“What is wrong with me?” I said in an exhausted tone.
“Your transformation is not complete. I only had seconds, whereas it should have taken hours. I’m starting to think it would not have mattered, that the ice is stopping it, that death is pulling you back,” he said with heavy grief in his silky tone.
My eyes grew heavy. As they closed, I whispered, “It was written. You saved me.”
I could not form the words to tell him that we had not committed the ultimate sin, that he was meant to break the ice around me apart, that he was meant to set my soul on fire and raise me to this existence.
Chapter Seventeen
My dreams were heavy, beyond vivid, and they solidified what I had only heard whispers of in the North Wing. I saw this manor. A lost time. My world was on the verge of a civil war. Though we were born of light, born of peace, some of us had become restless, terrified that the natural order had been broken, that darkness was on the verge of an all out siege on us. They wanted to barricade The Fall, the point where souls moved through once their time was complete on the other side. They feared The Fall because the children that were reborn were broken souls, vacant of joy and creativity. It was as if they were damaged beyond repair, as if their past lives were too dark and too damned for them to overcome.
Guardian had always been a powerful speaker. He had a gift with words and the dominance to back up everything he said, just as much as my Sebastian. People from our cause charged them with orders of restoring the peace to our world one way or another. Sebastian accepted the call without even speaking to me about it.
He promised me he would return before the next moon, leaving me with the girl that Guardian had fallen in love with, my guards, and our growing family of abandoned children.
It was the coldest winter that I had ever witnessed. The snow was heavy, imprisoning us in our home.
My dreams, which had been vivid in that life, stopped. Instead, I woke with terror, believing without a doubt that my home was burning. I was not the only one that was losing sanity. The girl that Guardian left for me to watch over began to have violent dreams. And she insisted that there was a dark world that she had to save, that had captured our lovers.
She insisted that we move through The Fall, that she would go with or without me. She said we were divided, that we had to rise. We had to restore balance.
She was vindicated when my guards, who Mason and Gavin were then, began to have visions. When my family began to have visions. At that point, the plot for me to become some kind of supernatural redeemer began to form.
Everyone but me could see some fate before us, everyone knew their roles.
Three moons passed. The snow fell on and on, and there was no sign of my beloved, no word that peace had been restored. That selfish foolishness was behind us. I began to believe the souls around me. I began to take their visions seriously.
We stood in the dome room, each on our own staircase. My family surrounded the circles on the marble floor. Guardian’s lover, Aliyanna, stood in the center chanting words, dark, commanding words. A shadowy energy surrounded her, then a force of energy caused the glass ceiling to explode, showering snow and ice around us.
A beaming glow of light came from Mason, Gavin, and me as the floor began to spin, as Aliyanna raised her hands and lightning, thunder, rain, snow, and wind whirled around us.
Everything started to spin, to turn at warp speed. It was nauseating, and when I didn’t think I could take any more, I closed my eyes and pulled myself into a ball. Several beats later, silence came. Still fearing the power that Guardian’s lover had displayed, I slowly opened my eyes and let my arms fall.
Now standing above me was Cadence. She let a malevolent smile echo in her eyes. “You. You are the one they sent to bring my fall.” She glanced at the marble floor covered in debris, with the bodies of my guards and family. “This is your army?”
Before I could utter a word or understand who she was, the bodies of the ones I loved were pulled up by some unseen force and twisted. The cracks of their bones echoed in the room just before they crashed to the floor. She knelt down to look deeper into my eyes. “You’re a bit early. Ahead of the fire, if you will, which means this is the perfect prison for you.” As she said that, I pulled my legs and arms up, wanting to shield myself, but it was all for naught, she had frozen me into a solid block of ice. I suffocated slowly as I stared into her cold eyes. I welcomed death. I welcomed it because I was sure that if my Sebastian was not here that he had failed, too, that we could only find each other in another life, another time.
Rage consumed me. I had never even come close to feeling something this violent toward Rasure. I didn’t understand who I was or what my purpose was, but I knew that I would not let my family die in vain, that I would not let this cold world that I was thrust into destroy the light I was born into, the peace I was fighting to maintain before fate divided my family, before my soul had sent me into a dark reality, one that I had yet to find my purpose in—that is, until now.
My eyes flew open as I sucked in a gasping breath of life.
A man I didn’t know was leaning over me. I wanted to get away— like, now and after a brisk, warm rush I found myself against the wall, my chest rising and falling rapidly with the beat of my heart. Before I could assure myself I was wide awake, Phoenix was in front of me, pulling me to him.
“Impressive, Love,” he said as he urged me back to the bed, where the older man was still standing. He wasn’t scary or anything. In fact, I felt nothing but peace coming from him. I found comfort in his green eyes. “This is Jason, a doctor,” Phoenix said as he gently encouraged me to sit on the edge of the bed. Jason came around to where we were.
“Do...do...do I need a doctor? Now that...” I didn’t know if was supposed to be playing a part for this man or not.
“He is a very special doctor. He fights with us. With Guardian. He knows what you are.”
“You know Guardian?” I asked weakly in an attempt to seem stronger than I was. Inside, I could feel fire and ice, both fighting for control and it was making me dizzy.
“He is my oldest daughter’s soul mate,” Jason replied.
Slowly, my eyes rose to meet his. “You’re Aliyanna’s father.”
Saying her name seemed to bring shock and joy both to him and Phoenix.
“In this life, she is called Willow.”
“Tell me she is more patient than when I knew her,” I muttered as my dream raced through my thoughts and I clearly remembered how driven that girl was, how she insisted that one way or another she was moving through The Fall. I knew Guardian would never forgive me if I let something happen to her. We all listened to her, created the most wicked spell that had ever existed, only to arrive before the fire, only to become prisoners. I didn’t remember seeing her on that floor with my family, though. Maybe she did make it to the dark world she spoke of, the one she said that she and Guardian had to free.
Jason smirked. “I am afraid not.”
“Did she redeem that world? Est…I can’t remember it.”
“In progress,” Jason said as his eyes carefully moved over me, like he was looking below the surface somehow.
“Must be a slow one. I carried her here forever ago,” I said as I felt a wave of dizziness come over me.
Jason had one hand on my shoulder before I could sway, like he saw it coming. “Nothing worth having comes instantly. It’s the fight, the drive that makes your dreams strong enough to withstand the mark of time.”
“Right, then. Well, tell your daughter I’m here. Apparently, we have a few sisters that are still in the wind and a war of balance to win.”
“Let’s get you better first,” Jason said with a proud grin. He looked down at Phoenix, who was on his knees before me. “I stand by my original advice. Her energy is but half. You gave her fire, but she must be immersed in it. Her soul has to know that you are there for her, that you are forevermore joined. Until it does, inside the ice and fire will be a
t war. Once her soul believes that you are true, not an illusion, the transformation will continue.” Jason smiled at me once more as he put his hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. “I’ll ensure that no one disturbs you.”
Phoenix held my stare as Jason left the room, closing the door behind him.
“I know you are here for me,” I said as I reached for his faultless image.
Pain echoed in Phoenix’s eyes. “I was shown the journal.”
I let a smile come to my eyes. “We are not the ultimate selfish sinners. Death had to come.”
“I almost let you go,” he said in a ghost of a whisper. “I convinced myself that I had done something horrid in a distant past, something that had forevermore taken you away from me.”
I moved my head to the side. “You went to bring peace, but the war was not there; it was here.”
Anger came to his eyes. “This whole time, you have been struggling to break free from your prison, and I was struggling to get home…a home you brought with you.”
“I’m not kidding. That Aliyanna girl is no joke. She insisted that we do the spell, and she was driven near insane. It was her idea.”
He smirked. “Trust me, Sunshine is easier to handle when Guardian is around.”
I leaned forward slowly as I reached for his lips. I didn’t know what Jason meant about my transformation, but I knew I wanted to feel the fire of his touch, that I had fought too long and too hard to be where I was, to let my weakness hold me back.
He moved closer, letting his lips frame mine as his arms went around me and he laid me gently across the bed.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered.
I stared into the gray of his eyes, the breaks of fire that raced through them. What I was about to do was going to take more courage, more adrenaline than any car crash, any brush with death, or even Rasure herself.
I swallowed nervously as I held his gaze. “I love you.”
A gasping smile came across his image. “Are you sure, Love? Forever is the commitment of all commitments. Rather suffocating idea to some.”
“Do you want me to say it a million times?” I said as I felt the power behind that commitment.
Phoenix could never suffocate me. We were both too independent, too full of determination, with matching flaming tempers. He would let me fight my war, he would never hold me back, and he only wanted the same in return. He only wanted to know that in-between our passions for life that we would give each other passion, that we would find a home inside of each other.
Slowly, he raised his hand over my chest. Holding my stare, he let his warm touch rest against my skin, then he whispered, “I love you” as his hand pushed through what should have been flesh.
My back bowed as I felt fire explode inside of me, as I saw fire and ice colliding into one, as I felt his soul merge completely with mine. I struggled to get closer to that flame of his soul, to completely hide myself within him.
‘Rapture’ was the only shallow word I could use to explain this rush. This empowerment, this total, absolute feeling of being whole, one with another soul. No rush of passion, no moment that was skin-to-skin could dare match the emotions coursing through us. Complete transformation took control over my very being.
It was the plane that we dared to rise to the last time he held me, that night he had only given me a glimpse of what we could create together. I fought never to leave this feeling, to forget that that world around us existed, that a war was waiting on its warriors and I won that fight for what seemed like an eternity. Hours, maybe days had passed before he slowly pulled his soul from mine, before his eyes met mine once again.
“You are forevermore mine,” he said in a heated whisper.
Words that would have suffocated the life out of me if I heard them from anyone else were now my salvation.
Finding strength and clarity for the first time in what seemed like forever, I let my hands move up his strong arms, which were holding him above me. “Dare I say that I feel sorry for you? I was rather difficult to handle as a human, and as a ghost. God only knows how difficult I will prove to be now.”
A beaming smile spread across his face as a laugh bellowed in his chest. “Bloody hell, woman—truer words have never been uttered.”
His arms were around me, and I was lying on his chest within the next beat. I dared to look up into his eyes, which were slowly taking every part of me in. “Am I cured now? Is this over?”
“It has just begun, Love,” he said as he tucked my long bangs behind my ear. “Your mind will struggle with what you are…you will shock yourself a time or two with your speed. Your emotions may toy with you, and the demons you fought in your life will become your determination, a determination that will seem far too confining to bear…but you will overcome.”
My eyes grew wide as clarity came to me. “The guys. Who’s helping them?”
“They transformed instantly. Skylynn said that must have been part of the spell you cast before, that they had to be risen to raise you, that it was all or none.”
“Why did I struggle?”
“Fire and ice. I believe the spell was cast the way it was so that you would not only have guardians throughout your war, but also as you transformed.”
I pulled myself up on one arm. “Wilder,” I said as my battle with Rasure flashed before my eyes, as I remembered that my own sister had forsaken me.
“He fooled you.”
“What?”
“He is a bigger part of this than you can understand right now.”
“I’m not a fool,” I bit out.
“I didn’t say you were. He is not to be underestimated.”
I didn’t care to think that someone else I had trusted, not right now anyway, had fooled me.
“Cadence?”
Anger engulfed his eyes.
“Did you not kill her?” I pushed.
“No,” he said with disdain. “She was not in full form. Rasure was your distraction. You ended her simply because you set your family free.”
“I don’t understand how I was fooled for so long by Cadence,” I said as I sat up and felt rage boil through me.
He leaned up as I moved, trying to catch me before I fell into my rage. “You were not a fool, you were the Trojan Horse. She had no idea who you were until you refused to die. You masked yourself amongst evil, and you protected our home and set our family free, just as you always planned to do.”
“Are the souls still in the clocks, the ones under this house?”
“Some, I’m sure, but you cannot charge down there and open them. You are going to have to find the spells that bind them, the words to open them. You are going to have to tread carefully, patiently. Evil knows no time. It counts on our impatience to end us, and more often than not we bring our own demise with that fault.”
“What do I tell my family? How do I explain how I got out of that fire? Where you came from? Where Cadence and Rasure went?”
He leaned forward and let his warm lips rest on my forehead. “Your Uncle Jamison is filing divorce papers, told your brother that Rasure and Cadence left the country. Ben found a money trail from Rasure to the people who confessed to burning your floor down at the hospital. Jason and others from Guardian’s world created a background for me, one that your brother believes. The boys are strong. They have moved into this manor with you, declaring that they need to keep you safe.”
“How long was I out?” I asked with a gaping smile.
“Not as long as you think. I promise.”
“What does my uncle remember?” I asked, wondering how I’d lost so much time.
“Nothing. He actually stated that he had no idea why he even brought Rasure here. In his mind, he’s thirty-five. His life with her was nothing more than a nightmare he woke up from.”
I looked down. “One that we all woke up from.”
“That you did, Love.” He reached to turn my chin so I would have to look him in the eye. “Next time, let your fear rise sooner. It calls me. It always
has. I came to you the second I felt it, and I was almost too late. Promise me you will never be too stubborn to ask for help again.”
“The boys told me to play my part, and I did. I held the fear in until Rasure said you were gone…out of it all, that was my only fear.”
He let his fingertips move down my neck, my chest. “Now that we are one, that your power is unsealed, what was your curse will be your virtue. You will learn to guide the ice and fire, and you will always know if truth is spoken to you.”
“Truth,” I whispered, feeling the certainty behind what he said, wondering where my life would take me from this point on, which caused me to look back for an instant.
“I want to pay my respects to my grandmother,” I said under my breath, expecting ice to form with my grief, but it didn’t.
He nodded, understanding, then vanished for an instant and returned with clothes in his hands.
“Let’s say we get you out of those death shrouds,” he said with a grin.
Agreeing, and wanting to prove that I was stronger and faster than he thought, I shed the outfit I’d worn for days and pulled on the dark denim, skin tight jeans, black long sleeve top, belt, and unlaced black boots within an instant.
He moved his head from side to side as a sinful smirk came to his lips. “A little faster than I would have preferred.”
I raised one eyebrow as my eyes matched the desire in his. He reached to trace the base of my eye. “Those are the eyes I remember.”
Before I could question him, I was across the room, standing before a full-length mirror with him just behind me. I barely recognized the girl in the mirror.
My skin was flawless, the color of ivory. The slight heat in my cheeks and my flaming red lips accented the shade of my skin. But that was not what took me by surprise. It was the color of my eyes; they were a deep, rich blue. The color that often had warned that my curse of ice was surfacing was now permeated, and behind them I saw a power. I saw a girl who was determined, who had both fire and ice in her soul. A girl who was claimed by a phoenix, who was guarded by two of his sires. I saw the Indie I always wanted to be. The Indie my mother, my family had told me I was. The girl I always was beneath the surface.
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