Shattered Skies: Beginning's End (14 page)

“Well Kitten, you do ask a lot of questions. Let’s take them one by one. This is my house; so make yourself at home. Sit by the fire if you like; it’s quite nice. I knew Darien was with you because I was watching you two, and I might add it was a hell of a show for a while, a little frustrating because you were too far away and I couldn’t make out the details on your pretty face in the middle of your passion, nor could I hear the words that sent him flying out of your apartment, but I got what I could.” 

Once again I felt that I should be alarmed but I couldn’t make panic take over. After all, he said that the details were fuzzy; that was good right?

“He loves you, I can tell, and I also know that somewhere inside of your heart, though you like to deny it, you are in love with him too.” Why was I not arguing with him?  “Lastly Kitten, I am sorry but it does concern me. You couldn’t make love to him because you were thinking of me. I was the thought in the back of your mind that stopped you in the middle of all that lust. I didn’t just stop you
, I made you throw him off the bed. That was very amusing to me.” His laugh danced through my head like a song that deserved to be sung.  He sounded smug again and that made me feel a little more alive, alive enough that I knew I had to say something. This wasn’t at all normal and I was going to get to the bottom of it once and for all.

“Wait! Stop a minute. How do you know all of this? More importantly, just so you know, you are wrong.”  

“Kitten you are going to have to be a little more specific. I answered a lot of questions just now. You a
re going to have to be clear as to what it is that you are disagreeing about.”  

“I stopped because we were moving too fast; it had nothing at all to do with you. I don’t even know you. Darien is my best friend. I didn’t want to ruin that with sex, which is something that you would understand if you would spend less time chasing girls that are not interested in you, and more time paying attention to the ones that you are supposed to be with. I mean you are the King after all. I am sure that some perfect woman was born and raised to spend the rest of eternity serving as your wife.” Even to myself I sounded way too relaxed and even more uncertain.  

“Fight with me all you want Kitten. I can’t explain it either, but I know I am not alone in this. I know you feel the electricity and sparks when I touch you. I thought it was all a game; that you were doing it through some kind of illusion, but the truth is, you are just as puzzled by the feelings we share as I am.” He sounded as confused and unsure as I should have been feeling, yet his lack of certainty seemed to feed my confidence. 

He was standing beside me; I hadn’t even seen him move. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that you honestly don’t feel this and I promise that I will never bother you again.” 

Before I could stop him, he ran a few fingers along my bare arm. I knew before he did it that I was in trouble. He was right, and as much as I wanted to disagree with him, the brush of his fingertips was all it took, and I couldn’t think about anything else. My world became the feeling of those few fingers trailing my bare arm. I wanted him to touch me everywhere. I wanted my entire body to feel those internal flames again, not just my arm. I don’t know who kissed who, but I knew I was kissing him just as aggressively as I was being kissed. I wanted to climb inside his warm body. I felt him in my mind. We were sharing one soul, one body, and there was no way to explain it. 

I don’t know how I kept letting this happen. There were alarms going off in my head, telling me that nothing OK was happening here. I knew there was something that I couldn’t let him know and I understood that
I was playing a very dangerous game. I knew that if I didn’t come to my senses soon I would die, but there was nothing in my universe strong enough to overpower the feeling of his amazing lips. And as his kiss got more intense, the nagging little voice in my head that was trying to bring me to myself vanished, and I was his and his alone. For that moment I was where I was born to be. Neither of us had a say, neither of us had any influence nor were we strong enough to fight our fate.  I was warm and safe in his arms and I wanted to stay that way forever. Nothing else mattered. No one else existed. We were alone together and it was wonderful and right.

I didn’t know who initiated the kiss but I know he was the one who stopped it. When his lips broke mine, I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was drowning. He was my air and just as suddenly as he had given me permission to breathe, he took it away.  

“Kitten you have to teach these friends of yours better manners, you better go see what she wants. She looks kind of upset.”  

“No I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you just like this. I belong here.” I felt my heart breaking in two. He was getting rid of me and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

“If only it was that simple,” was the last thing that he spoke to me and just like that he was gone and I was floating around, cold and alone back in nothingness.

When I finally realized I was asleep and needed to wake up, I heard someone saying my name. “Cat please wake up
. I need your help! Please wake up!” I couldn’t make myself open my eyes. I licked my lips to try to talk and I realized the woman sitting on my bed calling to me had to be part of my dream too, because I could still taste Akia’s mouth on mine. I decided to snuggle back down into the covers and try to find my way back to him. Besides if the woman shaking me was a dream, she would go away. 

After a few more minutes of her pleading for me to help her, I struggled and got my eyes open. Some dreams are just so annoying that you have to give up and wake
up to end them before they drive you crazy. Much to my surprise, the woman was still there! She was very much real. I licked my lips; that was real too. I was completely confused. There is nothing scarier than not being able to tell where dreams and reality start and stop. It took me a second to recognize Jewel. The look on her face and the ring she was holding out to me made me instantly alert. 

They use to say that everyone in the world had a polar opposite; someone who is a com
plete 180 degrees different than they are. I truly believed Jewel was my extreme counterpoint; she was the perfect little homemaker; she just had a knack for it. Where I was the rebel who spent 90% of my childhood making trouble for myself and Dr. Walker, Jewel was the teacher’s pet that spent most of her time trying to take care of him and make his life easier. I fought until I got what I wanted to make me happy and she studied to be perfect and please everyone else. I loved being on the front lines with the boys where she was content living in the shadows of the men with the other females. She represented everything that I had despised about our upbringing, yet I couldn’t help but love her with all my heart. After Darien, she would be the next person I would go to if I ever needed a friend. She also held the title of Darien’s mating partner. They had been trying for a while to conceive and I knew one day soon she would be mother to his first born child and the rest of his future family.

The day that she told me she was carrying Darien’s child I was excited for her, or at least I was trying really hard to be. She was waiting to hit the three month mark before she told anyone else. The fact that she trusted me with her secret meant the world to me. I smiled and did the girly thing to the best of my ability. I was happy for her even though I knew that Darien would no longer be mine when their baby arrived. I guess in all honesty, part of me hated her because Darien was
promised to her, but the other wiser, less jealous part of me was glad it was her and not one of the other females in the group. If it ever came up, I knew I would trust her with my life, so I guess I should be able to trust her with his.

“Please put this on. I know it is stupid, but when I came in you were dreaming and you said Akia’s name. I know this is probably just a piece of metal but if you wear it, it will make me feel better.”

I would have done anything that she told me right at that moment. She looked so worried and wanting to help that I welcomed the ring she put on my finger. I didn’t know how my dream had happened, but if the Doc’s ring would keep it from happening again, I was all for it. Once it was securely on my finger I felt better. I knew that she did too because she smiled and started talking again.

“Darien came home very upset. He went straight to Dr. Walker’s office and at the top of his lungs demanded that you be taken off the streets. He said you were endangering everyone and that you
were falling in love with the Regent. When Dr. Walker tried to calm him down and make him realize that his imagination was getting the best of him and that you were staying right where you were, things got chaotic.” Jewel paused for a brief moment. She was staring at something that I couldn’t see. I was betting she was seeing everything happen again in her mind. “I have never seen Darien act like that. I know that he is hot headed and a little temperamental now and then, but this time he seemed out of control. He was so mad that it was like he was an animal. He was beside himself. This time it was different.” Jewel ended her thought with a shudder. That shudder alone told a tale beyond what her words had described. 

“Jewel
, just how upset was he? I know him better than anyone else and I have never known him to truly fly off the handle.” As soon as I said that I knew him better than anyone else I wished I could take it back. 

The look she gave me crushed me. I was suppos
ed to be making her feel better and with my last comment, her eyes flared even wilder with fright. “Cat, he wasn’t himself. For the first time in my life, I was afraid of him. I tried to go to him, to calm him down, but the more I tried to soothe him, the more he screamed incoherently. It was like he was a wounded animal. I have never seen anyone act the way he did. It was so bad that the screaming stopped only because because his throat was so raw he could no longer go on. He started throwing anything and everything he could get his hands on. No one could stop him, he was crazy with rage. He completely destroyed Dr. Walker’s office. Then as quickly as he had stormed in, he took off. I don’t know where he intended to go, but I am completely positive that it is going to be bad when he finally gets there.”

Jewel was sobbing by the time she was finished filling me in on what I had missed. I think I just sat there staring at her with my jaw on the floor for a full two minutes before I could recover enough from the shock of her story to realize that I should have been trying to comfort her more than I was. After all, she had just braved walking around with the streets full of monsters to give me the heads up. She deserved consolation. She deserved a purple heart of courage. 

“Ok Jewel, first things first. You have to calm down. You have a baby to think about; the stress is going to hurt both of you. Darien was being childish. I scared him; that is all. He thought I was dead. You know that we have been friends forever. He was really worried while I was gone. I am sure he is just having a few drinks somewhere trying to blow off some steam, but if it will make you feel better, you can hide out here for the night and I will go find him, beat some sense into him, and bring him back to you where he belongs. Maybe you could surprise him early with the fact that he is going to be a Daddy. I am sure that would calm him down.” 

Damn, I was so good at lying; so good in fact, that I almost believed myself. Truth be told, I was really worried about Darien. I had seen him angry quite a few times, but I had never known him to lose control the way Jewel said that he had. I didn’t know that Darien was capable of destroying something as important as Dr. Walker’s office, so I guess I really didn’t know what else he was capable of in his new destructive state. The thought scared me, and I don’t scare easily. Maybe it was time that she told him that she was expecting. He would be so excited by the news that he would forget about me and my problems. Maybe it was time that I grew up. I chose not to be a mating partner. It wasn’t fair for me to keep him from Jewel. She was in all sense of the word his wife and the mother to his soon to be children. I couldn’t compete with that and it wouldn’t be fair to anyone if I tried. As soon as she told him about the baby, I would step out of the picture and let their lives move forward with no more interference from me. Even as I thought it, a little piece of my heart broke. How could I step back from someone that was so close to me that is like we were the same person?

With Jewel hidden safely away for the day, I went off to find Darien and get to the bottom of whatever it was that had him acting that way. Not that I didn’t know it was me, but we had to talk about it. I had to make him understand that I hadn’t pushed him away because of Akia. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship and I didn’t want to ruin his future family either. With those two doubts and so much guilt swirling around in my mind, there wasn’t room for thoughts of Akia to have a role in my decisions.

If it had been anyone but Jewel at my door, I would have ignored them. As bad as I felt, it would have taken a lot more than a worried girlfriend to get me out of my bed. Jewel had managed to keep me grounded and calm my anger many times. I owed it to her to at least try to find him. I also needed to get rid of the pain. That pain in the pit of my stomach that told me something bad was going to happen. Despite being worried about Darien, I still had time for a little self-pity. I didn’t know why so much was happening to me at once. I didn’t ask for my life to get more complicated than it already was. In fact, I didn’t even think that was possible.  I mean, how much more dramatic could life get than seducing monsters that could kill you with one finger?