Scorned

by Tyffani Clark Kemp

  I woke up a little while later to Bermides pawing and whining at the bedroom door.

  “Stop,” I said sternly and rubbed my neck. He stopped long enough to come around to the side of the bed and put his furry little front feet up there to lick my arm. “Quit.” I bumped him in the nose just hard enough to make him get down. The stupid mutt went back to pawing at the door until I had no choice but to get up. My headache had subsided some and I looked at my cell phone. Only twelve thirty.

  Damn.

  I let him out and followed him to the door of the back porch.

  “Shh! People are asleep!” I told him, but he wouldn’t listen. I opened the door quickly, so he wouldn’t wake anyone, and he ran onto the patio. The bark that he let out was loud and I jumped and smacked him on the backside before I could stop myself. “Shut up!” I hooked the leash on him as fast as I could and opened the door. I realized I’d forgotten to get some shoes when the cold wet of the porch floor froze the bottoms of my feet.

  I groaned to myself as I stepped into the cold wet grass. Mud seeped through my toes, blades of grass and dirt and other things stuck to my feet and I shivered.

  “Hurry up!” I growled at the dog, and walked him a little farther into the yard as he tugged on his leash, pulling me toward the far side of the yard where the grass stopped and the woods started. No way was I going in there, but he kept pulling, kept barking, until I suddenly realized that he didn’t have to go to the bathroom at all. There was something out there that he’d sensed from the bedroom. Fear gripped me from the inside out, and I tugged on his leash.

  “Get over here,” I tried to yell in a whisper. “Bermy, Come here!” He’s not a big dog, only weighs about fifty pounds, so I had little no trouble pulling him back so I could lock the leash in place before turning back to the house.

  But I didn’t get far. There was a tall, solid body blocking my path. I couldn’t see much as the light was behind it, but I knew it was a man, and I knew he was smiling at me. What frightened me the most was not how I suddenly felt those eyes again, but that I wasn’t afraid. It didn’t seem right to not be afraid, and that scared me.

  “Hello, LeKrista.” I knew that accent, but the voice was different. He pronounced the Kr deep in his throat so it sounded very French. My name curled around his tongue, rolling off like liquid, and I realized why I couldn’t place the accent. It encompassed every voice, every language, every people group across the years. The accent that began it all. The voice from the beginning of time. His was what we all would sound like had we not been corrupted to build the Tower of Babel.

  “Hello. Who are you?” My throat was dry, my feet were cold and dirty, and my brain had stopped working all together. I was supposed to be afraid, but I couldn’t quite remember why.

  “You may call me Roman.” A finger stroked my right cheek, and warmth flooded my body, all the way down to my frozen toes. For a moment I was afraid the false sensation would cause me to lose my toes to frostbite, but then Roman was talking again and I wanted to hear him.

  “I wanted to apologize,” he told me, but that was as far as he went, so I pried.

  “For what?”

  Yuck! I sound so ugly compared to him!

  “Earlier this evening. I fear my friend has become a little overzealous and his emotional state caused you to latch on to his thoughts. It hasn’t happened in a very long time.”

  His voice trailed off, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to hear anything he said after that anyway. The pounding in my head had returned and unwanted images flashed across my vision - a woman on her knees, hands pressed to bloody ears, screaming against a pain that wouldn’t stop. Something popped inside my head. White light exploded in my vision and I was falling. My body tilted and I didn’t have the strength to stop it.

  Cool, strong arms wrapped around me as my legs crumpled. Roman held me against his chest for a long moment as I waited for my strength to return and my vision to clear.

  “Quiet, dog!” Roman’s voice sounded much harsher than I thought it should have, but I attributed it to the headache making my ears sensitive. “I am so sorry, my sweet.” His accent was suddenly very, very thick with pain and regret. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” I answered weakly. “What happened?”

  Roman shook his head. “I will explain when you are better. For now you need to rest.” Those cool fingers stroked my cheek again and the warmth returned, my head cleared, and I was very, very sleepy. Roman turned and carried me to the house. His gait was smooth and fluid. Like everything else about him, it was perfect and precise as if he’d practiced a very long time.

  “No, I don’t want to sleep,” I protested, suddenly panicked, but Roman brushed his fingers against my cheek one last time and my body relaxed into exhaustion.

  “You will not dream, my sweet. I promise you this.”

  When Roman set me back down on my feet, I melted down to the porch floor. My pajama pants soaked up the cold wet from the drenched wood.

  “LeKrista, you must go inside now,” his voice was deeper than I remembered and strong. His accent had kicked up a notch and I found it hard to focus on anything else. “And take your dog.” He spat the word dog like an insult.

  “But, that’s what he is.” I couldn’t really understand his distaste. “He treats everyone like that.”

  I heard a low rumble and looked up as Roman reached down for me. He was laughing at me. He lifted me to my feet and held me there by my upper arms, his grip firm but gentle. “Miss LeKrista, what is your surname?”

  “Scott,” I answered. “What’s yours?”

  He laughed again. “Miss Scott, stand up.”

  I felt something zing through me like a jolt of electricity. I think I actually heard it buzz as it passed through me. It entered through my stomach and hit my spine hard. I jerked and it tried to stretch up my backbone. I felt myself straighten some and I had strength in my legs again, but something just didn’t feel right. Roman was frowning at me. Or was he scowling?

  It felt like someone was trying to stretch a steel rod through my spine, but instead of steel, they’d gotten the order wrong and made it of rubber instead.

  “Go inside with your dog and go to sleep.” Again, that zing shot through me, and I had the feeling that, whatever Roman was trying to do to me it wasn’t working correctly.

  “I promise,” Roman said one last time, “you will not dream.” He brushed the tips of his fingers down the side of my cheek once more, and this time I did not feel heat spread through my body. Instead, his previously cool fingers were now warm against my chilled skin. I blinked, my eyelids refusing to come back up, and I half smiled.

  “I’d better get inside,” I said, feeling exhaustion spread through my limbs. Whatever had given me the strength to stand was wearing off quickly. “My toes are numb.” No, they really weren’t, but Roman didn’t need to know that. He grinned at me, leaned in, and kissed my forehead.

  I have a boyfriend. Awkward...

  “Yes. Sleep well, my sweet.”

  “You too,” I mumbled before I stumbled into the house, silent dog in tow. I don’t remember anything after that.

  I dreamed all night, but instead of the nightmares I’d expected, the dreams were comical, like the kind you wake up from and think, “I can’t believe I dreamed something so incredibly stupid! What did I eat before I went to bed?”

  The glowing, red eyes still haunted my dreams, but instead of the terrible, starving face they were attached to before, The Count had stepped off of Sesame Street to take a staring role. I’m surprised there was even a dream to remember, what with all the counting and the repeating and the “ah ah ah!” I woke up in hysterics, laughing so hard there were tears streaming down my cheeks that I didn’t want to try to explain to anyone.

  But the headache was gone, and so was most of the nightmare of the day before. When I woke up laughing, Pierce’s ringtone singing in my ear, I couldn’t remember why I was dreaming of glowy-eyed vampires. Or wh
y, for that matter, my feet were dirty and the foot of my bed was caked in mud.

  “Hello?” I laughed into the phone.

  “What’s so funny?” Pierce wanted to know, and I recounted the dream in full detail until he was laughing too. “Girl, you’re stupid. But I’m glad that’s all it was, and nothing worse.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, confused by his sudden change of direction.

  “Well, after what happened last night I expected you to have a nightmare or two. Petrice is worried about you. Gable asked about you this morning too. So did the man next door.”

  I tried to think. I racked my brain, convinced I’d forgotten something, but unable to connect to what it was. Something important had happened last night, but as for what it was... I was saved the trouble of figuring it out, and the embarrassment of asking. Pierce’s next words brought it all back.

  “It really freaked her out when you started screaming, ‘get it off me.’ She couldn’t handle that. I thought she was going to drop the baby right there on the porch.”

  It all came back to me in a jumbled rush. My brain, in its frantic attempt to put things together confused the actual vision with the nightmare from earlier in the night. I saw glowing eyes in that hateful face, a hungry smile stretched across too long, too sharp fangs. I felt the place where the initial vision’s bite began to sting and burn and I sucked in a gasp of air.

  “Stace?” Pierce’s voice was flat, and I knew he was angry with himself. “You’d forgotten hadn’t you?” he asked. “You’d completely forgotten and I reminded you.”

  “It’s okay,” I lied. “It’s better that I don’t forget.” I realized I believed that only after I’d already said it, but Pierce changed the subject.

  “Petrice didn’t want me to tell you. She doesn’t want you to feel bad, especially after last night, but you missed her doctor’s appointment.”

  “That’s impossible,” I told him. “Her appointment isn’t until one thirty.”

  “I know.”

  I sat up in the bed. “Pierce, what time is it?”

  “Almost two.”

  “Damn.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Damn, damn!”

  “LeKrista, listen. It’s no big deal. She’s already rescheduled for next week on a day she knows you’re off. She understands. You needed your rest after what happened.”

  “But that’s no excuse for me to sleep until two o’clock in the afternoon!” I exclaimed appalled. Why had I slept so late?

  “You were tired.”

  “But-"

  "Baby, listen,” he interrupted. “It’s no big deal. I know you feel bad. I shouldn’t have told you. But no one is worried about it. Everyone involved understands. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I agreed, but I racked my brain for a reason for my slothfulness.

  “ I’ll see you soon, love. And don’t worry about it,” he told me again.

  “I won’t.”

  I’ll just have to set an alarm next time.

  I showered quickly. Amazingly, it was sunshiny outside. The sky was blue with no trace of clouds anywhere. I love rainy days, but I love beautiful winter days just as much. I threw on some clothes that I found on the floor. They weren’t dirty enough to wash yet, but they weren’t clean enough to put back in the drawer. Just right for today. I could smell what I hoped to be bacon, which was usually accompanied by eggs and French toast or pancakes.

  I lucked out. Chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. My aunt was busy making a special batch just for me at two fifteen in the afternoon.

  “Well, look who’s up,” she smiled when I walked out of my room, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Good afternoon,” I told her and took a seat as she set a plate in front of me.

  “I cooked for everyone else, so it’s only fair that I cook for you too.”

  “Thank you.” I squirted syrup all over my pancakes, said a silent prayer, and dug in.

  “We heard you up last night,” she told me, her curious tone of voice rearing its ugly head. “Did you have to take Bermy out?”

  I frowned. Did I? “I can’t remember,” I told her. “Did I?”

  She smiled sweetly at me. “He must have woken you up. He was barking at something.”

  Barking...

  Be quiet, dog.

  An image flashed in my head. Beer, cardboard, and my feet were suddenly cold.

  “It’s not a big deal,” she was telling me.

  But it was a big deal, because once again, I couldn’t remember anything and it was important.

  Go inside now.

  Zing! And I remembered everything; Roman, the rubbery strength in my spine, my frozen toes, the dirt in my bed. I remembered what happened last night, and I didn’t think I was supposed to.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dark clouds moved in across the sky around three o’clock. My aunt’s house is perched on a hill overlooking a valley, so I sat on the front porch to watch the rain come in. I wrapped myself in a fleece blanket and tried not to shiver. It was really far too cold for this, but I love the rain.

  “Hello, LeKrista.”

  Roman’s voice spoke into my mind. The blanket slipped from my shoulders when I jumped and I shivered.

  What the hell?

  “Come to me.”

  An image of my backyard flashed before my eyes and the front yard disappeared. I blinked and it was there again.

  What the hell is going on?

  “I am in your backyard, LeKrista,” Roman chuckled in my head. “Come to me, please.”

  I think it was the polite request that got me to walk around the house. Roman stood beneath the edge of the trees. The corner of his mouth was tilted up in a smirk and he balanced all his weight on one leg. A thin sweater stretched across his broad, muscled chest and when he saw me he crossed his arms.

  “What the hell?” I asked. “How did you do that? What are you?” I stopped several feet from him.

  “I fully intend to answer your questions.” His voice rang with humor and I couldn’t help but notice how sexy he was. That was the point wasn’t it? He was showing off.

  As if hearing my thoughts, Roman’s face split into a grin. “Would you like to come somewhere with me?”

  I blinked. “Don’t you know what happens to women who get into cars with strange men?” I asked. I meant it to be funny, but I was completely serious.

  Roman’s eyes danced. “I assure you, I have no intentions of getting you in my car.” I caught the double entendre and ignored it. “You have questions, and I have answers.” Roman held out his hand to me. I covered the space between us and took it without thinking. He pulled me against him with no effort at all. His strong arms tightened around my waist and the world melted around me. I cried out and clutched at Roman’s clothes for dear life. Slowly, I noticed was that the world was not melting away.

  “We’re flying,” Roman said into my mind. “I won’t let you fall.”

  I tried to say something. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

  “How?” I tried, and heard Roman’s answering chuckle.

  “So many questions, my sweet.”

  My sweet?

  The wind sped around and through me like I didn’t exist at all. I wondered for a moment if we had dematerialized. If, somehow our atoms had been displaced and our bodies were just moving through the air as dust particles. Would our bits and pieces be left behind? Would I come out on the other side to find I’d lost an arm? I closed my eyes and let the wind pass through me and decided I liked the feeling.

  Wouldn’t it be funny if I was ten pounds lighter afterward?

  I was disappointed when the flight was over. We came to a jarring, abrupt halt after the exhilarating flight and I was out of breath.

  That’s strange.

  I smelled salt water a moment before waves crashed gently around my ankles. Night birds chirped and something tangy and sweet assailed my senses.

  “G
od, what is that smell?” I gasped. It felt like my lungs had forgotten how to take in oxygen.

  “Can you not breathe?”

  I looked up into Roman’s worried face and frowned. No, I couldn’t. I meant to say it out loud, but the words caught in my throat as my vision passed Roman to the most beautiful display of diamond stars I’d ever seen.

  I fell in slow motion and landed on my back in the sand. The world swam around me, the diamond stars wavered, flickered, and went out. I could only feel deep sadness at the loss.

  I don’t know when my lungs decided to start working. I woke to Roman giving me mouth to mouth. Roman’s fearful face leaned over me, haloed by a crown of those diamond stars.

  I didn’t dream them.

  I pulled at the air greedily and I pushed myself into a sitting position.

  “Are you certain you’re alright?” Roman was worried. “Do I need to fetch a doctor?”

  “No,” but my voice was still breathless. “Are you a witch?”

  He snorted. “Hardly.”

  “Did we dematerialize?”

  “No.” There was a frown, maybe confusion in his voice.

  “The wind didn’t pass through us?”

  “Is that what it felt like to you?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  He was quiet for a moment, thoughtful, before he answered. “I’ve never heard of that before, but I suppose it is different for everyone. Perhaps that is why you lost your breath. Perhaps that is why you felt...”

  “How did I feel?” I asked then wished I could take it back. I felt his amusement in my head, but he otherwise ignored the awkward moment.

  “Would you like to stay here by the ocean, or would you rather go up to the bungalow for some tea?”

  I glanced up at the silvery moon that hung low over the water, its reflection a glowing twin orb disturbed only by the breaking waves that crashed on the beach at my feet. I turned to find torches burning a path to the door of a thatch roofed bungalow where flickering candlelight could be seen through the windows.