Arjun (4 page)

Arjun took a deep breath, his chest rising under my hand.

“You’re right. About everything. I’m a dryad. Legend mentions nothing of male dryads, but we exist. There are far more females than males, and the stories were told of them. But never of us,” he said. The corners of his eyes crinkled. “I can only surmise that the poets were all males and far more interested in the nubile female nymphs.”

I didn’t know what to say. I’d braced myself to accept it, but now that I’d actually heard it, words absolutely escaped me.

He rose to his feet, golden, like a thing of the sun, and my mouth went dry all over again.

“Would you like me to leave?” he asked, and I’ll be damned if his face didn’t color a delicate pink. And when he blushed, he blushed everywhere.

I know. I checked.

“What? No! Why would I want you to leave?”

“I realize that perhaps last night was lacking in many respects and it was entirely my fault, but I just couldn’t….”

His voice trailed away, and I felt the urge to start laughing hysterically.

Thankfully I didn’t, but it was a very close call.

“Didn’t you hear me when I said that it was the best sex I’ve had? Mind you, it’s not that I’m a very experienced woman when it comes to matters like this, but I’d like to think I know enough to judge what is bad from what is good.”

Now came the tricky part.

“But it just wasn’t the sex, although that was excellent.” I ducked my head, feeling a bit like a girl confessing her feelings to someone completely unattainable. “And it’s not the fact you’re not really supposed to be real. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like….”

How to explain I wanted him?

More than anything. Because when we touched, I wanted more. When we kissed, it wasn’t enough. His body called to mine in the most primal way, and all I could do was respond.

I took a deep breath and stood up, feeling like an idiot with the rug still tucked under my chin. “But what I’m trying to say is…I don’t want this to end. I don’t want a slam bam, thank you, ma’am sort of deal, you know?”

His facial expre

“I mean, I don’t want you to say, ‘Hey, that was great. Come by my tree if you feel like doing that again.’ Can you understand?” I realized just how close I was to begging him to stay, but I couldn’t seem to stop the words from coming out. I was completely disgracing myself, but I couldn’t have cared less.

“I can’t. If this is all we were meant to be, if this is your exit and your stop to leave, then that’s not fair. I felt…I feel….”

He held up a hand. “Wait.”

“What?”

“I don’t recall ever saying that I wanted to leave.”

Rendering me completely nonplussed, graciously he allowed me time to pick my jaw up from where it rested on the floor. “I’m sorry?”

The sunlight washed over his skin as he took a step toward me, so close that I felt heat radiating from his body and I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.

“I said, I don’t recall ever saying I wanted to do the slam-bam thing that you seemed to fret about.” A smile started to curve those beautiful lips, and my heart took an odd veer down to my feet. “I don’t want to be lonely anymore.”

“But you’re a dryad. You can’t go far from your tree or trees or whatever, right?”

Odd how easily I was taking to this idea that I was talking to someone not quite of this world. But that didn’t matter anymore, did it? I wanted to be with him, I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to see him smile, I wanted to see him laugh, and I wanted everything he could give me.

So what would be wrong with me giving up my heart?

If I could call him mine, if just for a while, even if this should end, it would be worth it, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t regret it.

His smile deepened.

“Evelyn?”

“What?” I decided not to trust the teasing glint in his eyes.

“You talk too much.”

He reached out and cradled the back of my head. His lips touched mine in an infinitely soft kiss that was barely there, and I sagged against him, the strength gone from my knees. The rug fell from my fingers as I rose on my tiptoes and wound my arms around his neck, tugging him closer, so much closer than I thought could have been possible.

He pulled back after what seemed like an eternity and leaned his forehead against mine in a move that I found surprisingly intimate. “I don’t have to be there. Even with a garden, if it’s with you, I’m sure it will be fine. That is…if you will let me stay. I would like to stay with you.”

I was at a loss for words, so I ended up saying the most stupid thing of all.

“You’re just with me because I’m the only woman who’s been around you for the past God knows how long.” I immediately regretted it.

“Is that what you think? You think I haven’t been with someone for centuries?” His shoulders shook with laughter, and my face heated. Great. Now he knew I was jealous of the other women who got to have him, even if they’d died at least three hundred years ago or something.

“Will you stop laughing? I think I got the point now.” I sounded as perturbed as I was, and his laughter only grew.

By the time he was done having his giggling fit, I was all but ready to push him back out into the snow where he belonged.

“You think that I haven’t tried? You believed I’d been standing in that meadow, waiting for a fair maiden to come and rescue me?” he asked.

I squirmed with embarrassment.

“Well, put that way….”

He laid a quick kiss on my forehead, and it lingered after his lips pulled away. “You listen to me, and you listen well, Evelyn Kent. I have walked these lands for longer than I care to remember, and there was no one who called to me like you did.”

“Really?”

He traced my lips with his thumb, and again, I felt like a little kid, about to confess to her first love. “You’re different. I cannot say how. I do not know, but this is not normal, and I would have to be a fool to let you go.”

His gaze flicked behind me and widened slightly. “Look.”

I followed his gaze, and he whispered, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Almost as if the world has given us permission.”

Outside the window, snow fell like scraps of paper being blown from above, and the entire scenery looked as though we were in a winter kingdom land, just the two of us.

IF YOU ENJOYED ARJUN, PLEASE CHECK OUT
INVINCIBLE
BY FIONN JAMESON OUT NOW ON AMAZON!

It was still light out when I woke up and I relished the warmth of the early setting sun, as cold as the air was on my bared skin. It was rare to see the sun in all its glory, setting or no, and I took a moment to stand in a beam of light, watching the sky turn shades of indigo and gray before night descended upon Centennial City.

I took a deep breath, drew in that inexplicable scent that was the City, the crisp scent of snow, the barely discernible stench of blood, the stink of sewage.

A faint note of sandalwood tickled my nose and my nostrils twitched.

To the east.

I ended up in an influential, rich neighborhood. Here, the brownstones gave way to large family houses, no, mansions with massive front lawns and metal-wrought gates, a few with their own security guard house.

Such a price humans pay for privacy. And yet, all of it seemed simply for appearance. How safe were these people behind their makeshift fortress of technology and brand names? What would happen if one were to disable the electricity they so dearly needed? What would happen to their metal fortress?

The smell of sandalwood, warm and spicy, led me to a house at the end of a cul-de-sac on Howards Drive and I looked up at the large metal gate. In the distance, I saw a large building, perhaps two stories high with a large, curving driveway in front of it. Maybe there was even a water fountain, in front of it, but I couldn’t be sure.

I took the sight of the small golden plaque on one side of the gates.

Eldridge.

Truly, Jason was a walking contradiction.

If that was his name.

I could see the various security cameras, hear the faint, almost inaudible whir of lenses as they tried to focus on the shadow by the gates.

I could press the small button on the intercom.

Or I could jump over the gates and let myself in.

You might say I make things unnecessarily difficult, but I prefer to think of it as a game.

The jog up to the actual house took some time; I misjudged the distance from the gate to the house and by the time I made it to the east wing, m

The shades were drawn tight on the windows of the lower level of the house, and it seemed like the same was true for the second floor, although I thought I saw a faint aura of light on the third window of the upper level.

Only one door was unlocked, a French door at the very edge of the property, almost hidden behind a mass of shrubbery and ivy that was taking over the east wing.

It was practically an invitation.

I took it as such.

Besides, the chances of just one entrance being left open…it was no coincidence.

And it was no coincidence he sat in the shadows, waiting for me.

“I thought you’d come.”

It was difficult to reconcile this image of Jason to the first meeting when he seemed like a pathetic skater punk, all ripped jeans and hoodie. His attire changed much, his attitude wholly different.

There was no sense of desperation, no sense of pity I could catch as I closed the door behind me, locking us in darkness that made my pulse beat even faster. “I beg your pardon. I hope I have not kept you waiting.”

He flicked on a lamp by his elbow and while it did bring light into the room, it only shrouded him deeper into the shadows. “Not at all. I was curious as to how you would find me. But of course. The blood. You traced my blood. Just like you said you would. And here I was thinking you’d fed me a load of…crap.”

His voice was different. Fuller. Deeper. Richer. Like old velvet drenched in something heavy, maybe honey.

How much of the boy from before was real?

Or had this all been some sort of act?

His lips twitched. The hoodie was gone, replaced with a plain black button shirt, the collar so stiff, it looked as though it could walk on its own. “You’re surprised.”

“I wish this didn’t feel like a trap,” I confessed.

“I can imagine this is not what you expected,” he said, waving me to a seat placed across from him. I did not take it, opting to stand instead. Besides, this left the door at my back. “Won’t you sit down?”

I shook my head. “I don’t feel comfortable enough to do so.”

“You’ll make me ashamed,” he said. “Surely, I am a better host than this.”

Such difference.

I did not know this man in front of me.

Did not know his ways.

I knew next to nothing about him and that was worrying in oh-so-many ways. “You lied to me.”

His onyx eyes widened dramatically. “Have I? I thought I was the very soul of honesty. Can you tell me what I lied about?”

“Not words,” I said. "Action. I suppose y>

He stood up, no less dangerous than when he was sitting, but no more. I didn’t trust it, not for one moment. I felt his strength, his speed the night before when I tried to touch his hand. “I have no intention of dying today or tomorrow, if that’s what you’re asking.”

I found his words to be quite disheartening. “Then I’m afraid you are of no use to me. How else am I to infiltrate Noir’s security, if not for your so-called rampage? I need to gain his trust. You remaining alive bars me from doing so.”

He walked around the chair, his fingers trailing the back of the chair, eyes never leaving mine, almost like a challenge. A dare.
I dare you to do it. Kill me.
It was a bluff, or maybe it wasn’t. Either way, it worked. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying, there is more than one way to skin a cat?”

“Is there?”

“You wouldn’t have to kill me, you know,” he said. “I’m sure the Elders would be more than happy to supply you with someone else, someone who’s so damned consumed with the noble sacrifice they would be more than happy to lie down and let you take their head off in front of Noir and his horde of bloodsuckers.”

“So find another?”

The smile never wavered from his dusky lips. “Can’t you?”

Having to call Elder Chang and tell him I failed was…unpalatable, to say the least. “I’m not sure if I want to do that. Elder Chang would not be pleased to have to find another, not when he thought he found the perfect candidate.” I looked around the wide, spacious room, with a multitude of expensive paintings hanging on the paneled walls. A large mahogany bookcase stood adjacent to the French door, its shelves bursting with old hardcovers, some of the letters so worn, it was impossible to read the spine. “Are the Elders aware you come from such a background?”

“They know what they need to know.”