The tainted innocence of nineteen—not quite a woman, not a girl any longer—caught somewhere in between with her childhood dreams. “I just thought my Prince Charming would be a knight in shining armor, riding to the rescue on a white horse.” She looks down at me, a soft smile reassures the twisted feeling in my stomach until she says, “I never imagined a black horse at midnight.”
She never saw me coming. She never imagined the bad guy would get to her first.
. . . My neck hurts, a sharp pain eased by soothing circles in my hair, a familiar touch taking me back to a day in my life that I would have called perfect at one time. The curse of my life finally caught up with me the day Sara Jane accepted she was never going to have an ordinary life. Maybe it wasn’t going to be extraordinary, but it would never be boring. She leaned down that day and kissed me. “Lay your head down on me . . .”
When I open my eyes, my beautiful queen is awake and touching me. Her fingers don’t leave me this time, and she repeats what she said to me so many years ago, “Bring on your darkness, Alexander. Bring on your burdens, lighten your load, and let me love you.” Her voice is whisper-soft, yet her words are strong. Determined.
I close my lids, wanting to get lost in her words, in her, in our love that always feels cocooning and safe. She says, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes and lift my head. “I lay my love at your feet. I pray at your altar for forgiveness. Please don’t hate me. I won’t survive your hate.”
“I don’t hate you, Alexander. I’m hurt. Not by you, but by the world I used to think was good. It’s not. You were right. The darkness will always win in the end.”
“It doesn’t have to. Don’t let it change you.”
“I’ve already changed. I don’t even remember who I was before.”
Pushing up, I stand and move closer, caressing her cheek. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Remind me. I just want to go back days, months, or maybe years. I want to see the sun as if it wasn’t trying to blind me to the pain I was in. I want to remember what it’s like to see a blue sky and not feel like it’s the last one I’ll ever see. Like it will be the last time I talk to Chad or feel whole with a baby inside me that I didn’t even have a chance to know.” Her eyes are watering.
I kiss her cheek, leaving my cheek pressed to hers after. When her arm comes around me I know I haven’t lost her. Although I wonder if I lost the girl she once was. I wonder if that’s why her parents hate me—if they blame me for taking away their little girl.
“Don’t cry, Alexander.”
My forehead drops to her shoulder, and I hold back the rest of my pain, the tears that fall for who she used to be, who we used to be. Like her youth, I stole her innocence. I stole her hope. She whispers, “You promised me I’d get here eventually. Here I am. I accept this, my fate, like I accept you.”
“Do you?” I ask, tilting my head back to look into her eyes.
There aren’t tears threatening to fall or watery eyes any longer. No, she isn’t lying. Acceptance lies in the unstressed skin of her face and the determination blending into the color of her eyes. Strokes of heavy emotions have painted her canvas black. Everything I warned her about, everything that threatened to rip us apart now binds us together, tainted by the scorched earth left behind by demons hidden in the shadows. The light dimmed.
For now?
Forever?
Her eyes don’t leave mine. “I do. I think I always have. I just never understood what that entailed until now.” I kiss the soft skin of her hand and the underside of her wrist. “You always said I was strong. I wasn’t strong. I was na?ve.”
“You should rest, Sara Jane.” She’s lost her way and morphine coursing her veins isn’t going to help her find it. “Get some sleep.”
She doesn’t fight me. She closes her eyes, and I set her hand down, which she immediately rests across her stomach. When I sit in the chair, leaning back and watching her, she reopens her eyes—the movement lethargic, her words unhurried. “The nurse called me Mrs. Kingwood and referred to you as my husband. Something you want to tell me?”
“I thought they wouldn’t let me in here otherwise.”
Her lids are heavy, and I can see the struggle she’s fighting to keep them open. “I always thought being married to you would be different. You’d be in my bed, not beside it.” She cracks a sly smile. “We never even got a honeymoon.”
“I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Anywhere you want to go, I’ll make it happen.”
“I dream of visiting places that only exist in the past—lakes on sunny days. Cool breezes under the sun’s warm rays. Beautifully broken souls that could lie for hours under trusting skies. Tell me, King. Did we ever exist before this pain? Were we always destined for this ending?” For as groggy as she sounds, her mind seems to understand the gravity of our reality.
“It’s not ending, Firefly. You have to believe we can make it back, back to the place where it all began, back to lakes where the swans once swam, back to who we used to be.”
When she reaches for me, I take her hand between both of mine and she asks, “Who did we used to be?”
“Alexander and Sara Jane. Under the cloud cover that seemed to follow them, they were good. They were pure beauty, a sight to behold. I never knew love existed in the shape of a blessing meant just for me. But there you were, needing me.”
“Wanting you,” she whispers. The smile from earlier comes back. Her voice is soft, sleep taking hold. “I thought love was enough, but want and need are not that simple to satisfy.”
“You are the only happy I know.”
“Oh Alexander. You sound like me, the me I used to be.” Her eyes close, and within seconds she falls asleep.
Sitting down, I rub my face, wishing I could give her the dreams she once had. There is no going back. All I can do is hope she finds peace in this new life—two reincarnated souls fighting for their future.
Watching her anguish flicker across her face even in sleep, I pull my phone out and call Cruise. Fuck Detective Langley. We’re not on the same side. What does he know anyway? Nothing. When he answers I say, “I want everyone involved with hurting her dead.”
“You know what you’re asking, right?”
“I do. They will suffer for what they’ve done.”
“King—”
I hang up. There’s nothing more to discuss. I will do anything to give her the peace she needs. The moment I saw her I wanted her. Greedily, I took her innocent beauty and shrouded her in my darkness, but I was smothering everything I loved about her, so I tried to push her away before I destroyed the rest of what made her so special. How could I ever be so foolish to think she was safest with me? Now I wonder if my selfish deeds are now indebted to a fate we can’t control.
7
Sara Jane Grayson