by JP Vasha
As we strolled through the starlit forest, I looked at him. We were quiet, letting the sounds around us drown any potential conversation, but I wasn't sated with just that anymore. So I said, "We need to talk."
Zack glanced at me with weary eyes. "Does it have to be now, Carla?"
I stopped in my track and grabbed his wrist, making him come to a stop with. Giving him a stern look, I said with more emphasis, "We need to talk. It's rare we're together alone, since we haven't been just us lately, and I want us use this time."
His jaw locked. "We need to find food."
"Food can wait," I narrowed my eyes. "I doubt Shell and Mike succeeded starting out a fire just yet – "
He was in my face in a blink, his hand grabbing my jaw, his body pasted to mine. His eyes flashed wolf-silver. "Don't mention his name in front of me," he growled in command, as though reminding me he was still the Beta of the Biwole, part of the One True Alpha's tight-unit of the Biwole Wolves. "You still have his scent, despite you being Carla and not Khloe, and his mark didn't disappear. I'm still on fucking edge and listening to you, your Carla voice, saying his name, is more than I can deal with right now."
"You have no right to be pissy with me," I bit out, getting annoyed now. "It wasn't like I took practical action while Khloe and him were having at it. I couldn't do a freaking thing."
"You could've stopped it by taking over the body," he argued, words colder than ice, "you could've controlled the situation, but since you're so passive and submissive, you just took it all and – "
"Do not call me that," I hissed, my nose almost touching his as I glared. "You have no right. You have no idea how hellish it'd been when they had sex. I couldn't control the situation because Khloe had just taken control and if I changed places with her, we would've worn out the body. So don't say things you know absolutely nothing about."
He glared right back at me. "What do you want me to do, then?" he asked archly. "Just take it all like you do? Roll over my back, exposing my belly, and give that fucking bastard a safe passage? As long as you're still in Khloe's body, it makes you off-limits to sex. I told him that. He told me that, too. We made a fucking promise, Carla, and he broke it!" He was yelling now, his voice completely growly.
"While all that is true, you have no right to be mad at me!" I yelled right back, losing my usually even temper. "Don't take out your rage at me because I'm here and available to take in all your anger. Mates are not supposed to use each other for an anger outlet – "
"And yet we're not mates, aren't we?" he was practically screaming. "You don't even recognize that I'm your mate, and yet you talk about mates and mating as if you have any previous knowledge – "
"Stop. Screaming. At. Me." I gritted out, feeling my power rising in response to the true anger I felt. "While what you said it's true, you know why it is. I don't have a body yet. I'm not my own person yet. I physically and psychically can't recognize you as my mate. So why are we still circling back to it? What do you want to gain from having this conversation over and over again?"
"You're the one who wanted to talk," he almost spat as he said that, bitterness in his voice. "I'm just saying what's on my mind."
At least he wasn't raising his voice now. But that just wasn't good enough. All traces of fury fled me as utter defeat almost crushed me over. Another layer added to the pile. Another layer edging the pile closer to the limit. Another straw for the camel's back. Taking a deep breath and swallowing the tears that threatened to come up to my eyes, I took a few steps back away from him. "It will never work, Zack," I said, voice hollow, "because you have so much anger inside you, and if I ever mate you once I have my own body, you'll just take it all out on me constantly. It would be a dysfunctional relationship doomed from the start, because you can't be anything else but angry."
My words hit right home. Zack winced, pain flashing in his eyes. "So you reject me? That's your fucking conclusion? You don't want to deal with it so you just take the easy way out?"
His disbelief and hurt cut me, but I was at my limit where he was concerned. "What else do you want me to do?" I asked, and my voice cracked as the tears I tried to push away were now spilling out of my eyes. "I've been trying to handle you, been trying to talk to you, to make us go back to the fleeting time we shared back in Houston, but it's impossible. It's just impossible. I can't always be the one taking the hits from you, when if it comes down to it, you won't be able to take any hits from me. It would be a one sided devotion on my part, while you're living like a pissed-off king. Do you really want that for me? For your mate?"
He looked as though I'd just slapped him, as though he'd finally fathomed what I'd been trying to tell him ever since he found out about Khloe, ever since our time in Lumen. Somehow, I was finally able to put into words what it truly meant for me to be in any sort of relationship with him. "Carla..." he whispered, at a loss of words, his eyes wide with a different kind of pain.
For the first time since I'd met him, Zack seemed to care not just about himself. And that made me gasp, as something inside my chest squeezed tightly.
"You've got to stop feeling like you're the only one in this, that you're the only who's in pain over all this crap," I said, whimpering when he stepped closer. "You have to start understanding what I feel, because we are mates, and that's what mates do. Even a human like me without any experience in love knows that."
He seemed undone, completely undone, and lost as he wrapped his arms around me and crushed me to him tightly, breathing me in, holding me close. "Fuck, Carla," he hissed, "just... fuck."
The tears couldn't seem to stop as, almost as if I couldn't help myself, I put my arms around him too, my hands gripping his shirt. It felt so safe and warm in his arms, so good, almost falsely so. I didn't want to let go. I didn't want him to let go. I wanted everything to finally be okay, I wanted the dramas to be gone, I wanted and wanted and wanted.
"My wolf wants me to bite you, mark you," he whispered into my ear, causing me to shudder with need, "it wants me to fuck you, then make love to you, be inside you all night and all day. I can't fucking believe it that bastard did that already, even if this isn't your true body. I can't shake off the murderous jealousy. I need you so fucking much, Carla, more than I've ever needed anything. I need you, and I need you to need me. You're so calm and collected, Carla, so fucking cool, that sometimes I just feel like you won't ever need me, that you're with me just because Fate decided we're mates."
I had no idea he was thinking that, feeling that. "I guess I'm as self-centered as you are, then," I said softly, burying my head in his neck.
"Not true, baby," he said, embracing me impossibly tighter, "you're selfless, too selfless. You're too good for a selfish asshole like me."
I chuckled tearfully. "You're not an asshole, Zack. You're just a man."
A shiver went through him, and, as though he couldn't take it anymore, he grabbed my head through my hair, lifted it off him so I faced him again, and put his lips on mine, growling deep in his throat as they touched. I sighed, opening for him, trying to mold our bodies together as his tongue venture inside, taking mine in a sensual, intimate hold. This time I shuddered, feeling my panties growing wet, and then my back was hitting a tree trunk and we were wrapped around each other, him kissing me almost desperately, and me wanting us to be even closer. As closer as Mike and Khloe had been just about a day ago.
But, unlike Khloe, I wasn't really selfish, and I couldn't bear the thought of having my first time with Zack while I was still in a body that wasn't mine. So, as he broke the kiss and began trailing his lips down my jaw and neck, I grabbed his hair and pushed away. He growled, refusing to cooperate, and I sighed when his teeth closed almost painfully around the mark Mike had left there. "Zack, we can't," I said, closing my eyes in both bliss and ache. "It can't be as long as I'm like this."
"I know," he grunted against my skin. "I know and I fucking hate it."
"I hate it too," I promised, wanting to cry again.
&nb
sp; He turned rigid, taking back control over himself, before he lifted his head off me, unwrapped himself from my body, and stepped back, groaning. "Let's hunt some food and get back."
Swallowing hard, I nodded and we walked, side by side, searching for food, trying to cool off the heat both of us ignited in each other.
Once Zack hunted down some poor dear and I collected some edible-looking berries, we returned to the camp to find that Mike and Shell succeeded in starting up a fire and that the Necromancer was still passed out. Wordlessly, Zack peeling off the deer's skin and then, with the help of Shell, fried it in the fire.
Just as the deer was ready to eat, a groan was sounded. Ambery's eyes met mine the moment we heard it. "He's awake."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Haykon Tollier had orange eyes, and by orange, I mean orange-the-fruit orange. He was also sitting with Ambery and Shell on each side of him like two guards waiting to attack at a moment's notice.
Tollier looked around us as we ate the deer, watching him silently. His weird eyes kept returning to me, and it was obvious he recognized me. Eventually, it appeared he could take the silence no more and settled his gaze on Ambery. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"
Ambery grimaced. "You're here to answer some questions, Tollier. Then you get to serve your punishment by helping us."
The Necromancer sighed wearily. "Of course."
I decided both Khloe and I had waited enough. "Did you know you resurrected me along with Khloe when Noreen Daniels hired you?" I shot the question without preambles.
Tollier blinked as he looked back at me. "Yes, Miss Mill," he said, voice deep and raspy, betraying his true age despite his young looks, "I felt you the moment you clung onto Khloe as I began the resurrection, and knew you must have been a Necromancer, since dual-revival can only happen this way."
"Then why?" I asked, trying to keep my cool and slightly failing. "Why did you anyway?"
"Because by the time I realized it, it was too late," he shrugged nonchalantly. "If I stopped, then both you and Khloe would've drifted back to whatever afterlife there is and I wouldn't have gotten paid handsomely."
Basically, all he cared about was money. He cared nothing about what people felt. I decided to breach another mystery. "When Khloe and I were revived, we realized she can't shift into her wolf form, that the wolf's spirit was somehow separated from her," I chose not to say anything about the wolf dying since Khloe hadn't told anyone but me about it yet, and it was kind of her secret to tell. "How is it possible for a werewolf to be separated from their wolf?"
Tollier gave me a contemplative look I didn't trust an inch. "I think that's mainly because of you," he said, giving me a somewhat plastic smile. "When a Necromancer is being brought back to life in a dual-revival case like yours, there isn't a way to know what would happen to other party who's been revive alongside the Necromancer. That's, I think, is the root of this specific problem."
I felt Mike's glare a moment after that freaky explanation and ignored it. I also felt Khloe stirring in my head, listening quietly, drawing her own conclusions, and ignored her as well. "Three years ago," I jumped to another subject, since I didn't think there was anything else I needed to know about the previous one, "you've been at the portal place in Logia when a body of a dead woman, a dead Necromancer woman, was thrown through and landed there. Did you take the body and waited for it turn into ashes so you could experiment on it?"
Understanding spread across Tollier's face. "Ah," he said, realization in his voice, "you've talked to Jaxrel."
"Yes, we did," Ambery said crisply, "now answer."
He shrugged again. "Yes, I did take the body. Necromancers are uncommon, bordering on rare, and to have one coming from Earth, it's unheard of. Of course I took the body." Another infuriating shrug. "It was too valuable to leave lying about."
"Do you still have its ashes?" Zack asked, and sudden tension built in the air. This was the reason for this entire inquisition, and now that we were about to hear the answer, we were all strung up tight.
His answer came in a simple, casual tone. "Of course I have it. As I said, it's valuable. Ah," he said again, giving me a knowing look, "you think it's your body, right?"
My heart pounded loudly in my chest as I nodded affirmatively.
He nodded back. "Well, then I guess you already know, but reviving someone out of ashes is supposed to be impossible."
"Orpheo Jaxrel said you've been experimenting on Necromancers' ashes to see if it is possible after all," Ambery told him, a hard look on his face.
Tollier shrugged once again. I was getting really irritated from his casualness about the entire situation. Was he some sort of a sociopath? "Yes, I was. So far, no luck."
"It might work this time," I said, barely hearing myself over the drumbeat of my heart, "because I'm not dead. I'm among the living. Ever tried to resurrect a body when the soul is alive?"
Finally, a spark of interest flared in his eyes. A sociopath scientist, then. "I'm willing to try."
"Then that's what we want you to do," Ambery said, giving him a hard look. "We want you to help Carla get her own body back. Think you can do it?"
"It might be possible, in theory," Tollier said, and I could see his mind racing through his illuminated orange eyes. "If a Necromancer can raise a soul into an existing body, then why not be able to raise a body to accommodate an existing soul?"
"It's settled, then," Zack said, and I could see hope turning his eyes into a brilliant Shell of green. "We need to do that. Right now."
Tollier nodded and looked at Ambery. "There's an inter-land portal not far away from here. It's leading to Midedge. That would be the ultimate place to try this."
"What's Midedge?" Mike asked, and I could see he was feeling the anticipation too.
"It's a small island farther to the north east," Ambery replied, seeming to evaluate Tollier's option. "It's an international territory with no leader. There are a few clans living there, off the civilization, but not many. It's the place where the Logia war occurred thousands of years ago."
"It's also as magically-packed as this place is mana-packed," Tollier added, smiling an intrigued kind of smile. "It's the perfect place to try this out."
"You mentioned a portal," Shell's voice cut through the air, low and misplaced, "is that a portal between Mana to this Midedge place?"
"Yes," Ambery said, "it's called an inter-land portal. There aren't many, but there is one here in this forest. Didn't know it led to Midedge, though."
"I checked it out earlier," another famous shrug from the Necromancer. "It's legit."
After a long, not quite trusting look, Ambery nodded. "Then we'll set off right after we rest a little. It's been a long day. We need as much power as we can have to get through this."
While I wanted to set off there right now, Ambery was right. So right after we all finished eating the meal, Shell took the first guarding shift while all of us went to sleep on the grassy, rocky ground.
I couldn't sleep, however. Excitement bubbled inside me, wanting an outlet yet getting none. Instead I talked to Khloe. It's going to be over, finally.
Yes, she said, without the cheer I expected from her at this predicament. I honestly don't know how to feel about it.
That made me confused. Why? It's what you've been wanting for as long as the revival.
I know, she replied, voice a little sad, but... I don't know if I want it now. You're like an anchor for me, Carla. I feel somewhat safe when you're in here with me. I don't even care about sharing my body with you anymore. I'm so afraid that when I'll finally be on my own, truly on my own, it will break me.
Khloe, don't be ridiculous, I scolded her, I'm not leaving you and you won't be alone. You'll still be my friend when I have my own body. I'll still be there for you. And Mike, obviously, too. You'll get to mate him, to have a mate all for yourself. You can have as much sex with him as you want, you can have all of him as much as he can have all of you. You can't not be excited for this.
>
She said nothing for a few, long moments, and then, I don't know, Carla. I really don't know.
Come on, Khloe, I frowned. What's going on? Is it because of your wolf? Because that would obviously be fixed as soon as you have your own body. Right now you and I both can't shift, but when you're on your own again, I'm sure your wolf's spirit would be united with your soul and that all will be right. You know that, too. That's why your wolf's dying, because we can't shift into its form. It feels cornered and caged.
That's not the main issue here, Carla! She suddenly shouted, her voice ringing in my head. I'll be all alone! It would all return back to when I was alive the first time! I'll be all by myself, with some guy whom I'll love and who'll eventually hurt me! You'll turn your back to me, since you've never liked me anyway, and when you have your own body, you won't need me anymore! You won't care! No one would care!
I will care, Khloe, I promise I will care, I told her, shocked at her outburst. I'll always care about you. You're my friend. We've been through crap together. I'll be there still. I promise. Please believe me.
Another silence reigned before she finally spoke again, her voice almost a whisper. I'm going to miss having you in my head, having myself in your head. I'm going to miss having someone know me, all of me, like you do. I'll miss having you know my thoughts without me even needing to speak, or to know your thoughts just as intimately. I'll miss talk to you telepathically like. I'll miss all of it so much, you have no idea.
I was truly, utterly dumbstruck. After the whole monster comment and her screwing Mike despite me begging her to stop, I thought she wanted to get rid of me already. I thought she was the one who didn't care. That she did to such depths, that she gave me everything someone like Khloe could give anyone, it was astonishing. Only a selfish, insecure person like her could feel things in this way, I guess. And I knew that no matter how much I promised, she would never believe that I would keep on caring her after everything was over.
