I took his hand in both of mine, brushing the tears away from my cheek with my shoulder. “He asked about fountains. He wanted to know if you… found the fountains? I guessed that he was talking about the doors. He specifically said the one in St. Petersburg.”
“The Peterhof Fountains,” he murmured.
“He said that my dream water mirrors led you right to them… the mirrors in my dream are like water, but how could he know that?”
“What?” West looked at me sharply, negotiating a turn that made me shift against the passenger’s side door. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t even realize that it mattered… I didn’t know…”
He softened. “I’m sorry… don’t cry, Roam. It doesn’t matter now. We know the doors exist, and we know where to find the first one. You were right, baby. Russia.”
“What about Logan?” Nearly melting down again, I gasped a painful breath, gripping his hand. “Logan’s going to start dreaming about hating me, and then he’ll try to… kill me?”
“No. We’ll protect Logan.”
His tone wasn’t as convincing as I’d expected it to be.
“Where are we going?” I glanced out the window, realizing that we were much further south.
“My home.”
“Where do you live?”
“Harpersfield.”
“Oh.” Rubbing my eyes, I winced before blinking rapidly. “I can’t see very well. I have to take these contacts out. They’re hurting my eyes.”
“Do you have your glasses?”
“In my purse, in my backpack.”
“How bad is your eyesight?”
I cringed, blinking again. “Pretty bad. I can’t see anything further than I can hold out my hand.”
“Have you ever considered Lasik surgery?”
Confused, I lifted my burning eyes to his. “Are we… making small talk?”
He pulled onto a dirt road, maneuvering the SUV easily. “No. Before we travel, we may need to make a permanent change to your vision. If it is your physical body that travels, glasses weren’t practical in many of the lives that we spent together.”
I pictured myself riding a horse through France wearing my cute Ralph Lauren specs. Then, I considered that maybe I was hallucinating with the amount of chorine that I’d ingested.
“My dad can’t afford surgery, West.”
“You are not your father’s responsibility any longer,” he clipped, turning onto a long, wooded drive that was overgrown with tall grass and weeds.
I turned around to watch Logan pull in behind us. “What does that mean?”
“I already told you.” His handsome face turned my way, and he caught my chin in his hands. I gazed at him with wide eyes. “Things have to change now, Roam. It’s beginning. You’re not safe. Your family isn’t safe as long as you’re near them. We need to make those numbers on his arm change.”
I gasped for air. “We’re… we’re going?”
His eyes shifted to my lips for a long moment before he released my chin, turning to the door.
“We’re going.”
Chapter Sixteen
West’s house was a giant cabin veiled in a forest of trees, the outside barely visible with brown siding and dark green trim. A peaked roof revealed a second floor. The wraparound porch held a few pieces of furniture.
Resisting West’s arms, I insisted I could walk, barely making it to an oversized chair before collapsing.
“It’s so quiet here,” I said, my eyes heavy. Fatigue pulled my eyelids lower, and I rested my head against the wooden chair.
“She’s exhausted.” Logan hurried up the porch steps to me, glancing at West as he unlocked his front door. “I don’t know what your deal is, but I’m picking her up. Unless you’re waiting to hurl me across your yard.”
West pushed the door open, shaking his head. “I’ve got her, just hold the door open.” I barely felt West gather me into his arms but could sense the bitter animosity coming from Logan. “I’m putting her in bed, and then I’ll talk to you.”
“What, your bed? The fuck you are! Put her on the damn couch!” Logan shouted. I’d never heard him so protective of me, and as I tried to speak, the words burned in my aching throat.
Time passed, and I felt West’s hands on my face. “Just sleep, Roam. No one will hurt you. Just sleep.”
. . .
“It’s snowing hard,” he says, looking out the window. “They were right about the blizzard. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”
I understand that I am dreaming immediately. I look for my water mirror; it hangs in the hotel room that I am standing in, just above a red, chenille couch. The bed is on the opposite wall, and the bedspread matches the couch exactly. The hotel room is nicer than the one I dreamt about before, but the decoration is garish.
My hair is blond, and I am wearing a white, loose-fitting dress. The skirt stops above my knees.
I think that it is 1977.
“What is the date?” I ask, turning to West.
I am taken aback for a moment. He is so handsome. He is finally wearing something other than jeans and a t-shirt and has on black suit pants with a white dress shirt. His hair is longer.
“January twenty-ninth,” he answers, turning from the window to walk to me. “Our wedding day.”
I blink, stunned. “We… are married?”
“Julie,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around me. “Were you there, at the church just this morning?”
I giggle, and his smile is contagious. “I guess so,” I say. “This is so unreal.”
“This is real,” he hushes against my ear, kissing softly. I shiver, softening at his touch. “I want you… I want to make love to you. Not for a baby. Just to feel you.” He covers my lips with his, his mouth tasting like champagne. I reach for his hair again, fascinated that it still feels the same, in every dream, in every lifetime.
“I want that, too,” I whisper shyly. He chuckles against my throat, lowering his kisses.
“Well, at least we agree on something,” he says, lifting my thin dress over my head in one swift movement. I am timid, trying to cover my body, realizing that I am wearing only thin, white, lace panties and no bra.
“Can we… talk… for a while?” I ask, my heart pounding. He shakes his head, leading me backwards toward the bed.
“No, because when we talk, we argue.” He gently pushes me back over the bedspread.
I stiffen- bedbugs!
“Wait, let’s take the comforter off,” I say, my mind sobering at the memory of Dateline’s black light images. “They are the dirtiest things in hotel rooms.”
He stops kissing me, and an amused grin plays on his lips. “After all of these lifetimes, you still surprise me,” he murmurs, and then pulls the bedspread off with a quick tug. “No more excuses. But I like the shy bride act, keep going,” he teases, picking me up and dropping me playfully to the bed. He slowly begins unbuttoning his shirt.
. . .
“Roam. Wake up, baby. Roam.”
His urgent voice pulled me from my dreams, and I opened my eyes, regretting it instantly. My head was pounding, and my contacts were concrete.
“West, my head,” I breathed, pressing my palm to my temple. He was close to my face, and his eyes narrowed.
“Your breath smells like… champagne,” he said, searching my gaze as he touched my cheek softly.
“I was kissing you. It was our wedding night, in 1977. We got married… in a blizzard,” I rambled, blinking rapidly and trying to adjust my contacts. “You can smell the champagne? From my dream?”
He smiled ruefully. “Yes. And you did have champagne that night. A lot.”
I pinched my forefinger and thumb directly over my eyeball, tearing away a contact. I repeated the motion in the other eye, and he watched me, cringing.
“God, Roam.” He sighed, sitting back on the bed. “That looked like it hurt. I’ll get your glasses and something for your head, okay?”
“Thanks,” I answered, try
ing to sit up and look around through my blurred vision. My hair was dry and coarse from not rinsing the chlorine away, and I still wore my damp swimsuit and clothes, making the sheets clammy to touch.
How long have I been asleep? My head is pounding. I sat up more fully, moving my legs over the side of the bed. I resigned to shallow breaths, struggling to fill my lungs with air. Squinting to search for a clock, I heard West coming back into the room.
“It’s almost midnight. Logan left about an hour ago. I told him. Everything.” He passed me a cold bottle of water and two pills.
“Everything? Even the basement?” I almost dropped the water in my shaking hand, and he lowered to the bed next to me.
“No, not the basement.”
I sighed, relieved as I tipped my head back to swallow the pills. The water soothed my throat, but after the second gulp I choked and broke into a coughing fit.
“Easy. It’ll take some time. Just small sips,” he soothed.
“What did you say to Logan?” I managed, rasping.
“We talked for hours,” he answered. “He believed me, finally. With the numbers, he had no other choice.” The intensity of his eyes held my steady gaze, and I focused on his strong, handsome face. My body reacted involuntarily to the memory of him taking my dress off, backing me over the hotel room bed.
Kissing me on our wedding night.
“Logan trusted me enough to leave you here. He called your dad and lied, telling him that you fell asleep at his house. His parents are home, and your dad was fine with that.”
I stiffened. “But Morgan and Logan are both in danger. Troy could find them any minute and…”
I was halfway to my feet before West caught me. “Roam. Morgan is fine. She got your message and called Logan, and he made up a lie about you having a nightmare about Troy. Or Reed,” he corrected, accepting the bottle of water that I held out to him. “He disappeared after he attacked you. Morgan hasn’t seen or heard from him since.”
“So, Logan has just been calling around, covering for me?”
“Logan is going to work with us. He is making arrangements to travel with us.”
I widened my eyes. “To Russia?”
“He understands that we need to move and make the numbers change. Otherwise, his family, and yours, are in danger.”
“I can’t believe that it’s Logan.” I reached for my glasses, thanking him quietly. “Logan is the Immortal Alter.”
He looked down, studying some invisible mark in the carpet. “I’m sorry.”
“He will dream about me, then,” I said, emotionless. “He’ll dream about killing me. Convincing dreams that will make him want to hurt me.”
“I don’t think the dreams will be more powerful than reality. They can’t be as effective. He loves you,” West added. “That’s never happened before.”
We were silent for a long while.
I processed the unsettling feeling of being in his bedroom. Now, with my glasses on, I could see that the bed was huge, king-size, and the comforter and sheets were a masculine pattern. The furniture was a massive dark oak, with a matching dresser.
I guessed that the doorway directly across from me was a bathroom. A tall floor lamp was the only illumination in the vast room.
I sighed, struggling with what to say to him… or what to ask him.
Finally, he turned to me. “This is it, Roam. This is where we fight. Everything we’ve done for centuries has led us to this moment. The school, your friends, even your family… they are inconsequential. This is new for me, too. In the past, I’ve gotten distracted by loving you. This time, I won’t lose focus. I won’t let you fight him alone again,” he whispered, tucking his hand behind my hair to cup my neck. His strong fingers pressed, and I closed my eyes, letting the amazing feeling of his fingers on my muscles relax me.
In the past, I’ve gotten distracted by loving you.
As I registered his words, my mind sobered. I pictured the college applications piled on my desk in my bedroom next to a photograph of my mother and father. They were smiling, their heads together as they grinned into the camera.
My mother. Remembering her soft smile, I turned to West, shrugging away from his hand. “I will do anything to protect my family. And the family that I will have someday… with Logan.”
He met my eyes, pulling his hand away from my neck.
After a long, silent moment, he nodded. “I swear to protect Logan,” he said solemnly, his words echoing the sentiment of days long passed, when knights were sworn to protect their lords.
“Thank you,” I whispered, covering his hand with mine.
“Under one condition,” he added. I exhaled, scowling.
“What?”
“You have to do everything that I tell you to do. You’re smart, but you’re stubborn, Roam. I can’t protect you if I don’t have your complete obedience and trust. Do you promise to do everything I say, without question?”
I flinched. “Without… question?”
“That was a question. Logan’s on his own.”
“Yes! Yes, I promise,” I cried, exasperated as I broke into another coughing jag. He patted my back gently.
“Good. Now, my bathroom is through there. I got you a towel, one of my t-shirts and a pair of sweats with a drawstring. Leave the door cracked, and I’ll be right here if you need me. Do you feel strong enough?”
“Yes.” I stood up, my legs barely stable. My mind was slightly less sharp, and everything was a little unclear, but my headache was slowly creeping away. I wasn’t sure what he’d given me, but I assumed it was aspirin.
As he’d promised, his clothes were there, and a white towel was folded neatly on a wooden stool near the claw-footed bathtub. The room was clean with white, ceramic conveniences; a pedestal sink, and a toilet. The rounded, stainless steel shower rod was draped with a burgundy curtain, and a shower head was fixed to the white tiled wall. I left the door cracked, making sure that I was inside the curtain before peeling off my damp clothes and swimsuit.
In the shower, I tried to avert my attention to cleaning myself and not focus on being in West’s shower.
I reached for a shampoo bottle, intrigued by his choice of discount brand. Strawberry scented? I had pictured a bar of multipurpose Irish Spring and nothing else. Preoccupied, I lathered my hair and attempted to not think about the events of the day.
Thoroughly cleaning every area with the hottest water that I could stand, I tried to block Troy’s touch from my mind. I turned off the water and reached for the towel. Instead of panicking over the memory that refused to leave my overactive mind, I felt my body relax.
Blinking, I looked around at the same bathroom that I had just observed only minutes prior. The fixtures, the mirror, the sink… the entire bathroom held a soft glow. My breathing was less painful and laborious, and somehow, I managed to secure the towel around me as the door opened.
West stood next to me, offering me his arm for support. “I can help you get dressed if you want me to. I’ve seen all of you before.”
Looking up at him, I realized that he was completely serious. I gritted my teeth, taking his outstretched hand. A floating, intoxicated warmth filled my mind. “Not this me. And… that’s not a good idea.”
“Don’t you trust me, Roam?”
His eyes were fixed on mine, and I blinked again, my eyelids closing like lead curtains.
“I don’t… trust… myself.” I barely felt the muted pain in my right knee. “My boyfriend is about to become my… arch enemy, and I can’t stop dreaming about… kissing you. And you’re really… hot,” I added.
Wait.
Did I just say that? What is wrong with me?
“It’s okay, Roam.”
“What did you… give me?” I begged, gripping his hand.
“Oxycodone.”
“Why?” I tried to focus on his face, but when I did, another set of bottomless blue eyes appeared.
“Because we’re going to fix your eyesight,” he replied, c
atching me before I crumbled to the floor. My body went completely slack, and I was vaguely aware that his arms were around me, carrying me from the bathroom. “Don’t be afraid.” I was back in the bed, the sheets now dry and warm.
“You’re going to put a… laser in my eye?” Slow. The world is too slow… my words are too slow. “No… no,” I protested, struggling against him with all my strength as he pulled the t-shirt down over my shoulders. Once he had completely covered my hips, he pulled the towel away.
“No, I’m not.”
I remembered laughing with Morgan when we’d once found a do-it-yourself eye correction laser kit on the internet, and I protested.
“You can’t-”
“I’m not. A surgeon will. Lean back,” he whispered, his arm slipping behind my shoulders. My muddled thoughts were thick and nonsensical. “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he promised, gathering my hair and spreading the locks over the pillow. I was vaguely aware of him holding each eyelid open, squeezing drops of something into each eye. “Your eyes will be numb. Just relax, Roam.”
Another person’s voice floated in and out of the bedroom. Time passed. I felt pressure in my eye, one at a time, but had no inclination to fight what was happening. Eventually I sensed that someone was lying next to me on the bed, but I could see nothing but blackness. My pulse raced, and my thoughts were becoming clearer. I was on my back, my head on a pillow, something heavy across my stomach.
“Roam. You’re wearing an eye mask, like a sleeping mask. Your eyes are healing. I’m right here next to you, and I’m not leaving you,” West whispered, and I realized that it was his arm across my waist.
“You drugged me,” I managed, my voice hoarse.
“The surgery is over. I had no time for your millions of questions, or for you to panic.”
His mouth was so close to my ear. “Where’s Logan?”
“It’s only been a few hours. He’s still at his house, with his parents. Protecting them.” I sensed his sardonic tone, hearing him sigh. “He has no idea what Troy is capable of.”
I reached for my eyes, but he caught my hands before I could touch my face.
“Don’t. Just let them rest,” he ordered.
I rolled on my side to face him, feeling his warm breath on my face. “So, you have random surgeons at your beck and call? You have a doctor who will just bring his handy laser and perform eye surgery on an underage, drugged, non-consenting girl?”
Roam (Roam Series, Book One) Page 13