Beautiful Sorrows (10 page)

LIFE

Anna lay back in the long grass, staring at the halo around the sun. Her gaze skittered away and landed briefly on a heart-shaped cloud before looking past it into forever.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” Quit said. He was sprawled out in the grass as well, his head resting on Anna’s abdomen. He still had the flowers in his hair that she had braided into it earlier.

“I don’t believe that life is meant to be fair,” Anna said. She felt the warm weight of his head rise and fall with her breath. The responsibility of it scared her a little, and she watched her stomach go flat, held it there until she gasped again. Quit’s brown hair fluttered in the breeze that she created.

“I could love you like my brother does.” His voice was surprisingly steady. He had a lighter cadence than Michael Thomas, a much more playful sound.

“Say that again,” she commanded. He did.

“You almost sounded like him that time.”

“That’s not funny, Anna.”

“I didn’t say it to be funny.”

Quit’s long brown fingers worked at a piece of grass, shredding it into thin slivers. He tossed them up into the air and they were carried away by the wind.

“A thing of beauty,” he said about nothing in particular, and held his hand up to the sky. Anna reached out and grabbed his index finger. He wrapped his hand around hers.

“What do you think he’s thinking about right now?” she said, turning their laced fingers into the light. Her foot rested in the patch of grass that usually belonged to Michael Thomas. She wiggled her toes there.

“Dying,” Quit said simply, and kissed her hand. His lips left a spot of moisture across her knuckles, and she squinted at it. He began to kiss the tips of her fingers, each one in turn, but she pulled her hand away.

“Stop it,” she said, and put her hands over her ears.

“I was just practicing.”

Anna ignored him, listening instead to the muffled sound of the wind and the grass through the palms of her hands. Quit began to hum, and turned his face toward her belly. She felt the vibrations through her skin.

With her ears covered, her breathing began to sound very loud. She worked on making it slow and even, lining it up with the beating of her heart. Four beats to every breath in, four beats to every breath out. Like the machines that counted Michael Thomas’s breaths.

“He always got to the things that I wanted first,” Quit was saying in the background. The way that he shaped his vowels was painfully lovely. “He was always older and faster than I was. He wasn’t content to wait for anything. He’s probably looking at this as a challenge.” He traced lazy circles high on Anna’s thigh where her yellow dress had ridden up. She remembered vaguely that she had kicked off her shoes somewhere in the high grass, and couldn’t quite remember where they were.

“I don’t think…that I will ever be able to find my car in the parking lot without him,” she whispered suddenly. The sun’s halo burned in her vision when she closed her eyes. “Michael Thomas always remembers things like that.”

Quit ran his hand over her leg like he was erasing something written in the sand. He pulled her hemline down demurely to her knees, smoothed it there.

“I could help you find your car,” he said. She shook her head, rustling the grass.

“You get as lost as I do, Quit.”

“I could try.”

Anna slid out from under him, cozied up to him nose to nose. She ran her hands through his hair, slid them over his cheekbones and rested her thumbs in the hollows beneath. His lashes were wet.

She slipped her knee between both of his, and rested her nose in the hollow of his throat. She felt his pulse jump under her cheek.

“You’re alive,” she said, and closed her eyes. She felt his shoulder twitch once, and then he stilled. His hand rested on her back. It almost felt like Michael Thomas’s hand. She had to say it again.

“You’re alive.”

LUNA E VOLK

The first time Andros saw her, he knew. He had been raised on tales of the old ways and recognized immediately that there was something more to this girl, something rolling under her skin like the waves of the sea. She was too beautiful; her eyes were too new. She saw magic and wonder in things everybody else took for granted.

“Isn’t that stunning?” she said once, studying a tiny white flower that bloomed near a brick wall. The men agreed vocally, as they agreed with everything that she said. The women narrowed their eyes. The girl didn’t seem to notice.

 “What is your name?” Andros asked her. She straightened and faced him. Starlight shone through her skin.

“I’m Serena. Who are you?”

“Andros,” he said. His heart cried out in joy. Serena? Even her name sounded mystical.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” he asked knowingly, and Serena laughed.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Maybe not to everyone, but it is to me.” He smiled at her, a we’re-sharing-a-secret smile, and Serena laughed again.

“You’re a strange man, Andros. But I like you.”

He liked her too, whoever she was. Wherever she had come from.

He tried to recall everything he could about shape shifters. Was she a skinwalker? He cast the idea aside immediately. Too lovely. Too ephemeral. He felt only lust and desire and his protective instincts rise to the surface when he was around her. No fear. No distrust.

A selkie? A mermaid? Did she come from the sea? This wasn’t something he could ask, and she could never tell him; but more than that, he should be able to piece this together on his own.

He asked her out. He rented a canoe and valiantly rowed them around the tiny pond that the city deemed a lake.

“So,” he said, panting a little from the exertion, “do you like to swim?”

Serena shuddered delicately. “Oh, goodness, no. I abhor the water. I nearly drowned once when I was a child, and I have been deathly afraid of it ever since.”

He stopped rowing and the boat drifted silently.

“But you’re here with me,” he pointed out. Serena bit her lip and gave a small smile.

“Well, yes. This is where you wanted to come.”

“But if you’re afraid...”

Her cheeks reddened ever so slightly. “I am afraid. I’m telling myself to be brave, because the water isn’t very deep and I believe that you wouldn’t let me drown, but I’m still afraid. Yet this is where you wanted to be, and I wanted to be with you.”

She turned her face away from him. He studied her dark hair, her pale skin painted with that delicate blush. He suddenly understood what she was trying to say.

“Oh,” he said, surprised and delighted.

“Oh,” she answered, and covered her face with her hands. Andros leaned forward and took them.

“I would kiss you right now, but I have seen the movies and know that this is when I would upset the canoe. And I never want you to be afraid,” he told her.

“How very practical,” she agreed, and they both started to laugh. Andros rowed for shore.

She wasn’t a selkie. Not a water nymph or a mermaid. She must be something else.

He brought her to a steakhouse for their next date. He stuffed his mouth with meat and watched her push her salad around her plate.

“Not much of a carnivore?” he asked her.

Serena smiled at him quizzically. “That’s a rather unusual question, Andros.”

He swallowed and then grinned, his teeth sharp in the dim lighting. “I don’t mean it to be. I love a good steak. I could eat one every night. But you ordered a salad. Does meat make you feel...unclean?”

Her laughter wasn’t mean at all, and Andros mentally checked off his list. She wasn’t a werewolf. She wasn’t a golden dragon or a vampire. She didn’t seem at all menacing, so nothing predatory. He tried one more question.

“Do you ever feel like life is eternal? That you’ve lived eons already and have a couple thousand more to go?”

She sighed. “I do feel that way sometimes. I get very weary.”

It really wasn’t a very good question. Immortality applied to most of the Otherkind. Still, he had asked and she had answered, and that was a very good thing, indeed.

That night Andros had a dream. He and Serena were walking through the forest. She was a daughter of the moon, stars shining in her dark hair and eyes. She wore a long white dress and her hand was resting on the ruff of Andros’s neck.

Andros realized he was padding by her side on all fours. He glanced down and saw soft brown paws. He twitched his ears and slashed his tail through the air. He sniffed and could smell the anticipation emanating from Serena’s pores.

She stopped suddenly, knelt down and rubbed her face into Andros’s fur. “It’s nearly time, my love,” she murmured. Andros whimpered and licked her ear, leaving red stains on her white skin. Blood. His mouth was full of it and it invigorated him. He raised his muzzle to the moon and howled.

The next day he was unusually quiet. Serena slipped her cold fingers into his.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

He bit his lip, tasted blood, and thought of his dream. He found it exciting.

“Serena, do you ever feel that...we’re more than we seem? That we could peel our skins away and find something wild and animalistic underneath?”

Her eyes told him everything he needed to know.

“That’s a very deep thought,” she said. “You’re treading on dangerous territory.” She was teasing, but he could feel the truth was threading through her words. Of course it was. This wasn’t something that she could speak about openly. If she did, the enchantment would be broken, and she would have to go back to wherever she came from. That’s why she chose to speak to Andros in dreams. That’s why she chose to let him in on the secret that he was an Other, too. Moon and Wolf.
Luna e Volk
. Perhaps he never would have figured it out on his own. The thought made him shudder.

He had to let her know that he understood. That he was ready.

“It’s a full moon tonight,” he said casually. Serena’s face softened.

“I know. I’ve been looking forward to it.”

Of course she had. “Would you like to do something special?”

Her eyes glowed.

Andros picked her up after dark. It was a long drive out of the city and to the forest, but it would be worth it. At first he was disappointed Serena was wearing a dark dress instead of the white one from the dream, but it made her creamy skin even more luminous in comparison. Besides, she wouldn’t be wearing it for too much longer, anyway.

“I’m very glad to be here with you,” she said, and dropped her hand lightly on Andros’s thigh. “I think that tonight will be very memorable.”

He couldn’t drive there fast enough. Finally he found the clearing, a place that he remembered from years ago. He parked the car, got out, and opened the door for Serena. She stepped lightly out of the car and turned her face to the moon.

“It’s so beautiful.”

It was. So was she. Andros was shocked to find the feeling he felt was...gratitude. He was grateful that she was going to show him her true self. He was grateful that he’d get to discover his.

“So how do we go about this?” he asked her. In the movies that he watched, the changes occurred without a man being aware of it. One minute he was walking along and the next he was growing bigger, larger, stronger. So now that Andros knew he was a wolf, how would it be different?

Serena’s smile held mysteries. “Are you nervous?”

“A little,” he said honestly.

She stepped closer and pulled his arms around her. “Don’t be. It’s a natural thing. You’ll know exactly what to do.”

Her kiss tasted like the sky. She stepped back and let her dress fall to the ground. Her body shone in the moonlight and Andros knew exactly who she was.

“Tennyo,” he whispered.

“Hmm?”

She was a daughter of the moon, a daughter of the sky. She flew on feathered wings. There were tales about her kind in all of the old stories. The beautiful girl who turns into a swan. The woman who falls from the sky until her clothes are stolen from her. But there was more than that, wasn’t there? It ran deeper. It was under her skin, under the flesh.

“You drink the stars,” he murmured.

“You say pretty things.”

He couldn’t stop himself. “How is it going to be? Will I feel my skin tear? Will it hurt? Is it just this amazing feeling of coming together, of being who I really am?” He looked at her intensely. “Will you still care for me afterward? Will you be frightened?”

She pulled off his shirt, ran her open mouth down his throat. “Andros, you’re so funny. Why would I be frightened?” She pressed closer.

“Maybe I’ll be a monster. You’ll be beautiful and I’ll be hideous. Maybe I won’t be able to control myself and I’ll hurt you.”

“You worry too much, darling.”

It was time. He slid his hands down her smooth, bare back. Her skin reflected the moon’s light like a star. He was dying to find out what was underneath it. He wanted to see—

“—who you truly are,” he said.

“What?” she asked, and then she was screaming.

The knife was out of his back pocket and sliding down that beautiful spine of hers. It cut through easily, creating a seam in her suit of skin. She pulled away but he was stronger.

“I’m almost through, Serena. Your beauty is legendary. If you look like this in your human form, than how...”

He didn’t finish. Serena was screaming, kicking and struggling. He knocked her down to the ground and pinned her with his long legs.

“Why are you fighting? I don’t understand!”

She was saying things that didn’t make sense. Andros thought maybe she was asking him why. He thought she was cursing him and begging for her father. He started cutting down the front, working the smooth, starry skin off in patches.

“Why don’t you make this easier?” he asked her. He was starting to panic. Why was there so much blood? Why didn’t her body slip off like silk and show him the wonders underneath? This never happened in the movies! Sometimes the skin needed a gentle tug from a loving suitor’s hand, but never more than that.

“I can’t be wrong. You showed all the signs!” He shook her, but she wasn’t responding anymore. She was still breathing, but her eyes had gone someplace far away, farther away than the stars from which she...from which he
thought
she had come.

He looked at his hands. He looked at her body. She was red and raw, missing a breast. Blood and other fluids leaked from under her skin. He wanted to piece her back together, but the idea of pulling and tugging her shredded flesh into place made him sick. He turned his head to the side and vomited.

“Serena?” he whispered. There was no movement except for her shallow breathing. He called her name again and nervously wiped his mouth with the back of a dripping hand. He tasted something tangy and nearly familiar, and then realized that it was her blood. Serena’s blood, smeared over his face and onto his lips. It was just like his dream, but twisted and brutally ugly. Where was the joy? Where was the rapture?

The knife glimmered as it fell from his shaking hand. Andros raised his face to the moon and screamed. In the shattered darkness, it sounded very much like the howling of an animal.