by Lila Felix
I hated my weakness.
“Come here,” he motioned with open arms.
I screamed in response. He wasn’t just going to hug me and think all of this would go away. “No. I’m pissed off at you. How are you doing this? You’re gonna get caught. And then what will I do?”
I hadn’t meant to confess that. How was it that my weakness took center stage when he was around? Why couldn’t I be the strong-willed person everyone else knew me to be when I was with him?
He didn’t listen to me. Forging toward me, he grabbed my arms and slammed me into his chest. I fought against him, trying to push him away. He remained steady, holding me until I broke, relenting to what I really wanted. I let it all go, crying into the nook of his neck, letting his steady breaths and heartbeat calm me. I knew the implications of what he was doing. I knew he would be an even more attractive target now.
“Let it out, Querida. It’s a lot to comprehend.”
I cried for a half an hour, holding him as tightly as I could manage.
“Cry, my love, cry all night if you must” he said, his mouth next to my ear. I could feel his chin bobbing up and down as the syllables rolled from his mouth.
“I won’t lose you,” I murmured, still in his hold. My palms meant to be the barrier between his body and mine but instead they relented to the feel of his solid pecs. I let out a sound that Theo took as an invitation. He moved in closer, his foot between mine, making his knee rub against my upper thigh. I gave in and looked to his eyes, so blue they were nearly translucent. He leaned in, the tip of his nose ghosted down the bridge of mine and when he began to speak, and our chins were connected as his mouth moved.
“Amada, talk to me. One day you deny my existence and now you’re here, in my room, telling me you won’t lose me. And you can’t ignore the heat between us. Why? Why do you deprive us of what we need?”
Amada—he called me beloved. Theo and his damned Portuguese. Why must he speak the sexiest language known to man? He’d eaten some kind of banana caramel cake for dessert and the sweet smell flowed with his words. He knew what it did to me when he spoke to me in Portuguese, the language of our ancestors calmed me with just a few choice words.
And I did need him. I needed his bottom lip between my teeth. I needed his warm, rough tongue in my mouth, searching for more contact. And his hips, cut in a shape made for my hands, I needed them rocking against mine, for the sheer pleasure of the movement—even clad in jeans it was thrilling.
But those desires were squelched in an instant as I remembered the real reason for my visit.
The piece of my heart I’d tried my damnedest to ignore, was in danger that far surpassed his travelling abilities.
He thought I left him that day after his admission of his abilities. But the truth was, I’d left him long before that. My father’s death made an immediate and profound impact. He was so much more than a father. He was my friend. My mother never stopped mourning him, for one single second.
That was my problem—I didn’t want to mourn Theo.
I thought that if I left him, he’d find a good human girl and spend his life with someone who might actually be in his bed in the morning.
Not like me—I might be in Greece.
So when he told me that he could flash—it doubled our trouble. Instead of worrying about mourning him chasing me, like my father chased my mother—now I worried about the Resin, the government and maybe even the Synod going after him.
Was it too much to ask my love to stay out of trouble?
“Tell me everything,” I finally managed to croak out after I was well spent.
“Sit down, meu amor.”
He escorted me to a chair by the bed and then pulled the desk chair beside me. I let myself relax. I would fix this. Whatever I had to do to protect him, I would.
“I don’t even know what it’s called. I’ve been looking through the texts, trying to figure it out.”
“What texts?”
“Eivan’s journals. The journals of Sevella. Their life—his life.”
I gasped. Eivan was Eidolon. He retained many gifts—gifts that consumed him. An Eidolon had not existed for centuries. Eidolon meant phantom, ghost, apparition. That’s what Eivan was. Few had seen him, but the stories were many. There had only ever been two—one was Demetrius. He was assassinated by the Resin’s then leader, Sanctum. And then there was Eivan. Eivan travelled one night and never appeared again. There was speculation of all kinds in the stories told to us as children. Eivan travelled too much—he overexerted his gifts—his wife killed him. Even the descendants of Eivan were forced into hiding at the shunning of the Lucents.
No one even knew where they were.
Or who they were.
“I think I am…” he began. I jerked forward and covered his mouth with my palm.
“No. Don’t even say it. It can’t be,” I sobbed, removing my hand and using it to cover my face. Eidolon carried such a profound power and responsibility to our people and the Resin alike.
“Saying the word doesn’t change what I am capable of.”
“Which is?”
“Duality. I am there. A shadow of myself is there, in New Zealand. It’s like an obedient clone, walking, talking, breathing, doing whatever I want it to. It’s actually the perfect decoy. And it follows every instruction to a T. Collin says it looks like a more translucent version of me—a ghost, if you will. And if any member of the Resin should come in contact with it—it vanishes. That is its orders.”
“How,” I begged for answers.
“In Madrid, I waited for you.”
My heart stopped for a moment with that admission. I knew he would be waiting there. Yes, Ari had seen some guy there. But that was only part of the story. She’d also seen Theo on her trip, but I’d ignored it—like she’d never told me.
It must be easy for couples to break up when one or both of them don’t really want to be together. It was nowhere near that with Theo and me. But at least I tried to act like I didn’t hang on his every word.
Theo had no ability to pretend—at least not with me.
“There are a lot of Resin there. I was confronted behind one of the clubs and as my fear grew, I felt a shedding of sorts, like I was losing my outer shell. I don’t know exactly how it works. It was stranger than the first time I’d flashed. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I saw the gang of them, looking back and forth from me to something else and back again. I followed their stares and found—me.”
“And now you can summon it at will?”
“Yes, after some intensive practicing.”
I recoiled at his response. This made a total of two things, that according to legend and history, he should not be able to do, things that made him even more valuable to our enemies.
“You’re scared of me?” he asked. There were very few times that Theo sounded vulnerable, and this was one of them.
“I’m scared for you. There’s a difference.”
He moved his head from side to side, cracking his neck. A disgusting sounding habit, I’d learned to live with long ago. He made no attempt to respond, just leaned forward and laid his head in my lap.
“I feel better just telling you. I hate not telling you things.”
I ran my fingernails through his hair and against his scalp. I knew it calmed him. He was being careless, just flashing here and there, and practicing unprecedented gifts.
I needed to formulate a plan. I had to convince him to let me keep him safe, somehow.
A knock at the door of the adjoining bathroom startled us both and I flashed immediately. All we needed was the added nosiness of parents.
I spent most of the next morning on a tiny island off the coast. It could be faintly seen from the beach, but no one visited it as it was uninhabitable and the rocks surrounding it made it impossible for a boat to approach it. But I needed no boat.
There was one mountain in its center that contained caves and secret springs only known to me and Theo—that I
knew of. It was my favorite place to go and think, even when I could be anywhere in the world.
I wanted to beg him to give up his pursuit of more information. The Guardians of the texts were monitored. Records of who came in and what they studied were written down and reported directly to the Synod. They would know soon that Theo had been there and what he had been studying. It was just a matter of time.
Unless we could get this Collin guy to keep his damned mouth shut.
I knew very little of Eivan, but I knew my grandmother would know it all.
My mother had always told the encouraging story of Eivan as opposed to the negative one. She’d chosen to believe that Eivan, as told to her by my grandmother, was a great man who loved his wife and cared for the Lucents—cared about protecting our race. But Sevella was human and in his love for her, he did not travel. However, as the compulsion built and he finally did travel, it was too much. He got lost.
I’d always thought that was the romantic version of the story. Sevella was outcast after Eivan disappeared. They blamed her for the disappearance of their Eidolon.
She was never seen again.
He was revered for his gifts—but mostly he was revered for his ability to restore light to the Resin. He could give them the ability to travel again. He could bring back their light—but some were so far-gone—that they no longer cared to travel, only harbor their hate.
“You couldn’t have picked an island with some mangoes? I’m starving.”
I turned my head to find the object of my thoughts there in front of me.
Sometimes, Theo pissed me off beyond sanity.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
He shrugged, picking up rocks from the beach and tossing one into the surf, “Did I forget to tell you, I can seek as well?”
My face told him that clearly I he hadn’t mentioned it. “You’re shitting me.”
“No, my foul mouthed love. I am not shitting you.”
I waved my hands in the air, exasperated with him, “Any other gifts you have that you want to share?”
“Yes. Now that you mention it. I used to be able to make my girl moan my name.”
I rolled my eyes at him. Not that it wasn’t true. It was so true. Theo’s mouth and the things he could do with his tongue should’ve been outlawed. Plus, there was this thing he did, digging his fingers into the backs of my thighs—ah, posters of his face should be plastered on telephone poles, ‘Beware Theo: One kiss and you’re done for.’
“I meant Lucent gifts.”
He shrugged. A playful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, “Oh, no, not yet. But Eivan did have twelve children. I supposed he had plenty of unpublished gifts. Maybe I should re-read Sevella’s personal journals.”
He was trying very hard to be funny, but I found no humor in his situation. I eyed the ocean before me. I loved the ocean. There was something about the constant weightlessness that reminded me of flashing. It was like bobbing up and down in that perpetual state of adrenaline and calm.
“Do you want me to go so you can swim alone,” he asked facing the waves. He knew me too well.
“No. I want to know what we’re going to do about this.”
His expression grew hard, “We will do nothing. I will do more research and eventually I will need to tell the Synod.”
Research meant finding the other keepers of the histories—and maybe even speaking to some of the Prophets. Long ago, before the Lucents had a Synod, there were Prophets. Their words were gold and their wisdom infallible. But finally, some Lucents began to think they had too much power and insisted on having a council.
My grandmother had been one of them—still was.
“Let’s go see Grammy first and then decide.”
Still as a statue he stood, but then bellowed out a hefty breath, “Since when is there a we, Colby?”
I deserved that sting and all its aftershocks. Nightly, daily, and sometimes hourly I had to remind myself of why there wasn’t a we. And yet, here I was calling us we again.
It felt like freedom.
“There has always been and will always be a we as long as we live, Theo.”
I almost hoped he hadn’t heard my answer. If he had, he provided no outward response. The waves became louder and louder as they crashed closer to us both.
“It’s too dangerous,” he began our banter. It was useless on his part. I’d never lost an argument. He was too soft. Always had been.
“I love danger.”
He turned to face me. “There are Resin on my tail—always.”
“Mine too. They like to look at my ass as I flash away.”
“You are so stubborn. You’re not going with me!” He growled through a clenched jaw.
I shrugged with my left shoulder, and my left eyebrow followed suit, “That’s fine. I’ll just follow you. You forget—I’m a seeker as well.”
His jaw worked overtime and the vein on his neck rolled blood through it in anger. That vein always popped out when he was angry. It was the only way I knew. He’d never raised his voice at me or even shown in tone or words any bit of aggravation.
Which was aggravating in itself.
Show me some anger, man.
The opposite was true of his expressions of love. There had been times I had been brought to tears by his raw honesty about how he felt about me. I’d never really been able to return the same sentiment. It was hard for me to make that emotional connection with anyone. I kept myself at a healthy distance—healthy for me and everyone else. That mistake of getting so close to my father wouldn’t be repeated again. He was taken from me in an instant and I couldn’t endure that pain again, ever.
At the same time I couldn’t let anything happen to Theo. It wasn’t an option.
He turned around to face the mountain and lifted his head to view the top. It wasn’t much of a mountain, but then again, he wasn’t admiring the view. He was clearly thinking of what to say next. He did that too much. Or maybe I didn’t do it enough. Words and thoughts just blurted from my mouth at any time and place.
“All this time you’ve pushed me away and now that I’m in trouble and I actually want you to stay away from me, you want to come with me. Must you always be so damned stubborn? Can’t you see?”
His voice broke with his last question and at once I knew I’d taken it all too far. I got up from my seated position. Theo’s hands were in his pockets and his head was now bowed in exasperation. I looped my arms around his waist and splayed my hands out against his abdomen. His abs trembled underneath my palms, but he didn’t move to embrace me.
I’d definitely taken all this too far in the sarcasm department.
I laid my cheek against the spot between his shoulder blades, “Can’t you see?”
Finally, his hands enveloped mine and tangled our fingers together.
“They’ll never let us travel together unaccompanied. We are neither bonded nor sealed. It wouldn’t be right even if I were to concede. And I’m not saying I’m going to let you.”
I squeezed him tighter. Even his back smelled phenomenal.
What he spoke was truth. Our parents would be weary of us together again at our ages if we were not bonded, the Lucent version of engaged, or sealed, the Lucent version of marriage. Theo was a stickler for the rules. He claimed the rules kept us out of trouble. I claimed they kept us caged.
“If they give us permission, it will be fine. We can ask them together, tonight.”
“Even if they do, Querida—you know me better than that. Please, stay away. I swear to the stars if something happened to you—I would chase you into the Paraíso. It would be the end of us both.”
Anger broke me free from his hold.
He was winning.
For the first time in our lives, he was winning and I couldn’t even take it.
“Name your terms,” I folded my arms over my chest.
“No, not this time. There are no terms.”
And with that exasperating statement, he fla
shed away.
Chapter Seven
Theo
The Prophets are no longer acknowledged as messengers of the Almighty.
I had a cool temperament most of the time. But Colby needed to learn a lesson. There just weren’t negotiating terms for some situations.
And this was one of them.
She was that bull-headed. She would’ve stood there and agreed to bonding with me just to make sure she could come with me.
If Colby was going to bond with me—I’d be damned if it was going to be under duress.
Forget the Resin and the Synod and our parents—I was gonna kill the beauty myself and then chase her around eternity until she folded.
The door that linked my parents’ room to mine was open. I figured it was now or never. They needed to know every facet of the situation in case something happened to me.
I splashed water on my face in the adjoining bathroom before knocking on the frame of the door that led to their room. They both turned their attentions toward me. My parents knew most of the situation with my new gifts, but I hadn’t told them everything—not even close.
“Colby,” my mother questioned. She claimed there was a particular expression I got after my encounters with Colby. It used to be one of utter and complete joy. But since things had, on the surface, ended between us, it had evolved into total and complete pain.
“It’s fine, Mom. We do need to talk though. I have a feeling she will tell you if I don’t.”
“Sit, son,” my dad commanded.
I recounted the whole story. Everything I’d found out about Eivan, all of my gifts and all of my suspicions. My mom had begun to cry halfway through and we’d had to stop several times in order for her to compose herself. It was hard to watch. It was grating on my heart knowing I was the one bringing her pain.
“What is the plan? How can we help you?”
My father was all business. He supported all that the Lucent culture was. His mother was a Lucent and now his wife was one as well. He worshipped my mom.
I felt movement somewhere in my psyche and knew it was Colby. She was flashing and I concentrated on her so that I could know exactly where she was going.
