Destinata (Valguard)

Written by Nicole Daffurn

Destinata – W
ritten by Nicole Daffurn

ISBN
978-1-291-67217-6

© 2013, Nicole Daffurn

Self-Publishing

[email protected]

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

Cover work is a derivative from the original image by
Illusive photography

License can be viewed at www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

First and foremost, I would like to thank my beautiful girls, who somehow understood and accepted the reasons why I have had my nose stuck in a laptop for the past eight months. Also to David for putting up with my constant tapping on the keyboard, sometimes well past midnight.

To my friends and family, I thank you all for your support. Without your constant guidance and persistent nagging that I could do this, even when I didn’t think I could, I would never have made it to the end of this book.

Special thanks

To my online family, who have supported and guided me through the rough times and smiled with me through the good. You have been there with me through this every step of the way and without you I would not have believed in myself enough to even contemplate publishing.

They say that making new friends is one of the hardest things you will ever do in life but you have all made it so easy. I love and cherish each and every one of you. Luke, Kim, Helen, Stacey, Amy, Aynia, Phoenix, Kelly, Joanne, and Teresa. You are all amazing, inspirational people. Don’t ever let the light that you shine on yourselves and others go out. I love you all.

Her screams shattered the still, dark night air like a mirror being shattered into a thousand tiny shards. It was unseasonably humid and the leaves in the tree tops hissed around her in the otherwise eerie silence of the forest. Her gasping breath rattled through her chest and made her shake violently. What was it she had been taught? Right!  Face, crotch, stomach. If she could get in a position of advantage she could thrust her palm into his nose causing him enough pain to lessen his hold on her but her hands were pinned. Crushed underneath her own body making it impossible for her to get free. Maybe it wasn’t impossible; maybe she wanted this, maybe… No! She definitely did not want this, she struggled again to get her arms or even her legs free, thrashing her body around on the hard earth underneath her causing more pain than was bearable. It was no use, she could already feel the warm blood running down her wrist from the cut on her arm, the rock that had gouged her arm was still digging into the crook of her elbow. This place was a predators dream; it was secluded and so there was no one around for miles making her screams and cries for help completely and utterly useless.

Her anxiety coming into full bloom now resulted in
horrifying images of her ravaged, broken, blood covered body rotting away for eternity. Her family attaching ‘Missing Person’s’ signs to street light poles. Her mom, weeping over an empty grave. She had to get out of this and she had to do it fast, if he really was one of
them
she had no chance unless she could outrun him. Years of track training had made her the fastest runner in town and she would use it to her full advantage if she could just move!

Zane’s smooth deep voice interrupted the grizzly thoughts running through her mind with a jolt.

“Now, now Charlie, don’t be like that, after all, you’re the one that followed me remember.”

She did remember… Sort of. But why? Everything about Zane screamed danger; from his
ash blonde, unkempt hair that looked like he had just rolled out of bed to the three day stubble on his perfectly created face. Surely his muscular build would have been enough to ward away anyone that got too close but not Charlie, no her curiosity had always gotten the better of her and this time, like so many others before, had led her straight into trouble.

Why can’t I ever just leave things alone?

Her heartbeat rose frantically as Zane continued to run his smooth hands under her t-shirt and over her warm skin underneath. She realized that if she just tilted her head slightly to the left and parted her warm red lips she could meet Zane’s perfectly shaped ones without having to reach too far. Her breath coming in short shallow gasps now suddenly stopped.

No! I have to stop him, this isn’t what I want.

“Let me go Zane!”

“You want this Charlie, just let it happen.”

His voice was like melted butter for her ears, how could she resist it? She had too!

“No!” She practically growled at him through gritted teeth and struggled to free herself from underneath her captor one last time.

God! Why, why, why did I have to follow him?

She didn’t need to ask the question she already knew the answer to. Her god dam need to know everything was the reason why.

Zane rolled off of her lazily and came to rest with his hands under his ‘bed’ hair on the grass beside her. But instead of running off like she should have she sat slowly, her breathing returning to normal, her heart beat slowly to a more regular pattern.

The suddenly cool breeze that blew past her with Zane’s huge bulk of a body now gone, sent a chill to her bone as she sat and looked at herself; taking inventory of her wounds. There was nothing major, no broken bones a
t least; just a few small grazes that trickled bright red - and now sticky - blood down her dirt-stained arms.

Charlie inhaled slowly and looked at Zane with a mixture of emotions; amazement, curiosity and least of all expected by her, lust. Now that he wasn’t touching her, she started to remember…

“You’re one of them aren’t you?”

“You’re smart, how did you figure it out?”

“Well, for starters, you got into town and no one ever gets into town. You never take your sunglasses off – not even at night – and you’ve been in town for three days, been to every restaurant in town and yet you’ve barely eaten a thing.”

“You’ve been watching closely Charlie, I’m impressed. No one
else has even battered an eye lid, but you seem to be able to fight the haze. How?” The curiosity in his voice lingered in the look on his face and Charlie asked herself the same question.

How did she remember? No one remembered anything
they
didn’t want the people of town to remember. But she did, she always did. Even now when Zane had let the full extent of his power unleash upon her, made only stronger with the flesh to flesh contact, she still remembered. It was painful and she could feel the force of her will being crushed but remember she did.

Zane was right on another note as well; no one else had noticed or cared that he had so
casually just wandered into their small town of Tole three days ago.

It was midnight and Charlie was sitting up with Eloise and Matt - her always-there-for
-her housemates – studying when she saw the headlights pull up the drive of the house next door. She peeked through the curtain of the front bay window to see the tall, dark stranger getting out of the black Mercedes. The street lights illuminated his face and she drew in a breath that made a sound like howling wind. Eloise and Matt both turned to her shocked, wondering what was wrong.

“What is it Charlie? Are you ok?”

“I’m fine El, there’s just someone moving in next door.”

“Huh, suppose it had to get rented some time.”

Charlie was shocked by her lack of caring. No one ever just
moved into Tole… Ever! Sure there were delivery people that came in and out all the time but never moving in next door in the dead of night. There hadn’t been a new town member for six years and the last require a full town meeting to make the decision whether they should be allowed to reside here or not.

After that night, much to her housemates annoyance and whines of ‘Just let it go Charlie’, she followed Zane everywhere she could and what she found out hadn’t shocked her but it did leave a feeling of unease in her stomach. Why had he been allowed to enter the town without a meeting or even a discussion on the subject? Why didn’t anyone care that he was here, in our town? Why did he seem to know everyone and yet Charlie had lived here her whole life and had never met him? Too many questions were left unanswered and she vowed that she would find out the answers one way or another.

She returned Zane’s gaze and answered him as honestly as she could.

“I don’t know. I’ve always remembered. Everyone else knows that your kind is here but if you don’t want them to, they don’t remember what you do or what you say. Some of them don’t even know what you are. But I do. Sometimes it hurts, like now when you were touching me, I felt like I had a knife lodged in my skull when I tried to remember why I followed you.”

Charlie’s heart beat skipped when Zane’s warm hand met with the chilly skin of her face.

“Like this?”

“Precisely.”

Her voice barely a whisper, her
breathing became shallower and she felt the haze drift across her mind once again.

“Please don’t.”

She pushed his hand away gently with her own and gasped as, instead of backing off the way she thought he would he lingered with his hand in hers. She felt the haze slip away, but how? She had no idea they could shut it off like that.

“You can stop it? Whenever you want?”

She hadn’t meant it to be a question but her natural curiosity had made it one and Zane obliged her with an answer.

“Of course we can. The Valguard can do whatever they want, haven’t you realized that yet?”

He let her hand fall slowly back in her lap and propped himself up against a nearby tree; he looked so at home and at ease in that moment that she couldn’t help but to admire him.

Huh! Valguard… At least I know what they’re called now.

Charlie didn’t answer Zane’s questions, instead she moved herself to sit beside the man she had been deathly afraid of only minutes before. She studied him with revered silence. She hadn’t noticed before just how tall he was, but looking at him now, she was certain that he was at least a foot taller than her, although that wasn’t all that hard. Measuring in at just five foot one,
just about everyone was taller than her. His skin was tanned, just like everyone else who lived in Tole and she just couldn’t get enough of that blonde ‘bed’ hair. She had the sudden urge to run her fingers through it, just to see what it felt like, she restrained herself but with her hand already outstretched she had already made a fool of herself. She dropped it awkwardly hoping that he had his eyes shut to spare her more embarrassment than was absolutely necessary.

Zane’s body left nothing but desire within her stomach, from the tight wiry muscles that wound their way up his arms, to the hard abs she could see rippled under his t-shirt.
She reached out again, this time with a purpose and left her hand to hover over his sunglasses.

“May I?”

Hesitating slightly he leaned forward to allow Charlie the privilege of removing his glasses. Knowing the one thing that set them apart physically from humans was their eyes, Charlie held her breath in anticipation. She slowly removed the black sunglasses that were fitted to Zane’s face and the breath that she’d had held in came gushing out in a show of shock and desire. His eyes were the most alluring part of his body and Charlie’s eyes had started to water before she realized how long she had been staring. Zane’s eyes were magical; around the midnight black pupil of his eye shone a glowing green iris. Looking into his eyes was like getting lost in a whole other world; a world full of wonder and excitement and magic. How could she have not noticed this before? She had seen other Valguard’s eyes right? Yes, she definitely had, most recently it was Mike’s. Of course she had seen his eyes plenty of times but by the time she had left his company she barely remembered them. Mike owned the local café in town and was just about the only Valguard who never wore glasses, Charlie had only seen him earlier in the day, and although the memories of them were dim she knew without a doubt that his eyes had nothing on Zane’s own glowing green ones.

“Your eyes glow more than most.”

“I’m not tainted like the rest of them Charlie, I haven’t been holed up in this dead-end town my whole life.”

“Tainted?”

“The Valguard here are a mere shadow of what they used to be, your humanity has rubbed off on them, they have settled here. They own houses, businesses, they even have children. We were never meant to settle; we were born and bred to take over the world Charlie, not live with it.”

“So you won’t be staying then?”

“For a while I will.”

Charlie let out an almost audible sigh at the relief she felt about Zane sticking around for a while longer. She couldn’t comprehend why one of
them
had such a strong pull on her. She had always tried to stay as far from possible from the Valguard as she could and now, she was so drawn to this one, it was frightening and exhilarating all at once. She didn’t even know Zane, this was the first conversation she’d had with him that wasn’t a tip of the hat or a nod of the head in passing, and yet she felt like they had known each other for years. She should have despised him, if not for the cuts and bruises she now wore but for the fact that he had pinned her down on the rocky floor beneath her to do god-knows-what with. But she couldn’t find anything in her body at that moment other than desire for the man sitting in front of her.

“Why do you think I remember?”

“I don’t know, maybe you have some sort of immunity that protects you from the hazing.” It was completely apparent to Charlie that he was lying through his teeth and she was going to get to the bottom of it come hell or high water.

“What do you know? What aren’t you telling me?”

Zane let out a sigh before answering her demands.

“Well,
there’s really no point in hiding it now, I might as well tell you. You were bound to find out soon anyway.”

“Find out what? What the hell is going on?”

“Your father is a Valguard Charlie, that’s why the hazing has little to no effect on you, that’s why you notice more than the others, and you are the reason I am here.”

Charlie shook her head violently, there was no way in hell she would accept that answer. There is no way that her father could be a
Valguard. She had spent her whole life hiding from
them
; she couldn’t be one of them.

“No! M
y father left town when I was twelve months old, he isn’t a Valguard. He can’t be.”

She ended weakly, knowing without
the need for proof that Zane had told her nothing but the truth.

“He is Charlie, and he didn’t leave town, he is still here, you know him as Mike. We know him as
Mikal; he is… or was the head of the Valguard’s. He was the one who led us here – well no me personally but my kind certainly - and the one who let us all down when he fell in love with your mother.”