Authors: Nicole Williams
“I’ll be fine. You . . . drive.”
“Alright, Brother.” An amused chuckle sounded beside us. “Save the girl . . . again.”
His chuckle was joined by another, as the hands wrapped around me gripped deep into my flesh, and the most intimate, warm euphoria streamed into my body in electric currents. I drifted off into the somehow bright darkness to, “Stay with me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MONTANA
I was surrounded by a web of warmth and molded against something that fit my body as if hand-tailored for it.
These were the first signs I was coming out of the blackness that had consumed me. I heard humming next as a woodsy, cinnamon-laced scent filled my awakened senses, and the electricity that sparked between our united bodies confirmed—without the need to open my eyes—who was the bearer of all these pleasant gifts. My heart fluttered, and the restored energy within me surged.
“Mmmm . . . I can
feel
you again—the good way I remember.” The familiar voice ceased humming to whisper in my ear.
My eyes opened, no longer able to enjoy the sensory potpourri of him without adding the view through my eyes. As usual, the very sight of him invoked a cascade-like effect of reactions within my body, this time being no different. His warm smile paired with the glowing pale blue of his eyes made me dizzy. So dizzy, it was a good thing I was lying horizontally in his arms.
“Is this for real?” I whispered, reaching my hand to his face, still foggy from the extended slumber and from his ever present hypnotic aura.
He chuckled as I traced the pieces of his face. “I believe it is, although I don’t really care what it is.” His eyes closed when I traced over his lips.
“And why is that?” I asked, knowing I felt the same way.
His eyes sparkled. “Because I’m here with you, of course. And we’re surrounded by some rather impressive beauty.” His eyes left mine and trailed around us. “Although it has nothing on the beauty beside me,” he said, tracing his eyes back to mine.
With determination, I forced my eyes to pry themselves from the man lying beside me to view the landscape surrounding us. We were lying on a worn quilt in a vast field that coursed its way along irregularly patterned rolling hills, which were enclosed by tall spires of snow-capped mountains. The stillness and rugged beauty of the landscape could be nowhere else but Montana.
William had taken me to his home.
A stream cascaded over round, brightly covered river rocks in front of us, and the endless blue of the sky above contrasted with the vibrant greens, grays and yellows of the countryside lying beneath it in such I way I felt I was caught up in a Maxfield Parrish painting.
Having my fill of the less impressive landscape, I looked back at him. His smile was as bright and inescapable as the mid-day sun, but I was suddenly covered in a blanket of darkness when my mind recalled the final moments of consciousness I’d had.
The grips of seven sets of hands as they drew the life from me; the indescribable pain and tortured screams of the man I loved; the dark, advancing void I progressed into when the promise of a permanent sleep drew me in; the inexplicable release of seven sets of hands; and the fallen, crumpled-up bodies lying in piles. A full body shudder ran through me, and my jaw clenched together unnaturally when I tried to ward the evil memories away.
“What’s the matter?” he questioned anxiously, resurfacing me from the dark depths. His eyes locked on mine and pulled me back to the surface of the present moment, with slightly less blissful ignorance.
“What happened?” I whispered, my voice breaking. “How did you get me out of there?”
William paused for a moment, an expression of indecision settling on his face, and then it cleared. “Once Patrick—”
My restored mind recalled the face of my pale angel. “Patrick? How did he get in there?”
One corner of his mouth pulled up. “He’s a Teleporter.”
I let that sink in. “That explains a lot,” I said, recalling the times he’d appeared out of nowhere.
William continued, “Once Patrick
removed
Stella’s hold from me, we had no problem with the scum Enforcers,” he hissed, looking like he was placing himself back at the scene. “I got to you as fast as I could, and we got you out of that place. That’s really about it.” He shrugged his shoulders dismissively, and kept his eyes straight ahead, focusing on the distant mountains.
I raised an eyebrow and leaned up on one elbow. “
Really about it?
” I mimicked his words with disbelief in mine. “You can’t possibly think you can appease me with an answer like that, can you?”
A sheepish look covered his face, and the outer corners of his mouth tweaked from a repressed smile. “No, I didn’t really think so. I was more
hoping
so.” The arm which was wrapped around me, reached up to run his fingers through my hair. “You don’t really want to know all the details though, Bryn—not yet anyway. Will you trust me on this?” His face and voice pleaded, weakening my fight . . . but not conquering it.
“What happened to the Councilmen?” I pressed, not ready to give in yet. This was the part that made the least sense. They’d been there one second—strong and very near to completing their goal—when suddenly they were gone and lying in helpless masses.
William’s face looked careful again. “That part is hard to explain. It appeared they were rendered weak and some looked very near to death—”
“But how could that have happened?” I interjected, my voice growing shrill—partly because none of it made sense, and partly because I could tell from his tone he was hiding something from me.
“I don’t know,” he answered promptly. “I didn’t have time to stop and figure that out. All I could focus on was the miracle I’d been given by having a way to get you out of there. One doesn’t question the makings that went into the miracle when they’ve been given such a gift,” he finished, sounding edgy.
I bit my lip, fighting back the confusion and angry tears that wanted to come. I’d seen William like this before, but he’d never been like this with me. Whatever he was hiding from me was significant.
“How long have I been out?” I questioned, leaving the former topic for another time when he wasn’t so heated and I wasn’t so near tears.
“Not so long this time—only two days. Your body went through an incredible shock and needed to rest until it was rebuilt and strong again.” He nuzzled at me gently, and the edge in his voice was gone.
I remembered the last words I’d heard two days ago and the intimate stream of energy filling me. “Are you in pain?” I asked, eyeing him over.
His brow furrowed and formed into the lines of confusion my face held a good majority of the time. “No, I couldn’t possibly be any farther from pain. Why do you ask?”
“Your gift . . .” I struggled to get out, feeling unworthy for everything he’d given me. “You shared it with me again.”
His hand tilted my chin up. “Yes?”
“Didn’t it hurt you?”
“Not even a little bit,” he said without hesitation.
“But Patrick said—”
“Patrick’s a baby. He takes a couple days to recover from a team Immortalization . . . so you can’t possibly believe what he says.” The affection in his eyes was unreal. “Plus, he’s never done it for someone like you.”
“Like me? William, you really are delusional. The passing of time only further confirms this.” My voice sounded irritated, because I was. He talked about me how I did him, and I was nowhere near what William Hayward was. I slumped down flat on my back.
He propped up on one elbow and leaned over me. “I don’t think you understand.” One of his hands came to rest on the side of my face. “You haven’t been some piece of my life—you’ve
been
my life. You will
always
be my life,” he professed, lowering his lips and running them over my hairline, crippling my ability to form a coherent thought.
My thoughts became serious again when his lips left my skin, and while they had twirled around my mind for awhile now, I couldn’t keep them to myself any longer.
“Don’t you wonder why the world is aligning against us being together?” I asked, and although my voice was barely a whisper, I knew the words were piercing. “I’ve never felt so at odds with anything in my life.”
The unpleasant considerations heavy in my words caused William’s forehead to crease, but I continued, “It’s as if the world never wanted us to be together . . . why else would it be trying with such strength to keep us apart . . . or take our lives?” I whispered, the spoken words feeling more as a weight as opposed to a relief.
As much as I wanted to be assured William and I would be granted peace in our lives together, the reminders of the formidable obstacles we’d already overcome in such a short time together could not be dismissed. I now understood why we never ran into each other when we were working at the same station in Java. “Don’t you ever feel the same?”
I couldn’t stand to stare into his aged-looking eyes any longer. I tried to roll away from him onto my side, to escape the shame I felt from my admission and the tension I felt coursing through his body. As I rolled away from him, his hand affixed over my shoulder and wouldn’t allow my retreat.
He tilted my head until our eyes aligned. “No, Bryn. I’ve never felt, believed or thought that. Never.” If his words had not been softened with concern, their conviction would have frightened me.
“You don’t have the convenience of knowing for the past two hundred years, you have been unequivocally pulled towards some other being . . . the one person created for you and no one else. Knowing as well you’d been created for her—every genetic characteristic, every learned habit, every step taken in your life only taken to get you closer to that serendipitous moment when the two halves of the whole would meet.” His words were strong, but his eyes were gentle.
“I’ve never felt you and I were not intended to be together, and I never will. There’s not a single fiber of my being that isn’t wholly convinced I was meant to spend my life loving you in whatever way you would have me . . .”—he smiled apologetically—“If you would have me at all.”
I blinked back the tears forming in my eyes, biting my lip in an attempt as well.
He was absolutely right in terms of what he was saying. I wasn’t questioning the reasoning of our love, or even that we’d been meant for each other. I was questioning—more like speculating given the tumultuous weeks we’d spent dodging disaster after disaster—that this cruel, merciless world we’d been born into, and would now reside in forever, had decided to tempt us with the purest of loves, to only have us fighting for it every day forward.
I also wasn’t doubting something good created this man beside me, and by some incomprehensible miracle, I’d been made to one day be his. There was no denying this, but what if once created and set on our merry ways, that something good washed its hands of us, and we were now fated to the whims and fancies of a world that dealt unfair hands to those who experienced a measure of happiness that didn’t naturally occur within this spherical mass rotating in the galaxy?
No, I wasn’t disagreeing with what he’d passionately answered in response to my verbalized broodings, but he’d not
directly
answered me—would the world not rest until the very soul of our love lie bleeding at its feet, thrashing with the efforts of every diminishing breath, until it took its last, and was gone? What price would the world ask if we refused to surrender it? I shuddered when the answer surfaced into a very visual reminder of ours lives hanging by a thread only several days ago.
“Did you hear me?” He asked when the minutes continued to pass while the inner debate ran through my troubled mind.
I forcefully pushed it aside, saving it for another time. A time when I wouldn’t be held so closely to the man I’d just happily forfeited my life for, and would do again right now if necessary. No, this was not the time for internal debates and troublesome concerns—this was a time for something else.
“I heard you,” I whispered, before easing my head off the ground, my lips searching for his. With eased force, he tucked his arm tighter around me and drew me the remaining distance to him, his lips crossing the final space between.
He kissed me sweetly, barely grazing my mouth, and then whispered in between the confines of our united lips, “I was so afraid I’d lost you.” His body trembled, and he took in a heavy breath through his nose. The continued pressure of his expanding chest against mine ignited the fires already sprouting up.
“I’m here,” I whispered through the parted space of our mouths. “I’ll
always
be here with you.”
Both my hands reached for the back of his head, interlacing his hair in my fingers, at the same time my lips moved with need upon his.
His body responded—and unlike before, where I’d always seemed the more urgent—his hands seized around whatever piece of my body they were molded to, and his lips pulsed against mine. When they forced mine further apart and his tongue met mine, I was the one who let the instinctual sound escape from my throat.
Minutes later, I moaned again, but this time in response to his lips removing from mine. They trembled in protest, the rest of my body following suit—as an addict would when going through withdrawals.