by Fiona Keane
“I need to talk to you about something,” I interrupted. “Can you come over for dinner tonight?”
“If it’s okay with you,” he began, “I don’t think I can see her right now, Julian. Or you.”
“What happened between you two?” I blurted. I knew their relationship could never rival what Aideen and I shared, just as my soul trusted Aideen was loyal like I had been to her. I found myself desperate at that point, craving the knowledge of what they shared while I couldn’t be there. Their connection would always be an anchor, and I was…jealous.
“Ah.” Liam laughed, but it was horribly depressing. It wasn’t the mischievous chuckle of my little brother. It was a sad attempt to cover an emotion buried deep within the confines of his lonely heart. “That’s our secret, Julian.”
***
She stood at the window, her porcelain skin glowing in the cold moonlight. The moisture clung to my body beneath my sweats, and I approached her with a familiar wave of trepidation. I froze in reflection of her figure in the window. She was motionless, and I knew, by the lift in her shoulders and the tightness with which she held her body, something riddled her thoughts.
I pulled on the drawstring of my pants, my hands needing a purpose because all I wanted to do was reach for her, but I knew I couldn’t. Glancing around the room, I noticed it was the same, while Aideen and I weren’t, and we never would be. I closed my eyes, listening to the hum of life beyond the open window and Aideen’s sigh, before I tentatively stepped toward her.
“What’s on your mind?” I swallowed nervously, scanning her eyes and wondering precisely where her thoughts lay, hoping they were on us.
“We can’t go back to who we were before this,” she whispered, her words barely above the fog beyond the open window. It was too cold for that pane to be open, but it was her words that slammed a rod of ice straight through my heart.
“You kept everything from me, Julian. There was a world for me out there, with you, and it was hidden from me while you played your game to try and will it back for me instead of telling me. I wanted you so much before I lost you again…”
“And that’s changed now?” I took her biceps in my palms, the heat from my skin melting our contact as I frantically flicked my panicked stare between her eyes. “How could you make love to me if you had any reservation?”
Her gaze tortured me as it cast toward the window in front of me, perhaps absorbing my reflection as I took in her flesh. How much had we lost?
“Did he tell you he loves you? Is that it?”
“Don’t be that guy, Julian.” Aideen’s head shook, and she refused to look at me, shattering my heart into a fiery pile of embers. What happened?
Her arms fell limp in my grasp, and I could only release her, no longer fastening her wings. “Don’t give me reason to be.”
“You bastard,” she seethed, her eyes narrowing on me with a ferocity I hadn’t seen since the hospital. “How dare you? Don’t give you reason? This hasn’t a single thing to do with Liam! This has everything to do with you.”
I dropped my hold to her waist, covering the curve above her hips with my burning palms. Her gaze shot to mine, scalding me with the heat of her icy blue eyes that spoke to me of the torture I caused.
“How can I trust someone I can’t remember?” Aideen questioned, her lips barely moving with her words. “How do I know each time you touch me, you kiss me, that it won’t be the last…and that you meant it…that it isn’t—”
Our hips met, the contact melting our muscles and bones while our blood pulsed for each other, and it was my damage preventing the contact our souls craved once more. The last? Meant it?
I lowered my forehead to hers, closing my eyes for a painful second to consider the threat behind Aideen’s words. I could feel my tongue and lips taking on their own existence within my body, prodding silently, demanding to be against her skin. Her breath trembled against my throat, its warmth pattering along my bare skin, while her finger lifted my chin so our faces were aligned. Her mouth was at mine, grazing the air between our lips while she whispered her final knife onto my tongue.
“A farce.”
I snapped open my eyes, narrowing my gaze on Aideen.
“I’ll ask you, babby,” I snarled, my jaw clenched while I eyed the length of her, “and spare your breath if it’s true…was it a farce?”
She turned from me, staring once more out the window. Her silhouette in the glowing moon erupted around her in a vibrant flash of white, caught on every smooth curve of her body as I gaped behind her, hands tightly fisted or, Jesus, I was going to need restraint.
The tallies I adorned for her rose with heaving breaths in my periphery as I struggled to compose myself. I swallowed the swollen heart lodged in my throat, knowing full well her intentions had shifted once my eyes lifted from her backside to the reflection of her gaze in the window.
Her stained lips lifted into a smirk, the mischievous twinkle in her eye echoing the dangerous thoughts igniting in her beautiful mind, beckoning me toward her as I watched her reflection challenge me.
“No,” Aideen uttered, but the sound fell into a whisper as I smothered her mouth with mine. My fingers coursed through her hair, locking around the base of her skull once I spun her around, kneading my fingertips into her skin. She was pressed against me, her back sliding along the window as our need tightened its demanding hold.
Aideen’s fingers wrapped around my wrists, squeezing once before their lethal tickle climbed over each crest of my muscles to press against my chest. Her left index finger lifted to stroke along my throat, sending a taunting ripple throughout my body. I opened my eyes to receive her enticing grin once more as she glided her hands forward to knead my traps. Her long lashes were slow to blink, seducing me with the flutter of darkness alone. My blood boiled with an aching need, demanding release from the depravity life shackled around Aideen and me.
I moved my right foot to place it between hers, tentatively squeezing between her thighs with the gesture. Her silky legs separated as Aideen pressed herself more tightly into me, enclosing the tension I was prepared to destroy. Her head tilted as she lifted to glide her tongue along my throat, permitting me to prove to her none of it was a farce. The room filled with our panting breaths, Aideen uttering my name once in a plea for my attention. She slid along the window with ease beneath the glistening sheen of desire as I raised Aideen’s thighs to my hips, lowering my mouth to her throat as I proved to her with one thrust just how deeply my adoration and loyalty for her existed.
Her head rolled backward along the window as my body sandwiched her between me and the warm drops of steam reflecting from the glass. Shattering before me, the angel, the goddess, held in my arms with euphoric restraint, and I could barely breathe. The intoxicating perfume of Aideen’s skin against my lips, the salty sweetness of sweat gracing her porcelain body, was the final thread binding my heart as one piece. It had always been her, the delicate and ferociously beautiful completion of my existence. It was selfish of me to assume it was my existence forever changed, as I had done the same to her. I felt it. I knew it, just as I knew the power and euphoria consuming my love as she came undone around me, like a beautiful petal shook free of its flower in a storm. A gorgeous, lethal storm.
The past could never change. It was never going to be different. I killed for her, she murdered for me, and we were bound by a loyalty unknown beyond a fairytale. There were consequences to each truth uttered, just as we would always be prepared to do whatever it took to grasp the love we battled lifetimes to find.
Epilogue
AIDEEN
I looked to the sky, trying to isolate individual snowflakes from the flurry that fell upon us. I enjoyed finding beauty in simple things, never taking for granted how quickly the snow could melt or our lives could end. Taking in a heavy breath, I took in all the crisp air I could consume, settling in that moment. I held my arms around me, not wanting to tell Julian just how cold I felt.
Turning
from the snowflakes, I let my eyes linger on him. The collar of his coat was flipped, covering his neck and ears while he leaned over, placing the red roses beneath him.
Some petals snapped from the rose as Julian placed them onto the black marble—five long-stemmed crimson blossoms, vibrant against the glossy tombstones and crisp snow. It felt inappropriate to see such beautiful flowers against their names, but Julian needed to do it. He needed to remind them he was in power, although it sometimes felt as though they still owned it when placing flowers became a routine. It wasn’t for them, it was for him. It might have looked like they held him in their shackles from beyond the grave, but he won. He was placing the flowers in mockery, not love, not compassion.
I brought my head back down, my cheeks cooled by the falling snow. Julian was kneeling in front of the stone that signaled our visit was ending. That rose was placed out of love. Sometimes he sat for an hour, no matter the weather. I watched in silence, as I often did, giving him space while reassuring him with my presence. The tails of his overcoat trailed in the snow, leaving tracks with each movement he made. I listened for his closing prayer, but Julian was particularly quiet. The sounds of Boston filled the air, their symphony muffled in the snow while our dark figures mocked its soft, white fragility.
“I thought we’d have been off an hour ago,” Liam quietly murmured into my ear from behind. “I don’t have any respect left to leave here, bird.”
Liam’s right arm wrapped around my shoulders as his hand rubbed up and down my arm, both of us chilled in the winter air. Watching Julian from behind, his figure tense and motionless, I rested my head against Liam’s shoulder while we waited.
“It’s getting cold,” I whispered, reaching across Liam’s chest to peer inside the bundle he carried. My gloved fingers moved the fleece blanket, meeting the soft, pink skin of Diana’s cheek. She hadn’t an idea of how frigid it was while we stood in the cemetery because her father swaddled her, knowing it would be at least an hour that we stood in the snow. He protected her as fiercely as he spoiled her, as though the world was both enemy and prize.
“Let me hold her,” I offered, reaching for Diana and her pile of coverings.
Liam shook his head in response, tightening his hold on both of us. “He’s almost done.”
I glanced back at the roses, confirming Liam’s response as Julian finished a prayer I knew he didn’t believe and lifted from squatting above the snow. Liam’s hold released, and he adjusted Diana’s placement in his arms. Julian scanned the grounds before walking to meet us, his expression somber and lost…until our eyes met. His gaze burned against mine, melting the chill, before Julian wrapped his arms around me. He consumed my being, my existence, and I fell into him without worry, without grief or fear.
“I hate it here,” Liam muttered, his words penetrating the soft kiss Julian and I shared. A soft, irritated chuckle escaped Julian’s lips as he slowly pulled away from my mouth. I could have allowed life to pass, simply being in Julian’s arms, but I knew it wasn’t simple—none of it had been easy, but nothing worth fighting for ever is.
I agreed with Liam, never feeling comfortable around the deceased, but there was something about our purpose at the cemetery that exceeded ritual. We were in power, they weren’t. Their lives ended, consumed with greed and deception. Much of the irony went to the grave with them, for we knew their bodies weren’t buried beneath our feet. Their resting place, their cause of death, and our responsibility were just more secrets we kept from the public. Our ritual became part of the act, a display I once desperately wished to flee. Now, between the men who would die for me, and our sweet Diana, my only desperation was for securing our family. It was loyalty, family, and above all else, love.
Julian exhaled deeply, the release vibrating into my chest as his chin rested on top of my head. The scent of his cologne filled my mind with each breath I took while I pressed my face against his chest. I closed my eyes, letting the soft wool of his coat tickle my skin, considering the pleasant pressure Julian placed upon my back to secure our bodies in an embrace.
“Are you ready to go home?” he questioned in a whisper, his voice alone worth each sacrifice we made. I nodded in reply, and we slowly released before Julian’s right hand took my left, our fingers intertwining. He lifted our hands to his lips, grinning at me while pressing a kiss onto my gloved fingers. I studied his eyes, warmed by the sparkle reflected within those blue devils, and followed his lead toward the line of cars.
Flashes exploded upon our arrival. Liam paid no mind, as he focused on fastening Diana into her stroller without waking her. I wasn’t worried about our walk home. I was going to savor each step we took. I felt Julian’s posture straighten at my side, and my gaze followed to the flashes, remembering the young woman he once tried to protect from their damage.
“Smile, babby.” He leaned his head against mine, his grin melting my temple and warm palm spreading around my stomach. “It’s an election year.”
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the Limitless Publishing team for letting me share this story with the world. Bella, thank you for capturing the heart of this series with your stunning blurbs. Toni, thank you for changing schedules and always being available to help me sort my thoughts with this story. Lydia, I would be lost in this process without you. Thank you all for helping this story find its audience.
This series began as a daydream during a rainy, spring morning over a cup of coffee. I am forever grateful to the readers who first supported it in serial form and the fans now following its journey in print.
I wouldn’t have been able to continue Julian and Aideen’s story in this book without the help of my beautiful, incredible friends Renee and Demi. Your support of this series from the beginning and through the final word of this book has been a foundation for which I am forever grateful.
It’s raw and scary to put your thoughts into the world sometimes, and I couldn’t do it without my friends and family. To my sister, thank you for loving me no matter the distance, no matter the plot, and for always being there. To my heart, your unconditional love and support has guided me through this world. You are my anchor. I love you.
About the Author
Fueled by coffee and rainy days, shelves of books consuming her home in the Pacific Northwest, and a vivid imagination, Fiona writes about love because she believes the world needs more of it. She could spend eternity lost in a story, taken into someone’s thoughts while she is left lingering there long after the pages have turned. Fiona works to meld themes in the current world and spin them into stories of longing, determination, and hope. Her characters are relatable and relevant, as they battle their own fictional version of existence.
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