.
Frowning, I slipped out into the corridor, the tile floor icy against my bare feet. It wasn’t quite pitch dark, since, in our rush to get to the bedroom, Jace and I had left the pillar candles burning on the coffee table and on the mantel. Because of that, as I approached I could make out clearly enough who was in the living room.
Only…my brain couldn’t quite grasp what it was seeing. Two men. At least, they looked like men, but…they couldn’t be. Not hovering in midair, approximately a foot and a half above the floor, as if they had no need of solid ground.
One of them was Jace. Or rather, he resembled Jace, except somehow older and harder, his jaw and eyes stern. His hair seemed longer than its current inch or so below shoulder length, almost as long as mine, and floated around him, appearing to wave in an unseen wind, a wind that stirred the branches of the Christmas tree and made all the flames in the pillar candles on the mantel and coffee table dance and sway. Just as when he’d fallen asleep, his chest and arms were bare, but now thick cuffs of silvery-blue metal surrounded his wrists, and he wore full-legged pants made of a shimmering dark blue fabric, possibly silk.
The other man…or whatever he was…stood in profile to me, so I couldn’t get all that good a look at him. And actually, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. There was something cruel in his hawkish profile, in the set of his jaw and mouth. His hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail and banded with reddish metal — copper, maybe, or even rose gold. More reddish metal gleamed at his wrists, and his pants, similar in construction to the ones Jace wore, were a dark burnt-umber sort of shade.
Stranger than his presence, and even stranger than the way he floated above the floor, however, was the way odd little flames seemed to dance around his feet and swirl in the air directly above his head, as if he were somehow made of fire, and had only taken on physical form so he could have this conversation.
I flattened myself against the wall, glad of my bare feet, which had made no sound as I approached, and the relative darkness of the hallway where I hid. Jace…that oddly altered Jace…and the stranger would have had to look directly at me to see me at all, and it seemed clear enough that they were occupied with one another, not sparing a glance for the supposedly sleeping house around them.
“…wasted enough time here already,” the stranger was saying. His voice was deeper than Jace’s, harsh, and something about it made chills go up and down my spine. “It is time to come join the rest of us.”
“Surely a few days more won’t matter,” Jace replied. “After Christmas has passed — ”
The stranger made a sound of disgust. “Christmas? What foolishness is this? That day means nothing to us, and you have coddled the woman long enough. Tell her the truth, or as much of it as you deem necessary, but we will not wait much longer.”
“What is the rush?” Jace crossed his arms and stared directly into the other man’s eyes, something I didn’t think I’d have had the courage to do. “What does it matter if we wait out the winter here, and then come to you in the spring?”
For the briefest second, the stranger hesitated, his hands tightening into fists at his sides, even as the flames dancing around his feet and above his head flared brighter, shifting from warm orange to an acid yellow. From annoyance…or something else? “Because it may not be safe to do so. We are disturbed by some of the developments among the Immune. They’ve gathered in a place not far from here, and although we do not know how they are managing it, they are blocking us from scrying them, or indeed from coming within miles of their compound so we might finish them off.”
“The Immune”? I thought. Other survivors? And what the hell does he mean by “finish them off”?
“That is troubling,” Jace said, and it seemed the unseen wind that swirled around him gained in force, wildly blowing at his hair and causing the flames of several of the candles to almost snuff themselves. “No one has been able to get close?”
“No. There is one road in and one road out, both heavily guarded. Several of the Chosen volunteered to investigate, since they would be able to get far closer to the Immune than we would, but we have had no contact with any of them since, and it is feared they have been lost.”
It was hard for me to tell for certain, but it almost seemed as if Jace winced when he received that particular piece of information, as if it was more painful to him than the rest of what he had just heard. “That is a grievous loss.”
The stranger shrugged. Clearly, he was not overly concerned about the loss of these “Chosen,” whoever they might be. “They volunteered for the mission. Their partners will find replacements, if they wish.”
From the set of his shoulders, it appeared that Jace wasn’t quite so blithe about the fate of the Chosen who had disappeared. “How long has it been? Perhaps you are not giving them enough time.”
“Two weeks, as such things are counted here. Time enough.” The stranger straightened, his eyes on a level with Jace’s. “I am telling you this because your safety here is not guaranteed. Better for you to be with the rest of us.” Then he paused, and my heart seemed to stop in my chest as he glanced over in my direction. “Your paramour is awake. It seems she was not quite as deeply asleep as you thought. You will have some explaining to do, I think.”
That appeared to be his parting shot, because after he made that remark, the flames which had been licking at his feet seemed to grow and swell, rising until they engulfed him. Then they went out, and Jace was alone in the living room.
His eyes met mine, and I saw him draw in a breath, then lower himself to the floor. As he did so, his appearance shifted bac
k to the Jace I knew…or thought I knew. At the same time, the lamp in the corner of the room flared to life, although neither of us had touched a light switch.
“Jessica,” he said, his arms reaching out to me as he began to move in my direction.
“Don’t,” I retorted, still hugging the wall. “Stay back.”
He stopped at once, but I could see the pleading in his dark eyes. “Jessica, I can explain — ”
“Oh, you’d better explain.” The cool plaster of the wall against my back gave me a little courage. At least this way, he’d have to face me, couldn’t sneak up on me from behind. “Who — what are you?”
His shoulders seemed to droop then. He looked so pitiful that, under normal circumstances, I would have gone to him at once and put my arms around him, attempted to comfort him. But there would be no comfort here. Not after what I had just seen.
“Please, come and sit down,” he said. “We must have this conversation, but we don’t need to have it like this.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“Jessica.” This time he sounded different, his voice deeper, the way it had been when he was speaking with that — whoever he was. At the same time, he backed off, going to sit down on the couch. “Look. Here I am. You can sit in that chair. I promise I won’t move unless you say it’s all right.”
For a second or two, I didn’t do anything, only watched him through narrowed eyes. He was sitting there quietly, his hands planted on his knees. He certainly didn’t look as if he intended to launch at me, but how could I trust him when it was clear he was definitely not who he had pretended to be?
Then again, I did want answers, and if he might be more inclined to give them if I sat down as he’d asked, then that seemed to be what I should do. Not taking my eyes off him, I crossed over to the chair and sank into it. Actually, that did feel a bit better, although the spurious sensation of relief could have had something to do with the rug under my bare, icy feet and the warmth of the fire as it reached out to heat the room.
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