Page 37 of Soul of Shadow #1

“My sister was Olive,” he said at last. His words were hesitant, the cadence of something long kept buried within.

“She was two years younger than me. We lived in a rural town in Illinois, in a farmhouse with sheep and hens and rosemary growing in the garden. Close enough to school to bike in the fall and spring but far enough not to hear the bustle of the small downtown area.” As he spoke, Charlie had the sense that they were falling through time together, back to Illinois and a small red home and a quiet dirt road.

“We had a dog, too. A husky named Banana. He was supposed to sleep in his crate downstairs, but every night I begged my parents to let him stay with me.”

She had expected not to be able to envision this version of Elias.

To see him as small and sweet, a child who wanted nothing more than to cuddle with his puppy.

But the image came to her with surprising ease.

She saw a tiny version of the man lying behind her.

Rumpled black hair. Chubby hands where there were now lithe wrists and fingers.

Dimples where there were now icicle-sharp cheekbones.

The image was so precious she wanted to cradle it to her breast and keep it forever.

“Winters were my favorite,” he said. “In the winter, my parents didn’t leave so often, since their work required so much time outdoors.

Sometimes, they stayed home for weeks at a time.

Me and Olive would bust in the front door after an afternoon spent tromping about in the snow, making lopsided angels and throwing slushy-soft snowballs at each other from behind trees, only to find mac ’n’ cheese and hot cocoa waiting by the fireplace.

Our parents would wrap us in thick wool blankets and play Christmas music through the living room speakers. ”

He was in a flow now. The story spilled from his lips like paint on a blank canvas, coloring the silent bedroom, making it come alive.

“Of course, spring showed up sooner or later. Warmer winds meant our parents were headed back to work, which meant Olive and I spent weeks with only Aunt Sheila for company. Sheila was nice enough, if a little ignorant. She was concerned with only her immediate surroundings: the state of the weather, of American politics, of her scandalous group of middle-aged friends. Mostly, she sat on our sofa, drank tea, and gossiped with one woman or another on her cell phone.” Elias’s chest shook with quiet laughter.

“We could have set the house on fire and she wouldn’t have noticed. ”

“Where did your parents go?” she asked, her first question since he began talking. “Were they seasonal farmers?”

He was silent for a beat. “Something like that.”

That answer was a clear evasion. She supposed he was done sharing now, that maybe he never intended to say so much to begin with.

She let the silence stretch itself long and lingering between them.

Then, so quiet he might not have heard were he not a mare, she whispered, “You saved me.”

Elias went very still behind her. She didn’t feel his chest rising and falling anymore, realized then that perhaps he had no lungs in mare form, that he didn’t need to breathe at all, that he did so only out of habit .

At last, he said, “I did.”

“Why?” She turned around to face him. They were disconcertingly close on the mattress, heads on the same pillow, noses inches apart.

She knew that she shouldn’t do this, that every movement brought her closer to the thing she could never admit she wanted.

“You could have left me. Saved yourself, let me be draugar food. It certainly would’ve solved your problem about me knowing your secret. ”

“It would have,” Elias admitted. His gold-flecked eyes searched hers.

Lying together in this bed, close enough to see the detail in each other’s irises, to count the eyelashes that enclosed them…

it felt disturbingly vulnerable, like Elias could see every unwanted thought in her head. “But I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

The covers rustled as he drew up one of his hands, bringing the fingers to touch her hairline, just as he had beneath the bleachers. “I feel…” He shook his head. “Different around you.”

A dull thumping sounded against her rib cage, her heart steadily pounding in her chest. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that…” His shadowy teeth bit his shadowy bottom lip, chewing it as if it were real skin.

“To become a mare, you have to… give up a part of yourself. A part of your humanity. It’s a necessary step.

Our kind are not meant to feel remorse over what we do to humans.

We’re supposed to enjoy it. For years, I accepted that.

Let myself revel in the suffering of others.

Let it push me closer and closer to my end goal.

I did it for so long that I thought the human part of me was gone forever. ”

His words should have scared her, should have made her want to scoot far away from him. Instead, she remained where she was, hardly breathing lest he stop talking altogether .

“But then you came stumbling into my life,” he said. “And everything changed.”

She inhaled. She saw where this story was going, but she couldn’t believe it.

Couldn’t believe that she had kindled feelings inside a creature that was made to feel nothing, to soak up fear and misery, to grow strong from it.

Was he just spinning a pretty tale for her?

Or was he admitting to something real, something that had run, unspoken, between them since the day they first ran into each other in the woods?

“Tell me why you saved me, Elias,” she whispered.

His finger ran down her hairline and across her cheek, coming to rest atop her lips.

“For that,” he murmured. “For the way you say my name. Like it’s the first time it’s ever been spoken by anyone.”

“I don’t—”

He closed the inches between them, his lips pressing to hers.

Kissing a mare was nothing like kissing a human boy.

At least, nothing like any kiss Charlie had ever shared before.

There was nothing drunken or sloppy about it, no lingering taste of warm beer or hands groping her backside.

Elias’s lips were soft, gentle. Surprisingly firm, given that he was made of shadow, though she could swear the flickering darkness tickled her skin like the brush of many fingertips.

He kept his mouth closed, but still she tasted him, like winter air rushing through her nose and settling atop her tongue.

There was something about his touch. Maybe it was because he had the power to heal, or maybe Charlie had just never felt this way about another person before, had never needed so desperately to be felt, to press her body to his.

His lips were a rela xant. She was limp against him, the fire in her stomach melting her muscles to mere puddles.

She let out a shuddering gasp, her hands drawing upward, wrapping around the back of his head and tangling in the shadows of his hair.

Its texture didn’t feel quite like normal human hair.

It felt softer, wispier, like running her fingers through a cloud.

With a soft groan, he slipped his tongue between her lips.

Her fingers wound around the impossible strands and balled into a fist, a grip that enabled her to pull her body even closer to his, to throw one leg over his waist, to drag them both under the terrifying waves of whatever this moment was, the water deep and heady, the current a tug of overwhelming desire…

Elias broke away.

Gasping, Charlie’s eyes flew open. She scrambled back on the sheet, as if putting distance between them could erase what just happened, what they had admitted to each other without using words.

For a long, breathless moment, they only stared at each other.

Suddenly, Elias rolled over and pushed himself out of the bed. Before she knew what was happening, he was across the bedroom floor, his footsteps silent, his gait hurried, as if he were trying to outrun something dangerous.

He paused, looking over his shoulder. “Feel free to stay as long as you need,” he said, then stepped through the wall and vanished.