Sever (The Ever Series Book 3) (21 page)

Slipping my hands into his hair, I gasp when his lips begin to part mine. My breathing speeds up, and I grip him to me, wrapping my legs around him. A second later we’re in the grass, the blades prickling my back through the cotton nightgown. When I open my eyes again, I see Alex holding himself less than an inch above me, braced easily with one arm as his other hand comes up, his fingers tracing along my lips.

“I missed you more than you can imagine,” he whispers.

When he pulls me to my feet, I gasp, still dizzy from his kiss. Slowly, I turn in the direction he’s staring. At the top of the hill, Madame Rousseau is standing at the kitchen door, peering in our direction.

“What?” I frown, not understanding why this would upset him.

Then realization hits me a half second before I hear Ever’s voice behind me.

“Why did you do it?”

I shiver. When Alex said that Ever didn’t know I was here, what he actually meant was that I’ve been invisible to him. My
mind
has been invisible to him since I crossed the divide into this world. But Madame Rousseau’s mind isn’t invisible to Ever, which means he just saw me through her eyes. He saw me kissing Alex. Not just kissing Alex—making out. Oh … no. By the time I turn to face Ever, he’s not even looking at me. He’s looking at Alex with a kind of revulsion that I’ve never seen on his features.

“Were you so desperate for her body that you gave up her soul to Victor’s cause? How did you convince her? Did you tell her it was the only way? What did Victor promise you? Part-time ownership?”

My eyebrow goes up as I try to make sense of Ever’s words. Then I remember what Ever said about my thoughts becoming invisible during the times I thought of Alex. Suddenly it clicks in my head. Ever doesn’t think I’m
me
anymore. He thinks Alex gave me up, and I’m like my mom’s boyfriend Richard—possessed by something from his dimension.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t destroy it now,” Ever growls, sounding half out of his mind.

When Alex steps in front of me, his stance defensive, my mind flashes back to more than a year ago when Alex appeared in the restaurant with Ashley. Ever had done the same thing to protect me, from Alex. Taking a deep breath, I step around Alex to face Ever, fully aware that one look into his eyes could kill me—if Ever wishes it.

“You really think I signed myself up for demonic possession?” I ask incredulously.

Ever’s expression transforms from disgust to confusion. Then he just stares at me.

“Wren?” he asks vacantly.

I can’t trust my voice, so I just swallow and nod. He’s wearing my engagement ring and the matching pendant on a chain around his neck, the stones of the infinity symbol glowing brightly against his bronzed chest. Lifting my hand to the neckline of the nightgown, I pull it down and see that my tattoos are back—both of them. A familiar copper sun encompassing the pale blue infinity symbol, both etched in my skin.

Ever and Alex—and me. All three of us connected, forever, or as long as I stay alive.

I didn’t think it could hurt so much to be standing between them, these two perfect, otherworldly creatures who think I’m either this world’s salvation or its downfall. Ever is studying me like he’s never seen me before, and as I start walking slowly toward him, it feels like I’m being ripped in two.

Wren, don’t.

Hearing Alex’s voice in my head, I stop. He’s right behind me, and when he takes my hand, Ever’s green eyes glow with rage and grief. A growl erupts from his chest, and my eyes widen as a green light glows all around him, growing brighter by the second. Suddenly Alex’s arms wrap around me, his body shielding mine as the blast wave concusses everything around us. When I finally open my eyes again, Ever is gone.

And now I know for sure: my world is split in two.

I belong nowhere.

I
don’t fear Victor anymore. Because now I know that I am far more dangerous to myself than he ever could be. A sob escapes me, and I feel Alex’s arms wrap around me.

“I’m sorry, Wren,” he says gently.

I hiccup.

“Why are you sorry?” I gasp. “You got what you wanted.”

He pulls back and looks down at me.

“No. I never want to see you unhappy. That is why I gave myself up, and I suppose when you came to free me, I regressed to my selfish inclinations. But it also is why I will always love you more than he ever could.”

Sniffling, I frown at him.

“Ever is cursed to be more committed to his cause than he ever could be to you.” Alex’s words cause me to flinch. “His war with Victor
is
his existence, whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not. And if he felt he had to, he
would
destroy you.

I step back, wounded by his words.

“I’m too selfish to let that happen,” Alex continues. “Because I want you more than I want this world.”

“Well,” I sniffle. “I want to stop hurting everyone I love.”

“
That
is impossible, my love. You must make the decisions that are right for you … as you are the one who will have to live with them.”

…
when you have nothing to lose, you will go to any length to achieve the ends you desire
. That’s what Alex said to me last year. The question is: how far will
I
go? And do I even know what I want anymore?

“
Not
comforting,” I mutter.

“But true, nonetheless.”

“Okay, so what now?”

“Food, sleep, then a normal life in the morning if you wish it.”

“A normal life?” I smile crookedly. “You said it yourself: that ship sailed a long time ago.”

“Good, then you won’t mind an immortal cooking for you.”

I let him take my hand, and he leads me up the hill to the house. In the kitchen, Madame Rousseau is sitting at the kitchen table with Aimee. They’re speaking—in French. Somehow I’m not surprised that Aimee knows French, too.

“Wren!” she squeaks when she sees me.

“
Ma petite fille
, it has been too long,” Madame Rousseau smiles.

I look myself up and down and wince. Of course, I’m the only one in a nightgown. I shouldn’t be so self-conscious, considering my life just self-destructed in front of my eyes.

Correction: I willingly pushed the self-destruct button.

Madame Rousseau rises from her chair, and I hurry over to hug her. As I wrap my arms around her, her bones feel light and fragile like a small bird’s. The last time I was here with her, Alex had been my enemy. Now, more than a year later, I’m back in the same place, only this time it was Ever I was afraid of.

“I always knew Alexandre would bring you back,” my elderly French caretaker whispers.

I pull back and smile, feeling tears on my cheeks.

“I’m so happy to see you again,” I say truthfully.

“Breakfast?”

I turn to see Alex has assembled a collection of ingredients on the countertop. When he looks up at me and smiles, the uninhibited happiness in his startlingly blue eyes is just as likely to break me as the rage I saw in Ever’s eyes when he looked at me. Blinking back tears, I smile and reach out to touch Aimee’s shoulder, noticing that she’s now wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt.

“I’ll be right back,” I murmur before hurrying toward the staircase.

When I reach the second floor, I pause in front of a familiar gilded mirror and stare at my reflection. My eyes look wrong. It looks like another person looking back at me through my eyes. Suddenly my image grins widely and laughs at me.

“
Join us
,” my reflection whispers.

A hand extends through the glass, beckoning to me. My throat is dry, but I force a scream past my lips. A second later, an arm wraps around me, pulling me back. Alex swings a blade into the mirror, shattering the glass into a thousand pieces, before pulling me to him.

“What did you see?”

“Me. My reflection, but it was …”

I feel my eyes glaze over at the memory of my face twisted with such madness.

“It was her,” I whisper. “The princess.”

“Irisa,” Alex says.

I frown.

“She has a name in this dimension?”

“More a personal joke of mine, and not a good one, much like Ever and the others naming me Iago,” Alex says with a sheepish look.

“I don’t get it.”

He opens his palm and shows me an iridescent stone.

“Is it from your world?”

He shakes his head.

“No. Just a simple rainbow quartz, also known as an iris.”

“Okay. And?”

“It is beautiful, but internally flawed. The defects are what cause it to reflect the light.”

I nod, not quite in the right space to enjoy Alex’s word play. Somehow, seeing my evil twin self in the mirror was more disturbing than my recent trip across the dimensional divide.

“That makes sense,” I mutter blankly. “She was definitely flawed. I guess I have more in common with her than I thought,” I laugh humorlessly.

Alex squeezes my hand, and I look up at him.

“
You
are nothing like her,” he says seriously. “Nothing.”

***

We make it from the south of France to my darkened bedroom in a millisecond. Less than an hour ago, I finished breakfast in Madame Rousseau’s kitchen, took a shower, brushed my teeth, went back to the garden for one last look—and now here I am at home—on the same night that I left. I didn’t even change out of my floor-length nightgown, which makes me feel like Wendy Darling as Alex sets me down on the floor and touches my cheek.

“Would that make me Peter Pan?” he asks with a crooked smile. “I hadn’t realized I was wearing tights.”

I blush and look at my hands.

“It’s going to take some getting used to,” I mumble. “You hearing my thoughts. But yeah, Peter Pan—the boy who would never grow up. That’s you. Well, you’re not exactly a
boy
, but still …”

I trail off and look up at him, watching as his expression of amusement begins to fade.

“You could have left me there,” he says quietly.

“No. I left you there too long, and I can’t forgive myself for that.”

“Wren, I deserved everything that came to me. But you … you are far better than I deserve. And I will not let what I am destroy you.”

I shake my head.

“You gave yourself up for me,” I remind him.

“Ever isn’t the only one who needed to atone for past wrongs.”

Suddenly I see it in his eyes. Irisa, Victor’s princess, watching Alex.
Wanting
him. Dropping down to sit on the bed, I hesitate.

“What happened to her?”

Alex’s lip curls.

“Victor punished her. Turned her mind against her. Only pain pleases her now.”

“And you blame yourself? How is it your fault? You didn’t do anything.”

“You’re right. I
didn’t
do anything. I stood by and watched as he turned her mad.”

“But you couldn’t help it if she loved you—”

He shakes his head.

“Love? No, love was not what she felt for me. Even before she went mad, she was merely acquisitive, incapable of love. Yet I still bear the weight of my inaction.”

“Is that why you gave yourself up for me last year? Because you felt guilty?”

He drops to his knee in front of me.

“I have much to feel guilty for, but the reason I left was not out of guilt, but because I wanted you to be free.”

“Ever said you only did it to bind me to you.”

“Even if you had never looked back once, I wouldn’t regret my choice. … Do you regret your choice to come for me?”

I shake my head.

“No, I don’t regret it. I just can’t understand how I can … how I can love two people at once.”

“Had I been a selfless creature, I would have left you alone. But I’ve never claimed to be that.”

“I don’t get it, though,” I whisper. “What did
either
of you see in me?”

“Hope. Beauty. Compassion. Understanding. Forgiveness. Love. A chance at happiness. And a wicked sense of humor that I believe I am better suited to appreciate than any other.”

I let myself fall back onto the bed, watching the darkness around bend and blur through my tears. I shut my eyes against the sting.

“Dammit, Alex. I
needed
you to be the bad guy. I needed you to be Iago. Because I can’t love you. Do you understand? I …
can’t
.”

“But you do love me … and, for that, I am forever grateful.”

When I open my eyes, he’s above me in the darkness—weightless—with his arms on either side of my head as he watches each shuddering breath I take. When he bends his head to mine, awareness spreads through my body. Reaching up, I touch his chest tentatively, amazed by the unyielding contour of muscles. I freeze as his lips brush my cheek.

“I am yours.”

I blink, and he’s gone. Sitting up, I feel my heart race. I have reason to fear everyone but Alex right now. And that’s when I see him sitting at my desk, watching me. Frowning, I pull the covers up to my neck before falling back on my pillow.

“You could have stayed here with me,” I mumble into the darkness.

When he doesn’t say anything, I finally close my eyes, abruptly aware that every cell in my body is exhausted.

“That would have required restraint I do not possess. Now sleep.”

I hear the smile in his voice as sleep comes for me. Only seconds later—or at least that’s what it feels like—my alarm clock goes off. Groaning, I roll over and swat at the snooze button.

“Good morning.”

Electricity courses through me as I sit upright in bed. The first thing I see is my prom dress, hanging on the back of the closet door. Then my eyes shift to my desk.

“You are quite loquacious in your sleep,” Alex smiles lazily.

I’m on the verge of directing a smart remark at dream-Alex when reality interrupts me.

Alex is actually here
. I saved him. It wasn’t a dream. Which means my life is more complicated than I thought possible. This time, though, it isn’t otherworldly forces complicating things—it’s my stupid, unruly feelings.

Finally I understand the comment Ever made once about being compromised by his emotions. I never thought anything in this world could sever my tie to Ever. But Alex, like Ever, isn’t of this world. Their entire existence is not
humanly
possible, just like my feelings, my love—for both of them.

“You were here all night?” I ask cautiously.

“We have too many enemies to be apart.”

We
.
We
have too many enemies.

“
Ever
isn’t my enemy,” I whisper fiercely as guilt and regret cause my eyes to burn.

Then I remember the blast wave that Alex shielded me from. My stomach drops. Had Ever meant to
kill
me? Swinging my legs over the side of my bed, I start to get up just as Alex appears in front of me.

“Wren, Ever is right. I haven’t played the game fairly; I am the interloper. And if our roles were reversed, I would wish him punished and exiled for stealing what was mine.”

Looking up at him, I have a sudden flash, and it becomes painfully clear. Despite what Alex said last night, I know the real reason why he wants me. Why Ever wants me. Why Victor wants me. I laugh as I remember playing this game in school as a kid.

“
The game
? It’s the inter-dimensional version of musical chairs, right?”

Alex frowns in confusion until I envision the game in my head.

“The only one left standing loses,” I whisper without emotion. “And I’m the last ‘chair.’ Basically the last girl left on the planet.”

Hollowness fills my chest. Victor needs a body for crazy-town Irisa, even though he’s the one who drove her nuts. And Alex and Ever are facing eternity alone. That means I’m only valuable because I’m their last chance. Victor’s motives, at least, make sense—he needs a puppet for Irisa. He also needs me to take over this world.

But Alex and Ever? How did I ever convince myself that either one of them wanted me for me? Disgusted with myself for believing that I was more—to either of them—than the last toy on the shelf, I stand up and try to brush past Alex. It feels better to be angry with both of them than to hate myself for being stupid on top of everything else. Alex cuts me off instantly, blocking my path. I look up at him with tears stinging my eyes.