Free Scryer by Sinden West Page B

infatuation with Lake began.
    He walked me home as dawn began to rise.
It felt so strange to walk out of the dark of the bar and into the light. With
my hand tucked into his, I felt special instead of odd, like neither of us
belonged here but not in a bad way. When we arrived outside of my building, all
I really wanted to do was drag him inside and strip him naked so I could
explore every inch of him, to taste him and savor him. But for some reason, I
felt shy. As if doing what I yearned to would ruin that perfect night that we
had just spent together, as if we had something chaste and pure, and to
introduce the carnal would be like breaking a spell. Of course, I wouldn’t find
that out until much later that it would be true.
    I was graced with a kiss on the cheek,
and then he was gone, taking the magic of the night with him, and I was left
alone with no promises on a deserted street with winter looming grimly in the
distance. Days passed with no sign of him, and then one day, I came home, and
there he was sitting in our tiny apartment charming Penzance.
    My heart stopped and I couldn’t seem to
exhale the breath that I had just taken. Penzance, in her short skirt and tight
top, was practically purring; her body language placed all her attention on
him. His eyes flicked up to where I stood in the doorway.
    He didn’t smile, and that was all right
because seeing him sober, I realized that his face was the type on which smiles
seemed wrong. They interrupted his perfection and intensity and made him appear
so very human, when in fact he seemed modeled on a god of ancient lore and it would
be fitting that he would remain as motionless and perfect as carved marble.
    “Hello, Ivy. I’ve been out of town since
I saw you last. I thought that I’d swing by.” And then his face broke into the
most wonderful smile and I could forgive him for breaking that inhuman idea
that I had of him.
    Penzance twisted her head to me and
mouthed, “Lucky bitch,” with glee on her face. She stood, smoothing her skirt
down, and she gave me a knowing look as she left the room. Lake’s eyes didn’t
follow her; they remained solely on me.
    “Hi,” I breathed, struggling to accept
that he was really there in front of me, just as I had struggled to understand
how infatuated I had become with this person that I had met only once.
    What did we do that day? We walked
mostly, beside the river, before dining in a restaurant with a view of the
city. I didn’t ask for a last name, nor did I tell him mine. My normal reserved
self evaporated in his company as if he had cast a spell that I was powerless
against. We spoke of nothing important, nothing personal, and in the early hours
of the morning, when dawn was not far off, he escorted me home and left me
again with just another chaste kiss.
    I had never believed in soulmates,
barely love even, however, the way I felt around this person who was a stranger
suddenly made me finally understand. He invaded my thoughts like a disease in
my brain, and I could think of little else.
    But then later, with the benefit of
hindsight, once the truth was revealed, the horrible thought occurred to me
that perhaps the attraction was because of who he was. The Corin blood
that pumped through him perhaps acted like some kind of elixir, transforming me
into a girl who was addicted to being around him, a girl who thought she was in
love with him…
    The idea of me being so attracted to the
Corin bloodline was in itself enough to want to make me cast myself into the
river with only the poisons running in its waters able to cleanse me of that
disease.

Chapter Six
    Danilo
sang on the way back home.  He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in rhythm
to his out of tune voice as he took each turn smoothly. The dour depression
that had befallen him on our way to the house had lifted the moment we began to
drive away.
    “Dorothea must have done something
right,” I observed, jealousy at his happiness coursing through me. I