"Oh Keira!" He whispered as both his hands came to my face to wipe all my tears away.
"I never wanted to put you through this. I never wanted what I am, to affect you this way. You spoke of a normal life and now I realise that this is something I can never give you. It pains me to see that I am the cause of this!" He lifted his tear soaked hands to his face and looked down at them. He looked disgusted as he turned away from me and I was near to crying until I couldn"t breathe in fear of what was to come. Was this the end? After all I had endured, after all we had been through...it couldn"t be. I wouldn"t allow it!
"What are...are you saying?" I spoke between sobs but even at the sound he didn"t look at me.
"I will have Ragnar take you home." Was all he said and as a result I was close to crumbling to the floor.
"NO, no, no! You can"t do this to me. I was stupid and I wasn"t thinking! I see that now but please...you can"t... you just can"t!" I let my body fall to my knees and my devastated head followed. I cried even more when I felt his hand on my bowed head and I realised he was knelt on one knee in front of me.
"What Keira, tell me, what don"t you want me to do?" His desperate voice asked with as much pain as my tears were made of.
"Leave me...I don"t want you to leave me!" And there we had it...I had finally broke. After a night from h.e.l.l I lost it. I had zero control left and Draven knew it as I started to cry it all out. He scooped me up into his arms and I buried my head into his chest letting my tears invade his soft skin over hard muscle. I gripped my hands tightly around his neck and never wanted to let go. I didn"t know where he was taking me but my tears wouldn"t run dry at the possibility that it was going to be somewhere without him. Then he spoke and relit my heart.
"Never! I will never leave you, do you hear me. Not until the day you no longer want me. Not until the day you stamp on my heart and set it on fire. Not until I hear you say that your love for me has been replaced with hate!" He pulled me to him tighter to prove this before releasing me on the bed but he didn"t leave me. I felt his body get as close as he could to my own before making the covers devour our bodies in a blanket of secure warmth.
"Rest now, we can resolve this in the light of day." I didn"t say another word as I rested my emotional body and intertwined it with the man I loved and as if by hearing my thoughts the last thing I heard before crying myself to sleep, were the same thoughts from him....
"I love you."
Chapter 23.
Calm After the Storm.
I wasn"t sure if I had just had the worst night of witnessing nightmares in real life or whether it was just in my dreams. My thoughts felt like they were covered in a deep morning fog and the heavier the clouds, the more I seemed to be lost in the darkness of my mind.
I could feel something comforting on my back. It was a circling motion but when I turned round I could see nothing there. I started searching for anything, listening, needing something that I couldn"t place. I was walking through a misty white blanket of s.p.a.ce. Then I heard it! My name was being spoken...no, not spoken but called.
I began to walk without seeing. I was calling out with no voice. I smiled when I recognised the voice and thanks to my reaction the voice got deeper, stronger and I knew he was nearby. Draven was searching for me also and the thought made me break out into a run. My legs pushed harder but after only minutes his voice started to fade and I pushed my body even farther. It was almost as if I was chasing him and although I was shouting out, there was no voice that followed the feeling.
Finally I stopped and stood breathless and breaking. His name escaped from my lips and for the first time I heard it being said. I hung my head down in disappointment. Then my heart flipped over as I felt a hand behind me on my shoulder and Draven"s voice whispered in my ear, "Wake up Keira!" It was smooth like drizzled cream over strawberries and this thought had me licking my rough lips. The feel of my tongue going over cracked skin made the fog start to clear and when I could see again, I knew exactly where I was. I was lying in Draven"s bed sprawled out like a star fish. He was lucky his bed was enormous and could probably fit a baseball team in it or he would be teetering on the edge.
I shifted around and moaned as I usually do in the morning. My limbs felt like jelly but my shoulder felt great. I now knew the reason I could feel a motion on my skin in my sleepy state. Draven was making circles with his fingertips over where I was hurt last night. It didn"t take me long to realise I was naked and my hair was loose and pushed to one side. Before looking at him I raised my head and looked over the edge of the bed. I saw my clothes lying there in a heap where Draven had obviously discarded them. I felt him laugh next to me before speaking.
"You didn"t need them." His voice was back to the usual "self confident" Draven I was used to and when I looked round to face him, I saw not only what his voice told me, but that it was now calm waters again. He was propped up on one elbow staring at me. He looked like he had been awake for hours but he also looked b.l.o.o.d.y gorgeous! He could have been straight out of bed and done a photo shoot for the s.e.xiest man of the year! This had me turning red as a boiled beetroot and fearing what my own appearance looked like. His hand went to my cheek and his lips followed but then after a frown he kissed my forehead lightly.
"I love it when you blush. However these lips need work...Keira, what did you do to them last night?" His fingers went to the problem in question and he ran his thumb over them.
"I guess..." I had to clear my throat before continuing, as thanks to the crying mess I was last night, well it had left me sounding like I had swallowed not only a frog, but a toad, lily pad... and h.e.l.l, any other pond life to go with it!
"I guess I gave them a rough time." He laughed and it sounded like a symphony to my ears.
"More like a ma.s.sacre! Let me fix them." But before he could touch them again I had moved away making him growl. I remembered what it felt like last night and I thought after that, I would prefer to heal the normal way. He read my mind of course.
"It won"t hurt, not this time." When I didn"t come back to him, he held one of his hands out like he was offering a peace agreement.
"Trust me...please." After asking me like that, I think I would have followed him off a cliff...oh no wait we had already done that once. I was going to have to start thinking up new a.n.a.logies, ones we couldn"t possibly do together, ones like "I would have gone naked parachuting with him" because let"s face it why would he need a parachute, he did have wings!
I moved back into him and when he pushed me gently on my back I closed my eyes. I felt him lean over me and when he placed his hand over my mouth I couldn"t stop them from trembling.
"Trust me." He said again. Then when warmth started coming from his skin they stopped trembling and instead, I was filled with a tingling that made them want to be kissed. It felt like he was generating little lightning bolts from his fingertips, creating a storm on my lips and soon he could feel them smile under his hand. It only took seconds and as usual, when he was finished he asked, "Better?"
I still kept my eyes closed for the moment as I replayed the horrible night"s events back through my tired mind. I felt like Alice that had just fallen down the rabbit hole and had just woken up to find herself under the tree. What did she think, what did she do? Did she just get up and go home to carry on with her daily routine or did she have to go to therapy for the rest of her life? See these are things they don"t tell you in fairy tales...the aftermath!
Draven could obviously tell that I needed some time here, so he let me carry on with my mental whirlwind without saying a word. However this didn"t mean that he didn"t do anything and the feel of his touch on the side of my face was somewhat distracting. I wanted to put everything that had happened last night behind me so badly, that it felt tight in my chest with every breath I took. But I couldn"t! I knew I could never just pretend it hadn"t happened or even worse ...that it didn"t even matter. I needed explanations. I needed reasons, whys and hows. But my fear was...would Draven understand this need?
"Yes, he would!" Draven"s voice broke up my thoughts and now created new ones. He could hear my thoughts because through the turmoil in my mind, he had gained access while my guard had been down. I opened my eyes to find him back in his original position, propped up on one elbow and staring intensely at me.
"I know you need answers Keira. I was fully expecting to find you with a fragile mind and a worried heart this morning and I am fully prepared to explain everything you want to know. Last night I regret not taking the advice of not a servant but an old friend. Ragnar was right. He could see, where I had been blind. He knew how fragile you were and was looking out for your best interests. I, on the other hand, just wanted answers and someone to blame...for this I am greatly sorry. I realised in the end, but I fear it was too late. Will you ever forgive me?"
I listened in silence and with a blank expression as I had never heard Draven not only sound so sorry but so sincere with it too. I was a bit blown away by it all but it didn"t take me long to follow with my answer.
"Shut up and kiss me!" This he took as a good thing because the kiss was one of the most pa.s.sionate I have ever received. Just when I thought it couldn"t get any more intense....well it did! The fact that we couldn"t follow it through with mind blowing s.e.x was a bit disappointing but I didn"t know whether this played a factor to how great the kiss was.
Draven had always excelled in the field of kissing, touching, taking my breath away, well you get the picture. But this time his kiss made me feel like I was a teenager again. Heart pounding in chest, crazy new feelings you couldn"t understand and usually down below. His hands explored my face, neck, back until he finished by holding me so tight to his body that I felt like we were one ent.i.ty. Once it finished and he moved back to see my face, he was met by a very different Keira. I couldn"t keep the daft grin off my lips and the sparkle out of my eyes. I was, to say the least, very, very happy again.
He moved his head back further to take in my full expression and his features turned into confusion.
"What is it?" He asked me in a comical little tone and I guessed that I must have been staring at him as if we had only just met. As though this was a whole new side of Draven that I hadn"t yet encountered....that of course being the sorry side.
"Nothing...it"s nothing." I tried to pa.s.s it off as what I said it was and I decided to focus all my energy into rebuilding my mental wall. It didn"t take me as long as usual as something in me just seemed to click. I didn"t need to strain my hearing on other noises or concentrate on what they were. Maybe I was growing stronger? The more I was around Draven the more adaptable I became. Surly that crazy stuff I had witnessed last night should have sent me over the edge?
I could feel Draven waiting for me to speak but I was too busy running through all the important questions I needed to ask him. This morning didn"t change things just because his frowning face had been replaced by one of sorrow. I still needed to be in the know. He couldn"t shut this all away as being his business as he had done last night.
I moved a little further away from him and he shook his head slightly to show his disapproval. However I didn"t give in and neither did he make any attempt to pull me back. This time I was glad of it. I had to be stern. I had to get to the bottom of last night so that we could move on from it. I reached over the bed and grabbed my zip up sweater to put on. Ok, so I was making a bit of a statement but it felt like the only control I had, even if it was the most insignificant. I could feel his eyes searching for reasons in my actions but I gave him none. Once comfortable and semi dressed, I pulled the covers around my naked bottom half and sat up to face him.
"Ok, let"s have it!" Was all I needed to say to make him release a sigh. This had been the conversation he had been dreading and it was written all over his face. A line formed on his forehead and it was the first sign of his many years older than me that I had seen. (This excluding the fact that he was most probably thousands of years older) He hesitated and it was quite obvious that he didn"t know where to start.
"Ok, I"m going to make this easier for you by telling you what I know and you can just fill in the gaps...Yes?" He nodded and showed his palm by way of complying.
"So I gather that phone call you got at my sisters, was what, some kind of calling card to the Temple?"
"Of sorts, yes. But look Keira, I don"t know how many details your expecting to get from all this." He was trying to be stern but I didn"t back down.
"Oh no you don"t, you"re not going to placate me with that! You"re going to tell me what I want to know and answer my questions whether you like it or not!" At this he raised his eyebrows to display his shock and I thought he was going to follow it by getting angry but when his brows smoothed, a smile played at the edge of his lips, displaying his amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Very well, but then can you promise you will try and understand my position, when I tell you things you are not going to like hearing?" This time I nodded and he took my answer for what it was, a reserved yes.
"When I received that call it was indeed to tell me that the temple was awaiting me and the girl made ready."
"You mean the dark haired girl...that was in the cell, that you ....?" I couldn"t finish the words and say killed because it just wasn"t the type of thing you would say to your boyfriend. Or at least any normal boyfriend but there was nothing normal about Draven or about me for that matter. Usually couples argued about money or jealously, who does the washing up and what TV channel they"re going to watch but NO, with me and Draven it was all about Demons, Angels, visions, dreams and evil stalkers! What I wouldn"t give to just argue about something mundane, like him not picking up his dirty underwear off the floor!
"That GIRL has been wanted for some time indeed, and trust me, when I say for good reasons!" At this his face hardened at the word "girl" and I could hear him grind his teeth as he spoke of her.
"Tell me?" He shook his head at first but he didn"t outright tell me no, so I knew I had leeway.
"Draven, it"s time to trust me" This got him alright.
"Ok, but I warn you, it will play on your pure heart and I fear I cannot stand to see you so upset as you were last night."
"You can"t protect me from the truth, no matter how bad it is." He didn"t respond to this but instead he showed me just how hard it was by rubbing his forehead with his fingertips in frustration.
"What do you mean by wanted?" I asked after he had been silent for a while and the sound of my voice brought him back to a conversation that he really didn"t want to be having.
"Our legal system is not so different from yours. The only difference is that we are more likely to follow through with our punishments. These of course are very different. When one of my kind breaks the rules there are different steps that have to be taken. First comes the warning, where they are stripped of their powers for a time. This is depending on what rules have been broken of course. But if the defendant hasn"t been caught for this warning to be administered and they carry on their destructive ways then they become part of the "Wanted"."
He watched me shift my weight to get more comfortable and waited for me to finish. If anything he looked happy for this little distraction and seemed content on waiting for me.
"What did she do?" This of course was the question he had feared. His face screamed out these feelings.
"She was a young soul, being that of only fifty odd years. She was ill taught and had little to no guidance. These however are no excuses for her to not know the rules clearly. As I mentioned last night, she was an Angel but as you know, this does not automatically spell out clean soul." This I had remembered him telling me. The major misconception humans held was that Angels were always good and Demons always bad. This however was not the case and this story would no doubt prove this old ancient fact to destroy the stone in which it was thought to be set.
"She was brought into her host with the good intension of lying low the first ten years, which is the first rule of being reborn. For those who are not used to the human world they are given a series of guide lines and are a.s.signed a possession officer."
"Is that like a parole officer?" I asked naively and when he smiled, I felt my embarra.s.sed cheeks start to burn.
"Of sorts, yes but they are more like guidance counsellors. They are there to guide them for the first years of their lives."
"Why aren"t they called guidance counsellors then?" I know this question didn"t really hit number ten on the "important things to know" scale but for him at least, it seemed to be nice little distraction. One side of his lips turned upwards, which he tried to hide with one hand which was resting over his chin. This is when I realised I must have sounded like a child asking where babies come from.
"We call them possession officers because they possess new souls. They own them. It"s a bit like being a parent. They are in control until they reach the right age and are safe to make it in the world alone."
"Did you have one?" At this he let out a series of raucous laughter that made the bed shake. When he finally composed himself he clocked my frowning face and for once, it was he that was biting his lip. He was trying very hard not to laugh again and I would have been laughing with him if it weren"t at my expense.
"Sorry...it was actually a good question and as usual, unexpected. The answer is no, I did not have one." He was now just managing to compose a straight face when I asked him why not?
"Let"s just say that Vincent, Sophia and I were kind of...umm...inbuilt with the knowledge of how it all worked....Anyway, where was I?" He pushed his thick black hair from his forehead, where it had rested thanks to his uncontrollable laughter. I instantly bit my lip at the sight. This was one of the hardest things about having such an amazingly handsome boyfriend, every time he did things like that, you found yourself wishing he would just shut up and undress you! I knew he had asked me a question so I had to think back through the s.e.xy haze that was Draven.
"Umm..." I gulped before answering "Possession Officer" I whispered and he shot me a look as if to say "What"s wrong with you?" but he didn"t ask and I was glad for it. Instead he just gave me another half-smile before continuing.
"Ok, so back to my point. Hers was not very attentive to her studies and quit her after only a year. She wasn"t even given a human name but after her escapades she was rightly dubbed Vetala. This was because her ways resembled that of the Demon from Hindu mythology. Vetala was believed to be an evil spirit that possessed the dead, made humans mad and killed children along with causing miscarriages. Of course, she was a rogue Demon that cause havoc in small villages but the stories most always outlive the souls that they have sprung from. In this case it looked like history was repeating itself and once again we intervened." I didn"t know whether he was pretending not to see the disgust in my face or whether he had just not noticed.
"Wait a minute...so you"re telling me that, that young tiny, girl down there was a ...a child killer?" This had brought his full attention back to my face and his hands stroked my cheeks affectionately before catching some escaping tears. He tilted his head to one side while giving me a wide eyed look of concern. It reminded me of when my family looked at me after the incident with Morgan. After I had been kidnapped, my family never seemed to be able to look at me the same way again, well who could blame them. I certainly couldn"t.
"Yes she was, along with other things. She became an artist in the art of manipulation. She liked to feed from the pain and suffering that would flow from the hopeless families that had lost loved ones. Parents who had lost the dearest beings to their hearts. She was a monster and to the bitter end she tried to control you and make you set her free. First she tried pity and when that failed, she showed you something that angers me to my very core. Keira, I"m sorry you had to be reminded of the pain you went through." Of course he was referring to the vision she had made me see. She had played on my own living nightmare that Morgan had put me through. She knew my weaknesses and used them to her advantage.
"Wait, how did you know what she showed me?"
"When I finished her off, I saw through her eyes and scanned through her memories of her last encounters. When you screamed out I knew what you had seen in the Temple but I didn"t know what you had seen before you got there. I hoped that you hadn"t found her or more like she hadn"t found you. But then when I saw her re-enactment of what you had gone through at the hands of that...THAT SICK F...!" He paused before he could scream out his feelings for Morgan and closed his eyes tight as if trying to lock out a memory.
"Sorry, but as you can imagine, it affected me in a way you can"t believe." At this I saw the pain replace his anger fill his eyes and his eyes flashed from purple to two deep, black lagoons in the dead of night.
"How did she even know about my past?" I asked this more because I wanted to get him talking again, to try and get him past that image that no longer only haunted myself. He answered with just a name, one that I would have never expected to pa.s.s his sweet kissable lips.
"Layla!"
"WHAT! Are you serious? What the h.e.l.l has she got to do with this?"
"Try to calm yourself, I will tell you but you have to trust me, she can"t get to you." This wasn"t as rea.s.suring as it was supposed to be, I will tell you! I remained silent as a sign that he could carry on but now I knew why this had been such a hard story for him to tell me.
"You remember me telling you that Layla escaped?"
"Well no actually, you didn"t tell me, I found out, remember?" I said giving one of those, "See why you shouldn"t lie" looks but he ignored it.
"Well after she stabbed you, she went into hiding...or at least she tried. My men found her and I imprisoned her until she could face a trial. I needed to get to the bottom of her hate but before I could ...umm question her....." at this I b.u.t.ted in, "You mean torture... right?" He rolled his eyes at me but seeing as I was so used to this by now I let it go.
"Alright, yes I do, but the b.i.t.c.h deserved to die! So I will continue now that I haven"t the need to spare you on the dark details. Yes, I was going to torture her and I would have enjoyed doing so, given what she tried to take from me and Keira, be warned, that if anyone else was to try again, then I would do what I feel is necessary, for my vengeance is black and deadly!" From the bulging vein that pulsated through his tensed forearm and eyes that could have you begging for mercy in seconds of just once glance, I would be going against everything I ever believed in, to deny this to be true. He was terrifying! I gently placed my hand on his stone like shoulder and the feel of my skin on his, seemed to bring him back to my level of calm.
"I believe it," I whispered and he just nodded in response. I however made a mental note never to mention Layla"s name ever again.
"I will continue!" When I gave him my concerned look it was he, for the first time, was to say "I"m fine" before continuing with the facts.
"I need to explain what the connection is between the two. See Layla, before working for me as a waitress, was a possession officer. The position didn"t suit her and after a string of bad judgments and poor excuses for educated prodigies she was renounced from her position and stripped of the powers she had been granted. This made her resentful but she appealed to me for a softer sentence giving her the chance to rehabilitate. I gave her an opportunity by working for me in the club but with the chance of getting her old role back. She became impatient and frustrated but I still don"t know the full reasons behind her hate towards you." I shifted uncomfortably and played with the bottom of my sleeves as I usually did when hearing things that were hard to take.
"I soon learned last night, why it was Vetala who broke her out from the prison and when I saw it all through her eyes it started to make sense. See Layla was Vetala"s possession officer and although she left her, she considered her a mother figure and that she didn"t leave her but freed her. Layla had formed a bond so strong that she must have called to Vetala for help before getting caught. How Vetala got her out I don"t yet know but I do know that Layla betrayed her and pushed her into her own cell so that it would give her longer for the head start. By the time Vetala was discovered Layla was long gone." Once again he was tense at recalling all the events at Layla"s deception.
"She played her prodigy like a fine tuned instrument and let her play out your own dark symphony to you. Layla knew what she was doing when she told her about your past and I believe her last command was to get to you if she could." I was shaking my head by the time he had finished but it got to a point where I was losing my not so cool persona and my cheeks were on fire with my own hate.
The name Layla stuck in my throat like a piece of gum I knew I shouldn"t swallow and the seven year myth of it remaining in your gut became a good a.n.a.logy for this sick reality. Would I ever get past this? The list of people that wanted me rather dead or hurting was mounting at an impeccable rate.
"Wow! I mean, really, wow...Why, I just don"t get it! Why does everyone want to hurt me? See in my world I"m a n.o.body! I just go by unnoticed and stay quiet. I keep my business to myself and my past firmly locked behind closed doors. But in your world I"m like this hunted possession that people want to hurt and hate! Why can"t I have both...Why can"t I have you and be happy without having to sacrifice my sanity?" Ok, so I knew I was ranting on and being all self- pitying but come on...what else did I have to face? What was going to be next? And was I ever going to be ready for it?!
"I"m sorry Keira but this is my fault. This is why I wanted to keep you from me and why I should still be trying to."
"NO! Don"t you dare say that! I am in more danger without you and you know it. Besides, could you really just walk away from it all now...after what we have been through?" My glazed eyes looked up to search for the same feeling as I had.
"No, I simply couldn"t do that...not now. Not after experiencing you first hand. This skin to touch." He traced a thumb down my neck and it vibrated as my breathing got more intense.
"These lips to kiss." This short sentence ended over my appendage in question and it did anything but calm my breathing. My heart rate went through the roof as he pulled my leg making my body follow to the underneath of him. He held all his weight over me as his kiss intensified. The feeling that coursed through my every nerve made every horror I had witnessed worth it ten times over. Being hunted meant nothing anymore as long as I had this feeling to hold on to.
His hands started to push up my sweater and the tingles shot up my side like he was communicating with every hair follicle on my skin. I wasn"t the only one breathing heavy and when I felt Draven"s impressive erection rise, I knew I would have to find the senses to stop this bliss. I was still on and not that he would have minded a bit of mess, I certainly wasn"t ready for that undignified step to be taken.
His tongue was creating magic in my mouth as it moved in its skilful dance. I waited for him to move to kissing my neck as he usually did but when he got there I found myself arching into him and my head rolled back to give him greater access. I was losing control and knew if I didn"t stop it all now I never would. Thankfully, when his hand found the inside of my thigh and the thought of the piece of string he would soon find there, it made me find my much needed sense and I sat bolt upright.
"Hey!" He said in disapproval, and then his hands tried to reach out to pull me back down into the same position. When I shifted out of his grabbing hands he let out a low growl that rippled deep in his throat.
"Whoa, cool down there cowboy. Painters and decorators are in, remember?" He let out an easy going laugh at the a.n.a.logy I"d used, before calming down his libido. He gave me a bad boy grin as he shifted back to the side of me and seeing him behave himself I relaxed my tensed muscles.
"See what you do to me?" He rubbed the back of his neck with his large palm and shook his head like he was remembering what the feel of my lips on his, did to his manhood. I thought this the reason because I too was still trying to control the commotion he caused to my nether regions. Raging river came to mind!
"Well, when I"m off then I can do that to you!"
"When will that be again?" He asked in a hoa.r.s.e voice that curled my toes.