The Kiss (18 page)

“You’ve known me all of three days, Adam,” Eva said slowly.
Trying perhaps to talk some sense into them both. 

He laughed. “As Adam yes, but longer still as your Adonis.”

“You heard me say that?”
Jesus Christ.

He stopped his pacing and captured her eyes with his. “I heard
everything, Eva. Those days passed so quickly for me. I knew soon I’d be seeing
you, I’d see the face that went with the voice.” He ran a hand over his face
and laughed. “I don’t think I’ve been that excited in years.”

We’re both in waayyy too deep.
Eva took a long, shaky
breath and asked the question. “Then tell me how, Adam. How would I be
different?”

He resumed his pacing. “I don’t know it varies person to person.
All I know is that you would not be you, Eva, and I could not ask that of you.
I
will
not ask that of you. I knew from the very first moment that I
couldn’t.”

“You’ll die.”

“Maybe it’s time.”

Eva walked to him then and wrapped her arms around his tense
body. He turned into her embrace and their lips met. The same frantic fizzle
flashing between them.

In years to come Eva would want to remember that moment above any
other. She closed her eyes and tried to fix the memory forever.
My Adam.

“My Eva,” he whispered and she shivered.

Part of her, the part that was still somewhere in the real world
looked down on the scene in disbelief. That part could not believe the choice
she was making. The other part, the part that had spent those handful of days
in Adam’s arms, the part that had fallen so completely, understood the choice,
understood and accepted it.

“Will you spend the next few days with me, Eva?” he had asked, pulling
free from her. “Let me love you until the end?”

“Yes,” she replied, emotion making her voice gruff. “I will.”

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

Adam held Eva closely in his arms. She lay curled against him as
if she had been made for that very purpose.
And maybe she has?
Adam knew
that Grace was right about one thing, coincidence was not something that
happened around them, all the threads eventually came together, all meaning
something in the fucked up stitch that was his life. Eva and Evie, how could it
possibly be chance?

He squeezed her to him a little tighter and smiled as she buried
her face closer to his chest. Her head lay almost directly above his heart and
it did not surprise Adam to feel it squeeze in recognition. Her olive skin
looked perfect against his lighter shade, her fantastic curls falling over the
pillow, spread almost like a halo, she was everything and more he could ever
have asked for this woman. The one come to set him free.

It shocked him a little how at ease he was with the decision, how
natural it felt to him. After two hundred years it was time, time to let
everything go and accept the inevitable. It occurred to him then that maybe it
had been Granny’s intention all along, for him to realize, how loving someone
demands sacrifice.

The sort of sacrifice she had made for Evie, to avenge her.

He ran a finger through the chocolate curls and sighed. Would his
death consign the others to an eternity trapped in the stone? Would it mean
perpetual slow ageing for Grace and Finn? Adam did not know, he thought not,
but there was no way to be sure. Either way he knew only one thing above all
others. He would not and could not change Eva. If that demanded his life and
the life’s of the whole sorry lot of them, so be it.

She murmured something and Adam hushed her gently, wanting her to
be content in his arms. This at least would be enough for him, to spend the
last days surrounded by her beauty, her wit and her spark.

He closed his eyes knowing that sleep would not take long to
claim him, and that when it did, for once, he would be at peace. 

* * * *

Eva disentangled Adam’s arm from around her waist and crept from
the bed, careful not to wake him. Asleep all the little worry lines and stress
that had marked his features were absent and Eva sighed gently at his beauty.
I’m
in so fucking deep.

There was little point denying it any longer, had she even wanted
to. She reached out to brush back a lock of his hair but snatched her shaky
hand back at the last moment.
Can’t risk waking him.

The hallways were quiet, night having once again fallen. Eva
spent just a moment imaging what it would be like to stand alone in the cold
watching the stars appear one by one. Magical at first maybe. Torture after so
many years, the kind of torture that sends a man to his death, not wanting to
feel even a moment of it again.

You can’t close eyes made of stone Eva, you can do nothing but
try to hide inside them.

It didn’t take her long to find Grace. The older woman was
waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.

“You’ve decided?” she asked, brusque to the last.

Eva paused and held the older woman’s gaze. “You knew that I
would. You knew it from the first day didn’t you?”

Grace nodded jerkily. “You’ll save him?”

Eva sighed. “I have to don’t I? There’s no choice any more.”

Grace let out a shaky breath. “Thank you, Eva. Thank you.”

The ribbon was still askew on the Christmas tree and Eva bent to
straighten it up.
All the ends come together.
Moisture pricked her eyes
and once again surprise did not come as she turned to see the same in the other
woman.

“So now you need to tell me,” Eva said softly.

“Tell you?”

“How to give him life.”

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

Sat on the bed with her fingers wrapped around his, counting the
seconds as they passed, Eva waited.

Each moment seemed to come a bit sooner than the last, time
itself speeding them towards the end. But then all of the last days had passed
by with a speed Eva had come to loathe. Time had slipped through her fingers
and it was time she would never again get back.
After today I won’t see Adam
again. I won’t even remember him.
 

The clock chimed the warning of its last few minutes and Eva
swallowed down the lump in the back of her throat. “It’s nearly time.”

“Yes it is.”

Adam looked so steadfast, so reconciled to what was to come.
Eva’s heart twisted and bled for him. After two hundred years he was ready for
the end.
I’m not.

“Will you hold me, Adam, when it begins?” Eva asked him around
the lump.

He smiled slowly and held his arms out to her. “It would be the
most amazing thing, Eva, to know that you’re the last thing I’ll ever feel.”

She scooted across the bed and sat herself on his lap. Every cell
in her body seemed to recognize him, every fiber melting into his. How could
she possibly accept the idea of his end? She couldn’t, she wouldn’t.
It’s
not time yet.

“You’ll keep your hair loose all the time?” he asked, brushing
through her curls. “Don’t hide it away anymore.”

“I won’t,” Eva whispered.

“And draw every day. Make sure that the entire world gets to see
your art,” he added. “No more scrubbing floors for you.”

“Yes.”

Burying his face against her chest Adam shuddered. “I’ll miss
you, lovely. Wherever I end up know that I’ll miss you.”

Eva rested her head against his and breathed him in. “And I you.”

“Any moment now…”

She swallowed against the tears, her heart raced, and moisture
slithered down her spine.
Am I making the right choice? Am I doing the right
thing?
She rubbed his beautiful hair.
Yes, how can I even question it?

“One minute,” he whispered and Eva took a deep breath. She wanted
to inhale the scent of him, feel his skin, memorize his features—even if
remembering was going to be impossible she wanted to try. Maybe fate would
finally look upon them both kindly and she’d recall something, enough at least
to make her way back next year.

“Mine, Eva, always mine,” he whispered.

“And you’re mine, Adam, forever mine.”

Even now with his death seconds away he wouldn’t ask for the
sacrifice from her, that much was obvious, but Eva would make him take it. She
would not,
could
not let him die, on that she was resolved. He would
live and she would never know it, would remember nothing.
Of all the bloody
irony.

“I love you, Eva,” he said and a sob she could not contain
escaped her.

“I love you, Adam. I think I was always supposed to.”

He laughed softly. “Fate, lover, always fate. Didn’t I say that
at the very beginning? You were sent to set me free, in the only way possible.”

No, not yet I won’t.

“Promise me something?” he asked.

Eva nodded. Guilt, apprehension and love shivering through her.
“Anything.”

He took a deep breath, breathing her in. “Remember me, Eva,
remember this love.”

Another tear escaped and rather than answer him she brushed it
away.
I can’t make that promise, Adam, please forgive me.
The words
remained unspoken but Eva willed him to hear them on some level.

And then the clock sounded its final chime, a shudder racing
across Adam’s skin. “Ah... Eva, it’s time,” he said, and his arms tightened
around her.

The sight that began in front of her was like nothing Eva could
ever have imagined. Shudders wracked his body, the cries he was trying to
contain pushing inside him, and something shifted. Maybe his skin, maybe his
muscles. Whatever it was they slid and moved, his skin flickering between tan
and grey. It was like watching something from a horror movie, but worse,
because it was happening to the man she loved. His hair began to darken, the
strands hardening in front of her, changing to stone. His eyes, his perfect
brandy eyes, widened and the pupils started to turn to grey.

He screamed out and Eva winced. He was in pain, it really had
started. The stone was consuming him, pulling him inside for another year of
torture. Eva had only moments left. She lifted his chin, felt if shift below
her fingers, so that his face was directly level to hers.
I’ll never love
him more than I do right now, in this, the last of the moments.

“Eva,” he said, his words seeming so far away.

His eyes flicked brandy to grey, brandy to grey. She had thought,
just days ago, how easy it would be to fall into his eyes and now finding them
again she knew it to be true. She looked into the brandy with every fiber of
her being as the very last of his tanned skin succumbed to the relentless march
of the stone, the grey filling her vision, and the sob she’d held so tightly
escaped, leaving her heart to explode. 

‘You remember me, Adam,’ she said. ‘Remember this love.’ And then
the clock gave its final chime, and her lips parted, for the kiss.

Chapter
Thirty

The statues were dusted with a fine coating of frost and Grace
brushed away as much as she could.  Adam had told her that he couldn’t actually
feel the changes in temperature that the seasons brought, but she didn’t like
to think of them as cold and it comforted her in some way to remove the tiny
particles of ice. 

“It won’t be long now,” she told them. “Just a few more minutes
until the solstice.”

  The windows of the great house glowed with activity and Grace
thought of the staff she had picked, staff who would actually stay for good
now. They’d all got through her usual tough love interview, none cracking under
her withering glare or rudeness—they’d be ideal for the new Earl of Winterwood
and his wife. Grace smiled slightly, because she did not doubt that Adam would
bind Eva to him in the most obvious way possible.

“I’ve made your room up for you although I’m sure you won’t hang
around this time, you’ll be able to go wherever you want,” she told them. “Now
that the curse is about to be broken.”

If they could have nodded Grace was sure they would have.

An uncharacteristic pool of moisture filled her eyes and Grace
frowned it away. She was going to miss Adam, she admitted that, but she had
plenty to be getting on with, and certainly no time to be indulging in nonsense
such as tears. Feelings such as that would not help anyone.

After so many years Grace could see a glimmer of light at the end
of the tunnel. A chance for her to win back her own freedom, to get back
something she’d once known but had almost forgotten.
A life beyond the Estate.

The sun was setting now, its brilliant orange seeming to fall
into the hills. “Not long now…”

Freedom.

The witches curse might have trapped Adam and his guests but it
had also trapped Grace and Finn, trapped them in a very different way. She
brushed another pile of frost from Adam’s foot at this thought, and rubbed her
hand on her leg to warm it up. The years sat heavy on her shoulders, her very
old
shoulders and she was long since ready for the curse to end. Of course she had
no idea what would happen when it did. Granny Hildegarde had only explained
what would happen to Adam and the rest of his guests, not her and Finn, and
silly country miss she’d been back then Grace hadn’t thought to ask. She might
die, she knew that but the thought did not overly concern her. Her age was not
the only thing that had worn away at her over the great expanse of time. The
knowledge hadn’t helped.

“You’re going to be angry that I never told you sooner,” she
said. “But those were the rules and I didn’t want to take the risk. Besides
you’ve had a year to come to terms with it.”

She thought of the secret words, which until a year ago, hadn’t
been spoken in two hundred years. Now was a good a time as any to repeat them. 

 “If he loves you so much, real love, the kind that changes a
person, that he refuses to take your sacrifice, and she loves you so much that
she makes you accept it then the curse will break. You’ll be bonded and wrapped
together in stone for one year. One year to test the love and at the next
solstice you will wake again. If the love is still strong it will be forever,
there will be no turning back.” She smiled. “The kiss at midnight will set you
free. It will set you all free”