Black Moon Draw (21 page)

“No.” I shake my head. “You did not invite me here for me to fix the
world
. That’s absurd.”

“How often are we given a chance to make a difference?” she challenges. “My life before Black Moon Draw was miserable! I hated my job, my life, the fact I didn’t matter to the man I thought I loved. I was dead inside.”

Her story sounds too familiar. My hands are growing clammy, my pulse quickening.

“I wanted it to change, and it did. You wouldn’t be here, if you weren’t looking for something else. Something bigger than you. A reason to matter, a way to make a difference and feel
alive
for once.”

“You think I
asked
for this?”

“I did. Maybe you did, too.”

“That’s impossible. I. . .” was drunk. I have no idea what I might’ve wished for, but I know I was desperate, heartbroken, and miserable. “But you . . . you got chopped down, along with your husband,” I manage. “How is that living?”

“Those few short months meant more to me than the rest of my life up until that point. I would’ve rather had my Shadow Knight as a husband for an hour than never at all.”

There’s a lump forming in my throat. As in the previous dream where I saw her die, I envy the depth of her emotion and conviction. I’ve never let myself feel so passionately about anything in my life, and it tugs on the part of me that thinks she makes more sense than my parents and the guidance counselors in college combined.

She had a man who loved her inside and out for half a day before they both died, and I’m
envious
of those short hours. It’s crazy.

Clearing my throat, I look away. “So he’s the Hero of this book.”

“Maybe.” Her intensity eases and she cracks another infectious smile. “Or maybe you’re the Hero and this is your story. You wanted a journey and a chance to live a better life. This is it.”

That can’t be.
I started reading this book online before it sucked me in. It’s definitely not the kind of place I’d choose to go for a new start.

For reasons I can’t understand or accept, I might be destined to be here. The thought is nauseating . . . exhilarating . . . beyond belief.

“You could spend years with the man you love exploring the flower covered valleys of Gold Spur Sky or sail the dark seas of Black Moon Draw. This is your world, your home, your fate,” she adds.

“No! There
must
be a way home.” The last of my resistance, driven by the frantic idea of never going to another Starbucks or seeing my mother again, is in its last, desperate throes.

“Trust me. There’s not.”

“There was a way here!” I cry and begin looking around wildly again. “I want to see my mother again and my cats!”

“Before you have a panic attack, let me tell you a couple of things,” she continues. “First, the Heart is unlocked. You had to pass a trial first and give your life for the Shadow Knight before its magic would be accessible to you. There is a way to
visit
your home but not return permanently, but you’ll have to dig up my old diary, if it exists after a thousand years.”

She’s managed to deflate my concerns with the simple explanation. But the idea I’m meant to fall in love with the Shadow Knight? “I
told
you. I didn’t give my life for him. I just . . . figured this made more sense!” I struggle with an explanation, realizing my actions hadn’t necessarily been logical. I feared for his life and don’t want to admit what that might mean – that some part of me cares enough about him to throw myself off a building. “I can’t stand the sight of blood and I’m definitely not in love with him. Why do you think I’m the right person for this job at all?”

“Because you didn’t jump at the idea of visiting your home.”

Son of a bitch.
My jaw goes slack. She’s right. I heard the words without being seized by the urgency I experienced when I first arrived to Black Moon Draw.

“You have a reason to stay, and some part of you knows that,” she adds.

Sure, I’m attracted to the Shadow Knight, and I really do think he’s a noble – if barbaric – man with a cause that makes my pitiful life before Black Moon Draw appear even more meaningless.

Is she right? Do I secretly want to stay? “So there is a way home?”

“No. I was testing you.”

“Oh.” I’m not sure I like this woman anymore or the trickle of relief I experience knowing I don’t have to choose whether to save a kingdom – and its sexy ruler – or go back to my boring life.

“Second, keep him alive,” she goes on, unaware of my inner turmoil. “The Desert Knight is his biggest threat. He must defeat the kingdoms and then face the curse with you at his side. The curse should lift, once the past has been righted. I don’t want you to watch him die the way I saw my husband fall. You can do better than I did. You won’t fail.”

That jars me, along with the sorrow of her tone. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for you helping me out,” I say. “He’s sexier than any other man in any world I’ve been forced to enter, yes, but there can be nothing between us. And I can’t . . . fathom the idea of this story being created for me. I can’t be the Heroine.”

“I was in denial for a while, too.”

My head is about to explode. I take a deep breath. “Look, I’ve never been special. Or lucky. Or even really good at anything. I’m a nobody. Heroes are
somebodies.
They’re brave and noble and . . .” I sigh. “They’re not me. My own family thinks I’m a loser! How can this whole world exist for me?”

“Heroes are normal people who do extraordinary things,” she replies. “Not always because they choose to and rarely because they want to. But you know what? When it matters, they take a step they never thought they’d take.”

I’m losing an argument with a dead woman. The thin veneer of denial preventing me from becoming completely submerged in this new world is also dissipating.

“There’s another thing.” I’m grasping at anything to remain afloat. “He’s kind of a mass-murderer. Why would any Hero anywhere find him worth saving?”

“Really? That’s the best you can do? You know why he fights.” She laughs.

“Yes.” I clamp my mouth shut. Deep down, I acknowledge that he hasn’t been the monster I thought he was since he told me what’s at stake.

I’m drowning. Breathing gets harder and my dream ripples as if someone tossed a stone into the middle of it.

“Oh, to activate the medallion, you need to –”

She’s gone, along with the dream and whatever secret she meant to leave me with.

I’m getting sick of learning pieces of the puzzle without being able to see the full picture
.

My eyelids open to reveal the stone ceiling of a hold. Or castle. Fortress. Whatever it is. I’m just happy I’m inside. I can’t imagine we’re still at the Red Knight’s, but I also don’t think I was in any shape to be moved. At least I’m neither achy nor hurting when I wake up this time.

“You live.”

Couldn’t give me a moment to myself, could you?
I roll my head to see the Shadow Knight and my eyebrows shoot up.

His nose is crooked, one eye black and his cheekbones bruised. Despite this, his rugged, chiseled, masculine features become more compelling every time I see him. From the beard growth along his jaw to the intent way he looks at me to his muscular body, I can’t get over how incredibly good looking this man is.

“In better shape than you,” I reply, unable to resist the dig after he yelled at me on the roof. I sit up. I feel really good, possibly the result of the magical medallion and my natural resiliency to death and dismemberment here.

“You gave your life for me. I will allow your sharp tongue.”

Rolling my eyes, I start to protest.

He thrusts a mug of something at me. I sniff at it. It smells like tea. I shift to drink without spilling and notice I’m not wearing the dress I had on when I fell. I’m in a nightgown again.

“Where are my clothes?” I ask a little self-consciously.

“You were in too many pieces to stich it together.”

I lower the mug. “Oh. That sounds horrible.”

He nods. Accustomed to blood, the Shadow Knight is unconcerned, but I can’t help feeling a little rattled about being dead. His multi-hued eyes are on mine, his thick body clothed in leather pants and a tunic.

I don’t like the way he’s watching me, the way lionesses hunt gazelles on those nature shows on the television.

“Where are your weapons?” I ask, gaze lingering on the outline of his shapely thighs, visible through the snug pants.

“The gaoler did not allow me to keep them.”

“We’re in jail?” The room resembles a bedchamber. Although I notice the room is round, like we’re in some sort of prison tower from a fairytale. “So you didn’t defeat the troll and Knights?”

“I beheaded the troll at great cost. The Red Knight brokered a peace. It was necessary to save your life.” The Shadow Knight’s answer is clipped. “And we are here.”

He’s not telling me something. The instinct that wants me to go home and resume my pitiful, miserable life digs in its heels.

I don’t ask why there’s a flicker of sadness in his pretty eyes, but it takes effort. Diving off a cliff for a man you barely know seems easier than talking to him when he’s looking directly at you like this.

I take a drink of the tea instead, not liking the idea he allowed himself to be taken prisoner instead of . . . I don’t know. Leaving me. Beheading everyone.

“Are all women of your world hairless from the waist down?”

I choke and spew tea everywhere, my face hot. Coughing hard, my eyes water. It takes me a moment to quell the fit, but there’s nothing that will take the heat from my cheeks.

“How do you know that?” I demand, humiliated. “Were you . . . doing things to me when I slept?”

“Aye. Cleaned up the blood. Stitched pieces of you back together. Dressed you.” He’s calm and factual.

I’m speechless.

He points to the corner nearest the bed.

I look, if only because I want to hide my red face. “Oh, god.”

Rags soaked with rusty blood are piled in the corner, knee high and a good two to three feet wide.

That’s my blood.
I can assume when I hit the ground that I probably exploded or something but to see evidence of it . . . “How am I alive?”

“You are indestructible.” He stretches forward to grab the mug tilting dangerously from my hands and sets it on a trunk beside the bed. “You should be grateful I cared for your womanly blossoms and not the squire. His hands are not steady enough.”

Could this get any worse? I cover my face. I’ve been naked with men before, of course, but this is
him.
The man with the sexiest body on the planet, who’s also engaged to someone else, whose hands I’ve already experienced over every inch of my body – and loved it.

If only I weren’t unconscious when he touched me this time. If that’s not the most embarrassing experience ever, then I don’t know what is. Did he notice the dimples in my ass in the full light of the room?

“Let me guess. You prefer hairy women,” I mumble. I throw off the blankets and walk away to a window that’s shuttered. It’s locked from the inside, and I fumble with the mechanism to open it, needing air.

“I had not thought of it, so long as a woman is a woman,” he says. “The smoothness is pleasant. How came you to have no hair?”

A glance at him is enough to show me he’s amused and regarding me with intense interest I find even more disconcerting. I’ve had the sense more than once since meeting him that he’s teasing me.

Seeing the glint in his gaze, I start to suspect I was right. He’s been screwing with me subtly. I’m not used to being teased and don’t expect someone like him to have a sense of humor at all. I wish he hadn’t chosen something so . . . personal.

“It’s . . . ah . . . Jesus why won’t this open?” I yank at the shutters. I’m fevered and embarrassed, about to cry, because I’m waiting for him to make some horrible joke about the birthmark on my hip or the fact my chubby thighs touch.

I hear him approach but am more concerned about the window. If I can open it, I can breathe, escape, or jump to my death before he says something to hurt my feelings.

“Because you are not calm enough to open them.” He rests a large, warm, calloused hand over mine and I freeze.

The Shadow Knight sweeps my hands down and unlatches the shutters with his other hand. His heat and strength are at my back, close enough for me to feel his muscular presence, his scent winding through my senses. Brownies have been a source of happiness since I was old enough to eat them and his smell calms me.

He pushes open one shutter, his hand remaining over mine on the sill. His left hand goes to my hip and he moves close enough for his hips to rest against my backside.

Do I move or stay? I’m so embarrassed, I don’t want him to see my face, but standing so close does things to my insides that make me feel like I’m crushing on my first love in high school.

I can’t feel this way.
I know he’s taken; it’s pure physical attraction. Nothing else. It’ll fade when I see him with Disney Princess.

A cool breeze sweeps by me, distracting me. It’s a foggy midafternoon, judging by the muted glow of the sun ball overhead. The sexual tension between us is too heavy, makes me nervous.

“I was supposed to get married in three days, so I had a . . .”
Brazilian.
He’s not going to understand that and my face gets hotter. “. . . had all my hair taken off because I’d never done it and thought it seemed like a neat thing to try, since you’re only supposed to get married once.”

“Married. Bonding between man and woman?”

I nod.

“But you did not.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Why do you want to know?” I say in irritation.

“You are my battle-witch. I should know.”