by Ramona Wray
So, you cripple the boy I love and then expect me to love you for it?”
“I expect you to grow up and understand where you belong.”
I know where I belong, Lucian. I belong with him.
I watched the anger sweep over his face like an electrical storm. I saw lightning bolts sizzling in his eyes and I heard claps of thunder rumbling in his chest. And then I watched it all die down, bit by bit, until his eyes were blue and warm like the summer skies again and his body lay still above me. His expression became soft, then pained, and finally resigned. I didn’t know what was happening, but my tired heart twitched at the change. A smile, so soft it seemed almost shy, parted his sculpted lips.
This Lucian … I didn’t know this Lucian. He’d plunged a knife in my chest, I should’ve been scared out of my wits of him. And I was, but no longer of him; I was scared for him.
“I’m an angel. How can you choose a mortal over me? Do you realize what that does to my self-esteem?”
Oh, no! Lucian, what are you doing? I can sense something … something bad! What ... what do you want to do?
Tenderly, with the kind of care I never would’ve thought him capable of, he brushed the hair away from my forehead. His touch, made even gentler by the tendrils vibrating between us, was soothing and lighter than a feather.
“This world, this beautiful, maddening, spellbinding world, could be a halfling’s dream-home, easily. It could be everything our own realm isn’t. When I first got here, I was struck by the taste of it. Heaven, Katherine, for a few moments, your world tasted like heaven, only spicier! But they were just moments, pet, and then that taste changed to ash. It’s not for lack of trying that I say this because, for the longest time, I did fight the truth. I filled my existence with people, and things, and everything I thought might do. I tried all I could. But the world still tastes like ash ... from the second I remove you from it — how’s that for sad irony? I’m fated to kill the very thing that makes this realm breathtaking. Because the reality is that, without you in it, the mortal domain feels a lot like my own cursed home. And ... I think I’ve had enough of it.”
Lucian, please! I begged without really knowing what for. Just … What do you want to do?
“Give you what you want, love,” he said, so very softly. “I’m ending this.”
With a lingering brush of lips on my forehead, he rose to his feet. I didn’t know what his plan was, but my heart had taken a tumble right into my stomach. Bad sign. Really bad.
Lucian, wait!
But he didn’t. He walked away and then kneeled, arms crossed over his chest, wings cascading behind him like rivers in a tempest, dark and restless. I couldn’t stand to watch so much beauty. So much grace. So much otherworldliness.
One word arose from his chest and the sound of it shook the earth. The forest shivered and kneeled down to it. The trickle of spring water on the rocks echoed like broken glass. I recognized the word; the closest English translation I could think of was “Michael.”
And there was only one Michael that Lucian could turn to now. Only one Michael whose name would have such an impact on the world around me. The archangel himself.
But why would Lucian call on the archangel?
To ask for help, of course.
To have Michael end the hex, by sending him back between realms.
Without a hunter bound by magic to our plane, the hex would become void, and Lucian was sacrificing himself to finish it. He was willingly returning home, to the very place he’d sworn never to see again. I knew this, somehow, as soon as he called on the archangel.
The energy in the forest changed. I could almost hear the grinding of the wheels of time becoming silent and still. A new scent filled my nostrils, something infinitely sweeter than anything I’d ever smelled, like milk, cookies, honey, and Oriental spices, all blended together into something that was, simply put, refined perfection. Bells chimed in an undetermined distance, followed by a drowned sound, which I knew right away: wings fluttering.
The darkness was shredded and brought to its knees. The night groaned, but yielded, and the dark became light.
“Michael.”
Lucian, still kneeling as if in prayer, whispered the word adoringly. And the archangel was there, washed in a liquid glow, brighter than all the stars in the sky clustered together. I could only peek between my lashes. His wings, immaculate and mighty, faded into the fluid light like a poem, praising the beauty of all things holy.
Lucian didn’t move, and soon I saw him averting his eyes, too. The light around Michael could easily melt retinas, even the halfling variety, I gathered.
Until that radiance died out, I couldn’t even peep anymore. When it happened, Michael was left looking a lot like Lucian, except for his wings, as white as the halfling’s were black. He was barefoot, with strong legs sheathed in leather pants and nothing else on. His hair was long, a stream of auburn silk brushing his shoulders. And just like Lucian’s, his face was so perfect, it tore me up inside to look upon.
“Arise, young one.” He spoke softly, but somehow I could hear every sound.
The pain in my chest wasn’t there anymore, which led me to believe that nothing harmful could survive in the archangel’s presence. No pain, no mistrust, no confusion. I was pretty sure he had stopped time as well. Words came up short.
Lucian stood, proud and tall, with a face set into hard lines.
“Thank you for coming. I need your help,” he said simply.
Michael’s eyes drifted over to me and Ryder, who, I now saw, was kneeling, keeping his head down. If not for that pesky knife still stuck in my chest, I would’ve done the same.
“Yes,” the archangel agreed. “I can see that.”
Lucian eyed him openly. Determinedly.
“I wish to be released. I wish them free, as well.”
Michael nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Yes, young one, so you do.”
“Can it be done?” the halfling asked impatiently.
The other one laughed softly and I sensed it flowing over me, over the forest, the spring, the world. Peace. Laughing notes of peace.
“That is a pointless question. You do understand you will never be able to come back? Releasing you means withdrawing your invocation rights. No matter who summons you, her included,” he pointed to me absently, “you won’t be able to answer. This plane of existence shall be forever closed to you.”
Lucian, stop! I thought, and the despair in my mind’s voice caught me by surprise. Let’s think about this. There’s got to be some other way!
He ignored me, of course. So why did I care? Because I understood sacrifice. I understood what it took to willingly lay down your life for someone else. And I knew Lucian … he made Machiavelli look like Mother Teresa. He was misguided, cruel, obnoxious. The word “sacrifice” wasn’t a part of his vocabulary. For him to do this … Of all the things in the Universe, he had to pick me to redeem himself with by actually caring. And I may not have cared in return, not like him, not enough, but still sufficient to resent his sacrifice.
He squared his shoulders, nodding once. “I know the terms. In fact, I’m counting on them to break the cycle. I accept.”
Michael shrugged, a graceful, light gesture that put a knot in my throat. “Very well, then. Kneel.”
Lucian, stop this right now! You know you don’t want to go back there. This is forever, you idiot! Stop! I screamed inside my head.
He didn’t. He just dropped to his knees, keeping his head low, saying nothing. The archangel held out his arm and almost touched his head, when Lucian whispered raggedly: “Wait.”
“Yes?”
“What will become of them?” he asked, without raising his head.
Michael gestured again, vaguely in my direction. “She has proven wise in using the power; she will keep it. She will live, grow old, and die, as any mortal should. So will the boy.”
Lucian’s head bobbed once, tensely.
“She will still hurt whenever she touc
hes someone?”
“Such is the price for her insight,” Michael agreed.
“Could you make sure that …”
There, Lucian stopped, gulping so hard I heard him.
“She shouldn’t hurt when she touches him,” he whispered.
For crying out loud, Lucian! I cried out frantically. You stop this right now, do you hear? I don’t want it on my conscience! Do you not get what forever means? You will go mad, you moron! Stop it! Please!
The archangel nodded. “It will be as you ask, young one. Are you ready?”
The halfling nodded, too. His face tilted, eyes searching for and locking on mine. By now I was well drowning in my own tears, unlike him, whose face was dry. There was a man’s resolve in those blue eyes and not an ounce of doubt, nor wavering. Only determination and a deep, permanent sense of sadness.
His velvety voice echoed, in my head, one last time. Good-bye, my little witch.
Out loud, he said, “I’m ready.”
Michael’s hand came to rest atop his head, and I knew for a fact that I was looking into le bleu de Lucien for the very last time. Into those eyes, warm again, like the summer skies.
There was a sharp snap, followed by another pyrotechnics display, and then the brilliant light took them. They were both gone.
The knife in my chest evaporated inexplicably and I sensed the wound closing. No pain, wooziness or any other side effects hinting at my close brush with death lingered. But a new hole yawned in my chest. And just because this one didn’t have a knife jutting out from it didn’t mean it hurt any less.
Slowly, as gently as if I were made of glass, Ryder gathered me in his arms. I hid my face in his pine-y scented chest and cried. Cried without even trying to explain why. And he … he just held and soothed me. He whispered in my hair and kissed the tears away. And when they ran dry, he carried me home, just like in a Jane Austen novel. For once, I didn’t complain.
My heart weighed tons. Chunks of lead, stuffed in my thoracic cavity, dripping acid — that’s how it felt.
Things stay with you, they say, and the past grows into a living organism that you can never really shake off. Everything you’ve ever done, the good and the bad, is supposed to always be on your trail, breathing down your neck. Linkin Park even wrote a song about it. Time acts on it, people say, or so they hope, and eventually some of it even gets forgotten, buried deep within. I wouldn’t know about it, given that I’m only seventeen and not a member of Linkin Park. But what I do know is that, even if I lived a thousand years, I’d never forget to whom I owed every single day. Lucian’s sacrifice would always stay with me. Remembering it was the smallest thing I could do, in remembrance of him.
But every time I did that, every time Lucian’s name was going to drift into my thoughts again, it would also remind me of the choice I’d made. And that would make it less painful because I’d never regret my decision. Ryder was my home. My shelter. The yang to my yin. He was the one who balanced the forces in me. The one who wanted the girl but didn’t mind the witch, either. Tailor-made for me.
“Thank you for choosing me,” he whispered quietly.
His eyes locked on mine, no longer swirling, but gray, and flecked with gold. He wasn’t sad, not angry, just open like a book to me.
“Don’t say that. There was never a question of choice.”
“Sure there was,” he argued softly. “And I know exactly what you picked by picking me. And what you’ve given up.”
Of course he knew. Yang to my yin, remember?
“So, thank you.”
See? Right choice, right there.
“Put me down,” I said. My house was already visible from behind the tree line.
He did.
I pushed myself on my tiptoes and took his face in my hands.
“I wouldn’t be me without you.”
“I wouldn’t be at all, without you,” he whispered, lowering those sinful lips to mine. “I win.”
Hand in hand, we made our way to my house. A whole lot of future stretched on before us, as far and wide as any eyes could see. Which, of course, opened the door to a sea of other issues.
“So … when do you think we should tell my parents we’re married?”
He laughed, stopping to plant a kiss on my nose. Then his expression turned serious.
“I love you, Lily.”
Warmth spilled in my cheeks. “I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that.”
“That’s good, ’cause you’re looking at about seventy years of listening to it. On a daily basis.”
I smiled back, thinking of nothing but how I could barely wait.
His cell rang as soon as we were on my porch and Mary Kate reported that J was alright. The doctor was calling it a “miraculous” recovery. I hadn’t even worried about it, because even if the potion had failed, I had plenty of time now to try again. After all, I did get to keep my powers. I was still freak girl.
But I was Ryder’s freak girl.
And that made a world of difference.
THE END
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter: One
Chapter: Two
Chapter: Four
Chapter: Five
Chapter: Six
Chapter: Seven
Chapter: Eight
Chapter: Nine
Chapter: Ten
Chapter: Eleven
Chapter: Twelve
Chapter: Thirteen
Chapter: Fourteen
Chapter: Fifteen
Chapter: Sixteen
Chapter: Seventeen
Chapter: Eighteen
Chapter: Nineteen
Chapter: Twenty
Chapter: Twenty-one
Chapter: Twenty-two
Chapter: Twenty-three
Chapter: Twenty-four
Chapter: Twenty-five
Chapter: Twenty-six
Chapter: Twenty-seven
Chapter: Twenty-eight
Chapter: Twenty-nine
Chapter: Thirty
Chapter: Thirty-one
Chapter: Thirty-two
Chapter: Thirty-three
