Echoes: A Second Skin Novel (Second Skin Book 6)

by M Damon Baker

  Although he hadn’t expected to unravel the entire mystery in a single day, Endreí became frustrated with his lack of progress; his mind was unable to focus any longer, and he needed a break. Despite the short amount of time Rissa had given him, Endreí simply couldn’t spend every waking hour working on the problem. He needed a diversion, something that would allow him to reset himself so that he could come back refreshed and hopefully with a new perspective. Unfortunately, Endreí knew exactly where he could find the distraction he required.

  Leaving his workshop, he crossed the short distance to the old practice field next to Nate’s barn. When he got there, Kara was sitting in the shade of the weathered structure, seemingly just waiting for him. Well, not seemingly, he realized—she really was waiting for him. It had only been a few hours since they’d last seen each other, yet they both had felt the need to reconnect and come to the place that had so often provided them with the cover they needed for their clandestine meetings.

  After the strong connection they’d experienced through the Orb of Detection, not to mention Kara’s admission, perhaps it was unwise to seek her out again so soon, but Endreí had learned that denying his need for her was also quite dangerous. He had to accept that beneath the thin veneer of their friendship was a smoldering fire, one that needed to be carefully fed to prevent it from bursting into a raging inferno. Her admission earlier had revealed that the flames of that fire were already spreading within Kara, and it was likely only a matter of time before he felt them as well. Once that happened, Endreí knew it would be over for both of them. Until then, he’d do everything he could to keep things under control.

  “Are you sure you’re allowed to be here?” Kara glanced around as she pretended to search for Rissa, yet her dry comment was clearly only half sarcastic.

  Rather than respond to her jab, he took up a defensive stance with his practice staff and waited for her to join him in the training circle. With a smirk on her face, Kara rose up from the ground and joined him, brandishing her weapons menacingly and promising to exact some revenge for the difficult events of that morning.

  They only sparred for a short while before Endreí called a halt, and the two took a break. As usual, Kara was the clear winner, having scored nearly every hit during their brief session. But training had never been Endreí’s true purpose in seeking her out, and as he sat down beside her, he confronted Kara with her deceit.

  “You lied to me,” the words came out absent any anger, but filled with a sense of his deep disappointment instead. “I trusted you, and you deceived me.”

  Their entire relationship had been based on the mutual understanding that Rissa came first for him, just as Nate had been Kara’s priority. He remembered how after she’d held a blade to his throat, they’d agreed that should either of them begin to feel anything more than that, it would be the end of things between them. Kara might not have completely lost sight of those priorities, but she was clearly starting down that path. It was a profoundly dangerous road for her to be walking on, and even taking the first steps in that direction was a very bad sign—for both of them.

  “I’ve always known what we have is more than just friendship, Endreí,” Kara let out a sigh as she conceded. “I thought you did too. We’ve always been able to keep it under control, so I saw no reason to say anything.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about—you know exactly what I mean,” a hint of bitterness crept into his voice when Endreí cut her off. “It’s different for you now; something’s changed. Your feelings for me are growing stronger.”

  He’d felt her passion through the Orb’s connection. At first, Endreí had taken the odd sensation as only an indication of the more direct link he’d experienced to her emotions, but as Endreí worked throughout the day, the memory of those feelings had lingered with him, and he’d finally recognized the truth: Kara’s love for him was becoming more intense, crossing into territory that belonged only to Rissa.

  Kara’s cheeks flushed bright red, and she glanced away from him, clearly caught off guard by his revelation. Still looking away, Kara moved to leave, but Endreí took hold of her hand before she could rise and held on to her when he spoke again.

  “Why?” He asked, his voice calm once more, seeking only to understand her reasoning. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What would you have done if I had?” Kara’s fingers grasped him tightly when she finally turned to look at him as she replied.

  “You would have ended it, that’s what you would’ve done. Exactly like you’re trying to do right now,” Kara’s eyes brimmed with emotion, threatening to overflow as she spoke the words, letting him know just how much she didn’t want that to happen.

  “No matter what this… thing is, I won’t let it make me do anything I don’t want to,” she continued, her voice rising as she went on. “I love you so much, Endreí, more than I should, but I will never let my feelings for you come between Nate and me. That. Won’t. Happen.”

  Endreí took in the sheer force Kara imparted to those final words, but before he could reply, he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning towards the motion, he saw Rissa pointedly staring at the two of them as they sat talking. Or, more accurately, glaring at their hands as they clasped each other.

  So much about the entire situation was just so terribly wrong. Only a short while ago, Endreí had been grateful for the two women in his life. Yet in a very brief span of time, the delicate balance between them had been lost, and the fragile peace of his world was shattered. Despite his conflicted state, Endreí knew who his true love was, and he was willing to sacrifice his relationship with Kara to preserve his marriage. Although Rissa’s anger and jealousy were more than warranted, she’d told him that she understood his continued need for Kara while he sought to bring an end to the magic that had bound them together. There she was, however, spying on the two of them and fueling her jealousy unnecessarily—accomplishing nothing other than to make things more difficult for all of them.

  With a broad grin plastered on his face, Endreí smiled back at Rissa, returning her reproachful stare with a friendly wave, giving Kara’s hand a reassuring squeeze as he did so. He could see the look of utter shock on Kara’s face as he held on to her, but Endreí only smiled even wider as Rissa stormed off in a huff.

  “Are you insane?” Kara uttered in disbelief. “She threatened to chop off my hands this morning, and you’re antagonizing her?”

  “Rissa told me that she understood we still need each other,” Endreí replied with a sense of calmness and resolve. “And I’m going to hold her to that. Just like I’m going to hold you to your promise as well. I know you can’t help feeling certain things, but if you ever act on them, it’s over.”

  “Rissa’s going to make you pay for what you did just now,” Endreí heard Kara’s unspoken acceptance of his terms in her deflection.

  “Maybe,” he quipped in response. “But I think as long as she doesn’t catch us fucking in the hayloft, I’ll be alright.”

  He’d only intended the offhand comment as a joke, something to break the tension, but the unreadable expression on Kara’s face made Endreí instantly regret it. Just mentioning the possibility of them being together in that way wasn’t a particularly good idea, especially considering Kara’s increasing desires in that direction. Feeling uncomfortable after his careless words and having more than achieved his goal of finding a distraction for his mind, Endreí bid Kara a hasty farewell and rushed back to the safety of his workshop.

  For the remainder of the day, Endreí continued trying to find some solution to his problem, achieving no more success in that regard than he had all morning. When the sun finally set over the horizon, he reluctantly closed up his workshop and trudged back to his home, where he found Rissa waiting for him. Had she been truly upset with him over his earlier actions, she could have easily confronted him at any time that afternoon, and Endreí took her apparent restraint as a positive sign. Crossing the short di
stance between them, Endreí sat down next to her at the dinner table before cautiously broaching the delicate subject.

  “You know that I still need her and that it’s not safe for me to deny that need,” not yet daring to reach out to her, Endreí tried his best to tinge his words with the regret he truly felt. “The situation is bad enough already; spying on me only makes it worse—for all of us.”

  “Yeah, you seemed really broken up by that,” she snapped back at him.

  Endreí understood how badly he’d wounded her and that his betrayals had only cut her more deeply due to the highly possessive nature of her people. Although it had only been a short while since she made him realize just how wrong his actions had been, in that brief period, Endreí had been working hard to correct his error and undo the damage that he’d done. Unfortunately, Rissa seemed determined to pour salt in her own wounds, seeking out the source of her torment with her needless snooping. Breaking free from Kara was going to be difficult for him, and Endreí accepted that—what he couldn’t tolerate was Rissa making that journey even more painful.

  “Stop it. Just fucking stop it already,” he answered her bitterness with a more than equal dose of his own. “I’m doing everything I can; everything you asked me to do. I’ve agreed to your impossible schedule and to do whatever’s necessary when I fail to meet your ridiculous demands. I didn’t want this to happen, and neither did Kara. We’re victims of whatever it is just as much as you are—even more. We’ve been manipulated for years by something neither of us understands, but what you saw today is as far as things ever go between us, whether you’re watching or not.”

  Endreí felt himself shaking inside as his anger rose, and when he vented his frustration, his words came out far more forcefully than he’d intended, despite the fact that he knew they weren’t precisely true. He and Kara had strayed a bit at times, sharing a handful of kisses that were more than just friendly, and the one occasion where they’d barely managed to hold themselves back from doing much more than that. He’d already confessed the latter to Rissa, though not in detail, and telling her the rest… well, that would have been unwise. Still, his frustration was real enough to impart Endreí’s genuine emotion, and Rissa recoiled in the face of his ire.

  “I’m sorry,” he quickly added.

  Seeing her react to his outburst made Endreí feel like a piece of shit. He knew that even though Rissa’s pain and anger were both powerful and real, they were completely undermined by her insecurity. While she’d bound herself to him for life, no such strings tied him back to her in return, a fact that must have left her feeling vastly outgunned in their confrontation. Adding the mystical force that drew him and Kara together into that equation had likely made the situation seem all the more precarious to her.

  “This isn’t going to be easy, and this won’t be the only time we argue about things,” Endreí deliberately softened his tone to one of understanding. “But we can fight, Rissa. You don’t need to worry about me leaving you just because you get angry. I understand how upset you are about this. I don’t know if I could be as strong as you’ve been if our situations were reversed.”

  Endreí had never considered that thought until the words fell out of his mouth. Just thinking of Rissa with someone else the way he’d been with Kara bound his stomach up in knots. Suddenly, he saw Rissa’s ‘unreasonable’ demands in an entirely new light—one that revealed just how much latitude she’d truly provided him.

  “What’s wrong?” She cautiously prompted when Endreí fell silent.

  “Me, I’m what’s wrong,” he couldn’t bear to look at her, and Endreí’s voice dropped to a low whisper as he replied.

  “I didn’t really take your perspective into account until just now,” Endreí confessed. “I only considered my own difficulties. But thinking of you with someone else… I’m not sure I could take that.”

  Along with Endreí’s sudden comprehension came a new sense of commitment. He knew what he had to do now, and even more than that, he understood the urgency that was required of him.

  “I’m so sorry, Rissa,” he apologized, finally finding the courage to look her in the eyes again. “For what I’ve done and what I’m still doing. I can’t promise that I’ll break free of this tomorrow, but I’m going to try my best all day and every day until I actually do it. You deserve no less than that from me, and that’s exactly what you’re going to get.”

  “I’ll give you the… space you need as well, Endreí,” his admission seemed to provide Rissa with the assurance she’d so desperately needed. Yet she paused for a moment before continuing.

  “I trust you, I really do, but you weren’t just holding her hand, Endreí. There was so much more to it than that,” there was no venom in her accusation this time, only caution. “She may be a friend to you right now, but every day brings you closer to seeing her as something more than that.”

  “I know,” he glanced away, unable to hold her gaze when finally accepted the reality that he’d denied for so long.

  With that truth laid bare between them, Endreí found himself unable to say anything more. In the face of his admission, he braced himself for Rissa’s anger to return once again, but rather than fan the flames of her jealousy, Endreí’s honest confession only seemed to ease Rissa’s concerns.

  “Come,” she said as she took Endreí’s hands and lifted him up from his seat. “You have a busy day ahead of you tomorrow, and you’ll need to get a good night’s rest if you want to make any progress.”

  Neither of them spoke again as they got ready for bed and crawled beneath the covers. Rissa’s soothing warmth as she nestled herself beside him reassured Endreí that he’d regained at least some of her faith; it was himself he was beginning to have doubts about. Lying there in the darkness, he began questioning everything he’d believed about his relationship with Kara over the past three years—finding all too many lies mixed in with the sparse bits of truth that were there. The thoughts that began to plague his mind next were far from comforting, and it was a long while before Endreí’s exhaustion won out and sleep finally came to claim him.

  Chapter 4

  For the next two weeks, Endreí spent nearly every waking hour in his workshop, exploring every possible avenue he could come up with to discover more about the magic that had bound him so tightly to Kara. Rissa noted his obvious dedication, and it served to ease her concerns tremendously. Kara, on the other hand, took things quite the opposite. His devotion to dissolving their bonds wasn’t Endreí’s only response to his epiphany; he also limited the time he spent with Kara—greatly. Yet even those sparse moments he spent with her lacked the casual familiarity they typically shared. Although Endreí still felt Kara’s warmth beckoning him when he took hold of her hand, he resisted the desire to give her anything more than what she truly needed from him. The constant physical contact they used to share was gone, replaced by an almost distant connection. He’d completely cut off the more intimate aspects of their relationship, something Kara didn’t fail to notice.

  Still, the end of those two weeks brought Endreí no closer to finding a solution to his problem, only marking the passage of half the time Rissa had given him. Even more ominous was the fact that it also heralded his next scouting mission with Kara, requiring him to spend another night alone with her in the wilds away from Rissa.

  Endreí didn’t look forward to that experience the way he once did. The anticipation he used to feel for those moments was replaced with a sense of dread, both for the physical aspects of it and the confrontation that he also knew was coming. Kara hadn’t suffered his withdrawal in complete silence, and even though she’d made her… displeasure known to him, Endreí also knew that he would be hearing a much more thorough version of it once she had him totally to herself.

  The morning of his mission, Endreí woke early and quietly gathered his gear in preparation for his journey into the forest. He briefly considered waking Rissa as he glanced at her sleeping peacefully, but they’d been up fairly la
te the night before, and he thought it best to let her sleep rather than wake her as well. Rissa had seemed quite determined to send him off on something of a high note, and Endreí couldn’t help but smile broadly as he closed the door softly behind him—she’d succeeded.

  In contrast to his wide grin, Kara had a look of near despair on her face when he met her by the front gate. The way she slouched against the wooden wall with her arms wrapped around herself only served to magnify Kara’s forlorn expression, setting off a pang of guilt inside him. Although Endreí knew he was only doing what he had to in order to preserve not only his marriage but hers as well, he also regretted the obvious discomfort his actions were causing. After years of closeness and depending on each other, Endreí had suddenly withdrawn his support from Kara, abruptly yanking it out from under her without any warning. It was almost cruel in a way, yet it simply had to be done, for both their sakes.

  She walked out beside him wordlessly, and they strode into the forest side by side after passing through the wide fields that surrounded their small village. Despite the early hour, several other villagers were already out tending the crops, and the shouts of a group of children playing nearby followed them into the woods. Like the other small settlement that they traded with, they hadn’t named their tiny hamlet, simply calling it “home,” and the other “up north.” Perhaps someday they might feel compelled to come up with something official, but even after all the years that had passed, it still seemed a bit odd to put a name to what they still thought of as Nate’s cabin. Endreí imagined it was likely the village to the north felt the same way.