Survival -Guardians of Vesturon [1] (21 page)

“Well, I know one thing, and that is you make me happy,” she admitted. “And there is certainly something tangible between us.”

“May I ask you something?”

At her nod, he continued, “Do you want to be with me?”

Again, she nodded.

“Do you feel this connection we have?”

“Yes, I’ve felt it from the beginning. Like you, it blew me away, really.”

“Can you walk away from me and be happy without me in your life?”

“I wouldn’t want to do that. I cannot imagine you not in my life,” she admitted.

“Do you think of me much?”

“Constantly, every waking moment. But as they say, it’s probably just the new hitting me.”

“The new what?” he asked, puzzled by her choice of words.

“Us. You know, our togetherness or relationship or whatever you want to call it.”

“Okay, I think I understand,” he replied, chewing on his lower lip. “But just a couple of minutes ago, when I refused your advances and you thought I was rejecting you, how did it make you feel?”

“Why are you asking me this? You know the answer to that.”

“Please, just answer me, Maddie.”

“It made me feel awful, horrible to be exact. Are you satisfied?” she asked acrimoniously.

“Please do not be angry with me. I am not trying to belittle your feelings. I am just trying to point something out to you. So, with all of this, do you think that you might be in love with me?”

“You know I am. I’m crazy wild about you. How can you ask me that?”

“Because, in my world, Maddie, when two people are in love, they want to be together, as a couple should, united as one. That is what I want with you. You are the world to me, and without you, I am incomplete. So I would ask you again, would you please honor me by becoming my mate?”

Secretly, Maddie was thrilled. She was so touched by Rayn that she was speechless for a moment. She stood up and paced back and forth, trying to formulate an answer.

Finally, she answered, “Rayn, I seriously cannot say yes to you right now. And, please hear me out.” It was now Maddie’s turn to hush Rayn. “I listened to everything you said; now it’s my turn,” she said, placing her hand on his arm, her eyes imploring him to listen.

He nodded, so she continued, “You are an enigma to me. You come from a different world. You are very powerful and have your world at your fingertips. You are a true Leader, and the son of a great man. You have a close-knit family, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what you could possibly see in me, a mere human, with nothing to offer you. I am honored by even the thought of you asking me this. But,” she paused, choosing her words carefully, “I feel as if we need to learn more about one another. I, for one, want to learn more about Vesturon and its people. And I also want to understand you as a person.”

She saw that Rayn was on the verge of speaking, so she held out her hand to stop him. “I know you talk of us bonding, but we don’t do that here on Earth. I don’t doubt for a minute that this is what has taken place between us. However, I need to be comfortable that this is the right decision for me as well.”

She stopped speaking to give her words a chance to penetrate his mind.

“I’m not saying we won’t ever be married, Rayn. I’m just saying I am not yet ready to take that step. I will tell you this, though. I will commit my heart to you, and I will be faithful to you.”

“Well, I guess I will have to be satisfied with that for now. I still thank the Divine Being for allowing our paths to cross.”

“What is this Divine Being stuff?” she asked curiously.

“That is our God. Well, you call it God, and we call it the Divine Being, or the Deity.”

“Oh, I was just wondering. I’m not sure if I really believe in God.”

“What?” Rayn was mortified. “How can you not?”

“I think a more appropriate question would be, ‘How can you?’ My life hasn’t exactly been heaven sent, Rayn. And the things I’ve had to deal with are indications to me that maybe there isn’t a God. I was raised in the church, and my parents were believers, but I just don’t think a loving God would put someone through the agony I’ve been through.” Maddie fidgeted with her fingers as she thought about all the horrific times after her father died.

“Maddie, my love, you have absolutely been through much more than most people ever have to deal with, and I can understand why you feel this way. But you should believe in God, or the Divine Being. You really should,” he said, squeezing her hands.

“How do you think all of this happened?” Rayn swept his arm across both of them. “A better question would be ‘why has all of this happened?’ Think about it for a minute. Why did you and I come across each other? You can’t possibly think it was a coincidence. Please, I’m not going to try to convince you of anything, but just think about us for a while. I’m positive you would not be here today without the Deity. There are many answers within Him, Maddie. Think about how your mother came to your aid. That is all divine intervention, my love.” Rayn was so fervent in his statements that Maddie had to stop and think for a moment.

“You do have a point Rayn. But, I am little skeptical about these things. I will agree with you though on us; it is more than a mere coincidence.” She reached out and placed her hand on his arm.

“Yes, it is much more. Maddie, I consulted our Divine Being about you and me. I was so torn about what to do. When we were separated I had to ask the Deity. I communed with Him and let Him guide me. He gave me the answer I was so desperately seeking, which is why we are together today. Maddie, I have been in his presence, and I have felt Him within me. You can draw your own conclusions to all of this, but I would simply ask you to give it some thought. Believing is so important, Maddie.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right, and maybe it’s time for me to start saying my prayers again, Rayn. I haven’t spoken to God in a while. I know I owe Him a big thanks for you and for sparing my life.”

“Agreed. So you will at least start reaching out to Him?” he asked persistently.

“Yes. You are really serious about this, aren’t you?”

“I am a firm believer, you might say,” he answered. “The Deity has come to my aid more times that I can recount, and I will leave it at that.”

The sounds of rumbling stomachs made them realize they hadn’t eaten in a long time. They left the tent and saw that the sun was sinking low on the horizon, casting its golden glow on their campsite. Rayn added more wood to the fire, and Maddie set out preparing their food for dinner. It wasn’t long before she had successfully accomplished reconstituting dehydrated food into some mac and cheese, which was no small feat for Maddie. She wasn’t exactly known for her fine cooking talents. Rayn hunkered down near her, and when she looked up, she observed the transformation of his eyes.

“What?” He was curious about the look she gave him.

“Your eyes have changed. I’ve got to check them out.”

Maddie dropped what she was doing and scrambled over to Rayn on her hands and knees. She took his face into her hands and started tilting his head this way and that, checking out his eyes. They mesmerized her. They were still their beautiful shade of green, but in the center where the round pupils used to be, was now an elliptically shaped ones.

“This is so bizarre. Do they feel weird to you?”

“No, because they have been like this my whole life. I think they would feel weird if they did not transform. I can see extremely well in the dark. It is like I have on night vision goggles.”

“Seriously? You can see that well?”

Try as she may, she could not take her eyes off of them. She kept tilting his head around to see his pupils change size.

He dropped his eyes down and said, “Yes, and please quit staring at them; you are making me feel self-conscious.” It was apparent he was most uncomfortable.

“Oh! I guess I wasn’t thinking.” Maddie was shocked by this reaction.

“What if a part of your body transformed into something unusual, and I kept staring at it? How would you feel?” he bit out rather harshly.

She gently cupped his face in her hands and held his gaze, and murmured softly, “Rayn, I’m so sorry. It wasn’t my intention to make you feel uncomfortable, but I am enormously impressed by them. Yeah, they’re weird looking but in a beautiful way. I don’t think you realize how unbelievably stunning your eyes are, Rayn—both day and night.”

She traced his brows with her thumbs and continued, “I never told you this, but your eyes were the first things I saw when I woke up in the caves. I looked into them and was literally blown away. Their color is so vivid I thought I was imagining them. But do you want to know the best thing of all? They gave me such reassurance; your strength was shining through them. I instantly felt safe with you. I so love your eyes, Rayn. So please don’t be uncomfortable when I stare at them. I can’t seem to help myself.” They were staring intently at each other.

Rayn felt the depths of Maddie’s emotions during this admission of hers. He placed his hands over hers and said passionately, “Now, it is my turn to be humbled by your words, Maddie.” He leaned in and gently grazed his lips across hers.

Later that night, as they sat by the fire, Rayn started speaking in a trancelike manner, “When I first saw you, I did not believe you were real. I thought I was lost in a dream, and I feared you would vanish. I never believed anyone like you existed. You see, on Vesturon, most beings that connect with each other do so on their first encounter. I had never experienced that, until you. I felt a connection with you on many levels, physical and spiritual. When I saw you lying unconscious on that ledge, your heart and soul reached out and touched mine in a way that seemed impossible, and I have not been the same since. We have a word for this on Vesturon. You are what we call my
amashan
.”

He was staring at the ground beneath his feet, afraid to look at her for fear of what he would see in her eyes.

“You say you have nothing to offer me, but, Maddie, that could not be further from the truth. You offer me everything: life, love, and you are so courageous to have survived what you have.”

“Rayn?”

He lifted his head so that he could look into her eyes, and what he saw made his heart skip a beat.

“I know exactly what you are trying to explain. The fact that I’m here is proof of how I feel about you. Every night I dreamed about you. I longed for your touch and the way it made me feel, but I wouldn’t let myself think you would ever feel that way too. I guess that’s why I was so upset when I found out what you had done and the trouble it has caused you. I would never want to cause you any hardship,” she explained.

She reached for his hand and held it in hers, looking at it as if she was searching for something. “It’s a perfect hand,” she said simply, and then placed a kiss in his palm. She looked closely at it and saw there were odd markings on it. She grasped his other hand and turned it, palm up, toward her. On both of his palms appeared star-shaped colorful tattoos with unusual symbols surrounding the stars. The inside of his wrists and forearms also bore unusual markings. They appeared to be symbols or maybe letters of some sort. They were beautifully drawn with swirling lines and geometric angles. They puzzled her, “What are these for? They must mean something?”

“Yes, the star is the mark of the Leader and the symbols are the marks of the Guardians. All of my siblings palms contain the symbols, but I am the only one with the colorful stars.”

“What about the ones on your wrist and forearms?”

“Ah, those are the markings of the Firstborn. I know they look like tattoos, but they are something I was born with. They are a part of every Vesturion. Since I am a first-born son, mine are much more prominent than most. If you look closely, you will also see markings at the base of my fingers. They are extremely small and hard for humans to see without magnification. But those are the markings of Vesturon. They are triangles with a crescent in the center. Everyone with Vesturion blood in their veins bears these marks somewhere on their body. But, Maddie, you know the ones on my wrists? You will be given matching ones if you ever consent to be my mate.”

“What?”

“Yes, as the mate of a Firstborn, you will be given matching symbols. You know, if you rub your fingers over them, you can feel them. Yours will be placed on you using a special instrument that it raises the skin to create them.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No, not at all. You will see. I hope. I hope you do not mind.”

“No, they are so beautiful,” she said as she scrutinized them, gently tracing their shapes. They appeared to be script-like symbols, embellished with fancy scrolls. “Is this written in the Ancient Tongue?”

“Yes, and the best translation would be something like, ‘I am the Firstborn son of Vesturon.’ Yours will declare you to be the mate of the Firstborn.”

“Tell me about your braid. I noticed all of your brothers have one as well.”

“Ah, yes, the braid!” he said with a bit of a chuckle.

He explained how every Guardian must wear them as they date back to ancient times. They begin to grow them when they are inducted into the Brotherhood of Guardians and are only allowed to cut them every ten years. Some of the Guardians despise them saying they are outdated and should be banned. Others, like Rayn, don’t really mind them.

“I like it. It kind of gives you a wild look. Why did you laugh when I asked about it?” Maddie asked.

“Well, some Guardians do not like them at all. They are, how do you say here, a bit of a bone of contention for some. Please do not tell Rykerian that you like them. He is not fond of the wild look; he fancies himself too refined for that!” Rayn explained.

Rayn put his arms around her and held her closely against his chest. “So, tell me what you are thinking,” he quietly requested.

“You have to ask?” she asked impishly.

“No, but it would be rude to do otherwise,” he said. Rayn explained how his Power of Telepathy worked. It was a bit like an iPod in that when emotions were running high, the volume of the thoughts were very loud. It was different when emotions were stable. The sounds did not project then, and he would have to reach into a person’s mind to “hear” them. He, like many other Vesturions, felt that was an intrusion of privacy and didn’t particularly like to do that.