AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I lift her face to mine. I kiss the trail of tears along her eyelids. “Not as strong as you.”
“Eli,” she whispers. “I need…”
“I know.” I wish I had the power to take away this memory, to give her only the happy memories she deserves. But that’s not what life is, and this evil that was done to her has made her the woman I love. I know what I can give her – I can take her hurt and show her how it can be good and beautiful, because she is good and beautiful.
I lay her along the swing. She lays exactly where she was that night when I almost lost her, only this time her eyes fix on mine, and the moonlight dances on her hair, framing her face like a halo. She grips me with both hands while I pull off her dress and g-string. Her skin feels like silk, beautiful and light and impossibly delicate. I’ve never seen Claudia as breakable before.
I bend over her and lap at her swollen clit. Her nails dig into me – as if to let me go is to give up on life. She throws her head back, and it doesn’t take her long to come, her tear-stained cries lost in the vastness of the night.
I pull her into my arms. Dust and sand circles around us, blown up from the remnants of my crumbling legacy. This ranch is just like us – broken and laid to ruin, but still standing, still fighting, still defying.
I undress slowly, taking care with my buttons. Her fingers brush over mine, leaving trails of starlight on my bare skin. Everything about it feels like a dream.
I slide inside her. She’s so hot and warm and needy and perfect. I slide my hand under her neck, pulling her face up so I can kiss away her tears as I thrust inside her. I taste her sorrow. I swallow her pain. I devour the sins that make her who she is. I drink deep of her, but I know I’ll never have my fill.
Claudia, Claudia…
Her name is a dream, a ritual that cleanses me and makes me anew. I’m no longer helpless.
In her arms, I am home.
Noah
We all gather in the theatre room for a different kind of movie night. George sets up the projector while Gabriel starts the popcorn machine. I bring in a tray of brownies from the kitchen. No one touches them until I give assurances I ordered them from Bread and Circuses.
Ingrates.
My cooking isn’t that bad.
I toss the remote to Claudia, and she hits play. The screen flickers to life, showing a camera angle from the corner of a dark wooden building lit by flickering torches. Wooden bunk beds line two walls, and there’s a fire pit in the center and a few long tables and animal skins. People mill around in strange costumes. I see Cleo beside the doorway, twirling a strand of beads around her neck as she flirts with a bearded giant.
“What was this show about?” Madeline asks, stuffing a handful of popcorn in her mouth. I thought it would be hard having a teacher around while we’re trying to deal with Triumvirate business. But what’s gone down in her life has changed her – she knows better than anyone that nothing is black and white, good and evil, in Emerald Beach. We’re all painted in shades of grey. Now, she’s willing to do anything to make sure Nero can never hurt another woman.
“Oh, it was so stupid,” George says. “It was called So You Think You Can Viking. The contestants were all Emerald Beach b-grade celebs, and they dumped ’em in a fjord to live like Vikings for six weeks. Only the show was too cheap to film in Norway so it was all recorded on a ranch near the city with some stock images of Norwegian landscapes thrown in. Contestants got points for completing challenges – you know, build a longboat, fire an arrow, slay an ice giant, that kind of thing.”
“I can’t picture Cleo St. James doing any of that.”
“Exactly. I never bought that Cleo was cut from the show so soon – not when her tantrums made such great TV,” says George. “I was actually thinking of doing a second season of my podcast about her, but I didn’t want to be petty.”
“You can be a little petty,” I tell her.
“I don’t believe it, either,” Eli says. “I lived with a TV crew for two years. Trust me, if Cleo was being a bitch on camera, it’s because they told her to do it. She was being primed to be the show’s antagonist. The fact that she got kicked out so early… I think they needed to get her off the set.”
“But can we assume whatever she did got caught on camera?” I ask.
“The cameras in our house rolled 24/7,” Eli says. “Even when we were sleeping. And on shows like this, the contestants aren’t allowed to move outside the filming area, so there’s no place for her to do something secretly. The producers watch all the footage and piece it together to create the show. It’s almost fascinating seeing them create a narrative from unrelated little bits of your life, but then you realize you’re on TV carrying a jewel-encrusted urn dressed as Elvis, so it’s not so fun after that.”
I snort. “Shit, man. I forgot about the Elvis episode. Claws, you should see this.” I whip out my phone and type in a search. “There are clips on YouTube…”
“Don’t remind me,” Eli snaps.
I show Claudia the footage, and she bursts out laughing. It’s good to see her laugh. We’ve been dealing with so much heavy shit that not even Gabriel’s nonsense has been making her smile these days. She came home after going to the ranch with Eli and told Gabriel about Brutus’ assault, so now there are no secrets left between us. The three of us pulled her into bed and worshipped her like the queen she is, but I know that as soon as she settled back into the pillows, flushed with multiple orgasms, her mind returned to the Triumvirate.
She never stops scheming. And the deeper I fall into her world, the more I learn about the August family and their empire, the more I find myself scheming right alongside her. It’s too easy to become addicted to this life. The appeal of college and business and being an upstanding member of society fades. That was my brother’s path, and he still ended up six feet under.
If I have to choose between a life of bloodshed or walking the straight and narrow, I’d throw my lot in with Claudia all over again.
The footage quickly gets boring, even with Gabriel and Yara performing their own running commentary. In the few days she’s been with us, Yara has become part of the family. She’s whip-smart, and she has this great sense of humor. She’s always randomly quoting lines from her favorite TV shows at the perfect moment, although I doubt any lines from So You Think You Can Viking will make the cut.
