Beyond Wild Imaginings (11 page)

She blinked and raised an eyebrow. A slow smile curved her lips, and she sat down on the couch, patting the seat next to her. “Garren, come sit down before you give yourself a stroke. You can go all barbarian on me later, okay?”

He scowled and folded his arms over his chest. “I do not appreciate you making light of my concern and desire to protect you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I guess men are all cavemen whether they’re real or not,” she muttered. “Garren, for crying out loud, come sit down.” She smacked the sofa cushion with force.

He stared at her for a second, then let out a growling sound and strode over to the couch, flopping down with about as much grace as a buffalo.

Kelly giggled and turned to face him. She studied his disgruntled appearance for a moment and found it to be the most endearing thing she had ever seen. She’d never had a man get so irate in her defense. She almost didn’t know what to do with it. It was strange, but it was also wonderful. With a smile, she moved toward him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and rested her head against his chest so she could listen to the comforting rhythm of his heart. Almost immediately, his arms went around her, and his fingers tangled in her damp strands of hair.

“I couldn’t stand sitting by and watching that man with you, Kelly,” he admitted in a whisper. “He was rude and arrogant and inconsiderate. He talked about nothing but himself the entire time you were at dinner, and what he said about children was absolutely abhorrent.”

Kelly smirked. “You didn’t like him, Garren. I got it. Neither did I. It’s okay.”

His fingers tightened in her hair. “No, it isn’t.” The words were short and clipped, and his voice rumbled with sinister malice, much like the thunder outside. She shivered in spite of herself. “It is never okay to treat a woman that way,” he continued. “And it is most definitely never okay to treat
you
that way.”

His voice softened on his last sentence, and she lifted her head to look at him with a curious sort of wonder.

His brow furrowed slightly. “Why do you look perplexed? Do you think that you deserve to be treated the way that abomination of a male treated you tonight?”

She swallowed and sat up. She averted her gaze and gave a small shrug. “There are a lot of men like that in my world. I’m just used to it, I guess.”

“The man you were with who left you alone in the hospital, he treated you like that?”

She snorted. “Well, no. He was nice to me for the first year, very suave and debonair. His charming act dropped into the second year and I became about as interesting to him as a piece of furniture, I guess. Year three had him cheating on me.”

“And you loved this man?” He sounded a little more than shocked.

She gave a weary sigh and glanced up at him dismally. “You can’t choose who you fall for, Garren. It just kind of happens. Don’t Lucienus fall in love?”

His eyes, which were still cold and angry, filled with sadness, and he looked down. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, we can fall in love.”

She frowned and reached out to touch his knee. “Were you in love? Did you have someone?”

“No, not me. I never found anyone, but I always knew that, when I did, it would be perfection. Better than anything in my world or any other.”

She cocked her head to the side. “You never had a woman in the Creative Realm? I find that hard to believe given your—” She cleared her throat. “Well, let’s face it. You’re a hottie, Garren.”

He chuckled and met her eyes. “Many of my brethren had mates. Rowan, Guardian of Rebecca, had a wife. I was not so fortunate.” He shrugged. “I had my fair share of prospects, but none of them ever caught my eye.”

She frowned. “How come?”

“They were lacking.”

She shied away from the intensity in his eyes, and her heart seemed to do somersaults. She put her hand over her chest and frowned. She couldn't figure out that reaction. What was it about Garren that made her heart act that way? Was it just because he had, in effect, come from her? This entire situation was so bizarre. She sighed and reached over to cover his hand with hers. “Do you want me to make you some dinner, Garren?”

He looked up at her and gave a gentle smile, then brought her hand to his lips, and placed a tender kiss to the back of it that made Kelly draw in a soft breath. It was so gentle, such a selfless and sweet gesture.

She smiled. “Was that a yes?”

He met her eyes and his grin was devilish. “Do you really have to ask?”

Chapter Nine

Garren marveled at the chaotic display of nature as the storm raged on. It was magnificent. Intense and wild and so beautiful. Thunderstorms didn’t happen in the Creative Realm. Not real ones, anyway. At times, if someone imagined up a storm, one could be simulated, but it wasn’t the same. There was no weather in the Creative Realm, just a never-ending sea of cloudy matter that would constantly flash brilliant colors when something was brought into existence. The flashes resembled lightning, but the comparison was weak at best.

He remembered once when he’d been with Kelly as a child. After her friends had gone home, she had remained in her yard and had continued her adventures with him. She hadn’t been ready to let him return to his world. Her parents had let her play, but after a while, dark clouds had rolled in and rain began to pour down like the very heavens had opened up. Before her parents had run out and ushered her inside, he and Kelly had a moment to stand there and marvel over the danger and fantastic power of the storm. She’d reached up, taken his hand, and murmured, “I don’t know if there’s anything more perfect than this. I wish I never had to go back inside, or go to school. I wish I could just stay here with you forever.”

He remembered her wild mane of strawberry-blonde hair and the way her green eyes looked up at him with such trust and adoration. She had made him feel so wanted. He’d had such a purpose back then, and he’d loved her. Loved her in the way a big brother would. She was all to him, his very life. He would have lay down his to save hers. It troubled him to see her the way she was now. Her eyes were still beautiful, but no longer brimming with vibrant life. They carried sorrow and weariness, defeat. The world had damaged his Kelly. Men like Roger and David, and even her own sister. They had chiseled pieces of her away. It killed him inside, stabbed like a thousand knives in his heart.

With a heavy sigh, Garren turned from the window and paced restlessly around the living room. Kelly had gone to bed a few hours earlier after she had made him spaghetti. They’d shared conversation, but he felt awkward with her and didn’t really know why. He had been trapped in isolation for so long. Experiencing the gamut of emotions and trying to deal with things Kelly viewed as everyday occurrences were difficult for him. He did not understand his own feelings. They didn’t make sense to him, and it was frustrating. Before, he had known his purpose. Protect Kelly. That had been a lot easier when she had been a small child. Now she was a grown woman. A gorgeous and independent grown woman. If he had his way, he would go everywhere with her and knock anyone who even looked at her funny to kingdom come, but that wasn’t how things operated in her world. It would offend her if he behaved that way.

His feelings toward Kelly confused him more than anything else. He had always loved her, but she had been a child. Now, she was anything but. He was a creature of thought. He didn’t age. His appearance had altered when he’d returned to Kelly, but his heart was the same, and his heart craved her. The instant she had made contact with him in her subconscious dreams, he had known something was different. He’d felt a change, a shift within himself. He’d attributed it to being ecstatic at the fact that he was being called back to the human realm after so long. He’d been elated at the thought of seeing his beautiful Kelly once again and had figured things would return to the way they had once been.

Except everything was different, and he’d known it for certain the first time her eyes had locked with his. The feeling that had only been a stirring when she’d contacted him, in that moment, grew to an inferno. He had never felt his body burn before. His existence had been a relatively innocent one, but when she’d looked up at him, her green eyes full of awestruck wonder, he’d suddenly known what desire felt like. It washed over him in waves every time she came near him.

It wasn’t just because she was beautiful, even though she was. It was the way she had so readily accepted him back into her life, the way she shared her world with him, the way she touched him. She’d needed him, and that was why he had returned, but he had never realized how much he needed her also. He’d been dormant for so long, isolated and forgotten. She made him feel things he’d never felt before, and it confused him beyond measure. He may have been royalty among the Lucienus. He may have been looked up to and admired, but he felt like a child in Kelly’s world. There was so much he didn’t understand, including why the thought of her being around any other man made him hostile and why, when he was with her, he didn’t feel like a creature of myth. He felt real, solid, alive.

He stabbed his fingers through his hair and huffed, irritated at his own inadequate mind for not being able to come to any sort of understanding whatsoever. He continued to pace for a few moments until a shiver ran up his spine and he stood straight. As he had been created from Kelly’s imagination, he was tuned to her. He knew when she called him and knew when she needed help. He felt the pull toward her and he headed quietly down the hall and to her bedroom. He stopped in the doorway and frowned, noticing that she was murmuring something in her sleep. He leaned in slightly and listened.

“Sing the song of Guardians who live…Come to us, Great Guardians…You have our promise and our trust.”

He smiled. She was calling to him in her sleep, no doubt dreaming of some childhood memory. He turned on his heel and started back out of the room.

“Garren.”

He stopped dead in his tracks and went hot all over. Her voice was no more than a breathy whisper, and his name leaving her lips felt like the most sensual caress he could imagine. Lightning illuminated the dark room, and a tremendous crash of thunder made her otherwise peaceful bedroom seem eerie and inauspicious. He took a few steps in and let his eyes appraise her for a moment. She was still muttering incoherently, but she did not look to be having a nightmare. Instead, she looked rather peaceful, and it made him wonder what kind of subconscious vision she was having that would accompany the way she had whispered his name.

He came closer to her bed and realized that he was clenching his fists. His body felt coiled tight and feverish. It made no sense to him. All he could think of, all he wanted, was to be close to her, touch her. He wanted to kiss her so badly he could barely breathe. He’d caught himself staring at her full, pouty lips on more than one occasion, and wondered what they would feel like beneath his own. He’d never wanted to kiss a woman before, not even any of the Lucienus that had shown him attention. They’d never made him feel, with all their blatant advances, the way Kelly did by doing nothing at all.

Was it possible to love a human? To love the person who had created him, the child he had protected? Was it wrong? Was it even love? He had no idea. He didn’t know what love felt like! He didn’t know anything he was feeling! The only thing that seemed clear to him at that moment was that he wanted Kelly. He wanted to hold her and kiss her. His body and soul were on fire for her.

Propelled forward by a magnetic pull that he could no longer fight, he reached down and slowly eased back her covers. His chest felt squeezed tight, and his breathing came faster as he slipped into bed beside her while never taking his eyes off her hypnotic visage. He gazed at her for a long moment, trying to bring his erratic breathing back into some kind of normal pattern, and then he reached one trembling hand out and traced the outline of her beautiful mouth, hoping with all his strength that she would not be alarmed if she happened to wake up and discover him. He didn’t know if he’d be able to handle her throwing him out and thinking less of him. He had been alone for so long. He just wanted to be close. Close to her. He prayed she wouldn’t get offended.

* * * *

Something stirred Kelly from her sleep. She wasn’t sure what it was right away, but her eyes fluttered open, and as her vision cleared, she found herself staring straight into Garren’s amazing violet eyes. She drew in a small, soft gasp and blinked in bewilderment as she saw him pull his hand away from her mouth, a look of horror on his face, like he’d been caught and was in trouble. She brought her fingers to her lips, still feeling his lingering touch there. “Garren?” she asked with a confused frown. What in the world was he doing in her bed? “Are you all right? What’s the matter?”

He swallowed, averted his eyes, and looked sheepish before he glanced back up at her with the kind of befuddled look that made her think he had absolutely no idea what to say. Slowly, he reached out and took her hand. He placed her palm to his chest, and she felt his heart pounding at an accelerated rate. Her eyes widened in alarm. “Garren, your heart is racing!” She sat up, faced him, turned him on his back, and placed both hands on his chest. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Could imaginary creatures have heart attacks? “I-Is your left arm tingling?” She felt stupid. Even if he was having a heart attack, what could she do? Take him to the imaginary hospital? Or, better yet, take him to a real hospital and try to explain why no one could actually see him? Tears welled up in her eyes. What if something was really wrong with him? She didn’t even know how to help him. “Garren,” she whimpered. “Are- Are you in pain?”

He sat up abruptly and shook his head. “Kelly, no. Shhh.” His lips turned up into a small smile, and he put his fingers to her mouth. “I’m not in pain, Kelly. I’m fine.”

She blinked. “But your heart—your heart is pounding.”

His brows drew together in another confused expression, and he looked as if he were searching for words that he couldn’t find. He met her eyes. “You,” he murmured.