Blakeshire (9 page)

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 screaming 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.

I could see a place in my mind that looked like the palace, at least the dark, original structure, the passageways. I felt her there. The memory was rich. In my soul, I felt a possessiveness, one that was stronger than the one I had today, and I could not understand why. It was almost like I wanted to protect her and someone or something else but was certain I would fail.

My mother’s words were getting to me. I had never reasoned that one of my past lives had indeed occurred in Esterious, but right now, looking back at this dream I could swear it had. At one time, I was an original Blakeshire.

“Man of many words,” she said, pulling me from my thoughts. Her eyes were hooded; she was barely staying awake at this point. I continued to let my fingertips outline her beautiful image. Underneath my touch, I could see the faintest glow of light. I didn’t know if I was imagining it or not, but I wanted to believe I was giving her peace and rest right now, just as I had the night before when that same glow was present.

“Glass boat,” I said to myself as I grasped that memory a little tighter. She was there. In that original life. I was certain. But I was still missing a huge, vital part of that dream.

“A what?” she murmured.

“I remember a glass boat, the bottom of it anyway.” Before I could censor my words, I described what I was seeing in my thoughts. “...lost passage, dark water, a few sea creatures that were oversized.”

She slowly opened her eyes. “Even if I didn’t fear water, I would seriously think that going in the ocean in a boat made of glass would be a bit reckless.”

I laughed under my breath. “I don’t recall the reasons…I just know it ended badly.”

“How are you sure that that was me and not her?” she asked, clearly seeing into my mind.

Creator help me, I was really getting weary of hearing Willow’s name or the mention of her. She had become a weapon that Madison Marie wielded without thought. Something Willow didn’t deserve.

“Because I called you by your name.”

She furrowed her brow.

I leaned closer to her, only allowing a few inches to divide us. “You cannot stand it when a boy calls a girl by a name that does not belong to her. You take it as an insult. In some way, you think they do that simply so they will not accidentally call them by the wrong name. Plays into the heated jealousy that you and I share.”

“True, but you kinda lost me.”

“Love; I called Willow that when she crossed my path, and she liked it.” Before she could move away from me, I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her against me. “Anytime my mind was opened—or soul, rather—and the visions showed me calling a girl ‘love,’ I knew it would end in slaughter, that the two of us would die within a very short window of time. I hated those visions. They made me sick. As if my soul knew I needed a reprieve, another story would play out, and in that story I never called that stunning woman at my side love; I called her by her given name because that was what she demanded. Wanted.”

“You can glare at me for saying this, but would the fact that she let you call her that in this life not be a clue to you that she was not me?”

“It was. But how was I to know there was another girl with your image that had a past with me? In my mind, I was trying to move on to the next life so I could be with the girl that demanded that I walk a tight line, that I never blur the lines of truth.”

“So that is why you so willingly chose to lay down your life? You were testing her?”

“No.” My eyes moved across her curious expression, hearing Zander’s one-word advice in my mind: honesty. “I laid down my life for my people.”

“You do love them,” she said, almost to herself.

“They need to be saved, Madison Marie Blair; one way or another, they need to be saved.”

She believed me. A smile spread across her face.

“You’ll find the way,” she promised.

“We.
We
will find it.”

“I’d smother in that palace.”

“What does the palace have to do with us saving them?”

“The ‘us’ was you and Willow days ago.”

“No, it was me, Willow, Landen, and the entire dimension of Chara.”

“True.” She reached to mirror my gentle caress. When her fingertips reached my lips, I sighed.

“I’ve been haunted by a phobia, an image, and now that I have no fear I want to end that.”

“What image?” I swore I’d stop at nothing to slaughter whatever had hurt her in the past.

“A woman, I think. She scared me away from water when I was a girl…I saw her again when I came to save you. In the paintings.” She let out a breath. “If she was to trying to keep me away from you, then I have no choice but to believe that she is trying to keep me away from something just as sacred.”

My entire body relaxed, and naturally, with a careful ease I leaned in to let my lips meet hers.

~Madison~

My soul exploded, and I could swear that my very being was reaching for him to come closer. The scent of roses filled the room as his warm tongue reached for mine and I tasted the sweet, powerful flavor of mint. That flavor was fast becoming an addiction; one that I knew no matter how obsessed I became with would never grow old.

Gently, he caressed my hair with the palm of his hand as his lips danced with mine. Every cell in my body was on fire; with the simplest gesture, he could make my heart race, my core clench, and my breath cease.

My hand reached for his arm and pulled it around me as I edged closer, taking control of this rush. I felt the power behind his kiss intensify, the warmth of his skin under his shirt. Without even thinking about it, I pushed the button-up shirt off his shoulders. He rolled on top of me, giving me permission to take it off his broad shoulders.