“Cora?” Tor called.
I didn’t move.
I felt his hand on my back. “Cora, who was that?”
“My…” My nose started stinging, oh shit, I was going to cry again! Damn the other Cora! “My friend, Selena.”
“Love –”
“What’d she do?” I whispered, staring at the answering machine.
“Sweets –”
I looked up at him, tears swimming in my eyes and whispered again, “What’d she do?”
Then a tear fell, then another because I could tell my parents (maybe) that I’d been in another world but I couldn’t tell my friends. They’d never believe me, they’d think I was insane or making crazy excuses for whatever the other Cora did.
And whatever Cora did, it sounded bad and I knew from experience Cora’s bad was the worst that bad could be.
Tor pulled me to the couch, sat down in it with me and gathered me in his arms. I pressed into his chest and held onto him while the tears fell silently.
“I hope I never meet her,” I whispered after awhile.
“I hope you don’t either, love, it’s rarely a pleasant experience.”
After he spoke, for some reason, I just sat there, cradled by Tor and thought about the fact that none of my other friends had bothered to call back, knowing now what that meant. Then I tried to think of how to rectify whatever happened. Then I realized I was right back where I started in Bellebryn when Tor first took me there. But this time, it wasn’t a bunch of people I didn’t know who hated me, it was a bunch of people I cared about. A lot.
I sighed into Tor’s chest.
Tor murmured, “This musician is a poet,” and I lifted my head and looked at him.
“What?” I asked.
His eyes came to my face then his hand came to my face and he used his thumb to wipe away the wetness as he answered quietly, “That song that was just coming from your box,” he tipped his head to my stereo, “the musician is a poet.”
I tilted my head to the side because I’d been so deep in thought I hadn’t heard what was playing. Then I twisted and reached for my stereo remote in the side table drawer. I used it to go back to the song before the one playing and the guitar strums of The Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash into Me” started.
I looked up at Tor who was studying the remote, he felt my eyes, his came to mine and I smiled.
“I love this song,” I told him.
His eyes dropped to my mouth then without a word he slid the remote out of my hands and tucked my face back to his chest.
Held by Prince Noctorno Hawthorne on my sofa, in my world I listened to a beautiful, sexy song.
When it was over, almost immediately the guitar strums sounded again (clearly Tor had mastered the stereo remote) and we listened yet again, the words washing over me and I heard them not for the first time but I heard their meaning for the first time – they were words full of yearning, passion, admiration and a love that sounded like worship.
And again, when it was over, the guitar strums came back but when they did this time, Tor dropped the remote on the side table, pulled me out of the couch, put his hands to my hips and slid them around so he could fit me into his arms.
I tensed, thinking he was going to try to start something, maybe kiss me.
But he didn’t, he pressed his jaw to the side of my head and his hips started swaying, his hands at the small of my back moving me with him.
Holy crap, he was dancing with me in my living room.
I didn’t even wait a second before I closed my eyes and moved, telling myself, just this moment, just this time, just this five minutes with Tor and The Dave Matthews Band and a freaking fantastic song.
Just these five minutes.
So I bent my neck and rested my forehead to his shoulder. He took my hand, laced our fingers together, held them to his chest, his other hand pushing into the small of my back, fitting my hips snug to his. I slid my other arm around his shoulders and turned my head so my forehead was against his neck. At this, he bent his neck and rested his lips against mine.
And we swayed. Even when the tempo of the song increased, Tor kept our movements slow, fluid and in my little, colorful living room, the rain beating outside, the day gray, the streets grimy, with the help of The Dave Matthews Band, Tor created magic. I felt it with every strum of the guitars, every longing word, every sway of our hips, the hardness of Tor’s body pressed to mine, the warmth of his hand at the small of my back, his strong fingers holding mine tight.
It was the most astonishingly beautiful moment in my life, unbearably sexy, and even though I’d spent nearly two months in a glittering fairytale world, in that moment’s enchanting simplicity, it was by far and away the most magical.
And when the song faded away, I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to snatch the notes back. I didn’t want five minutes, I wanted ten, I wanted an hour.
I wanted a lifetime.
Tor’s hips stopped moving and his hand pressed mine flat to his chest before it came to my chin, lifted my face up to his and I could see, clear in his eyes, he’d felt everything I’d felt and that exquisite pain I felt last night again slashed through me.
Then he declared quietly, “The man who wrote the words in that song has given half his soul to his woman. There is destiny you cannot control but this man, he found the woman who completed him and he gave his soul at his liberty.”
And he said this like he knew it from experience.
And he said it looking at me.
Then he bent his head and touched his lips tenderly to each of my eyes in turn, both of them closing and staying closed even after he let me go and I heard his boots beat on my floors and then I heard the electric razor coming through the bedroom from the bathroom.
I realized my chest was rising and falling deeply, my eyes slowly opened and I stared at my wall as I allowed myself one more thing.
I allowed myself to feel that exquisite pain at the same time the shadow of the touch of Tor’s lips on my eyes lingered.
Then I went to my bathroom to share the basin with Tor as I fixed my makeup and decided not to share with him that “Crash into Me” had hints of voyeurism at the same time I decided, forever and always, that song would mean to me exactly what it meant to Tor.
* * *
And now we were in my car, heading to my parents’ house and I was, again, freaking out.
And I was tired of freaking out.
So damned tired of it.
Tor’s hand came to mine and his fingers laced through while he noted softly, “I like this transport.” I turned to look at him and watched him lift my hand and brush his lips against my knuckles.
Damn. There it was, that exquisite pain was back.
He dropped our hands to his thigh and without taking his eyes from the road, he continued, “But I prefer Salem. In your car, you’re too far away.” My breath caught. “On Salem, you’re right where you’re supposed to be.”
I closed my eyes, looked away then sighed deeply.
I wished he’d quit saying (and doing) things like that at the same time I wished he’d never stop.
Damn.
My folks’ house came into sight and I whispered to Tor, pointing with my hand not held in his, “It’s that one, right there. You can park in front.”
With ease, Tor guided my car to the curb.
I stared out the window at my parents’ house, trying to force myself toward calm.
I felt Tor squeeze my fingers and my head swung to him.
“It’ll be all right, my love,” he assured me quietly.
“Right,” I whispered, not believing him.
His hand brought mine to his chest as his other hand came out, hooked me around the neck and pulled me to him.
“If it isn’t, I’ll make it so,” he declared. “That’s a vow.”
I held my breath. Tor smiled at me.
And, damn and blast, looking at his smile and the ease behind his eyes, I found calm.
Chapter Twenty-One
Meeting the Parents
“You what?” my father shouted at me then his eyes sliced to Tor, his fists hit the table, he shot out of his chair and bellowed, “Get away from my daughter!”
I closed my eyes tight.
Let’s just say that dinner was not going well.
It had started okay.
Sure, Mom and Dad had been a little overawed in an obvious way when they first laid eyes on Tor. For one, he was a lot taller than any of my other boyfriends (a lot). For two, he was also a lot more powerfully built (a lot). And three, he was a lot scarier-looking (a lot).
Tor was hot but that didn’t mean he looked like a guy you messed with. All of my boyfriends were relatively good-looking but they were also laidback, easygoing and fun-loving. Tor looked like what he was. A warrior dressed in jeans, boots and a nice shirt.
His scar, no matter how sexy, obviously helped.
But my parents seemed game and were themselves, friendly and charming.
Things disintegrated when Tor was, well, Tor. He was touchy, very much so. He was also attentive, very much so. And he was possessive, clearly so. I couldn’t really explain how he demonstrated the last, he just did. And Mom and Dad caught it. And Mom, who for two decades of my life (to my utter embarrassment as a teen) didn’t wear a bra and Dad, who read Mom’s newsletters from the National Organization for Women from cover to cover (sometimes taking highlighters to it just so Mom, during her perusal, wouldn’t miss things Dad thought important she note), didn’t take to it too well.
It didn’t help matters that I was freaked out, worried, confused and my life was in a turmoil… and it showed. They noticed and didn’t take to that too well, either.
They started to pry into the last two months of my life, specifically how I hooked up with Tor, and, wanting to pick the best time to deliver the news that Tor and I were at the mercy of unpredictable blue mist magic, my answers were cagey. Tor took my lead and kept completely silent on the subject. Again, they didn’t take to that too well.
Conversation became stilted. Mom and Dad exchanged unhappy glances. Tor was catching my eye, communicating to me that if I didn’t do something, he would. I didn’t want him to do anything Tor-like which would likely not go over very well either so, after eating Mom’s delicious herbed chicken, cheesy-garlic mashed potatoes and steamed greens but before she moved us onto dessert, I told them that Tor was from a parallel universe, the same parallel universe I had been hurled into in my sleep and resided in the last two months and we were at the whim of blue mist magic.
“Forrest!” Mom cried when Dad finished shouting.
“Dad, please sit down and calm down,” I urged.
“No!” Dad returned to me. “What hold does this man have over you?” he asked then didn’t allow me to answer and looked at Tor. “What are you doing to my daughter? Why haven’t we seen or heard from her in two months? Why does she believe this crazy story? Are you drugging her fruit juice?”
I didn’t drink fruit juice primarily because I preferred to chew my calories unless they were alcoholic (not that I chewed very much fruit, but you get what I’m saying) and my Dad knew that (not about the calories, just that I didn’t drink juice). He was being dramatic. He was also being loud.
“Pardon?” Tor asked, his tone quiet but also deadly. He didn’t like my father’s words or the way they were thrown at him, he was the future king after all, and a prince to boot and, well, Tor and I could see him struggling for control.
“Drugging her fruit juice?” Dad continued. “Addling her mind? A parallel universe! That’s insane! Are you in some kind of cult?”
“Dad!” I exclaimed. “Tor’s not in a cult!”
My father ignored me.
“What kind of name is Tor, anyway? Were you born with that name?” Dad asked Tor, forgetting, in his histrionics, that he had for a brief period of time called himself (and made others call him) Eaglethorn (Mom had taken the name Jasminevine, luckily they stopped doing this before I was born).
“No,” Tor replied calmly then announced in his deep, commanding voice, “I am Prince Noctorno Allegro Hawthorne of the House of Hawthorne, heir to the Kingdom of Hawkvale and ruler of Bellebryn. Those close to me, including Cora, call me Tor.”
Uh-oh.
What he said was true but it was not the right thing to say. I could see it because my Mom went pale but my Dad went beet red.
“Prince… Prince… what the hell!” he boomed. “It’s you that’s insane and you’re with my daughter!”
“Sir, I am far from insane,” Tor gritted between his teeth.
“Dad, he’s not insane,” I rushed to put in. “I know this sounds…” my mind searched for a word, my eyes found Tor’s and then it came to me, “fantastical.” I heard and saw Tor draw in an annoyed breath and my eyes shot to my father. “But it’s true.”
“Um, maybe… uh, Tor,” Mom cut in, “I don’t wish to be rude but considering things are, uh… intense and we haven’t seen Cora in awhile, perhaps you could go so we could have some time alone with our daughter?”
“I’ll not do that,” Tor replied immediately.
“And why the hell not?” my father returned just as immediately.
“Because, sir,” Tor stated slowly, visibly fighting for control, “as Cora explained to you, we are at the mercy of magic and I do not want to be far from her should it start to take her… or me.”
Dad glared at him then he turned his glare to my mother. “The mercy of magic. This is insane,” he breathed with disgust.
“I would thank you to stop saying that,” Tor said softly and Dad’s eyes cut back to him then he leaned into him, hand on the table and everything.
“And I would thank you to get up from my table and get the hell out of my house but especially, while you’re doing that, out of my daughter’s life!”
Tor’s face turned to stone, he rose out of his seat, tossing his napkin to the table and I knew it was time to intervene.
So I shot out of my chair and rushed around the table to put my hand on my father’s arm.
“Dad, listen to me,” I begged.
He didn’t even look at me, just glowered up at Tor. “I’m busy, sweetheart. I’m about to escort this man out.”
“Dad,” I squeezed his arm, “listen. Please, listen. It’s true. All of it. I woke up in a parallel universe. A fairytale land. A fantasyland. Where they ride horses and birds talk to you and the air shimmers like it has glitter in it. But there is a me there like there is a Tor here. All the same people are in both worlds, I reckon, and I was switched with the Cora of their world.”
Dad slowly swung his head to face me and the look in his eyes made my heart clench. He genuinely thought I’d gone around the bend and this thought pained him. So I got closer and pulled him around to face me, lifting my other hand to take his other arm.
“I know it sounds crazy, trust me, I know. But it isn’t. I woke up and all the furniture in my room was wonky, like out of an animated kid’s movie. And it wasn’t my room. And then my sister came dancing in and she was so beautiful, so graceful, it was unreal. Her name was Rosa and…”
I stopped because the minute I said the name “Rosa” Dad’s body got still under my hands, his eyes shot to my mother and the air in the room grew heavy.
“Rosa?” my mother whispered and I turned my head to look at her. “In this parallel universe, you had a sister named Rosa?”
“Uh… yes,” I replied, looking at my Mom who was even paler and when I did her eyes moved swiftly to my father and she put a hand out flat on the table.
“Mom?” I called and released my Dad in order to go to her because she looked like she was about ready either to burst into tears or pass out.
“Rosa,” my Mom whispered again when I got to her, crouched down, her eyes were tipped up to my Dad and I covered her hand on the table with mine and squeezed. When I did, her head slowly turned to me. “Rosa was alive in that world?”
Oh. My.
God.
“By the gods,” Tor murmured, I looked to him to see he was gazing at my mother, his face contemplative but his body had lost its angry energy.
I looked back to my Mom and whispered, “Is there something I don’t know?”
Tears trembled in my Mom’s eyes before she replied, “We had a little girl.” Oh my God. “She died at birth.” Oh my God! “We named her Rosa.”
I closed my eyes then opened them.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I… I couldn’t. I couldn’t talk about it. It was bad, sweetie. The birth was bad. For me too. After that, I couldn’t have any more kids. Your Dad and me, we wanted a whole houseful and we lost that and we lost Rosa and I…”
“Stop,” I whispered when her tears spilled over. “Stop, Mama. I understand.”
“It wasn’t like I was trying to keep anything from you, it was just –”
I cut her off again. “Stop, Mom. I understand.”
She blinked and more tears fell then she turned to Tor. “Rosa is alive in your world?”
I tensed, for Rosa was alive but she was also the hostage of a cruel witch-god but Tor simply said, “Alive and beloved. The only beauty in the land more exquisite than hers is Cora’s. The only qualities in the land more dear are those of my Cora, the Cora of this world.”
I felt my body start at his words and I whispered, “That last part isn’t true,” and Tor’s gaze came to me.
“It is, my sweet.”
“It isn’t, most everyone hates me,” I reminded him.
“No, Cora, everyone hates the Cora of that world.”
I rose, telling him, “But they think she’s me.”
“Indeed, they do but it has been you gracing my castle for the past weeks and it was you, and your rabid, not befitting a princess behavior that you displayed in towns and villages for miles that people have been experiencing. Word travels. They used to call you Cora, the Exquisite due to your beauty. Now, you’re becoming known as Cora, the Gracious.”
Cora, the Gracious?
Wow. I liked that.
“Really?” I asked.
Tor’s eyes grew warm. “You read to blind women, love, and rescue wild, wounded birds and make them your pet. You smile at every child you see and touch their cheeks or ruffle their hair, which, by the way, you must stop doing.” Even if his words were melting my heart, my eyes still narrowed and he smiled at me. “You are friendly, you are polite, you are kind and you are merciful. You are Cora, the Gracious.”