A Life Unexpected: Holly Nather Book One (Holly Nather Series) (9 page)

Luke looks at me when they are done. “It won’t last very long, but long enough for us to come up with a plan.”

They continue in deep conversation about everything that’s going on. I quickly realize I’m of no help and walk to Brody’s room. I lie down and think of all the people who are worried about me right now. I do my best to push negative thoughts from my mind and try to concentrate on falling asleep. I’m just about to doze off, when Luke walks into the room.

“Hey,” He whispers as he lays down next me.

“So, what’s the plan?” I ask, while rolling over to face him. Even with everything going on I can’t deny my growing feelings for him.

He props his head on his hand and plays with a strand of hair that is in my face. “We are leaving in the morning and staying at a hotel. We are going to move hotels every few days so we can confuse the Poyen’s visions of where we are. Soon, we will have to fight them.” I
really
don’t like the last part.

“Why me?” I ask as tears fill my eyes. “My life was normal.”

“Holly, I don’t know what it is. You are obviously gorgeous, but looks alone are not why I am so in love with you. It’s the way you deal with everyday situations, it’s the way you laugh, the way you don’t care what anyone thinks about you. It’s every damn thing about you. I have had many visions of you. The visions have been like watching a movie of your life. I have learned so much about you through them. I have never met anyone like you before. Don’t worry, the visions have always been clean and not x rated,” he says with a laugh. “I love the way you dance when no one is looking and cry when a sad commercial comes on. I couldn’t keep myself away from you any longer.”

I’m flattered and a little freaked out.
He knows me without ever meeting me?
I guess that explains why he wanted to meet me in person, though. I stare at him, waiting for the part where he tells me this is all a joke. If he does, I will not find it funny at all. As a matter of fact, I will probably hate him for all eternity.

“But I don’t get it. Why were you seeing visions of
me
?”

“I don’t know. I wish I could explain it, but I can’t. But, I just want you to trust me.”

“My parents are really worried.”

He smiles and puts his arms around my waist. “This will all end eventually. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He moves hair out of my face and kisses me on my forehead.

My voice raw with frustration, I ask, “Why are you doing this, Luke? Why not marry Lana? You could put an end to all of this! What could be so important that you have to marry this girl anyways?”

“If Lana and I were to marry together, we’d be the most powerful in Terre. Lana and her family want nothing more than royalty and power. They are high in society, but not a bit of royal blood runs through their veins. Lana is so brainwashed by her parents that she doesn’t care about love, she just wants to be queen one day when my mother and father die. I know if I were to marry her, it wouldn’t’ be long, and both of my parents would be dead. They would kill them, Holly. Lana is ready to be in rule
now.
She has no intentions of waiting for my parents to die on their own. I had to run away.”

“What happens if you never go back and your parents die? Who would rule then?” I ask.

“The Poyen. My dad is over the Poyen. My dad has probably sent the Poyen after me, after he found out about me falling in love with someone else. He wanted me to marry Lana to keep peace. I know better, though. I know their motives. He is so damn naïve. My mother never said much on the situation. I know my dad has sent for your death or capture. He probably thought I would return to marry Lana. Now that I’ve fallen in love, it’s a game changer, and he’s mad. Even worse, Lana and her family will do what they can to take you away from me. I will eventually have to go back.” He rolls over on his back and sighs. “Let’s not talk about this now. You need to sleep. You look so tired. I’m so sorry for leaving you. I thought it would work, and you would come with me.”

I sit up and look at him. “It’s okay. Umm by the way…the Poyen kind of blew up your car.”

“It’s just a car. You’re alright. That’s all that matters.” He laughs and sits up beside me. He lifts my chin to his lips and smiles against them. In whisper he says, “I meant it when I told I love you.” He slowly lays me back on the bed and presses his body against mine. I should stop him, but I don’t have the willpower to do so. I want him so bad and it scares the hell out of me. Why am I letting this happen? I need him to get off me. I need to put as much distance between us as I can
. This is moving way too fast!
He kisses me softly and then traces my jaw line with his lips. I run my hands through his hair.
Stop it, Holly. Damnit, stop touching him
! His hand finds the bottom of my shirt, and his touch on my bare skin sends chills all over my body. I immediately stop fighting against myself and tug at his shirt, trying to remove it, but he places his hand on mine to stop me.

“What’s wrong?!” I ask quietly.

He sits up and curses under his breath. “I can’t allow this to happen between us. Not yet.”

I laugh coldly, but he’s right. “I know.”

“I want you to feel the same way I feel for you, Holly.”

Tears fill my eyes. “What’s wrong with me? Why am I allowing myself to fall for you like this?! I’ve only known you for a short time, Luke. This isn’t normal! And I almost let something happen that I’ve never been ready to do with anyone! And people want to kill me. Oh my god, I’m losing my mind.”

He laughs a little and tucks my hair behind my ears. He soothingly rubs my back. “You’re not alone in being confused. Think about it. I’ve fallen in love with a girl I saw in visions. I’m scared too, Holly, but what I feel is too strong to fight.”

“I’m so scared,” I whisper and lay my head against his chest.

“I’m trying to fix that. Fix all of this,” he says as he holds me in his arms.

I WAKE UP
and see Luke sitting on the edge of the bed. “Good morning,” He says with a huge smile on his face.

“Hey.” I sit up and stretch.

“I have all of your stuff packed and ready to go. We are going to leave in ten minutes.” He stands up and grabs my bag. “I’m going to take our stuff out to Brody’s car.”

“Why don’t you just use magic?”

Laughing he says, “Because, your world does not operate on magic. If someone saw all our stuff magically go to the car, we would be exposed. And that my little mortal, would not be good.” He walks out of the room with a handful of bags.

I look out the window, and it’s a sunny day with tons of snow on the ground. Luke has everything packed, which leaves me going in my pj’s. As soon as I think that, clean clothes appear on the bed in front of me. I smile and quickly change. I hear a knock at the door as I put on my shoes.

“Come in.”

“Hey. I wanted to make sure you were decent before I walked in. I have to grab a few of my things,” Brody says as he walks to his closet.

I blush a little, remembering the bathroom incident. “Yup! Just putting on my shoes.” Before I walk out the door, I stop and turn to look at Brody. “Hey, Brody?”

“Yes?” He says while rummaging through his closet.

“Thanks… For everything. I can’t say I would risk my life for a friend’s girlfriend.” I turn to walk out the door and run into Luke.

“You’re calling yourself my girlfriend now?” He asks with a smile and puts his arms around me.

“No…Ummm…I was just…Yes. But, the term ‘girlfriend’ is so lame.” I nervously look down at my feet. I know I have a huge dorky smile on my face right now. I never thought I could fall for someone in such a short time, but I have. There is just something about him that makes every part of me want him… It doesn’t make sense. I feel like a complete fool.

He laughs. “Since you think the term girlfriend is lame, what should I call you?”

I half-grin and shrug. “Yours?”

“You’re right. I like the sound of that much better.” He smiles and puts his hand in mine. We walk out to Brody‘s SUV and get in the back. The back is so packed full of stuff, I don’t know how Brody will be able to see out of his rear view mirror. Just as I’m thinking that, all of the bags shrink.
That answers my previous thought
. Brody backs out of the driveway and turns onto the road, headed to who-knows-where.

“I gotta pee,” Jett says with a smirk on his face.

“Jett, we just left!” Brody answers, sounding extremely irritated. I wonder what the deal is with Brody. He always seems so annoyed with life in general.

“Chill out. I was joking! I knew it’d piss you off, man.” Jett’s laughing so hard. Brody rolls his eyes and continues looking at the road.

I look out the window, trying to find road signs to see where we’re going. Right now, all I can tell is that we are on a major highway and how fast we are allowed to go by the speed limit signs.

“I love you,” Luke whispers in my ear as he puts his arm around me. I look at him and smile. I am not ready to say I love him. Without a word, I lay my head on his shoulder.

He lays his head on top of my head and asks, “You’re not going to tell me you love me back yet, are you?” I shake my head no, laugh and kiss him on the cheek. He rolls his eyes and smiles.

“I’ll tell you when, and
if
I fall in love with you. Being under the ‘yours’ status is not a guarantee that I will stay. I am ‘yours’ for now. This is merely a trial period.”

“Oh, give it time my little mortal, you’ll love me.”

I roll my eyes and laugh. “You sure have a lot of confidence.” I turn to look out the window to try to spot another sign. “So, where are we going?” I ask, changing the subject.

He laughs. “Trying to change the subject?” Smiling, he says, “Not sure. We are going to make a last minute decision so the Poyen can’t track us as easy.”

“Oh. Don’t we have that protective thingy around us where they can’t see us?”

“Not right now. We can’t stress our magic out, so we will put it back around us when we are somewhere safe.”

“Oh,” I say, sounding unsure. All this magic stuff is new to me. I don’t understand it at all.

“Luke, we are going to have to tell the college something. They are going to get suspicious when we are all missing and haven’t been to class,” Brody says while looking at Luke through the rear view mirror.

“They can’t know anything about me or Holly. You guys can tell them whatever you want.”

“If you two are trying to lay low from the public, then why are we checking into a hotel? There are missing signs up everywhere for Holly.” Jett’s right.

“Damn. I didn’t think about that.” Luke rubs the back of his neck in frustration.

“Sorry for interrupting, but if you guys have magic, then can’t you do some magical thing to fix all of this?” I now have a lot of eyes glaring in my direction.
Did I say something wrong?

Luke shakes his head. “Holly, it isn’t that easy. We can’t use our magic like that. Our magic could really cause a mess here on Earth. Our world was made to handle our magic. Here, it could cause an imbalance in the environment and cause major problems. We only use magic we know is safe and won’t cause any problems.”

I nod my head like I know what he’s talking about. I really have no idea, but what he said makes sense. I guess.

“Let’s just make camp somewhere in the middle of nowhere. We can make tents and build a fire. We can create food. It’ll be fun. Like a camping trip,” Mason says while annoyingly chewing a piece of gum. This time he has all eyes glaring at him. I take it no one is in the mood for camping.

“What?” Mason says in a high pitched voice.

“We didn’t pack for that,” Brody says, being his usual serious self.

“Dude, we are freakin’ magical beings! We will survive!” Jett says and sings the,
we will survive,
part.

“I guess it won’t use
too
much magic. It will be safe. Luke, is that cool with you?” Brody asks.

Luke shrugs his shoulders and nods his head. “I don’t care where we go. The only thing that I care about is protecting Holly.”