War Angel Contingent (Everlasting Fire Series, Book 1)

by S. J. West

  I shake my head. “It’s not a date.”

  “Okay,” he says again with another reassuring pat on the back, but he’s doing nothing to hide the fact that he believes I’m simply deluding myself.

  I feel my heart start to pound a little harder inside my chest as the realization begins to sink in.

  I’m going on a date with Ethan Knight, commander of the War Angels and undoubtedly one of the most handsome men I’ve ever met.

  What in the world have I gotten myself into?

  CHAPTER 9

  My mother decides that since it’s so close to my birthday the occasion provides her with an excuse to go overboard on our shopping spree. She takes me to the most expensive clothing store in Arcas and buys me not one outfit, but three, and shoes to match. I silently wonder if she believes my dinner with Ethan will lead to more dates in the not so distant future. Honestly, I’m not sure what I think about the possibility of that happening and decide not to dwell on a maybe.

  I have to admit that shopping with my mom has its perks. It’s nice to go out with someone who can phase all your packages home within a split second, saving you the hassle of lugging a bunch of bags everywhere you go. Plus, my mother has impeccable taste. She knows what will look good on me even before I try things on. I trust her implicitly and simply allow her to choose my outfits for me. I’m not much of a fashionista anyway. I could care less what I wear most of the time, as long as it covers the important parts of my body and is comfortable.

  Since I didn’t argue with her about spending so much money on my new clothes, she seems to take that as permission to spoil me for the rest of the day. After we get through having facials, manicures, pedicures, and our hair styled, I only have about thirty minutes left to get ready before Ethan is expected to arrive. By the time my mother is through primping me, I feel as though I’ve been primed to enter a beauty pageant instead of going out on a simple dinner date.

  “I didn’t realize I had so much wrong with me that I needed a full makeover,” I tell her, half joking, half not, while I put on one of the dresses we bought earlier in the day.

  “Jules, you’re a natural beauty,” my mom tells me from her seat on the side of her bed. “The only thing we did today was get rid of the grime beneath your fingernails and excise the split ends from that gorgeous head of blonde hair you have. You didn’t need a makeover, just a sprucing up. And …”

  My mother’s long pause prompts me to turn around to face her as I’m zipping up the back of my dress. She looks uncertain on whether or not to say what else is on her mind, which is odd for her. It’s a rare occasion when she doesn’t say what she believes you should know.

  “And what?” I gently prod her, seeing that she needs some encouragement to finish her statement.

  “And,” she begins hesitantly, “I’m glad to see you take an interest in yourself again. It’s not just the fact that you let me primp you today and buy you pretty clothes either. I was happy to see you enjoy the time we spent together. You acted like your old self while we were out. I know you’ve never cared much about shopping for clothes or going to the salon to be pampered, but today was one of the first days in a long time when I felt like you were having as much fun as I was. You made me feel like you wanted to be with me instead of just going through the motions because you thought it would make me happy.”

  “I love spending time with you, Mom,” I tell her, walking the few feet to her. “I’m sorry if I’ve been making you feel like I don’t lately. It’s just …” This time it’s my turn to make a long pause.

  “I know,” she says understandingly with a smile to match. “Things have been hard for you the past few years. I’m just relieved to see you open up to people again, even if one of those people is Helena.”

  During our extravagant day of shopping, I told my mom about the conversation I had with Helena in my apartment. She didn’t say it in so many words, but I knew she thought I was nuts for telling her about the death of my son, which was the start of a downward spiral that led to Timothy’s death. Even knowing how much my mother disapproves of me sharing such a private tragedy with Helena, I still have no regrets that I did it. Strangely enough, telling her about my own loss helped me feel less alone in my grief. I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps forcing myself to say the words out loud was therapeutic in a way that I couldn’t have foreseen. Whatever the reason, I’m glad I did it, and I hope it made Helena reconsider trying to handle the birth of her son all alone.

  “Anyway,” I say, shaking off the morbid turn our conversation was taking, “how do I look?”

  I make a complete turn in front of my mom so she can view the dress from all angles. When I look at her again, she’s wearing a proud smile on her face.

  “You look stunning,” she tells me. “You may in fact render Ethan speechless when he sees you.”

  I walk over to the full-length mirror in my mother’s room and examine my reflection.

  I have to admit that the dress I’m wearing isn’t something I would have normally picked out for myself. Yet my mother’s flair for fashion allowed her to know the halter lace sheath dress would look perfect on me. The cocktail dress is the color of champagne and has a cutaway leaf design with an open back and sheer illusion hem, which accentuates the details in the lace while revealing a little bit more of my legs. We decided to keep my hair simple and straight with just a few layers to frame my face and accentuate my high cheekbones. My makeup is barely there, because my mom knows how much I hate having to fuss with lipstick and powder.

  “I do clean up nicely,” I have to admit, which earns me a hearty laugh from my mom.

  I turn back around to face her and ask, “How much time do I have left?”

  My mom looks at the clock on the mantel of the fireplace and says, “Just a few minutes.”

  She stands up and pulls out a pair of strappy high heels from their box that we bought to match the dress. I walk over and take them from her, quickly sliding them on my feet. Once that’s done, she touches me on the arm and phases me back to the living room in my apartment. When we get there, I receive another surprise.

  “Why are you here, Uncle Enis?” I ask him.

  He stands from his seat on my couch and uses the remote in his hand to turn down the volume of the television program he was watching.

  “I just thought I would see you off,” he tells me, but even I can see through his obvious ruse.

  “You do realize I’m not sixteen, right?” I ask. “Ethan doesn’t need ‘the talk.’ I’m sure he’ll be a perfect gentleman with me this evening.”

  Uncle Enis clears his throat. “It wasn’t really him I wanted to talk to before you left. It was you.”

  “Me?” I ask in total confusion. “I can assure you that I won’t be making any overt sexual overtures to Ethan tonight.”

  “I wasn’t talking about sex, Jules,” Uncle Enis says, looking uncomfortable about the turn of the conversation. “I wanted to encourage you to let yourself have a good time with him this evening. Don’t overthink things like you sometimes do. Just go with the flow and let yourself have some fun.”

  “I’ll try to,” I say, feeling a little uncertain as to why he felt the need to tell me what he did. “But I’m not planning to make a lifelong commitment to the man on our first date.”

  “Aha!” Uncle Enis says triumphantly, punctuating his words by spearing the air with an index finger. “You finally admitted it’s a date!”

  “Date. Casual dinner. Whatever. It all amounts to the same thing,” I reply, trying to play off the fact that I did in fact finally call my evening with Ethan a date.

  “Excuse me,” I hear Ethan say unexpectedly.

  I turn slightly to find him standing to my right between me and the front door of my apartment. He’s dressed in a soft blue linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a pair of white linen pants, and white sandals. He looks between the three of us with a degree of uncertainty.

  “Have I arrived at a bad t
ime?” he asks me. “Should I have used the door and knocked first?”

  “Knocking isn’t necessary when I’m expecting you,” I tell him. “My mom and uncle were just leaving.”

  I’m not sure I could have given them a bigger hint than that but, apparently, my uncle needs a sign to help him find the door.

  “So, what do you have planned to do tonight, Ethan?” Uncle Enis asks in a manner that appears laidback but definitely isn’t. He has that too “casual” pose going on that screams he’s trying to be nonchalant about the whole situation.

  “I’m making dinner for Jules this evening,” Ethan replies, stating a fact that my uncle already knows.

  “And after you eat,” Uncle Enis presses a little harder, “do you have anything special planned?”

  Ethan only pauses for a moment as he considers the question.

  “Well, afterwards I thought I would use my considerable talent of seducing women into my bed on Jules and ravish her until morning,” Ethan says with a completely straight face. “Is that plan all right with you, or do I need to ask for your permission first?”

  “And on that note,” I say, looping one of my arms around one of Ethan’s while my uncle is still wearing a stunned expression on his face, “I think we’ll be leaving.”

  I expect Ethan to phase us to wherever he plans to take me straight away, but instead he looks over at my mother first and tells her, “I’ll have Jules home before midnight, Evelyn. I promise.”

  My mother smiles at Ethan and inclines her head in his direction. “Thank you for letting me know.”

  Ethan then phases us to the location of our dinner date.

  I soon find myself standing inside a large white painted gazebo on a world I’ve already visited once that day. It’s the same planet that we followed my mother to after she stole my tracking device from my apartment.

  I let go of Ethan’s arm and walk the two steps it takes for me to stand at the edge of the entrance to the gazebo. It’s already nighttime on this world. When I look up into the sky, I can still see the two other planets I spied earlier hovering close by. My eyes are instantly drawn to the illumination of the magenta ocean.

  “Do you know why the water glows like that?” I ask Ethan, unable to take my eyes off of the natural wonder.

  “I’ve been told that the water is filled with little organisms similar to plankton on Earth. They’re bioluminescent creatures, which is why you can see them so clearly at night.”

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” I say not only meaning just the water, but the entire corner of this world. I turn around to face Ethan and catch him looking at me instead of our surroundings. “Is the rest of this planet as beautiful as this?”

  “I can show you more of it after we eat, if you would like that,” he offers.

  “I would love it!” I reply enthusiastically. “What else is there to see?”

  Ethan grins. “I don’t want to ruin the surprises this world has to share by telling you ahead of time what to expect. I would much rather show you and let you discover them for yourself.”

  “Then I look forward to finishing our meal,” I say, looking around the interior of the gazebo for the food. All I see is a small round table covered by a white tablecloth with two place settings and an arrangement of red and white flowers set in the middle.

  “Um … where is the food hiding?” I have to ask.

  “I was running a bit late,” Ethan begins to explain. “I had to ask for some help to get everything here, but my assistants should be arriving any minute now with the rest of what we’ll need.”

  I consider the gazebo and the white floating glowing orbs, which provide a soft, but clear, light for us to see by.

  “I don’t remember this structure being here earlier,” I note. “You didn’t build it in the four hours since you left me, did you?”

  Ethan shakes his head and smiles like I said something funny. “No. I didn’t build it. I borrowed it from Malcolm and Anna and phased it here for us to use.”

  “It was nice of them to let you use it,” I say as I consider whether or not I should ask my next question. I decide there’s no reason not to. “What have you been doing since you left me in my apartment?”

  “I went fishing.”

  I stand there for a moment, wondering if I heard him correctly.

  “Did you say you went fishing?” I have to ask, just to clarify.

  Ethan nods. “Yes. You said you wanted seafood, so I went out and got some.”

  “From the sea?” As soon as I ask the question, I realize how stupid it sounds. Of course he fished in the sea. Where else would you get seafood? Duh.

  “Yes,” he answers, looking amused by my question and not doubting my intelligence for asking such an idiotic one. “I was able to talk a shrimper into taking me out to catch some shrimp and fish. Afterwards, I located a man who traps lobsters near Maine for a pair of those.”

  I could almost squeal with glee at the prospect of eating shellfish because such a delicacy is forbidden on my planet, but I refrain from acting so childish in front of Ethan. He probably eats like this every day. Or does he?

  “Why did you have to catch the shrimp yourself?” I have to ask. “Don’t you have stores in Cirrus where you can buy groceries like that?”

  “I could have asked the staff in the palace for them, but such things are considered a luxury for the aristocracy. I decided to go to the down-world and pay for them myself. The shrimper I went to see was on his way out, so I volunteered to go help him. I like to work, and I love the sea. It was actually a lot of fun for me, but it put me a little behind my schedule. That’s why I had to ask some friends to help me out a little bit.”

  As if his friends heard him mention their participation in our dinner, I see Malcolm and Roan phase in with items to help with our evening and a pint-sized companion who seems to be holding the most important part of the meal: dessert.

  Malcolm phased in with the little man carrying our dessert and what looks like a rather large stainless steel outdoor grill with an attached stove and small sink. Roan phased in with a small white clothed table, which has two small closed ceramic containers sitting on top of it and a rather large white plastic box.

  “Ready for your big date, Jules?” Malcolm asks with a large grin on his face like I’m missing some sort of inside joke between the men.

  “It’s just dinner,” both Ethan and I say at the same exact time.

  I look at him, and he looks at me. Then we both begin to laugh a little. I can only assume Malcolm, and possibly even Roan since he’s smiling too, have been giving Ethan as hard a time as my mom and uncle did me about our evening together.

  “You sure look pretty, Ms. Jules,” the little gentleman standing beside Malcom tells me.

  I walk over to him and say, “Thank you for the compliment …”

  “This is my son, Lucas,” Malcolm tells me, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder.

  “Well, thank you for the compliment, Lucas. I appreciate it.”

  I don’t ask why Malcolm has a son who appears to be around the age of seven or eight. As far as I know, Anna and her husband have only been married a little over a year. Around the time all this business with Helena started, Anna gave birth to fraternal twins (a boy named Liam and a girl named Liana). My mother didn’t tell me they had more children, but considering Lucas’ dark skin, I have to assume that either his mother is someone from Malcolm’s past or Lucas is adopted. Whatever the case may be, he’s absolutely adorable. I resist the urge to pinch his cheeks because I’m sure that would just embarrass him.

  “I have to agree with Lucas,” Malcolm says. “You do look nice, Jules. I barely recognized you.”

  From the twinkle of amusement in Malcolm’s eyes, I know he’s joking, but to be honest, he’s not that far from the truth.

  “Dad,” Lucas says to his father with a disapproving shake of his head as he looks up at Malcolm, “you’re not supposed to say things like that to a lady.
You would never say anything like that to Mommy. It would make her feel bad.”

  Malcolm smiles down at his son with pride. “You are right, as usual. I shouldn’t pick on Jules. I’m sure she wanted to look as nice as she could for her date with Ethan.”

  “It’s …” I begin, but decide to not protest that I’m not on a date with Ethan. We all know that’s exactly what this is and denying the fact is just ridiculous at this point. “It’s always nice to have an excuse to dress up.”

  “It is a very nice dress, Jules,” Roan says with an appreciative look. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen you in one before now.”

  “I don’t wear them often,” I reply, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the way I look.

  Ethan must notice, because the next words out of his mouth are: “Thank you all for helping me out with things. Let Anna know when you get back that I appreciate her making the dessert. It looks delicious.”

  I look down at the fruit tart Lucas is holding and ask, “Are you saying the empress made that for us? With her own hands?”

  “She received a cookbook from a special person to us both as a wedding gift, and she’s been cooking one new recipe a day from it for the past month. A fruit tart was today’s recipe, so she offered it to Ethan for your meal.”

  “Please tell her thank you for me,” I say. “That was very nice of her.”

  Malcolm smiles. “I believe you’ll be seeing her tomorrow. You can tell her whether or not you liked it. I’m sure she’ll want to know.”

  “I will,” I promise. “Anything that looks that beautiful has to taste good.”

  Lucas holds the tart out for me to take.

  “I hope you have fun tonight,” he says. “My mom said this is the first real date Ethan has ever been on, so don’t get mad if he messes something up. He’s trying really hard, and that’s what counts.”

  I hear Ethan clear his throat as if what Lucas just told me has embarrassed him a bit.

  “Your mother sounds like a very wise woman,” I tell Lucas, secretly pleased by what he just revealed about Ethan. “Please let her know that I look forward to meeting her tomorrow.”