Fire and Shadows (Ashes and Ice #2) (16 page)

49

JADE

Dejanira’s claws dug
deep into my back and I screamed, whipping around and thrusting a blade towards her. She ducked away, rolling and then she stood. “You! You ruined everything!” she hissed. “This world was supposed to be ours? And you let that—Seraph—kill Lilith, kill our mother. You are the monster you always thought you were...and you can’t even blame me.”

“
I don’t,” I said. I felt the well of scorching heat building in me, channeling into my arms, ready. “I can be a monster...when I need to be.” I took the swords, swiveled them in the air, and slammed them deep into the ice, the force of my anger, hatred, fire, and blackness charring the earth and the ice. A loud cracking splintered the ice and everything beyond where my swords stood piercing the ice, started to crumble and pitch backwards. The cavern of Hell—of Lilith, Dejanira, torture, and monsters, started to cave in on itself, and falling deeper into the earth. Dejanira tumbled back, rolling and thrashing against the ice. “You bitch!” She grabbed a jutted out piece of rock as Hell tilted to a vertical angle, just leaving Giovanni, and I standing and Lynx passed out in Giovanni’s arms. Lilith’s body rolled in a messy thud down the ice, smearing black blood as she went tumbling.

Dejanira
’s eyes met mine. “This isn’t over.”

I swallowed hard, because even as if it seemed the very world was falling, I knew she was right.
“I’ll be waiting.” I hauled one sword up and plunged it back into the ice, and yet another splintered ice face cracked, and as it did, Dejanira screamed as she fell into the abyss.

50

CONNOR

Nanan and Matt
were gasping beside me. Blood had dried beneath my nose. The Unbinding spell had been cast and I wasn’t sure if the fact my body had started healing, my strength returning was a good thing or a sign there was no longer anyone who needed my strength. I didn’t have to say anything for Nanan to start smudging the runes of the Unbinding and start drawing the symbols for the portal. Matt heaved in deep breaths as he shook. I stood in the center of the circle. The candles’ fire burned brighter. I had to squint and step back so that the flame wouldn’t blister my skin. I knew what I had to do when Nanan and Matt stopped their flurry of movement and just sat back on their hands and knees. I traced the symbol on my wrist.

I paused when I felt her like a warm presence in my mind.
I could feel her, like an echo in my mind that I couldn’t make out, that I couldn’t catch, but she was there. And with everything for the spell cast before me, I was going to stand beside her every step of the way. If I made it there, that is. Nanan’s house was too quiet. Waiting. It was stifling and I was ashamed that a small part of me was happy to go, happy to leave these creaking floorboards and all this claustrophobic tension behind.

“
Connor?” Mom’s voice was tentative in the dark, probing, accusatory. All our gazes snapped to Nanan’s living room doorway. None of us had heard her come inside. Mom’s eyes scanned the room. She knew very quickly that this was all wrong. Her son stood in the middle of a two interlocking circles drawn in white chalk on the ground. Three candles melting around him, flickering in time with the flames’ undulations and then in my hand was Jade’s shirt. “Connor, what are you doing?” Mom came in slowly, her arms and hands poised in front of her as if she was trying to approach a wild animal. “Baby, what are you doing?” She had followed me here. Her voice quivered and I hated myself for it. Even if she had tried to send me to an asylum...

“
Mom, I can’t explain. But I have to go...”

Nanan and Matt tensed.

“Where? Where are you going?” Her voice pitched upward, as if the sound could build a wall and try to stop me.

“
I—I have to go to Jade.”

“
No, Connor. No. You have to stay here. With me. You promised... you promised!” Angry tears pricked at her eyes. I didn’t want to add that she nearly sent me away. She was too broken to hear it. She was afraid and I didn’t blame her. She was clenching her teeth as she spoke. She was the one that looked like a wild animal. She was the one that looked like she was ready to spring the attack and I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t stay.

“
I’ll be back, Mom.” I threw Jade’s shirt into the fire, quickly traced the symbol and felt her presence within me. I reached for it, and the moment I did, I felt a sucking sensation as if the air behind me was about to slurp me up and swallow me whole. “I promise.” The wind spat out around me from the void at my back. Mom lunged, but I could already feel my body being yanked back. The desperation on Mom’s face crushed me. I had promised, but as the blackness stole me away from my home, my living room, my mother and whisked me off to somewhere I didn’t know, I knew it was a promise I couldn’t keep. I knew it may have been the last time I would ever see my mother’s face, and for a split second, I wondered if I had made the wrong choice. I wondered even if I did come back, if I would have a mother to come back to. I clenched my eyes shut and felt the air whip around me. A flash of light came before me and I opened my eyes wider. I smelled pine and ash, and…Jade.

51

JADE

Giovanni was far
ahead on the trail, but I could feel him glancing back every few minutes. I rubbed my neck and the raised flesh there. It stung as if it were an open wound and alcohol was being splashed on it. I rolled back my shoulders and stepped back on the path, careful not to trip into the demonic energy. I wouldn’t be able to survive that again. That is when it hit me—a blow to my belly that knocked me back. I grasped onto a tree branch to steady me. The strangest sensation sprang up in me and I felt like I was pulling, yanking, dragging something toward me. My body bowed forward, hollowing out as the breath sputtered out of me. Dizziness racked me and I felt nauseous. But then... something, something tickled my mind... then his full image blossomed there and I held onto it, staving off the faint feeling. Soap, sweat, his old house, sunlight, and him... Connor. The image of him was so vivid and beautiful that I wanted to fall back into the wet grass and dream he was here beside me, and I was wrapped up in his arms. I closed my eyes tightly, vaguely registering Giovanni calling far away. Wind picked up. I could feel the trees swaying and the leaves dancing around me as the burst of air hit me hard. I didn’t open my eyes, because I didn’t want to lose the beautiful sight of him.

I felt warm strong arms wrap around me. I furrowed my brow for a moment... was this a part of my daydream? Had I really fallen back into dreams
? “Jade?” It was a light sound, a breath on my cheek. I smiled a bit. Yes, I was dreaming, and in my dream, Connor was holding me. “Jade, Jade, I’m here!” It was the enthusiasm and the hands on my shoulders shaking me that finally got me to open my eyes.

I gasped. Breath tore out of me and it took considerable effort to force it back in. He was there. His tall, lean form. The light
in his amber eyes, the tan of his skin. He looked older with a little stubble on his chin, his eyes more intense, the skin beneath them dark, but this, this was my light-filled man, my Connor. Even now, an overpowering bright green flooded the air around him. He was blazing... and here. I blinked at him, still stunned.

He looked almost as shocked, even with his warm, calloused hands cupping my cheeks, his thumbs tenderly gliding back and forth on my cheekbones
. He looked at me as if I wasn’t actually there, or that if he let go, I would fall and break. I swallowed hard. “I—I can’t believe that you are here.”

He let out a choked, small laugh.
“Well, I can. I worked my ass off to get here.”

A giddy feeling rose up in me. He was here! My arms went around his neck and I pulled him closer to me. So close to me that I could almost hear my ribs protesting.
“I missed you so much. I didn’t—I didn’t know if I would see you again.”

“
Hey,” he pulled back, and tapped me under my chin, “do you remember what we said? That night before the dance? I will never let you go.”

Those were the precise words I had said when the life was breathed back into him. When my tears saved him. And then, I had left him in a hospital bed... alone. With just a note. I stiffened. A note he never received. I couldn
’t muster the anger back up for Giovanni. I couldn’t even spare a glance in his direction; I was too consumed with happiness to be in Connor’s arms. I stood on my tiptoes and brushed my lips against his. His eyes widened before a huge smile spread across his lips. “You know, I dreamed of kissing you. A lot. I almost didn’t believe that I had really kissed you that night. Everything had gone so fast. But we did, didn’t we? Kiss.”

I didn
’t answer him. Instead, I pulled his face down to mine, slanting my lips over his, tasting him with the same languid strokes of my tongue and press of my lips, with the same fervent need that he had kissed me with that first night. I felt my body edged back against a tree and I was pinned between the trunk at my back and Connor’s body. Our breath was heavy and tangled together, lost between kisses, whispers and little smiles. My fingers dug into his back because I just needed him closer, so close, so much closer, and I didn’t know how it would be possible, but I knew that it was... somehow.

Suddenly, I felt Connor tear away from me
. The absence of him felt like I had fallen into a tremendous void, breathless. I opened my eyes just in time to see Giovanni’s ruthless face contorted by a sneer as he cocked his arm back and punched Connor straight in his face.

52

GIOVANNI

Rage. Violent rage
rocked my entire body. How was he even here? My knuckles ached where they made contact and I was even angrier that the boy hadn’t flung straight back into the air. He had fallen back, but not the same way a mortal should bend and break to the might of an angel. I picked him up by the collar and punched him again across the jaw. He stumbled back dazed. I pivoted toward Jade; her mouth was in a wide-open O and her eyes so wide that I thought they might pop out of her head. Her lips were still wet and swollen from her kisses with the boy, and that just caused the anger to coil up in me like a snake and ready to strike again. I wanted to shake the confusion, anger and lingering sweetness off her face. I wanted to break the boy until he was splinters on the ground. I wanted to tear the world apart.

“
Hey, asshole.” I bristled. The boy spoke to my back. I jerked back around just in time to see the huge tree trunk attached to his hand hit me square in the face. And right on impact, the day sputtered out and I was falling; I knew for certain that no one was going to catch me.

EPILOGUE

GIOVANNI

I could hear
them giggling and kissing in the dark. I felt hollowed out and torn. I dropped my head into my hands, and then cupped my hands over my ears trying to ease out the noise, their noise. Jade looked at him in a way that she never looked at me. She was animated and alive. Her enthusiasm and her smiles came so easily. I tried to call up the golden spires, the chariot of honor, and the blazing torch of service. Glory. Honor. War. Glory. Honor. War. It was a chant that I let repeat in my mind repeatedly. That is what I wanted. Glory. Honor. War. That is why I pushed her away. Glory. Honor. War. That is why I hid every feeling. But as I kept training my thoughts on the stark yellow of the city, instead of feeling empowered and renewed, I felt defeated.

What was it all anyway? I let my hands drift away from
cupping my ears and heard the whispers, laughter and touches. What would it be like... to not be a slave to this honor? What would it be like to be the one sprawled out on the floor of the forest with someone touching, kissing and wanting me? I had known it once so long ago, yet the same woman who invoked such emotions inside of me, was just a few meters away, with no recollection of it, holding and loving someone else. I couldn’t muster up the rage or feeling of betrayal, because in it all, I could have tried... tried to get her to remember, but my pride was so fierce and strong that I constantly humiliated her and pushed her far away from anything intimate and real that simmered inside of me.
“Tears are real,”
she had said; I remembered it feeling like a stab to my chest. It was irrational for me to react the way that I did, but I was real and right there.

Instead
of letting her glimpse our past, instead of caressing her cheeks, or telling her how she was beautiful, or how I missed her, or how I knew she would be more powerful than I even imagined, I lied to her. I had gritted my teeth through the pain, and lied to myself, which was painless, but were truly the worst lies of all. How many days and nights had we even been together? Weeks? Months? It all seemed to blend.

We had been alone
, and I had so many chances to try to make her love me again... to admit to myself that I still loved and wanted her. Instead, I buried it all so deeply that even when the feelings came bubbling back up, I dismissed them and shoved them back down.

I was alone by a fire, desperate
, shaking and wanting. Wanting her. Wanting her so very fiercely. I grabbed my hair wishing I could rip it off, along with all the thoughts that were bombarding me.

“
Giovanni?” I bristled at her voice so close to me. I hadn’t even heard her approach.

I measured my response and waited till I didn
’t think my voice would shake. “Yes.”

“
Are you okay?” Are you okay? Those three words that she always asked. They infuriated me before, but that was because her expressed concern tugged at the feelings dormant within me, and it took that much more control to tuck them away again. Everything was raw and aching since then. .

She came and sat beside me on the log and I could feel my chest tighten. I shifted my weight away and quickly put some distance between us as I scooted over.
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“
I—I don’t know. You are... grey.”

“
What?”

I looked back to her and saw her studying the air around me. I looked around to see what she did, but saw nothing. My aura. The bastard aura was betraying me.
“I am fine.” The pain pooled in my gut, ripping at me, but I schooled my face into a blank expression. She noticed too much when I didn’t.

“
Connor told me that angels can’t lie. Or that when they do, they experience incredible pain.” She looked at me, at me, not the air around me. “I think you lie to me a lot.”

I glared at her.
“What do you mean?”

“
I think you are lying to me right now. You are not all right.”

“
How would you know that?”

“
You were trying too hard to not show that you weren’t in pain. The way you breathed in; the way you swallowed; the way that muscle ticked in your jaw.”

“
If you are so smart, then why are you even asking me?” I raised my voice and I could hear Connor rustling a little ways off, getting up to see if Jade needed back up, but more than that, I felt my chest tightened as I realized that she noticed all these little details. Details that I wanted her to know.

“
I would like you to tell me.”

Connor was just
to the right of the campfire. Keeping his distance, but there. “Leave me be, Jade. Just... leave me be.” I looked away from her.

“
Don’t lie to me anymore, Giovanni,” she said as she stood. “I want to be able to trust my guardian.”

I closed my eyes and could practically taste the word guardian in my mouth. That
’s what I was... for her. A guardian. At least, that is what I had arranged with Lynx. That is what I had told her when she was ripped away from me. But as she walked away from me and grasped Connor’s hand, I knew I would be lying to her. I had no choice now. Unless... I took a quick glance at them striding away. Unless I wanted to steal her back. Emotions warred within me, but as I looked into the fire, the smallest of smiles crept across my lips.