35. Lorraine

Chapter Thirty-Five

Lorraine

T he forest grew darker, although it wasn’t nighttime yet. I’d come to know what magic felt like. I’d started to learn how to look out for it, and the darkness that grew thicker and thicker between the trees had nothing to do with the time of day. It had everything to do with magic. Dark magic. Bad magic. The kind of magic I wanted to stay away from. Oscar. He’d talked about magic, saying that he’d gotten some from a god named Dolus. I didn’t know how it had happened. Oscar had just been human, and he shouldn’t have had magic at all, but so much had happened since I’d arrived in the vale. None of it should have been possible. Since the moment I’d been sold to those brutes and I’d stumbled into the forest, nothing had been normal, and now I would believe almost anything. I believed I was in serious trouble. “Lorraine?” I heard Oscar’s voice. It echoed through the trees. I spun around, looking for him, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. It was only his voice, skipping around me, bouncing off the trees. His laughter followed when my terror increased. “You’ve always been so na?ve, Lorraine,” he said. His voice was everywhere around me at once. How was that possible? “Where are you?” I asked, terrified. If I could see him, I would know which direction to run away. I wasn’t stupid—with this dark magic that he somehow wielded now, I knew I couldn’t fight him, and without anyone on my side, I was in deep trouble. Oscar only laughed at that question, and the laughter scraped against the inside of my skin. I rubbed my arms to try to get rid of the feeling and shivered. The wind picked up, blowing dry leaves around, and the sky grew darker and darker as thick black clouds drew together. It looked like a terrible storm was building. “Come on, babe,” he said.

“You should face facts. You’ve never been able to handle life. Not really. Sure, when everything went well, it was easy to take care of business, but since your parents died, you’ve had no idea how to manage it.”

I shook my head and covered my ears. I didn’t want to hear it. I could still hear his voice, however. It was like it danced around inside my head. “You need me. You know you do.”

“You sold me!” I screamed. The strong wind whipped my voice away. “I know, I know,” Oscar said. “I had to do that.”

He suddenly appeared in front of me, so close that I bumped into him before I bounced back. I fell backward onto the mulch and scrambled away. “I didn’t have a choice,” he added. “I really didn’t want to do it, you know. If I’d had a choice, it would have been Cat, but they didn’t want Cat. She knows everything, but she isn’t you. She doesn’t have that spark.”

“You were going to sell Cat?!” I cried out. “Well, yeah. I had to give them a soul, and I thought she was the better option so I would still have you.”

My back hit a tree, and I couldn’t get away any further. Oscar came toward me and kneeled on the ground. His words registered in my mind. “What do you mean they needed a soul?”

“It was the only way I was going to be able to get this kind of power, you see.”

I shook my head. I didn’t see. How was any of this possible? Oscar was just a regular human, like me. Wasn’t he? “I don’t understand,” I said. Oscar laughed again, and that same awful scraping feeling happened under my skin. “Cat would have understood if the bitch let me explain it,” Oscar said grimly. “She understands this world, but she wouldn’t let me explain before she got me locked up.”

My mind was spinning. Oscar was saying so much that didn’t make sense. “You were always so trusting, and after your parents died, it just made it so much easier to get to you. It should have been you and Cat that night, the souls I needed, but you had to stay away, and your parents died instead. It’s all your fault. You ruined their lives, and you nearly ruined my plans.”

“What are you talking about?” Souls? I should have died that night. Hell, I’d felt like I should have died that night so many times, rather than that my parents had been taken away from me. That was a nightmare I still had to live with. It hadn’t plagued me so much in this world, in this alternate reality, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. It had just been a reprieve. Oscar talked now about me dying instead, about taking our souls. “You’re not one of us,” I said, finally putting the pieces together. “It took you a while to figure that out,” Oscar said. “Then what are you?”

“I’m just like these guys,” Oscar said, waving at the trees. Did he mean the druses? “Not human but not a god. That suits me just fine—I don’t want the responsibility; I just want to work with them. Dolus offered me a pretty sweet deal. Yeah, it has to do with humans and souls and feeding them to the Underworld, but the power that comes along with it is incredible.”

I stared at Oscar. It was starting to make sense. The guys who’d been after me, the magic they’d wielded. Ending up in the vale. “What did any of that have to do with me?” I asked. “I had to prove my loyalty,” Oscar said. “Giving you up did that. It gave me this power.”

I shook my head. “But I’m still alive.”

Oscar’s face darkened, and he pressed his face so close to mine I could smell his breath.

It made me want to vomit—everything about him seemed like it was rotting. I thought I’d known him, but I didn’t know anything about him at all. “Yeah, that wasn’t a part of the plan. You had to go and find that stupid drus, and some new kind of magic protected you.”

Protected? Past tense? I flashed on Ash, who didn’t know who I was. “What did you do?” I demanded. Oscar shrugged and straightened so that he towered over me. “I didn’t do anything. Dolus said he would take care of it. I guess he did, because you’re fair game again and now, this is the end of the line for you.”

He grabbed for me, but I scrambled out of reach before he could. My sudden movement was purely a reflex. My body had reacted, and instinct had taken over. I felt Oscar’s fingers graze along my scalp, but he couldn’t close his fist around my hair like he’d meant to, and I was on my feet and running. Oscar roared, and the sound was horrible. It felt like it split the dark sky right open, cracking like thunder and lightning, but the sound chased after me like rabid dogs. I ran through the trees, trying not to trip. Oscar ran after me, his feet heavy on the mulch so that the earth shuddered with every step he took. Fear clawed at me, pushing me to run faster and faster. I had to get away from Oscar. I had no idea what would happen to me, how Oscar would finish the job. I just knew that I couldn’t let him catch me. I had to get away from him as fast as I could. I was suddenly between the trees in a part of the forest that looked familiar. Without knowing it, I’d run toward Ash, toward the tree he usually slept in. He didn’t know me. He didn’t care who I was. “Ash!” I shouted anyway. He had to help me, even if he didn’t know me, even if he didn’t care about me. I just needed him to stop Oscar so that I could breathe another day. I wasn’t ready to die. When my parents had died, I’d wished every day it had been me rather than them, but now that I was this close to death, and it was catching up to me, I knew I wanted to live. I had a whole life ahead of me. I wanted to live and love. I wanted to see Cat again. I wanted to carve out a life that meant something, and eventually die of old age. Not at the hands of an ex-boyfriend who seemed to be more demon than human right now, who was ready to take my life once and for all. This wasn’t how my story was meant to go. Ash was nowhere to be seen. The forest grew darker still, until I could barely see anything at all. Oscar’s hot breath was on my neck; he was so close to me. At any moment, it would be all over. A hand stretched out of the tree and grabbed onto me, yanked me to the side. I yelped as it did, the fingers curling around my wrist, and Ash pulled me into the tree. The darkness, the fear, the terrible storm, and the horror of the man who chased me all fell away, and I was wrapped in an incredible silence. Ash stood in front of me in his drus form, his skin pale and his bright blue eyes piercing me. It was light, but I couldn’t see where the light came from. “Where are we?” I gasped, trying to catch my breath. “In my tree,” he said. “How?”

“I don’t know.”

I swallowed hard and tried to relearn how to breathe. The air burned as I breathed it in, and my legs trembled. I leaned against the bark behind me. The space inside the tree was tiny and cavernous at the same time. Ash was pushed up close to me, and he looked down at me with eyes filled with curiosity. He lifted a hand and brushed his fingers down my cheek.

“You don’t know who I am,” I said. Ash shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

A pang of sorrow shot into my chest. “But I know that I should,” he added. “I don’t remember you, but I feel you.” He slid his hand onto my chest, resting it just above my heart. “I feel like I made a mistake.”

I blinked up at him. His eyes burned with heat, and the atmosphere shifted and changed, magic wrapping around us. It pushed us closer together, so that our bodies were pressed against each other. My breath caught in my throat, and Ash’s heat seared against my skin, burning me. It wasn’t the kind of burn I wanted to get away from. It was the kind of burn I wished would consume me. It was the fire I always felt when I was with Ash, the kind that drew me in and molded me until I was shaped differently—until I was shaped in a way that meant we fit perfectly together. Ash’s gaze slid to my lips. I didn’t know why I’d been this drawn to him since the moment I’d met him. Whatever it was, it was still there. He didn’t know who I was, but he looked at me with fire in his eyes that shifted and turned into desire. The world out there was dangerous—Oscar was ready to kill me—but in here, I was removed from all that—I felt safe. Ash and I were together, and that was all that mattered. We were caught in a bubble, removed from the rest of the world, and we were together. When his eyes slid to my lips, I tilted my head up and closed my eyes. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to lick me and taste me and fuck me, just like I had that very first time. Just like I had every time we’d been together since. Ash was my weakness, and it didn’t matter who we were and what we went through; that would never change. When his lips crashed down on mine, electricity charged through my body, and I was a live wire. Ash cupped my cheeks, his fingers in my hair, and his palms were hot on my cheeks. He pressed me up against the trunk of the tree behind me, grinding himself against me, and his erection was thick and hard—he wanted me as much as I wanted him. This was crazy. This wasn’t the time. “We shouldn’t do this,” I said. “I don’t know who you are,” he mumbled through his kisses. “But I know I want you.”

“I’m in trouble,” I gasped. I didn’t only mean with Oscar. I meant right now, right here, doing this. It was insane. “I can’t stay away from you,” Ash said. “I can’t remember you, but I can’t forget you.”

He tugged up my shirt, his hand cupping my breast. “I don’t want you to stop,” I breathed into his mouth. “I wasn’t going to,” he replied and tugged down the cup of my bra, finding my already erect nipple. I moaned when he tugged at my nipple, and I reached beneath us. I cupped his hard cock and stroked it. Ash’s kisses became even more urgent, and he groaned when I pulled down the pants he wore enough to push my hand into it, wrapping my fingers around his hot flesh. He let go of my breast and filled his hand with my pants. He pulled them down to my ankles, and I kicked them off. I couldn’t see the ground we stood on, but I didn’t care. Ash lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He kissed me, his tongue in my mouth, and pushed me up against the tree. We were drenched in warm light that came from somewhere—I couldn’t see much in this strange limbo in his tree—and I drank in the light, the magic, the feel of Ash’s skin against mine. His cock pushed up against my entrance, and I whimpered. When he pushed into me, I cried out, and Ash slid in all the way.

He trembled, letting me adjust to his size. He stopped kissing me, and his eyes locked onto mine. He moved inside of me, faster and faster, pushing me up against the tree. His hips bucked, and his cock pumped in and out of me like a power piston. I moaned and cried out, not caring who—if anyone—could hear us. The feeling of him inside of me, stroking my walls, stretching me, pushing up against all the right spots, had me close to orgasm almost right away. This wasn’t sex the way I knew it. It wasn’t even sex the way it had been with Ash in the past while we’d been together. The intensity was incredible, laced with a kind of magic I’d never felt before. I got closer and closer to orgasm. I held onto Ash’s shoulders as his thick arms held me up, and he pumped into me. His magic wrapped around me the way it always did, tugging at my core. The bond was strong. I hadn’t been able to feel it as much after he’d stomped away from me, after we’d broken up, but it was still there. I could feel it. It was strong, but it was also… covered. How was that possible? It was hard to think about anything when Ash fucked me the way he did. He grunted and groaned with pleasure and effort, and I moaned as I crept closer and closer to orgasm still. Ash pushed into me, burying his cock as deep as he could, and I felt him release as his muscles contracted, and he leaned the weight of his body against me. It pushed me into my orgasm, and we came together. This wasn’t the place or the time, but it felt fucking incredible to be with him again. It felt like it had been ages since we’d been together, like I’d been wandering in the desert without a drop of water over my lips, and suddenly I was submerged, and I could quench my thirst. The orgasms caused Ash’s magic to grow, and our bond pulsed with renewed magic until whatever covered it seemed to rip apart. I couldn’t see it, but it seemed to fall to the ground, ripped to shreds. Ash jerked his head back with a groan, and his eyes locked on mine. They widened. “Lorraine,” he said. “What?” I gasped. “Oh, gods, it’s you.”

I blinked at him. “You remember.”

“How the fuck could I have forgotten?” He kissed me, mashing his lips against mine. “I should never have given you up. Shit, Lorraine. I’m sorry.”

Tears stung my eyes and rolled over my cheeks. “It’s okay.”

“I love you,” he said. “I love you, and I don’t want to lose you. A life without you is fucking horrible.”

I cried harder. “I love you, too.”

Ash wrapped his arms around me and held onto me tightly, and this time I knew he would never let go. I didn’t know what it was that had just happened—I didn’t understand all of the magic. I just knew that it was going to be okay. Ash and I were together again. The bond between us pulsed stronger than ever, and this magic, coming from him, was warm and reassuring. Nothing like that darkness out there. Ash slipped out of me and lowered me to the ground. He fixed his pants while I pulled mine on. My body hummed, but not only with the aftermath of our sex. It also hummed with his magic, with the bond, and with the warmth that we were going to be together, no matter what. “Ash,” I said, fear creeping in, shattering the bubble we were wrapped in when I remembered Oscar waiting for me just outside the tree. “Oscar is out there. He’s got magic. He said he got it from?—”

“Dolus,” Ash said with a clenched jaw. “The god of deceit?” I asked. Ash nodded. “You know who I’m talking about? Yeah, he’s the fucker who did this to me.”

He took a deep breath. “Let’s end this, once and for all. Stay here; I’ll take him on.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not letting you go alone. I’m coming with you.”

Ash shook his head, but when he stepped out of the tree, I grabbed his arm, and his movement yanked me into the real world with him.