Firelight (24 page)

“Will!” I rush forward and hold the blinds so he can climb inside the room. “What are you doing?

You gave me a heart attack.”

“I saw your sister leave, but figured I shouldn’t knock on the door. Is your mom here?”

“She’s at work.”

He grins, moves in, and wraps his arms loosely around me. “So I have you to myself.”

I smile, squeeze him back, loving that he misses me like I miss him. Even though we saw each other earlier today, I feel stronger with him here, the world not so scary and overwhelming.

We sit on the floor, our backs against my bed. Hands laced together, we talk. He tells me more about his family. About his cousins. All of them. Even his uncles and other cousins. But it’s Xander that worries me.

“Xander hates my guts,” Will comments.

“Why?”

Will pauses, and I feel the tension tighten his body. “My dad, my uncles…they favor me.”

“Why?”

He sighs, and there’s pain in the sound. “I don’t want to talk about—”

“Tell me,” I insist, determined to figure out this thing with Xander.

“I guess I’m better at certain stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” I ask, even as a whisper winds through me, warning me to stop, to end this line of questioning. That I don’t really want to know.

“I’m a better hunter, Jacinda.”

My hand stills in his. I stare down at it, marveling at my hand nestled so trustingly in his, and I feel a little sick. I try to tug it free. Because it’s just too much. How am I supposed to handle that?

He clamps down. “I don’t want to lie to you, Jacinda. I’m the best tracker in my family. It’s like I’m tuned in to your kind…. I can’t explain it. It’s just a feeling I get whenever I’m close—”

I nod. It makes sense now. The way he reacted that day in the hall; it was like he felt me there before he even saw me. “It’s okay,” I murmur, and realize that I mean it. If this is part of the reason he’s drawn to me, I couldn’t hold it against him. Not when I crave him like oxygen for my starved lungs to keep my draki alive. “So that’s why your family needs you so much.”

“Yeah.” He nods, his honey brown hair tossing forward on his forehead. “But it never felt right. I never believed dragons, uh, draki, were dangerous creatures in need of killing. Not like my father wants me to think. Ever since I saw you in the mountains, I haven’t led them to any more draki. I can’t. I won’t.”

I smile then and start to wonder if my coming here hadn’t been for this reason. For Will. For me.

For my species everywhere.

Eventually, we get around to the question I hoped it would never occur to him to ask. Another matter I have not let myself think upon too much. Because I can’t stand the prospect.

“So what about life span?” His head drops back on the edge of the bed, watching me. “Is it true?”

So calm. So easy. So natural. It’s always like this with him. Like he’s not asking me this. Not asking me for my expiration date. “You can live forever?”

“We’re not immortal.” I try to cough up a laugh. Fail. “We can’t live forever.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Still watching me with a calmness that doesn’t meet the bright gleam in his eyes. Because he knows. He knows that even if we’re not immortal, it’s not as simple as being mortal. “How long do you live?”

I wet my lips. “It’s different for everyone, of course—”

“How long?”

“Nidia, the oldest draki in our pride, is three hundred and eighty-seven.” For a flash of a second, he looks stricken. Then it’s gone. Cool neutrality back in its place. I quickly add, “That’s long. Really old for us. Not the norm. Two hundred…three hundred is a closer average.”

“Average,” he echoes.

I keep talking, like I can stop him from thinking about it…about the gulf my words build between us. Not that we don’t already have enough obstacles. “We think sheer will alone is keeping Nidia alive. She’s special to our pride. We need her too much, so she’s hanging on for us.” I laugh weakly, hating how quiet he is.

“So you won’t start looking old until…when?”

I shrug uneasily. “Well, we never really look…old.” Not “human” old, anyway.

“How old does this Nidia look?”

I bite my lip and lie. “Maybe fifty-five. Sixty.”

Not quite the truth. She looks closer to mid-forties, and that’s as old as I’ve seen any draki ever look. We simply don’t age the way a human does. My mom is only starting to age because she’s suppressed her draki for so long.

“So when I’m a silver-haired sixty-year-old you’ll look…?”

“Younger,” I say, my throat tight and aching. And not because he’ll look older or less beautiful. But because if I’m around, I will be able to do nothing. Nothing but watch him decay, weaken, and ultimately die.

“Can we talk about something else?” I tear my hand from his to drag it through the impenetrable mass of my hair, hoping he doesn’t notice when I sneak in a rub at my eyes.

Right then, I hear the front door open and shut.

We scramble to our feet in a mad rush. Will’s out the window minutes before Tamra enters the room.

Sitting on my bed, I try to look casual, try not to glance at the window he disappeared through. Try not to think about our last words, the look on his face…the chill in my heart knowing he will die long before me.

I never let myself think about it before, never mulled over the distant prospect. But knowing what I do now—that he loves me, that I’ll never leave here, that I want us to be together forever—it’s impossible to stop the dread from sinking its teeth into me.

Forever won’t last that long for him.

Firelight

27

I wake to the smell of coffee and bacon. I sniff deeper. No. Sausage. Definitely. And frying eggs.

I glance at Tamra’s empty bed across from me and then the clock. Eight fifteen AM. The aroma swims around me. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I prop up on my elbows, wondering if Mom forgot to turn the coffee off. My stomach growls. But that didn’t explain the food smell.

“Well, I guess that answers my question.” The deep velvet voice startles me.

I jump, grab my pillow like I’m going to use it as a weapon.

Will stands in the doorway, sipping from a metallic travel mug. His gray T-shirt stretches across his shoulders and chest in a way that makes my throat close up.

“What question?” I ask, breathless.

“Whether you’re as beautiful in the morning as you are during the rest of the day.”

“Oh,” I say dumbly, pushing the tangle of hair back off my shoulders, certain I don’t look good right now, just rolling out of bed. Not that I take pains with my appearance on the average day, but still…who looks their best fresh out of bed? “You’re here again,” I murmur.

“Apparently.”

“Can’t stay away?”

“Apparently not.”

I’m okay with that. Great, in fact.

“I made you breakfast,” he adds.

“You can cook?” I’m impressed.

He grins. “I live in a bachelor household, remember? My mom died when I was a kid. I hardly remember her. I kind of had to learn to cook.”

“Oh,” I murmur, then sit up straighter. “Wait a minute. How’d you get in here?”

“Opened the front door.” He takes another sip from his mug and looks at me like I’m in trouble.

“Your mom really should lock the door when she leaves.”

I arch a brow. “Would that have kept you out?”

He smiles a little. “You know me well.”

And I guess I do. I understand the whole not-being-what-your-family-wants thing. Understand what it feels like to be a constant disappointment. Together, in this, we are the same.

His smile fades. “But there are other threats—”

“And a locked door would keep them out, right?”

Instantly, I regret reminding him of that fact. Regret the shadow that falls over his face and darkens his eyes to green.

“Hey,” I say, rising from bed, determined to make him forget that sinister forces exist, ready to harm me…and tear us apart. That he lives side by side with some of them. Probably the worst of them. The pride doesn’t want me dead, after all. Even the enkros aren’t an immediate danger.

They’re faceless, misty-figured demons to me, a hidden boogeyman, a threat only if hunters catch me and turn me over to them.

“Let’s not go there,” I say, wrapping my arms around his waist.

He squeezes me so hard air gusts from my lips. “I don’t want you hurt. Ever.”

There’s something in his voice, in the way he holds me—a starkness, an intensity that makes my skin tremble and my stomach clench.

And I wonder if he knows something more. If he hasn’t told me everything.

What else could there be?

I ignore the feeling and bury my face in his warm chest. The soft cool cotton of his shirt feels pleasant on my skin. “Then you might want to relax your hold ’cause you’re crushing me,” I tease.

“C’mon,” he says, taking my hand and leading me into the kitchen. “I’m starved. Let’s eat.”

His voice is normal now. Velvet deep. Smoothly even. Whatever I heard is gone. Later, I wonder if I imagined it.

“Will hasn’t been at school lately.”

I look up from my book at my sister’s nonchalant comment. Tamra works on the floor beside her bed. She watches me carefully, pen poised over her paper.

“Oh?” I say, proud at the calmness of my voice, that I don’t bite the baited hook. “Maybe he went out of town again.”

“No. His cousins are in school.” Evidently she’s aware of their fishing expeditions, although not their true prey.

I shrug and look back at my book. After a moment, I hear the scratch of her pen resume, and I breathe again…hoping I passed her test. Fortunately, Mrs. Hennessey hasn’t mentioned Will’s visits, and I don’t think she will. Somehow we’ve formed an alliance.

“Have you heard from him?”

Apparently, she’s not finished. And this is where it gets hard. Lying to my sister has never been easy, but telling her the truth may lead to other truths that she’s not ready to hear…and I’m not ready to confess.

“Nope.”

“Huh. Guess he’s not such a prince after all.” She looks at me directly. I resist insisting that Will is everything. A prince and more. “You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah. Never much believed in princes.”

“No kidding.” She shrugs, and I can’t help think about Cassian. She used to believe he was a prince.

I’m not sure she still doesn’t. “This running into frogs is new for you, that’s all.”

I grunt. Hoping to redirect her thoughts, I ask, “How’s Ben?”

“Fine. I guess.”

Meaning that Tamra isn’t into him. He’s not Cassian, after all. No matter how she had determined to move on, I’m certain Cassian is still there, larger than life in her head. Too bad. A boyfriend would distract her from worrying about me—from worrying over whether or not I’m going to blow it for her here. That is, more than I already have. A boyfriend would also give her that taste of normalcy she wants so badly.

Maybe I should tell her about Will. Explain to her that I want to stay here now, that I want to make it work. That I like Will that much…that I more than like him. That because of him, I can stay here.

I sigh. That would be a big conversation. Bigger than I want to have. She’ll find out tomorrow night anyway when he shows up for our date.

“I kind of like someone else now,” she says before I can say anything.

I look up. “Yeah? You found your prince?”

“Hmm. Maybe.” She nods, not elaborating, and I don’t push. Tamra won’t tell more than she wants to. We’re alike in that way, I guess. For too long, we’ve lived together, but separately, holding the deepest parts of our hearts hidden because the other won’t like what’s there. Problem is, we know each other well enough that it’s hard to hide much of anything.

I watch her for a moment, my lips parted, ready to break that trend. But no words materialize. Some habits are hard to break. I’m not ready to tell her about Will yet. Right now it’s a warm little secret hugged close to my heart. A beautiful butterfly I’ve managed to capture and hold carefully in my cupped hands.

She’ll know soon enough. For now, I’ll hold my lovely butterfly close and try not to crush it.

The following day, Will doesn’t put in his usual appearance.

Not surprising. He told me he would go to school today…. I harassed him until he promised. I don’t want him to get in trouble or flunk out because of me, and I don’t want to draw any more attention to myself with his family.

But since he’s promised me that before and always showed up anyway, I can’t help feel disappointed when the day wanes with no sight of him. Even with our date tonight, it’s a long stretch of hours without him.

I visit Mrs. Hennessey for a while. We watch a little television together before her nap, then I head home and spread out on my bed to catch up on schoolwork. I breeze through chemistry and start on my geometry—the quadratic formula. I learned it two years ago, so I’m working through the problems in an easy rhythm when I hear it.

A soft click.

A creaky floorboard.

My skin pops, dances, shivers with excitement. Will. I lower my pencil and sit up, brushing anxiously at my hair.

“Hello? Mom?” I’m convinced it’s not Mom but ask anyway. Just in case.

Nothing. Silence.

“Mrs. Hennessey?”

Rising, I move to my door and stare into the living room. The front door is open. Light streams in and tiny motes of dust dance inside the beams of sunshine. Just beyond, the pool gleams a blue so bright it hurts my eyes.

“Will?” I risk calling. My voice rings hopefully.

I stride forward, shooting a quick glance at the empty kitchen. Just in case he’s there, making us a snack. Nothing. At the front door, I peer outside, see nothing.

My lips twist in disappointment. No Will.

I close the door slowly, make sure it shuts solidly this time. My skin still ripples, snapping with energy. The kind of energy I feel around Will. Except Will would answer me.

Staring at the door, I chafe my arms, puckered to gooseflesh despite my body’s warmth. For what it’s worth, I go ahead and lock the door. The quiet feels thick and oppressive. Far too still.

My skin swims in heat, uncomfortably warm. A dip in the pool might help. With a hand on the hem of my shirt, I turn to get my suit. And scream.