Betrothed (24 page)

‘Leif?’ I whispered.

‘I’m right here,’ he said, and I felt his arms come around me.

I realised my eyes were still closed, so I opened them. It was like waking from a dream. I was standing in Faera, by the river in the forest, folded into Leif’s embrace. He was watching me, and his eyes sparkled with amusement. I could almost imagine him saying, I told you so, except that it wasn’t his style.

‘Aren’t you clever?’ I said, smiling up into his perfect face.

‘Yes,’ he answered simply. I laughed at his confidence.

‘Do you think I doubted you?’

‘Not even a little bit.’ He grinned.

‘You’re very sure of yourself.’

‘I’m very sure of you.’

I stood on my toes and tilted my face up for him to kiss. He leaned down to join his lips with mine.

‘Ah,’ he said, breaking away from me.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘Your friends have arrived.’

‘Oh.’

I woke to find I was lying on my bed in Leif’s arms. Ashleigh stood beside us, and Jack and Hilary were at the door. All three of them were watching us. I sat up quickly.

‘What are you two up to?’ Ashleigh asked, her eyes narrow.

‘We were tired, we needed a rest,’ I said, blushing and feeling horribly vulnerable at being found in such a position.

‘Well, you’re just lucky it’s me who walked in on you and not Mum,’ my sister said.

‘Oh whatever! We weren’t
doing
anything.’

‘I’d love to see you trying to convince her of that, with the stupid big grin you had plastered on your face.’

‘I did not have a grin on my face!’ My cheeks were beginning to sizzle.

‘Um—yes you did,’ Jack said, frowning.

Oh, the humiliation of it! I glanced at Leif—he was watching me. And he was grinning.

My face was an inferno. I got up off the bed and stormed from the room. Leif came straight after me.

He clutched my arm, turning me to face him. ‘Marla, what’s wrong?’

‘It’s bad enough you have this humiliating power over me. Do you have to laugh at me because of it?’

He said nothing as he led me outside. Leaving my friends with my sister, he flew with me to the balcony below and let us inside the empty unit. He sat on the lounge and drew me into his arms.

‘Please, don’t be upset. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to laugh at you. It was only that you looked so sweet.’

I couldn’t comprehend these new feelings—how weak the power he held over me made me feel. A part of me loved it—a big part. But another found it utterly humiliating. I wanted to tell him so, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. In any case it wasn’t necessary. He read me thoroughly. I should have known he would.

‘Marla, if you knew how it thrills me that you abandon yourself to me, how I desire it—require it—you would not worry so. These are responses you have learned in the human world. In Faera, a betrothed couple delight in such feelings and they do not care who knows.’

‘Well, you’re not in Faera now. I don’t know anything about Faera, and here on Earth, girls just don’t go around melting at their boyfriend’s slightest touch.’

He grinned. ‘I make you melt?’

‘Oh you know you do! Don’t pretend. You take me over. It’s . . . embarrassing.’

‘But this is what I must have from you. I need it and I love it. It’s what makes us one. Don’t be ashamed, it’s meant to be this way.’ He leaned down and kissed me, his lips finding mine warm and ready as always. I wound my arms around his neck and drifted once again into ecstasy.

The kiss ended eventually, as it had to, and I knew for now it would go no further. Leif wouldn’t allow it. If it was up to me, I would have been powerless to stop.

‘How come it’s so easy for you to resist me?’ It didn’t seem fair when I seemed to lose myself every time he kissed me.

‘Easy! Is that what you think? It’s work to resist you, my love.’ He lifted my chin with his fingers and looked into my eyes. ‘It is my job to have restraint where it is required. Females are by nature more abandoned.’ He smiled. ‘It’s what makes your kind yield to mine.’

‘Yield to you! Oh my God, Leif, you sound so eighteenth century. Don’t dare let any of the
females
in this world hear you coming out with stuff like that! You’d be labelled sexist in the time it took to say it.’

Leif smiled an enticing, barely there smile, his eyes growing narrow and steamy with it. ‘Tell me you do not wish to yield to me, Marla.’

Damn! There was no way I could deny it. He looked so outrageously sexy that I just wanted to fall into his arms and yield to him this second. ‘That’s not the point. Just don’t let anyone hear you talking like that okay? Seriously, no one would find it amusing.’

Leif shook his head. ‘Humans are very strange creatures. Speaking of which, your friends are waiting upstairs. Would you like to join them now?’

‘I suppose,’ I said.

‘Marla?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Are you all right now?’

‘Kiss me again and I will be,’ I said, always wanting more. He kissed me, and we flew upstairs to join Jack and Hilary.

‘Where did you go?’ Jack asked, when we walked in from the balcony.

‘Just to Leif’s.’

‘That’s great isn’t it, you invite us over then you nick off.’

I didn’t want to think about why Jack was being so surly with me.

‘Leave her alone, Jack,’ Hilary muttered.

‘Anyway,’ Jack said ignoring her, ‘you’ll never guess who called Ashleigh while you were gone.’

‘Who?’

‘That cow, Brittany.’

Hilary frowned and made a disapproving sound.

‘What would
she
want with Ashleigh?’

‘She told her that Jason’s got a thing for her and if she wanted to see him, he was at Maccas.’

‘And how do you know this?’ I asked, hardly believing what I was hearing.

‘You think Ashleigh could keep that information to herself? She went mad, plastered her face with make-up, then tore off to meet him.’

‘Oh no, he’s getting back at me by going after Ashleigh.’ I fell onto the lounge and buried my face into my hands.

‘How can I help?’ Leif asked, as he sat beside me and wound an arm around my shoulder.

I lifted my face to look at him. ‘You can’t—didn’t we decide to keep your presence here a secret?’

‘I could confuse Jason—make him forget this business with Ashleigh.’

‘Would it make him forget me?’

‘No,’ he admitted.

‘Then he would only come up with some evil plan later.’

‘I knew that little turd was up to something,’ Jack said.

‘Maybe he genuinely likes Ashleigh,’ Hilary said. Even Leif looked at her in disbelief and he barely knew Jason. ‘Well, at least give him the benefit of the doubt until Ashleigh comes home. Brittany could have been lying for all we know.’

I sighed, resigned. ‘I suppose you’re right. Anyway what else can we do? It’s not like Ashleigh would actually listen if I went up there to get her.’

Jack and Hilary stayed until just after five thirty. Ashleigh was still not home and I was becoming increasingly worried about what Jason might be up to. Mum was in the kitchen cooking dinner in easy hearing range, so Leif and I sat on the lounge pretending to watch TV while maintaining a silent conversation.

If she’s not back in five minutes, I’m going up there,
I said.

Leif frowned.
What are you so afraid of, Marla? Has Jason made a threat of some kind? Because if he has . . .

Leif’s eyes seemed to turn a dark shade of stormy night. I put my hand on his arm and hurried to answer him.
He hasn’t, Leif; I’ve just got this feeling . . . And I think something happened between him and Jack.
I sighed heavily.
I suppose I’m just afraid he’ll hurt her
.

I will not allow him to hurt her.

How could you stop him? All he has to do is make her fall in love with him then dump her.

I could stop him.

I shivered a little bit at the fierceness in Leif’s expression, but I didn’t have time to respond because Mum walked in at that moment and said, ‘You two are quiet.’

She’d been quiet herself ever since she found out the truth about me. She was trying, she really was, but often I’d catch her just staring at me with this kind of sad, lost look on her face. So apart from informing her and Dad of the upcoming assembly, I went out of my way not to talk about my other life too much. ‘Just watching telly,’ I told her.

‘Where’s your sister? It’s almost six.’

‘She went up to Maccas. Do you want me to go get her?’

‘Leave her, she knows the rules.’

Ashleigh came in just after my father got home from work. It was bang on six o’clock and we were all just sitting down to dinner.

‘Guess what happened to me this afternoon?’ Ashleigh said as she took her seat at the table.

‘What’s that?’ Dad asked.

‘Jason asked me out,’ she squealed.

‘Amy’s Jason?’ Mum said.

‘He’s not Amy’s Jason, they barely dated.’ Then her frown turned into a grin. ‘My Jason now.’

‘He’s a bit old for you isn’t he, love?’ my father said.

‘He is not. He’s only eighteen and I’ll be sixteen soon.’

‘Not that soon,’ I said, then turned to my mother. ‘Mum, you’re not going to let her go out with him, are you?’

‘You’re joking! You went out with him yourself,’ Ashleigh cried.

I glanced back to my sister, she was red with fury, but I couldn’t let it go. ‘Well that was a mistake and I’m in the same year as him anyway.’

Ashleigh slammed her knife and fork down on the table. ‘I’m not a little kid any more.’

I turned back to my mother. ‘Mum, don’t let her go out with him.’

‘Did something happen between you and Jason, Amy?’ my father asked quietly. ‘Did he hurt you in any way?’

‘No, it’s just that I know he only asked her out to get back at me.’

‘Huh, he told me you’d say that!’ Ashleigh accused. ‘Do you think you’re the only girl worth going out with? Geez, you love yourself!’

‘That’s enough, Ashleigh,’ my father said.

‘I just don’t want you to get hurt,’ I said, but I knew I might as well have kept my mouth shut. Ashleigh had wanted a boyfriend for ages. In her eyes, she’d hit the jackpot.

‘You’re wrong, he does like me. He told me so.’

‘What did he say?’ my father asked.

‘He said my eyes were the most beautiful green he’s ever seen.’ Her expression went all dreamy for a second.

I didn’t have a hope, but stupidly kept at it anyway. ‘They’re just words, Ashleigh.’

‘What are you saying,
Amy
? Am I not as pretty as you? Are you
that
much better than me?’

This was a nightmare. I said, ‘You’re pretty, of course you are.’

‘Don’t humour me. What do you care anyway? You’ll be gone soon, off to Fairyland with Leif, and we’ll probably never see either of you again. Just mind your own business and leave me alone!’ She pushed her chair out, knocking it over in her temper and stormed into our bedroom.

I’d lost. There was nothing I could do and even if my parents did try to stop her seeing Jason, it wouldn’t work. She’d made up her mind—Jason cared about her, he adored her. It was impossible for her to see the truth through the giddy haze he had created.

My father went into the bedroom to try to calm Ashleigh, while my mother stayed to do the same with me. Leif, who’d
stayed silent through the whole thing, diplomatically took the rest of his dinner out to the balcony.

Mum said, ‘Amy, I know you’re just trying to protect your sister, but people learn best when they learn from their own mistakes . . . I suspect you might be right about Jason. I have to admit, he’s difficult to warm to. But did I try to stop you from going out with him? No, I did not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because when a mother tells a teenage girl not to do something, the girl wants to do it even more. I know this because
I
was a teenage girl once.’

‘You stopped me from going out with Jack after Ashleigh came and blabbed to you.’

‘Amy, you were twelve years old!’

‘What’s that got to do with anything? If you’d told me not to go out with Jason, I’d have listened to that too!’

‘Perhaps—you’ve always been fairly compliant. Ashleigh though . . . well, she’s different. You and I both know that if she really wants to go out with this boy, nothing will stop her. The last thing I need to be worrying about right now is your sister sneaking out to meet her boyfriend at midnight.’

I opened my mouth to protest.

‘No, don’t argue with me. The safest thing I can do is have a good talk to her beforehand and give her some rules to follow.’

‘He’s going to crush her.’

‘Then it will be a life lesson.’

‘Well, she can’t talk to him about Leif.’

‘She knows that.’

‘And I won’t be sitting down to any cosy little family dinners with him either.’

My mother sighed. ‘You’ll do what you know is right.’

I cleared the dishes away then went out to join Leif. ‘Do you want to go to your place?’

He put his arms around me. ‘Whatever you want, Marla.’

‘Leif, I wondered where you were,’ Janet said, casting a big smile in his direction as we walked in. I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t in the mood. ‘How are you, Amy?’ she asked, when she finally managed to drag her eyes away from my prince.