by Hanna Peach
“So all you have to do is to use your extra special Guardian powers to figure it out.”
Alyx blinked. “My…what?”
Israel frowned. “Well, it makes sense why only the Guardian would be able to figure out the riddle if figuring out the riddle requires you to use a gift or knowledge that only you have because you’re the Guardian.”
“Oh my God.”
“Just call me Israel.”
“Israel, you’re a genius. You deserves kisses for that.”
“It was nothing.”
“Big fat kisses.”
“Well, if you insist.”
“No. You deserve more than kisses. You deserve…naked kisses.”
“Naked kisses?”
“Ridiculously, scandalously naked kisses.”
Israel’s eyes widened and he made a strangling noise in his throat. Alyx took this opportunity to snatch the charm back from him. She began to turn away but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. He stepped closer to her, his eyes darkening to that delicious devilish green when he was thinking of one thing. Alyx sucked in a breath as her body heated starting from when their skin met.
“I’d like my reward now,” he said, his voice dropping low and thick as his hands began to move up her arm. His nose and lips traced her neck and she could feel him breathe her into him. Her mind felt like it was short-circuiting, the air humming between them. “Alyx, my reward.”
“Your reward?”
“I do believe you said I deserved kisses…naked kisses…in fact, I do remember you said, and I quote, ‘ridiculously scandalously naked kisses’.” His gaze lowered to her mouth. “I want to claim my reward.”
“I…um…” she didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence. Israel’s lips closed on hers. Her world darkened as their connection twisted around them both. His fingers found her face and the skin on her neck as he deepened the kiss. His tongue running across hers made her body begin to tremble. I can’t get close enough to you, angel, he whispered in his head. I want to be under your skin. She hadn’t even realized she had fallen into him, something that her Guardian bond allowed her to do.
Her Guardian bond. The answer to Raphael’s riddle.
Alyx pulled back, her body moaning at her for pulling away from his sweet mouth. “We’re going to get carried away. Again. We’ll lose another day. I need to solve this riddle and find the missing piece of the Amulet and stop Michael from destroying our planet.”
Israel groaned. “What happened to the usual ‘sorry, honey, I have a headache’ excuse?” He sighed, seemingly resigned, but he didn’t pull away. He grabbed the back of Alyx’s neck and held her in place as he stared deep into her eyes. “Fine. But when this is all over, you and I are going to spend some major alone time without any distractions.”
“Major alone time?”
“Ridiculously scandalously naked alone time.”
Alyx felt her body flush. “Okay.”
Israel placed a kiss on her mouth. It was heated and full of promise and he gripped her as if he feared that she might disappear. Alyx felt herself melting into him, her mind disappearing into this complete bliss that only Israel could weave around her. Her resolve began to fall away. What was one more day? She deepened the kiss and pressed her body against his.
This time it was Alyx’s turn to groan when he pulled away. “Why did you stop?” she moaned. “We don’t have to stop. What about naked kisses?”
He leaned his forehead on hers, his breath rushing hard around her cheeks. “I don’t know. Something about saving the world.”
“The world can wait.” She moved to kiss him again.
But he wouldn’t let her. “No, angel, you were right. You need to solve that charm to keep the world safe. I need to stop distracting you.”
Alyx sighed deeply, staring at Israel with a great sadness as he pulled almost completely away. It seemed that there was always something more important than their love. Something else that had to be focused on. When would they have time for just them? Bitterness rose into her mouth. It wasn’t fair.
He noticed it immediately and pushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you ever wish we were just two normal, boring people?”
“Boring?”
“You know, just two mortals with normal, boring lives who met and fell in love and had wondrously boring problems like what movie we’d watch on a Friday night and whose turn it was to wash up…”
“Sounds lovely.”
“…and whether we would have two kids or three.”
He laughed and pulled her into a hug. She buried herself in his arms and allowed the familiar smell of him to soothe her. He whispered in her ear, “The answer is, of course, seven.”
“Seven?”
“Yes. We’d have seven kids.”
“Seven!”
“Yeah, I want a truckload of them with you,” he grinned. “Someday. Wait…can we have children? What would they be? Half-keye, half-Guardian badasses.”
“Badasses.” Alyx shook her head. “You’re as bad as Sparrow.” She poked his side and pushed her chin onto his shoulder. “And you’re avoiding the question.”
He sighed as he pulled her in closer. He held her so tightly that she was almost unable to breathe. Whatever…she didn’t really need to breathe anyway. “Sometimes I wish we were just two normal people. But we are who we are and we have what we have, angel. We’re so lucky just to have found each other.”
“But you’ll die one day,” she blurted out. Heaven have mercy, this was not the way to bring up this sensitive topic. Alyx recalled the vision that a demon had shown her once of Israel as an old man even as she remained immortal. In this vision Israel had died of old age. Something that she would be faced with one day even if they survived Michael. She hadn’t told Israel of this vision yet.
“Everybody dies…” Israel trailed off. “Oh, right. You wouldn’t. Immortal being and all that.” In his voice Alyx could detect…jealousy. Jealous? Of her? But she would be the one who had to live without him. Why would he be jealous of that? For the first time in her life, she cursed her immortality.
“Then what? What…” her throat squeezed up, as this familiar fear rose up in her, clogging up all her cells, and she sucked in a breath as if to let out a scream. What would she do when she lost him? Tears filled her eyes as she tried to imagine her life without his kisses, without his presence by her side, without his strength and his love. She couldn’t imagine a world without him. It wouldn’t be one she would want to live in. “I can’t live without you, Israel.” Her fingers clawed into his shirt as if she could forever anchor him to this Earth. “I can’t. Don’t make me try.”
Israel pulled her closer and shushed into her hair. “Angel, let’s not worry about that now. One earth-shattering problem at a time. We need to stop Michael first to make sure that there’s still an Earth for us to have these problems in.”
“You’re right.” Alyx took a deep breath and forced herself to let all these swirling questions go. One thing at a time. If they didn’t find this missing piece of the Amulet before Michael did, there wouldn’t be a future for them to worry about.
“Of course I am.” Israel grinned. “I’m the genius, remember? So, what was your great idea spurned from my genius?”
“The things I have because of my Guardian status that no one else has are: the responsibility of protecting you...”
“I really am God’s gift.”
“My ability to go in your head…”
“Providing you hours of unbridled entertainment.”
“And my ability to find you in a sea of…souls.” The answer struck Alyx. “Of course.”
“What is it?”
“It’s how I can sometimes find you. I can turn on some sort of…Soulsight. I can see all the souls on this planet. I’m drawn to yours.” She placed the charm in her palm and evened her breath. Then she cleared her head and let go.
She felt her skin dissipate int
o everything and her vision blurred then shimmered as if she had just stepped through something. She saw Israel’s body disappear into a radiant light before her. His soul beckoned to her, looking more beautiful than anything she had seen before. But more importantly, she saw it. The blue shimmering dust trailing out like an arrow from her hand.
Raphael hadn’t left her a charm. He had left her a compass.
Chapter 3
Lukas paused at the door to the room where Ana was resting. He closed his eyes as the very conversation that broke his world in two echoed in his mind.
“It appears that Ana has lost some of her memory.”
“She…what?”
“We’re not sure of the extent yet.”
“So what, you think she’s lost…a few weeks? Months?”
“I think more.”
“What, like, a few years?”
“We’re not sure yet,” said Jordan. “Marin said she was screaming for you when she burst into Tara.”
“So she remembers me. That’s good.”
“Lukas,” Tobias said slowly. “Ana didn’t remember who Marin was.”
Tobias placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Lukas gritted his teeth. Tobias’s hand felt as heavy as a block of stone on his shoulder and pity exuded from Tobias like a smell.
Lukas had lost his son and now…this, whatever this was exactly, had happened to his wife. How could he be okay?
“I’m fine,” he shrugged his shoulder out from Tobias’s hand. His voice came out harsher than he intended it to, but at the moment he was so focused on the woman sitting on the other side of this door he didn’t care. How much of her…his Ana, the love of his life, was left?
“I just need to know how bad it is.” If he just knew, then they could deal with it, right? Lukas readied himself and knocked.
Hearing her familiar soft voice calling out “come in” sent a stab of hope through his chest. It was her voice. Ana’s voice. He would recognize her voice in his sleep.
How ridiculous he was being. Of course she was the same woman. It was her. It was his Ana on the other side of that door. She would remember him. Her love for him would shine through whatever gaps there were in her memory.
He pushed open the door eagerly. Ana was sitting up in a chair near the window. The bed was made as if she hadn’t slept at all. Her heart-shaped face was turned towards the door, pale and delicate features framed by soft golden waves. Her eyes locked onto his. Lukas felt his breath steal away the way that only his wife of almost a decade could do.
She had taken his breath away the first time he saw her, over twelve years ago, lost and wandering through the forests around the outskirts of Michaelea, dressed in white and looking like an angel lost. He had begun to fall in love with her that day. The truth was he had never stopped falling in love with her.
Ana’s green eyes widened, her cheeks colored and her pink lips parted as she inhaled. She recognized him. She did. She recognized him. She stood up hurriedly from her chair but managed to do so in the fluid, graceful way she did everything, like her limbs were made of silk.
“Lukas,” she said, and the sound of her voice breathing around his name brought the life back into him. All the hairs on his arm rose as if to reach out for her. Ana felt what was between them. He could see it. She knew him, deep down. She felt their love. “Thank God you’re here. I need you.”
His wife had come back to him. “Ana,” he said her name as if it were a prayer. Joy seemed to lift him from where he stood, moving him forward to her, his arms out so he could draw her in for a kiss. He ignored Tobias’s calls for caution.
She seemed to melt into his arms and she turned her lips up to meet his. At the last moment a shocked look came over her face and she turned her head. “What are you doing?” She pushed him away, her small hands flapping against him like a pair of dove’s wings.
He let go of her, stumbling back like a wall had grown out of the ground between them. “Ana, I−”
She stared at him, blinking rapidly. “And why do you keep calling me Ana? My name is Siana.”
Siana. That was a name Lukas hadn’t heard in over a decade.
Tobias stepped up to stand between them, holding an arm out between Lukas and his wife. As if he were a danger to her!
“An-Siana,” Tobias corrected himself, “how much of Lukas do you remember?”
Ana − he could not think of her as Siana − stared between him and Tobias. “I don’t understand why you’re asking me these questions. Everyone is being so strange.”
Lukas heard the fear in her voice and he moved towards her to comfort her out of instinct. He stopped when he saw her flinch at his approach. She was afraid of him. His entire body felt drenched in ice.
“Please, Siana,” Tobias said. “Just answer the question.”
Tobias, don’t call her Siana. Her name is not Siana.
“When did I meet Lukas?” She stared back at him and their eyes locked. He felt something pass through them. A flutter of hope lit inside his heart. She tore her eyes away from him and focused on Tobias. “I met Lukas just after I left Michaelea.”
“Which was when?” Lukas asked.
Siana frowned. “Lukas, don’t you remember when we met?”
“I remember. Please, just tell me, when did you leave Michaelea?”
“Why…only a few days ago.”
Hope within Lukas died, extinguished with her words. Ana thought that they had only met a few days ago. Which meant she remembered nothing of who they were to each other. She remembered nothing about falling in love with him and of the family they made. The stab of pain in his heart almost floored him.
“No,” he said. “No. When I came in, you said my name. You said you needed me.”
“I need help. Yael has been kidnapped and I need help.”
Jesus Christ. Yael is back.
When Lukas first courted Ana, the ghost of Yael, the first man Ana had ever loved, hung over them. But time heals all wounds and soon Yael’s ghost had faded to nothing. Lukas had stopped seeing that faraway look in her eyes when he knew she was thinking of Yael, wondering where he was and what he was doing.
Lukas could do nothing but stare at Ana as Tobias spoke to her gently, trying to explain to her what had happened to her. She looked the same as his Ana, but she wasn’t his Ana at all anymore.
He had already lost his son, Ky, and because of that his grieving wife began to withdraw from him. But now, Ana was gone completely. Gone along with all her memories of them, their love…and their son. The last twelve years of their lives, of their love, were erased just like that for her.
His already broken heart crushed under this weight.
* * *
Siana couldn’t believe her ears. Her memory, gone? All of the last twelve years, gone?
As Tobias spoke, Siana found her eyes being drawn continuously to Lukas’s face. With his strong nose and jaw and his dark deep-set eyes, he looked…regal, like a Native American prince.
Lukas was a broad-shouldered man, not as broad as Yael, but there was a strength to him that she had liked the moment she met him those few days ago. But the way her heart fluttered before when he had touched her and almost kissed her... Why was she reacting to him this way?
Of course she had pulled back in time. But that didn’t lessen the horror she felt when she realized she was attracted to Lukas when she was in love with Yael. It didn’t matter that she had stopped the kiss; even momentarily wanting it was a betrayal. If Yael knew…
Lukas’s eyelashes raised and he caught her gaze. Siana felt her stomach flutter. She looked quickly away and forced herself to avoid Lukas’s eyes as Tobias finished speaking.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Tobias said, kindness filling his voice.
“I just can’t believe any of this,” she said. “Lukas, I thought we were friends. Tell me the truth.”
Lukas spoke, although it appeared painful for him to do so. “We were…are…more
than friends. You are my entwined, my partner. You are the love of my life and…I am yours.”
Her eyes widened at him in shock. She was in love with Lukas? They were entwined? Which means they had been intimate. He had seen her naked. They had slept together. Her mutinous body heated at this thought as her mind scrambled to remember. How could she forget falling in love with him?
No. This was a betrayal to Yael. She wouldn’t believe it.
“We had a child,” Lukas continued. “Ky. He died. It almost destroyed you. I think that’s why…that’s why you tried to tinker with your memory. But it all went wrong.”
“We…what?” She shook her head, trying to dispel all these strange feelings and thoughts and things that just didn’t make sense. A child…an entire life and love and family missing from her memory. Her true love supposedly standing right in front of her instead of in a prison on an island. All these things spun in her head, trying to find a place of truth to land on. They didn’t fit anywhere. “No. No. I love Yael.”
“You got over Yael twelve years ago,” Lukas said, his voice rising.
“No. You’re lying to me. Why are you making these things up?”
“You were asking for me at Tara. You were screaming my name. You know me.”
“Of course I know you. I met you days ago. I came to Tara to find you because I thought you would help me.”
“You’re my wife, Ana. You love me.”
“I’m not Ana. I’m not…” Ana couldn’t hold it all back anymore; her worry for Yael, the horrible things she had seen, and now Lukas screaming at her, desperate for her to believe his story; everything piled up into a crushing weight that broke her façade of strength. It all spilled out as tears into her hands.
“Lukas,” she heard Tobias say, “I think you should wait for me in my office.”
“I’m not leaving until she admits that she’s my wife.”
