A Shade of Vampire 24: A Bridge of Stars (18 page)

A
s Ben
and I drew apart, each of us smiling from ear to ear, I realized the other brides were already throwing their bouquets.

“You’d better throw it.” Ben chuckled.

My back to the crowd, I tossed the flowers over my shoulder. There was a wave of cheers and when I turned around I realized that Lethe had caught it. He looked positively thrilled as he examined the bouquet.

Well, good luck, Lethe…

The band began to play, and we followed the couples off the stage. The chairs were pushed aside to make room for tables, where another grand banquet was being laid out. I didn’t think my heart could swell any more with happiness as everyone we loved surrounded us with their congratulations. Aiden and Kailyn came up to us and hugged us both, before Aiden held up Kailyn’s hand to show us a silver ring on her finger. It looked as though if he smiled any wider, his mouth would split.

“Oh my God! You two are engaged!” Ben gasped.

“I decided to propose the same hour she returned to me,” Aiden replied, wrapping an arm around Kailyn.

“It was about time,” Ben said, patting his grandfather on the shoulder.

As we all took our seats, I could barely stomach anything, and neither could Ben. We were hungry for each other and nothing else. Our eyes barely parted throughout the meal.

All the other couples left the table as soon as the meal was over, after bidding everyone good night. Ben and I, however, had far more well-wishers to speak to before we could finally break free.

We left the hall and moved swiftly up the staircase, hand in hand. My heart was racing. I knew what was about to follow. As we reached our corridor, he scooped me up in his arms and carried me to his apartment, through to his gorgeous bedroom. He laid me down on the bed and gazed down at me, a sky of stars shining through the window in the ceiling above him. My dress suddenly felt too tight. My mouth was drying out. This would be my first time. As embarrassed as I was to admit it, I didn’t really know much about how it all worked. In a bout of insecurity, I found myself wondering whether this was Ben’s first time too. I knew he’d had girlfriends before he met me, but I didn’t know the depth of those relationships.

Apparently sensing my tension, he brushed his thumbs against my cheeks. “You’re so gorgeous when you blush,” he said, his voice husky.

I hadn’t realized my cheeks were already so flushed.

Pulling me to sit upright, he sat next to me and placed an arm around me. “There’s no hurry,” he said softly. “We have all night.”

All night.

He moved onto the bed and stood on the mattress, pulling at the blinds to reveal more of the stars through the window, until the entire ceiling above us was the night sky.

Then, stepping off the mattress, he circled it and turned off the main lights, leaving only the bedside lanterns to cast a soft light around us.

Removing his jacket, he leaned back on the headboard and beckoned me to him. As I crawled to him, he spread his legs, creating a place for me to sit between his legs, my back against his chest. His arms wrapped around me, hands resting on my stomach. Silence fell as we both gazed up at the stars.

The way I sat against him was lighting me up, any insecurity I’d initially felt quickly ebbed away. I craned my neck to brush the base of his jaw with my lips.

“Unzip me,” I whispered.

His fingers moved readily to the top of my zipper. It was clear he’d just been waiting for me to make the first move.

Shivers ran through me as he bared my back. His hands slid from the base of my neck down my shoulders as he rolled the dress off until it had pooled around me, leaving me in my underwear. Although as I turned to face him, his intense green eyes roaming me, I felt as if I wasn’t wearing anything at all.

His hands engulfed my waist. I unbuttoned his shirt and removed it, then worked on his belt and pants. I lost all sense of timing after that. Before I knew it both of us were bare. As we kissed, we moved together, our skin touching, our forms molding. His tongue explored my mouth. I felt intoxicated. He pushed me into the soft mattress, one hand running down the side of my ribs, down the curve of my waist, and then down further still.

His kisses grew more intense, more demanding. Lowering more of his weight against me, I felt his tenseness between my legs.

As I sensed he was seconds from moving deeper, he unclasped his lips from mine. His green eyes hooded and blazing with passion, he whispered, “You’re my life, River Novak.”

My breath hitched, ripples of pain and pleasure surging through me, as he finally made us one.

I
was so drunk
with passion, I could barely see straight. I’d never felt such all-consuming desire. I’d never told her this before, but as I was her first, she was mine. I’d had girlfriends in the past, but none of the relationships had ever been serious enough for us to get past second base.

River was more beautiful than I’d ever seen her now, her long glossy hair in soft curls. And I could behold her in all her beauty. As we made love deep into the night, I only fell further into her, physically and emotionally. I couldn’t imagine a life without River in it any more. I couldn’t imagine an existence without her. It would be vacant, useless.

As I brought River to her climax, tears of ecstasy spilled from her eyes as she gasped out my name. Burying my hands in her hair, I pressed my lips firmly against hers as I released my own tension.

We rolled over on the bed, breathless and sodden with sweat… and I felt more alive than I’d ever felt in my life.

Reaching for her still-trembling body, I pulled her flush against me and ran my hands slowly down the length of her back. She looked as lost in my eyes as I was in hers.

I remained caressing her until exhaustion finally stole her away from me. Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. I hoped that fae could live a long time, because it felt to me that a hundred lifetimes wouldn’t be enough for us.

I sensed that she was getting cold. Detaching myself from her gently, I moved her closer to the centre of the mattress. I took a moment to take in the length of her body, the parts of her that had remained secret and shadowed for so long. Then I reached for the blanket, but as I pulled it up over her legs and was about to cover the rest of her with it, I spotted something on her lower stomach. A mark I could have sworn hadn’t been there before. A light scar that ran the width of her abdomen.

I frowned, looking at it more closely. Then I finished putting the blanket over her before sliding beneath it next to her. My hand slipped down to her abdomen, my fingers tracing the scar softly enough that she would not wake up.

How could she have gotten a scar like that?
It was a huge scar… a surgical scar. The last time I’d seen her abdomen I guessed would have been the time I’d almost given into my passions back in The Oasis, just hours before I’d sent River back to The Shade with Corrine. She’d definitely had no scar then. We’d been naked in that oasis in The Dunes while waiting for Aisha, but the lower part of her had been hidden from me underwater.

Where else can she have gotten it but the hunters’ headquarters?
What did they do to her? What could they have taken from her?

Frowning with worry, I looked at her face.
Why didn’t you tell me, River?

She must’ve known that I would see it eventually. Maybe she had intended to tell me, but hadn’t found the right moment. I would ask her about it at the next opportunity.

For now, I stopped touching her scar.

I looked back up at the stars above us. I thought back to everything that had happened since I first left The Shade in one of the subs. Being held hostage in The Oasis, the discovery of the jinn, the defeating of the Elder, becoming a ghost and then managing—eventually— to find my way back again…. It was truly stranger than a fairytale. But without it all, I never would have met River. No matter the hardships, that was enough to make it all worth it. For her, I would do it all over again.
Even bath time with that hunkri.

My mind lingered on Hortencia and the “lessons” she had been keen to share with me. Her gems of wisdom she’d said I needed to carry with me into the future… and her request for me to slay those Bloodless. My mind buzzed as I tried to make sense of what kind of future she was alluding to and what role the new breed of hunters would play in all of this.

But even as I pondered the possibilities, I realized I was no longer afraid of the future. What would happen, would happen. And I knew now that even if I lost this body again, life didn’t stop after death. I would live on in one way or another.

I never had found out what truly existed beyond death—the “other side”, the place where most people who died were purported to pass on to. I’d been trafficked to The Underworld before I had gotten the chance to discover the answer.

But as River woke in the early hours of the morning, and we began to make slow, passionate love all over again, that was a discovery I knew I could put off for a long, long time.

B
en was home
. I’d never felt so secure, so confident, so at peace with myself and the world around me, as when I was in his arms.

I’d fallen asleep in exhaustion after our first time, but when I woke again, we continued making love until the sun streaked the sky above us. Only then did I sleep again, and so did Ben.

When I woke the second time, it was one pm according to Ben’s watch—though I doubted that time applied in the dragon realm. Ben was still asleep. Propping my head up on one elbow, I stared at his face. My gorgeous husband. My best friend. My man. My prince.

My heart leapt as his eyes finally opened, allowing me to admire his face in its full glory.

“Good morning, beautiful,” I whispered, beaming down at him.

He smiled back, his eyes glazed over. “You stole my line,” he said huskily, before pulling me to him and engulfing me in a cuddle.

We both sat up in bed and gazed around us. I hadn’t even realized what a mess we had made of the bed throughout the night. The sheet was half off the mattress, and of the dozen or so pillows that had sat on the bed, only two small ones remained.

Ben grinned impishly. “So,” he said, cocking his head. “How was it?”

I bit my lower lip, blood rushing to my cheeks. “How was… um, what exactly?”

He broke out in a chuckle. “Seriously? You’re going to make me spell it out? All right. Let’s put it another way… Did I… uh, tinker with all the right bells?”

My breath hitched just remembering it. “Oh, you did. It’s really no wonder they call you Tinkerbell.”

He narrowed his eyes on me. “You will be moaning that name by the time I’m finished with you.”

Without warning he lurched forward and grabbed me. Straddling my hips, he began tickling me in all the worst places. My stomach wound up in knots from laugher, I cried out, “No, stop! Please! Mercy! Mercy, Tinkerbell!”

Only after I’d gasped the name did he stop, allowing me to sit up and catch my breath.

Then his eyes dropped to my bare abdomen, the smile on his face fading. I knew what he was looking at.

I’d forgotten all about the scar. I still hadn’t told him what had happened to me. I hadn’t told anyone, not even my mother. It was still painful to talk about because I did not know exactly what they had done, what they might have put in me or taken from me… or maybe they’d just looked around. It was the uncertainty of it all that made me anxious. And I didn’t want to worry Ben. But he had seen it now.

“It’s, um…” Still, I hesitated.

The concerned look in Ben’s eyes only intensified. “It’s what, River?” He was dead serious now.

“When I was in the hunters’ headquarters—“

He cursed beneath his breath.

“What?” I asked him.

“Go on,” he said.

“Yeah, well when I was there… they did something to me. But I’m not sure what it was. They took me to an operating room and drugged me.” My voice shook a little as I relived the trauma. “When I woke up I had the scar, but it didn’t hurt. M-Maybe they just examined me.”

Ben’s jaw clenched. “And have you experienced any pain since? Any symptoms at all that could be considered… unusual?”

I shook my head. “No, thank God. I’ve noticed nothing out of the ordinary.”

His fingertips moved to my scar and lingered there for a few seconds. Then, reaching his hands into my hair, he pressed a firm kiss against my forehead.

“If you haven’t experienced any symptoms by now, then I’m guessing they’ve done nothing that will affect you personally, and that’s all that matters to me right now. They might have simply taken a sample from you for experimentation… for one of their future projects. But we should have Corrine examine you when we return to The Shade.” He paused, a flash of anger in his eyes. “And if we ever do come across the group of hunters who did this to you, I swear, they will sorely regret it.”

W
e ended
up staying in The Hearthlands for three more days after the wedding. The dragons took us for more rides outside, showing us the entire land right up to its tip, the Obran peninsula.

I enjoyed spending more time with Rose and getting to know Nell better was a treat too. We got on like a house on fire, the three of us, and we spent much time chatting and going for walks when I wasn’t relishing the moments I had with my new husband.

It was truly sad when we had to leave, though Theon and Nell promised to visit The Shade some time soon—a promise that Lethe made to me, too.

Our party traveled back to The Shade—including the newly-wed dragons we’d come with. When we returned, to Ben’s and my utter surprise, it was to discover a brand-new penthouse. A gift to us from Derek and Sofia. The witches who had remained behind on the island had built it while we were gone. It was not far from the other treehouses, but it was far enough to give us a sense of privacy. We couldn’t see any other homes from any of the windows and instead were surrounded by trees, with a magnificent panoramic view of the island.

With the wedding over, after Ben and I had settled into our new home together, he took me to see Corrine about my scar. She performed a number of examinations—during most of which she’d made me unconscious—and in the end she couldn’t find any odd insertions, or signs that the hunters had removed anything major from me. She’d said, however, that it was possible they could have extracted an egg or two. If they had, there was nothing we could do about it. I was just relieved they hadn’t damaged me.

Once Corrine let me out of the Sanctuary and Ben and I returned to our penthouse, I felt a burning desire to do something that I probably should’ve done before now, if I had just had the chance.

My father. I had promised him all those months ago that I would try to visit him. Starting this brand-new chapter of my life with Ben felt like the right time. I expressed my desire to Ben and of course he was supportive. I asked him if he would come with me and he said he would. My mother thought it best that I see what state my father was in before my other siblings visited. My sisters, still being young, could be easily upset, and Jamil’s mind was also still fragile in some ways. If my father was okay, we would go to see him together afterward, and then make a much needed visit to my grandfather.

So Ben and I set off together. One of the perks of being married to a fae was that you never needed to rely on any kind of transport. He could fly wherever we needed to much faster than a plane. I knew which prison my father was staying at, and we brought a bunch of maps and navigating equipment.

We met with a few complications along the way—such as getting lost—but eventually we arrived at the Texan jail where my father had been transferred.

Fortunately, the lighting inside was garish, and Ben’s natural aura wasn’t too noticeable. I enquired as to whether my father was here, and I was relieved to learn that he was. Indeed, I managed to make an appointment to see him this very day. Back on Rikers Island, I doubted I would have been able to do this. I wondered if his visiting times had been relaxed due to good behavior.

As we moved into the designated meeting area and my father appeared behind the glass, an overwhelming sense of déjà vu washed over me. I hurried to the window, gazing at him through the barrier. He wore the same orange uniform, and his ragged face—far too old for his age—lit up as he took me in. He was blinking as he stared at me, as if he couldn’t believe I’d really come. Pain and guilt stabbed me.

“River,” he rasped, his hands pressed flat against the glass.

“Dad,” I breathed, my voice choked up.

“Darling, how are you? I thought I might never see you again.”

Tears brimmed in my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Dad,” I gasped. I could barely even bring myself to make an excuse for why I had left it so long. I should’ve found a way.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I-I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile. “Never been better, actually. H-How are you?”

“I’m…” He hesitated, wetting his lower lip tentatively, as though weighing his words. “I’m… doing better, I think,” he said. “At least, I think I am. They give me more privileges now. Things that I couldn’t do before. You know, extra time outside the cell.” He paused again as his eyes fell on Ben. “And who is this?” my father asked curiously. “You brought a friend?”

I reached for Ben’s hand, and pulled him closer. “Dad,” I said, finally managing to steady my voice, “meet my husband, Ben.”

My father’s jaw dropped open. “Your… husband?” he gasped. He gaped at me, then narrowed his eyes as if wondering if this was some kind of joke.

“Yes,” I said, smiling more broadly. “We got married, like, a week ago.”

“Oh,” he breathed, gazing at Ben in wonderment. I wondered if he had noticed a strange aura around Ben, or if he was just sizing him up. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, his hand hitting the glass as he moved instinctively to shake Ben’s hand.
He can’t even shake the hand of his new son-in-law.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Giovanni,” Ben said, moving closer to the glass and placing his own hand against it, where my father’s was. Ben couldn’t have known how much that small gesture meant to me.

“H-How did you meet?” my father asked, still looking in a daze.

“Oh… we, uh…” I began to stammer. I really hadn’t been prepared for that question, just as my father
really
wouldn’t be prepared for the answer.

“In a sauna,” Ben answered for me smoothly.

I grinned at Ben in appreciation.
Brilliant
.

After that, my father asked some more questions about Ben—what his interests were, what he did for a living, and other such things—which Ben just as deftly answered without actually lying. Then, after my father asked after my mother and siblings, our time with him was drawing to a close.

When the guard called to him, urgency filled my father’s eyes. “I love you, River. My strong, beautiful girl. I need you to know that I’m proud of you. Please, don’t ever forget that… And I-I hope that I can see you again. Sooner, than last time. You know, I really think that if I manage to keep up my behavior, I might be let out earlier.”

I smiled faintly. “I promise I’ll come back sooner. And remember that I love you, too, Dad.” Then the guard took him away.

My father’s last words lingered in my mind, long after the door had closed. They reminded me all too much of the hopes he’d used to instill in us before dashing them to the ground. I’d heard words like those too many times before to take them seriously.
Maybe he will, maybe he won’t.

Whatever the case, my happiness did not rest upon what he decided to do with his life anymore. And neither did my mother’s or siblings.

We had found a new life. A home. Happiness.

We had found The Shade.

And I… I had found Ben.