Darkly Sweet
Page 26
“Show me.”
I breathed shallowly while I pressed down, putting my hands on his hips to turn them in the right direction, refusing to look at his face, to do anything other than make his knee perfect. It wasn’t a big deal, it was just like Pas de Deux.
“If you have your knee cocked it’s going to be dislocated if struck from here.” I thumped my fist lightly against the inside and his knee buckled. He tumbled over on top of me, knocking the breath out of me, his heavy body pressing me down.
I couldn’t breathe, but it took a few seconds to know if it was from his weight and impact or just because I was that stupid about him. He shifted and weight spread through my right ribs.
I gasped and cried out, struggling out from under him. He rolled off me while I curled into a ball for a few agonizing breaths. I forced myself to kneel, sitting up straight
while I covered my ribs with my palms then pressed down sharply at just the right angle until they popped back into place.
I smiled at Drake and started giggling.
“Are you all right?”
“My ribs.” I gasped but at least I could breathe. The pain had helped clear my head after having Drake on top of me and seeing him fight in the tourney. Viney was right.
Seeing Drake like that was completely mind melting. “They’re my weakness. I could never be a great wrestler. What was that? I did not hit your knee hard enough to knock you over.”
He cleared his throat before he grinned at me, sinking down in a cross-legged position. “I was dizzy from shock at having such helpful critique from my lollipop lover.
Do you have any more excellent advice you’re holding back? Don’t worry, I can take it.”
The way he said that, leaning forward and staring at me with those glittering green eyes, I had a hard time drawing a steady breath.
I stammered for a moment. “I don’t have a lot of critique to offer. It was really well choreographed and the lights were unbelievable.”
His grin widened. “You liked my lights and my choreography? Why thank you, Penny Lane. Of course, it wasn’t choreographed. That was a real fight, and I won.” His voice had a hard edge to it, anger and hunger.
I took a deep breath and stood up. “Of course. I don’t know anything about it. I’ve never seen that kind of thing before. Don’t you need to go and celebrate with your enemy?”
He stood smoothly and followed, keeping only a hand’s width between us. “Ian is a friend of mine. I’ve fought with him more times than against him. Why are you letting him close to you? Surely Viney’s told you that he’s not nice to women.”
I crossed my arms and dug in my heels. “And you are?”
He leaned close, brushing my cheek with his, the green light feeling like warm dry water lapping on my skin. “I could be so nice if you’d let me, Penny Lane. I’d rub your feet until you scream and writhe from ticklishness. I’d lick your fingers until I have licked up all the sugar soaked into your skin from years of lollipop experiments.” He moved closer until his warmth was against me, filled with this kinetic energy that I ached to devour. “If you want me, all you have to do is say the word.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. He was lying. He didn’t like people who wanted him. The only reason he was playing this game with me is because I was trying to stay
focused on Zach, who I was going to marry even if he was a blue-light-wearing mage who was obsessed with a figment of his imagination.
“Want you for what? I guess you are pretty useful sometimes, like hanging swings and doing laundry and helping with turn-out and helping me not to throw up after car rides. Okay. Yeah, you’re kind of the most useful person I’ve ever met. That’s valid. But, I want someone nice. I know it’s stupid, because mages aren’t nice. I know that, but it’s what I want. Not you. Sorry.”
“You were not impressed by the show.” His voice was flat, emotionless but there may have been a tinge of rage to it that I didn’t want to understand.
“Oh, I was. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever imagined much less seen. You’re amazingly talented in so many ways, but I can’t want the worst mage in the world, or the second worst, or even the third. I’m sorry. We can be friends, okay? I’ll see you later.
Have fun with Ian. I hope you don’t have a bar fight without me. I’ve never been to a bar fight.”
He smiled showing sharp, dangerous teeth. “Wow. Maybe someday you’ll meet the perfect mage, one who takes you to bar fights but somehow manages not to hurt anyone at them.” He stepped closer to me and I stepped back. I was done holding my ground.
“Good night, Drake.”
I turned and ran, but hadn’t gotten two steps before he grabbed my arm and swung me around. I stared up at him, his arms around me strong and burning.
“You’re going in the wrong direction. That’s the way to the woods.” He closed his eyes, bent his head, nose against my hair and inhaled deeply. “If you were half as delicious you’d still be irresistible. Run quickly and I’ll try not to chase you.”
He let me go, pushed me in the right direction and I ran, lifting up my skirt while my cloak and hair billowed behind me.
When he howled, I almost looked over my shoulder, but kept my feet moving away from him, chest aching, body protesting. I wanted those arms around me and I never wanted him to let go. I’d lied. Of course I wanted the worst mage in the world, just like my mother, just like Poppy.
Chapter 27
My room. My bed. My blanket over my head.
Señor Mort snuggled into my neck while I closed my eyes tight, ignoring Viney pounding on my door.
“I’m sleeping,” I finally yelled and she was quiet after that.
I wasn’t though, not really. Who could sleep after their whole insides have been jiggled and dumped out then poured back inside in any random order? I threw my blankets back and sat up. My hands were still shaking from unspent energy, the kind that needed an outlet. I put my bare legs over the side of the bed, sending it rocking. I slid to the floor and pulled my computer out of my bag, sat down at the tea party table, and logged into a site I hadn’t been to in almost a year.
The icon blinked showing that I had over eight hundred comments awaiting moderation. That was not what I was in the mood for. I checked the last order that I’d agreed to fill and hadn’t. Three finus balls. I double checked the size and went to my trunks. I had all the ingredients to make them, the coloring, the dusting, the flickering flare, the perfect end to a good fight.
First, I had to blow the balls out of the elastic earthen putty, which meant kneading and rolling and beating, which I enjoyed. A lot. It helped to focus my mind and relax my body. I added the colored swirls to the thin membrane before I lit my burner and put in my drops of clear finisher.
Chemistry. If only class was a little more relevant than memorizing some table that didn’t even have all the ingredients I used.
By the time I had the balls blown, they were a clear slightly colored swirl of green and pink. I blew five of them then moved to the insides. I filled the injection stick with layers of sparks and ashes with a fine filling of fire before I carefully pricked the balls, injected the filler and then rolled the ball between my heavily gloved fingers, kneading it back into place. It would have to cure for hours before they could be shipped without exploding on the way.
It was already afternoon when I peeled off my gloves and goggles and stared at Señor Mort curled on my pillow. I did not want to sleep. I did not want to think. I turned to my trunks, pulled out some emergency meal bars, ate breakfast and went back to work.
I put on my headphones, listened to Chinese soap opera, and started working on my best-selling beauty products. When I was finally tired, truly tired, I opened my computer, went to the special delivery service, ordered one for the next morning, and then back to that site with all the unread comments and marked the sale, ‘delivery scheduled’.
I took a long bath, washed my hair, and went to bed.
I woke up wi
th my phone beeping, my clock showing the time four-thirty a.m. I checked the text and read, ‘pickup available for fragile parcel at Northeast loading dock.’
Wherever that was. Northeast at school, that would be two buildings from where I was, towards the polo field. I didn’t reply because the text disappeared without leaving a
number. I got dressed in my school uniform hastily, my hair once more curly as I carefully picked up the parcels and my bag then opened my door.
Zach was sleeping on the couch, one of his legs on the floor while the video game screen flickered, a control still in his hands. I hesitated and pulled the blanket over his shoulder before I continued on my way out.
I hurried along the empty corridor until I crossed a large driveway then through a covered columned walkway until I reached the Northeast corner of school. No one was parked anywhere I could see, so I stepped off the walkway and headed down the drive beside the tall brick building. The windows were smaller and closer together the further I walked from the main drive, like smaller quarters were inside the building than in the glorious elevated halls of school. Was this maintenance and housekeeping? I always liked those kinds of people. If Drake were a normal person who could hang a swing and do laundry, I wouldn’t be able to resist him.
A building jutted out, like a garage or something, and when I went around it, a brown delivery truck was waiting for me. I stopped walking while I stared at that truck, feeling my heart pound for no reason. It’s not like my old crush would actually be here.
“Caramia. Is that Penny Lane? It couldn’t be with those strawberry curls.”
I searched the shadows between the building and saw the delivery man leaning against the corner, his deep-set eyes mostly hidden beneath the fall of coal black hair.
I dropped my bag and package then ran, my feet pounding on the ground before I threw myself at him.
He didn’t fall back at the impact and when I wrapped my arms around him, he hesitated only for a moment before he laughed and wrapped his arms around me, swinging me around like I was still eleven years old.
When he put me down, I stared at him before I pulled back and punched him in the shoulder.
He winced. “Ach, goldie locks still hits like a witch.”
I grabbed the lapel of his stained and somewhat unsavory looking jacket. “You just disappeared!” I shook him but he was fairly solid and only tilted his lips slightly.
“Not at all. I went back to Darkside for a wedding and when I returned I had a replacement. It happens in the delivery business.”
He shrugged while my heart ached. I yanked his lapel closer, staring into his black beady eyes before I let him go and turned away, crossing my arms over my chest. I was acting like a child. “Congratulations on the marriage.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Ah, Caramia, who would marry this ugly face? It was my cousin, a handsome, strapping lad if ever there was one married a girl with the largest dowry I’ve ever seen.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Right. That’s my job.”
His lips twisted. “Ah, the boys at this school, they’re your peers, so you must be here hunting for a husband. Have you picked one yet?”
I winced because I’d talked to the delivery man far too much over the years, telling him all about my Grandmama’s will before I knew that deliverymen get transferred without informing any of their customers.
He’d slipped into the Italianesque language we’d crafted together, Italian roots but mostly words I’d made up. Poppy hadn’t ever approved of my friendship with Signore Ludi. She hated the way he looked at her without blinking, his eyes beneath jutting brows that were cleft and swelling, marked and pocked.
The first time I’d seen him, eight or so, I’d come out to sign for the package and when I took the clipboard, he covered my forearms with his hands, rough, calloused skin and made the hurt less. I’d looked at him and seen the hurt in his face, so I’d put my hands over his cheek and took it out of him. It was only fair.
He cocked his head and I realized I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying, asking about the contents of the package.
I told him that it was a package of finus in green and pink.
“When is your birthday?” he asked in our secret language.
“Not until spring. I have ages to find a peer.” I wrinkled my nose. The language felt strange on my tongue. “I don’t have anything to give you to drink.”
He smiled slightly, the curve of his lips out of place in his deformed face.
I beamed back at him because his smile was beautiful to me. I tugged on his long hair. “You need a trim. And you’re out of uniform. Do you remember teaching me to dance? It did absolutely no good. At this school everyone is a ballerina, and a horseman, and a linguist and a genius.” I wrapped my arms around him for another hug because I needed one or I would burst into tears or something. I’d forgotten how it felt to have a friend, a real person I didn’t have to pretend with.
He patted my back and murmured words I didn’t understand but they made me feel better anyway. Finally, he pulled back and studied my face carefully before he said, “You aren’t too lonely, though, are you? You have more people to talk to than Señor Mort.”
I nodded. “I do have some friends, I think, but it’s hard to tell. I keep waiting for someone to light my hair on fire.”
He laughed, a growly sound that lacked any of the mesmerizing beauty of Drake’s laugh. Of course it did. Drake and Signore Ludi were complete opposites. “There must be someone that you wouldn’t mind lighting you on fire.”
I pushed away from him and smoothed down my jacket and skirt. “I’m not here for that, literally or figuratively.”
He brushed my cheek with his rough fingers. “You are blushing. Is he a peer, an appropriate match for my Caramia?”
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. “You are much too anxious to marry me off. I told you that I’m going to marry you.”
His smile curled tighter. “My Caramia needs someone young and bold, someone like that gentlemen over there.”
He gestured behind me and I whirled around to see Drake in the dim morning light seem to unfold from the shadows.
Signore Ludi called out to him with a wave, speaking in a different language, a guttural tongue full of curled lips and soft hisses. The last time I’d heard that language was the last time I’d seen Signore Ludi.
Drake walked towards us a few steps before he nodded like a regal prince and responded in that same stomach wrenching language.
I’d been sitting in the small enclosed porch, refilling Señore Ludi’s glass when Revere had stalked in, his dark eyes like carved pieces of stone, glinting. I’d spilled the golden liquid onto the table and the deliveryman covered my hand with his, righting the bottle.
Whatever Revere said to Signore Ludi I’d never know, but I could smell smoke, dust, and something else, something that reminded me of pain when Revere turned to me with a brittle smile.
“Penny, show your friend your scars. It’s bad manners to see someone’s exposed wounds and not respond in kind.”
I stared at him, my fingers numb beneath the pressure of Signore Ludi. “I’ve already shown him my ribs. He helped me how to adjust them so they don’t ache all the time.”
Revere’s smile twisted into a peculiarly dangerous shape. “Your back, Penny. Show him your back.”
I gasped and blinked in Drake’s perfect face, a slightly derisive expression on it. I stepped forward, throwing my arms wide like I could protect Signore Ludi from Drake and the rest of the world.
“What are you doing here? What did you say?”
Signore Ludi cleared his throat behind me before he pulled my arms down and moved me to the side. “I told him I saw him in Darkside as the devil’s advocate. It’s a kind of errand boy position, isn’t that right, young master.” Signore swept a bow that seemed mocking with his misshapen shoulder although it looked better than it had the first time I’d seen him, the last time as well.
“I need to be on my way. Do you have your parcels for me, Caramia?”
I nodded and went over to my bag and the packages I’d dropped so carelessly. I had a lot of beauty goods to send as well as that one particular package, the one that had brought Signore Ludi. “Can you take these as well?” I asked in our language. “They’re only lotions and things.”
He nodded with a wide grin. “Of course. Maybe I’ll have to order some to make my face pretty enough to catch a bride.” He squeezed my hand before he nodded respectfully at Drake and climbed into the brown delivery truck and drove away.
Drake shook his head, a forced smile on his supple lips. My fingers tingled and I edged away from him to pick up my bag and put it over my shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
I frowned at him. “Of course.”
He hesitated, glanced after the large truck and back to me. “I thought you made up your delivery man. He’s very interesting.”
My heart pounded in my chest and my back seemed to burn. Scars. I had enough of them. Drake should have looked normal, ordinary in the light of day, but I could still feel
his weight on me in the field beneath the stars, still see him with his bare muscles straining against Ian.
“We’re friends, I mean we’re barely acquaintances. I need to get to class.”
He grabbed my arm as I passed and held out a muffin. I stared at him, his eyes hooded, dark in the early morning light.
“You didn’t come out of your room all day yesterday. You have to be careful or you’re going to starve to death.”
I inhaled shakily before I took the muffin and bit in. It was moist and sweet, with lumps of cherries and chocolate. I chewed slowly while he filled my senses. I grew hot while he leaned closer, the flavor on my tongue so much like I imagined his skin tasted. I leaned closer, feeling the pull towards him as inevitable as falling before I jerked upright.