Chapter 56. Duet
1880 Words
"Is he always that honest?" Rayna asked softly. Her voice seemed to ripple through the stillness, a small stone dropped into a very deep well.
Caspian opened his eyes. They were dark, the vibrant emerald dulled by the alcohol and the sheer exhaustion of being seen so clearly. "He’s a Hollow. We don't really do 'subtle' when there’s a bottle on the table." He stood up, his movements a little less precise than usual, a little more human. He didn't look at her directly, instead staring at the spot where his brother had been standing. "He thinks he’s protecting the memory of what we were. He doesn't realize that I’m the only one who remembers the cost of it."
He turned to her then, reaching out a hand. It wasn't the commanding gesture of a international rockstar or the protective sweep of a bodyguard. It was a silent request. "Come with me. There’s something I haven't looked at in a long time."
Rayna took his hand. His skin was hot, his grip firm. He led her away from the dying fire and toward a narrow, unassuming door tucked behind the steep staircase. Behind it lay a set of wooden steps that groaned under their weight, protesting the intrusion into a part of the house that had been bypassed by time.
The attic was cramped, the ceiling sloping so low that Caspian had to duck his head. It smelled of cedar, old paper, and the dry, sweet scent of forgotten summers. A single porthole window looked out toward the Atlantic, the moonlight breaking through the mist to paint a silver circle on the floorboards.
"This was our sanctuary," Caspian whispered. He moved through the shadows, his broad shoulders brushing against stacks of old trunks and draped furniture that looked like shrouded figures in the gloom. "When the world got too loud, or when Ma was worried, we’d come up here. Sarah and me. Daniel was always too big for the rafters, but we... we fit."
He stopped in the corner where an old, battered hard-shell case lay beneath a layer of dust. He knelt, his movements reverent, and unlatched the rusted buckles. The click-clack sounded like a heartbeat in the cramped space.
Inside sat an acoustic guitar. It wasn't a high-end vintage piece or a custom-built masterpiece. It was a cheap, dreadnought-style instrument with scuffed edges and a bridge that looked like it had been glued back together more than once.
"She bought this for me," Caspian said, his voice dropping to a raspy, melodic low. "With money she saved from the bakery. She said a boy who could yell that loud needed something to catch the notes."
He lifted the guitar out. The wood was pale, almost ghostly in the moonlight. He sat on an old trunk, the instrument looking tiny against his frame. He spent a long minute tuning it, his tattooed fingers moving with a delicate, practiced grace. The strings groaned, stretching into life after years of silence.
"She loved the old songs," he murmured, looking down at the fretboard. "She used to say that the loud stuff was for the ego, but the old stuff... that was for the blood."
He began to play. It wasn't the aggressive, driving rhythm Rayna was used to hearing from him in the studio. It was a slow, melancholic fingerpicking style, the notes falling like soft rain against a windowpane. It was a traditional air, something ancient and Irish, a melody that felt like it had been pulled directly out of the salt and the stone of the cliffs below.
As the music filled the attic, the labels they wore in the city- the "King of Rock" and the "Red Queen," began to dissolve. Here, in the dust and the moonlight, there was no press, no Morrison, no security manifests. There was just a man and a guitar, playing for a girl who had spent her life wishing for a room exactly like this.
Rayna sat on the floorboards across from him, her back against a trunk, her knees tucked to her chest. She watched the way the moonlight caught the silver studs in his ears and the raw, unshielded pain in his eyes.
"Sing with me," he whispered, not looking up. "I know you know the words. Everyone in this country knows them before they can walk."
He began the melody- a haunting, wordless lilt at first. Rayna hesitated, her heart hammering against her ribs. She had sung with him before, behind the tour bus, when she had unleashed "I Am The Fire." He had heard her then, stripped of the production, raw and burning. But this was different. This wasn't a performance; it was a haunting.
She took a breath, letting the whiskey-warmed air fill her lungs. When she joined him, her voice was a low, smoky alto that hummed in the small space.
"The wind will carry the secrets we keep, while the stars watch over the world as it sleeps..."
Caspian’s head snapped up. He had heard her unfiltered before, but in this cramped, dusty sanctuary, her voice sounded like it was vibrating inside his own chest. Their voices entwined- his a rough, grounding baritone, hers a shimmering, ethereal flame. It was a song of exile and return, of things lost to the sea and found in the dark.
For those few minutes, the labels of "King" and "Queen" vanished. There was no press, no fortress, no Morrison. There was only the vibration of wood and vocal cords, a harmony so perfect it felt like a physical ache. As the final note faded, the silence that rushed back in was different. It was heavy, charged with a current that made the fine hairs on Rayna’s arms stand up.
Caspian set the guitar aside, leaning it against the trunk with a hand that shook almost imperceptibly. He stayed on the trunk, his elbows on his knees, staring at her through the silver moonlight. The whiskey was a slow burn in their blood, thinning the distance between what they wanted and what they allowed themselves to have.
Rayna moved first. She crawled across the dusty floorboards until she was kneeling between his boots. The scent of him- cedar, expensive scotch, and the cold salt of the Atlantic, was overwhelming.
"Elijah," she whispered.
He looked down at her, and she saw it. The struggle. His jaw was set so hard a muscle pulsed rhythmically in his cheek. His eyes were a storm of emerald green, warring between the fierce, protective resolve he had spent years building and the raw, starving need of the man beneath the armor. He was trying to be the fortress again. He was trying to be the wall that kept her safe, even from himself.
"Rayna," he rasped, his voice a warning and a plea all at once. "Don't. If I touch you... if I let this go..."
"Let it go," she countered.
She saw his hands clench into fists on his thighs, the tattooed skin stretching tight over his knuckles. He was a man holding back an avalanche. His eyes were fixed on her mouth, his breathing coming in shallow, jagged hitches. He was terrified- not of the world outside, but of the ruin he felt he was. He was trying to save her from the wreckage of his own heart.
Rayna didn't give him the chance to rebuild his walls. She reached up, her fingers sliding into the dark, messy hair at the nape of his neck. She pulled him down, and he didn't fight her. He fell.
The moment her lips met his, the last of his resolve didn't just break- it disintegrated.
It was a collision of six weeks of unspoken tension and years of suppressed longing. Caspian let out a low, predatory growl deep in his throat as his mouth crashed against hers. It was hot, electric, and desperate. He tasted of smoke and the Irish coast, and the kiss was a violent reclamation of life.
His hands, usually so controlled, were suddenly everywhere. He gripped her waist, his fingers digging into the soft cashmere of her sweater as if he were trying to pull her through his own skin. He moved with a frantic, starving energy, one hand sliding up her back to tangle in her vibrant crimson hair, pulling her head back to deepen the kiss until they were both gasping for air.
Rayna’s world narrowed down to the heat of his mouth and the weight of his body pressing against hers. She felt him shift, his hands dropping to the swell of her butt to hoist her up, dragging her onto his lap as he sat on the trunk. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her hands frantic in his hair, her chest heaving against his.
The silver bird locket Lydia had given her was caught between their hearts, a cold piece of metal against the blistering heat of their skin.
Caspian’s mouth left hers for a split second, trailing a path of fire down her jaw to the sensitive skin of her neck. "I’ve wanted this since the Vancouver," he breathed against her pulse, his voice a jagged edge of desire. "Since the first time you looked at me like you weren't afraid."
"I'm not afraid," she gasped, her head falling back as his teeth grazed her collarbone.
His hands were a fever on her skin, moving from her waist to her hips, his touch possessive and unyielding. He pulled her flush against the hard, demanding planes of his body, leaving no doubt about the depth of the hunger he had been masking. Nothing else mattered. There was only this- the frantic beat of two hearts and the electricity of a touch that had been delayed far too long.
He pulled back just an inch, his eyes dark, pupils dilated until the green was almost gone. He looked at her like she was the only thing he had ever truly seen. "You're going to be the death of me, Rayna."
"Then let's die together," she whispered, her fingers tracing the line of his lip, still swollen from the kiss.
He didn't answer with words. He captured her mouth again, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she opened for him, and the kiss turned into a slow, soul-searing exploration. The attic, the dust, the ghosts of his past- it all fell away. There was no tomorrow, no Knock Airport, no flight logs to scrub. There was only the roar of the Atlantic outside and the blistering, electric reality of the man holding her.
As the moonlight shifted across the floorboards, Caspian held her like she was a lifeline, his hands never ceasing their restless, reverent movement over her curves. In the silence of Easkey, the King had finally surrendered his crown, and for the first time in her life, the girl who had been looking for a door realized she was exactly where she was meant to be.
- Writer
