Winter's Dream (The Hemlock Bay Series) (18 page)

Luka looked up at me, a crooked smile on his face. “Maybe that is the equivalent to asking for a date in our world.”

I shuddered, as much from his words as from the painful sensation of his fingers sweeping between my bones.

“So did you agree?” Luka prompted.

“Of course I did, it was my brother. And I didn’t know any better, I thought he was a dream. I certainly didn’t think he was some evil being bent on manipulating my life until he possessed me.”

“What did he do with you once he got the bracelets on?” The question sounded suggestive and I blushed a shade darker.

“Nothing. Well, nothing bad. He showed me around, we talked, spent time together.”

“Dated?” Luka clarified.

My face was beginning to heat. I didn’t want to talk to him about this, not after we had started to get close. But he was patiently waiting for an answer. “No. Well, sort of, I guess. He said he was just picking my brain for information about the human world he didn’t have access to.”

Luke leaned back from my wrist and inspected it. The swelling and bruising were gone and I could move it without pain. He pulled his perch closer and pulled me to the edge of the couch, my legs trapped between his. My face blistered with heat as he took it in his hands and pulled it within inches of his to inspect my eye. So close to him I could see his eyes were actually sea blue rimmed with silver. Thank God he was focusing on the eye I couldn’t open or I might have died of embarrassment.

He swiped a thumb over the swelling and I jumped. “I think you chipped a bone,” he murmured. “So what happened next?”

“Next I found out what was really going on. David informed me of everything, the Gatekeeping, Jordan’s lying, and I put an end to it.”

“You broke up with him?”

I gritted my teeth and he leaned closer to try to gently pry my eyelids apart. His breath was warm and sweet on my cheek. “It wasn’t like that.”

“It must have been for him. Not for you?”

“No.” I winced again at his prodding and he gave me an apologetic smile.

“Well, you seem way too angry for it to have been nothing for you.”

I pulled my face out of his hands. My eye was still swelled shut. “Sorry, was kidnapping my brother, lying to me and tricking me into being his prisoner not reason enough to be very, very angry?”

“Not this angry,” he said, taking my face back. “Hold still.”

I fumed while he worked and finally admitted, “Maybe it was something for me too. Before I found out the truth.”

“And that’s really why you’re angry. Because you fell in love with him and he betrayed you.”

“No,” I said a little too loudly. “I’m mad because he’s a total jerk.”

“A ‘total jerk’ who broke your heart.” He was insistent upon having the last word in this conversation. “Do you still love him?”

I opened my mouth to deny it fiercely but the words were mud in my mouth. Horrifyingly, I felt a tear slide out of my good eye and down my cheek. Luka wiped it away while still focusing on my injury. Embarrassed, I tried to pull away from him but his grip was strong.

“It’s okay,” he said gently. “I’m almost done. And I understand how you feel, believe it or not.” He paused to look me in the good eye. “And I won’t tell him.” After a moment he said, “There, done.”

He sat back and I gingerly felt my face and was relieved to feel both eyes slide open. Embarrassment and awkwardness radiated from me. “Thank you,” I said, as much for the healing as for the promise not to tell Jordan.

He flashed a quick smile. “You still have a concussion but there’s not much I can do about that unless you want me rummaging around in your brain.”

“No thanks,” I said quickly.

“Can I offer you some advice?” he asked, getting up.

I nodded, still wary.

“One, get some rest. Two, try to forget about him, about your feelings for him. It will only tear you apart in the end.”

I bit my lip and noticed. “Don’t like my advice?” he guessed.

“No, it’s very good advice, advice I’ve been trying to give myself for a while.” A little flash of hope lit his eyes.

“But you can’t? Forget about him, I mean?”

“How could I? He tore my family apart, he tricked me, he hurt my brother. Maybe you can’t choose who you fall in love with but you can choose who you
are
with. And I won’t choose him because I can’t trust him.”

Luka’s eyes were roaming my face long after I finished my painful explanation. Finally he said, “Maybe you can trust him now. I think he would give his life for you.”

My eyes narrowed. Why was he taking up for Jordan? Was I completely imagining the spark between us? “Being passionate and being trustworthy are two totally different things.”

He gave a little laugh and squeezed my shoulders before setting me back on the couch. I hesitated to ask my next question. “So you speak from experience?” I asked, leaning back against the couch. He cocked his head to the side. “I mean, trying to forget someone who isn’t good for you. You know what that feels like?”

“I do,” he said, his openness surprising me.

My next question was even harder to ask because I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the answer. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

He cocked his head as if confused. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You weren’t exactly friendly before,” I pointed out, trying to edge closer to what I really wanted to ask.

A crooked smile turned up one corner of his mouth. “You’re right. I apologize.”

“So why weren’t you?”

He ran a finger down the seam of his sleeve, carefully not looking me in the eye. “Out of practice, I suppose.”

His answer surprised me and I couldn’t help but tease him. “So you’re routinely rude to everyone?”

I thought maybe that would get me a full on smile but his face folded in on itself and I wished I had kept my snarky comment to myself. “No, not like that. But all the human girls I’ve met have been routinely … cold to me. And even my own kind shuns me. They view me as some sort of monster—imagine that.”

I nodded slowly, regretting how unkind I had been to him. I had just assumed …“But surely they know this isn’t your fault.”

He gave a quick nod. “They do. But kidnapping and probable murder still aren’t exactly standards of polite behavior.”

“What about the girls?” I asked. “Do they know this isn’t your fault?” I grimaced, thinking about chucking that statue at him when I thought the curse was his doing.

He shrugged. “If they do they don’t care. I don’t blame them.”

“And all the people here cooking and cleaning and otherwise running around?”

“Servants. Paid help.”

“So you have no one,” I concluded sadly.

“Right.” His tone was bright but he couldn’t hide the sadness behind it.

“But you did have someone once,” I guessed.

“Right again. But that is a story for another day.”

I sighed. “Yes. I need to go find my brother.”

“No, you don’t,” he said, gently pushing me back down on the couch when I tried to stand. “You need to rest.”

“I—”

“Your brother is fine. And you need to rest your bruised little brain.” He pointed out the window to two figures down by the beach. “Besides, he’s still talking with David.”

I looked around the room uncomfortably. “Yeah, but I’m sure he’s not happy about it—”

“He’ll live,” he said, his tone sharp.

“Lincoln’s been through a lot,” I snapped, always defensive of my brother.

Luka crossed his arms over his chest. “So have you.”

I crossed my own arms, resentful of the attack on my brother. “Yeah, but if it wasn’t for me, Linc—”

He leaned in and I shrank back against the couch until it didn’t give anymore. “It wasn’t your fault either and your brother isn’t perfect, so stop acting like he is. I saw what he did to you, there’s no excuse for that. A loving family member is a treasure. He should treat you like one.”

My temper flared. “You don’t even know him.”

He shrugged, his face infuriatingly blank again. “I don’t need to, I know you. I saw you run to him with complete joy and he threw you around like a rag doll. I get that he’s angry, I get that he’s scared. I get that he thinks he’s going to save you. I can see that being here, being around us, had changed him. But there is no excuse to treat someone like that.”

More evil, silent tears slipped down my cheeks. “He’s mad at me.”

Luka leaned back on the ottoman again, giving me some space. “Why?”

“Because it’s my fault he got caught up in all this.”

“You know that it’s not. But did he think it was?”

I sniffled and tried to discreetly wipe my nose on my sleeve. “Yes. I mean, after the accident he was so different, so skittish and quiet and scared. And my brother was never scared before. He was … perfect. American all-star high school prom king—but nice. And after the ‘accident’ he came back like a different person.” I shook my head, remembering how Lincoln had been. “And he was having nightmares. I had to sleep in his bed one night, they were so bad. He was piecing things together but was missing the final big piece. And I had to tell him.” The tears kept coming but it actually felt good to tell someone. I had never been able to talk to anyone about it. “So I told him about Jordan and what he did and I had to tell him what Jordan was to me.”

“I take it he was angry,” Luka said dryly.

“Furious. He left the house and I haven’t seen until now.” My heart ached in my chest, mirroring the ache in my head.

“What are you going to say to him?”

I stared out the window, my mind blank. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you sleep on it?”

My chest hitched at that. “I can’t. I don’t want to sleep, I don’t want to dream, I just …”

Luka leaned forward and pulled me off the couch and into his lap before I could protest. He didn’t say anything, just let me cry. I cried for Linc and for Grandma, I cried for myself and for all the other girls, I cried for Emma. I even cried for Luka. And I didn’t feel any better because I still didn’t know.

When my sniffles finally stopped, I gathered enough courage to mumble into his chest, “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to hurt you. But I think maybe there’s something there, something between us and I don’t know …” I trailed off, not knowing how to say the rest.

He rested his chin on top of my head. “I think maybe there is something there,” he finally said. “But I don’t want to be your reasonable choice.”

Hope and hurt flared in my battered heart. “Fair enough. I don’t want to be your only choice.”

He kissed the top of my head and set me down on the couch. I couldn’t meet his eye as he pulled a silky blanket up to my chin and pulled my hair out from behind my neck. “No dreams for you, you need to rest.”

At that I did meet his gaze. “Are you messing with my dreams?”

He gave a little smile at my quick temper. “Not like that. I can just see how exhausted you are, how exhausted you have been since you got here. Sometimes people, or jinni, just need to sleep. Are you mad?”

“No,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

Chapter Nineteen

M
y sleep was as dreamless
as he promised. I found my way back to wakefulness peacefully, lulled there by a crackling fireplace.

The room was dark and warm and blissfully quiet. Something at my feet shifted and I picked my head up to look. Lincoln was folded into the end of the couch watching me with sad, bleary eyes. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

I nodded and pulled myself upright. It was dark outside and I didn’t recognize the room. My fuzzy mind wouldn’t focus. “How long have you been sitting there?”

“A few hours,” he said, picking at the blanket.

They day’s events flooded back into my mind and my eyes began to fill with tears again. “Lincoln, I am—”

He cut me off by slicing his hand through the air. It was larger and more calloused then the last time I had seen him. “Don’t, let me talk.”

I nodded again and pulled the blanket around me. This was not the reunion I had pictured. I had wanted happiness and rainbows and safety, finally, for all of us. I guess nobody was getting their happily ever after.

“I didn’t meant to hurt you,” he began earnestly. “I would never do that, you know me. I just … I finally got here and I knew I couldn’t win against them, not things like that, and when I saw you I just … I would have done anything to get you out of here. There was so much I didn’t know. I thought I could just come get you and bring you home and everything would be okay.”

I swallowed hard but kept my mouth shut. Nothing was going to be okay, especially not for me. I didn’t know if he knew and I certainly wasn’t telling him, not yet.

He continued. “So, I’m just so sorry. I was so jazzed up. I knew being here, being around them would sort of rub, he told me to be careful about my temper. I’m just really sorry …” he faltered, his face a picture of despair and apology.

“Are you done?” I asked.

He nodded helplessly.

“Then can I have a hug finally?” I asked, my voice breaking.

He opened his arms and I launched myself into them, the tears already streaming. I had missed my brother so much. Not just over the last few weeks but for months. I wanted to go back in time, to when it was just me and him, at home, going to school, him keeping me company. I would cook and clean and babysit Grandma all day everyday if meant I could have my family back the way I remembered them. But if the only Linc I could have was a new, bigger, harsher one, I would take him.

He let me cry, not as gracefully as Jordan or Luka did, but with big awkward pats on my shoulders. My tears turned to snorting laughter and finally I had to pull away or pee my pants.

“What?” he asked sheepishly. “I’m doing a good job.”

“‘A good job’?” I repeated. “According to who?”

“David,” he said. His voice rose a little on that but I couldn’t tell what it meant.

“What did he tell you to do?”

“Be a good brother. He explained things to me.”

I sat back, wondering just how thorough that explanation was. “Wait a minute, who told you being here would rub off on you? How did you even get here? How do even know about this place?”

He ran a hand through his longer hair and settled back. “I told me. Or dream me told me. You know, the other Linc?” He looked at me questioningly. “And then David—”

“You’ve met the other Linc?” He nodded and my jaw dropped open. “But how?”

“In my dreams. Well, your dreams, I guess. I don’t really get it.” He looked up to see my frustrated frown and launched into his explanation. “I left that night and when I came back there were cops everywhere around our house. I tried to rush in because I was sure something was wrong with you or Grandma. They wouldn’t let me in and then started questioning me about who I was. I got scared and I lied.” He hung his head then continued. “I told them I was Jackson, you know, that sophomore across the street that’s on the swim team with me?” I shook my head. “Anyway, I could tell they didn’t believe me so I walked across the street to his house. His parents were up and wanted to know what was going on and opened the door for me. They told me what had happened, I guess everyone in the neighborhood had seen it. When Jackson’s parents went to call Dad about what had happened, I left out the back door. I knew something about what I had been told was wrong.”