It felt like a dream to be running, because I could not feel the cold or hear the night animals stirring, there was just a numbness and light emanating from my skin. The light illuminated the black woods before me until I got to the cabin. I touched ground for the first time since I fled at the foot of the stair case to my home. It was soft and wet from the dew that formed on the grass. I knew morning was not far away.
A few hours ago I was destined to be burned at the stake in front of a town hungry to watch a witch burn and now I was standing in front of my old home. The house was still and seemed untouched by the elements. I thought that in the years it had been left unattended that surely vines would cover its face but it was as clean as the day we left it. A light glowed from my room and I was hesitant to enter because of it but my skin began to tingle with the cold so I had to if I wanted to stay warm. The door was locked and I thought about the key which I kept back in the town. I wished I had it to get the door open.
“Open the door” A hollow whisper came.
Open the door, it echoed in my mind again and this time my hands listened. I jiggled the knob and pushed the door in. A blast of cold angry howling wind assaulted me as the door opened and I was nearly knocked to the ground. My eyes were forced shut and I anchored myself to the door to survive the attack. It subsided quickly and when I opened my lids again the house was fully lit with thick candles. I wasn’t sure what was keeping me from being terrified by the things that were happening.
From my bedroom I could see more than just the flickering of candlelight framing the edges of the door frame. A dark fog was creeping out from under the door. I started back towards the front door, determined to get as far away from the black smoke as possible. But as I got to the door it slammed shut and the fog took the form of man before me. He was not yet fully a man, not with face or skin, just the shadow of a man a lot taller than I was. Finally my slumbering fear awoke and it teemed within me.
My core was shaking from the pounding of my heart and although I wanted to run, I was suddenly void of the ability to move. The smoke kept swirling in the masculine silhouette until finally a form more recognizable appeared and there was a man bare from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet standing before me. His skin was dark like the Indians that lived in the town and he had long black hair that cascaded down his back. I wanted to shy my face away to avert his piercing eyes that were a little deeper than the color gold but shinning just as brightly.
I must be dreaming, I thought to myself but his presence was as real as my own. What manner of sorcery is this? I inquired of my mind and before I could formulate a response he opened his mouth.
“I am Caleb from the world of your mother and sisters. Fear me not!” His voice was soft, angelic and trusting.
For reasons I could not yet explain to myself, I trusted his words instantly. The fear fled from me like the birds just before winter. There was a warm glow emanating from him that my skin opened her many mouths to draw in.
“Why are you here Caleb?” I asked as the glow settled in places hidden within my core that I never knew existed before until now.
His kind eyes smiled at me and took my hand into his. Instantly my mind filled with the image of the world he came from. I saw the woman Anna Belle, alive and whole but with the scars of her severing visible on her skin. She was calling out to me by my name and kept repeating the same words over and over.
“Abigail you are the only one that can save the town” is what she kept saying.
The vision faded and when I woke again I was pressed against Caleb’s naked flesh. I remembered Marcus and felt so perplexed about being in Caleb’s presence. But I could not deny the compelling force that kept pushing me to accept him. Why Anna Belle and what did she mean? Why does that wretched town need saving? I asked myself.
“I’ll explain it all to you in due course Abigail but first you must be awakened” Caleb said answering my thoughts. He basically breathed the words into my ear because of the proximity of his lips.
Can he read my mind? I thought, trying not to look him directly in the eyes.
“Yes” he answered and my knees threatened to buckle.
I pulled away the instant I sobered enough to regain control over my limbs. Our hands were still attached. Awakened, I thought, nothing makes sense. Caleb’s body was such a distraction.
“Would you mind putting some clothes on before you awaken me?” I asked him.
I was skeptical about everything that was happening. I needed to focus, to feel a touch of the reality I knew again. Caleb cracked about half of a smile before moving towards my bedroom, dragging me along with him. We got inside and he released my hand. I felt relieved. He threw himself onto my bed and reclined on his side, propping his head with the one hand attached to his resting shoulder and cocking the opposite knee upwards.
It was pose that made me instantly nervous. He had no intentions of easing my discomfort. I kept reminding myself of Marcus and our love as though it were being threatened by this man lying openly on my bed.
“So is this how you choose to stay?” I asked even though all I had to do was think it.
“I am revealed only the way the beholder wishes. If you wanted me to be clothed then I would be” he returned.
He was right. Deep down I must have wanted to see his bulging muscles and deep cuts outlining his perfect form. It was my own mind keeping him the way he was, so I shut my eyes again and wished hard for him to be clothed. When I opened them again, he was.
“What are you?” I pressed him.
“I am your Guardian.”
I laughed a little thinking of the irony in what he said. If he was indeed my guardian, where was he all along? Where was he when Margaret told her lie and got me thrown into prison? I thought loudly for him to know just how peeved I was with what he revealed. His countenance fell slightly and he rose to meet my face.
“I was there all along Abigail, but it was only then, when you were faced with death, you finally listened.” He whispered.
The passion and sincerity in his voice rebuked me and I felt suddenly ashamed of having accused him of not being there for me. Marcus, I said. It was all I could do to stop the compelling force drawing me into Caleb’s eyes. There were more questions I wanted to ask him but I chose to end my interrogation for the remainder of the night. Exhaustion was wearing me down. Caleb took my hand, pulling me to lie beside him and I resigned there in his arms for the night.
In the morning Caleb was gone from my side. The only evidence of him being there was the impression he left beside me and his lingering scent of fresh rain. Was it all a dream? I wondered. But I was here at home so the escape was real. The candles were gone and the room was as I left it years before. In the kitchen something stirred, pots and pans were knocking and the freshness of eggs frying crept in the room. I sprang to my feet to investigate and there Caleb was making me breakfast. I did not know where he got the eggs from and I did not care either.
It didn’t take Caleb long to prove to me that he had more powers than just ability to read my mind, show me glimpses of his world and turn into a puff of smoke whenever he wanted. I barely got through the delicious eggs he prepared for us even though he didn’t take a bite of it, when held my hand and showed me what happened in the town after they discovered I escaped. Margaret was successful in convincing the town that my disappearance was the proof they needed that I was indeed a witch.
Marcus renounced his priesthood and was intent on finding me, so we could be reunited once more. I was beginning to think that what he showed me was not so bad, since I missed Marcus terribly and I wanted nothing more than for him to find me. I never wanted to return to that awful town or face the true witch in every sense of the word. The vision kept playing out and I was growing weary of just seeing that wicked nun. I pulled my arm away to stop the flow of Caleb’s thought stream and the visions ceased.
“You have to know what is to come!” he cautioned me, reaching out to take my hand again
.
“Then why don’t you just tell me?” I chided him.
I hated the whole drawn out mysterious way he chose to communicate with me. He smiled and started to play with the eggs on his plate.
“What’s with all the mystery? Huh? What am I and why do I need to be awakened?” I spat at him without reserve.
I couldn’t decide which incensed me more, if it was the fact that he wasn’t giving me answers fast enough or that I was struggling to get past the distraction of his long black hair falling like rain, his eyes that shone like gold, his stunning body and smile that made me suddenly feel light or worse the fact that he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“You don’t have to let me in, if you don’t want to.” He offered catching me off guard.
Then I realized just as easily as I could keep him clothed, I could take away his ability to read my mind and like that I shut him out.
“If I am so much in control of what you can do, then you’re just a figment of my imagination.” I said to him.
He looked up at me, smiling only with his eyes. He looked slightly sinister.
“Well if that were true then you could stop me from doing this”
And with that he rose and took my lips into his, kissing me so passionately, I felt drugged. I would have gone with him wherever he chose to take me but he ended it at just a kiss. I swallowed deeply and looked at him in shock. I could still feel his kiss lingering on my lips. He set back on the chair and looked at me intently.
“How real did that feel?” He asked smugly.
I was glad that he could no longer hear my thoughts because all they kept saying were more. I wanted more than just his kiss. I wanted his hands too, caressing my breasts just as sweetly as his lips did mine.
“Okay we need to set some boundaries. You don’t get to do that!”
“Kiss you?”
“Yes”
“Why?”
“You know why!” I said wryly.
With that he did not offer another word. He knew he had read Marcus in my thoughts and what he caused to stir in me was a betrayal. I wondered about the world he came from, my world, the one he showed me and if they suffered the same convictions humans felt. Is it that when I become awakened that I would no longer feel as remorseful about the kiss as I do now? I was eager to know of my world and of my destiny.
We did not say much to each other for the rest of the day. I assumed that my earlier rebuke hurt him and he did not know just how to respond to it. Caleb kept watching me though, studying my every move as I cleaned the house and searched through my father’s books to figure things out on my own. He vanished about midday for about an hour or so, giving me time to read the diary my father kept in his drawer.
The first few pages contained just a few notes about his life, loneliness and his longings. I was about to toss it aside when I came across a few pages stuck together and folded. My father’s scribbled handwriting was far from perfect but legible enough for me to recognize the first few lines on the page.
26 April 1692
“I found the missing baby in the woods. It just had to be. This cold crying babe was covered in blood. She was the child cut out of the womb…”
It was all I read before my hands felt strained and the book slipped out, crashing to the floor with a loud thud that reverberated throughout the house. This was insanity. It could not possibly be true. Anna Belle died two years before I was born.
How could I be the child they never found?
Caleb was at my side the instant the book fell and he caught me before I did the same. I saw the guilt in his eyes and it hit me that this is why he wanted me to keep watching the vision. Anna Belle was trying to tell me that I was her baby. It would explain why she was in my world.
How could my father keep something like this from me?
The magnitude of his lie made me sick. I shook in Caleb’s arms and I felt anger as hot as lava boiling under my skin.
“Abigail, you need to calm down!” Caleb said trying to sound as soothing as possible. I buried my face into his suddenly bare chest and the moisture from my eyes made his skin slippery. His warmth was taking over me as we embraced and I was treading dangerously close to betraying Marcus. The truth is I was missing Marcus terribly. We had been separated for far too long and I wanted him to be holding me the way Caleb was.
“Would you tell me everything Caleb and not show me a vision? I just want to hear the truth from your lips.” I implored him.
He started without hesitation and I came to know everything at once. I was indeed the daughter of Anna Belle Walcott. My mother died because Patricia refused to be the vessel for the demon that haunted her to come into the world and steal my soul. She did not anger Patricia Lark as everybody thought. It was the demon that drove Patricia mad and she killed my mother to protect me.
Caleb cheated a little and pressed his fingers into my palm and showed me my mother and Patricia in the next world. Patricia hid me in the woods, coating me with the blood of a deer she had spelled to keep the demon from seeing me. That’s how my father found me while hunting. She had visited my father and told him never to reveal who or what I was until the time was right for my awakening.
I felt the sickness that was turning the contents of my stomach begin to abate and I was remised about my earlier reaction to part of the truth. The momentary hatred I felt for my father passed and I knew that he did the best thing he could for me. There was more that Caleb was not telling me, I saw the hesitation in his eyes. He knew just how to touch me to reveal only what he wanted me to hear at that time.
Later that day, Caleb led me up to the attic and into a room I never knew existed. It was veiled just as he was and I needed only to look deeper to remove the cloak that kept it hidden. I discovered the book of spells that all witches possessed. I saw glimpses of the grim future the world could face of I failed to be awakened. The dark was coming for me and it was up to Caleb to prepare me for the battle of my life.
The harvest moon was just a few weeks away, limiting the amount of time Caleb and I could spend with each other. The days were passing quickly and even though I knew Marcus was getting closer and closer to finding me, I found that I longed less for our reunion. I felt at home with Caleb. I wasn’t afraid of being judged. He taught me how to harness my gifts and I learned that it was possible for me to move mountains. Caleb was making less of an effort to conceal his desire for me. It pained him to keep his distance when he wanted to desperately to take our embraces a step further.
I caught Caleb of guard one morning as he slept. I weaved my fingers into his and pressed hard enough for him to show me all that he was hiding. I saw my Marcus a few days from now standing at my doorstep, his eyes beaming with relief that I was safe. It took him long to find me because Caleb was keeping my location veiled with a spell he conjured the moment I let him kiss me.
We embraced and I felt the stirrings that made me fall madly in love with him sweeping through me. He took my lips into his and kissed me ardently. I wilted from the sheer intensity. Marcus was full of passion and his passion filled me. We were overcome by the pent up yearning we had for each other and desperate to soothe the ache. He barely made it past the door and already I was nearly nude and clawing at him like a wild cat. Pressed against the wall, he parted my legs and wrapped them around his waist. I was arching my back and grinding my inner flesh against his pelvis as he teased my nipples to erection.
The vision was so intense and felt so real that beads of sweat formed over my brow and I was aflame with desire. Hands reached up and cupped my aching mounds and soft full lips embraced mine. Marcus’s kiss had suddenly changed. His taste and touch were more intense, reaching deeper than they ever did before. I felt his spirit moving inside me. I surrendered, begging him to take me.
“I love you.” He confessed.
I snapped instantly out of the vision to find myself pinned under Caleb’s wanting flesh. His eyes were burning, not with lust but love.
; “Caleb, please…”
His orbs pleaded with me to let him in and I would have if not for the rebuking guilt that filled me once I realized what I had let happen. Caleb pulled away from me before I could catch sight of the tears escaping and covering his cheeks. He sat at the edge of the bed and held his face in his palms. His naked back revealed all this tempting arches and I fought to suppress the ache betwixt my thighs. I reached out to comfort him and he jerked away from my touch.
“Why do you insist on loving this man?” he snapped.
He was on his feet before I could respond. I was offended and moved at the same time. I knew he knew Marcus from my thoughts and perhaps from observing our encounters. I owed it to him to listen. Caleb knew things about the future that I didn’t.
The Ultimate Erotic Short Story Collection 29 - Paranormal Edition: 11 Steamingly Hot Erotica Books for Women Page 6
