Jacob’s eyes closed and his mouth tightened. Sorrow etched the lines deeper in his face and I moved closer, gathering him into my arms and pressing his head down onto my shoulder. He was stiff, holding himself apart, his mind terrified that he was about to break down and lose all sense of control that he still had. My hand caressed his back, silently urging him toward the release he needed. Bit by bit, the tension started to ease from him.
“Jacob, love, it is all right. You can let go. I’ll be right here to catch you.”
Chapter 10
MY WORDS had the opposite effect I intended, and Jacob jerked out of my arms. My mind reeled as his dream ended abruptly and I found my focus shifting from lying in his bed in the dreamworld, to occupying his mind once again.
Jacob’s breath came in harsh gasps as he ripped the sheets from around him and lurched out of the bed. He gripped his hair in his hands, cursing in an intelligible stream. His mind was in chaos, his emotions tearing at him, ripping new holes into his already damaged psyche. I tried to reach out to soothe him only to find myself shoved back and blocked again.
If he’d just let me reach him or if the Ascended would just give me my natural abilities back, I could help him. I knew I could and the frustration of not being able to ate into me.
Jacob stumbled out of his room and across the hall into the bathroom. I recognized the dorms now and couldn’t fathom how he’d ended up back here. He’d been so proud of the fact that he was on his own, worked at a job he hated so he could do it. What would have possessed him to give that up?
My lover trembled all over as he turned on the water in the shower and stepped inside. At first, the cold sting of it against his skin made us both gasp. Then the water soon became scalding, stinging rain and Jacob slumped against the wall, making no effort to step away or turn the faucet to a more comfortable temperature. It was almost as if he was doing it on purpose, inflicting some kind of self-imposed punishment upon himself.
I couldn’t make sense of his thoughts. Either he was suppressing them out of a conscious effort or he was so far gone tonight he couldn’t think straight. His emotions dragged him down. Flashes of rage were directed at himself, then at a shadowy figure lurking in the background, and then much to my surprise, toward myself.
I didn’t know what to make of that. Then, as his shoulders began to shake, it all fell into place. I’d deserted him. And not only had I left him, but I’d also initiated our relationship thinking at the time that I was dying. I’d let us get so far into it, become so close, there was no hope of us remaining detached, not when our minds and souls were as one. No, I’d given him all that. Opened up a new world for him and then abruptly snatched it away with my disappearance.
“Ah can feel ya, but I can’t hear ya. And then other times fuck, ya talk, but it ain’t you, just yer memory talkin’.”
Oh, Jacob. My conscience bled at the sound of his despair. I’d been incredibly selfish and shortsighted. The depth of his agony renewed my determination to get through to him. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, stand by and let him continue torturing himself in this manner. I needed to find some way of returning to him. How could he move on into another relationship after what we’d shared? I knew that, were our positions reversed, I never would be able to. Who else would be such a part of me as Jacob was?
A harsh sob startled me out of my caustic reflections, so it took a moment for me to register that Jacob was crying. It seemed so out of character for him, but after the first one escaped his throat, another sob quickly followed, opening a torrent of raw emotion that battered the both of us. Jacob punched the tiles several times then sank down to the floor of the shower, his body shaking harder, wracked with anguish.
I was torn. My conscience said I should leave him in peace instead of intruding on a deeply personal moment. Jacob wouldn’t be comfortable with the idea of me watching him break down. I wasn’t invited, even if I was the catalyst for his tears. At the same time, I wanted to pull him into my arms until the storm had passed.
I cursed the Ascended for putting us in this predicament and even more so for not giving me the tools with which to aid him. I couldn’t hold him, I couldn’t kiss him, and if I spoke I might be giving him false hope, only to have it destroyed when the Ascended took me back if I didn’t find a way around my new fate.
Jacob muffled the sounds in the crook of his arm and, as his crying jag continued, the urgency to interfere gradually eased. The storm was violent, with dark emotions pummeling the both of us until we were raw and bleeding. Only, I sensed that it was a much-needed release and, though the wounds were open again, maybe this time they’d be able to heal cleanly.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but the water had grown cold. Jacob shivered both from the chill and the release of tension he’d stored in his body. My lover had sunk so deep into his mind and sorrow that I doubted he would notice anything amiss if I took steps toward contact.
It took all of my concentration to find a small hole in the limits the Ascended had set on me, but it was enough to grasp the shower faucet with my mind and shut it off. Jacob didn’t even stir and there was no indication that his upset had woken up anybody else in the dorm. I don’t think his pride would be able to handle knowing someone had seen him like this. Not when his psyche was so brittle.
I settled down to wait him out. I wanted to implant the suggestion to find warm, dry clothes, but he’d become so mentally adept I knew he’d notice that interference. I wanted to speak, only I was sure it would only spur him to kick me out again. He wasn’t ready to believe that my voice might be real. I suppose I couldn’t blame him. In his reality, I’d died months ago.
All too soon the tension started to return to him as he recovered from the shock of what had just occurred. In dismay, I listened to his dark thoughts start to reemerge, and with each one, the rage grew. Gory images of intended personal revenge toward the Syndicate shocked me with their brutality and cold-bloodedness. They shouldn’t. I’d been a warrior my entire life and had seen worse, but somehow, coming from Jacob, it seemed dreadfully wrong.
Then the images switched from fury to guilt as Jacob lashed at himself with them. Pictures of Tony being dragged into the coffin meant for me while Jacob stood by and let it happen. And then came a whole cascade of fevered imaginings of Tony being tortured and of his parents crying at a funeral, Steve turning away from him. On and on it went.
“Oh, mo chroí, don’t do this to yourself.” I had to say something. His ongoing cycle of self-flagellation had to stop. I sifted through his memories of the past couple months and caught onto the truth he kept ignoring. “Tony isn’t dead and you did try to help him in the end. Torturing yourself won’t change the past.”
Jacob jerked back his shoulders, slamming them hard against the tiles. I used his shock to grasp his mind before he could evict me again. This was too damned important. Before I could speak again and lend him further reassurance, my lover dropped his head into his trembling hands.
“I’m going fucking crazy.”
“No, no you’re not. I swear to you, you’re not. I’m not completely gone.” One day I would find a way to return to him permanently.
This night had to have the most surreal quality for him and I decided that we should try again another time, when he’d be able to process it more. Jacob was dazed and lost; arguing with him right now wouldn’t help. “Get up, Jacob. Dry yourself off and go to bed. Things will seem different in the morning.”
He whimpered, childlike, and fisted his hands in his hair. “You’re not real. You’re not real.”
“Go on. You can argue whether I’m fact or fiction in the morning,” I urged even softer. After a moment, he rose stiffly and stripped out of his clothes, leaving them in a sodden heap on the bathroom floor.
“Get back to your room and get some clothes on. You don’t want to get sick.”
Jacob was still shivering from a combination of chill and shock. He slung the towel around his hips, muttering something about
not ever getting sick again, and grabbed up his sopping clothes.
Once he was back in his room, he dried himself off with mechanical motions, rubbing hard against his skin. I sensed his hope that the friction would prove to him that this was a dream or not. I was able to talk him into tugging on a pair of sweatpants. Then he sprawled back on his bed, covering his eyes with the crook of his arm. It took even more prodding to get him under the covers.
Then I switched my awareness out of his mind to hover beside his bed so I wasn’t watching from out of his eyes anymore. The sight of him huddled, so lost and young, ached with painful clarity.
Before I realized it, I had reached out with phantom fingers and brushed back a lock of hair that had tumbled across his forehead. Jacob’s eyes closed tightly. “I thought you were gone again,” he whispered.
I don’t know how I had broken free of the injunction set upon me by the Ascended that had kept me from touching him, but I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity it afforded me. I laid my presence down behind Jacob and wrapped my arms around him, pressing against his back. “Sleep; it’ll all be clearer in the morning, when you’ve had an opportunity to rest.”
“I don’t want to wake up. Not if it means this was only a dream.”
“That is not a worry for right now, mo chroí. You’ve given yourself no surcease. Please, Jacob, do you trust me?” I shifted up and kissed his temple then laid my head against his shoulder, soothing my palm up and down his arm.
“Always.” His response was immediate and fervent.
“Then put yourself in my hands and rest. Let me hold you. Whether you feel me or not, I am with you.”
Jacob sighed as his body relaxed by slow degrees, his shivers tapering off. I held him close, listening to his breathing as it evened out to the steady, low throb of his heartbeat. I waited until he had completely drifted off, savoring every second of my contact with him even though it was on a limited scale. We had shared, in a way that had not been possible in such a long time. I steeled myself, knowing he might not remember it in the morning, and if he did, he would probably dismiss it as a dream. It was a start and more than we’d had before tonight.
This time, when I sank into his subconscious, there was no anger, no guilt. The deep scars he’d carved into himself were being soothed by a deep contentment. I allowed it to lull me into a state of similar ease. We drifted together, linking more intimately than we ever had in the past, neither thought nor emotion clouding who we really were. It was almost as if our souls had now truly become one.
When Jacob’s dream started, it drew me in as well. This time there was no sense that I was intruding, no attempt by him to kick me out. We wrapped ourselves around each other, closed our eyes, and indulged in what we’d both been wishing for: the chance to hold each other and to be together once more.
This was well worth whatever fight I had to put up in order to keep it.
Chapter 11
“KRISTAIR, WHEN are you going to put that boy out of his misery?”
I hissed as Jacob and his room fell away to find myself once again back in my prison. It took all of my self-control not to lash out at the Ascended surrounding me. I must be getting stronger, or more aware, because now I could make out distinct psyches among the mass.
Bit by bit, I regained my self-mastery, building up my wall with the sheer force of my convictions. They couldn’t keep me from seeing Jacob; they couldn’t keep me from contacting him. It was all a matter of time, wasn’t it? And for once, time was something I had in abundance.
“If you would return me to where I belong then he will be tormented no longer!” The words came out in a near roar as my frustration threatened to overpower the fragile control I had gained. “I don’t belong here! You know this. It’s why you choose to isolate me. Let me go.” A great weariness settled over me. The same words were said over and over again, on both sides with no progress being made either way.
“It is you who needs to let go.”
There it was: their eternally echoing ultimatum. Had they gone so far into this dimension of existence that they no longer cared what went on elsewhere? I could have almost laughed if I wasn’t already about to splinter into a thousand shards. No headway, on either side.
The urge to give up pressed in on me from all sides. It would be so easy, for the both of us. It would be so easy. I would forget my feelings for Jacob and then he would be able to move on, without fear of changes he didn’t understand, to move on and find someone new.
I stiffened in fury. “LEAVE ME ALONE,” I snarled, shoving back the oppressive minds that threatened to suppress my will. They fell back with frightening ease. My rage continued to grow and power surged through me. It was their entire fault. If they’d only left me alone, then none of this would’ve happened.
“That’s true, Kristair.” Her voice came again and gave me pause. “If we had left you alone, you wouldn’t be going through this self-torture, nor would your lover.” Before I could rejoice and press my point, my Mistress continued. “Nor would you have met him, but the changes that happened to you would have still occurred. They didn’t come about because of our interference, but because of the way you trained your mind and your will. We merely sought to guide you and ease your passage. You still would have evolved and Jacob would still have been left behind, with no knowledge or memory of you. Only your daughter would’ve mourned, yet there would have been no preparation for her. One night, she would’ve gone to look for you and never found you.”
I paused, my fury stilling as the cold truth sank in. They were not at fault, as much as it made it easier to blame someone, to have something to fight against. If I were to think rationally, which I had done little of since I’d heard Jacob’s call, I’d cease fighting. Our relationship would’ve been difficult enough as it was with me being a vampire and him being a human, but now it was all but impossible.
My thoughts were carved of ice as I considered the matter from all angles, forcing down the emotions that threatened to cloud my judgment. I’d let defeat and weariness color my mind and sensed them closing in, the circle growing tighter. “Unless the connection is reversed, I will continue to feel what Jacob feels and it will affect my reactions,” I warned, and the presence drew back.
“Then you must sever it, for the good of you both.” My Mistress’s voice was as devoid of emotion as my own had been. “You are the only one who can do it since you set it in motion and magic has its own laws. Since the rest of your race is dead, only you have the innate ability necessary for such a task. Each individual’s thought is unique, so one of us cannot erase something that has already been initiated. We can only try to mitigate the damage and make what repairs we choose.”
I nodded. So there were some limits in what they could and couldn’t do. Good. No matter how much will was put behind their desires, they couldn’t go back and make it so I had never met Jacob or never done the ritual. Though whether it was because they really couldn’t or more a matter that they dared not screw with time didn’t matter, just as long as they didn’t. That was good to know. If I continued to refuse, they were helpless, but I didn’t want to push them so far that they’d opt to take care of the problem in another way. But how far would they go in order to keep me as one of their number?
“I’ll need to be present with him and reopen the connection before I can reverse it.” It was difficult to keep my emotions on an even keel and, as I sensed them pick through my psyche, I knew the decision to do so had been a good one. They would be suspicious of any strong displays. “The magic of my people requires a close bond and harmony of thought. Jacob will have to be aware of me and what I intend for it to work. It will take a bit of time to reestablish that bond after so many months and upheaval.”
They were mistrustful. Darkness battered at my mind as they continued to probe, looking for a loophole or trick I might be trying to play. “How long?” They asked.
I considered the months I had hunted Jacob, working tirelessly to creat
e the bond, to connect with his thoughts and emotions before I had deemed it satisfactory enough to work. It wouldn’t take nearly as long this time, not with it already being somewhat in place and certainly not with the way Jacob felt. What would take longer was getting my lover’s cooperation. He would not agree, not at all, not if he thought there was some chance we could be together on some level, no matter how small. On that, we both agreed. It would be a hard-fought battle.
“What does time matter to you? Several weeks, months. It matters not how long it takes.”
My Mistress laughed. “We are not simple, Kristair. We know what game you are playing with us. You still seek to circumvent your fate.”
“What if I do? It doesn’t change the truth. You want me to be free of him and I say to do so I need this time. You know I am not lying. He has to agree to the ritual. It won’t work if he holds on.”
The silence stretched out as the Ascended considered it, weighing my words and intentions against each other as I suppressed all hope to keep them from sensing the feeling. Even if I could be allowed to interact with Jacob for a short time, it would be something. Somehow together we’d find a way around my recent change or attain some kind of closure. Either would be better than the terrible limbo we were stuck in now.
“You have two weeks.”
I froze, stunned beyond belief that they had relented even that much. Two weeks wasn’t long, but it was far more than I had before. My mind raced as I tried to tie up the loose ends and questions before they released me. “Once I reverse the spell, the remainder of my corporeal body will be destroyed?”
“That is correct, and your soul will rejoin with your mind instead of unnaturally existing in two places. You’ll be whole again.”
That, however, was entirely a matter of opinion. How undamaged could a person’s soul be if they felt nothing? I recalled some of my recent conversations with my Mistress. No, the Ascended weren’t entirely devoid of emotions; they were just in complete control of them, their minds ruling all. Once my heart was destroyed there would be no going back, no more fighting. The idea made me very uneasy.
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