“That’s not true.”
How did he possibly know? I had to ask. “What exactly did she tell you that would make you think otherwise?”
“About being in love with someone she didn’t really know then you were sent on a mission and he was the target.”
Jaylyn smiled and shared a delighted look with me. “She actually told you that? Well, so you know, she was talking about you.”
“Not possible. She said she killed him.”
“Because in her mind you are dead. You have to be now that she knows who you really are.”
“Yeah right.”
He walked passed us again and Jaylyn just took one simple step forward. “Zayden, she saw your child. That should mean something to you.”
“Mean what? She’s doing a pretty good job to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Wait. What does that mean?” I asked. “It was really a glimpse of the future? She told you that? Now you have to make up with her.”
“It’s all completely pointless. Believe me.”
“You shouldn’t think that now that you know the truth.” Jaylyn said. “She just needs a little more convincing because she knows who you really are. She never freaked out about that dream before. Assassins aren’t supposed to have a future like that so she was kind of looking forward to it until she realized the father would not only be from our number one enemy country but more specifically their Prince.”
“I told her that doesn’t matter to me.”
“Maybe so but it still does to her—a lot.”
Zayden crossed his arms over his chest, shifting his weight while sighing again. “What do you want me to do? I already know you have something in mind so just say it already.”
“Talk to her.” I said it with Jaylyn in the exact same manner.
“Tried that. What else?”
“Oh, now you’re just giving up. Try again. We have to get our stuff. You can come with us and then we’ll all just leave so you can talk.”
Zayden rolled his eyes, sighing yet again and he turned his attention to Muscles and Troy who have been standing idly by. “Are you just going to stand there and let them force me into this?”
They looked at each other and smiled. “Yup!”
“Who authorized this change in command? It surely wasn’t me.”
“Zayden!” We groaned like children, trying to get him to do it.
He was aggravated by our persistence just like Adele had always been and gave in just like she always would. Perfect. “All right but this isn’t going to work.”
“It couldn’t hurt to try.” I smiled, leading him towards the shelter. “You know now but don’t let her know that you know or it’ll just end badly for you and probably us because we told you.”
Zayden followed willingly down underground while he put his shirt back on and Adele was still laying on her side of the bed, facing the edge and curled up into a ball. We could see her because the walls of her room were gone. We glanced over at Zayden for a second but didn’t even bother getting dressed down here.
“Hey, Adele?” Jaylyn looked over towards her bed, hoping she’d reply.
Adele just sighed but didn’t look over. “I know. I’ll get up before the head dog throws a tantrum. Thirty seconds. I just had the worse night of my life so go away.”
We picked up our stuff and looked at Zayden as we left. We still had some more waiting to do and I hoped something would actually work this time.
Chapter 39
Zayden
This was it.
I stood in the middle of the room looking at Adele curled up on the bed and thinking of the morning. I didn’t know what I had to do to try and resolve this but stood in complete silence anyway.
She started to move, stretching out her legs and let out a heavy sigh as she sat up on the edge, looking down. “Okay, I can do this. It really isn’t as hard as I’m making it to be. I’ve killed people, I’ve almost been killed. This is nothing.”
She let out another rhythmic breath and got to her feet, not knowing I was standing here. “If you keep telling yourself that will you really start to believe it?”
She jerked around to her left and fell back on the bed when she saw me. “And now I have to start all over.”
I laughed to her comment as I approached but started to hold it back to become serious. “Look, Love, about this morning—”
“Don’t say another word.” She cut me off while keeping her gaze away from me at the same time. Something she was good at. “I’m fine.”
“But I know you’re not. I know you didn’t mean what you said this morning and I shouldn’t have left like that.”
“You don’t know anything!” She snapped her words and sprung to her feet to finally look at me again but she was heated with some kind of emotion. “This means nothing! I’m going to go back home in a few days and you’ll forget all about me the second I leave no matter what you say!”
I knew she fought hard to hold back from bringing tears to her eyes and I stepped closer, trying to prove otherwise. “It won’t be that easy to forget but you already know about that, don’t you?”
She didn’t say anything but I think she knew exactly what I was talking about because she shied away from it.
“It’s all right, Love. I don’t want you to use what I am as the problem. Why can’t you look passed it like I do?”
“Because I can’t. There’s nothing special about me that should even make you think twice. I’m not good enough.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I mean, look at you. I couldn’t take my eyes off you when I first saw you. It shouldn’t matter where you come from.”
Adele turned away. “Please don’t say that to me. You’re just making this harder.”
“But it shouldn’t be harder.” I stepped closer to her and took her hand, making her look at me. “I want you to be with me. You’re the one making this harder.”
“But it can’t always be this way. I’ll have to leave sometime and we’d never see each other again.”
“Just live in the now. We’ll deal with the future when we come to it.”
“But what about your father? He won’t approve.”
“That’ll make this just that much better.”
“Zayden!” She backed away from me and started to walk back towards the bed. “I will not have you use me to get to him!”
I laughed just from the thought. “That’s not what I’m doing at all. I plan on using you for other stuff and I would have shown you this morning but you had to come to your senses.”
Adele’s mouth hung open and she slightly laughed. “Oh, thank you. Can we not talk about what happened? I haven’t slept since then.”
“Really?”
“Of course not! I never actually wanted you to leave but it was my fault. I said the wrong thing.”
“And I took it the wrong way. There. We’re even.”
“Please don’t joke. This won’t work. We can’t be together.”
“Why not?”
“You know why! You were right not to encourage this in the beginning and that should never have changed!” She took a breath from her outburst and started to calm down, changing the subject completely. “Excuse me. I should be getting dressed so we can go.”
She turned and gathered her clothes off the stand and placed them on the bed while I stepped closer and sat down, watching. She didn’t tell me to leave and continued like I wasn’t there at all. She turned her back and took that little top she was wearing off over her shoulders. I sat up a little more from seeing her and moved closer across the bed. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t stay away but it only got worse.
She turned sideways to the bed, her hair draping over her breasts and she started to wiggle out of her skirt, pushing it towards the floor. I don’t know what came over me but I couldn’t restrain myself from going to her once it slid freely down her legs and she was standing completely naked with me still in the room.
I was
sitting on the edge of the bed and pulled her in close to me by her hips with a good grasp. “Seal the door.”
Adele laughed and tried stepping back. “Zayden, no way. What would they think?”
“Just do it. They’re busy.” I looked up at her with a quiet harsh voice and her look changed. I knew what she was looking at. My eyes were black and I could feel her blood rush through her body.
She lost the smile from her laugh and tried pulling away from me. “No.”
No exactly. I wasn’t letting up on my grip even when I got to my feet and turned her towards the bed. She resisted and stayed on her feet but leaned forward, only making this all the more tempting.
“Zayden, snap out of it!”
My hold was tight on her and I wasn’t about to stop. I couldn’t seem to. I was locked into the sight in front of me and I wanted it. Nothing was going to stand in my way but luckily something did. Adele slapped me across the face. It was like before only this time it made me realize what I was really doing and I was more sorry than I ever could have been, looking back at her with my senses diminishing.
“I’m sorry.” I took slow steps away and kept my hands visibly in the air, not to touch her again. “Maybe you should be the one to stay away from me.”
Adele pulled her clothes to her and covered herself up as she sat down. “That wasn’t me afraid of you, Zayden. That was me protecting both our futures.”
I closed my eyes and turned away. “Please just get dressed. We have a lot of other things to worry about today.” I walked around the bed away from her and sat on the other side so she was out of sight.
I couldn’t believe what I just tried to do. I wasn’t that desperate, was I? I didn’t think so until now but it only made me become more cautious with myself. I didn’t want to hurt her but I almost did. I could have. That thought was completely unacceptable and I—
Someone touched me and I jumped right around, falling to the floor.
Adele was dressed and crouched up on the bed. “Are you all right?” Her smile faded when I didn’t smile back and she moved to the edge of the bed. “Seriously.”
“I thought I had control over it but I don’t. I could have hurt you.”
“I wasn’t worried about that, Zayden. If I didn’t want you to, I wouldn’t have let you. It wouldn’t matter how strong you are. You already know about my gift so I’d be able to use it against you.” She said it in a joking way that it did actually make me smile, despite how I really felt. “Now come on.” She stood up and held her hand down to me. “I’ve got to get these blankets back into our coats because I’m sure it’s cold out there.”
I took her hand and hopped up to my feet. “I’m sorry about trying to get you to—”
“It’s okay, Zayden.” She didn’t look at me to see how sorry I was while she started changing her blanket back. “I understand that you’ve been out here for a long time. I have respect for you. I would have killed myself from having to go that long.”
“Well, I wasn’t always thinking about it. Just more so since I’ve been around you.”
“Yeah, I don’t think you have to explain that to me. Just saying it’s my fault is good enough.”
“Well, it is. What are we going to tell everyone? You know they’re expecting something.”
Adele put her coat on and moved to the other two beds. “What do you mean? Your breakdown?”
“No, like where we stand.”
“Oh, um, well, I’d consider us to be friends, I guess.”
“Friends? That’s it?” I was surprised that was her answer after everything that’s happened.
“Is there a problem?”
“Yes. I can’t just be friends with you. I want more than that. That wasn’t clear a moment ago?”
“A moment ago, you were just in a rush to have a woman. You would have done that with anyone.”
“That’s not true, Love. I haven’t made even a verbal attempt on the other two. It’s just been you.”
“Maybe because they were already claimed?”
“Why do you have to be like that?”
“So we can’t be friends?”
“No. After everything you’ve put me through, you either call us together or nothing.”
She paused with coats folded in her arms and I would have given anything to know what she was thinking. “Then I guess there’s nothing.”
Besides that. “So, we’re back to that and all of this was worthless?”
She started to turn away like she couldn’t even look at me while she said it. “If you don’t want to take the only thing I can offer then yeah, I guess so.”
Great. This surely wasn’t helping my mood. Why did she have to be this way?! She was fighting for it too hard but made it clear there was nothing more I could do.
Chapter 40
Jaylyn
“How’d it go?” Ruby was standing with her cloak wrapped tight around her to keep her arms warm just waiting to know when Adele walked up with Zayden trailing behind her.
He shook his head. “We’d better get this picked up. We leave as soon as it’s done.”
Adele gave us our coats and we quickly dropped our cloaks and put them on, not wanting to be cold for a second. It was sunny but it was still chilly being this early.
Adele put up her hand and the doorway to the underground room was closed.
“Adele, what happened down there?” Ruby whispered.
I leaned in because I wanted to know the answer just as much.
“Nothing. We don’t need to talk about it. We’re just going to get the rest of this over with.”
Ruby and I both sighed and leaned away. We somehow knew that she wasn’t going to say anything. We almost expected it. At least I did.
“Shouldn’t we be going?” Adele asked.
“Ah, yes.” Zayden said. “But there’s probably one thing you should do first.”
“What?”
“In order to be Leccan, you have to look like one.”
Adele’s eyes moved over to us and I got excited, clapping my hands together softly. “Ooh! I love braids but how do you intend us to look like them besides that?”
“Don’t worry.” Adele cut in before Zayden could respond. “I’ve got that covered. Ruby.” She took her arm and pulled her back a few steps away from the others with me and quickly put up a wall.
She used the outfits that we were wearing and made us adorable new ones with her gift that looked much less like us—Kaluian.
“Awe, look how cute I look!” I was upbeat and full of joy to wear it but Ruby definitely wasn’t.
“Is that really necessary? You’re not going to make me look like that are you?”
“I can only work with what we already have and you’ll deal with the look I give you. Jaylyn, now your hair. Turn.”
She did my hair to go with my outfit and I was first to walk around the wall to show it off. “Is this Leccan enough?”
They were staring with their mouths wanting to fall open. I loved it. The green leather in my corset was transformed into a strapless mini dress with a lace up front and slits up my thighs on the front of the skirt. I had on knee high boots made out of the green leather with fur cuffs from my coat. The same fur was used to cover the front of my chest and a small choker around my neck with the gray holster belt for my ring blades. My fabulous blonde hair was tightly braided up the back and sides to high pigtails where my curls were left to flow down and bounce around every time I took a step.
“Well?”
“You’re fuzzy.” Darius smiled.
“Ah—it’s very—” Zayden paused.
“Winter Leccan.” Troy said.
“Yeah.” Zayden agreed. “It’ll do.”
“Great!” I walked over and hooked my arm in Troy’s then turned my head back to the wall still up. “Hurry up! I want to see!”
We heard a heavy sigh from behind the wall and Adele’s laugh as she came into view next. “She needs a moment.”
I smiled and
turned my look to see Zayden not blinking a wink as he watched Adele walk over. Her blue corset and pants were made into a mini dress with a jagged edged skirt that was short on the right side and got longer on the left. She wore another similar straight edge skirt under it that was used mainly to cover her right hip a little better with the black belt for her sword.
Her fur from her coat was used completely over the dress and settled over the front of her chest. Fur cuffs were also around her new designed blue leather knee high boots, her hair was tightly braided in four rows in the back and going up to the top of her head where a single long braid consumed the length of her hair.
“I hope this works. It wouldn’t be wise to actually take us to the city then find something suitable.”
“No. It’s fine.” Zayden replied, finally blinking. “You think she had her moment yet? We’ll need to get going sometime today.”
“Ruby, come on! We’re all waiting on you!”
“No way! You made me look like such a—Leccans are freaks!”
“Well, that’s what we have to be so just get out here!”
“No!”
Adele sighed and put up her hand, dropping the wall back into the ground while Ruby stood with her arms folded across her chest. Even though she looked angry, she looked good. She was in a red leather and velvet mini dress with four slashes around the hips and five across her breasts. She was wearing a short fur cape that just covered around the top of her shoulders and fur cuffs around her red leather knee high boots with a tan belt and her swords placed as normal on her back. Her red hair was tightly braided from the crown of her head on each side and curved down towards the back and all the way to the very ends.
Her anger was rising, making her eyes turn red with them on Adele. “I hate you.”
“Good.” Adele smiled. “Because there’s one more thing I need to do to you.”
“What more could you possibly do?”
Adele kept her smile and pushed her hand towards her. The wind stopped immediately when she was thrown back, landing hard on the ground.
Aligning Stars (Fate's Intent Book 1) Page 22
