Once Untold

I’d always wondered if Heaven looked the same to everyone or if it changed to fit our versions of paradise.

My version would be a recreation of my grandparents’ garden in Trinidad, and I would sit there and read poetry forever. But instead of a garden, I opened my eyes in my bed at the resort, still wearing the gloves Sarah had placed on my hands.

Someone had removed my oxygen tube, and they’d taken the IV out of my arm without leaving any puncture wounds. My usual marks from blown veins and years of being a pincushion had also disappeared. So had the heart monitor and every other sign that a sick person had lived in this room.

Pale gray light floated in through the curtains and illuminated the dust particles in the air. As I watched them, I lay perfectly still on the bed, waiting for something cosmic to happen. Minutes passed and nothing moved in the room but me. My chest rose and fell at an easy pace without pain or wheezing. It made sense for pneumonia not to follow me to the grave, but why was I breathing?

Hesitantly, I placed my gloved hand over my heart, and it hummed against my palm. Corpses didn’t have heartbeats.

I was ninety-eight percent sure that I’d entered some sort of post-death trance, but I wasn’t going to get anywhere by staying in bed and waiting for my new life to start. It had started, albeit strangely, and I wanted to meet it head-on.

I sat up with no discomfort for the first time in weeks, and a vase of peonies on my bedside table caught my eye. They were a vibrant shade of red, like freshly spilled blood, with drops of dew rolling down the petals.

Someone had left a note next to the vase.

Try to enjoy this day. It’s the first of many. The first of eternity.

As I stood on my own for the first time in forever, I whispered, “Okay. This is weird.”

The world stopped spinning for a second as I looked into the mirror that hung over my dresser. The girl inside of it was wearing black gloves, and she looked like someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. The healthy me.

A chill crept down Gwen’s spine, and her eyes could not refocus fast enough. She clutched fistfuls of Rosemary’s quilt, instinctively preparing to throw herself under it if there was a monster lurking in the dark. Gwen wasn’t afraid in the normal sense of the term, but her heart raced as she noticed the boy sitting on the rocking chair in the corner of the room.

The chair rocked with a squeak as he stood up from it. Walking slowly toward the window, he came into view as he entered the moonlight. He stared at Gwen, and she stared back.

His eyes were steady in their intensity, but impish in all other manners. They impulsively surveyed the room, never lingering on any particular aspect of it, but always coming back to Gwen. A vine of ivy was wrapped around his waist and strewn across his shoulder like a belt and sash, just barely holding his tattered shirt and shorts to him. His clothes seemed held together with bits of twine and magic. He moved fluidly in his own skin. Gwen wasn’t even conscious of how much she envied his playful motion. Even with his gangly, broad shoulders, he stood tall with a childish sense of confidence.

Gwen wasn’t sure, but he looked like a freshman. He couldn’t have been younger than fourteen.

He wore hemp bracelets and braided jewelry around his wrists; pine-cone chips and wooden beads were woven into his necklace. They jangled as he walked.

“This is your sister?” he asked, his question seemed rudely incredulous. “Hollyhock, let me see her.”

Before Gwen could make sense of this remark, an exploding light burst from an inexplicable place in the darkness. Gwen was disoriented when the light came so quickly at her. Circling up around her, the golden light left a trail of fast dissolving glitter that rained down on her. What little of it touched her glowed faintly on her skin before disappearing. It felt like a pins-and-needles numbness in the best possible way.

The bright light that radiated from Hollyhock’s little body half-blinded Gwen in the otherwise dark room, but Hollyhock flitted in front of her, and Gwen caught a glimpse of the creature. Her eyes were unusually wide, and her massive irises were an otherworldly color for which Gwen had no name. Her itty-bitty lips and nose were hardly there at all, but her sunny hair was pulled back in two long, dangling braids. Her limbs were like twigs, and she wore a leaf draped over her like a tunic. Gwen didn’t need to be told that she was looking at a fairy.

“Huh,” he responded, sitting down on the hardwood floor of Rosemary’s room. “You said your sister was a kid.”

“She is, Peter!” Rosemary defended. “I told you—she’s a big kid.”

Finally addressing her properly, Peter spoke to Gwen in a condescending tone. “I expected you to be younger.”

“As did I of you,” Gwen curtly returned.

Peter, the young man, shrugged with his eyebrows and looked away, indicating that he was not going to bother engaging a hostile girl.

Gwen didn’t care. She couldn’t have cared. While Hollyhock played in the fish mobile above the bed like an aquatic merry-go-round, Gwen clutched Rosemary close to her. “Rosemary, we were so worried! Thank God you came back.”

“I had to come back, Gwenny,” Rosemary told her. “I had to come back for you.” Hollyhock, tiring of the mobile, zipped back down and buried herself in Rosemary’s hair, poking her head out of it and trying to part it like curtains. Rosemary giggled, taking Gwen’s hand. “Let’s go.”

“Whoa, wait, no.” Gwen grabbed hold of Rosemary’s arm. “We’re not going anywhere. Mom and Dad are worried about you. The cops were here… You can’t go—where?”

Hollyhock, on Rosemary’s shoulder, said something that sounded like a sneeze and a hum. Rosemary translated the one word she had already learned in the fairy tongue. “Neverland.”

“Ashton Calhoun,” Steele whispered.

He couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t seen her since Abe’s funeral. Abe Calhoun’s younger twin sister. Abe had been born three minutes earlier, so he’d taken on the role of big brother.

“I ain’t seen you in a month of Sundays.” Steele stood and dragged her along with him.

He examined her more closely in the hazy light. He’d know Ash anywhere, even if she’d changed over the years. She stood about five and a half feet tall with brown hair pinned tight to her head and the same vivid green eyes. Most noticeably, she now had a long jagged scar on the right side from her hairline to chin. While the skin must’ve knit together long ago, it’d left a deep groove in her pretty face.

Ash stared right back at him, studying him. “As I live and breathe, Jack Steele. I thought you looked familiar, but I wondered if my mind was playin’ tricks on me.”

Or maybe she’d wanted to fuck with him. He certainly deserved it.

Ash didn’t look angry, exactly—more like stunned, a bit wary. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been empty, hollowed out by grief at her brother’s funeral. He’d tried to approach her afterward, wanting to say something—anything—to ease her pain, but she’d walked away from him and right out of his life. They hadn’t spoken since.

Damn, but the military agreed with her.

She was hotter than he remembered—sleek and sexy. She was leaner, meaner, and practically dripping bad-assery with her big gun and tight fatigues. She’d dropped a couple pounds and replaced it with whip-corded muscle. After he had a few minutes to get used to the scar, he might get into it—it gave her a dangerous air.

Justice still brandished his weapon. “You two know each other?”

“Yeah. You can stand down. She’s cool, man.”

“Chilly, you might say.” Then came her familiar sub-zero expression—colder than a cast-iron commode in the winter.

“Uh…Steele?” Justice piped up. “She don’t look so friendly.”

Yeah, he could read it in the curl of her lip, the indifference in her gaze. Ash hated his ass, and she had every right to, but at least she wasn’t empty. Pissed off was better than grief-stricken.

Steele smiled at her, giving her a taste of his charm, hoping he’d thaw her out some. “Naw. Don’t worry. Me and Ash go way back. Trust me, she’s not a threat.”

“Wanna bet?”

She socked him in the nose, snapping his head back.

“Does he have protection? Connections?”

River shook her head. “I don’t know. He kept me out of a lot. That’s why I was always so careful with new people or trying to get close to anyone. He could have them on his payroll and I’d never know. I do know he has some cops and judges in his pockets. The few times I tried to press charges, everything fell through quickly, if they even filed any paperwork. He’s untouchable.”

“No man is untouchable, River. Remember that. This changes things.”

“Why?”

“It’s enough that I’ve told you that. Let me worry about the rest.”

“This is my life, Ethan.”

“And it now belongs to me. I protect what’s mine.”

“This was about me killing him. That’s why I came to you. It’s why I’m here.” She threw her hands up in the air, letting out a frustrated sound.

“Let me do this.”

“It’s not your choice to make.”

“We had a deal! I give you everything I am and you give me him. That’s what we agreed on.”

“You will still be mine long after he’s dead. What does it matter who kills him?”

“It matters to me.”

I could see that, but it wasn’t happening. I wasn’t letting River within a mile of this man unless it was at my side, with him at my feet, taking his last breath from my hand. He came to me, not to her, with his little fucking message. He knew who the real threat was.

And I just ignored the fact that imagining her in danger twisted me up. It wasn’t real, any more than this farce of a relationship we were in, but it was enough for us. It would have to be.

“Get Pavel in here to work me out. I can practice night and day until I’m ready. He knows where I am now. It’s only a matter of time before he makes his move.”

Everything she was saying was true, but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered except what I said would happen. I needed to make sure River understood that, in the best way possible.

“And you think you will be ready to kill him after a few lessons, is that it?” I stood up and circled around the desk. River froze, but she was on to me too late. She wouldn’t give away.

“Ethan.”

“I asked you a question.”

“If you’d teach me some more, I would be. It can’t be that hard to kill someone who isn’t trained to fight like that. He hides behind whoever he pays. I never could fight back before, now I can.”

“How long does it take to choke out a man?”

“What?”

“How long do you think it would take to strangle someone to death?” I was close to her, close enough to feel her body shaking. She had the right to be afraid. Some lessons were easier to prove than to tell.

“I don’t know.”

“Count. Very slowly now, or you’ll die quicker.”

She screamed as I wrapped my fingers around her throat and squeezed. I held on as she wasted useless energy pounding my chest and trying to get away.

“Count, River.”

She tried to choke out words but I only tightened my grip. As her legs gave out I lifted her on the desk and stepped in between them. She was so fucking beautiful, even with her eyes full of tears, and her nails digging into my hands. I ran my free hand down her body, over her breasts and the slope of her stomach. Her body quivered under mine, and my cock thickened as I watched her. She’d be out soon. I could feel it.

But I could also feel the heat from her pussy, warming my palm. I used the heel of my hand to circle against her clit. She froze, waiting, dancing on the edge, as her oxygen left her body and placed her where touch and pain were closer to the edge. Where pleasure bit almost too sharply. I rubbed her clit again and loosened my grip a fraction. Her gasping breath was all that broke the silence before I ripped her knickers from her. I left the fabric bunched around her calves as I stepped in close again and worked my zipper down.

So fucking perfect, so mine.

“Look how wet you are.”

She closed her eyes as tears leaked from the corners.

I bent over her and used my tongue to taste them. “Did you know there are different types of tears?” I asked in her ear. I rubbed the head of my cock against her wet slit, up and down. With every pass she grew wetter, hotter. Her nipples were little pebbles rubbing against my cloth-covered chest.

“Fear tastes bitter, sadness salty, and happiness warm and light. Desire, though, those take like a combination of it all. You fear what’s coming. You hate what you are letting me do to you. And you want it so bad you wish you could beg for it. I taste desire in your tears, River.”

I slid into her slowly, feeling each ripple of her tight little cunt gripping my dick. She was so fucking tight. I had to grit my teeth to keep from coming. She arched against me, her hands falling away, her body opening up. She was giving in, forgetting her lack of air, no longer caring I could kill her right now. On the edge between pleasure and pain, anger and desire, hatred and love; she was giving in to me.

And I realized I made another mistake.

In trying to scare her, I ensnared myself. I wanted to take her, toss her into the sun, and keep her there. I wanted to explode with her, and I wasn’t going to get away with just having her and walking away. It angered me.

Utterly destroyed me.

As I sank into her to the hilt, feeling her grip and release around me, I wanted to kill Derrick Reese for ever having her, tear apart any other man that came before me, and claim her in ways that she couldn’t imagine. I wanted her to be mine, all mine, and I wanted her to love every minute of it.

Fuck me, but I wanted her to love me. Even when I knew I wouldn’t be able to ever love her. I was worse than I ever dreamed, and I couldn’t find a way to feel remorse for it.

So I did the only thing I could—fucked her and let myself sink deeper into the darkness.