Burning for You (Blackwater) (17 page)

“Girls aren’t even allowed to play
football on teams,” I claim.

“My sister plays every year with us
on Thanksgiving,” Ash says. 

“She probably has to, considering
she has seven brothers,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“How wonderful for your child to be
born into such a large family!” the salesman interrupts, likely desperate to
get the most quarrelsome couple he’s ever encountered out of his store. 
“Here’s my business card, and if you-“

“Is that Gabe?” Ash says suddenly,
making me jump out of my skin.  I follow his gaze across the store to where
another salesman is helping someone out.  I can only see their black hair, but
then he turns his face and I gasp.  That large nose, heavy brow and dark and
dangerous face is certainly Gabe.

“Shit,” I whisper.  The salesman
helping us drops the business card on the counter and wanders away, clearly
finished with Ash and me, having already made his sale and taken my credit card
information.  “What the hell is he doing here?”

“Let’s go find out,” Ash says.  I
am completely frozen in place, and Ash has to give me a little tug and pull me
over to where Gabe is standing.  He is looking at the infant carrier and car
seat combinations.  Gabe is so involved with his inspection that he practically
jumps a mile when Ash greets him.

“Ash,” Gabe says, narrowing his
eyes.  His gaze softens a bit when he sees me.  “Hello Leah.”

“Hi Gabe,” I say, somewhat shyly. 
I’m slightly embarrassed about running out on him at Chez George last week and
never calling him or apologizing.  I debate with myself in my head about
whether I should say something and get it over with now, but Ash decides to
step in and dominate the conversation, much to my relief.

“What are you doing here?” Ash
demands to know.

                “Obviously, Ash, I’m shopping,” Gabe replies
coolly.  “I could ask you the same question.”

                “Heidi is adopting a baby,” I blurt out. 
“We’re here to get the crib.”  Ash casts me a look that indicates he would
prefer me to stay quiet and in the background.  That’s pretty much against my
nature, and I’m hoping by offering some information we’ll force Gabe to respond
accordingly.  I realize Gabe is good friends with Jack, though.  “Did you hear
about the adoption going through?”

                Gabe nods.  “I was here to get them a gift,
and I thought the car seat would be a nice gesture.”

                “I’m sure she’ll appreciate it,” I say.  I
elbow Ash to say something, anything, to preferably get us out of the store and
away from Gabe.

                “Just be sure to not overstay your welcome,”
Ash says to Gabe.  “Particularly where you aren’t welcome.”

                “Who says you’re any more welcome than I am,
Ash?” Gabe says, nostrils flaring and his face turning into the ugly version of
himself.  “I’ve been friends with Jack and Heidi for years.  You just sweep
Heidi’s sister off her feet and you’re considered to be part of the family?”

                “You’re not welcome near Leah or any of her
family, Gabe,” Ash scoffs, clearly fuming.  “I mean it.”

                “Ash, let’s go,” I say, not wanting to cause
a scene.  “Please.”  I touch Ash’s arm and gasp at the heat coming from it,
pulling my hand back sharply.  Gabe and Ash are locked into each other’s gazes,
neither one wanting to blink or move.  “Ash,” I repeat, stepping between them,
facing Ash.  “Let’s g-ahh!” I shriek, feeling a searing pain course through my
entire body, as though I’ve received an electric shock, and I collapse on the
floor of the store, unable to keep myself standing up. 

                “Leah!” I hear Ash say, and as though he can
read my mind, he is kneeling down in front of me with my inhaler and placing it
between my lips and pressing down.  I puff once and take it from him with a
trembling hand, and puff again.  “Leah, get up,” Ash says, not without deep
concern in his voice.  “Let’s go.”

                I glance quickly at Gabe.  His face is an
unreadable mask of his emotions.  Ash helps me walk out of the store, leaving
Gabe and some very confused salesmen behind us.

                “Leah, what happened?” Ash says when he has
helped me to the passenger seat and is buckled into the driver’s seat next to
me, pulling out of the parking lot.

“It was like a sharp pain through
my entire body the minute I stepped between you and Gabe,” I say, my eyes
closed and my head resting against the window.  The pain is gone but the
aftershock is still there.  I glance at Ash, who is staring straight ahead at
the road.  “What the hell just happened, Ash?”

He glances at me, looking nervous. 
“Did you know Gabe and I are half-brothers?” he asks me.  I nod.  “I figure you
would have heard it from someone by now.”

“My mother told me,” I say. 
“Before I really got to know you, when she was telling me about Gabe,” I
explain.  “And why I should stay away.”

“I’m glad she told you,” Ash says. 
“My mother isn’t perfect, but to me she’s all I have.  Gabe’s father, Oscar
Locke, raped my mother when she was married to my uncle Bo.  She became
pregnant with Gabe and Bo mysteriously died in a skiing accident just after he
found out she was pregnant.”

“This is before you were born?” I
ask.

“Just before,” he replies.  “In the
Lavanne tradition, my father married her after my uncle Bo died, when my mother
was still pregnant with Gabe.  When he was born, my mother decided she couldn’t
love him.  She gave him to Oscar Locke, where he belonged.  I was born about a
year later.”

“So you hate Gabe because of what
his father did to your mother?” I ask. 

“Gabe is a reaper, Leah,” Ash
explains as though I haven’t already heard.  “What you walked in between was
Gabe trying to reap my craft from me.”

“How can he do that?” I wonder. 

“Gabe’s father is a reaper. 
Reapers aren’t very common, but the rule is, they need to have at least one
parent who can craft.  I don’t know everything about them.  I’m sure the Legend
explains it in more detail.”

“The Legend,” I repeat dully,
hating to hear about the stupid book that took my father away from me more than
half a lifetime ago.  Ash puts his hand on mine and suddenly turns right. 
“Where are we going?” I wonder.

“The Gallows,” he says.  I
straighten up in my seat.  The Gallows is where the people of Blackwater killed
the witches four centuries ago, right along the shore of the Blackwater River.

“It will take us too long,” I say. 
“We’re going to be late to lunch with my mother at Heidi’s.”

“I need to show you something,” Ash
says.  “I need you to understand.”

I have no idea what Ash plans to
make me understand by bringing me to the creepiest place in all of Blackwater. 
I grew up hearing stories about people drowning witches, burying them alive,
burning them at the stake, and hanging them.  Those images are all brought to
life when Ash pulls the SUV down a twisted gravel path with gnarled trees
shadowing either side.  I picture ropes with dead crafters hanging from the low
branches of every single tree we pass.  A sick feeling develops in the pit of
my stomach.  Even though it’s not quite afternoon, the sun doesn’t seem to be
able to power through the trees, which have no leaves left at the tail end of
fall.  The spiny branches weave a shroud over the path, encasing us in darkness. 
Ash drives to the very end where gravel meets sediment and the Blackwater River
comes into view.

The town I grew up in is named for
the river, obviously.  I’ve heard people say that outside of Blackwater, or
this section of the river, the water doesn’t flow red from the blood of the
crafters that drowned here centuries ago.  I’ve also heard the scientific
explanation that the mud at the bottom is what causes the deep red color.  Everyone
chooses to believe what they want, but I tend to lean toward the blood theory. 
Anyone who has decided that it’s the mud probably never felt what I am feeling
as I step out of the car.  This is the site where hundreds died for what they
were able to do but never explain.  The thought makes me shudder.  I’ve been
here once before, actually, with Drew and Eleanor when we were teenagers and
looking for a place to get drunk.  The three of us chickened out and finished
our bottles of Boone’s Farm in a parking lot somewhere else.  Between the
darkness and the feeling of dread that crossed over us, we felt safer in a more
public location.

Ash comes around to my side and lets
me out of the car.  I shiver and zip up my leather jacket, courtesy of the
Lavanne clothing donation service.  He begins to lead me a bit down the beach. 
We walk in silence, both absorbing the quiet and the sadness that we associate
with the Gallows.  At least that’s what I’m feeling.  The first things we see
are the grave markers, wooden stakes set within a patch of grass between a
break in the gnarled trees and away from the sand.  “This is where the earth
crafters were buried,” Ash says.  “They didn’t use crosses or anything like
that because they weren’t Christian burials, even though the people who
condemned them to die in the ground were supposedly Christian.”  I shiver, both
horrified and fascinated to finally be seeing where it had all happened.  I see
Ash bring his elegantly sculpted hand up to the silver circle charm he wears
around his neck.    “Let me show you the pyre.”

“Oh god,” I whisper, already
feeling my mouth go dry.  Why did he bring me here?  I bite my lip and let him
lead me through the trees to another clearing.  We approach a stone circle,
embedded in the ground, the ashes and wood that once covered the area swept
away by time.  I feel the tears streaming down my face as I think of what
happened here, what could have happened to us had we lived that long ago, and
what people who were actual relatives had suffered on top of the stones that
Ash and I are standing on now. 

“Do you understand?” Ash begins
quietly, facing away from me out towards the shore.  “Do you get why I actually
care about Gabe and his kind, and taking what attaches me to everyone who died
here?”

“Yes,” I whisper. 

“I’m not sure you really do,” Ash
continues, turning toward me.  He walks up to me and takes both of my hands in
his own.  We’re standing in the middle of the pyre, and I feel a rush of wind
as his hands touch mine.  “It’s not just my blood relatives that I feel joined
to when I come here.  It’s everyone who ever crafted who was burned here.  Just
as my mother can walk to the shore and feel connected to everyone who drowned
in that river, and how my brother Rowan and his wife Annalise feel about seeing
those trees as they approach the river, and my brother Aspen feels when he sees
the graveyard and all of those wooden stake markers.”

“How often do you come here?” I ask
him, surprised.  If it were up to me, I’d never come here again.

“Every year, on the anniversary of
my father’s death,” he replies.  “My mother insists we go with her.  She brings
each of her children on the day their father died.  So she comes four times a
year, once for each husband.”

“But you’re here now, with me,” I
say, bringing his hand to my lips.  “Is it the anniversary of your father’s
death?”

“No, not today,” Ash says.  “But I
wanted you to come and feel it too.  I needed you to feel what I do about my elemental. 
It’s not something I want Gabe to take from me, or from you.  Our elementals
are what join us together and make us catalysts.  I don’t want to lose that, now
that I’ve found you.”

“I don’t either,” I say softly.  He
pulls me close to him and heat fills me, starting in my cheeks and burning
lower.  Ash draws me in for a long, soft kiss.  The burn grows deeper and
hotter as his tongue plunges between my lips and lashes over my own.  My arms
come under his and I press my chest against him, feeling comfort and security
in his warmth.  His embrace makes me feel like nothing can hurt me, as though
I’ve known him forever yet there’s so much more I need to discover.  He breaks
away from my kiss and puts his hands on either side of my face to stare
directly into my eyes.  His black eyes glimmer and seem to be boring holes
through my own.  His thumbs press and smooth out my cheekbones.  I sigh softly,
relishing his touch.  My hands travel down to unbutton his jeans and reach
inside and take him in my hand.  He moans and pulls me closer to press his lips
against mine, harder this time, bruising my lips with the force of his.  We
sink down until we are sitting on the stones, and I lay back and pull him over
me.

“Leah,” he says, breaking away from
our kiss.  I feel his mouth moving against my cheek, sending shivers down
through me, the electric jolt extending down my limbs.  “You don’t have to-“

“I want you on top,” I tell him,
pressing my hands against his back so doesn’t break our contact.  “I trust
you.”

He nods and strokes my cheek with
the back of his hand.  I lean into his touch, trusting him.  I feel one of his
hands fumble with my jeans, and I help him by lifting myself so he can pull
them down to my knees.  Once his are pulled down he presses himself inside of
me, and I’m so ready for him that he slides in smoothly.  “We fit,” he
whispers, “so perfectly.”

“We do,” I agree, gazing into those
black eyes, feeling like I could get lost inside of them.  His fingers press between
our hips and against my clit, rubbing softly against it in small circles.  The
pressure inside of me builds from his motions and I begin to hold my breath,
knowing I won’t be able to hold back much longer.  I push his head back so he
can watch my face as waves of pleasure course through me.  When I am done he releases
into me, filling me up so that I feel hot liquid seeping from the sides and
onto my bare thighs.  Ash collapses against me and I cling to him, feeling as
though nothing outside of what we have right now could matter at all.  There’s
so much I want to spill out and say, but I can only smile like an idiot as Ash turns
his face to look at me.