Something in his words pinged reality into my hazy brain. “Wait, you’re immortal. I get how I’m dead, but how are you dead?”
Kerdik’s face lifted from his conquest, quirking an eyebrow at me. “That’s what you’re thinking about? I’ve got you inches away from naked, and that’s where your mind is at? Perhaps I am rusty.”
I shook my head, embarrassed. “No! Nothing like that. I’m totally all over the place. I suck at being dead. I’m sorry.” I cupped his cheeks and brought him up so his face was hovering over mine. “I don’t understand. How did you die?” I gave his lips a light peck. “Talk to me.”
“You were bleeding out, so I told Jean-Luc to infuse you with some of my blood. I thought it would bring you back, but you died, and then the sacrifice killed me, as well.” He brushed his nose across mine and reached down to pinch my thigh just to watch me squirm beneath him. “We don’t need to talk about such things now. You were right; let’s make the most of this place.”
I gasped, but it wasn’t because of his confession. His skin that I loved started to change, the green swirling with a dark, muddy crimson. It looked like when you first drip a dribble of food coloring dye into liquid, but don’t mix it all the way in. The cloudy feathery color fanned out across his face, but didn’t permeate completely. “Kerdik, what’s happening?” I inched out from under him and scrambled off the bed, horrified at the change. “What is that?”
“What?” He looked down as he rose to his knees on the bed, perplexed when he didn’t see anything unusual.
I pointed, confused and afraid. “Your skin! It’s doing something freaky! Why is it red?”
Kerdik scowled, affronted that I would kick him where it hurts. “My skin is green, as you very well know. You yourself once told me it was beautiful. Was that a lie to manipulate me?”
I shook my head in rapid jerks. “No! The green’s gorgeous, and you know it. But it’s red now! Your skin’s got red swirling through it. How can you not see that?” I backed away when he moved off the bed and stepped toward me, still examining his skin.
“What are you talking about? There’s no red anywhere.”
“Right there! Right where I’m pointing is a huge patch of it!” I took a cautious step forward and touched the spot on his cheek as it started to shrink, fading away so he could be his normal self again. “Well, what happened to it? It was just here. It was all over you, this dusty pinkish-reddish color swirling all over your skin. It looked like a gas or something, but like, part of your skin.”
He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Rosie, I’m telling you, nothing like that just happened to me. I’ve never even heard of something like that in Avalon.”
“I know what I saw! Your skin was… but then it wasn’t!”
Kerdik placed his hands on my shoulders to look deep into my eyes. He studied my worry for a few beats, and then put on a kinder expression. “You’re troubled. You’ve been through a lot. Let’s calm things down for a bit. You’re seeing things. No matter what world you’re in, that can’t be good.”
I gulped, worried that I might spend my second life with nine shades of crazy dancing around in my brain. “It was so real. You promise me you didn’t see anything?”
“I promise. Let’s calm things down for a minute.”
“My skin is different,” I blurted out, worry creeping up on me and taking hold of my mind. I was unable to live in bliss anymore, and wanted serious answers. “Why is my skin lighter and peachy? Is that what happens when people die?”
“How should I know? This is just one of the changes your body’s experiencing, now that you’re dead.”
“It’s doing it again!” I pointed at his face, jumping back in fear. “Your skin’s changing colors! It’s that pinkish-red again! It’s swirling all over you. You really can’t see it?”
“Could you not point and shriek at me like a peasant? You’re the one person who’s never done that to me. You know how that hurts me.”
I held up my hands. “I’m sorry. You’re totally right. You know I love your green skin. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. It’s not the green that’s freaking me out, it’s the reddish color that doesn’t belong.”
“Your mind is playing tricks on you. Let me think for a second. What’s the trigger?”
“I don’t know. Both times, we were just talking.”
Suddenly, Kerdik froze with his shoulders tensed, but gave no indication that he could see the shift. When he finally spoke, his voice came out cautious. “Wait until it goes away, and then ask me a question. Anything you already know the answer to.”
“Huh?”
“Just humor me. Is it gone yet?”
I watched the colors dance on his skin before they faded, as if a breeze blew the cloudiness away. “It’s gone.” Despite my growing anxiety, I threw my arms around Kerdik’s neck. “I’m sorry I pointed like that. It was so mean. I wasn’t thinking.” I kissed his lips, savoring it when he lingered. “You know you’re devastatingly handsome, right?”
A small smile played on the edges of his mouth. “I believe you’ve mostly called me beautiful, but never handsome. I rather like the sound of it.” A low noise of contentment resonated in his chest. “You have no idea what that does to a man.”
I kissed him again, standing on my toes to compensate for his superior height. “I love you. You know that, right?”
He looked deep into my eyes, as if he was really, truly seeing me as I was. Despite my new skin, he saw the me I’d brought from one life to the next, which reminded me that I was still in there. His knuckles brushed across my cheek, and he kissed me again. “I do. And I think it’s plain to everyone who’s ever seen us together that you ran off with my heart from the very first moment we met.” Our lips didn’t like being apart, so we kissed again, and a few more times after that. Finally Kerdik took a step back, which was the only way we might stop kissing each other. He held my hands and swung them between us, being downright adorable and freaking irresistible. “Is the red gone now?”
“Yes. You wanted me to ask you a question I know the answer to?”
“Please.”
“Okay, then what’s your name?”
He smirked at me and answered truthfully. “My name is Kerdik.” He swung our hands between us lightly, as if we were kids in a meadow with no cares at all. “Is my skin still green? Any trace of the red?”
I undid his cuffs and folded them up so I could see his forearms. I don’t know what it was about a man’s forearms that drew me in, but Kerdik had an elegance to his musculature that I liked gawking at. “Not a spot.”
“Ask me again.”
“Your name? Okay. What’s your name, guy-I’m-just-meeting?”
He replied with a succinct, “My name is Dub.”
My eyebrow quirked at the odd choice for a lie. I dropped contact as the dusky rose color swirled up in him again. I didn’t mean to hop backwards, but the distance between us seemed necessary. “Why is it doing that?”
Kerdik nodded once, having all the information he needed. “Because I lied to you. Obviously my name’s not Dub. You’re seeing my lies.”
25
Kissing on a Grassy Bed of Lies
My eyes widened and my mouth fell open. “Are you serious? How am I seeing lies? Wait, what did you lie about the other times?”
Kerdik’s shoulders deflated. He reached out and pulled me closer, wrapping my arms behind him and looping his around me so that we were stomach to stomach. His shirt and vest were still buttoned, but freshly ravished by yours truly. He was dapper and manly, and now that I was allowed to see him in this new afterlife with no other responsibilities or ties, I could fully appreciate just how much he made my heart flutter. He kissed my lips again, inhaling the fragrance of my skin as if he was afraid it would be the last time. “Just in case you’re too angry with me to do that again.”
My voice came out wary. “What did you do?”
“You’re quite certain you don’t want to try
making love first? I conjured this entire field to captivate you.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “You didn’t make the field. This is just where we landed when we died.” I glanced around at the flowers, wondering if there was a number to the millions of petals that seemed to burst with equal measures of serenity and sunshine.
“I love you, Rosie. No matter what, hold that tight in your heart as a truth that won’t change.”
I cast up a baleful look. “Hello, your moods change on a dime. I’ll take the love while you’re handing it out, though. I like you in love. You smile more. You’re not Kerdik the Terrible, or whoever you think you need to be to keep people on their toes.”
“But darling, don’t you know?” He brushed his nose to mine with a sweetness that made my toes curl. “I am terrible.”
“Not here, you’re not. You’re just mine, and I love you like that.”
He kissed me again, still with that cautious inhale that told me he knew I would bolt. “Then yours I shall be.” My body molded itself to his easily, as if we’d been holding ourselves back from a dance we already knew the ending to.
“What did you lie about?”
Another indulgence between us passed before I released his lower lip from my teeth. Kerdik cleared his throat and grabbed onto my left hand, holding it out to the side, while keeping my hips secured to his with his other arm. He started to sway side to side with me, summoning up the right words while we danced to the soundless music of our meadow. Of all my life experiences, I would never stop loving it when Kerdik danced with me.
“The peludas tore you up before I got to you. I should’ve come sooner. When I disappear, it’s not because I want to leave you. It’s usually because I’m searching for…” He shook his head. “But that’s a story for another time. I was preoccupied, but on your third call I felt the urgency. I found you, but it was already too late. Your femoral artery was torn open, and you’d already lost too much blood. And your face…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but shuddered at the memory. “Your eye was cut, and half your face was a mangled, bloody mess.”
The story and our dance had to pause so he could kiss me again. We were both grateful that I could see out of both eyes, and that my face still looked like me.
“I’ve caught glimpses of your breasts on marvelous occasion, but seeing them mangled how they were? I couldn’t bear it. Your body is…” He cleared his throat and went back to our dance. “If I couldn’t have your body, I at least wanted you to be able to give it to whom you wished, whole and beautiful.”
“I’m sure Bastien would’ve appreciated the thought.” His name tasted wrong on my tongue. I didn’t want to think about Bastien if I couldn’t have him. Just like when he’d left, saying his name was painful.
Kerdik’s face soured. “Bastien’s ungrateful. He doesn’t realize the rarity you are. He’s Untouchable, so he’s used to women throwing themselves at him. Let him walk around with green skin that people shriek at, and see how much he appreciates every brush of your hand then.”
I leaned up on my toes and kissed my Kerdik again. “Shush about that. I don’t want to talk about the life I can’t have. I’m serious. When I had to leave Judah, I tried not to talk about him. Too painful. I don’t want to talk about Bastien now. I can’t think about never seeing him again. I can’t go there, or I’ll never stop crying.”
Kerdik cleared his throat and straightened his posture, leading the dance with elegance and unhurried familiarity. My feet fell in line, though I’d never done this dance before. “Very well. The point is, I couldn’t bear it, and you were bleeding out. Jean-Luc gave you a blood and magic transfusion from your father, but it wasn’t enough. Jean-Luc was able to keep you from death for a time, but your heart kept slowing to almost a stop, no matter what we did. It was terrifying.” He closed his eyes. “I haven’t known fear like that in a long time.”
“Oh, sweetie.” I reached up and kissed him again, which seemed to center us both. Now that we could kiss without me breathing fire or having a boyfriend, it seemed we couldn’t get enough, but kept going back in for another taste, and another. In a word, Kerdik was delicious.
He kissed me three more times before he continued. “You were unrecognizable, and most likely would have walked with a limp, if you managed to walk again at all. I couldn’t stomach the thought of you hobbling through life, losing half your vision, and showcasing too many scars. I didn’t know what else to do.” He looked down with a tinge of guilt. “You’re the only one who gazes at me like you do. It’s powerful, and makes me feel like I can do things I’d long put out of my mind. That person I disappeared to go search for? It’s a quest I didn’t think myself worthy of until you looked at me with those adoring eyes that made me feel unstoppable.”
“Hello, you actually are unstoppable. That’s got nothing to do with how I look at you; it’s pure fact.”
“Being it and believing it are two different things. Plus, the things that stop immortals are on a different level than mere mortals. I have my own unique limitations, but I needed you to come along and rekindle the fire I’d long given up on.” He leaned in for another kiss, addicted as I was to the flavor of us. “I needed you to look at me like that, and with both eyes. Your sliced one wasn’t responding to light. It had this dead, glazed look to it I couldn’t bear.”
“Aw, man! That totally sucks. I don’t have a mirror here. Do they look normal now?”
“Of course they do,” he said dismissively.
I gasped and shook my head when the swirls of red took over again. “You’re lying! I can see it all over your face. What’s wrong with my eyes?” I patted my lashes, horrified that I might be walking around with one ginormous troll eyeball shoved into my ocular cavity or something.
Kerdik looked up at the sky and muttered a frustrated curse under his breath. “Well, I suppose I can’t lie to you, can I? They’re vibrant and focused, and that adoring look I need to survive is still there. But the eye that was cut,” he said, reaching between us to thumb at my cheekbone below my left eye, “it’s a different color now.”
I jerked away, shocked that something had changed so drastically. “What? How could you not have said something sooner? What color are my eyes now?”
Kerdik held onto my forearms to steady me. “Your right eye is still blue, but your left one is peach now.”
My mouth fell open. “What?! Did death give me albino traits or something? What the crap, K? How did a cut change my eye color?”
He swallowed, looking guilty and a little afraid of my reaction. “I had Jean-Luc infuse your veins with some of my blood. I’ve only heard of an immortal doing this for a mortal once before. It was a wild guess, but it worked! You look like you again, more or less.”
My nose scrunched, vaguely recalling Kerdik’s command to Jean-Luc, to infuse me with his blood while I was in and out of consciousness. I looked up at Kerdik with astonished admiration. “That’s the second time. You told Bellamy to infuse the tattoo ink with your blood.”
“Yes, but that didn’t go into your veins. It was a drop or two for your tattoo, so I could locate you more easily, should you need me. This was more. This was a lot of blood and a lot of magic that went out of me and into you.”
“But you don’t like to share your magic.”
“I guess that rule doesn’t apply to you, among the many others you tend to disregard.” His slight tease did nothing to quell the love that swelled in me for the man who’d broken his own rules to try and save my life.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work. That’s epic love, Kerdik. Truly. Thank you for trying. I know you like to keep your magic to yourself.” I lowered my chin, emotion rising in my chest. “Giving me your magic killed you. I killed someone I love.” My hand flew to my mouth, wishing I could make those words untrue somehow. Tears wanted to birth from my eyes, but I shoved them down deep. I knew once I got started on all my regrets, I might never be able to stop. My words came out choked, blasting from me in a flurry of self-lo
athing. “Kerdik, I killed you! My love killed somebody again? My love killed you!” My knees started to shake, so I lowered myself to the edge of the grassy bed before they gave out. I wrapped myself in a hug I didn’t deserve. I was a terrible person, to wield love that was so lethal. “My love killed Demi!” I confessed, my heart tearing anew. “My love killed Demi, and now it’s killed you! I’m a horrible person! I’m so sorry, Kerdik. I didn’t know! How can you still want me after I did something so awful?”
Kerdik rubbed his forehead in consternation, looking as if he wanted to say something, but was uncertain where to start. “Rosie, it’s not what you think. Let me explain.” He cast around for the right words, but when his gaze locked in on my eyes, he seemed to find himself once again. “I don’t regret giving you my blood. I don’t regret anything about you, so I don’t want you to waste your time crying over the lost souls you couldn’t save. Your love saves me every time I think I’m lost for good. You’re always their princess; but you’re always my queen.”
“I love you so much,” I admitted. “The friend part of us is my favorite thing some days.”
The corners of Kerdik’s lips tipped up as he gazed down at me. “You’re my favorite thing, as well.” He pulled me up to stand in his embrace, and I realized with a sudden peace that I never wanted to leave.
I closed the breath of a gap between us and kissed him, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt until the second one from the top came loose. Maybe I was making bad decisions. I was dead, so I decided not to care about the long-term ramifications of my actions. “No more serious talk. You’re wearing too many clothes.” I sucked on his lower lip as I quickly undid the buttons on his gray vest. “You’re always teasing me, looking so tucked and unwrinkled.” It made me want to make a perfect mess of his controlled demeanor.
“I tease you? Darling, you have no idea.”
My libido flared when his arms wrapped around my hips to grab what he wanted. We were pressed tightly together, locked in a kiss that had a rough and unpolished desire fanning the fire that raged in us both. My knees were weak, but the rest of me was bold and ready. I decided we shouldn’t waste any more time with teasing.
Broken Girl: A Fantasy Adventure Based in French Folklore (Faite Falling Book 5) Page 15
