Eternal Island (Book 1 in the Eternal Series) (22 page)

“Fire!”

Like before, it exploded out of her hand. She focused her mind on making it smaller and the fire shrunk obediently. She moved her hand away, and the fire followed, moving horizontally. She strengthened the force of its flame, and for once she felt well in control. She made the flame get longer and longer until she torched a rose bush.

She rapidly told the fire to go away, took a big breath and flung her hands at the burning bush shouting “Water!” Again, water came out of thin air and drowned the blazing bush.

After telling the water to stop, she turned and faced Lidia and Abe. Lidia was clapping and Abe was on his knees, moving his hands up and down in the air as if he were paying homage to a goddess.

Ariana smiled. “I can dream walk, too. Just ask Abe.”

“Yes, she can. She doesn’t knock, either.” He paused. “That’s it!” Abe jumped to his feet and shouted, scaring Lidia half to death.

“What’s it, Abe?” Lidia asked with her hand over her heart.

“Ariana, is there a range on your dream walking?”

“I don’t think so. I went into Janie’s dream and Rainey said that was about fifteen hundred miles from here, I think. Why?”

“Can you go into Max’s dream without him knowing and figure out where he is?” Abe asked.

Lidia put her hand on his arm. “No, Abe, just let it go. He isn’t here and that’s all that matters. I’m fine, thanks to this wonderful woman.” She placed her hands gently on the very obvious bulge of her abdomen, thankful she didn’t have to wear baggy clothes to hide her delicate condition any longer. “I’m just thankful I didn’t tell him I was pregnant a week ago, before Ariana showed up, or I might not have had a chance to meet her at all.” Abe still looked uncertain, but Lidia effectively stopped the conversation. “All this walking has tired me out. If you’ll excuse me, I think I will retire for the night. Goodnight, Abe.” She walked to Ariana and embraced her. “You are truly God-sent. Thank you again for everything you’ve done for me and my baby.”

Lidia pulled away and turned around once more to wave good bye before she retreated into the palace, leaving Ariana and Abe to stand in the gardens alone.

He began walking west through the garden and Ariana fell into step beside him. The maze of the flower garden ended at a line of trees. Ariana noticed there was a cleared path with large stepping stones leading farther into the woods. She hesitated. Abe held out his hand.

“There are no lions or tigers or bears and if there were, I would make them into rugs and purses for you.”

Ariana took his hand as he led her into the forest. “So you’ve seen the movie, too?”

“I wasn’t born yesterday. Ha-ha, I guess you know that by now. We do have televisions and blu-ray and DVD players here, just no normal TV broadcasts. We have a movie theatre, too. You can rent movies from the library. I think we might even have a VCR or two that are still functioning. Who needs TV anyway? There’s never anything good on cable. ‘The Wizard of Oz’ is a classic and happens to be one of my favorites. You should come to my room sometime, to watch a movie. I have a huge collection…” Ariana shot him a look. “I promise I’ll be good. Bring Michael; I won’t mind.”

Ariana raised an eyebrow at him and smiled. “I… we might just do that.”

Abe led her around a bend and the path opened to a breathtaking scene. There was a waterfall pouring into a fresh water pond in the middle of a beautiful clearing. Ariana stared in awe as Abe tugged on her hand. She wondered if it was just her or if Abe felt the tingling she was feeling, too.

He towed her down a narrow path to the waterfall and, as they got nearer, Ariana realized there was an opening behind the waterfall, a cave of some sort.

“Are we going in there?”

Abe smiled. “Are you scared? I won’t let anything get you. Don’t you trust me? I am the strongest being on earth, you know? I could catch a cheetah and tie him in a knot.” Ariana smiled and that’s what Abe was waiting for. He took something out of his back pocket and a beam shot out, lighting their surroundings. “I thought you would feel safer if you could see where you were walking.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that you planned all of this. You carry a flashlight everywhere you go?”

Abe thought fast. “I was out, looking for Max in the dark.”

“Oh, so vampires don’t have night vision, then?”

He was stumped, and she must have been able to tell he was floundering, so he gave up and told the truth. “I did plan it, kind of. I hoped you would go for a walk with me and this was one place I wanted you to see. It’s so beautiful. I just didn’t know if we would make it here tonight or not, so I came prepared.”

“Thank you, Abe. You don’t have to prove anything to me. All I need is to trust you. Can’t you see that? Just tell me the truth and everything will work out on its own. I can’t promise it’ll be exactly as planned. Then again, it might be better, you never know.”

Abe wanted so bad to kiss her right then, but he refrained.

“Good idea,” Ariana said, smiling.

“Which one, exactly?” He shined the flashlight on her face. Abe knew what she was going to say, but he just wanted to hear it come out of those pretty lips.

“The one about you holding back. I don’t think it would be wise of you to kiss me right now.”

Abe moved closer to her so the glow of the flashlight caught his face, too. His lips were only a couple of inches from hers. “What would happen, Ariana? Would you hate me, or are you afraid that you would fall in love with me? I can’t read your mind, but I bet when you were in my dream and you saw us… I bet you wanted it to be you, didn’t you? I bet that, just like me, you can’t get me out of your head. Other than Michael, I don’t see what is holding you back. Can you not feel the electricity between our hands?” Abe lifted their joined hands and Ariana knew he felt it, too. “I won’t cross that line until you allow me to. I respect you more than that.” Abe made his lips come within a millimetre of hers. “I love you, Ariana, and that you can trust.”

Ariana’s heart actually skipped a few beats, and it only found a steady rhythm again when Abe handed her the flashlight, let go of her hand and started moving on without her.

Abe disappeared into the cave. “You coming?” His voice sounded loud and sure. “There is something special I’d like to share with you, but you will have to come in here to see it, I can’t bring it out.”

She shined the light in the cave and found he was standing only about five feet in, with his hand outstretched towards her. When she took his hand again, the energy was stronger than before and she wished she hadn’t been such a coward when he wanted to kiss her. He was right, she did think about him all the time and she had wished it was her in his dream instead of the made-up, dream Ariana. What scared her most was that, if she fell in love again, something bad would happen to Abe, too. She couldn’t allow herself to be happy like that again, and then see her world come tumbling down, crushed to pieces. Her heart wouldn’t survive it, not again, not even with all her new witch powers. Ariana was positive she was falling in love with Abe, but she kept it locked up inside, where bad things couldn’t touch it. Still, the next time Abe thought of kissing her, she wouldn’t stop him.

“Watch your…”

Ariana lost her footing on the slippery rocks and started to slide down an embankment that was full of sharp pointy rocks shards, ending up in a pool of black water with God knew what in it.

“Step.”

Abe had his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. Ariana laid her head where his heart should have been thumping, but there was no sound. She hadn’t had the chance to be scared when she’d slipped, and right now, being up against his body was where she wanted to be.

Instead of pulling away, Ariana wrapped her arms around Abe’s back and just held him.

“How come you’re warm? Your heart isn’t beating, but you are… warm to the touch.”

Her near-miss had had a different effect entirely on Abe. It scared the shit out of him that she’d almost gotten hurt. He would have never forgiven himself if he’d failed to catch her in time. He was so scared, he was shaking. He just couldn’t work out if he was scared because she’d almost got hurt or because she was this close to him, in his arms for real, the way he’d always dreamed she would be.

And then her question to him, in a moment as blissful as this, was ‘how come you’re warm?’ Go figure.

Abe hurried to unscramble his thoughts enough to formulate an answer that wouldn’t make her think she’s hugging an idiot.

“Um… A vampire’s blood is alive. It is a living thing, and that’s what makes us immortal. The blood never dies. Vampire blood lives off the blood of mammals and moves on its own through our veins. Sunlight, fire, decapitation or a lack of blood are the only things that can destroy vampire blood. The blood also makes us incredibly strong and fast. If Max had really wanted to swim to the States, he could have pulled it off in a couple of hours. Hell, I could have done it in a hurricane in that time or less. If we get hurt, we can heal in a matter of minutes.” Abe had just noticed that she hadn’t moved at all. “Are you okay, Ariana? Did that near miss shake you up? I’m sorry I didn’t think to tell you…”

“No, no, no. I’m fine. I was just listening to you; you have a nice voice. Nothing’s wrong, except for my heart going crazy.”

Ariana chewed on her lip wondering how she was going to explain this one. It had slipped out and now there was nothing she could do about it. She had just told him a little while earlier that in order for her to trust him he had to tell her the truth, and all the while she’d been lying to herself.

“Here, come over here and sit down. Why is your heart going crazy? Did you use too much magic? Is it because you almost fell?” Abe sat down with her and pulled her close. “What is it, Ariana? Talk to me. You’re starting to scare me.”

“I’m scared, too,” Ariana said. It was the fall that shook her up, but not the one he was referring to. She had fallen, all right… in love with him.

“Why are you scared? Tell me so I can make it better, please.” Abe rubbed her back with his hand.

Ariana sighed. It was time she stopped lying – to him and, most of all, to herself. Time to face up to the inevitable. “I’ll tell you. But I’m not sure if it changes anything.”

Abe was confused. “Okay.”

“I have deliberately been trying not to fall in love with you, mostly because of Michael. I mean, not because of him, but because of what happened to him. I lost him, Abe. Everything was fine one minute, and the next, he was pulled out of my life, and I lost it. Michael was my life. I’ve only just realized that my life will go on, with or without him. But if it ever happened to me again, I don’t think I could live though it. Not again. I wouldn’t want my life to go on and, if I was immortal, there is no way I could spend eternity without you. If something happened to you… There would be two men that I loved, that I would never see again. Don’t you see? I’m not strong enough to go through that kind of pain again.”

Abe cupped her small chin in his big hand and turned her face to his. She couldn’t see him well because the flashlight had fallen out of her hand and rolled into the water, but he could see her and the tears pooling in her eyes. Oh, please don’t cry, he thought.

“I’m immortal, Ariana. I don’t break that easily. I promise I’m not going anywhere. Take all the time you need to make your decision, but you need to know that I’m never giving up on us. So, when you’re ready to jump, I’ll be here to catch you when you fall.”

Damn, he wanted to kiss her so bad but he’d made a promise…

“Do it,” Ariana whispered.

Abe was stunned for a few seconds, before he realized what she meant. She wanted him to kiss her. He held her face in his hands and, gently and unhurriedly, touched his lips to hers. The jolt that went through their bodies as their lips touched was like a bolt of lightning, melting them together. Abe deepened the kiss and knew he was completely and truly lost to her forever.

I love you, Ariana. Fall and I’ll catch you
, he thought. She reached her hands around his neck and pulled herself onto his lap to kiss him back.

They were both breathless when she finally pulled away and laid her head on his shoulder. And then Abe heard five words he would never forget as long as he walked the Earth.

“I love you too, Abe.”

C
HAPTER 31

Abe held her close. He knew they needed to get up and leave before this one kiss escalated into something much, much better in his book. That was something that wasn’t going to happen in a dark cave where she couldn’t see the love he had for her in his eyes. He didn’t want her to regret anything about it, either, and as long as Michael was still here there was a good chance she would hold back or have guilty feelings.

Abe wanted everything they did together from now on to be perfect. And he could wait for her. He would wait for her forever, if he had to. That kiss was the second best thing he had ever felt, because Ariana had gone and topped it right away with those five magic words.

He had to be physically glowing; he felt as if he were. There was no way he would be able to hide the smile that was stretched across his face, from Michael or anyone else. And the guy was smart enough to figure out that he’d just scored first base with his girl. Abe felt bad for breaking his promise, but Michael hadn’t exactly been made to watch, had he? The opportunity had presented itself and Abe took it. What could he have done? Refuse Ariana’s request for a kiss? He would have been mad to refuse, and he felt mad happy and crazy with lust now. Of the two kinds of madness, he decided the one he’d ended up with was preferable by far. He grinned.

“Come on. We lost the flashlight; it’s at the bottom of that pool, down there. You won’t be able to see what I was going to show you without it, so we’ll have to come back some other time.” He helped Ariana off his lap and held onto her hand as he got up. A small chuckle escaped his lips.

“What’s so funny?” Ariana asked.

“I’m surprised you have to ask. Well, it’s not really funny, it’s just I feel lucky again. You can’t see and I get to carry you out of here.” Abe swept her off her feet and walked out of the cave. He set her down outside the entrance. The moonlight was bright enough that she could see the bottom of the pond. It was so clear.