“So you want to go, am I understanding this right?” Draven sneered.
“I mean, I could,” Zander mused with a goading defensive expression before looking down at Lorcan and softening. “Yeah, I for sure could.”
“Well fucking do it then,” I said quietly and sharply.
The man looked down at her and grasped her face gently. I watched as he went back under, and hope filled my system. She wouldn’t stay gone for long. Right?
Zander better get her back or else he was going to wish he could fucking die.
11
Zander
“Well maybe she remembers us collecting space up in the sky
The scratching of a mellotron
It always seemed to make her cry.”
-Mellotron Scratch by Porcupine Tree
In my immortal existence, I’d experienced a lot. There were moments that made me say ‘fuck, I fucked that up,’ and then there were moments like this. Moments where I knew that I’d fucked up so badly I had probably permanently damaged something that had never been there to begin with. To say that I felt shitty was a massive understatement. I felt a mess of guilt, anger at myself, and fury at the shifter that was already dead.
Yet I had no one to blame but myself.
I really, honestly, had been attempting to help. I was on an actual mission from the Cosmos god himself, and I’d somehow managed to fuck it up on my very last trip. Not that it surprised me—I seemed to fuck up most shit in my life. I forcibly un-clenched my jaw as I tried to relax, knowing that I needed to focus.
She had been hurt because of my actions.
My specific breed of self-hated reared up while I touched her soft face, hating the neon tears that had dried there. I knew orange blood was dripping from my nose, but I didn’t care. I was at the point where I may beg them to beat the shit out of me. I deserved it.
Inhaling, I dove into the cool power stream that she had ridden straight up to the cosmos. I knew as long as I rode it, it would lead me straight to where she was. Simple, actually. And while she was indeed lost, I had known how easy it would be to rescue her.
It was possible that Adriel would have been able to figure it out… but I knew I only had one chance to give her the apology she deserved. I knew that she wouldn’t forgive me, and I’d already accepted that, but I had to say something because if I didn’t I would probably end up following her around until I worked up the nerve to. Immortality allowed for a lot of fucking time to overthink shit. Something about this incident had really shaken me, and that was saying something considering I didn’t usually care. About anything.
My body came to a full stop from being flung through space, the stars vibrating around me in greeting. I immediately began to search the space on each side of me, looking for the little star whose magic I could already feel.
I could have never imagined that this was where my day was heading when I’d woken up in a hotel across town. I had been genuinely thankful that I hadn’t had to kill or knock out whoever usually used the office I’d been in. They had never shown, so I had used the space for what I needed. I engaged in a dramatic display of power even though I could have easily accomplished my goal by just going to the compound like normal. Adriel was right. I had fucked this up. Being immortal and alive for as long as I had changed my perspective on things. While I had found the situation rather entertaining at first, I should have realized that it was probably terrifying to her.
I would never have hurt her, though. I couldn’t hurt one of my own. I refused to admit that this mental clarity of my actions was because of who I was dealing with. Refused to admit that it was different. I’d heard a lot about Lorcan Louvre, but nothing compared to meeting her in person.
It wasn’t just that she was a siren, either, although the effect was very much there. No, it was something more than that. There was something more to her that I wasn’t understanding.
I’d been around long before sirens were destroyed and the witch hunt for them ended. I’d been alive before people realized what the hell sirens even were. I’d been able to disguise myself as a star elf, living in seclusion and traveling, but I had never in my life met someone who gave off the feeling that Lorcan did.
That terrified me. I think that was why my siren had such an extreme reaction to her. Why he had trapped her up in the artistry of our illusions while I tried to keep her attention solely on me.
She was like this haunted, beautiful thing that you should hate. She was a really fucking strong drink of hard liquor. Only some people could handle her, and I found myself wanting a drink of the damn woman more than my next goddamn breath.
I had always been level-headed, but whatever this was… it was fucking me up. I had never been so fucking attracted to someone in my entire life, and even right now I was feeling screwed up over it.
As I floated through the cosmos, I spotted her within seconds. My chest pulsed as I realized she’d created a protective ward around herself. Her angelic silhouette made of aqua and purple stars floated within a glowing orb. She wasn’t crying, but I could feel the pain radiating off of her.
I could have woken her from this, but I knew she needed to recover. I cursed myself for even walking out of that room in the first place. How the fuck was I supposed to know that the creepy bastard had been lying in wait? I fell to my knees in front of the orb and just stared at her, feeling like the biggest piece of shit in the world. My eyes closed, and I stopped myself from saying a million versions of sorry, knowing that she couldn’t hear me.
The concept of time disappeared as I waited there, flowing in and out of consciousness, knowing that days were going by on Earth. They would be worried and furious, but until Lorcan felt comfortable going back, I couldn’t bear to remove her forcibly from a place where she felt safe. Tears stung my own eyes as I tried to stop examining the heavy wave of emotions running over me. Why now? This was goddamn ridiculous. I’d done stupid shit before and had always done dramatic fucking shit to entertain myself. So why was this different?
Because she had almost gotten hurt. Really fucking badly.
I would never have wanted that. Ever.
A voice finally woke me, and my eyes narrowed in on her distant form. She had apparently woken up from her healing sleep. I was completely unsurprised to find her with company. In fact, I would have expected it from the person currently talking to her. So instead of interrupting, I stood up. I was staring at her and examining how she seemed to have perfected the art of being a siren without even meaning to.
She looked angelic as she listened to the man talking to her, providing the same warning I had. She had been summoned by the Cosmos god before, his identity something that she no doubt was completely unaware of. Who was I to tell her she was conversing with the creator of this universe?
“... How long do we have?” she asked softly as I neared her after a minute or so. The god’s eyes focused on me briefly before moving back down on her.
“Not long, little one,” he said. He squeezed her shoulder and offered me a knowing look before disappearing. How much do you want to bet he was going to hang around and watch this shit show of explaining and apologizing and possibly groveling? The guy was such a bastard.
“Lorcan,” I called. She turned her head towards me and her nearly-black eyes narrowed.