Hang the Stars
by Stephane Kelley
**Disclaimer**
While this is a sneak peek of book 3, there may be some changes to the first chapter due to final editing before the book is released. Release date is still currently pending, but tentatively scheduled for early 2018. Follow me on Facebook or Amazon for updates!
Kenai
“I’m still here, Riv, everything is going to be okay.”
I brushed her hair out of her face, gently caressing her cheek as I tried to quiet the nightmare. I hated that I was helpless to fight the demons she often confronted in her sleep.
I took a deep breath and fought to not become lost in my own thoughts as she tossed and turned on my lap. In this tiny cabin, it was easy for my thoughts pull me under as I thought about the scars I hid under the tattoos on my body. The ink was red, black, and shades of gray; the colors mimicking way I saw my own life. On the good days, those scars were nothing more than reminders that I’d made it another day. On the bad days, I thought of the lives I’d take. Even those monsters I’d killed had been someone’s loved one.
River stirred, blinking up at me. “I thought I was dreaming.”
I gave a soft chuckle, brushing more unruly hair out of her face. “No. I’m home.”
She snuggled against my tattooed chest, smiling up at me. Her hazel eyes were more green than brown in the pale yellow light. “Good. I brought a birthday present for you.”
She’d never given me a gift before. I felt my eyebrow raise as I contemplated what she was up to. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
“Oh! I know that one! Alice!”
I kissed her nose. “Yes. You’re learning.”
We’d been hiding out at my cabin since my fishing boat had gotten back to town. I’d been at sea nearly a month. I’d made my obligatory appearances with my family, then disappeared. My family never questioned me, they assumed it was my way to decompress after being out on the water.
River was the reason I disappeared every time I came home. She’d take a few days off from her job as a bush pilot and we’d stay hidden away somewhere. My cabin. Her place. Camping on an island. It didn’t matter as long as it was just us for a few days.
I placed soft kiss on her pale forehead, then I wrapped my arms around her to roll us over on the bed as she giggled at me.
“I should hope so.” She reached up and tangled her fingers in my messy hair, tugging playfully at it to emphasis her words. “I can barely fall asleep without you reading to me anymore.”
“You are the one that asked me to read to you.”
“I didn’t say it was a bad thing, Kenai. I just missed it.”
“Me reading to you, or me?”
She rolled her eyes at me but still smiled. “Both, Starboy. If you want your present, you’ve got to let me out of this bed.”
“You’ve got a present that doesn’t involve us being in bed?” I teased with a quick kiss on her full lips.
“You can let me out of bed for five minutes.”
“I don’t know about that. I’ve been gone for three weeks. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
She laughed at me. A throaty, heartfelt laugh that I’d only ever heard from her when we were together.
“I don’t plan on us leaving the cabin.”
“I like this plan. But I’m still not letting you go that easily.”
River wiggled out from under me as I kissed as much of her bare skin as I could. By the time she crawl out from under me her dark sun streaked hair was a wavy mess, sticking out in every direction. I smiled when she didn’t bother to tug down the hem of my old t-shirt. It danced over her skin as she made her way to the couch to reach her backpack hung on the wall behind it. From that beat-up canvas bag, she pulled a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
“I know you’re not much into things, but I had to get you something special for your birthday. It’s the big three-oh after all.”
I sat up, situating myself against the headboard of the bed, curious as to what she held in her hands. It had been years since my siblings had given me a birthday gift. “Did you actually remember my birthday? This has to be a record.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. River Morgan was not the person to go to if you needed her to remember a date. She’d be late even to meet the reaper. “I peeked at your license when you were asleep before you left for this last trip. This barely got here in time.”
The package she handed me wasn’t much bigger than a brick, and about the same weight. “You didn’t have to get me anything, River.”
She climbed back up the bed to sit beside me. “Just open it.”
I carefully undid the bow and smoothed out the wrapping paper. My fingers brushed against cool leather and I paused to look at her. River couldn’t contain her smile, her hands clasped in her lap.
I caressed the soft leather of the book’s spine as I turned it over in my hand. The letters were embossed and hand painted, the pages gilded. She’d spent a fair amount of money on this gift. I traced the letters of the author’s name as I tried to think of a fitting thank you.
“Shakespeare?” Was all I could manage.
“I remember from high school that this was your favorite.” Her smile touched those doe eyes, making them sparkle. I’d given her a better reaction than she’d hoped for.
Flipping through the pages, I saw the titles of some of my favorite plays. Tucked about a third of the way into the book was black feather. It was the wing feather of a raven. It shimmered with blue iridescence in the low light that snuck around the old curtains. River had hidden the feather at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet. I twirled the shaft of the feather between my fingers, watching the light slide from blue to black before I gently ran the tip of the feather down the bridge of her nose. Her nose scrunched as she smiled at me.
“Thank you, River.”
“You’re going to read it to me, right?”
“Is that what you mean by spending the weekend in bed?”
“Partly.”
We settled beneath the well-worn quilts that had been handed down through my family. I didn’t know who made the quilts or their ages, but I hadn’t been able to let them go when I cleaned out my uncle’s things after his death over a decade ago. It was a way of my family reaching out through time to still embraces us.
This one room cabin had belonged to my uncle. Uncle Simon had built it from the floor up with his own hands, but with River beside me it had taken on new life. This place was ours and we’d leave our own mark reaching out through time to the next generations.
“I’d ask where you want me to start, but I’m assuming fair Verona is where you want me to begin?”
“Who knows, maybe our stars will be crossed like theirs.”
I wanted to correct her, but right now was not the time. I didn't want the universe to hear the words, I didn't want the same fate for us. I kissed the top of her head to hide my sad smile and started reading.
River dozed off, curled against me. I stroked her hair absently as I watched the shadows roll across the gap of light between the curtain and the frame of the window. The light had shifted from pale yellow to a twilight gray. The storm was coming closer, quicker than anticipated. Mother Nature was fighting for one last hurrah before giving way to a brief spring when the white world we knew shifted to green.
I crawled from the bed, taking care not to disturb her.
“Where are you going?” She asked, the haze of the nap still heavy on her voice.
“We need wood for the fire. The snow is about to move in.”
River sat up, rubbing her eyes. “I will help.”
She pulled herself out of bed in her groggy state, stumbling towards the couch where I was pulling on my boots. She hadn't slept well in days the way she kept dozing off.
Her foot caught the rug in her zombie state. Things happened in slow motion as River fell towards me, her momentum knocking me off balance as I reached for her. I put my arm out to stop our fall, but I screamed in pain as we crashed to the floor.
I had grabbed the cast iron stove we used to heat the cabin. My the palm of my hand had blistered almost immediately.
My breathing came fast, my chest heavy as I fought for air, the pain pulling me under.
She yelled my name as everything went black.
A wave of nausea spread over me as I regained my senses.
My hands burned. It wasn't the one I’d grabbed the stove with, but both of my hands.
I wasn't in my cabin.
I was in the driver's seat of my old beat-up truck.
With every blackout came another memory of River. Some were good. Some were bad. But none of them made it easier that she was gone. That night with River was one of the best nights we had together. Since the first night Cy appeared while I was hunting vampires with my sister, the blackouts progressively gotten worse and happened with greater frequency.
The skies were clear, dotted with a million glittering, tiny diamond stars, the pale green northern lights laced across them. I sat in my truck, hands resting on the steering wheel as I stared out into the night. I tried to tell myself the dark substance on my skin was just my imagination.
But it wasn't. That sharp, metallic smell was unmistakable. It was blood. And it burned like the day I'd grabbed the stove. I’d fought with something recently that had not been human.
I didn’t want to smear whatever this was throughout my truck. As I flipped on the light, I realized it was too late. There were already smears of the dark blue substance on the dash, seats and the ceiling. My knuckles were cut and bruised, stinging as I wiped them on my jeans. What the hell had I done?
The last thing I recalled, I had been walking towards the Gypsy Star with my brother. Everything after that was black. I couldn’t remember what happened on the boat. Or if my brother had survived the vampire hunt we’d gone on.
I flexed my fingers. The ache and stiffness in my bones and joints told me I’d been locked in position too long. The blue substance was drying, yet still sticky. It still burned where it clung to my hands. My skin was pink and red where I had managed to wipe it away.
The piercing ring of my phone made me groan. I didn't even bother to look at the number, just took a deep breath and hit answer.
“Sesi.”
“Where the hell have you been?” My brother-in-law voice was hollow and tired. A tiny part of me was glad it was not my sister.
I checked the time and date on the phone display. I expected a gap in time, but it had been nearly day and a half. I’d never lost that much time before.
“Kenai!” He snapped. “Are you there?”
“Yeah,” I managed as I laid my head back on the headrest of my seat.
“Where are you?”
I had no idea. I dragged my nails along my scalp. I immediately regretted that decision as my scalp now burned. I took a breath to try to focus. “I’ve got a lead. Werewolf up in the grazing lands.”
Rhen’s long silence was enough to acknowledge my lie.
“Fine,” he huffed when I didn’t offer any additional information. “I don’t know if coming home is the best idea right now anyway.”
“What happened?”
“Brooks is dead.”
“Shit. Did I-” I didn’t need his death on my hands. It was bad enough everyone thought I killed his daughter. I didn’t need to have the blood of my should have been father-in-law on my hands. Especially if I didn’t remember it.
“No, not you. Dez let him get turned into a fanger. Brooks showed up at the Hayes house - look, it’s not just that. That whole situation is bad enough, but the bigger issue is no one's quite sure how you got out of the troopers custody.”
I didn’t recall being arrested. And I certainly didn’t remember slipping away form Chief Matthews and his boys.
“Koda’s a damn mess.”
“Because she thought I am missing?”
He huffed at me. “No. She's freaking out because we’ve got a dead mermaid at the docks. She thinks it might be Caleb. He's not answering his phone and she can't find him at his place or any of his other haunts. No one's sure who it is, Matthews won't let Dez see the body yet. All we’re being told is the throat was slit. Matthews’ men think you escaped from the jail and went after the mermaid. Say it's your style, your thing.”
They meant River.
You’ll watch over me from the heavens if anything happens to you, won't you, Starboy?
I won’t let anything happen to you, Riv, promise.
My hands trembled. I almost dropped the phone. I saw River lying on that cold, metal table. Her lips were pale blue. Her throat was stitched back up with thick black thread. Chief Matthew’s boys tried to get me to confess to something I didn’t remember doing.
“Ken? Hey, you there? Kenai?”
“Yeah.” I took a deep breath trying to ground myself. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“You hear what I said?”
“You’re not gonna ask me if I did it? Just like everyone always assumes about River?” My words were more bitter than I’d anticipated.
“Not my business. If you did, you had a reason.”
At least someone had faith in me still. I didn't have much left in myself.
I tried to draw a breath, but my chest was tight. I heard the crashing of waves. I knew what was coming as I felt pressure across my body, pinning me to the seat.
“Willow is back in town.”
My vision blurred.
“Watch Koda.” I hung up the phone as everything went black.