The storm calls you as it calls me, does it not?
He held out a hand at her, half-beckoning, half offering
"why lie?"
Emma's POV
I looked stared his outstretched hand, one that offered an escape from a horrible alternative, and took as I reached out to take his hand, the image of Julian with his wounded eyes as I turned away from him involuntarily surfaced in my mind like an unwelcome guest at a party. I shook the memory off. It may cut at my heart now, but for the sake of my family and the future and Julian himself, endure it I must. I took Mark's hand firmly in mine, feeling the hardness of muscle as he pulled me into the circle of his muscular arms.
"Emma Carstairs" he said, his voice low but playful, as was the custom of the faerie-folk when dealing with affairs of the heart, "I once promised a favor, and a favor I shall return in full to you." He clasped me to his chest as I cried out the tears I had left unshed in the garden, at Julian's hurt, at the Law for forbidding the love of parabatai, at the consequences of love.
"I love Julian still... but for his sake and all of your sakes, I must..." I couldn't continue as I sobbed harder than before into Mark's shirt.
Mark's POV
Emma, poor Emma was crying herself empty onto my shirt, and for reasons unknown to me. I wanted to comfort her, but knew not how to without setting her off further. All I could say was...
"I know that you cannot completely erase my brother from your heart, but in order for him to move on, should you not also try?" She looked up at me with tear-stained eyes, red and puffy from crying.
"Like I said. I don't need a boyfriend. I need the lie." She tried to sound brusque, but the quiver in her voice said otherwise.
"But for the lie to succeed, do you not need my brother to believe in your love for I?" I persisted, trying to push the image of Kieran from my mind just as, I imagine, Emma was. She looked up at me, fully now, without tears in her eyes. A determined "little" girl with the beauty of the seraphs on her side.
"I suppose so..." She started before I, going on instinct, planted a soft, chaste kiss on her lips, which she leaned into, hesitantly at first, but after a while, voluntarily. When we broke away, a small look of hope had blossomed in her eyes. I was feeling winded and strangely flustered. "Do you really think it is possible? For... for me to fall in love with you?" I opened my mouth to reply that I don't know, but somehow, in my mind, I could see us together, lovingly, with the rest of the Blackthorns around us.
"Yes. I do." I replied and pulled her in for another chaste, but by no means short, kiss that heated my blood like Kieran's never had.
"Thank you" she murmured against my lips as she sank into my embrace, still locked onto me.