The Heart's Ashes (88 page)

“
Damn.”

“
Yes. Damn.” He smiled.

“
But I doubt he’d have told you the truth. He knew what I was
all along—ever since the masquerade.”

“
Yes, I heard that.”

“
Why didn’t he tell us?”

“
Probably to protect you. If he is on our side, telling you
might have put you in danger.”

I nodded,
pressing my lips together. “Or we could’ve run away.”

David went
quiet behind thoughtful eyes. “Yes. Which is why I suspect Morgaine
may be right about him having an agenda of his own.”

“
Possibly. I’ll be seeing him in a few days. He’s coming to
the manor the day I arrive.”

“
I know.” David nodded once. “Be careful with him, Ara. He
radiated affection around you, and I’ve seen him like that only
once before—with my aunt. He’s trying to get close to you, for what
reason, I don’t know.”

“
So, his affections aren’t real?”

“
Oh, no, they’re real, but his reasons for them are…well, I
just feel as though something’s not right. He wants something from
you, and I don’t think it’s friendship.”

I smiled. “Are
you jealous?”

“
Of Arthur? No.” He dropped back on his heels a little. “You
and I are in love, and despite my supposed passing, the Arthur I
know would not cross those boundaries with you. It’s just not in
him.”

“
Then why is he so affectionate?”

“
Perhaps to gain your heart, use you for his own purposes.”
His eyes narrowed, he touched his chin. “Which would void his
ethics, rendering my theory that he’d not cross boundaries with you
invalid.”

“
What, so, like, if I fall for him, he can bend me to his
will?”

“
Like I said, I don’t know. He may just feel close to you,
given that I loved, er,
love
you so much.” We both smiled. “All I’m saying is
be cautious of his affections; think before you act, and don’t, for
even one second, allow your guard down, because he will get in
there and steal your heart, and you’ll not even know it’s happened
until he’s in your bed.”

“
David!” I went to slap him, but stopped short of his newly
healed skin.

“
I’m sorry, my love, but I don’t feel safe about this—about
sending you off to the manor alone.”

I slipped my
arms along the insides of his jacket, an outfit way too warm for
this weather, then snuggled my cheek onto his firm, solid, real
chest. “Don’t worry about me, David. Mike will watch over me.”

“
But I do worry, my love. It’s my job to worry—you’re my
wife.”

My mouth fell
open.

“
What?” he said.

“
You said
wife
. It sounds so weird—nice weird.”

David looked
down at the ground and smiled. “Well, my love, as of this day, we
have forever to revel in the joy of our union.”

Slowly, he
linked his fingers through mine, and we stood palm to palm, his
lips an inch away from my hair. And all around us, the smell of wet
soil and watery plants gave the air a breath of summer; a moist
kind of heat mingling within it, settling between our skin while
the sun sparkled off my diamond ring.

“
It was kind of Vicki to send that in the post.” He nodded to
my ring.

“
Yes, well, if we’d not been pretending to be in Paris, I
could’ve had it weeks ago.”

“
If we’d not fled our own wedding, you could have had it back
the same day.”

I smiled. “I
have something for you.”

“
Other than a blissfully happy eternity?”

I smiled and
pulled a heavy white-gold band from my pocket.

“
I wondered what happened to that.” David smiled.

“
I keep it with me so I never really feel very far away from
you.” As I slid the band back where it belonged, and it touched the
base of his finger, my world seemed to stop for one breath, like it
clicked into place around me; the cog that winds the hands of time
had been reset, and it would never be out of place
again.

“
I love you, my beautiful wife.”

“
And I, you.”
My
David
; the boy I loved for so long, but
held for only a heartbeat—now, I will look into those stunning
green eyes for every morning that the sun chooses to rise, and
touch his skin, feel the warmth of his breath on my neck when he
whispers, for always—nothing do us part—not even death.

As our lips
touched, I tried to wash the smile from my face, unable to kiss and
laugh at the same time, but an energy surged in me so strongly my
fingers went tight and numb; David pulled back slightly. “What is
that—it’s warm?”

“
I can use static energy.” I held my hands up—showing him the
awesomeness of snake-like electricity, thrashing about over my
fingers. “Whoa. It’s never done that before.”

David watched
intently as the blue-white light danced around my hands, then
receded into my fingertips. He grabbed my wrist. “Kiss me
again.”

“
Happily.” I stood on my toes and he leaned down slightly,
holding my neck firmly in one hand, my wrist in the other, his eyes
cast to the side, watching my hand. “Why is nothing
happening?”

“
I don’t know. I don’t really know how it happens, I just...”
I let a breath out.

“
What do you think about when it happens?”

“
Hm.” A thought warmed my entire body. “You.”

David laughed
breathily, and with his cheeky smile, a warm charge started in my
centre, branching out across my chest, into my arms, down the bone
in my wrist, coming out the tips of my fingers like a bad need to
touch. I dug my hands into his hair at the base of his neck and
pulled his lips to mine again.

“
My hairs are on end,” he whispered through the kiss. “It
feels like a rush of excitement.”

I could feel
it too, making me breathless, energetic. He dropped my wrist,
obviously no longer interested in the flaring electricity, and ran
his hands under my shirt—lifting it; his skin cool against mine, so
welcome yet so unfamiliar it made me take another breath. The touch
of lust filled me with new ideas, new hopes, things I’d not thought
of for such a long time.

His unwelcome
leather jacket fell to the floor and I reached for his shirt
buttons, wanting his body on mine, his hands everywhere, anywhere,
on every inch of my craving flesh.

“
Craving flesh, huh?” David drew back and laughed.

“
You heard that?”

“
Like a speaker in my ear.”

“
Holy crap. So, why can you hear me?”

David raised
my hand by the wrist and his smiling eyes narrowed. “Might be
something to do with this. I mean, brainwaves are just electrical
signals.”

“
David?” I had to exhale heavily, so excited, that I’d been
holding my breath.
We should consummate
our wedding vows.

The old guy in
him responded with shock, a laugh, but the David I loved so well,
the boy from school, my husband, ran a hand across his mouth and
shook his head, then picked me up, like I weighed nothing, and we
landed in the plush green grass with a very human jolt.

The
electricity in my fingers hummed as I smoothed my hands along his
shoulders—between fabric and skin, and his strong body, so like the
David I married, held me under him, pressed between my legs,
wanting me once more, the way only he could.

“
Ouch.” He looked down at my hands on his hard
arms.

I looked too.
“Oh my God. I’m sorry—I’m not used to these nails yet.” I pulled my
fingers away and his skin healed shut, the four flat indents
closing like vines over a fence. “I only discovered them because I
took the fur of Petey’s head a few weeks ago.”

Motionless, he
watched himself heal, then turned and looked at me. “I’m going to
have to teach you some self-control, it seems.”

“
I don’t think you really want to do that.” I tilted my head
to my shoulder and winked at him.

He took a
breath through lips shaped for a vowel and let it out again very
slowly. “I doubt I’m in any position to be teaching you
self-control, anyway, when I have nothing but less than honourable
intentions.”

The girlie
giggle of my past came back to make me sound like a pathetic
schoolgirl for a minute. “We’re married now, David, you don’t need
to be honourable.”

He shook his
head, his hands travelling up my denim skirt. “I had no intentions
of that.” And his emerald eyes glistened in the sunlight, his
dimples pushing in with his cheeky, unreadable thoughts. In one
gesture, he rose up on knees, unzipped his fly and sunk himself
inside me, leaving me gasping, tangling my fingers in my own hair.
The most pathetic sounds came from my lips, and I just knew the
birds in the trees would be laughing. But I smiled, enjoying the
feeling of David being a part of me once more, and rolled my head
to look over at the lake, catching sight of my underwear as I
did.

“
David?”

“
Yes, my love,” he said right into my ear, his shoulder
against my lips, his hands pressed flat to the ground beside my
ribs.

“
I know this sounds kinda corny but—” I wrapped my legs over
his hips, “—it’s like, when we’re connected like this, I feel
like—”

“
Like?” he said, almost laughing.

“
Like we’re kind of one person. But not in the cheesy,
romantic way. I really feel like, if I held my breath, you wouldn’t
be able to take one.”

The moon shape indent above his lip showed. “That’s how
I’ve
always
felt.
We
are
one, Ara.
Two souls, one heart—for always.”

“
Always.” I felt it all around me then, what eternity felt
like, what it meant to love only one person for all the years you
could exist. It not only scared me but made me shaky and so happy I
felt a tickle in my chest, like a cough, or maybe like I needed to
laugh. There was nothing in the world that could feel more right,
more complete than when two souls touched.

“
Ara. Can you feel that?” David gasped, moving his hips
faster.

“
Feel what?” I looked up at him and squealed, pushing him off
me as I backed away. “What the hell.”

“
Ara, what’s wrong?”

“
Your eyes!” I looked at my hands, then at his eyes again as
the bright, electric blue fizzled away, and they turned back to
green. “They—” I pointed to his face, “—they were blue.”

“
They were?” He rubbed his face, then sat down,
breathless.

“
Are you okay?”

“
I felt you—inside me. Like a flame—but a good flame.” His
lips spread wide across his face and his eyes lit up. “A
very
good flame. Not
burning, more, warming.”

I covered my
mouth. “I could’ve hurt you.”

“
No.” He rose to his knees, zipping his jeans. “My love, I
felt no pain. It was intense—you—I don’t know how, but you were in
my head. I could hear everything you were thinking.”

I crawled
closer to him and sat between his knees, curling into a ball
against his chest. The electricity in my hands fired again, and I
held them in front of me as David watched.

“
I can’t control it—it just happens.”
And it scares the hell out me.

“
Don’t be afraid, sweet girl—we’ll figure it out.”

You can hear
me?

“
Yes.” He kissed my hair. “Thank God.”

I looked up at him and grinned mischievously; “God, my dear
husband, had nothing to do with what
we
just did.”

His eyes widened; he slowly turned his gaze from my hands to
my eyes. “You
heard
that?”

“
Course,” I said. ‘Why wouldn’t I?”

His answering
silence, mixed with the look in his eye, said everything.

“
Wait! That was a thought?”

He said
nothing more. Just rested his chin on the curve of my shoulder,
hugging me to his chest as we watched the sun sneak closer to the
treetops.

Chapter
30

Leaning my
elbow on the picnic basket, I smiled at the place where we once
laid the rug out and spent our afternoon unsure what the other
wanted. The flavour of grapes that scented my breath that day he
refused to kiss me, when we were so young and I knew nothing of
vampires, once again sat on my lips.

“
Thoughts?” David said, rolling up from the shoulders to look
at me, the sun forcing him to squint.

“
I can’t believe I ever thought you didn’t love
me.”

He flopped
back down, his hands on his belly, his long legs extended out,
crossed at the ankles. “I know. It was irritating, to more than
just myself.”

I laughed.
“Yeah, guess I drove everyone crazy, didn’t I?”

“
You wouldn’t be the girl I love if you didn’t.”

I popped
another grape in my mouth and looked away from the memory of my old
life. Despite today being our last day together until after my
coronation, I still liked this life better than my human one. “It
kind of sucks,” I said.

“
Vampires?”