Icarus; The Kindred (A Paranormal Romance) (19 page)

"I don't have any unfinished business with you. You stole ten years from my life, not to mention my son! I missed all that stuff that only comes once, like his first words and his first steps. And why am I naked?"

"Your dream, not mine," he laughs. "The last ten years weren't all bad. Remember the night we watched all those god-awful science fiction movies back to back?"

We both fell asleep on the couch sometime around 4 a.m., if I recall correctly, and woke up with the sun coming through the big picture window, all golden and beautiful. "Sure, no big deal."

He leans forward to kiss my forehead. "Maybe not, but what about all the times you came back to me after we fought?"

"What about them? I've already admitted to you that I loved you. That's past tense, if you didn't hear me clearly. I had no knowledge of who I really was, so I can't be held responsible for my actions."

"Or your emotions?"

"I didn't have the benefit of all of the information." I pull out of his arms and sit on the bed. The sheets are bunched up on his side, where he's tangled them in his legs during the night. I can't tell you how many mornings I woke up this way; nothing covering me but his arm, or leg, or whatever part of him he could manage to hold onto me with.

Like I would be stolen away.

"You were stolen, Jess. But, I never held it against you. I was made out to be a fool. You sat next to me at his table, knowing how close the two of you had become and yet you let me confess my excitement over our engagement in front of everyone."

"What was I supposed to say?" I don't recall any of this.

"You may not remember it, but that doesn't mean the memories aren't there. Remember feeling that crippling sorrow the night you and Jacelynd—"

I stop him. "How could I forget? I don't know how you managed that, but—"

His next words make me want to scream. "The same way I am doing this. And I didn't force those feelings on you. You felt what
I
felt."

Chills race over my skin. "What?"

He sits down next to me and says softly, "I'm not trying to upset you. And I have nothing to do with any other part of your dream. But you seeing me here tied your mind to my dream. I had a feeling this might happen, though when you'd think about me again was anyone's guess."

"So you aren't the reason I'm naked? Or that your insides could very well fall out any moment?"

"No. That's all you and," he sweeps his fingers through my hair, "I have been gentle with you. You're just not the gentle type. You don't remember all the times I tucked you in after you'd fallen asleep on the couch, or in the car, or wherever. When I nursed you back to health after you refused my blood and almost died twice because of your injuries. You were waiting on Jacelynd and I was truthful with you—I told you then that Jacelynd wouldn't find you at my estate. After Iris told me what she'd done, I brought you here. Most of the rooms, aside from this one and several others, are lined in steel. It interferes with the mental connection of a Blood Tithe. He couldn't find you because he couldn't hear you."

"I wondered why I hadn't told him where I was before the Tithe was broken." I touch the lower part of my shoulder, where the burn scars begin. "You could have told him. You could have let me go. You say all of this like you want me to see you as some knight in shining armor."

"We were friends once and that's the only reason I did what I did when Iris called me. I didn't plan on falling in love with you. I stayed close by and then made sure I was assigned as your mentor."

"So when exactly did you fall in love with me, Trinity? When did you stop seeing me as an old friend who'd betrayed your pride?"

He is quiet for a moment before answering, and when he finally does, it makes me feel more than I want to. "I love Lucan like he is my own son, and in him I see what could have been, what
should
have been. He should have been
our
son, Jessica. In him, I see all of the reasons I loved you as a friend first and foremost. The night of your first solo assignment, when you pulled into my driveway just to be near me—something changed in me and I felt more than just physical attraction for you. I held you that night and something came alive in me.

"We've known each other since we were children," he continues. "You've joked about my age, but I'm only six years older than you. You used to tag along with me and my friends. You were an annoying little thing—always wanting to play our games and be in on our boyhood secrets. You chased us one day after I'd been particularly nasty to you and you fell on a bunch of sharp stones just above the riverbank. It's where you got the scar on your ankle. You didn't shed a single tear or cry out. You just sat there staring at the rock like it had come out of nowhere. Most girls your age, immortal or not, would have collapsed into pieces. I didn't even know you were there until your cousin came up behind you and said something to us."

"Quinn."

He nods. "We had a lengthy conversation about how little he cared for me. As I'm sure he's told you by now, we never really got along."

"I got that impression."

"I'll never forget the first day I saw you as a young woman. We were both stuck at a ball, one of my family's events, and you were trying your damndest to avoid dancing. You said it felt like a meat market," he laughs, "and it was, in a way. You were there because you had come of age. Our parents had already made our marital arrangements but neither family wanted us to miss out on the festivities, being the revelers they were. Everyone wanted to be near you, Jess. You lit up a room just by walking in."

As he is talking, the absurd thought crosses my mind that I still light up a room, but it's usually with some sort of accelerant.

"I hadn't seen you for a few years," he continues, "so it took me a minute to find you. You were moping around in the shadows, avoiding everyone. And you were every bit as breathtaking as I had been told, as you are now."

"Had you already decided to murder the Seer Cleric and his entire family, or did that come later?" I'm touched by all this mushy talk, but I'm not letting him forget what drove us apart initially, why we would never have worked out anyway. I'm also reminding myself.

"My father had his ways and I had limited political dealings until I turned twenty-three the following year. Those were bloody times, Jessica, and not just in our veiled world. All of Ireland was at war." He looks down and his brow creases in thought. "You know, Iris was there that night as well. I'd forgotten."

She'd said that she'd lived her whole life in my shadow. "Is Iris older or younger than me?"

"Iris is my age and was well past the age of traditional courtship—for that time. She hadn't been spoken for."

This brings to mind my conversation with the Death Dealer. "Iris survived the explosion."

"I saw her go back into Callmadus. She couldn't have. She may have had things going on that wouldn't have been—"

"No, listen to me. The Death Dealer told us she was leading the raid on Kerius."

Trinity looks like he has no idea what I'm talking about. "I wasn't aware Kerius had been hit."

"For a tyrant, you sure are missing out on a lot lately."

"I'm not a tyrant."

"Lord Tristan? Seer Cleric so feared that no one dares to speak your name aloud without looking behind them? You weren't under the impression that you were known for your clement nature, were you? You have an inconceivable temper. You threatened to wipe my memories completely, do you recall this? Are you forgetting the conversations we've had in the last few days or were you bluffing?"

"I wasn't bluffing, but I was hoping you'd change your mind. Drive all night and surprise me again."

He's referring to one of the many times we'd argued. I'd said I never wanted to hear his name again, let alone see him. I felt guilty and wound up driving through a mad snowstorm to see him in Michigan. I don't even remember what he was in Michigan for, though I may never have known. We didn't leave the hotel room much.

"You aren't going to change
your
mind, are you?" I ask him. "It's not too late to stop this. The virus scare will die down. You don't have to announce the vaccine."

He smiles sadly. "You'll see soon enough. Watch the news tomorrow night and you'll see what mankind does to each other when their true nature is exposed. Don't grant them your pity, Jessica. They had none for us."

I reach out to touch his chest, where the wound is, but can't bring myself to follow through. "Is it painful?"

"Hurts like hell, now that you mention it." He sits still for a second, the wheels in his head turning, before cradling my face in his hands. I half-expect him to kiss me, but he doesn't. He just looks at me, his vivid sapphire eyes glistening with emotion. "It's time to wake up, Jess."

I wake with a start and Quinn stops moving.
He's standing where Jace had been sitting and is wrestling with a bag from the overhead compartment.

"Jess?" he asks.

Should I say something about the dream? "I'm fine."

He stands motionless, probably trying to determine my truthfulness, before kneeling in the seat next to me. "You aren't fine," he whispers.

"How did I get the scar on my ankle?" I ask.

"You were being the tomboy that you always were. You fell when you were six."

"You're leaving out the part about me chasing Tristan."

He looks like he's seen a ghost. "You're remembering things? Probably because of your conversation with us earlier. Maybe it jogged your memory."

Actually, I don't remember. Trinity told me. At least, I think he told me. It very well could have been my own brain I was conversing with. I don't want to ask Trinity mentally because I fear bringing Jacelynd into this. "Maybe. It's a little unsettling, that's all."

He seems to buy my excuse. "I never liked him much, but he wasn't always evil. He was just like the rest of us once. His father, on the other hand, was born corrupted." He smiles at me again before returning to the epic struggle in the overhead compartment.

I turn around in my seat and look to the back of the plane. Jacelynd is speaking quietly with Nicodemus. His expression is tender, almost sorrowful. I mildly consider scolding Jace for not reminding me that a Blood Tithe can interfere with your dreams, but he doesn't look like he can handle that conversation right now, so I suck it up and pretend it hasn't happened.

Customs is interesting. We apparently have friends in high places, because despite the fact that this is the smallest airport I've ever been in, we are whisked away and let in through a back door. Not to mention that I haven't renewed my passport in … well, I've never had one, but I'll be damned if one doesn't materialize by the time I need it. Jacelynd pulls them from his jacket pocket and they're checked only briefly before we're released into the parking lot.

Once we're out of the building, I look around and am amazed at how beautiful this place is. Postcards and coffee table books just don't show you how amazing a place Ireland really is. It's like trying to take a panoramic picture with a disposable camera. You just have to be here.

"Why did we ever leave?" I ask. We are getting into several vehicles that are magically waiting on us with keys in the ignition. Do we have people everywhere?

"We didn't. You and I stayed here after most of the others made the transition to America. We still traveled to the states often, you've already seen the house at Cape San Blas and the safe haven in Kerius, but this is home. This is where I was when Quinn and Damian called to say that Blake had been taken and they'd found you."

"That's why you came later?"

"I would have come for you myself had I been in the States."

That would have been interesting. "Is this where we were when I—"

"The band you wanted to hear was playing in Dublin."

I'd caught a slight trace of an accent in Jacelynd's voice, but after 500 years of being in multiple places, some of it must have faded. "Were we born here?"

"Yes. Our parents, while not immortal, were abnormally long-lived—do you remember me telling you that?" I nod. "They initially tried to live an unsheltered existence. You've heard of the Druids and Celtic Chieftains? They worshipped our people as gods."

"Whatever happened to my brain, whosever memories I have all mixed up with mine, she flunked history. Twice. At least. So I can't tell you much about them. But, sure, it all sounds familiar. Just don't ask me anything detailed."

"That's actually pretty funny, all things considered. Well, our people were driven into obscurity for a variety of reasons. Several Houses fought this and maintained their outward existence. The House of Thorn was one of them."

"So your court was hidden?"

"Sort of. It certainly wasn't easy to get to."

Jacelynd is driving now and something strikes me as to the differences between him and Trinity. Trinity never drives himself anywhere. In fact, he rarely does anything for himself. Jacelynd, the one who supposedly had a whole kingdom at his beck and call, is so humble. It's in his eyes and his smile. There isn't an arrogant bone in his body. I doubt there ever was.

"You were riding through
my
woods when I chased you that day," he says, grinning.

"Really? Did I know it?"

"Yeah, you sure did. And you didn't hesitate to tell me so. I didn't think you knew who I was, judging by the boldness in your tone, but, as I said, you put me in my place." He has a distant look on his face, like he's hearing echoes of our conversation. "My father knew it the instant he saw me that night. He said I had the same lovelorn look in my eyes as the day he met my mother."

I've always been one to like my space. I don't share too well and this usually extends to vehicular elbow room. It used to drive Trinity nuts. He would want me to sit closer to him on long trips, and I would always prefer to curl my knees against the passenger side door and lay my head on my own hands. But when Jacelynd extends his arm to pull me to him, nothing could keep me from tucking into his side and resting my head against his chest. He takes my hand briefly and affectionately kisses my palm before pressing it against his heart.

And suddenly it all makes sense. Trinity and I fought because everything he wanted of me was what I'd already given freely to Jacelynd. Somehow, though my head had no knowledge of it, my heart knew these things. Jacelynd would never have to tell me to say his name, because my soul resonates with his presence, even when we were miles and lifetimes apart. I dreamed of him because his existence is intertwined eternally with mine. His love for me, our love for each other, is part of who I am, perhaps the only part of me that can never be undone. I didn't drive to Trinity's that night to be near him. I drove there subconsciously because it was the last place I'd ever been myself. The last place I'd thought of Jacelynd. I don't realize that I'm crying until he wipes the tears from my face.

"Sweetheart, what is it?"

I want to tell him. I want him to know that I never let go of him, not in all those years, not through all that Trinity made me believe, but I don't know how.

"Ssh, it's all right." He strokes my cheek soothingly. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. Don't worry about the words."

"I fought against every
truth
that Trinity presented to me, because my heart knew otherwise. My chest ached when I first heard your voice. I don't know what you've pictured in your head, how you see whatever relationship he's led you to believe existed between him and me, but it wasn't what you think." I'm floundering between my last sentence and the one that's forming on my lips when he softly replies.

"My love, I know." I don't say anything because I'm not sure if he means ideally, or truly. "In the back seat, there is a backpack. Get it." I do as he says and once it's sitting in my lap he says, "Open it. You'll find a fabric-covered journal."

I unzip it and sure enough, there is a tattered journal on top. It's a soft country blue with little pink flowers on it. Not something I could ever imagine buying for myself. I pull it out and open to the first page. I see my handwriting and I think this must be from before I was taken. Then I notice the date.

"Nicodemus found some of your things at the estate. He stumbled across this in Tristan's nightstand. He gave it to me at the house and I read it while you were sleeping on the plane."

This isn't a journal. It's a book of letters—tearful, heartfelt letters to Jacelynd. I must have written them during my pregnancy. "This is what you were talking with Nico about."

He nods as he pulls me back to his side then kisses the top of my head. "We can't undo the past, and as hard as Tristan tried, he couldn't either. I can't imagine why he would have held on to these, save to remind himself of all the things we shared, maybe with the hope of claiming them as his own. The last letter is addressed to him. You knew by then what was going to happen."

I take a deep breath before reading the first one.

Jacelynd. My love, my life,

Where to begin? I've always taken for granted your ability to hear my thoughts, to hear me when I think of you. Do you hear me now? Is there still some small part of you that's connected to me? In the darkness of this hour, I am left alone with all the things I never told you because I assumed we'd have forever—that I would never know this kind of hollowing in my heart. This silence, where your voice once was. It's like part of my soul has been sheared away. Most of all, I wish I'd told you that I am carrying our child. I was waiting to surprise you, but that seems so inconsequential now. Everything does. It all pales in comparison to how desperately I miss you. I miss the way your eyes soften when you see me, the way you laugh and the way you joke with me when no one else is around. I miss your arms around me. I long for the passion in your kiss. I long to feel your heart beating.

I can't imagine what you must be going through. With our Tithe broken, do you know that I am still alive, or do you fear me dead? In a way, I am grateful that you don't know where I am. He's taken so much from you already. Know that no matter what happens, no matter what events occur or who I am forced to become, I will always love you. Nothing can change that. There hasn't been a single day since we first met that I haven't fallen more in love with you than the last. These days are no different. Like my very first kiss, granted to you in the shaded sanctuary of a festival so long ago, so will all of my days and nights belong only to you.

I will never stop looking for you. Whether I know your name or not matters little, because my soul will know its other half. You'll speak and my heart will ache. I fear what Tristan has in store, but I have faith in you. I know you'll find us. I love you.

Eternally yours,

Jessi

Jacelynd has his arm securely around me as I flip through the next few letters. "You never told me that our kiss that night was your first," he says sweetly.

"In five hundred years that never came up?" Though, come to think of it, I don't want to hear about his first kiss, so maybe that was the reason we never talked about it.

"No, not really. I teased you from time to time about being a coveted bride, which—and you'll have to take my word on this—you were. Iris was jealous of you with good reason. She's older than you, but you were the one who garnered all the attention. You've never met anyone whose affections you couldn't sway."

I smirk because I know for a fact this is not true. Not one of my targets confessed undying devotion while I was kicking their ass. "Yours are all that matter to me."

For the next half hour, I read most of the letters. Tristan, whom I never called Trinity, wasn't there as much as I thought he would be. Like he'd told me, he was only holding me at his estate because we'd once been friends. Had we not, he would have let them wipe my memory immediately, whether or not it hurt my unborn child. In fact, judging by how much he clearly hates Jacelynd, had the circumstances been different, he might well have done it on purpose. He certainly didn't mind having the blood of Jacelynd's family on his hands.

Finally, I come to the last letter.

Tristan,

Are you surprised to find this letter addressed to you? If I know you half as well as I believe I do, then you've read every word of every page thus far. Which means you have a decision to make: dispose of this journal or hold onto it. Before you make your choice, consider these things:

I've never hated you. I should. I have more than enough reasons. But, beneath who you have become, I see the friend I grew to care for when we were children. The boy who wouldn't let me join his games, yet rushed to tell me all about them after his friends had gone home. I see the well-meaning young Lord who found me pouting in the shadows of the Samhain Ball. You were different then, there's no use denying it. You know this to be true. We spoke that night, after you forced me onto the dance floor, about so many things. You spoke of peace and righteousness—not only for our kind, but for all living beings. You were inexperienced and idealistic, but you meant what you said. Have you changed so much that you can no longer remember those days and that righteousness that gave you such strength of presence?

You blame Jacelynd for taking me from you and yet you fail to see where you lost me of your own accord. You stopped listening to that side of yourself the moment you began listening to your father. You blame Jacelynd for stealing my heart, but Tristan, you cannot steal what was never yours to begin with. You never loved me. You still don't. You wanted me by your side because of what I could bring your house. And now, you merely seek vengeance.

Tomorrow brings events I have feared for months. Lucan lies fast asleep against my chest as I write this, which makes me wonder if he will ever know my name. Will he ever call me Mother? Or is it your intention to take that from me as well? I think I know the answer, but we shall see. By the time you find this, it will be too late to undo it without mortal repercussions, and I don't believe you have it in you to harm me. Not physically.

I could wake tomorrow believing any number of things about my life and my relationship with you. I know the options that are on the table and what you've told me you are going to do, but if I'm right, you'll change your mind at the last minute. You won't erase my past, not all of it, because you don't want to change who I am. You'll alter my memories, and you'll remove all traces of yourself. This ultimately means I won't know I have a child. My heart will. My heart will know everything. But my mind will have forgotten him. And you, and every good and pleasant memory I have of our past as friends.

This journal is the only evidence that I ever cared for you …