by Jamie Magee
“I’m not throwing you off this cliff. You are going to have to fall. You are going to have to face this terror.”
“Did I not tell you of my fear of heights!” she said, pushing her body against mine. I couldn’t stop the grin that spread across my face. I loved how she felt against me. How perfectly she fit in my arms. The slight laugh in her tone was washing away the heavy moment we had shared just before. I didn’t feel like an old soul at that moment. I felt nineteen. I felt like I’d stolen an afternoon with the most beautiful girl in creation.
“You told me you didn’t want to be afraid.”
“You have jumped this?”
“More times than I could count.”
“You didn’t fear this?”
“I’ve only ever had one fear,” I said as I playfully leaned forward. One of my arms braced her against me as my other hand provocatively moved across her body, my lips brushing across her shoulder. “Not being the man you needed me to be.”
“You are the only man for me, Chambers. Get me off this cliff, and I will express that earnestly.”
“Is that a promise?” A low, sinful laugh came from somewhere deep in my throat as I leaned her forward once more.
She screamed, but it was laughing scream. A nervous laugh, but it was still a laugh.
“No cheating. No energy. Just fall. Trust the end. Regret is worse than anxiety.”
“You think I’m going to regret not jumping off a cliff?”
That made me bellow with laughter. I loved her wit. “You know what I mean. This is play. You learn best at play.”
She glanced back at me as if my words were an echo of what she’d heard before. Through my touch, I saw Nana, Draven’s grandmother, telling her the same thing. “She was right then. I’m right now,” I said with a wink. I let my arms fall from in front of her and stepped to the side. “Together. We’ll go together.”
Her eyes were wide as she stared down at the pristine blue water below.
She gave me one quick nod, and before I could blink she broke out into a swan dive and was sailing through the air, laughing or screaming—I wasn’t sure which. All I knew was that fear was gone right now. Adrenaline was consuming her.
Chapter Ten
~ Willow ~
I fear deep water. I fear heights. Those are foolish things to fear considering what I’ve done in my lifetime. These are fears you deal with as a child. You learn your boundaries. What you will and will not do. I never learned those. I avoided them. And apparently, I have avoided a lot of other fears, too. But I didn’t care about that as I flung my body over that cliff.
The wind was cool, but the warm sun was glistening on the water that was coming closer and closer every second. Before I could find fear, my body soared through the water below, which was clearer than any swimming pool known to man. The weight of my fall only took me halfway down, but I kept swimming; I wanted to reach the bottom just to say that I did.
Before I could reach it, I felt Landen’s arms around my body, the heat of his frame warming a chill I didn’t even know I had. He soared us through the water toward the rock embankment. With me in his arms, we flew out of the water, only to land softly on the edge of another fall.
He said something to me, but it was even more muffled with the water crashing down around us.
“It’s slippery here. It makes the next jump harder.”
Next one? He wanted me to go down further? I couldn’t even fathom how far down this jump was; all I could see was white water washing down at an insane speed. I adjusted my feet between a few rocks, trying to give myself some kind of anchor.
I stared up at him with wide eyes. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body, the tepid bliss of it easing me. The high that was taking over my mind.
Then again, that high could have been Landen himself. I’m not sure if it was because I had never laid eyes on his body basking in the sun or because he was soaking wet or the yet-to-be-explained tattoo down the center of his chest, but as he raised his arms to sway his wet, dark hair out of his face and every lean, sculpted muscle of his body flexed and shined in the sun, I simply lost my ability to breathe. His eyes, which were enchantingly blue under this pure sun, glanced over me once as an audacious grin consumed him, amplifying the dimples I loved so much. Every day, I discovered something more about him. Another reason to love him. Another reason to fight to keep him forevermore mine.
A few days ago, I was scared that I had lost the Landen I fell in love with. That The Realm or the past of a Phoenix had forevermore changed him. It may have been the silence, the beauty around us, but I felt like I was lost in a blissful dream with him. No one else existed at this moment.
“You have to jump out on this one.”
I glanced warily from him to the bottom that I could not possibly see beneath this raging water, feeling that horrid fear consuming me again.
“You have to brace yourself, then jump out. There are rocks under that water. You have to clear them before you can fall.”
“I can’t see past the fall.”
“But you trust me when I tell you that it’s a pool just like this one,” he said with a nod behind him.
“I can’t see it.”
“That’s what makes it fun,” he said, grinning even wider as he rolled his shoulders then leaned forward and made it seem as if he were looking down at an insane depth. He raised his brow as if to say this was harder than he remembered.
“That’s what makes it terrifying.” I still wasn’t over the shock factor that apparently at one time he and Drake were BFFs. The idea of them jumping off this for the hell of it when they were kids was not sitting well with me. None of this was sitting well with me. I wanted to ask a million questions. I wanted to be mad. I wanted to understand, but all of that, all those rambling thoughts that always led to erratic emotions, were stifled by the moment.
All I wanted was to be right here. Right now. At his side.
He reached for my hand. I felt the calm he was giving me, but every rational cell in my body told me this was wrong, so wrong.
“I won’t let anything hurt you. I’ll never make you do anything you don’t want to do. You have to choose. Either you let fear win, or you grab the high of adrenaline.”
I wanted to feel that high again. The adrenaline had made me feel weightless. Made me feel invincible.
I glanced down and measured the rapid water once more. I couldn’t see the rocks. The danger. But I knew it was there. Just under that beauty of white water. I crouched down, and then pushed myself up. I flew through the air. I missed the fall by at least three feet, but to my surprise the pool of water was no less than five feet from where I’d jumped. I fell hard into that pool, feeling Landen crash in beside me.
I shook my finger at him with a playful glare as I went to swim up, but he pulled my body to his, wrapping himself around me, letting his smiling lips connect with mine, slowly letting us rise to the air that we should breathe in but didn’t bother to notice was available as we surfaced and our kiss fell deeper.
He pinched my sides, which caused me to laugh out loud. He floated in the deep pool, pulling me against him.
“I was convinced it was a hundred foot drop, that I would be falling for days. That’s why I used that much force.”
“And how did you feel when you figured out it wasn’t that bad?”
“Like a fool for fearing it.”
He nodded once as he laughed out loud, telling me that was exactly what he wanted me to feel. I could have stared at him in that water, under that bright sun and pristine blue sky that could not dream to match the addictive color of his eyes, for lifetimes.
I rarely saw him at ‘play.’ I mean, I had seen him joke around with his family, play football, laugh at the random nonsense I would say, but it was almost like right now…he was free. There were no chains holding him to any curse or past, or future for that matter. It gave me hope that something like this could be in our future. That we could spontaneously r
un away to a private getaway, one where I would learn even more about him, discover every inch of his mind, body, and soul.
I swam closer to him, wanting to feel his lips on mine, his body next to mine. But he kept swimming backward. His long legs hooked around my waist as his powerful arms pulled us through the water.
“One more.”
“How can there be another?”
He just laughed as I felt the current begin to pull us to a silent edge. I wasn’t sure I liked how still everything seemed to become. A second later, I could feel rocks on my feet. He stood, helping me up.
“Watch your balance, the rocks are slippery,” he warned.
We had reached the silent fall, and I could see the bottom of this one. It was easily twice the size of the fall that started this nonsense.
“No way,” I breathed as I looked behind us and realized how far I had fallen in the first place. There was no way up, and the only way off what we were on was to jump. “Point of no return,” I mumbled.
“The point of no return began when we decided to jump, not when we realized how far we’ve come or how far we have yet to go.”
“Deep.”
“The water, very.”
I threw him a playful glare. He knew I was talking about him, but he was keeping my focus on what was in front of me—or rather, what was below me.
I felt my heart hammering. Even though there was nothing but fresh air to breathe, I felt the Earth closing in around me. No way out. Now or never. I was voting for never.
“You know, if you really don’t want to do this, or anything else, I will move heaven and hell itself to protect you from it.”
My eyes locked on his. I knew with my gifts of moving my body, I could propel myself up that cliff. With his Phoenix powers, he could whisk us back to our living room. That was common knowledge. So, I knew his words were weighed, that he had something even more revealing to tell me or show me, and I was sure it had everything to do with Justus’ outlandish claims—or maybe something more.
“The only way to make my demons go away is to face them. Fear is that to me now,” I asserted.
His smile was a proud one. One that I wasn’t sure I was reading right. If I could figure out how to turn my insights on to where I could only feel him, I would gladly do so. But what I feared right now, more than anything, was being as out of control as I was before. I dreaded that fear would kill me if I were able to feel it on a higher vibration than what I was feeling now.
I edged my feet closer, now seeing that this was a straight drop, one so far that I doubted even if I could hear, would I hear the water falling at the other end. Trusting that I would find that rush once more, that I would land in a basking pool of water, I jumped. At first, I didn’t even mock a dive; I just stepped off. Somewhere halfway down, right when I felt that kick of adrenaline, I used my energy and moved my body in the air, forming a dive. One that was so on point that I doubted the water even made a splash as I fell beneath it. I fell so deep, so fast that I heard my ears pop.
I thought for sure I had broken whatever barrier I’d been behind with my hearing. I turned and soared to the top of the water, only barely kicking my way up. I felt Landen reach for my hand seconds before we broke the surface.
Nothing. I still could not hear the way I wanted to. There was still a muffled barricade between myself and the rest of the world, but I didn’t care. I leaned back in the water and gazed up at the path I had just taken. Even from here, it looked dangerous, foolish to even try. It was one of those impossible moments that filled you with such an insane amount of joy that you never wanted to come down from the high you had found. Every part of me felt energized, alive.
Landen’s gaze was serious as he swam closer to me. His hand cupped my face as his thumb traced the bottom of my eye. The way he was looking at me was ineffable…he hadn’t gazed at me like this since I was sixteen and we met in our dreams. Sometime after that point, my nightmares became more violent. They hurt more. I drew inward. He was the only thing I looked forward to each day.
“You’re winning this war.”
“Blue?” I questioned, still not understanding what he meant about this lacking connection he thought we had. Logic was telling me that if my body didn’t hum or whatever and it didn’t glow, then that just meant we were different. We’ve always been different from the others. Neither of us sought to be the same.
“Blue for an instant…” His hands moved across my body. “I feel you reaching out for me.”
I pulled his chin closer to me and slowly framed his lips with mine. “You save me every day.” I wrapped my arms around his shoulders.
I couldn’t believe that I woke up terrified and sobbing today, and he had brought me to this point.
“You did this as a kid—do you understand how dangerous this is?” I asked, pulling away from his kiss.
He leaned back and nodded to a distant cliff, where I could see a tattered shirt hanging from a branch, maybe fifty feet down. That cliff was higher than the one we had traversed.
“That’s Drake’s,” he thought with a boyish laugh as his powerful arms started to pull us to the shore.
I moved my head from side to side. I still could not understand this past friendship. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I felt bad enough standing between them when I thought they hated each other. Knowing they had a kinship was almost painful. Then again, knowing the two of them, how they saw the world, it almost made sense, or at least it was just as jacked up as everything else was.
“Did you fight because of me?”
He moved his head from side to side as he pulled us up on the bank. “We grew apart long ago. He fell into his role, and I fell into mine. I checked on him a lot, but we said our goodbyes.”
I stared at him endlessly, thinking back over the last few months, everything the three of us have been through.
“Is that why no one gave you grief over having him around?”
He furrowed his brow at me, playfully telling me two things: one, he was wondering if I was in the same room with him when his family did give him hell about Drake; and two, he was telling me he didn’t really care what they said.
“Only Brady knew. My dad would have killed me if he knew I was hanging out with anyone from Esterious. Brady understood my leeway. He understood that Drake and I had gotten each other through a wicked adolescence. Everyone else just trusted our love.”
“Why are you using past tense?”
He stared at me, looking for words apparently. “Let’s get you dry and home to Chara.”
I didn’t need my insights back to know that he was not looking forward to telling me what was weighing on his mind. There was another cliff in my future, one that was surely more dangerous than the ones I’d faced today. I told the fear that was daring to creep up my spine to go to hell. It only vaguely listened as it stole my breath, as my heart started to pound at a slow, reverent pace.
Chapter Eleven
~ Landen ~
Watching that thin tank of hers drying in the sun on the bank of my favorite hideaway was enough to make me debate never leaving here. I knew I could find us food, shelter, and that there was enough adventure here that we would never grow bored. In those silent moments, I lived an entire life at her side, one that I had imagined more than once.
I knew it was a foolish daydream. We would be found.
It was no secret that the Chambers bloodline preferred stubborn, adventurous women, ones that would put us in our place with one hard glance. My Willow would take it as an insult if I didn’t tell her everything. For all I knew, she was going to be angry and insulted anyway for me telling her this late in the game, but I was hoping for bonus points on being honest now; better late than never, right?
She stood before me, now completely dressed. She hadn’t said a word since I carried us back to the top of the cliff. Her gaze was pensive. Her intent was set on facing the worst, on preparing herself for an unfathomable fear.
I hated that she felt that
way, and I wanted to tell her there was no reason to worry a thousand times over. Because one way or another, I would make this choice easy for her. I would make sure she knew that for the first time in her life, maybe her existence, she had to do what was right for her, not for the world. She had to feel her own heart, her own intent, and make the choice that only she could know was right. Because honestly, this ceremony would not happen if we were not both a hundred percent there for the right reasons.
I pulled her against me.
“Hold on.”
She braced her hands on my chest. “Where are you taking me?” she thought with a weak quake.
“Chara.”
I pulled her head to my chest and wrapped her in my energy, sending her calm and balance, then moved our bodies home. To the place rumored to be where we first appeared so many years ago.
Once I’d brought us to the outskirts of the Radiance, I continued to hold her against me. I could feel my heart pounding, my palms sweating.
I was no stranger to this place. I’d spent most of my days here, at my father’s side, with my brother, my cousins, and the rest of the Rampart Warriors. I knew every branch, every blade of grass, every single inch of this land. But as a child when I played here, I had no idea that I would be standing here today as a king, with my queen in my arms…I would have never wanted that weight.
Though I had commanded the warriors to action, stood before members of them at my doorstep, I had yet to come here since I’d found Willow. I’d yet to claim the throne that was so clearly mine, that had always been mine.
My mother wanted me to walk Willow through these gates the first instant we came home. She wanted the world here, wanted a celebration that would be remembered for all of time. Before we even knew that Drake had taken Willow’s friends, I shut the idea down. I told my mother, via phone, that I would never terrify Willow, I would never push this role on her. That we deserved the time alone before we stood before this creation. Besides, I wasn’t completely convinced I was who they thought we were at the time.
