Dangerous Lovers (69 page)

“You want me to die based on a theory? Mythology?”

Pain flooded into his eyes. “I don’t. I don’t want to lose you then, now, or in some future. I want us to live a normal life, the life we came to be in. I don’t understand any of this, but I know that if there is any truth at all to any of the words that have been whispered across time, I have to let you go. I know that no matter what, one day I will have to let you go.”

“What makes you so sure that these seven you speak of will walk alone? That what gives them power and protection are not the ones we share our souls with?”

“Seven. Some myths say sisters, some just say seven. Not fourteen.” He let out a shuttered breath. “All the hell Guardian and I have been through, the twists and turns that did nothing but take us further from you…I fear that it’s some higher power’s way of easing us into this painful separation, that someone always knew you would belong to the world, not me.”

“Or they could have been teaching you to make us stronger. If you had not been made into a phoenix, you would not have even had a choice to save me. You have been growing powerful during our separation, powerful enough to protect me now.”

He didn’t offer an argument. I’m sure my positive words sounded like a plea to save my life, and he was having a hard time finding the will to state all the reasons that that would be wrong.

He reached up to trace my lips. “I’m just waiting for you to ask. I know you better than my own soul. If I suggested that we tell these theories and myths to go to hell, you’d have fought me. It had to be your idea.”

“I knew it,” I said under my breath as I playfully squinted my eyes at him. This boy had learned to handle me years ago. That made him smile. It was a warm, playful smile. I was so shocked by it that my eyes grew wide, and that made him laugh out loud.

“What is that look for?”

“The old you was almost here,” I said as I traced the lines where his smile was.

“The old me?” he said, turning to his side so he could see me better.

I reached to trace a smile that I had yet to see in this reality. I was thankful that it surfaced in this dark conversation. “I remember you being so blunt that you were funny. You enjoyed teasing, laughing. Even in the darkest moments, you would find a way to lighten the mood. Your certainty was always there—you always made those around you feel safe, protected.”

He let out a sigh as his smile dimmed. “That is still me…I just don’t have much reason to tease or laugh as of late.”

“I want you to laugh, to tease, to be that protector, no matter what,” I said as my voice cracked. I needed to know that he would protect all those he was leaving me for, that our sacrifice would not be in vain.

He bit his lip as if he were choosing his words carefully. “I’m a fool for you…always have been…it never has and it never will matter what you ask me to do. The answer is yes.”

I had to tell myself to hold in the tears. I knew that between his words he was telling me that he would still change me, that if I asked we would both become the most selfish souls that had ever existed, that we’d take a thousand or so years together for the price of countless warriors.

I was still set on vengeance. And I hated to admit it, but I had some small hope that once that vengeance was met, maybe my body would find the energy it needed to heal itself, that maybe I could find a way to escape death. I wasn’t going to ask him to challenge his fears until I knew I had exhausted every measure I could.

“I know,” I whispered as I let my arm down and curled up against his warm chest. “I don’t think I can grasp what you are fighting, what you think I am, but I want you to be careful because if I’m seeing this the right way, if my life was so easily ended, if I was to only live a normal lifespan in the first place and my time to heal and save was not meant to be eternal, that can only mean that a lot of souls are about to fall.” I hesitated as I thought of the time it would take for me to die and be reborn again, the time for me to grow into a young woman. I had no idea if that was a short or long time in the span of souls. “If I let go, I just hope I’m back in time to matter.”

His arm tightened around me. “Old souls have been reunited. We are stronger now than we have been in quite some time.”

“So maybe I didn’t mess things up by dying. It is odd, though, that it was so easy to end me. I hadn’t even begun. You would think it would have been harder to kill someone who was needed for a not-so-distant victory.”

I could see him weighing each of my words. I was almost sure I saw him doubting himself, wondering if I had a point, if there was some unseen loophole we could fall through. The fading glimmer of the fire in his eyes told me that that hope left as swiftly as it arrived. I was these supernatural souls’ last hope, but no one thought to protect that asset from the unpredictable—death itself.

I lay on my back and stared at the vast ceiling. “I’m so angry. I’ll find my redemption tomorrow, but I will have lost everything in its wake. I had so many plans…”

“Tell me about them,” he said as he pulled me closer.

“I was going to do everything my parents did, and so much more.”

A glance from him beckoned a ball of fire from the fireplace. Like a ball of clay, it hovered over us, waiting for us to shape it.

“I was going to build schools.” The fire began to take the shape of a beautiful building. “Not just any school, but schools that brought out that special spark, that fire I could see in Gavin’s eyes as he wrote his stories, Mason as he played…Wilder as he painted. I wanted to find that spark in everyone, make it grow. I wanted the world to feel the warmth of it.” I watched the building expand as rooms with stages, vast libraries, and endless canvasses were shaped, as eager souls rushed in.

“I wanted to find every soul that had reached its breaking point and pull them back, show them no wish was foolish and that no matter what they had been through, it was over and now they would not only be safe and loved, but they would be the ones giving that last hope to someone. I was going to create a million Falcons.” The school turned into the manor, and the fire expanded, showing every glorious detail of our home. It was as if he remembered building every inch of this manor with his own guided hand.

The room in the center of the home, the one I adored, that held every ball or special occasion—even a few private dances—became clear. I loved that room because of the dome shape it was, for the three spiral staircases that hovered tightly against the walls, leading to every floor. I loved the red and the gold, how it seemed not only to fit a lost time, but every time. I loved how magical I felt in that room.

Phoenix did not bother to create Rasure’s wing-in-fire sculpture, but I knew where it was currently resting, that it all but assaulted the room I loved, how she was able to attach that wing to the core of the home. Only ten feet blocked that wing from connecting to my precious room, ten feet that I had to fight tooth and nail for. I only won because that was the oldest part of the house and an addition to it would rob the room of its unique character.

In Phoenix’s sculpture, there were children—too many to count—running through the halls, dancing and frolicking in that center room.

“I was going to make my parents, my family proud, but instead I crashed into a lake. The money I was going to use to free the world ended me, simply because Rasure wanted that same money for God knows what. I even tried to give her most of it. I just wanted the house and enough to maintain it. I knew at the very least I could open the doors to those who needed a home. I trusted that the money for everything else would come someway, somehow.”

“She fought you for the house?” Phoenix asked as his glance added the trees, the roots that connected beneath the surface.

“From day one, she wanted me out. She tried to have me locked away, saying I needed help with my grief, but Skylynn protected me from that. Since my parent’s death, I have spent every night under this roof. Even when I wanted to run, give in to her, I couldn’t leave. It was mine.” I squeezed his warm hand. “It was ours.”

“I still don’t understand how you moved it here,” he said in awe as the fire image spun above us.

“Is that not in the goddess handbook—moving massive homes for the hell of it?” I teased.

That made him laugh. “No, Love, I don’t think it is. I can’t imagine the energy it would have taken.”

“All for naught, apparently.”

“We have right now…” he said as he sent the fire back to its place.

“Block the doors with fire and tell the world to let us be…at least for now,” I whispered as I rolled to my side to face him.

His hand began to move across my back, ushering me into a deep sleep. “Done,” he said in a murmur. “Rest now. Your redemption and new life are mere hours away.”

“I want my old one,” I said as I closed my eyes and flashes of the life I had with him danced in my thoughts.

“I should be back before you wake.”

My eyes flew open wide. “You’re not leaving. I have never once slept without ice surrounding me in some way. You owe me at least one night of warmth.”

“By the time I leave your side, you will be so warm that no ice will invade your sleep. I don’t have to go yet. I will wait until there is no time to spare, and while you sleep I will fight your demons—only saving the last blow for you.”

“Promise me you’ll smile, tease, and protect others while you do just that,” I said with a sleepy smile as my eyelids grew heavy.

I couldn’t understand why I needed to sleep if I was dead, why I felt so tired, so weak. I was terrified that I would be taken to that lake again, relive that death once more. To fight it, I focused on this house as it was lifetimes ago.

I dreamed, for the first time ever, in Phoenix’s arms. I dreamed the right way.

I walked every floor, every room, letting the memories of my past fill the air. I never wanted to forget all that I had seen under this roof. As if I were called to it by the room itself, I kept finding my soul in the dome room, standing on the top stair, looking down to the beautiful floor.

Over and over I tried to move from that spot, but the smooth stones across the floor, the pattern they had, kept calling my attention back to it. It was a wide circle with triangles reaching out. Inside of that, a smaller one within had the triangles going the opposite way. That pattern repeated until the circles were too small to be seen, offering an optical illusion that looked like wheels turning in different directions…like the insides of a clock.

Before long, the room started to vibrate and I began to see symbols that I thought I knew but could not comprehend. In the dream, I ran down the steps as fast as I could as the pattern on the stones began to spin and a beaming light came from the center of the floor. Before I could reach that light, my eyes flew open.

I wasn’t nestled against Phoenix before an inviting fire, I was in my darkroom. Mason’s phone was vibrating once again, waking us both but the ringing was an illusion. Gavin was at my desk, writing something at the speed of light.

I sat up slowly, trying to reason my way through my dream and figure out how I’d gotten here all at once.

“Where is Wilder?” I mumbled.

Gavin looked up from his work, seeing both me and Mason wide awake now. “I haven’t seen him. It’s well past the point he should have shown up to meet us here.”

“How far past that point?” I asked with fear in my tone. I knew that somewhere Phoenix was in fierce battle right at this very moment. I was terrified I would never see him again, that I didn’t say enough, that he didn’t know that…I loved him.

“I’m starting to think that time is an illusion in death, but I know I woke some time ago, that I have been fighting with these words for what feels like an eternity,” Gavin replied, turning back to my desk.

Mason and I stood to see what he was working on. It was the creed that both Skylynn and Phoenix had recited. ‘
To redeem your soul, you must pass through the line of the moons—the flaming sons of the east and the west—to reach the seventh sister, whose touch will destroy the flames of evil that bind you
.’

Over the words ‘line of the moons,’ he had drawn what looked like horns, with a line…no, it looked like the symbol of the ram. “What is this?” I questioned.

“Aries. I’d written a short story about symbols that had dual meanings last winter. The Zodiac symbol of Aries means ‘two moons’—at least I think it does,” Gavin said as he drew a triangle. “An Aries is to stand in front of you, with sons of the east and west to your side—you’re in the center. Mason was born in the east, I was born in the west.”

“Was Wilder tested by Skylynn? Does he have fire wings?”

“Never found him,” Mason answered.

“He’s an Aries, though,” I said as I vaguely remembered that.

“Barely,” Gavin said. “He was born on the cusp. What I don’t get is why we died. We were all there. We should have survived.”

“No one knew to protect us. We were meant to protect them,” I said quietly as I thought over my and Phoenix’s conversation last night. All at once, I grew anxious. I wanted to know he was OK, that everyone fighting with him was.

“But you were in the center,” Gavin argued as he drew a circle around the triangle. “Half of a star; no matter where Wilder stood—whether it was to the north or south—you would have been in a pentagram. That should have kept you safe inside or outside of this house, which rests on the same mark. All of us were together. If we weren’t, it would almost make sense.”