by Alyson Noel
But she just laughs and rolls onto her back, taking a moment to pluck the pieces from her torn flesh, her eyes glinting as she watches the cuts mend, picks herself up, brushes herself off, and faces me again.
“How does it feel to know you’re gonna die soon?” she asks, her voice raspy, ragged, revealing the effects of her efforts.
But I just look at her, shoulders lifting as I say, “I don’t know. You tell me.”
I move back just a little, realizing too late I’m pressed up against the wall—not really the best place to be when I need to keep myself open, unencumbered, with plenty of room for escape. Still, I only plan on being here for a moment, only until I can get to the other side where my amulet waits. As soon as I can get hold of it, I’ll secure it back on my neck, and do what it takes to put this whole thing to rest.
She stands before me, arms loose, fingers twitching, feet planted wide, and knees slightly bent—preparing to move, preparing to pounce.
I use the moment to study her closely, get a feel for her energy, and try to determine which way she’ll swing. But she’s so out of whack, so disconnected from herself and from everything else, it’s like trying to see through a cloud of static—she’s impossible to read.
So when she does charge, her fist held high, angling down toward my stomach, I instantly move to block it.
Never once imagining she’d switch at the very last moment.
Never once imagining that anyone so strung out and unsteady could actually maneuver like that.
Catching the crazed look of triumph in her eyes as her fist plunges straight into my throat.
Slamming right into the sweet spot—my fifth chakra—the center for a lack of discernment, misuse of information, and trusting all the wrong people.
Nailing it so hard and fast, it’s a moment before I realize what happened.
A moment before I’m overcome with staggering pain.
A moment before I’m out of my body, floating, swirling, gazing down at Haven’s leering gaze, Jude’s collapsed form, and the beautiful but fleeting cloud of blue sky that expands all around me—before everything shrinks, and collapses, and the whole world goes black.
twenty-six
You know how they say that when you die your whole life flashes before you?
Well, it’s true.
That’s exactly what happens to me.
Not the first time though. The first time I died I went straight to Summerland.
But this time, this time is different.
This time I see everything.
Every major, defining moment from my most current life, as well as all the others that came and went before it.
The images swirling around me as I free-fall through a solid dark space devoid of all light, overcome by a feeling both terrifying and familiar, as I struggle to remember when I could’ve possibly experienced it before.
And then it hits me:
The Shadowland.
The home for lost souls.
The eternal abyss for immortals like me.
That’s exactly where I’m headed, and it’s just like it was when I experienced it through Damen.
Except for the show.
That part he failed to let me see.
Though it’s not long before I know why.
Know why he was so haunted after his own trip to the Shadowland.
Why he came back so different, so humbled and changed.
Plummeting so quickly, I’m buffeted by a sort of reverse gravity, feeling as though my gut’s about to burst through my shoulders and head, as the images unfold all around me.
At first coming in glimpses, mere flashes of myself in all of my former life guises, but as I grow used to the sensation, accustomed to the movement and speed, I learn to temper it, to slow it down, to focus. Taking them in one at a time as they continue to stream past me.
Clean.
Unedited.
Including all of the parts Damen didn’t want me to see.
Starting at the beginning, my first life in Paris, back when I was a poor, orphaned servant named Evaline, and wincing as I watch some of the more unsavory tasks I was made to perform—the kind of stomach-curling stuff Damen definitely spared me from. Everything unfolding just as he’d told me all along, until I notice Jude who lived as a cute, young stable boy with a lean, muscular build, sandy blond hair, and piercing brown gaze. And I watch as we begin to dance around each other, starting slowly, a look here, a brief word there, until we grow more comfortable and begin to seriously consider each other—make serious promises to each other. Promises I fully intend to keep until Damen appears and sweeps me right off my feet.
Sure he used a bit of trickery, summoning all of his immortal charms and putting them to good use. Always managing to show up at just the right time, in just the right place. Always managing to impress me in some big and showy spectacular way. But still, it’s not like any of that was really necessary, because the truth, the truth that I couldn’t see clearly until now, is that it wasn’t the magick that enabled him to capture my heart—magick had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Damen won me over from the very first moment. From our very first glance.
Damen won me over long before I even knew who he was or just exactly what he was capable of.
His powers of attraction, the reason I fell for him so quickly wasn’t because of the magick—it was because Damen was just simply being, well, Damen.
After watching our entire courtship together—scenes we’ve relived in Summerland, and those we have not—including my horrible death at Drina’s hands—I move on to my next life. Back when I was a Puritan with a strict father, a long-dead mother, a wardrobe consisting of three drab dresses, and an even drabber existence. The only bright spot on the entire horizon of my boring life being a fellow parishioner with dark shaggy hair, a generous smile, and kind eyes I instantly recognize as belonging to Jude—a parishioner my father approves of, pushes me toward, until the day I spot Damen sitting in a pew and my whole world, my entire future, is turned upside down. And it’s not long after meeting him, not long after getting to know him, when I promise to abandon my life of humble obedience for his far more glamorous one. Until, of course, Drina brings it to an untimely end.
Drina always brought it to an untimely end.
Leaving my father devastated, Jude shell-shocked, and Damen to scour the earth plane in a prolonged state of grief, waiting for my soul to recycle so we can reunite once again.
I watch my other lives as well, watch as my soul merges into the body of a well-coddled and extremely pampered baby who will grow up to be a frivolous, spoiled daughter of a wealthy land baron. Carelessly casting aside Jude, a British earl everyone assumes I’ll marry, in favor of a tall, dark stranger who arrived seemingly out of nowhere. Though once again, thanks to Drina, my life ends tragically before I have a chance to make the choice public, but my heart knows the score.
Then on to Amsterdam where I lived as the beautiful, sultry, alluring artist’s muse with the amazing mane of long titian hair. Flirting with Jude, just like I’ve done with so many who came and went before him, until Damen arrives and steals my attention.
Not by resorting to any sort of trickery, no overt magick acts were used. He won me simply by being who he is. No more, no less. From the moment I first laid eyes upon him, no one else stood a chance.
But the life I’m most interested in is the life that’s revealed last.
My Southern life.
Back when I lived and worked as a slave.
Back when Damen freed me at the expense of my happiness.
Watching that whole miserable lifetime unfold, from a childhood that never really was, to the only bright spot in that entire existence—a brief kiss from Jude.
The two of us slinking off to meet behind the barn just as the sun begins to fall. Unsure what’s causing my heart to flutter more—the excitement of what I hope will be my first kiss or the fear of being caught sneaking off the job. Knowing the
penalty for such an act will be a severe beating—or worse.
But still, determined to keep my promise to meet him, I’m overcome with a rare feeling of joy, an unexpected surge of happiness, when I see that he’s already there.
He smiles awkwardly, and I nod in return, suddenly overcome by an extreme bout of shyness, a fear of appearing overeager. Though it’s not long before I notice the way his hands shake, the way his eyes dart, and I know I’m not the only one feeling this way.
We exchange a few pleasantries, the kind of automatic words neither of us pays any real attention to. Then just when I’m thinking I’ve been gone for too long, that I’ll have no choice but to head back before my absence is noticed, he does it.
He leans toward me, his large brown eyes peering at me with such love and kindness it robs me of breath. Then he closes them softly, leaving me with a view of curly dark lashes resting against glossy dark skin, and a pair of enticing lips moving toward mine. The cool sweet press of his mouth so soft and familiar, it causes a wonderful wave of calm to flow through my body.
Even after it’s over, even after I push him away, turn on my heel, lift my skirts, and run back toward the house—the kiss lingers.
The taste and feel of it continuing to play, as I silently repeat the whispered promise we made to meet up the very next day, same time and place.
But just a few hours before that’s scheduled to happen, Damen appears.
Seemingly arriving out of nowhere, just like he has in all of my previous lives, only this time he spares no time for a prolonged courtship, or even a few pleasantries of any kind, his intentions are far too urgent for that.
He’s determined to buy me. To free me from a painfully harsh life of brutality and servitude, in exchange for one so opulent, and so privileged, and so opposite of everything that I’m used to, I’m convinced that he’s lying, that it’s a trick, that there’s no way it could possibly be true.
So sure that my life has just taken such a major turn for the worse that I cry out for my mother, my father, strain my fingers toward Jude’s—wanting him to hold me, protect me, not let me go to wherever it is I’m about to. Convinced I’m being ripped away from the only form of happiness I ever could know for something far worse, I’m terrified, caught in a state of overwhelming turmoil and fear. Deeply suspicious of this new, soft-spoken master who whispers to me gently, who treats me respectfully, and who gazes upon me with the kind of reverence I’ve never known before, that I’m sure isn’t real.
Carefully setting me up in my very own room, in my very own wing of a house far bigger and fancier than the one I was made to clean. Faced with no task more demanding than sleeping, eating, dressing, and dreaming, with no threat of demeaning chores or painful beatings.
He gets me settled in, pointing out the features of my quarters—my own private bath, a canopied bed, a wardrobe full of beautiful dresses, a vanity lined with the finest imported creams and perfumes and silver-handled brushes—telling me to take all the time that I need, that supper will hold until whenever I’m ready.
Our first meal together spent in absolute silence as I take the seat just opposite him, dressed in the finest gown I ever have seen. Focusing on the soft feel of the fabric, the way it eases against my subtly scented skin, as I pick at my food and he sips his red drink. Staring off into the distance, occasionally peering at me when he thinks I don’t notice, but mostly distracted by the thoughts in his head. His brow furrowed, his mouth grim, his gaze telling, heavy, and just conflicted enough to tell me he’s struggling with something, some kind of choice he must make.
And though I wait for the other shoe to drop, it never comes close. I simply finish my meal, bid him good night, and return to a room that’s warmed by a well-tended fire and the finest cotton sheets.
Waking early the next morning and rushing to the window just in time to see him riding off on his horse, my eyes following anxiously, sure that this is it, that he’s brought me all this way only to abandon me to someone who will find me and beat me ’til my death in some kind of sick, twisted game.
But it turns out I’m wrong, he returns that very same evening. And though he smiles when he greets me, his eyes betray a tragic story of devastating defeat.
Torn between telling me the truth and not wanting to upset me or scare me any more than I already am, he decides to keep the news to himself, to bury the awful truth he just learned, figuring there’s no reason for me to ever know, it won’t do me any good.
But even though I never learned the truth in that life, Shadowland generously reveals everything that he failed to.
Showing me exactly what happened when he rode off that day, where he went, who he saw, who he spoke to, the whole sordid scene.
He returned to the plantation, fully intent on buying my mother, my father, Jude, and all the rest of them and bringing them back to the house to enjoy their freedom, offering an exorbitant amount of money, a sum completely unheard of even among the very rich in those parts, only to have it refused. Taking no time to consider it, before he was quickly sent away. So eager to be rid of him, a foreman was sent to escort him off the property.
A foreman who, I can tell at first glance, isn’t at all what he seems.
It’s in the way he moves, the way he lives in his skin—overconfident, overly perfect, in every single way.
He’s an immortal.
Though not the good kind—not Damen’s kind—he’s a rogue. Long before Damen even realized Roman still existed, that he’d made his own elixir and was freely turning people. Still, I can see by the worried look in his eyes that he senses it too.
Not wanting to cause any problems, not wanting to make a scene or make it any worse for my family or Jude, Damen leaves. Tuning in to my fear at being alone in the mansion, he’s eager to comfort me, while vowing to revisit the plantation later, under the cover of night, when he plans to sneak them all out.
Having no way of knowing it’ll be too late by then.
Having no way to see what I see—Roman lurking in the background while the master’s away, running the entire show, sight unseen.
Having no way of knowing that the fire was purposely set long after he left, when it was already far too late to stop it, far too late to rescue anyone.
The rest of the story unfolding just as he said—he takes me to Europe, proceeding slowly, cautiously, allowing me all the time and space that I need until I eventually learn to trust him—to love him—to find true, but fleeting, happiness with him.
Until Drina finds out and quickly does away with me.
And suddenly, I’m aware of what I should’ve known all along:
Damen’s The One.
Always has been.
Always will be.
A fact made even clearer as I relive the scenes from my most current life.
Watching as he finds my body by the side of the road, just after the accident. Not just witnessing but also feeling, experiencing the full impact of his grief at having lost me yet again. His pain becoming my pain, the full brunt of his sorrow leaving me gasping, as he begs for guidance, as he grapples with the choice of whether or not he should turn me like him.
Completely consumed by his gut-wrenching loss, the day I shout at him, reject him, tell him to go away, to leave me alone, to never speak to me again, just moments after he’s finally found the courage to reveal what he made me—what I am.
Experiencing the full force of his confusion when he found himself under Roman’s spell. His numbness, his inability to control his own actions, his own words, everything carefully orchestrated by Roman who manipulated him into being cruel, into hurting me, but even though I already guessed it, here in the Shadowland I can feel it, and I know, now more than ever, that no matter what he said or did, his heart wasn’t in it.
He was just going through the preprogrammed motions, his body and mind dancing to Roman’s tune, while his heart, refusing to be controlled, never once strayed from mine.
Even when he leaves me to ch
oose between him and Jude, he loves me as much as ever before. So much that he’s unsure if he can actually withstand the pain of losing me again, and yet he’s so convinced of his actions, so convinced he’s doing the right and noble thing, he’s fully prepared to lose me if that’s what I choose.
I watch how he spends those days without me, feeling lost and lonely and bleak. Haunted by the scenes from his past, sure that he deserves nothing less, and though he’s clearly overcome with joy when I return, deep down inside, he’s not entirely sure he deserves it.
I feel the fear he held in check when I was taken over by the dark magick I brought upon myself—just as I feel his eagerness to forgive me for all of the things that I did while under its influence.
Experiencing his love in such a deeply profound way, I’m left completely hollowed and humbled by the sheer abundance of it—by the way it never once shrank in its intensity, never once wavered throughout all of these passing centuries, throughout this past tumultuous year.
Humbled by the way he never once questioned his feelings for me in the way that I’ve questioned mine for him.
And yet, despite my occasionally turning him away—I now know something I failed to realize before:
My love for him also stayed true.
I may have questioned, second-guessed, veered a good ways from the path now and then, but all of that confusion existed only in my head.
Deep down inside, my heart knew the score.
And I know now that Haven was wrong.
It’s not always a case of one loving more than the other.
When two people are truly meant to be, they love equally.
Differently—but still equally.
The irony being—now that I realize all of this, finally realize the truth of him and me, I’m forced to spend the rest of eternity suspended in the abyss, reflecting on all that I missed.
Swathed in a never-ending cloak of darkness, completely disconnected from anything and everything around me. Haunted by the mistakes of my past that forever swirl by. Like an infinite show set on permanent repeat, taunting me with all that I could’ve been, if I’d only chosen differently.
