Gothikana
: Chapter 9

The girl with long, dark hair lay face down in the water, her tresses floating over the surface ethereally, her skin ghostly pale in the moonlight. Corvina looked around, not knowing the place or the time, just that she needed to get to the girl. She took a step forward, her ankle dipping in the icy water, disappearing under the blackness.

Heart pounding, she took another step, just as something cold, slimy gripped her ankles, locking her in place. Corvina struggled trying to get to her, but the movements caused ripples that made the girl float further away. She struggled harder, but the slimy fingers around her feet gave no room.

The girl reached the middle of wherever they were, and slowly began to sink into the murky water, inch by inch, until only her hair remained floating on the surface.

Corvina opened her mouth to call out to her but nothing came out, her voice muted, her throat locked in place like her ankles.

“Corvina,” a voice called from behind her, a voice she knew and loved in her soul. Her mama’s voice.

She turned to see her mama standing a few feet away on the shore, dressed in her black cotton gown and braid, smiling. But her eyes were blown up with black covering everything until she couldn’t see the violet eyes full of love. She was shuffling a deck of cards, watching Corvina with those eerie fully black eyes.

“Mama,” she called out, her voice working this time.

One card fell out from the deck, and another, and another. Her mama smiled up at her, throwing the deck to the side and picking up the cards that had come during her shuffle, turning them to show her.

The Devil. The Lovers. The Tower.

All major arcana. All powerful omens.

“You know what’s coming, baby,” her mother said, still smiling. “A storm. The only safe place is the eye. He is the storm. He will keep you safe.”

“Who, mama?” Corvina asked, trying to free her legs from whatever was holding her in place.

“The devil,” her mama answered.

“The one in the card?” she outstretched her hands, trying to reach her.

“The one in your heart,” her mother chuckled. “Once you taste the forbidden fruit, you belong to the devil.”

Corvina cried out as the hands holding her ankles began to tug her into the water, away from her mother.

“Mama,” she uttered in horror just as her mother began to disappear simultaneously. She struggled harder to get to the shore but to no avail, her body moving frantically deeper into the depths.

“Mama!” she screamed, her hands outstretched, trying to reach a mother who wasn’t there.

Something shook her hard.

“Corvina!”

Her eyes flew open to see Jade’s worried face looming over her, her hands holding her down by her shoulders. Corvina panted, her chest heaving, her entire body drenched in sweat, her eyes looking around the room wildly as her mind processed what had happened.

A nightmare. She’d had a nightmare.

Breathing through her mouth, she sat up, her hands trembling.

“You were screaming for your mom,” Jade told her softly, handing her a glass of water from the side. Corvina accepted it gratefully, gulping the whole thing down in seconds, letting her racing heart slow down.

A nightmare. Just a nightmare.

“Thank you,” she told her worried roommate, handing her the glass back.

“Are you okay?” Jade asked, taking a seat on her bed.

Corvina nodded. “It was a bad dream.” And that worried her. She’d never been prone to nightmares but the very few she’d had in her life weren’t good signs. Her mother had told her they were ominous, especially with her. The doctor had said they were damaging. She needed to get a grip of herself.

Swinging her legs out of the bed, she rubbed a weary hand over her face. “I’m going for a walk.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Jade told her, her eyes cautious. “Are you sure?”

Corvina nodded. “I need some air. I need to walk it off. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

Pushing her feet in her boots, still clad in her blue nightgown, Corvina pulled her hair over a shoulder and took a candle from the drawer beside her. Her eyes fell on the tarot deck sitting beside it. Picking it up as well, sticking the candle on a holder, she lit it up and gave Jade what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Seriously, go to bed. I just need to walk it off.”

Jade bit her lip, eyed her flickering candle. “I’d suggest a lantern if you’re going out the walls. The wind is sharp tonight.”

Corvina glanced outside the window. The grotesque gargoyle outside the window loomed like an ominous monster screaming at the moon. An almost full moon. She’d be fine. Nevertheless, she nodded to her friend, wrapped a shawl around herself, and walked out.

The corridors were empty at this time of the night, the candle providing enough light for her to make her way down the stairs. There was no piano being played, it hadn’t been for a few days. She needed to go to her place, the quiet place where it was only her and no one else to interrupt.

Emerging into the foyer, she pushed open the entrance door of the tower with the hand holding her deck, and looked outside, to check any guards patrolling the grounds. Seeing her path clear, she slipped outside.

The wind cut on her face, cold and biting and enlivening. The flame on her candle danced with the wind for one wild second like a paramour, flickering and resisting its passion, before surrendering and extinguishing itself under his demand. The scent of the forest beckoned to her, the scent of rich soil and sleeping foliage, the scent of trees unknown and flowers unseen.

Still keeping the candle holder with her, she made her way to the forest and turned left towards the ruins. She’d never been to the woods at night here, but as she made her way to her destination, with the sounds of the forest and its creatures to keep her company, she felt herself relaxing. The woods at night were the same as they had been in her hometown. Nocturnal insects chirped, reminding her she wasn’t alone in the dark. Bats flew overhead going places at their hour. A bird cooed on every count of three.

One. Two. Coo.

Corvina matched her steps to the coo, touching the barks of the trees on her way in greeting, silently thanking them for sheltering her as she made her way under the muted light of the moon.

After a few minutes, the ruins came into view, her place of peace, and she felt herself smile.

And then she froze.

Because in her space of solitude sat a large man on one of the broken benches, with tarp thrown on the ground beside him. He looked up as a branch crunched under her boot, his silver eyes searing her, arresting her on her spot a few feet away.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered, his voice carrying over in the open space between them as he turned fully towards her. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Corvina swallowed, her fingers tightening around the candlestick. “I come here all the time.”

“I meant,” he clarified, putting something metallic in his hand on the bench beside him, “what are you doing here at this time of the night?”

She didn’t want to tell him about her nightmare. She hadn’t even processed it herself. So, she gave him the truth, as much as she could. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“And you thought a walk in the woods in the middle of the night would be the most logical solution?” he demanded, his tone furious. Why the hell was he angry, especially since he was doing the exact same thing she was? Ugh, she hated confrontation. Well, she was a free person and it wasn’t his place, so it wasn’t like he could stop her.

Corvina ignored him, choosing to simply go to her spot – an overturned rock that had once been a part of the wall beside the graveyard. The rock had crumbled in a way it made a seat big enough for her to sit and lean back in, with the view of the broken fountain at the front, thankfully away from the weird one-eye tree, the graves at her back, and the pile of furniture including the piano on her right.

She could feel his eyes on herself as she took a seat on the rock, and set her deck of cards in her lap, completely ignoring him. She heard him begin to tinker something on the piano, the sound of metal hitting something solid permeating the silence, and she looked back, too curious to resist. He was sitting on the bench he’d probably dragged from the pile of furniture, with some kind of pliers in his hand, pulling away at something inside the belly of the piano that looked ancient.

“Is it yours?” she asked, unable to contain the question.

His hand paused before he pulled another piece of something inside the piano. “No,” he replied succinctly. “It was here with the other junk.”

She bit her lip. “And you’re repairing it?”

Silver locked with her.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know anything about pianos,” she offered, looking at his hands with the tool. That was why he had the calloused palms.

He stared at her for a long moment, before looking down at her lap. “Are those tarot cards?”

Corvina felt her lips tip up in a smile, stroking over the cards. “They were my mother’s. She taught me how to read them.”

She took the cards out and began to shuffle.

“And you believe in what they say?” he inquired quietly, his deep voice laced with curiosity. “In destiny?”

Corvina shrugged, leaning back on the rock, relaxing with the familiar weight of the cards in her hands and the motion of shuffling them. “I believe they’re good as guides, not as manuals.” One card fell down. She continued. “They can guide and give a sense of direction about something, but not the precise details about how and when and what. That depends on our choices.” Another card.

“Interesting,” he muttered, the white streak in his hair stark against the dark in the moonlight. Corvina studied him for a long minute while continuing the shuffle, at the way his prominent brows slashed down his face in concentration, at the square outline of his jaw littered with scruff, at the regality of his straight nose, at the tightness in his full lips.

“You have a very interesting face, though not conventionally handsome,” she spoke before suddenly realizing how the words sounded. His silver eyes clashed with her violet ones, the brows that had been slashed going up in silence.

“I meant that as a compliment,” she clarified, feeling her face heat, grateful for the darkness that hid it, focusing on the action of her hands. “You have a very arresting face. Beautiful but unconventional. That’s what I meant. I’m sorry; I probably shouldn’t be speaking to you like this.”

He ignored her for a few moments afterwards, the sides of his jaw working as he went back to his repair. Corvina closed her eyes in embarrassment and blew out a breath. This was probably the reason why she should keep her mouth shut, especially with men who made her stomach flutter with just one look. She was sure there would be another on the campus. And she was a young woman replaceing herself. Strong lust was something she was experiencing for the first time, and she owed it to herself to explore it. She should replace someone.

“Who would you consider conventionally handsome?” his words came to her.

She hadn’t expected him to ask her that. Corvina mulled on that for a minute, wondering if she should even say anything. Probably not.

“You think Jax is handsome?” he asked softly, too softly.

Corvina swallowed. She had a feeling any answer would be a wrong answer. “My roommate thinks so.”

He didn’t look at her. “I asked what you think.”

“Yes,” Corvina admitted, feeling something tense between them. “He is conventionally handsome, I would say. I didn’t mean for my comment to be rude. Sorry, I’m not the best at conversation.”

He simply bent over the piano, his hand aggressively pulling at a chord, the action igniting something visceral inside her. Corvina shut up, watching him work, and bit her tongue. She probably shouldn’t have said anything.

“How well do you know Jax?” he asked after a long second.

“Um,” he wanted her to dig some kind of a hole. Why the hell was he asking about Jax? She frowned at the question. “We’re friends, I guess.”

“Friends that hold hands?” his question was quiet but loud in the silence that followed.

Corvina paused in the shuffling of cards, looking down at his hand, her heartbeats tripling in speed, knowing he’d seen them come out of the woods. Jax had still been holding her hand, the same hand this man had held in the library, right before he’d taken a little taste of her.

She stayed silent.

All of a sudden, he put his tool down and shot up from the bench, his long, lithe body closing the distance between him and her rock in three quick strides. He came to a stop in front of her and leaned over, his arms coming to the rock on either side of her, caging her in place as Corvina looked up at his thunderous eyes, her heart slamming in her ribcage.

“Whatever this is, it cannot happen,” he told her quietly, clearly, his voice low but firm. “You’re my student and I’m your teacher, but worse, I’m dangerous. Girls I interact with dance with death much sooner than they should. If you value your life, don’t look at me like that with your eyes.” He leaned closer, his warm breath and burning scent washing over her. “It makes me want things, little crow.”

“Things like what?” she whispered, her heart in her throat, her gaze locked with his.

“Things like my fist in your hair and my tongue in your mouth,” he told her harshly, the lines of his face strained. “Things like fucking you in front of the boy who held your hand, just to tell him you’ll never be his. Things like bending you over my desk after class and telling you to wrap your lips around my cock like you do with your pencil.”

Her body, her heart, her face felt on fire. No one had ever talked to her like that. She’d read words like those in books, said with vigor and passion, but had never imagined what they would feel like focused on her.

He hovered over her, his face the only thing in her vision, her chest heaving at the picture he painted. She wanted it. She wanted it all. She wanted to belong to his man who looked at her with such mercurial, ferocious eyes. But he was dangerous, unknown, mysterious.

“This is lust,” she whispered, trying to validate it, excuse it.

“No, Corvina,” the side of his lips twitched. “I’ve known lust. This is something worse. This is a barbaric need to possess, to eliminate, to own. This is madness.”

Madness.

It felt like madness, didn’t it? A different kind of madness than she was used to but madness nonetheless.

Corvina looked up at him, her hand coming up on its own to touch his mouth like he’d touched hers in the library. His eyes flared, his arms bulging as he locked himself in place. His lips were soft, full as she traced them with her fingers, their eyes never moving off one another. Her pulse fluttered in her neck, her nipples hardened against the fabric of her gown.

The breeze gentled around her, the moon hiding behind clouds as though giving her the privacy, the secrecy, the courage she needed. Lifting herself slightly from the rock to elevate her body, stretching her neck, Corvina raised herself and pressed her lips to her fingers over his mouth, their noses touching as she tilted her head and removed her hand, leaving that last inch of space between them.

“If this is madness,” she whispered almost against his lips, “drown me in it.”

“Jesus fuck,” the expletive left his mouth right before he closed the distance, crashing his lips over hers. Tingles spread out from the point of contact, radiating out over her body, making her legs too weak to hold her weight. She gripped his sweater with her hands, fisting them to hold her body in place as their lips stayed locked. He pulled back slightly, still leaning over her, his arms still on the rock on either side.

“If this is madness,” he told her, echoing her words against her lips, “I’ve already descended too far.”

His mouth came over hers again, this time with the weight of his large palm at her lower back, holding both their weights with one hand anchored on the rock. He opened his lips slightly, and she imitated under the delicious pressure, her hands fisting the fabric of his sweater as their tongues connected, glided, melded together. He tasted of smoke and coffee and something rich, forbidden, dark. It made something warm and tight flutter in her belly, low and deep and liquid.

Their breathing grew ragged as she tugged him down harder, stretching as much as she could in the position to get as close to him as possible. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples aching with a pain only touch could satisfy. She wanted those skillful, beautiful hands to touch them, hold them, play them, and set her afire. She wanted this deviant mouth that kissed her like she was his feast after relentless gnawing hunger to kiss her in places no one had. She wanted, she wanted, to the marrow of her bones, oh how she wanted him, without truly knowing him, knowing who he was or where he came from. It was madness. The molecules in her body recognized the molecules in his, the madness in her blood recognized the madness in his, the melancholy in her soul recognized the melancholy in his.

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed, spinning in a kaleidoscope of sensations. She kissed the intrigue on his lips, the mysteries on his mouth, the secrets on his tongue. She kissed deeper, going to the darkness in his marrows and the enigma in his blood as he held her in place, probing and prying into her soul, dissecting her open and examining everything she was inside. It wasn’t the first kiss she’d ever expected but now she couldn’t imagine another, his entirety branded upon her in that moment.

She felt a noise leave her throat, a noise that made him pause and pull back, the warm muscles of his chest under her fists heaving. They looked at each other for long moments, both of them getting their hearts under control before she saw his eyes flicker over hers, an expression pinch his face, his eyes moving to the side.

Regret.

He regretted kissing her.

Something warm, a different kind of warm, flushed through her body, an emotion she’d not felt enough to recognize it. She just knew she didn’t want to see the regret on his face. In fact, as he pulled back, she wanted to wipe the wanton way she had kissed him from his mind and never see him again.

Throat tightening, Corvina put a deliberate smile on her face, letting go of his sweater and sitting back down on the rock, collecting the cards that had fallen in the folds of her nightgown. “You don’t have to worry. It wasn’t serious. I have no expectations of this ever happening again.”

He studied her for a long minute, the line of his jaw hard as he clenched his teeth, his mouth still wet from her lips. “You should go back.”

Corvina tucked her hair behind her ears, still flushed, her nose twitching, and broke their gazes. “I’ll see you in class, Mr. Deverell.” If the earth didn’t swallow her whole, that is.

With that, she bent down to gather all the cards that had fallen down, her lips still tingling but determined to ignore it, aware of him going back to the piano. She didn’t know if he was going to stay the night but she had to leave, and possibly never be alone with him again, not if she wanted to avoid the embarrassment of kissing a man for the first time and having him regret it immediately. As first kisses went, it had been… extraordinary, right until the end. Her second would be better, she was certain. Hopefully with someone who wouldn’t regret it.

As she went to collect the last of the cards, her hand froze.

Three cards lay face up on the ground, the only three cards to be that way.

The Devil, The Lovers, and The Tower.

The same cards her mother had pulled in her nightmare.