Page 53 of Heir to a Curse

“Can you tell me how not to be a jerk?”

“Don’t leave,” he said softly.

I looked around at the little oasis and thought maybe staying wasn’t a bad option. Sure, I’d miss the people I thought of as family, Addy, the guys, and the people at the house I was responsible for, but they would understand, wouldn’t they?

“I’d like to stay,” I told him. Though I had a million questions. I laid down on the cloth, stretching out and patting my chest because I needed to feel him against me. He let out a soft sigh and sprawled against me. “Can you tell me about the curse?”

“I failed the family. Could not protect them. They cursed me.”

“You didn’t have the power to protect them.” I knew that much from the dreams.

“No,” he agreed.

“Seems unfair.”

He shrugged again as if to say life was unfair.

“So they cursed you to live here?”

“Live forever alone, always in fear of the dark…”

“You mean the monsters?” I thought back to the thing that had slithered through the grounds behind us. Then at the memory of all the doors broken in this giant palace. “You said you started at the outer building and had to move inward? Because of whatever that was? It attacks the wards?” I waved at the door. “Your talisman?”

He nodded somewhat solemnly. “I’m not strong enough to keep them back very far anymore. In the beginning I tried fixing the doors and renewing the wards, but even that doesn’t hold for long.” He ran an absent hand through his hair, which I longed to touch myself. “Time steals my power. Not much left anymore to keep them back.”

And he was in the last building, the final door before what? A garden that would spell his demise? “What if they get through the last door?”

He didn’t answer for a while, then said, “Perhaps my curse will end?”

By what? Death by monster? “Xiang…”

He patted my chest. “Stay with me for now. I will take you home soon.”

“And leave you alone again? How is that fair? Can’t you come back with me? Stay with me?”

He shook his head. “They come through to your world when I stay too long. Think open door.”

Well fuck. “What about breaking the curse. Do you know how?”

He seemed to think about it. “Perhaps if family forgave me?”

“But they are all dead, aren’t they?” Those who had cursed him, long gone from the passage of time. “And forgive you for what? Not having power they believed you to have? That sounds like their failure, not yours.” I gave into the desire and ran my fingers through his hair.

“I dreamt that while I guarded you…” I swallowed back revulsion at the memory/dream, whatever the fuck it had been, because I’d been more a jailor than a guard. “That you would renew the wards…” And his hair had begun to turn white. Did that mean using his power was slowly draining the color from it? Or was it simply a symbol of the loss of his power. It was completely white now, like snow. Did that mean his power was gone? But he’d crossed the barrier and the door still stood. His talisman had done something to the woman who’d attacked the shrine, but only after he’d taken power from me. Was that the key? “This is very complicated,” I said.

“Relax,” he said. “Rest.”

“But I want to fix this.”

He trailed his hand over my chest in a soothing circle of caresses. “Rest,” he repeated. “I will take you home later.”

“Maybe I can build you a stronger door,” I said. “I’ve built a lot of doors.” Would a stronger door keep them out? But what else did that do? Keep him in? I didn’t want that either. “Fuck, this is so convoluted.”

“Rest,” Xiang said again, his body warm and lithe against mine.

I turned into his embrace and kissed his forehead, closing my eyes for a minute to let myself think. I must have needed the rest because I fell asleep.