Dangerous Lovers

by Becca Vincenza

  Sounded like a logical answer to me, but all it did was seem to make Skylynn mad, maybe even sad, one of the two. I purposely handed the whisky bottle to Wilder, who was a few feet away from me. She’d had enough, apparently.

  Skylynn locked eyes with me as she turned to face the bar. “He needs to move.”

  “What?” I said with a smirk. Mason was totally not coming on to her, he was just using his charisma to hide the pain.

  “Move. Over. Out. Up. Down. I don’t care. He just needs to move.”

  “What has gotten into you?” I asked her with an astonished gaze.

  She leaned over the bar so only I could hear her. “I’ve had a really bad day. It will only get worse if he doesn’t move. I’m not in the mood for a jealous temper tantrum.”

  “He’s the most peaceful one of all of them,” I assured her, knowing he would not care what she had to say to me and wouldn’t even bother to steal my attention away from her.

  “It’s not him I’m worried about. He smells like you. Make him move.” She glanced down at my wrist that was missing one very important scarf. “I’m trying to protect you. I thought that’s what you wanted. Needed.”

  I couldn’t figure out why she wanted him to move, but I gave in, for Sophie’s sake. She had it bad for Mason, and now that Mason knew he was driving Skylynn mad he would continue to do so and never even know he was hurting the girl that had a crush on him.

  Skylynn slid back down on her stool. I edged over in front of Mason. “Will you play me something?” I asked as sweetly as I could.

  “Seriously?” he asked with a smirk, not believing I took her side.

  I tilted my head in Sophia’s direction. “Don’t hurt her. She knows I told you.”

  He leaned forward, holding my gaze. “I told you she was too naïve for me,” he whispered.

  “Don’t be cold. I’ll forgive you for the Indie Club if you at least be nice. Tell her you’re not interested if you’re not, but don’t play with Skylynn in front of her.”

  “Play?” he said in his familiar flirtatious tone.

  “Go,” I insisted as I tried not to blush the way he wanted me to.

  He pushed back from the bar. “Hey, Sophia. It’s slow. Do you want to learn how to play the drums?”

  You would have thought that he asked her to run away with him. She beamed as she walked around the bar so she could follow him to the side of the room where the stage was.

  Pretending that she needed to take Sophia’s place, Cadence edged around the bar and came to where I was standing.

  “Smells like me? Really?” I muttered, looking at Skylynn.

  She held up her shot glass, asking for more.

  “Nope. You’re already acting weird.”

  “Coffee, then. Why not?” she said with an exhausted smile. You would think it was the end of the world for Skylynn, that she saw no reason to have manners or inhibitions. It was sad, really. I wanted my friends to know the angel that had saved my life so many years ago, the angel that had kept me sane all these years.

  Cadence poured her a cup. When she handed it to her, she said, “I always imagined you...I don’t know. Nicer.”

  “I’m nice when I keep good company. Lately, that has not been the case,” Skylynn said as her eyes raked over Cadence.

  “Do you plan on insulting all of my friends tonight?” I asked in a sharp tone.

  “Definitely not talking about them,” Skylynn said, nodding in the direction of Mason and Gavin. With a sigh, her blue eyes locked with mine. I could have sworn I saw an apology there. For what, I don’t know.

  “Who has you bothered?” I pushed.

  “A few. But there is someone that is not thrilled that I’ve kept our friendship a secret.”

  “Who?”

  I glanced around the bar, noticing Wilder displaying the same disdainful glare as Cadence. Gavin had already decided she was nothing to worry about. He had pulled his laptop to him and was typing at the speed of light.

  Skylynn returned their glare before she caught my stare. “You’ll see in...” she held up her hand and then slowly let her fingers count down to zero, then knocked her fist on the bar. At that moment, the chime on the door went off.

  Time stopped.

  I could not comprehend the warm, dominant energy that flowed through me as my eyes met this flawless being.

  In the North Wing, he was never completely corporeal. None of the memories I had been able to unlock were. But now, right now, he was in the flesh. Sebastian Falcon was either standing feet from me or he had been reincarnated looking hotter than he was the first go around on the wheel of life.

  His black, long sleeve T-shirt hinted to the perfection that it surely must be hiding. My eyes wanted to travel further down him, but they were pulled back to his intoxicating stare. His eyes were still a deep gray, but in the centers I could see unfathomable orange freckles, which mocked flames. He tilted his head slightly, allowing his somewhat long, dark auburn hair to fall over his high cheekbones. There was agony in his stare. It pulled me in. This. Could. Not. Be. Real.

  I could swear his body relaxed all at once as his lips, perfectly shaped lips, echoed a wounded smile.

  Our uncalled for stare may have relaxed him, but it had the opposite effect on me. Two beats—no, maybe three or four in one second followed by a thousand more. I had been staring at his image for years, and for some reason he was finally seeing me, too.

  Almost immediately, he glanced down at the guards.

  He turned to them and said something I could not hear, and as they passed what looked like short words shot back and forth. Skylynn gripped my arm. “If that doesn’t make you feel two beats, there is no hope for you,” she whispered.

  I swallowed nervously as my eyes moved back to him. A flaming burn spread through my soul. I almost wanted to cry in relief, but that was foolish. In this life, right now, we were strangers. It didn’t matter that I felt like I had lived side by side with him for the past five years.

  The guards had stood from their seat and left without another word. They didn’t go far, just to their SUV.

  The boy walked slowly, yet confidently across the bar, catching my stare once more. This entire room should be frozen, at least twenty inches of ice by now—that was how out of control my emotions were—but no ice came. I felt my ivory skin turn crimson. It took every ounce of strength I had to stand still, not to rush to him, to welcome him home.

  He sat down next to Skylynn and broke our gaze only to throw a glare to the corner the writer was working in. As if commanded to, the writer gathered his things and left without another word.

  Skylynn let out a sigh as she slouched on her stool and pulled her coffee to her lips.

  “Phoenix, please let me introduce you. This is Miss Genevieve Indiana Falcon,” she said with a nod to me.

  Phoenix reached across the bar for my hand. As if under a spell, I gave it to him, but he didn’t shake it. Instead, he brought it to his warm lips. With his touch, I felt a slow burn ease through my body, causing my toes to curl and a gasp to escape my gently parted lips.

  I had imagined this very scenario a million times over, feeling his skin, seeing his eyes meet mine, the touch of his lips against my skin. No doubt I had a very weak imagination. I had never felt anything so amazing in my life.

  “Genevieve…it’s a pleasure,” Phoenix said in a deep voice that was pure silk. He said it the exact same way, the same way I heard him say it in that wing. How is that possible? How could he so clearly mock an ancestor of mine? How did Skylynn know him? How was any of this real?

  “Sebastian,” I whispered before I could stop myself.

  A wretched smile echoed in his hypnotic gaze. “Phoenix,” he said quietly, as if the lie was killing him. Did he realize that before this day that was the only name I knew him by? Maybe he was telling me that I was way off track, that he was not the boy in the North Wing.

  “Sor—sorry,” I stuttered.

  I knew the others had moved
closer, that Wilder was behind me, defensive as always. Gavin had edged down the bar, curious and cautious as ever, and Mason had come back to this side of the bar, daring and protective as per his usual. But I didn’t see them. I could only see Phoenix, and oddly, in his energy I felt everything I loved about my guys. Phoenix wasn’t part of what I was looking for…he was two beats. He was the past I ached for. He barely said two words to me, and he was already the best thing that had happened to me in this life.

  I held his gaze as my mind became flooded with the not-so-innocent memories I had seen in the North Wing, the ones where he passionately loved Genevieve, the ones that stole my breath, the ones I shied away from when they began. I shied away because the longing was too painful.

  Phoenix glanced at Skylynn with what looked like contempt, then back to me. “My dear friend Skylynn mentioned that the two of you have been mates for a while.”

  I didn’t answer him for a second. I was too caught up in my thoughts, running through my old memories. I could not figure out how any of this was real, and since I had never told anyone—not even Skylynn—about the memories I saw in the North Wing, I was alone in this questioning moment.

  “Been through a lot,” I managed to say.

  Phoenix pursed his lips as he looked down at the bar. A second later, his eyes moved across the wood to where my hand was still limply lying.

  I heard the bar phone start to ring, but we all seemed to ignore it. We also ignored the new customers that seemed to fill the bar instantly, the loud music that came out of nowhere.

  Phoenix let his long fingertips outline the snow-white skin that the scarf had covered for almost seven years. “Missing something?” he asked in a whisper that was almost drowned out by the sudden life the bar seemed to have.

  I couldn’t think. Vibrating warmth was tingling the skin under his touch. I’d seen him do this in the North Wing, but that was just a visual. The memory carried no weight because I put distance between it and me, but right now—I remembered this. I remembered his touch as clearly as my name.

  “Unfortunately.” I meant for that to sound sarcastic, but instead my tone brought pain to that one word.

  Phoenix let his gaze rise to meet mine. “I can’t give it back…but I can give you this for now.”

  Nervously, my eyes fell to my wrist. Now there was a pearl bracelet that looked utterly priceless and absolutely familiar.

  I gasped as a beaming smile erased my perplexed expression. “I suppose I lost that again.” I don’t know why I said that aloud, why I was claiming that life I witnessed in the North Wing. I just knew it felt right. Everything about Phoenix felt right.

  “Again?” he said, as if he did not believe I said that.

  The last time I saw this bracelet was this morning, when the memories of the last night Sebastian and Genevieve spent together came to life in the North Wing.

  Desire, a warm, sinful, desire swarmed through my veins as my gaze rose to meet his again, as I dared to confirm that yes, I said ‘again.’ Yes, I know you are Sebastian Falcon. Yes, I know that I was—am—your Genevieve. A war took you from me, and yes, I never forgot you. Yes, I know exactly who you are. Who I am. And no, I do not understand any of this.

  Before any of that came out, Gavin’s uncle opened the bar door. “Indie, good God. I’ve been trying to call every phone you have. Doc said to call you. Your grandmother has taken a turn for the worse.”

  What was odd was that he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking to the left of where I was standing.

  I focused my eyes, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Gran was fine hours ago, really fine. But then I noticed that Skylynn and Phoenix had vanished and that the bar was full of people. Apparently it was an insane night here.

  Grief slammed into me. Did I really just fabricate all of that? Was he not real? I didn’t have time to dwell on those thoughts. I was harshly pulled back into the life that was mine, a life that looked like it was only getting worse.

  Wilder was in a corner booth with that girl, and Mason was at his drums, Sophia a few feet from him. Cadence and Gavin were at the other end of the bar, playing on a laptop.

  I was now stuck in a dark world—one that I didn’t want to be in.

  Chapter Seven

  I climbed the bar, pushed through the people that were there, then jumped down and weaved through the crowd, glancing back to see Gavin and Cadence hurrying to follow me and Mason stopping the beat of his drums and rushing to where I was.

  Wilder stood from the booth where he sat. The seductive blonde nonchalantly tried to stop him, but he ignored her.

  “I’m driving,” he stated flatly, opening the door for me.

  “Go back to your girl,” I demanded, trying to steal his keys, but he refused to give them to me. Instead, he opened the door and pushed me out into the parking lot.

  I stood in shock. There were only a few cars here a second ago, and now it was packed and the day had turned to night. Wilder pulled me forward, thinking shock and grief were paralyzing me.

  When he touched me, though, I saw that girl, and an entirely different scene played from what I’d witnessed before. Instead of her coming in and leaving moments later, he brought her in. He didn’t say a word to us. Instead, he huddled in the corner with her. A time or two, he tried to glance at me or walk over to us, but she’d pulled him into a deep kiss, distracting him from us, from me. That new memory caused rage and jealousy to erupt in my soul.

  Before I could reason why I had those new memories or why one second I was given the one thing I always wanted—Sebastian in the flesh—and the next I was here, Wilder had me in his car and we were weaving through traffic, trying to get to the manor.

  “D, it’s going to be okay,” he promised, reaching for my leg. I dodged away from him.

  “I deserve that.”

  “I don’t have the energy to figure you out. I think I’m going mad.”

  “What about me do you have to figure out? You told me to move on. I did.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t tell you to act like I didn’t exist. You guys look serious. Have fun with that. She looks nice and warm.” I pulled my fist to my lips. Why did I say that? Why did it feel like I said it before? What the hell was going on?

  “You all right, D? You’re acting like you just saw a ghost.”

  I drew a sharp breath, knowing that there could be some truth to that.

  “Weird day.”

  “Too many old flames in one room?” he said with a smirk as he changed lanes at Mach speed.

  There was far too much irony in his tone. I glanced back, trying to find a reason to believe that I wasn’t rushing to my grandmother’s deathbed. She was fine, and I had finally laid eyes on my two beats.

  “D –”

  I held up my hand to halt him. “Who’s behind us?” I asked, noticing the blinding lights in the side mirror, wondering if that was my guards but it couldn’t have been because in the reality I was in now, there were no guards.

  “Gavin and the others.”

  My stomach clenched with dread. “Call him. Tell him not to follow us. It’s dangerous!”

  “Like they would listen.”

  “You don’t understand!” I bellowed, trying to find his phone on him, feeling in his jacket, his pants.

  “D! Stop it! We’re going to wreck!”

  Before I could tell him truer words had never been spoken, his car slid off the road and downhill; he couldn’t stop it if he wanted to. A few feet later, he found a gravel road and managed to stay on it but he did not lose his speed. I didn’t even have to glance back to know that Gavin had followed our path.

  “STOP! STOP! TRAIN!” I screamed, bracing my arms on the dash.

  “There is no train!” he yelled, trying to keep control of the car. I was sure I was impairing him, my emotions were making everything freeze, the road more dangerous.

  At that second, I heard the whistle. I felt adrenaline explode in my body. There was nowhere to go. He had tur
ned to avoid the train that was quarter mile or so in the distance, and there was no way he was going to stop before then.

  When he turned and plowed through the brush, I saw the lake. It wasn’t frozen until my eyes landed on it and that was when ice captured the waves and the wheels of Wilder’s car slid across it.

  I was a fool, though. My relief that I’d frozen the water caused the ice to vanish, and the car that we were in was basically a frozen block of ice and began to sink immediately.

  I struggled to get loose from my belt as the freezing water rose over me. Wilder was already kicking out the windshield, but he used too much energy too fast, and when the water went over our heads he passed out within seconds. I knew how to get out. I kicked out the back window and pulled him with me, cutting his arm again, waking him with a scream once again.

  We swam past Gavin’s truck that had, of course, fallen on our car. After a gasp of air, I went back, ignoring Wilder’s protest.

  He reached the truck before me again, but I knew where to go: to the back window.

  Mason’s lips were on Sophia’s. He was trying to give her air, calm her down, a survival skill he’d learned countless summers ago. I got her belt loose, and he pushed her out but now he was out of wind.

  The others were thrashing around in the front seat. I couldn’t figure out why they would not just go, what were they fighting about.

  Finally, Wilder pulled Cadence and Gavin out. I looped my scarf around Mason and pulled him from the truck just after it tumbled deeper into the water.

  My insane fear was causing the ice to form around us, making getting to the top near impossible. When I did finally get air, I couldn’t make the ice stay long enough to hold up Mason, who was delirious.

  This was my dream, moment by agonizing moment, but when I finally reached the shore with Mason and looked back I couldn’t figure out why in the dream I would have gone back for a camera I didn’t have. That’s when I reached in my pocket to find the skeleton key gone.