Darkly Divine: A Paranormal Enemies to Lovers Romance

by C L Walker

  I reached out a hand without thinking, I didn’t know why I did it, but I cupped his cheek to feel the warmth I already knew was there just as he had suggested. I could tell I surprised him again and he surprised me in return when he didn’t pull away from my touch.

  I held my hand there for far too long as we stared at each other and something inside of me shifted from the weight of the moment.

  It was raw and unfiltered.

  The rain suddenly stopped as I inhaled deeply.

  The clouds parted and I breathed out slowly.

  The moon revealed itself once more and cast its light across the hard lines of his face. In the moonlight is where he belonged, the perfect setting for a creature of the dark that was as beautiful as he.

  He wasn’t unnatural, he was nature made.

  I would never look into his eyes again and not be reminded of the sound of a steady stream, the smell of the forest or the feel of the wind on my skin that I had always wished would sweep me away every time I had felt its touch.

  Maybe he can sweep you away…

  I pulled my hand away as I was struck again by how much simply looking into his eyes moved me.

  My soul is on fire.

  Yet he appeared to feel nothing which reminded me of how I should have felt when I looked at him.

  He cleared his throat as he broke eye contact and said, “Look we don’t have time for this right now, so take off your clothes, get your ass in that creek and clean off the blood before I do it for you.”

  I fidgeted as I considered the likelihood of him undressing me and cleaning my body and I didn’t like the odds.

  I asked him to turn around and when he did, I stripped off my clothes and jumped into the deepest part of the creek. I sat down and the water barely went past my nipples, but it was better than nothing.

  He turned around and glanced at me before he averted his eyes in favor of looking for my clothes and when he found them, he picked them up. He dropped my cellphone after taking it out of the pocket of my jacket, took off his sweatshirt and laid it in the dirt, piled my clothes inside of it and then wrapped it all up and used the sleeves as a strap and slung it across his shoulders.

  “Aren’t you going to burn them?” I asked as I scrubbed my arms.

  “Not here, I don’t want to leave another smoke trail, so I’ll do it in the woods behind my cabin.”

  I nodded my head before I ducked under the water and scrubbed my face with the pads of my fingers. When I came back up, he was watching me with a dark look on his face, his brows were drawn low, so I figured he was judging my clean up job.

  “Okay, that’s as good as it is going to get,” I said.

  “Let’s get you back then.”

  I looked around in panic. “What am I supposed to cover up with?”

  He threw his hands up. “I don’t know, a fucking leaf.”

  “I’m not walking home naked!”

  “You have no choice since I don’t have time for your modesty right now.”

  “Shit!” I slammed both my fists down and sent water flying up around me.

  “Don’t worry I don’t want to look at you anyway,” he said. “I’ll walk ahead of you.”

  “Fine!”

  He turned around and began to walk towards the trailer park slowly as I ascended from the cold water. He took my shoes as well, so I had to try and maneuver around rocks and twigs with limited light from the moon.

  When we arrived at the trailer, I stopped behind him since he had stopped to look around and seemed to be listening for something.

  “Your mom is asleep so you’re good to go,” he said.

  I poked him in the back. “Close your eyes.”

  “And if I don’t?” I swore I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Then I’ll assume you lied when you said you didn’t want to see me naked.”

  “Fine.”

  I stepped up closer behind him to peek around to see if his eyes were closed but I misjudged the distance between our bodies and when I brushed my breasts against his arm his mouth opened a touch, but he didn’t say anything about it.

  I backed up and said, “Sorry,” before I leapt in front of him and scurried over to my window.

  I crawled through, sprang to my door to lock it and when I heard him talking, I ran back to the window, and plastered myself against the wall below it to block off my body as he approached.

  “I’m leaving now,” he said. “I know you probably have a lot of questions, but they are going to have to wait.”

  “I know.”

  His face softened. “Can you handle being alone right now?”

  “Yeah, Jack is dead, so I have nothing to fear any longer.”

  “You’re forgetting about me,” he whispered.

  “I refuse to fear you.”

  He didn’t say anything else, instead he gave me a seductive smile that sent chills down my spine and then he was gone.

  Thank you for saving me, Micah.

  Fifteen

  Skylar

  I sat in a courtyard surrounded by darkness, but I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there.

  I looked down and ran my hands over the tops of my thighs and marveled at the feel of the silky red dress that hugged my body.

  How pretty.

  I looked up as I saw Micah stop before me.

  “You’ve come.” He took a seat beside me on the bench.

  I reached out and grabbed one of the braids that framed his face and gave it a playful tug. “I’m here, but I don’t know why.”

  He sighed and pulled his hair from my fingers. “Because you want to be, is that really so hard for you to admit?”

  “With you?” I stood up. “Because I want to be with you–”

  “Yes.” He stood as well, then he picked me up abruptly and ran.

  As he carried me through the trees, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth of his bare chest against my cheek and listened to the beating of his heart.

  When we came to a stop minutes later, I opened my eyes and observed my surroundings. We were still in the forest, it was lit only by fireflies that danced in the cold air, and the vegetation was thick and dripping with dew.

  He laid me down in the damp dirt and I let him do so without protest.

  But when he grabbed a stick and began to draw a circle around my body, I grew weary.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded but he didn’t answer.

  When I tried to move I couldn’t. My body was stuck in place and I could only move my eyes and my mouth to speak.

  I began to cry when he chanted something quietly that I couldn’t make out.

  “Micah,” I pleaded, “please stop… you’re scaring me.”

  He looked at me then and tipped his head to the side as a crooked smile grew across his face and revealed his sharp white teeth. “I told you that you should fear me,” he said, before he was consumed with laughter.

  “No, I don’t want to die! You said you wouldn’t hurt me!”

  I woke up covered in sweat expecting to feel dirt beneath my palms as Micah peered down at me with murder in his eyes but thankfully it had been a dream.

  My alarm was sounding off, so I smacked it and silenced the deafening sound that had come too soon. Even though I had passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow, I still hadn’t gotten enough sleep, especially not after all that had happened.

  Jack is dead.

  I got up and stepped out of my room hesitantly as I surveyed the rest of the trailer and listened for the sound of Jack’s voice. I was nervous for no reason because it wasn’t as if he could arise from the watery depths of the lake and come for me.

  I shook myself even though it wasn’t entirely unreasonable. If Micah was cursed, drank blood for sustenance and could alter aspects of his appearance at will to become something dark, stronger, and violent, then anything was possible.

  Even zombies could be real! If only I could tell Sai, he would flip.

  I got ready quickly be
cause I wasn’t ready to face my mom even though I knew it would be weeks before she realized something might be wrong. Jack was famous for taking off without notice and coming back with flowers and a thousand excuses.

  But once she found out he was dead I was afraid that she was going to burst at the seams because I wasn’t sure she had the means to get out and leave me behind without him.

  She would be the one who was truly alone, and it’s no less than she deserved after all she had done to me, after she had allowed that piece of shit into her house.

  I was pouring my coffee when she stumbled into the kitchen and swung open the fridge so hard the door smacked me in the side.

  “Good morning, Mother,” I muttered behind my teeth. I had to fight the temptation to swing the door right back at her.

  “Did you see that asshole last night?”

  “No.”

  She slammed the fridge closed and walked over to the coffee pot with creamer in one hand as she reached into the cupboard for a cup with the other. “He went to get smokes last night and he never came back.” She filled her cup with coffee. “I hate it when he does this shit.”

  “He always comes back.” I turned away from her and walked out of the kitchen.

  “No shit.” I didn’t even wonder why she was taking it out on me because of course she was.

  I ignored her as I slipped on my shoes before I walked out the door without saying goodbye knowing she would make me pay for the disrespect one way or another.

  I looked at the ground as I exited the trailer park so when someone called my name it made me jump and when I looked up, I saw Micah waiting for me in his car.

  “Get in,” he said.

  I considered telling him to eat shit because he sounded so rude, but we had to talk so I slid inside without a word.

  “Are you picking me up so you can lecture me about keeping my mouth shut?”

  “No, I’m giving you exactly ten minutes to ask as many questions as you want and then we are never speaking about this again.”

  Unbelievable.

  He forced conversations on me all the time that I didn’t want to have, but in return he was only willing to give me ten minutes. After revealing something that changed the way I saw the very world around me you’d think he would be a bit more generous.

  “You said you are cursed with vampirism?”

  “Yes, during a famine the chief at the time unknowingly made a bad deal with a Shaman with ties to The Dead Realm, he promised to feed our people but at a price of which he refused to reveal beforehand. Then as the story goes, he cursed the tribe and turned them all into creatures of the night. It’s hard to go hungry when blood is what you need and obviously found much easier than food. Like I said we still need food, but we wouldn’t die without it unless we went a very long time without eating, blood on the other hand is different. So, he saved the people in a way but not in the way they wanted, obviously.”

  “That was awfully sneaky and cruel of him.”

  “Mmhmm.” I could tell he felt uncomfortable but after all he had put me through, I didn’t feel bad.

  I turned to face him and barely managed to contain my excitement. “You said creatures of the night, but you clearly don’t turn to dust in the sun?”

  “It’s merely a term, our tribe was not cursed in this way, but I can’t speak for others who were cursed with vampirism.” I nodded my head and he seemed to notice the worry on my face when he had mentioned the others. “Better find you some holy water and garlic.”

  “Not funny.”

  He smiled as he continued to drive us through town. “Yeah, they would just laugh at you if you tried to use those things against them, so whatever you’ve read in books or seen on tv about disposing of the supernatural forget it.”

  “Okay, so no stake to the heart?”

  His smile fell. “You don’t think I’d really tell you how to get rid of me, do you?”

  “No, you wouldn’t. But your face tells me that there may be a little truth to the things I’ve seen and read though so I won’t dismiss them all.” He continued to frown but he said nothing. “So, The Dead Realm huh?” I snickered until he shot a serious look at me. “You’re serious?”

  He nodded his head and I sunk in my seat feeling entirely overwhelmed with supernatural possibilities if things like other realms existed.

  “And this is where your kind are from?”

  “No, it’s where I am going when I die since I am not exactly immortal.”

  “So, Hell? You’re going to Hell?” The idea didn’t sit well with me.

  “It’s not hell it’s just the afterlife for supernatural beings but it’s like another world and there are both good and bad creatures there.”

  “Of course,” I said, “that makes sense.” Not at all really, as I hadn’t even previously thought Heaven or Hell were real.

  “Let’s put it this way,” he began, “every legend you’ve ever heard of probably has some truth in it, but they are likely depicted inaccurately.” He gave me a pointed look. “And that is why you shouldn’t get any ideas about how to kill the supernatural from pop culture.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said with a smile. “I promise I won’t carve out a stake tonight to keep in my pocket when I am around you from now on.”

  He laughed. “I’m telling you that it wouldn’t work, it’s not that easy.”

  I realized we were getting close to school, so I scanned my mind for a question. “Heaven, really?”

  He nodded his head. “And Hell, but those are where humans reside after death as they are a part of the Earth realm.”

  “But you’re here, aren’t you a part of it as well?”

  “I’m a descendant of humans so that’s why I am here, we were born of this realm and although we are changed, we will continue to reside here until our line dies out. If it does.”

  “Understood,” I said. “So, there are vampires running around killing people and no one has noticed?”

  He pulled the car into a parking space and threw it into park before he turned to me and pegged me with a dark look. “I didn’t kill him just for the sake of it, I killed him because he was a vile creature and when I realized what was happening I–” He stopped to take a deep breath, he was angry.

  I marveled at the sight of him pulling the darkness back in that was threatening to spill out.

  “You have to understand that I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking by taking it that far but like I said I won’t take it back even though I might be punished for it. We aren’t allowed to take human lives outside of special circumstances, because my ancestors worked hard to alter the curse, and change our bloodlust so that we could coexists with humans until we ascend from this life.”

  “Okay, I wasn’t necessarily talking about you anyway,” I explained. “But what about vampires who aren’t a part of your tribe?”

  He looked thoughtful as if he had never considered it himself. “Their stories are different, so I don’t know if they have rules or ancestors breathing down their necks from The Dead Realm making sure they don’t cause chaos on Earth as my tribe does. But they must behave themselves well enough because I haven’t seen evidence of many supernatural’s outside of my tribe, at least around here. I come across them occasionally, but I don’t have some radar that can detect them, so if they don’t give themselves away, I have no way of knowing they aren’t human.”

  “Anyone could be a supernatural of some kind and no one would know?”

  He nodded his head.

  Sai was on to something with his theories, and it would kill me not to inform him of it.

  He ran his hand across his jaw thoughtfully. “You know now that I think about it even if there are supernatural beings out there that are up to no good–and of course there are because like humans there are bound to be those who don’t follow the rules–humans probably have a system set up to cover up such things.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You’re right, they wouldn’t allow us to
find out because it would cause chaos. Dang, is there anything the government doesn’t cover up?”

  “I don’t even want to know all the secrets they keep because even I would likely be shocked and that’s saying something.”

  I watched a girl walk by with great interest as I examined her person, she could be a witch or a goblin for all I knew. But that was the problem, I would never know so it was information I sort of wished I didn’t have because I’d be constantly looking for signs from people for my whole life.

  “Thank you,” I said after a minute of silence.

  “For what?”

  “You said you might be punished for it so that means you risked a lot saving me.”

  “If you mean that, then you have to promise me something in return for saving you.” He shot me a grave look.

  “What?”

  “Don’t bring any of this up to anyone else even in jest,” he said in a firm tone, “and don’t bring it up to me either. I don’t care if you’re burning with a million questions, you keep your mouth shut for the rest of your life otherwise you might draw unwanted attention to yourself.”

  That was going to be hard to do.

  He watched me intensely before he said, “I mean it, and if you need to talk to someone about almost being raped...” He blew out a heavy breath as he drummed his fingers against his steering wheel until he was able to articulate. “Talk to someone else about it, just obviously leave some details out but don’t fucking bring it up to me.”

  I knew he didn’t mean it, his words said he didn’t give a shit but his tone, and his pathetic attempt to control his anger told me that he couldn’t handle thinking about what Jack had almost done to me.

  He could have been honest with me and I would have understood but instead he sounded heartless.

  Our ten minutes of civility was shattered.

  “As if I would even try! Just because you saved me from danger it doesn’t mean I like you, or that I’ll run to you, and I’m not about to confide in you when the sound of your voice on its own puts me in a state of sheer misery,” I said.