by Jamie Magee
Under my skin, I felt her energy. I felt how weak it was. Instead of the anger, the wrath and determination I’d felt near constantly from her, I felt horror, and powerful grief.
Knowing that someone, maybe even her own mind, was hurting her enraged me. Just as I went to say her name and squeeze her hands, she jolted forward.
If it weren’t for my Phoenix reflexes, we surely would have knocked each other out with that unexpected move.
Her emerald green eyes were cagy as they grew wide and she took in a gasping breath, one that would lead you to believe she had been submerged deep in the water for countless minutes. She was violently trembling.
Before I could say a word, her arms clasped around my shoulders and her head was buried in my neck.
Without the anger to hide behind, in my arms she felt so frail, so small and tender.
Even though I could feel her shaking, a small part of me was rejoicing. I could almost swear I felt a vibration beneath her skin. I breathed in deeply, taking in her scent. Lavender saturated the room.
“Just a dream,” I whispered into her neck before I let my lips rest there. Wanting to take in this new scent, this new vibration that my mind was telling me was all too real, I inhaled that scent, felt the power behind it. The originality of it.
My hands slid across her back as I swayed us from side to side. She never lost the strength in her grasp.
“I’ve got you…safe and sound,” I swore as I caressed her dark hair away from her face.
Guardedly, she leaned back slightly, allowing me to look into her eyes. When I saw them, my entire body tensed. I’m not exactly sure why I felt a wave of fear. Maybe it was because for an instant I thought I was back in The Realm, trapped in an illusion. That my mind was giving me everything I wanted and at any moment, it was going to painfully rip it away.
Her eyes, though they were emerald green, nearly glowing, had waves washing over them—waves of blue. It was so faint, I doubt if I had not been awakened to my Phoenix senses that I would have ever seen this.
Which led me to question if that shade had always been there. If this scent had always been there. If it was me holding back, and not her. The waves of blue diminished, the vibration I thought I felt coming from her skin subsided. It was so odd…I wasn’t giving up hope. That was a sign. A good sign. One that was long overdue.
I couldn’t help myself; I reached my hand to cradle her face. I wanted to look deeper into those eyes. In this quiet, surreal moment, I wanted to use every Creator given sense I had to understand this woman that I could not live without.
It was as if the last few months had never happened. We were innocent, we were deeply in love, and our fate was unknown and unclaimed by us.
I pulled her to my lips as carefully as I could, wanting to know if everything had changed—if my mind was firmly in reality and this was real.
The sweet, warm taste of honey was gone. The taste of her kiss was indescribable. It was like tasting every fruit known to man, but at the same time it tasted as if I were breathing in the blissful aroma of lavender.
She was filling me with peace and calm with one taste of the flesh of her lips. The brush of her tongue against mine was so electric that I felt my hands grasping her, wanting her closer to me. My heart thundered in my chest with anticipation that I wasn’t sure was appropriate at this moment.
I felt her tremble and pull away. Beneath the pad of my thumb, as it traced her cheekbone, I could have sworn I saw the glow I’d been searching for.
She started crying at that moment. A waterfall of tears spilled from her eyes as if they had been held back by a dam. I could not swipe them away fast enough. Gasping sobs came next as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and buried her face in my neck once more. I’d never once seen her cry like this—so hard that she could not breathe.
Rage was consuming me. Someone had hurt her. My Willow was not one to crumble, not over a dream at least.
“Tell me what happened,” I thought, knowing that the only way she would be able to hear me over her cries was for me to yell, and I would be damned if I gave her another reason to cry.
“Another dimension,” she gasped, which caused every part of me to tense. If she had been in another world this entire time that I thought she was sleeping, I would never forgive myself. “Monica, she died,” she said through another gasp. “Livingston, he was murdered,” she breathed in again.
I was speechless as my hands stopped their sway across her back. Was she even awake? Why was she crying—trembling over something she only vaguely showed fear for when they happened?
“That girl, she held you.” Another gasp. “Donalt, that horrible cold. Those wings.” Her hand clutched against my skin. I could feel every one of her nails sinking into my back. “They took Olivia. They took those children.” She trembled. “They took you. You were lifeless. I had to fight like hell. The storms. The wicked storms. The pain.”
I’d never seen any girl cry this hard, this long. It didn’t matter how much peace I pushed through her—that pulsing fear kept pouring off her, so much so that her skin was fevered. Even though she trembled, her body was on fire. I moved my hands over every inch I could reach, wanting to find something, to heal something I could touch to end this.
“Those ghosts. So much dead, so many lost, that war…the fire—Dane.”
I was sure this breakdown was almost over. Her mind had carried her to present day. Finally taking it all in. Instead of feeling fear as these events took place, she was feeling them in one rush—a rush that I would give my life to stop.
“Then Dad. He didn’t want me. He knew I was bad. Adonia was bad. Justus thinks I’m a queen. And Donalt stole our future.” She stammered over every word of that phrase, at least I think she did. I was too furious to ensure that I heard her the right way.
“Willow. Look at me,” I said as I tried to unclench her arms. I knew I could break them free, but the force she was using to hold them there clearly said that she didn’t want to be anywhere else. She backed up that point by crawling into my lap and wrapping her legs just as fiercely around my waist.
The sobs didn’t stop. There was not one break that would allow me to even ask where those last words of hers came from.
“Willow,” I thought. She held her breath for a second, as if she had heard me for the first time in her life, but then the cries kept on.
“They are going to blow up Drake, they’re going to seize our borders. Time is over.”
Yep. Rage. I was pretty sure that before this day was out, I was going to be putting Justus back in his grave. He was the only one that could have told her about the borders—or the end of time, for that matter—and I swear to the Creator himself, if there was an inch of truth to the other things she said, I was going to come unglued.
I couldn’t figure out how any of this could have happened. She never left this house.
I assumed the crying would stop, but it didn’t. No matter what I said or thought, she cried on. The fire in her body kept raging.
I stood up with her body still wrapped like a vise around mine, still fully dressed, and carried her into the bathroom. I turned the water in the shower to cold and stepped in with her.
She squealed and leapt out of my arms, doing her best to escape the water, but I pulled her to me.
“You’re on fire. I can heal your body, baby, but not your soul. You have to calm down. You have to tell me how to help you.”
She furrowed her brow. I loved that look, that little crease on her forehead that told me she was trying to understand something. Her eyes were locked on mine, staring deep within.
“Landen,” she thought.
I lowered my head so we were somewhat eye level. It was a struggle to keep my eyes on hers. She was soaking wet, and the white gown she was in was clinging to her. The water was glistening on her golden skin, her lips parting slightly as she took a bated breath. The embracing sent of lavender was reaching out for me.
There was no doub
t in the world that this woman was the most beautiful, sensual creature that had ever dared to take a breath. What made her irresistible was the simple fact that she didn’t have the slightest idea that she was.
Holding my gaze, with a tremble she reached her hands for my chest. I sighed, feeling her warm hands on me. I could feel waves of energy swimming through me. Whatever supernatural starvation I’d been weathering was hindered with that one touch. I was the one holding my breath now. I was the one that had to fight off a tremble of pure bliss.
“You’re in pain,” she thought.
“Tell me about the dream,” I thought as I pulled her waist against mine. I still refused to think that any of the last things she had cried out had really happened, but that didn’t mean that in some way she had not found another power, a precognitive one. It was not odd or unusual for someone to suppress one insight, only to unlock and empower another.
Her gaze was full of wonder as it rest on my face. She reached to trace my bottom lip, then let the back of her hand slide over my cheek. A smile I didn’t want to give her in this serious moment threatened to show itself. That wondrous stare grew as her fingertips traced the dimple on my cheek, then she rose to her tiptoes and let her lips rest there.
“You’re real,” she thought as her breath exhaled across my chest and her hands reached to pull me to her. “You’re mine,” she thought as her hand eased down my chest, down my stomach, edged to the rim of the jeans I had never fastened.
I lost control at that moment. I couldn’t hold back anymore. Whatever hell was waiting on us could keep waiting. I wasn’t going to go two days without looking into her eyes, without holding her, only to let her wake and fall right back into battle formation. She wanted to feel loved right now, and I was going to give that to her. Not that I wanted one, but I never had a choice when it came to Willow. When she was happy, I was happy; honestly, almost a hundred percent of the time, whatever emotion she was drowning in I felt in the core of my soul.
Right now, I felt want. A desire that was rich and deep, that yearned for a connection.
My lips seized hers, driven to devour the flesh of her, and my hands cupped her face briefly just to ensure that my kiss was as deep as possible. Then they fell, slid down the sides of her body, molding to every curve of her.
I could have pulled that gown off, I knew that, but that took seconds I didn’t want to use. Instead, my starving hands ripped the wet cloth from her body. She bit my bottom lip right as I freed her, which drove me wild. The lace around her waist, hiding the heat of her, was next. I felt her hands grasping my chest, felt the pain of that mark, that dagger, make itself known, but before I could even wince, her hands moved down my sides and tore at my jeans, pushing them away.
That was my undoing, feeling her claim me. I reached down and picked her up and wrapped her body around mine. The innocent moan that left her lips as my hand slid up her thigh drove me mad. I lifted her higher so my lips could find her neck, her chest. She bowed back, surrendering to me. The taste of her was indescribable. I was famished, and she was feeding my every desire. I felt power pulsing through me, through us. It was all I could do to keep a gentle caress hand in hand with the aggression she was pulling out of me.
Mercifully, I let my lips worship her body at a slow, agonizing pace. I loved the feel of her hands knotting through my hair, the catch of breath I could hear as my hands found a way to follow where my lips once were. The way she moved against me.
She fought for some way to reach more of me, to seduce me with her lips, her hands, but I wanted her to feel more than my physical touch. I wanted her to feel my emotion. I wanted her to feel my hungry energy. I wanted her to feel my soul reaching out once more for hers. This was about her, not me.
Each time she made a sound, my gaze would glance to her stunning face, only to find her eyes closed. Hope was not lost, though. Across her soaked skin, I could see traces of light where I had brought exaltation to her body.
“Let me see you,” my thoughts breathed as I slid her down the shower wall. Slowly, she bared the windows to her soul, revealing shimmering glimpses of blue in the deep sea of emerald. “Beautiful,” I whispered as my hand cupped her face and my thumb urged her mouth to mine. I barely brushed the flesh of her lips as I moved my body and we collided as one.
That stare, that one right there, caused more emotion than this taste of flesh. It was more than when our energy moved into one, it was more because right now it was both. It had never been both before because I had never seen her eyes as blue as they were for that one, transitory moment before the rhythm of passion forced her to close them once more.
She was there, deep inside, daring to surface. For the first time, I really saw her. I have no idea what caused her to come back to me, but I was enthralled with gratitude. It allowed me to feel her body as if it were the first time.
Gasping for air, we fell to the shower floor. My chest was heaving, my mind was numb, my eyes hooded, but I let a smile dangle on my lips. I didn’t understand how we went from being miles away from each other to me seeing that glow, that wave of blue in her eyes, but I was more at peace than I had been in recent memory. We were almost there.
I reached up for the water and turned it to warm, then let my hand fall on the back of her head as she laid against my shoulder. I told myself that was the closest we had ever been. That our vessels were on point. It was just our souls holding back.
The only thing that brought me out of that euphoria was the burn in the center of my chest. I could swear that space on my body had its own heartbeat. I adjusted Willow to the side of my chest, afraid she would feel it, or see it. It was too dim in here for the mark to clearly show; even if it wasn’t, she was deep within her own mind right now. Hell, there could have been an elephant in this shower with us and I doubt she would have noticed. That was one of the things that I adored and feared about her. I adored how deep she would think, how she could turn off the world and focus on the task at hand. But sometimes, she ventured a little too deep for my comfort.
I took the blame for that. I knew Saturn was on the horizon, but instead of pulling her closer, trying harder, we had drifted. We’d basically been apart for the better part of two weeks. She was locked in her mind for the first part of Mars, I was lost in The Realm for the second. And through Jupiter, I was anything and anyone but the boy she had fallen in love with.
Over the past few weeks, we had physically loved one another, accelerated the same raw passion we had just shared, but that experience was more like a claiming; we were marking our territory. That was our way of showing each other we still loved each other. I don’t think any soul would see that as a downfall, but right now we needed to be more than lovers; we needed to be best friends, we needed to be one on every level.
I let my lips rest on her forehead, making a silent promise to her that it was going to be different from this point on. I was not going to engage in any spell, ceremony, or war in Esterious until I had my Willow again, or maybe for the first time ever. And if that meant we had to sit in this shower wrapped around each other for eternity, then that was what we were going to do.
The only sound was the water and our breaths, which were growing calmer with each beat of our heart. Slowly, I let my hands roam across her back. She had a beautiful gift, one that would allow you to see why she felt what she felt with a touch. For others, she had to focus on showing them. With me, I could almost always see it in my mind’s eye.
Right now, with my hand against her skin, all I could see was our life together over the last few months. I clenched my jaw as Drake’s palace came into view over and over. I could almost count the days we had spent in Chara on one hand. It was a wicked wakeup call that I didn’t care to have.
When I first met her in real life, I can remember how excited I was to show her my world, every inch of it, the magic of it. I revered answering her questions, watching her find her own way of understanding it all.
My family wanted me to take her t
o the Radiance when we first came home. They wanted our celebration there. I shut that idea down fast. Willow was still adjusting to the idea of being from another dimension, trying to understand what the hell Drake wanted with her or why she had to flee the only town and friends she’d ever known. I didn’t want to overwhelm her. I wanted the transition to be as tender as a dance. I wanted her to discover my world breath by breath. I knew that way she would be given a choice, she would see every detail and know if this was where she wanted to call home. If she thought this place was worth dying for.
It didn’t happen that way. Drake crushed my plans long before I brought her home the first time. He took her friends. One died. It was an accident, but it still happened. Back then, I knew about what Chara wanted with us, but I had no idea what Esterious wanted, and our family was not helping.
Instead of telling Willow what I did know, I stood by her side as we tried to figure out what Esterious had to do with us.
That was stopping now. I was going to tell her everything. I was going to show her everything. This was our new beginning.
“Willow.”
She leaned back, quickly glancing at my chest and reaching for her ears.
“Willow. Are you okay? It was just a dream.”
“I can’t hear you. I hear water.”
I reached up and turned the water off that was still raining down on us. A thought from me pulled the massive towels from the vanity to us.
That little crease was there again, right between her brow.
“Not outside, inside,” she said, rubbing her ears as I wrapped her up in the towel.
I reached my hands for the side of her ears. “Hurt?” I thought, starting to wonder if spending the better part of two hours in the shower had been a good idea after all.
“It’s just a constant flow of water. It was there when I woke up.”
