WALES 2022
IT WAS AROUND TWO in the morning when clouds began to swaddle the silver-coin moon. By normal standards, today was our birthday. We were legal adults. But the Mother clearly had a taste for pedantry – we wouldn’t come into our powers for another five hours.
‘What if the police send out a search before morning?’ I shifted uncomfortably on the picnic blanket. The drugs were wearing off, and I was becoming acutely aware of the pain in my hip, at once dull and sharp. Running into town had been a mistake. ‘If my mum notices me missing before dawn, there are going to be helicopters over these hills in no time.’
Arden sighed and lay back on the blanket, resting his forearms above his head. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter, really. If we’re caught and arrested – well, if I ’ m arrested – we’ll be called back to the Underrealm from wherever we are. The plan doesn’t change.’
Try as I might to process what might happen in the next few hours, my brain couldn’t scale the enormity of it; of what the Underrealm would look like, feel like, what it would do to us. Instead I fixated on logistical details.
‘Do you have a weapon we can use against the Mother?’
A terse nod, then a pat of his lumberjack coat pocket. ‘The knife.’
‘Will that be brought with us?’ I mused. ‘You said that last time our bodies stayed here, and only our souls descended. The odds of personal belongings also making it to the Underrealm seem slim.’
He sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. But we’ve killed with our bare hands before. We can do it again.’
I shuddered at a sudden memory from the vast Argentine pampas. Arden’s throat, narrow and feminine, straining and bulging against my calloused palms. Self-loathing beat in my temples like a drum.
Devil, devil, you ’ re a devil.
Back then, Arden had been a skinny seventeen-year-old girl. Killing the millennia-strong Mother, sustained by the power of eternal suffering, was an entirely different matter.
‘What can you remember about the Mother?’ I asked. ‘I mean, I know what she looks like. She was there in the trenches, wasn’t she? But does she have much protection? Devil guards, or whatnot?’
‘I truly don’t know.’ Arden’s eyes had fluttered closed, and I understood the feeling. Though tensions were running high and we were teetering on the edge of an uncertain fate, I was also just tired . From lack of sleep. From everything. ‘I haven’t been to the Underrealm in nearly a thousand years.’ A snort of laughter. ‘The ship in Batavia was a close call, mind you. But I would imagine she’s gained a lot of strength in that time. And a lot of followers, willing or otherwise.’
Willing or otherwise.
That might be our saving grace. Even if the Mother did have protectors, would they be truly loyal? Or would they be bound there against their wills, railing against the bonds of their bargains as Arden and I were? Might they take our side; rebel, revolt, overpower?
I lay back down next to Arden, only this time I lay in the crook of his chest. He stilled for a moment, tense, and then relaxed enough to wrap his arm around me. It felt deliciously, unbearably good. The first moment of peace in weeks, no matter how fleeting.
‘How many other marked souls are out there, do you think?’ I murmured. A star far above us blinked, white then dark then white again. ‘There must be so many now. Such is the nature of pyramid schemes. They grow and grow until the only people left to sell to are their own.’
‘I don’t know that, either. I’ve never been approached for another bargain, but then again, maybe the other reapers know I’m already marked.’
A thought came to me, curious and bright. ‘Was it ever tempting to offer my mum a deal? For Gracie’s life, I mean.’
‘No.’ The answer was quick and solid. ‘These bargains … they’re slippery things. If we didn’t get the phrasing exactly right, she could end up the same as me – without her loved one and without her freedom. Besides, can you imagine your mum spending a week on hot coals?’
The horror of the image twisted through me, swiftly followed by a rush of affection for the woman who would lay down her life for her daughters. ‘She’s stronger than you think.’
‘I know,’ said Arden softly, the words floating up and vanishing in the towering night.
As we lay there in silence for a while, I had never felt as small or as infinite. We had lived for so long. We had been farmers and bakers and soldiers, jewellers and thieves, royals and rogues, sons and daughters, the shape of us changing with every life but not the heart of us. We had touched a thousand people, most of whom were now but bones in the earth. And yet, beneath the great canvas of the stars, we were nothing. A blip, a finger snap, a single note in the symphony of the universe. The realization made me feel at once better and worse.
We were nothing, but we felt like everything.
The fifth item on my dream list: to grow old with the love of my life.
A wedding, a home, a child of our own, all the quiet rituals and shared stories of ordinary, long-lasting love.
I laid my arm over his stomach, over the soft fabric of his fleece-lined coat, and as he squeezed me tight, I wished I could press myself into his very being.
I love you, and I have loved you, and I will love you.
My heart beat with the agonizing words. Arden was my family. A homeland I would defend with every fibre of my being.
I’d always believed him to be the villain, but he wasn’t.
I was.
And he loved me still.
Tilting my chin up, I gazed into his face, every beautiful plane filling me with want . I lifted my hand from his waist to his jaw, and ran my thumb along the hard ridge of it. His body stiffened beside me, a subtle tensing of his muscles and sinews.
I slid my hand backwards from his jaw, running my fingers through his soft dark hair and tugging myself ever so slightly up at the same time, my face inches from the hollow of his neck. Softly, so softly it took every ounce of restraint in my body, I brushed my lips against his throat.
His Adam’s apple bobbed raggedly as he swallowed back the desire. ‘Evelyn, we can’t …’
But he didn’t move away. Didn’t pull my hand away from the nape of his neck. Didn’t release his firm grasp of my waist.
‘Why not?’ I whispered, the words brushing against his skin, and he shivered.
‘I’ve killed you so many times.’ His voice was coarse, charged.
‘I’ve killed you too.’ I kissed him once more on the throat, lingering a little longer this time, feeling his pulse quicken beneath my lips. ‘We had our reasons.’
I lowered my hand from his neck to his hip, sliding my fingers under his thick coat to the strip of bare skin beneath. His stomach was tight, muscled, warm beneath my touch. As I hooked my thumb into the waistband of his boxers and tugged, he let loose the softest groan and pressed his forehead against mine. The air between us was fraught with desire, underpinned by a devastating tenderness.
Our breath was hot and rough as he closed the gap between our lips, and we kissed for the first time since the Siberian wilderness.
It was at once a tentative graze and a desperate caress, my heart beating through my chest, the blood roaring in my ears. Every inch of me lit up, with familiarity and yearning and love, the deepest love there was, and even though our bodies were already pressed together I was overcome with the need to be closer to him, one with him.
The kiss grew from a whisper to a roar, our teeth clashing together. His tongue flicked tentatively over mine, first uncertain and then urgent, his hands finding the small of my back, the hollow of my waist, his touch at once hungry and restrained. I pressed myself so flush against him that every ridge jutted into me. One of my legs notched itself between his, and a peak rose against my thigh.
Something tightened deep below my belly, a tug, an ache – but one that felt wholly more pleasurable than the one in my hip.
I could have kissed him forever, but we might only have hours.
Minutes.
Centuries of lust became a tidal undertow, threatening to pull me under. I ran my hand over his belt, thumb brushing against his tensed stomach, and I heard his breath snag as I paused over the buckle.
‘Do you want to?’ I whispered, pulling away the tiniest sliver.
He was hoarse as he murmured, ‘I’ve never wanted anything more.’
A thousand years was a long time to spend wanting.
His hand cupped my jaw, and I felt him shaking. Every tremor found its echo deep in my chest.
I fumbled with the belt until it was undone, then slid open the top button of his jeans and rested my hand on the flat plane of his lower stomach.
‘Can I?’ I whispered.
‘Yes.’ The single syllable was rough, raw, pleading, begging.
There was a gathering low in my belly as I explored him, thinking of the steaming hammam, of the tilting boat in the Arctic Circle, of all the moments I had spent trapped inside my own desire. He shivered; whether against my touch – so intimate, so close – or the cold March night, I did not know.
Either way, it unleashed something in him.
Rolling me on to my back, he sat up then hovered over me, pressing his chest against mine, drawing a line of kisses down my neck.
The ridges of his hips nudged against my inner thighs, and I felt the hardness of him against the place where warmth pooled.
As he tugged down the neckline of my jumper and kissed along my clavicle, I ran my hands down his back and pressed him even tighter against me, feeling the ache between my legs throb.
He pulled back, and for a moment my skin protested the absence of his heat, until he lifted the hem of my jumper and planted kisses on my ribs, my hips, then my waist, splaying his fingers over my bare skin, his breath hot against the very bottom of my stomach, and I thought I might unravel with want.
When he softly, so softly, tugged down my jeans, my underwear brushed against me and I shuddered, sighed, yearned . He lowered himself, one palm flat against the ground, the other cupping my chin, and his infinite eyes searched mine.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked, his voice trembling like he was about to collapse on top of me.
‘I’m sure,’ I breathed.
He pressed a single sweet kiss against my forehead, and then, at long last, we were one.
We both gasped at once, enveloped in sharp pleasure, underpinned with a brief snap of pain. I no longer felt the cold of the night air, or heard the crunch of wildlife through the forest, or feared what was about to come to us.
There was only Arden, everywhere, filling everything, the soft ache of it, our hearts beating together, a floating sensation in my chest, my pulse throbbing in every inch of my body, blood rising to the surface of my skin. A whimper built in my throat, and I locked my fingers into his hair.
The years rolled back, then the centuries, and we were two girls on a fishing boat in Nauru, we were two boys in the devastating trenches and on the ashen streets of Pompeii. We were everything, we were everyone. We were love and want, pure and raw and perfect.
How could the soul fated to kill me be the one to make me feel so alive?
As he kissed my neck, my throat, the slope of my shoulders, his finger traced the shape of my mouth, the apple of my cheek, his touch at once cold and scorching and alight, like he was trying to memorize every inch of me, like he had been thirsty for a thousand years and could finally drink.
The other hand cupped the small of my back and gently arched me upward, and despite the nagging in my hip I could not bite back the moan. It was hard and soft, pain and pleasure, our entire existence condensed and crystallized into a single diamond of a moment.
I loved Arden so much, and we were finally together . Finally whole.
I loved Arden so much I could have screamed it to the stars and the mountains and the sleeping gods.
The tug, the ache – it built and built until I was delirious with it.
His breath came harder, faster, and then, with a final shudder, we sank into each other, a blissful surrender, a climax we had waited for since the dawn of time.
Arden hung his head, every inch of him trembling, and then he looked up at me through his eyelashes. They were flecked with tears, with grief, with hope .
‘No matter what happens next,’ he whispered, the shuddering finally slowed to a breathless halt, ‘I love you, and I have loved you, and I will love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I whispered, hugging him to me like he was the last person in the world. ‘Always.’
Afterwards, we lay there until the sky lightened to faded indigo, talking and kissing, just being. He pulled a notebook from his coat pocket – the one he’d hidden in his writing desk – and read me poetry about our lives.
Fifty minutes, then forty, then thirty.
We made love one more time, desperate, grief-filled. The last, perhaps.
Twenty, ten, five.
At two minutes to go, when dawn crept slowly to the horizon, the sky began to rumble.
It was low and distant, at first, a juddering growl.
And then the helicopters crested the mountains, beaming down their furious spotlights, the tat-at-at-at of propellers whipping the breeze.
They didn’t make it to us.
All the breath was sucked from my lungs. An invisible lasso tightened round my middle, the acute sensation of being dragged backwards, downwards, away from myself in some fundamental way.
Arden grabbed my hand as he buckled at the waist.
With a final brush of his skin against mine, we were torn through the fabric of the mortal world.