Authors: Elaine Lowe
Her tears dried and the silence stretched out. She shifted in his embrace, unwilling to completely give up contact but unsure what exactly she did want from him.
“Do you,” he cleared his throat, his voice a bit rough, “do you like this ‘jazz’ music then?”
She pulled away a bit, looking at him and blinking, an eyebrow arched in unspoken question. The last thing she expected from him was inane small talk. But she humored him. It was comfortable. She wasn’t ready to admit just how comfortable she felt with him, no matter what the topic.
Eventually, the moon was high in the sky, the hour past late and the carriage arrived back in front of the Metropolitan Museum. Daron put his gloves back on. Carlos tipped his cap to the couple and whistled his horse off to find his stable. Sophia didn’t want to think what he was going to report back to Ixchel about what had happened behind him. She didn’t want to think about what had happened and how she had acted—she wanted to go home and bury herself under her covers.
Still, standing in front of the museum with Daron, she couldn’t quite bring herself to go home yet. He certainly wasn’t running off on her. They’d reestablished the rapport they’d had in the beginning of their ride, talking about everything and nothing. She didn’t really want that to end but she wasn’t quite ready to invite the man back to her apartment either. Her emotions were still too raw and she wasn’t quite sure where hers ended and his began.
Standing in pregnant silence, her hand in his, she spoke before she knew exactly what she was going to say, “Well, you asked to walk with me. Where are we walking to?”
He cocked his head to the side and laughed deeply and she felt that familiar flash of desire light again in her center. It had never really disappeared. Regaining her sense of adventure, she slipped her feet out of her beautiful but uncomfortable shoes, shoved the shoes into her trusty coat pocket and broke into a run tugging her companion along behind her.
They emerged from the trees near the Reservoir, that vast lake in the middle of the city. The moon peeked out between scattered clouds, glinting on the calm waters. Sophia figured that if they were going to do something as dangerously reckless as walking in Central Park at midnight, at least on the path around the Reservoir it would be easy to see, or sense, any trouble coming. She ignored the chill coming up through the pavement into her stockinged feet and concentrated instead on the entertained bemusement of the face of her would-be lover.
Setting out along the pathway around the Reservoir, the two walked for a while in silence. Only an iron railing separated the pathway from the water. The lapping of tiny waves made a soothing sound, disturbed only when they were coming up on a bit of construction, where the old railing was being replaced with new and a gap was open. Ignoring the warning signs, Sophia stepped up to the edge of the lake, losing herself for just a minute imagining that she was back in Ohio or Michigan with her family looking out at a bright summer moon. All she had to worry about was the preparations for the next cookout and how long she could stay out and avoid Momma’s scolding. The lightest of touches against the inside of her wrist and a breath of cold air and she was again in New York, older and wiser, both happy and sad for the brief journey.
Sighing with force, Sophia determined to forget all the weighty issues that unsettled her equilibrium and just enjoy the simple beauty of the moment. A lovely moon, freezing feet and a handsome man who whispered sweet endearments.
“Hey you never did say what
ashavi
meant? You calling me some dirty name in gypsy speak?” She said it lightheartedly, as a joke but the look that crossed his face was anything but carefree.
“It is not ‘gypsy-speak’. It… I do not know how to tell you all of this. All the women I ever thought I might be paired with, they all understood. But you…you know so little.”
She furrowed her brow, a flash of annoyance entering her voice. “I know plenty of what matters here, buster. But if you think I’m too dim to…”
“No! No, that is not what I meant. I… English is not the best language for this, love. I am not a gypsy, although I was raised among them. I am something different. I am a
Magi
.”
She crossed her arms in front of her, her stance made it clear she thought she was being taken for a ride. “Uh-huh. Are we going to go looking for the little baby Jesus now then? I may not be as good a churchgoer as Momma but I did read my Bible a time or two when I was a kid.”
“No, no, not that kind. That was a name used by… Oh, just trust me that the
Magi
were a tribe of people to the north of the Holy Land, in Persia. Part of that group had some talents and beliefs that others did not approve of and they were in danger of being killed off, every man, woman and child.”
Sophia blinked but did not interrupt. Daron continued, his voice heavy, his speech punctured with pauses as he tried to reach for a word in a language that was far from his native one. “The
Magi
left their home and all they knew, to preserve their power and to search out those in the world with similar talents. It falls to each son to go out into the world and find a…partner, a companion, whom he is destined for. One woman who makes him whole. That woman is his
ashavi
.”
His ending was abrupt and the silence was heavy. “So…you think I’m your ‘companion’, huh? What is this, some kind of backass marriage proposal or do you just think that your little speech will make it easier to get into my bloomers?” She worked herself into a sudden bursting rage. All the anger that he’d drained from her in the carriage came flooding back with a vengeance and there were no walls left to block it. She seethed with it, power and frustration and confusion all hurdling together until she could barely see for the force of her wrath.
How dare he! How dare he come into my life
,
and expect me to turn everything upside down. I was just fine without this damn talent I’ve been cursed with. Just fucking fine
!
She didn’t know when she’d crossed over from internal muttering to banshee screaming. But her hands were on his chest and before she could wipe that gobsmacked look off his face she was pushing him away from her, right into the damn Reservoir.
He disappeared beneath the surface with a great splash and then the silence hit her like a cold fist
. What the hell did I just do!
For one brief moment, confusion fled and she was absolutely certain she had just destroyed her best hope for happiness.
In the next, she got really worried. He wasn’t coming back up.
He could swim, couldn’t he? Who couldn’t swim?
Another nervous moment and she was shucking off her coat, standing nervous and cold on the edge of the water before diving in. The shock stole her breath. She opened her eyes and the thick darkness of the water called to her for half a moment with its eerie peace. There was no change here, no emotion and no pain. Just cold and darkness. She shook herself and broke for the surface, searching for light and breath. She wondered for an instant if she’d waited too long and the cold was too great before the bright sparks of coppery energy that made up Daron West swept toward her, carrying her up and out of the water.
He rolled them up on to the walkway, no mean feat as there had been no bank to climb, just the high hard edge from the ground into deep water. She lay wrapped in his arms shivering with cold and the fear of what she could have lost.
“You are mine,
ashavi
. You cannot deny it forever.” His words echoed to her through her disorientation. She felt his anger, his pain at her rejection. His desire for her. She felt other things she didn’t want to give name to, things she still wasn’t completely ready to deal with. He was pushing too damn hard.
She clambered up from the ground, shivering with icy cold. She wrapped herself in her coat and without a word, walked off into the night, away from the man she’d just risked death for.
* * * * *
The walk back was wet and cold and miserable. However, though she cloaked herself in a mantle of indignation and discomfort she had to admit that the icy dampness of her clothes was not the only reason her nipples poked out hard enough to ache. And she wasn’t really as cold as she should be. Knowing that Daron was somewhere behind her, feeling his eyes on her and the energy flooding through his body—it warmed her blood better than a bonfire.
Damned stupid male. Just had to follow me and make sure I got home safely
. Regardless that she had to walk only six blocks and he had to cover a third of Manhattan to get somewhere warm at this hour. Even the subway was closed this hour. It was likely she wouldn’t have to try to figure out her feelings about the old-fashioned gypsy freak, because he’d be frozen by morning. Or at least well on the way to pneumonia. She stopped at the intersection of Second and Eighty-Sixth and turned around, hands on her hips and sodden dress dripping onto the pavement. The flickering gas street lamps threw just enough light on the empty streets that she could see him less than a block away hiding in the edge of a shadow.
She held up a finger and crooked it in his general direction, tapping her foot with sufficient irritation to know she meant business. Soon enough, he shuffled out toward her, his shoes squishing audibly as he approached her. She laughed lightly for it was hard to keep up a front of anger when he looked every bit the drowned rat she did. His hair was a mess, dripping wet and tangled with leaves. It looked like those gloves he always wore were just this side of becoming icicles.
“This is ridiculous. You’ll catch your death out here and I refuse to play Florence Nightingale.” She grabbed his hand in her own and she swore he shuddered at the contact. She herself couldn’t feel a thing but cold wet leather but there was a certain jolt from feeling him so close as she practically dragged him behind her. She didn’t want to admit, even to herself, that the closer he was, the less her head throbbed, the less the voices of the city pressed in on her mind, because she was focused utterly on him. When they got to her building, she practically had to push him down an alleyway to the back entrance she used whenever her night excursions went particularly late. She was quite stunned to realize that this was the first time she’d ever snuck a man back to her place. She’d never wanted the hassle of having to get the guy out of her bed, when it was so easy to just leave theirs. Not that she had any intension of ending up in bed with the ass.
Yeah, you tell yourself that honey, if it makes you feel better
.
“What? Where?” She could hear the shiver in his voice from the cold and something else she could sympathize with. Still, she wasn’t sure if he was just too damn eager to get out of the cold or trying to fight the desire to fuck against the brick wall of the alley.
“You know damn well where we are. This is my place. I’ve got a radiator and hopefully at this hour, there’s some hot water for a shower.” She pulled out the key she’d sweet-talked out of the manager and opened the delivery entrance. She looked both ways down the corridor and yanked him behind her toward the stairs to the basement. It was well past midnight and the coast was clear. He followed her into her room and stood awkwardly, staring at her as she shrugged off the sorry remains of her fur coat and the shoes she’d re-donned to try to warm her icy feet. If she’d been more patient she’d probably have spent some time studying the pained look in those glazed green eyes. She supposed that it wasn’t every day a girl turned down his line about destiny and being mated for life and all that. She’d written it off as some cheesy line but her stomach suddenly gave a giant swoop in response to the idea that he might have been dead serious.
How else to explain how her powers had invaded her mind again? How she knew the feel of his essence whenever he was within a mile of her? That she responded so instantly to him, despite being called an ice queen by more than one so-called lover. She shook off the ridiculous idea. She wanted him and he wanted her and a cold dip in the Central Park Reservoir seemed to ensure that he would indeed get lucky tonight. She could always justify it to herself in the morning as a mercy fuck.
She turned around and bent at the waist, making damn sure he was given a fine view of her derrière through her clinging skirt. She propped up her leg on a chair and began the arduous process of slowly—very slowly, rolling her wet stockings down her thighs and calves without making them run. Actually, it was a lost cause—the walk back in no shoes had left the feet of the stocked ragged, but it was too much fun teasing him. She thought she’d given a fine performance but turned her head only to find that he’d unexpectedly done the gentlemanly thing and turned around, missing the whole damn show.
He also was still dripping wet and leaving a puddle on the floor. She rolled her eyes and sighed loudly. Then she started pulling her dress off over her head.
“Look buddy, I’m wet, I’m cold. I’m going to take off all my clothes and take a nice warm shower. I suggest if you are so concerned about my modesty that you stay facing that damned door for a while. But in the meantime, you’d better get out of those wet clothes and put them in front of the radiator. There’s a robe there in front of you on the door.” She walked over to turn on the shower. He was still facing the door as she stripped out of her wet bloomers and camisole. It was oddly arousing that he wasn’t taking advantage of the situation. And that she was naked and he was fully, if wetly, clothed. “I promise I won’t look while I’m in the shower. You can strip to your birthday suit and put on that robe while I’m behind the curtain. I’m just dying to see how you look in red silk.”
It was a short robe too. Yum.