“Right, that makes some sense. Well…” Felisa sounded hesitant. “I love you, girl.”
“I love you too. I promise to call you later today.” Khiara hung up and walked into the bathroom to take her shower. It made her feel only slightly better to go through the motions of her normal morning routine. The sense that something terrible was going to happen today was too strong for her to ignore it, though. She considered calling Cate, just to ensure that she was not alone today, but she knew that anything she did to assuage her fears would ultimately be a futile gesture.
She pulled on her jeans and a black tank top, and then tied her black boots at her ankles. Brushing her hair back into a ponytail, she tried to shut out the memory of last night’s dream. There had been a frightening finality to it, and she knew that even work could not keep her busy enough to forget tonight’s inevitable encounter
Much to her disappointment, business was slow, which gave Khiara too much time alone with the overwhelming sense of trepidation. The shivers came and went, her skin prickling with the chill each time. Feeling more vulnerable because of the loneliness, she closed the shop early to make her trip to the library. She only had a few books to return and she considered going into town afterward for lunch.
After dropping her returns off at the circulation desk, she realized she had forgotten her cell phone, and turned to walk home. As she walked, the feeling of someone or something watching her grew so intense, it made her skin crawl. The icy sensation rippled up and down her body and she stopped.
When she turned to look down the sidewalk behind her, she saw nothing there.
Khiara took a deep breath, and then turned back to the path before her, the path home; the path that had always led to safety.
The shadowy figure from her nightmares stood several feet in front of her. It gave off an aura that told her it was not entirely human, though she didn’t need to feel the sinister energy to guess that. She already knew precisely who and what it was. It was tall and thin, wearing a long black coat, black pants and shoes, and a tall black stovepipe hat that was completely outdated by the modern world’s standards.
She felt the scenery spinning around her, even as she tried to breathe through the moment. Khiara took a step back, and then another, hardly aware of her surroundings, her entire focus on the macabre figure before her. He looked like an undertaker out of an old photograph – like he didn’t quite belong in today’s world, standing on the sidewalk on such a fine, spring day.
“I’ve missed you, Khiara,” whispered a voice that came from all around her.
She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re not there,” she said aloud. “You can’t possibly be here at all.”
“Don’t fool yourself. You know that I’ve come here for you.”
“You can’t be here. There shouldn’t be a way to do it after I… after I…”
“You killed me, yes.”
“You should stay banished.”
The figure’s hand reached for her as it advanced. “Oh no, if you know how to open the gate, there is a way, even if the veil between the worlds has not thinned. You took most of my power, but all I had to do was bide my time and let it return.”
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Khiara backed away from him, but she knew this was the end. There was nowhere to go. Her predator’s shadowy doppelganger signaled the end, its dark energy stifling her.
“I sent my fetch to keep an eye on you,” he said. “Did you not see him? He has been watching you for the past fortnight, making sure you knew that I knew where you were. I have seen everything you have done in the past few weeks, heard every conversation, and felt every reaction you’ve had.”
Now that Khiara looked back at the past two weeks, she recalled seeing fleeting glimpses of a black-clad figure, not just in her dreams, but out of the corner of her eye wherever she went. Her lashes swept over her eyes as a tear streaked down her cheek.
“It is a part of me, split off to do my bidding. You felt him.” The statement was insistent.
“I did feel him,” Khiara acknowledged. “And I heard you.”
“You knew that I was coming for you.”
She nodded reluctantly, her eyes still shut to the reality before her.
“It is time for you to come home now.”
“That isn’t my home. It’s your home and I don’t belong there.”
“But I want you there with me. I always did,” he said. “Even if we are beyond redemption, I still want you. You belong to me, Khiara.”
“No, I can’t and I won’t go with you. I always wanted to exist in this world. This is where I belong. I will not go to yours, no matter what you think or say.”
“You have very little choice in this matter. You owe me a blood debt. A life for a life,” he whispered, and the fetch now reached both hands toward her.
Khiara tried not to think back to that night, but there was no preventing it. It had been one of the only things on her mind for the past two weeks.
“When you tried to kill me, you said that you wished things could have been different.”
She shook her head as she finally looked, wide-eyed, at the shadow figure. “I didn’t mean it like that! I meant that I didn’t want you to be what you are! I meant that I wished that you had never come into my life in the first place!”
“But I am this thing, I did come into your life, and you will come with me to repay your debt. You will be mine forever.”
“No!” Khiara backed away again, but the fetch was standing so much closer to her now. She was not sure which was more frightening – the figure or the voice. The shade was a part of him. It looked just like him, yet it lacked a face beneath the shadowy brim of its hat. It was more like a creature from a horror film than a true, living being. She felt herself shrink back into herself, away from the dusky segment of his being.
At the same time, she could not bear for the man himself to touch her, now that she knew he was waiting for her. His touch, which had once attested to their friendship and trust in one another, now reminded her of his dual nature and treachery. She remembered the avariciousness in his heart and the fact that no law but his own bound him, and those laws were meant to work against humans. He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
“It is time to go,” he said, and she felt arms – his arms – wrap around her shoulders from behind her.
“Khiara?”
She looked up with a start in the direction of the familiar voice.
The last thing she knew of that world was that she had been standing in front of Sean’s house, and he was staring at her in shock from across the street, as she faded from sight.
Chapter 6
As Khiara regained her sense of equilibrium, the arms her loosened, but did not fall. She shoved at them and turned to face him with a glare, her fists clenched.
“Nine is the number of a completion of a cycle,” Felisa had said. Well, let’s bring this cycle to an end here and now, Khiara thought
“You’re finally here. I loved you from the moment I met you,” he said, reaching for her.
“That wasn’t love, Ronan. That was lust,” she retorted, slapping his hand away and stepping back from him. “Send me home.”
“I could have any mortal woman except you. Why is that?” He stood there in the strangely silent, desolate gray forest, facing her. He did not look exactly like his fetch, which had unified with his physical form, but the resemblance was close enough. Ronan wore the black pants and shoes, the long black coat, and the tall black hat. His black hair was as unruly as ever, his blue eyes more piercing than the knife she knew he carried beneath the coat. His round, fae face was set with an expression of determination as he watched her.
“I suppose that I should have let you have sex with me that night, so you could move on. Instead, I banished you back to your realm, not realizing you could possibly return to the mortal world. That was my mistake,” she said.
“You tried to kill me, without realizing at t
he time that all it would do was exile me back to Faerie. In doing so, you left me to think about nothing but you for quite some time.”
“Nine years is nothing in the life of a faerie,” Khiara scoffed. “You have no reason to bring this back up now.”
“Any time spent pining for a mere mortal is too long,” Ronan answered, and reached toward her. “You tried to take my life away from me, and so now I will take yours in exchange.”
“If I am nothing but a ‘mere mortal’, then why bother with me? I won’t stay here,” Khiara retorted. “You can’t make me and you can’t keep me like some kind of human pet!”
“Oh, I can do whatever I want, especially here. You may certainly try to leave, but do you think that you can you find your way home again?”
She bit her lip, and glanced around the forest.
“Forget about that. Some food or drink will help you to feel better,” he said, waving his hand with a flourish. In that moment, a small table appeared beside him. On it sat a plate heaped high with various, colorful fruits, and a goblet filled with a dark, red liquid.
“I know the rules of Faerie as well as you do,” she snarled at him with a shake of her head. “I won’t touch anything you offer me. I won’t bind myself to your world. I don’t want to stay here.”
“As you know the rules of this world, you must also know that you will have to find your own way home,” he said, looking down at his coat and flicking at the hem. “As you forced me to wait for nine mortal years to recover and find you, I will give you nine days to find your way. I believe I can wait that much longer to have you at my side once more.”
Khiara ignored his last remark. “And if I don’t do anything that connects me to the Faerie realm, I’ll be free?” she asked. “If I don’t drink or eat anything here?”
“If you do not indulge in any of the pleasures of the Faerie realm…” He moved with inhuman speed to stand directly in front of her, and reached out to caress her face. “Then, yes, you will be halfway to your freedom.”
“Halfway?” Khiara stepped back, out of his reach, a cold chill running through her. “That’s not fair.”
“Life is not fair, as we both know. Was it fair that you tried to kill me?”
“Was it far that you tried to force yourself on me?” Khiara retorted. “I chose not to be a victim, and I would have done the same to any other person.”
Ronan leaned toward her with a smile, his hands in his pockets. “But you did it to me and, as I am a denizen of a completely different realm, I have the ability to demand that you repay me for the injury you caused me. The laws of the Otherworld permit this.”
She glared at him. “You are wasting your time. You still won’t get what you want from me. Go ahead and give me my quest. I’ll complete it and I will go home, and never see you again. I didn’t give up nine years ago, and I certainly won’t give up now.”
“That is very confident of you.” Ronan laughed, straightening to look down at her. “It is one of the reasons I am so fond of you, my dear Khiara. This should make a very interesting diversion until you realize it is useless. And then…” He took another step toward her so he could lean close enough to whisper in her ear. “When you realize there is no leaving this place, we shall find some new and far more exciting ways to spend our time together.”
“Dream on,” Khiara growled in a low voice. “Tell me how to get home.”
“It is quite simple. First of all, as I said, you must not indulge in any of the pleasures of the Otherworld. Food, drink, and sex are all forbidden to you, as partaking of any will bind you to the Otherworld forever. Secondly, you need to find the precise gate through which I traveled to your world. That is probably the easiest thing for you to do and I will tell you now that it is in my palace.”
“That doesn’t sound so difficult.” Khiara knew that he could hear the nervousness underlying her bravado, but she continued. “You underestimate my willpower and endurance.”
“Actually, it’s those things that drew me to you.” Ronan ran his finger along her jaw line, causing her to shudder yet again. “There is one final requirement, though. Somebody who loves you must find their way to you. Without that, you cannot go home.”
“Then, that isn’t simple at all,” she said angrily. “Why are you adding the final condition?”
“This is your debt to me, so I get to make the rules about its repayment.” Ronan looked at her, his gaze implacable. “If you truly have a reason to return to the mortal world, then I am sure it will come to retrieve you.”
Fighting the urge to take a swing at him, Khiara simply answered, “Two of my coven sisters know that I’m here. They will try to get to me home if they can.”
“Theirs is not the type of love required to release you from the Otherworld. It must be a romantic and true love.”
Khiara stared at him, her mouth agape as she shook her head. “That is so not fair,” she said once more. “There is nobody back home who loves me like that!”
“Then save yourself the heartache and accept your fate. Stay here with me, where you belong,” Ronan said, extending his hand toward her. “I will love you more than any person in the mortal world ever could or would. I will be faithful to you if you take your rightful place at my side. If our love fades, then I will send you home with wealth and riches beyond imagining. You will not age, no matter how many years you remain here. You could be immortal, Khiara.”
Holding back a trite “never”, she instead retorted, “No thanks.”
“Very well,” Ronan said, letting his hand fall to his side. “Now, you are the one wasting your time, as it is already ticking away in my favor. I have made you a very generous offer. The longer it takes you to accept it, the less willing I will be to show you any kindness. It will be far easier for you to simply accept the inevitable. Although,” he continued, a smirk pulling at his lips, “I must say that it will be far more exhilarating for me to bend you to my will.”
Ignoring the icy sensation that shot through her, Khiara snapped, “That is never going to happen.”
****
Cate looked up as the door to the shop banged open forcefully.
“What the hell just happened to Khiara?” Sean asked, slamming his hands against the top of the glass counter.
“Is that Sean?” Felisa said from the other end of the phone.
“Uh-huh.” Cate was gripping the cordless, her knuckles white. “How do you know she’s gone?” Cate asked Sean, her own eyes wide with fear.
“I saw it happen.” He looked deathly pale. “She disappeared right before my eyes. Please tell me that I was imagining things.”
“He saw it?” Felisa’s voice pinged through the receiver.
“I saw it!” he shouted. “Give me the fucking phone.” Cate handed it over without question and Sean held it to his ear. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded to know.
“You’ve known Khiara for nine years now?” Felisa asked. “You’re best friends, right? You know more about her than even Cate and I do.”
“Yeah, so what? Get to the point. What happened to her?”
Felisa sighed. “Well, you don’t know everything…”
****
Khiara sat against the gnarled, gray, leafless tree, her head in her hands as she tried to regain her bearings. “What the fuck am I going to do?” she asked herself wretchedly. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and she blinked rapidly, until the sensation ceased.
It was bad enough that the forest was eerily quiet beneath the overcast sky. She could not see any trace of the sun, so she was unable to use it to gauge the four directions. Although it was warm and humid, she remained cold with dread. The forest was hauntingly lifeless, which only added to her despondency.
“Caw.”
She looked up and saw a raven sitting on a branch, its head cocked as it regarded her.
“Oh, fuck off, and tell Ronan he can do the same.” She pushed herself to her feet, put the strap of her messenger bag diagonal
ly over her right shoulder, adjusted the bag over her left hip, and looked at her surroundings.
The Otherworld was still largely an unknown in the mortal world. There were certainly enough stories about it from Celtic myths, as well as other cultures. Some of the rules and laws of faerie were well known, but certainly not all of them. Khiara tried to call on her knowledge of faerie lore, but it had been of little interest to her throughout the years.
Her brush with the possibility of becoming a fae prince’s consort had done little to interest her in their realm. In fact, she had stayed very far away from any references to it since that awful night with Ronan. Now she had a very real chance of being stuck here and living out the rest of her days as Ronan’s unwilling princess. She knew that plenty of faeries came to the mortal realm, seeking sexual relations in hopes of increasing their number. The faerie race was not exactly thriving, as evidenced by the barren landscape. It was through numbers that their magick grew more powerful, and through their personal magick that their world flourished. The Otherworld and mortal realm existed as parallel kingdoms, but as the Otherworld had faded to a mere shadow of the mortal realm, it had suffered more and more. What affected the mortal realm seemed amplified in the Otherworld.
Khiara wondered if it was only a matter of time before the Otherworld pulled away completely, losing all connections with the mortal world. If that happened, would the faerie race live or die? Without other breeding possibilities, they might become extinct. Then again, without the augmented ripple effect of war, hunger, and more that pulsed over from the mortal realm, they might somehow regain their former magick.
She shook her head. She was not here to worry or concern herself with the well-being of the faeries. She was here against her will and all that mattered to her was finding her way home.
The problem was that under Ronan’s terms that would be impossible.
Chapter 7
Khiara did not know if she could trust her watch and she scowled down at it as questions ran through her mind. Does time run differently in the Otherworld, or does it just seem that way because its inhabitants live so long? She had been walking for hours, according to the timepiece, yet the landscape never changed. She knew that if she became frustrated in the first few hours, let alone the first out of nine days, she had no chance of finding her way home. For a brief moment, she reflected that she would have preferred to be given nine hours, rather than having Ronan toy with her and try to give her some hope.
The Gossamer Gate Page 5
