by A. P. Marie
My brain works through survival scenarios in my head as I scope the room. An alarm clock I hadn’t noticed earlier sits on the table beside the bed. Its bright red numbers say 9:45. Must be morning because it’s as bright here as midday was in Iowa. Assuming I only stayed out overnight then this is Wednesday. I head into the closet on a hunch and check some drawers. Everything I come across is my size and most of it (besides being outrageously expensive) is similar to my taste. I grab a pair of blue jeans and a fitted black t-shirt. By the shoes, I walk right passed what must be thousands of dollars’ worth of heels and pick up a pair of black Nike running shoes.
Clearly, the room is bugged. I don’t believe for a second he just accidentally stumbled into my room the exact same time I went to the bathroom, so I dress in the closet hoping it isn’t also being recorded. I don’t know this man or how prepared he might be, but I’m hoping if I run for it now, he won’t be expecting it.
I sneak to the closet door and peak into the room. It is still empty, just the way I left it. Deep breaths. I try to stay in shape just in case I need to do any serious running, but I haven’t eaten anything in… well, too long, and my head feels weighed down with all the information I’ve been given.
As soon as I work up enough courage I step out into the bedroom and try to give the appearance that I am just ambling around the room. First, I walk to the bathroom door and look in. Then I walk to the fireplace and look around. Lastly, I walk to the large French doors hoping that it looks like I’m just looking outside. I lay my hand on the handle and push down slightly. It gives. Not locked. Turning back to the room like I’m about to walk back inside I keep my hand on the handle and push down a little harder. As soon as the handle has been depressed enough to open the door, I throw the door open and take off sprinting.
Having never seen this garden before, and in general having no idea where I am, I start off following the garden path. This garden must end somewhere. When the path appears to be looping back towards my room, I go off the path and try to keep running in the same direction I started out.
Even running by like a mad woman I can tell that the garden must be gorgeous. I sprint past flowers of every color, shape, and size. Some are easily recognizable, like roses, but others I have no name for. It must also be immense. As I round another tree with long, low hanging branches I can see where the garden ends and the yard begins.
Yard might not really be a fair term either though. The long stretch of green in front of me resembles a golf course. The lawn is perfectly manicured with small sloping hills for several hundred yards without interruption. It’s clear though that this is not a golf course, because I have never yet seen a golf course with a 15-foot-high wall surrounding it.
I don’t even slow my pace when I see the wall. There is nothing for me in that house or that room. If I can’t make it over the wall, then I need to find a break. I must survive. Yelling can be heard from the house behind me and I’d wager it’s coming from very near the French doors where I made my break. I sprint over the sloping lawn and come up to the wall to see that it is made of decorative, yet sturdy, stones. I turn left and continue running along the wall. Since I don’t know the front from the back, I have no idea if I’m heading towards an exit or not, but I can’t just sit here and wait to ask someone.
In my peripheral vision I catch sight of a man in a tailored suit sprinting down the yard toward me. A quick perusal tells me it is not the god. This man is shorter, and his hair is darker. He catches up to me quickly. As he nears me, I brace myself for him to tackle me. Or stop me in any way. I shut my eyes a moment before impact and wait… but nothing comes. When I open my eyes, I’m so startled by what I see that I actually stumble. Suited man didn’t try and stop me. He isn’t acting aggressively. He isn’t even trying to get me to stop. Instead, he took up pace beside me. When I catch my balance from stumbling and continue sprinting around the interior of the wall, he sprints with me. Side-by-side. In his suit. Like, this is a well-established practice for the two of us.
Peeking sideways out of my eye I look my running partner up and down. He’s immaculately dressed in a suit, he has very short, dark hair, and he hasn’t broken a sweat while I’m over here dying from my little jog. He’s probably pretty cute. He has that handsome all-American boy charm about him and he carries himself like an athlete. When I sneak my next peak, I see that he is looking at me also. Slowing to a stop I turn to him.
“Will we be continuing our jog, Ms. LeBlanc? Is there somewhere in particular you are headed?” He isn’t breathing heavy or winded in the least and he seems perfectly content to continue running around the yard with me. What in the hell is going on here?
“Umm, no?” Something about this man seems stern. Like with a strict schoolteacher and I’m about to be scolded for some misdeed. “Actually, yes!” The confusion is clearly written on his face, but I just realized that this man may be able to help me escape, even if it is inadvertently. “I was just trying to find the front. You know, of the house. To… umm, see it?” I give him my brightest smile and try again for the ditzy airhead routine. Alright, it’s a pitiful excuse, I get it.
“I can show you the front of the house, if you are interested, Ma’am.” He answers as he turns on his heels and heads back in the opposite direction.
Glancing around the yard I can see now what I missed before. Men. All in suits. All standing around. At first glance you could believe they were just strolling the property, but I know better. Their backs are a little too straight, their pace a little too even, their patterns a little too precise. They’re security. Protecting the perimeter and probably ensuring I don’t escape. Why couldn’t I have been kidnapped by an idiot with no resources? Then I’d be able to escape for sure. I follow buzz cut, because there is nothing else I can do at this point.
We retrace our exact steps and head back up around a slight hill following the wall going the opposite way than I just came down. As we crest the small hill, I can see the front of the house perfectly. The French doors I exited earlier are on the side of the house and within eyesight of the corner of the house. Had I turned around, even once, in my hurry to escape I would have seen very clearly that I was going in the exact wrong direction. Even now though, I can see the front of the house and the driveway and I know escape would have been impossible. The opening where the driveway comes in is barricaded with black wrought iron gates. I couldn’t have gotten out there any more than I can scale the 15-foot wall.
“Ahh, colonial. I was wandering.” I make some vague statement about the architecture of the house hoping buzz cut accepts that as an excuse for why I was sprinting around like a crazy person. Calling the house colonial is unjust. I don’t really know what the house is. Even to say ‘house’ is a disservice. This is a mansion if I ever saw one. Clearly, the builder had money. I don’t even have words to describe the house, besides “beautiful” and “extravagant”.
“Is that all, Ma'am?” Buzz cut asks me. I don’t want to go back to my room yet. I want to find a way to escape, so I stall.
“What's your name?” I ask. Maybe, if he sees me as a human being he'll help me out. Anyway, I really need something else to call him, besides buzz cut.
“It's Jacob, Ma'am.” His answers are so stiff and formal it reminds me of a job interview. “Can I assist you in going somewhere else?”
I manage not to roll my eyes, but it takes some serious effort. “Nah, I think I might wander around some. I am allowed to walk around, right?”
Jacob nods enthusiastically and I turn to walk towards the front gate. Maybe there is still some way I can get out. I’ve only taken a few steps when I notice that Jacob is still with me.
“I asked the wrong question before, didn’t I, Jacob?” I ask. A small smile plays across his lips and his eyes alight with humor as he nods. Time to correct that, “Am I allowed to walk around alone?”
“I'm afraid not, Ma'am. I’m your personal bodyguard. I’ll be with you every time you leave your room.” Trut
h. He smiles politely and I try my best not to hang my head.
“You know, Jacob? I think I’m tired of walking. I’d like to go back to my room.” A freaking personal bodyguard? How am I going to manage escaping now?
As I turn to walk back to the house I feel, more than see, Jacob trailing me. He walks behind me all of the way to the French doors of my room, but he makes no move to enter.
Right as I am about to close the door he says, “The next time you want to go for a run will you let me know in advance? I would rather not run in a suit. Also, I know we stocked your closet with exercise clothes. Those may be more conducive for future exploits.” The humor is clear behind his eyes. He knows I wasn't just jogging for exercise and he’s picking fun at me. But he’s friendly, and willing to talk so I don’t want to piss him off any more than will be necessary.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Jacob.” Heading into my room I shut the door, kick off my gym shoes and crawl into the oversized bed.
Chapter 4
More Questions Than Answers
Sometime after my jog I must have fallen asleep. When I wake up there is a steady stream of knocking coming from my door.
“wh-ugh?” I mumble toward the knocker as I snuggle deeper into the bed.
I hear the door open and someone steps into my room.
“Emily, it’s lunch time. Are you hungry?” I recognize the voice as belonging to the god but I don’t tunnel out of my sheets to check.
“You do realize I don’t even know your name, right? I just keep calling you ‘the god' in my head.” Not knowing his name is a constant irritant.
“My name is Zander. I forget how little you know about this situation. Are you hungry?” his voice comes nearer while he is speaking to me.
As he finishes talking I feel a weight pull down the corner of my bed. I flip the covers over so I can see without having actually moved to sit up. Zander is sitting at the foot of the bed and for once he isn’t looking at me. Instead, he seems to be focused on something outside the French doors.
“I am hungry. But I’m more curious. Will you answer some questions for me?” Blame it on having just woken up, or feeling emotionally wrecked, but I don’t have the energy to put up the stone façade I used earlier. The best I can manage right now is to not break down in tears. So, I speak to him curled on my side facing him, with my head resting on my hands. And he answers, sitting on the foot of the bed and staring outside.
“I think I could do that.” Strangely, his demeanor is very melancholy which matches my mood but is a pretty stiff difference from his behavior this morning. Of course, he may be thinking the same thing about me.
“Why have you been watching me? And, please, give me more than that ‘I belong to you’ stuff. I really need to understand this.” Who knows, maybe my vulnerability will be endearing to him and he’ll give me some information.
“I know it’s difficult for you to understand. Most of us are brought up in the community. From an outside perspective I recognize this seems strange. Maybe the first thing I should tell you is that in our community arranged marriages are the norm. Well, not marriages so much. We call it mating. Arranged mating is the norm. We are governed by a group of elders called the council. They make the arrangements. Our parents have some say but the final decision goes to the council. Before your parents took you away the council decided that we were to be mates. So, when I say you belong to me, that’s what I mean. You are my mate, and I am yours. Normally, we would have been raised side-by-side. Once a pairing has been made many decisions are made to keep the couple near each other. Physical proximity is important to our people, especially after a pairing. Had your parents not stolen you away we would have grown up as best friends until the final rituals were completed. Then we would have been a mated pair.” Truth. The end of his dialogue is filled with anger. He’s clearly mad, and I’m beginning to suspect it is at my parents.
Watching him as he speaks is entrancing. As weird as this situation is there is no denying his beauty. He is absolutely gorgeous and despite what I think I about him, my body wants to be nearer to him. I squirm under the covers and unintentionally scoot an inch closer to him. When I manage to stop checking him out, I notice he has a slight smirk on his face and my cheeks instinctively redden. Don’t freak out, Emily. He can’t hear your thoughts. That’s not why he’s smirking.
“So, umm. You mentioned ‘our people’. What exactly does that mean?” If I keep him talking maybe I can stop having these wildly inappropriate thoughts about him. He kidnapped me for goodness sakes. Surely, his bad factor is more than enough to outweigh his hotness.
Zander takes a deep breath before he begins speaking. “Have you ever felt like you didn't really belong? That, maybe, something was a little different with you? Or maybe that something was missing?” I'm shocked to hear him vocalize my exact feeling for most of my life.
When I was going back and forth through foster families and then after, moving every two months, I always felt like something was missing. Of course, it could easily be explained by all of the things that were actually missing. Like a family, a stable home, reliable friends, you get the gist. Even knowing the other logical possibilities for my feelings something is telling me that wasn’t the cause. It wasn’t the house, or a family. It was something else. Reading the answer he was looking for on my face, Zander carries on.
“The problem was that you weren’t with your own kind. You couldn’t understand them because you aren’t human. They couldn’t understand you because they aren’t… like us. We are as different from them as they are from the animals. I can tell that you have started developing abilities. It’s a little unusual. Normally, with our kind we only start developing our abilities when we grow closer to our mates. It’s part of the reason we ensure mates stay near each other. We don’t reach full strength until our pairing union is complete. You started developing early even without being near me. We guessed it was probably due to your lifestyle. A skill developed out of necessity, or survival skill. The unusual part was that when you started developing your abilities, I started developing mine. However, neither of us can reach our full potential until we finish the mating ritual. That's the reason we followed you and brought you home.”
I’m so surprised I sit up. It’s not what he said that surprises me though (while that certainly gives me something to think about). It's that fact that the last two sentences were both lies. Up until then, he had been completely honest with me but those were definitely lies.
“Lie.” I've learned that calling people on their lies normally leads to the truth, but Zander just watches me. No response, no twitch, no tell. Just watches me.
“That is as much of the truth as I can give you right now. I know this situation is unorthodox, but you are my mate and I will not let you go again. You need me. We need each other.” It doesn’t escape my notice that he shows no surprise at all at my truth telling ability. Either he figures I’m guessing, or he knows I can do this.
In his attempt to show me his earnestness Zander touches my hand. The second our skin connects there is a tingling that travels up my entire body. It's like his skin is electrically charged but instead of being burned or hurt my skin comes alive beneath his. Looking at the euphoric expression on his face it is clear he feels the tingles too. He draws his hand back from mine and I instantly want to touch him again. I need the tingles, the connection. I need him to touch me.
The look on Zanders face is complete joy. The type of unrestrained joy that you see on the faces of children on Christmas day. The look that says everything they ever wanted just became possible.
There are two very distinct parts of me. One-part hates Zander for kidnapping me, being partially to blame for my parents leaving me at that hospital, and for being the reason I have had to move every two months for my entire adult life. The other part, however, craves Zander like the drugs I sold so easily. That part wants him to touch me, hold me, and love me. Physical affection won’t be enough for
her. She wants Zander, and she wants all of him. I'm surprised though by which body parts are controlling each desire. My brain, which for so long has only been interested in my survival, is calling for Zander now. My heart though is shying away. She’s warning me loud and clear that Zander won’t do it for her. She wants something- or someone- else.
His touch though. It awoke a feeling in me that has been few and far between. The closest I can come to describing it is by saying that it is like having chocolate at that time of the month. It isn’t even a question but a necessity. The minute the chocolate touches your tongue your pain and emotions calm into bliss. That’s what Zander’s touch was like. My body had a reaction to his touch and that reaction was peace.
I'm appalled and frustrated by my internal war and it must be clear on my face because Zander is watching me like I'm the most interesting thing in the world.
“It's the same for me, Emily. Part of me wants to rip your clothes off and prove to you that you belong with me and the other part wants to lock you in the basement for the next 17 years so you can begin to understand what our separation has done to me.” The arrogance in his voice angers the independent human being I have become but his vocalization of his desires stirs something deep inside of me. As wrong as it is, some part of me craves the moment when he will do as he threatened.
Since his hand touched mine, I have unconsciously scooted even closer to Zander and now we are a hairs breadth away from each other. He raises his hand and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and I moan at the contact before I can get a handle on myself. My reaction to his touch elicits another smirk from his beautiful lips.
“I have a proposition for you. If you are agreeable, I would like to try being friends. The fact of the matter is: I can’t release you, I won’t. But that doesn’t mean you have to feel like my prisoner. I want you to be comfortable here with me. If we can become friends, I think it'll make all of the other stuff seem… manageable.”