Cursed Hearts (A Crossroads Novel) (46 page)

He
was stalling, and Kaleb knew it.

“You
are so predictable,” Kaleb muttered.

“And
you’re not?”

Kaleb turned to walk away from him and Rome reached up
quickly, sliding his hand over his jaw and turning him back. His heart was
racing, and the only thing he could feel was the softness of Kaleb’s skin
beneath his fingers. The kiss was so spontaneous, he’d taken himself by
surprise. It was rough at first, and then meek – the mark of nervous, eager
lips giving way to sincere emotion. He kept his tongue to himself, unready to
push it that far yet, though more than content to explore the sensation of
their mouths moving together in a harmony of wet, sensual skin. They were lying
underneath the tree, locked in a moment set apart from time, and Rome was
surprised to realize that he had been the one to ease them down into the lush,
inviting grass.

Kaleb
rolled on top of him playfully, kissing him with a vibrant passion. A great
warmth was swelling up inside of him and swallowing him whole. It was a feeling
he’d never been blessed with, but often longed for. A feeling of acceptance and
belonging, of adoration, affection – perhaps even love. He felt wanted, and
that was more precious to him than anything that existed in this world – more
valuable than all of his father’s possessions. Money couldn’t buy this feeling.
He’d learned that over and over again throughout his life.

Rome
pulled away with a soft hum. “We should slow down.”

“We’re
already moving at the speed of a glacier,” Kaleb replied as patiently as he could.
“How slow do you want to go?”

“…Virgin
girl slow,” Rome said, only slightly embarrassed.

“I’ve
been with virgins who moved faster than this.” Kaleb could see the discomfort on
Rome’s face and held off on further argument. “It’s fine. I don’t have a problem
with taking it… slow.”

Maybe
I’ll even get to third base before one of us dies
, he thought.

“I
realize I don’t know anything about you,” Rome said. “Would it be so crazy if
we tried to get to know each other a little better first?”

Kaleb
narrowed his eyes slightly at him. He had to admit, the idea of anyone wanting
to get to know him sounded a bit ludicrous. “What do you need to know, other
than that I’m interested?”

“I
don’t know. What you like, what you don’t like.” He shrugged, feeling self-conscious.
Kaleb settled in the grass beside him, propping his head up in his hand and
staring back at him curiously.

“Are
these the kinds of things you talk about with Aria?”

“Well,
yeah.”

“Okay,”
he smiled. “I like you. I dislike Amber.”

Rome
laughed. “I dislike Amber too. But I meant more like… I like to play the
guitar,” he said as an example. “Is there something like that that you enjoy? A
hobby or something?”

Kaleb
turned a thoughtful expression up to the tree branches. “I play tricks a lot.
Get myself in trouble on purpose, or sneak around and leave nasty things for
people to find. I find the best entertainment is the kind you create for
yourself,” he smirked.

“Like
what?” Rome ventured.

Kaleb smiled, remembering one time in particular.
“We had a guest stay with us this once – a noble lady from another clan, coming
to kiss up to
my father or something. I—” He
chuckled before he could finish
the
sentence
. “I put a rat in her wardrobe.”

“You didn’t,” he said, wide-eyed.

“I did,” he grinned. “Anyways, I guess it must
have found a nice little place to nest, because when she went to meet with my
father and the council
the next day, she just
suddenly started shrieking. The thing was in her
clothes, and apparently—and
I swear I did not know this—she was deathly afraid of rodents.” Kaleb tucked
his lips into his mouth, snickering as he tried to finish his story. “She
started ripping off her dress in the middle of the hall!” he proclaimed
joyously, dissolving into delighted laughter. He was laughing so hard he was in
danger of crying.

“Oh my god,” Rome wheezed.

“The best part was watching my father’s adviser
running around
trying to catch the thing.
And she—” Kaleb laughed harder, trying to
catch his
breath. “She crawled right up into my father’s lap in
nothing but her underwear trying to get away from it! It was the best thing
ever.”

Rome had to close his eyes and
put all his concentration and
energy
into just trying to breathe. “Did they know it was you?” he asked after a
moment, grinning wildly.

“If they didn’t, what would be the point? I’m
notoriously known for such shenanigans. I make it a point to make my father
aware of them, sooner or later. Of course, not all of them have comedic
endings,” he said grimly. Rome was gazing at him intently and he decided to
shift the focus off of himself. “What about you? If I have to share things, you
need to tell me more than well-known facts. Everyone is aware you play the
guitar by now.”

Rome took a few thoughtful moments.
The fact that Kaleb did those sorts of things to get attention hadn’t eluded
him. “Speaking of facts,” he said, “I know a lot of random ones. I used to
annoy my mother all the time with questions and things I’d learned or read
about. And she was one of the most patient people you’d ever meet.” Kaleb gave
him a face that clearly said he wanted him to elaborate. “Um, did you know that
without saliva you couldn’t taste your food? Or that sound travels five times
faster underwater than in air?”

“Does that mean I wouldn’t be able to taste blood
if I suddenly ran out of saliva? Would I just not be able to taste the flavor,
or would I lose all those little complexities that I can feel pouring across my
tongue? Could I
still
taste magic, or
emotions, or arousal? Is it possible to stop salivating?”

“I know random facts, not answers to random
questions,” Rome smiled. “But, um, yeah. Perhaps,” he shrugged.

“Now I’m worried I’m going to stop salivating.”

“I think you’ll be fine,” he said with a chuckle.
“So, how about you hit me with this theory of yours?”

Kaleb looked over at the aged journal lying
beside them.

“I think the answer is simple, really. Destroy
the wands.”

Rome scoffed. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t
thought of that.

“Could it really be that easy?”

“Sure, if you think easy is acquiring something
that’s either lost or
locked away in a government-run
facility. They’re not just going to hand them
over. And I doubt it’s
going to be as simple as tossing them in a fire.”

“Maybe we could drop them into a volcano?” Rome
suggested. “Too bad I lost my map to Mount Doom.” Kaleb looked confused. “Never
mind,” he smiled. “I’ll figure something out.”

Chapter 38

Everyone in the cafeteria startled at the same time.
Cellphones
echoed
around the room, chiming and buzzing in pockets and on tables. The sound was
quickly followed by hushed whispering. Rome couldn’t help but wonder if this
was another text like the one they’d gotten only a day or so before. He sat
down next to Aria at their usual spot in the back.

“What
does it say?”

“Oh
my god,” she breathed. “This can’t be true, can it?”

Rome
spun the phone around on the table, reading the text.

It
was true, alright.

Mr.
Richmond is sexually abusing students.

Come
forward. None of you are alone.

Rome
couldn’t help but wonder if someone had overheard his conversation with
Christian this morning. It would be too much of a coincidence if they hadn’t.
Was Kaleb sending these? he wondered briefly. It
made sense. He was lurking around the party that night, and he’d walked
up on them this morning. Why else wouldn’t the text have come in until now? He
and Kaleb had spent the entire morning out by the tree. In fact, to his
knowledge, Kaleb was still out there. Looking at Ariahna now just made Rome
feel guilty for what they’d been doing in the grass most of that time. She may
have kissed Christian, but the circumstances were different. They were cursed.
Kaleb and he were not. He tried to rationalize that in some ways they were
drawn to each other, though.

“You’re
quiet,” she said. “Are you alright?” She was worried
he knew
about this morning, about the kiss. And more importantly,
about what Christian had said to her. She was worried that he was upset.

“Yeah,
I’m okay,” he said distractedly. “Can we talk?”

“Um,”
she stammered. “Sure?”

Rome
led her into the empty hall on the ground floor, finding a deserted classroom
for privacy. He could tell she was feeling guilty. He wanted to quell those
fears, but right now, breaking the curse was more important than their
complicated love lives.

“I
need you to be completely honest with me,” he said. Her face twisted into a
frown. “Does your family still have their wand?”

“I—”

“It’s
important. We need it. Or rather, we need to destroy it.”

“Destroy it? Why in the world would we need to do that?”

“It
makes sense. He cursed the wands, and then gave them to our families. Destroy
the cursed object, destroy the curse.”

“Rome, I’m not sure that’s even possible. Do you remember
the
crack
in the Hayes wand? I told you that
happened while they were fighting
over it.
What I didn’t tell you was that they were throwing around some heavy
elemental
magic. The wand was in the middle of that mess and it was barely touched.”

“We’ll
figure something out. There has to be a way.”

She
sighed softly, leaning against the edge of a desk. “Even if you’re right, we
have to find it first. I don’t know where it is. I know my father keeps it at
the house somewhere, but I haven’t seen it since I was a little girl.”

“
Okay… Well, the house can only be so big, right?”
Ariahna gave him a sheepish look. “Come on, what do you live in, a mansion or
something?”

“Why
don’t we just go look around,” she said evasively. “No one should be home now.”

“Sure.
Maybe we’ll catch a break.” He took Ariahna’s hand, feeling that spine-tingling
sensation tugging at his body. It felt like they were flying over a greater
distance than she’d ever taken them before, and when he blinked his eyes open,
they were standing in the foyer of a large house. “Holy shit,” Rome breathed.
“You do live in a mansion.”

“It’s
not a mansion,” she muttered. “It’s a manor.”

“Is
there a difference?”

Ariahna
tread quietly through an elegant sitting room and down a wide hall. The floors
were done in a rich, dark wood, and decorated with fine rugs. Wood paneling
done in that same dark-brown rose halfway up the walls to meet the dull, taupe
paint. Artwork hung tastefully here and there helped fill the emptiness, but
did nothing to make the space feel warm or inviting.

“Where
do you think it could be?” Rome asked.

“Shhh,”
she whispered.

“I
thought you said no one was home?”

“Shhh!”

He
watched her tiptoe towards an open doorway, peering around the edge of the
doorframe into the room. He leaned away from the wall to try and get a look at
what she was seeing. A woman in her early forties sat on a padded bench in
front of a large, arched window. Her legs were curled up beside her, head
resting against the wall near the glass. Gentle light flowed into the room,
illuminating her red hair and warming the features of her face. She was gazing
out at the garden, admiring the flowers with a distant indifference in her
eyes. She looked tired. Rome inhaled, feeling overwhelmed by her grief. It had
literally wrapped around his heart and brought tears to his eyes. Ariahna snagged
his hand and pulled him past, ducking into another room. She pressed her palm
over his mouth as the floor creaked just outside the closed door.

“…Are
you crying?” she whispered.

She
slowly pulled her hand back and Rome swallowed the hard lump in his throat.
“Was that your mother?” he asked, his voice fragile.

“Yes.
We don’t have to worry about her, but we should stay out of sight of her
caregiver. She’d inform my father for sure.”

“Is
she okay?”

Aria
turned away from him. She wasn’t sure how to answer.

“We
need to be quick and quiet,” she said. “Can you save your questions for later?”
Rome nodded, following as she led them through a small door and up a cramped
set of stairs.

“Why
are there just stairs coming up from that room?”

“It’s
a servant’s stairwell,” she said.

“You
have servants?”

“No.
Sometimes,” she admitted.

Rome
sighed behind her. He was feeling inadequate to say the least. Aria stopped on
the stairs, and he was so wrapped up in his own thoughts he almost ran right
into her.

“Please
stop thinking what you’re thinking,” she begged. “I’ve had to deal with people
treating me differently my whole life because of my family or their money. I
don’t want to get that from you too. I don’t want you to see me any
differently.”

“I
don’t. And I get it, I really do. Put the words ‘lack of money’ in that
sentence, and they literally could have come straight from my mouth. I’m not
judging you, believe me. I just… I’m adjusting, okay? You weren’t exactly
forthcoming with your lifestyle. I mean, I know most people who go to Vardel
have some money, but… I don’t know. Seeing it is just different.”

Ariahna
smiled. “And my family has a little more than most,” she admitted. “I just
don’t feel like your economic status should define you. Someone can have very
little monetary value to their name, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t rich in
other ways. Material possessions don’t comprise a person’s worth.”

Rome
kissed her then, and it was so sudden, it made her giggle.

“The
princess falling in love with the peasant,” he grinned. “We really have some
fairytale style romance, don’t we?”

“Beauty
and the Beast,” she said.

“Cursed roses, poison apples, and now wands,” Rome muttered.
“You think by now we’d have learned and stopped accepting gifts from
strangers.” He pressed their foreheads together, brushing his nose gently
against hers. “You know one other thing all those stories have in common?
They all have happy endings.”

She
pulled away after a few stolen moments making out on the stairs. “We should
go,” she said. “We can’t forget why we’re here.”

“Why
are we here again?” he teased.

She
smiled and hurried up the steps, hearing him chasing playfully after her. She
squealed softly when he caught her at the top of the stairs, shushing them both
when she remembered they had to be quiet. “The only place I can think he’d feel
safe keeping it would be in his study,” she said, guiding him through the upper
floor.

A large archway led them into a small, simply decorated
room. A pair
of
heavy wooden double doors sat at the back, and two impressive statues in the
form of lions sat on either side of the doorway. Rome drifted towards them,
running his fingers over the white stone in awe.

“Rome,”
Aria said worriedly.

“These
are incredible. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were real.” The
lion farthest from him moved so fluidly Rome’s heart nearly exploded, lifting
its head and letting out a lazy yawn. The other was quickly coming to life
beneath his fingers, gazing back at him with the stunning indifference only a
predator could manage. You’re insignificant, that look said. The stone beast
stared back at him as if it could eat him or watch him run away, but it just
hadn’t decided which it would like more. Rome startled backwards with a
frightened growl, spreading his arms wide and standing protectively in front of
Ariahna.

“It’s
a guardian spell,” she whispered.

“You
couldn’t have told me that before I pet it?” he breathed. “I’m lucky I still
have my hand!”

“It
won’t attack. Not yet.”

“That
does not sound encouraging,” he mumbled.

The
two cats rose from their pedestals, stretching and then slinking down onto the
floor. The sound of their claws clacking against the hardwood had Rome’s
stomach clenching in fear. He watched them circle the two of them before they
stilled on either side. And when the statue he’d touched opened its mouth to
speak, Rome nearly shouted in surprise.

“What
fear you more,” it rumbled, “a lion, or a sheep?”

“Well
I know the obvious answer,” he squeaked. A hand clamped over his mouth and he
glanced back at Aria. “Is this supposed to happen?” he asked, his voice muffled
beneath her fingers.

She
nodded silently.

Ariahna
slipped away from Rome, walking over to the lion who had prompted them for an
answer. She sunk down to her knees in front of it as he made a sound of protest
behind her. Staring unblinkingly back into its intelligent eyes, she said, “‘
I
am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of
sheep led by a lion.
’”

“Alexander
the Great?” Rome laughed. “Really?” The second lion approached him with a stern
expression, stopping beside his feet.

“With
a storm at your back, do you take to land or sea?”

“…Depends
what’s in front of you?” he shrugged. He saw Aria standing slowly out of the
corner of his eye.

“There’s
only supposed to be one question,” she said, staring at the lion in a mixture
of bemusement and fear.

“One
answer, one entry,” it replied. “He too must earn passage.”

Rome
squinted at the lion as it seemed to smile at him cleverly. “Passage,” he
mumbled. Was it giving him a clue? He tried to wrack his brain for the answer
to its riddle, mulling over quotes he thought her father might have used. Aria’s
face lit up with recognition.

“
A
ship is safe—
”

The
lion roared fiercely at her, its voice so loud it shook the floor.

“The question is not yours to answer,” it said. “Speak
again, and your
lives are forfeit.”

Rome
took a shaky breath. He knew this. It was on the tip of his tongue. He closed his
eyes, trying to summon the rest of the words. “
A ship is safe in harbor
…”
he said, pausing uncertainly.

“Is
that your answer?” the lion boomed.

“No.”

“Your
time is limited.”

“Okay,”
he sighed. As if he wasn’t under enough pressure. Rome glanced down at his ring
as a glint of light caught his eye. The metal shone a sparkling blue, and the
words suddenly sprung past his lips like they’d been there all along, waiting
to be set free.