Then there was Marc. I hadn’t seen him since. I knew he blamed himself for taking me on the wild goose chase in the Amazon. I wanted to explain to him it was nobody’s fault, even if Cash insisted it was. I shut that down immediately. I was a grown woman. I chose to follow Marc so I could deal with the consequences. If Cash or Marc wanted to blame anyone, it should be Urser. Only through Jacine did I discover Marc had returned to the Empire with the souls from Purgatory, including Wren and Lincoln. He’d taken any Player he could. With Bruce’s dark gift revealed, it was safer that way. Our numbers were dwindling.
Maybe that was Urser’s plan, too.
And of course, there was me. My infinitely inconvenient powers. My missing time. I had the body to match my soul, but not the memories. Not that I wanted them. They said I might remember, but I hadn’t. Nothing. Except… there was one dream, maybe a memory. I was watching a boy play on a playground, and I felt the love in my heart bloom when he looked over his shoulder to check if I was watching. He was an auburn haired boy with bright brown eyes and it was a face so foreign to me, yet I felt such strong love. Each time I woke, I discounted the dream as something morphed from Cash’s memory of me when we first met—back at the Empire, the same time I’d chastised him for swatting a bug. I tried to ignore the feeling of loss when I woke up from the dream, but it niggled. It could be the prince, yet another person I’d let down.
Speaking of letting people down, my thoughts traveled to Kitty. So far no hex had been activated, but I’d still let her down. I missed her wedding.
“You don’t like it?” Cash asked, seeing my face. “We don’t have to drink it.”
“No, I love it.” I kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I love you, I just…”
“You missed your friend’s wedding.”
I sighed. “How do you always know what I’m thinking?”
“I told you, I know you better than yourself.”
It was true. Kitty and Alvin would have married over a month ago. I called her the moment I was able, but it was too late. Not knowing if I was alive or dead, she’d postponed it. I was supposed to be her Maid of Honor. That conversation had been short and sweet. She must hate me. I stared at my hands. I’d been calling her often to make amends, but it felt inadequate.
“Roo, look at me.” Cash put his finger to my jaw and tilted my face until I looked him in the eyes. “They’ll get over it.”
Pragmatic and straight to the point, my Cash. Never one for sugar coating things. I opened my mouth to respond, but suddenly he frowned. He cocked his head, listening intently and cursed. “I have to go.”
He pushed the bottle into my hands and got up to leave. Seconds later, a knock came at the door. A brooding mask fell over his countenance and he opened the door.
“I told you to wait for me,” he snapped rudely to somebody in the hallway. He braced the doorframe with an arm and blocked my view of the person with his body.
If I wanted to, I knew I could take the collar off and sense the aura to decipher his or her identity, but I was doing my best not to. I might end up overwhelmed. Lena said, that in time and with practice, I would learn to control it better, but for now, keeping myself separate to the energies around me was best. The desensitizing therapy was working in small steps, but I had a long way to go. Marc was the prime candidate to teach me more, considering he sensed auras as well as anyone, but like I said, he was gone and my heart ached every time I thought of that. Of course, there were always people back at the Empire who could help—apparently I had an army of private physicians—but I rebelled at the thought of leaving Earth. My life was here, and there was too much to fix. Starting with Urser.
It was the one thing that broke through my stupor—the desire to right the wrong and to stop the pain. That dream of a simple life, tending to the vineyard and perhaps starting a family was calling me. That, and Cash’s steady presence.
The female voice in the hallway sounded insistent.
“Let me get my things,” Cash said.
I got off the bed and padded barefoot across the carpet to the door.
Cash noticed me coming over and frowned. “Don’t worry about it, I got it. Go back to meditating. I’ll be back soon.”
He tried to shimmy through the crack in the door, but I stopped him. I opened the door wide.
“Hi Jacine,” I said with a wry smile.
“Your Majesty.” Jacine’s blue eyes widened. She wore a simple white sheath of a dress, patent leather heels that matched a shiny leather strap around her throat. Her baby pink bob had faded, and a silvery blond shone through. “Are you well?”
“Fine thanks,” I mumbled.
She wrung her fingers together.
“Roo, it’s okay,” Cash said. “You don’t need to worry about this.”
“The simple fact that you said that makes me think I do. What’s happened?”
“Not a word, Jacine,” Cash warned her then glared at me. “You’re not ready.”
“I think I am. It’s been months, and I feel good.”
“Last night you teleported to the bathroom in your sleep.”
My cheeks flamed. Marc’s ability had somehow developed in me. I’d always been able to travel with him, but in the centuries the queen had cloistered herself, no one really knew what she had become. I couldn’t create illusion-constructs or anything like that so the teleporting was useless unless I wanted to go around in the nude and, besides, I couldn’t control where I zapped to. But did Cash have to remind me of that in front of Jacine?
“Marc isn’t here to teach me, so that part is just going to have to do. Maybe I keep teleporting because I’m tired of being cooped up in here. Don’t try to shelter me, I can take it.” I focused my gaze on Jacine. “Now, tell me what it is.”
“Some information has come to light and we’ve called an emergency Tribunal meeting.”
Always with the meetings. “Well, that would involve me, right?”
“Jacine, give us a minute. I’ll be down in five.” Cash shut the door, closing Jacine off. He arched an eyebrow at me.
“What?”
“You’ve managed to keep yourself from crawling into the dirt because of the collar, but you know as well as I that you’ve only just begun to desensitize yourself. You need more therapy before you can call yourself fully healed.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been doing. It’s not just the collar helping me. In fact, we’ve been talking about removing it. I’ve got better control now than I ever had before.”
“No, you haven’t.”
I threw my hands up. “What do you call it then?”
“Not good enough. That’s what I call it. What happens if your hold slips and it comes crashing back in?”
“It won’t.”
“I’m not budging on this.”
“I can’t stay locked up here forever!”
“You want proof?” He cupped my face between his hands and kissed me hard, parting my lips with his tongue and delving inside. A spark of desire shot down my spine and I moaned, melting into him, tasting him. He smelled like rain and it made me want to drink him in. He knew I’d wanted this, I could feel his aura in that kiss. His energy bypassed the collar and he teased me with want. My hands slipped around his firm torso and flexed over the hard length of his back. I tugged him closer, laughing into his mouth.
I’ll show him proof. I opened my senses a little further, letting his essence trickle through. In a slippery zing, it cascaded into me, lighting me on fire, but I held strong. Hearing my heart gallop in my chest, and smelling my desire, Cash growled and pushed me back against the closed door.
“Roo,” he said, strained. He nipped my bottom lip.
“See?” I breathed. “I’m fine.”
“I’m not convinced.” He kissed me again, this time slower, controlled. While he distracted me with his tongue, his hands trailed down my neck, my shoulders, my chest. He found my breast and kneaded with his fingers, giving my nipple a tweak at the end. He swallowed
my cry of pleasure-pain with a deeper kiss. Yes. This. I needed this. His energy trickled through, growing more insistent, forcing his emotions on me. Hope, love, lust, admiration and…
Pain seared my insides and I screamed. White haze clouded my vision. My knees went weak and I collapsed, eyes watering.
“Shh,” Cash whispered as he caught me. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
He took me to the floor and held me as I rode out the suffering.
“Breathe,” he said. “Focus on your breathing. In. Out.”
He breathed with me, coaching with his words, until the pain subsided and I was a pile of trembling mess in his arms. I whimpered, devastated, and slammed my forehead onto his chest. “Why can’t I control this?”
“You’ll get there. Just give it time.”
“You did that on purpose.” I wanted to hit him, but I couldn’t. He was right. Deep down, I knew it. I wasn’t ready.
“Roo,” he said softly. “When you and I can be together—fully—without you screaming in pain, then you can remove the collar and join us at the meetings. Until then, as much as it pains me to say, the second Marc gets back, he can train you, start honing your new skills. Too many people are at risk otherwise.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? Aren’t I just hurting myself?”
“Nobody knows what you’re capable of and your powers almost killed you.” A flicker of pain crossed his features. “But, I didn’t fall in love with a quitter, did I?”
I shot him a sardonic smile. “No, you didn’t.”
“So, you won’t give up. You’ll get better, and then we’ll get to the real work.”
His words incited inspiration. I wanted to stop Urser and end the Game, but I knew he was right. I could do none of it in my condition, but that didn’t mean I would sit idly by.
“Fine. What should I do, then?”
He crossed the room, picked up my phone and handed it to me. “Call your friend. Sort it out. Tomorrow morning we’ll continue therapy as planned.”
“That wasn’t exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about.”
“Roo. Call your friend.”
Chapter 20
In the morning I called Kitty. Because of the time difference it was still early afternoon where she lived. She answered on two rings.
“Babe, how are you feeling?” she asked.
It warmed my heart because she still thought of me first, before anything else. I didn’t deserve that. “I’m good. Getting better. How are you? How’s Alvin? I know he probably hates me, but if he’s up to it, I can talk to him, too.”
“Why would he hate you?”
“Because I ruined your wedding! I feel terrible.”
“Uh, I think you have a pretty good excuse. Besides… it wasn’t all you that caused the delay.” Her voice trailed off, her tone changing.
Oh no. “Is everything all right, Kitty?”
“Yes, it’s fine.”
I didn’t believe her. Instantly I thought of Eve and her threat of a hex. I hadn’t revealed my suspicions because if Kitty knew the possibility was there, like a ticking time bomb set to go off any moment, then she’d never get a good’s night sleep. I could examine her when I saw her next. Of course I had to control my abilities first. Then again, I could have her sent here.
“Roo? Are you there?”
“Yes, sorry. Just thinking. Are you sure everything is okay? What about you, how are you feeling?”
“I’m good. We’re all fine. Better than fine.” She sighed. “I suppose the news is going to come out sooner or later. I may as well tell you now.”
“Tell me what?”
A pause ticked away as I imagined the worse. The last time one of them was hexed, Alvin almost died. Petra had convinced his body that it was riddled with cancer. I still remembered his skin, sallow and sunken.
“I’m pregnant,” she blurted.
I forgot to breathe, and then I said the stupidest thing I ever could say, “You can’t be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Um, I meant that I’m surprised, that’s all. Congratulations.”
“Well you don’t sound very excited.”
“I am, I am! I’m so happy for you.” But the hex…
“Roo. Babe. I can tell something is up. Are… are you jealous, or something?”
“No! Absolutely not. I—” I paused. Swallowed. Okay. Here goes. “Kitty, there’s something I’ve been keeping from you because I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Okay, now I’m worried.”
“Damn it!” My eyes watered and I bit my tongue. If I told her now, she might go and do something stupid like abort before we even had a chance to confirm the damage. I could just imagine her getting into hysterics because she thought the witch had programmed her body into making demon babies or something. No. I couldn’t let her worry. “Kitty, my recovery is taking longer than I thought and I don’t know when I can commit to coming back to Margaret River.”
“Oh.” She was silent for a beat. “Is that all?”
“Yes.” I lied.
“Babe,” she admonished. “I thought you were going to say something horrible, like, you’ve got ten days to live so make it good. Don’t ever say something like that again, do you hear?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Good—wait. You don’t have ten days to live, do you?”
“No. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
She breathed a sigh. “Okay, good. Now we got that out of the way, do you have a ball park for dates? Because I really don’t want to get married without my best friend, and, what about you and Mr. Devilishly Handsome? I know there’s been a lot going on for you two, but surely you’ve realized how perfect you are for each other by now.”
“Yes, we still want to marry. There are a few un-choice things keeping us apart at the moment though.”
“Has he gone away?”
“Not that kind of apart.” My tone was loaded with insinuation.
“Oooh. Bedroom talk. Babe, you know I’m right here. Give me the goss.”
A smile crept up my face and I felt like we were sitting next to each other, back at her place on the couch, a coffee in our hands. I filled her in on my performance issues.
“Hmm. Let me get this straight—you kiss and you burn up inside. You know there’s a cream for that, babe,” she joked.
“Har-har.” The sarcasm dripped from my voice. Still, I smiled along with her. “It’s just frustrating that’s all.”
“Do you know what you need to do?”
“What?”
“Get drunk.”
“I don’t think that’s a solution.”
“No, I mean it. Just think about it. Alcohol is a social lubricant, right? It loosens the body, breaks you free of inhibitions.” She sighed. “The last time I got drunk, Alvin and I decided to try something new. We started off—”
“Stop. Kitty. Stop. It’s Alvin. He’s like a brother to me. Gross. I don’t want to know that level of detail, thanks.”
“What?” she whined. “If I can’t talk about it with you, who can I talk about it with? Anyway, I was just going to say, that was the night we got pregnant.”
My gut twinged. The baby.
“Kitty, promise me that if you feel the slightest bit off, you’ll tell me, okay?”
“You won’t hear about my sexy times, but you’re all ears about me driving the porcelain bus?”
“What does that even mean, Kitty?”
“Morning sickness. Vomiting in the porcelain toilet. You’ve never heard that expression?”
“No.”
“Babe, you really are from another planet. You’ve been gone from Australia for too long.”
We laughed then, joked some more and kept going until finally, with tears teasing our eyes, we fell into a comfortable silence.
“No, seriously babe. Get drunk, boink your fiancé. What have you got to lose?”
“I’ll take it under advisement.”
�
�Roo?” Kitty ventured, hesitant. “Promise me you’ll never leave.”
“You mean like, leave-leave?”
“Yeah, like interstellar leave.”
“I don’t want to, even if they try to make me.”
“They might force you to go?”
I shrugged, but realized she couldn’t see that down the line so said, “I’m working on it.” So far, the best scenario I could come up with was that the gate stayed closed, or it was destroyed.
“Well, if you need help plotting, I’m only a phone call away.”
“I love you too, Kitty,” I said.
“I can’t believe my best friend in the world turned out to be… I can’t even say it. It does my head in. Have you given any thought to your future here, in Margaret River? Will you take back the vineyard?”
I remembered the state Urser Manor was in when I visited, and the glory it used to be. Lush green fields. Juicy grapes on luscious vines. Now it was withering and dying. That house deserved a happy family running through its halls. A kernel of hope twinkled deep inside me at the thought. Maybe, just maybe, that happy family could start with Cash and me. I sighed. “Margaret River is one of the most beautiful places on earth.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice. You’d better hurry coming home. Summer is nearly over and the surfing season is almost over. That means the surfers and their buff bodies are almost gone.”
“We can’t have that now, can we?”
“So… back to the wedding. We’re going to have it as soon as my morning sickness is gone. About a month away the doc said. I want to still fit my dress. Do you think you could handle that?” The sound of Kitty holding her breath was obvious.
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