Shards

Prologue

                                                                                  Prologue 

Honey and clovers. I knew that smell, loved it so much. The rich scent of the honey mingling with the sharp tang of clovers, all lathered in the air and accompanied by a warm embrace. His embrace.

I sleepily nuzzled deeper into the source of the scent, bringing a soft sigh of content from him. His lips found the top of my head, and he kissed me. His flesh was so unnatural, blazing with heat and hard as stone. Somewhere in my mind, the human part of me screamed out in instinctual terror at the sensation of his touch. But I pushed that part away. I didn’t mind the fact that he was a Shadow; he may have been a monster, but he was my monster.

“Are you awake?” His deep voice whispered the question in my ear, its husky tones bringing a smile to my lips.

“No.”

“That’s too bad,” he murmured. “Because if you were, I just might have had to give you a real kiss.”

Although my eyes were still closed, I could picture his face in my mind. Blank, entirely lacking any expression. It was the face he always wore, as if he worried an expression would cause people to think his huge form and scarred skin were any less intimidating. But he still had his eyes, molten pools of gold whose emotions I could read without any effort. I knew what emotions those eyes would be displaying right now: amusement, bliss, protectiveness. And love. The emotion so foreign to his eyes, yet at the same time so natural.

I opened my own eyes to find nothing but black. I sighed, realizing I must have my face buried in his black hooded sweatshirt. I reluctantly pulled away from his chest and looked around, slightly disorientated from sleep. I was seated in his lap with his arms securely wrapped around me. His back was against the trunk of our willow tree, and the slim branches of our tree were draped around us, creating a barrier from the sun.

I looked up at him. The few beams of the setting sun that managed to glimmer through the leaves of the willow cast shadows across his scarred face, giving his expressionless face an eerie appearance.  I reached up and traced one of the scars that ran from his left jaw down to his collarbone. The pearly mark felt smooth and firm under my finger. He closed his eyes and allowed a sigh of bliss to escape him.

“Where’s that kiss?” I asked.

He reached out and took my hand as it finished trailing over his collarbone. He then lifted it and gently pressed his lips against it.

We remained silent for a long moment, each quietly soaking in bliss from each other’s presence. Eventually, he said, “How in the world are you going to tell your dad about me?”

It was a simple question. There was no advanced algebraic material involved in it, nothing to truly perplex me. But it was a question that sent my head spinning.

“We can’t,” I said. “He’ll kill you.” I didn’t mean this in the way most teenagers said this phrase. I meant it in the most literal, horrible sense of the words.

He kissed my hand again, and then gently wrapped his arm back around me. I could practically feel the wheels in his head turning as he rested his chin on top of my head.

“We have to find a way to tell him,” he said. “You can’t keep me a secret forever.”

I wanted to argue this point, but I knew it was pointless. He was right. I couldn’t keep my monster hidden in my closet forever.

 “We’re supposed to hate each other, you know,” I said. Somehow, it felt good to state the obvious. “We’re not even supposed to be in this situation.”

He lifted his chin off me, and his lips found my jaw. I closed my eyes as he trailed his lips across my jaw and down my neck. 

“Do you hate that?”

“No," I whispered, my heart suddenly pounding out a rhythm a rock drummer would have trouble keeping pace with. 

He kissed the top of my head again. “Good.”

“How did we get in this situation?” I murmured the question, not really expecting a response.

“We fell in love.”

I smiled slightly at his reply. Of course he had an answer, and of course it was one that would bring a smile to my lips. But I knew the real answer, the events that had led to this insane situation. I sighed and thought back to them.