Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy

by Venessa Kimball

  Seeing the writing on the wall, Xander takes a deep breath and looks away from me before speaking. “Look, I wouldn’t let anyone near you when we got here. I didn’t trust any of them with you, not after what happened out there. Shit, I even sent Elicia away and she wasn’t happy about that at all––banging on the fucking door—”

  He pauses and closes his eyes, seeming to clear his thoughts before opening his eyes and finding mine. “Your clothes were covered in blood Jesca and you weren’t in any condition to change yourself.”

  I look down at my arms. The blood––I remember holding Miriam to my chest. I would have had blood all over my arms and dirt from the struggle with Sam at the vortex. I’m spotless though, wiped clean. An echo of Balthazar wailing and the baby’s hoarse cries fills my head––a husband widowed and a child motherless. A shiver sets off through my body, constricting and tightening my anxious limbs. I wrap my arms tighter around myself, hoping that the compression will give me security as I look up into Xander’s green eyes.

  Steadily looking at me, he explains the best he can. “You’re the only part of what happened that I could hold onto and keep safe Jes. With Nate and Ezra gone now––I’m not leaving anything up to chance when it comes to you.”

  Xander clears his throat and looks down at his intertwined fingers. “Monica sedated you for your safety, but it wouldn’t save you from breaking inside and God, I even felt everything breaking inside of you Jes.”

  I notice his breath picking up as his chest rises and falls faster in time with his words as he recalls moments in the chaos after Ezra and Nate were gone. “I held you to me the whole way to the truck and I held you on the drive back here. I didn’t want to let you go with anyone else. You never left my sight.”

  Seeing the turmoil pass through his eyes and feeling his thoughts and emotions returning to me with his mental block releasing, I rest my hand on top of the one rising and falling on his chest. Clenching my fingers over his, I keep my eyes steady on his, wanting to show him how my appreciation isn’t just a sentiment. For all that he has done––taking me out of the forest, keeping me safe, watching over me while I’ve been unconscious, a simple thanks isn’t good enough. I let down my mental block and show him what I can’t explain in the simple, mundane words.

  His movement is so fluid, from him searching my eyes to enveloping me in his arms tightly, I don’t have time to respond, other than to be in his arms and let go. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him just as tight as he is. “Thank you Xander.”

  I feel him nod against my shoulder and squeeze me tighter as my eyes drift closed, releasing the tears from my eyes again.

  The door opens suddenly, taking both of us off guard. Pulling back from each other, I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and look over at the opening door. It’s Monica.

  “Hey,” she says looking between both of us before settling on me.

  “Hey.”

  Xander rises from the bed and puts more distance between us as she asks, “Are you up for seeing some familiar faces?”

  I glance at Xander. He smiles lightly at me and tucks his hands into his pockets, waiting for my response. I look back at Monica and nod. “Yeah, just give me a second.”

  She gives Xander a quick look. “Okay, see you both in the briefing room.”

  As soon as Monica closes the door, Xander walks over to a chest of drawers and palms the counter top. “Yesterday, Nick threatened to blow the hinges off the door if I didn’t let Elicia bring in some clothes for you, so there are a few things in here for you.”

  I get up off the bed and walk toward him as he opens the top drawer––black cargo pants, black shirt tank top, army green long sleeve. Imagining Nick’s raging, yet comical, threats makes me smile a little. Xander walks away, opens the door. On the other side of the doorway, his hand lingers on the knob before he looks up at me. “I’ll wait for you.”

  The painstaking look in his eyes doesn’t reflect a simple I’ll wait for you to finish dressing. It has more meaning since what has happened. “Okay.”

  Standing at the edge of the bed, I put the final piece of clothing on, the long sleeve. Before I move away from the spot and head to the door, I think of Nate and Ezra being here in a lucid dream moments ago.

  Nate’s words, the one’s he used to say back in Florida, are at the forefront of my mind.

  “No nightmares.”

  Back in florida, he’d come into my room just before dawn every morning and lay with me. He’d tell me those words like a mantra to keep them away.

  I close my eyes and seek out the infinitesimal remains of his essence that lingers in the room. I need to fill an emptiness that I never thought I would have to endure when it came to Nate. My throat constricts as my sorrow threatens to release again. I clear it away with the dryness on my throat before stalking, putting physical distance between me and the memory of him, since the mental isn’t going to happen.

  Opening the door quickly, I notice Xander waiting on the other side just as he promised. I make sure my mental wall is up before I look at him. Shutting the door firmly behind me, just as I’m shutting him out of my head, especially now with my thoughts of Nate, I look up at him. “You ready?

  Leaning against the wall casually with his arms folded over his chest, his eyebrows raise curiously. “You tell me. You okay?”

  I brush off his question, not wanting him to probe where my concern lies right now. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  I look down the hall and point before glancing at Xander, still leaning against the wall. “This way?”

  Xander shakes his head, pushes off the wall and starts walking down the hall without responding to me. While I’m glad he doesn’t interrogate me any further, something makes me consider that he’s figured out what’s bothering me even with my block up. Catching up to his long strides, I suck up my pride and try to smooth things over, “Sorry for being so short. There’s just a lot—”

  Xander cuts me off. “Yeah, I get it Jesca. We both have a lot on our minds right now.”

  I slow down a little, feeling the resentment radiating off him now that he seems to know where my thoughts lie––with Nate.

  Without looking back at me, he says, “You more than me I guess.”

  CHAPTER 2: LINK RULES

  Xander

  Jesca keeps my quick pace. I want to look over at her, but I don’t. If I do, I may wind up telling her everything weighing on me right now. She doesn’t deserve me taking the way I feel right now out on her.

  I hear her speaking, making an excuse for who she has weighing on her mind. God, I can’t help but be jealous of how he’s made her feel. Would she feel this empty if it were me in his place? I can’t help but wonder.

  “It’s all right. We both have a lot on our minds right now. You more than me I guess.”

  Yeah, I had to give a dig about what she was just thinking in there while she dressed. I can’t help but be jealous that she was thinking about him. Yeah, she tried to block me from getting in her head, but I’ve seemed to have become immune to her blocking me since Ezra and Nate disappeared.

  Right now, she’s damning me for being a dick and damning herself for not being able to block me from her thoughts about Nate. If she stopped being pissed at me for just a second, she could see that my thoughts aren’t far off from hers as the last few days continue to assault me.

  It had been a day and a half and Jesca was still out. I yelled at Monica, accusing her of over-dosing her with the sedative. I know I sounded like a fucking lunatic while I barricaded Jes and me in that room. The insanity finally broke when I heard Nate.

  ***

  I lean my head against my closed fist and stare at Jes’ body, watching her chest rise and fall. I’ve watched her non-stop since getting here, but I’m supposed to––I made promise to him and myself. I close my eyes for a split second from the exhaustion t
aking hold and as my body jolts awake, I hear his voice.

  “Xander.”

  The room is dark, but I can make out the outline of a figure standing at the door. Even more, I can feel his presence just as I had every time he was near. Yeah, it was jealousy and bitterness at first, but now it’s just him––Nate. It can’t be him though. He and Ezra are gone.

  “Yes we are, but still close enough for our link to work.”

  I clear my throat. Hearing the audible sound makes this strange dreamlike encounter real all of a sudden. “Is this—”

  Finishing my sentence, Nate says, “A vision? Yes.”

  I was going to say real, hoping that the last fourty-eight hours was just a nightmare and I was really waking to Nate in the room with Jes and me. Nate starts toward me, looking at Jes as he moves slowly. He tucks his hands deep into his pants pockets as he breathes out a deep sigh. “No, it’s not real. And, it’s not a nightmare either. I’m learning that nightmares don’t exist––it’s reality showing itself behind the veil of illusions.”

  My throat tightens in response to his prophetic words. He stops at the foot of the bed and looks down at Jes. If he were to talk to her, would she stir awake? Would she be overwhelmed by his presence? Of course she would.

  “She won’t.”

  His response to my thoughts catches me off guard. “Won’t what?”

  He looks from her to me. “She won’t wake. This is just me and you right now. And I want to know why she’s unconscious. You were supposed to protect her.”

  Is he fucking serious! I rise up from my chair, heated by his accusation. “I am protecting her! I keep my fucking promises Nate. I don’t throw myself into a fucking wormhole with Ezra Kahn in some act of martyrdom, which wasn’t fucking necessary! You and Ezra should be here right now! And if you really want to know, we had to sedate her because of the shock of seeing her father and your ass sucked into a wormhole!”

  He looks back down at Jes and folds his arms across his chest. “I thought you’d be happy I was gone cousin?”

  His attempt at finding some kind of sarcastic humor in this situation is disturbing. As I move to where he stands, I don’t let him brush my charge aside. “Jes and I could have held you until the others got to us. We could have fought Sam off you and Ezra, but you didn’t give us a chance, you idiot! Sam would be the only one there right now and you would still be here helping us!”

  Standing at the foot of the bed, Nate and I are face to face, my whole body trembling from anger and fear and the tension of never seeing both him or Ezra every again. “What were you thinking? That you would be some kind of knight in shining armor and throw yourself into the wormhole to protect us? What if we can’t get you and Ezra back? What if you both are stuck there? Wherever the fuck there is!”

  Nate searches my eyes with curiosity, then grins, “I might be mistaken, but I think you miss me.”

  I run my hands through my hair to keep my frustration in check and my hands from taking a swing at him. “Stop dodging the fucking guilt you should be feeling right now.”

  My using his lack of guilt as a playing card doesn’t sit well. “But you have her all to yourself now. It’s perfect, for you.”

  Son of a—I pace away from him. If I took a swing at him, I have no idea if it would make contact with flesh, but it would be worth it right about now. It wouldn’t help anything though, so instead I speak through gritted teeth. “Unfortunately it wouldn’t be perfect because even though I’d rather be as far from you as possible, this fucking link between you and Jes and me––Jes needing her father more than ever––it is all necessary, now more than ever.”

  I turn back to him. “No it’s not perfect, but right now, I’m here for her, filling in the emptiness she has been left with. And, I’ll be the one to help her bring Ezra and your sorry ass back here once we figure out how to get to you!”

  Nate’s jaw tenses as he looks from me down to Jes. He mumbles something as he moves closer to Jes. I don’t quite catch what he says, so I ask, “What?”

  As he looks down at her, taking in the stillness, I have been watching for forty-eight hours now. “I said, she chose you.”

  I can’t help my reluctance to believe what he thinks, especially with seeing Jes being torn apart by his and Ezra’s exit from our world. Nate’s gaze returns to me. “In Tokyo, at the safe house.”

  He pauses, looking away from me. I know he’s talking about finding Jes and me in her room after things got heated between us. The way his eyes burn now when they return to me is evidence that he thinks more happened then really did. “Nate, we didn’t.”

  “I know you didn’t have sex! All right!”

  If this weren’t some kind of lucid dream, everyone would have heard his roar in the facility.

  I didn’t want to push her. Didn’t want to take things too far. She’s a virgin, and more than that, in my eyes she’s not just any typical woman I have slept with––and I have slept with many. She deserved more than reckless intimacy. I didn’t want her first time to be a reckless intimacy. She deserved so much more. Hell, she deserved more than me and maybe that’s the reason I slowed things down. I won’t lie, I couldn’t not touch her, feel her, want her.

  Nate grits his teeth, seething now. “Could you do me the courtesy of not thinking so freely right now?

  Nate saw her and me standing there together in her doorway, but with the way he’s reading me right now, I can see he saw more through our link than just the sight of us. What Nate doesn’t know is that I have seen into her feelings just as he has seen into Jes and mine.

  When I told Nate that I needed a moment to say goodbye to Jes before I left her that night, it wasn’t entirely to piss him off. A part of me was afraid it might be the last time I saw her. Yeah, I told her I loved her and I meant it. And even though she didn’t say it back, I hoped my confession would set her off guard, giving me a glimpse of who her had her heart––Nate or me. It’s petty and juvenile, but love can only guess that my feelings for her have brought this childish shit out in me.

  The feelings she had for me were driven by a fear and that emotion wasn’t present after Nate and Ezra disappeared into that wormhole. The fear of loss she had for me was swiftly replaced by an unmistakable sorrow of the loss. And as I carried her back in my arms, the sedative did the rest of the work as far as releasing her emotions and thoughts––they were for Nate.

  I shake my head, denying what he thinks is true. “She chose me in that moment, Nate. When she thought she would never see me again. It was fear that drove her into my arms. The loss of her father––you––that’s where her heart is.”

  I look down at Jes again. “It was pity, Nate.”

  Bringing that feeling back up again after pushing it down makes it hard to look at her I turn away from both of them as Nate’s voice follows me. “It’s the physical link between her and me that drives her loss. Just like yours and mine. That’s why you feel the loss of missing me, while you hate my fucking guts right now.”

  I shake my head and turn to him. He can’t deny his feelings over this link. “You love her though.”

  He looks down at the floor and breathes deeply. “Xander—”

  I don’t want to hear his excuses, and I know that’s what he has coming. “That love isn’t the link. You may think you’re fooling yourself telling me that this link rules all, but it doesn’t.”

  Nate eyes narrow on me as he stalks around the bed to stand eye to eye with me. “Yes, you’re right. It doesn’t rule all. But sometimes the rules just might save someone and that’s the sacrifice a partner makes! When I made the choice to let go and fall into the wormhole, I did it to protect both of you, not just Jes. Xander, I’m trying to do the right thing by you too. You’re my blood for fuck’s sake.”

  I can’t fathom how someone who was a total stranger days ago has suddenly found it in him to try to save me
. “You protect me?”

  I laugh a little at his pious, goody-goody representation of chivalry, “Sorry, but that’s hard to believe.”

  Nate’s shakes his head. “Why? We’re linked and you’re my cousin. Even if I think you’re a total dick that means something to me. Why is it so hard for you to believe that you’re worthy of someone wanting to watch out for you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because of the bastard you took into that wormhole with you!”

  My bringing up Sam seems to wake him to the fact that I can’t find it in me to trust anyone anymore. I see this concerned look in his eyes and I quickly change the subject, not wanting to start talking about our fucking feelings again. Being hulled up with Jes hasn’t dulled my senses and keeping my eyes and ears open the few times I’ve left her room, I know things are changing out there. As I sit back down in the chair, I look up at the ceiling. “Since the intersection, things are changing. I hear them talking about it. I sense it in my bones, like lightning ready to strike. We need you back here.”

  Looking from the ceiling to him now, I ask desperately, “Where the hell are you Nate? How can we get to you?”

  “With you and Jes being linked to me, it will be easier for you to find us. And with Balthazar and Sebastian’s help, you’ll figure it out.”

  He suddenly turns and walks toward the door.

  I try to rise from the chair, but I’m unable to––paralyzed in place. “Nate.”

  Opening the door, he turns back to me and says, “Sleep paralysis is a bitch, isn’t it? See you soon.”

  The lack of sensation, the feeling of leaden limbs, immobile and frozen is scary as hell. The panic is unmistakable as my breath comes faster. I pinch my eyes closed and focus on pushing against the resistance that has my body trapped in this chair. Suddenly, the trap snaps and I lunge to my feet with such force, I have to stop myself from colliding with the edge of the bed.