Of Water and Madness (38 page)

“That was downright bizarre,” Jax agreed heatedly, frowning down at Blythe. “It was like you girls were a mirage or something.”

Capri frowned, sincerely sorry. “I feel so bad, if there had been some way for me to let you know I was okay…”

“No,” Rian assured her, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. “You did everything right. You destroyed Dante, baby.”

“It was about damn time, too,” Blythe chipped in, stretching her arms up over her head and yawning, leaning away from Jax to smile at him. “Betcha wish you’d seen me glowing all gold and red and stuff, huh?”

Jax cleared his throat, tugging at the collar of his shirt and looking oddly uneasy. “You know, darlin’, the more I try and pretend that you’re normal, the more you remind me that you’re the furthest thing from it.”

“How true.” She beamed at him fondly, patting his cheek as she laughed.

“I wonder how much longer Liam and Rhiannon are going to sleep in,” Capri said, glancing down at her watch and frowning. “It’s been fourteen hours since we got back.”

“That’s probably because they’re not sleeping,” Jax suggested, earning a swift punch in the arm from Blythe.

“Ew!” she grunted, scowling at him. “That’s my brother and therefore gross.”

Jax just shrugged and grinned at her. “What? That didn’t stop us.”

Capri burst into giggles, and Rian eyed Jax sardonically, his lips curving. “We’re all tired after yesterday.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Blythe agreed, releasing a heavy sigh. Then her eyes shot over Capri’s shoulder and her face broke into a grin. “Speaking of the lovebirds!”

Liam and Rhiannon walked into the room, both looking fresh and well rested. Blythe jumped to her feet and sprinted to Liam, bounding into his arms. He lifted her up and spun her around, laughing as he set her back on her feet and tweaked her nose affectionately.

“How’s my girl?” he grinned, ruffling her mass of fiery curls until she smacked his hand away.

“Fine. I slept like the dead. Damn, Liam, just damn!” Blythe bit her bottom lip and jumped up and down, fist pumping the air excitedly. “Can you believe what the four of us did? I can’t get over it.”

Liam chuckled, smiling over at Rhiannon. “It was…interesting.”

Rhiannon shrugged, trying to keep a clear and logical head about the whole thing. “Thea explained it all to me as we were leaving, and it’s really very simple and natural. All we did was harness energy from our individual elements and use that energy to fuel the enchantment. It’s really not that extraordinary.”

Blythe rolled her eyes, though the meaning behind it was less sarcastic and more affectionate. She had come to oddly appreciate Rhiannon’s practical and efficient way of overanalyzing things.

“Even if it was simple, it was still badass,” Blythe told her, throwing her arm over Rhiannon’s shoulder and beaming at Capri and Liam. “The four of us really made it happen. All of us, really.” She nodded to both Jax and Rian. “God, and our dads took out that friggin’ dragon! I’d almost forgotten about that.”

Rhiannon smiled, remembering how her father and Brock had looked laughing together for the first time ever in her lifetime. “They really bonded over it, for whatever reason.”

Blythe looked at her thoughtfully, her lips curving. “I think it was only a matter of time. I mean, really, who goes their entire lifetime holding a grudge?”

Rhiannon’s eyebrows raised as she stared down at Blythe skeptically. “You’re telling me that if none of this had happened, you would have still gotten over hating me and been my friend?”

Blythe thought about it for a moment. “Mmm…I’m sure eventually we would have gotten over whatever it was that got between us.”

“You stole Liam from me. That’s what got between us,” Rhiannon reminded her, though Blythe looked insulted.

“No I didn’t! You were more than welcome to come play with us. You were just a brat.”

Rhiannon pulled away and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. “I was not! Just because I actually cared about schoolwork and learning doesn’t make me a brat.”

“That’s right, it makes you a nerd.” Blythe grinned, her eyes glittering with humor. “Whatever, we’re over it now, aren’t we?”

Rhiannon sighed, pushing aside her indignation for the sake of being civil. After all, she was usually the mature one of the group, and seeing Blythe taking a more adult stance on this one subject was irking her. “Certainly. One hundred percent over it.”

Capri sprung to her feet and danced over to them, wrapping them both in a hug. “Isn’t it so much easier being friends?”

“Yes, mom.” Blythe poked Capri in the side and grinned. “So Vivica’s a human now, huh?”

“Thea said she sent her to California, memory erased and all her powers gone.” Rhiannon confirmed, leaning into Liam when he wrapped his arm around her. “I suppose she felt it was a more fitting punishment than destroying her.”

“Thea is not always merciless,” Capri chimed in, smiling sadly. “I think we all sometimes forget that she’s not perfect, and that she makes mistakes and feels guilt and remorse just like anyone else.”

“True, and she made things right in the end, which is what matters,” Liam agreed, turning around as Brogan appeared in the doorway to the parlor, his quietly poetic face unreadable.

Rhiannon started to step toward him, but he went straight to Liam, his hand outstretched in a sign of diplomacy.

“I’m sorry that this is a bit delayed…but I owe you an apology,” Brogan said firmly as Liam accepted his hand. Beside him, Rhiannon was watching Brogan curiously, unnerved at seeing the two of them together.

Liam smiled politely. “You don’t owe me anything, Brogan. It’s all over now.”

Brogan didn’t look convinced. “If I had given you the location where she was staying sooner, it might not have been too late.” He turned to Rhiannon, regret and misery filling his eyes. “I’m sorry, Rhiannon. I feel like I let you down.”

“Oh, Brogan,” she managed, breaking away from Liam to hug her old friend tightly, tears swimming in her eyes. “It’s not your fault, please don’t blame yourself. I shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

Brogan released a heavy sigh as he pulled away from her, his hands on her shoulders as he stared into her eyes. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“Me too.” She sniffled, feeling foolish as she wiped the tears away from her cheeks. She let out a half laugh and glanced over her shoulder at the others, who were watching quietly. “Blythe, do you still have a few girls in mind for my good friend? He deserves only the best.”

Brogan flushed a bit with embarrassment, especially when Blythe let out a hoot of laughter and grinned.

“Whenever you wanna take a trip down to El Paso, honey, we’ll go,” she declared, beaming up at him warmly.

Brogan nodded with a shy smile. “Alright.”

“Speaking of El Paso…” Jax said suddenly, rising to his feet to pull Blythe into his arms. She tilted her head back to look up at him, her lips curving into a wicked grin.

“What about El Paso, cowboy?” she murmured, nuzzling his nose with her own, which caused Liam to groan uncomfortably.

“If you’re gonna hit on my sister, Jax, you should at least do it someplace where I can’t see or hear it.”

“Oh, get over yourself,” Blythe shot back with a laugh, sticking her tongue out at him. “I’m happy, and that’s…hey, wait, I just remembered something.”

“What’s that, darlin’?” Jax asked, distracted by the smooth curve of her shoulder and the freckles that graced it.

Blythe chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, as if wondering whether or not to say the words. Because this was horribly unlike her, Jax felt a strange uneasiness in his gut. “Blythe?”

She met his eyes and tried to look nonchalant, but there was this crazy hope and desperation bursting within her all the same… “Are we, like, engaged now, or something?”

Capri let covered her mouth with her hands excitedly as Rian rose to his feet to stand behind her, a questioning smirk on his face. Rhiannon’s eyebrows raised curiously while Liam merely grinned.

Jax froze, his breath halting in his chest as he stared down at her, panic setting in. Okay…they’d had that conversation moments before she’d disappeared into nothing, and then he’d pretty much forgotten about it, as it had been pretty low on his list of priorities at that time. But now…

“Do you want to be engaged?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice cool and calm, even though he knew she could read the heat in his eyes.

She shrugged, feigning indifference. “I don’t know, do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, then.”

For a moment, no one said anything, and the silence hung heavy and undeniably awkward in the air.

“God, just say yes and be done with it,” Liam burst out, rolling his eyes.

“Say yes to what? He hasn’t technically asked me yet, not really anyway.” Blythe crossed her arms over her chest and stared up at Jax, one eyebrow raised skeptically. “I just want to know if this is a go or not.”

Jax let out a huff of breath, running his hands through his blonde hair and glaring around at the others, looking irritated. “You sure lit a fire under my ass, didn’t you?”

“Okay, fine. I’ll make it easier for you,” Blythe charged, cocking her chin up defensively. “Will you marry me, cowboy?”

“Damnit…” he cursed under his breath, clutching his head in his hands and turning away from her, beating back against all the caution and uncertainty in his mind. He knew what he wanted, and there was no point in denying it any longer. She was it for him, it was just that simple. Whirling around, he scooped her up into his arms and kissed her fully on the mouth, enjoying the fire of it as she vibrated with adrenaline against him. Breaking the kiss, he stared down at her, his lips curving into an arrogant grin. “What the hell. Why not?”

Blythe shut her eyes and let out the breath she’d been holding, silently thanking God as she smiled. “Good, because if you’d said no there would have been hell to pay.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it.”

While the others laughed together and congratulated them, Liam watched the scene with thoughtful eyes. After all, he had his own proposal that he’d been meaning to make…and when he glanced over to Rhiannon, who was hugging Blythe happily and smiling, he knew that all he had been doing was wasting time up until this point. He couldn’t waste it anymore, not after nearly losing her again.

He stepped toward Rhiannon and reached for her hand, pulling her away from the others.

She glanced over at him questioningly, but after seeing the intense look in his eyes she gave in, letting him lead her from the room without a single word.

He pulled her out into the corridor and toward the back doors that lead out into the silent and still gardens that grew wild behind the castle. The gardens that had, over so many years of knowing her, become somewhat of a secret place for them. It seemed only natural to head there now, when so many important words needed to be said…

But as they were walking, he could feel her hand warm in his, could hear her breathing softly beside him, and this rushing need hit him all at once, mixed with desperation, fear, and unshakable guilt. Whirling around, he backed her suddenly up against the stone wall of the corridor and crushed her mouth with his own, unable to explain the unfathomable emotions that were coursing through him at that very moment.

But, God, he’d nearly lost her again…and knowing how much pain he had unknowingly caused her tore through him so furiously that the only way he could release the frustration was by showing her now that she was it for him. It had always been her, and for that scheming Muse and vile Dante to try and get between them…

“I love you, Rhia,” he groaned, his heart racing and his breath catching in his throat as his mouth trailed along the skin beneath her ear, reveling in the feel of her hands clinging to his back.

“I know,” she whispered, feeling tears come into her eyes and burn there beautifully. She clung to him, hating that she had ever believed he would have betrayed her so callously. “I’m sorry I gave up on you, Liam.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, pulling away to stare into her eyes, his hands cupping her face delicately.

She avoided looking at him, feeling ashamed even though she knew he would never blame her. “I didn’t believe Blythe when she told me you were under some kind of spell…I just assumed the worst, thinking it was better to just accept and move on versus risking disappointment…it was stupid of me. I should have fought for you, like you’ve always fought for me. But I didn’t.”

For a moment he said nothing, he only stared at her and pondered what to say. It hurt to hear the truth directly from her. Then again, for someone who had so recently discovered sharing their heart blindly and unrestrictedly, he supposed she had fared better than most would have.

“Rhia, you did what you had to do to survive, I can’t blame you for that. And for someone as practical and logical as you, I can’t imagine it would be easy to accept the notion that I was under that woman’s control. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”

She met his eyes sadly. “No, but it makes me a fool.”

“No one’s perfect all the time.” He pressed his lips to hers in an attempt to comfort, hating to see her upset. “Including me. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t gone down to New Orleans by myself to fix that oil spill.”