Drip Drop Teardrop, a Novella (12 page)

“
No.” She
hurried to assure him. “Don’t. It wasn’t your fault.”

He waved away her
reassurances and stood back up. “I just came to see if you were
alright. I don’t know where you learned to do what you did, but I’m
glad. I’m glad you weren’t hurt because of me. Goodbye
Ave-”

“
No!” She
yelled and then bit her lip, glancing back to make sure she hadn’t
woken Aunt Caroline.

Brennus stilled, startled
by her exclamation. He frowned down at her. “What?”

Feeling a little
unsettled sitting at his feet, Avery struggled to her feet and
gazed up into his face imploringly. “Brennus… I- I miss
you.”

His jaw clenched. “I miss
you, too.”

“
No.” She
reached for him, clutching a hold of his arm, her fingers digging
into his skin in desperation. “I mean, I
miss
you. Tonight I went to the club
looking for you.”

His eyes widened and he
clasped her hand tight. “Avery?”

She smiled softly,
reassuringly, and then lifted a hand to silence him. In a hush, she
went over to Caroline and stared down at her aunt’s peaceful, yet
sickly face. Slowly, so not to wake her, she leaned over and
pressed a gentle kiss to her aunt’s forehead.

Just as silently she
returned to Brennus’ side to take his hand. “I want to make the
deal.”

The colours of the room
faded around her until she vanished from the Brooklyn apartment.
The only evidence of her existence was her tiny teardrop that had
dripped onto her aunt’s cheek.

It slid down off
Caroline’s chin and splashed onto her favourite sweater.

Indelible.
Eternal.

You Can Feel
the Earth Shake

When They Start
to Dance

They closed the deal. In
more ways than one.

Avery stretched like a
cat. A naked, satisfied cat. She smiled with her eyes closed and
let Brennus pull her back into his body.

“
I don’t ever
want to get up,” she said softly, stroking a finger along his
cheek.

He took hold of it and
kissed it. “I know. But we have to.”

She grinned at the colour
of his pallor. He was no longer pale. He was no longer Ankou. And
she was no longer mortal. “Why? We have all of eternity to get
up.”

The sheepish look he gave
her made her draw back from him a little.

“
What did you
do?”

He sighed, rubbing his
cheek with his fist. It was a gesture of his when he wasn’t looking
forward to telling her something. “I may have promised the house to
the new Ankou.”

She felt a twinge of
disappointment. She loved the house. “But this is your
home.”

“
If I can use
the old cliché, my home is wherever you are.” He pressed a soft
kiss to her lips and she melted into him happily.

***

As they sat on the fire
escape, peering inside her old apartment, Avery was glad that some
of Brennus’ powers remained intact. Like not being seen by her Aunt
Caroline as they watched her move around the apartment. She was
wearing cycling shorts and a sports top, her sneakers squeaking
against the hardwood floors as she rushed around getting her stuff
together. There was no sign of the cancer. She looked younger than
ever. Avery’s eyes prickled with happy tears. Brennus had given her
such a wonderful gift. As Caroline passed the telephone cabinet in
the corner, Avery spotted a picture of her parents instead of the
photo of her at her prom.

Brennus had kept his
promise. She hadn’t existed. No one remembered her to miss her.
Avery thought she’d feel sadder about that. But the truth was…
maybe she hadn’t ever existed.

“
Brennus?”
She asked softly as Caroline left the apartment. “Would you have
taken Caroline away from me before her time, like you
threatened?”

He stared deep into her
eyes. “I wouldn’t have had to. She wasn’t going to last
long.”

Avery took a deep breath.
“But if she hadn’t been…?”

“
Truth?”

“
Truth.”

That ruthless glint she
had seen in his eyes that first night was back. “I would have done
anything to have you.”

She nodded slowly. He was
being honest. There was a darkness in him. He had lived too long.
Seen too much. And in the end he hadn’t taken Caroline before her
time. Plus…Avery had chosen him, hadn’t she, despite all that. She
shrugged to herself. There was darkness in everybody. She loved
Brennus. Not the man she thought he should be. Maybe that made her
dark and twisty like him, but at least it made her
something.

“
You glad you
made a deal with the devil?” Brennus murmured in her ear, his arm
warm and strong encircled around her back.

Avery smiled into his
eyes and leaned forward to press a quick kiss to his mouth. “With
this devil, yes.”

When he
grinned back at her, she saw herself in his eyes. That person in
there, shining back at her… that person
existed
. He and Caroline had made
sure of it in the end. She brushed her fingers across his jaw in
affectionate thanks.

“
So what
now?” He asked softly, glancing around them pointedly.

“
Now?” Avery
grinned and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him close.
“Now… dance me home.”

The
End

Read on for a
Sneak Preview of Samantha Young’s upcoming Fantasy Romance
‘
Slumber
’...

Slumber (The
Tale of a Sleeping Beauty)

…
Sleeping
Beauty may be the damsel in distress, but her White Knight? Why her
rather un-knightish best friend of course. And the White Knight’s
White Knight? Well… none other than her reluctant mortal
enemy…

When Haydyn falls victim
to the mysterious Sleeping Disease, the world of Phaedra is thrown
into Chaos.

Rogan, Haydyn’s best
friend and handmaiden, is the only one who can save her. Together,
with the Royal Guard and their young Captain, Wolfe Stovia, Rogan
must set off across the provinces to find the Somna Plant that will
wake Haydyn from her dying sleep.

Beset on all sides by the
chaos, Rogan tumbles into a dark world of kidnapping, prejudice,
betrayal and love… a journey that will change her forever, and a
journey that will change their world forever, if she does not
retrieve the cure.

YA Fantasy for Older
Readers…

Prologue

When I was a child the
world smelled of summer.

The heady perfume of the
dancing wildflowers would hug my senses every time the breeze
rattled their song and took them with it on its journey to soothe
my cheeks from the heat of the afternoon sun. The relieving scent
of the damp soil when the sun had pushed the sky too far and it
wept rain for days on end, before wearily turning the world back
over to its golden companion. The refreshing aroma of lemons in the
thick air of the house, mixing with my mother’s baking as she
prepared our afternoon repast of bitter lemonade and thick warm
bread, slathered with creamy butter made cold from the sheltering
shade of the larder.

And my father’s
pipe.

The sweet odour of
tobacco tickling my nose as he held me close and whispered the
stories of our Salvation and the mighty Kral who lived in the
grandest palace in all the land with his beautiful daughter the
Princezna... how kind and gentle they were... the reason my private
world was one of innocence and endless summer.

My memories of that life
never leave me. The sounds of my brother’s laughter carrying back
to my young, happy ears as we ran through the fields of gold and
purple, racing over the farm to the brook that ran behind our land.
The gentle trickle of that stream drew us each day; my brother for
the rope swing he had looped around the strongest tree, the one
with the trunk that seemed to bend towards the water as if thirsty
for a taste of its pure relief. For me I was drawn to its coolness
on my skin, its moisture in my dry mouth, its familiar smell...
like damp metal and wet grass.

Sometimes I hear my
mother calling our names in my dreams.

There was no warning to
summer’s end. Its end began like any other day. I lay with my
brother beneath the shadow of an oak by the brook’s edge, my young
voice barely heard above the babbling water as I recounted the
story my father had told me over and over, to my little brother. I
could hear my father’s rich voice in my head, remember every word
and as I recited it, I remembered to speak in the hushed, awed
tones my father used to make a story sound as magical as this one
really was.

“
Aeons and
aeons ago, our people were the most blessed of mankind. Powerful
and beautiful we could tap into Mother Nature and draw from her
powers; magical beings, spiritual and wondrous to behold. But
mankind grew envious of us, and wise as we were, we knew mankind,
with so many wars already brewing between its people, could not
withstand a war with us. The wisest of us persuaded us it was time
to fade from mankind’s earth, to fade as one into a world of our
own. We drew from the earth and imagined a paradise. Mankind began
to melt around us as we fell deep, deep into the fade. When our
people awakened it was to find themselves here, in the Phade, in a
new born land, a sky, a moon, a sun, trees, plants, water, and all
animals familiar to them awaiting them, awaiting them to begin the
new world in peace. Fearful of our emotions betraying us as they
had to mankind, it was decided that the Dyzvati, a clan of magical
evokers, with the ability to lull the people and the land with
peace, would reign as the royal family. The Dyzvati named our land
Phaedra, splitting it into our six provinces, giving a province to
the clans with the most powerful magic. Sabithia, in the south, was
taken by the Dyzvati, and they built a beautiful palace in the
capital city of Silvera, where the shores of the Silver Sea edge
its coast with its vibrant silver surf. To the Clan Glava, the
largest and most powerful of the mage with their many psychic
abilities, whether it be reading the past, present or future, or
shifting objects and summoning elements with their mind, was given
Javinia to the east of Sabithia and also Daeronia in the
northeast.” I turned my head to smile at my brother who gazed at me
enraptured by the story. “And our own slice of haven, Vasterya, was
given to the Clan Azyl; seekers, mage with the ability to seek
whatever their hearts desired. Eventually, the Azyl became servants
of the Dyzvati, using their abilities to seek whatever the royal
family wished, helping the upkeep of the peace in Phaedra. Many
centuries onwards and the Azyl’s magic had evolved with their
position; no longer able to seek that which they wished for
themselves, only what others wanted sought.”

“
That’s a
little unfair.” My brother frowned and I nodded in agreement. I
thought so.

“
Anyway, the
province of Daeronia, beyond the northern borders of Sabithia, was
given to Clan Dravilec, the healers, to keep them close to the
Dyzvati.” I thought on how much a fairytale this sounded now, a
many millennia on from the beginning of Phaedra. “Now there are so
few mage left. Papa says there are none left in Vasterya at all.
And now only the Kral and Princezna Haydyn remain of the
Dyzvati.”

My brother hadn’t been
listening to me anymore or my woe over our people’s sad evolution.
“What about Alvernia?” My brother asked instead in a hushed
voice.

I shivered at the thought
of Alvernia; the stories I’d heard of the rough, uncivilised
northern mountain people, terrifying tales of their macabre
misdeeds and unsettling lifestyle, all because the power of the
Dyzvati began to wane towards the middle of Alvernia.

“
It was given
to those of middling magical abilities. A few of the Glava went
with them, as there were so many, and set themselves up in the
southern most point in the city of Arrana.”

“
Where the
Vojvoda lives?”

“
Where the
Vojvoda lives.”

“
I wish I was
a vojvoda. Or a Markiza. Or a Vikomt!” He cried excitedly, pushing
himself up into a sitting position. “I’d have horses. Lots of
horses. And gold! We could play treasure hunt!”

I laughed and pushed him
playfully. “All those titles and you didn’t choose the
best.”

“
What?!” He
pouted.

I stood up, bracing my
small hands against my youthful hips, legs astride, chin defiant.
“Why… Kral of course!”

“
Yeah!” He
jumped to his feet now, mimicking my stance. “I am Kral of
Vasterya!”

“
And
me?”

“
My servant,
of course.”

I growled in outrage.
“Servant indeed.”

I still remember the
sounds of his beautiful laughter as I chased him for his
teasing.

At the grumbling of our
bellies, my younger brother and I reluctantly ceased playing and
began walking back towards the house. I remember holding his hand
as we wove our way through the fields. I remember the gust of wind
that shook the gold and purple and blew my hair back from my face,
sending shivers of warning down my spine. My feet moved faster
then, tugging on my brother each time my heart beat a little
quicker.