by Suzi Davis
“I’ve forgiven you. It’s impossible to stay angry with you – especially when you don’t want me to be,” I pointed out. “I forgave you almost as soon as I remembered you – remembered us. I know where your intentions lay, where your heart was the whole while but… I won’t so easily forget what you did or that you might try it again one day.”
“I’ll never make you forget me or anything else, ever again,” Sebastian solemnly promised. He linked his fingers through mine as he spoke and raised our clasped hands. His warm, lips began gently brushing over my knuckles, his soft breath raising the hairs on my skin.
I bit my lower lip, not wanting to speak the truth but knowing I had to.
“I wish I could believe you,” I whispered.
Sebastian raised his eyes to mine. I was surprised to see the hesitance in them. He lowered our hands and gazed back to the fire, attempting to subtly avoid my eye.
“I couldn’t erase your memory again if I wanted to,” he reluctantly confessed. I frowned back at him, puzzled. “You don’t want to forget me or anything else, ever again – you really don’t want to. It’s like slamming into a brick wall; my attempts have absolutely no effect on you whatsoever so you needn’t worry.”
“Your attempts?”
He didn’t even have the courtesy to look ashamed. He shrugged.
“I know how afraid you are, Gracelynn. I know what a nightmare this has been for you. I thought that maybe if you forgot what we were running from you might...” He didn’t finish his sentence. My glare effectively silenced him.
I took a long, slow, deep breath, trying to calm myself. “I can’t believe you thought the fact that you’ve been trying to tamper with my memory unsuccessfully would actually make me feel better. Really, Sebastian! How am I supposed to trust you?”
To my extreme annoyance, he laughed. “It should be easy. I lie to myself all the time and have no qualms with my own trustworthiness,” he declared with a grin. “But I didn’t lie to you,” he pointed out when I didn’t share in his smile. “I just didn’t tell you that I had tried to alter your memory – until now.”
“Withholding information and lying aren’t that different.”
“I disagree. Lying is dishonest, while withholding certain pieces of information can often be considered… prudent.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Prudent?”
“Yes. For example, you said you didn’t want to hear the details of my past-”
“Because it doesn’t concern me,” I interjected. “What you did before we met, whatever choices you made when you couldn’t remember – it doesn’t matter. All that matters to me is us. All I care about is the present.”
He smiled, a familiar mischievous gleam sparkling in his large, wise eyes. “But I haven’t tried to affect your memory lately, that was weeks in the past. And since we’re only talking about the present…”
He suddenly leant forward, his face abruptly inches from mine, his eyes intense beneath the fans of dark lashes. He took me by surprise, barely giving me time to catch my breath, my anger abruptly vanishing.
“Presently, I was about to kiss you,” he finished, his hands gently pulling me closer as he spoke.
His lips brushed against mine lightly at first, teasing and enticing me with his sweet, playful kisses. Unable to stop myself, I leant in closer, my hand automatically sliding around his strong shoulders and up the back of his neck, my fingers curling into his black, messy hair. It was the sweetest manipulation possible and I didn’t even try to resist.
My heart pounded harder, my body came alive as an intense and overwhelming sensation began building in my chest. My lips parted to inhale the sweet, exotic warmth of his breath, the taste of his mouth filling my mind and overwhelming all my senses. Within seconds, all my reason, all of my self-control was long gone and there was nothing but his body and mine, and the undeniable need to be together.
I broke free from his kisses to catch my breath but I couldn’t stop touching him. I pulled him tightly against me as he kissed down my neck, his lips rough and tender all at the same time. Fire erupted throughout my body, lingering under my skin and demanding to be satisfied and further fueled by his touch.
“Gracelynn?” His warm breath tickled against my collarbone, sending electric chills all over. Our bodies shifted closer together.
I struggled to find the necessary air to speak. “Yes?” We had slowly moved together to lie down on the thin tarpaulin covered by a soft blanket that was to be our bed by the fire. My excitement and passion flared. He reluctantly pulled back from me, propping himself up on one elbow so he could look directly into my eyes. His hand lingered on my hip, then began to stroke slowly up and down my side as he spoke.
“I think, maybe, we should stop,” he quietly announced, the look in his eyes and the feel of his touch completely at odds with the words on his lips.
I immediately shook my head, pulling his face back down to mine. “I don’t want to stop.” My words were slightly breathless, my voice sounding suddenly much more mature and sexier than I’d expected to be able to pull-off. He made a low noise in his throat as I passionately kissed him that sounded half-groan, half-moan and only further increased my desire. He broke his lips apart from mine again to speak but this time I kept kissing down his throat, my hands sliding under his shirt and up over his firm stomach.
“You wanted to be married first,” he reminded me. I hesitated, his words finally breaking through to me.
“I did,” I reluctantly conceded, my lips tickling his skin as I spoke. I sighed and nuzzled into his neck, breathing in the warm, heady scent of his skin, my hand still slowly trailing back down his stomach. I smiled triumphantly as his hand tightened on my hip in response, pulling me over almost roughly to lay half on top of him. There was nowhere to look but his beautiful, passion-filled eyes. He stared back at me, looking deeply into my eyes. I could feel his chest rise up and down beneath me with each breath that he took.
“Marry me first,” he repeated. I could see just how hard it was for him to stop, to slow things down between us. My sense of reason was slowly and reluctantly returning to me.
“I have two conditions,” I told him, kissing his lips as I spoke.
“Anything.”
I smiled. “You have to ask me properly and you have to do it soon. I don’t want to wait anymore, Sebastian. Life’s too short and I know what I want – I want you.”
“That’s easy; I’m yours. I’ve always been yours – for as long as I can remember, and for as long as I can’t,” he added with a small laugh. “And life, for us, can be as long as we want it to be.”
I carefully slid off him, leaving just my arm wrapped around his chest. He hugged me tightly against his side and we looked up at the sparkling night sky that peeked out between the tree branches above where we lay. The fire crackled cozily nearby while our pounding hearts slowed and reason fully returned. A blush spread out and over my cheeks that had nothing to do with the hot night air as I recalled how forward I’d been just moments ago.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized for the second time that night. “I don’t know what came over me.” I turned my head against his chest, hiding my blush against his skin.
“It’s my fault as much as yours,” Sebastian answered. “I think we both may have allowed our momentary ‘wants’ to overpower one another’s better judgment.”
My brows pulled down as I gazed up at the night sky above us.
“I just wanted to be together, to forget about everything else…” I realized my mistake as soon as I said it. Sebastian chuckled softly by my side.
“And I let my wants be overpowered by your own.”
“You did?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes. Because no matter what I may want in a moment of passion, deep down inside, I know that what I truly want is for you to be happy. And I don’t think you’d be happy if you compromised a moral that you’ve stuck to and defined yourself by for so long.”
I didn’t answe
r. I silently considered his words.
“But a part of me must have wanted to forget that responsibility – enough that your magic was able to seduce me so easily,” he teased.
“I did not seduce you!” I argued, shocked at his suggestion. He laughed quietly. “If anything, it was the other way around.”
“Then I should apologize.” Sebastian sat up as he spoke, pulling me up with him. His eyes were bright with excitement, his smile so happy and teasing that I realized just how long it had been since I’d seen him smile like that. “You do need to learn to control your emotions though, Gracelynn. You must always be aware that what you may want in the moment is not necessarily what you want in the grander scheme of things,” he reminded me more seriously.
“I know,” I agreed. “I’m trying, Sebastian, really I am. This is just all so new and overwhelming – and frightening. I’m trying so hard but I feel like I’m getting nowhere.” My happy mood was quickly fading, reality destroying the beautiful magic of our evening together.
“It will all be okay, I promise. You’re doing just fine. It will come back to you, you just need more practice,” he added with a grin.
He shifted onto his knees as he spoke, reaching down to the edges of his shirt and tugging it up and over his head so that he knelt bare-chested before me in the firelight. I couldn’t help but swallow hard. His smooth skin looked bronze under the fire’s soft glow, all the perfect angles and contours of his muscles highlighted by the flickering firelight, his stunning physique punctuated by the black lines of the mysterious tattoos that decorated his body.
“More practice?” I repeated uncertainly.
His grin widened. “Sure. We know the answers we’re seeking are hidden within my tattoos so perhaps you should spend more time looking at them.” His muscles flexed and tightened as he stretched out on the blanket beside me, lying on his chest and resting his cheek on his folded arms. “Go ahead. Let me know if they trigger any memories for you – they sure haven’t for me.”
I shook my head at his back, biting my lip as I smiled. I slowly climbed onto him, sitting on his lower back so that I could properly examine the large, Celtic cross design that was spread out before me. A million sensations came back to me as my eyes followed the twists and turns, the depth and details of the design overwhelming me. I remembered the first time he had shown me his tattoos, that night he had revealed so many truths to me. I thought about the day he had given me his ring too, out on the middle of the frozen pond beneath the beautiful mural he had painted on the underside of a bridge. I was whisked away on a warm breeze of pleasant memories as I traced the designs of his tattoo with my finger, but nothing further came to me, no memories of a forgotten magic or a life I had lived thousands of years in the past, or hints of the secrets I had hidden for my future self.
“What do these words mean?” I lightly ran a finger over some of the small, twisting text that was woven between the images decorating the cross.
Sebastian didn’t answer right away. I leant to the side so that I could properly see his expression. His face was scrunched up, his expression almost pained, the muscles in his neck and jaw strained as he struggled to answer.
“It’s so hard to remember,” he murmured between clenched teeth. He still didn’t open his eyes or relax. “I think…” I could almost feel the mental exertion of him trying to remember, his muscles trembling beneath me. “I think they mean something like… trust and feel the pattern.” His expression suddenly relaxed though sweat now beaded upon his brow. “It’s a loose translation of an archaic form of the Celtic language.”
“Oh. What does it mean though?”
“Your guess is probably better than mine since it’s a message meant for you. If only I could remember something more useful but no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember anything about the origins of my tattoos other than that they are clues for you, based upon the images from your spell book.”
“I wonder why you remembered everything but that?”
Sebastian didn’t give me an answer because there really wasn’t one. Perhaps one day we’d find out but it was obvious that question was not about to be answered anytime soon. Still, I wanted to know so badly what his tattoos might mean. I wanted to understand why he couldn’t remember their origins when he should remember everything now. The only one of his tattoos that he knew anything about was the mark left from the Binding – and that wasn’t even really a tattoo, it was just the mark the spell had left behind. And Sebastian hadn’t remembered Caoilinn casting the Binding spell until I told him of my dream-memory of it, and then recast it myself.
I admired his tattoo for a while longer, finding no further hints or clues trapped within the dark, detailed designs. My eyes were beginning to sting from both the fire’s smoke and the lack of light. A wave of tiredness suddenly swept over me and I let myself slide off Sebastian’s back, curling up against his side. I had thought he was already asleep since he had been silent for so long and his breathing was so deep and even. He turned towards me immediately, pulling me into the warmth and safety of his arms and sliding our extra blanket up and over us both. Unable to resist, I lightly ran my fingers through his soft hair, gently brushing it back from his face. My hand froze in shock as I realized there was another, tiny tattoo marking his scalp just above his temple. The twisted, black lines were hair thin and formed a small Celtic knot, no larger than a dime. I stared at it curiously, wondering how I’d never noticed it before. Even though it had been hidden by his hair, I had thought I knew all of his tattoos.
“Have you always had this tattoo?”
Sebastian opened his eyes, looking sleepy and confused. “I wasn’t born with any of them, Gracelynn,” he mumbled with a half-smile.
“This tattoo on your scalp – why haven’t I ever noticed it before? Why didn’t you tell me about it?” I pressed. I brushed my fingers through his hair again, straining to make out the details of the tiny, tightly formed design in the fire’s flickering light.
Sebastian closed his eyes with a sigh. “I don’t know. It’s just a small mark – it’s never seemed important.”
“It’s so strange…”
He didn’t respond so I started lightly running my fingers through his hair again, trying to discretely inspect the rest of his scalp for more tiny, hidden tattoos. He caught my hand and brought it down away from his hair, brushing his lips against the back of it in a sweet and gentle kiss.
“I love you,” he mumbled sleepily. “Now leave my head alone. That’s my only other tattoo – I promise.”
“I love you too. And fine, I’ll stop but promise you’ll tell me if you remember any other tattoos that you haven’t told me about.” My eyes were feeling heavy and were already starting to close. I tried to fight off a yawn. “I hope you sleep well.”
“So do I,” Sebastian agreed softly. Though he tried to hide it, I could still hear the fear in his voice. I didn’t know how he fell asleep each night, knowing that those terrifying dreams and tormenting nightmares would always be waiting for him. I had once been plagued by nightmares and new how truly terrifying it could be. And those were just dreams, a somewhat innocent expression of my inner turmoil by my subconscious mind. What haunted Sebastian was his actual past, nightmares that he had actually lived through and must relive, night after night. I remembered how frightening it had been the one and only time I had remembered part of Caoilinn’s life – her death. I recalled the way my mind had slowly fallen backwards through time, sinking deeper into the dark past with each slow and hypnotic breath. And as I remembered, I felt myself sifting deeper through my thoughts than I typically dared to go, the memory blending with the present and mixing into my dreams. As I hovered on the edge of consciousness, I was vaguely aware of the other memories that were hidden in the depths of my soul, lurking in the nearby shadows but I moved past them all, drifting as far back as I could go, straining towards that one life, so long ago, when Sebastian and I had first met…
Chapter Three –
Sweet Dreams
The outer grounds of the temple were strangely silent today, despite the afternoon’s warm sun. The other Priestesses were preparing for the harvest ritual which would take place in a few nights’ time when the moon was at her fullest. I would be involved in the ceremony of course – I always was. But I was never asked to join in the preparations. I was rarely invited to join in anything other than to teach and to lend my strength to the important ceremonies. I had studied and been raised to the Sisterhood in the same way as all the others, my knowledge was comparable with any of their own, but my strength and my natural ability was not. I was more powerful than any Priestess or Druid in the land and though I was respected because of it, I was also an outcast and feared, even by my own Sisters.
I was alone wherever I went, set apart and above all others. Even as a child, I had never fit in. I was indulged as most children were but my mother quickly realized that my desires were being met not just by those around me but also by strange twists of fate that brought me what I wanted. My strange and potent ability became most obvious when a dog in our village had puppies and my mother traded for one of them. I adored the little puppy and he never aged a single day, remaining in the state that I desired him. I was too young at the time to understand just what I had done and why it was wrong. My mother had turned me over to the temple as soon as she realized what I could do. She had high hopes that I would find a place for myself there, that I would be a valuable part of the Sisterhood and be accepted and understood in a way that she would never truly be able to. I had only seen a handful of summers when she gave me up to the Sisters. My mother passed away shortly after that, abandoning me to my fate, never learning of my true unhappiness, my inability to belong anywhere or to ever truly be understood.
The other Priestesses didn’t trust me. I was too powerful, able to easily and effortlessly twist fate to meet my every need. I was unable to continue aging as once I reached my teenaged years, I no longer wished to grow any older. I didn’t want to grow old, to get sick or to die and so I didn’t – I couldn’t. The only emotions directed towards me were envy and fear. I had no friends in the temple, I had no family anywhere. I had no joy in my life other than to serve the people as my magic and my Gods demanded.
