by D. Fischer
I open my legs a fraction wider, gesturing acceptance. I want this—I need this. I bite my bottom lip.
He stills his movements before dipping his hips and pressing his tip against my folds. Pausing, he waits for me to object. I open my legs just a little more, and brush my bottom lip against his chin, a kiss on his jaw, and lastly, a nibble on the dip above his collarbone.
Pressure, wondrous pressure, parts my folds as he slides in. My walls stretch and flex, letting him fully sheathe, as if my body knows he belongs just as my heart does, subconscious be damned. He belongs in the chambers of that once broken and lifeless heart.
My head rests against the bark. My back arches, my breasts press against his chest, and a soft sigh escapes my open mouth. He lowers his head, running his lips against my jaw bone before pulling back and sliding in. I gasp, every sensation felt. His breath fans my neck as his nose nudges the crook.
He pulls back out and slides back in. My fingers grip his hoody, fumbling for skin. He lifts himself up and removes it, tousling his hair in a new array as it slides over his head. My eyes greedily run over his body and land over the inch-sized slice marring the skin on his chest, just over where his heart is. It’s edges jagged, rough. Foreign. It’s exactly what I saw in the E.R. room. It still looks so fresh, unhealed, but no blood seeps from the wound. I feel my subconscious gain ground—that this isn’t possible. I run my fingers over it, recognizing it for what it is.
My eyes lift to his, questioning, my brain at war with my heart. Is he alive? Am I alive? Is this just a dream?
His eyes close slowly, a silent gesture that he’s well. He grabs my hand from skimming his wound and brings it to his lips, watching me as he places a gentle, sensual kiss to the palm. Lowering himself over my body once more, those same lips capture mine.
He continues his pumps, and a soft moan rumbles up my throat and out my mouth, fanning his and my face. His nose brushes against mine, an affectionate touch.
The heat builds and tugs, slowly at first. My back arches against the bark. My stomach presses against his. He lowers his face and breathes on my neck. His inhales and exhales long, tickling my ears, the evidence of his own pleasure matching that of my own.
He lifts my shirt, our skin brushing against each other as he rocks to the rhythm of my heart. A soft moan vibrates his chest, tickling my peaks. I capture it with my mouth, savoring the moment, the flavor, taking his pleasure and adding it to my own.
The heat in my lower abdomen raises—a pressure now confined in a bubble that threatens to burst.
He shifts his body and his teeth graze my shoulder. My pants harsh, the stroke of teeth sending me over the edge, and the bubble bursts.
My legs quiver and wrap around his hips. He rides my waves of pleasure, my walls clamping around his shaft in mild strokes. He groans, his lips replacing his teeth, easing the slight ache. Two quick pumps and he stills his movements. Small, breathy grunts skim my skin, swirling around my nose, tickling my taste buds.
Leaning his head against mine, he waits for the pleasure to subside. I run my fingers over his back, feeling the ripple of muscle, the dip of his hips, the curve of his shoulder blades. He shivers under my touch.
But I can still see through him.
“What is this?” I whisper.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard me.
“What are you?” I ask a little louder.
He waits for a few beats of my heart before he answers, “I’m here with you, that’s all that matters.”
I shift under his weight and he pulls his forehead back from mine, locking eyes.
“But you’re dead. I called your time of death,” I whisper, getting lost in those baby blue traps.
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers tracing the rim. “I am,” he mumbles.
“Eliza,” I introduce myself.
Sorrow takes over his features, his lids lower and his eyebrows knit together. “I know,” he mumbles.
“How do you—” I begin to ask before I feel the pulling sensation. “No. No. NO. I’m not ready to leave.”
Pain crosses his face. My time is over here. He doesn’t want me to leave any more than I do.
I panic. “How do I stay?”
He searches my eyes with his grief-stricken ones before lowering his head, placing a kiss on my lips. The kiss is full of everything he doesn’t, can’t, or won’t say. It’s soft, but firm, sinking from the skin to the bottom of my toes. My heart fills one last time . . . and I’m gone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
KATRIANE DUPONT
MYLA’S PAST
“So, this is what’s considered ‘fun’ in the 1600s?” I ask, planting my dress-covered rump on a chair inside the tavern.
Everything is wood—from the posts supporting the ceiling to the walls. No décor, besides the occasional cobweb littering the beams, no special touches besides the notches along the table—made from knives, no doubt. A few rooms are off to the side, and my imagination runs wild with what’s happening behind those doors. This isn’t a time period where sex isn’t discussed.
“Keep your voice down or someone will hear you,” Corbin mumbles.
I grab my ale placed on the table before me and take a sip. My mouth splutters with the unexpected sour brew. I set it back down, eyeing it with disgust. “Maybe if they hang me I’ll return to my time, in my own body.”
He glares at me, showing a true emotion, not masked with intimidation. “No. If you die you will travel to the Death Realm, and your body back in your time will die.”
I blink at him. “Lovely,” I mumble. I pick up my ale and before I take another sip, I stop myself, setting it back on the table.
“You don’t like it?” he asks with humor, eyeing my drink.
“It’s disgusting. I’m surprised you’re all still alive after drinking that stuff. I’m almost positive it’s piss.”
He smirks and takes a sip of his own. “Women aren’t allowed to speak like that here. I must say, it’s refreshing.”
I humph and glance around the bar. Men sing off in a corner, a celebration of the dead witch, no doubt. A man holding the hand of a giggling woman head into one of the rooms.
“See something you like?” Corbin asks, returning my focus back to him.
“Hardly,” I reply with a sneer.
He leans closer to me, his scent swirling around the space and clogging my thoughts for a moment. My coherent subconscious screams at me to lean away, but I hold my ground. I won’t let his natural charm deter me. He’s a relative for goodness sakes.
Corbin smirks, clearly privy to my inner turmoil. “Are you positive?”
My jaw ticks and my hands clasped in my lap tighten around each other. “Your wife is dead,” I remind him through clenched teeth. “You’re my relative.”
He leans away, resting his back against the wooden chair. “So you keep telling me.”
“Have you no soul?” I growl.
Blinking innocently, he replies with a simple answer that sends goosebumps across my arms, “No.”
A wave of lust hits me square in the chest. It frightens and disgusts me at the same time. My attraction to him is undeniable, and frankly, misplaced. It’s as if my body is being manipulated, heating my core with desire. “Stop it,” I snarl.
He grins, his sparkling teeth cause my eyes to shift to them. I watch his lips slide over their surface, mesmerized as he speaks one word, “No.”
A shiver runs up my spine and my fingers pinch themselves harder. My muscles grow ridged as I fight the unnatural lust. He’s doing this. He’s just like his creations – manipulating with promises not meant to be kept, and a level of intimidation reserved for superiors. Maybe I frighten him, so he feels the need gain the ground.
“Is this how you won your wife over?” I mutter, my eyes on his plump lips.
They part, beginning to form words, before he’s distracted by a scream just outside. The patrons of the bar don’t hear it, but
it’s just enough to distract him and give me a breather.
I take a deep breath before turning my attention to the scream. “What was that?”
He looks back at me, picks up his drink distractedly, and takes a sip. “Most likely nothing.”
My eyes narrow at him, the heartless ass, and I slide my chair back, standing. I intend to show him what compassion looks like as I march toward the door to the outside world.
“Kat, wait,” he begins, before I hear the scrape of his chair being slid back.
I move faster and exit the door. The chill of the night briefly bites my skin as I look left to right. The circle of the town is abandoned, the citizens either intoxicated beyond repair, or tucked safely in their beds, as if taking a life has set this town at ease.
The scream echoes louder out here, off to my right. My head whips in that direction and my feet begin to move. I lift my heavy dress slightly, giving my feet more room to take wider steps.
Rounding the corner of the tavern, I come face to face with the source of the scream. A man has a plump, scarcely dressed woman pressed against the wall. His hands roam her body as she struggles, his face in the crook of her neck.
“Hey!” I shout, taking a few steps forward. “Leave her be!”
He doesn’t listen to me and my anger skyrockets. My hatred for the man roars through my body, adrenaline causing my thoughts to focus on bad choices. I place my hand on his shoulder and pull him off her.
He staggers, clearly intoxicated, before his wandering eyes find mine. They widen in fear, and for a moment I ponder why that might be until I notice the glow from my eyes lighting his skin in a pale orange color.
“Witch!” he yells, staggering back a few steps. “Witch!”
ELIZA PLAATS
EARTH REALM
What is this? Am I going insane? Am I sick?
The windshield wipers briefly cross my view as they slide the water from one end to the other. The rain is heavy, pounding the pavement and flowing into ditches.
I’m late for my evening shift, spending most of my day pacing my floor. I’m going insane. I had sex in a dream, waking with the evidence of it in my underwear. This can’t be real. That can’t be real. He can’t be real.
Can he?
No. He’s dead, my subconscious growls.
I come to a stop just before the one-lane bridge. My wipers work frantically to keep up with the downpour. The tropical storm has been going on for days now, with no end in sight. I squint my eyes, checking for oncoming traffic, but it’s nearly impossible. I chance it, my mind consumed with my thoughts of the dead man who holds my heart. The man who can’t possibly be real. I drive forward, pressing my foot on the gas and continuing my way to work.
Lights on my driver-side window blind my eyes. My head spins to the side. A gasp doesn’t have time to leave my lungs before the lights connect with my car, a crunch so loud to my ears that they ring.
Metal scrapes against metal.
Windows break.
Glass flies.
My head whips to the side.
Pain shoots down my neck.
Hair blocks my vision.
I briefly hear a crunch to the other side of my car before I feel it topple over the bridge. Grabbing my steering wheel, the glassless windshield my only view, I watch in slow motion as glass and the contents of my car float around the open space. The shades of brown, dead leaves and the train tracks come into my view as I draw nearer to the ground.
Slow sounds, slow motions, my car’s roof crunches into the metal of the tracks. My head bangs against the roof from the force of impact. I hear a crack inside me, a brief moment of pain, before my legs tingle and go numb.
Blackness comes and goes. I groan but I can’t hear it.
Another set of lights shine through my car and I glance at it from the corner of my eye, suspended upside down, held prisoner by my seatbelt. I try to tilt my head, but it doesn’t move—like it doesn’t belong to my body, as if it isn’t under the control of my brain.
A train’s horn reaches my near-deaf ears and my eyes grow wide. My brain instructs my fingers to unclick my seatbelt—to flee—but my hands dangle. My fingers brush against the roof of the car, the life gone from them.
Heart thudding in an odd rhythm, fear spiking through my bloodstream, the train continues forward. Time speeds up and then slows down when my fearful eyes flick to a figure off to the side.
He is standing there, a few feet from my car. My Aiden. The keeper of my heart.
His hands are in his pockets, his hood pulled over his head, and he watches me, frozen in place. I see a tear drop from his chin and mix with the rain. I want to plead with him, to ask him to save me, but the words refuse to leave my mouth. All that passes my lips are gargled noises, blood foaming at the sides and dribbling up my cheek.
The train’s horn sounds once more, and I glance again at the lights. I gasp, squeeze my eyes shut, and the train hits.
*****
I float through the floor of my car, my body flying and soaring above it. The wheels still spin, the bottom of the car smoking in its crumpled heap.
The rain pounds the ground, the surface of everything it touches, except for me. I glance at my hands as my feet settle on the wet leaves. They’re see-through. I stare at them in wonder before my eyes lift to him, to my Aiden.
I am what he is. Dead.
He lowers the hood off his head, one hand still in his pocket. Behind him, our tree, our log. Our spot.
My heart doesn’t beat but something else fills the place as I get lost in his blue eyes. He holds out his hand.
“You came for me,” I whisper.
He dips his head. He blinks. Tears stream down his face. “I came for you.”
I take a step forward.
He’s a ghost. I’m a ghost.
Another step closer. He came for me. For me.
Another step and I grab his outstretched hand.
He looks down at me, a small, sad smile breaking the corners of his mouth. Reality sets in, and glance once more at the wreckage.
“Why did you come for me?” I whisper.
He’s silent for a moment, his voice rumbling behind me, thick from unshed tears. “I didn’t—I- I was sent for you.”
Taking the first step toward the tree line, he squeezes my hand once. I tear my eyes from my lifeless body and glance back up at him. He leans in, brushes my cheek with the pad of his thumb, and kisses my lips.
“Come on,” he murmurs.
I follow him. My love. The keeper of my heart. My feet no longer crunch the leaves and twigs. The raindrops don’t pound my skin, soak my clothes.
My ghost, my shade, one step behind him . . . we fade.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TEMBER
EARTH REALM
Corbin arrives in a blink. One moment there’s nothing there, the next, he’s standing before us. A toothy grin spreads across his face and his eyes hold anything but a welcome expression.
“You beckoned?” he asks taking a bow.
Erline growls, “Stand up, you fool.”
If it were possible, I’d imagine his grin would spread wider.
Corbin rights himself and glances around the room. “Ahh, the home of my wife.” His eyes land on Erline, his smile disappears, and malice replaces it as he stares her down. “The wife you failed to mention returned to a body.”
Erline’s fingers ball into fists, losing her facade of relaxation. “She isn’t your wife anymore. The union broke at death.”
His lips thin and he takes a step forward. “We’ll see about that.”
“Enough!” Erma yells. Our attention turns to her.
She quickly tells the tale of our current predicament. Corbin’s face remains blank, impassive, as he listens.
When she finishes, his head slowly turns to me. Once again, the blame falls on my shoulders. “This is your doing,” he growls. The blank expression frightens me.
Corbin is a powerful Fee, almost more so t
han Erma and Erline. His specialty is fear and manipulation, creating creatures that enforce it. The more innocent the victim, the better they succeed, the more they feed. It is what sustains them.
Though that fear tenses my muscles, I ignore it, standing from the couch with ease and look him straight in the eye. “What’s done is done. How do we fix it?”
He cocks his head to the side. “I have memories that have been resurfacing. Some new, some old. Kat is indeed in the sixteenth century, living inside my home.”
Erma takes a step forward, her eyebrows dipping. “You’re just now telling us this?”
Corbin shrugs as if it means nothing to him. “I owe you nothing.”
“How do we fix it?” I repeat before anything else can be said.
“It’s simple,” he says, cocking his head to the side while a handsome, charming smile lifts his cheeks. “I believe it’s time to pay a visit to Sureen.” He rocks on the back of his heels, glee making him giddy. “Who wishes to provide transportation for our little rescue adventure?”
DYSON COLEMAN
THE TWEEN
Reaper’s Breath returns me to visibility. I shake my head, swallowing back every emotion that’s threatening to consume me while desperately trying to revise my plan, inserting the witch into the fold. At some point, I’ll need to hold a two-sided conversation with her. I’ll grovel if I must. Millions of shades depend on the usurp of Kheelan, including the woman that just passed me by.
When I hear quiet chatting my eyelids fly open, my head swiveling in the direction the noise comes from, worried it’s another reaper.
Aiden holds the hand of a female, Eliza. She whispers questions to him as they leisurely stroll through the lifeless forest. I watch her and the habit of picking up her feet to avoid the fallen branches, whereas Aiden has already caught on, letting his transparent body pass right through the wood.
