Forgotten Visions (The Divinities Book 1) (3 page)

“Love you.”

She pushed the button on the steering wheel to end the call. A yawn took hold of her, and she wished she’d stopped off at the last rest area. Her eyes burned, and she repeatedly blinked to try and relieve some of the sting from driving fatigue, while the urge to rub them strongly tugged at her. Relief washed over her at the sight of the Charlotte exit sign indicating her turn was next.

A few minutes later, a car sped by and jumped over into her lane. She gasped, heart dropping to her abdomen as she jerked the steering wheel to the right to avoid hitting the car. It was too late. Metal scraped metal as the vehicles collided. The impact pushed her car off the road. Everything happened so fast, she couldn’t concentrate or grasp on to reality. Her heart pounded furiously behind her ribcage as a rushed panic assailed her. Kalissa hit the gas instead of the brake. The Benz barreled off into the woods and slammed into something hard. The airbag deployed into her face, slamming her head into the driver’s-side window. A sharp pain shot through her skull. A blaring horn was the last thing she heard before falling into the dark void of unconsciousness.

Ayden Daniels had
only been in Charlotte an hour before his cousin, Zach, called with a favor. No. Not quite a favor. A request that sounded more like a plea.

“You’re shittin’ me.”

“I’m afraid not. Charlotte PD said it was a hit and run.”

Right
. “Please tell me she’s…”

“She’s alive. A bump on the head, but she’ll be okay.” Zach hesitated before continuing. “I know how you feel about her, but you’ll have to go get her.”

A muttered curse slipped from his lips at the same time his heart lodged in his throat. “Fine.” The word came out in an irritated huff. Ayden hung up and wished he had never answered the damn phone. No, that wasn’t completely true. He would never forgive himself if something had happened to Kalissa that he could’ve prevented.

She was the one person he’d hoped to avoid as much as possible once he’d taken his place as sheriff of Maxville. It wasn’t that he disliked her. That was the problem. Despite his better judgment, he still cared too damn much for the woman. He was a glutton for punishment.

The mere mention of her name made his pulse race with excitement. His body responded to just the thought of seeing her again after fifteen years. But his mind screamed to walk away. To let her be. She was trouble, and a hazard to his heart. She’d broken it once; tore it right out of his chest at the age of seventeen.

A human friend had laughed at the mention of their young age and Ayden’s claim that she was the only one for him. A mistake on his part to confide in a human and expect him to understand
magickin
way of life.
Magickin
children developed at a faster rate. At the age of seventeen, he was as mature as most twenty-five-year-old humans, and fully aware that he had met his eternal companion.

They were life partners, magical mates destined to spend their immortal lives together. And to find one at such a young age was a gift.

A gift she’d stolen from him. 

It was unclear whether a Divinity could have more than one life partner. As far as he knew, she was the only one for him. At least, that’s what his heart said. He’d tried to search for another. To put the past behind him and mend his broken heart, but no other could fill the void.

Taking a deep, long breath and then exhaling slowly, he picked up his keys from the nightstand and moved toward the door. Putting it off was not going to make it less painful.

Ten minutes later, he parked in the half-empty hospital emergency room parking lot, climbed out of his Jeep Wrangler, and walked toward the entrance. Dread, excitement, and anger filled him, making his head pound, and his heart ache. What would he say to her? How would she react to him?

He entered the double glass doors and walked up to the security desk. Pulling out his badge, he introduced himself. “Sheriff Ayden Daniels, here for Kalissa Bradenton.”

The woman behind the desk wore a blue security uniform, her salt and pepper hair pulled back in a tight bun on the top of her head. She appeared to be in her early fifties. Humans looked their age. Witches and other magical beings, once they’d reached maturity, aged slower and often lived to be about two hundred years of age. They never showed the signs of aging until the last seventy-five years of life. Divinities, however, were immortal; they didn’t die of natural causes, or ever age past thirty-five.

The security woman looked at his badge and then back up to his face. “You’re a little out of your jurisdiction, Sheriff.” She spoke with a thick southern drawl.

He smiled at her. “Yes. I’m a family friend and in the area on personal business. Her sister asked me to come.”

The woman frowned, looking down at her computer screen. She clicked on the keyboard with her two-inch-long fingernails. “Go through those doors.” She pointed to the double doors to Ayden’s left. “She’s down the hall in room 127.”

He thanked the woman and walked towards Kalissa’s room. A policeman stood outside her door, talking to a nurse. The young officer smiled widely and seemed to enjoy the conversation a little too much for it to be business-related. However, waves of discomfort came from the nurse. She shifted nervously and glanced at her watch several times in the short while it took Ayden to reach them. When he approached, relief flooded the woman, and she took his appearance as her chance to escape the officer’s attentions, excusing herself with a shy smile before darting off to the nurses’ station. 

Ayden read the nametag on other man’s uniform shirt. “Evening, Officer Meyers. I’m Ayden Daniels.”

Officer Meyers nodded. “Yes, Chief Wells said you were on your way.” He turned to look at Kalissa’s closed door and frowned. Meyers looked back at Ayden. “She’ll need a ride, too. The car’s totaled. It was sandwiched between two trees. If it weren’t for the airbags…” Meyers paused, shook his head, and after a second, continued. “Anyway, when she came to, she said she was clipped in the front by another car. Typical hit and run.”

Ayden clenched his jaw, forming a tic in his temple. There was nothing typical about a hit and run, especially when it involved a Divinity. He was following leads that comprised similar ‘hit and runs.’ Too much evidence pointed to a serial killer. The victims were all Divinities.

“Meyers.” The officer turned his gaze back to Ayden. “Go see if Miss Bradenton is ready for discharge while I speak with her.”

Meyers drew his dark eyebrows together until they looked like a unibrow. He hesitated for another second before he dropped his shoulders and walked to the nurses’ station a few feet away.     

Rookie.
Ayden released a soft chuckle. Officer Meyers was probably still in his first year on the force. The smile dissipated as Ayden squared his shoulders and turned toward Kalissa’s door.

Kalissa sat on
the edge of the hospital bed and swung her legs back and forth in frustration. Anger swarmed inside her like pissed off bees trapped inside a hive. Her beloved car was impounded and possibly totaled. If she hadn’t been knocked unconscious, the driver of the other car would have faced her… her what? Would she have beaten him with visions? The All-Seeing Eye?

Whatever. Who was she fooling? Yes, she took self-defense classes and sparred with her sister on a regular basis, but she was as tame as a lamb. She could never intentionally hurt anyone.

The clock on the wall said she’d been awake for forty-five minutes. She was still unsure how long she’d been out of it.

She hated medical facilities. The heavy stench of antiseptic turned her stomach.

Where was that freaking nurse with her discharge papers?    

Why did it always take ten times longer than it should to get in and out of the ER?

It was unusually and eerily quiet for an emergency room. The only sounds were the beeping of the monitors at the nurses’ station, footsteps outside her room, and muffled voices. Her closed door did nothing to calm her rattled nerves, or soothe her irritation. 

Her legs stilled as a new set of footsteps halted outside her door. A familiar magical signature floated through the air. She listened, but couldn’t make out the hushed voices through the wood.

After a few minutes of muffled conversation, the door slowly opened. A man walked in and closed the door behind him.

At first, confusion clouded her mind. A dull headache crept into her temples, and a hint of panic rose in her chest. The man that stood inside her hospital room looked familiar and put off a magical energy that called to her. He had golden brown hair and the most vivid baby blue eyes she’d ever seen. And a body that belonged on the front cover of Men’s Health magazine.
Her gaze roamed over his broad shoulders and down his chest.

Shifting her eyes back to his face before she really embarrassed herself, realization hit her. This was Zach’s cousin from California. The new sheriff of Maxville.

“Ayden?” she asked with a smile. “I hardly recognized you.” Now she remembered. He’d visited the coven during the summers and had hung out with them when they were kids. But this was a big change from the Ayden she knew fifteen years ago.

Her gaze drifted over him again. The t-shirt he wore left nothing to the imagination. It clung to him, showing off those hard muscles and tight abs perfectly. Kalissa had a sudden urge to run her hands down his chest.

Did he feel as good as he looked?

She forced her gaze away to look down at the floor in front of her as heat rose in her cheeks.

Get a grip, Kalissa
, she scolded herself. “Did Zach send you?” she asked, trying not to ogle him like a tiger would a piece of raw meat. But she couldn’t look away for long. As soon as he moved, her eyes flicked up and found his.

He narrowed his eyes as he stalked toward her, looking less than thrilled to be there. But there was a hint of something else in his gaze. Something that looked vaguely like pain, or sadness.

Several seconds passed before he spoke, and when he did, Kalissa’s heart skipped a beat. Her body warmed, reacting in a way it never had before. “Your sister’s worried.”

The statement confused her. It caught her off guard. She opened her mouth to reply, but he spoke first. “She’s the emergency contact on your driver’s license.”

She looked down to her linked fingers in her lap and asked, “Why are you here?” The silence made her look back up to see a pained expression passing across his face. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I meant…”

“I know what you meant,” he harshly cut off her statement.

She blanched at his tone and looked back down and picked nervously at her fingernails. Ayden’s words felt too close to rejection. Her chest tightened, and she didn’t understand why.  

His hand came out and captured her by the chin. She froze, finding it hard to breathe as he gently raised her face to meet his gaze. His expression softened, but he still looked at her in irritation.

She hadn’t recalled doing anything to warrant such a reaction from him. Squaring her shoulders, she pushed the anxiety aside. “If it’s such a bother to come here, then leave. I’ll catch a cab to my hotel.”

He knitted his brows, and after a moment, he relaxed. Not saying a word or explaining, he reached up to move her hair away from her temple to look at her injury. She wanted to smack his hand away, but an electrifying current swept through her when the tips of his fingers touched her skin. Desire and heat swirled inside her, threatening to erupt into an inferno. And it scared the hell out of her.

The sensation left as soon as he lowered his hand, allowing the hair to fall back in place. But returned when he touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I was in the neighborhood.” His tone was gentler. She gave him a conflicted look.
Was he bipolar?
One minute, he acted like he didn’t want to be there, and the next, he was okay with it. What was his problem?

He smiled at her and said, “I was in town on personal business. Zach called and asked me to check on you.”

“Oh.” It was all she was able to say. She’d completely lost herself in Ayden’s baby blue eyes and the weird, erotic feelings he raised in her. Maybe his mood swings were contagious.

She was so captivated by the swirls of silver that danced around his pupils that she didn’t notice when Ayden shifted forward to stand between her legs. His hand cupped her cheek as he lowered his head to hers. Just before their lips touched, a light knock sounded on the door. Ayden dropped his hand and backed away from her a second before the nurse walked into the room.

Damn nurse.
She resisted the urge to kick the woman out.

“You’re free to go, Ms. Bradenton,” the nurse said with a chipper voice as she walked over and handed the discharge papers to her. “Are you sure you don’t need a prescription?”

It took her a couple of seconds to form a coherent thought. “Yes, I’m sure. Thanks.” Like all
magickin
, she had a high tolerance for pain. Plus, most human pain medications messed with their nervous systems. She shared the same unusual sensitivity to meds and alcohol as Khloe. Though her sensitivity wasn’t as severe. She could drink wine in moderation without an adverse effect. Her twin, on the other hand, was drunk as a skunk after only a couple of sips. It was very easy for them to accidently overdose, so they had to be careful what they took. Kalissa had lucked out that the ER doctor had treated witches before and was fully aware of what medications they could take.

The nurse gave one last bob of the head and left the room.

Kalissa had never felt more relieved to leave a place than she did at that moment. She hopped off the bed, only to have her balance thrown off. A wave of dizziness overtook her, and her knees refused to hold her weight.

Ayden reached out with one of his large arms and wrapped it around her waist to help her regain her balance. “You’ll stay with me,” he commanded.

Kalissa shook her head. “I have a reservation.”

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

She told him, and he laughed out loud. When she shot him a peeved looked, he shook his head and said, “I’m sorry. That’s where I’m staying. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

Concern surged through
him at her dizzy spell when she hopped off the hospital bed. After making sure she was strong enough to walk on her own, he led her to his Jeep and drove to the hotel in silence.

They entered the hotel lobby and went straight to the front desk. The same perky young redhead that had checked him in over an hour ago greeted them with a smile. “Can I help you, Mr. Daniels?” The bright, warm smile diminished slightly when her peridot eyes shifted to Kalissa standing next to him. Envy swirled off the hotel clerk.
Women.

“I hope so,” he said, giving her a mildly seductive smile when she looked back at him. “I would like to upgrade my room to a suite. Miss Bradenton had a reservation, which she would like to cancel since she will be staying with me.” He reached down and took Kalissa’s hand in his as a warning for her not to protest. She was about to. The shift in her mood told him that. Stubbornness rolled off her, wanting to reject his proposal.

The desk clerk frowned, but quickly recovered, glancing to the computer screen. A few seconds later, she swiped a set of keys and handed them to him. “There is a cancellation fee…”

Her sentence cut off when he took her hand that held the key cards and stroked his pinky over her wrist.  “Can it be waived?” He leaned into her a half an inch. 

Her cheeks colored, and she pulled her hand back. He let it go, taking the keys from her.

“Let me…see what I can do.”

Moments later, Kalissa and Ayden were on the elevator. Ayden laughed at Kalissa’s narrowed-eyed gaze. She hadn’t said anything, but she didn’t need to. “You would have done the same thing.”

She lifted her head in a stubborn, proud pose. “I thought only women used their looks to get what they wanted.”

“If you got it, use it.” 

She didn’t respond. She was jealous. He’d picked up on the emotion at the front desk, when he’d flirted with the clerk. That amused and confused him. 

Her reaction to him at the hospital was that of an old friend seeing him for the first time in fifteen years. Buried pain resurfaced. But he couldn’t resist touching her. It had gone downhill from there.

She was the same Kalissa he’d fallen in love with over fifteen years ago, but she didn’t remember him. Ayden, like the rest of his family, was empathic. Being a Divinity only amplified the empathy, and, combined with his very rare power of adaptability, gave him the ability to pick up on others’ feeling and thoughts. He’d grasped on to Kalissa’s gift of visions and had used it with his empathy to see into her mind. And into the past. There was a hole in her memory. His anger dissolved into confusion. Hope sparked into a tiny flame. That flame grew with every minute they were together. Who would erase her memory? Better yet, why erase her love for him but not all of him from her memories? How in the hell was that even possible?

The main reason for invading her memories, besides being a selfish bastard, was to find out why she’d dumped him for someone else so many years ago. He hadn’t expected her memory to be altered.

Is this my second chance? Can I trust her with my heart again?

It was wishful thinking. There wasn’t a second chance. He wouldn’t allow it, couldn’t allow it. Because if she never returned those feelings…

He cut that thought right off and opened the door to their suite. Ayden held the door for Kalissa. She muttered, “Thank you,” and continued on to the bedroom, closing the door behind her.