Cursed (The Devil's Roses 1)

She squealed into the phone. “Yayyyyyyy. Okay, I need to hear every detail word for word skip nothing.”

I told her everything he told me, word for word, to which she responded with ‘OMG’ and ‘seriously’ and ‘I knew it’ on repeat.

Her advice wasn’t exactly sage wisdom. “I think you should just do it. You should date him and have sex with him. Your sister never did, hey? She never got him into bed. He was always busy and stressed out. That’s why she's been sleeping with Mitchell this entire time.”

"Oh my God. She's disgusting. Mitchell too?"

"What did you expect? She likes physical relationships, Aimes."

I cringed. "I can't talk about this."

“Okay, look—I've got to go. I’m super tired out. They took more blood this morning and I’m beat. I’ll see you in a few weeks. Cool?”

I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. “Yeah for sure. Dad and I will be back. Don’t worry.”

“Peace out.” She clicked off and I was alone again. I had officially lost control of my emotions.

I looked to the sky, well—roof of the truck, and whispered, “Mom, I need you.”

Chapter Five

I am a rational human being.

I walked into the library, where Dad dropped me off. Thankfully, I felt the outside world leave me alone as I caught the first scent of the books. I loved the smell of books, but even more, I loved getting lost in them. If there ever was a time in my life I needed to get lost in books, it was that moment. I didn’t know what to do about Shane, or Giselle, or the stalker. It was too much excitement for how sick I was starting to feel again. I worried about my own liver, nearly as much as I worried about Giselle's.

I smiled at the librarian. “Hey, Mary.”

She waved, not really letting her eyes leave the stacks she was checking. “Aimee, it’s been forever. Thought you might have died, kid. You still have that book out on ancient medicinal practices?”

I laughed. Obviously, she hadn’t heard. I nodded. “Yeah, I need it for a few more weeks; I will re-sign it out today.”

“Good enough for me.” She walked over to her card catalogue.

Our library was tiny, with little to no technology ever making its way through the front doors. It was partly from lack of funding, and partly because it wasn’t needed. Mary remembered every book that left and who it left with.

I made my way to the history section and sat on the floor touching the spines of the books, feeling the history flow from them to me. My mom had taught me to love and respect history, especially art. She said it was a visual documentation of history. Every aspect of a civilization's time, whether it was education, religion, or science, was documented in art. Even the cave paintings taught us something about the people of its time.

“Can I just slip past you there?” I knew his voice, straight away. Afraid I would be disappointed to find someone else yet again, I looked up to see his smiling face.

I felt myself beam. “It’s you.”

He frowned, looking incredibly disappointed. “Sorry, have we met?”

He was exactly as I remembered, very tall, strong looking, dark-blond hair cut short and the whitest-blue eyes I had ever seen.

“You saved my life. I remember you. I was choking.” The words flew from my mouth as the memories flooded my brain. I looked at his sizable hands and remembered them inside my mouth. I shuddered a little at the thought. “I was on the floor turning blue, and you picked the vomit out of my mouth.”

He started to laugh, instantly I loved the sound. It was strong. “I’m sorry, miss, but I think you’re mistaken. I just need a book from where you’re sitting.”

I put a hand on the bookshelf to help myself stand. I winced as I stood up. My eyes met his chest. He was huge. “No, it’s true—I saw you.” I couldn’t stop staring up into his eyes.

He smiled.

I felt compelled to step closer to him and smell him. I knew he would smell familiar, like fresh ocean air but more intense, like incense. I didn’t know how I knew what he would smell like; he was supposed to be a ghost.

“Look, I'm really sorry, but I've never met you in my life. I think you’re confused.” He looked at me sternly, like he was trying to intimidate me into believing what my soul knew to be a lie.

I was nervous in the smallest part of my mind that he could still be the rapist. Even if, somehow, I knew his face better than I knew my own and his lips were not thin. They were full and soft looking, my favorite kind.

“I’m Aimee.” I put a hand out for him to take.

He hesitated and sighed, like he didn’t want to touch me. I wanted it so badly that when he even considered putting a hand out, I grabbed it and shook his hand. The warmth brought back the dream from the hospital. I remembered touching his hand. For me, it was as if our skin melted into each other’s for a split second. Touching him was like watching a scene from a movie, where the main characters realize they’re madly in love from the moment they meet. They stare at each other as the world spins past them. The feel of his skin excited me; it meant he was real. I wasn’t crazy or hallucinating.

He looked like he was in pain, touching me. My heart broke watching his response. Clearly the affection was one sided. Mine was more obsessions.

“It’s nice meeting you, uhhh—” I waited for him to answer his name.

He sighed. “Aleksander. My name is Aleksander.”

Mesmerized by him, I near whispered my sentence, “Aleksander, that’s a nice name.” His white-blue eyes flinched, hearing me speak his name. "So strong." I blushed, realizing I'd said it aloud.

He fought a grin.

"Well, it was nice meeting you." His slight accent was killing me. It was the cherry on top of the sexy sundae that was already irresistible, with his blue eyes and soft looking lips.

"It was?" I asked and continued to stare at his beautiful clear-blue eyes. I panicked at the thought of him leaving and blurted, “Now that we have officially met, don’t you want to talk about why I was on the floor throwing up?”

He continued to fight his smile, still looking at me intently. I had noticed the giant 'get lost' he was sending my way, but I ignored it as I continued, “I was drugged at a party. You were there. How do you know Shane?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know Shane, and I wasn’t at the party. Who drugged you?”

I wondered if he was toying with me. “Everyone thinks YOU did,” I said boldly.

His face dropped. “I would never do such a despicable thing. Why would you say that? Besides, if I was apparently the one picking the vomit out, why would I save you after trying to kill you?”

Unaware that we were still holding hands, I watched him seem to struggle with something. No doubt, it was that pale-skinned skinny girl with limp, blonde hair and cracked, chapped lips wasn't an appealing look.

I looked him deeply in the eyes; it was hypnotic. “You swear on my mom’s grave that you never drugged me?”

He flinched. “God, you don’t kid around do you?” He looked me severely in the eyes and squeezed my hand faintly. “I have never and will never drug you. I could never hurt you.”

I hadn’t taken a breath in a while and started to feel light headed. I wasn’t entirely certain that it wasn’t from being drawn to him more than anything in the entire world.

“You are so familiar to me,” I whispered, still close to his face; his lips were inches from mine. I could feel the heat of his breath on my mouth. He dropped my hand, leaving it hanging in the air.

“Maybe you dreamed of me, Aimee.” He smiled the most delicious smile I had ever seen. He looked like he was struggling with something internally.

I backed away, needing to come out of the bubble we had somehow stepped into, where we were the only people in the world. "I did dream of you."

"When?"

"In the hospital. I swear I know you."

“Beloved,” he whispered.

I was speechless. It had been a long time since anyone had said that word. “What?”

“Your name, it means beloved.”

I took another step away from him. “How do you know that?”

“Je parle français.” He just kept getting better.

“Well, your name means great protector.” I didn’t know why I said it, but he started laughing.

"I know what my name means."

“My mom called me beloved, all the time. Before she died.” There was gloom in my voice I couldn’t stop.

He winced. “How did she die?” He was making conversation and being nice to me, but I could see he wanted to escape. Now that I had finally found him, I wasn’t going to make it so easy.

I never took my eyes off of him, as I spoke quietly, “She was driving from the city to here, and she started to get sleepy, I guess. Even though it was midday, she got out of the car on the side of the road. We don’t know why. Sometimes she did some stretching when she got tired, so we think that's what she did. There was a trucker driving toward her and a dog ran out in front of him, a big dog, he said it was like a wolf. He swerved and lost control of the tandem trailers he was pulling. My mom was in front of the car when the back trailer swung around.”

He cringed, seeing the pain on my face. “I’m so sorry.”

I had never told the story. The words had never left my mouth. I didn’t cry, like I thought I would. For some reason, I was happy he was the one I told.

“She was close to home too; that’s the weird part. She was only about thirty minutes away. It was nine months ago.”

“That’s tragic.”

“She was an art historian.” The words just kept popping out.

He smiled. “The most complete detailed biographies in history are art.”

“That’s what my mom always said.” A smile crept across my lips.

“I guess art lovers all feel that way. I am a huge art buff myself.”