“I’m staying out of Esterious until she’s rested and strong. By then, Zander and all of you should have her wing ready.”
Marc met Chrispin’s stare, finding an ‘I told you so’ smirk.
“Apparently, Aden is coming with us, too. Where is Draven?” I asked.
“Healing.”
“Is he badly hurt?” I don’t know why, but I felt bonded to Draven. I knew his soul. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did. I had made a vow to myself to protect him the first instance I saw him.
“No, we all just need rest. We need to regroup,” Marc said, looking away from me.
There was that underlying message again. They wanted Landen and Willow here. I had the instincts to warn Landen that he was running out of time when it came to his own people, but something told me he already knew that.
I didn’t bother to respond; instead, I walked back into the room and locked the door behind me.
~Madison~
I had to close my eyes for a second, find my breath. Fear was still absent, but that boy wreaked havoc on my soul. He was so consuming that when he left my line of sight, I always felt cold. I felt my soul reach to pull his back to mine. No matter how jealous I was, I could not deny how at home I felt at his side. How alive I felt around him.
Once I had regained my balance, I reached to turn off the light. I had been hiding out in Olivia and Chrispin’s house. Olivia was Willow’s childhood friend who had been attached to me since Willow came for us nearly a week ago. Chrispin was her soul mate, and conveniently one of Drake’s brothers. Long lost brother.
Drake was truly a broken soul. He had been lied to his entire life, then out of nowhere he discovered that Willow was not who he thought she was, that his father, Livingston, had in some way lived a double life. That he had a family that he never knew, tucked away in the dimension of Chara.
That would be a lot for anyone to take in, but add in the whole fight against evil and stand up to rule a damned dimension, and you had a broken man. It was hard not to have some degree of understanding for him.
There was a large walk-in closet just in front of this bathroom. One thing was for sure, no two homes in this dimension were built the same way. Olivia’s home had endless reading nooks and cubbyholes like this.
I moved past the closet and opened the door that had been closed slightly by Drake.
All the lamps in this guest room were off, with the exception of one of the ones on the bedside table—which was not how I left it. Darkness was not my friend; at least it wasn’t when I could feel fear.
I couldn’t see Drake, but I heard him and someone else’s muffled voice. Right as I went to put my shoes on, he came back in the bedroom and closed the door.
Acting as if this were some kind of regular routine, he slid off his shoes, took off his belt, and slowly started to unbutton his dark shirt.
“What are you doing?” I asked in the most nonchalant voice I could manage. How could he go from wanting to cover a temptation one moment to undressing in front of me the next?
“It’s late. I’m tired,” he said with a bit of a smirk as he pulled his shirt out of its tucked position and let each side fall open, revealing a tight black tank that amplified every firm muscle in his chest. For some reason, he decided to keep his button up shirt on as he made his way to my bag, which was on the dresser in front of the bed. He meddled around in the side pockets before finding my phone—a phone that definitely didn’t work in this dimension.
I’ll give him one thing: he was a fast leaner. He managed to find the music app, then my favorite playlist. The music was Draven and Aden’s, but it was low key, acoustic guitars and slow drums. I loved it simply because the lyrics were ones that I had written, ones that my dreams had always made me feel. Even though Draven hadn’t felt the emotions of the lyrics firsthand or in the same way, he sang them so perfectly that my soul hummed. That album was made as a birthday gift for me a few years back. I listened to it every night as I feel asleep, thinking of the boy that had inspired the emotion behind the music. Never in a million years would I have assumed that tonight when that sound would be playing, that he would be standing a few feet away.
Last night, I had fumbled with my phone, waited for when I thought Drake was asleep before I slid on my headphones and fell into the sound. When I woke up—or should I say when we were woken up—I saw that one of the headphones was in Drake’s ear and the playlist was not only set to repeat, but turned up higher than I had left it.
Which led me to wonder if he knew how special that music was to me, or if right now he was silently telling me it was time to rest.
He set the phone on the bedside table.
“Are we not going home?”
A breathtaking grin spread across his lips as he hesitated and obviously replayed my question in his mind.
“It’s not safe yet,” he finally answered.
“When is it ever?” I quipped as I watched him lie down and stretch out, barely adjusting the mountain of pillows this queen bed had been decorated with.
“I may not be able to make all of it safe just now…but there are parts of it that I can.”
“Then let’s go to that part,” I argued.
“Not tonight,” he mumbled as those eyes of his drank in every part of me.
“Were you talking to Aden just now?” I asked, wondering if he was the reason we were not moving dimensions right now.
“Chrispin.”
“Are they telling you to keep me here?” I bit out. In some way, the members of Chara made me feel like my friends and I were precious cargo. I hated that. I really did.
“When do I ever listen to anyone?” he asked as his eyes carefully moved over me.
Hearing him say that made me remember something I had pulled from his thoughts a few nights ago when I was digging through his mind, trying to find proof that he deserved for me to be as furious with him as I was.
I already knew at that point that he had told Willow that it didn’t matter that she had found me, that he loved her soul. I was looking for ammo to add to that moment when I saw in detail a fight he’d had with his mother instead.
I saw him sitting alone in a private, elegant room for what seemed like forever. When Alamos came in the room, the old man regarded Drake with a fatherly stare, and Drake told him to make the arrangements for each of us to have our own quarters in the palace. As Alamos suggested a secure wing, Drake interrupted him. “My wing, my hall. It’s the safest place...for her.’” Alamos left the room swiftly to do as he was instructed. Beth, his mother, stepped out of the shadows in the elegant room and carefully looked over her son. “That’s not the safest place.”
Full of rage and confusion, his smoldering eyes met hers. She walked gracefully to his side and placed her hand on his broad chest, then moved her other hand to his shoulder. “This is, son.”
He looked away from her.
“I promised you that this day would come. Don’t ruin it. Be the man your father wanted you to be.”
Drake stood then stepped away from her as if they were having an unspoken argument about whoever his father was. “I’m not him,” he said tightly.
“No,” Beth mumbled. “But your father loved a stubborn, witty woman who had to have her way, who thought that love was trying and meaningless, something that only fools indulged in—and with his wit, his patience, his guarded submission, he gave me no choice but to fall in love with him.”
“Guarded submission...odd reference, considering his submission is the reason we are here, a divided family,” Drake seethed.
The expression on Beth’s face turned cold. Up to this point I’d taken her for the passive sort. “It was my decision. I told him not to fight. I told him that because I was selfish. Because I did not want my sons to grow up without a father. He submitted to me, and only me.”
“You need to explain that to your other sons. They blame me,” Drake said as his eyes filled with the remorse that was flooding his soul.
&nbs
p; “No, they don’t.” Beth slowly walked away from him, but not before glancing back at him. “When I looked into her eyes, I saw the echo of everything I was, I am. Don’t question my certainty, son, or your heart.” She then left the room in haste.
In response to her last words, Drake picked up a priceless vase and flung it across the room; the sound of it crashing into the wall sent a shiver down my spine, bringing me back to the reality I was in. That fight had happened just before he came to dinner in Chara, just before I was struck and forevermore damaged in the way of insights.
Seeing that argument with his mother was what sparked the compassion I felt for this boy. I was sure that he was stubborn enough to ignore his mother, that he would make no attempt to hear her words. But Drake, as always, surprised me. He found his own way. And his way was an honest one. He never once tried to cover up the way he had or did feel about Willow, and he never once used his childhood as an excuse. Actually, Drake never supplied excuses, only facts that led to his reasoning. It was almost like he knew there was nothing he could do about the past; instead, he carried a heavy grief for what had happened to him, to his family. To us.
So knowing what I did know, I could not figure out why we could not go to whatever wing he had thought would be safe enough for us a few days ago.
“Aden was right, you know,” I muttered.
“About?”
“About the fact that I don’t like to be smothered. I don’t need someone to think for me. To protect me.”
“Do you want me to sleep on the couch?” he asked with a sigh.
“No, I want to go home.”
That smile was there again, a disbelieving one that matched his astonished emotions. I could not figure out why he felt that way, and that was driving me mad. “What’s with that look?”
He shrugged his shoulders against the pillows they were lying on.
“Why can we not go? If we stay here, they will find a way to talk you out of letting me go with you. Charlie will place some guilt trip on me for leaving.”
“Do you honestly think that anyone can stop me from fulfilling one of your requests?”
“I’ve told you before, Drake, the world is not like the palace. People do not have to do as you say, when you say.”
That was part of the reason that he and I had went to my home dimension last night. I told him as we ate our dessert after a formal dinner that none of that elegance was real. He wanted me to show him real. So I did.
“I don’t need the power of royalty to keep you safe or make you happy. I’ve told you that before.”
“Then answer my question. Why not now?”
“For one, it’s not safe; two, your room is not ready.”
“There are, like, five thousand rooms in that palace. I’m sure I can find a place to rest,” I snapped, even though resting was not on my agenda. I planned to canvas all of those paintings and find a clue as to what I was supposed to be afraid of. I wasn’t going to let that cat out of the bag just yet, though. For several reasons, one being that Drake would think I was using him to chase my obsession and that simply wasn’t true. Even when I had fear, deep down I wanted to be with him. Because next to him I felt…complete.
“I may not have been raised in Chara, but there are some aspects of it that my father instilled in me, and right now your room is not ready.”
“When will it be?”
“Tomorrow, maybe,” he said with a shy smile dangling on the edge of his lips.
“Do you not have a kingdom to run?”
“Marc is there.”
“You hate him doing that for you,” I said faintly, which was true. Drake didn’t like anyone standing in his place, simply because it was one of the most dangerous places in the universe. Everyone was out to take him down, each for their own nefarious reasons. That is why power is so dangerous: you must fight to get it, and once you have it you need to fight to keep it.
“There are no engagements that I have to be at for a while. He’s fine.”
“Does Alamos know you are here?”
I didn’t really know the man that was basically Drake’s last standing father figure well, but I knew without a doubt that Alamos was furious with me and Drake for taking off last night.
“Not a clue.”
“So what? We chill here until Landen or someone else comes to wake us to fight our war.”
Landen had awakened us this morning and helped rush us to our waiting battle. That was awkward, the two of us traveling next to Willow and Landen. Drake kept a pensive stare on Willow. If I didn’t have my jacked up sense of emotion, I might have found cause to be even more jealous, but I knew that he was just hoping that Willow could still play the role that he swore they were acting out for the ghost of the palace. Willow had kept her distance since I had been found—surely to give me and Drake a chance to get to know one another—but Drake wanted to make sure that distance wasn’t far enough away to point an arrow right at me.
In Drake’s mind, as long as it was thought that he was pulled to Willow, fighting for her, the ghost he was fighting would leave me be. His reasoning struck me as odd, but in some twisted way it made sense.
He reached his arms behind his head, causing his lean muscles to flex and my heart to skip a few beats. “If you’re not tired, we can talk.”
“About?” I asked as I dared to lie down next to him.
“Your obsession.”
On the inside, I recoiled a bit. I had too many to name. “I don’t talk about my obsessions. I chase them.”
“Interesting,” he breathed.
“Why is that?” I said as I moved to my side so I could gaze at him. It was so hard to believe that he was real. That a prince was lying next to me.
He didn’t answer for what seemed like forever, but just after he moved to his side to face me, just as my heart pounded when he reached to trace my bottom lip and his entrancing stare moved there, he spoke. “I’m obsessive, too. In my mind, I have lived a million lives.”
“In the past, I know,” I said as I closed my eyes. As far as I was concerned, Willow was lying right here in the middle of us.
The scent of roses intensified in the room, bringing heat to my soul. I had to figure out why that aroma dominated his vessel when he was alone with me. Why it lingered with devotion. Why it enticed my very being.
“No, in the future. A future that was safe, that was a happily ever after.”
“Peaks and valleys; there is no ever after.”
“Perhaps,” he breathed as his fingertip continued to explore my bottom lip. “But both would be easy to manage if you were whole, connected so deeply that nothing could part you from the one you loved.”
My breath seized. I was almost positive I felt love dwelling in his emotion. It was only hard for me to perceive because this kind of love had never been directed at me, and I knew from enduring this sixth sense for so long that no two couples feel that emotion the same way, to the same degree. I also knew that those who felt it at their core also felt fear, a fear that they would be divided. It was hard enough to keep myself straight, my friends safe. Worrying about a person that was half my soul was almost too much to bear, especially if that soul had one of the most dangerous occupations on the planet. “Nothing but death.”
An odd grin hovered on the corners of his lips. “Why are you so morbid?”
“Gee, I don’t know, maybe because I know that death has separated us, that when we lived again, at some point you found Willow instead of me.”
His anger—the devotion was now laced with anger and what I thought was love—intensified. I was so confused. Did he feel that emotion because her name was mentioned or because he was trying to reach out to me?
“Do you know how brief my time with Willow was?”
See, now any other boy would have brushed that comment off, or at the very least downplayed it—but not Drake Blakeshire. No, he wanted to be blunt. To pull out the ugly truth and stare it down.
Even though I was screami
ng at myself, telling myself to never, ever mention Willow’s name again, I spoke anyway. “I’m not the one whose soul was opened up so all of my memories would flood to the surface,” I murmured as my gaze moved to the deep purple of his essence that was surrounding his body. That shade was a reflection of deep dreams or a connection to a spiritual plane. It was a shade you would always see around souls that had opened their minds up to accept all the secrets their souls knew.
His spellbinding eyes connected with mine. “The only memories of her they could find with that invasion were of war. Ruthless war. That always ended us before we had a chance to figure out that we were not what either of us were looking for.”
“That is a new tune,” I mocked. I already knew from digging in his thoughts before that he had in a sense said something close to that to Willow, only he said he fought and died for her, that they lived by passion.
“I see things differently now,” he said as his eyes drifted all around me.
“Why all of a sudden?”
Whatever he wanted to say, he held it back. “You’re deflecting. Tell me why a girl who is terrified of water wants to know if I have a boat.”
“Call me an opportunist.”
He smirked. “Facing your fears whilst your emotions are on hiatus?”
“Not all of them are gone,” I confessed.
“Good to know,” he said under his breath as his fingertips moved to trace my jawline. “Do you have any idea why you fear water?”
“Do you?”
“Unfortunately.”
He let silence explode between us.
~Drake~
Sometimes my mind was hard to control. Full of too many memories of past lives, memories that my dreams supplied. A word or phase would thrust me back without warning. Around Madison Marie, that seemed to happen often. Usually, those moments were full of bliss, but right now dread was building in me. Deep, dark dread that was spreading like a malignant, cancerous tumor.