King Series Box Set

by Kandle, Tawdra

  “We sat down on the sofa, and for a few minutes, we just looked at each other. I didn’t know what to say, because there was so much inside of me to tell him. I could hear him, though...and it was the best thing ever. I had forgotten how clearly I could hear him—or maybe I’d blocked that memory on purpose.”

  “What was he thinking?” Aline was pretty good at keeping me from hearing her thoughts, but she couldn’t hide her feelings so well. Sometimes when I was telling her the story of what had happened last spring, she seemed more like an audience than a therapist.

  “He was thinking just the most wonderful things. He had missed me, and even though I could feel that hurt and pain, I was amazed that he still loved me that much. And how happy he was to be with me, and that we were whole again, and no one was ever going to pull us apart.”

  Aline sighed just a little, and I stifled a grin. Having the most romantic boyfriend in the world could elicit envy, I knew.

  “I finally told him that I was so sorry for what I had done to us. And Michael took my face in his hands, and he looked into my eyes, and he said I didn’t ever have to be sorry. He said that he knew I’d been under some pretty strong bad influence, and I realized he meant Marica.”

  The pang of mixed shame and regret struck just as sharply as it had that day. Aline picked up my wince.

  “So Michael believed that the fault for your break up could be laid totally at the feet of Marica Lacusta?”

  I nodded. “And in a way, I understood that. It made it easier to blame someone else. Easier to forgive me, easier for us to move on. We’d had some experience with people around Marica and Nell doing strange things—like Amber. She thought they were her friends, and she lied to her parents, took part in coven activities...so it’s not as odd as it might seem for Michael to believe that.”

  “And what do you think about that? About Michael blaming Marica?” The therapist was fully back in charge, I thought wryly.

  “I thought—I don’t know. Like I said, I understand it. And it would be pretty easy for me agree to that. But I think it might be letting me off the hook too easily.”

  “Really? In what way?”

  I shifted uncomfortably as I tried to put my feelings into words. “Marica was influencing me. That’s true. But she never tried to get me to break up with Michael. She never said that if I didn’t end the relationship, she wouldn’t work with me. I was aware of her feelings, but the decision to act—that really falls squarely on me. I heard what Michael thought that day last December, and I made the choice to walk away.”

  Aline cocked her head, considering me. She was quiet, as though she were listening to a voice I couldn’t quite hear. According to her, the only gift she possessed from her family—one of the extraordinary first families of King, Florida—was that of empathy and insight. I recalled our very first session together, a little over a month ago, when she had told me that she considered herself an excavator more than anything else. “You already have the answers,” she had told me. “I’m here to give you the tools that will help you uncover those answers.”

  Now she nodded at me. “Tell me something, Tasmyn. And you don’t need to respond right away; you can think about it until next time, if you want. But I’d like you to consider this: what if you heard Michael think that same thing today? What would you do?”

  I didn’t need time to mull over my answer. I had mulled it over more often than I liked, and sometimes, in my nightmares, Michael had never really come back to me. There was still so much I had to sort out about the mess that was my life last spring. But this was one answer I already had.

  “I would tell him that I had heard it. I would ask him why he was thinking that. But I wouldn’t leave him. I know I can’t handle that pain again. If any good came out of all the misery...well, it’s that I know one thing for sure. Michael and I--we’re meant to be together, forever. And that’s the most certain thing in my life.”

  Perriman College was still a little old-fashioned when it came to freshmen. Our dormitories were co-ed in theory; the boys occupied the first three floors, and the girls lived on the upper three levels. My room was identical to every other one in Rollins Court; two beds, two desks and two closets housed within ecru-painted cinderblocks.

  I liked my roommate, Sophie. She was quiet and very focused, and it was fairly easy to block her thoughts. I even kind of liked our room; we had decorated it with posters and girly curtains, and it had a certain character in spite of the institutional feel.

  But I didn’t head back to Rollins after my weekly appointment with Aline. It was Friday, and although I knew that Michael wouldn’t be out of class yet, his dorm was closer and much more appealing to me. I knew the path to Gilbert Hall with my eyes closed.

  I climbed the steps to the second floor and knocked at the door. I didn’t expect an answer; Michael’s suite mate, Charlie, was a soccer player, and he had practice or games nearly every afternoon.

  I pulled a key out of my pocket and opened the door. It was definitely against the dorm rules for anyone outside the occupants of a room to have a key to it, but Michael had broken that rule right away. Charlie was pretty easy going and didn’t mind me having access to their suite either.

  Upperclassmen really had it good, I reflected as I locked the door behind me and glanced around the small living room. Michael and Charlie shared this common area, a tiny kitchen and a bathroom, but they each had their own bedrooms on opposite sides of the suite. Sometimes four boys shared a suite this size, but because Charlie was a junior and an assistant resident advisor, he and Michael had scored this living arrangement for just the two of them.

  I headed straight for Michael’s room and dropped my backpack just inside the doorway. The room was pure Michael, I thought with a smile as I sprawled out on his bed. The dark blue comforter was pulled over the sheets and pillows. He had a few posters on the wall, mostly old obscure bands that I never would have heard of if I didn’t know Michael. A picture of the two of us dominated the small bedside table.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent so uniquely his. It was still very fragile, this love between us. We hadn’t lost any of our history, but we had lost time. Michael tried not to talk about anything that had happened during those months apart, but sometimes I heard things cross his mind. He hadn’t done anything wrong, of course, but the pain of our separation still lingered in his thoughts.

  I definitely kept my mouth closed as much as possible about our time apart. I never mentioned Marica or Rafe Brooks, the friend who had briefly become...something more. Michael might not blame me for anything, but I certainly blamed myself.

  That was part of the reason for my weekly visits to Aline. My parents had insisted that I needed some kind of therapy, and Rafe’s grandmother, Caroline Brooks, had suggested Aline. With her family history, she was perfectly qualified to counsel someone like me; she was familiar with all of the old King families and their various powers or skills. Even though I wasn’t from one of the original families, the gifts I possessed made me unique. Thanks to Aline’s help, I was learning to control the additional power that I’d uncovered during my time with Marica. I tried not to think of myself as a freak of nature anymore, but it was tough sometimes, when even a little bit of temper or upset made all the pictures tremble on the walls.

  Aline had asked me to tell her the whole story, and I had spent the last six weeks doing just that. Some of it was so painful that I ached for hours after our sessions. It made me feel better to curl up in Michael’s arms and remind myself that it was all over, that I was safe and me again.

  Actually, we had both gone a little overboard with the togetherness in our initial weeks at Perriman. It was the first time that we’d had total freedom to be with each other away from my parents and our homes. We spent every waking, non-class-attending moment together. About a week after classes began, Michael steered me toward an empty table at dinner.

  “We need to talk,” he began, and my heart thudded painfully. It only t
ook a moment, though, for me to hear what he was thinking. I sank into my chair in relief, my hands shaking.

  “Are you okay?” Michael reached over to rub my arm lightly. “You went real pale on me there.”

  “I wasn’t sure what you were going to say. You scared me.” I tried to smile a little, to sound less serious, but it didn’t work.

  “I’m sorry!” Michael groaned. “I didn’t mean to do that. I just wanted--”

  “No, I heard you.” I managed a better smile this time and covered his hand with my own. “And you’re right. Neither of us are doing justice to our schoolwork. We’ve got to be a little more disciplined or we’re both going to flunk out of college.”

  We worked out a compromise: we still ate all of our meals together, but after dinner on weeknights, we parted at the dining hall and returned to our own rooms. The payoff was that we rewarded ourselves for good behavior by spending every weekend together, from breakfast until Michael dropped me off at my room, usually around midnight. So far, it was a good plan, and I knew we both felt more virtuous.

  Now, as I gazed at the photo of us on his nightstand, my inner ear pricked: Michael was close. I could hear his thoughts, weeding them out of the miasma of other students in the hallway and the rooms around us. I smiled and lay waiting for him.

  He was whistling as he let himself into the suite. I heard the refrigerator door open, and he thought, Dang, Charlie drank all that soda I bought. I wonder if he left me any chips. Eavesdropping in his mind, I saw him choose a bottle of water and take a chug of it. He was heading toward the bedroom, without a notion that I was waiting for him. I didn’t move as the door opened, and then I felt his surprise, followed shortly by the touch of his lips on my cheek.

  “Are you asleep?”

  I sighed happily and opened my eyes. “No. Just lying here waiting for you.”

  The bed dipped as he sat down next to me. “A nice surprise. I didn’t expect you to be finished with Aline so soon. Did...everything go okay?” Michael’s voice was cautious, but his mind was worried.

  I turned onto my side and curled my body around him, smiling as he ran a finger lightly down my cheek.

  “Yes. I finished telling her the story today.”

  Michael raised one eyebrow. “The story, huh? Which one?”

  I traced the side seam of his jeans with the edge of my fingernail. “You know. Last year. This spring.” I attempted a smile. “The dark ages.”

  Michael’s tension level went up a notch, and he shifted uneasily. “Oh.”

  That familiar terror and anxiety gripped me. On the surface, the deep rift that I had torn between Michael and me last winter had healed, but I knew that some cuts were still raw and bleeding. I bit my lip and hid my face in the pillow.

  “Hey.” He touched my chin gently until I turned my head again. “Come on. Don’t shut me out. I want to know all about it.”

  “Sometimes I’m not so sure,” I said quietly. “I think it’s easier to pretend it never happened.”

  “No,” Michael said, finality in both his tone and his mind. “We know that we’ve got to be completely open with each other—or things go wrong. I didn’t mean to react that way.”

  I flipped onto my back, heaving a deep sigh. “I can’t do this. I don’t want you to apologize for letting me see how you really feel. Yes, it hurts me to see you remember. But I need you to be honest with me—like you said, completely open. Okay?”

  Michael leaned over me, one hand on either side of my body. “Promise.” He dropped his lips to touch mine lightly at first, and then he sunk deeper, pressing his chest against me. My arms moved around his neck automatically, pulling him closer. With a soft groan, he rolled over me, laying on the bed and never breaking the kiss. The heat between us built, and I ran my hands over Michael’s back, feeling the muscles that came from years of working at his family’s nursery.

  When Michael fell back onto the bed, we were both breathing heavily. In the wake of our separation, the physical relationship between us was still a little tentative. It was no less intense, but neither of us was ready to push the boundaries we had set from our earliest days together.

  I knew that most of Michael’s friends as well as the few people I’d gotten to know at the college assumed that Michael and I were more intimate than we actually were. It never occurred to them that a couple as committed and close as we seemed to be would not be sleeping together. And truthfully, it was sometimes hard for me to explain to myself. We had decided to take things slowly at the beginning of our relationship; neither of us had ever had a serious boyfriend or girlfriend before each other, and it was all new territory.

  Plus we were both what I thought of as good kids. We really wanted to please our parents, and we followed the rules. That began to change for me when I made the conscious decision not to tell my mom and dad that Michael knew about my mind hearing ability, and again when I didn’t share with them what I had heard in Nell’s thoughts. Since keeping that secret hadn’t turned out terribly well—and nearly cost me my life—it seemed like a good idea to try to follow my parents’ other rules. And no sex for teenagers was definitely one of those rules.

  Michael felt the same way, I knew. Luke and Marly, his parents, were two of the most amazing people I’d ever met, and neither of us wanted to disappoint them. They had forgiven me for breaking their son’s heart and had accepted me back into the family fold with incredible grace. The last thing I wanted to do was cause them any more grief.

  I turned on my side and lay my head on Michael’s chest. I could hear his heart thundering, and from his thoughts, I knew he was struggling with what he wanted versus what he thought was right.

  I skimmed my fingers along his chin, and his arm tightened around me. “Michael,” I ventured, “don’t you wonder sometimes if it’s worth it...holding back like this?” I couldn’t meet his eyes; talking about our physical relationship wasn’t easy for me, which was fairly ironic, considering that I was privy to Michael’s deepest thoughts.

  He didn’t answer right away. He stretched his back and brushed his hand over my hair.

  “Sure I do,” he said finally. His voice was husky and low, and I closed my eyes, listening against the background of his now-steady heartbeat. “I think about it. I know I want to be with you for the rest of my life, so why should we torture ourselves, waiting to do something we both want so much?”

  My breath caught, and I touched my lips to his neck, feeling a quickening of the pulse there that matched my own yearning.

  “But,” he continued, “one thing my mom and dad always said keeps coming back to me. They used to say that we—Lela and me—we should never do anything that might have consequences we couldn’t handle. Dad said there are enough surprises in life without risking it all on something that we knew ahead of time might be too much for us.”

  Silence settled between us as we both considered Luke’s advice. I knew he was right, but it would be a lot easier to agree with him when I wasn’t lying on Michael’s bed hearing and feeling every breath he drew.

  After a few moments, Michael swung his legs off the bed and sat up, easing me away from him with a kiss on my forehead. He leaned over me again and looked into my eyes.

  “Don’t ever for minute think it’s easy for me, though, Tas,” he whispered. “It’s not. But I love you. I want everything in your life to be as perfect as possible, and I’m willing to wait to make sure that happens.”

  I smiled up at him; I could feel the truth behind his words. “I believe you.”

  “Now, I think I’m going to grab a shower. Probably a nice cold shower.” He tossed me a rueful grin as he stood and began rooting through the dresser drawers. “Did you have anything planned for tonight for us?”

  I shook my head. “No, I thought we’d have dinner and then just hang out. Maybe watch a movie or something?”

  Michael closed the drawers and moved to the closet. “I was kind of thinking...there’s this party thing that the head of the botany depa
rtment is giving tonight. He asked me to be there. Would you go with me?”

  Involuntarily I made a face. Hanging out with botany professors was not exactly my idea of a fun evening.

  Michael caught sight of my expression and laughed. “Don’t worry, we don’t have to stay long. But I think it’s important for us to go. First of all, Dr. Sorrel assigns the senior year internships. I want to get a good one around here, so I don’t have to be away from you. And second, the head of the committee that selects the winner of the Hamilton Award is going to be there, and Dr. Sorrel thinks I should meet him.”

  “The Hamilton Award?” I frowned, trying to remember if Michael had mentioned it.

  “Yes.” He finally found a shirt in his closet and, along with a pair of khakis, tossed it over the foot of the bed before he sat down next to me again. “The Hamilton Award could be very important to us. It’s a little while before I’ll qualify, but they start looking at candidates pretty early.”

  “And it’s important to us why?” I raised querying eyebrows.

  Michael picked up my hand and kissed it lightly. “Because if I won the Hamilton Award, I would be able to start on my master’s right after graduation. I could stay here at the college to get it. And you and I--” he shot me a quick but brilliant smile—“could live in married student housing for your senior year.”

  It only took me a moment to realize what he was saying. “We would—we could get married before I graduated?”

  Michael smiled again, but this time it was more tentative. He still held my hand, and he brought it up to his face, his eyes never leaving mine. If—if you want that. I don’t want to push. But that’s my plan. I want to marry you, Tasmyn, as soon as we reasonably can do it.

  My eyes filled with tears and I couldn’t answer him. Six months ago I couldn’t have dreamed that I’d be here, back with Michael, talking marriage and long term plans. Suddenly I felt tremendously blessed and humbled. I hadn’t done anything to deserve this—to deserve Michael—but here I was.