After he’d rescued her from the monster when she was ten, he’d found it hard to leave her presence for longer than an hour at a time. He imagined every last awful thing the monster could have done to her, and he feared for her. She became his sister, whom he’d failed so miserably to protect centuries before, and he worried incessantly about her safety. But she was safe, and yet, he couldn’t put his fear away. She never knew he was around, but he watched. Her safety consumed his life, and it was only months later that he finally and painfully pealed himself from her presence, fearful he’d lose his sanity if he didn’t distance himself. But he didn’t go far. He found himself in New York City for years, moving back and forth between Laconia and the city. It was an easy, quick drive that kept him close enough but allowed him to immerse himself in a life apart from her. It did save his sanity, and it wasn’t until his perpetual thirty-six years caught up to him that he’d moved on to Boston. Again, he’d chosen to remain close enough to keep an eye on her, and now he had to return there and say good-bye to her once more.
He followed her up and found her sitting on her mother’s bed. She was crying, and his cold heart clenched to see her grief. He sat next to her and clasped her hand in his, and she tilted her head toward him. “Can you make me forget this?” Her tears were falling now, and her voice was choked with them.
“It doesn’t work that way, Ember; you know that. I’m sorry.” His voice was soothing, but he knew she was hardly soothed.
“Why not? You’ve made me forget you. Why not this?” Her words were nearly accusatory, but he felt no offense.
“I’ve never made you forget me. I’ve just buried the memories and suppressed them, and I can only do it when the memories are linked to me.”
She stood and moved from the room, and his gaze trailed after her. He gave her space, though it was not what he wanted, and when she finally sought him out downstairs in the living room, her eyes were swollen and her cheeks streaked in tears. She collapsed onto the couch at his side and let him pull her into his arms.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was nothing more than a whisper as he stroked her back and held her tight.
“You’ve done nothing wrong. I’m sorry I can’t fix this for you.” His words were true. He’d do anything to ease her pain, but it was hitting her with the full force of its gravity, and it had to. She would heal someday, but it would not be this day.
Pulling from his body and looking to his face, she commented, “My mother would have liked you.”
“She did. We had many conversations about you over the years, and she was very fond of me. She loved you more than her own life.”
“You suppressed her memories as well?”
She didn’t need him to answer this question to know, but he honored her need to hear the response. “Yes.”
Ember swallowed hard over the lump in her throat before speaking again. “Please don’t take these memories from me. Please, I don’t want to forget you again.”
“The last thing I want is for you to forget me or forget last night, but it’s safest for you…”
“But I won’t tell anyone. I swear, just…”
“Sleep.” It was a whisper that broke his heart, and as her eyes fluttered closed, he loathed himself. It was for her benefit, but it wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t what she wanted, and it hurt.
He carried her up to her bed and laid her on the soft quilt, covering her with a throw. He wasn’t ready to leave her, but he had to, and after staring at her for nearly thirty minutes, he pulled himself from her side with one final kiss to her forehead. He would see her again, and she would know him once more.
Chapter 5
Now
The first night of class was always an intimidating one. Taking Western Civilizations II as a senior because she was too terrified to take it sooner was just humiliating, but that was Ember’s predicament. It was literally the only thing that stood between her and her diploma. After her mother had passed away, Ember spent every semester taking an extra class here and there trying to get caught up after losing an entire semester, but when she withdrew from Western Civilization II after struggling through Western Civilization I, she’d given up graduating with her class and decided a summer night class would suit her just fine. It wasn’t as if Ember would have anyone at graduation anyway. The idea of walking across that damn big stage with no one present who even cared about her achievement was almost more difficult to stomach than graduating late due to one lousy liberal arts class she should have been done with in her freshman year four years ago.
Her perspective on what was important in life had shifted somewhat with her mother’s death, and she really could care less that she’d receive her diploma by mail at the end of the summer, but with all that said, she was nervous. Memorizing dates was not Ember’s forte, not in the least, and she had no interest in history whatsoever, not even her own history with all its many memories—it was easy for Ember to develop the jaded attitude that history was to be left in the past.
She took a seat in the front row, determined as she always was on the first night to be a good student, and as others filtered in around her, she pulled her book out of her mother’s old, worn, leather satchel bag and opened it. She wasn’t really reading, but it allowed her to ignore everyone else. She would doubtless be the oldest student in the class, and she didn’t need the reminder of this fact watching all the young freshmen waltz in with their still young and juvenile manners and obnoxious euphemisms. Had she really been so young once too? Ember never felt young, even when she was; she always felt far older than her peers, as though she never learned to relax and enjoy her youth. She had been happy but just … different from the rest.
When she finally pulled her eyes from their dead stare that was registering nothing of what was on the page, she glanced around. Small class. There were no more than ten other students, and a measure of relief flooded over her. It was summer after all and an evening class at that, so she shouldn’t be surprised, but still, the relief was palpable. When the door opened for the last time before class began, it was as the professor entered. Her first impression caused a firestorm of humiliation that had the majority of the class stunned into silence and just a few snickering in their assholiness.
First, Ember choked on her gum with a loud and god-awful hack; second, she knocked her notebook from her desk; finally, after picking up her notebook, she stood up right into the underside of her desktop, cracking the back of her head with a sound reminiscent of a bat striking a ball. Her head was left shooting pain through to her eyes, and as she clasped her hand to the back of her skull to make sure her brains weren’t leaking out, he approached—the very cause of her sudden idiocy.
He reached to her shoulder to steady her where she stood. He placed his other hand on her cheek and stroked her skin with the assurance of someone who had every right to touch her. Ember was a flincher—had been since the monster, but his hand, quite oddly and unexpectedly, didn’t cause even a moment of panic. His fingers were cool and soothing and left images of his body on top of her, thrusting and fucking her. These images didn’t belong to her and yet they were vivid and powerful—so very real. She was left staring with a gaping mouth into his incredible eyes. They were hazel, but with flecks of green and even blue. His eyes were like nothing she’d ever seen, and they glinted as though it was high noon and the sun was reflected in them.