Skye slid his hands down Garen’s back, enjoying the ripple of pleasure he caused with his touch. “You’re very right, but somehow I doubt I’ll be so lucky. You’ve been there. You deserve her more than I do.”
Garen scowled down at him, then hefted his weight up and stood. “I’m not arguing who deserves her more. You agreed it would be her choice, and we’ll abide by that.”
Skye stood, and they walked silently to the elevator that would carry them back to her. He dared to let himself hope he was wrong. Perhaps he did have a chance after all.
He clung to the last impression of emotion he’d received from Melody before he’d abandoned her hours earlier. Dare he let himself love her and risk not having it reciprocated? There had been an overwhelming sense of the same panic in her when he’d looked into her eyes—he believed it only reflected his own awareness and fear of letting himself feel too deeply, yet the more he’d flown afterward, the more he wished to let himself feel all of it fully rather than holding back like he had with everyone in his life, including—and especially—with Garen.
And with Melody he could have everything he thought he always wanted—a lover whom he truly loved, a mate who could bear him children, and a way to satisfy his Mother’s dying wish. Was sacrificing Garen worth the satisfaction in any of the scenarios he’d envisioned? He would have been forced to sacrifice Garen’s love either way. There was simply no scenario that allowed him to have everything, and so he believed he’d made the right choice to give her up.
But the closer the pair of them got to her room, the more a chill of dread sank into his gut. Garen’s emotional state wasn’t much different.
She simply wasn’t there.
Faint residue of energy trailed around the place, more concentrated in her room, mixed potently with Garen’s strong energy, giving Skye another twinge of conviction that Garen was the one she would choose. They followed her energy into the dining room where Skye had so coldly abandoned her the night before, and there they found the note.
Garen & Skye,
I am leaving. I no longer want the things I thought I wanted when I signed the contract. I thought I had more worthy goals when I met you both, and I believe you did before you met me.
You love each other, and a love as old as yours should not be set aside, not for anything.
I’m going back to the beginning. The true beginning for me, to try to understand why I ran to begin with, to try to figure out how I can move forward being in love with two people who had no business making me love them as much as I do, and then leaving me. Because you did, both of you. You drew me in, showed me wonders I knew existed in the world but couldn’t even imagine could be so amazing. You showed me who and what you really are, even though you never actually revealed yourselves. I know, and so I had no choice but to fall in love.
But I have a choice now, which I think you gave me, somehow. You both left, and your leaving was what released me, gave me the choice to find the path I was meant to follow.
Please find each other again. If you ever loved me, which seems so implausible, but my exposure to the implausible lately has made me believe it to be true—but if you ever did, or if you still do, please try to love each other first and to give each other the happiness my presence only seemed to distract you from.
When I find my own true path, perhaps it will lead me to happiness, too.
Love Always,
Melody
Skye let the paper flutter back to the table and turned to stare helplessly at Garen.
“How can she leave?”
Garen’s anguish was plain on his face, but mixed with resignation. “She wasn’t a prisoner here, in spite of the contract. She could leave anytime she wanted to, her commitment to the contract was the only thing keeping her, but it seems we’ve succeeded in fulfilling Kol’s wishes if she’s gone now. Kol will be pleased, at least.”
Skye tried to remind himself that the bond had been their primary purpose in creating the contract to begin with, but the satisfaction of knowing it had been broken felt as empty as the apartment without her presence.
Then it hit him that she said she’d known what they are.
“Did you show her your true form?” he asked.
Garen shook his head. “No, but she told me she knew what I was. She didn’t say it outright, and I didn’t confirm it, but I believed her.” His eyes widened when he looked at Skye. “We won’t know for certain how potent her Blessing is until we track down Alec, or his legacy.”
He trusted her—he had no reason not to—but their laws required them to take action if an unmarked human knew their secret. He had to follow protocol. He was at least thankful that as a senior executive he could take the issue to the top without involving the lower level security teams in locating her.
“I will help Kol look for him. You should go find her,” Skye said, turning with the intent to go dress and get moving.
“No. We stay together otherwise this letter of hers means nothing to you,” Garen said, pulling him back with a tug of his hand. “She wants us to be together. If we aren’t together when we go to her, she’ll know we didn’t even try. If you want her, we have to prove to her we tried.”
Garen’s eyes held Skye’s, searching. His friend’s emotions were heightened and uncertain, the question lingering just beyond the barrier of full articulation. Do you love me enough to try?
There was no question in Skye’s mind. He loved Garen too much to let his friend give up the chance of being with a woman who loved him. He stared down at Melody’s letter again, focusing on the words. Try to love each other first.
“We will go see Kol together. The Shadows will be the best place to start if we’re going to find out where Alec hid away his treasure.”
PART THREE
Chapter Thirty-Two
Melody didn’t think freedom could feel like such a heavy weight on her chest. The farther she got from San Francisco, the heavier it settled in her heart. She’d made the right decision for all of them, she was sure of it, yet it had hurt.
That morning seemed like an age ago as she unfastened her seatbelt, trying to ignore how the powering down of the airplane’s engines reminded her of moments that had led her to this point. A tiny part of her desperately wanted to get back on a plane and return to them, to tell them she had been wrong, but her sense of self-preservation was too strong.
Making love to Garen had made the truth all too clear to her. It had taken his final release for her to realize there was no escaping her love for the both of them. And when he’d done the same as Skye and ran from what she could only assume was a fear of her love—they could read her emotions, couldn’t they? She decided it would be better to give them no excuse to avoid each other any longer.
Love was far too potent an emotion—it clouded her ability to understand herself and what she really wanted out of life. She’d never had doubts until those infernal feelings started cropping up, even the first night she’d been with Skye, and probably even earlier with Garen.
She needed to pee, but avoided the plane’s lavatory for fear of the reminder it would give her of the first day she met him, after panicking over voiding the contract and talking to him through the barrier of the door.
The contract didn’t matter now. She’d missed out on a huge payday by not following through with it, but neither the money nor her trip mattered to her any longer. The only thing that mattered was figuring out what the hell to do next. Home made sense. Her mother was there. Old friends she’d lost touch with. The house she’d grown up in … as small as it was, her mother had worked hard to always make sure it felt like home for Melody, even though there had been no man there to help her with upkeep since Alec had left.
She hadn’t called her mother before leaving California, deciding she would surprise her instead. Melody had a credit card that wasn’t quite maxed out—she could still rent a c
ar to drive from the tiny municipal airport out into the countryside where her mother’s house was nestled on a sunny hillside beside a burbling creek filled with trout.
The more she pictured home the less of a burden what she’d left behind became. She had something to spur her forward that wasn’t an endless seeking for something she wasn’t even sure she’d find once she reached the end.
So instead of getting back to the beginning by traveling around the world, she had turned around before even taking that leap.
The pull back to San Francisco still hadn’t subsided entirely when she exited the airport with her bag into the muggy southern heat, but in spite of the cloying moisture in the air, she at least felt like she could breathe a little easier.
Going home wasn’t as hard as she expected it would be, in spite of her disappointment in herself for not seeing her journey through. When she’d left, she’d vowed to herself that she wouldn’t come back until she knew what she really wanted out of life. She still remembered the sadness in her mother’s eyes and had added the further silent promise that whatever it was she found, the next time she came home she would have something amazing to share with the woman who had given her everything.
Driving those familiar rural roads was like traveling into a fantasy land. Nothing had changed in the few years since she’d left, like everything had been held in a kind of magical stasis, hibernating and simply waiting for her to return.
It had been late summer then, too, and she’d taken for granted the wooded hills and farmhouses as she passed by in her need to escape. They represented the prison her mother had locked herself in for Melody’s sake. Even though her mother refused to leave—had said she loved it there—Melody saw her own escape as a kind of liberation for her mother as well. If only because she hoped her mother would find some vicarious freedom from Melody’s journey.
Nothing about it felt like a prison now, though. It was simply home—the same twists and curves in the road were still there, the same vine-covered stop sign by the Wheeler farm, and the same ridiculous little dog standing in the middle of the yard, barking its shrill warning at the passing cars.
The turnoff by her mother’s road was no different, except the stand of six mailboxes had been freshly painted, one with vibrant rainbow stripes reminding Melody of her mother’s comment that she had new neighbors. “Lesbians bought the Merritt house,” her mother had said. “I brought them a pie and they cleaned out my gutters.”
A bright orange swath of daylilies provided a nest of sorts for the line of painted mailboxes, and the grass along the road had been freshly mowed, the ripe green smell filling her nostrils.
The Merritt house itself was more perfect than she remembered it, lending to the fairy tale impression that refused to leave her. Even the lanky woman on the riding mower, waving as she drove past, couldn’t break the feeling. When she was growing up, it had changed hands so many times she’d lost count, but had always carried the name of the original owners though they had long since sold it and retired to Phoenix.
When she slowed to take the steep, gravel turn and her mother’s small house came into sight, the impression of wandering into a magical world was even stronger. The sun was setting behind the house, all the windows lit and glowing, sunflowers in bloom along the edge of the garden, and her mother’s hydrangeas bright blue and white pom-poms along the fence. Her mother’s summer flowers were still in full bloom and a breeze blew through, sending the wind chimes tinkling and the wind socks fluttering and twirling.
There were two cars parked in front, however. Her mother’s familiar old SUV was no surprise, but the sleek shiny Range Rover made Melody wonder if maybe she should have called first after all. She hadn’t spoken to her mother for about a month, which was unusual for her, but she’d been too distracted by the incident with Kol and then the following resolution, then caught up in the entire whirlwind of the contract.
Of course her mother’s life had gone on. She taught English at the local high school and had a nursery business that took up every second of spare time. She spent her evenings fending off dates with various local men, none of whom Melody considered worthy in any sense. The last man she remembered her mother spending any significant time with was Alec, and he’d been gone for over twenty years. Did she have a new boyfriend?
Oh God, could Melody handle it if she did? She’d come home to try to regroup, and the solitude of her mother’s house was crucial to that. If there was a strange man there, she had no idea how she would cope.
Her mood darkened as she parked and grabbed her things from the trunk of the rental. She’d have to deal with it somehow if that were the case. Perhaps she was overthinking it, because while she wanted the comfortable familiarity of simply being home with just herself and her mother bumping quietly around the house. She did hope for her mother to find someone, and someone who drove a car like that might actually be close to good enough. Of course, it might just be a friend visiting for dinner.
Before Melody could make it up the walkway to the porch steps, her mother’s curvy, golden-haired shape pushed through the screen door, her hair a halo backlit from the lights within.
“Melody! Is that really you?” she called out, her face lighting up in a delighted smile.
“Yeah, Mama. I’m home.”
A second later, a larger shape darkened the door—a man with wide shoulders, tall enough that his curly, dark blond hair brushed the lintel. His familiar smile shocked her to her core. Even more shocking was the sudden understanding that she knew what he was. It had never been so clear to her until now.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Alec?” Melody stopped short when the big, beautiful man came through the door behind her mother. Christ, he looked just the same as she remembered him the last time she’d seen him. The scent and texture of the markers was still fresh in her memory from the day he’d given her the tattoo when she was five. The phone call that had taken him away from her came moments later, and she’d been dazed by the abruptness with which he’d left.
She remembered it all too vividly now, and she especially remembered how devastated her mother had been in the weeks that followed. Her own five-year-old emotions had been inconsolable.
She couldn’t believe her eyes.
She glanced at her mother, whose face was pinched with chagrin. “I should have told you, honey. I ….” Her mother glanced up into Alec’s tanned face, then back to her. “I was afraid you’d cut your trip short if I did, though.”
“My trip?” Melody gaped at her mother. “Mom! It’s been almost four years since I was here last! It wasn’t a trip, it was an escape! But you’re right. I would have come for him.” Nothing could have kept her away, for that matter.
Alec’s deep voice carried through the evening toward her. “Glad to know you haven’t forgotten me, Melonhead.”
Tears sprang to her eyes at his old term of endearment for her, and she rushed toward him. “God, like I could ever,” she said, crashing against his chest and letting him wrap her in a tight embrace.
“Come inside and let’s catch up, okay honey?” her mother said, smiling and accepting Melody’s hug when she finally tore herself away from the only man in her life she’d ever considered a father, even though she knew now that he wasn’t. He wasn’t even human.
***
“Does she know?” Melody asked sometime later when she and Alec sat on the back deck in the glow of the windows, watching fireflies flicker in the air over the back yard. Her mom puttered around inside, cleaning and organizing in her already spotless kitchen. Melody smiled at the thought of how little everything had changed. Her mom could never really sit still for long. They’d had a good talk over supper already, so her mom had urged the pair of them to sit out back and relax, seeming to sense that they needed time for some catching up of their own.
Alec remained silent for several seconds, took a long swig of his
beer, and shook his head. “I broke enough laws just to stay alive,” he said, “I didn’t want to risk her life by telling her too soon. I was going to tonight, but then you showed up.”
“But you did something to me, didn’t you? Those old stories you used to tell me, they were always true.”
“Mostly, yes. There was one part that wasn’t, but it wouldn’t have been appropriate to tell you, as young as you were.”
“I know,” she said, watching him stare down at his bottle and start picking at the label. It was such a human thing for him to do—so normal compared to how Garen and Skye tended to behave.
He turned to look at her, his irises shifting to the glow she always remembered seeing, but that had new meaning now. “You found a male like me, didn’t you? I can sense the bond,” he said. “But you aren’t marked yet. Do the two threads of energy wrapped around your aura have something to do with that, sweetheart? Or the fact that you’ve shown up here alone and filled with as much sadness as the day I left?” He blanched when she only stared at him, wide-eyed at his open sharing of details she had only managed to guess at so far. The understanding that he could actually see the evidence of her time with Skye and Garen was even more shocking, though. “How much do you know about us?” he asked.
“Some … it’s only been a week since all this started for me. How can I feel this way after only a week?” She gave him a beseeching look, hoping he could shed some light on the overwhelming feelings she’d been having for the last two days.
“That’s my fault. And I’m sorry, but I had to make sure you were protected, and short of waiting until you were old enough to mark you myself, it was the only way.”
“What was?” she asked, her voice coming out a little frantic. “What did you do to me? I don’t remember ever not being able to tell you were different, but it never seemed so odd until I met another man who was like you. Three of them, in fact.”
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