16. Kiaran #2
My skin tingled as she explored, I matched her every move and told her with my touch how much this meant to me.
Amelie pressed her body into mine, wrapping her arms around my neck.
My free one pulled her in close, holding on for dear life.
Keeping the other tangled in her curls to deepen the kiss.
She grew hungrier at the gesture so I teased her lips with my tongue.
I didn’t need to ask twice to be let in.
I committed the feeling of our lips locking together to memory. It felt like a promise, one that I would give up my life to keep.
Suddenly, without any warning, a weight so heavy settled over me. It was crippling. So substantial I wondered if my bones were turning to stone. I couldn’t move. I didn’t even think I could breathe.
No. It can’t be.
“Did I do something wrong?” She pulled back, pleading with her eyes for the answer to be no.
No . I tried to say to her. I needed to say that to her. She did nothing wrong.
She’s mortal. It can’t be her.
My heart was thundering as I slowly regained feeling in my bones, but the weight was still there. My heart fought to keep beating through it.
Then, a knot in my soul tied so tight it strangled my lungs, throat, and stomach. The knot. The one every immortal waited their entire life to feel. And with it, the curse I’d been bound by two hundred years ago was set to end.
The feeling suffocated me for a fleeting moment. Long enough to be aware that it happened, but not long enough to plead for its undoing.
No.
No, no no.
It can’t be. Not her, not now. Not ever .
“Kiaran, what’s going on?” She placed both of her hands on my shoulders to balance herself as she leaned back to study me .
She was human, she couldn’t be crossed into my fate. But somehow, at the same moment my curse was officially set to be broken, the most important tether between celestial souls settled between me and Amelie. My fated mate .
Before I could answer her or even move, a loud knock sounded at the door.
Our dinner guests had arrived.
Ethel knew what we had been up to. I was sure of it. When Amelie scrambled off my lap to greet our guests, her face was flushed and the back of her head was mussed from my hands being tangled in it. She raised an eyebrow at Amelie and shot me a disapproving look.
Edgar, Ethel, and Amelie gathered at the table.
I was sitting there too, but my mind was elsewhere.
It was at home, thinking of the High Priestess guffawing with the members of the High Table.
They made me wait two hundred years for this, for a woman to come along and change everything for me.
To make waking up in the morning a blessing rather than a curse.
But to pay for the things I had done, I wouldn’t get to keep her.
The wooden door sounded again, alerting us to our newest arrivals. Opening the door, Al stood atop the porch, Friedrich, Niklaus, and Josef waited behind him.
“Bout’ time, boy. Smells good in there.” Al said, peeking around me.
“Sorry, come on in. Dinner is ready.” My voice shook as I spoke.
I hadn’t said much since Ethel and Edgar settled in.
I couldn’t look at Amelie and I knew she’d already been in her head about the moments preceding our friends’ arrival.
She seemed to be paying attention to Ethel and Edgar, but her thoughts were louder than their voices.
What did I do wrong?
Why is he mad at me?
I wanted to run to her from across the room and take every questioning thought about that kiss out of her mind, but I couldn’t. Touching her felt like a sin now. Taking from her felt evil. I just signed her death warrant and didn’t read the fine print.
How did I not see this coming? I thought it was her when she arrived.
But it was evident that she was human, so the thought evaporated and never returned.
But it made so much sense otherwise. A girl showed up to my cottage of all places.
I allowed her to see it even though I preferred being alone, I was completely mad for her and let her bring a version out in me that I actually liked.
Of course she was going to be the one who broke my curse.
Trying to find the will to continue with our night, I joined the Dwarves and Lost Souls at the table with my girl. My fate. My way home.
Ethel and Al were already at each other’s throats. I wanted to know why they hated each other. Where the animosity came from in an otherwise synchronous Forest.
“Amelie invited us over last week, Al. Why would I choose to come and spend a night with you and your bunch of riffraff?” Ethel questioned.
“You seem to find your way into our riffraff more often than we’d like. Edgar, you should really keep a better handle on your wife. She pokes around the campsite and drives new guests away.” Al responded.
“Now Al, you know as well as I do that Ethel does what she wants. Let’s not talk as if she’s not sitting right here.”
Ethel crossed her arms, raised a brow and smirked at Al .
“Amelie, how are you enjoying the cottage?” Niklaus interjected, trying to alleviate the tension in the room.
“I love it here. I love Fern, the library, the frogs and Fae, the trees. It’s infuriating that the people back home speak so harshly of the Forest. It has been nothing but lovely to me.” Amelie explained, welcoming the change of subject.
Niklaus shared a look with Al that gave too much away. They knew something that we didn’t. I had an overwhelming urge to protect Amelie and the way they were staring at each other tied knots all through my stomach.
“How long have you guys been here?” My fearless girl asked the men, giving all of them a solid amount of eye contact while she studied their faces.
Al looked back at her as if he was seeing an old friend before answering, “A long, long time.” He gave her a fond smile, one that I got the sense that he expected her to reciprocate.
Ethel whispered something to Edgar and Edgar’s face steeled.
I gathered that his wife was the designated worrier and resolver of issues and he was the pillar that gave her the strength to do so.
Him not arguing whatever she said to him was enough to ready her match just in case.
I could see it written all over her face that she was in protect mode too.
“How about your families? Do they wander the Forest as well?” Amelie’s voice cut through the sound of forks clinking against the plates.
Niklaus looked around the house, through the walls it seemed. Al continued to look at Amelie with tender eyes and Josef looked like he was ready to bolt. Friedrich was the one who answered, “You could say that.”
Amelie wasn’t the least bit perturbed by the vague answers the Lost Souls were giving her, she continued to stuff her face and smiled back with no worries in the world.
His friends are strange .
I heard it clear as day, no need to try and read her thoughts. They came to me as if they were my own.
Yeah, they are.
What the hell? Amelie’s eyes were wide as her attention shifted to me, I didn’t process it when I spoke back to her but she was hearing my thoughts as much as I was hearing hers.
The behavior of our dinner guests had distracted me from the new knot that tied itself onto my soul for a moment. It was well known that fated souls had a tether to one another that no one else could get in the way of, even the High Priestess herself. Fated souls were the highest power.
My parents could speak to each other by speaking their thoughts into the other’s mind.
You can hear me? I asked.
Yeah? What the fuck?
I’ll explain later. But I hated the impending conversation more than I hated the discomfort at the table right now.
Our guests continued to ignore each other while Amelie stared at me with a thousand questions floating behind her eyes. My head felt light and though my heart was beating slow and steady, it was so loud I couldn’t hear myself think.
Finally finding a topic to address, I rummaged through my pocket and clamped onto the necklace that was again sending pulses through my hand and up my arm. I laid it out on the table and Amelie’s eyes narrowed in confusion as she zeroed in on it.
“Niklaus was there somewhere you wanted this?” I asked, feeling far out of my comfort zone.
Al shot his eyes to Amelie, the fondness in his eyes gone as he searched her face for an answer to something. Or recognition for the necklace strewn on the table.
“I just wanted it back in its home. Amelie, did you look at my wife’s necklace?” Niklaus prodded her.
“I haven’t.” She didn’t break from her death glare on me. “Kiaran, may I see the necklace?” Her arm stretched across the table and her palm faced up, a stern and frustrated look etched her face.
I started to dangle it over her hand but before I could drop it, Ethel grasped it and tore it from me.
Al and Friedrich were on their feet before I could protest Ethel’s thievery.
“Don’t, Ethel. Let the girl see it.” Al said, Friedrich slowly started to round the table. Niklaus had a longing expression on as he stared at Amelie. Josef’s eyes closed before he bowed his head into his hands.
“Ethel why did you do that? What is that?” Amelie pleaded to her friend.
“Is this really your place, boys?” Ethel ignored Amelie’s question and shot one right to the group of Souls. I could feel her trying to surround Amelie with a blanket of protection.
But Amelie did not take well to being taken care of.
Between me having a piece of jewelry I hadn’t told her about, my friends being more awkward than I was most days and the woman she trusted keeping something from her, she was justified in having a shield around herself, much more of a force than Ethel or I could provide her.
Edgar was steel in his strength between the men and his overly confident wife.
“Do not do this tonight, this is not your place or ours.” He spoke as Friedrich inched closer to Ethel. I started for Amelie but as I approached, she took an equal step back.
“Give me that, Ethel. Please. You promised.” Amelie gave Ethel a knowing look. One that hinted to the conversation they’d had at the pond. Ethel battled with her options, folding it back and forth between her hands like it was hot to her touch.
She looked to Edgar for help in making her next move, “It’s your choice. You know what she would want more than the rest of us.” He assured her.
Ethel looked back to the necklace in her hands for a long moment before stepping around her husband, then passing Friedrich and myself to get to Amelie.
She placed the necklace in Amelie’s hands and covered them. She looked at Ethel in thanks and a little frustration but when she peered down at the necklace in her hands, her mouth gaped open.
“Who is this?” Amelie’s voice was barely a whisper.
Confused, I closed the space between us and grabbed her hands to see that she was looking at the inside of the necklace where a little picture of what looked like a younger version of Amelie was placed.
Much like the girl in the painting I once loved, but with hair in complete opposition to Amelie’s.
“Who is this?” She repeated louder as she looked up and met the eyes of everyone in the room.
“Someone fucking answer me!” She cried. Her body trembling.
Al’s eyes were full of tears, Niklaus was looking up at the kitchen ceiling. Josef was nearly under the table after how far he’d sunk in his chair. Friedrich was stone as he looked to his brother who was seconds from crumbling.
Giving my back to Amelie to hide her from the many eyes staring at her, I moved toward Al.
“Someone better start talking. Now.”