Secret of Betrayal: Book Two of The Destroyer Trilogy (15 page)

“Even more than the first
time.
More every time I see you.”
His fingers
are still touching his Guardian emblem. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you
since that night. At first, it was partly curiosity about what was drawing me
to you, but the more I’m around you, the more my curiosity fades and the surer
I become that being with you feels right.”

Was that what he realized the other day in the
hall? My anger falls away slowly, but enough that I can use my Perception to
double up on the words I already know are honest. Unless I was manipulating him
without realizing, which seems doubtful given how bad I suck at using
Spiritualism for anything, he truly felt something for me that night.

“I don’t understand this,” I say.

Braden moves from the floor to the bed, his
closeness almost as bad as having him touch me outright. He shifts and his knee
contacts mine. I could move, but the pinpoint of energy sending shots of bliss
up my leg is too hard to let go of.

“I don’t understand this either,” Braden says,
“but I know I can’t walk away from you. You’re everything I’ve been trained to
hate. I should be drawing my blade and watching your blood seep into the sheets
instead of trying to stop myself from stripping away your clothes one piece at
a time.”

Desire strong enough to knock me back hits me,
and I have to brace myself to keep from collapsing on the bed. I try to take a
deep breath to clear my head. All I can manage are shallow, whimpering gasps. I
want him to do it. Push me back and make love to me. But I don’t want him to at
the same time. I want Milo to be my first, my only one.  I want Milo. I
want him so badly.

Whether Braden has any idea of my internal
struggle or not, he isn’t backing down. “I’ll give you my Oath right now, if
you ask me.”

I groan in torturous indecision. My voice is
barely above a whisper when I finally answer him. “No. I want your Oath, but
not because of how you feel about me. You have to believe in what I’m doing.”

“But you let Lance give you his Oath out of
love,” Braden argues.

Please don’t use that word, I beg. Please,
please, don’t even come close to that word. Whatever this is between us, it
isn’t that.

“I didn’t
let
Lance do anything. I never
asked for his Oath. I didn’t want it.” Although it would be a lie to say I felt
the same way now. I’ll never love Lance like I once did, but over the last
couple months I have come to welcome him back as a friend. I need him with me.
“I don’t want
your
Oath, either, not unless you’re
honestly prepared to help me take down your brothers.”

“I don’t know how long that will take.”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s how it has to be,” I
say. I have to know he’s dedicated to freeing the Ciphers just as much as he is
to me. Although …. “Can you even swear more than one Guardian Oath?”

A strange mixture of emotions flashes from him
too quickly to unscramble. “No,” he says, “but that’s not an issue for me. I’ve
never given my Oath to anyone before.”

“Why not?”
I ask
slowly, thinking of what Mr. Walters said earlier today about some Guardians
never giving their Oath because of their willingness to kill. I can feel myself
pulling away from Braden. He catches the motion and stops me from running.

“I never gave my Oath because I couldn’t. None
of the Cipher hunters can. It’s too traumatic for the Ciphers when they’re
taken. If we were linked to them, it would cripple us the second we tried to
take one,” he explains.

I don’t really think that’s any better than what
I was thinking originally.

“I thought I was doing the right thing. I
thought I was protecting people because I knew the alternative was killing
Ciphers the second they were found, and it was one of the few jobs I could take
that didn’t involve murdering people,” he says. “Besides, I’ve always planned
on giving my oath to a single
person,
to the woman I
fell in love with.”

The urge to slap my hands over my ears so I
don’t have to hear him anymore bunches my shoulders into a knot. It’s not true.
Something else is happening here. He doesn’t love me. I cannot deal with that
fact right now. I can’t. I just can’t. I have to change the subject, right now.

“Can we just get started with getting over my
block? Everything else is going to have to wait.”
For a very
long time, hopefully.

“Sure. We can talk about this later,” he says.

Or never.
Never would
be great. I don’t bother voicing my opinion because I know it won’t help. I
just sigh and glance up at Braden. He turns so he’s facing me head on. The
sudden seriousness in his eyes makes me wary.

“Before we start this, you have to promise me
something,” he says.

“What?”

“You can never try to wrap someone up like you
did Casey. I won’t show you how to get over your block unless you promise me
first.”

“Why are you so afraid of that? What will happen
if I do? Everything was fine when I did it to Casey,” I argue.

Braden shakes his head. “You were incredibly
lucky. Smothering someone with your own spirit, it can not only kill the person
you’re trying to help, but it can kill you, too. A body can’t live without the
spirit. Suffocating a spirit like you tried to do can destroy it. The backlash
of power released when a spirit dies outside of its body is tremendous. It will
rip apart anything near it.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling slightly weak. No wonder
Casey fought against me so hard when I started trying to wrap her up. She must
have known what could happen.

“Libby, promise me that if the same thing
happens to me, you won’t try to save me. Just get out of there as fast as you
can,” he says.

“That won’t happen.”

He sighs. “It might. I’m the one who put some of
those people there. Plenty of them are not going to be happy to see me. They
never are.”

Suddenly his comment about having had a few
close calls in the spirit world makes perfect sense. Braden could die tonight
if the renegade Ciphers get a hold of him. If I don’t help him like I did
Casey, I know he’ll die. And I’ll have been the one to make him go there in the
first place. But he won’t take me if I don’t promise.

“Libby, you have to promise me you won’t do it,”
Braden says again.

Lance’s understanding
eyes flash in my mind. I have to go.
No matter what.
I
have to reach the Ciphers and find out what’s going on. It’s possibly a choice
between Braden’s life and reaching the Ciphers. It’s a disturbingly easy choice
to make.

“I promise.”

Chapter 1
2

Beauty in the Aftermath

Sitting on the floor next to Braden with the
heater off and only a thin pair of shorts and a tank top to protect me from the
cold is not a pleasant experience. I tested him for honesty when he first told
me to change. Despite the fact that I know without a doubt he wasn’t lying to
me, I still don’t believe I really need to be freezing during this whole
process. Keeping my physical body cold so I don’t fall too deeply into my
trance where I might lose control sounds like a pretty thin reason to me. Even
during what he’s promised is going to be a very unpleasant experience. The
spike of pleasure that came from him when I walked out of the bathroom in my
skimpy outfit didn’t do much for my confidence, either.

But I did it anyway.

“Okay, Libby, before we can start, you need to
have an idea of what it is that’s blocking you from getting into the spirit
world. It can be an event or experience, a belief, anything that would make
your spirit afraid of going,” Braden says.

“I already know what’s blocking me. Just show me
how to get over it.”

Braden doesn’t say anything for a few moments.
His hands tighten and relax several times. “Are you going to explain that?”

“No.”

He sighs. “In order to get over your block, you
have to relive it.”

My eyes pop open. “What? You didn’t tell me that
before.” None of the articles I looked up said that. They just said it was
unique to the person. I start shaking uncontrollably. I don’t want to go
through that again. I don’t think I even can.

“Libby, it’s the only way.”

“How do you know that?” I ask. Maybe he’s wrong.
He’s not even a practicing Spiritualist.

Braden puts a hand on my shoulder to calm me
down and refocus my panic. “I know because it was the only way I could get over
my own block.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize,” I say quietly.

Braden smiles at me. “How else would I know?
Spiritual blocks are very rare. Most spiritualists have never even treated one
and probably never will. I develop my Spiritualism as a hobby, and most of what
I know is stuff I learned from my grandfather when I was little. I’m not a
professional by any means.”

“What happened?”

“I was eight. My grandfather was a full time
Spiritualist in his younger days. He recognized the signs in me and asked me if
I wanted to learn more about my talent. I thought it sounded like fun, so I let
him teach me. He taught me how to go into a trance, and when he thought I was
ready he agreed to show me how to get to the spirit world.”

Braden pauses, his hand tightening around my
shoulder. “We got there without any problems, but we were only there for a few
minutes when my grandfather started panicking. I had no idea what was going on
with him. He disappeared without any explanation. I was trapped there. I didn’t
know how to get back. No one else in my family had Spiritualism. I was stuck
there alone and terrified for three days.”

“What happened? Why did your grandfather leave
you there? And why didn’t he come back?” I ask.

Braden shakes his head sadly. Grief and betrayal
battle away at each other, and I get the impression it’s fight that has been
raging for years. “He had a heart attack. He recognized what was happening fast
enough that he got his spirit back to his body in time, but he was unconscious
for three days. When he finally woke up, the first thing he did was come to
find me. I was so traumatized by being locked in the spirit world that I
couldn’t go back. At first it was just because I didn’t want to. When I finally
tried to go back, I couldn’t. It took a year before my grandfather finally
convinced me to try and break through my block. I had to spend another three
days trapped in the spirit world, staying as calm as possible. I hated every
minute of it, but I did it. And I’m glad I did.”

Three days. I can’t even imagine how difficult
that was for him. He was only nine years old at the time. I’m amazed he didn’t
just give up on the idea all together. I would have. I pretty much did before I
realized how badly I needed this talent.

“The night my father died,” I finally say, “the
Ciphers pulled me out of my dreams and into the spirit world. They tried to
warn me I was in danger. They were screaming at me to wake up. I had no idea
what was happening. I’d never been to the spirit world before. I was terrified
they were going to hurt me. I finally woke myself up only to find my dad trying
to steal my talents. I didn’t know that’s what he was doing at the time, but it
hurt so much that I tried to stop him. As soon as I touched him, his power
turned on him. He died on my bedroom floor.”

Braden stares at me, completely dumbfounded.
“Your dad was trying to do what?”

Oh, I forgot he doesn’t know about all that.
“Uh, I’ll explain that part later,” I tell him. “Now you know what I’m going to
face, so can we get on with it?”

“Uh, yeah, of course.
Close your eyes and take my hands.”

I do.

“How are you at getting into a trance?”

I laugh. That’s the easy part. I slip out of the
conscious world before my last breath pushes out of my lungs. I can feel it the
instant Braden joins me. I can’t feel his physical body anymore, but oddly
enough, the same electric feeling I get from him physically follows him into
his trance. My spirit hums as I feel his spirit approach. Our spirit hands link
without hesitation. It’s actually necessary this time. I’m not good enough at
this to wander around without a guide. Braden pulls me forward into the
darkness. I have no idea where he’s leading me. He seems so sure of where he’s
going that I don’t question him. Eventually the darkness starts to lessen.

We’re pulling away from our physical bodies. It
seems so easy with Braden, easier than with anyone else, until we come to the
edge of the darkness. There isn’t really any one point where my subconscious
trance ends and the spirit world begins. There’s no path to follow, no markers
to show the way. I can simply feel the change. If I want to go any farther, I
have to convince my spirit to leave my body almost entirely, something it has
so far absolutely refused to do. I falter at the prospect of yet another
failure.

“You have to keep going, Libby,” Braden says.

“What’s going to happen?” I’m already trembling.
So much for the all-powerful façade, right?

My undignified fear doesn’t seem to affect
Braden at all. He steps behind me and wraps his arms around my shoulders. His
embrace does a lot to lessen my anxiety. “As soon as you take the first step,
the experience with your dad is going to start replaying itself. All you have
to do is hold your ground. Don’t let your fear overtake you. If you run, the
block will get worse. It will be twice as hard next time.”

“How much of that will I have to relive?
Just the part with the Ciphers, or the whole thing?”

“I’m not sure, but I think you’ll have to go
through the whole thing again. The Ciphers scared you, but your dad’s death … I
would guess that’s the real reason you don’t want to go back,” he says.