CAUTION: This is a completely unbelievable, profane, fantasy romp. All characters are unfortunately fictional, as are all the events. Sorry this has taken me so long people, but, there are several firsts for me in this section and most of them have been very hard for me to write. So please enjoy and I hope it was worth the wait.
1
Like much in my life, crashing, horrid, debilitating moments where also a part of my existence; and this one took the cake. Crumpled on the floor where he had left me, my eyes staring blankly through space, my face wiped clean of all emotion, my husk of a body now too fragile to contain the roaring, melting pot that surged behind my creepily calm façade; I wondered at how fate was going to fix this. My eyes bulged as the shock wore off, and tears gathered there, threatening to spill in profusion down my cheeks. Sometimes life was just too horrid. How could one even think of fixing something that tore the very heart from one's breast? Surely such emotion was meant to be fatal; no one could expect to survive this, especially with my brain chattering at me from behind closed doors.
My breath came creeping slowly into my body, the fog was receding from my brain, and the litany of screaming lamentation eased off like the last dregs of leg cramp; leaving me behind. In the wake of my initial shock I was not allowed blissful self pity. For: as commonly known, but commonly unacknowledged, when reason is reasserted after such an experience you're not allowed to go and cower in deep bedcovers and never come out. No, no such luck, the logical animal called your brain, insists on the torture known as replay. So as the scenario unfolded once more before my eyes, the water works were turned on and big fat tears slid lazily down my face; closely followed by a free-for-all waterfall as the flood gates opened.
Sitting on the floor sobbing my heart out is not high on my list of things I want to do before I die, or turn thirty, or have to work for a living, it is and was, despite my indulgences in it, an activity I had never much appreciated. I wasn't the crying-pot kind of girl, I had always prided myself on my kick ass qualities, not my whimpering in defeat merits. I had known, in my little universe, that while I was boring and studious and rather square, I was not in any way sensitive or vulnerable or wimpish, I was a hard assed know-it-all bitch. Well, turns out I was wrong. Love had come along and knocked one hell of a big hole into my little universe, I was now hanging upside down in an alternate reality, where paladins came in the big hunky but ultimately sensitive variety that, by the looks of things, could stomp all over my heart.
I was looking at a serious need to overhaul my ideas about me, about life and most importantly about love. My paladin was part of me, linked to my soul, as necessary as breathing, more even; and ultimately my emotional stability and happiness depended on him. I didn't like the idea. In fact, I think I had been fighting this very conclusion from the beginning. Nobody wants to realize exactly how vulnerable they are to that one special person. Admitting that anybody has the power to change you, make you behave in weird silly ways, and is essential to your existence is against the religion of the modern, capable world. The modern woman is supposed to be able to set her own terms, define her own life, live according to her own rules, I was that modern woman, and up to now I had been determined that I would remain for ever more essentially my own. It seemed things were going to change. I was starting to realize that love meant compromise, and that if I wanted my paladin I was going to have to take him with all the strings that came with him.
This wasn't a situation where I could pick and choose what I wanted and what would suit me. He was real, he had a life and a family and responsibilities, if I didn't like that... I could leave and become who I was before. But, despite my ideas about who I was and where I was going, I didn't want to go back to that drab little person I had been before he came along. There was something about being in love with him that brought the fire of my soul out. With him I was vibrantly alive and whether happy or sad, with him I was more me, than I had ever been before. Well, I guessed there was only one thing for it.
"Well," I said, whipping my face dry, "that went well." I grinned at Cesar and Janus who seemed to have been frozen with horrified and incredulous expressions on their faces ever since the door slamming incident. "I think it's time I changed my mind, don't you?"
"Um, Lady Alice, I don't think I really understand what just happened." Janus looked bamboozled and had a glazed look in his eyes as he ran his hands repeatedly through his hair, till he looked like a little tousled spaniel, all fluffy and confused.
"It's simple enough," I stated briskly, as I picked myself up from the floor and dusted myself off. "I don't want to be married or married to a prince or to become a princess, but if that is what it takes to have Ray," I chuckled softly "I don't think I have much of a choice."
Cesar was far more collected than Janus, and his eyes sharpened shrewdly as he stared at my apparent calm. I knew what he was thinking, I was thinking it too. It was about time I came to my senses, but it was going to take some kind of miracle to reconcile Ray and I. It wasn't that Ray didn't want me, I could see that now, after all we were mated; he had as much choice about wanting me as I had of wanting him. It was also true, however, that he was a black paladin, and black paladins were not known for their calm, logical and even tempers. They were instead known for their tempers and their capacity to hold a grudge, however much they were hurting. In other words, our relationship was going to be a stormy one, and I could see occasions just like this one were going to be a rather frequent occurrence, but love crazed as I was, I couldn't seem to bring myself to mind. After all, make up sex is supposed to be the best, right?
2
I told Janus and Cesar that I was fine and that everything would be fine and that after I had taken my rather belated bath I would very much enjoy the grand tour, especially if it ended with Ray's current location. I had some serious groveling to do. Janus left, muttering about fiery tempers and stupid love sick couples, but Cesar just gave me one last sympathetic smile before sprinting off to find Rosalia. She had been rather obvious about her displeasure earlier, and his refusal to go and comfort her was going to land him in one hell of a lot of trouble. I wished him luck with the harpy, I had a feeling he would need it, perhaps even more than I.
Once they had left, the living room suddenly bare and empty, I stood for a moment, gathering my mental strings together and winding up my gumption. There were things to do, a prince to woe, a ball to go to and a marriage to arrange. I needed my head to be in gear if I expected to survive any of it with my sanity in tact. I breathed in deeply, shoved my sleeves determinedly up my arms and marched confidently and boisterously into my bedroom. The first thing I was going to tackle was that bath, and oh boy was it going to know who was boss.
The door swung open with a soft whoosh, and I was steaming into the room full tilt, my brows furrowed in wool gathering concentration, my legs on automatic pilot and my faculties obviously disengaged; because I did not notice my guest, until I almost barreled into him. I stopped merely a foot away, my reflexes hauling on the brakes as I glimpsed him from a corner in my peripheral vision. As I eyeballed him in shock, I understood that stopping had definitely been a very good idea, especially as this particular guest was the kind that you don't want to bump into, not even on a sunny day with an automatic weapon in one hand and a can of pepper spray in the other. No, he was the sinister, blood stoppingly scary, black-cloak wearing type, with evil gleaming eyes, shadowed features and a definite air of malevolence.
The moment became mildly fuzzy and everything receded as we stared at each other. He, balanced over my bath, hand gently tilting a vial of liquid, which still poured in goopy quantities into my bath water where it fizzled in little green bubbles. I, my clothes and hair swirling in a gently swaying agitated mass, my eyes the size of saucers and my temper pricking under my skin. While in my other life I would have screamed and run away, in this one, things were going to have to change... so they could bloody well start changing with this.
"That," I snarled politely, "is my bath, and," I smiled menacingly "I'm very particular about my bathing salts, you see," I stepped forward feeling my anger sizzle "I only like jasmine... and that is not... jasmine."
I stared at his hood, fingers curling with tension, every nerve in my body on edge and just dying to let off a little bit of steam. At that moment I didn't care that I had never really kicked anybody's ass, and that caped figures usually mean business; all I knew was that things had not been going my way lately and I would not say no to a bit of therapeutic violence.
I saw the fabric twitch, as his hand receded and the vial got tucked gently back into the dark depths of his person. The deep void within his hood seemed to grin at me as he snickered in an insolent manner, obviously unimpressed by my newly found balls. Staring at his figure, shadowy and sinister, invading my little bedroom, my life, my bath, I felt an alien burst of bestial emotion surge in my breast fusing with my inner warrior; and before I knew where I was, I had his ripped out neck tendons in my bloody fingers as I sent my aura into his chest and turned his beating heart into putty.
I snarled ferally into his shocked face, now a contorted death mask, as I felt my heart beat rapidly with elation at his death. His blood spurting and seeping onto my hands, my clothes, congealing under my fingernails, dripping and pooling onto my floor, I lowered my head and sniffed in the smell of his sour, decaying blood, before loosing interest abruptly as my head jerked up, senses humming at a new presence, a new threat.
