Forgotten Visions (The Divinities Book 1) (19 page)

He looked over at Kris and Mel. They’d also heard Hecate’s command. They nodded to Noah, and together, they fought the demons with powers they never knew they possessed.

One of the demons cut Kris across the back with a sword. Kris whirled around to face the demon. His eyes glowed amber like dancing flames. Noah had only seen Kris’s eyes like that when he was in animal form or when he was calling out to his element, fire.

“Back off!” Kris demanded. Noah and Mel backed off slightly. When they did, Kris threw his hands out in front of him and then spread them wide, sending flames out like a blowtorch to encircle the group of demons.

It was the coolest thing Noah had ever seen. Kris was a human flamethrower. He wished his element was fire instead of earth. Then he had an idea. He called out to the earth and the forest that surrounded the coven. He willed the vines covering the trees to him. The vines snaked and twined along the ground, unseen by the demons until they took hold, wrapping and twisting around the demons legs up to their torsos.

Mel took that opportunity to call her element. She called a light breeze to blow Kris’s fire toward the demons. The oxygen from the air fed the fire.

All together, they sent everything they had into what they’d created. The vines twined around while the air intensified the flames and pushed them over the demons, burning them all in a matter of minutes.

Everything fell quiet. The three of them looked up to see Hecate walking toward them. She was still as beautiful as she had been before the fight began. Then again, she was a goddess. She stopped in front of them and held out an amulet of some kind. Being about five inches in diameter, it was too big to be worn as a piece of jewelry, and Noah wondered what it was. The center was a crystal sphere that seemed to glow with multi-colored energy waves. Surrounding the sphere was a labyrinth-like symbol: Hecate’s Wheel—the symbol of knowledge and life. 

“This is the Sinew. It is the source of all magic and knowledge. Guard it with your lives. The demons must never have it again.”  Hecate gave them the Sinew and vanished.

The stove timer went off, causing everyone in the room to jump. Vanessa stood up. “Dinner’s ready.”

Everyone took that cue to move to the dining room.

After dinner, Ayden
was finally able to get Kalissa alone. He asked her to go for a walk, and she said yes without hesitation. He smiled, knowing she was as glad to be alone as he was.

It was nice to have everyone together. It was like old times. When he’d come to visit as a child, they would have dinner parties all the time. Kalissa’s parents, his parents, and sometimes, Melaina would come down from Maine to visit. Back then, he and Kalissa would sneak off after dinner.

“I remember doing this,” Kalissa said.

“You mean sneaking off after dinner?” Ayden asked with a chuckle. “I was just thinking the same thing.” He stopped, drew her into his arms, and gave her a soft kiss on the lips. “So, you know where I am taking you?” He watched her flush and look away. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He pulled her toward the barn.

“I also remember that Zach used to come looking for us.” Kalissa giggled.

Ayden’s heart swelled at the sound. He didn’t expect to ever hear her laugh again. The sound of her laughter drifted out to him like a soothing caress, and the light in her eyes when she was happy guided him home. From this day forward, he would make sure that light burned for the rest of their existence.  

“Wow,” Kalissa said, walking through the barn’s eight-foot-tall double doors. “Noah’s barn is three times the size of mine, and in better shape. I really needed to fix it up. Don’t ever show this barn to Teddy-Bear. They’ll leave and come here to live.”

Ayden chuckled and quickly followed her as she walked over to the ladder in the middle of the barn that led up to the loft. When he reached the top, Kalissa was peering out the opening that overlooked to the back of the property. He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She sank back into his chest with a sigh. His lips brushed her cheek and moved down to her neck.

A small moan rose in her throat, and she pressed into him more. She reached behind her and ran her hand up his thigh to the growing bulge in his jeans and cupped him.

Ayden turned her to face him so he could capture her lips with his. Kalissa wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her fingers in his hair. She immediately opened for him and returned the kiss with her own eagerness.

He lowered his hands to her hips and cupped her ass to lift her off the ground. Kalissa’s legs clamped around his waist, pulling their bodies closer.  Holding on to her back for support, he lowered them to the floor of the loft. He broke the kiss to look into her eyes. They were so full of passion and need that they almost glowed. Never had he thought to see that dreamy-eyed desire in her eyes again. The more he had her, the more he wanted. He loved her, and he was going to show her how much for the rest of their existence.

“What is it?” she asked in a whisper.

He smiled widely at her, stroking her cheek with his hand. “Just admiring how beautiful you are.”

He lifted her torso off the floor and removed her shirt, then lean down and kissed her lips. Her skin smelled of vanilla and jasmine as he trailed kisses over her cheek, down her neck, and farther to her breast. The scent intensified the more she was aroused, making him grow harder as it crawled inside and wrapped him in its grip.

The clasp on the front of her bra opened by his will to free her breasts. He captured a pink nipple with his mouth and gently sucked. She arched her back and moaned. Her soft curves under him felt too right. The way she moved. The sounds of pleasure she made when he caressed her.

He slid his hand down her side to her hip, gathered her skirt, and pulled it up to slide his hand up her inner thigh. The strip of her panties was the only barrier, but not for long as he pushed them to the side to rub his fingers over her clit. She was wet and ready for him. Her hips lifted and pushed into his hand, meeting his strokes. He wanted to taste her again but knew they didn’t have much time before someone came looking for them.

After the last shudder had left her body, he pulled his hand away to undo his jeans and release his hard cock from its confinement. He leaned down over her, pressed his lips to hers, and slid inside with a quick thrust.

Damn.
He was lost. Kalissa sent him places he’d never dreamed of, the way she captured his heart and commanded him when he was in her.  She wrapped her legs around him to take all of him and met every thrust he gave her until they both climaxed and were left a trembling pile of bodies.

Lying down beside
Kalissa, he pulled her to his chest. “Love you,” he whispered in her ear.

She snuggled further into him. “Love you, too.” She brought his hand to her lips to place a kiss to his palm.

A few seconds later, his phone rang. He smirked. At least, his cousin had sense enough to call. He answered the phone. “Yeah.”

“I…get up to the house ASAP,” Zach said in a rush that told Ayden something had happened.

Ayden closed his phone. Kalissa had heard what Zach had said, so Ayden didn’t need to explain. They dressed and made sure the hay was out of their hair before heading back to the house.

Ayden and Kalissa entered the foyer of the house. Zach was waiting for them. He looked from Kalissa to Ayden and frowned. “The Riverside Coven has reported some kind of disturbance near Friendship Fountain.”

Ayden cursed softly and followed Zach to the living room with Kalissa on his heels. “Zach and I will go check it out,” Ayden said.

“Not alone, you’re not,” Kalissa said with her hands on her hips.

Ayden was about to argue with Kalissa when Mel spoke up. “I’m coming, too. It is better that we’re together. If it’s a portal of some kind, then it will need to be closed. Lydia and Khloe can stay here.” The last statement was said with a pointed tone that said, “
don’t ask
.”

Khloe looked like she wanted to argue but looked at Lydia and decided not to. “Lydia and I will stay here for a little longer,” she said and then spoke to Lydia. “Let me know when you get tired and we’ll go home.” Lydia nodded.

Kalissa leaned over the back of the couch and kissed Khloe on the cheek. “We’ll be back soon.”

Khloe grabbed Kalissa around the neck with her arms. “Please. Be careful.”

“We will. Love you.” Kalissa pulled out of the embrace and teleported to downtown Jacksonville with the others.

One by one, they materialized several feet from Friendship Fountain, away from human eyes. Although humans knew about witches, they did not know about the Divinities’ powers. Many humans associated Divine powers with demons. Other humans liked to pretend that the preternatural didn’t exist. That was the main reason Khloe hadn’t been allowed back in the public school system to teach dance after her little display years and years ago.
Humans thought magical teachers were a bad influence on their children.

“So, what did Khloe do?” Ayden asked, obviously reading her thoughts.

Kalissa looked at him. “What do you mean?”

Ayden smiled. “Sorry. I picked up on your thoughts again.”

Zach laughed. “You remember when I told you about the boy who got trapped inside a ring of lightning?”

“That was Khloe? How old was she?”

“Six.” Kalissa had to laugh. “Bruce had been picking on both of us for weeks. Then, finally, one day on the playground, he pushed Khloe’s last button.”

“And she called a storm,” Ayden said, shaking his head.

“Accidently. Her emotions can unintentionally set off her gift. If she’s sad, it rains on the house. If she’s angry, lightning,” Kalissa mused.

“She was lucky that Aunt Joelle was the school nurse, or they would have cuffed her until Connie got there,” Zach said.

Ayden knew the cuffs Zach was talking about were the same ones Jacen had taken from the demons in Georgia. High school witches that went to public schools had to wear them during school hours. That’s why most of them were homeschooled.

“The school told our mother that before she was allowed back in school, Khloe’s powers had to be bound. Mama said she’d be damned before she limited her daughter’s powers for the human’s silly fears.”  Kalissa smiled. That was her mother—the voice of reason and despair. She was always the first parent at the school to protest against the ‘magical guidelines that were beneficial for everyone’ types of things. The truth was, it was always more beneficial for the humans. Mom refused to back down and take their prejudiced notions.

If the humans knew the Divinities possessed the powers of the gods, a whole new paranoia would arise. Witches everywhere would be collected and tested—possibly locked away.

“There it is,” Melaina said when they rounded the corner.

Kalissa looked to where she pointed. Next to the fountain, about two feet from the river’s edge, was an oval-shaped energy field. Kalissa didn’t know how to describe it. It had no color. To the human eye, it wasn’t even there, but Kalissa could tell that something was there. She could see the outline of a gateway and waves of magical energy that ran from the outer walls to the center, like ripples in a pool of water.

She reached out with her senses to see who had opened the portal and who, or
what
, had come out of it. The vision slammed into her, and she fought a gasp as images raced through her mind. After the images had slowed down, she was able to focus on the scene. The portal had been opened from the inside, or maybe from a distance. Kalissa couldn’t tell. A few moments after the portal had opened, two demons came out. They were human-like, with short, dark hair and dark eyes. But they weren’t human. Maybe whatever made her a Divinity also allowed her to tell demons from humans and vice versa.

It’d been a long time since she’d had a vision so clear, and never had one hit her so hard. Was it the energy from the portal that caused the spike in her powers, or the bond with Ayden? Another possibility was that the memory spell no longer dampened her visions.

The first person she saw when her sight pulled back was Ayden. She smiled at him and had to fight the urge to go to him, kiss him, and wrap herself around him. It was a hard battle, but she managed. Life without him would be so…empty, lonely. She loved him, and wanted to spend the rest of her very long existence with him.

Shelving her need for him for later, she cleared her head before speaking. “The portal hasn’t been open for long. The disturbance the witches felt was probably the portal opening. There were two demons that came out about an hour ago.” She described the demons to the group.

Melaina cursed. “Sounds like Etchens.”

“What are they?” the others said at the same time.

“They’re Amiddian demons. They aren’t high enough in power to be Khan’s personal army, but not low enough to be servants, either. However, Khan’s guards, like Demetrius, won’t think twice about using them for their own benefit.” Melaina paused for a brief moment before she continued like she was trying to remember something. “Etchen appear human. The only way to tell them from humans is by their aura. Their auras, like most demons’, are darker than humans’ auras. But some have been known to adapt another’s aura by taking the human’s essence as their own. They are dangerous because they can enter a human’s mind and implant a thought that will grow like a virus.”

Kalissa bet the thoughts weren’t of flowers and puppies. It would be more like death and destruction. “They can take human essences, like vampires?”

“Not exactly. They don’t have to bite mortals, but they will if necessary. They prefer sex, or in some cases, a kiss,” Melaina answered.

Khloe shivered at the thought and asked, “So, Khan released a couple of Etchen to plant thoughts in the humans to destroy each other?”

Melaina nodded. “The virus will grow rapidly and spread from person to person. Humans will turn against each other and destroy a city within days. They could move on to other cities and start a chain reaction around the world.”

That’s just awful,
Kalissa thought.

“Kalissa and I will close the portal while you go hunt down those demons,” Mel said to the men, who nodded and set out in search of the Etchens.

Kalissa turned back to look at the portal just as two Lackeys came out. They spotted her and started to run. “Oh, no you don’t!”

She threw her hands out to blast them with an energy bolt. Instead of knocking them to the ground as she’d planned, the energy blast made them explode into black dust. “What the….”