I grimaced at her choice of words, because I had begun to wonder what the hell was up with me. No one loses two days like that without a reason. And yet I could find nothing wrong with my head, making a head injury an unlikely cause. So that logically left a drug, which would prove someone had done this to me. The alternative to those options was a brain tumour. In any case, there were tests I could take, and sitting around brooding and fearing the answer was not going to change a damn thing. I needed to know.
"OK, will you come with?" I sounded pathetic and I knew it, but Sonya had been my friend for over ten years now. She just nodded her head and grabbed the keys to her car off the coffee table.
The waiting time at the hospital was atrocious. Two and a half hours after arriving, several games of Snap! and countless comments about whining patients later, we were finally escorted into a cubicle. My mood didn't improve when I realised the palms from out in the waiting room hadn't made it in here.
Sonya settled into a blue vinyl chair humming a tuneless sound and flicking through a magazine she'd pilfered from the waiting room, while I perched on the edge of the over height bed.
Minutes ticked by painfully slowly.
I couldn't stand the tension in my shoulders any longer, so forced myself to lie out on the bed and tried to relax. The light above flickered hypnotically, and with a concerted effort to release the stress in my frame, I eventually found myself sinking into the starchy covers on the mattress, and staring mesmerised at the dancing light show overhead.
There was so much for my mind to get hung up on. So many questions, so many fears. But surprisingly that's not where my mind wandered to. And a part of me wasn't entirely too surprised to see the memory form behind my drooping eyelids.
"I was thinking the opera, or would you prefer a ballet? The Royal New Zealand Ballet are performing Swan Lake at The Civic Theatre. I've always liked Tchaikovsky. What do you say?"
This memory was my favourite, and only a week old. Of all the times Theo and I had conversed over the past twelve months, this one held the most promise.
Of course my mouth went so dry I couldn't even offer a reply.
"No? Oh well, maybe you would prefer something a little less formal, Oraia. Perhaps dinner would be better. Kermadec on Viaduct Quay? Do you like seafood?"
"I..." I licked my lips, trying to moisten my dry throat.
Theo inviting me out on a date. A date!
"Cassandra," Theo murmured, moving closer. So close I could feel the heat through his suit jacket. So close I could see the weave in the luxe cashmere wool.
The deli disappeared. The noise of the afternoon crowd vanished. I didn't think of Sonya and Alice watching this exchange from the counter. Nothing else registered but the determined and slightly hungry look in Theo's eyes. I blinked up at him, swaying slightly and sucked in a shaky breath of air.
"I'd like to get to know you better," he whispered in that deep, silky voice of his. "Take the chance, say yes."
And, much to my surprise, I did. We'd been about to embark on the next stage of our relationship. Flirting had finally progressed to the promise of much more.
My breath left me in a rush, making Sonya glance up from her magazine with a concerned look on her face.
"It won't be much longer, Case," she offered. "They're just busy."
"I guess the date's not going to happen now, is it?"
Sonya sucked in a long breath of air, but clearly kept up with my train of thought. "What makes you say that? He's obviously keen on you. I mean, hell Casey, the man's been flirting with you for a year. I saw how delighted he was when you finally accepted his invitation to dinner. That's not going to change because of some strange loss of memory and pit full of dirt episode. If anything, he'll be even more determined to look out for you. That man has been crazy about you since the second he walked through the deli door. No," she said with a determined air, "he'll come around. Mark my words, Casey Eden; Theo Peters is besotted with you. The date will still be on."
I wanted to believe her. God I did. But Theo's behaviour today left a dark pall over what had been an exciting change of dynamics in our relationship.
My head hurt. My heart hurt. And the world I knew wasn't the same anymore.
I felt set adrift, lost at sea, and prayed the answers to some of my troubles could be found at the end of a doctor's needle, or behind the mechanics of an x-ray machine.
It was with that daunting thought that a doctor arrived. Tall, thick black long hair, curvy figure and perfectly tanned skin, she looked like a supermodel.
"Hello," she said, in an accent I couldn't quite pin down. "I'm Doctor Peters. How can I help today?"
Sonya's eyebrows swept up at the doctor's name, a question on the tip of her tongue. I shook my head minutely. Even if the good doctor had the same tanned skin and dark haired features, she didn't look a bit like Theo. And Peters was a common enough name.
I hedged a little in my story telling, receiving more raised eyebrows from Sonya behind the doctor's back. But admitting I'd fallen into a pit on my run just sounded stupid, so I told her I'd lost my memory from the past two days and had woken this morning thinking it was Tuesday, not Thursday. I also mentioned I might have knocked my head in a fall, because I woke on the floor, not in bed. It was as close as I was going to get to the truth, but I felt it was enough for the doctor to carry out the appropriate examination.
She was, of course, suitably worried on my behalf and ran a battery of tests. Six hours later, though, I was none the wiser.
No injuries evident. No miscellaneous and unaccounted for drugs in my blood. Nothing on the MRI to indicate a brain tumour. In other words, the doctor was as stumped as us. I bit the inside of my mouth in a mixture of anger and fear. Why did this have to happen to me? And more importantly, who did it? Because there was no way I could accept I had simply fallen in that pit and gone to sleep. I was uninjured, even to the point that the thorns which had maliciously torn my skin, left not a single mark.
No knock to the head. No evidence of foul play. But I couldn't get past the feeling that something bad had happened. Something I had no part of other than being the victim in the end. And the way Theo had reacted, none of it made any sense.
I felt so very alone in that thought. Even though Sonya was with me and had stayed by my side the entire time, and the doctor was still in the cubicle giving soothing, yet useless platitudes to ease our minds. I was all alone. Because neither of them could possibly understand what I was feeling. I wasn't bruised, but I felt battered inside. Scared and lonely. I would never run through that Rose Garden again. And that just made me mad.
I clenched my fists in my lap and tasted blood on my tongue when my teeth broke the tender flesh on the inside of my mouth. It was salty and disgusting, but right then I didn't care. I was done with this place and I desperately wanted to just go home and curl up in bed.
I slipped off my perch and did up my jacket. As I turned to the doctor to thank her for her efforts, I was met with my second white face that day - from someone who was normally naturally tanned. Dr Peters looked shocked and a little frightened, if truth be told. She backed away from me as though I was a leper, but being a doctor I thought that analogy was all wrong. Hell, everything was all wrong right now. Nothing made sense and the woman before me trying frantically to get out of the tangle of curtains behind her, while keeping me in her sights, was currently the most wrong thing in my world right then.
Including the flash of gold that threaded through her eyes.
I blinked back at her in shock, watched as she battled her unseen demons and tore from the cubicle in a rush. The curtains smoking slightly, leaving a burnt material smell on the air that threatened to choke.
"What the fuck was that?" Sonya demanded, but all I could do was gape like a fish out of water, struggling to breathe. I shook my head, feeling my knees crumble slightly beneath me. My heart pounded painfully in my chest and I noticed my limbs were shaking. I'd just had a clean bill of health
from a medical professional, yet I hadn't felt this ill in a very long time.
I swallowed down my visceral reaction and decided it was best to get away from Doctor Peters as fast as I could. She'd looked frightened when I first saw her pale, but when she parted those curtains and finally ran from the room, the feeling I got was no longer fear, but something else.
It didn't make any sense.
More questions than answers, that's what I had. And now it was close to one in the morning, I was simply exhausted, faintly ill, and totally confused and at a loss. What did I do now? Forget it all happened?
Impossible, I was thinking, but getting out of here was a good place to start.
Sonya dropped me off at my apartment and after a five minute conversation where I finally convinced her I'd be OK, I watched her drive off down Gladstone Road. As I turned from the road and started up my drive I smelled him. I hadn't realised that Theo had smelt like early morning sunshine and rosebuds in Spring. Underlying that scent was all man; spicy, alluring, sending a jolt of awareness straight to my core.
I spun around and tried to spot him, but only shadows and the odd creak of a tree branch could be seen and heard. I knew I wasn't mistaken. Not that I had ever identified Theo by smell before. But something inside me told me I was right. Theo was sunshine and rosebuds mixed with the scent of Mediterranean spice.
I slowed and stood very still, knowing instinctively that I was safe even though his appearance, suddenly like this, made my heart race and my mind scramble. But despite Theo's presence on my property making my head spin with fearful thoughts, my body continued to insist that the driveway was not a dangerous place to be; I was safe as it was bordered by gnarled old Rimu Trees and thick bushes with thorny stems.
I shook my head in bewilderment at those thoughts, a soft sound of bemusement seeping out between my lips. Bloody hell, I was turning into a freak. But freak or not, I was never one to back down from a direct challenge. I might be incredibly shy when it comes to flirtations with the opposite sex, by my gut told me Theo was not here to flirt, so my confidence was rock solid - something I was sure he would not expect.
"You might as well come out," I said loudly into the still night air. "I know you're there."
There was a pause of several seconds, filled only by a sudden gentle wind brushing the feathery branches in the Rimu Trees. I could have sworn they said he was standing beneath them, but I dismissed the notion as soon as it entered my head.
"Why not strike me where I stand?" came his familiar, deep, sexy voice.
Just what the hell was he playing at?
"I'm tired of your games, Theo. I've had a hell of a day."
His sharp bark of laughter rang out in the air. I don't think he was actually amused, just acting a part. A part designed to scare me. My hackles rose up my back.
"This is ridiculous. What has got in to you?" I demanded.
"I could say the same of you," he drawled, then added, "but I do not suspect this is a sudden change. Merely a slip in the mask you have so successfully worn until today."
He stepped forward out of the shadows, his body only a darker outline from the inky blackness cast by the Rimu Tree overhead. I couldn't see his face, but I could see his hand reach up and gently brush a few of the needle-like leaves on the tree. They made a tinkling sound, that was quite unnatural, as they floated to the ground at his feet.
"What are your intentions in our city?" he asked, not taking his eyes from the still delicately floating leaves at his side. He seemed fascinated, if not a little wary.
"What do you mean?" I asked, frowning into the gloom that surrounded him, knowing he could see me clearly, but I could not see him that well at all.
"Now, now, Casey." My eyes closed briefly at the fact he was using my given name and none of his nicknames for me. "I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. Why? I'm not sure, maybe nostalgia for all those luscious feedings you provided me."
I blinked at his strange phrasing. Feedings? Did he mean the deli sandwiches he purchased from my shop?
"You paid fair and square for those," I replied, unsure what else to say.
A flash of gold was all I saw from the shadows and then he was in front of my face, his hand wrapped around my throat. Although it was not tight, it did burn. I think my skin was blistering.
"You go too far, Gi," he whispered, hot breath against my cheek. He looked in pain. His eyes clouded, even though that strange gold made them seem so very unnatural. The look of agony on his face though, was very real. "Shall I show you how far I can go in turn?" He pulled my body flush against his and heat rolled through me. But not the blistering kind at my throat, this was entirely different and completely unwanted at that moment.
Not with his hand securely fastened at my neck.
"Wh..what are you doing?" I croaked, licking my lips automatically as my mouth had gone bone dry.
He groaned into the skin at the side of my face, it sounded as pained as he looked, and completely unintentional. A soft, heated brush of his lips next to my ear followed, and then he pulled back. Releasing his hold on my throat suddenly and watching on in what appeared stunned - and could that be mortified? - surprise, as I doubled over and whimpered when my fingers touched burnt flesh at my neck.
"What the fuck, Theo?" I demanded, standing straight again and giving him my best 'back off now, buster' look.
His eyes bore into mine, his breathing, I noticed, was rapid.
"The green is stunning," he said, bizarrely. "I had not thought I would prefer any colour than the blue. But it does suit you, Oraia."
Oh, man, he was going to give me whiplash at this rate. First cold and distant, then homicidal and brutal, followed by sexy and enchanting.
"What's got into you?" I whispered, my hand still at my throat, as I took a step backwards towards the safety of my flat.
"I do not like being lied to," he said simply. And I think quite truthfully. "I should take your head for this. Our rules demand it."
All breath left me at his shocking and confusing words. Take my head?
But still he looked to be in such agony at the confession. It didn't make any sense.
"Wh..what? Why?" I croaked my demand.
"Casey." He sighed, ran a hand through his thick black hair in frustration. Then lifted pleading hazel eyes to mine. "Please. Just leave before another of my Guard does what I cannot."
The breath I sucked in scorched my lungs, my hands started shaking at my throat. He meant it. Although he seemed unable to take my head - a sentence that sounded so foreign to my ears, yet rang with resounding truth from his tone - someone else would. His Guard. What did that mean? Were there more like him? Like the doctor?
Would Theo truly hurt me? I just didn't know. But the ache and longing I'd seen mixed on his face tonight, did not correspond with his threats. I was so lost, so confused. And I admit, starting to get a little angry. What the hell did he think he was saying? Doing?
My head was shaking back and forth, my face must have shown my bewilderment. I could feel myself frowning, my heart racing, my breaths now coming in short shallow pants.
"Theo?" was all I could manage to say.
His mouth opened, then closed. That agony of before doubled, he looked almost crippled by it now.
"Oraia," he whispered, taking a step backwards. "All I ever wanted was to protect you. But you tricked me." He made a strangled sound that was probably a laugh, even though it sounded too bitter to be one. "And still I want to protect you." He sounded disgusted at himself.
My hand left my aching neck and covered my mouth, as though that would hold the sob inside. It didn't. I could feel his pain, and that made no sense. He was threatening me, had bizarrely burned my neck, it should be my pain I felt, not his. But he looked devastated. Just as confused as me.
And I felt it all as though his emotions were mine.
"I don't understand," I murmured.
"Neither do I," he whispered back. And in the next instant he was gone from
sight. But I could still smell him. And as I stood there shaking from head to toe, my neck stinging painfully and tears burning in my eyes, I heard his distant voice.
"Leave the city, Cassandra. Leave before another finds you instead of me."
Oh God. He was a lunatic, he truly believed someone would hurt me. He thought he was warning me. Protecting me. I felt sick to my stomach, and was sure that I was about to puke up pizza all over my front doorstep.
I rushed inside the flat, securely bolting every lock on the door and sank down onto my butt. My knees held tightly against my chest, my breath coming in ragged pants. The tears came as my body shook.
So alone.
So scared.
So confused.
Why was this happening? Did this have something to do with falling in that pit and losing two days? Or was I actually going mad? There were no answers whispered through the leaves of the plants inside my house, but I could hear all the Rimu Trees down the driveway creaking and groaning, singing a lament on the still night air.
And the dark entranceway I was sitting in...
...was bathed in an unnatural vibrant green light.
Chapter Three
It Was Completely Unfair
I stared at my eyes in the bathroom mirror for over an hour. They fluctuated between my normal dark blue, to a vibrant, unholy green. It took a good forty minutes for me to correlate the colour change to my mood or emotions at the time. But eventually I connected the otherworldly green, that shined as though lit by a light from behind, to my anger, panic, and the sheer depth of fear I was feeling.
Something was happening to me and I didn't understand it at all.
I sighed for the fiftieth time, but just continued to stare blindly at the state of my eyes. They were blue again - for now - but they no longer looked like mine. Even though I didn't have an explanation for what was happening, I did know that I had changed. Not just physically, but mentally. Psychologically. I was not the Casey Eden I once was.
Elemental Awakening Book Bundle Page 3