Blakeshire (7 page)

Now the only thing between
Drake and me was his royal suit and my damp towel.

~Drake~

Even though I was furious, terrified, and nearly out of my mind, the sight of her brought me much needed peace. It took everything I had not to let my eyes leave hers to take in the fact that she was damp and only wearing a towel that barely made it past her thighs.

A boat. Why would she of all people want to know if I had a boat? She’s afraid of water. I knew that just as well as I knew my own name. I’d had countless dreams that I could call on that showed that very
real
fear. I took in a somewhat relaxed breath. Without even knowing it, she had given me a new tool to hash out my dreams. To separate her from Willow. Willow had no fear of water; she nearly craved it.

Moments like this, and my time in The Realm, led me to believe that I never once lived a life of peace with Willow. With us, it was raw passion. Passion that is only found in the gallows, a passion that claimed one last sensation.

With Madison Marie, every moment was seduction. It was more powerful than any last kiss. My dreams and my recent private moments with Madison Marie told me that the touch of her lips put the very word passion to shame.

Madison Marie wanted a boat. I would give her a hundred.

I saw a spark in her eyes when I came in this room. I saw her breathe in as if she had been holding her breath since the last time I saw her. Her green eyes were invaded with darkness as her pupils expanded. She was seeing me. And I let her. I let her see my new discovery. Let her revel in the fact that though I had kissed Willow in this life, it felt as it always had in the past. I had used Willow as a lifeline, one that led me to Madison. I would forevermore be in Willow’s debt, but I couldn’t worry about that right now. I had to seek redemption, and the only way I could do that was by being honest.

I did love Willow Haywood, but I dare say I was not
in
love with her. I couldn’t give her something I never possessed any more than she could have. Our hearts had been robbed long before our paths had been crossed by a dark fate.

I was staring at the thief that took mine this very second.

~Madison~

Slowly, Drake moved closer to me as his eyes glided across my body. Everywhere he looked, I felt a scorching sensation intensify. It always left a deep, humming sensation in its wake; I had yet to figure out how he managed to do that to me. It was even odder that he was still able to do that to my soul after what I went through. It was like everything about my abilities had been altered with the exception of how I saw and felt him. Strange.

“I didn’t leave you to fight at her side. I left you to defend my kingdom,” he said carefully to me, as if he were expecting me either to erupt with rage or collapse with jealousy.

Drake was with me when I saved Monroe in The Realm. He tried to stop me from hurting myself, and in truth if he weren’t there to help get me out of that fire there is no telling what shape I would be in.

“Who said I had issue with that?” I muttered as I gripped my towel and braced my legs, ensuring that my knees wouldn’t buckle.

His emotions were so strong that I literally felt my soul being wrapped in them.

“This wall is up again,” he murmured, now standing just inches from me.

I must look calm, reserved on the outside. If he knew what was going on inside my head, he
never
would have said that.

My eyes were steadfastly pointed at the ground. That was my defense. “It never had a chance to fall. We lost tonight. Once again…we lost.”

His long fingertips reached for my chin and beckoned me to look up, giving my eyes no choice but to meet those dark, spellbinding eyes of his.

His thumb traced my bottom lip, and there I felt passion so intense that I had to sigh. “Then you shouldn’t be afraid to stare into my eyes,” he said softly.

I sucked in a sharp breath. “I wasn’t afraid before; I was mad. Now I’m neither.” My voice trembled, taking away any strength that I wanted to convey.

“You’re lying.”

“Are you trying to fight with me?” I accused.

He leaned a little closer to me. “You always breathe in audibly just before you speak a lie. You still feel emotions; you just think they are gone because they’re not out of control anymore.”

“If that gives you peace of mind, so be it. I lost several key emotions, and right now I’m numb.”

“Are you, now?” he said as his hand reached for my waist.

“Don’t,” I said as I let my eyes fall.

“Don’t what?” His lips breathed against my temple.

“The first time you kissed me, it was for proof. Like I was applying to be your girlfriend and you wanted to know my qualifications. The second time was to tick off Britain. Now you are going to kiss me just to see if you are my prince, if you can wake me from my emotional sleep.” I stepped back. “Relationships aren’t built like that.”

Long before I felt his emotion shift to agony, I felt horrible for saying that—after I felt that, I just wanted to find a hole to hide in. Because it was a lie. Each time he’d kissed me before, I could swear the Earth moved beneath my feet. His mind right now had reflected images that led me to believe he felt the same way. He let me see every memory he had of when our lips touched, in both the present and the past.

Last night when he took me home, we went to one of my hangouts. There I saw Anna, the girl Britain had cheated on me with. Of course, Britain showed up a few moments later. We ignored him and in our own way put on a show for them. Drake leaned into me and kissed me in that crowded diner. It was so slow and so sensual that he had to brace his arm around me when I began to sway. We left right after that, giving the illusion that we wanted to continue our embrace in a more private setting; truth was, I just had to get out of the public scene because the emotions that ranged from shock to jealousy were slicing into my soul, shredding me to bits.

“You can think about our first and second kiss any which way you want. I know what my intentions were. What I was feeling. I knew it the first second I saw you.”

The first time I saw him conscious, he wasn’t even in his body; he was in The Realm on the brink of death. I pulled him back from that cliff, not caring what it would cost me, which would have been my life if Landen weren’t there to save me—he was the healer of our little dysfunctional group.

I smirked. “You did smile when I pulled you from death’s door. You smiled because you thought that Willow had saved you.”
Shut up, Madison. You know that’s a lie.

He reached to pull my chin up again. His other hand clenched my waist. “I smiled because for the first time in this godforsaken life, I saw love looking back at me. I saw devotion. I smiled because I knew you were in love with me. That alone brought me back from death.”

Angry tears welled in my eyes. “And what did you do right after that? Let me think. Right, you told Willow that it didn’t matter that she found someone that looked like her, that you loved her soul.”

Those dark eyes became denser; the pull in them had me under his spell.

Anger saturated his emotions. “We have been over this at least three times now, Madison Marie. You of all people should know that the palace is haunted. That I have to say and do things in certain rooms to fool said ghosts or demons.”

“So you were on stage?” I said with ire in my tone.

“I’m always on stage. And if you think for one second I was going to give Donalt or any other demon a reason to target you, the one soul that gets me in a glance, then you have lost your mind, too.”

Truth. But the words still hurt. “If ruling a damned kingdom doesn’t pan out for you, then you should sign up for improvisational acting; you have a raw talent.”

My words brought pain to his eyes and regret to his soul. “I can’t do this, Madison. I can’t spend every precious second I have with you defending what I have done, how or why I feel the way I do about Willow. At some point, she was in a past life of mine, and I have been groomed to believe that she was mine, that she would be my queen. I knew her energy was off the first time I saw her, but I assumed it was because of this hell that I knew was about to break loose. I assumed that my own emotions were taking her in differently. Every time I even bothered to mention to Alamos that she was not right for me, within hours something would happen to her, to me, to the kingdom, to my family. Something that put me right at her side. I’ve been played, and I’m over it. If you truly have no emotions, then you are bound to see all of this with reason. You will be able to see my actions as they were—a mistake that I was forced into. And if that is the case, then forgiveness should be given to me.”

Bold. Especially since I could sense he didn’t believe that reason was on his side.

“And if I did still have emotions, as you think I do?” I pushed, knowing I could still feel anger and jealousy all too well.

“Then I’m prepared to prove to you that under it all…I was looking for you.” My heart hammered so loudly that I was sure that he had heard it. He absently glanced to my chest, then to my eyes. “Am I forgiven …?”

I hated it when he did that. When he demanded an answer to a question that I had created on my own. If I told him that being with him right now was bringing me back around, he would take it as a sign that we could overcome the recent past and find a way to get to know one another. If I told him I had no emotions, then I would have no choice but to see the logic in the path he had taken and give him the forgiveness he was asking for, but I was not a liar; until I could look at him and not see Willow, I would not be able to get over this bitter jealousy that was eating me alive.

“Logic always needs proof.”

He sighed, then clenched his jaw. After a brief moment, he said, “Pack your bags.”

“Let me see if I understand this. You’re asking me to move into a palace? A place where you have to ‘act’ like you’re in love with Willow for the sake of God knows how many dark people or lurking Escorts, and by watching you do that I will have proof that you were looking for me all the while?”

Those eyes did a slow once over on my slightly trembling body. “I know you still feel my emotions, Madison Marie. So, yes. Even if you had to watch me do that, you would know where my true emotions lie.”

Silence erupted all around us as our underlying issue, Willow, was placed on the table.

“I’m not going to lie. I do love her…it’s just not the same kind of love.”

I felt sick to my stomach and had to step away. I liked it better when I was numb.

He gripped my arm. “I grew up at her side. Saw her every single month. I’ve watched her die and come back to life. In the last few months, I have been through hell because of that girl. I went through that hell with my head held high simply because I love my people and I have been told that the only way to save them was to love her. So I did. I do.”

He sucked at wooing girls. I wanted to be lied to right now. He was too blunt for me.

He dipped his head so he could catch my gaze. “Madison Marie, I have never looked at her the way I look at you.”

“And how do you look at me?” I asked in the firmest voice I could manage.

An ironic smile lit upon his eyes. “The same way my dad looked at my mom…you have caused me to relive every single word my father said to me when I was too arrogant to listen to him, and that hurts just as bad as the rejection you have given me from day one.”

My ability to see into the thoughts of others had given me the perfect tool to analyze Drake at his core. I was never able to see everything I wanted, but I knew for sure that most of the time his thoughts centered on his dad. That when he looked at Willow, he heard his father in his mind, telling him he would know when he was face-to-face with his soul mate. That the way he saw the world would instantly change. He tried to see the world differently around Willow, but the only change was how much darker it became, how much more impossible the world seemed.

Even though I never met his dad, I felt like he was talking to me, too. The way I saw the world did change when I discovered that Drake was real, literally.

Drake had killed his father by accident just a few months ago, and he was nowhere near over that. The old me wanted to fix him, tell him that he would move through this, and then ensure that he did. The new me, the one that was going to exploit this lack of fear I had, wanted to chase obsession. If I went with him, I would find a way to do both—and maybe, just maybe I could figure out if I had the will to forgive this boy that I had longed for.

I trusted him to keep me safe, to keep me alive to fulfill the fate before me, and that says a lot.

“If I come with you, I have conditions,” I stated evenly.

“Listening.”

“You are going to give me free reign to chase my obsessions.”

He smirked and then nodded once.

“You are going to keep me safe.”

“Always,” he breathed.

“And you are going to take me to meet your dad.”

I knew from being around Willow and Landen’s family that there was a dimension that was filled with peace and bliss; in this place, the soul of Drake’s father, Livingston, resided. His other brothers, even his mother, had seen him there. Drake was the only holdout, and I really believed that if he faced the ghost of his father he would see that that man forgave him instantly.