Prophecy Girl (The Five Orders Book 1)

by Holly Roberds

  I nodded and touched her soft cheek so she would look me in the eye. “Then explain to me why he has upset you so.”

  “Because what if he’s right?” Her words were strangled, as if her body could barely bear to let the thought out into the real world. “What if the Luxis, or the Veritas, or whoever, is right about the darkness coming? Which, let’s face it, sounds like the end of the world. Then it’s my job to figure out who is right, and then do what needs to be done.” Her arm wrapped around mine and her fingers tapped along my forearm in agitation.

  I stiffened next to her, but my hand resting on her knee, tightened. “You mean die.”

  She shook her head. “I mean save the freakin’ world. Whatever that means.” Then she said quietly, accompanied with a small bark of laughter, “Like how all the heroes and heroines do the right thing in my books. Except it’s not like it is in the books. We might not find a way out of this. We might not get our H.E.A.” Any trace of a smile slid off her eyes and mouth. She looked hollow and haunted. As if the past week had clapped an anchor on her soul and it was slowly drowning her.

  “H.E.A?” I asked.

  “Happily ever after.” Her hands tightened on my arm, clutching me closer to her.

  “What is that?”

  “What is happily ever after you mean?” At first her face was incredulous as it was when she’d discovered I was illiterate. Then it morphed into sadness. She reached up and brushed the hair away from where it dipped on my forehead. Her thin, chipped fingernails lightly scratched up further at my scalp. I never wanted her to stop. “It means that you’ve found a way to solve all your problems and you get to be with the person you love and stay in love forever.”

  I spoke slowly, trying to comprehend what she’d just told me. It was difficult with her ministrations. “Does that really happen?” Despite my deep voice, it came out as a timid whisper, as if I was afraid to hear the truth. It almost perfectly described how I imagined it would feel to have my soul returned to me, but I never had a term for it. But now that I had my soul after all, I couldn’t have felt things were further from a happily ever after. I was with the one I loved but our problems hunted and plagued us.

  Emma licked her lips and leaned her head back against the cave wall. Her arm wound back around mine again. “I don’t know. I think so, in a way. My parents were in love their whole life together, but I guess there are still problems that can’t be avoided. My mom died in a car crash, and well,” she paused as if her words pained her. “I guess my dad is gone now, too. But for a while there, things were really great. And even after my mom died, my dad said it broke his heart, but he wouldn’t do anything different.”

  She turned away. “Then he said some mushy stuff about how she gave him the greatest gift of all, which was me.” Her fingers automatically reached up to touch the pendant that had fallen under her shirt.

  For some reason it scared me to say the words out loud, but I couldn’t keep them from her. “I would like that. An H.E.A. for us.”

  Emma managed to both smile at me and look miserable at the same time which urged me on.

  “You said it. They are all liars.” My voice dropped and I fought the urge to grind my teeth. “I am only something to be used.” I grabbed her hand, threading my fingers into hers. “Just as they wish to use you too. If we go far away where they can’t get us, we can have a happily ever after.”

  It all hadn’t quite hit me. I understood the Luxis had lied to me, but I still couldn’t believe I had a soul. I tried to search inward, as if by knowing it was there I could contact it within myself. But I came up feeling empty, broken, and tired. And not a trace of my former powers warmed me. I felt naked and exposed without them. As if any slight wind could bowl me over. But I could be strong for Emma. I would do anything for her.

  “What they did to you makes sense,” Emma mused.

  I blinked.

  Seeing my expression, she straightened, “I’m not saying it’s good or even by any means okay, nosiree, I’m just saying I see why they did it to you. You said your power came from faith. Well the Luxis made sure you believed in ‘the Light.’” She made finger quotations with her fingers, which gave me the impression she was somehow mocking it.

  I was surprised that she responded to my silent thoughts about my powers. Though I shouldn’t be surprised anymore. I just never knew if it was because of our unique connection, or if she somehow intuited what I was thinking. She seemed to see through everyone.

  She continued, “You believed so wholly and unquestionably that you got power from that. I always kind of thought that kind of pure belief could create magic. I mean not the crazy evil zealot kind of belief, but the kind where you believe in yourself so much that it changes the world around you.”

  Again, I was surprised by her level of insight into how my power worked. I was still digesting the information. I was not used to interpreting, only acting. She seemed to be proficient at both.

  “If I had my powers back, I could just open a portal and take us far away to our H.E.A., but…” I held up my hands and willed energy to flow through them. Nothing.

  “Well obviously, that’s not going to work,” she said, frowning at my hands. “You can’t believe in the Luxis and what they stand for anymore. Not after they lied to you and used you. Maybe you need to believe in yourself now?”

  I continued to stare at my hands, silently saying that I believed in myself. Trying to access it as a truth. They continued to be nothing more than dirt covered, calloused hands of uselessness.

  “They said I broke the faith,” I said, finally voicing what had been bothering me. “After the soul eater, I broke my faith, but I don’t know how.” I turned to look at her, laying my burden at her feet. “Perhaps it was because I loved you the moment I saw you. Perhaps that was enough to make me turn on my duties as a Chevalier.”

  Emma snorted in laughter. “There is no way. You have been nothing but a good little soldier, okay? You always obeyed the rules of their game.” Her face cleared, lines on her forehead smoothing as if hit by a realization. Emma seemed to be gazing into a place past the cavern wall. “That’s it. You were given a set of rules. You knew the rules until that soul eater became a physical creature.” Her eyes snapped up to mine. “That defied the rules of everything you had been told. My bet is you weren’t taught how to adapt when the rules were broken.”

  I chewed on the thought, though it made my head hurt. When I stalked the perimeter of the motel before dawn, before the soul eater appeared again, I had regained my powers.

  “Yes,” I said slowly then got more excited. “Yes, I didn’t know what to do with that. That morning before we were attacked at the motel, my powers returned to me because I consciously decided to stop interpreting and solely act on fighting evil in whatever form it appeared in.”

  Emma nodded. “You redefined the parameters of your belief and once you were in alignment, you were a freakin’ powerhouse.” She gave a low whistle. “Just think, if you could direct your own beliefs, you could completely control your power.” She turned to me with a question in her eyes. “I saw Regina. She had green light in her hands. Why didn’t she just use her powers to stop us from the beginning?”

  I shook my head. “If their belief is strong, they have power. But they rely on artifacts infused with power, and what they can do are parlor tricks compared to the power of the Chevalier. She hoped to stun me, and she might have done so but for a very brief time and ineffectively. Thank goodness, she was unaware I was powerless then, otherwise she would have tried sooner and been successful.”

  “That makes sense. If they had your kind of powers, I think they would have been whipping that out long ago, smacking us with it until we said uncle.” Emma laid her head on my shoulder. The excitement of our realization left me tired as well.

  “Uncle?” I asked.

  “Never mind,” she said, sounding tired, but her hand smoothed down my arm repeatedly in a soothing gesture that compelled me to close my eyes
.

  “Stop it,” Emma said, chastising me through a small smile.

  “Stop what?”

  “I can feel you getting aroused, and I’m trying to figure out how to save the world over here.”

  I smiled. “I can’t help it. When you touch me, it moves me.” I wrapped my hands around her delicate ones. Her hands were covered in mud and small scrapes. I brought them to my lips to kiss her fingers, more aware than ever I was at her mercy. “You can’t imagine what it feels like to never be touched your whole life, then know the touch of an angel.” Feelings overwhelmed me so suddenly, I had to close my eyes tight against them and press my lips against her hands for salvation.

  Emma’s lips fell on my head before she leaned back against the cave wall and sighed. I loosened my grip on her hands but didn’t stop touching her. Her eyes moved up, seeming to search the glowing slugs for something. “Calan. You still didn’t answer me. What if the orders are right and darkness is coming?”

  “They are all liars.”

  “Technically, that was only your Order, and supposedly it was for the greater good. The Veritas are the ones who don’t lie, but granted, they are major douche pickles,” she was rambling.

  I brought my hands to cup her face, pulling her attention away from the dilemma. I wanted all her attention on me. “You could go mad trying to solve all of this. I don’t want any part in this anymore, Emma. I just want to be with you. I just want to keep you safe. I want… I want to….” the name for my fantasy was on the tip of my tongue again. What was it called? The blanket, the food, the kissing under the stars.

  Emma’s eyes were glassy with unshed tears as her hands came up to cover mine. “I don’t know if we have a choice.”

  My hands fell away from her and I pushed off the ground and stood, running my agitated hands through my hair, thick with dirt and sweat. I had to crouch, as the cave wasn’t tall enough to let me stand to my full height. “Of course we do. We can do whatever we want now. Don’t you see? I have a soul, Emma.”

  A smirk pulled at her lips but her eyes remained glassy. “I always knew that, dum dum.”

  I walked back to her, falling to my knees. “It means I’m not a soulless creature, unworthy of you.”

  The way her face tightened looked as though I had wounded her. She brushed her hand through my hair. “Of course not. You were never unworthy of anything. You’re the best man I know.” She leaned forward, her lips a hair’s breadth away from mine. I could taste her sweet breath. “You’re a true hero, and crazier yet, I’ve gotten you as my own personal savior.”

  I grabbed her hand and brought it to my chest. “You saved me, Emma. You are the only one who has ever cared for me.” I closed my eyes at the rush of pain that thought brought. It made me want to abandon everything I had ever known. The Orders claimed to work for the greater good, but I knew now they were only capable of causing pain. I didn’t want that for Emma. I wanted her far away from their games, squabbles, and deceits.

  Despite my soul and my words, I still felt unworthy of this strong woman who now carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. I had lost my desire to save the world and was retreating into this new world of selfish preservation I’d never been afforded. All I wanted was her, and damn the rest of the world. Even with her life at stake, Emma still wanted to do the right thing for the greater good. Somewhere between finding out I had a soul, and meeting my true parents, I lost my faith in the idea that a right course of action even existed.

  As if sensing my distress, Emma’s soft lips found mine. It was a slow, sensual kiss. She took her time tracing the lines of my mouth, learning every curve. Her lips were hot in contrast to the cool air of the cave. Her taste immediately acted as a drug to my system. It heated the blood in my veins and urged a sluggish desperation to both spend forever plundering her mouth and also push in for more. Emma’s delicious tongue pushed past my lips and her hands grabbed at my hips, nails digging into me with fervor. All the tension, anger, fear, and desire I’d been holding onto exploded into an inferno. Everything in me screamed to devour her and this time, there was nothing stopping me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I grasped at her body, bringing her up onto her knees and smashing her against me. A groan of pleasure ripped from her throat, heightening the hum of anticipation already radiating throughout my body.

  From the moment I met her, Emma had set me on fire, embodying temptation itself. So grateful to be released of my bonds, the only thing I wanted was to drive her insane with pleasure for granting me rights to touch her.

  I was diving into my desire for her deeper than I’d ever hoped to go, and I vaguely feared I’d never come up for air. I unleashed every last ounce of wanting I possessed into the kiss, my hands grasping at every part of her I could reach. She met my every kiss and grope with equal ferocity. If I kept her here, with her breasts flattened against my chest, hips rubbing frenetically against mine, mouth and mind occupied by my sensual assault, nothing bad could ever happen to her.

  Then I felt it. The connection Emma had identified so quickly. Seeking Emma’s presence inside myself, I found her pleasure wrapping around my body like a blanket of energy, electrifying and exciting me further. My mouth migrated away from her sweet, tantalizing mouth to taste and explore the delicate skin along her neck, scraping my teeth along it, alternating between using just the tip of my tongue and completely sucking on her flesh. I was fascinated to discover what made her moan, what made her jerk, and what forced wetness between her legs. I felt the ghost of her reactions heating and tingling my own sensations.

  Captive to my exploration, Emma first grasped at my hair then ever so gently clawed down my chest. I had lost my fingers through her tangled tresses at the base of her skull. Firmly tugging her head, I granted myself full access and control of her mouth. She whimpered, her hips pumping forward. It was a small aggressive act on my part, but her ghostly pleasure spiked inside me. It had turned her on. I could feel it, the biofeedback loop made me so hard, I could hardly think past devouring every inch of skin and marking it as mine.

  Emma’s hand reached the hem line of my dirt-covered shirt. Thin, partially broken fingernails scraped up my torso just above my pelvis, sending an intense shiver through me. The blood that had already been traveling south rushed like a shot to my quickly hardening length.

  “Yes,” she gasped. Knowing full well what she was doing. Then pushing my shirt up over my abs, she moved back to pull it over my head. As she stared at my exposed chest and abs, I felt the blanket of her pleasure shudder around me in anticipation.

  I allowed her to take her time perusing my body with her eyes, but I felt my muscles coil like a tiger’s, ready to spring at any moment.

  “Jesus,” she breathed. “This will never get old.” Her fingers traced my body from my clavicles down my chest, tracing the indents of my abs and pausing again just above my pelvis causing me to shiver this time. “I think I have to make sure you never eat pizza again to preserve this ripped bod. Do you have any idea how ridiculously fucking gorgeous you are?”

  “You would deprive me pizza?” I asked, a sad note in my voice that made her smile.

  Emma’s eyes were hooded with lust, as if it was a struggle to focus. “Maybe I’ll give you a pepperoni here and there.” I leaned back in toward her mouth just as she said. “Perhaps a square of chocolate, if you’re good.”

  “I’m done with being good,” I said, then grabbed her hips and ground them into mine as I overtook her mouth once more. The sounds she made. Oh gods. The blissful, sensual sounds purring from her throat made me want more. I had to have more.

  I grabbed the tank top that had been practically torn to shreds and pulled it over her head. Her breasts were easily covered by my palms but they bounced as I pulled the shirt away. My balls tightened almost painfully. She quickly unlatched her pants and sat back to push them off her legs. When she rolled back up onto her knees, I couldn’t help but immediately press a finger through her soft curl
s, seeking the point I had once found that made her keen in pleasure. Without the confines of her clothes, I could smell her desire and I began to pant like a dog, hungry to devour her.

  “Calan,” she breathed, pushing my hand away before pushing at the hem of my own pants. Pausing my exploration of her sex, I made quick work of kicking my pants off. Before I could get back on my knees, she pushed me onto my back, hovering over me. My sex strained long and hard between us, begging to seek refuge between her legs.

  Emma wetted her lips as her delicate fingers encircled me before firmly grasping it and sweeping from base to tip.

  My hands flew to her shoulders. “Stop,” I ordered, my teeth gritted.

  A sly smile spread across her face. A war of imminent pleasure and deep desire to make this last as long as possible had my face screwed up in concentration.

  With a shaking hand, I brought it up to her cheek then used my thumb to caress her bottom lip. It was moist and swollen, like I was sure her lower lips were.

  “Emma,” I said, my voice catching. “Since the moment I first saw you, I have loved you. Everywhere there is darkness, but it is you that are the true light. I will never betray you, never turn away from you, and love you to my dying breath.”

  Emma closed her eyes as if my words had physically laid into her. Tears started to drip from her lashes before she opened them again, smiling in a way that confused me as she cried. “I love you, too, Calan. After all you have done, after all you have been through, I just want you to have a life you can believe in again.”

  My other hand came up to frame her face. Afraid I would break her with my intensity, I fought to keep my grip light. “The only life I could ever want is with you.”

  Emma reached for my manhood and stroked harder, pushing me back with her other hand until I was lying flat. She covered me with her body and the hot, liquid of her sex slid against my hard, muscular thigh. My inner beast howled. All I wanted to do was grab her and slam her down onto my hard length. Though I had never known the actual experience, I ached to know now, my hips instinctively bucking toward her.