46. The Stranger
Chapter Forty-Six
The Stranger
T he spell flickers, unsteady from my own turbulent emotions. Converting my surveillance room into a pseudo-lockbox was the right choice. It kept me from constantly having to fix the damage my powers caused. The runes on the walls strain from my annoyance as I watch her leave the gym.
Piece of shit berserker. I could just kill him.
No, I can’t do that. I already considered that course of action, and it would only make her hate me more. She’s lost enough. But maybe I could just maim him.
She leaves the gym holding a burger. She lifts it to take a bite, but then stops and just looks at it.
Her smile drops, and some emotion flashes across her face.
Is it sadness? Vulnerability? I can’t tell, but she tosses the food into the trash and slides her hand over the golden halo on her wrist. Does she know she reaches for it when she feels overwhelmed? Or is it subconscious?
Her eyes close, her breath unsteady.
I’m in front of her and brushing her hair behind her ear before I even register that I’ve decided to leave my surveillance room. She blinks her eyes open and looks up at me. I stare back at her silently, not moving away.
“Why are you here?” she whispers. Her voice is breathy, and I can hear that she was close to a panic attack before I arrived.
“What weighs your shoulders down so greatly?” I ask, the old phrase from my childhood slipping out. Sometimes I remembered my mother asking me that, my small fingers tangled in her dark, curly hair as I clung to her .
What weighs your shoulders down so greatly, little one? Are you carrying realms in your mind?
But then I don’t know if that memory is real. I didn’t know my mother. The idea of family remains an unfamiliar concept. Sometimes my memories feel like puzzle pieces brushed together, leaving only a mess of color and shapes.
“Why are you here?” she repeats. “Why are you always here?”
I shrug, brushing her cheek softly with the back of my fingers. “You looked sad.”
It sounds simple, and to me, it is. She needed me, so here I am.
“Stop,” she demands, brushing away my touch.
On impulse, I cover her eyes and take us into the forest, working quickly to weave the illusion around us.
“What are we doing?” she demands, but she doesn’t try to pull my hand from her eyes. I like the way she says we .
“Showing you another memory.” Another realm, another place, another time, an escape from her reality. A place to explore.
“I don’t want another memory.”
“This one you do,” I whisper, and lower my hand. Brilliant red structures with gold accents litter the landscape leading up to an impressive palace. Breathtaking murals of the realm’s history decorate the walls of the imposing structure, but they pale in comparison to the realm’s inhabitants.
Dragons.
Massive, winged beings of all colors glitter like gems scattered across the velvet blue sky. Sunlight dances off their scales, casting rainbows on the ground below, highlighting the path to the palace.
She gasps, her eyes wide as she takes in the dragons soaring above. She watches a few of them land, easily shifting into their mortal form as their feet meet the ground to walk the last steps to the entrance. I take her hand in mine and lead her deeper into the illusion.
“Would you like to see the palace?”
She looks down at her hand clasped in mine, and the awe in her eyes flickers then dims. “Stranger?.?.?.”
I pull her along the path to the stairs, starting the long climb to the plateau. We are surrounded by color. The dignitaries traveling up and down the steps wear clothing embroidered in jewel tones that match their scales while in dragon form .
When we reach the final step, Gideon Draco passes through us. He stops and looks at the palace, his sharp golden eyes glaring at the structure before storming toward it. Summer turns to watch him, and I take the moment to study her.
“Does his presence surprise you?” I ask, rubbing my thumb along the back of her palm.
“You know him?” she asks, glancing back at me over her shoulder.
“There are few who don’t.” I watch her eyes, and for the first time in a long while, I see the craving for knowledge flicker in them. “The last Dracanae, king of a lost and ruined nation. The last dragon.”
Gideon Draco was the only survivor of the Culling that took all of his kind.
Someone, somehow, managed to gain information that the dragons had kept secret for millennia, and it became known that dragons possessed a rare magic that infused every part of their bodies.
Suddenly, their scales, their bones, and their hearts all became valuable commodities, and they were hunted into extinction by the inhabitants of many realms. The Grand Arcane granted Draco asylum and protection, saving him as the last of his race.
Now he is cursed to live with the knowledge that when his long life comes to an end, his people and history will die with him.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asks, and I pull her into the palace, showing her the fantastical murals depicting the creation of the realm.
I start to tell her about the gods who created the palace, those who have long since abandoned it, but she pulls her hand from mine. “Stop it. Get rid of it. Now.”
I turn to face her. “Get rid of what?”
“The illusion. Now.”
The genuine panic in her voice is enough to make me dispel the illusion, but I go cold when I focus on her eyes and see the glazed blue.
“I don’t want to see your magical memories. I don’t want to go to these wonderful places with you. I don’t want you to comfort me when I’m sad. I don’t want you to help me, or watch me, or be around me. I want to fucking hate you!”
“Yet you don’t,” I say, crossing my arms.
“I am trying,” she hisses desperately. “I am trying so fucking hard. So please just let me.” How would I even accomplish that?
If she didn’t hate me by now, after everything, she never would.
It is just another lie she cloaks herself in, a facade she hopes to force into a truth.
“Because I should hate you. I am desperate to hate you,” she continues, the distressed edge to her voice increasing.
“Yet you so desperately can’t ,” I say, dropping my arms. That is the heart of it.
She wants me to be the monster in this moment, in her life.
No, that isn’t quite right. I am her monster, and she is mine.
She wants to hate me as her monster because it is so much easier than hating herself.
“Yet you find yourself missing me and hating that you do.”
I step toward her, and she steps back. The move is so uncharacteristic of her that I almost pause.
Almost. Instead, I continue to crowd her, walking her back until I have her cornered against a tree.
She lifts her chin, but doesn’t move away, audibly swallowing.
I put my hand on the tree above her head, emphasizing the difference in our sizes.
“I miss you,” I admit, stroking the knuckles of my free hand along her jaw. It’s true. I do miss her constantly. “It hurts how much I do. How much I have to hold back, keep calm, and look the other way.”
“Why are you doing this?” she whispers, closing her eyes.
I nuzzle my cheek against her ear, groaning at even that small contact. “You know why.”
Summer shivers, her breath shallow. She can’t help but react to me. No matter what lies she tells herself, she feels the connection between us. It’s undeniable and oppressive.
“You know exactly why?.?.?.” I murmur, dragging my nose along the pointed tip of her ear.
She gasps and arches, pressing herself against me.
My body ignites, but it’s not enough. I want more, more of her, more of her touch, more of her taste.
I dart my tongue out, flicking it over the sensitive tip of her ear.
I’m getting carried away. The only reason I have even a tenuous control over myself is the fact that my avatar prevents me from fully feeling her against me.
The warmth of her body, her scent, and the feel of her are all muted.
“I should walk you home,” I groan, pulling back.
She clears her throat and looks away, a flush rising in her cheeks. “No,” she says, ducking beneath my arm, slipping from the shelter of my body. “Goodbye, Stranger.”
I grab her arm, my eyes narrowed. “Why do you do that?” I ask, tightening my hold and pulling her to me. “Why do you pretend still? Pretend there is nothing between us? ”
She glares at me, retreating into her defiance. “There is nothing between us.”
The words slash at me like shattered glass.
“There is everything between us,” I hiss through clenched teeth.
She shakes her head, tugging hard at her arm, but I only tighten my hold.
“Don’t bother denying it,” I snarl, tightening my hold on her.
I know I am bruising her, and the darkness inside me that craves her in the most brutal way loves that I have left another mark on her.
“Your first and last breath are mine. I am your beginning and your end. It has always been this way, and it will always be this way.”
“ You will never be Summer Morningstar ,” she snarls at me, her lips curled back from her teeth.
Something close to regret slashes me, but it’s eclipsed by my anger.
“Do you enjoy hurling that at me? Like I had some hand in his death? As if I wished that upon you?”
The only part I played in his death was my absence. I allowed my own foolish pride to keep me so far from her that I was too late to save her from the agony of that loss.
“You did.” Her eyes mist with angry tears. “ Enjoy him while I allow it. Did you celebrate when you heard about his death? ’Cause you certainly kept your distance from me.”
She wanted to see me? I thought . . .
“Do you mean celebrating by wiping that sect of fanatics from the realms? Because I did enjoy hearing them scream for mercy, knowing I’d never grant it to them. I let you mourn because I knew you were devastated at his loss, and I figured I’d be the last person you’d want to see.”
“How did you feel when you heard about his death?” she demands.
“Enraged,” I say immediately, and lock eyes with her, hoping she can sense my sincerity.
“Liar.”
“Out of the two of us, you are the liar.”
She tries to yank her arm from my grip again, but I refuse to release her. “Tell me how you felt when you found out that my fiancé was dead. That the male I was going to marry in a few short months was no longer alive. That I was no longer engaged.”
Why the obsession with this ?
“I have lost everyone. I would never wish that agony on you. Anyone but you.”
Those words are the absolute truth, but they fall on closed ears.
“You got your wish, Stranger. I’ll never be Summer Morningstar.”
I want to shake her, anything to make her listen to me. “Because he was not the one for you! You would never have made it down the aisle. We both know that.”
“You know nothing about me,” she snarls, yanking her arm from my grip.
“I know you cry in your sleep,” I growl. “You dream of forests from realms long since lost.”
She walks away from me, and I allow it. I don’t follow her, but I call after her, using my words to haunt her steps instead.
“You loved him, but only as much as you could while not being your true self. You wished it were right so badly, so desperately.”
“Shut up!” she shouts, and breaks into a run.
I don’t chase her, leaving her to let my words sink in.