Blood of Dragons (15 page)

Oh yeah, his retinas are burning through his eyelids.  I try to think about home in Raziel’s life now.  The problem is I don’t know where his home is.  So, I end up in his cave where I first spoke to him.  This isn’t so bad.  It’s peaceful here.

I flop down on his couch and stare out at that snow covered realm of the dinosaurs.  I can still see the magic that Raziel used to keep the cold out.  I wonder how he can do that.  Oh, my head.  I shouldn’t ask questions like that because this brain wants to give me the answers.  I need to try to keep as much information as possible locked behind the doors that Ray created for me.  Otherwise, I’m pretty sure I’ll be insane by morning.

My peace is interrupted by a high pitched screech.  I forgot about the dinosaur friends Raziel has.  Hmm.  I wonder if I can talk to the pterodactyl’s now that I’m in Raziel’s body. 

And I just told myself not to ask myself things like that.  Suddenly, my mind is filled with the language of the dinosaurs.  Actually, it’s filled with the grunts, squeaks, roars, snorts and screeching of the dinosaur language.  That’s a lot of noise to have in your head all at one time.  I put my palms to my temples and concentrate on getting it to quiet down. 

I hear the fluttering of wings and I lift my pounding head.  A pterodactyl is sitting on the cave floor in front of me.  I say cave, but this is really so much more.  It’s basically a house made of arched stone and it’s completely furnished. 

I’m thinking I made some of the noises in my head out loud because the dinosaur is tilting its head one way and then the other as it stares expectantly at me.  I hope I didn’t ask it out on a date or something.

It pokes my knee with its pointed beak, harder than I would think necessary because there’s now blood trickling down my leg, and goes back to looking at me expectantly.  A screech makes me sit up and back against the couch.  I’m pretty sure that I just bent more of Raziel’s feathers.  He is going to hate me.  I get a pang in my heart when I think that. 

Wanting
not
to think about that, I tentatively stand up.  The pterodactyl just looks at me with a question in its eyes.  Apparently, he’s not here to eat me and he’s not following me.  Ignoring him now, I wander around Raziel’s living space looking at the few things he has laid out.  It’s not exactly barren, but it’s pretty simple.  Basic needs taken care of but not a lot of extras.  A couple of hand carved trinkets and a few drawings. 

The main cave area leads into a smaller one where a large bed is still made up.  It looks so inviting I can’t help but sink down into its feathery depths.  This is absolutely the most comfortable bed I have ever laid on.  But there’s something under the blanket poking me.

Sitting back up, I pull the soft green blanket back and find a pad of drawing paper and a pencil.  I wonder what a Fallen Archangel draws.  Flipping back the cover, my entire body freezes.  After a few seconds, I can move my hand to the bottom of the first drawing and flip it up slowly.  I repeat this about twenty times before I’m convinced that every picture is a drawing of me.  But not me.  I think these are pictures of who I would have been.  My features are the same, but there’s a depth to my eyes on these pages that I don’t think I have now.  I also look really, really sad.  So sad, tears start to fill the corners of my real eyes.  Or Raziel’s real eyes.  Somehow, that feels right.  I think this body is used to reacting this way when looking at these drawings.

I force myself to look at every page.  All thirty-seven of them.  There are a few of me sleeping.  Those appear to give me a serenity that seems like it was difficult to achieve.  I don’t know how to describe it better than that.  There are a few where I’m smiling but the smiles look forced and lack any trace of humor.  I think he couldn’t draw me happy because I never truly would have been.

I force myself to look at each picture again.  As I do, thoughts seep into my mind from the deepest, darkest corners of this brain.  In my mind’s eye I see myself as a child and I have wings on my back.  My grandmother is laughing as she swings me round and round in circles until we’re both dizzy.  Somehow I know that my grandmother chose to leave the Cowan realm when I was born and she took me with her.  She did this because my mother died in childbirth.  It wasn’t just my destiny that changed.

I see myself growing and maturing but the older I get, the less I smile.  I cry a lot.  I cry because of everything that is happening in the universe and it feels as if I will never have enough tears to truly show my sorrow.  Eventually, I see myself with Raziel’s hands on my shoulders as we watch the water fall to the rocks below.  I love this spot as much as he does.  He’s right; it does help drown out the noise in my mind.

The scene changes again and I can see Raziel’s face.  The way he looks at me there is no doubt that he loves me with untainted passion.  And I want to love him like that.  But I can’t.  Everything else gets in the way.  There is true love in my heart for him, but I am being torn apart by the sorrow and ruthlessness of the universe.  So much so, my love for him is drowning in it.  But I crave his touch.  I crave his touch in a way that ascends everything else.  When I am in his arms, the thoughts quiet and all I feel is him as we make love. 

And so we make love a lot.  And then some more.  This apparently is something else that this body is used to reacting to because I am suddenly having a sensation that no woman has ever had before.  I try to stop thinking about it but those images are now permanently etched into my mind.  My skin is tingling as I feel what it would be like for our bodies to come together, for Raziel’s hands to touch me everywhere.  For his tongue and lips to make sure that every inch of my body knows that he worships me before he finally stops his wonderful torture and I feel him deep inside me. 

Okay, I have to stand up now.  This is not only embarrassing and awkward but uncomfortable as well.  I am truly starting to wonder if any other part of this body has any blood in it.  It doesn’t even seem to care that guilt is creeping into my mind.  I just mentally cheated on Kallen.  The Fairy I pledged my love to and plan to be married to the rest of my mortal life.  Oh god, I feel horrible.  But is it really cheating if I’m seeing someone else’s memories?  Well, not really memories but pictures of what could have been?  I want to say no but with the way this body is reacting, I’m having a hard time thinking that it’s not. 

With a loud groan, I throw myself back on the bed crushing more feathers in the process.  This sucks.  I love Kallen and I know that I’ll never stop loving him.  But now this stuff is in my brain.  This ‘what could have been’ stuff and I don’t want it.  I don’t want to know that Raziel knew that he would love me like that.  I don’t want to know that it was only him that could make my mind at peace.  I don’t want to know that he truly did sacrifice his happiness for mine.  He said it but now I feel it.  It’s different now.  I know exactly what he gave up for me.  It would be like me giving up Kallen.

Worst of all, I don’t know this person he loved/loves but I do know that I’m not her.  And I don’t know how to be her.  I feel just as guilty about that as I do about making love to Raziel in my mind.  Oh god, I need Kallen.  I need him so badly right now.  I wish I could bring him to me but I don’t know how to make it so that he can see me in this form without me blinding him like I almost did Kegan.  Why can I know everything else but not how to do that?

“What the hell?”

Oh. My. God.  I sit up and I have to give my brain a minute to make sure that I’m not hallucinating.  Because Kallen is standing right in front of me and his eyes look just fine.  I am off the bed in a flash and I wrap my arms around him and kiss him like I never have before.

Which is why I’m annoyed when he pushes me away as much as he can with my arms locked around his back.  Our faces are still practically touching.  That’s strange.  I’m as tall as he is.  Crap.  Because I’m in Raziel’s body.  My cheeks turn bright red as I realize I just kissed him with Raziel’s lips.  Oops.  I bite my bottom lip before saying, “Sorry, I was just so happy to see you.”

“I am happy to see you as well but I would still appreciate it if we refrain from any type of physical demonstrations for the time being.”  I think he meant to sound sincere about seeing me but the tightly clenched jaw sort of ruined it.

Reluctantly, I release my vice grip arms from around him.  He takes a step back and shakes his head.  “I am sorry.  I see you but I know that you inhabit Raziel’s body.  It is so strange."

Strange?  I think it goes beyond strange.  “What do you mean you can see me?”

He smiles grimly.  “I do not know why, but I see you and Raziel as who you really are.  Not the bodies you inhabit.”

Oh.  “Then you knew when we switched?”

He nods.  “Yes.”

That was terse.  Is he mad at me?  “I’m sorry this happened.”

His smile is a little less grim and a little angrier now.  “Not as sorry as I am.”

Okay, now I’m getting annoyed.  “Um, I’m the one who’s stuck in someone else’s body.”

Kallen sighs and runs his hand through his hair.  “And I am the one who may be married to Raziel.”

I think I just fractured my jaw on the cave floor.  “Married.  To Raziel.”  I surely didn’t hear him correctly.

His fingers are in his hair again as he begins to pace.  “You and Raziel switched bodies at the exact moment we were supposed to seal the hand-fasting with a kiss.”

“So.”

He stops and looks at me and my heart breaks at the sadness and anger I see in his eyes.  “So a hand-fasting is meant to be a bond between two souls for all eternity.” 

I’m still not getting this.  “Yeah, I know.  Until death do we part and all that.”

“It was not your soul who sealed the bond.”

Oh. 
Oh!
  “But if you’re married to Raziel then what are we supposed to do?  Fairies don’t have divorce laws.”

He gives me an ‘I know the laws better than you’ look.  “Yes, that is correct.”

This is ridiculous.  “Oh, come on.  This has to be an exception to the rule.”  Okay, that look on his face is scaring me.  “Kallen.”

His hand is in his hair again.  I think he may start pulling it out by the roots pretty soon.  “I do not know.  Grandmother is looking into it.”

“
Looking into it?
  What is there to look into?” 

He sighs and walks to me.  Putting his hands on my shoulders, he says, “I do not care what Fairy law says, you are my wife.”

I do my best to smile but it’s hard.  I tilt my head back and look at the ceiling as if it will give me some sort of insight into this mess.  “Why did this happen?”

“Raziel believes that it happened because of his despair.”  I drop my head back down.  Kallen is starting to look angry again.  “He regrets changing your destiny.”

That uncomfortable feeling I had earlier is starting to come back.  “Did he say that?”

He shakes his head.  “No.”  I sigh in relief.  After what I was feeling earlier, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.  “Xandra, why are your cheeks turning red?”  His anger is being pushed aside by suspicion.

I have to tell him.  If I don’t, I’ll feel guilty the rest of my life.  “Um.  I sort of have some of Raziel’s knowledge in my head now.”

His eyes narrow.  “What knowledge?”

“Lots of it.”  I can’t look him in the eye.

“Be more specific.” 

This is not the happy reunion I was hoping for.  Okay then.  I’m just going to spit it out.  “I know what my life would have been like with Raziel.  How things would have been between us.”  My cheeks are flaming now.  I might have to leave the cave to get some snow to cool them off before my skin melts.