“Addy was a straight A student, graduated college with honors and all that. She’s been playing the piano since she was little, and she’s really good. She plays—well, played—in an orchestra and everything. She was always pushing her music, even when she had to work a day job to pay her bills. She always talked about playing a solo concert one day, and I know she would’ve made it, but she, uh…” Danny frowned, and pushed aside the crackers as though he’d suddenly lost his appetite. “She got sick. And then, you know, all this happened.”
“Did she get sick immediately before everything fell apart?” Merrick asked, voice uncharacteristically soft.
Danny shook his head. “I guess she was having headaches and stuff for a few months before she was diagnosed. The first doctor she went to said it was just migraines and basically told her to deal with them and take the medicine they gave her. It was different doctors a couple months later who figured it out, after her first seizure. That was like two months before everything went bad. They said she had brain cancer.”
Merrick frowned deeply. He possessed only passing knowledge of the many ailments that plagued humanity, but he knew of cancer—it was amongst the more serious illnesses. Even if he’d never heard of it, he would’ve known that it would kill her—he’d felt it firsthand, had brushed against it with his magic, had felt her impending doom. And that troubled him greatly.
Even if Adalynn had a chance of living to seventy or eighty years old—or however long it was humans lived these days—her life would have gone by in a blur for Merrick. As years built up behind him, the present seemed to move faster and faster. Humans were born, lived, and died while he simply persisted; the life of a single person being cut short was nothing new, was nothing unnatural.
But he hated it in this case.
“Were they working to heal her before the Sundering?” Merrick asked. Perhaps they’d been using some method he could replicate. Perhaps, with enough research, he could figure something out, could hone his magic into a refined, delicate blade to neatly slice the sickness out of her.
Have I already made the decision, then? Do I already intend to let them stay?
The boy shrugged a shoulder, turning his palm toward the ceiling. “I don’t really know the details. Our parents either thought I was too young to understand or didn’t know how to tell me, so they didn’t really say much about any of it other than she was really sick. But Addy sat down with me one night and explained it. She said it was terminal. The only thing that had a chance to stop it was an experimental treatment, but there wasn’t really any guarantee.”
Tears welled in Danny’s eyes. He lifted his hand and swiped at them angrily, bowing his head. “Didn’t matter, because the first day she went in to start the treatment was the day of the Sundering.”
“Where are your parents?” Merrick asked gently.
Danny fiddled with a corner of the cracker sleeve, crinkling the plastic. It was clear when he answered that he was struggling to control his voice, that he was battling against raw emotion, that he was trying to rise above the pain. “They died. They were driving to meet Addy at the hospital, and just as they got there, everything just…happened. And, um…well, an ambulance hit their car.”
Merrick’s heart ached; that made Adalynn and Danny who’d been able to produce that feeling in him, who’d touched his soul with sorrow like he’d not felt in a long while. He sensed there was more to Danny’s story, but he dared not press the boy further; Merrick understood this sort of pain. He had been close to Danny’s age when he lost his own parents—before he’d even come into his magic. And in the years following, he’d lost his siblings, as well, both of whom had been older and stronger than he.
The sense of loss, loneliness, and displacement—like he’d never belonged anywhere—lingered with Merrick to this day.
“My parents died when I was very young,” Merrick said, “and it was also very sudden. I will not lie to you and say the pain goes away…it never does. But the weight of it lessens over time. The sting fades. And you will carry on.”
“I was lucky to have Addy. Without her…” Danny lifted his head and looked at Merrick. “I’m sorry about your parents.”
Merrick’s brow furrowed, and for a moment, he was at a loss for words. No one—not in a thousand years—had ever offered him any consolation. Even if logic suggested it was because he’d always been so guarded, had always kept himself isolated, he couldn’t help but feel a rush of warmth in his chest now. Merrick had lived for so long without any emotion apart from bitterness that he wasn’t entirely certain how to react.
“And I am sorry about yours,” he finally replied. “Perhaps I’ll have one of those crackers, after all.”
Adalynn woke with a jolt, her eyes snapping open as a deafening peal of thunder shook the room around her. She lay on her stomach, facing the window, through which dull gray light streamed around the edges of the closed curtain. Rain drummed against the windowpane and the roof above. The storm would make traveling on foot difficult.
That thought instilled her with sudden dread. They’d be moving on today. They’d be leaving behind a sturdy, safe, dry shelter, running water—hot, running water—warm, comfortable beds, and an abundance of supplies and fresh food. This place would have been perfect.
But it wasn’t theirs. It belonged to Merrick.
Her mind shifted to last night, producing startlingly crisp memories of Merrick barging into the bathroom while she was naked and completely exposed to his captivating, citrine eyes. Despite everything, she hadn’t been scared.
Well, perhaps she’d been a little frightened, but beneath that fear had been excitement, had been desire.
Adalynn knew that any sane woman would’ve demanded he leave, would’ve reached for a weapon when he advanced on her, would’ve fought. She was sure that, had she told him to leave, he would have. But she hadn’t. She’d stood still as his hungry eyes ran over her body, as he closed the distance between them and touched her. That simple brush of his fingers on her shoulder had sent a shock of electricity through her, sparking her body to life, had made her sex pulse, flooding her with delicious heat.
And she’d wanted more.
It hadn’t mattered that he was a stranger. All that mattered, in that moment, was that she had wanted. With every bit of herself, she’d wanted him.
She’d resisted. She wasn’t sure if it had been out of habit or because he’d be sending them away with the morning, but her will had held longer than she would’ve expected. He was so damn sexy, and so intense—even if he had a talent for being abrasive when he wanted to be—and what would the harm have been? What was a little mutual pleasure between consenting adults?
Even after she’d asked for privacy—as close as she’d been able to come to asking him to get out—she might’ve stopped him, might’ve given in to her urges, were it not for the candles.
At first, she’d thought she was dreaming. The entire situation had been surreal—a secluded, rundown mansion that was in perfect condition inside; hot, running water; her standing naked in front of a mysterious man she desired without any concern for her own safety. The candles suddenly flaring to life must’ve been her imagination completing the fantasy in which she’d found herself.