The End

by Charlotte E Hart

  That hole makes me run a finger over the name, somehow seeing my professor in its official form and enjoying its counter across my monster and magician. It amuses me given her hardly ever seeing him. Perhaps she does know me better than I think. Perhaps she always has, regardless of her ability to entertain my other two, love them. Delaney said that. He said the ones that mattered could see inside no matter how you tried to keep them out. That we couldn’t hide from them. I’m glad of that thought. Inspired by it in some ways. Perhaps she always knew how much I loved her, regardless of me not telling her enough. Maybe that’s the only thing that kept her coming back, keeping us together even though she should have run for her life. Just like she has done now.

  I turn the next page, a new intrigue searching for something in her words, and then lift the stack of papers to move back out onto the deck again. It’s more comfort I’m after, probably. The sense of companionship I’ve now lost. If I can’t see my stars then maybe I can damn well find them in these papers instead. I’ll read and drink black coffee, hoping for a closure to find me as I stabilise to one again. I’ll cage this monster somehow, let him mull over his options and wait. It’s all I’ve got left to do now. That and close the beating of this heart down permanently, something I’m finding harder than I thought. And the barriers just loosen again with the next words read.

  Pre Face

  She was nothing to me. A barren landscape to play on.

  Until she wasn’t.

  Our story starts here. It isn’t pretty and it isn’t your average tale of love, but it is a love story, one she forced me to admit to needing. One I proved.

  I’m no hero. I’m a monster, but now I’m a monster with a heart.

  Life is not without cause or hope. She taught me that.

  Our story starts right here, at the end.

  Fucking hope.

  It allows a smirk to creep up my sullen mouth, my ear trained on any damned sound that might interrupt it other than my sea, and turn the next page. Maybe she is coming back. Until then I’ll read and study her words, find her in them, feel her there as well as in my heart. I’ll read and study what it is that I taught her, what it is that she taught me, and maybe, by the end of it, I’ll have found my containment again, forced this anarchic heart closed.

  She’d hate me for that. She’d call me a coward and a liar, but I do it for her. I do it to protect the world she helped me see again, and I do it because it belongs to her alone. We must be contained unless it’s for her, kept restricted. We must become quiet again and controlled.

  So I sit, bedding myself into this chair and letting the sound of the swell lull me into stories of love and adoration, my smile increasing with each page turned. Such passion. Such a sense of revelry from hands stained with ink and a body battered to its finest disposition.

  Quite beautiful really. Elegant. Sophisticated.

  Just like her.

  “Quiet feet,” her voice says. My eyes snap over my shoulder, the sudden appearance of her in the open doors near annihilating any form of reserve I was managing. “Finally snuck up on you, hey?” She stands there, a small smile on her face, dressed in a floral skirt that should be ripped from her skin. “You didn’t hear me?” I shake my head slightly, my eyes narrowing at why I didn’t, as I look over her face and skim outlines I’ve missed. “What are you reading there?” she asks, her smile becoming more of the contradictory smirk I’m used to from her. “Good is it? It better be.” She fingers her hair, the curls in the purple twisting around. “Romance needs to be. And you wrote it, after all. They’re your words.” She giggles and turns as she says that, her ass calling me to beat it for leaving me. “Drink?” she calls. No, I don’t want a drink. I want to rack the bitch for making me think I’d lost her. I want screams and howls and bellows of pain to ring out across her skin for weeks. I might even drag her down to my sea and fuck her in it, holding her head under the damn water as I do. “Blaine?” The sound of my name rings through these walls like a beacon of hope, one that has commitment attached to every damned letter. “You might not need one, but I do. Champagne preferably.”

  The statement forces me from my dazed seat, causing the heart that was receding to open up fully waiting for acceptance of it.

  “There’s some in the cellar,” I reply, looking into the room for her. She’s not there, she’s gone again. I frown, wondering if she wasn’t here at all and I imagined it. Nothing is beyond the realms of probability in this fucked up brain of mine. I chuckle at myself, amused that I’m even making her up now, ready to join her with the other three of me, then groan at the thought. How quaint of me. Fucking love stories. I turn back out to the deck again, snatching at the papers that have blown about in the wind, desperate to right their numbering again so I can carry on reading.

  “My life is bloody heavy. I hope you know that,” she shouts, the echo of her along the hall coming back at me. “Honestly, you want it, it’s yours. Come and carry it for me.” I swivel again, my hands creasing papers as I walk back to the sound of her, feet quickening at the thought. And the sound of clattering echoes, too, the familiar tone of her heels resonating in my home as if they’ve always been here. “This stuff is heavy, too. Come and be manly.” Manly? I turn the first corner down towards the entrance door, my bare feet padding me along, wondering what she needs manly for and still not entirely sure if any of this is real or not. “Because honestly, if I have to deal with you forever, I need the gentlemanly bit on occasion.” My eyes widen, the words making me halt in my tracks before I get to her. Forever? “And I need the truth all the time, Blaine. You know that, right? All the time, do you hear me? Where are you? Who the fuck are you is probably more appropriate.”

  My toes curl against the marble, my mind grating against itself, as I smile at the last of her mumbled words. Magicians smirking, monsters powering limbs and pulsing inside my veins. Indecision outmanoeuvring resolution, confusing the process and endangering any boundary I was introducing again. And then she’s there in my eye-line, her eyes shining as brightly as my fucking stars always do, skin as ripe as it always is. She hovers in the hall, her face a mask of questions as she opens her mouth and looks behind her a little.

  “Blaine?” I raise a brow at her, waiting for whatever the fuck’s about to leave her lips, as I glance at the luggage beside her. Hate. Vitriol. Love. Sarcasm. Contempt? They’re all things I adore. Slutty meanderings would be good. They’d wake this cantankerous mind up again, ready it for her. An apology even. That might be useful to her well-being.

  She just hovers some more, perhaps questioning herself given my scowl at her.

  “Where have you been?” I ask, barely able to stop myself from grabbing her to test she’s real.

  “I had things to do. I left a note.” A fucking note. I snarl at the memory of it, just holding the need to push her into the den and fuck any form of breath she has left out of her.

  “You left me.” It’s a fucking statement. One I want to ram down her throat somehow. She grabs her hands and twists them about in her grip, the look of fear beginning to encroach on her features. Good, she should be fucking scared.

  “I couldn’t just stop my life for you on a whim, Blaine. I had to do …” her eyes scan the floor nervously, her feet inching back a step or two as I begin moving towards her, “things.”

  “What things?”

  “Important things. Meetings. Business things.” She looks up again, apparently galvanising herself for an argument. There’s my little brat. I smile at her, the smell of her coming at me the closer I get, the taste of her embedding itself further. She should galvanise herself. Get ready for me because at the moment this fucking monster is fit to tear her to pieces for daring to walk away. “They’re things we need to talk about, Blaine.”

  “Are they.” It’s not a question. I couldn’t give a fuck about talking. I’m not intending to talk for at least two days. She’s got some making up to me to do. That includes me using anything I haven’t used on her befor
e. “A fucking note. You thought that would be acceptable?”

  She backs off a step again, her own eyes narrowing at me as she takes another and then turns down into the kitchen, a huff coming from her lips.

  “Champagne,” she snaps, her ass continuing down the steps. “You get that first. Nothing else happens until we talk.” Fuck that. I’m at her back before she’s got a chance to move another step towards the glassware. She swings round so quickly it shocks me, her hand slamming out and connecting with my cheek. It brings a wry smile to my face after I’ve taken the sting of it, making me chuckle and decrease the space again. “Back off,” she spits. “I’m asking you. Take. A. Fucking. Step. Away.” I do, eventually. One step away. Two steps away. Three. The movement has become alien for me with her, uncomfortable. It causes another chuckle as I remember all those backwards steps in the beginning, all the wasted time. “See? Backwards isn’t that hard after all, is it?” Bitch. “Where’s the champagne?”

  ”Cellar.”

  “Go and get it then. Chop, chop. We’re on a date.” Are we.

  The sarcasm swims through me as I wander off, part annoyed with her fucking superiority and part in awe of it. I’m even fucking hurrying for the bottle, the walls blurring by as I round corners and take stairs downwards. I don’t know which I pick out of the store, not caring for the taste of it. I just want her. I want on her, in her. I want her taste and her smile, her nails egging me on again. Fuck Champagne. Fuck talking.

  By the time I get back she’s got a document on the table, a fountain pen laid out next to it, and two flutes waiting for the champagne in my hand. I stare at it, wondering what hell paperwork has got to do with anything.

  “Sign it without reading it,” she says, her body sliding around the side of the table, long legs on display as she sits and crosses them.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m asking you too. I only have to ask, Blaine. That’s the way this works, isn’t it? That’s what you told me. I want my proof that that’s still true.”

  “You’ve had your proof. These damn scars substantiate that.”

  She smiles and picks up the document, her ass shuffling across the table until she’s able to lean back and put the fucking thing between her legs.

  “Not good enough. You want my life and I’ve brought it to you, but I want that compensated should you fuck it up. Sign the document, Blaine.”

  Ah, money. Clever brat. I smile at her and move forward, picking up the pen and flipping the bottom of the papers to find the signatory lines. I don’t give a damn enough to bother reading it, anyway. It’s all hers whatever happens. It was hers the moment she infiltrated this heart. Hers the minute I came inside her cunt. My life, for what it’s worth, has been hers for longer than she knows.

  “And the others,” she says, as I push the first set away. I look back up at her, my hand scrawling with little care to what I’m signing anymore. She smiles down at me, enough charm in the stretch of her lips to make it all seem complete. Life, money, homes. It all means nothing without her with me anyway. It’s nothing but a vacuous cavern deprived of life, bland of meaning.

  “Enough?” I ask, aiming for the gentlemanly she quoted.

  “No. Pop it.”

  “What?”

  “The champagne, Blaine.” I step away and grip the fucking thing, willing it to stay steady in my hands, as I peel the top off and push the cork. Fucking champagne. I’ve got plans for this bottle once we’ve done drinking it, plans she’ll hate me for. The glasses fill, the bubbles making her giggle for reasons unknown, and then she picks the paper up and turns the documents towards herself. “Five minutes,” she says, her fingers laying the documents out one by one, as I back away.

  What the hell I’m waiting for, I don’t know. Some repose of decency, I assume. Some attempt at this date we’re apparently on. I smirk and sip my own drink, barely tasting it over the smell of her perfume in my space again, but I wait nonetheless. I wait because she’s asked me too, and I wait because the longer I do, watching as she holds her phone up and take pictures of each document, the more pain she’s asking for. She makes exasperation an appealing impression.

  Perhaps she always has.

  “We’re becoming impatient, Alana.” We are, all of us. Fucking irritated actually. She frowns in reply and flaps a hand at me, her fingers still going ten to the damn dozen on her phone. Fucking phone. The damn thing’s going in the trash the moment this is done.

  “There, all done. It’s with my lawyers.”

  “Is it my turn now?”

  She lifts her eyes and sips at her drink, her mouth opening to say something more. I’ve knocked the stuff out of her hand before she gets a chance, my own glass going flying with the act. And she sighs the instant her skin sinks into my grip, causing me to relay the exact same emotion to the sensation. She flows into me instantly. The feel of her, the smell. The taste of us exploding as my mouth finds hers.

  “You left me,” murmurs from me, my tongue already tracing the lines of her lips, cock engorging itself for a reminder of why that won’t be fucking happening again. I snatch her into me, arms wrapping around her, biting in to force the connection again and makes us physical. She’s here, in my arms again. She’s real and alive, a part of me wanting to kill her for daring to come back.

  My hands hitch her skirt up, enough chaos in the move to have her gasping as I shove her back onto the table top. I couldn’t give a damn about that either. She’ll feel this on her skin for weeks, hate me for days because of it. “You fucking left me alone.”

  She gasps again as I imprint everything I’ve got through my teeth, the side of her body taking the brunt of my weight as I force her down onto the surface and level her face at mine. But she smiles at me as I snarl at her, her fingers moving to the side of my jaw and stroking along it, filling me with those fucking hopes and dreams again.

  “No,” she says, her legs widening to allow me closer, lips leaning in to brush mine. “I just had to let go of my life for you, Blaine. It takes time. It takes me being in front of people. You wouldn’t have let me leave alone, would you?” Probably not. She gazes at me, both hands coming up to my face and running the contours of it, a fanciful expression settling in as she keeps everything loose and soft. Stupid girl. Beautiful, talented, wayward and difficult girl. “And now I’ve given it all to you. All the control.” She tilts her gaze of me, the smile widening as she looks at my chest. “All the power.” Her hand drops down, skimming the edges of my ribs and making me shudder in reply. “It’s all yours now. What are you going to do with it?” I’ve got several ideas, none of which she’s going to enjoy. The damned cage for a start. Her face suddenly changes, a thought jumping to mind. One I’m not going to like much by the looks of it. “I do have a few requests of my own, though.” Does she? She’s not getting them, no matter how I answer her. “Cole.” I groan at the thought, pushing her legs wider and burrowing in, hoping to fuck the name out of her mouth. “He needs his big brother, you know?” Fuck that. “He misses you.” Cole is the last fucking thing on my mind, as should it be for her.

  I hitch her ass to me, picking it up and walking off with her towards the den, not giving a damn for any other conversation she might think relevant. Nothing is more relevant than me fucking into her again, than me feeling her heat around me so I can let the voices come and enjoy their noise rather than contain them. “And I think you should consider teaching again. Properly, not just the fucking bit. You’re clearly quite good enough at that already.” My brow raises at the thought, more interested in it than I’d like to admit. “I think it’ll help you. You know, in the long run.” Maybe it would with her beside me to level these monsters of mine, give them something to play with. Who fucking knows? I grab tighter and smile as I keep turning the halls. “This isn’t talking,” she mutters, her lips starting to nibble against my neck, her legs tightening around me and reminding me of how much she takes of my insanity.

  “Fuck talking.” And fuck the
den too.

  I head straight for the bedroom, then through it to the open doors leading to our sea. Our sea. It calls to me, as it will to her for as long as I can keep her here. It will pull both of us under, not giving a damn for our lives as it does, but that’s my curse now, my promise. Nothing will ever hurt her but me. No sea will drown her. No company will force her. Not one damn thing on this planet will ever wound her apart from me. She’s my burden to bear. My promise to keep.

  My toy to honour.

  “It’s beautiful here,” she says, her arms loosening around my neck so she can take her top off. She wrenches it and tugs, throwing it into the wind as she does, purple stripes flicking around my face. “I still want my dates, though.” I snort, my cock rubbing against her as we keep going. She can have all the fucking dates she wants. Every fucking day if that’s what makes this happen.

  “With who?”

  “Any of you.”

  My feet pick up speed, the need to get to the water becoming a necessity I didn’t know before her. It begs me to come now, but not for death, for life. It begs me to put her in so I can drown with her and listen to her moans, lose us in there so we can live. We’ll fuck in there until we’re done, and then we’ll fuck again and watch the sunrise come, finding warmth in the sun for once.

  She kisses me softly again, her hands wrapping around and caressing the back of my neck.