She was right.
I considered her words as I washed my hair and leaned back into the water, letting it fan out around me.
Taurus didn’t bother hiding his dark secrets. He flaunted them. He reveled in the feeling of shocking those around him. He’d enjoyed running me through. There was a moment, right before he pushed the sharp tip of the spear into my flesh, when he hesitated just long enough to lock eyes with me and watch my reaction when it happened. If that was indeed a warning, like Aries claimed, it meant Taurus would enjoy watching me die.
Helena withdrew into her thoughts, but I noticed she seemed upset. “What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up again.
“Nothing.” She brushed off my concern, giving me a fake smile.
Kes knocked at the door. “She okay?”
“Yes,” Helena said hotly.
Is something wrong? Why is he checking on me now?
“Did something happen?” I asked her. She pursed her lips, looking at war with herself. “Helena. Tell me.”
She looked at the door, glowering at it, as if she could see through it and was shooting her death glare at my brother. I was intimately familiar with that look because I had mastered it.
I toweled off and dripped a trail of bath water to the door, wrenching it open only to find Aries standing with Kes.
His eyes flared and Aries shot a look of warning to Helena before he vanished.
“What was that?” I asked Kes. “And don’t tell me you don’t know, because I’m calling you out on that B.S. before you even spout it.”
“You are in a towel,” he growled. “Get in your room.”
I hated brothers. And men. And Zodia men. And Zodia.
I trudged to my room in a snit and tugged on a pair of athletic shorts and a tie-dyed, long-sleeved t-shirt while enjoying my inner rant. As I stomped around the room, Helena was placing an assortment of dresses in my closet. She’d had the foresight to make several dresses I could knot at the waist and slip on and off without needing assistance.
“This should see you through a few days.”
“I can wear the same ones I have more than once.”
She shook her head. “Have you ever seen Aries wear the same outfit twice?”
I hadn’t. He was always similarly dressed in something dark and moody, but the stitching on his tunic was a different pattern every day and the shades he wore differed ever so slightly. “I’m not a Zodia. I’m a lowly human,” I teased.
Her eyes met mine. “You are so much more.”
My brows kissed. That was the same thing Aquarius said. A foreboding shiver slithered up my spine. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She pursed her lips. “Helena?” She pressed her eyes closed and held them there. She couldn’t tell me.
“What does it mean? Aquarius said the exact same thing to me.”
She shook her head. “I should go.”
“No,” I argued. “You should elaborate.”
Kes stormed in.
I threw up my hands. “I’m decent, but thanks for asking before barging in!”
“Leave!” he barked at Helena.
She didn’t take his crap. She shoved past him and gritted, “Gladly,” as she stormed out of the room, disappearing in the doorway.
My heart thundered. “Kes, what are you keeping from me?”
He cursed and tried to calm himself down, raking his hands through his ashen hair.
“You said you were on my side,” I hissed.
“I am!”
“Then act like it! What are you hiding?”
Aries answered from the doorway. “He’s hiding what I asked him to.”
“Which is?” I asked, my eyes flicking between them both.
“Which is…what you are.”
My mouth gaped. “What I am?” I finally managed to say. I looked to my brother. “Kes? What am I?”
I was afraid to hear his answer, yet afraid he wouldn’t reveal it.
For a moment, he looked like he was in pain. “You are one of Taurus’s descendants.”
In shock, I stood still for a moment and allowed the ponderous words to echo and crash through my mind. That was impossible. I was as human as they came. I wasn’t like him. I was the exact opposite of him. I couldn’t be the descendant of that thing! How many generations had passed since they were put to sleep?
If this was true, it meant I was the offspring of one of his few children that he didn’t manage to hunt down and murder before Aries tricked Taurus into stepping inside the temple.
“Say something,” Kes said, watching me warily.
“That’s impossible,” I breathed, rubbing the heel of my palm over my heart.
“It’s true,” Aries said solidly. “Three of his children were still alive when I trapped them. They lived and had families, and their children had families, and so on until your father was born, and then you were.”
“So that must mean there are a lot of his descendants out there, right?”
“Only you and your father survive,” Aries answered. “He’s hunted and killed all the others. It was the first thing he did when he woke.”
The conversation with Helena resurfaced… a lineage of Taurean blood.
She and Aquarius both told me I was ‘so much more’; I just didn’t realize they meant that Taurus’s blood flowed through my veins.
“He wasn’t there to collect me,” I said, feeling hollow again. “He was there to kill me – at the cemetery.”
Kes gave a nod to confirm it.
“You knew,” I accused. “From the moment you took over Kestrel’s body.” My voice cracked.
“I’d lived many lifetimes and had never seen one of his. Until I saw you,” he rasped.
“And Helena’s known this whole time? All the Guardians know? All the Zodia?”
Aries nodded. “Yes.”
“No wonder you never trusted me with your secrets,” I told Kes. “I’m the enemy.”
“I trusted you more than anyone else,” he said imploringly.
I shook my head. “Then that’s not saying much, because you should have told me before he made that stupid pledge to me! You should’ve told me who I was and why it was so important that Aries protect me. You should’ve told me why Taurus was hunting me.” I whirled to face Aries. “And you should’ve told me that it wasn’t just because of a promise forced on you.”
How could they look me in the face for so long and lie?
“I couldn’t, Larken,” Kes said, his features contorting as if he were in pain. Then the look slid away and he stared vacantly at the floor. “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t know what to say, how to feel, or what to think. I just wanted the nightmare to end. “Can I really kill him?” I asked. “And not harm his people?”
“If you could manage it, yes. But then, you’d have to take his place,” Aries rasped.
It was too much.
“Get out.” I pointed at my door. Aries slowly walked out. Kes lingered, so I dragged Kes by the elbow toward it, shoving him out of my space and slamming the door. I sank down the length of the door, hugging myself and crying bitter tears.
I was a monster. Just like them.
An emotional mess of one, who looked and felt every ounce human, despite the blood in my veins. Blood that was poison to the one hunting me. Blood he desperately wanted to rid the world of.
None of them set foot in my room that night, though I knew at least one lurked outside it. What was a prison without guards, right?
In the morning, I slipped on and knotted an emerald green dress and flung open the door with my deodorant, toothbrush, and toothpaste in hand.
Kes stood up like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Larken.”
“Not a word,” I spat, stomping to the bathroom.
When I came
back out, he was still there, watching for my reaction. So calm and patient. It infuriated me. “Did it scare you? Knowing what I was?”
He met me toe to toe. “Yes, I was afraid. I knew you were capable of killing me then, just as I know you are capable of killing Taurus now.”
“His fifty-seven other children didn’t stand a chance before the slumber, and none of the rest have since,” I argued, tipping my chin up.
“His other children weren’t you.” Kes shook his head. “At first, I think he was intrigued because the pledge placed you near Aries and it wouldn’t allow him to drag you into his territory. More than that, when he got close, he sensed Aries and wanted retribution for sheltering you. When he saw you and realized Aries had pledged to protect you, it sent him into a rage.”
“Dad is in danger, Kes.”
“I know, but he’s still alive.”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. “I check on him when I can. Only for a brief second, but I do. Taurus allows it. He wants you to know he’s alive.”
“What happens when he doesn’t want him alive?” I flung my things on my dresser and walked to the balcony, to my once-happy place that now felt anything but, knowing he’d follow.
Kes waited at my side, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“I never should have asked you to go after them, even to check on them. I put you in danger,” I started. “I told myself that if they and you died, if something happened to any of you, I’d die, too. That somehow my heart would know and wouldn’t want to be without you. But the truth is that I wouldn’t have been able to handle it, the same way Mom couldn’t handle Kestrel’s death. I would’ve unraveled. I would’ve fallen completely apart, and I felt like that the whole time I was waiting on you to come back. Like I was a thread on a sweater someone had pulled. The longer you were gone, the less of me remained whole.”
Tears brimmed in his eyes.
“I was terrified Mom or Dad would ask you to stay and you would. I didn’t want them to lose you twice, but I didn’t want to lose you either.” I was so freaking selfish. “And I hate that she’s with Libra and Dad’s with Taurus, but you’re here with me. They need you. But I’m glad they won’t know if something happens to me. And when Dad and I...” I hiccoughed. “Well, I hope you know how much you’ve meant to me, and I hope you’ll tell Mom I went down swinging. Because I fully intend to.”
“Don’t say things like that,” he pleaded.
“It’s true.”
“Don’t say it. Do you think that just because I’m a Guardian I don’t worry about the same things? That going after Mom meant I had to trust everyone else to keep you safe? That it meant I might not survive it? Libra is cruel when she wants to be. Even being in her territory was a risk, especially after what Aries did to them, but Mom was worth it. It’s been worth the risk to check on Dad, because he’s worth it. And so are you, Larken. You’re my family. I hate this as much as you do. I hate they were ever unearthed,” he spat.
I saw something move in my periphery. A flash of pink, then Aries was gone.
Kes groaned. “I didn’t mean for him to hear that. He’s honestly the best of them, Larken.”
“I know.”
A strange feeling crept over me, like the one I had the morning the Zodia began collecting their people and rearranging our planet and upending our lives. I looked up into a cloudless, blue sky, the sun shining brightly over the land. I crushed my hand to my stomach; I felt a sensation like an unseen force was trying to pull me apart, and that was the only way I could hold myself together.
“What is it?” Kes asked, his muscles going rigid.
I looked at the sky again. “I don’t know, but I feel weird. Like I did the morning the world ended.”
He all but dragged me inside.
“What’s happening?” I yelled.
“I don’t know, but I know you can sense things that even I miss,” he said. “You felt off right before they started taking people.”
“Maybe I’m just getting sick,” I mused.
Aries suddenly appeared in front of me in the hall. “What is it?” he asked Kes, his pink eyes darting between us.
“She felt strange before the collection, and she’s experiencing the same feeling now,” Kes explained.
“This feeling is worse, in case that matters…” I trailed off as they both whirled around to look at me.
The first thought that popped into my mind was How could this day possibly get worse? The second thought was how my mom would always answer when I asked her that. She would tell me not to tempt fate, because things could always be worse.
After someone lost something precious to them, something that completed part of their heart, and they hit absolute rock bottom, they became intimately acquainted with the dizzying sensation of loss. They knew what it felt like, the feel and smell and texture of it. And they recognized the sensation in others. They recognized when someone just needed kindness. A smile. A hug. Ice cream.
My mom brought all three when I’d had a bad day. I soon learned that time spent with her was the best medicine.
Whenever I’d come home in tears and regale her with my latest misfortune, she’d tell me everything would be okay because it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. Then she’d hand me a pint of ice cream she kept in the freezer for just such an occasion. Brandishing two spoons, we’d chill and spend quality time together, discussing how ridiculous the gossip was and making up our own rumors – which I wouldn’t spread – because it felt good. She made the worst days better, just because she cared. Because she loved me.
Now more than ever I wanted to run to her, hug her, and never let go. I wanted to thank her for always being there to help me wade through my petty dramas, because I knew what real problems were now.
Aries extended a hand. “Would you come with me?”
“Where?”
“To the courtyard.”
My breath hitched. That was where Taurus killed me.
“I know you don’t want to go there or see that place, but I need you to remember something.”
I nodded rapidly before I could talk myself out of it. “Okay.”
Kes went with us but gave me and Aries space enough to talk, even though I knew he could hear every word we uttered as he prowled around the space. The columns that flanked us were as tall as redwoods. They cast shadows over us, but the sun wouldn’t be so easily stifled, peeking through where the shadows couldn’t reach.
“Show me where you collapsed,” he rasped. His eyes said what his mouth didn’t. He didn’t want to know it, but needed to. He wouldn’t ask or put me through this unless it was absolutely necessary.
I walked through the columns until we spilled into the empty courtyard. There, I carefully retraced my steps, slowly this time.
When I saw the place where Taurus had killed me, I stepped on top of the stone. Kes watched from a distance and stared at the stones under my feet. He said he’d cleaned blood off them, and I knew he thought it was mine. I didn’t know how, but at this point knew everything was possible.
I still felt an ache where there shouldn’t be one. I rubbed a palm over my invisible wound.
“This is it,” I told Aries.
One look at Kes and I knew this was where he’d scrubbed the stone.
Aries stepped close, gently taking hold of my elbows. My hands found his arms and I was glad he had taken hold of me, because I felt as lightheaded and weak as I did in my dream just before I collapsed.
“When you fell, what raced through your mind?”
“A lot of things.”
Aries pressed his forehead to mine. “Show me.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed thickly, recalling the one thing I didn’t want to relive. The nightmare flickered through my head and my chest began not only to ache, but to hurt. Badly. I tried to pull awa
y, but his hands slid to my head and gently held it there. The pain ebbed.
I realized there were things that I’d forgotten when I woke. Things that slid over my subconscious like water rushing over rocks. I’d always heard that your life flashed before your eyes before you died and that you relived the moments – big and small, good and bad – just before you perished. Maybe it was your brain trying to remember so it could cling to life and give you a reason to fight.
Or maybe it was just the way it processed things before shutting down.
Aries’s teeth ground together as he watched my memories unfold, then he went quiet, his mouth falling open slightly. I was remembering him. Him waking up. The flowers curling toward him. His eyes. The way my heart caught in my throat when he first looked at me.
His loincloth…
When he drew his blood and painted his protection on me. When he fought Taurus away. When he brought me here and took me to get my things, and when he gave me everything I needed. He tried to make me comfortable, knowing the task wouldn’t be easy.
When he tried to use utensils and his claws wouldn’t cooperate.
My eyes filled with tears. They spilled onto the stone at our feet.
He’d spoken to his people, trying to calm them. He’d shown me the balcony leading to the stars – the very things I needed.
Scenes of the prom he arranged for me to have with Xavier, and the sexy kiss Aries gave me afterward, of him banishing Xavier, but still taking me to make sure he was okay, of him with Aquarius, and then him with Virgo. Capricorn’s visit. There was him racing with us and laughing. Of us in the library, of the way he looked after Pisces attacked.
Of the feel of his lips and hair and horns.
I looked up at him. His eyes were closed, the dark lashes fanned across his cheek. When the images stopped, he finally opened them.
He was still. I was afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
“Say something,” I pleaded.
He swallowed and removed his forehead from mine but kept hold of my cheeks, his thumbs brushing my jaws. Then his lips crashed into mine and he gathered me close, pressing me into his body and spinning us in a deliciously slow circle.
Things That Should Stay Buried Page 27
