The Awakening Series: Volumes 1 - 3

by Dean Murray

  "I'd get rid of all of them, but we should probably change our swimsuits and it's going to be best if we have a reason for that other than the one that Ari's going to assume when she first sees us."

  "You're right—I never would have thought of that."

  "All right, let's go back to the RV."

  Jace had been right. The cold temperatures had disappeared even in just the short time we'd been on the beach training. Now that the sun had made it up high enough to clear the mountains and we were no longer in the shade, it was warm enough that I was mostly dry by the time we made it back to the RV.

  Jace offered me the choice of changing in the bathroom or changing in the bedroom. I picked the bathroom just so that I would have a mirror. I'd entertained thoughts of trying to salvage my tankini, but once I was standing in front of a mirror I realized pretty quickly that wasn't going to happen. Whatever I'd changed the sand into had been caustic enough that it had eaten through the fabric altogether in several places, and even where it hadn't made holes in my swimsuit it had still made the material so thin it was almost see-through.

  That left me with a difficult choice. I had exactly three swimsuits left, which was two more than I'd usually brought. My first instinct was to just put on the other tankini and my last pair of board shorts, just so I showed as little skin as possible, but that could backfire on me if another transmutation went badly.

  I was uncomfortable being around Jace in either of the two bikinis he'd bought me, but I would be absolutely mortified if my dad saw me in either of them. They were pretty tame as far as bikinis went, but they were still way more revealing than anything he would have approved of.

  If I put on the tankini and ruined it then I'd have no choice but to wear a bikini and potentially face my dad later on. On the other hand, if I put on a bikini now, there wasn't any guarantee that I was going to be able to change back into my last tankini before my dad showed up—if my dad showed up.

  I heard the bedroom door open, indicating that Jace was done, and decided to see if he had any ideas.

  "I don't suppose that you have any mystical means of knowing if my dad is going to show up here?"

  "Actually I sort of do. I haven't told you this, but I've got Kregor keeping an eye on your dad."

  "Who's Kregor?"

  "He's my fairy assistant. He's quite a bit older and bigger than Bethany, but he's still not much use in a fight. He can, however, watch your dad and let us know if anything happens to him."

  I suddenly felt like the worst daughter ever. Less than twenty-four hours ago I'd been worried out of my mind about my dad and sister, but all it had taken was for Jace to kiss me once and all of that went flying out of my mind.

  "I'm sorry, Selene. I meant to tell you earlier that I'd left Kregor there with your dad—I know he's not the best option, but I couldn't think of another way to make everything work. I would have stayed, but that would have ruined any chance of training you this weekend because you and Kat would have spent the whole time babysitting Ari. If Kregor sees something happen to your dad, he'll tail Sandra back to wherever she stows him and then he'll zip out here and tell us so we can go get him."

  I took a deep breath and reached for just enough of my default emotion to balance myself out without completely washing away my concern for my dad.

  "No, you're fine, Jace. It's like you said yesterday—my dad is the one who's probably the safest right now. Sandra isn't going to be able to overpower him physically. Using Kregor was a good idea. I'm just feeling like crap because I forgot that I needed to be worried about my dad."

  Jace was silent for a second before responding. "Maybe you didn't forget, maybe you just remembered that I promised to take care of things."

  "I think you're being too easy on me."

  "I don't think so. I think that I'm just counterbalancing your tendency to be too hard on yourself."

  That made me chuckle. Even through the door I could still envision the earnest expression on Jace's face, an expression that always made me want to believe him regardless of how unlikely his explanation might be.

  "Well, thank you for the vote of confidence. It means a lot, even if I don't deserve it."

  "I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. Why did you want to know if I had a way of knowing if your dad was going to show up?"

  "Because this swimsuit is going to have to be thrown away, which means I have exactly one more swimsuit here that wouldn't give my dad a heart attack if he saw me in it…"

  "And you're worried it's going to get ruined too if you wear it now."

  "Right."

  "Well, Kregor is supposed to let me know if your dad heads this way. He'll follow your dad until he's almost here and then he'll come find me and give me a heads up. Kregor is still young enough that he's a little flaky sometimes, but not nearly as much as he was fifty or sixty years ago."

  "So I should be okay to wear whatever then."

  "Yeah, but if you're worried about it maybe we should just work on something else instead. Transmutations can be a little tricky to get right the first few times. Usually the failed attempts result in something that isn't hazardous, but there isn't any point in taking a chance on a repeat."

  There was a lot of sense to what he was suggesting, but part of me was unwilling to let go of the opportunity of learning how to make precious metals. Maybe I'd just been poor for too long to have a normal sense of perspective, but I just couldn't bring myself to agree with Jace.

  "No, I want to learn how to transmute stuff. Hold on just a second and I'll get changed into one of the other two suits."

  Once I made the decision to wear one of the more sexy swimsuits it wasn't quite as hard to envision Jace seeing me in it, but it was surprisingly hard to strip out of my ruined tankini when I knew there was nothing more than a thin door between us. It wasn't that I thought Jace would walk in on me or anything, but there was something incredibly sensual and exciting about knowing he was just on the other side of the door, that he might be thinking of me the same way that I was thinking of him.

  I was all shaky and nervous, but I double-checked the door to make sure it was locked and then I took a deep breath and slipped out of my clothes. I grabbed a washcloth and scrubbed myself down to make sure that I'd really gotten all of the burning goop off of me, and then I reached into my suitcase and pulled out the dark blue bikini, the gauzy white wrap, and the matching blue board shorts.

  A few seconds later I was dressed and looking myself over in the mirror. It wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting. I'd eaten a small enough breakfast that my tummy didn't stick out much at all, and the board shorts hung off my hips in a sexy way I hadn't expected. In fact, it was a lot like the way Jace wore his jeans, like gravity might win and pull them down at any second. Normally that would have made me terrified, but for all they looked like they were about to fall, they actually felt pretty solid. Besides, at least I would still have my swimsuit bottom on even if the shorts fell off.

  I debated the wrap for a second, but I knew I was going to end up taking it off as soon as we sat back down anyway, so all I'd be doing was prolonging the moment of truth. Better to just get it all over with now.

  I slid open the door to the bathroom and stepped out to find that Jace had moved over to the couch. I found myself oddly disappointed. The thought of him standing just outside of the door had been terrifying, but it had been a strange kind of connection between the two of us, and I hungered for any kind of bond tying me to Jace.

  As disappointing as that was, Jace's reaction to seeing me for the first time in my new swimsuit more than made up for it. He was still Mr. Nice Guy, but there was a fire behind his eyes that I'd never seen before. I imagined that was how he'd looked last night when we'd kissed, but it had been too dark to see it then.

  He took in all of me with one long look and then stepped forward to within arm's reach of me before stopping.

  "You look absolutely amazing."

  "If by amazing you mean splotchy,
then I totally agree."

  I took in the red spots across my stomach and upper chest with a gesture. They'd been mostly covered up by my tankini before, but now they were clearly visible and clearly hideous.

  "No, I still use standard English where splotchy means splotchy and amazing means amazing, but if they are bothering you then that's an easy fix."

  Jace reached forward and placed his hand on my stomach. I felt his energy reach out towards me, warm and welcoming, and then my skin heated up nearly to the point of pain before cooling in a sudden rush that brought goose bumps out on my arms. When Jace removed his hand the splotch he'd been covering up had disappeared and there was nothing left behind but my normal white skin.

  The situation seemed to call for some kind of response, but I couldn't seem to get any words out. If I opened my mouth to thank him I wasn't sure what else would come out. The feeling of him touching me had been beyond euphoric. I wanted to grab his hand and press it against every inch of visible skin on my body, wanted it badly enough to almost disregard Kat's warning about not letting things go any farther with Jace until I knew the full story.

  It was crazy. She'd said herself that Jace was perfect, that he was the kind of guy she would normally be pushing me towards rather than cautioning me against.

  The silence between the two of us stretched out in long, heavy seconds, weighted down with tension that we both desperately wanted to act on.

  Jace eventually took my lack of response as permission to continue and rested his hand lower down on my stomach. Once again, the sensation of heat building and then breaking into a cool wave nearly caused my knees to buckle, but this time he didn't give me any time to recover before he repositioned his hand, again and again.

  At some point I kind of collapsed into him and he wrapped his free hand around my waist while his right hand continued to slowly work its way across the warm, bare skin of my upper chest. When he was done only two red marks remained, one high up on my right shoulder and the other on my left arm just above the elbow. More importantly, by the time he was done I wanted to kiss him with every trembling fiber of my body.

  The feel of his hard muscles against me as his hand had smoothed away my hurts had been more than enough to make me throw caution to the wind. I wanted it, and he knew that I wanted it, but rather than kissing me he steadied me on my feet and then stepped back.

  "I'd like to, more than you can possibly know, Selene, but I can't. Not yet. There are things that you need to know first."

  "Then tell me. There's never going to be a better chance than now, because I don't think there is anything you could possibly say to change how I feel about you."

  That made him grin in the way that only a guy could, a mixture of boyish pleasure and manly satisfaction at knowing just how desperate you were for their touch.

  "It's mutual, but sometimes what you think about one person doesn't make a difference in the bigger scheme of things."

  I wanted to demand an answer, or beg for one, but Jace switched gears and the moment passed.

  "Sorry, I would have erased them all, but we need something to explain the change of clothing."

  "I know. I don't suppose you could have given me a tan while you were at it…"

  "I could have, but I love the way you look, Selene. Always."

  Chapter 24

  I realized something for the first time as we were walking back out to the beach. I was idly thinking back to the two kisses the night before and the near kiss from a few minutes before and noticed that all of my memories were much stronger and more vivid than they should have been.

  It wasn't like I was remembering being back at the campsite and kissing Jace, it was like I was reliving it. My knees went weak and my insides got all trembly so fast that I started to collapse. I would have hit the ground if Jace hadn't grabbed hold of me.

  "Selene, are you okay? What's going on?"

  His voice seemed to be coming from a long distance away. This Jace sounded so small and unimportant that I was tempted to just ignore it and focus on the Jace that had his arms wrapped around me while he pushed me up against a tree.

  If it had been anyone other than Jace, I would have ignored them. The reality of our kiss was just so powerful, and I'd discovered that time seemed to speed up and slow down perfectly to provide the most amazing experience possible. The high points stretched out so that they seemed to take forever, while the boring parts leading up to the kisses flew by at lightning speed.

  "Selene! You have to snap out of it. Those are just memories. They aren't real—I'm out here, not there inside of your head."

  I tried to force my eyelids to pry themselves open, but my eyes just rolled even further back inside of my head.

  "It's so real. Why would I ever want to leave it behind?"

  "You don't have to leave it, it's going to be there for you for a very long time, but you do need to come back out here with me. There are so many incredible things that I want to show you and I can't do that if you stay trapped inside of your own head."

  I could feel his breath on my cheek. It was still a distant, faint sensation, but it and the feel of my hand in his provided twin anchors that gave me something to pull against. They slowed my fall enough for me to consider what he was saying. He was right. I could stay inside my head reliving everything that had ever happened to me up until now and I'd be happy, but at some point I would start wondering what would have happened next. I would want to know the next chapter of my story, but unless I came back now, the story might not play itself out the way that I wanted it to. Jace wasn't going to wait by my side for decades.

  My eyes flickered back open and I looked up to find that Jace had pulled me up onto his lap. I was cradled in his arms, which wasn't the equal of reliving our first kiss, but it wasn't a bad thing to come back to.

  It took me a couple of tries to get my voice working. "What just happened to me?"

  "We explained that we Awakened don't naturally forget anything, but that doesn't really cover the sheer strength of our memories. The first time someone experiences a peak memory after they become fully awakened can be tricky, but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly. I knew that what we shared just now inside the RV might turn out to be a peak memory, but usually it takes at least a few hours before someone has enough distance from a memory like that to get sucked back into it."

  I shook my head. "It wasn't the memory of just now in the RV that grabbed me. It was the memory of our first kiss."

  Jace looked poleaxed again. Apparently it was a banner day—I'd managed to shock him twice in less than twenty-four hours.

  "That shouldn't be possible, Selene. All your memories from before your first effect should still be there, and they won't get any weaker, but there's no way you should have gotten sucked into something from before your awakening. Those memories don't have the clarity to do that kind of thing to an Awakened…"

  "Look, I don't know how it's supposed to work, but the memory of that kiss was as real as anything I've ever felt. I could have sworn that I was back there reliving it again."

  "Are you sure? The specifics should have been lacking."

  "I could feel the ridges of bark in my back where you had me pressed up against the tree, Jace. There was nothing lacking about the specifics."

  I actually managed to make him blush. It was cute. Don't get me wrong, I like Jace the way he normally was, confident and completely in control of his surroundings, but it was nice to know that he had this other side too.

  "I, ah…I'm sorry if I got carried away—"

  "You didn't get any more carried away than I did. I'm telling you though, the memories from last night are just as vivid as what happened a few minutes ago. It's like someone went back through my mind and added in all of the details that time had worn away from my experiences. What does that mean?"

  "Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't have any record of anything like this ever happening, but it's a big deal. The memories from before someone becomes an Awakened
aren't as good for powering effects as the stuff that happens afterwards. They still work, but they burn faster for less result. That means you would normally be a lot weaker than another Awakened, even just one who only had sixteen or seventeen years' worth of memories. If your memories are really all as detailed as it seems they are, then you've already got nearly a quarter of the saved-up fuel that Kat has."

  I wasn't sure what to think of that. I liked the idea of being able to hold onto my childhood experiences longer than I otherwise would have been able to, but I wasn't quite as reconciled to the idea of losing them as I'd thought I was. The important thing right now though was to find out how to avoid getting sucked back into them again.

  "So how does this work? How do you avoid spending every waking moment in the past?"

  "You already know part of it. Living in the past prevents you from having a past or future either one. For most people that's enough to force them to deal with all of the less exciting parts of life. Other than that, it's important to keep the people you care about at the top of your mind. You value your relationships with them, so that will naturally help pull you back to reality because, even when you're immersed in the past, you'll know that spending all of your time in memories will destroy those relationships."

  I started to nod and then had a terrible thought. "Jace, what happens if everyone you care about is killed? What pulls you back if that happens?"

  His face went cold and expressionless for several seconds, and I suddenly realized that it wasn't just a worrisome hypothetical for Jace. He'd experienced that—maybe not completely, but close enough—when I'd died the last time.

  "If that happens you just have to try to think about the future you hope to build and remember that other Awakened are never really gone. They may come back somewhere thousands of miles away from you, they may even come back to circumstances that turn them into a very different person than you remember, but they'll be back. That means there is always a chance that you'll be able to rebuild the future with them that you were hoping for the first time around."