TIED (A Fire Born Novel) (13 page)

I hesitated at the abrupt change in subject, trying to think straight. “Not … much. I know some people still believe in the myths passed down through the generations, but those legends are all hearsay … folklore.”

“Actually, they’re not,” he said under his breath.

I raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, my heart pounding in my chest. “Not what?”

He glanced at me as if he would rather vomit than keep talking. “Hearsay,” he mumbled. “It’s not all hearsay.”

“What do you mean?” My voice sounded shrill.

“I wish you could remember.” He faced the ground. “I’m … a direct descendant of the Gods of Ancient Ireland. The Celtic Gods. I have certain … gifts—abilities, that I was born with.” His words spilled out in a rush. “The Gods were driven underground thousands of years ago, and now the elder generations of Ireland believe we’re Fae, but we aren’t of that race. The Fae are their own species. I’m one of the last of The Ancients.” He practically spit his words at me in a rambling mess and stood as if waiting for some reaction, but he may as well have been speaking Pig Latin for all I understood.

“Sorry? What?” My knees weakened, blood draining from my face.

“Maybe we should sit down.” He motioned toward the sand dunes, which was probably good since my legs were going numb.

He took both of my hands in his. “Just hang in there with me while I say this.” He swallowed. “When I was a kid, I didn’t hear fairy tales like most kids. I heard folklore and legends. My grandmother told me tales of the Gods and Goddesses, legends of The Tree of Life. Tales of the Wood and Water Spirits. Stories about the Fae and the Sidhe. Legends of The Fire Born and Twin Souls. Stories of fate, destiny and prophecy.”

My thoughts scrambled as I gawked at him, dumbfounded.

“It was a fantastical world my grandmother created. She told me I would grow to do great things, that my destiny was foretold, and one day it would make itself known to me. She said my soul would collide with another, and I would know no other love like it.” He’d sped on, not making eye contact with me. “I believed it all, every word, but as I got older, the stories sounded more like old wives tales. The kind of things older generations tell innocent minds for entertainment. So I ignored it, brushed it off, spent more time away from home. It kept me sane during the day, but at night I would have these strange dreams. Almost as if someone was calling me, pulling me forward. Sometimes, I couldn’t wake up.” He paused, eyeing me.

I couldn’t speak.

He bowed his head. “When we were kids, I always felt different around you. I wanted to be near you all the time. It was weird. So, when your mom told me I was putting you in danger by being your friend … I had no choice but to listen to her. I was young; I believed her and stayed away. When I saw you at the shop, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from yours. The same unspoken connection between us was still there. That’s when things began to make sense. That’s when I thought that maybe the stories about colliding souls weren’t myths—that maybe they were true. I’d never known that feeling before,
this
feeling.” He put the palm of his hand over my heart, increasing my already speeding pulse. “I realized why your mom tried to keep us apart. Because she knew. When you passed out in the shop … well, I almost died on the spot.” He grinned. “Your mom was serious about me not seeing you in the hospital, but I couldn’t stay away. So, I looked for you in the forest that night. I thought maybe you would go back. Maybe seeing me would help you remember. I got lucky. But even the next day you believed you were imagining me. It was crazy. You were blocking everything.”

I started to drown in his voice, in the pictures being drawn in my head.

“When the first attack came, I knew I’d put you in danger. I’d come too close. Your mom was right. It was my fault.”

Panic rose in my throat. “Wait … on the beach behind my house?”

He nodded. “It was me standing behind you. That figure in black was talking to
me.
I got too close to you.” He bowed his head. “Together we create an energy our enemies can feel. It’s how you were found. I’ve been trying to keep my distance all this time. To protect you without you knowing.” He glanced into my eyes.

My breathing stopped.

He rubbed the top of my hand with his thumb. “I know this a lot to take in. Too much, but you need to know who I am,
what
I am. You have to remember. It’s important.”

“You’re a … God?” I choked out, a lightheaded daze taking hold.

“Not exactly, no.” He veered his eyes away.

“Not exactly?” I sat, unmoving, numb.

“It’s a bit more … complicated than that. I’m a descendent of the Gods and Goddesses of the ancient world.”

“Do you know how insane this sounds?” I wanted to believe he was mad. Stark raving mad. At least it would make some kind of logical, rational sense, but as my heart beat with every word he spoke, I couldn’t convince myself of it.

He brushed his hand down my cheek. “Look, I know this is way past anything you could ever imagine—that anyone could, but it’s true. It’s completely insane, but true. I’m not crazy.” His crystal eyes seared into mine. “Please, believe me.”

“What does that mean exactly? You’re immortal? Not human? What?” My head hastened at the thought of what his words could mean.

“No, not immortal, not in this world. In the World of Light, the Otherworld, we’re eternally young. I’m mortal in this world. I can die here.”

I rose to my feet, past comprehension. “I need a minute.”

“Take all the time you need.” He exhaled.

The ocean continued to lap serenely against the shore as though my entire world had not suddenly shifted.

My gaze glued on the shore, I asked, “You believe our souls collided?”

“Yes.” He rose to his feet behind me. “Only like souls can collide. I mean, only a counterpart can find its equal.” He rested his hands on my shoulders. “Lay, our souls collided when we were kids.” He turned me around to face him. “It’s always been you.” He gazed into my eyes—right into my soul.

The cloud of confusion began to lift as I stared back. “That means …” I couldn’t finish. I knew exactly what it meant. I stood waiting for the information I already knew to be confirmed.

His jaw tightened. “It means you’re like me.” He conceded. “It’s why we found each other when we were young. We’ve always been connected. It’s the reason we can hear each other’s thoughts.” He swept the hair from my face, certainty ringing in his voice. “I’ve never been able to get you out of my head. I can’t be away from you without causing myself pain. We are drawn together.” His breathing grew heavier. “We’re Tied, Lay.”

Tied?
“That’s why something is after me? Because I’m a descendent of an ancient Irish race?” I choked the words out. The very thought was laughable except that it wasn’t at all funny.

“Partly, yes. It’s why something is after
us
,” he said in a whisper.

“That’s the reason you came back?”

“No. Running into you at the shop that day was an accident. Letting you see me wasn’t something I planned. Not that way. I’d hoped to make an easier transition.” He dragged his hand through his hair.

I swallowed. “So, something is after me … or us … because we’re together now.”

“Yes.” He didn’t meet my gaze.

I backed a few steps away from him. “And you knew this would happen? You knew getting too close to me would put me in danger—put both of us in danger?” I raised my voice, heat building.

He hesitated. “Could you have walked away from me after you saw me?” He raised his voice back at me. “Would you have ever been able to let me go or believe you weren’t some mental case?”

I stared into his gorgeous face as he stared fiercely back into mine. Memories of him swept over me. The sound of his voice calling my name as we ran across the beach as kids. Jumping down from my open bedroom window as he grinned up at me, his hand brushing over mine.

“Well? Because I could never have walked away from you again, regardless of what I knew. Being away from you has been killing me all these years. I’ve been staying near you all this time not only to protect you, but also because I can’t bring myself to stay away!”

All the memories I’d beckoned and called up from my subconscious mind, knowing I shouldn’t, rushed over me. His smile. The way my body always warmed when he was near me. The sound of his laugh. Believing I was going mad, I’d tried to will him to return, positive all the while he couldn’t have been real. Sure my deluded mind had created him. Yet, there he stood. The one I loved more than anything in my life, pleading with me to believe in him. My chin dropped. “It’s been killing me, too.”

His posture relaxed. “I’m sorry you don’t remember. I don’t understand how you can’t, but this is who we are, who we’ve always been. This is our destiny.”

I crossed my arms, anger and disbelief spiking again. “Destiny?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and lifted his head to the sky. “Layla.” He spoke to the heavens. “You have to remember. Please try.”

“I don’t know how, Max! This is insane!”

“Just try!”

“I can’t!” I turned to walk away, to run, to scream.

“We’re being hunted,” he called after me. “They’ll follow you. You can’t leave.”

“Why now?” I shouted into the wind, not shifting to face him. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“The blood. On your neck. It’s a warning. They’re coming for us.”

13

Rolling hills of emerald green stretch out before me. Vast fields strewn with wildflowers. Crumbling rock formations. Mountains hovering in the distance. Blue-green ocean beckons from the horizon, blanketed in a billowy mist. Hypnotic music floats on the wind, and soft voices speak, whispering, calling.

• • •

“Layla?” A voice grew stronger, clearer. “Wake up.”

“What’s wrong with her, Max?” a different voice asked, close, concerned.

Music played in my head, its spellbinding lull holding me down.

“She went under. I think they’re calling her.” Pain strained the voice.

Someone squeezed my hand.

“What do you mean they’re calling her? She isn’t supposed to know. What did you tell her?”

My eyelids fluttered. “Benny?”

“Lay? Can you hear me?”

I struggled against the weight pushing against me, opening my eyes.

“Hey there.” Max touched my face and laid his palm on my forehead. “Look at me, keep your eyes on mine.” His gaze drew me out of the reverie.

“Where’s Benny?”

“Hmm?”

“I heard her.” My voice sounded faint, almost a whisper.

“It’s just me. I’ll get you home. Hold on.”

My eyes closed under the drowsy weight. Max grabbed my face. “Don’t fall asleep.”

His arms lifted me up. Wind blew against my face. We were moving fast. Too fast. My head rolled to the side with a sharp snap. I wrenched it back and held Max tighter. I thought I might slip and fly away.

“Stay with me.” His voice faded on the wind.

••

The sweetness of lavender perfumes the air. Dappled sunlight shines through a canopy of trees, throwing spots of light on the ground. Ferns and moss cover the forest floor, cushioning my bare feet while rushing water breaks the silence. Its melodic rhythm is peaceful, calming. Massive oak trees reach for the heavens, their roots stretching out in every direction on the ground. I trip, trying to make my way through their maze, searching for the door.

Mist shrouds the tree trunk in the distance. Stumbling closer, I reach for the knob, remembering the doorway hidden in the dank base of the tree. Bark falls away as I grip the rotting lump and turn it. Nothing. I try again, harder, as more wet peel and mold crumbles off in my hand.

With my chest flush against the base of the tree, my arms as deep in the darkness as they’ll go, I force it.

An echoing groan rises from the ground as the door gives way. The far groping roots surrounding me on the forest floor rip up from their foundations, wriggling like serpents toward the trunk. Leaves and broken branches rain down from the sky, as a deafening reverberation of tearing and splintering limbs escapes the ground, and the tree heaves itself from the earth. The doorway rises far above my head with a metallic grinding halt and stands, waiting.

I hesitate, lifting my foot, only to lower it again. Blackness looms from beyond. Something deep in the recesses of my mind urges me on. Back within the memories that can’t be memories, in the places I no longer remember, but somehow still know, my steps freeze. Shouting erupts from the shadowed abyss. Someone pulls me, yanking me back.

• • •

“Stop!” I broke away from the wood, staring blindly, heart hammering.

“It’s just me, Layla.” Max sounded terrified.

What did I do?

“Just me.” His hands were held up in surrender like I’d hit him.

“Max.” I blinked, my eyes rolling, breathing unsteadily.

He leaned down and kissed the corner of my mouth. “God, you scared me.” His voice trembled.

Muted light shined in bright streams through gauzy white curtains. The breeze blew them out in billowed clouds of sheer fabric alongside two massive French doors standing wide open to the water outside, inviting a mixture of salt air and gardenias into the room. Music played in the distant background, and a blanket, soft and light as silk, draped my body. I racked my memory, my eyes scanning the room, having no idea where I was.

“Promise me that you will never do that to me again.” Lying beside me, Max brushed the hair from my cheeks and rested his arm across my waist, his expression so full of raw emotion, I thought he might cry.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was looking for a doorway. It was familiar somehow, like I’d been there before. I heard you talking to Benny.”

His mouth hung open.

“What?”

“You saw a doorway?” His voice strangled on itself.

“Yes.”

“Don’t ever open that door. Or any door in your dreams. There are a lot of doorways to the Otherworld, and the realms beyond this world,” he said. “The Otherworld lies beneath us and beyond us. The Celtic Gods dwell in there, some of them. The land of The Sidhe. The Fairie Realm. The World of Light. Both Good and Evil. They all lie there.” He took in a deep breath. “Promise me that you will never go through any doorway in your dreams.” The crease between his eyes deepened.