Dark Light of Day (41 page)

He was stunned. Then his eyes met mine and I held his gaze. He’d always accepted me for what I was. Wasn’t I strong enough to do the same for him? Ari’s stare pierced my heart and then he turned abruptly and pushed his way through the crowd. Just before he left the room, I felt the radioactive blast of his magic. It was as if he’d held it together for as long as he could, but hadn’t had quite enough time to make his escape before he went supernova. That brief burst was so full of rage and despair that I swayed from its impact. Clearly, my Show of Faith in Peter had hurt Ari deeply.

I thrust the bouquet back at Peter. He frowned and looked confused.

“You can’t let go,” he hissed quietly, pushing the bouquet back at me.

“I don’t want it,” I said. I thumped the bouquet against his chest and when he didn’t take it, I let the bouquet fall to the floor.

Peter stared at me, aghast.

“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing the words were completely inadequate. Peter had spent a lifetime searching for a spell that would help me and now I was throwing it all away. I strode across the dance floor, looking back only once.

On the ground at Peter’s feet lay a blackened, charred, twisted mass tied with white ribbon. The spell had changed nothing, and yet, it had changed everything.

P
ushing through the crowd took time. Everyone wanted to congratulate me on my performance. Those who might have been reluctant to approach me before had now clearly lost all reserve. Peter Aster’s name was on everyone’s lips. His spell had made my touch less deadly. They had no idea, of course. It had only been an unusually powerful stasis spell, affecting the flowers, rather than me. Remarkable simply because it had been forgotten for millennia. Eventually I made my way out of Empyr and into the hallway. There was no sign of Ari. I ran to the lift and frantically pressed the button. I was out on the sidewalk of Angel Street in no time.

I darted across Angel Street and turned toward Infernus. I wasn’t sure what I would say to Ari once I found him. He would just have to realize that I’d needed to be sure. That I hadn’t wanted to spend my whole life wondering
what if
.

What if… Ari never wanted to speak to me again?

I reached Infernus and raced up the stairs to Ari’s floor. When I stepped into the hall, it was deserted. I imagined anyone who wasn’t at Empyr for the ball had already left St. Luck’s for Beltane Break. Ari’s room was also empty. I paused in the doorway, unsure of where to go next.

Had he left for Rockthorn Gorge? Karanos had mentioned meeting at the train station. Had Ari left to catch the Midland Express? Would he leave just like that? No packing? No preparations? No good-byes? It couldn’t be good practice to hunt
rogares
in the state of mind he was in when he’d left the ball. That would be more than catastrophic, it would be suicidal. I gnawed the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t decide whether I was more fearful
of
Ari or
for
Ari. Was this what love did to a person?

Suddenly I thought of the Stirling, the hotel where Fitz had rented a room for the night.
What if, indeed…

I rocketed down the hall and burst out of Infernus, desperate to find a cabriolet. I felt twisted up inside, turned inside out. I still had no idea what I would say to Ari if and when I found him. I wasn’t even sure I should be looking for him. I understood for the first time how love could destroy, why people like Nergal might want to put an end to their suffering. But I could no more stop my search than I could stop breathing.

I found a cab on Victory Street. The driver’s eyes went wide when he saw my demon mark, but my intended destination seemed to calm him. Throughout the trip, I impatiently tapped my fingers on the door handle, which made the driver nervous again. When we finally arrived at the Stirling, I sat in the backseat, unmoving, while the driver held the door open for me.

“Miss?” he inquired timidly. I thought about what Ari had said, about me always being both eager and reluctant. Never had I felt either emotion as strongly as I did just then. I accepted the driver’s offered hand and lit from the cab like a dove flushed off the ground. I paid him, smoothed my skirts, and might have lost my nerve entirely had not one of the Stirling’s uniformed bellmen rushed to my side. He offered me an elbow and whisked me inside.

Inside, the Stirling was as tasteful and understatedly elegant as the outside, but I gave my surroundings little notice. The decor barely registered as I swished to the front desk, my throat tight, my hands shaking.

“Is Aristos Carmine staying here tonight?” I asked. The woman behind the reservations desk blinked at me. I saw her hesitate—I’m sure it wasn’t her practice to give out guest room numbers to strangers—but then she spotted my mark.

She nodded, her head bobbing up and down almost unwillingly. “Penthouse Suite.” I’d like to think some feeling of female solidarity convinced her to give me Ari’s location but it was probably fear if my face was showing even a quarter of the emotion I was feeling.

In less than a minute, I was standing outside the door,
knocking. No one answered. I pounded louder, grateful to have something to do with my hands. If it weren’t for the pounding, they’d be shaking.

“Ari, it’s me. Open the door,” I called, feeling ridiculous. “Come on, I know the woman at the front desk called up. You can’t just ignore me.”

Still, that’s exactly what he did. Every second that I stood outside his door begging for entry made me angrier until finally, in a great blast of frustration, I singed the lock and burst through. The room was completely dark. Instantly, I was pinned to the wall by something large and unmovable.

“Are you mad? Breaking into my room? I could have killed you.” Ari’s voice rumbled in my ear. His tone was incredulous and angry, but there was something else to it, something more difficult to define.

“Is it that easy for you to kill?” I spat out, my words unintentionally harsh.

“Is anything?” He pressed his forehead against mine, still keeping my hands locked in an iron grip at my sides.

I struggled futilely, more from a sense of frustration than an actual desire to get away. Ari looked at me, the way a pinscher might look at a rabbit caught in a snare. He raised my arms above my head, holding both of my hands effortlessly in one of his. I was acutely aware of how cool the wall felt on my back and how hot Ari’s breath felt on my neck. I squirmed. Without warning, Ari pressed a finger against my demon mark. It was no quick touch. He left it there long enough to burn. In the dark, the orange glow of my skin’s response was easy to see. I gritted my teeth and refused to protest.

“I should tell you to go home, Noon.”

“You mean back to Megiddo?”

“No, I mean home. To Etincelle.” His words were little more than a rough whisper in my ear. My heart pumped erratically as he pressed his lips to the soft pulsing spot on my throat. Slowly, as if he were positioning himself for attack, he moved his hand from my demon mark to the top of my dress. For one wild second I wondered if he would simply rip
it from my body. But instead his hand slipped around my back, causing me to arch against him.

“I should tell you to go home to Peter.” He untied the ribbons at the back of my bodice and then he started unlacing it. He pulled the ends of the ribbons through each and every eyelet with excruciating slowness, giving me time to stop him. I said nothing. Did nothing. Finally, he wrenched the now loose bodice free from my skin and let the dress drop. It fell to the floor, pooling around my ankles. “Peter can give you what you want.”

I shook my head. I was having trouble swallowing, let alone speaking.

“No?” Ari asked, his voice slightly mocking. He plucked the flower from my hair. In a parody of my earlier performance, he brought the flower to his nose and breathed deep, then tipped it toward me in offering. I shook my head again, this time more violently. My body quivered, half-fearful, half-desirous of his touch. He reached for the light switch and suddenly a soft yellow glow lit the entire room. I expected him to let me go then but his grip never wavered. Instead his gaze raked over every inch of me. I realized he’d turned the lights on just so that he could see me better. The blood rushed to my face. Ari stood before me almost fully clothed. He had removed only his tie, whereas I was now pressed up against the wall clad only in the thinnest strip of silk panties and ribboned ballet shoes.

I had never stood naked in a lit room with a lover before. On the contrary, all of my experiences before Ari had been conducted in the dark, with me in whatever shirt I happened to have been wearing. This was sorely testing the degree to which I was willing to expose myself. And Ari seemed to know it.

“I can still feel his spell on you,” he said. His gaze was steady, daring me to flinch or look away. He hooked his thumb in the thin strip of silk at my hips and pulled. A second later the delicate fabric tore, leaving me finally and completely exposed. Ari moved his hand from my hip to between my legs. I bit my lip, not wanting to cry out. I didn’t want to
give Ari the satisfaction of knowing how easily he could affect me.
I’d come here, hadn’t I? I’d do anything for him, forgive anything. Wasn’t that enough?

Below he played with me, teasing me, drawing his fingers in and out, slowly, shallowly, never reaching any of the places I really wanted to be touched. His lips came down on mine, first soft and slow, then harder and more demanding. When he finally withdrew his hand, I was shaking with need but he broke off the kiss and leaned back from me. I tipped my head forward attempting to capture his mouth in another kiss but he resisted. A tiny spark of anger flared. There was only so much teasing I could take. My arms were getting sore.

“Aristos,” I said softly. “Let me go.”

He shook his head slowly, as if coming to a terrible realization. “I never expected to fall in love with you so completely, Noon.” Once again he rested his forehead against mine. “I knew you were different, of course. Different from any other woman I’d ever been with. I knew my feelings for you would be stronger. But I didn’t know you would make me feel so…
powerless
. So unable to do what must be done. I should tell you to go home. Tell you to let Peter reverse your magic so you can live life as a Mederi. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve always wanted.”

That was what I
had
wanted. I opened my mouth to tell him, but one look at his face made me shut it again. I’d never seen Ari look as vulnerable, or as determined. I was afraid if I interrupted, he’d never say what he wanted to say, what he
needed
to say.

“I should tell you that a life with me will be full of bad and difficult things. Tell you that there will be blood and death and evil. I should want to protect you from all that, right?
If I loved you…
” His voice broke in anguish and he raked his hand through my hair, pulling it free from its pins, almost yanking on it in his desperation. Clumsily he pawed at me, raining feverish kisses across my eyes, my cheeks, my nose. He wound his hand through my hair to the base of my neck and pressed me toward him, flattening his body against
mine. He kissed me fiercely, hungrily, and then broke off abruptly.

“But I can’t tell you those things. And I won’t apologize for wanting you in my life. There is nothing,
nothing
I wouldn’t do for you, except for the one thing I really should do for you. Let you go.”

And yet, he did. He released his hold on me and my arms dropped to my sides. I rubbed them, trying to massage the ache out of them. Ari turned his back on me and walked over to a far corner of the room. His stance, and the unbelievable chaos of his signature, told me how hard he was struggling to do the right thing.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said, extricating myself from the enormous pile of ruffles at my feet. I wanted to kick off my shoes too; I must have looked ridiculous, but the ribbons were long and twisted and there was no way I was going to let Ari suffer for one moment longer than he had to. “You can’t turn your back on me,” I said. I strode purposefully over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. He tensed.

“Ari, I came here tonight because… because I love you too. I realize how tonight must have looked to you.”

I saw the last few minutes of the ball as Ari must have seen it. Me, reaching achingly, longingly for Peter and the live bouquet of greenery he offered. Me, reaching for Peter and the life he offered. Me, clutching the bouquet to my breast, burying my face deep within its folds, and then lowering the bouquet so the entire world… and Ari… could see the uncontained zeal on my face, the unbridled glory, the rapturous joy.

But it hadn’t really happened that way. I struggled to find the right words to tell Ari how I felt.

“You say I’m equal parts eager and reluctant,” I said to his back. He still refused to look at me. “It’s true, but not for the reasons you think. From the moment I saw you, I was attracted to you, wanted you. But I thought there was no possible way you’d ever want me, being what I was. Even when you indicated an interest, I thought for certain your feelings
would dwindle or die out. I figured all I’d be left with were dashed hopes and a whole lot of hurt. I never dreamed your feelings would intensify. But as that intensity became more real, more believable, it terrified me. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before either. Not even close. You’re not
powerless
around me. You’re the most powerful force in my life.”

I put my other hand on his shoulder and tried to make him turn around, to see the truth of my words. His signature was a choppy, sloppy, roiling mess.

“You scare me, Ari. But not because your magic is stronger than mine or because you’ve killed demons. I’ve killed a demon too,” I said softly, my voice trailing off. Ari turned around then and clasped me to him.

“Nouiomo,” he said tenderly, crushing me against his chest.

“You scare me, Ari,” I said, my voice muffled against his suit coat, “because loving you means loving myself. It means admitting that someone with waning magic—death magic—is worth being loved. Your love makes me feel unbelievably strong, but also immeasurably vulnerable. Because it means you have a claim on me, a say in what I do. You have an enormous effect on me. I never wanted anyone to have that kind of power. But it’s yours. I didn’t give it to you, it just happened.
It just is.
You helped me to love who I am. I guess it’s only fitting that you have the right to destroy me too.”