“Dare?” he questioned with a crack in his voice.
“When I would cry, break apart because of this curse, tell my mother that I could never have a real life…she would tell me that all of life is a dare, that every second of every day, life dares us to live, to make a difference, to become who we were designed to be: a perfectly flawed soul who has the choice to be as miserable or happy as we want to be.” My voice trembled. “She told me, she promised me that one day there would be a dare, a person that made me realize that who I was, curse and all, was beautiful, powerful. They would be worth every dare, every ounce of pain and I would not think twice before I let my guard down and bared my soul to them.”
I stepped forward. “I didn’t let my guard down, let you in hours after I knew you because of some fog of death. I let you in because the second I laid eyes on you, my heart gave me two beats. The second you touched my hand, I understood that I wasn’t some cursed, abandoned girl set on revenge. I was someone who once had warmth, who once felt complete, whole.” I couldn’t hold his stare any longer, so I glanced to the floor. “You can play whatever mind games you want with me, tell me I really don’t want you to save me, that I have feelings for others, that the fog of death has shadowed my true intentions. You can even tell me to let go…but I won’t. I won’t because the few moments I have spent with you have set my soul on fire, enough fire to keep the vengeful side of me at bay for an eternity.”
Within a beat, he was at my side, gently pulling my chin up so I would be forced to look him in the eye. “I didn’t hold back,” he whispered, and the pain in his eyes told me that that was nothing less than the truth. “Every second of every day, I have thought of you, searched for you, fought and bargained my way to finding you. And when I did…when I figured out I was too late again…it tore me in two.” He pulled me closer. “You looked so scared, so confused. I could see the pain in your eyes. I wanted to rip whoever had hurt you into a million pieces, scatter their remains across the universe—give them no hope of ever returning to life. I didn’t want you to feel that rage. I didn’t want you to know everything. I wanted you to think that Rasure was the darkest thing in this world and that I would end it for you, so that you could rest in peace.” His strong hands squeezed my waist. “I knew if you let me do that, that you were gone, that this life had suffocated the woman I’ve loved across time…and when you refused you gave me hope, but that is a selfish hope that I am ashamed to feel.”
“I know the world is cruel. I don’t need to be protected from reality,” I said quietly as I tried to understand why he would be ashamed to be with me…love me.
“So says the girl whose soul is guarded by the sons of the east and the west.”
I stepped back from him. “Jealousy. That was a beautiful speech you just spoke…but you could have summed it up. You could have said that it’s not the danger of the war you are fighting or the awareness of the darkness I will see that is stopping you from saving me; it’s jealousy, plain and simple. You are condemning me for relationships that existed in your absence.”
“I wish that were true,” he said with an ache in his silky voice as his gray eyes took in every part of me.
“If that is not true, then you are going to have to come up with another speech, one that I can believe. Understand.”
“To redeem your soul, you must pass through the line of the moons—the flaming sons of the east and the west—to reach the seventh sister, whose touch will destroy the flames of evil that bind you’…I am in love with a goddess.”
“I am not a goddess.”
“To the dead you are. To the supernatural death you are. Those boys are not almost lovers, they are your guards. They shield you from all that are unworthy. They never hide anything from you. They feel your soul, and when they know that you trust someone, adore them, they will let them close, even if they know they are dangerous, not because they are weak, but because they know that soon, very soon, the truth will be revealed and that they will shield and avenge you before any of your power is seized.”
“I am the last person to say something cruel about those boys, but you need a reality check. They didn’t shield me from death. Life is power.”
“I cannot tell you how or why that happened. It could have simply been because you were unaware of your power, giving them no reason to protect it. Nevertheless, you did fall, and…if you do not let go,” his jaw tightened just before he said, “…so many more will, too.”
There was nothing less than grief in his voice. He believed every word he was saying.
“I don’t understand, Sebastian,” I said in a whisper.
Saying his real name, the name I’d known him to have before, did nothing but bring more anguish to his deep gray eyes, which were laced with fire.
He was against me within the next beat of my heart, leaning his forehead to mine as his hands clenched my waist. “It means that if you choose this vengeful path that every soul who fights in the war I’m in, everyone that falls, will have no way out. Over time, enough of us will fall, and when we do, when we can no longer set ourselves free, darkness will overcome, bringing self-destruction to our universe.” He reached his hands for my face and stole one gentle kiss before he said, “I’m selfish enough to never let you go, to burn you to ashes and let you rise with me, but you’re not. You will not let innocents suffer only for the sake of loving me. You will not let this war end without balance.”
I moved my head from side to side in disbelief as I stepped back. “You can’t just show up here and tell me that not only am I a freak of nature, I am supposed to set some souls free. You have the wrong girl. I would have remembered that by now in my life. What kind of goddess of whatever can even die?”
He reached for me, and in the next beat I was standing just before the pool of flames. He extended my hand, then against my neck he whispered, “Freeze the flame.”
The feeling of his body against my back, the warmth of his breath, brought nothing but warmth to my soul. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Quit holding back.”
“I’m not. I’m warm.”
He hesitated, but then in a low, deep, silky voice he said, “Genevieve, focus on those flames. Imagine they took me from you, they took your family, they took your life, they took your soul—that they are the destruction of the world you love so much.”
Within that beat, the flames froze, making one of the most extravagant ice sculptures I’d ever seen.
“Now will it to crumble.”
I had no idea what he meant by that.
“Bloody hell, will it this instant.”
I was so sick of ice, of the cold, of dealing with this day in and day out, of not understanding it. I wanted the ice to go away, and with that thought it exploded across the room. Phoenix had shielded me from the blow. When I dared to look up from his chest, I found myself against the window again, him leaning into me again, my legs wrapped around his body.
“You have the power to freeze the fire that holds lost beings. You have the power to destroy what is meant to destroy you with a thought. Now tell me I have the wrong girl. Tell me that you and I make absolutely any sense at all—we are literally fire and ice.”
“I didn’t just become this person. Tell me how this happened. If that is true, how was I the girl that held you so long ago? Tell me that.”
He looked away. “You always loved the cold, the snow. You always seemed connected with a world I could not perceive. You were this girl then, but you shielded me from it and I’ll be damned if Guardian did not lead me into becoming something that would forevermore separate us.”
“No one has ever led you anywhere. You follow your own path. You were on fire long before you became a phoenix,” I said as I remembered saying such things to him long ago. “Fire was your birthright.”
“I’d give up every ounce of power and fire to hold you forevermore...but we would both pay the price for that one day.”
“I don’t understand what you need m
e to do. What you are telling me. So I died, so I had some powers I never used, but what is letting go going to do to resolve this? I’m not a quitter.”
“That is why you need to let go. When you let go, you will be born again, and when you are reborn you will be protected, and when the time is right you will be told of your supremacies. You will set your course to release all who have fallen in the war to restore balance. If you don’t let go…or if I turn you…once a soul has fallen, it will have no hope. It may take thousands, maybe even a million years for that end of all of us to come, but it will come and there will be nothing that can be done to prevent it.”
“Are you offering me a thousand years with you, or a death that will lead me to life, a life you will not seek me out in?”
He looked down. “I never said that.”
“Yes, you did. Just now.”
His eyes rose to meet mine. “We have broken each other’s heart twice…a third is more than either of us could withstand.”
This couldn’t be right. There had to be another way, a loophole, something. The universe could not be this cruel. Every part of my soul, every fiber of my being was telling me that, but arguing about it without any proof was getting me nowhere. Instead, I said, “I’m not making this decision tonight, or even tomorrow. Once I have my vengeance, once I’m sure my family is safe, I’ll decide.”
“That will be tomorrow, Love. Rasure will fall tomorrow, and what choice you make in that moment will be one that you will have to live with.”
“Why are you so sure about tomorrow?”
“Guardian and I have a battle before us. The wake of it, whether we lose or win, will weaken your Rasure. It will weaken all Escorts. As soon as Guardian and his own are secured, I will be here. I will stand by you as you deliver the last blow…end the demon that stole you from me.”
“Promise me I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said as I reached for his flawless image, as I dared to say, “Promise me you’ll see me in every tomorrow.”
His gray eyes filled with a hungry desire.
Chapter Fourteen
In that beat, his lips were on mine and a warm rush of air surrounded us. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the rug in the library in front of a raging fire. The power and passion behind every movement of his lips made my toes curl and a warm anticipation boil in my core. We rolled across the floor, fighting to get skin-to-skin, soul-to-soul. The idea that it was more than likely the last time that we would ever hold each other ignited our passion and desire to a euphoric level, one that seemed to pull my soul from the body I thought I still had and raise it to another plane of existence, to a plane where no flesh was needed, to where my soul could merge with his to become truly one, something that time or reason could never divide.
Hours went by. When we became tired, we were gentle with each other, but before long we would find our second, third, fourth, and fifth wind and battle to get as close, as fast as we could…but it never seemed to be close enough. We ached for more.
Side by side, wrapped in a blanket next to a fire that was reborn with a glance from Phoenix, we stared into each other’s eyes, both questioning why the universe seemed hell bent on dividing us.
As I reached to brush a lock of dark auburn hair out of his eyes, I asked, “Why do you think Guardian led you to become someone that could never hold me? Do you think I will destroy the fire in you? Freeze it?”
“No…” he whispered as his gray eyes slowly danced over my solemn expression. “Even if you did destroy me, I could instantly recreate myself. It meant that I would destroy you, that if fire gives birth to you, the ice that gives you power will be destroyed.”
It may have been a selfish thought, but all I’d ever wanted was for this ice around me to break apart. I wanted to have control, to think and feel what I wanted to feel when I wanted to feel it. Phoenix could give me that. Everything I ever wanted and more.
I wanted to believe that these fallen souls he was telling me that I had the power to redeem meant nothing to me, that I didn’t deserve to be alone for the sake of their redemption, but the thought of Skylynn saving me when I was a girl came to mind…the thought that if there was no Skylynn or others like her to save people, those who chose the path I had would be lost…utterly alone. I was too grateful for everything Skylynn did for me to ever turn my back on those that fight the war she and Phoenix were in. I would have to find a compromise that I could live with if I chose a different path than letting go.
“I have to believe that you are fighting for souls, though. Would that not mean that I could still fight? I mean, if the souls are behind fire, could fire not walk through that, destroy that?”
His fingertips traced my lips as he spoke. “The fire that you would freeze is so hot that it’s cold. It’s a dense cold, one that only you could bear to get close to.”
There didn’t seem to be any loopholes I could slip through with this, but I had to know if that was his only reason for letting me go. “Were you looking for an excuse not to save me when you discovered what I was meant to be?”
“No,” he said with an agony in his tone as he pulled my body to him. “I was looking for a reason to save you. Skylynn pleaded with me, but the thing is, she didn’t understand that by me raising you I was condemning us all.”
“You didn’t know I was the sister before…she told you that.”
“She told me about the ice, the reasons she led those boys to you. I feared that possibility then.”
“Then what did she mean—what did Guardian mean—when they basically said you needed me for the war you are fighting? That without me you would fail? How can I be both? What changed? Why is Skylynn so eager for me to move on now?”
His hand gently caressed my back as he spoke. “She didn’t realize that you had to have life, that the life of a phoenix would end your power. She didn’t understand the transformation, that it broke you down and rebuilt your energy.” He hesitated as his gaze fell deeper into mine and the life he had without me moved through his stare.
“Guardian and I made a lot of deals, cast a lot of spells, which are nothing more than words with energy behind them. The energy we both used was the desire to find the ones that complete us. Now we have to undo those spells, undo our past, something we always knew would have to happen but we had no fear of it because once we reached the ones we sought, the energy would be stronger. Instead of the desire to find our counterparts, we would have the desire to never lose them, and having them at our side would fuel that. That energy is more powerful than the latter. Guardian still believes—as Skylynn did hours ago—that if I lose you I will have no power behind my energy to undo those spells we cast together. He thinks the loss will hinder everyone, not just those that cast the spell. He doesn’t want me to let you go or follow you into death. I told him I would fight as long as I could but that I may have to leave him. Always the optimist, he thinks we will find another way, that you belong with us.”
I remembered his brother Guardian always being the positive to Phoenix’s negative. Somehow, they were always both right. I had to believe that if Guardian had convinced Phoenix not to follow me into death that he had his reasons. Whether they were because I could be saved or not was a mystery to me. From my memories, I knew those brothers could not part for long. They empowered each other. For all I knew, my death was meant to stop their fate, not me from fulfilling mine.
“I know I was in a deep fog of death, but I could have sworn that Skylynn insinuated that you knew one of the other seven sisters—that Guardian did. Can they not help me? How am I different from them?”
“You are all said to be vastly different. There are seven, but only one is hidden by the veil. That is you. Each of you have your own path that will at some point weave into the others.’ We only have theories on who four of you are at this moment. Two walk with death, save the damned. One has the war of life, to save who is here.”
“The one with life, can she give that to me? Help us?”
He hes
itated as he thought over my one and only wish: to be saved. “She would try if she knew, even plot to turn back time to avoid your death. I’m sure of that, but we can’t let her do that because every moment weaves into infinity; one moment relived could destroy a thousand victories. There is only one benevolent choice here: for you to move on and be reborn.”
“How come I hear doubt in your voice when you speak of the seven sisters?”
He stared into my eyes for countless seconds before he finally answered. “The seven sisters, what they would become, have always been myths, stories that we all believed but never thought we’d see the day when they would rise. For Guardian and me, it’s hard to grasp that the ones we share our souls with are meant to take that role. We are fighting Skylynn’s claims and theories because the idea of you and the girl Guardian loves standing up to evil alone is too much to bear. To know that once you fully rise, that you will be taken away is not an idea we can even speak of. Theories. That is what we are calling them as we fight this war.”
“You want me to die based on a theory? Mythology?”
Pain flooded into his eyes. “I don’t. I don’t want to lose you then, now, or in some future. I want us to live a normal life, the life we came to be in. I don’t understand any of this, but I know that if there is any truth at all to any of the words that have been whispered across time, I have to let you go. I know that no matter what, one day I will have to let you go.”
“What makes you so sure that these seven you speak of will walk alone? That what gives them power and protection are not the ones we share our souls with?”
“Seven. Some myths say sisters, some just say seven. Not fourteen.” He let out a shuttered breath. “All the hell Guardian and I have been through, the twists and turns that did nothing but take us further from you…I fear that it’s some higher power’s way of easing us into this painful separation, that someone always knew you would belong to the world, not me.”