Beyond Wild Imaginings (5 page)

He flinched and averted his eyes in a sorrowful expression that tugged at her heart. “Forgive me. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable. They used to bring you comfort.” His wings began to recede into his broad shoulders, but he didn’t lift his gaze.

Kelly’s heart twinged painfully. She didn’t like how sad he looked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,” she murmured. “This is just…very strange. Your wings are beautiful, Garren. I’m just trying to figure all of this out.” She ran her hands through her hair and expelled an enormous sigh.

He lifted his eyes to meet hers for just a second before he dropped his gaze again, stood, and went over to Chad’s window. He folded his arms and, staring into the night, seemed about as forlorn and lost as she felt most of the time.

“Garren?” She stood on shaky legs and took a few tentative steps toward him. “Please, I really don’t understand what’s going on. Are you really here?”

“The world is different now than when I last came to you,” he stated with a sigh, ignoring her question. “I don’t remember there being so many lights and so many tall buildings.”

She frowned and crossed the remaining distance between them. “That’s because I think the last time you came to me was when I was ten. Am I right?”

He turned his baleful gaze down to her and nodded just slightly.

Kelly’s eyes widened as her mind tried to wrap around what was happening. This was so abnormal and insane. “I lived in Syracuse when I was ten,” she said. “I had a backyard and a house. I didn’t live in the middle of Manhattan.”

He made a frustrated-sounding, snort noise and shook his head. “Syracuse. Manhattan. These names mean nothing to me. All I knew then and all I have ever known since is Kelly.”

Her stomach turned over, and the watermelon feeling came back in her throat. “Garren,” she whispered. “Are you really the man from my childhood? The man I dreamed up to protect me and be my companion? The man I all but forgot? This can’t be possible.”

He shifted his powerful body so that he was turned to face her. “You, who dreams of realms and fantasies not of this world, speak of what can and cannot be possible?” He shook his head. “I am here because you did
not
forget.”

He came to an abrupt halt, stared at her, and then heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness. I thought you’d had a heart attack and it was all my fault.”

She frowned. “Why would it be your fault?”

“Because I was the one who told you to jump off the roof!”

Garren turned toward Chad with a scowl on his handsome face. “You are the one who put Kelly’s life in danger?” He didn’t shout, he hardly even raised his voice, but the sting of his reprimand snapped like a whip.

Chad paled a shade and swallowed hard. “I, uh…”

Kelly sighed and shook her head. “Okay, it doesn’t matter who did what or who told what to whom. At this point, I’m starting to think I’ve lost my ever-loving mind so would someone”—she turned her attention to Garren and gave him a pointed look—“that someone being you, tell me what the crap is going on?”

Chad arched an eyebrow, and Kelly stared at Garren for a few heartbeats before she waved her hands as if to erase his statement. “Okay, first of all, I’m not your mistress. My name is Kelly.”

His smile was devilish, and his sad eyes came to life with a twinkle of mirth. “Yes, I know that.”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked up at him. “I’m glad you find this so amusing because I’m really not thinking you’re too funny at the moment. Are you really the Garren I remember from my childhood?”

He nodded. “One and the same.”

“Why do you look different than I remember you? In my memories, your hair is lighter, and you don’t look like you just came from an emo concert.”

She pivoted on her heel, more than happy to return to the refuge of the couch. Her legs still felt rather unstable and sitting seemed like a very good plan. She snapped her fingers at Chad and motioned for him to come and sit next to her. She needed something familiar around. Her best friend of seven years. A human of flesh and blood. Not a translucent, winged creature she’d imagined as a little girl.

Chad took his place next to Kelly while Garren continued to stand facing them. He glanced over Chad for a moment before his eyes settled on Kelly. “You write beautiful things,” he stated. “Magical, mythical things. Your mind conjures the impossible, and you create worlds of it for people’s entertainment. You make the impossible come to life.”

She frowned and shook her head. “That’s fiction. It isn’t real—”

He held his hand up to silence her, and a small smirk touched his sensual lips. “Let me tell you the story of the Lucienus. Then you decide for yourself what is fiction and what is fact.”

Garren’s lips quirked. “Not magic as in sorcery and spells, and not magic as in sleight of hand. This realm is made up entirely of creative magic.”

She blinked in confusion. “I’m not really familiar with that term.”

Garren’s smile grew, and he bent at the waist so that he was staring straight down at her. “If my mistress would kindly be patient, I would be more than happy to explain it.”

She scowled. “You’re impertinent,” she stated. “I don’t remember you being impertinent. And quit it with the mistress thing.”

His grin remained, and he nodded, standing straight again. “Things have changed since you last saw me, little one,” he said softly. “I have changed because you have changed. But I will get to that.”

She swallowed and averted her eyes for a second as warmth washed over her at his term of endearment. She remembered him calling her that as a little girl. She remembered how it had always made her feel so safe. The words on his lips took her back to a time that seemed so far away. Feeling more childlike at that moment than she had in years, she hunched her shoulders and wrapped her arms around herself.

“As I was saying,” Garren continued, “this realm is made up entirely of creative magic. Creative magic is what exists within people like you, Kelly.”

She looked up and met his mesmerizing violet eyes, such a stark contrast to his black hair.

“Certain people are born into the world with exceptional imaginations, with creativity beyond what is normal in a human. Those people have the power to create things, to make real and bring life to things most people would only see as imaginary.

“Years ago, five little girls brought an entire race of people to life. They created a world where winged creatures existed that protected them and watched over them. They were noble creatures, guardians and companions.”

“The Lucienus,” Kelly whispered.

Garren nodded. “My race.”

She let out a slow breath as she tried to process the information he was giving her. “So, you’re saying that the power of mine and my four friends’ imaginations brought your race to life in this…realm thing?”

He nodded again. “But we are not made of flesh and blood as you are. We exist only as thought. We were alive to you so we became such, but we are not visible to those who do not believe as you do.”

Chad frowned. “But I never knew anything about creatures Kelly created in her childhood. I didn’t even know Kelly then. How can I see you?”

Garren turned his attention to Chad. “You must have an amazing amount of creative power yourself. Only those with exceptional imaginations, who can believe in things otherworldly, can see a creature of the creative realm.”

Kelly shook her head. “But Rachel,” she protested. “Rachel was one of the girls who thought up the Lucienus. Why couldn’t she see your feather? And why are you even called the Lucienus? We never named you that.”

Garren gave a soft chuckle. “You’re getting ahead of yourself again, little one.”

She huffed, folded her arms, and sat back against the couch with a scowl.

Garren smirked. “There were many of us for several years, but out of us all, five were the most important, the leaders of the Lucienus. They were Harrison, Guardian of Lanelle; Andril, Guardian of Beth; Rowan, Guardian of Rebecca; Eamon, Guardian of Rachel; and Garren, Guardian of Kelly.”

His voice softened as he spoke his own name and title, and Kelly’s heart somersaulted. Her fingers were trembling. “Those were the names of all my friends,” she whispered. “The five of us. Your kindred spirit sisters.” She looked up at him.

He nodded, and his eyes lit up at the usage of the name. “Yes, that is what you were. The queens of us all. The Kindred Sisters of the Lucienus. The ones we vowed to always protect above all others. I, along with the other four, led the Lucienus. We ruled them. We were royalty.”

Kelly slowly nodded her head as bits and pieces of memory returned. “Yes, I remember. You were the most powerful, the strongest and best of your race. The best to protect us.”

Chad shook his head in confusion. “Wait, hold on a second,” he blurted out. He waved his hand. “Clueless over here. I wasn’t part of your childhood, Kelly. What the heck are you talking about?”

Kelly sighed and turned to look at her friend. “When I was little, my sister and I were part of this playgroup. There were three other girls who were part of it, and we were best friends for a number of years. We would always play in the backyard and have fantastic adventures. We would pretend we’d been transported to different worlds or whatever. You know, we would play. Like most kids do.”

“But you weren’t just ordinary children,” Garren interjected. “You were very special.”

Kelly glanced up at him, then back at Chad. “One day one of our friends was upset. She came to the playgroup really quiet with a tearstained face. I think she was nine at the time. Most of them were around nine or ten. I was the youngest.” She shook her head. “Anyway, Rebecca was upset. She had a difficult home life. Her father was an alcoholic and would get violent sometimes. He never hurt Rebecca, but she was always terrified that one day he would. The rest of us didn’t want her to be sad so we started to play a game.

“There was this gate in my backyard, and it was all overgrown and covered with ivy. I think I started it by saying it was a portal to a magical land or something, and we all kind of ran with it. Soon we’d made up an entire race of creatures who watched over us and kept us safe.” She gestured at Garren. “We all had one that we created special for us. We did it to make Rebecca feel better, but we all got so wrapped up in it that it became the only game we ever played. It became a secret club of sorts, and we would dance in a circle with flowers in our hair and sing rhymes to call our guardians to us so that we could travel to their world and have adventures.” She shrugged. “It was just a child’s game.”

Garren shook his head. “Not just a game. It was a world. It was a civilization. With your creative powers, you all caused an entire race to come into being. My race. A race we named the Lucienus. After you created us, you gave us power to do and say as we would. You believed in us so much that we became the closest to living humans as creatures of myth and thought can ever be. We lived as you do in that Creative Realm. We had lives. We had families. All because of your creative magic. We lived and breathed to you. We existed and, because you all believed it so wholeheartedly, it was real.” A whimsical smile crossed his handsome features. “For two years, the five of us ruled a beautiful, fantastic world. We lived a beautiful, fantastic life. We loved our mistresses who we protected.” His brow furrowed, and he looked away, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning away. He shook his head sadly.

He looked at her over his shoulder. “The others. They said that they were our kindred spirit sisters. They said we had their promise and their trust, but they lied. They betrayed us. They abandoned us.”

A cold wave washed over Kelly, and a knot settled in her stomach. She had a feeling that this story was about to take a horrible turn. “How?” she forced herself to ask. “How did they betray you?”

“We are made up of nothing but belief! If we are forgotten, we cease to exist! I watched as my entire race slowly disappeared, one by one. First, they would go into a state much like myself.” He held his arms out. “Slightly transparent, not exactly solid. That is the first step. Then, as more memory is lost, they became unable to move beyond the Creative Realm. They were trapped there, no more than ghosts. Finally, they would vanish altogether. They all died, every last one.” He swallowed hard, the pain he was feeling obvious in the lines of his face. “All but me.”