Descendant (26 page)

“What
  are you talking about?” I untangle myself from his arms and lean back, confused. “We hadn’t met when you were sixteen.”

He swallows again, grinding his jaw, his eyes glassy. “I know. But I’ve been dreaming about you my whole life. I didn’t know who you were or how I’d ever find you, or if you were even real. Part of me thought you were just a girl in my dreams, sometimes my nightmares. I didn’t put it all together until yesterday—in the subway.” He takes my hands and I can’t tell who’s shaking more. The look in his eyes burns a hole in my heart.

“What are you saying? I don’t understand.”

“If you’re really Raina, and I’m really Theron, then we’re cursed. Something happened during the war. One of Raina’s protective spells backfired. It was meant to protect them, to save them, keep them together, but instead, it killed them. No one knows how or why, but in all the years since, none of the scholars or historians has found a way to fix it. We have about two months—three at most—as long as Raina and Theron were together before the war.”

Kye presses his fingers to his eyes. “They warned me not to get attached. They said I can’t keep you anyway, but at the time it didn’t make any sense. We hadn’t even met yet, so I had no idea how it would feel—that it would be so hard.” He scrubs his hands over his face. “Abby, I swear, I had no idea that day on the bus. I wouldn’t
have put you through this on purpose. You have to believe me. Please believe me.”

His voice cracks on the last words, and my heart cracks with it. I pull his hands away from pressing against his eyes. “Kye, you’re babbling, and I still don’t understand.”

“Okay. Okay.” He threads his fingers through his hair and presses down like he’s trying to hold his head on his shoulders. Like it’s going to explode. “Theron and Raina can’t stay together.
We
can’t stay together.”

“Why?”

“We’ll die.”

My stomach pitches. He said this once before, and I think ... I know he’s right, feel the truth in his words. Sick dread bubbles in my gut and I experience an entirely new form of nausea. “Who tried to warn you?”

“The faeries. The sprites. The animals. Even ... even the mermaids in the river.” He looks stricken. “I was so caught up in you that I didn’t even listen to their song.”

“What were they warning you against?” I’m trying to stay calm for him, so I turn his face toward me with my palm on his neck. “Being with me? Or fighting this supposed curse?” This feels like an important detail. Something I should know.

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, his throat working.

“Has anyone ever asked the faeries—or animals or plants—for help in reversing it? Do they know what went wrong?”

He opens his eyes again. “Val wanted me to build a relationship with the elementals because he hopes Dryden will someday be restored. But before that can happen, both worlds have to be balanced. That’s what I’ve been working on for the past two years. Trying to help find balance. They know what has to be done. But, Abby, we’ve been through this—or Theron and Raina have, anyway—five or six times. It’s all documented. If the elementals could have helped with the curse before, they didn’t, so why would they now? I doubt there’s anything they can do.”

He shifts in his seat, pulling me into his lap, seeming to calm a little with the contact. “The thing is, despite all the warnings, even if I’d known, I wouldn’t have stopped myself from falling in love with you.”

My heart skips and my blood warms. “You love me?”

The sound he makes falls somewhere between a whimper and a choke. “Abby, I love you so much my heart wants to explode with it. I want to touch you all the time, and hold you, and ... just ... be with you. I want—”

My arms wind around him and my lips cut off his words. I kiss him until my heart feels like it could beat out of my chest and into his. Until we melt together like we’re one person, until the energy surrounding us turns a perfect pale lavender that glows through my closed eyelids. Our lips and tongues tangle together, creating a taste sweeter than anything I’ve experienced and completely, uniquely ours. His arms slide up my back until his fingers tangle in my hair and send shockwaves of happiness down to my toes. My fingers stroke the short hair at the nape of his neck while I kiss him like we’re the only two people in the universe who have ever truly loved—because in that moment, we are.

My heart is his. Irrevocably.

By the time we break apart, my face is flushed and my skin tingles, and I don’t care about curses and demons and death. Right now, what matters most to me is that I’ve found the boy in my dreams, and I finally understand why I’ve always needed him. Holding his face between my hands, I tell him, “I love you too. Whatever happens, I’ll love you until the day I die.”

He swears, his arms tightening around me. “This is impossible. I can’t love you the way I do, but I can’t help it. You can’t be with me here, but you are.”

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” I lean my head on his shoulder and nuzzle his neck.

“Even if it kills you?”

My eyelids flutter closed, tickling his skin with my lashes. “It won’t. We won’t let that happen. There has to be a way. There just does.”

“No.” He gently nudges me onto the seat. “No, no, no. This is like déjà vu. I told you, we’ve been through this before. A lot. It doesn’t work. And there’s something else.”

I lean back, stare at the tops of the buildings towering above the trees, then glance at the back of the guy who is pedaling so hard. A
spot of sweat has soaked through the back of his shirt, even though his breath comes out in puffs of white.

“Raina died because of me.” His eyes change, filling with pent-up emotions that seem hundreds of years old. An image superimposes over his face and his voice takes on a thick Irish brogue. “I won’t let that happen this time. The world—I couldn’t survive it again.”

My heart races as I reach out tentatively to touch Theron’s face, needing to assure myself that Theron and Kye are one and the same. But the image is gone. Now it’s just Kye and me again. Kye drops his head in his hands, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “I dreamed about you last night—only not you, Raina.”

“Kye.” My voice is soft. “Just because Raina died doesn’t mean I will.”

“History repeats itself, Abby, and we’ve never beat this before. It’s like a fast-spreading cancer.”

“But I’m fine right now—and I think you are, too.” I stroke his hair.

“We have weeks. Maybe a couple months.” He gulps. “When it’s over ...”

“Oh.”

The bike stops on the opposite side of the park from where we started. Street vendors have set up tables along the sidewalks, selling souvenirs and paintings, works of art a person can only find in New York City.

Our conversation swirls in my head until I’m dizzy, so I block it out, searching for a distraction. We both need it. I look at every charcoal sketch and every picture on display. We stop to watch an artist dip her brush in paint and create shadows and light on a canvas. It’s an amazing likeness of the city. I dig out my camera and snap pictures.

We’re walking in Central Park when a knot forms in the pit of my stomach and overpowers everything, all my conflicting emotions and thoughts.
Something isn’t right.
The energy surrounding us turns dull gray as Kye slaps a hand over my mouth—which is a good thing, given my startled cry—and drags me with him behind the cover of an eight-foot shrub.

Two businessmen pass by. One—wearing a charcoal suit and black tie—has immaculately styled, unnatural fire-red hair. The other
man—much more casual in a pair of tan pants and a flowered tie—is also perfectly coifed, though his hair is boring brown.

As the men continue down the street without so much as looking in our direction, Kye breathes a sigh of relief and hails a cab, directing the driver to take us to Chinatown.

“What was that about?” I ask.

Kye keeps looking behind us, anxious. “Juri’s henchmen. Didn’t you recognize them? They were at the hotel in Vegas.”

My forehead scrunches as I try to remember. “Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

The cab lets us out at a market in a shabbier part of town. Little open-air shops, practically bursting at the seams, squeeze together like bodies on a packed subway train. I ogle the variety of goods with a sense of wonder. “What is this place?”

“Canal Street. Good shopping, easy to blend with the crowd.” Kye turns me toward the shops. “We need a break. There’s nothing more we can do to stop the Dark Elen from here, and it’s hours until our flight. Let’s have some fun.”

When I’m not looking, Kye buys me a pair of dirt-cheap emerald earrings that must be stolen. I try to argue, but he’s already forked over the cash, so it’s not like he can take them back. It occurs to me that I probably owe Kye money. A lot of money.

“This trip must be costing a small fortune.” I shake my head, clueless, wondering how much I owe him. I don’t even know where to start adding. “I’m going to pay you back for my half of all this. As soon as we get home, I’ll get a job. I’ll—”

Kye tips my chin up, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Abby, stop.”

“But—”

“Stop,” he says, firmly. “If I was worried about money, we wouldn’t be here.”

“How can you not worry? You don’t even have a job.”
Does he?

Kye shakes his head and steers me past a pushy vendor selling designer knock-offs. “Are you getting hungry?”

“Yes.” We decide on Chinese, because it’s like a law when you’re visiting a place called Chinatown. We choose an authentic restaurant where bright dragons painted rust red, shiny purple, and bright green float across tapestries on the walls, each decorated with a different
symbol. The chipped tabletops are scrubbed clean, edged with aluminum, and topped with fake white lilies. A waitress brings us water and takes our order.

Finally, I ask, “Are you ever going to tell me?”

“What?”

“The money, remember? Our bill must be ginormous. I need to know how much we’ve spent so I can figure out how to pay you back.”

The waitress sets our drinks on the table, and I sip mine, waiting for her to leave so he can answer.

Kye takes my hand on the table, looking suddenly apprehensive. “Abby, you won’t be paying anything back. It isn’t my money we’re spending. It’s yours.”

It’s
  my turn to laugh. “Oh, right. The two hundred dollars I brought got us plane tickets and a hotel room, ferry tickets, cab rides, food. And let’s not forget our recent shopping spree.” I jiggle the handbag I bought for my mother.

His head bobs, conceding. “All right, not exactly yours. It’s Raina’s.”

“I thought Raina didn’t have any money.”

“She didn’t have anything but the clothes on her back, but when they got engaged, Theron set her up to buy whatever she wanted. Like a dowry or bride-price. And because he wanted her to know it was really her money—regardless of her new title—Theron had it stored in a church outside of Dryden, where the priests could guard it, sort of like a bank.”

“Right.” I pinch the bridge of my nose to ward off a headache. “Next you’re going to tell me you’re carrying gold pieces in your pocket like Pippi Longstocking.”

“Does a platinum card count?”

“Oh, brother.”

“Val handles the money, investments and stuff.” He rests his hand on my arm. “Raina’s money has become a central source of funding for all research and projects aimed at restoring Dryden to the Gifted.”

I wonder if I can buy a remedy to break the curse.
Do fairies take
bribes?
“Even if I was Raina once, I’m not her now. I wouldn’t feel right claiming her money.”

He stirs the ice in his glass, unsmiling. “Maybe you should. Consider it a consolation prize for the life you’ll never have.” He meets my eyes and I feel the familiar burning sensation of threatening tears.

Does he mean a life of normalcy or a life with him?
“How did Val end up with Raina’s money?”

Kye taps his fingertips on the table. “After the demons were locked away, the goddess Macha made Valdemar—the last surviving priest—guardian of the money. He was the only person who knew where the treasure was hidden. In fact, he’s still the only one who can access it. All I know is that when stuff comes up, he makes sure money gets deposited in the right places. In cautious, non-concerning amounts, of course.”