The Awakening Series: Volumes 1 - 3

by Dean Murray

  At first I tried to keep him as far away from my body as possible, but the water was just so cold that I eventually pulled him tight against me, desperately trying to steal enough heat from him to keep from going into hypothermia.

  It felt like we were in there forever. I eventually shifted us around so that we were over by the drain and as the tub started to fill up too much I let some of the warmer water out while the tap continued to send down a stream of icy cold liquid.

  At some point I felt Kyle shift around again. His fevered thrashing had subsided as I'd managed to get him fully immersed in the water, and if not for the slow rise and fall of his chest I would have been worried that he was dead.

  "What happened?"

  Actually hearing him speak was such a shock that I nearly let his head fall under the water. Mentally cursing myself for being an idiot, I tightened my hold on the edge of the tub with my left hand, and then shifted my right arm lower on the slick, bare skin of his chest so that I could pull him up higher.

  "We were fighting Fenrir. He bit you—you healed the damage to your shoulder, but then you said something about poison and passed out. I dragged you through the darkness and by some miracle managed to make it back here to your bunker, but by then your core temperature had dropped dangerously low. I got you warmed up, but then you spiked a fever. I thought for a second that I was going to lose you."

  He turned his head toward my voice. For a second I thought he was going to respond, but then I realized that his eyes were still closed. I'd managed to cool him down enough for him to start dreaming—that or maybe he was hallucinating—but he still didn't know where he was.

  "Figures that I would get all excited thinking that you were finally coherent and it turns out that you're still off in Never-Never Land. You probably think I'm the old me, the one you let Mephistoles kill."

  "I never wanted it to happen that way, Genevieve…couldn't stop him…bluffed him into thinking I could. I figured you'd want it that way…you'd want at least some good to come out of your death."

  That was the first time anyone had ever mentioned my old name. Then again, I hadn't exactly been badgering anyone about that particular subject. Maybe I'd been scared to know too much about who I'd been before, scared that it would make it harder to be this version of me if I knew too much about the earlier version, the one that everyone was so excited about.

  "Was that my name back in the day?"

  "Always your name. I've forgotten nearly everything else over the years and had to relearn it from my journals, but I've never forgotten that."

  Kyle still wasn't what I'd call responsive, but him talking had snapped me out of the funk that I'd settled into while trying to keep him from drowning or overheating. I really looked at him for the first time since I'd climbed into the bathtub with him, and the beginnings of desire started to course through me.

  He'd never been as big and muscly as Jace, but the cold and fever had taken more out of him than I would have believed possible. He'd lost at least four or five pounds of fat on a frame that hadn't had much more than that on it to start out with.

  If it kept up for much longer his body would have to start consuming muscle, but for now it had just chiseled away everything extraneous from his form. His skin was like tissue paper stretched over warm granite muscles. Watching his chest rise and fall made me feel all warm and tingly.

  A week ago I would have said that nobody could have triggered such a strong reaction in me. A couple of days ago I would have said that nobody but Jace could create such an instant tidal wave of aching desire inside of me, but it turned out I would have been wrong on both counts.

  My arms were getting tired. I shifted Kyle around, trying to take some of his weight off of my right arm, and then I saw the other effect of him having lost so much weight. His pants were riding even lower than they had before Fenrir had gotten his teeth into Kyle. I suddenly realized that all it would take was one wrong move and Kyle's jeans would slide right off his hips.

  "Whoa there, girl. You are not going to jump Kyle's bones. Not ever, but especially not when he's unconscious and hallucinating."

  Kyle had gone limp again. I shook him, hoping that I'd be able to get him more coherent rather than less.

  "Kyle, how do I heal you? Tell me how to bring you back from this."

  I would have slapped him again, but the angle was all wrong for that. Luckily something about the sound of my voice brought him at least partially back to me. In someone else the weak movement of his head wouldn't have even been worth commenting on, but given everything he'd been through in the last few hours it was the next best thing to him jumping out of the tub and doing handsprings.

  "I can't go back. Some things can't be healed."

  "You're hallucinating, Kyle. I don't know what you think is going on, but I need you to snap out of it enough to tell me how to work a healing effect. You remember my name from two or three hundred years ago, please tell me that isn't the only thing left up there."

  "Silly…Genevieve. Of course that's not it. I remember your birthday, too. March fourteenth, the same as ours. You were born with snow on the ground. It's all in your journal—on the bottom shelf. Born in the spring, in the mountains with snow all around. Just like now, cold snow…so cold."

  I started to shake him again, but then I realized that he wouldn't ever notice, not with the way he was already shivering. Mentally cursing that I'd been too busy drooling over Kyle's awesome bod to realize that his fever had broken, I amped myself enough that I could force him to a sitting position.

  As I reached for the tap to shut off the cold water, I brushed up against his arm and realized for the first time how cold he'd gotten. His fever hadn't just broken, he was headed back into hypothermia. I was back exactly where I'd started, only this time he was dripping wet and weakened from running a raging fever for hours which had burned up reserves he hadn't had a chance to replenish because I hadn't even tried to get anything down him.

  I struggled to my feet and held Kyle in one arm for a second as I debated options. In the end I just gritted my teeth and slipped his jeans off. There wasn't time to let his boxers drip dry, so I grabbed two towels on my way to the bed.

  One towel went on the bed so I could sit him down and dry his chest and back, and then I let him fall back to the bed and soaked up the water from his legs in smooth, quick motions. Thirty seconds later he was lying on the bed with a towel wrapped around his waist to soak up the water still dripping from his underwear.

  I grabbed three more towels, two to drape over him and one for me, and then I stripped out of my clothes, trying not to let the fact that my boyfriend's brother was unconscious less than a dozen feet away make me feel self-conscious. I failed miserably, but at least I stopped it from slowing me down.

  Even though there wasn't anyone around to see me other than Kyle if I wanted to run around naked, I wrapped my damp towel around my body and headed back up the stairs at a run—I already knew that a couple of dry towels weren't going to be enough to stop Kyle's temperature from crashing.

  It took me just over a minute this time to get back downstairs with his comforter, and I begrudged every second, including the ten seconds it took me to pull on one of the clean t-shirts from his dresser drawer, and then I was under the covers with him, wrapping my body around him in an attempt to warm him back up.

  Chapter 14

  Being under a blanket with Kyle with less than a full change of clothes between the two of us would have tried the resolve of a saint, and I'd recently realized just how far away I was from sainthood. Every time he moved I could feel his muscles rippling against me. My arms, my legs, my stomach, my chest, every single part of me that touched him seemed hyper-aware of the fact that he was nothing more than hard planes covered by warm, perfect skin.

  The only thing that saved me was the fact that I knew Jace was waiting faithfully for me, that he'd be hurt if he found out that something had happened between Kyle and me—that and the fact that Kyle
was unconscious. Still, it was more than two torturous hours later before I was finally able to untangle myself from Kyle and venture back upstairs. Even then I only stayed away long enough to ransack his pantry and microwave a can of chicken noodle soup. The entire exercise took only minutes, but I spent the entire time worried that I was going to come back down and find that he'd spiked a temperature again—or worse.

  Luckily he was still stable when I got back, shivering slightly without my body heat, but still breathing, still alive. Feeding an unconscious person with a spoon was a lot harder than I'd expected it to be. The only thing that saved me was the fact that I had the ability to make myself strong enough to manhandle him as needed. I piled all of the pillows from his gigantic bed against the headboard and pulled him up against them so that he was very nearly in a sitting position and then spooned the broth into his mouth a little bit at a time.

  He choked and coughed a little bit at the start, and then his swallowing reflex seemed to take back over and half an hour later the broth was all gone and he was shivering badly enough that I crawled back under the comforter again.

  I was emotionally and mentally exhausted, but my body wasn't ready to sleep yet. Luckily, once Kyle's hunky body was out of sight under the covers it was apparently out of mind too. Of course not wrapping myself around him this time probably helped—I wasn't sure I could have taken another round of carnal temptation so soon after the last one, not when I was feeling worn out and shaky with concern over whether or not he was going to survive unscathed.

  Instead I suffered through a different kind of temptation. Kyle had mentioned a journal—my journal—and he'd made it sound like he possessed it. I'd spent the first little while after Jace found me wishing that I could do more to distance myself from the shadowy figure of my previous incarnation, but now that I knew what her name—my name—had been, I was intensely curious about what she'd been like.

  I must have looked at the bottom row of white, leather-bound journals a million times while I waited for Kyle to warm back up to the point where he wasn't in danger of having his organs spontaneously shut down. There were only twelve of them on the bottom shelf, only twelve books that I'd have to crack open and look at if I wanted to satisfy my suspicion.

  I'd never been that kind of girl, the one who snooped around in stuff that wasn't any of her business, but as I lay there with my back to Kyle and temptation just a few yards away I realized that it wasn't that I didn't have some of those tendencies, it was just that I was usually able to distract myself from them.

  That wasn't an option this time. I couldn't go work out, I couldn't go cook myself something to eat, I couldn't even go take a cold shower. For all I knew Kyle might spike another fever at any minute, and even if he didn't there was a limit to how long I could leave him before he would start cooling off and shivering again.

  I was stuck between staying there touching Kyle's perfect skin without anything to distract me, or looking at the journals. In the end I chose the lesser sin. I padded over to the bookshelves and opened up the book furthest to the right.

  Pay dirt. The volume I was holding seemed to switch back and forth between French and English, but it was the one I wanted, the one that I'd been hoping for. I opened up the next book just to confirm that I was right, but I didn't need to see the more masculine handwriting to know that the first book wasn't written by Kyle.

  I set both books back on the shelf, bit my lip, and then grabbed my journal and hurried back to the bed. Kyle might end up mad, I might end up regretting ever picking up this particular volume, but I had to know.

  Journal Entry

  April 3, 1724

  Kyle has been after me to practice my English. I tell him it doesn't matter, that I'm still going to sound French, but it turns out he's less worried about my accent than he is about the notes I've been sending him.

  Tensions between here and the Continent are running high again and it looks exceedingly bad for a recently elevated count of the realm to be seen receiving notes written in a tongue that most of the royal family has never bothered to learn. So much for the advantages of a classical education.

  I tried to convince Kyle to deputize Jace to go in his place, but he's been even less flexible than usual with regards to those kinds of things here in our new home. I truly wish we'd been able to stay in Paris. We had such a good life there, but the four of us simply can't match Nikoli's thugs.

  I simply can't do justice to the outrage I feel every time I think about our loss. Despite all our learning, despite the fruits of decades of careful, inspired research, we're still at the mercy of bullies like the Kiev pantheon. The human world has seen a resurgence of civilization over the last few lifetimes, but among our kind, might is still what makes right.

  I suppose Kyle is right. We can't afford to risk our position here—not unless we're prepared to journey across the ocean and try to make a life for ourselves there. Jace and Kat are both enamored of the idea, but there is no telling what might await us there. Better the devil we know than a dangerous trip into darkness. Our research is simply too important to risk on some flight of fancy.

  We aren't the only pantheon here in England, but Ashwell's group seems content to leave us alone for now as long as we continue to work towards the best interest of the nobility. The royal family is still completely unaware that we are anything more than we claim, but Kyle is right. All it would take is a hint of treason for us to find royal guardsmen on our doorstep with orders to see us to a prison.

  They couldn't take us anywhere we didn't want to go, of course, but I'm tired of killing humans, and even our kind can't stand off the might of an entire nation indefinitely. All of which means I must practice my written English, just like I must smile at all of the right people while attending all of the necessary parties.

  For the first time in decades I find myself envying Jace and Katrina. They have none of the power or prestige that Kyle and I currently enjoy, but they have freedom. Kat has taken a human lover, a charming middle-aged cobbler whose head is positively spinning at the gifts and attention she lavishes upon him.

  Jace…well, Jace is still Jace. He hasn't taken a mistress, hasn't been with any woman since he broke things off with that cow from Germany a hundred and fifty years ago, but he's taking advantage of his freedom in other ways. He's begun construction of a countryside manor that will be most impressive when it is done.

  I suspect he mostly pursues it because it puts distance between us, but I also think he legitimately enjoys the work, enjoys mastering an architectural challenge in ways that the world has never seen before. Jace will never be a real researcher, but he does have a good mind and an even better heart.

  I wish that he would find someone. If I had a shilling for every time I'd wished that he and Kat could be happy together I'd be…well, an even wealthier woman than I already am. I can't think of anything better than my two best friends experiencing the same happiness that I've been enjoying.

  In other news, Kyle and I demonstrated the system-speeding effect that we've been working on to Jace and Kat. We only showed them how to reach a speed twice that of a normal person, but even that small crumb represents something that could be a huge advantage in the fight with Nikoli that Kyle is so concerned is coming.

  Kat played down her excitement as she's done so often lately. Once she had mastered the effect she simply shrugged and named it time bending. It's a misnomer given that we aren't actually impacting the flow of time, but I didn't correct her. I'm just glad to see her excited about something.

  Something happened in the retreat from Paris that she hasn't been willing to discuss with me.

  I've tried to get her to open up, but so I've far been less than successful. I must take refuge in the fact that eventually it will be wiped clean, never again to be remembered. The forgetting is so often the bane of our existence—it's just too bad that it requires something so terrible to turn our curse into a positive.

  If I were a different woman I would
be tempted to find the journal where she's written the experience down and make arrangements for an accident to befall the relevant pages. It's the only way for her to ever forget what happened, but I know that would be a betrayal like none other. I will have to settle for the memory losing its strength at some point in the next hundred years or so.

  I often think that there are too many secrets in this world. We hide our nature from the humans around us, and that is bad enough, but it is nothing in comparison to the secrets we keep from each other. In this regard I'm as guilty as the rest, for I've agreed with Kyle to hide the bulk of our research from the other two.

  We provide them with the crumbs from our table while keeping the best of the feast for ourselves. Kyle's reasoning is sound, but I dislike the thought of Jace and Kat going into battle armed with less than the best we are capable of providing them. I worry that something will happen to one of them and our little family will be broken up for a season—possibly even forever. The world is a much smaller place than it once was, but there is still so much of it, a wide, terrifying place in which to find one single person.

  I think I hear Kyle arriving downstairs. The footmen are all aflutter, which usually means that he's sent word on ahead. Yes, I can see his carriage coming up the street. I should go—he'll doubtlessly be worked up over something that happened at court, or barring that he'll want to discuss contingency plans in case Ashwell's group or Nikoli's group tries to eliminate us.

  Before I go though there is just one more thing I should record. I had a conversation with Kat this morning, that I would hate to ever forget, but which I know will leave me all too soon.

  I asked her if she loved her cobbler, if she would eventually tell him what she is. She told me she did, but that telling him would depend on whether she felt he could survive learning that the world was much broader than he'd always thought. I was prepared to leave things there, but she asked me if I doubted her love for Patrick, her cobbler.