“Exactly,” I huffed, knowing full well that I was behaving in a ridiculous manner. I was way too scared to be expected to behave rationally anyway. Anyone could see that, I thought.
“You do realize that the floor would feel a lot colder not to mention harder if it was made out of concrete, right?” Aaron countered, sounding way too amused for my taste.
I ignored him and gave opening my eyes one last try, concentrating hard on making my eyelids obey my command. Very slowly they started to open. But all I could see were the blurred outlines of Aaron and some of my surroundings.
It took me a while to get my eyes to focus properly. When I succeeded at long last, the sight I beheld was one I hadn’t expected.
Aaron was looking down at me with an expression I hadn’t seen on his face before ― and one I never would have believed he was capable of portraying.
His gaze seemed almost affectionate. There was warmth in his eyes and something tender in the way he was smiling down at me, obviously amused by my latest ridiculous outburst of outrage.
The moment he realized that I had regained focus and was looking straight at him, he reigned in his emotions, his features under tight control again. I could tell by the way Aaron suddenly lowered his eyes and hastily looked away that he was aware of having displayed affection.
“What …?” I asked before I could stop myself. And then, the rest of what I had been about to say got caught in my throat. What exactly had I been about to ask him? It was ludicrous, I reminded myself. So, he liked me … a bit. That meant nothing! I was reading way too much into a single glance.
I was about to forget about what I thought I had seen, as Aaron’s eyes suddenly locked onto mine. He was giving me a meaningful, soulful look that I felt all the way to my marrow.
My breath caught in my throat.
Aaron’s gaze was intense; there was no misunderstanding its significance. As his body shifted slowly, gradually moving in closer, I understood:
This kiss would not be fleeting, would not be frivolous. This would be the real deal, and there would be no going back after it.
His heart and soul were gazing out through the window of his eyes, begging me not to betray him. His already fractured heart would not survive it.
If I gave in to this merging of souls, I needed to be certain, I needed to really mean it; I needed to pledge my heart and soul, give all of myself … or nothing at all.
I was ready…
Aaron had tried with all his might not to get emotionally entangled with the woman ― girl, really, ― he had only just met a couple of days ago. It should have been all too easy not to get involved with her.
Hadn’t he decided that she wasn’t his type? Hadn’t he come to the conclusion that she was much too young and immature to be anything more than a pleasant distraction?
And … come to think of it … hadn’t he ― more than once ― vowed not to get physical with her in the sense of actually sleeping with her?
Granted, at the moment he wasn’t able to get too physical with her because they were both tied up … not to mention that they were in serious shit … That didn’t change the fact, though, that he wanted to sleep with her, even though he had repeatedly told himself he wasn’t interested.
And it wasn’t just that he wanted to have fun with her and then make a run for it. It wasn’t casual sex he wanted ― not with her.
With every bit of craziness they had fought through together so far, somewhere along the line she had gotten to him, had breached all of his defenses and melted his resistance.
He was starting to feel … something; an emotion that went deeper than mere lust ― something he couldn’t quite put a name to; something he didn’t want to put a name to.
And the bottom line was: it didn’t matter.
Though he didn’t know what he felt, he knew he liked her. He admired her spirit … that she had so much fire in her. Even if she got easily riled up and seemed irrational or a bit crazy in the way she responded; in truth it meant that she felt strongly about the things she believed in.
And he had to admit that he even loved it when she reacted in a completely ludicrous manner and wound up pouting in a corner like a little girl.
Even though he did take her seriously, he actually thought the way she reacted was mostly hilarious and cute (when it wasn’t irritating the crap out of him), though she would probably whack him across the face if she ever heard him say as much.
He had come to know more about her, about what drove her, about how she reacted in certain situations. And he had found her to be an outspoken and stubborn know-it-all, but also intelligent and caring … and even courageous ― the way she had stood up to those men and told them she wasn’t going to leave; though he wondered why she hadn’t jumped at the chance to escape.
He somehow couldn’t believe she would have sacrificed herself for him. Sure, he knew that she felt something for him, but to sacrifice her own life? They hadn’t known each other that long. And their relationship hadn’t been close enough to warrant such an action.
Then again, hadn’t he been willing to do the same for her? And why had he? Was it because she was a woman and it was his duty to be gallant and protect her at the cost of his own life? Or had he already started to feel for her?
He wasn’t exactly sure at which point he had actually started to fall for her, but he knew he had been sick to his stomach at the thought of those men touching her, harming her. He had wanted so badly to protect her.
He had been mistaken about her. Aaron found her to be much more than he had expected. She wasn’t a silly little girl after all. She knew who she was and what she wanted, and though she could be insecure at times, he had a sense that she would not be derailed from what truly mattered to her. She was both fragile and strong. And he had come to like and respect her for it.
Persephone wasn’t anything like the self-assured, sexually aware women he usually saw. But if he dared to be honest with himself, Aaron had to acknowledge that he would rather be with someone who behaved irrational and insecure at times, than with a woman who knew the proper response on every occasion and was always mellow and controlled.
And though he genuinely feared the way she could make him spin wildly out of control, it was the very thing that had him so utterly captivated by her; the sensation of heat rising through his whole body making his blood boil in his veins, the sound of his heart frantically pounding inside his chest while his worries and troubles were drowned out by sheer feeling as he lost himself in their embrace and forfeited all control.
Control had nothing to do with real love after all, Aaron thought, surprising and shocking himself with the mere notion of actually thinking about love ― it couldn’t be love he was feeling (not that he had ever experienced it before).
Though if there were ever a time he’d feel anything remotely close to love, this had to be it; the brilliantly shining soul he could see sparkling out through her eyes when she was fired up or felt emotionally raw, had burned a path straight to his crippled, famished heart.
He was too weak to fight, too tired to resist any longer.
The only thought that continued to plague him, was that he wasn’t sure if these feelings for her were real.
Though he was a man who had never let his guard down and trusted a woman before, for her he would be willing to let himself fall ― if he could just somehow overcome his doubts and his fear of where intimacy between them could lead, and if he could somehow ignore the fact that he had no way of knowing if he could trust in the truth of his feelings, or if the magic that connected them was somehow responsible for making him feel this way.
As Aaron sat by Persephone’s side, gazing down at her and listening to her latest amusing rant about the audacity of being made to sit in improperly constructed cells, Aaron’s emotions slowly clawed their way out of obscurity ― clearly showing on his face just as Persephone finally managed to regain her focus.
Not being someone in the habit of displaying em
otions, Aaron felt embarrassed at first and looked away quickly, trying to hide what had probably already shown all too clearly. After a moment, though ― feeling suddenly tired of continually struggling with his emotions ― he decided to finally give in to what he really wanted … no matter the consequences.
He was sick of consequences! He wanted to feel … to act … to react … instead of always struggling to retain control.
Determined to give her all of him, holding nothing back, Aaron finally let his guard down ― his heart vulnerable, his soul naked, stripped of all the walls he had ever put up.
His eyes beseeched her not to destroy him, not to make him regret tearing down his walls, as he looked deep into her eyes and moved in to unite their breaths.
The moment their lips touched, Aaron felt the most incredible surge of power. He had never felt anything like it. His body felt more alive than ever before, humming with an otherworldly energy he could feel rushing through every single vein in his body.
He suddenly got a profound sense of kismet. This was meant to be. This felt right. Every single road in his life had brought him here, to this woman, to this moment in time. All of a sudden his life felt as if it had a purpose, everything was finally falling into place…
I couldn't believe what was happening. What had started out as a deliciously soulful and tender kiss, warming my heart and infusing me with hope for something greater in the future, was all too quickly developing nightmarish propensity.
At first, Aaron's lips had gently caressed mine; very slowly and deliberately the kiss had deepened, our tongues leisurely probing, touching and uniting until I had no longer been able to tell us apart.
We had become an item, melted into each other with an ease that seemed almost unnatural. But I had been far from questioning the incredible sensation that had sprung up the moment my lips had met his.
It had felt beyond right.
It had felt like…
― Destiny ―
There had been nothing either of them could do about it, not one ounce of resistance in them ― not a moment's thought. It was as if their bodies had completely taken over the second their enamored minds had surrendered to the incredible rightness of their union. Suddenly there was no stopping.
What had started out with tenderness, born out of deeper emotions, had turned into a frenzy of wild and desperate need. Desire ― white-hot and undiluted ― raged in their hearts and burned its path through their minds, wiping out second thoughts and any trace of free will, utterly depriving them of self-control.
They were nothing but puppets strung along in a fatalistic play of which they had yet to discover the plot. Though it had been impossible to move unhindered before, they had somehow been freed of their restraints, as if the fire that surged through them had magically burned through the ropes that bound them.
Reddish-brown clouds of fine dust floated around their bodies as Persephone and Aaron rolled around on the hard earthen floor like two animals, groping at each other between ferocious kisses, trying to get closer and closer to one another while desperately tugging at the clothing that was keeping their pulsating bodies from uniting.
The quality of the air around them had started to change; looming dark shadows had silently receded to the blackest corners of the cell, shifting before the onslaught of a pulsating sphere with murky orange light at its center that had appeared out of nowhere.
As Persephone and Aaron rolled around on the ground, completely unaware of anything around them, the sphere gradually grew larger and brighter, turning into a gigantic brilliantly shining ball of pure energy that was growing brighter by the second and picking up enormous speed, blowing through the air around the unaware lovers in a whirlwind of light and dust torn from the ground.
I dimly became aware of a powerful burning sensation on the skin above my left breast. It felt as if thousands of ants were slowly eating away at my flesh. I struggled to understand what was happening to me, but my mind wouldn't obey. The thought was pulled from my consciousness as soon as it emerged.
Even had I wanted to, I wouldn't have been able to pull away from Aaron...our bodies no longer had any boundaries … I couldn't tell where I ended and he began … though we had only just managed to tug off the first layer of clothing and had not yet progressed to joining our bodies, we had already become inseparable … an entity ― one…
My mind was in a daze. I was trying to claw my way back to reality and remember what had happened, but whenever I tried to recall anything that had occurred after Aaron and I had started kissing, all I came up with were extremely murky impressions and a horrible headache.
I was sure the sensations were there somewhere, in the back of my mind, but try as I might, it almost seemed as if there was nothing to remember, as if I had repressed everything … or hadn't been there in the first place.
But how could I not remember my feelings? After having felt so much for him before; after having wanted him to touch me so badly? How could my mind come up blank?
My head felt like a gigantic maze … but every path led to a place where there was only emptiness. I remembered precisely every word we had spoken, every look, every gesture, right up to the moment our kiss had deepened. But beyond that moment: nothing of clarity.
As if I was never really there with him.
As if it had been someone else … some other woman who had stolen and made off with my memories and feelings.
The only thing that remained with me was a sense of … wrongness … for lack of a better word ― a horrid aftertaste.
My heart felt empty and cold, bereft of the sensations I should have felt, should have remembered and treasured. It had been the first real kiss we had shared, the first time he had opened up to me and bared his soul.
It should have meant something.
It should have been special.
Instead, it was … nothing.
A dark destitute pit of a hole where nothing lived and nothing would blossom.
Tears silently rolled down my face as I wondered about the meaning of my lack of memories and if it would always be this way. For, even though I didn't remember what had happened, I had a gut feeling about our situation.
I sensed that this was only the beginning of the misery that would befall us. I couldn't have explained the feeling I had to anyone without coming across as being totally insane, but I somehow knew in my heart that I was right about this. The feelings I had for Aaron and my very first encounters with him had had a violent undercurrent to it. Finally, I thought I understood:
We were cursed … our love was damned.
Silent tears erupted and slowly snaked their way down my cheek at this realization. It was our destiny to be utterly miserable.
Star-crossed lovers. Wasn’t that what the book had said? Somehow I knew it referred to Aaron and me.
Before I could further dwell on it, I suddenly became aware of my surroundings.
I was in an upright position, sitting in a wing-backed armchair made out of beautiful dark-brown leather. Under normal circumstances I would have appraised the beauty of the old piece of furniture.
But the fact that I was tethered to the chair with a vast amount of rope was somehow lessening my appreciation. I must have lost consciousness again, for I couldn’t remember having been brought here.
The chair sat right in front of a desk that had been chiseled straight out of the surrounding stone walls of the rather small circular cave. There were rows upon rows of ancient-looking leather-bound books lined up on what seemed to be stone bookshelves carved all along the walls of the cavern.
Several small spheres of warmly glowing light were hovering in the air all around the small space. I couldn’t imagine how on earth these spheres were able to emit a light, seeing as there couldn’t possibly be any source of electricity in these caves. Apart from that, I had never seen any light source before that had the ability to just float in mid-air. Either I had finally lost my marbles … or …
No, I de
finitely lost my marbles!
There was an empty armchair that sat on the other side of the desk opposite me. The desk was cluttered with all sorts of things I would have rather expected to find as props on a movie set for some fantasy production.
There was a set of larger and smaller clear crystal orbs, a large and impressive feather that looked like it functioned as a quill, as well as bits and pieces of old and musty looking parchment, and several large piles of books, stacked randomly on top of each other.
But the strangest item by far sat on the very edge of the desk to my right.
It was a large, magnificent-looking globe that floated inches above the surface of the desk, turning around its own axis while emitting a soft golden glow. The thing that was strangest about this globe was the fact that there were no marks upon it at all. Where there should have been outlines and designations, there was nothing.
A globe without borders.
And though it hardly seemed possible that anyone could even recognize the object to be a globe without any of its characteristics, I knew exactly what I was gazing at: Earth.
Earth as I had never seen it before. But as I sat staring at it, it suddenly made perfect sense to me. I was not looking at the earth I had learned about, I was seeing something of larger value: its essence.
I didn’t know what to make of this cozy little cave that resembled a sophisticated study with rows of old books and classy armchairs, while the latter rested on dusty earth in the middle of … nowhere … certainly no place anyone of importance would ever stray.
So, what was the point in building such an elaborate, refined study if it was underground where close to no one would ever see it?
Unless someone had built it as part of a real home, which was absurd because: who would want to live underground?
Souls of Fire Page 18
