Can't Fight Time Ch. 12

Hey Everyone!

So, I'm very excited! I get to do an interview with Lit's own JazCullen! What?! Crazy, right? Check out my profile page for more info about it. I'll also be doing two Author Spotlights this week! I'm beyond excited. Now here is the next chapter, and this is by far one of my favorite chapters. After this one, my chess game starts moving rapidly. You've met all my characters, my kings and queens and pawns, now let's watch them move. But keep this is mind: who is moving the pieces?

Awh, I just like messing with everyone. But seriously, I hope you enjoy!

-Rosi

***

Grim paced the length of their bedroom like a caged lion. "Give me one good reason you won't marry me."

Nina was on the bed, laying on her side with her ankles crossed and a book under her nose. Candlelight played against the sheer red curtains surrounding their bed, bounced off the ancient carvings in the dark wood frame, and painted Nina in a soft pink light.

Grim loved how she looked in his bed, in his room, in his home. She fit in the castle. Surrounded by tapestries, candles, and furniture older than he was, she fit. It was the way her feet hit the stone floor, dancing around places where the stones dipped and shifted unevenly. It was the way her fingers traced the edges of the paintings and tapestries, eyes gorging on the scenes depicted, curiosity turning her chestnut eyes a deeper chocolate.

Curling up with her on one of the chaises in his library and listening to her read, answering her endless questions, pulling her down and making love to her when he didn't want to hear anything but her cries and moans of pleasure.

She fit him. He knew she did. He just needed to make her see that, make her understand.

Grim watched Nina look up from the novel and roll her eyes at him. He thought he might just snap.

They'd been fighting about his desire to marry her for weeks now. Grim had offered her the world—his world, but she'd repeatedly shot him down, continuing with the 'no future here' nonsense.

His power crackled in the air with his anger, but Nina seemed to barely recognize it. Maybe she'd gotten used to it. After all, the only time he seemed to be unable to control himself was around her. She drove him absolutely insane. One minute he wanted to kiss her and screw her up against the wall, and the very next he wanted to shake and scream at her.

Grim watched Nina lever herself up on the crimson and gold counterpane, cross her legs, and flip the book over onto the bed. "I'll give you three."

Holding her hand up, she began to tick off her fingers as she listed the reasons. "One: I have a contract with Uri that says I have to go back in three months. Two: I'm pretty sure you keeping me here as your wife is going to piss a whole bunch of reapers off, most of all your actual fiancée. Three: I have accepted that I have to die, because I'm human."

Grim stopped at the foot of the bed and glowered at her. "You're being idiotic."

He watched Nina's jaw lock and her eyes blaze with fury. Grim flexed his fist as he watched her calmly crawl from the bed.Where does she think she's going?

"When you've calmed down, you can come see me." The words were forced out through gritted teeth as she shoved her feet into a pair of shoes and sailed past him. "I'll be back in my room."

A flick of his power sent her careening back onto the bed. Another flick had her spread wide, held in place by invisible restraints. With Nina restrained, the beast within him—that wild part that decided to break all the rules and screw the consequences—relaxed.

"Let me go, Grim." Nina bit off, straining her body against the restraints. "You're being an asshole again."

Grim snorted and came around the bed to sit near her. She was beautiful when she was angry, fire sparking her eyes, skin flushed and tight. So similar to the way she looked when he made love to her. "Half the time I'm an asshole. The other half I'm an uncaring dick."

It was true; which was why he was trying to change. Nina made him want to change. She made him want things he wasn't supposed to want. "I'm trying to be the man you need,Amica.I'm trying."

Nina stopped struggling and looked at him with those big chestnut-brown eyes, so intelligent, always seeing more than he wanted her to see. Then she blew out a gusty sigh and most of the tension that had been holding her left.

"I know you are, Grim." Her voice was soft. "I know you are."

The conversation with his parents had made him realize something, while seeing Felicia and speaking with the council had set it in stone. This was his—immortal—life! Politics aside, he saw how his parents lived; his father in a quick descent into madness and his mother hating her life and being miserable all the time. Honor, duty, and political alliances had driven them to that. Grim refused to follow the same path, refused to sacrifice centuries of living for an alliance that wouldn't even hold.

His feelings for Nina would hold. That, Grim knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, was true. He might be a possessive asshole, haunted by ghosts, but he needed Nina—needed her like he'd needed nothing else.

"Marry me." The words were spoken softly as he flicked his power and released her.

A soft palm caressed his cheek, and Grim grasped it instinctively, turning her hand to place a kiss in her palm his thumb passing over Uri's mark as he stroked the top of her hand. "Please,Amica."

"Grim..." A soft sigh. "Why?"

I love you.The words rested on his tongue, but he knew the walls had ears. "I can't let you go. You mean more to me than you know."

For a few tense moments, they stared at each other. Nina looked at Grim, trying to decide what to do, while Grim looked at Nina, hoping she would finally say yes. He wouldn't force her, but he also couldn't lose her.

"Come lay beside me, Grim."

He was beside her in a second, reaching out for her and pulling her against him. It felt right to have her against him, with him. Grim tipped her face up, looking into wide brown eyes dancing with a hint of curiosity. It was one of his favorite faces, one that most assuredly spelled out trouble for him. It was one of the many things he loved and hated about her.

He pulled her even closer. "I don't want to lose what we had in the beginning."

Her lashes lowered, shielding her eyes for a second. "We will always have that first conversation, Grim." Nina raised her eyelids and looked at him. "We won't lose that."

But already he felt the easiness between them slipping away and becoming something else. Grim wasn't sure what it was, or even if it was going to be good for them, but it was there in every word and touch.

Turning away from her, Grim forced a smile and retreated into the past. "Do you remember the second time we met?"

Nina swung her leg over, straddled his hips, and placed her ear against his heart. "Of course," her voice rumbled through him. "You appeared out of nowhere and claimed to be my boyfriend, then commanded the detective to leave. I was so freaked out."

"You didn't show it." Grim stroked a hand through her hair, twining the curls around his fingers. "You kept a level head, and didn't as much as let out a peep when I told you I was Death."

Nina laughed the sound carefree and young. He'd forgotten what it sounded like to hear her laugh, really, truly laugh. Grim hadn't realized how much he'd missed the sound. He didn't realize how integral Nina had become to his life after only a few weeks, just a little more than a month. It was amazing the difference time made.

"Yeah, well, what was I supposed to do? Faint? Scream? Go into 18th Century female hysterics?" She snorted. "Give me a little credit, Grim."

His lips quirked at her indigent tone. Sometimes she forgot how small and fragile she was, but he never did. Not even for a second. She was a mouse around lions, and unless she suddenly changed her species, that was all she would ever be.

Still, he loved her. A lion loved a mouse.

Grim looked down at her bent head; her ear rested on his heart, her other hand rested across from her, the same hand that bore his brother's mark. Jealousy flooded Grim's veins and soaked into his bones. Uri had constantly pushed him, gotten under his skin and made him wonder how much he needed a brother.

"Give me your left hand."

Nina lifted her hand and looked quizzically up at him. Whatever she saw in his eyes made her lever herself into a sitting position, and with a tiny bit of hesitation, finally give him her hand. Uncertainty furrowed her brows, but steely resolve hardened her body.

She wasn't afraid of him, and Grim wondered if she'd ever been. Nina had always been strong, and perhaps whatever power he had over her had just been an illusion. She held all the power, and always had.

Laying a gentle kiss on the inside of her wrist, then her palm, Grim turned her hand over and stared at the intricate mark there. The seal was only as big as his thumb, and could be completely overlooked as a birthmark to humans, but the swirling patterns and complicated spells were more than visible to him. In the heart of the contract, written in a language only ancients could read, was Uriel's seal.

He would wipe the mark from her body, take away everything that was his brother. Nina had given her consent thus far, or the seal would have repelled him. It was a small dose of Uri's power inside her body, but Nina didn't know that.

Rubbing his thumb across the mark, Grim looked up into her eyes. So beautiful, so captivating. Everything about her was captivating. The tight, dark brown and red curls, her soft raw-sugar skin, the curves that kept him locked to her, drowning in her—addicted, that's what he was.

Grim kept his voice low, so the walls didn't hear. "Do you trust me?"

Something clouded in her eyes, maybe uncertainty and fear. But it was gone and Nina was leaning down and kissing him like he was a life raft in a tsunami. "I trust you, Grim."

He knew how much it cost her to admit that, and he couldn't be any more thankful. Rubbing his thumb against the mark again, Grim gathered a bit of his energy and forced it into Nina, past Uri's mark, until the seal broke, faded away, and created a new contract.

Nina's body tensed and she bit out a small cry. He knew the pain she was feeling was intense, but it was also fleeting. It was much easier to remove or apply a contract then to override one. However, at the time contracts had been used reapers died more often, leaving the woman contracted to a dead reaper. That was why the contracts had been remade, the ability to override another's claim insinuated into the fine print.

Grim slid his other hand into her hair. "Amica, look at me."

Wet eyes met his, clouded with pain. Grim hated to see her in pain, hated to think that she might have to experience something worse when she returned to the human world. He couldn't let her, he loved her too much.

"Marry me." Grim pulled her down to him until their foreheads touched. "I love you."

Silent tears fell on his cheek as she cried, but he didn't push her, didn't force her any further. He just held her; arms locked tight, and let her cry. Let her work out the guilt and the pain and all of the other emotions coursing through her. He was her rock.

Seconds stretched into long minutes before Nina finally calmed. She hadn't made a sound, hadn't wept hysterically, or raged. The tears had been an outpouring of frustration, a feeling he understood all too well. He'd shed those same tears a very long time ago, when he'd been in a very dark place with no exit.

"It'll never work, Grim," Nina said, so softly he thought he might have imagined it.

Grim drew her closer to him, became everything she would ever need. "We'll make it work."

"We fight a lot. I'm constantly negative. You're going to be a king. Then there's the—"

"Yes or no, Nina. Just one word."

"I..." Nina paused, and Grim looked down at her, saw her bottom lip worried between her teeth.

He leaned down and used his tongue to take away the sting from her lip. "One word."

"Yes." ***

"Damn it!" Nina cursed softly as she turned and looked at Grim, relaxed and sleeping peacefully.

Why can't I be like that?She wondered, feeling a bit jealous of her lover—correction, fiancée. Reapers didn't really need to sleep, but some enjoyed the act. Grim said that reapers who were born from a human enjoyed the act because they dreamed, and they could escape into another place.

Sighing softly, Nina slipped out from underneath Grim's body and swung her feet over the side of the bed. The carpet was soft beneath her feet as she wrapped a cotton nightgown and robe around her body.

There was no point staying in bed if she wasn't going to sleep, and she refused to stare at Grim like some freaky stalker. So she left, closing the door softly behind her, and nodded to the guards stationed outside of their room as she began her walk.

As always the hulking trees ignored her, and only the angry curl of their lips reminded her that they still saw her. But Nina couldn't care about them at the moment, her mind too consumed with Grim.

She'd said yes. Against all of her better intentions, she'd said yes. But did that really change anything? For her, it didn't.

"Hello!" A cheery voice that reminded her of a jovial Santa Claus called out from the darkness.

Hand pressed against her chest, Nina whipped her head around and saw an older man with wavy black hair and pale silver skin wiggling his fingers at her in welcome.

"Who are—"

"Tuoni Bloodspurn, King of this fair land." The man spread his arms wide and turned in a slow circle, eyes closed with a bright smile on his face.

Nina frowned as she remembered the crazy man from the throne room. And with him so close, she couldn't mistake the resemblance to Grim. Blue-diamond eyes met hers, and aside from a thin scar just underneath his five o'clock shadow, his slightly shorter height, and his pale skin he could have been Grim's twin.

Just as quickly as he began spinning he stopped, whipped his head to Nina and in half a second was nose to nose with her. A scream jumped to her throat but she refused to let it out. It didn't seem like this man would hurt her, but there was definitely something off. But then again, there was something off with everyone in the castle, a sort of detached coldness that permeated the halls.

"Would you care to take a walk?" The king asked suddenly, as he took a step back and gave her some space.

"Um..." She didn't know if she could refuse a king, but she really didn't want to spend more time than she had to with the man.

His smile softened as if he could sense her distress. "I'm going insane, my dear," the king said quietly as he looked at a point just behind Nina, maybe a place in the past. "I've lost myself. I'm out of my mind. I've lost myself. I'm out of time."

Nina listened as he muttered to himself, trapped somewhere else. It almost seemed to fit that the Bloodspurn King would be going mad. They were born from Death, and so Death couldn't steal them.

It sort of explained why Grim was becoming the king now. His father wasn't able to rule because he was losing himself. "Your Highness?"

The man blinked and seemed to come back from whatever ledge he'd been on. "Tuoni, please, my dear. After all you're going to be my daughter soon."

"How do you—?"

"The walls have ears, my dear. Never forget that." Tuoni held his arm out for her in the way a knight might for his lady. "Shall we take that walk now?"

For a second Nina assessed the situation rationally. Grim didn't know where she was, and the castle was big enough that the mad king in front of her could take her to the BDSM room she'd seen. It was all so strange, that Nina felt she couldn't do anything else but go along with it. What did she have to lose, anyway?

"Alright, Tuoni." Nina took his arm and they began to stroll down the hall.

She could feel the barely leashed power under his skin, moving faster than the blood in her veins. "Are you really okay with me marrying Grim?" she asked, curious about his position on the issue.

Tuoni patted her hand and turned a corner. A sudden burst of wind sent them flying down the corridor, like they took one large step, the transition was seamless. Then they were turning another corner.

"My mind flickers like a flame on a wick. Answers come to questions unasked. And I am nearly dead." Tuoni's voice sounded far away, in another world. Nina tugged at his sleeve until he turned and smiled down at her, showing that he was still with her.

"Do you know what makes a truly good story, Nina?" he asked suddenly.

Nina could tell that he was in another place. She decided to treat him like she treated her father, with the sort of patience and softness a parent had for a child. Smiling gently, she shook her head and waited for him to continue.

"One that is both fantasy and reality. In a world that mirrors ours, so we can understand it, see it, but never go there. But you have gone to that world, my dear." He turned and smiled widely at her, like she'd just told a very funny joke. "I'm not sure if you're human."

Nina felt her spine stiffen. "I don't understand what you're talking about."

He turned away and looked straight ahead, repeating the chant: "My mind flickers like a flame on a wick. Answers come to questions unasked. And I am nearly dead."

The king paused, almost like he had no choice, like an invisible tether cut him short. "You are nearly dead, Nina, and yet you know so much more than you should.

"My opinion is irrelevant. It is like a mouse having an opinion about a lion—" He turned and bared his teeth in what only a fool would call a smile. "You could crush all of us under your paws."

Nina studied his profile, wondering if he was absolutely brilliant or completely bonkers. She decided on the latter. "Tuoni, I—"

"We're here," he interrupted, letting go of her hand to push open a set of double doors.

Nina hadn't even realized they'd still been walking until he stopped. The doors spread wide and lead out to a balcony the size of a small room, shaped in a half circle. "Come," Tuoni beckoned.

Her hands closed around the railing of the balcony, her eyes stretching wide to see the town, quiet and dark, then further to a forest so thick, that light couldn't penetrate its canopy. "It's beautiful!"

Tuoni chuckled softly as he came to rest beside her, elbows on the railing. "It is, isn't it?" His voice held a note of longing.

"Tuoni..." Nina paused, not sure what she was asking for, not sure if she had the right to ask it.

There were too many questions buzzing in her head, some she couldn't even put into words. Instead of trying to narrow it down, search through her chaotic thoughts, she asked the first question that came to her lips. "What's happening?"

There was something mysterious, yet comforting about the crazy king. Nina had a niggling feeling that he wasn't really crazy, but rather trapped in a place where time blurred together and spun out until it eclipsed everything—consumed as it destroyed.

"We're a dying people, my dear." The king blew out a tired breath he hadn't needed to take and gave her a waning smile. "Our blood has been left too long, never leaving, always the same. Humans were our only ties to keep us from the past, and without them we are slipping, falling back."

"What?" Nina asked softly when he didn't continue after a few moments.

The king's blue-diamond eyes flashed with something like loathing, but Nina didn't feel like it was directed at her. Still, the intensity behind it made her shiver and draw back.

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The man spoke in riddles, and it was driving Nina up the wall. One minute she'd think he was sane, and the next they'd be back to square one. She didn't even know why she bothered. Nothing she learned now would help her anyway. Reapers, crazy kings, and mad scientist gods. None of it really mattered. Sure it made for a great story, and a pretty cool autobiography, but that was for people who had time.