Light Shadows (14 page)

“How is he?” I ask, pushing out what little voice I have left.

“He’s resting,” Dorian answers. He passes a glance to Niko then looks back to me. “He resisted, but we were able to subdue him.”

When Alexander mentioned disposing Donna’s body, Chris went ballistic. He refused to let the other men touch her and insisted on placing her corpse on their bed until he was ready to say goodbye. But as hard as it was to admit it, I knew we had to act fast. The police couldn’t know about this, and it was a possibility that the neighbors heard the commotion. We had to let her go if we wanted to keep this under wraps. They could use magic to clean up the blood, but Alexander needed to transport her body elsewhere to incinerate it.

Dorian leads me back to the couch and pulls me into his lap, cradling me in his arms. He smells so good, his scent soothing and euphoric. I nuzzle my face into the crook of his neck and before I can stop myself, I breathe deeply, letting his essence fill my lungs.

“Sorry,” I whisper, burying my face in the collar of his shirt.

“Don’t be, baby,” he coos, running a hand over my hair. “You needed it. I’ll take care of you later. But right now…right now I think we need to talk about something.”

I sit up and look at him, his expression pensive. “What is it?”

“We think,” he begins, nodding toward Niko sitting across from us, “that we can help Chris heal from this. From…all of this.”

“I furrow my brow. “What do you mean?”

“He’s in a great deal of pain, Gabriella. Pain that may never go away, even with time. We can help him forget…everything.”

Everything?

“Go on.”

“We can do a reversal spell. It will take away his pain, and he can go on with his life. He can be happy again.”

“Wait, hold up,” I say, raising a palm. “What do you mean? You want to reverse time?”

Dorian shakes his head. “No. His memories. In the span of a day, he has lost his daughter and his wife. His sole purpose was to protect you both. Now he has nothing. Men like Chris don’t just get over their hurt easily. It consumes them. I should know—I felt that same magnitude of agony when I thought I had lost you.”

“But what memories do you want to reverse?”

Dorian glances at Niko and his younger brother nods before fixing his eyes on me. “All the ones including Donna. And you.”

“What do you mean, all the ones—?”

“He’ll have no memory of either of you. It will be as if he has lived his life without having a wife and child. Everything will be intact—his career, his friends, his hobbies—but he’ll have no recollection of you or Donna. We can transfer him to another state, give him a fresh start. He can find love again. He can have another shot at life.”

“You want him to forget us? To forget the love of his life? That’s insane! Absolutely not!”

Dorian gently turns my head to face him, and I see how much it pains him to even mention this to me. “Gabriella, it is selfish to keep him hurting like this. He’s hopeless, baby. I felt it. He feels as if he has nothing else to live for. That’s no kind of life. It’s unfair to leave him in despair when there will be no one left to pull him out of it.”

Tears slide down my cheeks now. I don’t even understand how I have any left to cry. “But he has me! I can help him! I can be here for him!”

“No, you can’t, baby girl,” Niko interjects. “It’s not safe for him to be here, or anywhere near you for that matter. How long do you think it will take before another one is sent to kill? Chris will be a sitting duck.”

I open my mouth to argue, but I can’t find a logical rebuttal. They’re right. As much as it hurts, I know that what they’re saying is true.

I have to let him go. If I truly love him, I have to give him another shot at a regular life.

Just as I ingest the finality of my decision, Alexander walks through the door, his eyes desolate. Suddenly, it all comes back to me…his earlier conversation with Donna. That twist of suspicion in my gut…

“We thought for sure you were captured by the Dark. How did you escape?”

“Why don’t you ask your husband that question?”

I’m in his face before he can even shut the front door, my fatigue forgotten.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” I jab an accusing finger in his chest. “Tell me what you know. Now!”

“Gabriella…I don’t understand where this—”

“Ever since you showed up, people are dying! Things are happening that we can’t explain. Be honest; do you have something to do with the humans trying to kill us?”

Alexander takes a step back, betrayal and hurt on his handsome face. “No. Of course not.”

“Then how do you explain all this? What do you know about the knife that boy had? How were you able to touch it when both Dorian and Niko couldn’t?”

Alexander pulls the knife from behind him before going to the living room to hold it up for the rest of the group to see. “This is a Polemos dagger, The Edge of War. There were very few created, and only a Polemos can wield it. A wound from this blade is almost always fatal, for mortals and immortals alike.”

“Do you know who it belongs to?” I believe him, but he’s still not off the hook.

“No. It is only held by dignitaries and decorated warriors. But it’s evident that a Polemos transferred their power to that human boy. That’s the only way he could have manipulated it. And it explained his ability to elude us all with his stealth.”

“Polemos,” Dorian mutters. “The boy earlier was influenced by the house of Thanatos.”

“So you think the eight families are coming for us and sending humans to do their dirty work?” Niko asks, stroking the thin layer of scruff on his chin. “Fucking cowards if you ask me.”

I take my place on the couch beside Dorian, placing my hand in his. “But if that’s true, why were those humans getting tattoos several months ago? They couldn’t have known that you would double-cross them. And what if there are hundreds—shit, thousands—representing each house?”

I look over at Morgan, who looks like she may pass out at any moment. I can feel her discontent. She’s afraid, confused and exhausted. The last twenty-four hours have utterly shattered her.

“Morg, why don’t you go lie down in my room? I think we should stay here tonight. I don’t want to leave Chris alone.”

I feel Dorian tense beside me, and Niko shakes his head. “Not happening, baby girl. They could send more. Go back to the apartment complex. Dorian can tighten the ward there, but we can’t alter the one already in place here. It isn’t our magic. You and Morgan head back home, and I’ll stay here with Chris. It’ll give me a chance to…handle…our situation.”

Now? They want to do this
now?

“But…I’m not ready.” I shake my head, my eyes clouded with fresh tears. “I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.”

Dorian pulls me close, resting his chin on my head. I feel his lips in my hair. “It’s easier this way, baby. He’s subdued now. If we wait and let him wake up, he’ll only be plagued with more pain. You don’t want him to face that again.”

I release a shaky breath and dash away the moisture on my cheeks. “You’re right. I hate to admit it, but you’re right.” I turn to Alexander, regarding him with a pinched expression. “I just have to know one thing first—what did you mean? When you told…Donna…to ask Chris about your escape? How would he know anything about that?”

He shakes his head and takes a deep breath. “He wouldn’t know about my escape. But he knew about my capture. Including your mother’s.”

My mother?

“It was Chris who tipped off the Light when they went looking for her. He had been questioned and, of course, they used his love for Donna against him. I’d imagine he did it to protect her, but I can’t help but feel that he is responsible for Natalia’s execution.”

I take a beat to digest his words, pushing suspicion from my mind. I’m about to say goodbye to Chris forever. I don’t want anything tainting my view of him right now.

“I’m going to see Chris,” I tell him. “But we’ll talk about this later.”

Before I make my way towards the back of the house, Niko tugs at my arm. “Don’t worry, Gabs. When he wakes up, he’ll be ok. He’ll get a job transfer out of the state and will be on his way to some place safe by the end of the week. He’ll get another shot at happiness. He won’t even remember you or Donna.”

I nod, yet a grimace rests on my lips. Chris won’t even remember us—his wife and child. And even though I know it’s necessary, it hurts me to my core.

I enter the dark bedroom that he once shared with his wife. They were married for over twenty years; it would probably kill him to wake up without her beside him. Chris sleeps peacefully on his back, quietly snoring in his magic-induced slumber. There’s still a bit of dried blood on his face, and I reach over to scrape the red flakes with my fingernail, letting my touch linger against his stubbled jaw.

“Hey Dad,” I whisper, settling beside him on the bed. “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I just want to say…thank you. Thank you for being the best dad you could be to me, despite all the trouble I’ve caused. I know it couldn’t have been easy to care for a child that wasn’t biologically yours, but I never felt that. I never felt like I didn’t belong. I always felt like
yours.
”

A hard knot forms in my throat, and I take a moment to breathe through it before it invokes a sob. I’ve cried enough today. I don’t want our last goodbye to be filled with more sorrow.

“I didn’t want this for us. If I could, I would protect you from all the evils of this world. But what kind of life would that be? Always running and hiding? You deserve more than that. You deserve another shot at life. At love. A chance to have a real family with children of your own.” My voice breaks on those last words, and a rogue tear escapes.

“Dad, you were so good to me and Mom. Now, I want you to be good to someone else. Someone that will love and care and protect you like you’ve done for us. It’s time for you to be another little girl’s first love. It’s time for you to teach her what she should expect and demand from her future boyfriends. It’s time for you to be an example of the ideal husband and father.”

More tears come, but I don’t wipe them away. I let them fall freely as I say goodbye to man I had the privilege of calling Dad.

“You did good. And for that, I will always be grateful. Please don’t think I’m giving up on you—on us. On our family. Because I’m not. I’m giving you a second chance.” I take his still hand in mine and press it to the space that holds my breaking heart. “Goodbye, Daddy. I’ll always love you. In life and in death.”

I DON’T REMEMBER the ride back to Paralia. I hardly even registered when Dorian led me to my bathroom and began to strip off my clothes. Even after he had filled the garden tub with warm, sudsy water and lifted my body into it, I think I barely flinched. The pain, the grief…I had felt too much until I couldn’t feel at all. I wasn’t in mourning—I became mourning. I became despair at its most severe degree. I knew Dorian was there—I could feel those pity-filled eyes on me, yet I didn’t have it in me to acknowledge him. I was empty of words and thoughts and feeling.

Something happened to me the moment I felt Donna’s life slip away. It’s like she took a part of me with her. Bits and pieces of a broken heart…shattered fragments of a simple, human girl—something in me went missing. And when I said goodbye to Chris, more of me blew away, like those scattered ashes in the wind. The chasm in my soul was becoming so deep and vast, that I couldn’t fathom ever feeling whole again. Not without them. I’d never be the same without my parents.

“Say something, little girl,” he whispers, cupping water with his hands and letting it spill over my chest. He doesn’t touch me in a sexual way as he kneels outside the tub. He just wants to nurture my bleeding soul.

I look up with unfocused, glazed eyes. “What do you want me to say?” My voice is flat, devoid of all emotion. There isn’t any more to feel. Just numbness.

Worry is deeply etched in his beautiful face. “Tell me you’re ok.”

I shake my head as the lump in my throat grows larger, causing me to gasp. “I can’t. I can’t say that.”

“Then tell me what to do. Tell me what you need.”

What I need?

“I need my mom to be alive. I need my dad to remember who I am. I need my loved ones to be safe. I need people to stop fucking dying on me—all things that can’t be fixed by you or me or anyone else for that matter.” I look away, ashamed for lashing out at him. His fingers touch my quivering chin and pull me back to face him. I half expect Dorian to be angry, but there is nothing but love and understanding in those crystal blue eyes.

“No, I can’t fix those things. But I can fix you, if you let me. If you’ll have me.” The back of his hand gently caresses my cheek before he tilts my head to meet his gaze. I immediately pull away.

“No, Dorian. I don’t want to forget.”

“You don’t have to, love. But let me give you
me
.
Breathe me.
Let me sustain you, baby.”

He extends an arm, offering the inside of his bare wrist. I look down at it, and something in my gut coils with need. I want this.
I need this.
But I feel so guilty for it. I know this is a part of who we are, but I hate the way my craving invokes desire in every cell in my body.