Author: Jodi Meadows

“I want to feel real.” The words escaped before I realized, and I’d have fled the washroom in horror if he hadn’t been standing in the doorway. Instead, I turned away, leaned on the counter, and squeezed my eyes shut. Warmth trickled out.

His good arm circled my waist. “You feel real to me.” When he tugged me toward him, I went. I didn’t know what else to do. “I can’t imagine what’s going on inside you now.”

“Everything.” I mumbled into his nightshirt. “There’s a thunderstorm inside me, swirling everything around.”

He kissed the top of my head and didn’t let go.

“Can’t you make it stop?” My throat ached with struggling not to cry more. I hated this, halfway hated him, except how I wanted him as much as I wanted music.

“I’d give anything to make things right for you.” He caressed my cheek, my hair, my back. Everywhere he touched, the angry fires cooled. I wished he’d touch my heart. “But I can’t. I can help, but the hard work is all up to you. If you don’t feel real, no one else can do it for you. I promise, though, you’ve always felt real to me. From the moment I saw you jump off the cliff.”

“Sometimes I still feel like I’m jumping off the cliff.”

He nodded and kissed my head again. “Can I tell you something?”

If he felt that strongly about it, I had little choice. “Okay.”

“Come out of the washroom.” He nudged me toward the door. “It won’t make your thunderstorm stop, but maybe it will help. Proof you’re real to me. Important.”

I looked up and sought his haggard face, his eyes. How could I be important? I was an afterthought, five thousand years later. A mistake, because Ciana was gone. I was the dissonant note on the end of a masterpiece symphony. I was the brushstroke that ruined the painting.

“Come on,” he urged, and I allowed him to guide me back into the bedroom, where he draped a thick white blanket over my shoulders. We curled up in the top corner of the bed, by the headboard and the wall. “Are you comfortable?” he asked, when I was leaning against him.

“Are you?” If I twisted, I could see his face from the corner of my eye.

He rested his cheek on my head. “When I went north in my last life, I was searching for inspiration. I hadn’t written anything new in a generation. I felt empty. I didn’t find anything, no matter how far I traveled. I just died. That was autumn of the Year of Darkness, three-twenty-nine.”

I waited.

“Usually, it takes a few years to be reincarnated, but it took just over a year for me to be reborn.” From the way he said it, I should have understood what that meant.

“And?”

He sighed, but his tone was endlessly patient. “That was the three-hundred-thirtieth Year of Songs. That’s your birth year, too. When we met eighteen years later, that was the first time in a generation I felt inspired, the first time I felt music in me again.”

I couldn’t move. A million emotions flooded me—awe, joy, fear—and what did he expect of me now? I was raw inside, too much back-and-forth today, not enough just . . . happiness, like it should have been. So I didn’t move or speak, because I couldn’t.

His voice lowered, as though to cover hints of hesitation. “I think I died to be reborn with you. To find you in the lake. I found my inspiration.”

“But you had to die for it.” What a dumb thing to say. My mouth hated me.

He turned his head slightly, so his whisper came by my ear. “If I’d looked like a ninety-year-old man when we met, would you have wanted to be with me?”

I wanted to be able to say yes, because I’d known him at the masquerade, and in all the photographs and videos from other lifetimes, but this was the Sam I wanted to kiss. As much as I felt for him, I couldn’t imagine being attracted to a ninety-year-old, at least not while I was eighteen. Maybe when I was ninety, too.

He gave a soft chuckle. “I thought not. I’d worry if you had said yes. Even people who’ve loved each other for lifetimes aren’t always attracted to each other when their physical ages are so different. It does matter, at least some.”

Like what Armande had said about Tera and Ash arranging to be reborn as close together as possible. “That’s sort of a relief.” I wished it didn’t matter. It didn’t change that he was five thousand years older than me, just made it easier to forget sometimes. “So it doesn’t bother you that I don’t have four digits in my age?”

“Saying I never thought about it would be a lie, but it doesn’t change how I feel. Ana, you make me ache in places that aren’t even physical.” He held me tighter, and for a moment I didn’t understand what that meant. Then I remembered how I’d felt while we were dancing. That yearning. “Does it bother you that I do have four digits?”

“Well, you don’t look fossilized. And it’s helpful that you like girls your physical age.” I bit my lip. “But it is sad that you had to die to get back here.”

“Well, I’m glad about it. I’ve never been particularly attractive, but at least this way I have youth on my side. I don’t know how I’d have convinced you to stay with me if I was ugly and half-fossilized.”

“Sam?” I twisted around, freeing myself from his arms.

He tilted his head. “Hmm?”

“You think too much.” I took fistfuls of his shirt and kissed him, somewhat more confident now that we had a little practice, still nervous because I felt like we balanced on a razor blade. One wrong move and we’d slice apart.

His fingers curled against my back as I faced him, careful of scrapes and bruises, of jabbing each other with knees or elbows. “You were amazing tonight, the way you danced. Beautiful.” He brushed his fingertips across my cheeks, chin, and lips. Down my throat, across my collarbone.

I splayed my hands across his chest, unable to move while he touched me like echoes of dancing. Softer, more delicate than before, but heavy with tension and—too amazing to believe—desire. How could he desire me?

Sam continued his mapping of my face and arms, completely engaged in his study. I took in his captivated expression until I couldn’t anymore, and closed my eyes, willing him to touch everywhere.

I didn’t have to understand why he felt this way. I could be grateful for now, and enjoy it.

Hands stopped above my breasts. He hesitated, and chose a path down the sides of my body. He made me tremble, made me ache inside. My heart wasn’t big enough to hold everything I felt, but I couldn’t bear the thought of asking him to wait while I caught up.

He traced patterns on my stomach. I held my breath, waiting.

“Ana?” A mere whisper.

“I’m nervous.” I kept my eyes closed and hoped he’d understand everything I couldn’t say. “I don’t know what happens next.”

“Only what you want.” He rested his forefinger on my chin until I met his eyes. He looked like he balanced on a razor, too, one side patient as ever, and the other— He looked like I felt, ready to burst from pressure.

“What I want.” I slid my hands over him until cloth folded between my fingers. “I don’t even know what that is. It feels like too much, but I’ll fall apart if I don’t get it.”

“You won’t fall apart.” He lowered his eyes, smiled. “I won’t let you.”

“You’re truly kind.” Now that he wasn’t caressing me, I could breathe. I could think straight. “There’s a lot I don’t know.” Such as, anything beyond what had just happened. No, I didn’t even know what just happened, just that it felt good. “Will you show me?”

“A thousand things, whenever you’re ready.”

There was a heartbeat where I could have been resentful of his experience, but I decided to be grateful instead. One of us would always know what we were doing, rather than both of us fumbling and messing up. “Not all at once. I don’t want to rush.”

“I’m sure we can pace ourselves.” His mouth turned up. “What do you think? One thing a day?”

I considered, then shook my head. “Maybe two. A thousand days is a long time.”

He laughed. “If you say so.”

I withdrew from him and lifted an eyebrow.

His breath caught. “Okay, suddenly it seems like eternity. Two it is.” While I struggled to figure out exactly what I’d done to make him react that way, he went on. “Unfortunately, I think we’ve used up our two—or ten—for the day.”

“Did we? It’s after midnight.” Using the shelf-wall to keep from falling, I stood on the bed and arranged my blanket over my shoulders again. The white cloth rippled like wings. “I think we have time for you to kneel down and worship me.”

“Number two on the list.” He sat on his knees and gazed up. “Number one was convincing you to like me.”

He made it impossible not to smile. “Kiss my hands and feet, and you will be worthy of my liking.”

“But those were five-ninety-six and five-ninety-seven.”

I offered my hand that wasn’t keeping me balanced against the wall. “You were going to wait that long?”

“You’re the one who said not to rush.” He took my hand in his, pressed his mouth against the back. “Oh.” His breath warmed my skin. “I just thought of a hundred more.”

“Maybe three a day.” As I sat, he held my hips to steady me. “Maybe ten,” I whispered, kneeling with him. He held me so close; I rested my hand just beneath the bandage on his arm. “How does this feel?”

“Like a burn. It’s okay.” He kissed me, not deep like before, but just as sweet. A sleepy kiss while he struggled to stay awake. He so often guarded himself; it was startling to see him like this. “How’s that thunderstorm inside you?”

“Already forgot about it.” I didn’t want the hour to end. The Sam I always imagined was here, holding me. He liked me. I wouldn’t forget the moody Sam after the dragon attack, the Sam who’d been sneaking around every night, or the Sam who thought we shouldn’t have danced and kissed, but for this moment, with this Sam, I enjoyed the sensation of happiness. “Want to know a secret?”

“Yes.” He sat down, and I followed. If I pulled back the covers, maybe he wouldn’t leave. After today, I couldn’t stand the thought of being away from him. I had to keep him like this, the sweet Sam. The Sam who kissed me.

“Aside from the parts where we fought and were nearly killed and then I threw things,” I whispered, “today has been the best day of my life.”

His brown eyes drew me in as he said, “Mine too.”

I was about to tease him about how this life must have felt so short, but something banged downstairs. We stiffened, both of us poised to listen when it came again. “Someone’s at the door.” It was so late. “A medic? Or whoever attacked us?”

He slipped off the bed and nodded. “Keep your knife with you, no matter what happens.” Without so much as a last glance, he left the room.

I struggled into real clothes and tucked my knife into my waistband before creeping after Sam. From the balcony over the parlor, I could just see him at the door, blocking whoever had called.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“You’re under arrest.” The high, youthful voice was familiar. Meuric? It was dim downstairs, but I could just make out another shadow in the doorway, maybe two others. I couldn’t tell. “There’s nothing confusing about that. I just hope you won’t make a fuss.”

“But why?”

“For conspiring to murder Ana, the newsoul.”

Chapter 24