Emanate: Insight Series ((Insight) Web of Hearts and Souls) (13 page)

Her gaze was full of wonder as it rest
on my face. She reached to trace my bottom lip, then let the back of her hand slide over my cheek. A smile I didn’t want to give her in this serious moment threatened to show itself. That wondrous stare grew as her fingertips traced the dimple on my cheek, then she rose to her tiptoes and let her lips rest there.

“
You’re real
,” she thought as her breath exhaled across my chest and her hands reached to pull me to her. “
You’re mine,”
she thought as her hand eased down my chest, down my stomach, edged to the rim of the jeans I had never fastened.

I lost control at that moment. I couldn’t hold back anymore. Whatever hell was waiting on us could keep waiting. I wasn’t going to go two days without looking into her eyes, without holding her, only to let her wake and fall right back into battle formation. She wanted to feel loved right now
, and I was going to give that to her. Not that I wanted one, but I never had a choice when it came to Willow. When she was happy, I was happy; honestly, almost a hundred percent of the time, whatever emotion she was drowning in I felt in the core of my soul.

Right now
, I felt
want
. A desire that was rich and deep, that yearned for a connection.

My lips seized hers
, driven to devour the flesh of her, and my hands cupped her face briefly just to ensure that my kiss was as deep as possible. Then they fell, slid down the sides of her body, molding to every curve of her.

I could have pulled tha
t gown off, I knew that, but that took seconds I didn’t want to use. Instead, my starving hands ripped the wet cloth from her body. She bit my bottom lip right as I freed her, which drove me wild. The lace around her waist, hiding the heat of her, was next. I felt her hands grasping my chest, felt the pain of that mark, that dagger, make itself known, but before I could even wince, her hands moved down my sides and tore at my jeans, pushing them away.

That was my undoing, feeling her claim me.
I reached down and picked her up and wrapped her body around mine. The innocent moan that left her lips as my hand slid up her thigh drove me mad. I lifted her higher so my lips could find her neck, her chest. She bowed back, surrendering to me. The taste of her was indescribable. I was famished, and she was feeding my every desire. I felt power pulsing through me, through us. It was all I could do to keep a gentle caress hand in hand with the aggression she was pulling out of me.

Mercifully
, I let my lips worship her body at a slow, agonizing pace. I loved the feel of her hands knotting through my hair, the catch of breath I could hear as my hands found a way to follow where my lips once were. The way she moved against me.

She fought for some
way to reach more of me, to seduce me with her lips, her hands, but I wanted her to feel more than my physical touch. I wanted her to feel my emotion. I wanted her to feel my hungry energy. I wanted her to feel my soul reaching out once more for hers. This was about her, not me.

Each time she
made a sound, my gaze would glance to her stunning face, only to find her eyes closed. Hope was not lost, though. Across her soaked skin, I could see traces of light where I had brought exaltation to her body.

“
Let me see you,”
my thoughts breathed as I slid her down the shower wall. Slowly, she bared the windows to her soul, revealing shimmering glimpses of blue in the deep sea of emerald. “Beautiful,” I whispered as my hand cupped her face and my thumb urged her mouth to mine. I barely brushed the flesh of her lips as I moved my body and we collided as one.

That stare, that one right there, caused more emotion than this taste of flesh
. It was more than when our energy moved into one, it was more because right now it was both. It had never been both before because I had never seen her eyes as blue as they were for that one, transitory moment before the rhythm of passion forced her to close them once more.

She was there,
deep inside, daring to surface. For the first time, I
really
saw her. I have no idea what caused her to come back to me, but I was enthralled with gratitude. It allowed me to feel her body as if it were the first time.

Gasping for air
, we fell to the shower floor. My chest was heaving, my mind was numb, my eyes hooded, but I let a smile dangle on my lips. I didn’t understand how we went from being miles away from each other to me seeing that glow, that wave of blue in her eyes, but I was more at peace than I had been in recent memory. We were almost there.

I reached up for the water and turned it to warm
, then let my hand fall on the back of her head as she laid against my shoulder. I told myself that was the closest we had ever been. That our vessels were on point. It was just our souls holding back.

The only thing that brought me out of that euphoria was the
burn in the center of my chest. I could swear that space on my body had its own heartbeat. I adjusted Willow to the side of my chest, afraid she would feel it, or see it. It was too dim in here for the mark to clearly show; even if it wasn’t, she was deep within her own mind right now. Hell, there could have been an elephant in this shower with us and I doubt she would have noticed. That was one of the things that I adored and feared about her. I adored how deep she would think, how she could turn off the world and focus on the task at hand. But sometimes, she ventured a little too deep for my comfort.

I took the blame for that.
I knew Saturn was on the horizon, but instead of pulling her closer, trying harder, we had drifted. We’d basically been apart for the better part of two weeks. She was locked in her mind for the first part of Mars, I was lost in The Realm for the second. And through Jupiter, I was anything and anyone but the boy she had fallen in love with.

Over the past few weeks
, we had physically loved one another, accelerated the same raw passion we had just shared, but that experience was more like a claiming; we were marking our territory. That was our way of showing each other we still loved each other. I don’t think any soul would see that as a downfall, but right now we needed to be more than lovers; we needed to be best friends, we needed to be one on every level.

I let my lips rest on her forehead
, making a silent promise to her that it was going to be different from this point on. I was not going to engage in any spell, ceremony, or war in Esterious until I had my Willow again, or maybe for the first time ever. And if that meant we had to sit in this shower wrapped around each other for eternity, then that was what we were going to do.

The only sound was the water and our breaths
, which were growing calmer with each beat of our heart. Slowly, I let my hands roam across her back. She had a beautiful gift, one that would allow you to see why she felt what she felt with a touch. For others, she had to focus on showing them. With me, I could almost always see it in my mind’s eye.

Right now
, with my hand against her skin, all I could see was our life together over the last few months. I clenched my jaw as Drake’s palace came into view over and over. I could almost count the days we had spent in Chara on one hand. It was a wicked wakeup call that I didn’t care to have.

When I first met her in real life
, I can remember how excited I was to show her my world, every inch of it, the magic of it. I revered answering her questions, watching her find her own way of understanding it all.

My family wanted me to take her to the Radiance when we first came home. They wanted our
celebration there. I shut that idea down fast. Willow was still adjusting to the idea of being from another dimension, trying to understand what the hell Drake wanted with her or why she had to flee the only town and friends she’d ever known. I didn’t want to overwhelm her. I wanted the transition to be as tender as a dance. I wanted her to discover my world breath by breath. I knew that way she would be given a choice, she would see every detail and know if this was where she wanted to call home. If she thought this place was worth dying for.

It didn’t happen that way. Drake crushed my plans long before I brought her home the first time. He took her friends. One died. It was an accident
, but it still happened. Back then, I knew about what Chara wanted with us, but I had no idea what Esterious wanted, and our family was not helping.

Instead of telling Willow what I did know
, I stood by her side as we tried to figure out what Esterious had to do with us.

That was stopping now. I was going to tell her everything. I was going to show her everything.
This was our new beginning.

“Willow.”

She leaned back, quickly glancing at my chest and reaching for her ears.

“Willow. Are you okay? It was just a dream.” 

“I can’t hear you. I hear water.”

I reached up and turned the water off that was still raining down on us. A thought from me pulled the massive towels from the vanity to us.

That little crease was there again, right between her brow.

“Not outside
, inside,” she said, rubbing her ears as I wrapped her up in the towel.

I reached my hands for the side of
her ears. “
Hurt?”
I thought, starting to wonder if spending the better part of two hours in the shower had been a good idea after all.

“
It’s just a constant flow of water. It was there when I woke up.”

Just to test her
, I sent a wave of energy to the vanity, knocking down a vase. I knew she couldn’t see it fall from where she was.

She jumped
, wrapping her arms around my neck. I had to smile. “
Just testing you. You can still hear. I’m sure it’s the shower. You must have some water in your ears.”

I stood with her in my arms and carried us out of the shower
. The vase had broken into several pieces across the floor, but it didn’t take more than a thought from me to pull it all back together and allow it to sit on the vanity as if it had never fallen.

I
felt Willow tense in my arms. This was one of my new insights, something I learned in The Realm, something that my Phoenix past amplified. It was nothing more than moving energy, but that was harder to explain than it should be.

I sat her down. “Safe now.”

She never bothered to respond. With the towel still wrapped around her, she walked to the mirror and leaned in. I caught a glimpse of my reflection, the mark on my chest. It was amplified now, looking more permanent by the moment. Before she assumed I ran out and got a tattoo of a dagger on my chest, I moved my body to the closet to find dry clothes. Right as I pulled my shirt on, I felt terror belt through my soul. In that beat, I flashed back to the bathroom—Willow was in the corner, blocking her face with her arms. I yelled her name over and over. Nothing.

“
Willow!”
I thought.

Her arms fell
, then her cagy stare met mine, then the mirror.

“
Willow, talk to me. What is going on inside right now?”
I said as tenderly as I could.

Right as I touched her arms
, I saw it. In her mind, for a brief few seconds she was back at the palace, in the shower. The mirror had come to life, she saw Chara burning, we saw Libby screaming our names.

“
I’m going mad,”
she thought weakly.

Shit
. Illusions. Neptune was wrapped within Saturn. Donalt was trying to break her down from the inside out. The day I destroyed that ghost could not come fast enough.

“
Then we are going to go mad together,”
I thought back as I guided her out of the bathroom and into our bedroom.

She wasn’t going to like this
, but right now Willow Haywood was going to tell me every detail of the nightmare she’d just had.

Chapter
Eight

~ Willow ~

I was so dizzy that I couldn’t keep my balance. I was at war with my mind—at war with reality. Everything that I had overcome, everything that I had found a way to deal with was fresh again—but this time it wasn’t the same. Instead of being fearless, furious, I was terrified. I couldn’t understand how I’d found the courage to walk the path I had then, but now I feared it as if it were going to happen again, if something worse were going to happen to me.

I couldn’t figure out how I’d gotten home
, how I woke up in my nightgown and not dressed. The last thing I remembered was pulling that door open to that sour smelling booth. Just the thought of that, the idea that I’d been in Esterious without Landen, petrified me. Why would I do something so foolish!

It was like there
were two people in my mind right now: one telling me to toughen up, that we had moved past all of this; and another begging me to see how fragile life was, how precious what I had with Landen was. I’d let that voice win and squashed the dominant one as I grasped Landen.

I tried to catch his intent.
I could only vaguely feel one, and it, along with the piercing stare in his blue eyes, told me that right now he was not going to allow me to hide from the breakdown I was embarking on.

I lost
it in the bathroom. My mind thrust me back to that bloody scene in the bathroom in Esterious. I felt the heat of the fire in the mirror, heard the screams coming from the glass. I saw Chara burning. I should have been strong enough to push that flashback away, but instead I heard Justus in my thoughts, telling me that the end of Chara was coming. That if I did not let my soul rise and ego fall, it would be a bitter end. Now that I think about it, he never really promised any kind of blissful end or gave me a call to action.

Justus
had to have done something to me, given me something to cause me to dream so wickedly. How I got here was still a mystery.

Landen was on his knees in front of me
, moving his hands across my legs. He was trying to calm me down—I could feel that in his energy caressing me—but all he was doing was causing that craving to be closer to him to erupt.

God
, he was gorgeous. Those eyes, that strong profile, those dimples that seemed to appear less and less. I wanted to feel his skin against mine again. I wanted to feel him inside of my mind, body, and soul. That was all I wanted right now. It was like I knew he was the only one I trusted to usher these newfound fears away. He was the only one that got me, that let me go insane when I wanted, let me be who I wanted to be when I needed to be.

My eyes watered when I realized that telling him I loved him, telling others he was the only choice
, had become a line, just words. I had spent every moment alone with him, speaking of what was to come next instead of cherishing the little things. Like how his lips felt as they moved across my skin, how he watched for any response I would make as if he were learning the silent language of my desires. I was always looking for the next reason I might lose him instead of appreciating that I had him.

I leaned into his lips
, but his hand reached to cradle my face, holding my lips a breath away from his. He leaned his forehead to mine.

“
Willow, I can’t bear this distance anymore. I don’t understand what’s going on with you. In the shower…in the shower you took my breath away.”
The pad of his thumb traced the base of my eye. “
I saw something looking back at me that I craved to see for so long.”
He swallowed. “
Tell me what’s wrong. What’s going on inside. What kind of dream caused you to wake up and pull a 180 on me?”

He furrowed his brow when I didn’t respond to him.

“Talk to me, Willow. What did you dream?”

“
It wasn’t all a dream.”

I could see the
anger in his eyes, but I couldn’t feel it. I wanted to feel it. I was craving anger as if it were air. I would give up every emotion but love and anger if I had any control over my jacked up soul, but for some reason right now I only felt love and fear, two emotions that made little sense together, not after everything Landen and I had shared together.

“
Did you leave here?”
he asked in a disbelieving tone.

I glanced away.
“
Justus was saying crazy things. Calling me a sovereign. Telling me my ego was in charge, that my dad didn’t even want to have me because he knew how dangerous my life was going to be. That I would end time in Chara. I…I followed him to Esterious.”

Landen was as hard
as a rock. Every muscle in his body was rigid. His eyes were fierce. I could swear I could see flames rippling in them. That insane maternal feeling over Justus came forth instantly. I didn’t want Landen to hurt him.

Landen must have felt that. He let in a breath as confusion overtook his stoic image.

“What happened?”

I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t
let him know that in no way, no form, in five years or a hundred could I ever give him a family. That Donalt had robbed him of ever having a legacy with me.

A dizzy
sensation slammed into me. It felt like the floor fell fifty feet and rose again. The only thing that was stable was Landen. I threw my arms around his shoulders and hid my face in his neck, fighting the wave of nausea off.  I was going mad.

“
Show me,”
he thought as his strong hands eased across my bare back. I didn’t want to show him anything. I wanted to pull him against me and feel every part of him against me. I didn’t want him to leave my side for battle, like we both seemed trained to do recently.

Hearing the unspoken words of my body
, his lips started to move down my neck. I sighed as I felt his hands, which were as warm as fire, begin to explore me.

I wanted to stay focused on what I h
ad invited to happen, but right as his hand moved down my stomach, my thoughts flashed back to what happened with Donalt, where he touched me, and what happened just before that, Adonia, what she said, the other side of the story Justus had told me about our fathers.

Landen’s seductive caress halted,
and his lips closed against my skin as he raised that angelic stare up to meet mine.

My watering eyes told him that he had read everything right. Donalt was going to destroy me one way or another.

I saw pain in his eyes and felt so guilty for putting it there.

“
He cannot take anything away from you or me. That path is not in our future,”
he thought as his eyes raced across mine and he seemed to realize something for the first time.

I felt myself gasp.
I wasn’t sure if that meant he never wanted a family anyway or he knew we would never survive long enough to consider the idea.

“
You think I have days like Justus said.”

H
e reached for the center of his chest, and his eyes moved away from me. I had hurt him again.

“
We. Willow. We may only have days. We may only have moments. But that doesn’t matter—”

“
I’m not done,”
I blurted out, fearing for the first time ever the end of my all-too-young life.

Right as I thought those words
, his eyes met mine. There was an uncanny hope in his stare. You would have thought I had told him that I loved him for the first time ever.

“
I have a lot to tell you. A lot to show you. I want you to get dressed. Pack a bag. When I get back, we’re leaving.”

I felt a sharp pain
absorb me. Everything—both arguing voices in my head—screamed at me not to go to Esterious. I also knew I didn’t want to go back to my home dimension, to deal with Saige, Skylynn, or anyone else for that matter. I didn’t want to go to Pelhan’s world and hear some slow advice that wouldn’t make sense to me until the long run. I didn’t want to run anywhere. I didn’t want to be anywhere but with Landen. In his world. In his life.

“
I’m not leaving Chara,”
I thought reverently.

“
No. We’re not.”

I thought maybe he meant he was going to take me to the beach house again
, but I was almost positive Charlie had moved into there.  I had no idea what he was thinking, but I had a horrible feeling that he was not looking forward to it.

As I focused on him
, searching for his intent, I managed to catch a glimpse of the one intent that terrified me: he was going after Justus.

“
You can’t hurt him. Swear you won’t hurt him.”

There was a mix of confusion and
jealousy in his stare. “
I just want to understand what he was doing in Esterious. I want to know what that has to do with you.”

“
Everything bad in Esterious has to do with me.”

“
Willow…this trial, it will take place here.”

“
What? Who do we have to move? What is happening?”

“
Shhh,”
he thought as his lips met mine.
“Just trust me right now. I’m sure Drake will have something to deal with, just as Phoenix and Draven will…they will happen at the same time, but you and I will be here.”

“
Hiding?”

“
No.”

“
Not crossing lines?”

“
The lines had to do with the spells. This, what is before us, has to do with us. It is something I should have told you about long ago. I should have told you a lot of things.”

That definitely
didn’t
sound good. Landen and I shared everything. I admit he had been a little off the last few weeks, but the look in his eyes was not a promising one. I felt my gut plummet.

“
You aren’t going to tell me about another Skylynn, are you?”
I could not keep the pain out of my tone. I didn’t know where that was coming from. Before, I just disliked his past but thought fair was fair. The pain I was feeling now was unspeakable.

He looked away
. I could have sworn I read a silent curse as it left his lips, but his eyes met mine right after that. Though there was the same regret he always had when Skylynn was mentioned, that devotion he poured into me was there, too. “
No, I’m going to take you away, explain everything.”
His hands squeezed my thighs.
“I won’t be gone more than an hour,”
he thought as he leaned in and kissed my forehead, only to vanish from my sight a second later.

I pulled the massive
towel around me as I stared blankly forward, trying to remember what happened to me today, how I got here. I tried to tell myself it was all a dream, that nothing I thought happened had really occurred.

I knew I was lying to myself. Something had to have happened
; there was no way I could have gone so drastically from indifferent to this humble and scared person I was now.

I couldn’t sit there any longer
, lost in myself. I flew through my room, getting dressed and packing my travel bag with fresh clothes.  More than once, I felt that wicked, dizzy sensation, the one that caused the floor to fall, only to rise again. My ears were still full of water, at least the sound of it.

Calling my father
to ask what was wrong was out of the question because I wouldn’t be able to hear him. I left the travel bags on the porch and confiscated Landen’s Jeep.

I wasn’t entirely sure which roads to take to reach my parents
’ home. I’d always walked over the hills to get there. I cringed as I decided to take the Jeep off-roading. Even though winter was approaching, the fields were still full of flowers. Oddly, most of them in this late season were green and blue. I felt a stab of grief hit my soul as I remembered having to search for those to put on my friends’ dying bodies. What was rare then was in abundance now.

Right as I went to top the second hill
, I had to slam on the brakes. Right in front of me was a girl in a black cloak.

My hands shook as I opened the
Jeep door to help her, or at least figure out what she was doing out here. Right as my feet landed in the field, the day turned to night. Nervously, I looked forward, knowing that was not a girl that had stopped me, but an image. My eyes grew wide as I saw Evelyn, the girl’s body that I had resided in, the girl’s body that was nothing less than agony. Why was she here?

I edged closer
, seeing her image outlined in the headlights of the Jeep that I had not turned on.  It was the same scene that I had lived before, the one I saw with Landen.

My heart thundered in my chest.
Evelyn looked right at me, saying something I could not understand or hear.

I moved backward
, knowing this could not be real. This was just like what happened in the bathroom. My mind was stuck on rewind, or something wicked like that.