by K. D. Worth
The stone marker made me deeply sad.
Immediately, I wished I hadn’t come here. But this was the only place I could be with Kody anymore, right? His fleshly body rested below my feet, and though I stood on ground hallowed for me, suddenly it just felt wrong.
No. Kody was not here.
My Kody, my lover and friend, the Healer, did not reside in this place.
This was the Kody he had left behind. The one I had fallen in love with, yes, but the one who no longer existed.
My mouth opened to speak, to say goodbye, but instead, I teleported myself to a new location before the thought of it went from one side of my head to the other.
Our pavilion by the sea.
I let out a relieved breath.
If there was anywhere in the universe that would connect me to Kody, or possibly give me any clue as to what I should do next, it was our special place.
We had never come back after that night. Life had been too busy. The place looked abandoned. Wind had tattered the curtains, and no candles flickered in the light breeze. The moonlight silvered the marble pillars, the black obsidian veins glistening. A light dusting of snow covered everything, and though frozen around the edges, the stream of water from the fountain trickled merrily out to sea. The flowers Meegan had placed in the vases and along the path had all died from the cold.
One of the chairs at the tiny table had fallen over. I righted it and brushed the snow off the seat. The dishes Kody and I had eaten from remained on the table, snow-covered like everything else. The grapes were all gone, doubtless consumed by seagulls or some other animal. The unfinished champagne was frozen solid in the bucket, as were our water goblets.
My breath frosted in front of my face. Though the wards Meegan placed around our little pavilion had been powerful, now I could barely sense them. Maybe because Meegan wasn’t in this realm anymore.
But I could feel Kody’s power inside me, so that meant he was still here, right? It didn’t surge or pulse, rather it lay still, as if waiting.
Waiting for Kody to return, maybe?
I sighed, not knowing what to think.
Every time I tried to make a decision, to stay or go, indecision and worry made me hesitate. I felt like I was stuck in limbo, confused and alone, tormented with doubts yet still daring to hope.
I stepped up the stairs and entered the open-air pavilion.
Looming before me was our bed.
As if Meegan’s magic had formed an invisible bubble around it, our bed looked perfectly untouched, the ground all around it free of the falling snow. I looked up, and a sparkling blanket of snow made a canopy above the bed, the last of her magic still holding on.
Slowly I approached the protected space, the feel of Meegan’s magic strong as I stepped up to the bed.
The coverlet was folded down and messy on my side but pulled up neatly on Kody’s. As I stood by his side, I half imagined when I touched the bed the heat of Kody’s body would remain on the linens. But when the coolness of the fabric touched my skin, a tear trickled down my face.
Our bed at the dorms had stopped smelling of Kody. I hadn’t noticed it happening until one day his scent was just gone.
Desperate to be close to him, I removed all of my clothes except my underwear and crawled under the covers on Kody’s side. I savored the feel of the cold sheets on my skin, and there…. I inhaled deep and let out a cry.
I could smell him!
“Where are you, Kody?” I all but wailed into the darkness.
Crying openly for the first time since he’d left, I curled up on the big soft bed, the billowy white linens and pillows surrounding me like clouds in heaven. Maybe where Kody was sitting, playing a harp or something.
When Kody took all of those lost souls to heaven and disappeared, I had not been afraid. I tried to tell myself that I had come to terms with what Slade had told me—that one day I would lose Kody.
But in my heart, I knew I had not.
Slade said that he hadn’t meant his words literally, yet where was Kody now?
Gone.
I squeezed my eyes tight, but the tears still leaked out. Tears of relief and mourning both fell. Here, in our special place, clutching his pillow tight in my arms, I could smell the scent of his skin, and that aroused the heat of our love within me.
That meant he was still with me, right?
I rolled onto my side, staring at my empty pillow. It was rounded, as if a maid had come by and fluffed the linens after Kody and I left. I reached out and caressed the pillow, closing my eyes and dreaming that I was touching Kody.
Warmth crackled in my fingertips, and if I kept my eyes closed, I could almost pretend he was there lying with me. In this place, I felt him within me, and all around. Slade called us twin flames. It was an apt description, and why I’d tattooed the symbol on my bicep.
I rolled over completely and buried my face in his pillow once more, inhaling deeply. Hell, maybe I was imagining it, but I swore I could smell us.
While reapers didn’t need a lot of the things humans did—eating, sleeping, or bathrooms—God had been good to us in so many other ways. All the five senses that brought humans pleasure, God didn’t take away from us reapers. I was intensely grateful that I could still smell my boyfriend. However, I knew the longer I lay on the pillow, the more it would simply begin to smell like me, and I would lose that last little bit of him still in the mortal realm.
With a sigh of regret, I rolled over to my own pillow, pulled the covers up to my neck, and gazed up to the open roof of the pavilion my best friend had made for us. Just beyond the snow canopy, the colorful aurora borealis danced. Kody had been so enthralled, watching the phenomenon in between lovemaking.
That night had been heaven-sent.
I don’t know how long I lay there, but after a while I could sense the early hours of morning approached, the darkest before the dawn. I could feel rather than see the sky changing. It was a surreal sensation. I wondered if Slade had felt this way that time he told Kody about the prophecy and manipulated the seasons while they fed ducks by some pond.
I closed my eyes, willing the darkness to stay. I did not know if I could face the dawn of another day without Kody.
I missed him so intensely!
I missed his laugh, the way he cocked one eyebrow at me, and all those corny card tricks he loved to show off. I missed the sugar cookies he made me, knowing they were my favorite.
“Kody, where are you?” I whispered. “Come back to me, please.”
As if in answer, a warm wind rustled the curtains, fluttering snow from the fabric.
Some of the tiny ice crystals tickled my skin and I sucked in a gasp.
Warmth simmered inside me, across my skin and through my hair. For several heartbeats, I held very still, terrified to open my eyes or even breathe. The air was warmer on my left, and it grew warmer still…. Something was in bed with me, touching me.
My breaths grew ragged and I suddenly felt a physical weight pressing on me.
Not daring to believe, I tipped my chin up and my lips felt warmer than before.
Had Kody’s spirit come to me?
Or was this firm sensation on my mouth simply a product of my desperate imagination, my longing to have him back physically? I knew we were still connected on a metaphysical level, but… was Kody here now? Was his spirit touching me?
“Kody? Is that you?”
There was no answer. My heart pounded in my chest, and I began to sweat a little bit. But then the pressure and weight on my body became more concentrated, deliberate.
Like the push of waves underwater, I felt something undulating against me, intentionally moving up and down the sides of my naked torso. When the pressure paused at my hips, my heart pounded wildly.
His hands are touching me….
I wanted to take myself in hand, because I could feel my arousal growing, but I was terrified to move, lest I lose the sensation that Kody was here, on top of me, caressing me.
Cautiously I breathed in through my nose, catching the lingering scent of his sweat. My heart pounded harder, thud thud thud. I concentrated, listening to the silence all around me. The ocean waves crashing on the nearby shore were like his gentle ragged breaths against my ear. When the next one crashed, my hair prickled and goose bumps rose along my neck where Kody exhaled slowly.
“Kiss me,” I pleaded in my mind.
Pressure returned to my lips, and I barely contained a whimper.
“Can you hear me?” I asked the ghostly specter fondling and kissing me. “Are you really here?”
Again, there was no answer.
And then a surge of warmth heated the linens around me, almost as if Kody was fully on top of me now, wrapping me against him, palms caressing my arms, the inside of his thighs brushing the outside of my own. He held me in a full-body embrace, one so familiar to me. My chest rose and fell in a pant, and it took all of my willpower not to open my eyes, not to kiss him back or move too much and scare him back from whence he came. My fingers tightened, shaking in restraint.
“Please don’t leave me again,” I begged. Tears leaked from the corner of my eyes, trickling back to the base of my neck. “Stay with me!”
Softness kissed away the tears, the touch deliberate, until my cheeks were no longer cool and wet in the early-dawn air. My cock hardened, leaking and pressing against my underwear. I didn’t know how this was truly happening, but fire and desire moved within me, around me. The pressure, the weight on top of me was real. Waves of touch caressed my chest, over my nipples, pausing at my throat. Gasping, I swore I heard the echo of another heartbeat pounding just as fast but ever so slightly out of reach.
Was I hallucinating this?
Unable to control my body, my hips squirmed a little, relieving the pressure of my erection. I wanted to touch it, release my need, but what if this feeling of Kody being here with me disappeared if I moved too much, breathed too heavy or—God forbid—opened my eyes?
The curtains ruffled in the gentle breeze around the pavilion again, but cocooned in such warmth, the snow didn’t shower me this time. The trickle of the fountain was like the sound of Kody’s hair scratching against my ear. Another breeze wafted over me, teasing my warm lips, and the pressure on them returned.
He’s kissing me….
Panting and completely drenched in sweat by now, I licked my lips. They felt bruised and tender, as if they’d been kissed hard. My balls ached, as if being caressed and squeezed ever so gently. My legs fell open, just slightly, and I couldn’t be sure if I had moved them or they had been moved for me. The heaviness against my penis was almost more than I could bear. I gasped and a convulsion of ecstasy whipped through me, making my toes curl, my hands clench. My every muscle went taut with desire. The pressure moving against my groin pulsed like the waves crashing on the beach. The wind—his breath—brushed my cheek.
Then the pressure went farther back, featherlight but insistent against my bottom, teasing me and willing me to open.
Kody’s touching me down there….
I couldn’t catch my breath, my lips tender and wet now. I offered no resistance, lying still as shivers and goose bumps tickled my skin in deliberate patterns… his hands exploring my body. I knew his touch so well, I could almost predict where they would go next and hear him asking me, “Is this okay? Do you like it?”
Only my fear of waking from this glorious dream stopped me from crying out, “Yes, more, please!”
My pulse pounded, crashing to and fro with the waves, my chest rising and falling. My toes curled as the heat of pressure on top of me built, rolling in rhythm with the pressure in my backside, the heat on my lips, the slide across my erection….
“Kody, are you really here with me?” I asked again. “Please come back to me. I need you!”
The weight of him gliding over me was so achingly real, hot and throbbing somewhere deep below my belly button. My hips shifted up, desperate and questing. I felt him moving against me, not air or blanket touching me, just warm flesh, all around me, and now deep inside me… thrusting in and out as I struggled to stay still. I pursed my lips, then licked them as I feverishly gasped for breath.
There was no pain at all, having him inside me, gliding over pleasure spots I’d never known existed. The fire of my magic swelled, strong once more.
Kody was here, making love to me….
“Don’t leave me,” I whispered, terrified the moment I spoke aloud that I’d scared his spirit away.
“Max….”
The word was whispered on the wind, but I knew that voice, that soul.
With a desperate cry, my body shook, and my eyes flew open as the flash of passion swept through me. I came with a cry, arching up off the bed, shaking hard as I spent myself. Euphoria and pleasure melted away all tension, and in that moment, I’d never felt so complete, so very loved.
Then the weight was gone.
Panting and shocked, I blinked hard, trying to get my bearings.
Had I…? Had we…?
Bleary-eyed and confused, I sat up and squinted into the pink morning light, utterly disoriented. I was completely by myself once more. I choked back a sob.
Whatever had just happened to me was more than a wet dream. I had not really been asleep… nor had I been fully awake.
And I most definitely had not been alone.
In the distance the ocean was gray as the pink of dawn kissed the dark night sky goodbye.
Every nerve in my body was alive and singing. The warmth was still inside me, that power and light Kody nurtured and created. I reached down and adjusted myself, squirming a little from the uncomfortable wetness in my underwear.
Kody had whispered my name.
It wasn’t the wind, and it had not been my imagination.
I’d experienced the moisture of his breath, the sound of his hair against my ears, the touch of his thighs wrapped around mine, the firmness of his lips, and his body filling me in my most secret places.
There were so many things in this universe this little reaper knew nothing about. But I knew one thing without a doubt.
Kody had been with me.
Wherever he was, Kody had reached out to let me know he still loved me, was still there and he still cared.
“Are you coming back to me, Kody?” I whispered, looking up through the snow canopy and into the dawn sky. “Are you ever coming back to me?”
Spent and emotionally drained, I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. “Oh, Kody,” I whispered. My shoulders shook in a quiet sob. It had been so perfect, so beautiful having him with me one more time. But it also had been cruel, teasing me with what might never be again.
What if that had been Kody’s way of saying goodbye, crossing me off his bucket list before he left forever?
The tears fell heavier now.
“Max?”
I fought down a moan because Kody’s voice sounded so crisp and loud. So real….
“Max?”
I shook my head at the sound. Kody had left. For a few glorious moments in that euphoric dream, I’d physically felt Kody make love to me. I wasn’t sure how any of it had come to pass or if it had all been in my imagination, but I knew we had connected… wherever he was.
That’s why I heard his voice now.
“Max?” Dream-Kody said again. “Max, wake up.”
No, no! If I opened my eyes again, he would be gone. I squeezed them tighter, willing this specter of my love to remain. If just in the dream.
“Seriously, Max,” Dream-Kody said again, an edge of irritation in his tone.
I froze, my breath catching in my chest.
Then the mattress by my feet sank as if someone just sat down.
No, it can’t be….
I was too petrified to believe, or to open my eyes. Tears leaked out, and I shook my head at the cruelty of this dream.
Then something poked my leg.
“Max, wake up,” Dream-Kody insisted once more. “Wait, are you naked?”
The blanket lifted off my lower half and cool air drifted over my body. There was a chuckle. “Oh, you have on undies.”
MAX—Chapter 21
MY EYES flew open, and I squinted in the now-morning light. I blinked several times, unable to breathe, and stared in shock.
Sitting on the edge of our bed was Kody.
But it wasn’t the Kody I remembered.
His hair was bleached white, his skin brilliantly pale. Even the blue of his eyes was lighter. And he seemed to glow from an ethereal light.
“K-Kody?” I managed. Was he an angel now?
“Duh,” he said, making a face.
I launched myself at him, toppling him onto his back.
“You’re real,” I muttered, frantic. “Real, real.”
I ran my hands all over his face, in his blond hair, touching him everywhere I could and unable to believe he was here.
Kody laughed when I found his ticklish spot. “No tickling!”
“You’re really real!” I cried again. I laughed loudly.
And then we kissed.
A million starbursts went off inside me. Heat flared, love shone. My entire body came alive as it could only do with Kody. He grabbed on to me, kissing me back with a fiery passion to match my own fervor.
“You called me,” he whispered around mad kisses.
“I did?” I questioned, soaking in his face before nodding. “I did.”
“I heard you,” he said, kissing me again.
“Where have you been?” I demanded, my hands roaming wildly over every inch of his body, his face, his hair. “Your hair is white. How?”
“It is?” Laughing, Kody stilled my hands and cupped my face. With me on top of him, he stared deep into my eyes. He seemed to glow a little, and I didn’t think it was my imagination.
Glowing or not, pale and blond, Kody was solid and warm beneath me.