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“From Claude’s control, yes.” He slid an arm around her back, holding her close.
“I don’t understand. You’re not . . . what? Not truly free?”
“So long as he could summon me, I was a killer,” he said, pressing a kiss against her temple. “You’ve saved me, Anna. My very soul.”
“Then come out of the puzzle!” She pulled back slightly, beseeching him with her eyes. “We can be together now, finally. I have so many questions, so much to tell you.”
He stroked rough fingertips along her cheek, caressing her, his expression melancholy. “Ah, and so many kisses I would have for you, Anna,” he murmured. “So many. But, alas, it shall never be.”
She pressed her cheek against his chest, felt the strong, steady beat of his heart. He was real, human. “But you said I freed you.” She wrapped both arms about him. “I feel how alive you are.”
He tilted her chin upward, forcing her to look into his eyes again. “Anna, you completed your knight’s task with true bravery. But your work is not quite done.”
She shook her head. “I did everything you asked.”
He lowered his mouth and kissed her, his lips soft and warm. Then he murmured his final instruction. “Burn the other pieces.”
Shaking her head, she cried, “But you can’t emerge if I do.”
He smiled wistfully. “To remain in exile is my freedom, Anna. A freedom you’ve given me.”
“I’ll paint you again. I’ll find another way—”
“You won’t remember. When you burn the last piece, you will dream all of this away. Including this kiss.”
He captured her mouth much more roughly than before, deepening the kiss for long moments. The kiss seemed to span as a bridge between eternity and their two hearts; it lasted that long, became that powerful.
Finally he pulled back, stroking her cheek. “I’d rather you remembered that.”
“I will remember, because I’m going to find a way to let you live in the real world. Freely.”
“Claude turned me into a killer; my soul for that gold, those were our terms. Living here, in the in-between, is the only way to keep my murdering lust at bay. You must burn the pieces to set me free eternally. If you care for me truly, you will complete this one last task.”
She opened her mouth, ready to fight and scream and claw for his everlasting salvation, but the dream was yanked away.
Lifting her head, she stared down at the worked pieces, and her tears began to flow in earnest. Because he asked, she would oblige—as she had from the very first time he’d appeared in her dreams. But the pain knifing inside her gut was almost more than she could bear, to know that she was going to make him a captive for eternity, rob him of his one whisper of freedom. In the end, he’d wanted not to be released from captivity, she understood now, but rather to perform one last heroic task: rid the world of Claude and his evil.
She turned the piece in her palm, staring at Sebastian’s blond hair, the metallic weight of his armor; she could practically feel his arms closing about her again. Holding her, steadying her.
He’d performed his final act of bravery, she resolved, and so could she.
Standing wearily, she swiped the tears from her cheeks. She moved to light the burner, several jigsaw bits already in her hand.
Staring down, feeding those pieces into the fire, she suddenly wondered what they even were. And why her soft cheek felt chafed, as if by a man’s beard, her lips swollen as if kissed.
She turned one last puzzle piece in her grasp, catching the dull hue of a knight’s armor. Odd, she thought, it seemed to be missing a color, a vibrant hue. What was it? she thought, staring down—and realized it was absent something golden.
With a shrug, she tossed that final fragment into the flames and thought she heard the most absurd, irrational sound as she did so. A lion’s roar.
Deidre Knight began her writing career at age nine and has been writing in one form or another ever since. After nearly a decade of working with Knight Agency clients, she made her own literary debut with Parallel Attraction. Her Gods of Midnight series opened with Red Fire, followed by Red Kiss, with more titles on the way! Check out all her works at www.deidreknight.com.
SHIFTING STAR
by VICKI PETTERSSON
Skamar left her so-called Mediterranean-style apartment as she always did: after first sniffing the air to make sure there were no mortals about. She knew who her neighbors were, had watched them coming and going through the small peephole of the front door, and had even observed the older, professional woman upstairs leave a coffee cake on her doorstep. Perplexed, Skamar had mentioned the strange deed to her creator, Zoe, and was told it was a way to welcome her to the neighborhood. So Skamar had eaten the cake in one sitting—God knew her brand-new physical body needed the nourishment—and returned the cake plate to the woman’s doorstep before sneaking away.
The only person Skamar hadn’t been able to avoid was the man in 117B. He wasn’t always there, but he was annoying enough—and, she knew, interested enough—that it seemed that way.
