A Grim Love: Can't Fight Time (15 page)

She’d said yes. Against all of her better intentions, she’d said yes. But did that really change anything? For her, it didn’t.

“Hello!” A cheery voice that reminded her of a jovial Santa Claus called out from the darkness, making Nina jump.

Hand pressed against her chest, Nina whipped her head around and saw an older man with wavy black hair and olive toned skin wiggling his fingers at her in welcome.

“Who are--”

“Touni Bloospurn, King of this fair land.” the man spread his arms wide and turned in a slow circle, eyes closed with a bright smile on his face.

Nina frowned as she remembered the crazy man from the throne room. And with him so close, she couldn't mistake the resemblance to Grim. Blue-diamond eyes met hers, and aside from a thin scar just underneath his five o’clock shadow, his slightly shorter height, and his pale skin he could have been Grim’s twin.

Just as quickly as he began spinning he stopped, whipped his head to Nina and in half a second was nose to nose with her, his breath hot on her cheek. A scream jumped to her throat but she refused to let it out. It didn’t seem like this man would hurt her, but there was definitely something off. But then again, there was something off with everyone in the castle, a sort of detached coldness that permeated the halls.

“Would you care to take a walk?” the king asked suddenly, as he took a step back and gave her some space.

“Um…” She didn’t know if she could refuse a king, but she really didn’t want to spend more time than she had to with the man.

His smile softened as if he could sense her distress. “I’m going insane, my dear,” the king said quietly as he looked at a point just behind Nina, maybe a place in the past. “I've lost myself. I'm out of my mind. I've lost myself. I'm out of time.”

Nina listened as he muttered to himself, seemingly trapped somewhere else. It almost seemed to fit that the Bloodspurn king would be going mad. They were born from Death, and so Death couldn’t steal them.

It sort of explained why Grim was becoming the king now. His father wasn’t able to rule because he was losing himself. “Your Highness?”

The man blinked and seemed to come back from whatever ledge he’d been on. “Touni, please, my dear. After all you’re going to be my daughter soon.”

The warmth in his tone surprised Nina. “How do you--?”

“The walls have ears, my dear. Never forget that,” Tuoni said as he held his arm out for her in the way a knight might for his lady. “Shall we take that walk now?”

For a second Nina assessed the situation rationally. Grim didn’t know where she was, and the castle was big enough that the mad king in front of her could take her to the BDSM room she’d seen. It was all so strange, that Nina felt she couldn’t do anything else but go along with it. What did she have to lose, anyway?

“Alright, Tuoni,” Nina replied as took his arm and they began to stroll down the hall.

Nina could feel the barely leashed power under his skin, moving faster than the blood in her veins. “Are you really okay with me marrying Grim?” she asked, curious about his position on the issue.

Tuoni patted her hand and turned a corner. A sudden burst of wind sent them flying down the corridor, like they took one large step, the transition was seamless. Then they were turning another corner.

“My mind flickers like a flame on a wick. Answers come to questions unasked. And I am nearly dead,” Tuoni said in a voice that sounded far away, in another world. Nina tugged at his sleeve until he turned and smiled down at her, showing that he was still with her.

“Do you know what makes a truly good story, Nina?” he asked suddenly.

Nina could tell that he was in another place. She decided to treat him like she treated her father, with the sort of patience and softness a parent has for a child. Smiling gently, she shook her head and waited for him to continue.

“One that is both fantasy and reality. One in a world that mirrors ours, so we can understand it, see it, but never go there. But you have gone to that world, Nina.” He turned and smiled widely at her, like she’d just told a very funny joke. “I’m not sure if you’re human.”

Nina felt her spine stiffen. She had zero clue what he was talking about. His answer had nothing to do with her marrying Grim. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

He turned away and looked straight ahead, repeating the chant: “My mind flickers like a flame on a wick. Answers come to questions unasked. And I am nearly dead.”

The king paused, almost like he had no choice, like an invisible tether had cut him short. “You are nearly dead, Nina, and yet you know so much more than you should.

“My opinion is irrelevant. It is like a mouse having an opinion about a lion--” he turned and bared his teeth in what only a fool would call a smile. “You could crush all of us under your paws.”

Nina studied his profile, wondering if he was absolutely brilliant or completely bonkers. She decided on the latter. “Touni, I--”

“We’re here,” he interrupted, letting go of her hand to push open a set of double doors.

Nina hadn’t even realized they’d still been walking until he stopped. The doors spread wide and lead out to a balcony the size of a small room, shaped in a half circle. “Come,” Tuoni beckoned.

Nina hadn’t even realized she’d moved until her hands closed around the railing of the balcony, her eyes stretched wide to see the town, quiet and dark, then further to a forest so thick, that light couldn’t penetrate its canopy.

“It’s beautiful!” Nina gasped, her eyes skating over the land.

Tuoni chuckled softly as he came to rest beside her, elbows on the railing. “It is, isn’t it?” His voice held a note of longing.

“Tuoni...” Nina paused, not sure what she was asking for, not sure if she had the right to ask it. “What’s happening?” Nina asked carefully, wondering if some of his craziness has rubbed off on her.

There was something mysterious, yet comforting about the crazy king. Nina had a niggling feeling that he wasn’t really crazy, but rather trapped in a place where time blurred together and spun out until it eclipsed everything--consumed as it destroyed.

“We’re a dying people, Nina.” The king blew out a tired breath he hadn’t needed to take and gave her a waning smile. “Our blood has been left too long, never leaving, always the same. Humans were our only ties to keep us from the past, and without them we are slipping, falling back.”

“What?” Nina asked softly when he didn’t continue after a few moments.

The king’s blue-diamond eyes flashed with something like loathing, but Nina didn’t feel like it was directed at her. Still, the intensity behind it made her shiver and draw back.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The man spoke in riddles, and it was driving Nina up the wall. One minute she’d think he was sane, and the next they’d be back to square one. She didn’t even know why she bothered. Nothing she learned now would help her anyway. Reapers, crazy kings, and mad scientist gods. None of it really mattered. Sure it made for a great story, and a pretty cool autobiography, but that was for people who had time.

People who had a life. Why bother with it all? Why bother with anything that wasn’t Grim?

Shaking her head, Nina returned her gaze to the softly glowing city. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

Tuoni’s voice seemed far away, once again in another time and place. “We are dying because we have nothing to bind us. Our humanity was stolen through time, because we stole humanity’s time. Circles.” the king’s voice began almost lyrical, his eyes glazed over. “We crave nothing, but there can never be nothing. The void is filled with power, absolute and corrupting, destroying everything like it used to. We slip back into the past and we die.”

Nina felt a shiver of apprehension slide up through her spine. Again, she couldn’t determine if he was crazy or Mensa smart. For some reason his lunacy reminded her of Uri. The way he spoke reminded her of the way Uri sometimes spoke one word but it sounded like he was talking about something completely different. It was funny how much Uri and Grim were like their father.

“You’re laughing.” The king ran a hand through his thick black hair and smiled wide.

Nina shook her head, crossed her arms on the railing, and sat her chin on top of her arms. “You remind me of your sons.”

“Ah,” he said, like he knew exactly what she was talking about.

For a few minutes they leaned against the railing, a companionable silence stealing over both of them. Nina was still trying to decipher what the king had said, not because she thought it meant anything, but because she liked a good puzzle and perhaps he wasn’t crazy but, as he’d said: lost in time.

Time
. Nina knew the word well, had been playing it over again in her head until it became the background of her thoughts. A self-deprecating laugh escaped her as she stared at the crazy king and saw herself reflected in his eyes. They were both out of time.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the wedding?” Uri asked as he casually strolled into the library.

Nina looked up from her book and slowly closed the tome. There was no useful information in it anyway.

Curling her feet under her, Nina leaned over and patted the seat next to her. “Come sit by me.”

Uri smiled wickedly before coming over and pouring his self in the seat, arms draped over the back. He always looked good in that effortless sort of just-got-out-of-bed way. In another life Nina would have probably dated him, maybe even married him and had cute little biracial children with red hair and chocolate brown eyes.

That wasn’t her life.

Her life consisted of a serial killer father, a fiancée who was heir apparent to a reaper throne, and a very brutal death looming on her horizon. That was her life, and she accepted it.

Nina turned and set the book of reaper history down. “It’s more like Grim’s wedding, and you know it.”

Uri smile’s was mischievous with a hint of devilishness. “Love makes you do crazy things.”

That it does,
Nina thought as she felt a grim smile twist her lips. Love made the best people stupid. She was stupid, and Grim was stupid; the entire reason for their wedding was stupid. She hated saying it, would’ve loved to sugar-coat it, but ignoring the truth helped no one and hurt everyone.

“What happens when my time is up?” Nina asked suddenly, her fingers running over the mark still imprinted on her hand, Grim’s mark.

Slowly Uri leaned over and tugged her feet out from underneath her, propped them on his lap and quietly began massaging them. Heat slid into the soles of her feet, relaxing Nina. She was struck by the intimacy of the act, but not completely put off by it. It was comforting.

“You’re time will never be up if you stay here. The balance will simply shift.” Uri replied, his thumb rubbing circles into her ankle.

“What do you mean?” Nina couldn’t help but ask as she turned to fully face him.

Uri had always been straight with her, and Nina respected that, though she wasn’t fool enough to think he didn’t keep things from her. Grim and the others might see him as a spoiled prince who did whatever he wanted and had a who-cares attitude, but Nina knew better. The old adage “never judge a book by its cover” rang like warning bells in her ears.

Uri’s voice was soft, almost like a whisper; “The truth?”

A lump lodged in Nina’s throat. The moment was weighed, and Nina felt yet another turning point in her life. It was like she’d walked a mile only to come to another fork in the road. She only wondered if these forks truly took her to another place, or simply created a complex labyrinth that ended exactly where she’d started.

Steeling herself, she nodded.

“No one can outsmart Death, not even Death himself,” Uri began, fingertips flirting with the pulsing veins on her feet. “Even if Grim keeps you here, marries you, and all-that-jazz, you’re still human. The need to be able to die is still ingrained within you.”

He paused and smiled sadly at Nina. “Humans might fear their deaths, but they also accept them as inevitability. They simply curse them when they feel they have not lived long enough. But every single one of them knows that Death will claim them.”

A sudden
déjà vu
struck Nina as she remembered a book of famous quotes. In particular she thought about the Mark Twain quotes she’d read, those being her favorites.
Nina had no clue why that quote stuck with her. She didn’t doubt that there were hundreds like it, but there was something about that one in particular, something in the words that resonated with her.

All she’d wanted when she’d come down to the Underworld was just a little more time and a chance to live before she accepted her death. But never had she contemplated the concept of
never
dying.

Death was an inevitability for her, just not for Grim.

“I will never die here, but I will die in another sense. That’s what you’re saying, Uri?” Nina asked softly, lowering her lashes to hide her eyes.

“What I’m saying is if you chose to stay here, you will not live--not like before. And if you chose to leave, you will die like you are supposed to.”

Turning away from him, Nina looked into the fireplace, watching the flames leap and dance. Any room she went into now had a roaring fire in it, a testament to Grim always being with her.

It had taken her a while, but Nina finally understood why Grim would have let her die. It had been a bitter pill to swallow, but like most truths, it was necessary.

Even now, looking at Uri, watching him rub her feet and sit with her, Nina didn’t doubt for a split second that he’d take her soul. She had no doubt that he’d deliver her to the human world and let her father kill her. Not because he was cruel, but because it was what
had
to happen. Death was a part of life, and life a part of death.

Swiping at the moisture in the corner of her eyes, Nina turned back to Uri and slowly moved her feet out of his grasp. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Anything,” Uri said after a short pause.

Nina knew he didn’t mean it, knew there was more hidden behind that one word than in the whole castle. “When I’m ready, will you take me back to my world?”

The look Uri cast her was one she couldn’t decipher, but Nina was pretty sure she saw pride in his eyes. Closing her eyes, Nina bit her lip but still forced a watery smile. “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” She recited the words like a prayer.

Nina kept her eyes closed, too afraid she might break again if she saw his gaze. And she’d broken enough times in her life--she refused to do it now. A strong hand closed over her tightly fisted ones, giving her a strength that she didn't need.

Power curled around her like a comforting hug as they sat in complete silence for a few moments, the only sounds from her every-so-often heartbeat and the roar of the fire.

“You are strong, smart, and beautiful, Nina. I’m glad that I was able to know you,” Past tense.

The words hurt more than they helped, but Nina nodded, knowing it was the right thing to do. But that didn’t it made it any easier.

***

Grim adjusted his tie as he gazed in the mirror. For the first time in years, he was wearing the Bloodspurn insignia carved into the ring on his index finger. It was the ring given to every Bloodspurn upon succession to the throne. Sure it was a little early, but given the circumstances, his father had decided it was time.

Grim turned away from the mirror and toward the man in the corner. “I really appreciate your support, Father.”

Tuoni smiled brilliantly at his son. For the first time in centuries, Grim was seeing his father for the man he used to be, before the whoring and madness had taken him. “You never need to thank me, Grim. We are family; and family, is everything.”

“He’s right, you know. Family makes you do things you never thought you would,” Grim’s mother said as she walked into the room, her tone filled with distaste.

Grim turned his head to face his mother, and blinked in surprise at the olive-green dress she wore, covering most of her skin.
How long had it been since I’ve seen her skin and not bones?
Grim wondered as went to greet her.

“Morrigan!” his father announced pleasantly as he went over to his wife. “You look beautiful!”

His mother smiled sadly and reached out to grasp her husband's hands. They kissed cheeks briefly, before she pulled back and turned to Grim. “Would you give us a second, Tuoni? I want to speak with my son.”

“Of course, my dear. I feel my mind slipping away, so it’s probably a good time to leave.”  The king squeezed her hands before saluting Grim and heading out the door. But Tuoni was always like that, there one moment and gone the next. Grim just hoped he wouldn’t adopt the same trait as he grew older. He hoped he wouldn’t inherit a lot from his father.

Grim stared at his mother for long moments, only able to see his brother. They both had the same red hair and myrtle-green eyes. When he was younger, it used to bother Grim to look at Morrigan in her human form and see no connection between them.

Even at a young age, he’d known the difference between Morrigan and Ivona--it was the way his father spoke about each woman. Love and longing reflected back in his eyes when he spoke of Ivona, and pride and power reflected in his eyes when he spoke of Morrigan.

But Morrigan was the only mother Grim had, and no matter how hard she’d been on him, or how coldly she’d treated him, he couldn’t say he hadn’t started it. She’d been a stranger and for the better part of a century he’d treated her that way, and perhaps they’d just fallen into that pattern. But Grim never doubted that she loved him; for all her faults it was still obvious that she held affection for her sons.

“It’s your wedding day.” Morrigan began with a sad smile as she glided over to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows and gazed out.

Grim went to her, the sounds of his foot falls absorbed by the thick rugs. “Yes it is, Mother.” He stood beside her and looked at the hundreds of carriages lining either side of the drive. Some of the guests had come to see the human, others to show their support, but all had been expecting this to be a political marriage between the Castoffs and the Bloodspurns. Now that it wasn’t, they were all curious as to what would happen.

Grim was wondering the same thing. The Castoff king had yet to respond to the letter he’d sent. It had been weeks, and with every day that passed Grim wondered if he wasn’t starting a war with his actions. But if it came to that, he was prepared.

“Samuel?” Morrigan said tentatively, turning away from the window to face her son.

For once Grim didn’t cringe at the use of his birth name, but he did take note of it. “Yes, Mother?” Grim’s voice was soft but held a note of censure. This was his wedding day, and he didn’t want it to be ruined by his mother badmouthing his fiancée. He would only take her criticism and commentary to a point.

“Let’s put down our swords, shall we? I want you to sit and listen to a story.” Morrigan gestured to the chaise and two armchairs.

Grim’s lips twisted as he remembered a time when he’d said the same thing. He mimicked the motion of sheathing a sword before going to sit in one of the armchairs. “Fine, mother, the swords are away. What is it you would like to tell me?”

Morrigan arranged her skirts in a fan around her ankles as she sat. “You know that I don’t have the greatest… affinity for humans, Samuel.” Morrigan began softly. “But you don’t know the story behind my dislike.”

Grim nodded for her to continue, and after a deep sigh, she did. “Your father and I did not marry for love, but for power and allegiance. You already know this.”

Grim nodded, and folded his hands in his lap. “Yes, I knew.”

Myrtle-green eyes met his, but darted quickly to the side before he could read them. Then her voice shifted, became lower and softer, and she was suddenly speaking in a dead language that she’d taught him as a child. “That was a lie, Samuel.” Morrigan paused and sat up straighter. “When your father and I married, I was little more than a maid; in fact, I was Ivona’s maid.”

Grim’s jaw clenched, as he searched his mind for the language and the words he needed. “You’re lying. You are the niece of the Darklore queen, fifth in line for the Darklore throne and queen of the Bloodspurn kingdom. I know who you are, Mother,” he ground out.

Morrigan shook her head. “The Darklore queen is one of our greatest supporters. She was desperate to keep the peace between the kingdoms, and your father was too distraught to marry anyone. I was just the logical and available choice.

“I married him quickly, and I let him grieve in any way he wanted while I raised you, Samuel. Ivona wanted it that way. She trusted me, and wanted me to be the one to raise you, just perhaps not as your mother.”