🥀
•Rue•
Luke walks beside me as we make our way along the path in the woods behind my home. He'd invited me to get me out of the house after the disfigured trinket had been left on my door. I'd been too distraught to not agree. The others are still sorting it out even now. My embarrassing display still makes me want to hide my face in my hands and never look up again. I'm just all out of sorts.
It's the first time I've truly been alone with any of them since they found out about Methuselah and their Cadavers.
I'll admit to being a bit nervous. I've never been good at making friends, let alone building a relationship with someone who might become romantically involved with me. I still believe they'll spurn me, but the temptation to create more with them is too tantalizing to resist.
I want to soak up as much of these moments as possible, so that I may have something to hold onto when the dark days return.
Luke is one of the more beautiful men in my horde. His blonde hair shines in the autumn sun despite its dim luminosity this time of year. His brown eyes twinkle with mischief and humor endlessly, as if he finds existing alone humorous.
He's wearing a brown designer sweater that falls to his hips over a black plain tee and jeans. His hands are tucked into his pockets, lips curling up.
I myself am wearing a simpler plaid dress with a white Peter Pan color. It's not what I'd typically wear, but it fits the season.
Luke looks at me out of the corner of his eyes at the same time I do. I blush from being caught out, a grimace twisting my features in what I'm sure is an unflattering expression, and look away. He chuckles, but doesn't comment on it.
"So what do you do for fun, Rue?"
I tilt my head up at him, completely baffled by his question. It feels completely random in context, but perhaps I'm just looking too deeply into it. Perhaps it's simply a question to get the conversation started.
I should be thankful. I've been scrambling for something to say for a while now. I nervously begin to run my hands over the left half of my hair, lifting one hand back up to the middle while the other runs down it and repeat.
"I like chess," is what I get out. An embarrassing blunder on my part. I like reading, playing with clockwork, and making miniatures as well, but I feel like those will lead to awkward pauses in conversation. The subjects I read aren't exactly typical leisure reads. The clockwork and miniatures will inevitably circle back to the past. Chess could technically as well, but I had to give him some sort of answer and that one seemed the least risky.
Luke chuckles, "Oof, not my thing. Owen likes chess though. So does North. Maybe you can bat those pretty eyes and get them to play with you."
Rats, I'm blushing again.
It's shameful the effect they keep having on my self control. I'm turning into a simpleton who gives into her baser instincts of pleasure and hunger and lust. At this rate, I'll be no better than Draven was a few centuries ago.
Luke isn't one to hold back though. The lull in conversation not even swaying him. His new goal seems to be to make me laugh, because the next thing he says is, "Dude, you should've seen us growing up. We were such dorks."
Dude? What's a dude? And a dork for that matter?
I look up at him, autumn leaves scrape against the earth as the wind blows them across the path. My face must be blatantly incredulous because he laughs. Luke's hands are still in his pockets as he hunches over, laughing boisterously and without a care in the world.
I find myself smiling a bit at the scene. How I wish to feel even a fraction of the joy he feels. As impossible as it may seem, he becomes even more beautiful. The reds and oranges hue the sunlight breaking through the trees, beaming upon him. It gives him a sort of halo. And he doesn't seem bothered by a thing. He's not cautious, not looking at every shadowy corner of the world the sun can't reach like his brother does, like even I often do. He's content to just be and fear nothing.
Luke stands up straight, gazing down at me with a beaming grin, "You should've seen your face!"
Maybe it's simply Luke's aura, his endless joyful spirit, that has me giggling into my hand as I turn my head away from him. Maybe it's the effect of having a Cadaver in my proximity. So many maybes, and yet still something allowed me to release the tension I always wear. It allowed me to just be with him in this moment, despite all the horrors from before and all the horrors likely to come.
He's too proud of himself, because he just eggs it on, "Anyways, when Gabriel turned twenty-one we all went drinking. Even Owen! Poor Owen never drinks, so he was shit faced three shots in. He tried to pee in the bathroom and ended up face planting the wall instead. Sean found him on the floor, bleeding from his nose, with his pants around his ankles. We still tease him about it."
Imagining poor Owen in that state of disarray has my giggles returning full force. It completely contradicts the man who'd escorted me through his lovely rose garden. I try to turn away from Luke to hide, but he isn't having it.
Luke chuckles, feet crunching on the fallen leaves as he makes his way over to me. He takes me into his arms, holding me steady while I try to get through my giggle fit. When I look up at him, I'm still trying to smother them to no avail.
Luke is grinning down at me. He's so proud of himself right now he's no better than a peacock and it makes me want to laugh again. When I manage to gather myself, I'm still smiling minutely up at him. His expression softens.
Tucking my hair behind my ear, he says quietly so only the two of us can hear, "You're stunning when you smile."
I'm stunned silent. My smile drops into a look that's equal parts awe and nostalgia. He reminds me so much of the one I once loved but had to let go. Sometimes, to protect the ones you love, you have to set them free.
He'd had blonde hair like Luke, but the color was paler from his long days in the sun while sailing the seas. His had been long enough to tie in a low tail. Luke's hair is nearly to that point. His eyes had been green though. As green an the Emerald Isle itself.
My love sails over the ocean,
My love sails over the sea.
My love was all I could render.
My love no longer belongs to me.
My eyes sadden with the memory of the last good thing in my life I'd lost. He'd been my last hope, that last tether to the rest of the world. The opposite of me, he'd been as wild and free as the wind. Always grinning and smiling and ready for an adventure. He'd meet me at our secret spot and tell me tales under the stars we slept beneath. Tales of the two of us, always the two of us, where we saw such magnificent and wonderful things. In every fantasy he included me because he couldn't see a future without me in it at his side.
I'd said goodbye to him forever, the night my world ended as I knew it. It'd been a fanciful reverie I'd allowed myself to entertain for long enough. To protect him, I had to set him free.
The last time we looked into each other's eyes will haunt me for the rest of my days. I'd broken his heart to save his life. I changed him forever in ways that couldn't be undone.
"Where'd you go just now," Luke asks me softly, still petting the lock of hair behind my ear over and over in a mindless way. He lowers his face until he's looking me right in the eyes, until it's only us.
I look down to his tee, fingers mindlessly fiddling with one of the buttons on his sweater, "Nothing. You just remind me of someone from long ago."
"This way, Rue!" He laughs from the fallen in stone wall of an abandoned tower. Flowers grow in wild abundance into the hole. The vines snaking up it in bushy tendrils. I grin over at him, lifting my skirts so I don't trip.
We play out here all the time, ever since we first met a few years ago. He's a few years older than me, but he's still a ways off from reaching maturity. His voice still hasn't deepened and he doesn't have to walk away like Draven's friends have to when they randomly have issues in their trousers.
The pirates his father has under him, tease him already though. They poke at his chin, pretending to see his first whisker.
"Wait up, I'm coming!" I call back.
Luke watches me, face gentle and solemn. He doesn't ask for me to tell him more much to my surprise. Instead he leans in all the way until our noses brush and rubs them together. My eyes flutter closed.
I fall down a rabbit hole of bliss at the insignificant action. How long has it been since I've felt the gentle touches of another human being? How long since I felt warm skin against my own in such an intimate way?
"One day, all of this will be sorted out and we'll live happily ever after."
I'm struck by how similar Luke sounds to him. It's truly uncanny. That genuine belief that everything will turn out okay in the end, that there's still hope on the horizon, that the world isn't so bad after all.
I've long been jaded to that outlook on life. My youthful innocence long dead with the girl who said goodbye on that dark shore centuries ago. It died with the tears that fell down her cheeks once he turned away for his ship.
He'd never know the ache, the wound that never healed, he left her with. Despite being the one who turned him away, it still hurt that he didn't look back. She'd urged him to look until she couldn't even see his sails anymore. She urged him to see her face, see the truth behind the lies she told him.
So many agonies make up my history.
"How do you know," I find myself asking him, eyes still closed and sinking into the feeling of his nose against mine.
Luke's nose tilts away. I open my eyes, curious about what he's doing. His lips brush against the corner of my mouth.
I gasp, gaping up over his shoulder at the autumn wood. I hadn't been expecting him to do more than brush his nose against my cheek.
This is so much more. They're soft, his lips, yet a little dry from the cold air. Where they kissed has my entire face tingling in the aftermath, centering on that spot.
In a lower voice, laden with darker emotions, Luke husks out, "Because I can't already feel this way about you in a world where we don't get a happy ending."
My dying heart thrums against my flesh, jostling the hardening organs until my breath is stolen away. I pull back and look up into his smoldering gaze. The fingers that'd been tucking my hair behind my ear drift to my cheek. He turns his hand and cups it, thumb brushing along my cheekbone.
"You'd been afraid of me though. I could sense it. How can you say you care for a creature you fear?" I whisper, our mouths hovering dangerously close to one another's.
His mouth quirks up and his eyes twinkle with subdued amusement, "You're right. I was afraid, but now the only thing I'm scared of is that if I close my eyes it'll give you the chance to disappear from my life forever."
Our eyes half shutter. His arm pulls me in close while lowering his lips near to mine until mere centimeters separate us.
"And I don't know if I could survive that."
I relish in the foreign magnificent feeling - the feeling of being wanted, of knowing if I were to be taken or if the air in my lungs were to leave me permanently, that someone would feel it. Knowing my existence holds devastation at its loss to even one soul on this hellish plane, is addictive.
I'd thought I'd understood the magnitude of wonder Cadavers bring to their Methuselah, but I hadn't the slightest clue. Not really.
Luke's eyes flicker across my face, studying me or perhaps searching for something.
"Can I kiss you, Rue?"
I thrum with awareness. Like a starving predator being taunted by fresh meat, my lips part to suck in his scent and taste it on my tongue. My fangs lower, ready to strike. He smirks down at me, "Well?"
"Yes," I whisper like the pretty little fool I am.
His lips close that threadbare distance between us and press against my own. At first he simply brushes them against mine in a playful dance, lips quirking up in teasing fun, but then he seems to lose himself. He groans, eyes shutting. Firmer and less controlled, he molds our bodies together by pulling on the arm wrapped around my waist.
Feeling every hard facet of his form molding into mine steals my breath away and I gasp into his parting lips. He groans and threads his fingers in my hair, tugging at the roots and forcing my head back so he can dip his tongue into my mouth.
"Luke," I pant against his lips. He seems to lose himself at my whispered plea, gripping me with a desperation so unlike him. He snarls deep in his chest, the vibrations rattling me with their intensity. When my eyes barely manage to creak open, I'm looking directly into the swirling colors of my Cadaver's eyes.
There's a possessiveness in his hold now. He tilts me until my weight fully relies on his arm around me, his other hand clutching my head in an unrelenting but gentle grip. His head bows over mine, seeking out every minuscule detail of my face with the maddening energy only a Cadaver can wield so beautifully.
I'm fully at his mercy.
Luke's lips slam back to my own, attacking me with a fervor that makes it hard to think straight. I find I don't want to. There's relief brought on from his devilish kiss. I can't think, I can't remember, I can only be right here in this moment with him.
I'm tingling all over, lost in him entirely. A hunger I haven't felt in years overtakes me, warming me below. I've been a frigid creature all these years. Having not once allowed another man to touch me intimately since the one I set free. I have experienced the entirety of my unlife, alone and stale.
I can almost feel the life beneath my skin kissing him like this. Echoes of my humanity pound against my skull, reminding me of the girl that had once been. In this moment, I can't bring myself to regret that day that took my humanity away from me. I can't bring myself to regret not running away with my beloved pirate, to save him a horrid fate while accepting my own.
Because if any of that had had a different outcome, I wouldn't be here in this moment with Luke, and that feels like the greatest tragedy of all.
When Luke breaks away, it's with a very animalistic shake of the head, as if he'd just torn the flesh off the body of his prey. He's panting heavily, and staring down at me as if he could eat me all up.
Panting myself, my fingers clutch at his shirt. The black and red in his eyes unravel back into his pupil. When my Luke, not his Cadaver, is staring down at me with that same hunger, I find myself smiling up at him softly.
He smiles back, lifting me up so that we're chest to chest. My fingers grip the lapels of his sweater, his grip the skirt of my dress over my rear. We cling to one another, panting with inches between our faces. So much is unsaid in that moment, and so much is said all the same.
I feel like a frivolous girl again and Luke tastes like the adventure she always dreamed of going on.
My eyes flicker to the forest behind his shoulder when an electric zing bounces off my temples. The smile I've been wearing slowly vanishes as I see what's watching us from behind a patch of the wood.
I know this monster well. It'd once been a child and a man before father mutated them into this pitiful creature that always hungers and is never satisfied. The two heads, one lower than the other, tilts at me like a puppy seeing something it doesn't understand.
Luke's fingers grip my waist tighter. Under his breath he asks me, "What is it?"
My eyes flicker back up to his against my will. The call to answer my Cadaver overriding my instincts to not take my eyes off that thing.
Luke's face is serious, his eyes fighting between one form and the next. There's a very real fear that he'll shift for the first time and he'll do it with only me at his side. I'm just as ignorant as he is and we barely know one another. It terrifies me that he'll go through this without one of his friends at his side at the very least.
Phil said it's not suppose to be painful, but I can't imagine turning into a creature whose dimensions exceed the host's body is very pleasant. I wouldn't put it past Phil either to twist the truth so none of us, most particularly me, worries and frets.
Luke grunts and slaps underneath his ear like a bug bit him, "Ouch."
I furrow my brow, forgetting about the very real threat momentarily. Unwillingly, my fingers graze where he's scratching at.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah. I'm fine, sweetheart. What's behind me?"
I force myself to look at the two headed fiend once more and swallow the bile that rises in my throat.
"Another doll," I whisper.
I can hear their screams again. Those patchwork creations of my father's doing as he needled and threaded them into a new form. I should've taken them all out when we fled Cnoc Aonair, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'd seen them before they were mutated beasts and that's all I can see when I look at their faces.
Even now, when I look at the smaller head, I can see the face of a seven year old girl with the most beautiful blonde hair and grey eyes. She'd lived a happy life in a cottage in the woods before father snatched her away in the night. The larger head brings forth memories of a vagabond Bagpipe player with a gruff exterior and a shoddy brown beard like a leprechaun. I'd once known them as people.
I now know them as the mindless evils that hide in the shadows of our world.
In my own way, I'm the same as the dolls. A monster who needs to be put down.
🥀
(A/n: Yowza, we're finally getting to the good parts of this book.
What do you guys think of this chapter?)