Chapter Fourteen

Sarah

September 30th, 2002. Day 13 of quarantine.

"What's the matter?"

Sarah looked to Aldric, who was watching her from across the wide wooden table. When she had come through the portal mirror a few hours previously, he had let her know he had business to conduct. She was reading a paperback novel she had brought with her, and the constant scratch of Aldric's quill on parchment had been a pleasant background noise to the story she was so absorbed in. That had been until the heroine had to make a choice between the two men in pursuit of her, and Sarah had stopped reading, only staring at the pages until the letters blurred.

Aldric set down his quill, giving her his full attention. "You can tell me."

"It's nothing," she said, trying and failing to give a genuine smile. He frowned, and she lifted her book. "I was spacing out, but it's a really good book."

"Good enough that you haven't turned a page in almost half an hour?" He arched a brow. "Really, Sarah, I ask so little. You were sighing. Something is troubling you."

She grimaced and slid her bookmark into place. This is probably another ploy to gain some kind of leverage over me. But she had agreed to accept Aldric as a suitor, and that came with certain privileges. One of which was that she must not be completely closed off to him, even though it would make all this so much easier if she could be. "My dad broke quarantine yesterday while I was here. He barged in on Jareth and tried packing me a suitcase. I managed to calm him down, but he's not happy with the situation."

"Your father knows about me and our bargain?"

Sarah nodded. "He's not pleased with it, either, and made me promise to never let one of you do magic on him again without his permission."

Aldric tilted his head. "And why is that? Does he not appreciate his healed heart?"

"He does, but I think he's—he's a man of science, of reason. He's not responding well to the discovery that magic is real. If you were a doctor offering him a new kind of medication, that would be one thing, but when you wave your hand and fixed what a team of surgeons couldn't, it freaked him out." Sarah thought about how well her father had looked last night, despite the bluster. He had been wild-eyed but sharp, without the careful way of moving he had adopted over the previous five years.

"I assure you I did more than wave my hand," Aldric said, tone light and amused. "Healing magic does require a certain level of ceremony."

"I'd like to see one day," Sarah said before she thought better of it.

His smile was sudden and wide. "Already looking forward to our future?"

She glowered at him and turned away, his rich laugh seeming to coat her skin. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"Nevertheless, it does bring up something I want to talk to you about. Your magic," he grinned when Sarah snapped her head around. "Yes, you have your own. A very potent thing when harnessed correctly. Did you read the book I left you?"

"Yes," she said. "But the way it was written was kind of archaic. I don't think I understood it all."

"Which parts were confusing, pet?"

Sarah ignored the endearment. "I don't know what it means that I have some magic. Jareth told me it is one of the reasons someone who is touched is so prized. I have a piece of Faerie in me."

"You do," Aldric said, voice soft. "Unlike those of us who were born out of it, you have your own separate piece, disconnected from the whole, and it grows within you with each passing year. Did he tell you how to access it?"

Sarah flushed, remembering what Jareth told her. "Blood and sacrifice, he said. Consumption and sex."

"As always, my brother is crude. Crude, but honest. This time." He rose from his seat and began moving around the table toward her. "It is true during sex—consensual sex, for forcing one of your kind will unleash a curse upon the attacker—you release power, but there are other ways to harness it which don't require you to bleed."

Sarah's heart started picking up tempo as Aldric neared, and she grasped her book in her lap like a lifeline, pulse hammering. He perched on the table a foot from her, the heat coming off him reminding her of his brother. Her traitorous body warmed, arousal pooling in her middle. Glancing up at him, she saw his nostrils flare. She got up, putting the chair between them, color high on her cheeks.

"Perfect," he breathed, staring at her. "You desire me, Sarah," he stated it as fact, and when she opened her mouth to protest, he lifted a hand, silencing her. "You can use desire to wield or gift your magic. It's a small thing, really, just enough to light a candle, say, or heal a minor scratch. Would you like me to teach you how?"

She wanted to learn magic, but she did not trust him, and her heart was still pounding like the hoofbeats of a panicked horse. "That's okay," she managed, her voice little more than a whisper. She licked her lips and cleared her throat. "I'll ask Jareth."

Aldric let out a snort of derision. "Jareth was never fully trained. He acquired the Labyrinth when he was only fifty. Many of us do not leave our studies until well after our first century. I learned shoulder to shoulder with our greatest minds in the citadel until I was nearly three hundred. I can teach you more than he ever could."

Sarah thought of last night when Jareth had drunkenly changed the room around, and they had crashed to the floor together. It had been funny, at the moment, but there were larger implications there. Implications Jareth did not possess full control over his abilities.

But I haven't asked him about it yet, she reminded herself. I'm not going to take anything Aldric says on faith anymore.

"I see you reading, pet. I see the need for knowledge shining in your eyes. Let me help you." His voice was like silk, and suddenly he was before her, pinning her between the chair and the table. She swallowed and leaned back. "You can feel it now, can't you? It should be like heat, like little licks of fire in your veins, or the rush of lightning. Focus on that feeling."

Sarah drew in a deep breath, which was a mistake around Aldric. He smelled of vanilla brandy and autumn leaves. He wore cologne today, as well—amber, citrus, and spices. The scent seemed to go straight through her. And she was filled with the exact sensations he described, hot coals seeming to flare beneath her skin in time to her rushing heart. It was easy to do as he said and focus on it, to have the sensation unfold into something more—a profound sense of belonging.

"There," he whispered. "Now, try to narrow that attention to your right hand, and summon a flame. Just a small one. Enough to light a wick, perhaps, no more." His mismatched eyes were intense, dark, and filled with the desire she had seen the first day she met him.

Her throat went dry. She tried to do what he said, focusing all the strange, buzzing energy inside her into the palm of her hand. It heated, but nothing more happened, and it was hard to contain the magic to a single limb. "I can't," she stammered. "It's not working." How does one 'summon a flame,' anyway?

Aldric reached for her, and she flinched back. He frowned, his movement halted. "You agreed to let me be your suitor. I have given you my promise, twice over now, you will come to no harm while you're with me. I have been nothing but honest with you. What more must I do to gain your trust, Sarah? I hate to see you recoil at even the suggestion of my touch."

There seemed to be real hurt in his voice, and sympathy swelled at his words. She tamped it down, her blood still singing with magic. I can't trust him. She could trust Jareth, she knew, she—

Aldric grasped her face with his hands and kissed her.

Sarah's eyes widened as his teeth grazed her lower lip and his tongue swept out, tracing the seam of her mouth. It parted in an involuntary motion, and he made a sound of pleasure, deepening the kiss to taste her.

Her pulse was a roaring thing, like ocean waves in a tempest, and she raised her hands to his chest. For half a moment, she let herself be kissed. If nothing else, Aldric was skilled. But then the heat building in her body and collecting in her palm shot forth, and he stumbled back from her with a yelp, beating at his vest where a small fire was licking up the thick cloth. The scent of singed hair was sharp and acrid in the air.

Sarah's chest was heaving, and as soon as Aldric moved away from her, she darted around to the other side of the table, putting plenty of distance between them. Her palm pulsed and throbbed, almost as though she had placed it on a stovetop. Looking at it, however, there was nothing the matter.

He started to laugh, and she jerked her head around to him, watching as he circled the table, coming toward her once more, his motions casual. Sarah backed up, not bothering to disguise her fear.

"Calm down," he chided, a chuckle coating his words. "I will not attempt to kiss you again this day. But you did it. You summoned the flame. I knew you could."

The pride in his voice was thick, and Sarah had the stomach-churning sense he saw her as a pet in truth. "Don't do that again," she said, still tasting him on her tongue. He tasted as he smelled, like autumn and cool nights with warm amber liquor. Her stomach churned again. "How long do I have?"

"A few more minutes," Aldric said, crossing his arms over his chest. They stood a good few feet apart now. "I could teach you more than a fire trick, you know. You could do much with the magic you have inside you. You only need the right... catalyst."

"And you are the right catalyst?" Sarah asked, not bothering to hide her anger. "That's why you kissed me?"

"I kissed you because I've wanted to kiss you since I met you. I want to do a great deal more than that, but I know you're not ready. Just as I know you're not ready for my brother, either, or I would have smelled it."

Sarah wrinkled her nose. "Gross."

Aldric smiled. "My sentiments exactly."

"That's not what I meant," she snapped. "At least he asks."

"Oh, does he?" He lifted an eyebrow. "And what of the spellwork tying you to him? What of what you owe when you cannot deliver on your bargain?"

"That's different. I walked into that compact with my eyes open. You sneak attacked."

"To prove a point."

"Which is?"

"You desire me," he said, an echo of his earlier statement. "Else, you would not have been able to summon that flame. If you truly felt nothing when my lips were on yours, you would have been as an ice sculpture in my arms. But no," he slid a step closer to her. "You tasted most divine. And you burned hot for me, pet."

Sarah was flushed so warm she felt feverish. "That's not fair, you—"

"I what? Helped show you your magic? Offered to teach you that much and more? What have I done that is such a grave offense?" He took another step forward, and when she went to back up, he moved with the speed of a striking serpent, grasping her arms. "Remember who is keeping secrets from you, Sarah. It is not I."

The portal mirror shimmered into view along the wall of the tent, not a few feet from her. "Let me go."

"Sarah—"

"Let me go!" She cried, yanking back. Aldric released her, and she stumbled, glaring daggers. "I'm not your pet, I'm not your possession, and I'm not going to be your student."

His eyes flashed, and for a heart-stopping moment she went still, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. When next he spoke, his words were cool, not even a hint of heat remaining. "Go back to him, then. Go back to the man who would keep secrets from you, and remember this: I would keep nothing from you, ever. You see this encampment as my home," he motioned to the canvas walls of his tent, and his tone turned imploring. "But you have not seen my home in the Seelie court, or my estate far out in the wilds. I can offer you a life beyond your imagining. And I would share it all with you if you would choose me."

Sarah did not respond. She could not. Coward, she thought to herself as she tore her gaze away from his. Grabbing her backpack off the floor, she moved to the portal mirror, stopping when Aldric's hand came down on her shoulder.

"Forgive me," he murmured. "I should not have done that."

"No, you shouldn't have," she said, facing his reflection in the hazy surface of the mirror. She chewed on her words for a moment, unsure, and then settled on, "I'll see you tomorrow."

A small smile curved his lips. "Tomorrow."

His hand fell away, and she stepped through the mirror, through the strange clinging, murky dark and into the sun-washed hallway of her apartment.

The scent of coffee filled the air, and Sarah let out a sigh of relief, tossing her backpack to the ground and running a hand through her hair. She could not see or hear Jareth, and so she peeked around the corner, checking through the living room windows to see if he were on the fire escape. He was deep in conversation with Hector by the looks of it. She ducked back and went to her room, pulling out some clothes before going to the bathroom and hopping in the shower, keeping the water cool to soothe her still-heated flesh.

She brushed her teeth while she was under the spray, trying to erase all traces of what had occurred between her and Aldric. For all that the fae seemed to rely on smell, Sarah had the feeling Jareth would know right away she had been kissing another man.

The thought made her stomach twist. It wasn't like I was kissing him; he was kissing me.

There was a difference.

But for half a heartbeat, she had let him. For a moment before the flames leaped from her palm, she leaned into that kiss. Her lips trembled, and she forced them to stop, biting down while standing under the steady stream of water.

She dried herself and pulled on a long, flowing bohemian-style skirt and a white blouse, brushing her hair back so her eyes looked even larger in her pale face. She opened the door and let out a startled cry to find Jareth standing there, hand raised as though to knock. He flashed her a smile.

And then his nostrils flared, and his gaze yanked to her mouth.

Sarah lifted her hands. "Look, I—"

"He kissed you." The words were flat, toneless.

She pushed past him, uncomfortable trapped in the bathroom with Jareth so stone-faced in the doorway. She went for the coffee pot, all the while, her mind chanting at her: coward, coward, coward. But she did not want to face him yet. A few more moments without having to say it, that was all she needed.

"Sarah..." his voice held a note of warning. "Tell it true, did he kiss you, or did you kiss him?"

"He kissed me," she said, quick to come to her own defense. She grabbed for a coffee mug and poured herself a cup. After another moment of silence, she sensed the compact stretching between them, unsatisfied. Absolute, raw honesty, in full. "I just—I let him. For a moment," she added with haste, turning to his stormy expression. "It was barely a second. Then I kind of set him on fire."

Jareth blinked. "You set him on fire?"

She put down her coffee and folded her arms across her stomach. "He said he was trying to teach me how to use my magic. That's why he did what he did." Her cheeks flamed. "So it was his own fault. He was the one who told me to conjure a flame."

A delighted look crossed Jareth's face, and he let loose a low chuckle. "And you happened to conjure this flame on his person?"

"Ask me if I wanted that kiss."

He tilted his head. "Did you?"

"No," she said, and the spell hummed between them, satisfied. "And I don't want it to happen again, either. He's lucky that he got away with just a few burned hairs."

Jareth let out a sudden bark of laughter, covering his mouth with one gloved hand, grinning. "You set fire to his hair, precious?"

"Damned straight," she said, moving to put cream and a little sugar into her drink. She smiled to herself as she worked, her heart light after the conversation with Jareth.

I can offer you a life beyond your imagining.

Her stomach twisted again, and she shook her head, dispelling the memory of Aldric's voice. "Can I say, for the record, that it is really weird you can smell him on me? Does this mean he—did he know what we did? Could he smell that?" She wrinkled her nose.

"Probably," Jareth said, and he sounded close. She raised her head and found him standing near her, and then his arm was around her waist, and she was pressed to his chest. She hummed and wrapped her arms around him, sinking into the heat he exuded with a contented sigh. His hands were in her hair and down her back, petting and stroking. He started speaking to her again, but it was in his people's strange, liquid language.

It was not so much that she heard what he was saying so much as she felt it. Emotion tugged through her, the words conveying a sense of intimacy which made tears spring to her eyes. When he stopped, she sighed, breathing in the rich scent of him. "What did you say?"

He huffed a little in frustration. "The translation is not exact."

"The idea, then."

"Infuriating woman," he growled. He pulled back enough to look down at her, his mismatched eyes warm with affection. "I was describing how much I care for you." He brushed her lower lip with his thumb. "And how much I want you."

A thrill of anticipation raced through her, and her mind flashed on his mouth hot against her skin, his tongue parting her lips. She gripped his shoulders and pressed closer. "You're not angry, then?"

"At Aldric? Always. At you? No. Fae are seductive creatures. And there is a difference between a flash of momentary desire and what we're building here," he touched her forehead, then brushed his fingers through her hair. "It has been sixteen years since you ran the Labyrinth, and thirteen years now I've been coming to you. Six since our first kiss." His hand wrapped around the back of her neck. "I know you are not mine, Sarah, but I am yours. Utterly."

Her lips parted, and he took advantage, dipping his head down to kiss her. The arm around her waist fell to her hips, and he pulled her flush against him.

His words rang through her head as the kiss continued. I am yours. Utterly.

A part of her thrilled at that. How many could say they turned the head of a king?

She moaned and dug fingers into his shoulders when his tongue brushed against hers, fire pooling deep in her belly. It was everywhere, the heat intense and singing of magic as he stoked her lust higher. Her breath hitched as he broke their contact to lift her shirt over her head. "Damned useless things," he grumbled.

"What? Clothes?"

Jareth nuzzled her neck, nipping at the soft skin there. His gloved hands led a trail of heat down her sides, and she shivered. "Your clothes, in particular, precious." His fingers hooked in the band of her skirt. "If I ever have you in my chambers, I—" The phone rang, interrupting him. He growled, pulling away. "I will bog anything that so much as thinks of disturbing us."

Sarah rose on tiptoes, steadying herself on his shoulders to press a quick, soft kiss against his lips. "For all that we're stuck together, we do seem to get interrupted quite a bit."

"Go answer your blasted phone."

She laughed and did so. It was her friend Brock, who she had been in somewhat spotty contact with since the start of the quarantine. They had exchanged work e-mails but little else, and he was apparently having a hell of a time staying sane all alone in his Queens apartment. Sarah settled herself down at her desk and covered the mouthpiece, so she could whisper to Jareth. "This may take a while."

He grabbed a book and slouched down into his favorite chair, the tips of his flyaway hair visible from her position.

Brock gabbed, and Sarah listened with half an ear, her mind churning.

When this had all started, all she thought about was keeping as much normalcy in her life as possible, but that was fast becoming hopeless. Still, she could not help but wonder what might happen when the thirty days were over. Would Jareth and Aldric immediately be at each other's throats? And what then? Would she go back to life as normal, talking to Brock at the water cooler and Rhonda at their favorite bar, creating portfolios and designs for mid-tier companies until she retired?

I can offer you a life beyond your imagining, Aldric had said, and Jareth had echoed those sentiments in recent weeks and over the years. Be my queen, he had asked, so many times. Join me as my ally and equal.

Her stomach gave a sudden lurch.

What am I doing? When this quarantine is over, Jareth will have to go back to the Underground. If he survives Aldric, he'll go back to being king, and I'm going to do what? Date him?

She turned around in her chair, her thoughts now a frenzy as Brock moaned over his lack of love life. I wish I had your problems, my friend.

But then, on the heels of that thought came another.

No I don't. Because I don't want to give him up.

Hey ya'll,

Real quick I wanted to mention that I've been working on a piece of artwork sort of inspired by this story that I've dubbed 'Professor Jareth.' You can check out the progress on my Instagram dbergwrites. I was thinking of all the reading the characters get up to in this story and saw this ad of Bowie modeling some glasses and an idea sprang up of Jareth slowly lowering reading glasses to look at Sarah. I've always loved that motion. That, and taking off gloves with teeth. Rawr.

I hope you enjoyed this newest chapter. Reviews and comments keep us poor, cold, shivering writers warm at night.

Xoxo,

CrimsonSympathy