Elegy

“You were mine, too,” Alex said.

“So you’ve had a crush on me since the day we met?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. I don’t think it really started in earnest until we were older.”

“You told me you’d been in love with me for years,” Gemma said, referring to what he’d said a few days before, when they got back together outside the Paramount Theater. “Is that true?”

“Why are you asking me all this stuff?”

“I don’t know. Just curious I guess,” she said, but she knew why.

She wanted to get lost in their memories, to immerse herself completely in him, so she didn’t have to think of all the darkness that went on outside him.

Gemma pulled away and sat down on his bed. The new comforter was satiny and dark purple, a much more mature choice than his previous bedding. And she wondered, not for the first time, why it had taken her so long to realize how much she cared about him.

“The homecoming dance my junior year,” Alex said, still leaning against the desk. “So you were a freshman.”

“The homecoming dance?” She shook her head in confusion. “I went, but you didn’t go with me.”

“No. I didn’t even go at all,” he said. “But I was outside when you came home.”

“You were in the front yard with Luke Benfield, doing something with a telescope, which I thought was really weird because the sun was still up,” Gemma remembered.

Her dad had insisted that she be home by nine. It was still light out then, so she thought the whole thing was ridiculous.

“A comet was supposed to be passing near the sun. But that’s not the point.” His mahogany eyes were wistful. “You had on this dress, and it was the first time that I’d seen you where you really took my breath away. You were so beautiful.”

A wonderful, warm feeling fluttered through her belly as she listened to him. Overwhelming love and appreciation for him filled her so much, she thought she might explode.

“And this guy was with you,” Alex said.

“Derek something,” Gemma filled in the blank. “His breath smelled like garlic, and he spent the whole night talking to his friends and ignoring me.”

“I tried to pretend like I wasn’t watching, but I saw him walk you to the steps, and he tried to kiss you, and you told him to get lost. And he walked away all defeated, and you caught me staring at you, and you blew me a kiss.”

“Oh my gosh.” Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, and she laughed. “I can’t believe I did that. I’d forgotten, and now I’m so mortified. I was just being sassy or something, ’cause I thought Derek was still watching.”

“So you only did that to spite someone else? Wow.” Alex pretended to be upset. “Our whole relationship is a lie. I kinda feel like I need to question everything.”

“Oh, come on.” Gemma got up and walked over to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. “It might have taken me a bit longer than it took you, but I love you now, and I’ll love you forever. And that’s all that matters.”

“How much longer did it take you?” Alex asked as he wrapped his arms around her.

“To fall in love with you?”

“Yeah. When did you actually know that you loved me?”

“I’d liked you for a while, but I think I knew I loved you the first time we really kissed, when we were in the backyard under the stars.”

“Wow. It did take you a lot longer,” he said, and Gemma wished it hadn’t taken her so long. She’d missed out on so much time with him, and so many kisses.

“Yeah, but I’m here now.”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, pulling herself close to him. But just kissing him wasn’t enough, and maybe she’d known that when she came over here. She loved him completely, and she wanted to be with him completely.

Still holding on to him, she took a step backward, and he followed, unwilling to stop kissing her, even for a second. Then she turned him around and pushed him back to the bed. Before he fell back, she grabbed the bottom of his shirt and peeled it off.

His skin felt warm, and his muscles were firm and smooth underneath her. His hands roamed all over her, and he had her halter top up over her head in seconds. She’d had the foresight to skip putting on a bra today, and he took a moment to appreciate that.

Then they were kissing again, only this time her bare skin was pressed to his, and it was amazing how intimate that felt, how close she felt to him, and yet she still wanted to be closer.

The monster inside her threatened to surface, but she wouldn’t let it. She wasn’t doing this to feed her cravings or satiate her hunger, and she refused to let the siren in her have any part of this. This was about her and Alex, and how much they loved each other.

After she’d undone his pants, he rolled her over, and with surprising dexterity, he slid off her panties and shorts. For a moment, nothing more happened. The two of them lay naked together, kissing, and he took of one her hands, pressing it to the pillow above her head. His heart was pounding so hard, she could feel the rapid beat of his pulse in their entwined fingers.

Then he stopped. Her free arm was around him, holding him to her, and he stared down into her eyes.

“What?” she asked, afraid he might not want to continue.

“I just want to remember this moment,” he said softly. “I want to remember everything about being here with you now and how utterly in love with you I am.”

“I love you, too,” she said because she was afraid to say more.

Then his lips found hers again, kissing her desperately, and when he slid inside her, it hurt, but there was a strange beauty in the pain. In knowing that it was with him, that they were together in a way they’d never been with anyone else, and when he let go of her hand so he could wrap his arms around her, crushing her to him, she couldn’t imagine being able to feel this close to anyone.

Afterward, she lay in his arms. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed the bare skin of her back, sending pleasurable shivers down her spine. He lay on his side, and her head was pressed against his chest, listening to the sound of his heart, and their legs were tangled together.

For a moment, she wasn’t entirely sure where she ended, and he began, and there was something wholly perfect in that. She clung to him, savoring the moment and wishing that it would last forever.

THIRTY-EIGHT Disillusion

Gemma and Brian were talking beside her at the kitchen table, and Harper heard them. She was even nodding along and saying “mmm-hmm” in all the right spots. But she wasn’t really listening. Her head and her heart were a million miles away, wondering what she was going to do about Daniel.

After he’d told her about his plans to become a siren and join Penn last night, she had spent a very long time trying to talk him out of it and debating with him. But his mind was made up, and in the end, she wasn’t sure that she actually disagreed with him.

She didn’t want him to do it because she didn’t want him getting hurt, but in all honesty, if she were in his position, she’d probably do the exact same thing. To protect the people she loved, she’d be willing to sacrifice anything.

But Harper was going to make damn sure that they’d tried every other option first. If there was a way to break the curse before Daniel got trapped into a life with Penn, then Harper was determined to find it.

As soon as she’d gotten home last night, she’d pulled out the scroll. Diana had told her the curse was in the ink, and Pine had thought that the ink might consist of blood. It had reacted to water, Red Bull, and a number of other liquids that she’d exposed it to. But according to Gemma, it reacted strongest to a combination of the same