Darkly Divine: A Paranormal Enemies to Lovers Romance

by C L Walker

  I grabbed a large book off the wooden shelf and dusted it off before I sat down on the moth-eaten couch that was placed below a small window that offered a decent stream of light.

  I flipped through the pages quickly as I scanned them for key words.

  I needed to get to the bottom of what had happened between Skylar and me so that I would know how to properly work against it.

  Demons or ‘vampires’ such as me didn’t typically get special abilities beyond physical strength and the occasional power of persuasion. But once in a blood moon it happened, my own Great Grandma was a seer.

  “Foresight, persuasion–blah–not important.” I continued to flip the pages. “Ah ha, telepathy!”

  I leaned back and brought the book closer because the print was so small.

  What the hell?

  It didn’t say anything about special circumstances for those who were not born with the gift of telepathy or empathy. Meaning we didn’t get abilities after birth.

  Except me! With one damn girl!

  I slammed the book shut and headed upstairs to grab my phone.

  Just because I was a demon it didn’t mean that I didn’t need my mom, so I clicked on my contacts but froze when my finger hovered above hers.

  What if I don’t like what she has to say?

  I put my phone in my pocket and decided that I needed to test a few things out before I got my mom involved, especially when she was so perceptive it was frightening.

  I pushed it out of my mind after reminding myself that it wasn’t anything to worry about. There had to be a logical explanation and I would discover it in due time.

  Everything was great until I fell asleep and dreamt about her again as I had been doing since I was a child. But that night it was different.

  The little girl that I used to chase in my dreams faded away and in her place was a siren of the night. She had hung from a crescent moon that was inside Earth rather than outside of it. Her hair had glowed like strands of white gold as she hung upside down and reached her arms out to me. She had laughed wickedly as I reached towards the sky with longing. I couldn’t reach her, and she seemed to find my struggles amusing.

  As I got ready for school the next morning, I struggled to push visions of her shining in the moonlight out of my head.

  Once I got to school my well thought out plan of testing things to find the truth fell apart unceremoniously. The reason being that the very sight of her that morning when she came to school with wet hair and dark eyes that spoke of her restless night put me on edge.

  I had convinced myself eight years ago that she had told the truth and that I wasn’t wrong in not telling anyone about what had happened that night. But there was something about her that morning that suddenly made me second guess myself.

  It was in the way she looked at those around her and the way she walked as if she operated with a certain degree of hesitation. It was in the way she stood as I watched her, with Sai and a few other guys but a step back from them. As if she couldn’t bring herself to be a part of the group even though they were trying to engage her.

  She timidly smiled at those who approached her or said hi to her as they passed. I saw it even when she simply tucked her hair behind her ear as she looked out at the world around her. She looked as if she were a voyerist rather than a part of it. As if she were scared to belong and yet desperate to.

  I could see it all in her eyes.

  I grew tired of watching her, it wasn’t like something was going to magically happen and all the answers were going to be laid out before me, so I got up from the table and made my way across the cafeteria.

  They stood in front of the doors, so I had no choice but to walk past her.

  She turned suddenly mid-sentence and looked straight at me even though she shouldn’t have known I was coming since her back had been turned.

  But she felt me, just as I felt her.

  I made sure to shift my eyes so she wouldn’t catch me looking at her and once she glanced at me, she turned her head back quickly and tried to act like she hadn’t noticed.

  The fact that she wanted to pretend I wasn’t there, like I was someone that could go unnoticed by her, made me want to make sure that she did notice. But once again that completely went against what I wanted so I couldn’t understand my lack of logic whenever she was near.

  I was on the verge of bumping into her but right before we would have collided, I thought better of it because I knew it would heighten her emotions and I didn’t want to hear her thoughts. That and I wasn’t ready to touch her again even though I knew I had to. Something about it had felt so strange and yet so right, which struck me as very wrong.

  I flexed my hands as I thought about how I had pinned her against the wall the day before. It was dumb but I hadn’t known then that being so close to her would throw me off kilter. I hadn’t known that I would get the urge to pin her against the wall with her hands above her head and push my body flush against hers.

  But at least I hadn’t done what I wanted to which meant I had a sliver of restraint where she was concerned, and I was going to hold onto it for dear life while I figured out what was going on.

  I smiled as I walked away from her yet again like the fool that I was, thinking that I had it in the bag like I could possibly control what was about to happen between us.

  Four

  Skylar

  I stepped inside the building and peered from side to side to look for Micah, it had become a habit of sorts, to scan the area before proceeding anywhere around the school.

  I was so involved in searching for him that I had forgotten for a moment that other people existed, so when Sai came up behind me and put his arm around my shoulders I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Hey, little miss sunshine,” he said, and he tossed his head back and threw a handful of dry cereal inside his mouth.

  “That’s some breakfast you have there.” I laughed.

  He nodded his head before he tossed back the rest from inside a plastic bag. “My mom would throw a fit if she knew. She had to drive to the airport to pick up my cousin, so she wasn’t there to make me a proper breakfast and well, here I am.”

  “You could always make yourself breakfast you know.” I opened the door for us that led into the main building.

  “Cooking is a woman’s job,” he said smugly, before he looked at me sideways.

  I snorted. “Ha, what the heck? You’re so lucky she didn’t hear you say that.”

  He threw his arms up before he sidestepped my hand as I tried to grab him.

  “You sexist little jerk.” I lunged for him again, but he dodged my efforts once more before he started running down the hallway. “Get back here so I can beat some sense into you!”

  “You know I’m kidding!” he squealed.

  I chased after him and burst through the doors to the courtyard and was stopped by a human wall that hadn’t been there when I had looked through the window.

  I heard another door click shut on the other side of the courtyard and I knew Sai was afforded a clean escape because of Micah.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” I asked as I brushed my hair down that was a mess since I had been running.

  “You are the one that ran into me.”

  “You weren’t there a second ago.” I stood my ground despite how illogical it was to argue with him about something so silly.

  Apologize and move on!

  “But clearly I am now because you ran into me.” He pointed at his shoe. “Look what you’ve done.”

  I looked down at the black mark across the top of his white Converse and slowly lifted my gaze back to his. On the way, I might have accidentally noticed he was wearing tight, white jeans with more appreciation than I should have. They may have fit him like a glove and emphasized a few of his finer points, but who was to say? Because I certainly wouldn’t be thinking such things about him, obviously.

  I cleared my throat and held my head high. “It was an accident. Do
n’t pop out of nowhere and I won’t run into you.”

  “If it was an accident then apologize.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and blew air out of my nose quickly as my impatience grew. “Because it’s you, I just don’t think I can bring myself to do that right now. Maybe try again later.”

  “Because it’s me?” he asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “Care to explain? You don’t even know me, and you’re the one that tried to make off with my pen.”

  “I only did that because you were rude.” I sensed a losing battle, so I brushed past him.

  “That doesn’t justify stealing,” he said when I was almost to the doors.

  I hadn’t thought of it as stealing, I had simply wanted to punish him for being so rude to me for no reason.

  I stopped after I opened the door. “I wasn’t trying to steal I was trying to punish you.”

  He quirked an eyebrow and before he could open his mouth I scurried away.

  I made my way down the hallway and finally caught up to Sai.

  “There you are,” he said from a few doors down. “What took you so long?”

  I shrugged my shoulders because I didn’t feel like explaining what had happened with Micah.

  “You’re usually quicker than that, you’re getting out of shape.” He poked me in my stomach.

  “Whatever. We are both out of shape and you know it.” I poked him back. “We aren’t kids anymore, and we’ve both gotten lazy over the years but at least I get exercise from walking everywhere.”

  He cracked a huge smile as he pushed out his stomach and patted it. “True, I get minimal exercise and I can’t resist a good meal.”

  I looked at his stomach. “Put that thing away before someone realizes you don’t have a six-pack underneath that shirt.”

  “Hey, I have a few packs,” he said in a deeper voice as he sucked in his stomach and squared his shoulders. “I’m fit-ish, I just can’t run long distances without my last meal coming up.”

  We laughed together for a moment before I checked the time on my phone and determined that it was time to go to class.

  “By the way…” I said in a serious tone to get his attention, and when he looked at me, I punched him in the arm. “You’re sexist and I’m telling your mom what you said.”

  I took off around the corner as he said, “You are so lucky class is about to start!”

  Three hours later I was once again in full blown recon mode. It may have been ridiculous, but I got a fair amount of enjoyment out of dramatizing the situation, so I pressed on.

  “What are you doing?” Sai inquired as I looked behind us again as we walked through the hallway to the cafeteria. “You’ve been acting strange for days now.”

  “You know, if I told you, you would think I’m being dramatic, and it would open a floodgate of questions I don’t want to answer. So, I’m going to have to ask that you be a good friend and support me in these difficult times without drawing attention to my unusual behavior.”

  “Okay, but I’ll get to the bottom of it eventually.”

  Pfft. Not likely.

  I looked to the side and when someone almost ran into me, I scooted back to avoid them before I saw who it was. I was afraid that it was Micah because I did not want to touch him or be touched by him again. Not when his body had felt so incredibly perfect against mine.

  Two times was two times too much. I couldn’t touch him a third time because surely, I would burst into flames.

  But as fate would have it by trying so hard to avoid one body, I backed right into another and when I turned around to apologize, who was it that was standing there with an annoyed look on his face?

  Micah, but no one saw that coming.

  “Hey,” Sai said, and Micah gave him a head nod without taking his eyes off me.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, as it was obvious that he was waiting for me to say something.

  When a classmate of ours named Jesse came up and pulled Sai aside, I grew nervous as I stood alone beside Micah.

  He leaned down a touch as he made it clear that he had no intention putting to practice what was a socially acceptable distance between strangers.

  “What was that?” He smirked. “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “I said sorry.” I took a step back. “Isn’t that what you have been dying to hear from me since this morning?”

  He stood straight again, so I stood a little straighter myself as if I could match him in height and intimidation by doing so.

  “Why do I have a feeling that you’re going to be a problem?” he asked before his eyes slowly swept the length of my body.

  My breathing slowed and I chewed on my lip until his eyes found mine again.

  “Me, a problem for you?” He had clearly been the problem since the moment he had thought it was a good idea to finish high school at the same school as me.

  The real problem was in my reaction to him on a physical level. But I couldn’t help it, you can’t choose who you are attracted to. He was masculine, dark, enchanting, and altogether too much for me to deal with and I was reminded of the fact every time I looked into his eyes.

  Which had only happened a few times and I was already losing it, so the forecast of things to come where he was concerned looked grim.

  “Yeah.” He peered at me as if he were trying to figure me out. “You.”

  “I… am not a problem.” I couldn’t get the words out as I was losing my focus being so near to him. “It’s you…you–”

  Rather than say anything he laughed at me and that made me even more angry.

  “Clearly, you are the problem!” I said, thankful that I had managed to get the words out.

  Sai chose that unfortunate moment to return. “Woah, what is going on here?” He looked back and forth between us.

  Micah’s eyes lit with amusement as he nodded his head in understanding and his mouth turned up mischievously. “Care to share what it is I have done to you that has you feeling so flustered?”

  I shook my head as I looked at Sai nervously.

  “That’s what I thought.” He winked at me before he looked at Sai and said, “Later.”

  “Later,” Sai said.

  I watched Micah walk away and I managed to hold in all the steam that was threatening to billow out in front of everyone.

  I didn’t know why I was so mad. Yeah, he had been rude about his pen, then he was an ass about us running into each other, and well, there was the small matter of his existence. But those things didn’t begin to justify the hatred that had begun to grow inside of me for him.

  Hatred that was matched in strength only by my lust that was so strong it felt unnatural.

  “I see you’ve met Micah,” Sai said as if it were a question and not an observation.

  I sighed as we walked through the cafeteria doors. “Yep. He’s a real peach.”

  He laughed as we arrived at the end of the lunch line and since there were others within earshot, I hoped that he wouldn’t say more.

  “Did you finish that book?” I asked, to move us along to topics that didn’t make me want to pull out my hair.

  He looked disappointed. “Yeah, and it didn’t end well. The authors theories go beyond the realm of possibility and it ruined it for me.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah. I had thought he was on to something.” He pushed his glasses higher on his nose.

  “I’m sorry. You waited forever for that to come out.” We made it up to the counter and I grabbed a tray with a rib sandwich on it. “But I thought there was no idea too bold for you?”

  “There normally isn’t but I don’t like ideas that are pulled out of someone’s ass at random. He went for the shock factor to sell books, but he didn’t deliver on the content, so he lost me about halfway through.”

  “That’s lame. I hate it when authors don’t write from the heart.” I punched my student ID in and waited while he did the same.

  “Me too.”

 
“You should write a book about your own alien theories,” I suggested as we sat down at our usual table.

  He opened his milk and took a sip before he smiled. “Oh, I will. Once I have a strong hypothesis going that’s backed by facts, it’s on.”

  “That’s the spirit.” I raised a fist up halfway in the air. “Make sure you sign a copy for me.”

  “Of course, I will.” He took a bite of his sandwich as he considered me curiously. “Hey, what do you think of Devin?”

  That was a question I was not expecting.

  “He’s nice… I have next period with him, and we chat a bit. Why?”

  “He’s in the same class with Micah and me,” he said. “We never really talked much before, but he seems pretty cool and he’s good friends with Jesse so I thought we could all hang out.”

  “I suppose that would be fine.”

  “It’s worth a try at least.”

  “Well, the girls certainly like him.” I nodded my head towards where Devin was walking into the cafeteria with two sophomore girls on his heels.

  Sai looked at them and smiled. “That must be nice.”

  “Right, because girls don’t like you?” I asked with obvious sarcasm.

  “The girl I like doesn’t think of me that way, at least it doesn’t seem like it anyway.”

  “Why don’t you ask her, and it will solve that mystery for you.”

  He stopped chewing and looked at me like I had sprouted horns. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Sure, it is. Just do it.”

  “Ha.” He snorted before he finished his milk that had left a mustache that I was not going to inform him of. “Easier said than done.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’ll be rooting for you and whenever you feel like finally telling me who this girl is, I’m all ears.”

  He looked away and I got the feeling that he didn’t want to tell me who it was because it was someone unexpected, or someone he thought I wouldn’t like.

  “I have a class with her, so let me figure out if I have a chance before I tell you.” His mouth fell into a flat line. “I don’t want to be teased.”