Eternally Yours (24 page)

A knock on the door wakes me up. There’s a leg tangled in between mine and a warm, male arm across my stomach. I am naked and my eye lashes are stuck together. Last night rushes back to me and I remember crying like a baby. It must be why my eye lashes are stuck together. I rub at my eyes and someone knocks again, probably Kaia or Wraith.

Gabe
rustles
behind me and mutters a lazy curse word as he throws the covers aside and scoots out of the bed. I look over my shoulder at him and giggle. He’s trying to step into some shorts but he can’t keep his balance and ends up hopping all over the place and getting his foot stuck and almost busting his ass. He gives me a mock glare and a smirk then rushes to the door.

“A good morning to you we hope,” someone in a white outfit tells us.

He nods, “Good morning.” His voice is still groggy and rough from sleep and it sounds pleasant.

“We are here to assess your wife and your bond.”

He
gestures
for them to enter the room and I sit up, hair a mess, making sure to bring the covers up to my neck with me.

“No need for modesty my dear, I’m going to get much more personal here in just a few minutes,” the physician states.

I glare at her. At least it’s a she.

She gives a pointed look to her partner and turns back to me. The other physician is a male and asks Gabe to leave with him so I can have my stupid exam in private. Not that it’s anything he has not seen now.

I am numb at this point. I don’t care about anything anymore, and I feel blessed relief at that. A broken heart is not an emotion I can handle.

“Lean back please,” she tells me as she pops on examination gloves. I lean back and stare out the sky light above me.

She spreads my legs and it’s all history from there.

“Good, and are you feeling alright? Any pain or discomfort?”

“No.”

She nods.

“Questions?” she asks.

“No.”

She seems to study me for a second and then she removes her gloves and grabs her belongings.

“You may get dressed. We will unlock the doors on our way out.”

I don’t say anything. I don’t care what they do now. Keep them locked for all it matters. I decide I will just lie here all day. I doubt Gabe will show this morning if he was in my mind last night.

Something occurs to me at that thought and I gasp. The physician turns back to look at me with a cocked eyebrow and I smile innocently. She exits the room and shuts the door.

Am I bonded to Gabe now? I don’t feel any different. I am not aware of any new connection or different feelings or emotions. And, not a shock we don’t share a mind link that I am aware of. I reach out to him just to make sure and I cast some thoughts to him. Nothing. Hmm. Did it not take? Has this ever happened before? Is this normal? I have so many questions that need answered!

Before I can process anything further my feet swing over the bed and run me to the closet. My body gets me dressed into a short white dress with a low neckline. Even I think it’s a little too tight when I look in the mirror but I don’t have time to change. Apparently I am still going to meet Shadow. My body has decided for me and my mind thinks it’s a great idea.

But my heart worries he won’t be there.

I remember something else my mother told me. She told me that when I finally fall in love with my mate, that it will be hard. It will be good, bad, ugly, beautiful, easy and hard. She said that love is harder to remove than hunger for bread. And I know I will never remove this love I have for Shadow, no
matter what I do. It will only put distance between Gabe and I and my heart will continue to be unfaithful despite my body. I will only ever be able to give him half of me. And that, is not enough for him.

I crack the door open slowly and peek through it. No one it around as far as I can see. I slip through and leave it half-way open as I walk on down the hall, not wanting it to creak on its hinges if I opened it all the way or click when I close it. I sneak around corners and avoid voices by maneuvering through rooms ducking under walls until I make it to the front door.

*~*~*~*

I turn the corner and come to a fence. Dangit! There’s a fence right before I reach our
rendezvous
. I have horrible luck. Why didn’t he mention this? What am I supposed to do now? I check my surrounding to make sure no one sees me and I scan the fence to the top. Way tall, someone would definitely see my climbing over the top, not to mention the lasers at the top. I scan the bottom hoping for a hole, walking along it a few feet. Aha! Yes, some loose dirt under a spot and the fence seems to be flimsy and curved at the tips a little, giving away that someone has used it more than a few times to crawl under. I drop to my knees and scoop the dirt away as fast as I can, making a deep scoop, hopefully big enough to allow me under. I fall to my belly and shimmy under. Luckily no one is around to see me do this in such a short dress or they might get an eye full.

On the other side, I stand up and dust my knees and my whole front side off. My dress is no longer white but hey, who cares. With the Guard training arena in sight, I run to the back near the wall and stop to catch my breath. I scan everywhere, hoping to see him. I look to the wall, I look behind me, to the side, along the wall,
and everywhere
I can. My heart and my hope
plummet
. He’s not here. My lip wobbles and my face starts to cringe. I bite my lip hard and wince at the pain. I don’t know why I would expect him to show. It’s my fault he didn’t. I ruined it for him, for me, for us. I lied to him, I broke a promise, and I hurt him. Three pretty much unforgivable things. But man, I wish he knew why. I wish he knew that I had no choice. I didn’t choose Gabe! I didn’t enjoy it. My shoulder slump and I fall back against the wall and slide to the dirt. Stari
ng at my feet out in front of me,
I let the poison of un-feeling enter my heart again. And I wait until it numbs. For once, the tears don’t come.

A pair of black boots land in front of my feet from out of nowhere. My eyes jerk straight up to meet a pair of deep black ones.

Now the tears come.

He takes in my dress and an unpleasant expression crosses his face.

“Don’t ask,” I mumble.

He shakes his head. I think he’s mad. Or hurt. Either way, this only confirms that he knows what I did. And somehow “I’m sorry” just doesn’t seem sufficient.

“I had to,” I say instead.

He closes his eyes in pain and my heart throbs once, very painfully.

“I know,” he breathes.

I stand up to embrace him, to show him all my emotions.

I inhales a ragged breathe, his big shoulders jerking.

He smells so good. He’s like my drug.

“Half,” I say.

He leans back to look at me. “Half?”

“It’s all I would ever be able to give him.” I pause a second. “My body is only half of what I have to give someone. My heart is the other. He had my body but he would never have my heart, Shadow. I’ve already given you that.”

He gives me this look, that’s so complex and full of a thousand different emotions, that I could never explain it in a few words. All I know is it means something to him. It means a lot, so much that I don’t think he knows how to process it, so he just freezes. One lone tear appears on his eyelid and runs down his cheek to his chin, where it free falls from there to wet the dirt somewhere near our feet.

“I can give you both,” I whisper. I lean up to kiss the wet trail on his cheek from the tear. “All of me.”

He frowns at me, “How? I was in your mind last night, I know you guys bonded.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know, Shadow. I don’t think it worked.”

The look in his eyes as his head jerks back to look at me, as if I can’t be serious, is filled with longing. He dares to hope, I can tell.

I smile.

His face absolutely lights up like nothing I have ever seen from this boy and it’s so beautiful it almost knocks me on my ass.

“You, you think, maybe?”

“Yeah,” I laugh, “I think maybe.”

He looks to the sky and smiles and laughs, like God answered his prayers. Then the next thing I know I’m backed into another wall and his lips are soft against mine. And this time when we kiss it’s magic.

*~*~*~*

Present Day

He breaks off the kiss and we’re both panting but with smiles on our faces. He tilts his head towards the wall, “Come on, let’s get out of here. I packed a few things we might need too. They’re over by the wall.”

“Okay!”

He grabs my hand and we jog towards the wall.

“What the...” a familiar voice trails off.

My
heart rate
really spikes now. Because now I am caught.

We both stop mid jog and turn towards Gabriel. I wiggle my hand out of Shadow’s but he makes that difficult.

“Alexia?
” he asks, l
ooking back and forth from me and Shadow. “I was looking for you. You weren’t in your room or anywhere in the condo after the exam...” he pauses, waiting to see if I have a reason.

Shadow takes this second to look at me curiously about the exam. He’s smart enough to figure it out, I hope. Then he will understand what I meant when I told him that
I
had to. I didn’t have a choice.

“What are you doing?” Gabe finally asks, frustrated. “Why are you running towards the wall, hand in hand with a
demon
?”

I am at a loss for words.

“What the hell!?” He is losing his patients now.

“Gabe, I...I...” I what? I don’t know.

“We’re leaving.” Shadow declares boldly. Like he is daring Gabe to try and stop us.

“Oh?” Gabe scoffs.

“Yes. Oh.” Shadow retorts. He is scary. I wouldn’t want to mess with him no way, even I was someone as fit as Gabriel. Or the Captain of the Guard.

“See, that’s funny you say that, because I say you’re not.
Especially
, not with my wife.”

“I am leaving.
Especially
, with your wife.” Shadow taunts. “Even though she doesn’t want that title, I’m sure.”

Shadow grabs me tight and presses me against his big, muscular body and devours my mouth. I melt. Holy, wow, he is good at that. The only thought that I can think is I hope that I am not drooling all over him when he’s pushed away from me violently and him and Gabe are in a blur of motion.

They fight. The Guards come. Kaia gives me a look that hurts my feelings. And the Hell Horde shoots me with an arrow as soon as Shadow is taken off to the dungeon. But you already knew all of that.

I awaken to a steady beeping
rhythm
that sounds familiar, like it’s been in my dreams and yet responsible for keeping me asleep by lulling me off
every time
I tried to wake up. I immediately despise it.

I glance around the white room trying to find where it’s coming from. Everything is blurry and I feel so groggy. I have to fight just to stay awake. I finally realize the beeping is coming from a tiny machine behind me and it has cords hooked to me.

I am lying in a white bed of course, wearing a light blue gown and my chest is extremely sore. In fact, so sore that I try not to move, much less sit up.

“Hey,” a voice says.

I look up towards the door where Gabe is leaned halfway in. “Hi,” I smile.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like I got shot,” I reply.

He snorts. “You’ve been out for five weeks and you still have a sense of humor right when you wake up.”

Five weeks!

“How long have I been out?” I gasp.

He cringes, “Uh, five weeks.”

“Oh. My. Gods.”

“Yeah, it’s a miracle you pulled through at all. You got hit with Hordian arrow and they’re dipped in death poison. It spreads through your veins like a fire and goes straight for your heart. We have no idea how you survived or why they shot you.”

I am stumped too. So all I can manage to say is, “Huh.”

“Do you know why they would want to kill you?”

“No!”

He holds his hands up, “Sorry.”

I sigh and try to relax. “Sorry. It’s just a little hard to hear. So they didn’t attack us?”

He shakes his head. “Nope, only shot you and we never did catch them.”

I massage my temples.

“Anyways, I don’t want to start off with such bad news after five weeks. My apologies.”

I wave this off. “No need, tell me everything I missed. My memory is a little foggy.”