by Jamie Magee
Mason wouldn’t look River in the eye back then. Every time they brushed up against one another or sat too close, he’d move away, crushing her self-confidence. Finally, one day she flat-out asked him what his deal was.
She’d cornered him in her mother’s courtyard and asked why he seemed so mad all the time. Instead of answering her he crashed his lips into hers and drew her close. His voice shook as he whispered. “Because your mine and I can’t have you.”
The memory of his words alone...mine...was enough to send a warm wave through River even now. She understood then Braxton was between them, even when she explained to him that she and Braxton were only friends, he still hesitated. He would look at her with a mix of need and guilt.
River didn’t have room in her life for pain like him anymore, the kind of pain that would distract her. She’d loved a boy. The person who stood before her was a man, one who had gone wild and left her behind. Did it matter that he was here now, heavy with the sins he had committed? Did it matter that she was his end and not a path he’d forget? Maybe, or maybe not to a girl who wasn’t both stubborn and jealous.
He was supposed to be River’s first, he wasn’t. She knew he’d been with Indie, others too. It made a sick feeling rise in her throat when she realized he was holding a girl and more than likely thinking of her—giving everything away that was promised between them. It was so easy for him to give up on them that it always made her question if anything was as real as she remembered them to be.
Years later, Dagen took what Mason left on the table. She didn’t regret it because Dagen treated and touched her as if she were precious like no one could dare to replicate her. There was nothing more exquisite to a twin than getting a rare glimpse at what it truly felt like to be one of a kind, in all ways.
Tonight, River’s stubbornness refused to allow her to come to this manor, meet her, then have a fight with him then land in bed with him. Hell no, she wasn’t that easy. No matter how hot he was, or how bad it hurt to not touch him, she was going to hold her ground.
Their breaths had settled, and neither one of them had said a word. River was starting to think that somehow he’d lost the ability to speak since she’d known him last. Guess that would make one helluva excuse to not call.
“I didn’t cheat,” he said into the darkness of the room.
His voice had changed, too. It was deeper, more powerful. There was only the slightest hint of a southern drawl in his tone.
“Sure,” River breathed. She just happened to find him in the house that belonged to a blond named Indiana. The name of the girl his Mother called his girlfriend. The girl that Ash had grilled for clarity on the matter. Clearly, his definition of cheating and River’s were two different things.
He was quiet for a few seconds.
“I tried to pull myself out of my rut. Thought playing the drums would help. I met up with a few guys from school at this coffee bar,” he wavered. “Indie was there. I did a double take, from the corner of my eye she looked like you. I thought you’d come after me.”
She glared in the darkness smelling the BS in his words. To come to him she would have had to escape her coven, the most powerful one in any dimension. All he had to do was convince one overbearing mother to let him loose. It’s not like she had the chance to come and didn’t take it. That’s the way his excuse was shaping up in her mind.
“It hurt to look at her,” he said. “I avoided her at first, but then I kept running into her. I caught her crying one day…that’s how our friendship began. I tried to make her feel better.”
River squeezed her eyes shut. She thought she was going to be sick. Was he really going to force me to hear this?
“She was grieving, too. Had lost five sisters and her parents. We were both looking for a distraction, something that was new but not too far away from the memories we cherished.”
River rolled away, but he caught her arm, she felt a wave of energy come over her, it wasn’t suffocating, but it was asking her to stay still, telling her that if she ran he would lose his nerve. River didn’t think she owed him anything, but the bottom line was that Braxton was her friend. His grandmother was a sweet lady that River adored. His cousin Soren was a guardian that stood next to her in this war. She owed it to them to listen to Mason unveil his sins. No matter how sick it made her.
“We were just hanging out. Mom lied to you. She wasn’t my girlfriend. When you called, I had only met her two days before. She gave me a ride to the coffee shop that day because dad still hadn’t gotten me a car. Indie came in and met Mom.” He cursed. “When I called your house, and Ash told me what you were mad about I couldn’t even figure out why my mom would have said something like that. I thought maybe she had one too many Valiums or something. Then I asked her, and she told me that Indie was good for me. That I needed to leave the Quarter in my past before it cursed me, too.”
River hated his mother. Silence rained on for agonizing moments.
“I know it doesn’t seem like I tried very hard, but I called you, Soren, everyone every hour for days.”
“Days,” River repeated.
“You wouldn’t talk to me.”
“You didn’t leave a message, and you didn’t deny anything.”
“I didn’t know how to say it.”
“What? That you found a girl your mother would love?”
Another curse. “You wanna know what happened after those days? I got drunk. Knock down, don’t remember your name drunk. I was kicked out of school for cussing out a teacher. Put in some cranked out therapy program, grounded from everything and everyone. It was weeks later before Indie came over to check on me.” River heard him smirk. “Mom thought she was an angel, but we fooled her. We would smile and act innocent, then go out and get hammered and party. Both just trying to lose the grip grief had around our throats.”
“Glad she was such a good role model. Would’ve sucked if you followed your brother to the grave, or worse if you had killed someone in your downfall.”
“She was a good role model. She stopped. She told me why she stopped, showed me some whacked out supernatural defect. Then I figured out if I focused on her problems mine didn’t seem to be that harsh.”
“Awesome.”
“I’m being honest.”
“Did you sleep with her?” River spat back.
Silence. Meaning yes.
“You gave that to her,” River said as her voice quivered.
“I don’t even remember it. Neither does she, at least not clearly.”
Like that made it okay. “Bet that didn’t stop you from giving it another go.”
“No it didn’t,” he said in a harsh tone. “We tried to be a couple a few times, but we were only meant to be friends. Well, apparently we were meant to be something else too, but we didn’t figure that out until I died.”
The statement felt like knives in River’s soul. She heard Jamison in her head telling her to think of how bad she would’ve felt if Mason had died. The anger suffocating her now told her that would be the only way she could have forgiven him for what he’d become. Now she had to live the rest of her life knowing he was immortal at the side of an immortal queen who had stolen him from her. How sick was that?
“Who is he?” Mason asked evenly.
“What are you talking about?” She snapped.
“Who is standing between you and me right now. His scent is all over you. You reek of him.”
That son of a b—
She was halfway across the room before she felt his arms go around her, his breath against her neck.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed into her ear causing a shudder to rush over her. He nearly grinned. He was pleased he could still stir a response in her, but his fear wiped it away. His hands tenderly rushed down her arms. “River...is it too late for you to ever forgive me? Can I not know you anymore at all?”
River harshly turned in his arms. “Is it too late?” Was he freaking serious! “If it weren’t for some twisted turn of fat
e I would not even be here! You’re acting like you showed up on my doorstep.”
Agony filled his eyes. “At death you were the only image in my mind. I fought for clarity, so I could have that chance again.” His gaze trickled over her furious, hurt expression. “I was coming for you, like a thief in the night. As soon as I figured out what I’d become, how to control it.”
Her stomach flipped as a wave a heat bloomed over her. The very idea of him just showing up, daring to steal her had adrenaline pumping through her veins. She wanted to believe him, needed to. But it was too hard. He had literally destroyed her.
“There is something big between us,” he said still keeping his hands on her and edged a bit closer, lowering his head as she tried to look away just so he could catch her troubled stare and keep her right there with him and not stuck in repeat in her mind—remembering all he’d done.
“The first thing I did after coming back here after rising was finding that library. I know it sounds crazy, but I felt you behind those walls—I had to get you out. The second I found the room so much slammed into me,” he shook his head trying to hold back the flood of words he wanted to say—how he wanted to tell her he saw her in another life, in another world.
He flinched, and his eyes squinted shut. “I pushed it away, just like I’d done every day when I thought of you. Then—then you just showed up here.” He cursed. “I know Skylynn moved shit around to make it happen, but still. How crazy is this, Riv? How does it make any sense?”
“It doesn’t,” her voice was far weaker than she wanted it to be. “It can’t.”
“It can,” his tone was harsh. “I know you want it, too. I can feel it. Whoever this guy is—he didn’t make you forget us.”
She almost said he had, on many occasions and nights but she was not cruel and not even sure if it was the truth.
“You know what,” her voice was growing stronger. The idea of Dagen, of all she’d faced, won and lost since she last saw him was bringing her back into focus. “You broke me—into a thousand pieces. I put on a front, even dated so the girls would get off my back about you. It sucked because they weren’t you. Then all hell broke loose with Raven. When it was over a man was left standing next to me. A man that was grieving for the friend he lost and nearly overwhelmed with the weight of the role put on his shoulders. And you know what?”
Her eyes raked over him. “Dagen let me in. He let me help him with his grief. When I offered him a shoulder and I told him to lean on me, he did. And yes, once we were past that, I did give him what you left on the table—all of it. And unlike you and your rich drunk girl, I remember and cherish every single second of it. And each that came after.”
She watched her words destroy him as rage flashed in his eyes. “It hurts doesn’t? Hearing the truth.” A single tear escaped her eye. “He’s immortal,” she said lifting her chin. “He’s one of my best friends, always will be.”
Her statement added flames of jealousy in Mason’s eyes.
“No,” she said with a tender sway of her head. “You don’t get to look at me like that.” Her brows drew together. “You buried my Mason right next Braxton.”
He clasped her shoulders. “We’re the reason he’s in that grave,” he hissed. “It was about you that day.”
River was shell-shocked—apparently he was too. He let her go and within a blink of her eye he was sitting on the edge of the bed leaning forward on his knees with his head hanging low.
River kept her stance. In some way, she knew he had blamed her for this. He never said it, but she knew him well enough to read between the lines. She knew for sure he blamed himself because he was there when it happened.
When she saw his body quake with a mix of rage and grief, tensing every long, lean muscle, she moved to his side.
“He was in love with you,” Mason’s voice was harsh. Broken. “He was never good with us. He may have been cool around you, at home we fought fist to fist.”
He shook his head. “Mom used our fighting as an excuse to move us. She said you were trouble, stirring up and stressing her and dad.”
River pressed her lips together and counted to five, trying to stop herself from standing up and calling his mother every evil name she could think of.
“Moving didn’t stop the fights. I was furious Braxton and mom got their way. I made sure every day was hell on them all.”
River’s hand was shaking, but she managed to put it on his back. He sighed and leaned into her.
“No matter what he said on that lake he didn’t mean it,” River promised. “He loved you.”
Braxton was a stand-up guy, but he was also the type of guy that fell back on his same points or arguments and would spit them out without thought. The way an old man would tell you a story about the war as if you hadn’t heard it before.
“I’m not making excuses, River. I’m really not. But he was gone, my parents were insane, I couldn’t get to you, you couldn’t get to me. And I blamed myself for all of it,” His eyes met hers. “You were innocent and pure, the only thing that I’d touched that hadn’t been destroyed…in some way I thought you were safer away from me.” His eyes moved over every inch of her face. “Right now, I can’t figure out if that’s still my truth.”
Her stare questioned him.
“I’m going to war. If you are at my side, you are not only a target but you distract me from Indie. We’re fighting Escorts, beings that killed me, that have killed warriors of light,” he clenched his jaw. “I trust Soren and the rest of the coven to keep you safe in the Quarter, away from this, away from the front lines,” his body grew tense. “And I guess I need to trust your new BFF immortal to do the same.”
Her breath hitched.
“Mason…Jamison is my father…he was an Escort. You’re fighting my blood.”
Chapter Twelve
Indie had shed her dress like it was a plague and was now whooshing through her closet sliding in and out of clothes. She had no idea what was appropriate to wear in the Veil, but that was where she was going. She had put on a pair of ripped jeans and a sweater and was hopping around trying to get her boots on.
“Love, calm down,” Phoenix said to her.
“Calm down? Are you serious?” she said brushing her hands through her hair trying to strip the curls out of it. “You don’t know girls. You don’t know what just went down back there.”
“I was standing there,” he said as he shed his button up shirt and pulled on one of his long sleeve T-shirts that hugged his chest. Stay focused Indie!
“Yeah, like I said you don’t know girls. We said more than you heard. I ripped her heart out. I’m the other woman,” Indie said pointing to her chest.
She hated herself right then because this was a Cadence move. She was always the other woman, always the down low girl that destroyed relationships then stood behind the fact that they clearly were not that stable to begin with if the guy had the notion to cheat. Indie wanted to find her remains so that she could kill her again! And this had nothing to do with her.
Phoenix held her in his arms that second, pressing his body against hers, letting his hands slide down her body. “You were not the other woman.”
“Bullshit I should have known. I mean I knew he was devastated over his brother, I knew his mother was certifiable. I knew he looked at me like he wanted me to morph into someone else sometimes, but I never asked. I never once asked if he had an ex. And once I figured out that he did, after we were done, I never pushed the point, because he had shut down.”
“You’re mine. She’s his. You were not the other woman.”
“Phoenix did you not see that look in her eye? Did you not see her shatter as soon as she put it together? She’s never going to go back to him because she thinks I stole him. I want to go to the Veil.”
“Goodnight woman, calm down. One second you are fretting over a lovers spat and the next you’re heading toward death.”
She pushed away from him. “If I see a ghost, even if they are in s
ome crazy haze or light that means they’re in the Veil? Right?”
“Presumably. Not always.”
“I need to go now.”
“To what end? Your family is not there.”
“No, but Mason’s brother might be. He might be in there, and if I pull him back, if that is off Mason’s plate, then that might help.”
“How would that help? The last thing we need is another bloody male in this situation.”
“It started this! He thinks it’s his fault that his brother died. They were fighting over her, if I bring him back then he will not have that guilt. He will be able to look at her and not feel this sick remorse.”
“Trust me, love he’s over the guilt. At least that’s not the most dominant emotion.”
“I have to do something! Skylynn’s little dreams or whatever was the catalyst for this. She urged that family here, his brother’s accident was here. They broke up because Mason was here. This is my fault.”
“Sounds to me like it’s Skylynn’s.”
“Don’t you go there,” Indie said poking her finger at his chest. “She was focused on me, trying to keep me safe.”
“I’m calling a spade a spade, love.” Phoenix said as flames came into eyes. “I’m busting my tail trying to get her free and find my way through this war. Did she keep you safe? Yes. Has she backed up Guardian and me time and time again? Yes. But the thing about Skylynn is that she acts on worries, things that haven’t happened yet. You’re looking for a place to shelf blame. It’s not yours to carry. It’s Skylynn’s, Mason’s…everyone’s but yours.”
“You don’t like Skylynn that’s why you’re saying that.”
“I like Skylynn. I disapprove of her methods. We’re going to get her free, and Mason and Seneca are going to be just fine assuming we don’t go to war with the line exaltation in the mean time.”
