Ambrosia (Nectar Trilogy, Book 2) (25 page)

Kyla woke up. She was back in that cottage, back in that sleigh bed she’d been in for the last week without him. Again, she was without him.

She sat up straight, hearing a commotion of glass shattering and yelling. She dashed out of the room and got half way down the stairs and saw Tristan, Adrian, and Claudio all standing close and, it appeared that they were all in one another’s faces. No. Tristan was in both of
their
faces and both men appeared to be trying to reason with him.

Kyla felt fear straight down to the marrow at the vibe coming off Tristan. His eyes darted up to her.

“Back upstairs, Kyla,” he demanded and then he grabbed Adrian’s shirt with both hands and hollered, “Out!” and threw Adrian toward the door.

Claudio headed toward the door as Adrian rose to his feet.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“We won’t. I’m done,” Tristan said. “As soon as that dagger he promised me is ready I’m taking it and I am gone. Have it to me early, Constantin. I fuckin’ mean it!”

“Sleep on this and let’s talk in the morning. Don’t be hasty,” Claudio said.

“Hasty? Are you kidding me, Claude? After what you’ve both done? I’ve been fed a trough of shit about how I’m the one to lead, to be a change agent for us. To help us move forward. But you’ve both manipulated things from the start. I’m sure you get why I’m ready to call this whole thing quits after what you’ve done. You’ve stolen from me. You’ve stolen something from me that I can’t ever get back…”

Kyla’s heart hurt so bad.
So bad.
She choked on a sob.

“Kyla, get the FUCK upstairs!” he shouted. There was a chair sitting beside him with a side table sitting beside it and they both moved, like they had gotten caught up in a gust of wind and landed at the bottom of the stairs, blocking her ability to get to him. Or maybe blocking Claudio and Adrian from her. She wasn’t sure. Adrian stared, wide-eyed at the furniture and then looked up at Kyla. Tristan moved in front of the furniture, his back to the staircase, to her, blocking them.

Kyla ran for the bedroom and slammed the door. The lock turned on its own. She stared at it, hyperventilating.  His rage was inside of her, worse than snaking spiders, worse than the artic chill of his angry eyes when she’d tried to leave. She was bawling so hard it was as if the tears couldn’t come fast enough, couldn’t pound down hard enough. The emotion that tore out of her acid-filled stomach was gut-wrenching.

Tristan was downstairs and he was horrifying. The look on his face, the hate in his eyes. The energy coming off him. The feelings inside of him. She still felt them.

She heard a slam. And then she heard a series of bangs, crashes, and more slams.

She tried to catch her breath. She braced, waiting for him to come in. But he didn’t. She got her breathing under control and spying a bottle of water on the dresser top that was unopened, she guzzled it down.

She opened the door and quietly made her way downstairs. He wasn’t there. She moved the chair and table away from the staircase. The couch was tipped over on its face, the coffee table against the front door. Framed art pieces that’d been on the walls were on the floor. The place looked like it had been in the eye of a twister.

She wandered the main floor checking the other rooms. He wasn’t there.

Where was he? She carefully opened the front door. No one.

She closed it and walked back to the kitchen and opened the door that was there and looked outside. She saw him. He was walking. She ran back upstairs and got her shoes on and then ran back down and out and tried to catch up. She couldn’t see him. She followed the path and it led to that meadow with the swing. He was against the tree that held the swing and he was staring out at the pond. He looked over his shoulder and saw her.

“Go back to the house.”

She froze in her tracks. He wasn’t looking at her.

“I need a minute,” he said, still looking the other way.

Excruciating pain tore straight through her. She ran back to the house and up the stairs and threw herself on the bed. Her already broken heart wasn’t being glued back together by him. Instead, it shattered further.

Feelings. Fucking feelings. Fucking her over. As usual.

~~~

She woke up cocooned by his arms.  It was dark and he’d just gotten into the bed. She tried to pull away, anger gripping her. His arms tightened.

“Don’t,” he whispered and held tighter.

She stayed still there for a minute, quick and shallow angry breaths coming out fast but he held tight, saying nothing.

“I’m sorry,” he finally whispered and that unleashed absolute agony inside of her. Her agony and his braided tightly together and they both felt it. All of it. She let him hold her and stroke her hair and rain kisses on her face. They said nothing. They didn’t need words because they were in some sort of mind meld.

Her pain and his pain, two mirrors facing one another, showing one another an infinite spiral of hurt.

Eventually she fell back to sleep, their hearts beating in perfect time together.

~~~

Sunlight streamed into the room.  She was alone. She was alone physically but she felt like she was also alone in every way possible. She couldn’t feel him. After having felt him and not feeling him now, she felt like part of her was missing.

Panic gripped her. Was he okay? Was this what he’d felt for all this time whenever they were apart?

She got up and saw that the bag and folded tall pile of clothing were gone but there was a clean outfit sitting there for her. She took it to the bathroom and took a shower. When she got out she dressed in the black walking shorts and purple t-shirt and then she put on her black t-strap sandals. She headed down the stairs. She smelled coffee.

He met her at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in jeans and that cyan blue tee he’d worn the night he found her in Victoria. He had shaved, too.

He handed her a coffee cup, “Grab the rest of your things from up there and put them in our bag.” He motioned to the sofa where their things were stacked.

She took the cup and nodded and turned back around on her heel.

He hadn’t tried to kiss her, hadn’t smiled, hadn’t really made eye contact. Her heart twinged with pain.

She heard voices as she came back down the stairs with her bathroom things and what she’d worn the day before. Adrian was just inside the door and Tristan didn’t sound happy. She felt his anger, like hot bubbling liquid inside her brain.

“Don’t try to keep us here another day with your stall tactics. You told me it’d be ready today so get it to me so I can fucking go.”

“It would have been ready, Tristan, if you hadn’t repeatedly injured me, putting me at very limited capacity. It should be ready tomorrow.”

“Give me yours then.”

“I will not.” Adrian’s voice got louder. “Just one more day. I’ll do my best to have it finished.”

Kyla took a sip of her coffee and walked by them toward the kitchen, feeling them both watch her go.

She drank her coffee staring out the back door. Sam was standing there smoking a cigarette and sipping from a coffee mug. He gave her a little smile.

She opened the door half way but didn’t step out.

“Are you safe for me to talk to?” she asked.

He nodded, “Adrian developed a slow-release patch.” He patted the back of his shoulder, “Seems to be working so far. Though I’d feel better you talking to me if you had one of those daggers in your hand.”

She gave him a half-hearted smile, “It’s nice that you seem to really not want to hurt me.”

He returned the smile, “I really don’t.”

“Thanks for the help yesterday,” she said.

He gave her a nod.

“That was Jackson? In that doorway?”

Sam blew out a slow breath, “You should talk to Tris about that.”

“He knows about that?”

He nodded, “He does now.”

“Okay, um… he hasn’t been exactly approachable for conversation, so what if
you
tell me?”

“Yeah, not exactly approachable,” Sam scoffed, “Understatement.”

“But you don’t wanna tell me about Jackson.”

“It’s not my place.” Sam glanced over her shoulder and his eyes changed. She could feel Tristan’s presence behind her.

“Okay. See ya later.”

He saluted her.

She turned around. Tristan was standing there, arms folded, looking past her to Sam.

She froze.

His eyes darted down and met hers. His jaw was twitching, teeth clenched, “Don’t approach a vamp for conversation. Ever. Any vamp,” he said.

She gave a little nod, eyes darting away, and put her coffee mug on the counter and then moved to get by him so she could go back upstairs. He caught her wrist. She stared at her feet.

They stood still, quiet, for a long time. She flinched, wanting him to let go but not quite struggling, just sort of tense. He kept hold of her.

“Why won’t you look at me?” he finally asked.

“Because right now it hurts too much,” she whispered, not looking up.

Suddenly he pulled her tight into his arms. She resisted about half a second but then melted into his chest and put her arms around his waist, her cheek against his peck.

Sensation crested again, and she could feel him as if he were feeding from her. She could feel immense frustration and anger coming from inside of him. She could feel something else, too, but she didn’t know quite what it was. Grieving, maybe?

“I can feel you and you’re not feeding…” she sobbed into his shirt and his grip on her tightened almost to the point of pain.

There was a knock at the door. He looked her in the eye for a second before moving away to answer the door and for a millisecond she could also see everything she felt inside of him. Pain, anger, grief, fear.

He came back to the counter removing a lid from a tray and examining the two meals of pancakes, bacon, and fruit. He smelled and then tasted them and then moved them to the table, seeming satisfied. “You should eat.”

“Not hungry.”

“I need to feed. Please eat.”

She let out a huff and nabbed her half empty coffee mug and rinsed topped it up from the coffee maker.

“Coffee?” she mumbled.

“No thanks.” He started to eat.

She prepped her coffee and stirred it and then reached to grab her plate and made to leave with it when his hand hooked around her and caught her hip. “Sit with me?”

She shook her head, “No, I…” she shook it again and didn’t finish. She went back upstairs. Feeling his emotions on top of her own? It was just too
too
much.

She sat on the edge of the bed and wheeled over the hospital style cart that Nurse Ingrid had used with her and Kyla started eating the food. She got through only about half. She finished her coffee and pushed the wheeled cart back with her feet and then laid down in the bed staring at the ceiling, still feeling things so intensely and now not knowing if the feelings were her own, his, or both.

The door opened. It was him. He approached her cautiously.

He sat on the side of the bed and reached out and brushed her hair away, tucking it behind her ear with his fingertips,

“Hey,” he said.

“If you need to feed, you can go ahead.” She turned her head sideways so that her neck was exposed and stared off in the opposite direction.

He took her cheek and moved her face back so that her gaze was back on him.

“Please don’t,” he said.

Pain burned in her chest, radiating to her shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m hurting you. I don’t want to hurt you. It’s the last thing I want…”

She swallowed and closed her eyes.

“Kyla. I don’t know how to do this.”

“How to do what?” she asked angrily, feeling totally pissed.

“How to feel all of this. It’s my job to protect you and I keep fucking failing. And now I’m hurting you because I don’t know how to make it better.”

Her anger crested and she sighed. He looked so sad, so lost.

“How can I be the one destined to lead? I can’t protect the most important thing in the world to me and yet I’m supposed to be some protector and leader of my race?”

“Maybe all this is what’ll help you learn to lead.”

“But what if I lose you in the process? I’m scared to death, Kyla. So goddamn scared.” He flopped on the bed beside her and stared at the ceiling, covering his eyes with his palms.

She leaned over and lifted one of his hands and kissed his eyelid. He let out a heavy sigh and grabbed her and pulled her on top of him and squeezed and then flipped so he was on top. He held her head and buried his face into her hair, kissing behind her earlobe and squeezing.

“I’m not scared anymore,” she told him, feeling new emotion well up inside of her. She ran her palms up the length of his back.