“Too fiercely,” she answered. She forced herself to take a small step back. “Too forever.”
“Go on,” he said angrily, gesturing to the door. “Waste more time, Pax. Waste more years holding your little grudge—but soon it will seem small. It will all seem like nothing, and you’ll discover that we both need to be together to be whole. So when that happens, come back to me. Put that ring on your finger, and you won’t need to explain. We’ll just pick up where we left off, and continue the way we’re supposed to. My heart will always be open to you.” Thornton placed his elbows on his knees and dug both hands into his blonde hair. “Go! The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll come to your senses and return.”
She was stunned by his words, and pained to see him in such a state. Pax moved closer to him, and was about to reach out to touch him when she realized that this would not help. She gulped, forcing herself to keep at least a few inches of distance between them. “I—I was also thinking of selling this condo. I don’t really need it anymore. If you need it, you can have it, but if not... maybe we could split the value?”
Thornton’s head snapped up. He eyed her warily. “Why would you want to sell the apartment? Is something wrong?”
“No,” she said. “I just...”
“Good Sakra, Pax! It’s me. If you need money—if you’re in a tight spot, just let me just write you a check.” Thornton had already risen to his feet and was walking briskly over to his briefcase. He opened the latches to pull out his checkbook.
Pax smiled fondly at his fatherly reaction. “I don’t need your money, Thorn.”
“Don’t be prideful! I won’t even ask what it’s for—I’m sure you don’t have a drug problem or anything like that.” She had difficulty concealing a laugh as he continued, having just obtained great quantities of illegal drugs. “I won’t have you wanting for anything, whether or not we’re together. Now how much do you need?”
“I really don’t need anything,” she insisted.
“Pax, please. Don’t lie to me. Will five hundred grand be enough?”
“Just stop!” She moved across the room swiftly and grabbed his hand to stop the pen from descending onto the checkbook. She held his hand firmly and looked into his eyes. “I may not be in your league, but you know what my financials are like. My mom left me everything; the interest alone is far more than I need. I may not go shopping every day like some people we know, but that’s by choice.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I just don’t understand why you want to sell the apartment. I thought you loved it here?”
“I did,” she said, “but there are just too many memories. I can’t stay here anymore.”
“I see. You’re trying to destroy every connection you’ve ever had to me.”
Pax scoffed. “Don't be so dramatic!” she said with a laugh. She glanced over to the living room wall, which was covered by a gigantic full-color global map. There were hundreds of multi-colored thumbtacks stuck into various spots in various countries, signifying places they’d been together. “My whole life is so connected with yours; it would be impossible to destroy that.”
He grabbed her hands suddenly, pulling her forward so that her body went tumbling against his. He tilted his head down so that their noses touched. “You sure you want to walk away from me, hot stuff?”
She swallowed at the old nickname, forcing herself to nod mechanically. She could not bear the look in his ocean-blue orbs. “Thorn. If we got back together now, if we got married…” Pax took a deep breath, fighting away the emotions. “If something like that happened again—the situation with Karina Allbright… I don’t know what I’d do. I never thought that would happen. It was the last thing I expected.”
“It won’t happen again, Pax.”
“You don’t understand. It would destroy me… but I’m not concerned about being destroyed. I’m concerned about what else I would destroy. A comet would be the least of our worries.”
“We were both out of our minds that day,” he said with a low growl.
She shook her head. “There’s a monster in me. Back then, I trusted you more than I trusted myself. You were my solid rock. And when that rock crumbled, I crumbled, and I became a murderer. History repeats itself quite easily, and the next time—”
“There will never be a next time!” he roared.
“Really? Thorn, I killed a woman!” Pax felt her chest heaving with ragged breaths as her own anger mounted. “I need to learn to trust myself before I can trust you. I need to know that I’m not going to lose control when something goes wrong between us. Because things will go wrong—they always do.”
“Paxie, what we have between us is too amazing to cast aside.” His eyes flashed furiously. “Your reaction was natural. I would have killed anyone who touched you too. It’s just who we are! It’s a deva thing.”
“A deva thing!” she repeated, her voice rising. “That’s always the excuse when one of us does something wrong. This is a human world, with human countries and human laws!”
“How can you say that after what we’ve both seen and lived through?” Thornton marched to the window angrily. He threw open the curtains roughly and turned, pointing. “You and I know the truth. There are worlds that humans don’t even know about! We are demigods. Our people are not part of distant folklore—we’re right here. We protect this planet, and if it weren’t for our families, if it weren't for us devas there wouldn’t be any humans left alive today. And it seems like soon it will be time for us to act again… You’ve never been one to deny your heritage, why should you start now?”
Pax cast her eyes downward and turned her back to him. She returned to the sofa and sat down calmly. “None of that gives me an excuse to be a killer.”
“No, but neither does it give you an excuse to kill what we have!” Thornton crossed the room back towards her and knelt on the ground in front of where she sat on the sofa, resting his hands on her knees. “Just look me in the eyes and tell me that this is completely over for you. Tell me that you never want to be close to me again. Tell me that you don’t love me, and I’ll let you be. Tell me.”
Pax stared at him for a moment, fearing that he could see the depths of her soul even without telepathy. She feared that he could hear her thinking, Thorn, I love you with all that I am. Instead, she cleared her throat, trying to be tough. For some reason, she remembered the voicemail she had found on Para’s phone upon returning home. Thornton had called Para while she had been out of the realm, requesting that they meet up to talk. It had seemed innocent enough, but…
“Please,” she answered, closing her eyes tightly. “I just think that we need time apart. I think that we should both see...”
“Sakra, don't finish that sentence, Pax.”
“...other people.”
He had her by the shoulders in an instant and he shook her forcefully. “Other people? Other people? Humans, you want to see humans?”
Pax made a face at him, the skin around her nose becoming scrunched up. “I am human.”
“Is this a joke? You’re the least human person I know. You’re a deva! It’s natural to be with another deva.”
“That doesn’t give me a lot of options,” she said, smiling even though it was a very tense moment.
“Good!” he roared. “I don’t want you to have options.”
She reached out and brushed some of his hair away from his cheek, enjoying his little possessive display. “Rose is human, and so is my grandma. My mom was too. Human-deva relationships have been proven to work well. Maybe they would work better for us as well.”
“You achieved Silver Form, didn’t you?” he asked, rising to his feet to look down on her.
She slowly nodded.
“Well, that’s a very human thing to do, Paxie,” he said sarcastically.
“I’m giving you an easy way out, Thorn. You should take it.” She looked up at him bitterly. “Are you even absolutely sure you want to spend the rest of your life with me? Lately it seems like you are interes
ted in a lot of other women, and maybe you need to explore that some more before you commit yourself to one person. Was I even really the one you meant to give the ring to?”
“Why are you questioning me?” he asked angrily. “Is there someone else you want to be with? I won’t allow it. Tell me who he is. Is it someone from your work? Is it that lecher Dr. Winters?”
Pax watched in amazement as an aura of blue prana surrounded him. Thornton moved his face very close to hers, his voice becoming a loud growl. “Tell me! Who is it that you want, Pax? I’ll kill him, I will.”
She could feel the crackling force of his mounting rage and furor—the emotion permeated his surging energy, causing his voice to shake. Seeing him like this thrilled her; she took the jealousy as an assertion of his love for her, which was just as crazy as the love she felt for him. Crazy enough to induce them both to act nothing like themselves.
It wasn’t healthy. But as Pax stared into his flaring eyes, she felt herself swept up in the whirlwind of his passion; she found him more irresistible than ever before. She found her hands clenching themselves tightly in her lap, and she found the muscles in her stomach contracting. She wanted to reach out and pull him against her and show him exactly who she wanted.
“Pax?” he demanded in a low voice, leaning forward so that their faces were very close. Items in the apartment began to fall off of shelves all around them as Thornton lost the grip he had on his temper.
She allowed herself to bask in the glorious feel of his vehement prana. His natural power was so vast, so terrible. She hadn’t felt his energy in an entire year, and she was beginning to realize how much she had missed it. His life force felt nothing like his delicate sister—it was masculine and extreme. She almost wanted to make him angrier so that she could feel his life force intensify even further; she almost wanted to try to make him so angry that he physically fought with her, although that was probably impossible. She wanted to pull him back down onto the couch with her and make good use of that passion of his. She wanted to show him the new limits of her power; she wanted to demonstrate just how perfectly they were matched, letting their energies mingle as they made love obsessively, zealously.
“Who is he?” he shouted again, as his eyes flickered ruby. Red swirls of smoke wafted up from his skin, crackling like electricity. “Tell me, Pax! Who do you want?”
She couldn’t sit still for a minute longer. She couldn’t resist.
Pax launched herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck and crushing her lips against his in a forceful kiss. She knocked him off balance so that he fell backwards onto the coffee table, breaking it in half. Thornton reached up to grasp her body in surprise, and felt her blazing hot prana humming beneath his hands. He kissed her back with all the violence he felt, matching her own ferocity as he devoured her lips greedily. He grasped a handful of her hair at the nape of her neck to angle her head so that he could deepen the kiss, and he slipped another hand under her blouse, feeling the taut muscles on her back as he pulled her firmly against him.
Her body erupted in a ferocious burst of flames as she straddled him; the firestorm consumed them both, singeing the carpet and blackening the nearby sofa. The broken coffee table began to catch fire, but Thornton ignored this, slipping his hand into the front of her jeans to rub circles around her most sensitive point. Pax gasped against his mouth, a feminine moan escaping her throat. He continued to kiss and touch her, unconsciously reaching up to grasp the front of her blouse, intending to rip it off—when he noticed something. There was wetness on his cheeks. He opened his eyes and realized she was crying.
“Pax,” he said softly, hesitating. She suddenly pulled away with the same swift unexpected motion that she had used to attack him. She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes before she swept her hand across the room, creating a wind that put out all of the flames. The fire alarm had started to ring at some point, and she gestured up to the small device on the ceiling, smashing it into silence.
“Anyone but you,” she said with determination, rising to her full height tearfully. She gazed down at him as he lay sprawled on the broken coffee table. “I want anyone but you.”
The expression on his face slowly changed as he processed her words. As understanding seeped into him, his eyes averted. He shook his head in disbelief. Transparent droplets began to gather on his blonde lashes.
Her chest was throbbing with pain as she forced herself to witness his turmoil. She inwardly answered his question with the truth: Only you. I want only you. She was thankful that he did not possess his sister’s telepathic talents, for she never would have been able to lie and walk away from him. She had never lied to him so outright, and it was ripping apart her insides to see the way it affected him. She could feel exactly the way she was making him feel, but she knew it was necessary.
“Please don’t do this,” Thornton said quietly. “Please don’t leave me.”
Pax shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I have to.”
Forcing her body to move away when it very much wanted to move toward him, she walked out of the apartment, in a daze. She did not glance back as she exited the condo, praying that he would not follow her. If he walked after her and did so much as touch her wrist, she would cave, fall apart, and tell him the truth. She would say that he was right; the Pseudosphere had messed with her head. She would beg him to make love to her until she forgot who she was. But luckily, he did not follow her.
That was really convincing, Pax, she told herself derisively. As she exited the complex and stepped into the dull rainy morning, she wondered if the years of training had done her any good whatsoever. Her anger had returned with full force.
Everything offended her. She wanted to lift her fingers and burn the skyscrapers. She wanted to incinerate the continents. If being with Thornton had made her so angry that she killed a person, then being apart from him should have the opposite effect, right? Apparently not. She still wanted to cause destruction. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, especially for someone who had spent so much of her life trying to prevent destruction.
She realized that she had been slowly walking in the middle of the sidewalk in Ruby Form, with flames of dark red prana leaking forth from her hands. Her damp hair was falling in front of her face limply, obscuring her eyes. Pedestrians were giving her odd stares and some were even running from her in fright. She suddenly smirked as she imagined that she must look like those dark-haired dead women from horror movies… but she was certainly much more dangerous than those vengeful spirits. She was alive. She was powerful. This was her horror movie.
Pax released her power, forcing the fire from her hands to retract into her body. She controlled the emotion. Her first thought was to find a remote area to have a quick release and to set off a few explosions. (She was suddenly missing the vector zone wherein everywhere was remote.) But then she thought better of it.
She would find Vincent to discuss the plans for the comet. She would ask if she could just teleport into space and take a crack at the comet right now; she was certainly in the mood for a little obliteration. And if she obliterated herself in the process? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Chapter 22: Beloved Orthopedic Mattress
“Did you get the elephant tranquilizer?” Amara’s head had poked into Pax’s bedroom to ask this, but she saw that her friend was sprawled on the bed fast asleep. She also noticed that the dark-haired woman was heavily bruised and battered, and leaking blood all over the clean white sheets. Wow, she never stops. We’re back for one day, and she’s already seeking out more danger. Addict.
Amara saw a pile of boxes stacked in the corner of Pax’s room, and determined that her friend had, in fact, gotten the sedatives they would require. She should have known not to question that Pax would complete everything on her to-do list. Carefully closing the door, Amara strolled over to her bedroom. She stood for a moment, staring at the beautiful room with a contented exhale.
“My dear curtains! My be
autiful furniture! My glorious brand-name clothes! My imported, designer lingerie!” Amara turned on her heels, worshipping every corner of her room. “My beloved orthopedic mattress! How I have missed your soft, spine-supporting comfort.”
This was a good day. Amara hastily changed into a maroon silk nightgown, just to feel the luxurious, feminine fabric against her body. She looked down at her fingernails which she had gotten freshly manicured that very day. She pulled a fancy hairbrush through her blonde hair. It seemed that she was reclaiming the sumptuous, satisfying lifestyle she preferred. Walking forward happily, she stared adoringly at her bed. She had been looking forward to this moment for years. She had dreamt of lying in her own enormous, ultra-comfortable bed again, with the lullaby of the ocean to soothe her.
She released a deeply exaggerated sigh as she lowered herself to ‘her side’ of the bed, generously fluffing up the pillow behind her head. It suddenly occurred to her than she no longer needed to leave room beside her, and she rebelliously placed her pillow in the center of the mattress. Stretching her arms out, and taking up as much space as possible, she giggled before tugging her duvet snugly right up under her chin. At the very least, the vector zone had given her the gift of making her appreciate what she had. She breathed deeply and tried to relax and let slumber take her.
But then her eyes shot open. She sniffed the air suspiciously, before pushing her face into the duvet covers and inhaling. Her eyes widened and she turned over and sniffed the pillow. Amara crawled up on all fours and began sniffing the bed frantically.
“I thought I laundered these sheets a few days before I left,” she murmured weakly. “So either my sense of smell has become much more acute than it was before or...” Amara sprung out of bed and grabbed a robe, tossing it quickly over her nightgown. She rushed down to her basement laboratory, punching in her secret code for entry. Flying directly to her computer, her newly manicured fingers flew over the keyboard, bringing up the surveillance footage of the past few days. What she saw made her recoil from the monitors in perplexed shock.
Thirty Minutes to Heartbreak Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 48
