by Chloe Jacobs
“Are you looking forward to seeing her again?”
She nodded. “If I remember correctly, she’s more hyper than a berserker—only less ripping and tearing, and more frenzied hugging and constant talking.”
The rumble of his amused chuckle made her grin. He squeezed her hand. She looked up at him, and it hit her. “You know, this is kind of like a date,” she said, tingles of awareness dancing up her spine.
His smile was crooked, and his eyes warm as he laid his arm across her shoulders, making her feel like he would rather be here with her right now than anywhere else. It probably wasn’t true. They were both too worried about Mylena for it to ever leave their minds completely, but maybe one day it would be true.
“What would be the purpose of a date?” There was such a thing as courtship in Mylena, but she and Isaac had pretty much bypassed anything resembling normal…in both worlds.
What if she was wrong and the portal didn’t open again? What if they stayed here? There could be more nights just like this, and eventually maybe they would get a place of their own and…
“You know, so a couple can get to know one another and decide if they like each other.”
“But we already know we like each other.” When they were alone like this and his voice softened because he trusted her enough to let down his guard, it did crazy things to her. Like popping candy hitting her bloodstream. “Even more important, we know that we fit together. In battle together, or planning for Mylena’s future, even while arguing…and definitely when I kiss you…nobody fits me like you do.”
He had a way of saying things, simple things that shouldn’t have double and triple meanings. But when he looked at her that way and melted her insides, they did, and now she couldn’t think about anything except all the other ways they might “fit” one another.
She cleared her throat, wondering where all the air had gone, because it was suddenly hard to breathe. “Yes, but if we were a regular couple, we wouldn’t have experienced most of those things. We would go out to the movies and probably to dinner and help each other with our homework, and we’d talk about our hopes and dreams and fears.” She had no idea if that’s how it worked for normal people, but it sounded about right.
“But we have never done any of these things, and I know you better than my own Lost soul.” He frowned and pulled her to face him fully. “I pity this world for encouraging such a hollow, ghostly existence. Mylena might be harsh and savage and sometimes cruel, but without all of it, I would not have experienced the fullness of your ferocity of spirit, your stubborn determination, refusal to yield, or your vulnerable heart. And I would not have met the future Queen of Mylena.”
It was just like him to be complimentary and contrary at the same time. She shook her head. “That’s not fair. You haven’t even begun to see what this world is all about. There’s beauty here. And love. And struggle. And pain. And the worse things get, the more humans tend to band together.”
His stubborn jaw tensed, but his nod said he was hearing her.
“Show me something else that you remember from before,” he asked, offering an olive branch.
She looked around and pointed to the street corner with a laugh, “That’s where I fell when I was learning to ride my bike, and I got my very first scar.” She looked up and thrust out her chin. “Right here, see?”
He pulled her to a stop and tipped her chin up, then kissed it right there as they stood in the soft circle of light from one of the streetlamps. “The first of many.”
She glowered. “Don’t look at me like that.”
He raised one of those imperial brows. “How do I look at you?”
She crossed her arms. “With pity.”
“No, never pity.” He looked all the way up and all the way down her body this time, the expression on his face steely. “You don’t pity a warrior for her scars, because scars are proof of survival and victory.”
“Then what was that look all about?”
He paused and let her go. “I suppose it was a little bit of melancholy. I have seen this world through your dreams, but it was always empty and lifeless. I selfishly let myself believe it would be the same in person, that you weren’t missing anything if you remained in Mylena with me.”
Her heart constricted with the doubt and regret in his voice. “And now that you’ve seen for yourself?”
“I may not completely understand this place, but I was wrong about many things. And maybe I was wrong when I said the people here live hollow lives. There is something to be said for a gentler world. I would take back all the pain that Mylena dealt you if I could.”
“Isaac—”
“When I look at your mother, I see the woman you might become if you stayed here. She is beautiful and soft spoken, and your father has no scars, yet he is able to provide a prosperous lifestyle for his family. You talk of having friends and living free. You could have something here. Something pretty and safe, with motorized carriages and fine, colorful clothing, and a comfortable palace to live in. You could have everything that you’ll never find in Mylena, no matter how hard I try to make it so.”
She wasn’t going to tell him that he was wrong, because he was smarter than that, and he would know she was lying. “You’re right. I can choose between a difficult life or an easy one. I have to decide whether to accept the danger or stay where it will be safe. It’s not such a simple decision as I thought it would be.” She tapped the center of his chest. “But it is my decision.”
No, it wasn’t a simple decision, and there was a lot more to consider than she thought there’d be. After only a short time, she felt the connection to this world snapping back into place. Well, maybe not yet, but it didn’t feel impossible anymore. There were little things still throwing her off, things she hadn’t been able to get used to, yet…but she knew she could, in time. People here would accept her without question, and one day she would wake up and be just a regular girl again.
It could happen, and it was everything she’d wanted for four years.
Normal. Safe. Belonging.
Footsteps echoed from somewhere behind them.
She glanced back, but the shadows beyond the sidewalk were deep, and she couldn’t see anything. “Let’s go,” she said, pulling him along with her.
It had been years since she’d navigated these streets, and she made a wrong turn halfway there.
“Where are you taking me?” Isaac asked as they doubled back.
By Mylean standards, Jonesport was a metropolis, but by human ones it was a fairly small town. She was pretty sure there was only the one hospital and one police station, two high schools—one public and one private—and a community college that was actually closer to the next town than it was to this one. She remembered the mosque and the Catholic church because they were next door to one another. There was another church on the opposite side of town, too, but she couldn’t remember what denomination it represented.
There was also only one place for young people to go at night, unless you counted the Baja, a grassy open space out by the old, drained quarry where the high school seniors had hung out to drink and have bonfires.
She and Isaac had walked through the residential area and were nearing what was considered downtown.
She laughed. “I have to admit, I’ve never actually been inside the place because I was way too young.”
She led them around another corner and saw that they were in the right place. There were more people on the streets, most of them under twenty-five.
It was still there. The only dance club in town.
All the women were overdressed in skin-tight clothes covered in sparkly sequins, baring a lot of skin, while the men were more casual, in denim with button-down shirts open at the collar. They all milled about in front of a building with loud music pouring out of the open doors.
She remembered spending countless hours with her friends while they were in junior high trying to figure out how to get into the place, but they’d never
had the balls to try.
Technically, she was still underage, but she had a feeling no one would actually call her on it anymore, especially with Isaac at her side. She looked him over. He was dressed in the Walmart special—a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms and a pair of faded jeans. But one glance at his face and the bouncer would let him through.
Music wasn’t really a thing in Mylena. The few instruments they had were used strictly for practical reasons, like the horns which sounded at the goblin castle to warn people of impending danger, or to tell them that their king had planned a gathering. Her pater had been taken with her voice, but she was sure that was only because he’d never heard anyone sing before he met her.
This was going to blow Isaac’s mind.
Chapter Five
They passed through the doors into the club without any trouble. The bouncer actually took a second look at her and Isaac, but then he waved them both inside with a shrug as if he couldn’t have cared less even if he thought they were underage.
As they proceeded deeper into the bowels of the thumping madhouse and stepped down the three stairs to the dance floor, the first thing to hit her was the noise. After four years in Mylena, it was alien to her. The music came up through the floor and from the speakers set up around the perimeter, like an earthquake. It shook her insides so badly she was sure everything was shifting out of place. For a shaky second it was like having Agramon’s portal magick coursing through her.
The dance floor teemed with half-naked, undulating bodies. She glanced up at Isaac, who watched with interest. “Want to dance?” she asked with a grin.
“This is dancing?” he yelled back at her, trying to be heard over the noise.
She shrugged. “There are different kinds of dancing, but yeah. This is the dancing that young people do.”
She took his hand and pulled him through the crowd until they were surrounded on all sides by people. It was a little disconcerting now that she was in the middle of it, and she had a moment where her bounty hunter training rebelled, but she reminded herself that she was in the human world again, and it was all perfectly safe.
Another song started, with less of an electronic feel and a slower beat. As she started to move to it, Isaac’s gaze flared. He didn’t move with her, only stood there like her own personal bodyguard, but he watched her hips with interest. Suddenly, she felt sexy and feminine, the way she only felt when they were alone.
With his eyes fixed on her to the exclusion of all else, she got bolder, her movements becoming more elaborate. She got so caught up in the music and him and the way her body responded that she didn’t notice when someone sidled up behind her and grabbed her by the hips.
She spun around, her hand up to the chest of the guy that was trying to get his arms around her. He was sweaty, like he’d been on the dance floor a while, and his eyes were glassy and bloodshot. She may have been in Mylena for four years, but she knew what that meant.
“I’m not interested,” she yelled so he would hear.
The guy only laughed. “It doesn’t look like your boyfriend cares. He isn’t dancing with you, and so he should let someone else dance with you.” He slipped his arm back around her waist.
Greta pushed him away firmly. “My boyfriend knows that I can take care of myself, and if he isn’t dancing with me, that’s only because he likes to watch me kick the crap out of little shits like you who don’t seem to understand the meaning of the word no.”
As far as empty threats went, it wasn’t very effective and only made the guy laugh again as he looked her up and down and apparently found her less than intimidating. All the while his hands were still busy. One palm landed flat on her ass with a thwack she could only imagine hearing over the sound of the music.
In a heartbeat she had him turned around with his wrist twisted up behind his back, but his screech of offended outrage caused heads to turn, so she let him go just as quickly. He whipped back around and made a grab for her, but stumbled while reaching.
Isaac took her hand and started to pull her out of the circle of people who had stopped dancing to watch, but the guy wasn’t giving up that easy. He grabbed her other hand and tugged back.
She glanced over her shoulder and groaned. “Dude, I don’t want to dance with you,” she repeated very clearly so he would have to understand. “Don’t make me say it again.”
He sneered down at her. “You’re a real bitch, you know that?”
She laughed. “You think that’s going to make me feel bad? I’ve been called worse than that, by scarier than you.”
She turned back toward Isaac. “I guess it’s time to go,” she said with a wry smile, ignoring everyone else.
He nodded. “Although I could probably watch you move to this music all night, I wouldn’t wish for your parents to find you missing from your bed.”
Her chest lurched. “You’re right. It wouldn’t be fair to make them go through that, especially so soon after I just got back.”
They walked away, leaving the disgruntled drunk guy to hit on some other unlucky woman, but once they were outside on the street again, Isaac stopped and took her arm. “You realize that you’ll have to tell them soon that you aren’t staying, don’t you?”
She pressed her lips together, but he was right about that, too. “I know, but not just yet. There’s nothing to tell them now anyway, not when we don’t know for sure we’ll even be able to go back.”
Isaac frowned. He obviously disagreed.
“When things settle down, I’ll tell them,” she said. “I promise.” How to tell them something like that was going to be the hard part. The idea of hurting them again was a physical ache.
“Every moment we spend here costs Mylena more lives,” he said darkly.
“You don’t have to remind me. I know what’s at stake just as well as you!” She jerked away from him. “But these are my parents, the only family I have. They went through hell because of me for four years. You can’t expect me to just drop in out of the blue carrying all of this baggage, and then tell them I’m leaving again without any good explanations. I owe them some time.”
His jaw clenched, and his eyes went dark. He wouldn’t say it, but she’d hurt him.
“Damn it,” she grumbled and spun away, cheeks burning with shame. “Your people are dying, and here I am taking you to dance clubs and complaining like a spoiled little girl.”
He stepped behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders, always so strong and supportive, even when she didn’t deserve it. “Let’s go home.”
Home. As if that was a real place for either of them.
“Tomorrow we come up with a solid plan,” she promised, clutching his arm tightly. “As long as we’re alive, Agramon won’t take Mylena or any other world.”
He didn’t reassure her. He didn’t say anything.
They started walking back the way they’d come, but as they passed a darkened street near the edges of downtown, something flew out of the shadows right at Isaac.
She flashed back to the day of the eclipse, when everything in Mylena had gone moon phase and crazed beasts had jumped out at them from every bush and outcropping of rock. She still saw little Jack’s body flying through the air and the thing’s teeth ripping into him in her nightmares.
But this wasn’t Mylena, and they’d probably just been followed by the disgruntled idiot from the dance floor.
Isaac easily threw his would-be attacker off and sent him tumbling across the pavement, but Greta stopped cold when she saw that it wasn’t the guy from the club at all.
“Ray?” She pushed herself between the two of them and gasped as she caught sight of the knife clutched in Ray’s hand with a white-knuckled death grip. It was a freaking butcher knife from her parents’ kitchen. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He snarled like a wild animal, his gaze fixed over her shoulder. “Step aside and let me finish this.”
“I’m not letting you do any such thing. Are yo
u crazy?”
Isaac came around her and closed in on Ray. She tried to hold him back, but he put his arm across her chest, his attention focused on the shaking human. “I think I understand.” He sounded absolutely calm, as if he was the one in control of the situation, not the manic kid pointing a knife at him.
“You don’t understand anything. How could you? You’re just a monster that thinks he can get away with murdering my brother because he’s the king of some backward world.” Ray sneered. “Well this is my world now, and you don’t have any magick or fancy moon curses to give you the advantage. It’s just you and me, and it’s time to settle this.”
She tried to edge between them again, but Isaac stood firm. “Ray, stop this,” she pleaded. “Isaac didn’t kill your brother.”
He didn’t even look at her. “The vicious hatred of Mylena is what killed my brother, and he’s as responsible for that as any of them.”
“That’s not fair, and you know it.”
He snarled up at her then, so much anger and pain coming off him, she felt it in the air like a thick, bitter wave.
“Fair? What’s fair about any of what happened to us?” His hand shook as he pointed the knife at Isaac. “How is it fair that I lost more than a year of my life to that hellhole? How is it fair that he gets to live when my brother is dead? Or that I have to explain to my family the reason why their least favorite son is the only one who came back?”
Isaac raised his hand. “I’m sorry for all you’ve suffered—” he started.
“If you’re really sorry, you’ll fight me. And then I can at least face my parents, knowing that I avenged my brother’s death.”
Isaac raised a brow. “And what if you lose? Your family will be without both of their children, because you let your pain and rage turn you into the very monster you accuse me of being.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
If he loses, then he won’t have to face them at all. And she could see how Ray might think that was the next best thing.
He waved the knife and lunged for Isaac.
