Shattered Skies - Night Waves (13 page)

I knew he needed me to speak up. Through his tragic story, he made me understand that killing Jewel had been a selfless act on my part, and right now, he needed me to j
ustify his family’s death by his hands. I only hoped when I opened my mouth, the right words would rush out because my brain had no words planned.

“Do you know what those sick fuckers would have done to those twins if they had gotten hold of them?
” I said. “Worse than that, can you imagine how a six year old’s mind would shatter if they were forced to kill their mother, or their other half? What about Becca? Drake would have raped and destroyed her: body, mind and soul. You know that Jace. You saved them from a fate more horrible than death. You did something that most people could never do. You are the bravest person that I’ve ever met.”

  As the words poured out of my mouth I realized that I truly believed them. I
had killed Jewel without forethought, with no time to plan it and it had almost destroyed me. I could have never killed her the way Jace had, with time to think about it. I wouldn’t have been mentally strong enough to walk away from it after if I had. Jace had not only walked away, but he had managed to live with himself after doing something that most would consider vicious and cruel. For a minute I wondered if I should be afraid of him. If the takeover never had happened, would I have been reading about him in the newspapers? Was he a heartless man capable of taking the lives of countless people? I shook the thought away as soon as it crossed my mind. This was a man that had survived something I knew I couldn’t. He needed my trust and my acceptance, and I was going to give it to him.
 

“Thank you Cat. I didn’t want to die without ever saying it out loud, but can we please drop it now? I ne
eded to put them to rest, to make my peace with what I’ve done, and you allowed me to do that. I am done mourning them, and for the first time since their blood was fresh on my hands, I feel at ease.”

I wanted to talk more, I wanted to drag more out of him and make sure that he was OK. I shook my head yes and agreed to drop it. Who was I to make the last hours of his life a
darker nightmare?  I changed the subject. There was something I needed to get off my chest, something that I needed to say out loud too, so that maybe I would feel less insane.

“Can I tell you something Jace? And you promise not to get jealous, possessive or mad?”

“Cat, I assure you I’m not that type of person. Tell me what is bothering you.” His words were music to my soul.

For once I allowed my thoughts to flow freely. I told Jace about life growing up with Darien, about how he had always protected me, how he took care of me and how I now knew that he was in love with me. I told him how his lips felt on mine and how maybe I loved him too. I wanted to say these things out loud to Darien by I couldn’t so I did the second best thing. I let the words fall upon my own ears. Saying them out loud with someone listening seemed to help.

“Cat, Darien sounds like a really great guy. I don’t see what the problem is though.” He wasn’t being mean, or smart. He truly wanted to know what it was that was making me frown, as opposed to making me smile, when I talked about Darien. 

“I think I am in love with Akia, too.” It sounded so stupid when I said it out loud. I almost wanted to slap myself. I waited for him to yell and call me dumb but he didn’t.

“Hmm, quite a predicament you got there Cat. That’s not an easy one.” There was not even the tiniest hint of sarcasm in his tone.

I looked up at him. His eyes were so tender, so caring. He wasn’t judging me at all. And not being judged was something that I wa
sn’t sure I knew how to handle. I had always longed to experience acceptance from someone and Jace had just shown me how it felt.

“It’s OK. You can tell me how stupid I am, believe me I know.” I was ashamed of myself for even bothering him with this trivial stuff after the story that he had just told me.

“First off Cat, I don’t think that you have a stupid bone in your body. I don’t think that you get to pick who you love. I think that people, um beings, where meant to meet, and if certain beings meet then it isn’t by chance. It was because there was a force greater than them working, a force that brought them together.” I had to smile a little at the way he changed people to beings without even a blink. “Why do you think you love him though? I mean what is it that makes your feelings towards Akia so strong?” 

I was really hoping he wasn’t waiting for an answer because
if I could answer his question, if I knew why I loved Akia, then I would be able to fix it, and make the love go away. When he remained silent, I saw that he would sit and wait for me to answer forever. I didn’t mean to go into defense mode but it was so easy to click that switch and usually, my defensive mode made the men in my life shut up pretty fast.

“I don’t know why or what it is that makes me want Akia, I really don’t. Let’s change the subject, OK? This is just me being a girl.” Hopefully he would just let it drop.

“You aren’t getting off that easy baby girl.” Anyone else who called me that? I would have shoved a stake up their ass. But when he did it, I liked it. I was getting wishy-washy. I was almost glad I was going to die before I morphed into some spineless type that would make me vomit.

  
“This is about confessing your dirtiest secrets, Cat,” Jace said. “Your dirty secret is Akia and I want to hear all the gory details. You owe it to yourself to get this off your mind.” I hated to admit it, but he was right. I wanted to talk to someone about my feelings for Akia and Jace was begging me to let him be the one.

  
“I don’t know. There was just something about the way his lips felt when he kissed me.” I waited for Jace to roll his eyes, for him to tell me that I was just being a stupid girl, but he never did, so I continued. “Don’t get me wrong Jace; I have kissed a lot of monsters. It’s all part of the act. I can’t get them to fuck me if I’m not willing to kiss them. But Akia, as soon as our lips met, I felt electricity running through my body. I felt him in every inch of my being. It was like for the first time in my life I was truly awake and alive. But it was more than that. He was also inside my head.”

  
Even saying it sounded stupid, but I had to get it out and once I started, I couldn’t stop. “I could feel him inside my mind Jace, he was navigating through my thoughts, forcing me to relive memories, and I was doing the same thing to him. The things that I saw inside him were breath taking. Luckily, my common sense took over and I slammed the mental connection between us shut somehow. He would have killed me right on the spot if he had figured out that I was human. Of course, that might have been enough to save my family.”

  
“What happened after that, Cat? How did you get away?” He seemed like he really cared.

  
I wasn’t used to being able to talk openly about Akia. In fact, part of me was waiting for Jace to freak out, just like Darien did every time I said Akia’s name. The fact that Jace didn’t freak out made me very sad because I was never going to get to know him any better. We would both die in the morning anyway so I told him everything, my entire life’s story. There wasn’t a single word that I left out. I ended my story with the ring, and with how I had laid down and given myself to the monsters, so that the man I knew as a father, and the only two other people in the world that I loved, could get away and live.

  
I even told him about waking up and toying with the ring. I even confessed to him about how I thought about removing it, just so I could feel Akia, just so I could know that the one I loved was alright.

  
“I felt him mourn for me Jace. I had never felt anything like it in my life. He was so broken.” Jace was quiet, as still as a dark and windless night.

  
I couldn’t tell by the look on his face if he was disgusted by my stupidity or if he was awestruck by how many people my feelings toward Akia eventually took down. Jace had killed his family to save them, if that made any sense at all. My family died because I wanted to believe that the King of all demons thought I was special. Hell, Jace didn’t have to be disappointed in me. I was already disappointed in myself. I suddenly realized how ridiculous I was for letting myself think that I was worthy of Akia. Even more, I hated myself for believing there would ever be anything between us. There is no relationship without sex and that is blunt and plain. I couldn’t have sex with Akia. It would kill him. Well, it
might
kill him, and besides a few minutes of sex wasn’t worth the risk of losing him every time we decided to make love. Not to mention the fact that Akia would eventually want to know why I never took him to bed. He would find out I was a human and then he would kill me. I was pretty sure he would destroy himself in the process and I cared too much about Akia to watch him go down.

“I think he loves you too.” I was lost in the middle of my internal struggle when Jace spoke, and he startled me back to reality.

“What did you say?” I needed to make sure that I heard him right, that I hadn’t been imagining it.

“I said that from everything
you told me, I think Akia loves you too.” How did that one sentence make me feel so much better? I wanted someone to tell me that I wasn’t crazy for thinking there was a chance. I needed to hear that so bad. Jace gave that to me with his words.

“I’m not saying it would have ever worked out Cat. I’m not saying that if we find a way out of here, that you shouldn’t just find a way to forget about him. What I am saying is that I think that he mourned you the way he did because he loved you too.” I felt the tears slip from my eyes. I needed to not feel like I was alone in a one sided love. I knew that Jace’s thoughts didn’t change anything, but I desperately needed something to cling to, and Jace’s take on things had given it to me.

“Don’t cry, Cat.” The concern in his voice was so heartwarming; I sat there and let him wipe the tears from my face with his thumbs. “Remember I said no crying today? Tell me more about Darien. I want to hear about the man that has the other piece of your heart. He has to be something special to have permanent residency in such a special place.” He changed the subject on me without me even realizing it. I couldn’t help but smile. That was a Cat move, if ever there was one.

“Hmm, let’s see, my Darien.” My voice trailed off and I thought about how to describe him. It really shouldn’t have been this hard. “Darien was
my everything before I met Akia. But Darien wasn’t mine either, he was promised to Jewel.” Her name still tore at my heart whenever I said it and instantly I flashed back to the sound of her life being smashed from her body. I shook the memory off and I continued to explain.

“He was my bitterest sweetness. While Jewel was alive it was easy, he was my best friend, the only person that I completely trusted but no matter how much I wanted to make it more than being friends, I didn’t dare, because I loved Jewel and wouldn’t take him from her. After Jewel’s death though, Darien
was completely open with me about his feelings for me. He told me that I was the most important person in his life and that he had loved me for as long as he could remember. I should have been ecstatic. I should have been able to start the life that I always dreamt of with him, but I couldn’t. I was scared. I loved him too, but I was so afraid if I told him, I would lose one of the only friends I had. I would destroy my only true bond. I guess I worried that I would disappoint him, that I could never be the woman he needed. I am kind of selfish and stubborn, in case you haven’t noticed.” This made him smile. I really wished I’d get to see more of that smile.

“You? Stubborn? I would never have guessed that in a million years.” He was grinning at me and I couldn’t help but grin back.

“This is probably going to piss you off and if it does, so be it.” It’s never a good sign when someone starts off a conversation that way. I mentally braced for what Jace was about to say. I knew he had been way too quiet throughout both my stories, and now he was going to analyze me and tell me to get over it. I was sure he would.

“I think it is time you start being honest about the real reason that you aren’t more excited about Darien telling you that he is in love with you.” 

“I don’t understand what you are saying.” I wasn’t playing dumb. I really wasn’t, I honestly wasn’t sure what he was getting it.

“What I mean is, you need to get it off your chest, while I am here to listen. I’m not saying you are lying to me, I think you are lying to yourself, and you are so good at it that you have convinced yourself that you didn’t get happy about Darien because you didn’t want to lose a friend. I am here to tell you that’s a bullshit excuse.” I was taken aback. For a second, I
mentally scolded myself for every nice thought I ever had about Jace. He was smart enough not to let me open my mouth before he continued on.

“Yeah, you are worried about your friendship with Darien, I believe that, but before Akia, Cat, you would have taken the risk. You love Darien, I’m not questioning that, but you don’t love him like you love Akia, and that confuses you. You feel guilty because Darien
doesn’t affect you the way that Akia did, the few times you were together. You crave Akia’s touch. He gets to you and makes you feel things you’ve never experienced. On the other hand Darien makes you feel safe. Darien is home, and before you touched your monster, that was good enough for you. Now you aren’t so sure. Can you really give up the excitement and the forbidden fruit for safe and sound?” I wanted to disagree with him and tell him to mind his own business, but he was right.