Chapter 31
PAST:
"Why are you doing this to me?" she asks me that night, alone in her room. The look in her eyes is one of pure torment. Such suffering. I loathe myself more each day for putting her through it. She does not want the life planned for her. She wants no part of it…and she does not know how much deeper it is going to insert itself into her mundane world.
My world had stalled before I met her, and now here I am throwing her easy pace of life into a frenetic rhythm of chaos.
"You're just trying to manipulate me. Just like all faeries. That's what they do, right? Twist the truth and turn people’s lives inside out and upside down." She hollers frustrated words at me.
To anyone looking on, she's shouting into the emptiness of night.
I am not twisted like them, I want to tell her. But how can I, when I've done everything to prove to her I am. I lean closer and suddenly I feel uneasy. Not quite myself and unsure how to act. It's a strange sensation for me. My chest prickles, and I press my hand to it, feeling the erratic pounding of my heart.
"I offer you a gift…the gift of song. If I was trying to control you, you would be bending to my will by now."
They are not the words I want to say to her. I want to hold her and stroke her hair and tell her how sorry I am for all of this. But there is no place in this world, or any other, completely free from the ears and eyes of others.
She shakes her head, her anger displaced by disappointment. It confounds me, her unrelenting ability to release her emotions around me, when she holds them so tightly for the rest of the world. I want to touch her cheek, like I did that night so long ago. I remember how touching her sent a shockwave of warmth though me, leaving me frozen with fear over the meaning of it all. Never have I fallen so hard for someone of this world.
Instead, of touching her, as I so desperately want, I press my hand to the back of my neck, letting the cold freeze my runaway emotions. I cannot leave. Not now. Not ever. I will admit it but once…I care far too much.
I stare down at her, her eyes closed, lips slightly parted, dark hair spilling across the white of her pillow. This girl. She has to be protected, no matter what. It is too late for me. I am already in too deep to ever come out unscathed.
But she cannot be harmed.
Not ever.
It is my solemn oath.
"You can still rescind my offer. Forget it was ever made. It is not too late, but—" I circle her slowly, methodically. "But this is your last chance."
She spins to keep me in her sights as I stalk around her. "I don't recall asking for another chance," she says.
I nod, at once baffled and in awe of her supreme ignorance or utter bravery. "Very well." I close the small distance between us. I can see the tiny beads of perspiration forming on her brow, smell her warm scent of vanilla and citrus. It's intoxicating, as will be the music she sings for me. My hand reaches out and I touch her throat.
My enduring memory of that momentous night will forever be the way her tender skin felt under my touch—so smooth, so soft— the graceful arc of her neck as her head tilted back, and the bone-chilling scream that tore from her lovely lips, before I vanished from her sight and from her life.