Bittersweet (Book #1 Evening Wings Trilogy)

Chapter 21

21

“Lorelei!” I yelled.

She ducked around another corner and I followed behind her, my nerve endings pounding with anticipation as I put each leg in front of the next.

The next hall was completely empty and Lorelei was nowhere to be seen.

She’d been here only a moment ago! How could she disappear?

My eyes scanned the desolate halls, not seeing her, until I spied a supply closet near the water fountain. A faint shadow through the darkness.

Trying to be morbidly silent, I tip toed over to the supply closet and turned the rusting doorknob.

Lorelei shrieked.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded in a high French alto, pushing me backward. “You’re like some creepy stalker, or something! Ça alors!”

“What the hell is wrong with me?” I laughed. “You mean what the hell is wrong with you?” I shot back at her; this whole idea of me trying to obtain her attention, to tell her about her own sibling was really beginning to piss me off.

We glared at each other for a moment until I eventually broke the silence.

“Would you stop acting like you know everything for two seconds?” I asked, folding my arms over my quilted jacket.

Her already pale face got even chalkier. “What.”

“It’s about your brother—”

“Oh, so now you remember that he’s alive?” she interrupted me with unmistakable sourness to her voice. “After you dumped him? After he stupidly started dating Naida… and now you have an interest in him?”

“That’s so not true.” I replied darkly. “And you know it.”

“It’s completely true.” She glared. “You obviously do not know what you want Elizabeth. Especially from poor Xander. And I won’t let you subject my brother to—”

“LORELEI!” I barked, interrupting her midsentence. “Naida’s controlling him!”

“What?” she paused. “You’re a sick and twisted liar, Elizabeth.”

“I’m completely serious.” I huffed. “Why would I lie about that?”

“Because, you just want him for yourself!” she said darkly.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

All was silent.

“Lorelei,” I began. “I can’t have him, okay?”

“Why not? Is something wrong with him? He’s not worth it? Don’t tell me you’ve become a bitch since you started hanging out with the Seelie children.”

My eyes widened. “That is so stereotypical,”

“Yeah, so are you.” Lorelei retorted.

I glared at her for a moment, and sighed. It wasn’t worth fighting with her when she wouldn’t listen to a moment’s worth of it.

“I’m trying to help your brother, and your family. If you don’t listen to me, who says Naida won’t kill him? Then you’ll have no one to blame for his death but yourself.” I told her, turning and heading out into the hallway.

“Wait!” Lorelei cried. I turned around.

“What?”

She held up a car key fob. “Come, we’ll settle this over coffee.”

With a nod, I followed her.

#

“Xander’s…changed.” Lorelei began after a short moment of nursing her Styrofoam coffee cup.

We sat in a little alcove of an infinitesimal café in Pembroke Hill, sipping delightful coffee.  As she tried to find the words for this revelation from a dark past, I reached for a stirrer and stuck it into the gorgeous milky brown liquid that cooled in the cup.

Lorelei took a deep breath and continued. “He was really solemn for a while after you dumped him. I have never seen him so… miserable. Ever. And Xander sucks to be around when he’s miserable. It’s like a storm of mixed emotions all equivalent to depression.” She sniffed.

I sipped my coffee; trying to swallow the guilty feeling that kept trying to force its way to the top of my throat each time Lorelei reminded me that it was me, not him that had ruined the relationship. I couldn’t help agreeing with her.

“And then, after Christmas, Naida made the moves on him.” She said, coffee cup forgotten, fingers rubbing small circles in her temples. “And they were as inseparable as they were during the 1800’s. I never thought he’d stooped so low as to barter affection from Naida again, but then I remembered he’d bartered love from you, and you, ma chérie, are much like Naida in a sense. So twice has he brought an unknowing Seelie girl into the darkness, and as I thought of it, it made sagacity.”

I dropped my head to my hands. “Paranoia really sucks.” I frowned at my own silly gullibility. “But one thing’s for sure, whatever weird powers of enchantment you Unseelie possess; Naida’s got a handle on it.”

“What are off about?” Lorelei asked.

“You guys told me—Xander’s a manipulator right?” I said softly, making sure no one else in the café could hear.

“Yes, that is correct.” Lorelei said with an air of mystery. “It’s comparable to hypnosis with a black and white spiral. His eyes swirl… it’s rather entrancing… you know what I mean?”

“Hmm…” was all I replied.

After a moment of strenuous thinking, jolted by the caffeine running within me, I responded.

“Do you think Naida has any specific talent?”

“When Xander first became acquainted with her, she knew nothing of magical talents and the balance of good and evil. She wasn’t that important of a Seelie, a servant’s daughter… talentless.” Lorelei explained with a carefully feigned slapdash shrug.

I could see that this unexpected analysis was burning her on the inside as she thought of the pain that could suddenly be possible for her brother. And I couldn’t help feeling the same concern and anguish that were burning behind her wide eyes.

Naida would have had to know that I was going to discover her horrible plan eventually. There was just something off about them when they were together. He seemed to be in a starry-eyed trance, while she held him on a leash, the world’s most stupid dog.

“What’s so ghastly about her having a talent?” Lorelei asked.

I raised my eyebrows. “Really, have you not seen them together?”

The blank look he gave her was unsettling. Should he not spring into willing friendliness when she touched him? Should he be so cold when they were seen together in the halls, as if they were the world’s most gorgeous couple?

In my opinion, Xander and Naida were never meant for each other. It was bad and equally horrid, two things that did not mix well unless there was futile destruction involved.

I felt that even though I could be wrong in my assumptions that she was feeding off him in someway that was making him a worthless and pathetic case. She was using him to brainwash the Sinclairs into thinking she was ultimately trustworthy—a perfect equivalent for the one who was already a strategic game player with a score of tricks up his sleeve.

How had I not seen it before?

Xander had been avidly firm on dismissing any withstanding feelings for the rogue Naida. As far as I could have told, she did not hold one tenth of the lure that I’d had for him. As far as he was concerned—though it pained me to remember—she was just one of the many beauties he’d been fortunate enough to play around with. One of the many regrets burdening his eternity.

She was using him for something.

Something unknown to me, but the path to seeking it out was beginning to become as clear as a freshly cleaned looking glass.