by Kim Faulks
This one word was uttered with so much emotion that it stopped her as she stepped off onto the first step. She didn’t want to turn her head to look at him, but she couldn’t deny any longer that she loved him and to hear him in pain like that, she knew she would face anything even if it was herself.
“I can’t,” she said, her eyes moving to the picture in his hand. No one is blameless in this Natalie, not even the Djinn. I need you, come back to me and I will spend the rest of your life making this right.
“Get out of her head Vampire!” he yelled in the air around her, pulling her away from Alexander’s words. “You had your chance and I will not stand by while you rip her life away. She has made her choice, now slink back to your coffin and leave us alone!”
Stupid fire-eater, he hissed. I will never leave you Natalie. His words were like a breath that whispered across her mind, but it was no less determined than if he stood before her. Even though she was here with Malik she felt torn just the same. No one is blameless...what did Alexander mean? She waited for him to answer, to explain the words he whispered inside her head, but he remained silent this time. “Figures,” she said.
“This is you,” he said, bringing her back to him. His eyes pleaded with her to stay, to understand. “And here, too,” he said, moving across the room to the other wall.
She stepped off the stairs and walked into the room, finding him hovering over the map of Ireland. The bright orange pin was stuck on the left hand side of Northern Ireland. Natalie moved in closer finding the name Donegal pierced through the O. She didn’t know much about Ireland, but her first thought was she would have fit right in with her red hair and attitude.
“I thought…” she started.
His tone was tender, which made it even harder for her. “What, that we were lying to you?”
His question was like a slap in her face. He may as well said, I told you so. “I don’t know. I guess, yeah.”
“I would never lie to you Natalie.”
She didn’t think he would lie, but until now she thought of their words as some kind of fantasy. It wasn’t real, it wasn’t her. But the photo was different. The photo was real.
The image was a black hole; once she acknowledged herself as the young woman that stared back from the photo she would be sucked in, never to be the same again. He held it out carefully, focusing on her face and her eyes as the black and white outline drew her in. The panic rose inside her, part of her was screaming to turn and run. To go back to her simple life and block out all of these lies. But she knew they weren’t lies and no matter how fast she ran, or how deep she buried her head in the sand, she could no longer escape the truth.
She reached out and took it from him, finding the scowl on the girl’s face stare back at her once again. Could she remember her if she tried? Was it just a case of breaking down the walls inside her mind, like she had at the party? Did she want to remember?
Breaking down the walls to her other lives could be potentially dangerous. She could remember only fragments of her first life; they had been triggered by Alexander and his love for her. She remembered his touch, his love for her and nothing else, so far. Breaking down the walls between this life and her other lives could overwhelm her. She might lose herself amongst the dead, even if they were once her. She would live the rest of this life remembering the many ways she had loved, lost and ultimately died.
Her body reacted and she shivered as the thought itself filled her with dread. No, her lives and her deaths could stay buried, she wanted no more memories haunting this life - it was hard enough as it was.
“Okay, I get it,” she said looking up to him. “I do want answers, you know that Malik. But I can’t afford for all of my other lives to come back to me. I’m afraid I’ll cease to exist,” she said, her voice trailing off.
“I understand,” he said nodding. “All I wanted was for you to understand that this is real for me, you are real for me. It has always been you and no one else.”
Looking around his bedroom she now understood the depth of his love. He had tracked her through space and time and with the thought of this running through her mind she covered the distance in two steps before she wound her arms around him. Just like me Natalie.
His lips crushed hers so hard that it hurt her teeth, but she didn’t care. She needed to feel him against her and fought an almost urgent hunger to have him inside of her, for him to claim her and make her his once more. She wanted to feel alive, that she mattered to him and not some hundred year old black and white photo. She tore at his clothes, exposing his chest, she slid her hands over the hard muscles of his stomach and lower until she cupped him hard between his legs.
She felt his body tense and his breath forced from his body as he moaned and closed his eyes. She loved that feeling, that she could make him feel that way, it made her feel sexy and in control and at that moment nothing else mattered, nothing but him and her and the need inside.
She bent her head towards him and found the smooth chocolate flesh of his nipple, her tongue tracing the skin where it puckered and grew hard. Her mouth covered it, drawing it inside her mouth lightly with her teeth and she felt him shudder underneath her hand as he whispered, “Ohhhh.”
His hand gently pulled her mouth from his chest, blazing blue with his desire, “Stop, please or I’m not going…to…last.”
It was his body that drew her, shining with the wetness of her mouth and her tongue slipped out between her lips to run along her lower lip. He couldn't look away, transfixed by her movements and a groan escaped him as he slipped his hands under the lower curve of her arse and lifted her against him, like she weighed nothing at all. He pushed her hips harder against him, grinding her body against the swell of his. His eyes drawing her in, drowning her in his azure haze.
Natalie was vaguely aware of him moving with her against him and she felt nothing but bliss until he pushed her up against the wall. She was drowning inside and she didn’t care.
He moved off her, leaning her back so she rested against the wall and slipped his hand upwards along her stomach, pulling her shirt with him as he went. She lifted her arms and her shirt disappeared, thrown somewhere on the floor, leaving her in the black lace bra and her jeans. He flicked the button and tugged on the zipper, slipping it down in one fluid motion. She loved looking at him shirt-less; the solid contours of his muscles underneath his rich brown skin turned her on more than any other male body she had ever seen. It was the beautiful brown skin and dark hair against his blazing eyes that made her melt.
He lifted her hips and her feet dropped to the floor so he could turn her around. She spread her hands wide against the wall as he ran his hand down her back, twisting the clasp on her bra as his hands submerged under her jeans and panties to slip inside her.
She moaned and moved harder against his hand and he probed deeper. He leant over her, moving his fingers in and out he kissed and bit her skin along her back and her neck. She forgot in that second to breathe as her blood pumped loud in her ears. He slipped his hand lower to rub across the front of her, finding that part of her that shot sparks of electricity through her body. She jerked and was caught between wanting to stay like that forever with his fingers inside her, slipping and sliding inside her and moving away so he could fill her with the hard length of him.
She fumbled behind her reaching him although all she wanted was for him to do this to her over and over. “Please,” she said mumbling, although she didn’t remember moving her mouth.
“Please what?” he growled, slipping inside her, thrusting his fingers deeper, harder.
“Please fuck me,” she cried.
He slipped out of her and the growl that came from her was out of protest as he pushed her jeans down and stepped out of his. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her backwards with him as they fell towards the bed in a tumble.
He lay underneath her, long and thick as she spread her legs, wrapping them around his waist. She couldn’t help but cast her eye
s down, to the hardness of him that lay underneath her. Her fingers slid along the tight smooth skin, reaching underneath to cup him entirely. She moved her hand up and down making sure to slip him between her spread fingers as she moved her hand down.
The muscles of his jaw bulged and she knew he was fighting to stop himself from losing control. She moved herself up along his body until her breasts moved over his face and settled herself back down so that he touched the outside of her opening. He licked his lips and tried to work the moisture in his mouth to speak. “Please,” he half groaned so that it came out as Ple and a wheeze.
“Please what?” she said, slipping the head of him just inside of her.
His eyelids fluttered, as he whispered, “Fuck me.”
She slid down, pushing him into her, only to lift herself off again, slowly. He grabbed her, pushing her hard down onto him. She moved her hips, rolling her hips against him and pushing him deeper and deeper inside her. She could feel him move against the front of her with each thrust inside her pushing her closer and closer with each roll of her hips, as she ground herself into him. He ran his hands along her hips to her waist to enclose her breasts in his hand, while she moved and succumbed to the feeling of him inside of her.
She could feel Alexander inside her head, his torment as she lay underneath Malik was almost palpable, until he cried out to her and disappeared. Malik jerked underneath her, pushing harder insider her and she bit down on her lip, focusing on riding that wave within. She was almost there and leaned back so that he pushed harder against the front of her. She moved her hips faster and the crescendo built inside her, wave after wave. He moved underneath her twisting on the bed so she was flipped and lay underneath him so he could ram himself hard inside her. She groaned and whispered, “Almost,” as the dam burst and a wave of pleasure carried her away, filling her as he too came in a rush inside her.
They lay quiet in each other’s arms, listening to the sound of their hearts as they slowed. She would have lay there forever but the desire to eat had been put off for far too long.
They showered and ate what Rashida had left cooking in the oven and collapsed into his bed, surrounded by her past.
Chapter 5
Her mouth and body was filled up with the dry dense feeling of sand. She coughed but couldn’t rid the feeling from inside her and then with a gut wrenching fear she realized she was suffocating.
She resisted the urge to cry out and tried to scramble her way forward, searching for help. Please come back to me, Alexander whispered somewhere in her mind and she surged towards his voice while fighting off the panic that swelled inside of her.
Wait, she said stopping herself, tasting the dry grit inside her mouth once more. She spat and watched as the pale gunk fall onto the ground in front of her and dissolve away, there was something wrong here. Some warning that skirted the edge of her mind. She caught a glimpse of the danger but couldn’t get a clear view of what it was. Come to me, I love you Kasia, you are my wife, come to me. His call was too strong and she moved forward, reaching out blindly as the icy breeze that she knew was Alexander blew across her face.
An odor so strong cut through the chill and stopped her in her tracks; the sickly smell caused her to gag and she stumbled backwards. She knew that smell. It had invaded her memories more times than she could count. But she knew with a cold certainty that the blood she inhaled was not another’s. It was blood, her blood. She reached quickly for her throat, knowing what she would find. The puncture marks had torn right through her throat, she could feel the tendons and hard cartilage rings of her trachea. Her fingers slipped in the raw flesh of her body and she screamed. No sound came from her, there was only sand that spewed into the air around her. Come back to me Kasia, Alexander called and she suddenly knew what it was that skirted her subconscious. It was Malik’s voice that whispered like a breeze, Alexander killed you, Alexander is your murderer.
She screamed and instead of sand coming from her throat, this time it was her shrieks, they were piercing and she felt unable to stop.
“Wake up, Natalie!”
Malik’s hands were on each side of her shoulders, shaking her and abruptly the sound died away in her throat. She opened her eyes to see the flames in his and his brow creased deep with concern. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah,” she said, her throat feeling raw and raspy.
“That must have been some nightmare,” he said, sitting back. She nodded, swallowing the fear back down inside of her. She had never felt fear like that before and it scared the hell out of her. She handled it as best as she could and she crawled out of bed, leaving Malik staring after her. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to do what I always do. I’m going to clean my guns.”
She emptied the bags of guns before her and started pulling them apart, cleaning and putting them back together and after a while the dream subsided and she felt more like herself. She had always prided herself on being a rock, solid and steadfast, but she felt like she was being worn away. If she was a rock then Alexander and Malik was her ocean and they were slowly wearing her away.
Malik left her alone and when he rose four hours later he found her packed and ready and somewhat withdrawn.
“Are you okay?” he said moving towards her.
She stepped back meeting the flames of his eyes with the cold steel of her own and nodded, “I just want to get going. This contact of yours will get us across the mountains, right?”
“Yes, where we are going we can’t go by car.”
“And, she’ll be there?”
“Yes, she will be waiting for you.”
“Well,” she said, throwing the large black duffel bag over her shoulder. “Let’s not keep her waiting too long.”
They fueled the Jeep and filled the fuel cans and set off. The trip to Ataquah was quiet. Natalie needed to focus on herself, instead of the ghosts of her past. The hard metal of the gun dug into her back and the skin of her hands were raw from her racking the chamber of the guns, but she smiled, feeling better than she had since meeting Alexander Ash.
“What’s so funny?” Malik said; he had been watching her since they left Suez. He was worried about her, hell she had been worried about her, but now she was okay.
“Nothing, you wouldn’t understand,” she said with a shake of her head and turned to look out as they drove along the dirt road.
“Try me,” he said.
“I have blisters from cleaning the guns,” she said a-matter-of-fact.
“Okay, yep. I don’t understand.”
“Cleaning and handling weapons is me, the real me, and not some ghost that you and Alexander seemed content to bring back inside of me.”
“Is that what you think?” he said as he pulled on her arm.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, her voice growling as she pulled away from him.
He let his hand drop and turned back to the road. She knew she had hurt him, but it was all she could do to stay sane and self-preservation bought out the hunter in her, it always did.
They travelled the rest of the way to Ataquah in silence. Malik focused only on the road ahead and didn’t turn to look at her once until they stopped at a roadside stall that sat outside an old house. Kids dressed in white ran around and played in the front, watched by a woman who was covered in black apart from her eyes. They stopped at the stall and were quickly covered in a thick cloud of dust. When it cleared they found themselves being the center of attention. An older man stood up from a seat next to the hand-made stall. He was dressed in cream a colored gallibaya, the traditional clothing worn by most of the older men, and he lowered his head when Malik approached. Natalie still couldn’t get used to the way Malik was revered and she guessed it would become easier the more time they spent together. Malik spoke to the man in a language that Natalie couldn’t understand, but knew he would be organizing the camels that would get them across the mountains and along the ridge until they hit the Arabian Desert.
It wou
ld be easier to pass along the ledge of the mountains than to trek across the desert, so Malik had told her and she tended to agree. The idea of days on a camel with no escape from the unforgiving sun while they searched for the camp hadn’t appealed to her and so the plans were made to go through the mountains.
She watched Malik walk back to the Jeep and slide into the seat before she turned her gaze outside her door. He started the engine and backed out before driving and turning right. The mountains loomed in the distance, they looked as hostile as the desert, but at least they would provide some shade and any shade would be better than none.
They passed horse drawn carts and men walking with families as they headed towards the massive rocks and before long loomed above them, dwarfing small houses that sat at the base. Natalie could see the Camels in their pens as they drove towards them. She had never ridden before and it frightened her so much that she broke their silence.
“Are you sure we can’t take the Jeep?”
He turned to her and followed her gaze towards the animals. “Are you scared of riding a camel?”
“Frightened, no. Apprehensive, yes,” she said, turning towards him. She would not reach out and touch him, she would be strong and force herself to take on whatever was thrown at her, even if it was a monstrous animal.
They parked the Jeep and Natalie pulled out the bags making sure the zippers were tightly closed and wrapped her thick scarf around her neck. They would travel as fast as they could until night came and then they would build a camp to sleep until dawn. They had two camels and a horse to cart their water and food, the guns would be split between Malik and herself. She carted the bags of food and water towards the horse and strapped them down. She had never been great with animals and hoped to follow Malik’s lead where that was concerned.
He climbed on top of the animal like he had never known anything else and swayed with it while the camel climbed to its feet. Natalie watched this with horror, but climbed into the curved leather saddle. The animal groaned, making horrible noises as it rose. She held on to the reins with one hand on the saddle as it stood. It seemed so gangly and awkward as it moved, but it seemed to need little encouragement from Natalie to move and followed behind Malik. They headed towards the break in the rock that would lead them along the passage that slipped between the mountains and plateaus.
