Perigee Moon (38 page)

“What’s wrong?” Alex tried to sit up, concerned, as the tears spilled down my mangled cheek. I pushed him back down and wiped the good side of my face with my sleeve. I looked down at the smudges I’d left. At least it was an old shirt.

“Nothing,” I muttered, hoping he’d drop it.

“Rowan, tell me,” he said, pulling me down to him.

“My face,” I said. “It’s…I’m…hideous. It’s going to leave a scar. I know it.” A choked sob ripped free from my throat and in a sick way it felt good to worry about something so completely vain, something essentially so unimportant, but equally unfair. “Grams said she did all she could do for it.”

Alex placed a finger over my lips to quiet me. “You are beautiful. The most beautiful thing in all of creation. This.” He motioned to my face and smiled. “It’s nothing. A spec of sand in an ocean of beauty.”

I nodded and against my better judgment let my senses snake out to feel the emotions that were unraveling inside him. Relief washed over me, cool and sweet, as Alex’s emotions buried me in a love so intense there were no words. Love and awe and disbelief welled up inside of him until they had nowhere to go but into me.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too.” I leaned down and kissed his forehead, breathing him in.

As I leaned back he finally seemed to evaluate his condition.

“I’m clean?” he said, seeming confused.

I nodded and handed him his juice. “Yeah, so?”

He grabbed the glass, still confused. “Well considering I just came from the most detestable rat hole to ever disgrace civilization I suppose I expected to be in worse condition.”

I averted my gaze as I remembered stripping Alex down and loading him, unconscious, into the bath tub last night. It was probably one of the most humiliating things I’d ever done, especially with Bevin and Grams standing right outside the door, but I couldn’t leave him like he was, covered in blood and filth. I had no idea what kind of infection might spread if I left him that way.

“I cleaned you up and put you in clean clothes, and then Grams and Bev helped me get you into bed,” I said with another flush of color spreading across my cheeks.

He frowned. “You should’ve been resting. Not taking care of me.”

“I-I didn’t think you’d want them to see you like that,” I said. “You know, with the bath and all.”

Alex raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Well I have to admit I wish I’d been conscious for that part.”

I looked at him and we both started laughing. It was strange for something that hurt so bad to feel so good.

“Rowan,” Alex said, after I forced him to sip his juice and nibble on some toast. I looked up and he continued. “You know I have to go back.”

I met his eyes to gauge how serious he was. They were a cloudy blue, anticipating my reaction.

“Like hell you are,” I said, feeling something snap inside. A glass picture frame next to my bed shattered, but I ignored it. “Are you crazy Alex? You can’t go back there. Ever.”

“Rowan I didn’t finish the spell. You know that. I’ll have to go back to have another go at it,” he said.

“No. We’ll find another way Alex.” There was no way I was going through that hell again. No. Never again.

“Marion is gone. It will work this time,” he said in a tight voice. I could tell it cost him to bring her up. She may have been evil and the reason he had almost died, but she was still his family. And he’d killed her. With magic of all things. Something he saw as good and pure and full of light and he’d used it to banish his last living relative to the afterlife.

“Alex, please don’t leave me again. Please,” I pleaded helplessly, my voice disappearing into a whisper.

“It’s the only way, love. I’ll come back safe this time,” he said. I could feel that he truly believed this. I could also feel the desperate need he felt to be able to have a normal life with me. I just couldn’t place how I felt.

“You swear?” His face was only a few inches from mine, but it looked blurry through the moisture in my eyes.

“Yes. I swear.” He pulled my hair between his fingers and stared at it thoughtfully. Suddenly I felt stupid. I knew how to tell if he’d be safe. I slid off the bed and grabbed the green book Noel had given me from underneath my bed. I flipped through the pages and took a deep breath. My finger served as a guide as I stroked the page searching for his name. But it wasn’t there. There were no longer twenty witches hung at Gallows hill. There were nineteen. Alex was safe. Tears were streaming down my face as I let the book slip to the floor, pure joy coursing through my body. Alex looked at me bewildered and continued to plead his case, completely unaware of my new knowledge.

“Rowan I want to grow old with you. I want a life with you. I want forever,” he said, his face softening, his eyes pleading for me to understand.

I smiled knowing that we would have all these things. We’d done it. We’d changed fate. “And dates of course,” I said.

“Dates?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

“Yeah, a real date,” I explained. “The kind regular teenagers go on. Like dinner and a movie.”

He grinned and the curve of his lips, the flash of his teeth sent a jolt through my heart. “Hmmm. Sounds…” He paused searching for the word. “Normal.”

Normal
. God if he only knew how good that sounded. I leaned down and kissed him softly, feeling him shudder as I brought my lips around to his ear.

“Exactly,” I whispered.

Tara Fuller writes novels. Some about grim reapers. Some about witches. All of course are delightfully full of teen angst and kissing. Tara grew up in a one stop light town in Oklahoma where once upon a time she stayed up with a flash light reading RL Stine novels and only dreamed of becoming a writer. She has a slight obsession with music and a shameless addiction for zombie fiction, Mystery Science Theater, and black and white mochas. Tara no longer lives in a one stop light town. Now she lives with her family in a slightly larger town in North Carolina where they have at least three stoplights.