Devour (20 page)

~ ~ ~

The doorbell woke me. I jolted up and glanced in the mirror, smoothing my hair. I ran down the hall and stopped to take a calming breath - so it didn’t look like I’d just ran down the hall - and opened the door to find Eli with a little sly grin. I bit my lip and started to return it but once again I just knew.

“Enoch,” I said angrily. “What are you doing at my house?” I tried to keep calm. Knowing he could literally feel and taste my fear made it that much worse.

“So it’s true,” he said in an angry awe and came a little closer as if examining me. “I can feel it.”

“Feel what? What are you talking about?”

“You’re bonded with him.” He gazed at something between us with disgust. I watched him curiously.

“With Eli? What?” Enoch came even closer to completely invade my space. I sucked in a quick breath and he groaned slightly. “I’m not going to hurt you, silly. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. You don’t see this?”

He motioned between us. I looked and saw nothing but air and space. I looked at him questioningly.

“When we mate-“ he started but was interrupted by Mrs. Ruth.

“Eli! Nice to see you again.” She glanced between us. “Well, let him in, Clara, don’t just stand in the door, honey.”

“No,” I said quickly, “this isn’t Eli.”

She raised her eyebrow and gave me an amusing look.

“Ok,” she said sarcastically. “Eli, come on in. Dinner’s almost ready.”

“No really, this is Enoch, Eli’s twin.”

“Oh,” she said and looked closer to him. “Identical. Wow, I’d have never known. How nice that you came too. I’m sure we have plenty if you want to stay for dinner.” She held out her hand to him. “Ruth, the Pastor’s wife.”

“Enoch,” he said smoothly and took her hand, bringing it to his lips, before I could stop him, and kissing it. “Pleasure,” he rumbled.

Her face flamed a shade between red and pink.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Um.”

I pulled her hand free and glared at him.

“He’s not staying,” I assured her. “He just came by to say farewell as he skipped out of town. Isn’t that right, Enoch?”

“Well, it doesn’t look like there’s much fun to be had here anymore,” he explained flatly.

“Goodbye, then. Safe travels,” Mrs. Ruth said briskly before turning to go back to the kitchen.

“What is wrong with you?” I hissed at him.

“Evil being,” he said and pointed to himself. “If that’s not an excuse, I don’t know what is.”

“There’s no excuse for being a jerk.”

“But she’s the Pastor’s wife… Do you not understand the irony of this whole situation?” he said clearly enjoying himself. “One evil being at your door, kissing the hand of your adopted mother who’s married to the Pastor with whom you live. You, the sweet innocent unscathed mate of my twin brother who renounces what he is but is also…an evil being. I mean, you can’t write this stuff.”

“Just get out of here,” I said and tried to shut the door.

“’Fraid I can’t do that, love,” he said sweetly as his hand snapped out swiftly to hold the door open.

“Don’t call me that.”

“But you’re family now,” he said sarcastically and jerked me forward with a hand on my wrist. He pulled me out the door and pushed me against the house side, my wrist still in his surprisingly gentle grasp. “Don’t you understand what I’ve been trying to tell you?”

“No, I don’t.” I tried to pull away but he held tight. “You’re hurting me.”

“No, I’m not.” He grinned and inched forward. His face was almost touching mine and I held my breath. “You little liar,” he breathed and I felt it wash against my lips.

It was true, he wasn’t hurting me, but I wasn’t comfortable like this either.

“Let me go,” I commanded in a whisper.

“Not until you hear what I have to say.”

“What?” I said in exasperated annoyance. “What do you have to say?”

“That you’re in trouble,” he said low and foreboding.

Before I could speak I heard a growl off to the side. We both looked in that direction to see Eli. I wasn’t surprised to see him. He’d told me he was coming over, but I was surprised to see his face at least a shade too red to be normal and the veins in his neck and arms were blue. Yes, blue and bulging. He shook with rage and I felt a second’s spike of fear as he speared his brother with a glare.

His gaze immediately shot to mine and he visibly calmed; his veins seemed to be less prominent and his fist shook less as he heaved a long breath.

“Don’t be scared of me, Clara,” he said gruffly.

“Have you looked at yourself, brother?” Enoch chimed happily but didn’t release me nor back away. “I haven’t seen you this enraged since I stole that girl from you in Philadelphia.”

“That was over a hundred years ago and I was stupid back then. I am not the same, as it seems to so easily escape your grasp, brother,” he spat.

“I’m not the only one who lets things slip their grasp.” He leaned back a little but held me firmly to the wall. Eli’s eyes shifted to the space between us and his eyes widened to impossible half dollars. Then his gaze settled on me.

Anyone else would have been frightened out of their mind. But you see, the look on Eli’s face was something indescribable. The way he felt for me, the affection, the care, the...love, was all over him as if I could see it written in ink there.

“Clara,” he said, his voice was almost a beg.

I didn’t understand what was going on but, I wasn’t scared of it either. Enoch interrupted anything that was going on between us.

“You see?” He turned to look at me again and sneered. “I couldn’t hurt her even if I wanted to. So you can relax, little girl.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked in a harsh whisper.

“You don’t see that?” Eli asked.

“See what?”

“Come here, Clara. Enoch, let her go.”

Enoch’s hand gently released my wrist and he backed away. I made a swift move to Eli who had completely returned to himself. He was no longer filled with rage, and his eyes never left my face.

I let my fingers smooth the skin of his neck over a vein, plump it pumped his blood, but was invisible now. I asked the silent question with my eyes as I took my hand away.

“Forgive me for that. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“What was that?”

“It was protection,” Enoch said across the porch. “He thought I was hurting you.”

I ignored him.

“What do you see that I don’t see?” I asked Eli.

“We’re bound,” he said, barely a whisper, in fact I really just read his lips.

“What does that mean,” I asked in the same fashion.

“It means that Enoch is correct. He can not hurt you…because he too is bound to you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s a string…” His fingers moved between us into clear air and nothingness. “Why can’t you see it?”

“A string?”

“There’s a barbed strand here…between you and I and between you…and Enoch.”

I gulped. I glanced at Enoch and he was stoically watching me. He didn’t look like he was surprised so he’d apparently already seen it. I looked back to Eli. He touched my face softly, almost as if seeing if I was real. I heard Enoch tell him, “No, don’t,” but I didn’t understand why. Then my gaze snapped alive with a new brightness.

Although it was darker I could see better than before. Like it wasn’t dark but a bright sunny day. The colors of Eli’s white shirt and black button up and the grass below us was contrasted to high definition levels. But most importantly, I saw the string attached around my wrist and his. It was black and barbed as he said, like it hooked into us like barbed wire, taut and ridged, but I didn’t feel anything. It had a haze around it and the ethereal look of it made it seem smoky and unfocused.

His fingers barely caressed my cheek and then slid down my neck and arm. When he looked back up his face changed. He tilted his head to look more closely into my eyes. His jaw dropped slightly and a stunned breath blew across my face.

“I told you to stop,” Enoch said behind us. “Idiot.”

“What?” I said confused. I felt a prickle of unease shoot through me that whatever he was going to say wouldn’t be something I’d be thrilled about.

“My eyes.”

“What about them?”

“Your…I completely forgot. Your eyes…are like mine now.”

“What do you mean?” My heart pounded. “They’re purple?”

“No, they’re green, but you can see like me. When I touched you I gave you my perspective. The green is just a backlash, some kind of mishap or something. We have no idea why they turn green instead of purple but it happens when the two bound ones touch for the first time. You noticed the sight?”

“Yes,” I answered and looked around again, “everything is brighter and more focused.”

“How are we going to explain this to your guardians?” he mused more to himself.

“Wait,” I asked in my most calm voice. “My eyes are really green? Really?”

“Yes,” he nodded solemnly, “and they’ll stay that way.”

I wanted to panic and I wanted to do…something. But I knew my reaction was important right now. The way Eli viewed me and handled me from now on hinged on my reaction to this moment; my reaction to something supernatural and awe inspiring happening to us. We were bound somehow. And that part of the equation thrilled me. It was the other stuff that was making me want to bolt. I thought long and hard about my next statement. One, to make sure I wasn’t lying to him and the words were true and two, to make sure my voice was calm before I said them.

“Well…I’ll tell them I got contacts or something. I’ll tell them I was tired of blue,” I tried to come to a solution when really, weirdly, strangely, I found it oddly satisfying that I was in possession of something that only Eli could give me; his view of the world.

It hadn’t really hit me that this might change my world entirely. It scathed by my thoughts that things may be different in every way but Eli seemed to function, so could I, right?

“Maybe,” he thought, “but they are
really
green, Clara. In the mean time, put these on.” He took the aviator glasses hanging on his shirt collar and put them on me. I grimaced and wrinkled my nose. “What?” he asked me, his lip twitching as it fought a smile.

“Aviators are so not my style.”

He laughed and smoothed my hair before saying, “Please try not to be such a girl right now.”

“I am a girl,” I countered.

“A girl who looks fine in my sunglasses,” he insisted with a little smirk. “Besides, we have bigger things to worry about.”

I looked back down between us to see the barb connecting our wrists and looked back up to Eli’s face.

“What does this mean? What is this?”

“It’s a linkage,” he explained in a soft voice. “A bond.”

“Like what you were talking about before? Because I’m your…mate?”

“Not quite,” he answered carefully.

“Tell her, brother,” Enoch said snidely. “Tell her what it means.”

“Shut up.” He looked at me closely and carefully. His face was lit with a glow I’d never seen before. He almost smiled. “Later,” he promised in a low rumble.

“Why not now?” I insisted. “I’m not exactly known for my patience.”

Enoch laughed, “Oh we can see that.”

“Shut up,” Eli told him again and looked back to me. “I will explain, but not right now. Besides…” He stepped back and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Pastor, good to see you again.”