Kiss The Flame: A Desire Exchange Novella (1001 Dark Nights)

  “True love, Laney Foley, is wanting the world for someone even when they won’t do what you tell them to, even when they don’t want you back. True love is the ability to make yourself absolutely vulnerable to someone despite the risks. In fact, when you’re truly in love, the only real risk is that you won’t do justice to that love. It’s a hard thing to define, true love. I’ll give you that. But you can define it when it’s gone. Oh, my heavens, how you can define it when it’s gone. Believe me. That is how I have also been changed, Laney Foley. And I do not wish the same for you or anyone.”

  “How do you know, Lilliane? How do you know it’s been removed from you completely?”

  “I went to him,” she whispers. “After several days, after I realized that simply lighting a candle given to me by a strange white man in the French Quarter had changed my fundamental being, I went to the man I smelled every time I lifted that candle to my nose. I went to the man who had once filled my dreams and made my heart flutter every time he came near. And when I looked at him I felt nothing. It was as if I was staring upon sandpaper and dust. I could take to the sky but my heart had been emptied.”

  “Maybe you were just angry,” Laney says. “You’d had a traumatic experience. You probably—”

  “I know your intentions are good, Miss Foley, but I’ve had decades to sort through this. Literally decades. This is my story, I’m sorry to say. The same is true for the other Radiants.”

  “How many are there?” Laney asks.

  “Twenty-three,” she answers. “And when I saw you in that shop last night, I was not willing to add another to our ranks.”

  For a while, neither one of them speaks. A dull pounding of bass echoes down the hall. It’s that hushed period of early evening when most classes are finished and students have retreated to their dorm rooms before venturing out to dinner.

  Did a part of her innately sense Bastian Drake’s shop had some kind of magic to it? The same part of her that might assume a strange, distant sound in a creaky old house could possibly be a ghost. And did she really not care or pause to consider the idea because Bastian seemed totally sincere about her well-being?

  Is it easier to believe in guardian angels or demons? She’s not entirely sure. But she’s willing to bet it’s the former. Which one is Bastian Drake?

  “So,” Laney finally says, her voice sounding reedy and distant. “If I light the candle, I’ll either be forced to have sex with the man I’m falling for, or I’ll freak out and run, and then I’ll be turned into an immortal who can never fall in love again. Both options sound like rape, if you ask me.”

  “You don’t have to have sex with him to complete the connection. You simply have to tell him the truth that’s in your heart. Whether or not you use your entire body to do it is up to you.”

  “But that’s not what happened to you?”

  “As I said, once the other Radiants started to come in, we collected their experiences, identified the trends. Some of them went to the object of their desire right after they lit the flame and had quite a time in between the sheets. But they ran like hell as soon as orgasms were achieved. They never told the person how they truly felt. That’s the key.”

  “That and you have to stay with them for twenty-four hours?” Laney asks.

  “No. For a sleep.”

  “I’m sorry. A what?”

  “You have to share yourself with them either physically or verbally and then sleep beside them for a night. Which might have something to do with why Radiants never sleep again.”

  “And if you stay the night, you stay with them forever?”

  “Oh, no. You stay with them for as long as it’s meant to last. The flame offers an opportunity to finally act, not a guarantee that it will last forever once you do.”

  “None of this is fair,” Laney mutters.

  “Oh, Laney Foley. Find me a world that’s fair and I will take you in my arms and fly us to it. The supernatural universe contains as many quirks and rules as quantum physics.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting that. Provided, you know, you’re not nuts.”

  “This man of yours,” Lilliane says. “The one who smells of campfires and vanilla. What’s his name?”

  “Michael?”

  “Is he resisting what exists between you?”

  “God, no,” Laney answers. “He couldn’t be resisting any less.”

  “Good. Then he’ll be safe no matter what you decide.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some Radiants start out as the objects of desire for those who light the flame, only they resist it too, because it’s terrifying. The energy comes to them and they know nothing of the candle in the first place so—”

  “Get it out of here,” Laney says. She’s on her feet before she realizes she’s made the decision to stand. Her back is to her desk, and the candle and the laptop with its screen filled with the vintage photograph of Lilliane. “Take it. Please. Just get it out of here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, aren’t you happy? Isn’t this what you wanted?”

  “I wanted you to be able to make a choice based on all the infor—”

  “I’ve made it. Take it. Please.”

  “Very well,” Lilliane whispers.

  Facing her roommate’s side of the room, Laney studies the Keurig coffee maker and the perfectly made bed and all the photographs of Perfect Skinny Kelley and her perfect family on a variety of beach vacations, hoping these ordinary objects will return to her to a sane and normal world. But even as she tries not to, she’s listening intently to the small scraping sounds of Lilliane lifting the candle up off the desk.

  “There’s something else that I want,” Lilliane finally says.

  “Lilliane, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think I can handle any—”

  “Go to him,” Lilliane says. “Go to him and tell him the truth that’s in your heart. You don’t need magic or a ghost to help you do it. Find the courage within yourself and go to him as soon as you can. If I am proof of anything, it’s that all the time in the world can’t bring back certain moments, certain opportunities.”

  Laney turns to face the woman just as she starts for the door.

  “Lilliane!”

  Startled, Lilliane turns in the doorway.

  “What if he’s not happy that I didn’t light the candle? Could he appear to me again?”

  “That won’t happen,” Lilliane says with utter confidence.

  “How are you so sure?”

  “Because I’ll make sure it won’t.”

  “Thank you,” Laney whispers.

  Lilliane nods and starts to leave again.

  “And Lilliane?”

  The woman stops, but she doesn’t return Laney’s stare.

  “I don’t believe you,” Laney says before she can think twice.

  “Which part?”

  “I don’t believe you can never fall in love again. I think it’s still in you somewhere. Maybe it’s just a matter of time.”

  “And what makes you think that?”

  “What you did today was too kind and selfless for me to believe your heart is empty.”

  Lilliane looks up, giving Laney an answer to her earlier question. Yes, Radiants can cry.

  “Thank you, Laney,” Lilliane says. “And I wish you and Michael the very best.”

  With a polite nod that belies her tears, Lilliane departs with the candle in one hand, carrying the scent of Bastian Drake’s frightening magic away down the hall.

  11

  Thirty minutes after Lilliane exited Laney’s dorm room, in the traditional, non-flying manner, Laney has walked most of the distance to the restaurant where Michael waited. He sent the address by text while she and Lilliane were discussing ghosts, magic candles, and dematerialization.

  Lilliane was right about one thing. In no time at all, Laney has started to discount some of the more impossible suggestions of the woman’s visit. She’s decided the website had to have been a fake, f
or sure. You could do amazing things with Photoshop, like forge an entire Times Picayune article. Or make a photograph you took yesterday afternoon look fifty-six years old.

  That flying up the side of a seven-story building, though? See, that one’s harder to—

  They’re all members of a cult. That’s it. A cult that makes strange drugged candles that sometimes poison people, and Lilliane’s crazy tale of flame energy was designed to cover up their criminal enterprise. Laney has a hunch that a good cover story doesn’t sound completely and utterly wacko, and also doesn’t take almost an hour to tell. But who knows? Maybe Lilliane thought Laney was some paranoid stoner who went for psychic readings every other week and would totally buy into a nutso story of spirits and ghosts and haunted candles and—

  Yeah, and then there’s the part where she just appeared in your room. On the seventh floor. Without using the elevator or the stairs. Which meant she had to fly, or leap, or whatever she said she does, up the side of the—

  Michael spots her through the restaurant’s glass front door. He’s sitting by himself at the mostly empty bar. The place is homey and brightly lit, surrounded by sleepy residential blocks, the exact opposite of the rowdy elegance that surrounded them the night before. The quieter surroundings give her a sense of elation. Laney wonders if she’s coming to accept that only moments before she was visited by something, by someone, truly extraordinary. If only half of what Lilliane said was true, perhaps anything is possible. It seems the world is more limitless than Laney previously thought. She wants to savor this feeling while it lasts, this sense that the prison of rules and risks Laney has lived in for most of her life was just a sandcastle waiting to crumble under the force of a gentle tide.

  Is this how she would have felt if she’d actually lit that damn candle? Fearless and elated?

  If she hadn’t left her dorm in a daze, she might have remembered to bring her umbrella. Only a light roll or two of thunder interrupted the walk there, but suddenly there’s a crack loud enough to make her jump.

  A small tinkling bell heralds her arrival when she opens the restaurant’s front door. There’s no host, just a waitress making friendly conversation with the customers at one of her tables, so no one stops her as she walks toward the empty barstool next to Michael. His smile could melt ice, but the rest of him is poised and rigid. Tense. He probably figures a big hug isn’t the best move given the last time they saw each other she was running like hell in the opposite direction.

  “They have a dessert here that is literally a scoop of ice cream on top of a doughnut,” he says without preamble.

  “Seriously?”

  “I am so serious. We didn’t have dessert last night, so I figured it would give us something to do.”

  “Something to do?”

  “Yeah, while we wait for the moment of truth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’m not your teacher anymore, so if you just don’t like me I guess now’s the time to say it so we can part as friends. But I recommend waiting until you’ve had just a little of this doughnut because it is truly one of the best things on the—”

  “Michael Brouchard, I’ve wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  He looks like the wind’s been knocked out of him. Was she really that coy? Did he really have that much doubt about how she felt for him?

  She wants to break eye contact so she can hold on to the courage she needs to speak the truth of her heart, but there’s no looking away from the suddenly vulnerable expression on his face.

  “I knew it the first time I saw you,” she continues, “the first time I heard you speak, the first time you shared your heart with your class. I knew I’d never met a man like you and I would never meet a man like you again. And the way I felt for you in that moment scared me so bad I did everything I could to deny it. And I waited. I waited each day for you to screw up and give me some sign you weren’t really the man I wanted you to be. And every day I sat there and gazed up into your beautiful eyes, I realized that sometimes—sometimes a fantasy comes true. All my life I’ve wanted to feel for someone the way I feel about you. I just had no idea I’d be so goddamn scared when those feelings finally showed up.

  “I tried to rehearse this on the walk over. But all I did was come up with a million ways to tell you how I might screw this up if we try. A million ways to tell you I’m less than perfect. Because there’s a part of me that thinks if I just lay it out on the table now, you’ll be able to forgive me if I run again.”

  “I’ve already forgiven you,” he says.

  “I know. But I don’t want to sound like this big victim or an angry poor girl with a shell around her heart. And I don’t want to plan my escape. And now I know that’s a good thing, that I’m afraid, afraid of the way I feel for you. It’s a good thing because it means it’s real. It means I’m going to give you something I’ve never given anyone before.”

  He pales.

  “I’m not a virgin,” Laney says quickly. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Okay,” Michael says quietly, sounding relieved. Laney pauses. Michael watches her intently and simply waits.

  “I’m giving you my trust,” she tells him.

  “Trust.”

  “Yeah. It’s not something I give out easily. If you haven’t noticed.”

  She grabs for the nearest napkin. As she uses it to wipe at her tears, she feels Michael gently take her other hand in his.

  There’s a crack of thunder loud enough to make everyone in the restaurant jump. Outside, a deluge begins, instantly rattling the huge plate glass windows.

  “I’ve noticed,” Michael whispers. He brings her fingers to his lips and kisses them gently. “I just figured that would make me feel honored once I finally earned it.”

  She laughs, which brings more tears to her eyes. As they clear, she feels a stab of embarrassment or shame.

  “So you’re not a fan of virgins?”

  “I’m not looking for a conquest, Laney. There are no notches on my belt.”

  “That’s ’cause you mostly wear braided belts.”

  “I get a lot of crap for that.”

  “Not from me. I think they’re classy. But mostly I like that you can’t leave notches in them. It speaks to your character.”

  “Does it?” he asks with a broad smile. “Well, I’m glad you noticed.”

  “Were you just listening? There’s almost nothing about you I haven’t noticed.”

  “Likewise. But the point is, I’m looking for a partner, Laney. I’m not looking for a woman who only lets me sketch her one time.”

  “Good to know,” she says, lacing her fingers through his until the two of them are officially and indisputably holding hands.

  Thunder cracks, followed by a flash of lightning. Everyone in the restaurant jumps again except for them. They’re too busy staring into each other’s eyes.

  “Do I really need to write in shorter paragraphs?” Laney asks.

  “What do I care? I’m not your teacher anymore.” He makes his eyebrows dance up and down and gives her an evil grin.

  “No, but seriously, the stuff you said last night—”

  “Was a lot of bull,” he says. “I was just trying to prove that I could be objective if I had to stay your teacher.”

  “Could you?”

  “Could I have stayed your teacher?”

  “Could you have been objective?” she asks.

  “Probably not.”

  “Well,” Laney says, lifting his fingers to her lips, and giving them a gentle kiss. “It’s a good thing you’re not my teacher anymore.”

  “I’ll say,” he whispers.

  She gives his fingers another kiss. Just this simple, tender act causes her pulse to quicken.

  “I know you don’t believe it yet, but you belong here, Laney,” he says quietly.

  “At this school or with you?”

  “Both.”

  The lightning and thunder return. This tim
e the flash is so bright, for a few seconds it covers up the fact that the power has gone out. The customers inside the restaurant groan as total darkness descends.

  “Well,” Michael says, gripping her hand and sliding off his stool. “Looks like we’re gonna have to find another place for desert.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  Michael didn’t bring an umbrella either, so he takes off his leather jacket and holds it over their heads as he guides her in the direction of his car. It’s one of those relentless New Orleans storms, the kind that usually blows through on summer afternoons and are twice as frightening when they appear at night, with their fat, pelting drops and sudden gusts of wind. The power is out on the entire street which turns the cars alongside them into vague, dripping shadows. She has no idea which belongs to Michael. When he stops suddenly next to a stubby, bright-orange box with tires, she almost loses her footing.

  Once he shuts the door after her, once she’s sealed inside the little box, she starts laughing.

  “It’s a Kia Soul!” she cries as he slides behind the wheel.

  “Are you making fun of my car?”

  “No. I’m so happy.”

  “Why? It’s not that great, really. And it’s used. My friend’s loaning it to me until I can afford to get something else ’cause even he hates it.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a Kia Soul. Don’t you understand?”

  “No!”

  He turns the key in the ignition. The first squeal doesn’t sound promising.

  “All my friends, hell, make that everyone around me, have all this expensive crap all the time. Cat’s got a brand new BMW. My roommate’s got this Keurig coffee maker and she acts like it’s a charity project to let me have four a day. Meanwhile, I can’t even afford a smartphone. But you. You, Michael Brouchard, drive a crappy used Kia Soul, and that is a beautiful, beautiful thing.”

  “And it won’t start,” he says.