Cursed Hearts (A Crossroads Novel) (54 page)

The truth was they didn’t have a choice.

“I can’t get caught,” Rome said.

“Then you should stop doing things that could
get you in trouble,” she
stressed. Aria drew a breath, counting to three with her fingers.
They
didn’t hesitate. She and Rome made a mad
dash for the only escape route they
had. By some miracle, the guard
hadn’t seen them. But as they ran into the maze, it only felt like they were running
towards danger rather than away from it. “Rome, we should hurry,” she said, squeezing
his hand tightly. There was no way she was going to let go of him. Rome’s
fingers were more likely to fall off from lack of circulation.

It was dark, and movement lurked around every corner. He was
definitely sensing whatever had Aria on edge. The
fact that he could see
ten of his own reflection at once wasn’t helping,
either. He kept startling himself.

“Why have we stopped?” she breathed. Rome
turned to look
at her, making her jump at the sight of his yellow eyes. That’s
when she saw it. Their breath curled out from between their lips like thick fog
as frost crackled over the mirrors, slowly blanketing them in a thin sheet of
ice.

“Fuck me,” Rome drawled. No matter what direction he averted his
eyes to, he could see him. The Artisan was in every mirror, reflecting off
every surface – everywhere and yet nowhere at once. Rome was tired of that sick,
twisted smile. “We’re giving back what was stolen, so why don’t you just leave
us the fuck alone?” he shouted. The mirrors began to quake, and he
wrapped himself around Aria as they shattered,
shielding her from a thousand
shards of flying glass. He was never going
to be able to forget the sound of her screaming.

Ariahna blinked without intending to. All she
could think about was
getting them out of there. It hadn’t occurred to her until then
that she could have
blinked them away from
the carousel and the impending threat of the guard. The problem with blinking
out of fear was they could have literally ended up anywhere, perhaps even
somewhere more dangerous than where they’d left. Luckily, they crash-landed on
the hood of Rome’s car. Bits of broken glass had somehow traveled with them,
hitting the metal like hail.

“See, this is why you have to keep your magic,” he said. “The best
I could do was hit him with a glob of yellow shit.”

“We don’t have time for this argument right now,” Aria said,
pointing
out the unnatural clouds billowing
towards them in a dark, twisting spiral. “We need to get out of here.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said. The two of them
scattered off the car and Rome fumbled with his keys, nearly dropping them
before getting the door unlocked. They clambered inside, spinning off the tires
as they rushed back to Vardel. This was happening now. Not at midnight, not
tomorrow,
now
. “Call Christian,” he said.

“Why?” She heard a loud, thunderous boom, turning to look back at
the storm chasing them into the night.

“Just do it!”

Aria snagged her phone out of her pocket, dialing the number with
trembling fingers. Each ring felt like an eternity.

“Hello?” Christian said. “Aria, you there?” All he could hear was
the faint sound of frantic breathing and a rumbling engine.

Rome snagged the phone, swerving as he raced down the road. “Get
Kaleb and get your ass out to the fucking tree.”

“You could ask nicely, you know. What’s the saying? You catch more
flies with—”

“Just shut up and do it,” Rome growled. “I’ve got no time to be
nice. I’ve got an angry cloud of Artisan closing in in my rearview, and so help
me
if you don’t do exactly as I say, I will
kill you if we survive the damn
night!” Rome hung the phone up and tossed
it in her lap as he floored it. The car smelt of burning rubber. Trans Am’s
were not built for small, winding roads. The back end kept trying to slip away
from him on every curve, and he wasn’t exactly keeping to his own lane.

“You really pissed him off,” he said, “banishing him like that.”

“What would you have had me do? I thought you were dead.” Aria
clenched her eyes shut, trying to ignore the way her heart was hammering inside
her chest. She didn’t want to die, not like this. Not when she’d just found the
only reason she needed to stay alive.

“What the hell is his problem anyways?” Rome
snapped. “Doesn’t he
want the damn tree to have magic again?”

“Maybe revenge became more important.”

Rome glanced at his side mirror, watching in
apprehension as the black smog billowed against the pavement, wrapping around
his tires and creeping along his back window. It was quickly engulfing his
entire car in a thick, impenetrable fog. He swerved, trying to shake it loose
to no avail. It began seeping in through the vents, and that’s when he realized
he was never going to be able to drive fast enough to get away.

“You have to blink us to the school,” he said.

“What? What about your car?” Aria felt her
chest constrict. The cloud was wrapping around the windshield. They were nearly
blind.

“What do you mean, what about my car? Take it
with us!”

“I-I can’t.”

The deep sound of a horn broke through the air,
drawing their attention back to the road. The bright headlights of a semi cut
through the haze, tearing a scream from Ariahna’s throat. She clenched her eyes
shut, clamping a hand around Rome and the armrest of her door. His wrist jerked
out of her grasp as he whipped at the wheel in an attempt to dodge the
oncoming trucker. They’d lost control of the car,
and in the brief moment that
she opened her eyes, she saw the dark
coastal water rising up to greet them. The feeling of weightlessness filled her
with a fear so intense that she felt perfectly calm, and the moment seemed to
slow until heartbeats felt like they spanned the length of hours.

They’d gone off the side of the cliff.
They were freefalling towards the
ocean, and somehow it felt like they
were
already underwater. She couldn’t hear anything through all the sound – through
the squealing of truck tires, and Rome’s roaring engine. Aria was waiting for
it all to catch up with her. She was waiting for them to break the surface, for
time to speed up – waiting to watch her life slip away. She
grabbed Rome’s hand, threading their fingers
together unhurriedly and staring
back at him as her lungs refused to
draw breath.
The look in her eyes said it
all.

They were feet from the jagged rocks when she
clenched her eyes tight, arms shaking as magic surged out of her body and
embraced them. A deafening snap broke through the air, and they disappeared just
above the salty ocean spray.

Chapter 45

In
life, we’re either prepared to weather the storms that come our way, or we’re
caught blind in the face of their wrath. It’s not about avoiding
confrontation or preventing catastrophe. It’s about
learning how to persevere.
What few realize is that there is strength in
not finding shelter. All too often we underestimate ourselves. But the truth
is, no matter how rough the waters, we are more than capable of surviving even the
darkest of days.
And the harder the wind
blows and the rain falls, the greater the victory
that can
be found in standing tall amongst
the wreckage.

The giant branches of the yew tree groaned, swaying as
they jutted up
towards the eye of the storm. Rome’s car had almost landed in the lake, and he
and Aria were now standing at the base of the tree as a hurricane swirled above
their heads. Rome looked back towards the path, searching for any sign of Kaleb
or Christian. He didn’t want to try this until they were here. If anything
happened… He shouted their names as thunder screamed across the sky, drowning
out his voice.

“We
can’t wait,” Aria screamed.

“Then
give me your wand.”

“What?”
she said, shielding her eyes from flying debris. “No. Rome, this is my curse. I
have to be the one to break it.”

Christian
and Kaleb burst through the trees at that moment, looking stunned at the
predicament they’d stumbled onto. The ground was rumbling gently as ice cold
rain pelted down from the sky. Kaleb’s hair was being blown around viciously by
the storm, and it was blinding him so badly he almost missed the broken tree
branch whipping towards his head.

“Where
the hell have you been?” Rome asked.

“Where
do you think?” Kaleb yelled. “Lost in the damn woods.”

“Jesus,” Christian said, noticing the car. “
What
happened?”

“Just
our family luck catching up with me.”

A
wailing, furious voice broke above the howling of the storm as Ariahna fought
her way towards the tree. She was bracing herself against the strength of the
wind and the freezing rain. It was turning into a mixture of snow and hail
halfway to the ground and stinging at the skin on her face. She
clutched her family’s wand, feeling it want to pull
from her grasp.

The Artisan
materialized
before her in a twisting cloud of smoke, lifting her up by the collar of her
shirt. She raised a hand to throw a hex at him, and he slammed her to the
ground, expelling all the air from her lungs.

“Not
yet,” he snarled. “Your atonement has not yet ended!”

Hatred reflected in his eyes, cold and dull like
weathered stone. His hands had wrapped around her arms
, sending
white fire shooting over her
skin. Flames seared her wrists, making her cry out in
agony as she lost
her
grip on the wand
. It had barely slipped from
her fingers when it went launching towards the yew,
plunging into the center of the tree. She wasn’t
sure
when
Christian had leapt
onto her attacker’s back, or when Kaleb had pinned Rome to
the ground. Everything was happening so fast, she
could barely keep up.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rome screamed. He’d nearly
gotten his hand around the Artisan’s throat when Kaleb had decided to rip him
back.

“I’m
not going to let you die for
her
!”

The
storm raged above them, and Christian was thrown off in the struggle, his body
slamming back against the base of the tree. He wasn’t certain, but it felt like
he’d broken a rib.

“Fuck,”
he groaned, blinking his eyes open.

A
blue, luminescent vapor began seeping from Aria’s body. It curled
towards the Artisan as she struggled against him.
He was killing her, Christian
realized. He was taking her magic, and
with it, her only ability to
break the curse.
And Rome was kicking and screaming near his feet, unable to
break the
bind Kaleb had on his wrists. His heart stuttered in his chest, and he paled at
the sight of the wand above him.

This
is what it had come down to – choice.

Christian’s hand shot up, reaching for the handle of the
wand without
thought. His fingers curled around the smooth grain of
the wood just as
Rome
clamped a hand around his ankle. A blinding light followed, zapping Kaleb back
so far he almost landed in the lake.

The
yew took their magic, and as it did, Ariahna found herself gasping to life.
Energy surged back into her veins and she shot upright,
reaching for her throat. The Artisan had vanished, and yet it still felt
as
though he were suffocating her.
Her eyes followed Kaleb as he clawed at
the dirt, rushing to Rome’s
side. He and Christian were now lying lifeless at the base of the tree. The
sight was enough to make her heart stop.

“Do
something!” she screamed. “Bring them back!”

“I
can’t bring them back,” Kaleb roared, staring up at her with eyes full of
hatred. “They’re dead. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Turn
them,” she said frantically. “
Please
.” Aria scrambled over to Kaleb’s
side, pleading with him desperately and clutching at his jacket.

He
smacked her hands away.

“I
can’t, you stupid fucking bitch! They’re immune.”

Ariahna
turned tear-filled eyes down to their faces, shaking her head softly in denial.
They couldn’t be dead. Christian and Rome, they had been the only reason she
had to keep living. She touched Rome’s jaw with a trembling hand, bending to
kiss his still warm lips. She closed her eyes, and she could almost feel him
smiling.

This
couldn’t be the end.

“Stop
touching him,” Kaleb breathed. “Stop touching him right now or I’m going to rip
your hand off and feed it to you.” He watched her body shaking with silent sobs,
and it was only filling him with a blinding fury. He
wrenched her back by her ridiculous, curly red hair, dragging her to her feet
as he stood. “You listen to me,” he whispered, knocking her back into
the tree. “He is
dead
because of you. And if you thought that pathetic
old man gave you a hard time, you are in for a nasty surprise, because I’m
going to make you beg for death before this day is through.”

Icy
blue eyes peered deep into bright green, and Ariahna’s stomach lurched with a
saddened sickness. What she could see in his irises, in the depths of his
soul—it was just more pain to pile on to this moment.

“I
always thought you’d hurt him in the end,” she said. “But… you’re the one who
always gets hurt, aren’t you?”

“Shut
up,” Kaleb croaked.

“I’m
sorry.”

“You
should be.”

“I’m
sorry for everything that’s happened to you,” she said.

His
fingers curled around her throat just underneath her jaw, squeezing tightly and
lifting her off her feet. “You should be more concerned with what’s
going to happen to you,” he spat. His fangs
snapped
down from the
roof of his mouth, and he couldn’t help but smile
when she gasped. “May your death be slow and bloody,” he said. He bit viciously
into her neck,
delighting in the scream flitting across her lips. The
taste of blood hit him like
a drug. The
sheer amount of power coursing through her veins was enough to make him feel
light-headed, and yet he was ravenous for more. Kaleb bit down
harder, pressing her back into the tree as she
struggled, tearing at his hand
with
frantic fingers. The fighting was only making her blood flow faster, her heart
beat enticingly, and her body give off that heavenly scent of fear. Everything
she was doing to get away was making her more tempting, more delectable.

Aria
pressed her hands weakly to Kaleb’s chest, summoning what little energy she had
and letting it pool in her fingertips. She dug them into his shirt, and when
she opened her eyes, a blast of electricity exploded across his body, throwing
him back. She crumpled to the ground, trying to recover before he regained his
footing. Blood gushed from the wound on her neck, and she latched a hand over
it to try and staunch the bleeding.

“You
don’t have to be alone again,” she said hoarsely. “Neither of us does. We can
look out for each other.”

Flames
burst to life at her feet as he stalked closer. “I would rather wander this
world alone for the rest of my life than live another second in your company.
You killed him. You killed the only person who—”

Aria
retreated back against the tree as the flames encircled her. She could see them
reflecting in his eyes; eyes that were so cold, and so alight with anger. “I
loved him. I loved them both,” she said. “I never wanted this.”

Christian’s
chest burned as air swelled into his lungs. His body felt weighted, and his
eyes were clouded over so intensely all he could see was a mess of colors. Had
he just heard Aria say she loved him?

“What happened?” he groaned.

Flames
licked at his skin and he scooted back, rubbing at his eyes until he was
staring at something he wasn’t sure was real. A ribbon of light was spiraling
out of the yew, settling over Rome like a warm, golden wave. It soaked into his
skin, disappearing with a gentle wisp of air. As soon as it was gone, the
flames seemed that much more blinding. Kaleb had Aria pinned to the ground, his
fist drawn back to strike as fire engulfed his arm from the shoulder down. She
was chanting furiously in Latin as a frightening mass of energy grew between
them.

“Stop!”
Christian rasped, fumbling to his feet. It was like they hadn’t even heard him.
Kaleb struck Aria across the face, singeing her skin as he lunged at him. “I
said, stop!” he growled, crushing Kaleb into the dirt. All he could see was
Aria’s blood all over his lips, and in that moment, his wolf wanted nothing
more than to tear into him. The air grew dense, buzzing with unrestrained
energy. He was moments from shifting when a loud eruption drew their attention.

The
Artisan was suspended in the air, hovering limply as several strings of
lightning struck his body. A low, hypnotic hum was
resonating from
the yew as the storm rushed through him. Sparks
and bursts of fire flew wildly off of his skin, and a brilliant light began
flickering out of his body. Gusts of wind howled towards the ground, and
Christian did the only thing he could think to do. He rushed towards Aria,
pressing her back against the tree and shielding her from the blast. It burned
at his back like hell had opened up to swallow them whole.

When
it was over, the sky cleared and the moon smiled down on them. Birds chattered
animatedly in the trees, and the serene sounds of the lake and forest reclaimed
The Grove.

It
was as if nothing had happened.

Rome
sat up carefully, rubbing at his throbbing head. “God, did I go on a bender?”
he groaned. “Where am I?”

Kaleb
ripped him off the ground and into a crushing hug. He pulled
back an inch, curling a hand around his skull and
kissing him so hard it hurt.
He was drinking him in—the warmth of his
skin, the flutter of his heart, the surprised touch of his lips—and he was
never going to let go.

“What
was that for?” Rome mumbled, gasping for breath.

“…Nothing.”

“Now
that I know you’re not dead,” Ariahna said gently, “I’m going to kill you. What
were you two thinking? I can’t believe I almost lost you both.” Her voice was
stiff with worry as tears flowed from her eyes, some slipping over the burn on
her face and irritating the wound.

Rome
paled, taking in the sight of her injuries.

“We
need to get you to the nurse,” he said.

Christian scoffed, staring at the two of them in
disbelief. “And tell her
what, exactly? That your boyfriend beat up your girlfriend?”

Rome’s
eyes snapped back over to Kaleb. He was trying subtly to wipe the blood off of
his chin. “…What?” he whispered. “What did you do?”

“It
doesn’t matter,” Aria said. “We’re all alive.”