For Your Heart (Hill Dweller Retellings) (20 page)

    
Roxel stops tugging and turns back to me.  Her eyes are black.  I don’t remember them ever being that color.  Have I crossed her?  She forces a little smile and her eyes shoot to Twyla, saying something to her in the mind-speak way of the
Aos Si
, I’m sure.  It’s yet another trait I don’t possess.  “Well?” she finally says.

    
I shake my head.  “No, I don’t know what Benders do.”

    
She nods and gestures toward the bed.  “Sit.”

    
Approaching reluctantly, I perch on the edge of the bed – ready to get up if she attempts anything physical.  She sits beside me and for a long moment she doesn’t say anything.  So, I speak instead, “I understand that
Aos Si
Talent comes from a blending of human will and angelic magic.”

    
A smile brightens her face.  “Well it’s good to see that you paid attention during your lessons.  Yes, that’s true.  It is why we surmise we were damned in the first place.  Angels have the ability to harness the energy of The Host, to tap into God’s wellspring.  Couple that with the capacity for free will and…Well, the results can be quite devastating.”

    
I feel her hand reach out and touch the back of my neck.  Hot.  I stay still, focus on the balcony doors drawn tight.  That’s not normal, Twyla must have closed them.  It’s stuffy in here without the breeze, the rose scent cloying and choking.  I take deep lungfuls of air, trying to keep myself from coughing.  The air is very humid, almost wet.  Wet like mist.

    
I blink.  There
is
mist.  What is this?  Is this Twyla’s doing?  Crazy elemental
Aos Si
and their Talent to wield certain elements.  She does this sometimes, I remember when I was young and had a temper tantrum, Roxel had Twyla make it rain in my room for a week.

    
Roxel is still speaking, hand on my neck.  Hot.  Teasing.  “Most
Aos Si
specialize in one thing.  A Water Witch like Twyla, for example, can only manipulate water.  And a Speaker like dear Morgan can only understand different forms of speech.  Some speakers can only understand one form of speak.”

    
Her hand.  Hot.  Teasing.  Trailing.

    
I gasp for air, trying to focus beyond the immediate desires of Roxel’s sensuous touch.  Didn’t it repel me moments ago?  I’m certain it did…But I can’t remember why. My mind floats…

    
Roxel leans close to me, her hand slides up my thigh as she whispers in my ear.  “Benders, like myself, have a special Talent.  Do you know what it is, Tam?”  Her voice is silk and purr, her hand brings bliss.  She nibbles my ear.  My body reacts instantly.

    
Stop.

    
Why?

    
I can’t remember.  Her hand keeps going, making me groan, my eyes roll back.

    
Roxel lets out a breathy laugh.  Her body presses against mine, telling it to lay down.  I do.  She climbs atop me, dragging her dress around her hips, planting my hands on her bare skin.  She gyrates against me, making me hate my own clothes, I grab her hips.  Her eyes meet mine, fiery and black at the same time, they almost glow in the mist.

    
The mist.  It’s everywhere now, filling the room with rose-tinted haze.

    
“Benders,” she says, drawing my eyes.  Her fingers release me, making it easy to have her. I want her with every primal fiber of my being.  “We’re a fearsome lot.  Our Talent is the ability to alter the minds of others.”

    
I’m free, body to body.  And I have her.  I grab her hips and flip her onto her back, making her shriek with glee.

    
Her hands snake up and grab my hair, dragging my head toward her.  She digs her nails into the flesh of my lower back, pinning me to her as she speaks.  “Like this mist for example.  It’s a Bend I’m particularly fond of.  You’ve encountered it many times, particularly when you were young and willful, when you wouldn’t do what I wanted.  And I often let it loose in the main hall when the courtiers start to get dull.”

    
I bury my face in her neck and tug at her dress.  Like an animal.  I cannot get enough of her body, her taste.  Flesh, breast, thigh, raven hair.  I pin her down.  Hot.  Need.  Drive. I stare into those eyes, so dark and filled with excitement.

    
She smiles and it makes my body more feverish.  “It makes inhibitions disappear.  Breaks you down to your most primal desires.”  She trails her hand down my skin…hot and teasing, trailing and needing.  “And you my love, without a brain for logic and reason, without your knightly morals to guide you true, you’re nothing but a body driven by hormones.”

    
She laughs into my neck, her body vibrating as it arches against mine.  “And the best part about the mist is, come morning, you’ll never remember it was there.”

    
I hunger, driving us to the edge. 

    
And then I stay for a long, long time.

    
Doing it over and over again.

    
The mist recedes and I wake in Hell.

Jeanette

    
Dinner is over and I’m in the process of blow drying my hair after my shower when Tamrin crests the stairs and slumps against the wall.  I turn the blow-dryer off and give him a penetrating glare.  “I was hoping you finally gave up,” I mutter.  But really?  I’m mentally doing the twist and shout.

    
Tamrin doesn’t look at me as he says, “Don’t be stupid, Jean.”

    
I scowl at him and poke his chest with my brush.  “Don’t call me stupid.”

    
Tamrin rolls his eyes.  “If I were calling you stupid then I would have said stop being stupid.  I’m saying don’t be stupid.  You’ll insult your own intelligence.  You know I can’t simply give up.”

    
I stare at the floor.  I suppose it would be too much to hope.  I turn the hairdryer back on, but I don’t lift it to my head.  I stare at the dryer blowing hot air at Tamrin’s leg.

    
Eventually, he speaks again.  “I have to visit the court more often.  Roxel will get suspicious if I don’t.  And I-” he pauses, searching for the words.  “I kind of miss it.”

    
I give up on the hairdryer and turn it off again.  I look up at him and try to ease over my harsh words from earlier with a joke.  “You miss being a whore?  Boy, they must pay you really well.”

    
Tamrin gives me the most acerbic glare I think I’ve ever gotten.  I’ve struck a very tender nerve.  “That’s not what I meant.  It’s the only home I’ve known, Jean.  Don’t you get homesick?”

    
I blink at him.  “No.  I’ve never been away from home long enough to miss it,” I say honestly.  But I understand him, nonetheless. “I’ve only ever been
person
sick.  You miss them so badly, you never feel home will be home again.”

    
“Your mother?”

    
“Mom…Timmy.”

    
A long moment passes, Tamrin shifts foot to foot, more agitated than I’ve ever seen him.  Eventually he says, “What happened?”

    
I lift a shoulder, feeling not quite uncomfortable, but odd.  It’s weird talking about them after so long, after building the façade so no one could see the pain.  “Mom had cancer.”  I reach up and rub my eyebrow.  “And Timmy…They, uh, they never found his body.”

    
He stares at me for a long moment. I speak to break the heart wrench I feel.  “But about homesickness – don’t you hang out in Carver Hall Park most of the time?  Don’t you have to guard the roses?”

    
Tamrin runs his fingers through his hair.  “I went home every night.”

    
Sighing, I plop the drier onto the bathroom counter before stepping into the hallway and facing him.  He’s upset.  Now that I know he’s telling the truth about being a for-real supernatural being, it makes him more dangerous than I feel comfortable with.  So, I lean against the wall, keeping distance.  “Tell me about it?  Summer Court?  And the faerie queen?”

    
Tamrin slides down the wall and sits with his wrists braced on his knees.  “I don’t want to talk about it, right now.  I’m not supposed to talk about it with humans anyway.”

    
I sit and face him.  “You’ve already told me about it,” I reason.  “Just not enough.  Make it less…scary.”

    
For whatever reason, Tamrin’s face creases in what looks almost like anguish.  Shaking his head, he drops his face to his knees and wraps his arms around his legs.  I’m suddenly aware of how upset he is.  If he starts to cry, then I know the apocalypse is upon us.  His voice comes, choked and muffled from against his pants.  “I’m sorry, Jean.”

    
I know this isn’t an apology for not being able to tell me.  This is a different apology…for something bad.  Do I want to know?  Probably not…

    
I bite my lip. “Me, too.”  For my hurtful words.  For not believing this creature who should not exist.  For picking the rose.  And it’s an apology to myself.

Twyla

    
Roxel rolls over and yawns.  She squints in the late morning light, looking around like a lost child.  “Twyla,” she whispers.  There is fear in her voice.

    
I step close to the bed and offer my hands.  “Here, Highness.”

    
She reaches up and takes hold of my fingers.  She’s shaking.  She always shakes when she first wakes and doesn’t see anybody.  She’s afraid of losing someone else.  She’s lost so many.

    
My queen presses her cheek to my knuckles, her eyes still searching the room.  They shift from navy to plum to smoky grey.  “Where’s Tamrin?”

    
I keep my eyes on one of the tapestries.  “He’s gone.”

    
Her fingers tighten on my hands.  “Gone where?”  Her voice is harsher now, nowhere near the frightened creature she was upon waking.

    
I shrug, partly out of a need to escape her grasp, partly out of fear for Tamrin.  “Back through the gate, I assume.”  If I were him, I would run, too.  Roxel’s punishments in the mist are cruel, forcing him to do the things she likes.  His expression when he woke and saw what they’d done…I almost cried.

    
Roxel’s thick lashes narrow over garnet eyes.  “He’s been spending far too much time on Earth.  It’s not good for him.  Why isn’t he here with me?  Don’t I make it obvious I want him here?”

    
I nod.  “Yes.  It’s very clear that you favor Tamrin.”  Poor soul.

    
Roxel purses her lips and sits up, dropping my hands in the process.  “I’m not that obvious.”  There’s a command in her comment.

    
I drop into a stiff curtsey.  “No,” I lie.  I try to give myself an excuse.  “Perhaps it only seems that way to me because I’m here when you are
with
him.  My eyes see that which other’s do not.”

    
With a snort she shifts as if uncomfortable – I hope she aches after what she made him do – then she stretches and yawns again.  “You enjoy watching.”  Again, there’s a subtle order in her voice.

    
I bow my head so she can’t see my disgusted face and swallow.  It wouldn’t matter one way or another if I did or did not enjoy what Roxel commands of me.  It is as if I’m a pet to her.  She loves me, but with a certain amount of distance.  That’s how she loves everybody – at arm’s length.  It’s the only way for a Seelie to love anyone.  Love will destroy your lover.  We are taught this young.  We learn to make our love the inhuman kind of love.  The kind that will not betray us.

    
“What do you think he’s up to on Earth?”

    
I bite my lip.  Avoiding Roxel is at the top of my list of reasons why Tamrin would be spending more time on Earth.  She Bends and mists that boy so much that one day he’s going to figure it out.  I wish I could follow his example, run and avoid her, too.  “Perhaps he’s found something entertaining?”

    
Roxel gives me a narrow sidelong glance, her lips tight with displeasure.  “What kind of entertainment?”

    
I shake my head, force a laugh.  “How should I know?  I don’t know anything about humans.”

    
“You think it’s a human?”

    
I open my mouth to say, “I didn’t say that,” but close it again.  She’d take that as an insult on her communication skills.  I shrug instead.  “Maybe a human.  Maybe a squirrel.  This is Tamrin we’re talking about.  He’s a strange boy.”

    
Roxel frowns at me.  “He’s a perfectly normal boy.”  She looks away.  “Perfect.”

    
I fight the urge to roll my eyes.  He’s nowhere close to perfect.  Maybe by human standards, but certainly not by
Aos Si
standards.  He’s a blemish on the court, a shabby white pony among virile black stallions.  I drop my shoulders.  No, that insults his beauty.  He’s more like…a glass figurine among stone statues.  So delicate and breakable.  Perhaps that’s what Roxel finds so fascinating about him.  His frailty, his ability to stretch so far until he snaps and she has to put him back together with her Talent.  Compared to him, even the broken queen of Summer Court looks like a goddess.  To him, she
is
a goddess – especially when he’s under the influence of her mist.