by Crymsyn Hart
“You are one who is needed. One who is being called back,” Savanna said in a soft monotone.
They both turned to look at her. Her features were slack and her eyes had turned completely black. Savanna looked like someone possessed from a horror movie. Nevertheless, Wyeth wasn’t afraid of her. It also made him realize she was a true psychic, even though he had never believed in such a thing before. Hell, his beliefs had been shattered enough as it was. Drake glanced back at him with questions dancing in his eyes.
Wyeth shrugged. “This is all new territory for me.”
“Savanna, are you okay?” Drake asked.
Another loud scream came from Chastity’s bedroom down the hall. A wave of disgust passed over him when he thought about the other woman. He had agreed to the date because one of his crew had set him up, and he hadn’t been able to get out of it. Chastity was not the kind of woman he wanted to date. It was clear she was a high maintenance train wreck waiting to happen. Never again.
“The one you ask for is not the one you’re addressing.”
“W-who are you then?” Wyeth questioned.
Savanna cocked her head to the side and her black gaze raked over him, peering into his soul and judging him.
“Interesting,” she commented.
“What’s interesting? You should answer his question before I drive you from this woman. Now answer,” Drake demanded.
“You wouldn’t hurt this woman, Meruke.”
Drake jerked away from Savanna. “W-what did you call me?”
Wyeth wasn’t sure what was happening, but no way was he leaving. Besides, he wanted to know if Savanna was okay. Ever since dropping her off the other day, she had haunted his thoughts. He wasn’t sure why, because she was not his type, but she had spirit in her when she had demanded to get out of his car and tonight when she forked Drake, sticking up for him.
“Meruke. It is your name. And you are one of the ‘kin.”
“No one here knows that name. Tell me who you are,” Drake whispered, his voice full of shock and laden with other emotions. Wyeth hadn’t thought the man could actually feel anything.
Savanna smiled. “One who wishes to help bring you home.”
“Home. That isn’t possible. All ways are barred,” Drake answered.
“Not all ways. Time will come and the doorway will open once more,” she said.
“When?”
Savanna was going to answer when whatever force animated her left. She slumped back against the sofa, and concern for her swept through him. He sat next to her and patted her hand as Drake sat on the sofa, confounded.
“Savanna, are you okay?” Wyeth asked.
She blinked, emerging from the trance. She looked between the two of them and forced a smile. “I’m fine. Can you get me some water please?”
She put her hand to her head and squeezed her eyes shut. He got up and headed into the kitchen to fulfill her request. He grabbed the first thing he could see, a mug with a picture of the grim reaper and a saying on it. “You kill ‘em. We chill ‘em.” He chuckled and brought the water over to her. She leaned against the couch as though it held her up. Wyeth touched her arm.
“Thanks.” She sipped the water.
“Are you going to be okay?” Wyeth asked her once more.
She nodded. “I’ll be fine. That’s not normally how I do things.” Savanna caressed his arm and a small tingle went through him. It warmed him from the inside out and stirred his passion. “Don’t worry about it.”
He couldn’t help but worry. This whole night had been out of the normal. People going into trances or changing their faces was something out of a horror novel. “Drake, what about you?”
“What?” the other man snapped.
Wyeth gritted his teeth, but he reminded himself that the other man had had a shock, too. “Are you going to be okay? Whatever happened doesn’t seem to be a normal thing for any of us. Come on, man. I’m trying here. After everything you laid on me and this happening, it’s obvious you’re affected somehow.”
“Right.” Drake paced the room, wearing a track in the carpet. All of the pent up energy the man was burning affected Wyeth, and he was getting a bit jumpy. He didn’t want to go off on either Drake or Savanna.
“I’m leaving. It’s obvious that you two need to work it out. Savanna, thank you for dinner. Drake, can you postpone leaving until we can talk more about what just happened? I hope you don’t mind not taking off in the hidden spaceship that you have in the cave.”
“Wyeth, you don’t have to go.” Savanna stood, a little unsteady on her feet.
When Wyeth peered into her eyes, he saw warmth and needed to be next to her. Whatever she had gone through had changed her in his eyes. A bond had formed between them, maybe because they both experienced something out of this world. Maybe because she had saved him from the crazy man in her living room. Too many questions swirled in his mind. How much does Drake know about my family?
He touched the side of Savanna’s soft cheek. “Yes, I do. You and he have a few things to discuss. Maybe we can get together and talk when all of this has calmed down. What do you say?”
“I’d like that. Come by the shop anytime. I’m the only spiritual advisor in the book who has a shop on Main Street, or, well, a little bit off Main because the rent is really a bitch right there.”
He grinned. “I’ll do that.”
* * * *
The door closed and Wyeth left, leaving her alone with Drake and her insane roommate, who still had her music blaring. Good thing she had learned to filter out the death metal screams and heavy bass. Savanna took in a cleansing breath to rid herself of the after effects of the possession.
“Can you please tell me what happened to you just now? Who was speaking? How did you know my name? My true name?” Drake asked. His earnest expression and the wetness that lined his eyes was a knife in her heart. Here was a completely different man than the one who she had forked earlier. From all the things that she had felt when she touched him, the loneliness that closed off his heart was killing him. Within him, two different personas were fighting over his body.
“Only if you are straight with me and answer my questions.” Savanna gathered up the plates and brought them into the kitchen. She couldn’t sit and talk about what had happened. If she did, she had a feeling that she was going to fall asleep, only because of the exertion that came with connecting to whoever had taken her over. The chicken remains went in the trash, and Drake handed her a plate.
“I’ll answer your questions. Any of them, but please. I need to know,” he implored her.
“Okay.” She leaned on the counter. “When you were talking with Wyeth, I heard a voice calling out to me from a great distance. It was a woman. She had a message to deliver to you. Normally, when I get direct contact with spirits it’s a little different. It always feels like they’re standing behind my right shoulder. I can sense their energy rubbing off on mine. If I don’t pay attention to them, they eventually go away. This was completely different. This voice called to me. This presence was to be anchored in the flesh. I know that is tricky to understand, but I want you to realize this is how I work.”
“It can’t be any stranger than what you saw tonight. I don’t show my true identity to anyone outside of the Blackmore family. You have to understand that confiding in you is a little off-putting for me as well. Then you say my true name. We have to take what the other says on faith. If you can do that, then I’m willing to believe whatever you have to tell me.”
Savanna walked back into the living room with another glass of wine. She took a sip and calmed her raging heart. Seeing Drake do whatever trick he had done with Wyeth, and hearing the incredible stuff he revealed, was out of the ordinary, even for her. There had been truth in his words so she wasn’t about to call him a liar.
“When you were telling Wyeth about his family and how you were all connected, that strange woman called my name. She introduced herself as Kestrel. She was a something...it was
a little strange. Her voice had an accent to it that I had never heard before.”
“What did she call herself?” he urged her.
Savanna met his dark, bewitching gaze. “Spellcaster. She said that she needed me to be the bridge so she could speak. It was difficult, as though she wasn’t used to calling out over the void that separated us. I felt her sincerity and made the connection. She pushed me aside, and that’s when she spoke to you. I heard everything she said, but I wasn’t in control of my body. Kestrel couldn’t keep the connection open for very long. What about you? What are you really?”
“She said spellcaster? Those were her exact words.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what they mean?”
“No idea. Literally, it would be one who casts spells. A sorceress, a witch, even if such a thing truly existed.” Chastity’s music stopped. Her door shut and she stomped down the hall. Her roommate glared at them, grabbed her keys, and strolled out the door without another word. Some of Savanna’s tension drained. One of these days she would kick her out of her apartment, when she could afford to live on her own again. She prayed that day would come sooner rather than later. Having to deal with Chastity’s mood swings wore on her nerves. At least she didn’t accuse her of trying to steal Wyeth. Savanna had seen and heard the crazy screaming matches Chastity had with her other boyfriends, all because they didn’t want to do something that she wanted to do. Savanna had called the cops once. After that, Chastity ceased pushing her buttons, but began calling her Sav, which she reverently despised.
“Yes. That’s what your world would equate it to. Where I’m from...I don’t even know how to describe it. Sometimes it seems like a dream. After all this time it must have changed. There has always been spellcasters and dragons. In my time...”
“Wait? Did you say dragons? As in great creatures that fly and breathe fire? Like in hoarding gold in the bowels of a mountain kind of dragons?” Savanna asked.
Drake chuckled. “Yes, but everything you think of dragons is not true. In my day, there were other beasts that humans have no names for. I don’t know if those beasts still exist or not. I fought off these monsters who tried to invade the land. The spellcasters assisted us, but many were killed. Those who lived funneled their magic to me so I could fend off the monsters, who wanted nothing more than power. We had beaten all of them down until only one was left, along with the witch who was helping them. With their combined power, I killed it and decimated the witch. While this was happening, a great storm had blown up. The sorceress used the last of her magic and opened a rift in the storm. It swallowed me up, and I tumbled through a void until I hit bottom in dragon form. I remember looking up at swirling clouds and hearing crashing waves upon the rocks. The feel of the world was different. When I tried to find my own kind, no matter where in this realm I searched I found nothing. No magic. No dragons. No spellcasters.”
After hearing what Drake said, it made some sense of what she felt when she touched him. The utter loneliness inside of him was eating him up. His pain laden tone echoed within her soul.
“Kestrel, her message, did you understand any of it? Was there a hidden meaning behind any of it?” Drake stepped closer but kept his distance.
Her instincts said for her to bridge the gap between them, but her insecurity kept her where she was. “No. There was nothing sinister about her message. It was very earnest. Before the connection was broken, she wanted to reveal more. Others spoke in the background. I couldn’t see anything except you. I’m sorry. I wish I could give you more information, but there isn’t any. However...” Savanna didn’t think that her dreams were anything, but maybe they had been.
“However. What? Tell me. I need to know everything that you know.” Drake crossed the room and squeezed her upper arms in earnest. He wasn’t being violent. He was frustrated and excited rolled into one.
Savanna sensed his emotions. When he grabbed her, more images flooded her mind. Now that she knew a little bit more about him, she understood what the larger thing was she had sensed within him along with the fire. It was the dragon that wanted to be released from the fleshy cage. It yearned to soar above the land. She wasn’t sure, but it seemed to sense they were connected. It showed her a glimpse of the world from high above. It lent her the sensation of the wind running over her flesh as she rode the air currents. Power flooded her, and she saw a vision of a creature with three different heads, a lion, a goat with four horns, and a snake. He battled it with his claws and teeth. Next, she was spinning out of control. It was cold, and then she landed on a rocky shore, hardly believing she was alive. Savanna realized that was when he had come to this world. She wanted to learn more about the dragon and about Drake, but she had to answer his questions.
“Okay. The dreams I’ve been having. I’ve had a couple where I’m standing before a mirror or in a vast library. I’m someone else. It always comes as a shock, because I’m not me, and yet the dreams are not just dreams. They are real in some way. This is not the astral plane that I’m dreaming of, because I know the difference. The feeling in the dream is more problematic to explain. These are about me being in a strange place.”
“Do you know what she looks like, this Kestrel?” Drake asked.
Savanna shook her head. “No. The dreams hop around a lot, as though I’m in and out of her consciousness. I do remember one more thing from the other night when I was on the boat. I didn’t think much of it because it was kinda strange. It could’ve been the wind catching the mist at the right time.”
“What was it?”
Savanna placed her hands on his so he would loosen his grip on her arms. His fingers poked into her flesh, and she had a feeling bruises would appear in the morning. “I was on the deck after talking to the captain when I looked up at the light. Something in the mist captured my attention. It looked like a flying dragon. It lasted a few seconds, but it felt like something was within the shape that I couldn’t quite grasp. It glided toward the cliffs, intermingling with the waves crashing alongside the boat. It disappeared. And then...I must’ve gotten swept overboard after that.”
“You still don’t remember what happened to you?”
“No. Not until I woke up on your bed. So thank you again for that.”
“It’s odd you say that about the dragon. Something pulled me up to the light so I could look out over the sea. I was remembering how they used to be when I could fly around this world at will and there would be no repercussions. Nowadays with the airplanes and all the technology I can’t reveal what I am. When I was up there, I saw the same dragon. Its wing brushed along my arm. It circled back, and that’s when I noticed you on the rocks. It was that power, that creature, elemental, that made me notice you that night. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have seen you until too late.”
She was shocked at his admission. I wonder if Wyeth saw the dragon form as well. Maybe Kestrel, in her own way, was breaking through into this world. Whatever it was it made Drake pay attention so that he had saved her life. “Well, thank you again.” Savanna touched the side of his face. His solitude and sorrow cut so deep she gasped in pain.
“What is it? Did I hurt you in some way?” Drake asked.
“No. It’s not that. You’ve been alone for a long time. I can feel it, that’s all.” Savanna placed one hand on his cheek and another over his heart. “I don’t know how you endured all this time with it bottled up inside.”
She thought he might break away from her, but instead turned his hand along her cheek. “There is no other way to survive in this place. No one here is like me. You humans would never understand the true union that happens between others of my kind. Our mate bonds run so deep they wind our souls together. The couplings of the flesh I have partaken of don’t satisfy the beast. It’s easier to seclude myself within nature. At least the beasts of the earth understand me better than even I understand humans.”
“Sometimes you need more than just animals and solitude. Your heart is frozen, and so is
your dragon. It cries out to be released. It fights with your humanity. Can’t you feel it?”
“I can’t shed this skin and release my true nature in this town anymore. There are too many factors. In the caves under the mansion there is enough room. As to fighting with my humanity, we are not two separate entities. We are one and the same. One can’t exist without the other.”
Savanna pressed her fingertips against his chest as his musk made her slightly lightheaded. At first she hadn’t noticed it, but whatever connection she had to him was growing on her. It also didn’t hurt that he was drop dead gorgeous. Drake put his thumb underneath her chin and drew her a little closer until they were mere centimeters from one another. Savanna could see the small lines in his full lips and the slight dimple in his left cheek when he spoke.
“It’s still sad. Either way. I guess you don’t trust me enough to see your other half. I hoped you would’ve trusted me, too—” He stopped her mid-sentence and claimed her lips.
She wasn’t sure how to react at first, but the surprise wore off as she wrapped her arms around his neck and settled into his kiss. It was sweet at first, and then more insistent, hungrier as though he needed to devour her. Boy, was it a kiss! It lit up all her fuses and warmed her from the inside out. His body was warmer than normal, and as he kissed her a bit of that heat tumbled down her throat. Savanna squeezed her thighs together and pulled away with a groan that turned into a small cough as she tasted a bit of sulfur on her lips.
“I’m sorry. Are you okay?” Drake asked.
“I’m fine. I wasn’t expecting that,” Savanna reassured him.
“Me either. I-I should go.” Drake released her and walked out of the apartment, leaving her open mouthed and wanting more.
“Well, hell,” she muttered. On the scale of one to ten, her night was a twenty. She touched her lips once more. Tonight she would be dreaming about Drake and hoped they would both be naked, because right about now she needed a good sex dream.
