Chapter 31 So Much Cooler Than Me
THIRTY-ONE
So Much Cooler Than Me
The gate flew open and Declan stood there, eyes wolf gold.
Bracken rose and patted my shoulder. “I’ll let you two talk. Maybe I can sleep now.” He paused as he passed Declan. “Have you seen the ocean tonight? The waves are quite angry.” He walked through the open gate and returned to his home.
Declan let the gate close behind him, then looked out at the water, his brow furrowed. I stood up and went inside. Bracken didn’t need to hear this. I left the door open, knowing Declan would follow, and he did.
I wasn’t ready for another confrontation. I hadn’t had time to work through the last one. I went to the couch, kicked off my shoes, and curled up tight, with my head on a pillow. There was one cushion at my feet if he insisted on sitting.
“You left,” he grumbled. “You hid the sound and you left me.”
I curled up tighter. “Not you. All the anger.”
“You can talk to Bracken but not me?”
I flicked my fingers and a blanket was covering me, hiding me. “When I got here, Bracken was already on the bench. We didn’t talk about you and me. We talked about him.”
The couch moved as he sat. “Is he okay?”
“I think so.”
“Are we okay?” he asked.
I shrugged a shoulder, not knowing how to answer that.
“You shouldn’t have left, especially after your vision of being hit on that road.”
I felt his hand go under the blanket and wrap around a foot. Something inside me broke and the tears finally came. I pulled the blanket over my head as I sobbed. It was such a simple act, but it was everything to someone who’s been starved for touch her whole life.
“Bracken was right,” he said. “I should have noticed that the sea was raging and not tried to have such a charged conversation with you.”
Oh, that was what Bracken had meant. Were my emotions tied to the ocean? I supposed my uncontrollable sobbing said yes.
“Come here,” he rumbled, picking up the lump of me and holding me in his lap while I cried.
“We’ll figure this out, but we don’t have to do it right now.
Right now,” he said, standing up, still holding me, “we’re going to bed and getting some sleep.
” He carried me up the stairs and arranged us on the bed.
Not bothering with the bedding, he spread the blanket over us, curled himself around me, and we both dropped off almost immediately.
Water surrounds me and I’m racing through it, leaving unbothered fish in our wake. Kelp below dances with the current. The sunlight shining through the water disappears as a large, graceful dark shape seems to fly through the ocean.
Little fingers grip the wings as a giant bat ray twists and turns, diving deep and twirling up.
Dark hair fans out from a little girl riding the ray like a roller coaster.
Their joy is infectious. My heart hurts watching them.
When the ray flips, I see bright aqua-green eyes crinkled at the corners with laughter.
A gray, speckled harbor seal follows, circling the ray and her rider, playing tag. I recognize this water and that seal. We’re near the gallery. The pylons appear ahead and the ray carries the rider between the tall, thick cement posts to where two octopuses live.
The ray slows, hovers, and a tentacle drops from above, wrapping around the child’s shoulders.
She sits up, kneeling on the unmoving ray, as she wrestles with a familiar octopus.
Finally free of her tentacled entanglement, the ray delivers her to the bottom of the rope ladder hanging from the deck of the gallery.
The little girl gives the ray a quick kiss, then scrambles up the rope faster than expected. I’m waiting at the top, leaning over to grab the little girl as soon as she’s within reach. The dream fades and then…
The same girl, older now—maybe seven or eight—but with those same eyes, is walking the road between home and the gallery.
She has long, dark hair, almost as black as Corey hair, but with streaks of the warm brown of her father and the gold and red highlights of her mother.
The long curls fly around her head in the wind off the ocean.
A car slows down beside her and a window opens. A man tries to talk to her, but she continues walking. He checks his rearview mirror and the road ahead before driving closer to the girl, making her walk along the sandy, rocky berm rather than the concrete path.
He drives ahead a few feet, leans over, and throws open the passenger door, trying to pen her in.
She’s so small but there is no fear in her eyes. She stops at the open door and looks in at the man reaching for her. The fingers of one hand twirl at her side while long, razor-sharp claws slide from the fingertips of the other. The dream fades and then…
The same girl—perhaps ten or eleven—is walking down the same stretch of road.
Her long, curly hair is up in a ponytail today.
A van pulls up beside her, and the side door slides open.
A man is hunched over, ready to launch himself at her.
A blink of her luminous aqua-green eyes and she hears all they have planned for her.
It’s so ugly. Her stomach sinks as she twirls her fingers and keeps walking.
The men in the van have forgotten her and have fallen on each other, beating and tearing at one another.
When the patrol car stops to find out why a van is stalled by the side of the road, the officer will find two dead men who apparently killed one another.
That, though, will happen long after the girl has arrived at the gallery. The dream fades and then…
That same girl, hair still in a ponytail, is leaning over the railing on the deck. “Hello, Cecil! Have you seen Rayna today?” The wing of a bat ray breaks the surface. “Hi! I need to do my homework first, then we can play.” The ray splashes the surface in response before diving down again.
“Quinn?” I call from the studio. “Where are your father and brother? Don’t tell me you walked here by yourself again.”
With a last wave at the ocean, she walks in the studio and goes straight for the fresh cookies cooling on the counter. “They were taking too long.” She takes a bite of cookie, then comes to me and kisses my cheek. No visions. “Mac needed a run, so Dad went with him.”
“And you were supposed to wait at home until they returned?” I guess.
She shrugs. “It felt more like a suggestion. I can see home from here. It’s not that long of a walk,” she contends while she finishes one cookie and goes back for another.
“Quinn!” Declan shouts.
I raise my eyebrows at our daughter.
Declan and a much smaller version of himself are in the doorway. “What did I tell you about leaving without me?”
Quinn pretends to think about it. “That I should do it if I felt comfortable because the world is a big and sometimes scary place, but it doesn’t do us any good to be afraid of it?”
I bite back a laugh and return to my painting. Mac races across the room to inhale cookies.
Declan remains by the back door, his arms crossed over his chest. “And what do you know about the van and the cop car by the side of the road?”
She shrugs again, mischief in her eyes, as she turns to fight her brother for the rest of the cookies.
I check the time on my phone. “I have another batch coming out in three minutes. Meanwhile...” I stare at Mac and tap my cheek. With a grin that mirrors his dad’s, he runs across the studio, gives me a kiss, then runs out onto the deck.
“Quinn, did you hurt whoever is in that van?” Declan asks, not ready to abandon the topic.
“I’m sure he deserved it!” Mac shouts from outside. He ducks his head in the door. “If I’d been with you, I’d have got him for you.” Claws shoot out of his little hands. He turns his head and his claws snap back. “Hey, Uncle Bracken. Mom made cookies. Do you want some?”
A few moments later, Bracken appears at the door behind Mac. “I’m here to collect my pupils. Have your cookies and something to drink, then we’ll start on your homework.” He looks down at Mac. “Do you have your list of spelling words?”
Mac nods and runs for the oven when the phone alarms in my pocket.
I awoke with a start, the alarm still ringing in my head. That hadn’t been a vision. I felt at my neck to be sure. No pearl. The necklace was still on my nightstand at home. I’d been touching Declan. I shouldn’t have had a dream like that.
Rolling off the bed, I grabbed a hoodie, stepped into slippers, and padded quietly down the stairs. I went out the back door and sat on a bench. The wind was cold, so I brought my knees up and pulled them under the oversized hoodie.
That had been an oracular dream. As my mother had been shown what her doomed Cassandra daughter would be like with a wicche father, I had been shown who my children with Declan would be.
Tears ran down my cheeks. I’d been terrified I wouldn’t be able to hold my own baby because of the visions. I hadn’t told anyone what I’d been thinking, but clearly the Goddess knew. She’d shown me two children kissing me and no visions. The tears poured as I watched blurry, moonlit waves.
The back door opened and Declan sat beside me. He wrapped his arm around me, then pulled me onto his lap. “What’s the matter?”
“Oracular dream.” I sniffled. “The Goddess showed me our children.”
“Children? We’re having twins?” Though he sounded shocked, he wasn’t displeased.
Wiping my face, I told him everything I’d seen. We both sat stunned for what seemed like an eternity, turning it all over in our minds, and then Declan was kissing me like our lives depended on it.
He took me back upstairs and showed me how much he loved me. Knowing there was a future where Declan and I stayed together and had a perfect family settled something sharp and wary inside me.
Soft kisses and urgent caresses, we explored and found each other like it was the first time, like every time. He was a wonder. I didn’t know how he always made me feel loved, desired, breathless, and needy. We soothed each other’s souls while inflaming one another’s blood.
“Siren,” he whispered as he claimed me. Clinging to him, I rode out the storm, wanting nothing more than to stay right here, safe in his arms.
Later, with me flopped on his chest, he coiled one of my curls around his finger absently. “Two, huh? Quinn and Mac?” He grinned. “I guess that decision’s made.”
Exhausted, I kissed the skin closest to my lips. “I think She took those names from my head. I was thinking about Quinn Corey for the little one. We can change our minds on that. The important part was our children were strong, healthy, and loved.”
“And both of them could selectively shift at an early age?” He shook his head in wonder. “That’s your wicche blood supercharging my wolf blood.” He huffed a laugh. “Quinn’s going to keep us on our toes.”
I smiled, the hair on his chest tickling my nose. “She’s so cool. My baby’s going to be a badass.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Just like her Mama.”