by Celeste Raye
“I am glad that you haven’t asked me a bunch of questions. You would be surprised to know that no one hasn’t before.”
“I am glad to be your first.”
Calypso’s face got red, and she looked away. Stephen liked her with that innocent look on her face, and he leaned in to kiss her before he could stop himself. The moment was perfect, the clouds were beautiful, and the pink face of Calypso pulled on him in a way he could not deny.
Her lips were yielding to his, and Calypso was kissing him back seconds later. It was clear that she liked what was going on, and that gave Stephen the thought that she wanted him to go further. That was, of course, what he thought because he wanted her so much.
Stephen slipped her down underneath him as his body pressed her against the bench. It wasn’t made for lovemaking, but he would have managed anywhere. There was no way that Stephen was going to let the moment fade away. He was dying to be inside of her, and he knew that there was no better place than they were.
“Where did you come from, Calypso?”
She smiled and then pulled him back down. “From everywhere.”
It made sense to Stephen. She had a little piece of all of those places inside of her, and that’s why she was so special. Calypso was a little bit of everything, all rolled up into one.
Chapter Thirteen
Calypso was trying her best to hold herself together. The man on top of her was pressing her into the cold, hard bench. It bit into her back, but then his lips and wandering hands gave her enough reason to forget all of it. She was shaking inside, and her body was lifting to meet his touch. There was electricity going between them, and it was impossible for Calypso not to be turned on.
She wanted him, but something was holding her back. She had never done such a thing before, and though she liked to believe that she was free, the truth was that she was afraid of what was going to happen next. Calypso had a lot of warnings about love in the back of her mind.
“You seem distracted.”
“I’m here. You feel good.”
“Then what is it? I want you to kiss me like I’m kissing you.”
“I’m sorry, I am just nervous. I have never done this before.”
“I haven’t ever done it on the top of a mountain either, but I am sure that the gravity won’t be too bad. I don’t see why it would be any different.”
Calypso sat up a tiny bit as he came up to really look at her.
“No, I mean I haven’t done this before at all.”
“And by this, you mean?”
Calypso didn’t want to spell it out. She wanted to go back to moments before when he was kissing her, and their bodies had been stuck together. Calypso should have known that there was a part of her that was holding back, always had been. She wanted Stephen badly, but it wasn’t enough. It had never been enough before, and nothing was changing that viewpoint for her.
“I mean that I have never had sex before, Stephen. I am trying to stick with it, but my body is trembling, and I feel like I am going to freeze.”
Stephen’s green eyes lightened, and she was able to breathe again when he looked at her.
“I am sorry. I didn’t realize.”
She smiled at him and liked that he was so willing to put out the flames. Calypso wanted him. She wanted to be ready, but she was just afraid. It was something that she should have done years ago, and Calypso had come close a couple of times. But fate always got in the way. The one time that it didn’t, it was her mind that was doing it.
“You did nothing wrong. I want you, Stephen. I just don’t know if I am ready yet.”
Stephen told her that he was willing to wait as long as it took. Calypso knew that he didn’t want that to happen, but he wasn’t trying to make her feel bad for her choice like others had done. She liked feeling like she had a choice and he would respect it either way she went. That meant more to her than she ever would have imagined.
Hearing that he would wait, Calypso wanted him. She already wanted him before, but the overwhelming fear was gone, and she knew that it was time for her to do what she had been looking forward to for years. Calypso knew that she was going to find no stronger connection. When Stephen kissed her, it was like the whole world fell away, and the only thing that was left was just her and him.
She could feel his hands pushing her shirt up, and she allowed it to happen. Calypso didn’t help much, even though she knew what to so. Being as it was the first time, she was scared. She knew what was going to happen, obviously, but there was nothing that she could do about it.
He was settled on top of her, and Stephen started working on her pants. He took one of her breasts into his mouth after they were revealed. It was hard for her to stop the whimpering sound that came out of her mouth. Stephen was going slow, and it felt so good.
Everything was going perfectly until Frank popped up out of nowhere. Of all the places that he could be, and of all of the times for him to pop up, this was the worst one.
“Frank!”
She pushed Stephen off of her and covered her body as best as she could. She didn’t want to flash the old man, but it seemed like she didn’t have much of a choice.
“Sorry to do this, guys. Get dressed, and I will be back in a minute. I have news that can’t wait.”
She could tell by looking at him that his news was not going to be good news. Calypso could feel that something was wrong and she tried her best to settle herself. Stephen was cursing next to her, and she knew that it was because he didn’t have the same sinking feeling inside of him. If he did, he wouldn’t be complaining. Calypso wanted to finish almost as much as he did, she was sure of it, but at the same time, she knew that this news was going to be important.
“It’s not going to be good, Stephen. One of us is getting bad news.”
Calypso didn’t know why, but she was sure that she was going to be the one receiving it.
When Frank came back through and stopped to land, the knot in her stomach was feeling stronger than ever, and then Frank looked at her. He was saddened to the core and Calypso immediately knew what it was. It wasn’t the sadness that tipped her off; it was the fear in his eyes.
“What’s wrong, Frank?”
“We need to talk Calypso.”
“Why don’t we get back to the temple so that we can leave? It is a long way, and I need to be there when they put her in the ground.”
Frank was taken aback, but the fear had not left his eyes. It was just getting more astute.
“It’s going to be okay, Frank.”
“How did you know?”
Calypso shrugged. “I just do. As soon as I saw you, I guess I knew.”
Stephen was left in the dark, and it was Calypso that told him what was going on.
“Frank is here because my mother is dead. I’m the last Phoenix.”
No one said a word on the way back. They were all processing in their own way. Calypso used the grief to make her fly faster and harder than the other two. She didn’t even try to let them keep up; her mind was elsewhere. Calypso returned to the club, hours before her companions. She was dog-tired, but she had things to do.
This was the moment that she had been planning for her whole life.
She was finally the last one.
Chapter Fourteen
Frank and Stephen weren’t going fast enough to outrun the devil. Frank had a lot on his mind, and Stephen wanted to find out what it was that he didn’t know. The air was thick around the two of them, and that told him that there was more than just her mother’s death to worry about. There was something more.
They stopped midday for a break and Stephen was immediately on his uncle about all of the unanswered questions and the information that he had not been privy to.
“What’s going on, Frank? Why are you looking like that?”
Frank smiled at his nephew, but it didn’t last very long. The sad look was back on his face.
“I don’t know what to say, what to believe. I have gotten an
earful of other’s views on the prophecy, and that doesn’t bode well for what is going to come next. I told you before that you needed to be sure if you wanted to be with her. So, Stephen, are you sure?”
Stephen thought for only a moment. He had not known Calypso long but he knew that she was the one for him. It was just a feeling that he had in his bones, and it was impossible to deny it. Stephen sure didn’t want to.
“Yes, I am sure.”
“Then you need to know what is coming, Stephen. Or at least what we think is coming. We won’t know for sure until the time is here, but then it will be too late to prepare. We have to get ready now.”
Stephen’s hairs on the back of his neck started to rise, and he was worried about what that was going to mean for him. He loved Calypso. Stephen wasn’t sure when it happened. It was possibly the first time that she put him on his back.
“What is coming? I have heard the prophecies, but you can’t tell me that you believe it?”
“I actually do, Stephen. It is not clear exactly what will happen, but I have talked to many people, and I have a good idea what it is.”
Stephen waited, but Frank still wasn’t coming out with it.
“It can’t be as bad as everyone is trying to make it out to be.”
“Oh, it is. You see, if Calypso is the last of her bloodline, that means that the prophecy is going to come true. Freya is gone, and now it’s just Calypso left.”
“Yes, but the prophecy doesn’t go into effect until one mates with another family.”
“I am glad that you’ve heard a bit of it. The problem is, the witches are getting anxious. When we get to the club and talk to the people involved, I bet they will find that it wasn’t an accident. Something happened to her mother, and now, those same people are going to be after her.”
“Why?”
“Because some people want to fulfill the prophecy.”
“What is supposed to happen if it does come true?”
Frank paused and settled his nerves as best as he could. “It’s supposed to be the end of all dragonkin on this planet. We will be hunted down and snuffed out until every single one of us is gone.”
“By what?”
“That’s where it gets murky. Bhut and Christian both think it’s an army of undead, but no one really knows. It was put into place so long ago, over a century ago. Everything that we could do was done, but Freya met and mated with her husband and made Calypso. Now she’s the last…”
His words were pushed along and then stopped. His mind was going in too many directions, and it was hard for him to think straight.
“So, you think that someone is going to go for her, try to end her life?”
As soon as the words were said out loud, Stephen felt his stomach tying into knots. The last thing that he wanted to happen was for Calypso to get hurt. He couldn’t even imagine it. He refused to lose her before he even got her.
“Why did we let her take off then?”
“Because she needed the space. I suppose that Calypso learned of her fate a long time ago and that’s why she has gone through all of the trouble to train. It’s smart. She’s smart, but I worry that there are too many forces that are fighting against her on this one. She isn’t going to be able to fight off everyone that is sent her way. Eventually, it’s going to happen, Stephen.”
Stephen didn’t want to talk anymore. He certainly didn’t want to talk about the death of Calypso. He wasn’t worried about what was going to happen after that because Stephen wasn’t going to let anyone get to her. He wanted to leave, immediately and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I thought you wanted to take a break?”
“Not if what you said is true, Uncle. We need to get to Calypso, to protect her if something happens and someone comes after her. What if they try to attack when she is getting her mother’s body? They could attack the club.”
Frank tried to calm him down but Stephen was just in a state of panic. He didn’t want anything to happen to her, wouldn’t allow it to occur, but that meant that he had to be there to stop it. As much as he liked to believe that there was nothing that was going to happen, the warning was there. Calypso herself had alluded to something going on, but she didn’t say what it was.
“Do you think they will try to kill her?”
“Yes, I do. I wouldn’t worry about telling you if I didn’t think you would need to know. I know this is a lot, but I felt it was best that you knew. Would it have changed your mind about her?”
Stephen disagreed. “Not at all. I knew right away that there was something different about Calypso, and it didn’t take long at all to see that I wanted to be with her. She is kind and generous and beautiful. I just want to be there with her if something happens. I don’t want to leave her side again.”
Frank was happy to hear that, as well as worried for Stephen. He could see that his nephew was going to have a lot of heartbreak in his future. Loving the wrong woman could drastically change a man’s life.
“Then we shall go. She shouldn’t be too far ahead, but she was going fast. I doubt that she stopped at all.”
Stephen didn’t know what to say to that. All he could think about was how much he wanted to get back to her. It was the only clear thought in his mind, and they didn’t stop again. Not until they saw the club on the horizon.
He shifted and moved into the club as quickly as he could. After asking the front desk if they had seen her, Stephen went up to her room. She was supposed to stop there for the night, before the next day when the funeral arrangements would be made. It was going to be a big event; funerals in the dragonkin always were. It was especially hard at the moment, because one had not died in decades, not since all of the fighting ended with the merging of packs.
Chapter Fifteen
Calypso heard the knock on the door and she told whoever was on the other side of it that she was not taking visitors. All she could think about was what came next. She didn’t even want to give herself time to grieve. Yet Calypso didn’t know how she was supposed to move on. She just knew that she had to. The summer that was planned was now officially over, no matter how much Calypso was looking forward to spending it with Stephen.
Going to the door after whoever it was knocked again, Calypso finally hollered that she was coming, but she wasn’t in a good mood. There had been too many well-wishers that had come to see her. She didn’t know any of them really, though most of them claimed that they knew her mom. Calypso didn’t know who to believe or who to trust, so she was going with the default of trusting no one. That seemed far easier to do than anything else at the moment.
“What?”
She stopped when she saw that it was Stephen. He didn’t have the same kind of fear in his eyes that his uncle had when Calypso was told about her mother. She was sure that the only thing that he was in fear of was the worry that filled his head. There was a lot of it, and she knew that it was directed at her. Someone had told him.
“I was worried about you, Calypso. You took off like that, and I wanted to get back to you. Are you okay?”
Calypso didn’t know what to say for a moment. She wasn’t okay, but she was still trying to pretend like she was.
“I am fine, Stephen. Really. I am just getting some things together.”
“Why?”
“Because after the funeral and service, I am going to get out of here.”
“Where are you going to go?”
Calypso just sort of shrugged because she wasn’t sure at the moment. Her mother was the last of her family, and now Calypso was feeling rather alone. She wanted to leave because she knew she had to, but that meant leaving Stephen. Calypso would never meet another guy like Stephen. He was one of a kind. She didn’t have to have much experience to know that. It was something that was felt as soon as she met him.
“I don’t know. Away from here.”
“What about your training with Frank?”
“I don’t think that it’s going to do me any good. I don’t
want to be around all of these people when…you know what, it doesn’t matter. It’s all going to be fine. I am glad you’re here. We can say goodbye. I would have tracked you down otherwise.”
“And said what?”
Calypso didn’t know the answer to that. Stephen was moving to get in, and she finally realized what he was doing. She moved back and let him into the suite.
“Nice digs.”
“I am sure yours are just as good.”
“I don’t know. I think I got the family special.”
“I am sure it’s fine.”
“You’re really leaving. Packing up and everything.”
“Yes, I told you I was. Are you okay?”
Stephen sat down on the edge of her bed, and he was quiet for several moments. Calypso waited for him to say something. She went back to packing because the tension in the room was high and she didn’t want them to just stare at each other. There had to be something that was better for the two of them.
“So, you’re just going to take off?”
“Yeah, that’s always been the plan. I knew this day would come; I had just hoped that it would be a little later down the road. I should have known better. They would never let me have a family. That would just prolong it.”
“Who?”
She breathed out an agitated breath. “The witches. The ones that made this curse to begin with. We’ve been alienated and vilified for many years, all because of something that happened so long ago. It’s so frustrating because there is nothing I can do about it. I need to keep moving.”
Stephen put his hand out for her to take it, and she did finally. He pulled her down to the bed next to him. “I will keep you safe, Calypso. I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“I know that you don’t understand this, but I have to go. I really don’t have a choice at the end of the day.”
“So, you are going to run until they find you or you die another way?”
“What other option do I have?”
