Shattered Skies - Night Waves (19 page)

“I can’t make you listen to my words but I can make you feel them.” With one swift motion the ring was off my finger and
lying on the pillow beside me.

“Akia! No! Please put that back on, you have no idea what you are doing. I need that ring.” He was just looking down at me, his eyes still fresh with pain.

“What’s the matter Cat? What else could you possibly be hiding from me, that you need this ring to keep me out?” He knew way too much about the ring, how it worked and what it did. I guess me and Jace were going to have to have a long talk about keeping secret tokens secret.

“I am asking you to please put my ring back on and to untie me so I can get out of here. I can’t be the person you want me to be and you are way too smart to think that there are more than two options here as far as we are concerned.” I was really hoping he wouldn’t ask what those two options were because I knew how bad it was going to hurt to admit them and I didn’t know if I was ready for that just yet.

“Well Cat, I think that you owe me at least the chance to choose between the two. So why don’t you go ahead and fill me in.” His voice was taunting me now. “I don’t know what it is but when I am this close to you, angry or not, I just have to touch you.” He was right. I craved the feel of his hand trailing along my cheek and he was making it so hard for me to stay upset. If I wasn’t angry with him, I would never be able to hurt him. Damn it!

“Please stop touching me your Majesty. You aren’t making this easier on either of us. You know you have to either kill me or you have to let me go. I promise if you choose to let me go, I will disappear and you can forget that all of this happened.” As the words spilled from my mouth in a lying rush, I couldn’t stop the tears from slipping out and running down my face. Stupid girl, he was never going to believe that you didn’t care about him if you couldn’t even talk about leaving
him without turning into a crying mess.

“You really think I am going to risk putting myself through losing you again? I get it now. I am a big bad monster and you hate me Cat, but you can’t argue with me about how amazing this feels.”

I should have clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t move away from him because he was holding my face between his strong hands. When his mouth touched mine it was all I could do not to cry out for him.  I needed this man like I needed oxygen. Why couldn’t I believe that he needed me as much? I was nothing compared to him. Nothing at all, and in a world where humans are living on borrowed time and monsters live forever, he didn’t need me at all. This had to be just a way for him to delay the inevitable.

“Is that what you really believe Kitten?” 

His mouth was on mine, his tongue was setting my body on fire so I knew that he was talking to me through my mind and not through ordinary speech.

“Akia if you care about me at all please don’t do this.”  It was amazing how my body went on
moving on its own while my mind grew wrapped up in his.

“I have no intention of stopping. You are going to experience once and for all how I feel about you. How hurt I was and just what you mean to me now.”

With my face in his hands, there was nothing that I could do but give in and let him show me the truth. I saw it all. I saw how I looked to him the first time he saw me. I felt the pangs of jealousy that he felt when I danced with the other men at the Ball that night. He was watching me and I looked like an exotic beautiful creature in his mind. I saw the next morning all over again, how he woke up and saw me laying lifelessly in his bed, and how he had suffered. He made me live through my own death in his mind again and again until it hurt so much I could stand the images no longer. He was angry and he used both the scenes in his head and his kisses to let me how deep his pain and anger went.

I was a panting piece of flesh, out of control, a quivering combination of tears running down my face and a moving tongue working hard to keep up with his. I couldn’t break his hold on me and the images kept getting stronger and worse. I saw all the nameless people that he had torn apart and drained. He even allowed me to see that he had mourned each one when he was finished with them. I was lost to him and nothing could fix that; no amount of spilled blood could replace the loss of me. He carried me forward in his head, all the way up to the Hunt. I saw myself kissing Jace through his eyes. To Akia, I was just a random human. He had been happy to rip me away from Jace. I felt him get excited. I knew that it made him happy to destroy the bonds between humans. For a second the thought crossed his mind to kill me and let Jace go, just so he could make someone else feel as lonely and abandoned as he did.

When his teeth sank deeply into my neck back in that cave, he had felt a spark. I had felt it too, electricity building, and he drank on and on because he had sensed that he had regained some semblance of the feeling of me that he craved. Akia was so lost in blood lust at that moment that he had stopped paying attention to Jace. He was consuming me and he didn’t care what the man in the corner was doing.

When Jace finally got the ring off my finger I felt the sharp stabbing pain go through Akia’s head. It made me gasp between my needy moans. I felt his confusion. He hadn’t known what was happening. All that filled him was one thought, she was here. It wasn’t until I let myself call out to him in my head that he registered what was going on and stopped. I felt his heart leap. He was ecstatic. She was back! Through some twist of fate, he had received another chance to have me. His mood vanished quickly when he looked down at my ravaged neck. I could see Jace through his eyes. Jace frantically waving his arms, and then ordering Akia to drop me, it was all there for me to see. 

When a memory got too much for him to relive he would shut it off and move on to the next moment that had been seared inside him. He was there watching me sleep. Hour upon hour, he sat talking to me, begging me to open my eyes, willing me to just give him one chance to make everything all right.  I was crying again. He was letting me see his soul and what I sa
w scared me. Akia was without doubt, a hundred percent in love with me and he was done with hiding it.

I was so hoping that this was the end. He had shown me what he needed me to see, and I hoped he was finished. I knew I wasn’t that lucky, I knew that he wasn’t going to let me alone the moment I felt him probing deeper and deeper into my mind. I had to make sure that he
didn’t see Kira, not yet. I knew that I could block off bits and pieces of my consciousness if I shut down the right parts of myself. I also knew that I could block only one thing at a time. I was going to be almost totally wide open to him and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“Akia I am asking you one more time not to do this.” I sounded so weak and lost. I knew that he could hear the desperation in my voice, even though words never escaped my lips.

“What’s the matter Kitten? Didn’t you miss me the way I missed you? Of course you didn’t. You had the other two fools to take care of you.” He was turning to anger again. I had just seen things that he wasn’t sure he wanted me to see and now he was going to take memories from me and there was nothing that I could do to stop him.

I had exactly two seconds to decide what I was going to block from his sight. I had to decide between what would hurt him, and what might
damage the rest of us even more. There had to be a happy medium, right? I knew that there wasn’t but I could pretend. If he saw me with Darien or Jace that would hurt him badly, and hurting him was the last thing that I wanted to do right now. I couldn’t save him from himself. I had begged him not to push but he was too stubborn. If I let him see Walker, there was a chance he would decide that he had to piece everything together and turn us all in. If I let him see Kira, he would definitely go search for her and all would be lost.

A split second impulse led me to block Kira
from my head and for the moment, she ceased to exist to me completely.

I blocked what I could and I let him see everything that remained. He saw that I hurt for him. He saw that I ached for him and that was good. I needed him to see that. I needed him to see the nights I cried myself to sleep, wishing that I could have just one more kiss, or at least the chance to say good bye. The difference between what he was seeing and what I had seen was closure. I desperately wanted to see him again for closure and he had wanted to see me to make me love him. But no, I couldn’t let it look the way it did. I didn’t want it to seem like I was the heartless monster except that is exactly what it was.  I knew the deeper he got into me, the
more and more crushed he was going to be. The moments that I spent with Darien, the vast battles that I had with myself, the memories of times when I was sure that I could spend the rest of my life without Akia, they were all there; every single one of those moments were there. My inner most self was exposed.

His kiss deepened. He needed to make sure he got every last drop of me before he left me an invaded shell.
Next, he saw Drake. I felt shock and hurt and betrayal hurl through Akia’s body as he watched his best friend kidnap me, abuse me and rape me. I felt the pang of confusion when he saw me with Jace for the first time, laying there tied to the bed, much like I was now. None of this was making sense to him. I thought for a brief second he would stop and just let everything connect in his mind but he didn’t. He pushed forward, sorting through my memories, inspecting them and then leaving them scattered like pieces of trash that could never be swept. Drake’s words were etched permanently into his mind, as if written with acid. I could feel the burn and the scars settle in place and then what he saw next made me fear for my life again, because I knew it might be all it would take to put him over the edge and end me.

He saw me giving myself to Jace. It wasn’t the sex that hurt h
im; it was the fact that he watched me willingly giving all my trust to a stranger. I was certain that in that second, I betrayed him more than even Drake. He was right. I was stupid, unworthy, and I had trusted another man enough to tell him everything about me. Akia would never look at me the same again. Love me or not, I was no longer innocent in his eyes. Lucky for me, he didn’t stop and examine things more closely, his morbid curiosity kept him moving rapidly on to my next memory, greedy to see more. He was in a frenzy of self-destruction, trapped in a nauseous search for things that could only hurt him more.

I could hear his thoughts. He was so close to letting go that it would take only one more image to make him believe that he could truly end the bond between us forever.

I had no other sins or betrayals to show him. He had seen me at my worst and still he was there. Other than visions of Kira, he had seen all I had hidden. The last thing left for him to see was my heart springing to life when I saw him in back in the cave; how I wasn’t afraid of dying, how I was more afraid of seeing hate fill his eyes when he realized that I was nothing but human.

He saw in my eyes that I loved him so, that the thought of disappointing him was what pushed me towards closure. He saw that I wanted to give him the chance to be free of me
; that I believed he would better off without me. And then suddenly he had seen everything, ever horrid thought and action, and I had nothing left to hide.

As soon as I had given him all he needed to see, he broke our kiss. I didn’t even know it was happening, but somewhere along the line I had started sobbing again. I wasn’t feeling my pain but feeling his instead. There were no words for the pain that I’d caused him and I had never realized the depth of it. I was walking through life missing him, yes,  but I was moving on while he was just stuck in the motions of living, doing anything and everything that he could to get just a second of me back. How had I let this happen?

“Please stop crying Kitten.” His hands were shaking as he wiped away my tears. “I don’t know what to do now. All I know is that I am in love with you and you are a human that is in love with two others. I saw straight into your tender heart, I saw your confusion so there is no denying
it, and right now if that is the best I can do, to live with those two others in your heart, then I will accept it. It is a glimmer of hope to work with; something I can hold dear and cherish.”

“Please stop Akia,” I whispered in soft soothing tones, “How can you not see that you have to let me go? There is no us. There can’t ever be. I am not risking your life to be with you, you must understand that!”
But he paid me no attention. I He slammed his fist down on the night table and the room seemed to shake.

“All I know
is that right now I am going to find that son of a bitch and I am going to tear him apart for what he has done to you.” And with that he turned his back to me and was gone. I was left there alone, tied to the bed and hoping that he had been talking about Drake and not one of the other two men in my life.

With the door shut securely behind him Akia was finally free to let his guard down. He wanted blood and he didn’t care whose it was. Not only had he let a human female taint his judgment, but worse, he had let this pathetic human claim a piece of his heart. He had let himself get sucked in and now action had to be taken to make up for his loss of control.  Damn these emotions! He knew what had to be done. He had to kill his way out of it. He had messed things up and there was only one way to fix it and the burden was his to bear. If anyone found out about the dirty little secret lying in
the bed behind the closed door in front of him, his life would be savagely ended along with hers. He was many things, but ready to die was not one of them.

Akia spent the next twenty minutes roaming his castle creating a bl
ood bath of proportions that would never be forgotten. One by one he killed the guards that had devoted their lives to protecting him. These men were more than friends; they were the only family that he knew. He had grown up with them from childhood and now he was coldly ripping them apart, one by one. Most of them never fought back, they stuck to their training and protected their King from harm by standing at attention while he slaughtered them; they refused to defend themselves and went willingly to their death. It was the most bizarre thing he had ever seen and it made him almost happy to end their stupid lives.  He knew that as of late his behavior had been so erratic that no one would bother to question a temper tantrum that lead to the deaths of the twelve guards that formed his personal guard. They were the only people beside him and Drake that knew that Cat existed. Just the thought of Drake’s name made the blood run hot and fast through Akia’s half dead veins.  He would get his revenge. He would give Drake a chance to beg for his useless life and then he would kill him slowly, savoring and remembering every pain filled scream. When Drake teetered on the line between life and eternal darkness, Akia would relish the fear in his eyes.

By the time Akia approached the last guard the blood was dripping from his face. The redness of their blood against his flawlessly tanned skin made his raged filled eyes glow and pop with the promise of another fresh kill. Animal instinct had t
aken possession of him right around kill number eight. That was when he had gone from numb to loving every minute of the mass murder he was committing; an illusion of Godhood filled him and he smiled and strutted and licked the blood from his hands. He alone was the strongest. He alone had the strength to live while lesser beings died by his hand. He would prevail.

He knew for a fact that it would take a day or two to put a new staff into place. That would give him just enough time to get a tighter grip on the situation, and more than enough time to figure out what to do with Cat. Her name no longer made his bloo
d boil, instead her image dancing in his head made him want nothing more than to go to her and kiss her again and again. He needed to invade her deepest thoughts like an addict needs a fix. Before he realized it he was on the move again. His mind was transfixed in an endless cycle of one emotion fighting then fleeing the next and suddenly in a burst of insight, he clearly saw himself as she did; he
saw
the monster that she was so convinced he was! Whatever the truth, it mattered little now. He knew that he would go back to her soon enough just as he was.

In a flash he was outside of her room and more confused than when he had left.  He was tempted to
break through the door and press his pretty sin to his blood soaked body. She was stubborn that one, the most stubborn bitch that he had ever met and he knew his life would be a lot less complicated if he disposed of her quickly and forgot her.  He was shaking. He devoted every ounce of willpower that he had to stopping himself from breaking through that door and snapping her pretty little neck. He longed to hear the crack. She had all but begged him to do it. Catalina the actress he thought and an evil grin filled his mind. She was such a good actress that she had fooled even the King. But being good wouldn’t be enough to save her this time. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut, she had more than proven that, and her loose lips made her a deadlier loose end. If he let her live, his life would depend on how she reacted to the fact that he knew what she was and that scared the hell out of him. It meant that he was giving her the power to hold his life in her lying human hands. 

The only people that he had ever considered family were gone now, reduced to frayed body parts strewn about dimly lit hallways. He had slaughtered his guards to save the woman tied down in his bed, tied because she would run away if her bonds were loosened! Was everything lost? He quietly traced his fingers down the door to the room that held her and he studied the red streak he had inadvertently painted. Then
suddenly a decision flashed in his mind and he quickly turned and vanished into the dark of the corridor, walking rapidly through the blood of his fallen guards. As he put more distance between himself and Cat, he looked down at the dark stains beneath his boots and he shuddered, helpless and lost; as the feeling that he had just signed his own death warrant grew stronger with each step he took.