The boy was running faster than he'd ever run before. He darted across the wooden floor of the temporary dance hall. He reached the side, leapt off and fell.
He rolled on the ground and started to cry, holding his knee and calling for his mom.
"Sea," I yelled and ran to him, "are you okay? Let me take a look, show me where it hurts."
He removed his hands and tears ran down his cheeks. He had a scraped knee with the tiniest bit of blood welling up on the surface of his skin.
"It hurts Mommy, it hurts so much," he wailed and clung to me like a little monkey.
Every time he hurt himself, I breathed a sigh of relief. My greatest fear had always been that I'd have a child like myself. He wasn't like me at all, he was more like his father, with his dark eyes and flop of thick, black hair. Even at three, he had a charm that made girls giggle and other kids follow him loyally.
It remained to be seen if he would be a slave to the moon cycles as his father had been, but with Brigid in his blood he would most likely be able to control them. Even with the world's perception changing and the slow steps back into the ways of old taking place year after year, his life would be so much easier without it.
He would be a warrior one day, but for now he was my little boy. My little miracle and the one bright spark of joy in my life without Cairo.
"Shhhh," I said and rocked him gently against me, "You'll be okay. Let's go get a band aid."
"Can I have a popsicle too?" he asked and I nodded. He giggled and jumped out of my arms, suddenly fully recovered at the promise of his favourite treat.
"Aunty Milan, Mommy says I can have a popsicle! I want cherry!" he yelled to the girl strolling into the tent at just that moment.
"Can you now, Mister Seattle," Milan asked and eyeballed me. I nodded yes, and Milan held her hand out for him. "Well, let's get you one and leave Mommy alone here to set up for tonight's big party."
"Let's go!" he agreed and ran ahead, dragging his long suffering aunt behind him. "Maybe Grace can have one too!"
Grace was Ethan and Paris' firstborn, a beautiful little girl a year younger than Sea. She was two now, and already learning to tumble and put on a show for the crowd. It would be interesting to see if she became a wolf or a cat when she shifted, but that was years away, not until she hit puberty.
I watched them leave the tent and felt that familiar pang of grief. It had been almost four years since I'd lost Cai to Orion's rage, and yet it still seemed like yesterday. I would give almost anything for him to see his son, to know what a beautiful, courageous, bright little boy we had made.
Four years and the dull ache that resided in my heart never seemed to ease off, the hollow he'd left had never been filled. I hadn't been with anyone else since then, having gone through the pregnancy and delivery alone. I knew I wouldn't find anyone who could make me feel the way Cairo had, and I didn't think it was fair to Sea to forget about his amazing father in the arms of another man. It was in the prophecy for me to carry the burden alone, and I knew I would find Cairo again.
I sighed and sat on the edge of the stage, looked out over the scene and remembered a time when I had danced with Cai on this very spot. We'd spent the night grinding against each other before we'd broken apart, and subsequently gotten back together with all the subtly of a solar flare.
Ours had been a hot and fiery love, fast burning, but slow to end. If he had lived, I believed we still would be crashing into each other every chance we had, eternally seeking the heat of our passion together. If he had lived, I would have been burned to ash in the fire, but it would have been worth the sweet ache to keep him with me.
YOU ARE READING
Freakshow
RomanceShe's a freak Born with congenital analgesia, Olivia York's inability to feel pain is expected-feeling nothing at all is not. Betrayed and unemployed, Olivia joins Cirque des Curiosités, a traveling circus with heavy emphasis on the strange and exot...