Eternally Yours (41 page)

And then a tall figure strode through the door of fire. My heart stopped beating for a moment, my voice faltered, and I forgot to breathe.

His face was burned and blistered, his shirt smoldering and charred. In his hands was a long, two-handed claymore, and he raised it swiftly and sharply above Egthor’s head.

“Wait!” I shouted at Reyn. For Reyn it was, alive, in pain, and full of berserker rage.

“Wait,” River echoed.

“He dies
now
!” Reyn said, the raider fury on his face making him both distant and familiar.

“Wait!” I pleaded, walking forward and wincing with a renewed, searing pain. Reyn saw the front of my clothes soaked in blood and his eyes flared, new anger lighting them from within. “Reyn—he knows my family history! He knows all the stuff I don’t!”

Slowly River turned—she looked older, her face thin and drawn, her hair seeming a lighter silver. “Reyn—please.”

“You want to rehabilitate them?” Reyn practically spat. “Like Innocencio? They deserve to die!”

“And I don’t?” River asked, sounding pained and exhausted. “You don’t? Are they so much worse than we were?”

Reyn’s jaws clamped together, and he stared at River. “You want to give them three hundred years to turn good?”

The faintest shadow of a smile crossed River’s face. “No, my dear. I just want to give them one day. And then a day after that. Maybe a day after that.”

I didn’t realize Asher had left until he came back, holding clinking lengths of silver chain. When Egthor saw the chain, he started weeping silently, tears rolling down his face.

“You won’t be in a dungeon,” Asher murmured, taking Egthor’s hands and snapping spelled wrist cuffs on him.

Lying on the porch next to him, Agata was incensed, her eyes popping, lips pressed together so hard, they had turned white. Wearily, River bent down and tried to pry open Agata’s fingers, which seemed locked unnaturally tightly, muscle and bone constricted as though in death.

The effort made sweat bead on River’s bruised forehead, but determinedly she got several fingers open and took something from Agata’s palm. I drew in a sharp breath as River put on the tarak-sin of the Genoa house, the large ring hanging heavily on her narrow finger.

Agata had had the tarak-sin. With shock I realized Ottavio must be dead.

Asher knelt down and pulled Agata’s hands behind her back.

“I’m sorry, Agata,” he said, locking cuffs on her thin, bony wrists. “But you know we can’t let you do this.”

It looked like she was trying to spit at him but couldn’t.

Asher rose, his face soot-smeared and tired, and searched our meager crowd. “Daisuke. Joshua. Anne. Can you come with me? I’ll take them to Benoit’s, in Minnesota.”

Egthor moaned. He did look like my father—his face had sharper angles, and my father’s hair and beard had been longer and often braided and tied with leather cord. But he was the most familylike of anyone I’d seen in 450 years, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I walked toward the porch, the pain in my stomach becoming the center of my being, the enormous thing all of me revolved around. Just lifting
one foot onto a step felt like someone had buried an axe in my stomach.

“You will tell me everything,” I told Egthor, raising my voice.

He snarled at me, his cheeks wet with tears. Reyn kicked him, and Egthor winced. I gave Reyn a look.

I was Lilja af Úlfur. I refused to share in my father’s shame, the memory of his cruel and ruthless acts. But his power ran through me, and it always would. Narrowing my eyes, I made my face cold, bringing all my anger to the surface.

“You will tell me everything,” I said more harshly. “I am the heir to the House of Úlfur! I have my family’s power!” I held my amulet higher, the moonstone shining whitely. The hunger that showed on Egthor’s face as he stared at it was uncomfortable to see. Gritting my teeth against the pain, praying I wouldn’t faint and keel over backward, I forced myself up the steps.

“You will tell me everything,” I hissed. “You will teach me what you know. Or I’ll strip your skin from you with a word, cut off your head, and feed you to the dogs!”

River’s face was expressionless; Reyn’s was watchful. At the bottom of the steps, Dúfa’s whiplike tail thumped once, as if politely accepting the offer of Egthor’s head.

Egthor’s eyes widened, but he didn’t respond. Then Asher tugged on the chain, Daisuke and Joshua came up to help him, and Anne started murmuring spells under her breath.
Egthor and Agata were led away. River awkwardly sat down on the steps and buried her face in her hands.

The world started to dim around the edges of my vision, and the rushing sound came back to roar in my ears. “Uh-oh,” I said, and everything went black.

A
nd that, oh best beloved, is the story of how my life began, when I was 459 years old. Looking at me now, a leader in the immortal community, someone respected for knowledge and wisdom—

“You are so full of it,” Reyn said over my shoulder. “No one’s going to believe that.”

I glared at him, trying to cover the screen with my hands. “Go away! No one asked you!”

“Leader in the immortal community?” He scoffed. “You missed the last meeting because you stayed up late to watch
Dancing with the Stars
!”

“Shut up! Again, no one asked you!”

“Plus, I’m taller than you said I am.”

“Oh my God! How much did you read?”

“I’m really closer to six-one.”

My mouth dropped open. “Oh. My. God. I can’t believe you read this.”

He grinned unrepentantly, and as usual it made a little butterfly of excitement flutter in my chest. I ruthlessly crushed the butterfly: There were serious issues at stake.

Standing up, I put my hands on my hips. Over on the couch, adolescent Dúfa opened her eyes, stood up, and stretched.

“You mad? You want to come get me?” Reyn raised his eyebrows suggestively.

I knew that look, and so did all the cells in my traitorous body, which started squealing and jumping up and down in anticipation.

“You need to leave,” I said firmly, crossing my arms.

“You can’t kick me out. I live here. Plus, I have custody of the child.” He nodded at Dúfa, who jumped down and did the “downward-facing dog” stretch. She was growing into her long stick legs, and in general was a smidgen less awkward and funny looking.

“I own the building!” It was amazing how many times I had to keep pointing that out to everybody.

“My name is on the lease.”

Why did I keep walking into that one?

Reyn moved toward me with big-cat grace. I frowned really hard at him. He put his arms around me and leaned down to kiss my forehead, my ear, my neck. My stomach gave a little flip.

“Come to bed,” he whispered, and I ruthlessly suppressed a whimper. His large, strong hands stroked my back as he kissed his way across my cheek. It took way too long for his lips to move onto mine, but at last they did. My arms uncoiled and wrapped around his neck, and I couldn’t help smiling against his mouth.

He started to walk me backward toward our small bedroom, past the little dining alcove with its Formica table and four unmatched chairs, down the hallway, and past the bathroom. Our bedroom looked out over Main Street, and Reyn yanked the shades down as he walked me toward the bed.

By the time I fell backward onto the mattress I was laughing, happier and more full of joy than I had ever imagined I could be. Dúfa jumped on the bed and licked my eyelid. “Stop,” I told her. “That’s so icky.” She grinned at me, showing her big-girl fangs that had finally come in.

Reyn came down beside me, and I reached for him. We clung to each other, kissing as if it were the first time, or maybe the last time, as if we would never get enough of each other. Over and over I drank him in, loving his scent, the feel of his hair on my forehead, the weight of his hard body on mine.

Pulling back, Reyn looked into my eyes as if still memorizing my face and everything about me. My hands moved restlessly on his back, all smooth muscle and lean strength, and I tried to rise up to kiss him again.

“Let me look at you,” he whispered. “I love you so much, my Lilja.”

I swallowed, hoping I didn’t get all weepy. “I love
you
so much, Eileif.”

It seemed we said that to each other a hundred times a day. Maybe because neither of us had expected to ever love someone again.

“I never want to be with anyone but you.” His voice was so quiet, his face so solemn.

“I hope you never are,” I said, my voice breaking, feeling the sweeping wave of emotion taking me over. “Because I’d have to kill you.”

I loved his smile, loved how his eyes closed as he kissed me again. One hand pushed under my shirt and then under the waistband of my jeans. He unsnapped them and ran gentle fingers along the top of my underwear.

“I can hardly feel the scar,” he murmured. “It’ll be gone soon.”

I nodded, turning my head to kiss the smooth skin of his throat, feeling his pulse beating so strongly and steadily. “It’s been two months. Should be okay by swimsuit season.”

At that Reyn pulled back again, his eyes full of laughter.

I popped open the buttons on his shirt one by one,
delighting in the beautiful, golden chest that was revealed inch by inch. I was never able to help tracing my fingers across the scar there, pressing my lips to it as if I could maybe someday kiss it enough to heal.

It didn’t matter if it didn’t heal, if mine never did, either. So many other things had.

“That color sucks. What is that, like pond-scum beige?” Dray looked critically at the section of wall I’d put a first coat on. She crunched through more potato chips and shook the bag to get all the crumbs in one place.

“It’s Toasted Marshmallow,” I said, irritated.

“It’s not that bad,” Meriwether said loyally, looking up from her magazine.

“This is your
bedroom
,” said Dray. “And your guy is the hottest, hottest thing I’ve ever, ever seen in my entire li—” She stopped when I glared at her. “What I’m saying is, you should paint it like blood red, something passionate and sexy.”

“Actually, it’s amazing how unsexy blood is.”

“Peach is a nice color,” said Meriwether. She took another one of my sour apple Now and Laters and unwrapped it.

“I like this color!” I said.

“Whatever.”

“You know, you’re my neighbor. Not my mother,” I said to Dray, and she grinned.

“Knock-knock!” Brynne’s voice came down the hall. “Girl!
You coming? Hey, Dray, Meriwether. School out yet? Um, is that the primer?”

“Four more days,” said Meriwether, brightening. “I’ll be able to see Lowell all the time—Dad gave him a job at the store.”

“Oh, that’s great,” I said, pleased.

“Yeah,” said Meriwether, blushing.

“Yeah, I’ll go in there, and you guys will be making out in the bathroom or something,” Dray said darkly.

“We will not,” said Meriwether, but I could see she thought the idea had merit.

“Are you going like that?” Brynne gestured to my paint-spattered clothes. The long scar across one cheek was fading and shrinking every day, and it was now a very thin line. Soon it would disappear. As is our way.

“Crap, is it five o’clock already?” I put down the roller and threw the cover back on the paint. “One sec. Reyn’s going to meet us out there.”

“What color are you going to put over this?” Brynne asked pointedly.

“You know what?” I said, disappearing into the bathroom. “To hell with all of you.”

The laughter of my friends filled the room. And my heart.

I know. So sappy. So, so sappy. Revoltingly sappy. But true.

River’s Edge had changed a lot in some ways, and not at all in others. Large sections of it had been completely rebuilt
after the fire, and most of the furniture in the parlor was new. The fire had been explained as faulty wiring, and had been put out by the time a neighbor noticed the smoke and called the fire department.

My uncle had killed Ottavio inside the house. Jess and Solis had died fighting the nameless minions that Egthor and Agata had collected from all over. I’d found out later that the creepy blond woman was in fact Miss Edna, who had run that grotesque bar that Incy had taken me to. I was glad she was dead.

I’d had bad dreams about Roberto’s death for weeks afterward.

Out of four brothers, River had lost two. Daniel had been bound and taken to an immortal prison/rehab place in California, run by someone Solis had known. So far, neither Daniel, Egthor, nor Agata seemed to be catching the remorse bug, but River held out hope.

The attacks around the world had stopped, but most of us thought it was just a matter of time before some other ambitious Terävä decided to speed up his or her magickal progress.

Are you wondering about the bodies? Of course you are, because you’re macabre and nosy and bloodthirsty. And who could blame you?

As you may have suspected, there was a grisly amount of slain immortals afterward, and there isn’t a person in the world who could have explained them adequately to any
modern authority. In the end, we’d taken them down into the tunnels and put them in one of the dead ends. A group of us had worked magick that essentially reduced them to dust. It was really gross and really, really depressing. Then that tunnel had been sealed up as if it had never been there, and spells were put on it that would last for at least a century, to keep anyone from knowing anything was there. I’d dreaded looking at the faces—scared of seeing Stratton or Cicely or even Nell—anyone I knew. But except for the creepy couple, they were strangers to me, though River, Asher, and Anne had gasped or murmured several times in recognition.

Then the dark days were over.

Now Brynne parked the latest little farm car in the gravel area, and we got out. Reyn and I had decided not to buy a humongous fancy house somewhere and instead had been living in town in one of
my
apartments for almost three weeks. But I came back almost every day for classes or just to hang out.

The crops in the fields and kitchen garden were growing—it had been a warm, wet spring, and the whole world seemed to be bursting with life. Every once in a while, just to keep my hand in, I groomed a horse or milked a cow. The chicken I’d defeathered was now indistinguishable from the others, and the devil-chicken’s little chicks were full grown.