HER SWEETEST DOWNFALL (Paranormal Romance / Fantasy Novella) (Forever Girl Series - a Journal) (13 page)

But Ophelia knew Callista’s story was a lie. Several months prior, while most of the Maltorim was tucked away in one of the chambers for an evening meeting, Ophelia was asked to tidy the Queen’s room.

“Just make the bed and mop the floors,” the Queen said. “
Don’t
touch anything.”

No one would dare touch the Queen’s belongings. Except, perhaps, a woman such as Ophelia who had nothing to lose anymore.

Once the Queen departed, Ophelia peered out the door and down the halls and, seeing no one, eased the door so that it was only slightly ajar. Wide open would give her no warning, and closed entirely would draw attention. Everyone had something to hide, and if Ophelia was to survive here, she needed to know what truths had been hidden about the Queen.

The cleaning would wait. Being caught without the cleaning done would carry a lesser fate than being caught rummaging through Queen Callista’s belongings, so Ophelia needed to get the latter out of the way.

She checked the usual places first. Under the pillow, under the mattress, inside the wardrobe. Nothing. There were no floorboards to check beneath. Ophelia plugged her fists onto her hips and scanned the room. It was mostly bare. All that remained was a bookshelf and a chair.

Where would Ophelia hide something if she were the Queen? Callista was too smart to make an obvious choice. Ophelia sighed and sat in the chair. It would take too long to go through the Queen’s bookshelf.  She gripped the sides of the parlor chair and squeezed her eyes shut.

Think
.

She hunched forward and rested her head in her hands. Something rustled beneath her, and Ophelia was struck with an idea.

She glanced to the door and, sensing no movement on the other side, slid to the floor and peeked at the underside of the chair. There it was. A leather-bound, beaten journal strapped to the bottom of the seat.

Ophelia slid the journal from its place, her heart thundering in her chest. The book felt soft and vulnerable in her grasp. She forced herself to drop her gaze from the doorway to the journal. She would need to know the moment someone walked by, but she couldn’t read the journal and keep watch at the same time.

She had a lifetime to read, yes? Maybe just a few passages here and there . . . maybe that would be all it took. Some stolen moments like these. The risk of being caught was great, but the risk of not learning the truth . . . that could be greater.

That was the first night she cracked open the journal, careful not to disturb the pages, and began to read.

Over the months, Ophelia learned enough to empower her against the Queen should the need ever arise. She learned the truth about Callista—learned that her story was one told to gain followers, nothing more.

The story the Queen told belonged not to her, but to her father. A father who had abandoned her after killing her mother, following the discovery that Callista’s mother was dual-natural—Strigoi and Cruor both—and that his daughter was dual-natured as a result. After Callista’s father disowned her, she murdered him, though she kept alive his hatred for the dual breeds. A hatred for herself. 

It was then she’d set out to find other Cruor.

Callista’s chance for redemption had come in the form of a dream—one that led her not only to more of her kind, but also to other species she was destined to join to form a council for the Universe. Because of her stories, all of the elemental races believed the Maltorim had been called on by the Universe, but the truth was that the Universe had never formed the Maltorim.

Callista had but one hope—the magic of the Ankou. But their magic came with risks Callista could not bring herself to face, nor could she risk word getting out that she was dual-natured. Some might not care; she was the Queen, after all. Others might see her being dual-natured as a reason to overthrow her reign.

Ophelia shook her head every time she thought of it; though Callista’s father hated the dual breeds, Callista herself had nursed hatred into genocide, meanwhile allowing her followers to believe she was the purest of all Cruor—a true earthborn, and the first of their kind.

Ophelia dared not breathe a word of her knowledge to anyone, for her thoughts were the same as the Queen. True, they might overthrow her reign if they learned the truth, but alternately they might stand beside her despite her nature, which could very well mean Ophelia’s own death, should she have been the one to announce her findings.

Ophelia would save her knowledge as a last resort.

Tonight, the rest of the Maltorim would celebrate the Queen. She was to be presented with a true Damascus sword, the steel blade laddered and waved with roses. This would be Ophelia’s chance to slip away from the mausoleum, if only for a time. Her chance to put her calling aside and follow the pull of her heart.

A chance she was not supposed to take but refused to deny.

Ophelia stepped into the brisk night, leaving behind the loud chatter of the crowds, the music, and the spicily scented air of Queen Callista’s celebration. Ophelia sped toward the distance without any direction in mind. Only away. When she was certain the distance she’d travelled was far enough—certain all of the Maltorim were too involved in their celebrations to notice her missing—she closed her eyes and felt with all her soul which way she needed to head next. 

She walked with purpose. She traveled the length of several cities, crossed through many small towns, thankful her uncanny speed as a Cruor allowed her to travel so far in mere moments. 

Ethan was out here, somewhere beneath this same dark moon. Lenore’s presence she could always feel, a steady undercurrent in her body at all times, but her connection to Ethan was something tender, something hidden in a quiet corner of her soul.

She plowed through forests and over uprooted trees, stopping only when she reached a wood that a forest fire had recently claimed. What a shame he rain brewing in the air hadn’t come sooner, come before the dry earth and bright sun had set fire to this beautiful land. By her feet, a daffodil struggled to survive, and a lone butterfly sought life in the young flower. How she wished Ethan was with her, wished he was there to restore the forest to its greatness.

She would find him yet.

Perhaps she was mad. Perhaps what she felt—the pull that led her—was not really there at all. But the energy in the air guided her through shadowed woods, across vulnerable fields and into the crumbling walls of the outer city limits, until she reached a large building made of many small rooms. One of the windows was blocked by a thick blanket. Ophelia strode over and stood beneath it.

“Ethan,” she whispered loudly.

No response. 

What was she thinking?

She shook her doubts away and lifted a small stone from the ground and tossed it at the window.

“Ethan,” she hissed again.

Again, no response.

“Aye, I’ve right lost my mind,” she mumbled to herself. 

That twist in her gut—it’d been more heartache than instinct. And for what? Even if she had found him, he would have only sent her away. He would never allow her to risk everything.

She rubbed her hand against her cheek and bit her lip, closing her eyes. Why did her heart have to betray her this way? Why could she not hate Ethan instead? Why not despise him for being the one to usher her into this world?

“Ethan,” she said to empty room above. “I’m sorry. I am sorry, though ye will never know that I came here tonight. I’m sorry that my heart got in the way. Sorry for loving ye.”

She choked on those last words, then sucked in a resolved breath. This was no good. She needed to move on. But she could not get her feet to move nor her gaze to leave the window. Could not get her gaze to leave that square of hope. So badly she wanted him that she could smell his sweet clove scent on the night air.

“Ophelia?”

The voice came from behind her, arresting the space in her chest where her heart would have normally sped. 

It was him.

She held her breath and spun around. Moonlight lit the sky behind him. He stood unmoving, his gaze covering every inch of her, her emotions swaying slowly from disbelief to desire. 

“Ophelia,” he said, with more confidence.

He strode over to her, and she threw her arms around him and kissed him deeply. He pressed her back against the wall in the alley, his hands sliding around her waist. He stopped, tilting his forehead against hers, his eyelashes tickling her brow.

“You’ve come to me,” he said. He kissed her again, as though unable to keep his lips from her mouth. Finally he broke away and pulled her a few steps further down the alley to a wooden door and then inside. 

Neither of them said a word until after he’d led her down the hall, up the stairs, and into a small, bare room that contained little more than cot, end table, and washbasin. He locked the door and turned to her again, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have come.”

She stepped up to him, closing the distance between them, and kissed him with the passion she’d been holding back for far too long. She did not know when she would see him again, but she knew she would not give him up, knew she would not sacrifice him.

He put his hands to her shoulders, as if to stop her, but then held her tight and deepened the kiss, backing her up until her calves hit the foot of the bed. She cupped her hands around his face, breaking the kiss. His skin was paler than usual, his hair unkempt and the circles beneath his eyes dark.

“Ye are not well,” she said. 

“I will be fine, my love. I will be fine.”

“What of the work ye are supposed to do?”

He shook his head slowly. “It is done. There was no calling for me beyond your delivery to the Maltorim. That is it for me.”

“Oh, Ethan,” she breathed, frowning. “‘ow could ye say such a thing?”

“I have failed even that, if you are here now. What happened?”

He had not failed. No matter what anyone said, they deserved the hope they found in each other’s company. “I am with them still! I am sure I can hold my place with them for many years.”

He pulled back. “You need to return immediately. You cannot stay here.”

“We are together,” Ophelia said fiercely. “Don’t tell me that is wrong.”

He stared at her a long moment, unspeaking, and she feared her chest might cave beneath the silence. “You should go. I shouldn’t have allowed this, shouldn’t have entertained these ideas.”

As he stepped away, Ophelia reached out and grasped his hand to tug him back. “Don’t ye dare say that.”

He was too close to her now to look at her as a package to be delivered. He could only look into her eyes. He could only face down her soul. Let him try to back away to that, let him try to back away from his own heart.

“Would ye still be standing here if this was not meant to be? Would not the Universe ‘ave taken ye from me?”

For a long moment, Ethan stared at her, his pained expression softening. Ophelia knew she was right, and surely he knew as well. The Universe would grant them this one gift in their otherwise dire existence. They would have each other.

Ethan lifted her onto the bed, climbing between her knees as he lay her back and pressed his mouth to hers. His hands, shaky and uncertain, fumbled to undo her dress. He swept her hair away from her neck, leaving it to fan out its inky blackness on his sheets.

He removed her gown, kissed her ribs, grazed his lips over her breasts. As he placed kisses along her jaw and neck, she tilted her head back. 

Then, they were falling. Falling through time and space. But this was different from when Ethan had moved her this way before. This time they moved through space as though floating through water toward the bottom of a lake. 

She kissed the space behind his ear, traced her lips against his shoulder. His hands explored her body, the fullness of her breasts, the contour of her hips, the insides of her thighs. As his fingertips traced over her hips, she closed her eyes. Soon she was lost in touch, in the way his fingertips brushed across her skin, lost in this space with him where no harm could come to them and no obstacle could prevent them from being together.

Ethan’s fingers dipped into her, gently exploring her depths and sending notes of arousal through her body. As Ethan entered her, pressing himself into her body, she gasped. His need swelled with an urgency, his breaths coming heavier. He slowed, stopped, pulled back before trying to press in again, more fully, until his hips pressed flush with her own. For Ophelia, the moment was a surrender, and she knew it was for Ethan as well.

When finally they lie still, Ethan whispered in her ear. “Are you all right?”

“I am,” she said.

He grinned widely. “Oh, Ophelia. I could die that I didn’t think of this sooner.”

The realization swept over her as well. Here, they were safe to be together. When moving through time and space—when they were here in the
inbetween
—time did not exist. She could spend days with him and still return to the Maltorim’s asylum within hours. 

For all of Ethan’s ability, she could return to Maltorim minutes before she’d even left, if she so chose.

“I will not live without ye,” she said, pulling him closer. 

“I will never ask it again,” he promised.

To no longer have to deny her feelings sent a rush through Ophelia, and in that moment, Ophelia’s heart fluttered in her chest. The heat between them intensified, and even the serpent’s mark on her neck burned once again with ferocity. But she didn’t care. Not now.

In these moments, she was human again.

Human, and very much in love.

If it were up to Ophelia, she would remain in his space, suspended for eternity with Ethan, her love, her sweetest downfall.