Chapter 12
Of course I take his hand. I step into his steady hold, his arm coming around my waist, our fingers interlocking.
There’s a lightheartedness I haven’t felt in years as he effortlessly moves us across the floor. “Take it slow,” I say through laughter. “We’re not all as quick on our feet as you. Between the buzz and my lack of coordination, it’s only a matter of time before I trip and take you down with me.”
His bright smile sobers for a moment. “Don’t you know by now that I would never let you fall?”
The double-meaning isn’t missed on me. My heart aches for that kind of stability, for the enduring faith he has that things have to work out. “You can’t make that promise.”
Before I met Hawthorne, I didn’t believe in fate.
All I believed in was pushing through the days and finding moments of quiet solace amongst the redwoods.
When we moved here with my stepfather, I felt it in the air that this place would become home.
Even if I didn’t feel safe within the four walls of that house, the dirt beneath my feet, the fresh air in my lungs, and the freedom from judgment I could have when surrounded by what felt like an endless expanse of nature, became my place of peace.
Then there was him, and he was made of this place. I knew it in the depths of his eyes that resembled the rich colors of autumn leaves, in the patience he showed when I spoke about my favorite things, in those quiet hours he shared with me.
“I can and I will.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“That’s too bad.”
My breath whooshes out of me as he spins me out, then back against his chest, but it’s his words too. The last few days have been a roller coaster of emotions, and yet I know what goes up must come down. And the darkness that awaits us below is something I want to avoid at all costs right now.
When Thorne twirls me under his arm, a wave of emotion rocks over me, something dense. Not warm like lust or heavy like affection, something wrong and wanting. It leaves me swaying on my feet.
Desperate to shake it off, I break away and reach for the sabres he has mounted on the wall. Holding one out to him, I’m invigorated by the challenge that lights in his eyes.
“I challenge you to a duel.” My lips twitch with the makings of a smile.
“Dueling is not a fencing thing but go on.”
“If I win, no more sweeping devotions or grand promises. At least until we see how this shakes out,” I offer.
“That’s quite the demand.” Thorne circles until he’s standing behind me, the press of his lips finding the side of my neck. “How do you expect me to keep it to myself when you walk around looking like this? What good is it to have a goddess amongst you if you don’t get to worship her properly?”
Turning toward him, I use the sabre to put distance between us. “On guard.”
Thorne raises his sabre, but not without shaking his head at my antics. “If I win, you’re on the menu for dessert.”
The image of Hawthorne’s head between my thighs is a distracting one, giving him the advantage as he lunges at me. I yelp, jumping back despite knowing well that the rubber piece on the end of the sabre will prevent real harm.
Misplaced disappointment pricks along my skin.
Despite my distraction, he doesn’t let up. I cast it from my mind, ignoring the odd sensation.
“Hey!” Maybe I am tipsy because I don’t know why I would think I stood a chance when he used to compete, and I was just his practice partner—and I use that term loosely—when he was first starting out. “Not very gentlemanly of you to not even go easy on me. We both know this isn’t a fair fight.”
“Whoever said I was a gentleman? I play to win. You know that.” He advances and attacks, and I narrowly avoid him, more luck than skill as we move around the living room in a new kind of dance.
Putting the couch between us, I attempt to form a plan.
As he approaches, I take a jab at him, which he avoids, and in turn grabs me by the wrist and pulls me over.
Releasing my sabre, it clatters on the floor behind the couch, my hands instead find purchase on his shoulders as he hovers above me. “Cheater.” The accusation is a whisper as I catch my breath. My heart pounds, and my skin flushes with heat. I can’t remember the last time I felt so alive.
“What can I say? I’ve become an impatient man after all that waiting.”
“Well, who am I to keep you waiting any longer?” Hooking my legs around his waist and my arms behind his neck, I pull him to me, wanting to get lost in the reassurance of his kiss.
Possessiveness crawls like a beetle over my skin, hungrily devouring the flesh like I’m a decaying animal. I want to scrub it from me. But the feeling intensifies until it’s all I’m aware of, not Hawthorne’s roaming hands or the sturdy weight of his body against mine.
I can’t see Ivan, but his presence is undeniable, like smoke inhaled too fully, expanding in your chest until you can’t help but choke on it. The potency of his jealousy, his entitlement, it’s overwhelming. It fills me to the brim, until I’m drowning in it.
My head pounds from the lack of oxygen, thoughts emptying as he overrides the essence of me. A blitz of panic seizes me as I grasp at the trailing wisps of myself, but then I’m cast into complete darkness, the bleak matter of his influence.
There I lose all trace of time and place, it’s just his voice calling to me, directing me where he wants my mind to be. I’m nothing but a floating puppet on a string as he drags me back into the harrowing pits of carefully tucked away memories.
I’m in Thorne’s bed, but it’s not the rich fabrics and high-thread-count sheets he has now; it’s the navy sheets and the simple black and white plaid comforter of his teenage self.
For several too-slow seconds, the remembrance settles into place like dripping wax.
I, too, am melting, stuck here in the thick sludge of my own mind.
I watch in horror, frozen in the burning chill of my own fear, as soot-like shadows gather in the corner of the room. The features of the man swathed in black shadow sharpen as he looms closer, the sliver of moonlight cutting across confident lips and greedy eyes. I know them well.
Tonight is different, though. He holds out a hand expectantly.
Consider it, consider him. He scares me, and yet, he calls to me.
The weight of his request—more demand than question—bears down upon me as his eyes hold me.
There’s something about this that doesn’t feel like a choice as I take it.
There’s a ripple in time as my feet hit the floor.
“Solaneen,” a voice calls. Not his. Someone distant. Someone I suddenly want to run to, but I can’t.
“Solaneen.” This time, my name is a snap to attention.
A command that can’t be ignored. I follow the man out of the bedroom that has become my safe haven.
As I’m stepping out of the door, I cast one last glance at the boy who sleeps peacefully in the warm spot beside where I just was.
He doesn’t wake as I disappear into the night.
Down the stairs we go. His presence is domineering yet somehow weightless, not a single stair creaking while I attempt quiet steps that sound to my ears like a beating drum deep and foreboding. But I don’t turn back. Somehow, I know that it’s too late for that.
Down, down, down, and then we’re in the pitch black. I see his eyes, though. Now a definitive blue and his teeth gleam white. The shadows around him soften just slightly. He’s still more entity than man, but there’s more to him, something I can latch onto.
He holds the door open, ushering me outside and down the back porch. The wind easily cuts through the thin shirt and shorts I’ve borrowed. Again, I want to turn back, but I can’t. He’s drawn me out; he’s pulling me further along the path he’s set for me. Deep into the trees we go.
We walk and walk, until suddenly, it’s like I slam into a wall.
There’s nothing tangible, no fence or structure of brick, but it’s distinct.
A definitive marker that something is different here.
It’s harsh and abrupt, the coppery anger of it on my tongue.
I step back from it, shaken out of my trance-like compliance, and I retreat.
But then he’s there, his influence like a rope bound around my wrist that tugs at me. When I stop resisting, his pull calms. Not gentle but sated. The connection of his presence starts at my wrists and slowly works its way up over my arm, across my shoulders, down my spine.
The gentleness of it is something like a whisper of ‘you’re beautiful.
’ The cool caress of it is a resounding, ‘you’re perfect.
’ It runs down my legs, then back up again.
And soon, I’m so wrapped up in it that I’m lying on the ground.
My back arches against the leaves as my fingers slip between my legs.
Writhing there in the dirt, I have the fleeting thoughts that this is wrong, that this is strange, even for me.
Those weak objections are drowned out by the pounding pulse of desire that washes over me from above. It’s all around me, it’s in my head. It races ahead of my own heartbeat. It’s the pulse in my fingers telling me to keep going. Coaxing and desperate.
And then it’s gone. Then I’m just a girl alone in the woods in the middle of the night without so much as a jacket or a cell phone. A dirty girl, covered in grime, with sticks tangled in my hair.
I know the memory well. That was the first night that I lost time, but it wasn’t the last.
The familiar sound of breaking glass disrupts the daze I’ve been trapped in. Shattering porcelain mimicking the destruction of the respite I thought I might have found.
I should have known better.
“Sol, come back to me.” The plea comes from some distance, but it latches onto me, becomes as urgent as taking my next breath.
Jolting from the couch, I nearly smack into Hawthorne, who’s still on top of me. His hands are planted firmly on my shoulders, his face tense with concern.