Vanishing Rain (Blue Spectrum Chronicles Book 2) (20 page)

Chapter 50

Kiss

I reached the stage, but I couldn’t step up onto it.  I was too big and clumsy.  Orion lifted me easily, and we stood face to face.  I cupped his face in my hands, breathing heavily.  “I thought you were going to die.”  I was panting, and Orion wrapped his thick arms around me, around Ice at the same time.  I breathed in the scent of them both, the definitely masculine scent of Orion and the sweet odor of Ice.  Orion gently set Ice down, and pulled me into him, holding me against his broad chest.

“I’ve been waiting so long for you,” he whispered in my ear.

I met his eyes.  The only eyes that told stories I could understand.  In an instant, his lips were on mine, kissing me with all of the sweetness and urgency that had built up between us.  I kissed him back, remembering the power they had over me, how I turned to mush inside whenever he touched me.

“Orion,” I breathed out into the very lips that were kissing me.

“Rain,” he muttered impatiently.  “Rain.  I love you, Rain.”  He kissed me again, and I kept kissing him, not caring about Ice or Troll or any of the people who might be watching us.

Then Orion stopped kissing me, and pulled me closer into his arms, my protruding belly pushing against him.

“Our baby?” he asked, a hitch in his voice.  He knew the baby was his, but I knew what he was asking.  If he could be the father.

I nodded, biting my lower lip.  Then I just started crying, tears streaming down my face.

I had carried this baby by myself for too long.  Troll had filled in for the past months, but it wasn’t the same.

It was Orion’s baby.  Our baby. 

I just didn’t know what Orion was going to do about it.

“I promise I’ll be a better father than mine,” he told me with the most serious expression on his face that I had ever seen.

Nodding, I continued to let the tears stream down my face, because even before I found out I was pregnant, I had already vowed to be a better mother than the one I had.

Orion laced his hands through mine, never taking his eyes off of me.

“I’m so sorry, Rain.  I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He kissed me on the forehead. “I love you, Rain.” He smirked, then, his lips curving up in that way that both charmed and irritated me.  “Forever.”

At that moment, Ice moved between us.  He wrapped his little arms around my leg, just as I had seen him do to Orion.  “Wain.  Wain.  Fowevo Wain.”  He tilted his head back and smiled toothlessly up at me.

I ruffled his hair, surprised that he let me do it without a fuss. “You took him, didn’t you?” I asked Orion, remembering the conversation we had in the hedge after Orion had told me that he had discovered that Snow had a S.L.A.G. twin brother who lived in the Clinic.  How I told Orion that I wanted to steal Ice out of the Clinic and just run away with him to the Asters.

Orion nodded, a sloppy grin on his beautiful face. “I told you, Rain…I would do anything for you.”

I was still crying, shameless rivers falling down my face.  “I have so many questions,” I hiccupped. 

“Like?” His eyes were sparkling, a hint of mischief hiding behind them.

“Like how you got here and how you got Ice out of the Clinic, and mostly why you didn’t find me and tell me you were leaving.”

I sounded like a whiny child, I knew.  “You don’t know what you put me through,” I scolded, but I wasn’t mad any more.  The spear heading toward Orion had stabbed me first…with a huge dose of forgiveness.

“Okay.”  He sighed visibly, a puff of his hot breath blowing onto my cheeks.  I wanted to snip it off, like a piece of candy, and pop it into my mouth to savor for the rest of my life.  He glanced around the huge conference room. “Come home with me and I’ll tell you everything.”

A face shot into my head at the mention of home.  Troll’s.

“Oh, Gods, Orion,” I began.  “What about Troll?”

Orion gently stroked my face with his giant thumb, letting out a miserable sigh.  “I don’t know.  That’s going to be between the two of you.”  He reached down and easily picked Ice up, tucked him into his huge arms.

His blue eyes landed directly on Ice’s “Are you ready to go home?”

“Home!  Home!” the brother I hardly knew squealed.

Orion turned to me, those blue eyes piercing directly into my heart like a sharp knife of love.  “Our home,” he answered with that cocky Orion way of his, raising both eyebrows at once.  “All of ours, including you and the baby.”

Suddenly I was shy.  “I…I…don’t know Orion.”  I looked down, as if the floor of the stage held some kind of fascination for me, feeling like the worst kind of traitor, even worse than my mom.

He lifted my chin so our eyes could meet, and he smiled sadly down at me, “I’ll wait, Rain.  I already told you, I’ll wait forever if I have to.”  His voice was smooth, like the cloth in Garment’s studio.

I pursed my lips together, confused. I couldn’t just leave Troll like this.  It wouldn’t be right.

I scanned the room.  Most of the people had already left except a few men who were probably there to guard Orion. Probably me, too.  I was curious how he had become their leader so quickly, and I desperately wanted the answers to the questions that had been zinging around in my head for months, bitter balls of steel that banged ruthlessly at my poor skull.

I bit my lower lip, not wanting to leave Orion, not wanting the words I knew I had to say to leave my lips. “Give me some time,” I whispered to Orion. 

His blue eyes were gentle. “As much as you need.”

“Okay.”  Ice was squirming, and Orion set him down.  He started playing with the wooden toys on the stage again.

“Only one thing, Rain.”  His eyes were storm clouds, swirling with emotion, and he glanced to my bulging stomach.

“What?”

“I want to be a father to our baby.”

The words that I had been too afraid to speak slipped out of my mouth then.  “What if the baby has S.L.A.G.?”

Orion didn’t even pause to answer.  “I don’t care.  It’s our baby.  Yours and mine.”

My heart swelled, then, and I didn’t know if I could ever love anybody the way I did Orion at that moment.

“Okay,” I sobbed.  I was crying again, and I couldn’t seem to stop. Orion slipped his thumb onto my cheek again, wiping a tear away. I sniffed then, wiping my nose on my exquisite robe.

Orion pulled me into his arms and held me there for the longest time, our bodies touching again, knowing each other in ways that only people in love can know.  Then he held me back, staring at me, as if I was a famous painting in a museum. Just then the Peanut kicked. Out of habit, I rested my hand on my stomach.  Orion tilted his head to the side, obviously curious.

“Is everything okay?” He looked so concerned, I stopped crying and broke into laughter.  I was a mess and I knew it.

“Here.” I took his huge hand and placed it on my protruding stomach.

He held it there for quite some time.  Then, as if on cue to welcome his father into his world, the baby kicked, the most ferocious kick of all. 

“It kicked!” Orion grinned foolishly, his white teeth flashing.  “I felt it kick.”

I nodded, suddenly proud.  “He’s a busy guy.”

“He?”

“Just a feeling I have.”

Orion kissed me again, and my head swirled with him.  I was dizzy and falling and my stomach was fluttering and I couldn’t seem to get enough of him.  I wrapped a chunk of his hair around my finger, wanting him, wanting every piece of him.

Finally, I pulled myself away from him, gasping for breath.  I didn’t know what to do.  Every bone in my body told me to go with Orion.  My heart told me I belonged with Orion.  It was my head that was messing everything up.

“I…I…better go now.”

Orion nodded, a strand of his shaggy blonde hair falling down into his eyes.  He absentmindedly pushed it back.  “I’ll be waiting.”

“I know,” I answered.  “I just…”

“Shhhh.”  He put his finger gently on my lips.  “It’s fine.  Take your time.”

I nodded, not wanting to leave him.  Or Ice.

Orion grasped Ice’s hand.

“Come on little buddy, we’re heading home now,” Orion told Ice.

“Home,” he squealed, a little parrot of a boy.  I glanced down at him, missing Snow more than ever.  Why did it seem that I was always having to choose between families?

I lifted my head, then stopped dead in my tracks.

Troll was standing in the doorway, a look of complete horror on his face.

Chapter 51

Shattered Heart

For a brief second, my eyes shot to Troll’s shocked, hurt blue orbs.  “Troll,” I called out to him, but it was too late.  He had already twisted around and was running from the building.

Orion gently squeezed my shoulder, as though he was staking a claim on me. I locked eyes with him, pulling myself in four distinct directions.  Orion. Ice. The Peanut. Troll. 

Troll had been nothing but kind to me.  I heaved a great breath out of my growing body. “I’d better go,” I snipped at Orion, hating to leave him.  I reached up and started to peck him on the cheek, like I did with Troll, but Orion would have none of that. 

He caught me mid-air, gently cupped my face in his hands and kissed me tenderly on the lips, a kiss that told of secrets and answers, pasts and futures, and an urgency that called me to him like never before.

“I love you, Rain,” Orion breathed into my lips.

I peered up at him.  “I love you, too. I just…”

“Go.”  It was a simple directive, but one I needed.  I twirled around, stopping to bend down and kiss Ice on the top of his head like I used to do with Snow when I left him, forgetting that Ice had S.L.A.G., that he might go crazy from the unsolicited contact.

He didn’t.

“Bye Wain.  I wuv you.”

I stopped, my mouth hanging open.  “Did he…”

Orion laughed his deep, hearty laugh.  “Yes, he did,” he answered.  “I’ll explain that later, too.  “Go.”

I blew a kiss to both of them, hating to leave them.  I wanted more of Orion and more of Ice. 

But Troll…

My robe swished between my legs and I rushed to the edge of the stage, stopping as I tried to figure out how to get down.

In an instant Orion picked me up and settled me easily on the floor.  I tilted my head up, meeting his eyes.  “Thanks,” I shot out.  I blew him a kiss.  Just like when I left Garment’s. Then I lumbered toward the door of the building, feeling Orion’s eyes scorch into my back.  

One of the men opened the bulky door for me, and I padded through it, already panting.  I kept it up, pumping my legs laboriously up the path until I reached our home.  The home I shared with Troll.

I gulped, gasping for air as my hand turned the odd knob on the thick wooden door.  I didn’t know if I would ever get accustomed to doors that didn’t just open automatically.  I pushed the thick door open, calling for Troll.

There was no answer.  I stopped in our front room trying to catch my breath.  The baby jabbed at my insides as if to scold me, and I called out for Troll again. 

I was met with a quiet house. 

I went to the first bedroom, the one we usually slept in.  Suddenly, my feet moved along at a slower pace. What was I going to say to him, anyway?  That I never loved him, that I always loved someone else?  Troll and I had never even talked about love.  It still didn’t settle the guilt that was creeping around my body, an unwanted visitor who wouldn’t leave.

“Troll?” I called out again, pushing open the door to the second bedroom. I breathed out a huge huff of air when I saw him perched on the bed, Lily fast asleep by his side. She opened her eyes and wagged her tail at me, which only made me feel more like a traitor.  More like my mom.

“Troll…”

His eyes moved to mine, so hurt and confused that I didn’t know what to do, what to say.  Nothing in my life could have prepared me for hurting somebody so deeply.  Troll was tossing something up and down in the air.  I narrowed my eyes, focusing on it.

It was my broken heart necklace.  The other half to Orion’s.  The one I had packed in haste and had forgotten about, the chain broken the night I left my mother’s house so long ago. 

“Here,” he called out in a sarcastic voice.  “I took it from you in the tunnel…thought I could use it to trade with over here…just didn’t count on you being all high born in both worlds.”  He grunted then, tossing the necklace at me.  It landed with a tinkle on the stone floor.  It called to me, a piece of Orion that I desperately needed, the explanation I had never gotten.

“Don’t worry,” Troll continued, his arms crossed over his chest.  “His fucking note’s still in there.”

“Troll, I…”

“I knew it was too good to last,” he puffed.

I reached down, suddenly irritated with Troll as I struggled to keep my balance over the hard round ball that had become my stomach.  I picked up the silver necklace, placed it in the pocket of my robe.  “That was special to me…a part of my life.”

Troll waited a second before speaking, his voice low and raspy. “That didn’t include me.”

I shook my head, biting my lower lip.  “No, it didn’t.  But this one does.”

“Did.”  He glared at me.  “I saw you kissing him.”

“Troll, you and I…we never were in love.”

He folded his arms tighter across his chest.  “Speak for yourself.”

“Troll, you’ve been so good to me, and you saved me time and again, and I appreciate it so much, and…” I was babbling incoherently, tears spilling down my face.

“Go,” Troll spit out.  “Go to him,” he hissed at me venomously.  A small tear was forming in his left eye, and my heart clenched into a vise. I knew I was the cause of his pain, and I felt shallow, selfish after all he had done for me. 

“I care about you, Troll, I really do.”

“GO!” he screamed at me.  “Get the fucking hell out.  I’ll be okay.”  By then he was outwardly sobbing and I didn’t know what to do.   Tears streamed down his face, and his chest heaved up and down, as if someone was on the other side of him pushing and pulling.  Lily had her giant head in his lap, her chocolate eyes drooping with sadness.

I didn’t know what to do, but I found myself by his side, stroking his head, like I did with Snow when he was upset.

He let out an animalistic groan.  “I’m not your fucking pet.”  His wet eyes were imploring.  “Please…please, just go.”

I couldn’t take it anymore, hurting Troll like that.  I pursed my lips together so I wouldn’t say anything else and took one giant sniff.

I turned away from him and softly padded out of the room.  I somehow found my way to the front door and opened it, the hinges creaking angrily at me, scolding me in no uncertain terms for shattering Troll’s heart.