A flash of lightning lit up the cabin. She saw a chair topple onto its side. Water flowed over the cot and whirled about her ankles. Its current sucked at her feet. It rotated with a swift circular motion that threatened to pull her off balance. A powerful vortex spiraled up from the center of the room. Its force hurled Tahao to the other side of the room.
“No, don’t leave me!”
Unwilling to chance the chaos to follow him, she inched her way along the wall towards the door. The end of the cot stopped her. Her courage wavered when the small bed teetered with the uneven distribution of weight. Elspeth pushed past her fear and jumped down into the fast moving water. She heard a voice call out.
“Granddaughter, why do you still refuse my gift?”
Elspeth surfaced, momentarily blinded by water. “What do you mean?”
“It was the best I had to offer. I held it in my heart and loved it for many years.”
Elspeth blinked the water from her eyes and grabbed hold of the peg on the wall near the door.
“I don’t understand.”
“It is right in front of you.”
She scanned the cabin for Tahao. Her pulse spiked when she didn’t see him. “Tahao, can you hear me?”
She strained to listen over the roar of the storm inside and out.
“Trust what your heart is telling you.”
Elspeth gasped as her grip on the peg kept slipping. “Why are you making this so hard?”
“Trust and let go.”
A taut silence followed. Then, in a rasping, petrified whisper, Elspeth cried “I don’t know how to do this.”
“You are stronger than you know.”
Elspeth glanced around, clearly exasperated. “It only goes so far.”
“Ever since you were a little one you let your life be ruled by fear. So afraid of what you don’t understand. It has kept you from your true path.”
She pushed the water from her eyes. “Which is?”
“Granddaughter, there is death in life, and there is life in death.” The voice cautioned. “Let go of this fear. What you always yearned for is before you.”
Elspeth did not move. What had she always wanted? As a kid she’d fantasized about belonging to someone somewhere, a family, a home. As an adult she’d accepted the fact that she never fit in and remained unwanted, unloved. Always on her own. Always alone.
The shadow slithered around her and whispered softly—you are not worthy of this gift—it is foolish to believe anyone could care for you—the shadow wrapped its coils tighter around her heart—you are insignificant—run—get as far away as possible—you don’t deserve to be saved.
Frantically, Elspeth sifted through the memories of her life. Surely there was something worthwhile to hold onto but her spirit withered and she felt ashamed. Grandmother, you have been deceived. I am empty. Guilt slammed into her with a vengeance.
Lifting her eyes in despair she realized it was true. A shadow was in her heart. She recognized the burden of its acquaintance. Its shady presence smothered, stifled, and suffocated the life in her. Elspeth trembled, then stiffened. I have to believe something good can come of this. I have to be strong.
“I too had a shadow in my heart.” The closeness of Tahao’s voice startled her.
“But it left when you came out of the Great White Smoke.”
Even though the water was up to her chin now something in his voice calmed her. She listened as Tahao began a story he had never told anyone. She heard the pain in his voice as memory swept him back to another time. The words poured out of him, every gut-wrenching and horrible detail of the bloodbath that had destroyed his village, and the promise he made to his grandmother as she died in his arms. When he finished a sharp stabbing ache rose inside her.
“You loved her very much, didn’t you?”
“She is forever in my heart.”
Her eyelid twitched, and her lip trembled. Until this moment, she had not understood why he had been adamant in staying by her side. Now she knew the significance of the promise, the type of man he was, and the magnitude of the gift that had been given.
Elspeth longed to see the now familiar smoke of his charcoal eyes. Something twisted in her heart as tears spilled down her cheeks.
Elspeth felt each layer of the shadow flit away then shuttered what remained of her heart. She no longer felt compelled to forget her past. All that came before had brought her to this moment and to him. She would find her true path. Whatever menace the dark water held for her that blocked out all reason and light she would meet it head-on. She would not cringe, she would not crumble, she would not crack.
Elspeth closed her eyes and concentrated on the only other presence in the room. She knew he was there. She could feel him. Crazy, crazy, crazy girl. That’s what she meant. That’s what you’ve always yearned for - hot, hunky, straight-forward, say what he means, means what he says man, and he’s all yours, for the taking, ready and waiting. All you need to do is believe in yourself, believe you can make it to the other side, through this vortex of doubt—go to him. Just do it.
Elspeth took a deep breath and dove into the raging current. The swift water swirled her around and she felt him grab at her. Before he could catch hold, the current lifted and the whirlpool swept her away. Tahao lunged and caught her outstretched arm. The force of the water pulled her under. He yanked her back to the surface towards him. Her face almost touched his before she slipped and he lost his grip on her arm.
In that moment of desperation, her fingers strained to grab hold of anything. She fought to see through the heavy water that rained down on them. Wet strands of his hair clung to his face and obscured it like a curtain above his powerful shoulders. A deep surge of regret washed over her and she was sorry she had argued with him about the overalls. She stretched her arm so hard it felt as if it dislocated from the socket. Suddenly, Tahao’s fingers found hers. He clamped an arm around her ribs and pulled her back up against his chest. The weight of it anchored her while she drank air like a newborn but it was the weight of the revelation that sustained her.
Tahao cradled Elspeth in his arms, and rocked her back from the brink. He spoke to her in a soothing low voice. “Elspeth, wake up.”
As the world reclaimed focus, she realized it had been another dream. Reality and memory returned to their respective realms.
She searched Tahao’s dark eyes. “Your Old One. She came to me.”
He nodded and stroked her hair, not taking his eyes from hers.
With sudden lucidity, the realization hit her. “So we’re dead? We died?”
Elspeth took a deep breath and gripped Tahao. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t she?”
“Would you have believed it? She could see many things.” Tahao took her hand and pressed it against his heart. “She saw there’d be no one to sing my death song. That I would walk alone. She made one last journey and found you.”
“I had a right to know.” She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “So you’re the grandson.
“Yes.”
“All this time you were waiting for me?” Elspeth tipped her head to one side.
“For you.”
She had the unexpected urge to reach up and trace the dark fringe of his eyelashes just to see what it felt like. “Wow, is this like one of those arranged marriages? I mean, it’s not like I had a say in this.”
“You must trust that all will be well.”
Elspeth threw him an incredulous glance. “That’s not an answer. We don’t even know each other. Not that you don’t seem nice and everything. It’s just that…”
“You must trust.” He emphasized.
“But she’s your grandmother.” She countered.
“Did you not agree to it?” He looked her directly in the eye.
“What, to her being my grandmother?” Elspeth looked away. “Sure, but I didn’t know…”
Tahao clenched his jaw. “So your words are lies.”
“No, don’t put words
in my mouth…” She leveled a stare at him.
“Then it is settled.”
“If you’ll let me finish. What I agreed to and what this is are two entirely different things.”
“We walk together now. We are as one.”
“Is the afterlife like an after party? Why is your face painted?” She scrunched her face up as she mimicked on her own face what she meant.
He took her hand in his and slowly traced her finger down each stripe. “These mourn the loss of my people.”
Elspeth raised an eyebrow. “Like tears?”
Tahao nodded slowly then lowered his head and kissed her. The scent of him filled her lungs. Blood rushed from her head and made her dizzy. He pushed her back onto the cot then followed her down and placed his knees between her thighs and pushed them apart. His hand held both her wrists and moved her arms above her head. With his other hand on the cot, he leaned forward and whispered something unintelligible then kissed her hair, her mouth and her earlobes.
Elspeth couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think beyond the moment. A moment in time where everything that had ever been ceased to exist.
Tahao whispered “Now the promise must be kept.”
Somehow he unbuttoned her shirt and she felt his skin press against her own. When she realized he had let go of her wrists, her hands wandered over his bulging arms and the ridges of muscle in his back.
His mouth covered hers as he continued to pull the shirt from her body. Then his kiss moved from her lips along her jaw line and down to the pulse that beat in the hollow of her neck. From there he traced the line of her collarbone with his tongue.
With marked impatience, Tahao slid off her and let his grandmother’s blanket fall to the floor. Elspeth opened her arms to him. The firelight flickered across her breasts, and shadowed her curves. A deep rush of desire surged through him.
“Never hide yourself from me.”
Tahao bent down and covered her body with his own. He traced the shadows with his lips. Each flick of his tongue blazed a wildfire of sensation that raged rampant with her nerves.
Elspeth took his face in her hands to study it. By now she knew its shape by heart. She parted her lips and slowly traced the shadows cast by his long eyelashes with her tongue. Then tenderly kissed each of his eyelids.
A slow smile crept across over his face and he grabbed a handful of curls and gently pulled them apart with his fingers.
“In twenty-eight moons, I’ve never seen hair such as this.” He sighed huskily.
Elspeth felt the leathery surface of his wide palm slide along her thigh up to her hip. She shivered and threw her head back. Tahao let his gaze fall to her breasts. His hand skidded along her ribcage until his fingers found and caressed the soft swell of her breast. A half smile lifted one corner of his mouth. Then she felt him kissing her breasts. His lips and tongue teased and trailed from one to the other until she moaned. He seized the brown nipple gently between his teeth and swirled his tongue over the hardened tip until she begged for mercy. Smiling, he continued to suck long and deep and hungrily. Pangs of pleasure arced throughout her body. She groaned as his hands moved lower.
She let him part her thighs and his hands gently stroked the soft inner skin, moving upward until his fingers found her. Bolts of sensation shot straight to her core. She let his fingers have their way and strained her aching body upward against his.
Tahao turned over onto his side still kissing her. He kissed and kissed and kissed. And then he kissed her some more, skimming his fingers lightly over the skin of her back and thighs.
When she found her breath again, her fingers found his flat, hard-muscled belly. She felt him stiffen and catch his breath. Her hand slipped lower, found what she was looking for and then held onto it.
He groaned and nudged her over onto her back kissing her harder. She felt the hardness of him as his body molded against hers.
Tahao lifted, positioned then penetrated her, covering her lips with his own. He lay still for a moment, embedded in her then lifted his head to search her eyes. Elspeth reached up to hug his neck and pressed her forehead against his. He nudged himself deeper and then began to move very slowly, and gently within her.
She felt his hands caress and squeeze her buttocks turning her insides to liquid heat. His movement quickened as he picked up momentum. Then with a steady, relentless motion he plunged deeper and deeper. Elspeth ached for release as her body matched his rhythm.
Lying crushed against him with his arms around her, she listened to the sound of their shallow breathing, not wanting to think of anything but the fact that this is what it felt like to want and be wanted.
Gradually, Elspeth felt his thrusts into her increase. Her hands slipped down his back and she felt the bunching of his muscles. A warmth pulsed inside her as she arched and wrapped her legs around him.
His breath caught and he drew back and gazed down at her as he lifted her up and held her in place completely filling her.
Elspeth closed her eyes and concentrated on the connection she felt with him. Then she felt him outline her ear with the tip of his tongue. She shuddered then quivered and clenched tightly around him. He released a deep erotic growl as they exploded in complete fulfillment.
It took some time before they came down from the clouds. They lay together on the cot, exhausted and entangled in each other’s arms. Elspeth twisted the smooth hair at the back of his neck around her fingers as she showered him with tender kisses. Then laid her head on his shoulder and realized she had fallen in love.
Elspeth woke to see Tahao looking out the window. The fog had lifted and sunlight streamed through the cabin. She yawned and stretched and beckoned for him to rejoin her.
His face beamed as he made his way back to the cot. He slipped down beside her and took her in his arms. Her honey-brown skin was radiant and glowed in the bright sunlight.
“This shadow is no more?” Elspeth watched his fingers trace a pattern over her heart then seal it with a teasing kiss.
“This shadow has left the building,” she replied and drew his hand up to kiss it.
Her heart did a triple somersault as a brilliant smile flashed across his face.
“Never to return?”
She nodded. “Not on my watch.”
His eyes flickered with satisfaction.
“It is time for us to go.”
Her heart lurched. “So soon?”
Tahao nodded. “We must continue on our path.” His eyelashes brushed against her cheek as his lips found their way to her earlobe.
“How about a snack for the road?”
He stared into her eyes and thought it over. Then bent down and kissed her deeply, moving his knee in between her legs.
“These ways you have, you must be patient with me.” He whispered in her ear.
“I got nothing but time.” Elspeth giggled as he grunted and moved against her.
A gift had been given; a promise had been made; and one would be kept till the end of eternity.
True that.
THE END
About the Author
KL MULLENS writes romance, science fiction, horror, mystery, and short stories with a little kid lit on the side. She resides in Washington State with her husband and three dogs.
seattlerainydaywriters.com
Evil Bites
By
Dawn Kravagna
He who seeks evil, evil will come to him.—Proverbs 11:27b
Chapter 1
I’ve discovered that I can be vengeful and hateful and unforgiving. That sometimes even the best-intentioned person listens to the devil rather than to God.
I’ll never forget last January, a month that no longer heralds a fresh start, but rather, reminds me of a bitter loss. The nearly full moon dominated the evening sky, the city of Seattle’s lights obscuring the glittering stars that were up there, somewhere. I clutched the head of my oversized black umbrella, reassured by the heaviness of the brass handle in my palm, and picked
up my pace, hurrying downhill toward the waterfront. Most of the street people are harmless in Seattle, preferring to inhabit their own private hell in imaginary worlds, muttering angry thoughts under their breaths, but not all of them.
For this reason I don’t like hanging out in Pioneer Square after twilight, but Helene was in town for the annual Gothic Romance Writers’ Conference and, before flying back to Reno in two days, she was going to teach her “frumpy” sister to “chill and swill.” I’m not as attractive as Helene, but I don’t consider myself frumpy. My black hair is cropped short at the chin rather than cascading down to my waist like hers, and my eyes are brown rather than emerald. However, I’m pretty enough and stylish enough to capture attention when I want it.
A frosty gust of wind whipped around my neck, carrying with it the pungent odor of stale urine. Shivering, I buttoned up the collar of my wool pea coat, my favorite. The six-block walk seemed like twenty. I wanted to meet my sister in the bar at her hotel, The Sheraton, which was nearer to my downtown condominium than the waterfront, but she insisted upon breaking free from the usual “clutch of chicks” at the conference and mixing it up at the local hot spots in the historic district. My on-again, off-again boyfriend, Alex, would be livid if he knew I was walking around the city at night, but the cabbies won’t pick up for such a short fare and he was in a police cruiser somewhere in the south end of the county.
Finally the First Avenue street sign came into view where I’d take a left toward the clubs. Two indistinct figures loped from a side alley in front of me, baggy dark outlines monopolizing the sidewalk. Supposedly Helene was the sibling with the overactive writer’s imagination, yet I wondered how many women, just before the arm slid around their throats from behind, wished they had called a cab. Traffic was sparse on the side streets: few witnesses if I got myself into trouble. I reached for my cell phone, just to be cautious, then realized I’d left it on the kitchen table when I’d pulled out my wallet to avoid carrying a purse at night.
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