“Is it?” Cassandra asked, standing and letting her eyes go dark. “Is that it, Cousin Julia? Because I don’t think it is.”
“Don’t test me,” Julia warned, the voices of the ancestors blaring in her ears.
“Oh, I would never. Who would ever test the perfect Julia Fairweather? The girl who is always loved, who is always forgiven?” She shook her head. “I’m not testing you at all.”
Cassandra twisted her hand, and Julia’s mother began to glow, going stiff as a board.
“Cassandra, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Julia said, looking over at her mother and lunging toward the woman.
“Cassandra!” Uncle Jasper yelled. “Stop this right—”
Cassandra twisted her hand again, and Jasper fell unconscious.
“This is how it’s going to work, Julia,” Cassandra said, glaring at her. “And if the old man does anything to stop it,” she said, looking over at Grandfather, “I’ll kill half the people in this room. What I’ve placed on your mother is called a ticking paradox. Twenty-four hours from the instant she began to glow, the paradox will kill her. Unless, of course, I stop it, which won’t happen until after I see you walk down the aisle and give your true consent to marry Paris. Oh, yes,” she said, snapping her fingers. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch until you do.”
Julia’s mother screamed as she crumpled to the floor.
“Cassandra! Stop this!” Julia yelled.
“You stop it, Julia,” she shot back. “You’re the only one who can.” She began toward the door. “Twenty-four hours, Juju. Don’t make me wait too long.”
Cassandra swept out the door, effortless and breezy.
“There has to be a way to undo this,” Julia said, looking up at Grandfather, who had made his way to the floor beside his daughter.
“The paradox is unbreakable, my dear,” he answered. “I’m afraid she’s right. She placed it. Only she can take it away.”
Julia’s eyes filled with tears. Looking at her mother, at the pain she was in, she knew what she needed to do.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, kissing her mother’s forehead. “But I’ll fix it. I swear I’ll fix it.”
Julia ran to the only place she knew, to the only family he had left.
It must have seemed strange to the Blackwoods when the bride whose wedding they had just ruined came rushing to them for asylum with tears in her eyes.
Even if they hadn’t just taken part in destroying half of her family’s ancestral home and ripping apart what was supposed to be one of the most pivotal moments of her coven’s existence, she was still the enemy. She was still a Fairweather and, even in the best of times, it would have been enough to deny her entry.
Her entry was not denied, though. Instead, she found a family almost in as much shambles as her own.
“Still in her gown,” Roman’s father said as he caught sight of Julia. The man looked worn and defeated as he nursed a cup of coffee along with several members of the Blackwood coven at their kitchen table. “Have you come for revenge or just to gloat?”
“Gloat?” Julia asked, narrowing her eyes.
Before the old man had a chance to answer, April rushed up through the back kitchen entrance.
As she neared Julia, her father spoke up. “Be careful, darling. She looks like a woman at the end of her rope. Those can be quite dangerous.”
“You have no idea,” Julia answered in a low, flat voice.
The ancestors had quieted themselves, as they did anytime he was outside the walls of her home. But she still felt them and, more than that, she still remembered everything they said. She knew the spell to rip this place inside out. She knew the incantation that would leave these people unable to speak for the rest of their natural born lives. She could do anything she wanted, anything but save her mother from the agony she was now going through. Magic wouldn’t do that. At least not her own. No. In order to procure that favor, she was going to have to give something else, something much more valuable.
But she couldn’t do that without seeing him first. It wouldn’t be right.
“It’s fine, Father,” April said, looping her arm through Julia’s. “There are a lot of things about this world that scare me, but this woman is definitely not one of them.”
She gave her father a curt nod and pulled Julia away from the kitchen.
“I think those are the most words me and your father have even exchanged,” Julia said, grinning at April.
“Lucky,” her friend answered. “Are you okay? Is your family all right? I didn’t know that was going to happen. I swear, if I did, I’d have warned you guys.”
“I know that, and I’m not mad. Whether they knew it or not, your family was stopping me from making a huge mistake. They were saving my family’s coven.”
“Explain,” April demanded as they whipped back and forth through winding hallways.
When Julia was finished with her longwinded explanation, she saw that April’s mouth had fell open.
“Okay. So that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” She ran her hands through her hair and blinked a few times, as if still taking it all in. “Not that it surprises me too much. I never liked Cassandra. Even as a kid, she gave me bad vibes. Wouldn’t share her play dough and all that.”
“All that matters now is stopping her.”
“Oh my God,” April said, looking over at Julia with sadness in her eyes. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You’re going to marry that putz.”
“Come on, April. You know it’s not that simple.”
“Of course it is,” she said. “And maybe it should be. You’re going to sacrifice yourself to save your mother’s life.”
“And you’re going to tell me that she wouldn’t want me doing that?” Julia asked.
“No,” April answered, shaking her head. “I mean, no offense, but that’s probably exactly what your mother would want you to do. But people don’t get to decide who sacrifices what. Keep that in mind, okay?”
They settled in front of a door at the end of the hallway. April pushed it open.
Immediately, Julia saw him. Roman lay in bed with covers up to his shoulders and sweat running from his brow.
“He never woke up,” Julia whispered, swallowing tears.
“They found him beside you,” April said. “But you’re awake now. I mean, that spells hope for him, too, right?”
She didn’t sound so sure, and Julia wasn’t, either.
They entered the room and, the closer they got, the paler Roman looked.
“He should have been up by now,” Julie said quietly. “What happened to him?”
“Did he give you a bottle?” April asked, looking from her brother to his true love. “We found a bottle beside you guys and there was traces of a powerful sedative potion in there.”
“Yeah, but I’m the one who drank it. It doesn’t have anything to do with him.”
“Except maybe it does,” April said. “The potion is too powerful to be broken, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be transferred. He took it from you, Julia. That’s the reason you’re awake right now.” April blinked hard. “It’s also the reason he’s not.”
“What?” Julia asked, her heart plummeting. “But I thought—”
April sighed. “Julia.” She stopped, blinked back tears. She shook her head as if she didn’t want to say the next part. But she did. “Julie, that potion…it’s what killed my mom.”
Julia stumbled a few steps back. Stay calm. She couldn’t freak out now. That wouldn’t fix anything. Lucky for her, that was exactly how she was wired. She had a way of freaking out about the small stuff, but keeping it together when disaster struck.
But this…this was more than a disaster.
“What do we do?” Julia asked, trying to keep her voice steady, if not for April’s sake than for her own.
“Nothing we can do,” April said, placing a soothing hand on Julia’s shoulder. “It has to run its course.” She bit her lip.
“For about fifty years.”
“What?” Julia nearly shouted. “That can’t be right!”
“But he’s alive,” April said, offering a small smile. “I mean, a lot of people don’t even live through it, so that’s a good thing.”
Noting about this sounded like a good thing. As she sighed, sinking against the bedroom wall, a thought sparked in her mind. Something one of the ancestors said, whispered into her ear back at the manor.
“I might be able to help,” she said, a smile almost touching her lips. She hurried back to Roman’s side and climbed in bed next to him, shut her eyes, and spit off a spell to send her into an immediate dream state, hoping she would find him.
And if she did, and if he couldn’t come back with her, then she would sleep forever by his side.
22
Roman
The instant Julia left him, so did the field. Iowa melted away into the background, taking its kind skies and kinder sceneries with it. Replacing it was something much less inviting, something much less open and warm.
“This place,” Roman said, staring off the edge of a roof…the same roof he nearly jumped from right after Julia left.
And now she had left again. She had done what he asked of her. Of course, he hadn’t told her that he wouldn’t be able to follow. To do that would be to seal her fate.
There was no way that woman was leaving without him. He knew that like he knew his own name, like he knew his brother’s face.
And she had to go, damn it. She had to save herself, save her family and her coven. She had to do what was right. And if he got left behind, then that was what happened.
The spell was a lengthy one—fifty years and not a day less. She would be old and gray when he saw her again, if she hadn’t already passed into the great beyond by then.
Maybe he would look her up. Maybe he would look her granddaughter up— one she would obviously have had with anybody other than that ginger bastard.
Maybe she already had. Maybe days and months and years had passed with him standing at this cliff. It was hard to tell. He was living in a moment now, the worst moment of his life. And he would never leave it, not for fifty damned years.
And, if that was all, Roman figured he might be able to make it, even if all he could do was think of her every instant until the minute his eyes opened up back in the land of the living
The loop wasn’t what he’d expected, though. He didn’t just stand there, awash in the grief he had felt so strongly after Julia left. He actually did what he hadn’t had the nerve to do back when then.
Roman took a deep breath and, like he had over a dozen times now, he leapt off the building.
He didn’t mean it. Not really. Why would he? Julia loved him. He wasn’t empty. He wasn’t alone. At least, not in his heart.
It was just a compulsion, like making moves in a dream.
Only this dream hurt like hell.
He smashed against the pavement, every bone in his body breaking, his teeth smashing against the ground and his nose crushing into shards.
His stomach churned in sickening twists, and the agony was too much to take. Just when he thought he was going to pass out, the world shifted, and he was back atop the roof.
And this is how it would be, fifty years of unending torment. And somehow, for her, it was worth it.
“Jesus Christ…”
He heard her voice behind him and whipped around.
It was Julia. She stood there, hands at her mouth in shock, eyebrows furrowed together.
“I…I watched you jump,” she said, barely keeping the tears from her voice.
Was it her? Could it actually be her? Certainly she wasn’t foolish enough to dip back into the dream to try and pull him out. Surely she would be to busy and have too much sense to do that.
Unless, of course, years had already passed. But she looked the same, even still wearing that wedding dress.
No, it was her. She was here.
God, no.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, unable to move from the edge of the building. “You have to get out of here.”
“You jumped off the building,” she repeated, horrified. “You…you jumped.”
He sighed. “It is what it is, Julia. When I transferred the spell over, it turned on me. I always knew that was a possibility. Where it left you in your best moments, it put me in my worst. And this is where I’ll stay. There’s no way around it.” He swallowed hard. “That’s why you have to go. This is hard enough without having to watch you watch me go through it.”
Julia blew out a thin breath and opened her hands at her sides. “I have to marry him, Roman,” she said. “I have to marry Paris.”
“Is that…” Roman shook his head. “How much time has passed, Julia? Has that not resolved itself yet?”
“It’s only been a few hours.”
Hours? Roman’s heart sank. It had felt like years, and it had only been hours. This was never going to end.
“Tell me what happened,” he said, still unable to bridge the gap between them. “But do it quickly. I’m usually not up here for much longer before…before I’m not anymore.”
He watched Julia’s face twist. The thought of him being hurt obviously hurt her, too. And, in the midst of all this, that made him feel a little better.
“Cassandra put a spell on my mother. She’s in agony, and no one can undo it except Cassandra. If I don’t marry Paris…my mother will be dead in a day’s time.” She ran hands through that gorgeous hair. “So, I need you to wake up, baby. Because I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do. And I really, really need you with me. Because whenever I don’t know what I’m going to do, I find you and you make it better. So wake up, Roman. Wake up and make it better.”
His heart shattered into countless jagged pieces. If only he could do what she needed him to; he would give anything to have that power.
But he didn’t. He had made his choice, as painful as it was. And he couldn’t change it now, regardless of how much he wished to do so.
“I can’t,” he said, and he could feel the pull of the pavement. It was calling to him, urging him to jump and meet it.
He held off as best he could. Who knew if she would be here when things reset? And, if nothing else, just seeing her for as long as he could was something worth fighting for.
“I want to, Juju. More than anything, I want to give you what you need. But this is what my life is now. There’s no way around it.”
“Except there is,” she said, stepping closer. “The ancestors—I can understand them now. And they told me that, if I tied myself to you, I could bring you out of this.”
“Or you could doom yourself to this, tie yourself to me in an endless loop of hell,” he answered, shaking his head. “I love you too much to let you try.”
“I love you too much to give a damn about what you want,” she shot back. “We don’t get to pick what sacrifices people make for us, Roman. We just don’t.”
“I do,” he answered. “At least here.”
“Roman—”
“You can’t tie yourself to me without my compliance,” he continued. “The dark magic coursing through me makes sure of that. It’s impenetrable. No one gets in unless I say so. And baby, for your own good, I don’t say so.”
“Don’t fight me on this, Roman Blackwood,” she said, more pleading than he was comfortable with in her voice.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said firmly. “No fighting, baby. None at all.”
“Roman, you can’t just—”
Wind howled around them, carrying a voice. “Leave the boy be.”
He recognized the tone before he even saw the originator standing behind Julie, and it sent shivers through his body.
The Crawley.
She rocked in the same old chair, knitting on the same old scarf. Her eyes were still as white as her hair, and her face was as wrinkled as it had been back in the woods.
“He’s made up his mind, young lady. I think
we both know he’s not the type to change it.” A toothless grin spread across her face. “But there are other ways, other ways to get what we need.”
“Get away from her!” Roman said, still unable to move and feeling the urge to jump stronger than ever. “Julia, don’t listen to her!”
“Who…who is this?” Julia asked, looking from Roman to the Crawley and back again.
“Just an old woman, Ms. Fairweather. An old woman who knows what it means to hurt,” she said. She set her knitting in her lap and stared at Julia. “I’ve seen a lot of love in my lifetime, but I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anything like the one that exists between the two of you. Hearts that beat in twain and all that. But you’re cursed, the both of you. Your stars are in conflict with your souls. And we all know how that turns out. It would do this old woman’s heart good to set things right for you, to give you a way to undo all the hurt and pain.”
“Julia, listen to me! Wake up! Wake up right now!” Roman shouted.
Julia’s eyes glazed over. “This is…this woman…”
“Is a Romani demon or something,” Roman said. “Honest to God, I haven’t figured it out.”
“What’s there to figure out?” asked the Crawley. “I’m a woman with a soft spot for young lovers and a specific set of skills. Let’s not make more of it than what it is.”
“Can you do it though?” Julia asked. “Can you fix this?”
“Julia don’t,” Roman shouted.
“My mother is in pain.”
“She’s dying, yes. But she doesn’t have to be. And he’s stuck here, but that doesn’t have to be, either,” the Crawley lied. “I can fix it all, and I’ll be happy to.” She grinned again. “For a price.”
“A price?” Julia asked.
“Just a favor. Nothing much. Why, if I had the power to do it myself, I would. But the magic works in the barter, you see. I can’t give unless I get. I’m afraid that’s the way it is.”
Wicked Legends: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection Page 18
