The Paper Swan(25)

“Eat.” Damian wolfed down his share, and started putting away the supplies he’d picked up.

When the fridge was stocked up, he got a can-opener and opened a can of evaporated milk. I watched him pour it into a clear, lidded jar. I guessed it stored better than fresh milk. He turned to the coffee maker and started measuring out the coffee.

My eyes fell on the jagged, metal top of the can he’d just opened. It was lying in the garbage, by my feet. I reached down and grabbed it. Damian still had his back to me.

I closed my palm over the circular piece of tin and felt the sharp, barbed edge. That’s what I needed to sink into his jugular.

On five, Skye. On five.

I took a deep breath and counted down.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .

I caught him as he turned. It was a perfect cut, except he intercepted my wrist before I could go deeper. His eyes widened at the sharp, piercing pain before the hard thwack of his slap hit me. He flung me clear across the kitchen, my cheek turning red from the imprint of his palm.

He plucked the metal out of his neck and clamped his hand to the wound. I wanted his blood to spurt out onto the counter, where he’d spilled mine. I wanted him to fall to his knees and die in a pool of red vengeance. I wanted to see me in his eyes when he took his last breath.

None of that happened. Damian swore and removed his hand to inspect the damage. It was a nice sized gash, but I had just scratched the surface—a couple of Band-Aids and he’d be good to go. He started walking towards me, an unrelenting, indestructible force that I just couldn’t get away from, and I broke down. I nursed my throbbing cheek and sobbed. And sobbed.

“If you can’t take, don’t give,” he growled.

If you can’t take, don’t give.

If you can’t take don’t give.

A boy I once adored had said that. Right after he’d knocked Gideon Benedict St. John’s tooth out.

My thoughts flip-flopped like livewires on an overloaded circuit.

No.

Every atom in me rebelled at the idea.

I looked up at the figure looming over me. The boy had changed into a man—his body had changed, his voice had changed, his face had changed. But people’s eyes should never be so different that you no longer recognized their souls; they should never turn so hard that they shut all the doors to the past.

“Esteban?” I whispered.

No. Please say no.

“There is no Esteban. Esteban died a long time ago.” He pulled me up and trapped me against the counter. “There is only Damian. And you don’t defy or escape or seduce Damian. And you sure as hell don’t fantasize about him,” he spit out.

I blinked, trying to come to terms with the fact that the boy I’d worshiped and the man I abhorred were one and the same, but I couldn’t bridge the bleak, black chasm in-between. It started stretching, opening, swallowing me up. The ground was disappearing from under my feet.

“Skye.” Damian shook me, but it only made the crack inside me worse. I felt myself falling into it, welcoming the nothingness that enveloped me.





WHEN I CAME AROUND, DAMIAN was sleeping next to me.

Yes, Dah-me-yahn.

Because that’s who he was now. I tried to look for the boy I’d known, but there was no place for him to hide in the harsh planes of Damian’s face. He had been twelve years old the last time I’d seen him. Fifteen years had changed him into the man before me now, taken away the softness, the expressions, deepened his voice, hardened his heart. The moon turned his skin a silvery-blue and accentuated the shadow of his brows and nose. He was sleeping shirtless for the first time, as if he was done with all the masks and layers and pretenses. For all I knew, he wasn’t wearing a stitch under the covers.

I inched away from him, towards the edge of the bed. Something wet and lumpy shifted under me. A thawed out bag of frozen veggies for my cheek.

That’s right, Damian. Slap me and ice me better.

Can’t kill me, but can’t let me go either.

I finally understood what I had seen in his eyes. Black battling Black. Damian keeping Esteban at bay. Cruelty with glimpses of mercy. Friendship holding vengeance back by a thread.

I couldn’t understand his actions, but there was obviously bad blood between my father and Damian, and I needed to figure it out. As far as I knew, the last time the two had been together was the day of my ninth birthday, when my father had asked Victor to enroll him in Miss Edmond’s class.

Esteban had never showed. I had woken up and waited for MaMaLu, but she never came—not that day, or the next, or the day after that. When one of the maids came in and started packing my clothes in a large trunk, I threw a tantrum.