Page 113 of Gothikana

Corvina finally let go of her, wiping her cheeks, and came around to him. ‘We’re leaving now, Mama. I’ll come see you soon.’

Celeste remained unseeing.

Vad gathered Corvina in his arms and led her out into the corridor, the weather stormy outside.

‘You think we should wait for the storm to pass before we leave?’ she asked, her eyes slightly red and swollen.

Vad pulled her closer. ‘A few hours.’

She nodded, her lips quivering, her shining violet eyes coming up to him. ‘I don’t want to forget you,’ she whispered, gripping his jacket. ‘I don’t want to leave you alone, not like that.’

The love for this woman, this slight, little woman who had touched him with her eyes and breathed magic in his world swelled within him,brimming, overflowing. He pressed a kiss to her trembling mouth, then kissed her cute nose ring that was one of his favourite things, a piece of silver on her.

‘Little witch.’ He kissed her softly. ‘You’ll leave me when the roots of the roses on your grave…’

‘Leave the roots of the roses on yours,’ she completed, having heard it multiple times over the course of the months, taking a deep breath.

‘Who am I?’ he prodded, knowing this back and forth always eased her mind when she got scared.

‘My devil,’ she murmured.

‘And?’

‘My madness.’

‘And?’

‘My mountain.’

‘Good girl.’ He gave her the praise he knew she loved, watching her cheeks flush.

She pushed on her tiptoes, kissing him softly with her plum lipstick, making amusement course through him. He never understood her fascination of matching her lips to her clothes every day, but he loved tasting it, each one a surprise.

‘What will we do now?’ she asked, her violet eyes hypnotic. She had sorcery in those eyes, and he was bewitched, besotted, begone.

‘Live,’ he answered her, taking her out into a world that was nothing like the one they’d fallen in love in.

…OR DID IT?

Corvina

‘Eyes on me,’ he commanded her, and Corvina moaned, turning her head to catch his silver gaze as he pushed inside her from behind, his back pressed against her on the bed, rocking into her slowly, early in the morning before he had to take Count, their two year-old husky, out.

They were in their winter home in the snowy mountains, a large cottage-mansion on land that belonged to the Deverell family line, not too far away from the place they fell in love, even though they had never gone there again.

It had been five years since that fateful night, five years since that Black Ball. It had been another Black Ball last week, and she got toknow that for the first time in a century, nobody had disappeared. Maybe someone would the next time. Maybe not. She didn’t know.

Vad had taken her away from there and never looked back, never made her feel that he wasn’t missing a huge part of himself. That castle was his, that mountain was his, and though he was still active on the university Board and kept himself updated about what happened there, he never once broached the subject of returning to her. It was the most selfless thing anyone could have ever done for her, to sacrifice something so precious for so long.

Corvina looked down at her hand on the pillow, at the rings that now graced her finger, that beautiful amethyst he had given her years ago in the ruins sitting under a simple platinum band with ‘nevermore’ engraved on the inside.

‘Happy anniversary, Mrs Clemm-Deverell,’ he murmured to her as she clenched around him, her body his instrument just as it had been all these years.

‘I love it when you say that,’ she smiled, feeling his lips on her shoulder.

‘Yeah?’

She nodded.

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