Sacrifice (7 page)

“What happened?”

“I pulled your energy away.”

“How?”

“All in good time. Now you eat.” He picked up a crystal juice glass off the counter and sat in the chair next to her place setting.

“But—”

He looked up at her with a hard stare. “You have your conditions and I have mine. The first of mine is you let me do this my way. I teach what you need to know when I think you need to know it.”

She glared. “I’m not allowed to ask questions?”

“You can ask all the questions you like. But don’t expect me to answer all of them.”

She sat in the chair and picked up her fork. “I have a lot of questions, so don’t expect me to just sit here and let you spoon-feed me.”

He nodded, his lips pursed. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t have questions. In the past, at this point in the game you’d know all the answers. They would have just come to you. Of course, we never made it to this point before, so it’s all a moot point. But in past experiences, you had memories of your previous lives and your purpose in it all.”

She gave him a hard stare. “I never would have chosen you, you know.”

His gaze held hers, his face expressionless. “I know.”

“I never would have chosen Alex, either.”

“I know this too.”

“Has that ever happened before?”

“No.”

“Did she always love you?”

“No.”

“So sometimes she loved Alex?”

“In the beginning.” He watched her eat with a serious expression, lifting his glass of amber liquid to his lips.

She frowned. “That doesn’t look like orange juice.”

Smirking, he raised the glass to her. “How perceptive of you.”

“A little early in the day to be drinking, isn’t it?”

“You have your vice—loving a human—and I have mine.” He took another drink then grinned.

“You’re creeping me out. This is the second time you’ve watched me eat. Why aren’t you eating too?”

“I already ate hours ago. It’s nearly lunchtime.”

“How long have you done this?”

His mouth lifted into a crooked grin. “Watch you eat or have breakfast before lunchtime?”

They’d spent centuries fucking with her life and he joked about it. “This might go faster if you actually volunteered some information.”

With an exaggerated sigh, he shifted in his seat. “In the very beginning, it was a more level playing field. Our life experiences were fresh each time and it was easier to find one another. Travel was an ordeal and people often didn’t stray more than twenty miles from their homes their entire lives. Consequently, at least in the very beginning, we all often lived in the same village or town. By the time we knew who we really were, we already had a history.”

“How far back does this go? Middle Ages?”

“Further.”

“Prehistoric man?”

He snorted. “It was B.C., but not that distant.”

“But when exactly?”

“What does it matter? Ancient Greece. That specific enough for you?”

She took a sip of her coffee, watching him over the rim. “That’s a helluva long time.”

“You have no idea.”

Centuries sounded so vague until she put it into perspective. For two thousand years this had gone on and on. How could Raphael do this time and time again? To be so close and lose it all again. To lose the person he loved time and time again. But at least he knew he’d see her again at some point in the future. She’d never see Will again. She tried to ignore that Raphael had lost his Emmanuella forever too.

“So go ahead. Ask more questions.”

Taking a bite of her eggs, she looked out the window. “Where are we? It wasn’t this green in Montana and Wyoming.”

He watched her for a moment. “Tennessee.”

“Is this your house?”

He twisted the coffee cup in his hand. “Yes.”

“If I wanted to walk out the front door and turn my back on you, could I?”

He paused. “Everyone has free will.”

She snorted. “Apparently not.”

He leaned forward on the table. “Okay, my turn. Do you want your son back?”

Her fork dropped with a clang. “You really have to ask that question?”

“Apparently you need to be reminded of it.” He looked at her plate and raised his eyebrows. “You haven’t eaten even half of that. We can’t start until you eat more. You need the energy.”

“Again with the energy.” But she knew he was right. Will had figured out that when she used too much, one way to re-energize her was give her food. And his touch. She pushed away the memory of Will’s touch. She couldn’t afford to let her mind go there. Not right now.

Raphael sat back. “I suspect you’ve only used energy from your own body to make fire. But there are other sources. In fact, you should only use your own energy for small things and if there’s no other source. Any other time, you need to pull it from elsewhere. Still, it will be hard on you at first. This is all new to you. Emmanuella…” He paused and took a breath before continuing. “Emmanuella had lifetimes of memories stored. Once she began to remember, she could use those to help her. You have nothing.”

“That’s encouraging.”

He shrugged. “It is what it is. That’s why I got so frustrated with you and Will. Will was supposed to protect you while you regained your memories and learned to channel your power, until you no longer needed the pendant to help you. In the past, once your protector was marked, your human enemies were always hot on your trail. And once you no longer needed the pendant, your protector’s job was done and you released him.”

“So that’s why you got so angry when I said I wasn’t practicing.”

“Practicing always helped the memories return faster. When you told me that Will thought it was too dangerous to use your power, I wanted to kill him. Literally. But you couldn’t come into your full power without him. Aiden set that little trick up just to add complications.”

“You had said you couldn’t be around me or it would inhibit my powers.”

“Yes, but that part’s not important.” He looked away. “Just more of Aiden’s rules.”

She lowered her gaze. “What would have happened if Aiden didn’t steal Will’s memories and I didn’t release him?”

“It was unprecedented. You never loved your protector before.”

“From what you said, me not picking either of you was unprecedented. The whole thing is unprecedented.”

“Very true. Also unprecedented was the length of time for you to prepare. You were usually given months to remember. This time was a month and a half. Then again, there was nothing for you to remember. Honestly, it’s a wonder you didn’t get yourself killed.”

“You already said that.”

“It doesn’t make it any less true.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means the world has tilted off its axis.”

She grimaced. “Very funny.”

“The world may not have literally tilted but the rules of everything have changed. It’s anyone’s guess what happens now.”

Maybe so, but she’d do her best to make sure it wasn’t left up to chance.

Chapter Six

“Again.”

Emma stood in the field, hanging over her bent knees. “In a minute.”

Raphael watched her, his arms crossed. “No. Now. Again.”

“You think it’s so goddamned easy, then you do it.”

The log she’d been trying to move shot ten feet away from her without warning. Raphael put his hands on his hips. “There.”

“Go to hell.”

“Thanks. I’d rather stick around here on earth. Which means you need to try it again.”

She was so tired. She’d never been so exhausted in all of her life, but she’d never admit it to him. It didn’t help that she got little sleep at night. It was the one time she allowed herself to grieve, and she spent most of her time in bed crying for Jake, crying for Will, which left only a few hours for sleeping.

The first two days she was sure Will was there, answering her when she called out for him. But last night, there was nothing but silence. She’d held out hope that her dreams of him meant something, but she forced herself to accept the truth.

Will was dead.

Jake was more difficult. During the day, he kept himself shielded from her, but at night when he slept, he let his guard down. He cried for her in his sleep, smothering her with his fear and loneliness. She tried to answer him, to use their connection to give him comfort, but their connection had become one-way since the night her father changed the rules. All of his feelings flowed out, without her love and reassurance going back.

He thought she’d forgotten him.

In his sleep, he begged for her to come to him and save him. Even if she knew where he was, she couldn’t save him. If she couldn’t move a log ten feet, how would she defeat her father?

Then there were the new dreams, a scene from the vision she’d received in Kansas City after her encounter with the crazy homeless man. It was only one part of the vision, but enough to frighten her. A valley lay below her with multiple fires spread across the landscape, and a voice tickled her ear. “
You are the destruction of the world
.”

If she weren’t so irritated, she would have laughed at the idea. There was little chance of her being the destruction of anything. In two days of practicing, she’d made little progress and Raphael had become more and more frustrated.

“You need to focus. Point your energy to the log and push it with your mind.”

“I thought you were going to teach me how to use other power sources.”

He scowled, anger filling his eyes. “You have to learn how to use your own energy to do simple tasks without killing yourself. Once you’ve accomplished that, you can move on to bigger things. You can’t run until you learn to walk.”

“I’d settle for learning to crawl,” she muttered.

Raphael released a guttural growl. “If you refuse to take this seriously, then we might as well quit now.”

She put her hand on her hip, her anger building. “I’m taking this seriously. I’m the one out here for hours on end trying to do stupid-ass shit like move a log two feet.”

“Then quit talking about it and move it.”

She took her brewing anger and focused the energy on the wood. “Move!”

The log shot sideways a couple of feet, jerking and hopping before coming to a stop.

“No. No. No.” Raphael groaned.

“I’m trying!”

He rubbed his face with his hands. “We’re not getting anywhere, so let’s call it a day. Besides,” he moved in front of her, looking into her face. “You look exhausted, and crying all night isn’t helping matters.”

“What I do in the privacy of my own room isn’t any of your business.”

“Wrong.” He took a step forward, his chest almost touching hers. “Sleeping falls under the same category as eating. It’s obvious that your lack of sleep is interfering with your progress, so you have two choices tonight. You either take medication to help you sleep or you let me help you sleep.”

Fury instantly ignited. She could only imagine how he planned to
help
her go to sleep. “Don’t you even think about touching me.”

“Then you’ll take medication.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I believe this falls under the ‘deemed necessary’ category.”

She’d heard enough and spun around to march back to the house, when he grabbed her arm. His energy flowed through her, filling her with a need for more. She recognized it for what it was now, but she was clueless how to stop the flow. She doubted Raphael would ever teach her how to block it. It was his weapon against her.

“I hate you,” she spit through her gritted teeth, forcing herself to stay in control.

He pulled her against him and stared into her face. “You only think you do. One day you’ll thank me.”

She closed her eyes to weaken her connection to him.

“I can help you forget him.”

Her eyes flew open and she tried to jerk out of his grasp. “No!”

“Think about it, Emma. No more pain. No more loneliness.”

She shook her head, frantic. He was capable of it and she knew he would do it. A sob escaped as she felt her body giving in to his. She had to fight this. “No, please, Raphael.
Please
. I’ve lost everything else. Don’t take that from me too.”

Caressing her cheek, gentleness softened the anger in his eyes. “I only want to help you, Emma. I’m not your enemy.”

“Then please don’t do this.” She hated begging, especially to him, but she couldn’t lose her memories of Will.

“Then tonight you’ll take something to help you sleep and tomorrow we’ll start fresh.” He leaned forward, his lips brushing her cheek before he dropped his hold on her.

She stumbled backward, hate filling her every cell. She hated him for taking advantage of her that way, but she hated her own body and its traitorous reaction even more. One day she’d figure out how to stop it. Then she’d turn it around and use it against him.

***

Will had lost all track of time. His room had been dark since they’d thrown him in and he hadn’t seen anyone since. Which meant he hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink either. Gauging from his hunger and thirst, he suspected he’d been in the room at least a day, perhaps two. He’d finally resorted to crawling to the toilet and drinking from the bowl to stave off dehydration.