Eternally Yours (28 page)

“I know, sweetie. I know.” He held me while I cried, rubbing my arm, my side, smoothing my hair. His gentle fingers picked hay off my sweater and then trailed lightly along my cheekbone. Every once in a while he reached farther and petted Dúfa, too, who sighed in her sleep, her little side moving up and down. Reyn was so solid, so warm, his arms protecting the two of us.

Eventually I was achy all over from crying. Reyn hadn’t said anything in a long time. Carefully I sat up and looked over at him. He was dozing, still and silent even in sleep, the way raiders were. I’d never seen him asleep before, and I could take my time examining him without feeling the laser-sharp gaze of those golden eyes looking back at me.

God, he was beautiful. In a completely different way than Innocencio. He was colored like wheat and sun and mead, his skin a light tan like smooth deer hide. With his eyes shut, his cheekbones were more obvious, the symmetry of their planes ending at his strong nose. It had been broken
enough times to have a bit of a bump on one side. His hair, thick and sun-shot, with the slightest wave to it, had fallen over his forehead.

The hand I held was wide and big, with calluses arcing across his palm right below his fingers. I wished I knew so much more about him. I would have liked to have seen him in other eras, other clothes, other occupations.

Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe he’d been awful. I had been.

I sighed and raked my fingers through my hair, combing out bits of hay. This man had seen me at my worst, lookswise, clotheswise. Did he care? Would he like it if I got all spiffed up? He probably wouldn’t care.

I nudged off my clogs and lay down again, draping his arm over me as I faced him. Resting my head on his shoulder, I felt drained. Again and again I had a quick flash of Incy’s face, and I flinched every time. I was so tired. I closed my eyes.

When I woke up it was raining, a brisk spring rain hitting the roof directly over my head.

Reyn was looking down at me; we were tangled together warmly, snuggled into the hay. Dúfa had moved and was now sleeping right where the roof met the loft a few feet away.

Incy. It all came back to me. Oh my God. I put my hand over my mouth, feeling an aching throb in my chest: the knowledge that Incy was dead.

Reyn looked at me solemnly. “You sure do like haylofts.”

“I do seem to be strongly drawn to haylofts.” My chest was
still tight with pain, but I was distracted by Reyn pushing one knee between mine. “Maybe because I lived on so many farms? Did you have a house like that, the barn animals downstairs and the people upstairs?”

“I was never a farmer.” He started kissing my hair, my forehead. “I lived in tents, like yurts. I never stayed in one place long enough to have a house.”

Wiggling closer to him, I pushed one hand under his sweater, feeling the smooth softness of the worn flannel shirt against his back.

“I’m practicing staying in one place.” His voice was a murmur against my cheek, a vibration against my chest. When he finally kissed my mouth, it was a relief and a refuge from the terrible images burned into my mind.

Our kisses ignited, as always, like lightning striking a tree: suddenly explosive and white-hot and charged with electricity. His fingers ran over me, creating trails of heat and skimming the scarf around my neck. Without a word he started to unwind it, and reflexively I grabbed it with both hands.

“I’ve seen the scar.” His voice was very quiet. “I have one just like it.”

Slowly I brought my hands down. Keeping his eyes on mine, he took my scarf off and set it close by.

I unbuttoned his shirt, spreading it open and sliding it off his shoulders. When I saw the scar burned into his chest, I
kissed it as if I could make it disappear. A little sound from deep in his throat sent a shiver through me, and I smiled. I felt powerful, strong, able to make Reyn tremble and breathe fast. Those high cheekbones were flushed and his amber eyes glittered with intent as he pushed my shirt up, and my plain men’s wifebeater beneath it. Then we were skin on skin, burning hot, holding each other and kissing. The rain drummed on the roof over our heads, and it felt private and safe.

Oh, yes. Yes, at last, after so long.

I reached for him, my fingers clutching his arms as if he could save me from a flood. He grabbed my jeans at the waist and pulled, and I felt the warm, scratchy hay against my legs.

Impatiently he shrugged his shirt off, and I sat up and pulled him down on top of me, my hands sliding over his smooth skin as if he were polished stone heated from the sun. Our mouths were so hungry—I’d never wanted to kiss anyone like this, never wanted to be as close as possible, never held anyone so tightly.

When he moved down to kiss my stomach, my breasts, the skin at the edge of my boring underwear—that was when I felt the first icicle of alarm forming in my chest. Had I really thought this through?

What was I doing? What would he expect of me after this? Would he think he owned me? Expect me to be all
lovey-dovey, all wrapped up in him? I had no idea. I mean, I wanted him. But for good? I didn’t know, and right now didn’t much care—it felt too wonderful.

It took only a few seconds for him to realize something had changed, to stop what he was doing and look up at my face.

“What’s wrong?” His voice was raspy; he was breathing hard.

“What? Nothing. Come here.” I closed my eyes and reached for him, trying to shut down all thought. When he resisted, I looked up at him.

“Lilja, what’s wrong?” His voice was a bit sharper.

“Nothing! Come on, it was just getting interesting.” I gave a flirty smile, one from an arsenal I hadn’t opened in a century.

He moved back, sitting on his heels in the hay, looking at me. Awkwardly I pulled my shirt down with a couple of hard yanks.

“What’s your problem?” I was starting to feel embarrassed.

He shook his head slowly, thinking. “I thought we were on the same page. But… Lilja—” He pushed his hair off his forehead with an abrupt gesture. He was still breathing hard. Still looked magnificent. “Do you want me?”

My head came up. “Yes,” I said with complete sincerity.

“Do you love me?”

My mouth dropped open. We had never, ever talked
about love. He was changing the rules on me, right here. “What are you talking about?”

“I love you.” He looked very calm, considering the terrifying words he was recklessly flinging around.

I gasped. With no warning, Incy’s voice was in my head:
No one will ever love you the way I do.

“What?” I asked Reyn, appalled.

His face shut down, and he reached for his shirt, thrown over a bale of hay. He pulled it on with quick, efficient movements, and it was painful to not be able to see his chest anymore.

“What do you want from me?” I demanded, winding my scarf around my neck. “I mean, I’m offering to go to bed with you here! Not to brag, but a lot of guys would be happy with that and not ask for more.”

Anger lit his eyes as he did up his pants. “I’m not a lot of guys.” The words were ground out between clenched teeth.

“Look,” I said, getting to my feet and pulling on my pants. “Why do you have to bring love into it? You know I… trust you. I want you. Why do you have to push the other thing?”

He sneered at me. “Because two out of three ain’t bad?”

My hand raked more hay out of my hair. “Look—I’m just not good at the girlfriend thing. I’m sorry, but I’m not. I wish I was. Wish I could give you what you want. But I know me. I will betray you. I will leave you. I will screw you over. I always do.”

“Well, now I feel special.” His voice had a particular bleakness, a coldness that made me want to cry again.

It hurt to glance at him, just for a split second. “You
are
special. You’ve gotten this far, which is a lot further than anyone else has gotten in more than a hundred years. And I do care about you.”

When Reyn stood, he seemed to loom over me. His face was tight, his fists clenched, but I would never be afraid of him again. I knew he would never hurt me.

“You are so full of shit.” He was trying to control his voice. “You are such a fucking coward.”

“How am I a coward? I’m willing to go to bed with a northern raider!”

He gave me a furious look.

“Why can’t we just have sex and be done with it?” I demanded. “Why does it have to be anything more? You
know
how much it hurts to lose something! You
know
how devastating it is to lose someone you lo—”

Gold eyes flared, but I’d stopped myself in time. A white shape moved in the hay; Dúfa was looking concerned, her head tilted.

I was done with this stupid conversation. I jabbed Reyn in the chest, almost breaking my finger. “And make your dog quit climbing ladders,” I hissed. “It’s weird!” I stomped past him and climbed down the ladder so fast, I almost slipped and fell, which would have been unbearable. I hated
myself for wondering if he would come after me, but I heard nothing as I raced to the barn door.

Running back to the house by myself in the dark, in the cold rain, was the highlight of one of the worst days of my life.

O
ne does not quickly get over receiving the head of one’s former best friend in the mail. In fact, this was going to haunt me for the foreseeable future. Remember we’ve talked about how long my forever is?

One does not quickly get over Reyn. Why was he being so difficult? Why couldn’t we have something simple? A very small part of me wanted to sidle up next to the word
love
and poke it with a stick, but my brain shut down fast every time I thought about it.

The next morning everything at River’s Edge was overwhelming
and heavy. I had shivering, heart-stabbing flashbacks of Incy every time I walked through the front hall, and the burden of knowing that I had corrupted River’s big spell of protection was becoming heavier by the minute. I knew I had to tell her about it. But how? Would she confirm my most dreaded fear, that I was inherently dark? I just couldn’t face it.

Reyn’s words, calling me a coward, telling me I was full of shit, flung themselves at me approximately ninety times an hour.

It was Sunday; no one would be working at the shops downtown. I remembered how Dray and her loser friends had trashed an apartment—yet another bad thing—and decided to go clean it up, get out of here for a while.

“It’s not safe,” Asher told me, seeing me put on my jacket.

“I’ll be okay.” Famous last words. How many bodies had been found in ditches after someone confidently uttered that phrase? I’m guessing a lot. I grabbed the car keys.

“Take Reyn with you.”

Ha ha ha! Yes, why don’t I ask him for a favor
right now
?

“I’ll be back by lunchtime.” Assuming I didn’t just face the car west and keep driving until I hit the Pacific. Perhaps kept going
into
the Pacific.

As I drove to town on autopilot, my brain was bombarded with questions: Could my uncle be alive? Had I truly ruined things forever with Reyn? How did I feel about that? When would I tell River about her spell?

Focus on the positive. Everyone was always saying that to me.

I parked on the street right in front of MacIntyre’s and rested my head on my hands on the steering wheel for a minute. Think positive, positive.

Well, I was still here. That was something. Things here were pretty rough, pretty uncomfortable, and yet I was still showing up for breakfast, still sleeping in my bed each night. I hadn’t run away. At least, not yet. I gave myself props for that. And let’s set the bar really low, right?

My shoes rang on the metal steps that led to the apartments, and I stopped on the landing by the second door. Seeing the apartment that Dray had broken into made me angry all over again. Someone had replaced the door’s lock and the frame, but the inside was still a mess. Someone had brought up cleaning supplies, so I picked up a garbage bag and started to throw things into it with more force than necessary.

There was nothing wrong with what I had done with Reyn. It was his fault that he was choosing to be weird and difficult. For a second I stopped, remembering his face, the way his voice had sounded when he said
I love you
. A stupid, very tiny part of me had felt joy and exhilaration at those words. But I just wasn’t up for a whole, full-fledged relationship. It takes all my energy and my
extremely
limited emotional balance just to deal with being
me
twenty-four hours a day.

I stomped a beer can under my foot and threw it in the trash.

Why had he even pursued me? He knew what a mess I was. He shouldn’t have even tried!

I’d started sweeping the floor when the sound of a car door shutting made me glance out the front window. In the next moment, I sucked in a quick breath and stepped back.

It was the creepy couple from last fall.

I’d been working in MacIntyre’s. This couple had come in and bought allergy medicine and left. That was it. But their presence had turned my bones to jelly, and I never knew why.

Here they were again, and they were having the same effect on me. With no warning, I was terrified, panicky, my heart pounding. Very slowly I took another step back, trying not to cause a sudden movement that would catch their eyes. When I thought I was out of sight from the street, I dropped to my hands and knees and scrambled over to the apartment’s front door, which I locked with its deadbolt, pocketing the key.

Then I crawled back to the window and very cautiously peeped above it.

It was the same car as before, an expensive black Mercedes. The woman’s straw-colored hair was longer, pulled back from her face. The man was still beautifully dressed in a dark business suit, and still looked cruel.

Fear made my stomach seize. My heart pounded in my throat. I wished I had worn my amulet today—I’d taken to
often wearing it under my clothes. But would it have drawn them to me? Would they have been able to feel its power?

Without making a sound, I repeated every ward-evil spell I knew, all the ones I’d been saying since Incy had disappeared. I’d quit saying them yesterday, after—