“Don’t get sucked into any hair-brained schemes of Marc’s,” he said, peppering my face with kisses. “And let Marc deal with the witch.” He lifted my shirt. “And stay out of sight. Out of the media, and—”
I stopped his words with my lips to his. He gave a grunt of surprise then deepened the kiss, delving into my mouth with his tongue. His hidden essence came alive and called to me on a basic level. My blood sang with a savage need. I grabbed hold of his shirt with my two fists and twisted the fabric, pulling him back onto the mattress of the four-poster bed. He used his hands to brace himself on either side of my head as we fell heavily. His lips left mine for a second from the impact, then he was back again.
“God, I missed this,” he muttered into my mouth. He made long, deep strokes with his tongue.
I was beyond words at that point. I lifted his shirt. Cash tugged it back down and ran his warm hands slowly up my arms to caress my neck. He tasted the spots his hands stroked.
I writhed under his touch and pulled his shirt back up.
He pulled back, eyes glassy. “What’s the rush?”
“I have to meet Marc soon.”
“He can wait.” He resumed his exploration of my body.
I hooked my legs around his hips and popped the button on his pants. “I can’t.”
“No. You’re right,” he said, getting off me in a rush.
“That I can’t wait?” I said in a daze.
He readjusted himself and righted his clothes. “That you have to go, and I’ve waited weeks to be with you. What’s two more days when we will have forever soon.”
“What?” I sat up, everything in disarray, suddenly feeling bereft. “We can be quick. I promise.”
Heat flared in his eyes. “When I have you, Roo, I want to explore every last inch of your body. I want to take it slow, one step at a time.”
I smirked. “One step at a time?”
He smoldered. “One step. Then another. Slow, deliberate baby steps.”
I grabbed a pillow and covered my face then made an exasperated sound. When I came up for air, he was laughing at me.
Chapter 6
When I materialized in Margaret River with water around my ankles, I was in a tight, naked embrace with Marc. This damned mode of traveling was so inconvenient to my dignity. I pulled away and cast him a reproachful look until he clothed me with an illusion-construct, then sloshed toward the sand bank to have a look at our surroundings. We were near the white sands where a brown river mouth met the turquoise ocean and the water melded. The early morning sun caressed my head, and the warm ocean breeze tickled my face. Life teemed around me and every neuron in my body electrified. The water wasn’t just cool and liquid, it purred and buzzed with every soft wave that caressed my ankles. My senses picked up the very soul of the earth.
Lately, it seemed as though the more time I spent in the wild, the more I wanted to roll into it like a cat in catnip. Nature wasn’t pre-conditioned like a human or Seraphim soul, it was raw, unadulterated and naive at the same time. I felt as though I should stay a while and get to know it.
It felt as though it was trying to tell me something.
The more I looked at it, the more I was drawn in, lulled by the rhythmic wash of the waves. The sunlight on the water played in patterns before my eyes, dancing and hypnotizing me. My mind seemed to fall into it, immersing. I could almost hear… something. A conversation. Many. More. I dipped my finger into the water and watched the incoherent voices swirl around. What was it saying?
My heart galloped in my chest and I had a sense that I wasn’t doing something. Not just finding Kitty but something else. I had complete awareness of my surroundings and my mission with Marc, but below me, the ocean almost wailed and keened in despair. It thought I had forgotten it. Left it behind. It was as though it was sentient and it knew me.
Marc made a sound to my right and brought my attention back to focus on our surroundings.
“Why does it hurt?” I asked Marc.
Concern laced his voice. “Did I hurt you in the move, love?”
“No,” I said quietly, eyes and mind still trying to decipher the code of the ocean. “I meant this. The water. Never mind. Forget it. I’m being stupid.”
When I looked up, Marc’s intent gaze was on my face.
I pulled my hand out of the water and trudged to the beach, trying to laugh off my unsettledness. “Marc, when I said take us to Margaret River, Australia, I didn’t mean actually in the Margaret River.”
“Can’t help it, love.” Marc stood next to me, naked as the day he was born. He put his hands on his hips and breathed in deep. “Ah. Smell that? Smells like—”
“Clothes, Marc.”
“Well, no, I was going to say nature. Smells like nature at her finest.”
“I meant, put on some clothes. You should have done it the second you did mine. People could walk around the corner any minute. We need to get to Kitty’s pronto.” I glanced nervously down the beach. All the beaches were beautiful here, but since this was the town’s namesake, it was a popular family tourist spot.
“Right. Clothes.” In seconds he wore summer shorts and a polo shirt.
“Are you sure my clothes won’t disappear?” I asked Marc after seeing how easy he made it look to materialize clothes.
“Although that makes an appealing thought, regrettably no. Once I’ve created the illusion, it’s bound to you.”
“So, it’s real then.”
“In a sense. It’s not made with the same atom arrangement as fabric or leather, but… call it a carbon copy.”
“So when I do eventually need to take it off, I can?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
“You don’t know?”
He shrugged. “I don’t usually need to. The in-between takes care of it for me.”
“But it’s organic, right? Shouldn’t it pass through?”
“It is, but it’s a copy. The magnetic fields holding it together don’t hold up through the in-between for long. Complicated stuff, love.”
“I just want to know I’m not going to flash someone.”
“All good.”
For a moment I was struck with awe. He knew how to arrange atoms! And he talked about it as though it were nothing but an afterthought.
“You’re very clever, Marc.”
“I know. Don’t tell anyone.”
The humor dropped from my face and I frowned thinking about what we might find when we caught up with Eve. Marc was insistent there was nothing to worry about, and I liked believing him, but was I being naive?
“You miss it, don’t you?” Marc asked, watching me with curious eyes that reflected the azure sky around us.
“Miss what?”
His gaze swept our surroundings. “This. Everything. The feel of the sand against your feet. The connection it gives. The communion.”
We stared out at the ocean for a beat.
“You and I both had an affinity with it, love. You more so than anyone alive. This planet was to be your saving grace. Being married to the king, you helped him conquer many lands, but you were never quite okay with the violent destruction, and then he died. You came here to make amends with the universe, to create a world at peace.”
My eyes fluttered closed. I reopened myself to the sun and let the power of life wash over me. The roar of distance waves, the whisper of the wind, the call of seagulls in the air. “I feel as though there’s something there I need to connect with, but I don’t know what it is. I thought this uneasiness I feel is because I don’t want the responsibility of being the queen, or maybe it’s because I just want to run away and live my life without all this Game nonsense, but there’s something else. I sense something else calling me. It’s like I’ve written a list of things to do and there’s an empty spot, or something blacked out.”
“Love, you were supremely connected to the core of the Universe. It’s the real reason you became so powerful. Somehow, you had a way of listening that connected you to the ver
y spark of creation.”
“You make me sound like—”
“Mother Nature? Where do you think the name came from?” He kicked the sand. “It was the nickname your son threw at you. He meant it as a jest, but there was deep hurt in that name. He was jealous of the time you spent nurturing this young planet instead of him. Don’t get me wrong, you didn’t actually make the planet, but you nurtured it.”
“I don’t remember a minute of that tumultuous relationship the queen had with her son.” I cleared my throat, uncomfortable with the association. “Whether she meant to hurt him, or he meant to hurt her, I don’t feel I have any right to judge. If I meet him again, I’d like to think we could start fresh.”
“That’s where you are wrong, love. You are the judge. The only one linked to this great power we were all born into.”
The ocean swelled as if in response to his words, crashing on the shore, reaching for my feet. But it wasn’t rejoicing, it needed, and I felt it to my bones. I had a small inkling what Cash meant when he said my powers had only scratched the surface. When I converted to Seraphim, I’d open the floodgates. Performance anxiety spiked in my chest at the knowledge of the responsibility that power brought. “I can never live up to that expectation.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Don’t I? I sense the desperation in the wild. It needs me to fight for it, but I don’t know what I’m fighting for.”
“Cows.”
I laughed and slanted a look at him. “You’ve been speaking with Cash, haven’t you?”
“Maybe. Maybe I just think you should be forgetting about having a fresh start with the brat prince. He made his bed, and then he had to lay in it. Save your fresh start for someone else.”
A memory flashed before me. My sister, Leila, lying in a hospital bed. The witch had pushed out her soul and the body was left an empty husk, breathing on automatic. Petra had done something to her to keep the host body alive, ready and waiting for her final takeover. I remembered how pale and lonely Leila looked. Dull, damp hair plastered to her forehead. Sickly skin and hospital smells in the air. The isolation of it all struck me so much that on that day I swore I would fight for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. Those who were too weak. Too inexperienced. People like Kitty and Alvin. I wondered if it was possible, or if I had already failed and that’s why the queen ran away from her life of duty. She’d run away until she became me.
Someone with no memory.
Baby steps.
“So, why are we so far from Kitty’s?” I asked, keen to change the subject.
He looked at me as though I’d grown two heads. “And risk materializing in the middle of a wall? Love, I’ve never been there, I don’t know the layout, hence I could wind up in the middle of a solid structure.”
“Oh. That makes sense. Would you be hurt if that happened?”
“No. But you might. Sephie had limited travel abilities and we never tested the extent of them. It’s been eons since you were Seraphim on this planet last. Your original Seraphim body is gone. Your soul may have downloaded into a Nephilim body now, but I remind you, it is eternal. There’s no telling what evolution your soul gained from being linked to all this creation.”
Or devolution, I wanted to say. Because surely that same soul had been linked to destruction. The mention of my alter ego’s nickname silenced me. Sephie. It was too hard to think about. Right now I should be focusing on my friend. One step at a time. That I could do.
I shielded my eyes from the sun and surveyed our surroundings. I knew that if we continued along the beach, we’d find access to a road, but it was still a long drive to town. We had no phone and no money. “How are we going to get there, then? We’re running out of time.”
“One of two ways,” he said. “You point me in the general direction, and I hop to a place I can see where we won’t get noticed by the Simons. Or, two, we can hitchhike. Actually three, I can create a fake money-construct and catch a cab. What do you think?”
“I’m thinking I don’t have the time or patience for hitchhiking or waiting for a cab. Let’s hop.”
“Hop it is. Right-O, which direction, love.” He slung a casual arm around my shoulder.
Before long we stood in front of Kitty’s townhouse at the center of Margaret River. I was back in my illusion of clothes and was about to knock on the door when I had a sudden case of the jitters. I pushed my awareness beyond the door and searched for signs of life. No energy signatures. Was it empty?
I knocked.
We waited for a good five minutes before knocking again.
No answer.
The house was empty.
“No one’s home,” I said.
Marc rotated like a lost puppy. “What do we do now?”
“What time is it?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Right. Forgot who I was speaking to.” I stepped out of the shade of the portico to check the height of the sun. I had to step away from the garage to get a good look. Mid-morning. “We don’t have my phone so we can’t call. What did Eve say when you spoke to her on the phone?”
Marc shrugged. “Just to come here.”
“Here, here? Or here as in Margaret River, or—”
“Sorry love. I didn’t ask and she didn’t say.”
I stifled the urge to palm my face and took a deep breath. “I guess we can head to the bar. They might be there.”
Marc rubbed his hands together like a jolly teen. “A bar. Now you’re talking.”
“Pipe down, Marc. They might not be working. Eve has Kitty, remember?”
“Bah.” He swatted the air in my direction. “We’ll have that sorted in no time.”
The caw of a large crow sounded above us. A ticking sound on the tin roof of the garage drew our attention. The black bird hopped along the gutter and watched us with beady eyes. It’s aura was too loud for an animal.
“Familiar,” I said, grim.
“Bollocks. Just what we need.” He flung his hand out in a menacing action. “Let’s be done with it, yeah?”
The crow cawed again. This time with purpose. It hopped a few times from foot to foot as if it wanted to tell us something.
“Wait,” I cried, halting Marc’s simmering fingers. “It’s too coincidental that a familiar shows up when we’re looking for a witch, isn’t it?”
“The bloody thing is going to attack,” Marc said. “You can see it in its eyes.”
“No, I don’t think so. He might be a message from Eve. Witches can communicate with their familiars. That means I probably can too. Maybe I can work out what it’s trying to tell us.”
“But it wants to peck my eyes out. Look at it. Diseased and full of lies. Get rid of it.”
The bird watched us with interest, cocking its head.
“Not until we find out what it’s trying to tell us.”
Marc looked despondent for a minute then slapped his thigh with a revelation. “Once I saw that bleedin’ parasitic leader communicate with a spirit she charmed around her fingers. Remember that slippery shadow that followed me back in the States? She spoke to it. You used to have souls swimming around inside your head, yeah? Maybe one of them left a clue how to do it?”
“You mean Petra?”
“Gesundheit, love.”
“Pardon?”
“That’s what the civilized folk in Germany say when you sneeze.”
“I didn’t sneeze.”
“You didn’t?”
“No, I said, ‘You mean Petra?’. You know, the witch swimming around my head.”
“Not sure I’m following.”
Recently, I’d fought an ancient witch called Petra and her minion. Like Marc said, I had swallowed their souls, but the result had been catastrophic. I’d almost lost control of my body, with me trapped inside. Petra’s living Grimoire was one of the souls keeping me company, but since I ejected them all to save myself, I had only my memories of that time left. I couldn’t rifle for answers through them any
more. I had to rely on their time with me, and I spent most of that ignoring their presence.
“Petra was the witch who dumped me in the cave, remember?” Honestly, having a conversation with Marc was sometimes like teaching a toddler to tie his shoelaces. “Was that the witch you’re talking about? The one who spoke with—what did you call it—a slippery shadow?”
“Nope. Definitely not her. It was the first one. The one we’re here for. I once saw her use her ways to manipulate the little black cloud beastie. She whispered to it like a baby.”
“Whispered?”
That got me thinking. The way witches worked their magic was through frequencies. I often heard auras, as well as saw them. A loud buzz was more like a cry for attention or a high energy emotion whereas a flat, quiet sort of hum was usually someone hiding something. I could tell when my father lied when his aura completely flatlined.
Witches had essentially hacked the frequency of nature and for some reason, I was inexplicably similar to them. I’d put it down to my time with a witch’s soul within me, but now I was clean, I could still manipulate DNA.
“Was Sephie ever able to do that? Commune with nature?” I asked.
“She was nature, love. As are you if you unlock your full potential.”
I slumped. Speaking with familiars could possibly be another facet of my abilities. I wouldn’t be having trouble right now if I had listened to Cash earlier and converted to Seraphim. Instead of staring dumbly at a cawing bird, I could be communicating with it, and finding out where Eve was.
“You want my opinion?” Marc asked.
“I’m sure you’re going to give it to me anyway.”
“Eve knows who you are. She claimed to have deciphered your true nature before anyone else. This could be a test. And if it is, then surely you’re capable of passing it. Trust your instincts.”
“My instincts are telling me that bird has something to say.”
“There you go. Start there.”
I took back my toddler remark. “You know Marc, sometimes you can be very adult.”
He smirked, chuffed. “Like I said before, love. Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to uphold.”
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