Ever Lasting

by Odessa Gillespie Black

  I allowed her a safe distance away from my grasp. I leveled my tone but spoke over the music and laughter. “I just came in the door.”

  Allie backed away with her eyes as round as the disco ball hovering over the dance floor. “That’s not possible.”

  “I just parked my Hummer and walked in the front entrance. You can ask the bouncer. He’d remember me.” I waved my hands in surrender. “I swear. I wasn’t here.”

  “You were just behind me.”

  I looked beyond her and saw the man that had stolen my life from me. Not just on this occasion, but since it had started.

  He gave me a venom-filled smile and waved me toward him.

  I stormed past Allie toward an exact duplicate of myself. Only his gaze was sinister. And he wore my best clothes, which pissed me off even more.

  Like the vicious dog and the tame dog, I’d somehow split-shifted into two separate personalities that made up my psyche.

  If I had to kill that part of me off to gain control of my life, to get Allie back, then that’s what I’d do. My hands reached for his throat with all the strength it would have taken to shift into fifty animals was behind my grip.

  By his neck, I shoved my counterpart into the wall of the DJ’s stand. The music skipped and made a recovery but the man in my grip wouldn’t.

  With a lion’s grip on his throat, I pushed him around the stage and to the back exit, patrons opening a path as we crashed through. That same screw-you smile never left his lips.

  A cold ball of anger exploded in the pit of my stomach and with the power it lent me, I lifted him from the ground and threw him down the back steps of the club.

  He slammed into the dumpster.

  I hopped over the railing and pounced on top of him.

  A ring of black surrounded my vision.

  Murder. He had to die.

  The punches I threw now were at myself, the self-serving, want-oriented, sex-starved, primal part that existed in every man’s mind. That part of their mind that their conscience held back.

  With each blow his grin widened and the blood splattered, but it disappeared as it flew. The fight was pointless, but my rage grew when the back door of the club slammed open and Allie screamed as she watched me pummel the exact copy of myself.

  I stood and towered over the body of the person that I hated, my energy spent in trying to defeat him.

  Allie stood behind the railing staring at us.

  I finally heard her thoughts when she was thinking about me, but the sentences skipped as she thought about him.

  Somehow, when she thought about him, the thoughts couldn’t process in my mind. The thoughts were blank spots instead of anything I could decipher. I got enough bits that I figured out that she had been trying to grasp the fact that I was fighting myself. The part of me I was trying to kill had killed her in the past.

  He’d become flesh and blood.

  Her face went blank as she stared back and forth between the me on the ground and the me standing over the me on the ground. Hell, it confused me.

  He stood, wiped the alley grime from his pants and leaned against the dumpster. “Aren’t you going to tell her who I am?” He stepped closer. “Better yet, why don’t you tell her why you left her with me. You gave up. You thought she was cheating.”

  Allie was still completely immobile as the other Cole stepped nose to nose with me.

  “Even I have more faith in her than that. And you think you deserve her more?”

  “You only want her for what she can do for you.”

  “And from what I remember, it was a lot. You waste all your time being a Goody-Two-Shoes, when you could be spending quality time with her. And you know what I mean by quality.”

  “I can’t believe you were ever part of me,” I growled at him.

  He opened his mind to me. Allowed me to see past images of me and my wife, images of what he’d do to her in the alley if they were alone. He was vile. Disgusting. I had never been more ashamed.

  Separated from me, he was transforming into a creature I didn’t know. Without a conscience, my evil side stared back at me.

  Finally, Allie stepped in.

  She stomped down the steps and marched toward the Cole that presented the most life-threatening danger to the both of us. Without fear, Allie boldly entered the other Cole’s personal space. “I thought you cared about me?”

  Every nerve in me sizzled in electric jealousy as Allie peered into his eyes.

  I couldn’t imagine that for the last months she had been in his presence much less alone with him. I clenched my fists. I would rather her be with anyone else than him.

  “I told you in the end you would have to make a choice. Now after all those months of waiting. This is what’s left.” Cole’s voice trailed off.

  Allie had started trembling, but rather than jerk her away from danger without her consent the way I’d always done in our past lives, I trusted her.

  “There used to be something in your eyes that told me you loved me. It’s harder to see through all that disgusting talk. I know you. This isn’t the real you. You’re not a whole man.” Allie cupped his face with a hand I remembered to be petal soft.

  Clenching my fists and holding back a slew of curse words, I had to fight every molecule in my being to stand aside and let her talk to him so intimately.

  “When he left, he took with him the soft and sappy side. And the farther away it is, the less I feel it. Sure, I love you, but a man has needs.” The Cole I no longer recognized as ever having been a part of me gave Allie the grin I’d always bestowed upon her when I knew she was close to jumping in my arms, but this time was not the case. This guy was in danger being slapped. If not by her, then I’d have been happy to do it.

  I was almost embarrassed, though I knew I had no control over him. I had to look away. It was more than I could stand that she was still speaking to him.

  “So, what you are saying is there is nothing good, pure, or virtuous left inside?” Her tone was level, calm, and collected as if she were conducting an interview. I shivered at the cold look in her eyes and some inner instinct told me to step back.

  Allie never ceased to fascinate me.

  “Precisely,” the other Cole said. “But who wants a good boy?”

  “It’s sad you feel that way.” She placed her hands on both sides of his face. She spoke softly to him as his hands slid around her waist and for the first time in my life, I trusted her, though there seemed to be no reason to at that second. Their embrace could have been deceiving to the untrained eye. “I’m sorry, but I need you both.”

  Instantly, a look of shock and then pain flashed in the bad boy’s eyes. He realized what Allie meant to do but only too late. As she held his head in her hands, his skin turned to dust and then the bones that had been covered by it did the same. The clothing that had disappeared from my closet fell to the ground and Allie’s hands remained there for a second or two, till they finally dropped. She still stood facing away from me looking at the ground.

  Relief and fear of what would happen next wrapped around me. A pile of clothes and powdery particles was all that was left of who Allie had been deceived by for most of the last year.

  No wonder I had rarely seen her. I’d done well to stay away, but what had this man, this other part of me put her through? And from the stricken look on her face, would she miss his antics if that part of me was gone for good?

  Wisps of fine dust floated in the breeze carrying away the last half year of Allie’s life.

  I didn’t know what to say. I was responsible for her pain once again.

  After what seemed like forever, Allie turned and approached me. She held out her hand, a small ball of black powdery mist centered in her palm.

  I jerked back but she grasped my wrist. “I need you both.”

  I shook my head. I never wanted to feel the way that guy had. I wanted him as far away from me as possible.

  “There
’s always a little bad in the good and a little good in the bad, and now you’ve found the balance. With him back where he belongs, I think your soul will settle and you’ll find peace.”

  Allie’s touch evoked a different emotion in me than it had in nine months. Her soft, warm hand pressed against me and a feeling that had been gone for so long rose from my legs and spread across my chest.

  The word “everlasting” rested in my mouth readying themselves to slide off my tongue, but I was too poetic to let them fall out alone. “You and I have an everlasting bond. I’ll never give up again. I hope you can forgive me.”

  In a dirty alley behind a nightclub, we were finally able to touch, which was a good thing. I couldn’t have stopped myself from claiming all that was ever supposed to be mine, right there, trash, rats, dirty puddles and all. Until Allie spoke.

  She was the person who grounded me. The real other half of me.

  “Take me home,” Allie said.

  “Not to that damned apartment,” I said.

  “I don’t know. It sort of grew on me. You’re quite the artist.” She nudged me as she looped her arm through mine.

  “I understand how you felt all these years having to compare yourself to another person. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that you were only a part of someone I loved. It’s always been you. All eighteen of you.”

  Chapter 18

  Allie

  Cole had a difficult time releasing my hand when he pulled us up to the dorms in his new Hummer. He’d had a lapse of sanity when he heard me profess my feelings to the bad boy half of him.

  To keep things light, I said, “So, you gonna buy a new Camaro when we get back home?”

  “I don’t know. I kind of like this. It has a bigger backseat.” Cole shot me a look.

  It was weird to hear the good boy talk like a bad boy and it be okay. “Some things never change.”

  “Go pack. I’m ready to get you home.”

  “Are you sure you want to leave college? You have quite the following here.”

  Cole leaned in. “The only follower I want is you.”

  I sank into him as his lips met mine for the first time, again. How could my soul have ever forgotten this? His breath on my face, his arms around me, and especially his shuddering that ensued after such a short kiss.

  He leaned back and gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. “Yes. Some things never change.”

  * * * *

  At home, Mama, Daddy, Shelby, and Trevor met us with open arms.

  Cole gave me a few minutes to carry a bag or two to my room and freshen up. My hands shook as I washed my face and ran my brush through my hair. In the mirror, my cheeks were flushed and my eyes twinkled.

  An insistent knock came at my door.

  I opened it to find Cole’s smirk on the other side. “You ready?”

  I took Cole’s hand as he led me down the stairs, past our tearful family, and out the back door of Rollins Manor. “Where are we going?”

  “Where it all began.”

  At the threshold of the old cottage in the backyard, Cole opened the door. I half expected his real mother, his first mother, to be standing in the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron at our arrival. Or his father with a Bible in his hands by the fireplace.

  We were alone.

  “Are you okay?” Cole said.

  The door leading to his old room was open. “I’m a little nervous.”

  Cole turned to me and enveloped me with his warm-for-now arms. “Everything doesn’t have to happen tonight. We have forever.”

  “You’re not going to get away from me that easy.” I ran my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him down to me.

  Cole’s soft sigh and woodsy smell surrounded me. He walked me backward to his room, kissing me the whole way. When my legs hit the back of his bed, he pulled back. A glow filled the green in his eyes and his muscles twitched under his shirt.

  “Do we need to stop?” I slipped my hand under his shirt to the cool skin on his chest. The room was air conditioned now, so he’d lose warmth soon. If he didn’t shift first.

  Cole gripped my face and pulled me to him. His kiss crushed my mouth with mint and steam. I liked that answer.

  As he tore my shirt over my head and yanked the rest of the inconvenient material that separated us off and onto the floor, I was the one who shook. Trepidation that I wouldn’t be what he expected or what he remembered flowed through me.

  Through kisses, he said, “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

  We landed on the bed and in the next few minutes, our souls finally met. Again.

  As we lay together in the throes of our recent union, Cole’s chest was still, but I could barely catch my breath. All those years, we could have been sneaking off together, but I’d been such a bi—.

  “You were more like your original incarnation than you know. You were feisty, tough-skinned, and headstrong. I wouldn’t have changed a thing then or now.” Cole twirled a tendril of my long hair in his fingers then ran it across his lips.

  I rolled over into his arms tangling my legs in the sheets. “I would.”

  “What would you have changed?” Cole hugged me to him.

  “That we didn’t do this sooner and that I never told you I loved you. I do. So much. I’ve never felt something so strong. I am so ready to do this forever.”

  “I always said we felt something stronger than love.”

  “Something everlasting?”

  “Something like that.” Cole hovered over me.

  The day fell away and nightfall landed over Rollins Manor. The curse was gone. There were no ghost to harass us, and no more worries.

  The days were filled with sunshine, the intermittent rain was cleansing, and the trials, tribulations, and disappointments that had dictated our pasts and futures were long behind us. We’d finally found our happily ever after.

  Epilogue

  Cole

  After a few weeks of not seeing the light of day other than a glimpse from the window of the cottage, Allie and I had rejoined the hustle and bustle of everyday life in the manor. I’d left college behind. Let’s face it. How many degrees does a guy really need?

  Allie had succumbed to running the house again as our mothers went on with their dream of having a home for children with special needs and capabilities. I spent most of my time helping them when I wasn’t obsessive-compulsive over the lawn at the Rollins Manor property.

  A week before Christmas, Allie walked down the stairs with a mischievous look on her face. In her hand was a box covered in tattered Christmas wrapping paper. At the base of the staircase, she handed it to me.

  “Christmas is days away.” I took the box and lifted the lid.

  On top of yellowed gift tissue paper was a leather-bound journal.

  “You used to write in them all the time. I thought this would be a nice present for you right after you went to college. So you could write down all the important things that happened to you.” Allie’s eyes sparkled. She looked different today. Glowing.

  “What would you have me write about now?”

  “This.” She handed me a stick from a pregnancy test with a line in one window and a cross in the other.

  Be sure not to miss book two in Odessa’s Cursed series

  EVER TEMPTED

  An infinity of lives, only one eternal love . . . .

  When Cole Kinsley asked Allie Knowles for her hand in marriage, he meant it. Death be damned. Nothing could keep them apart, not even a hundred years or more. Not even the vindictive spirit of Allie’s dead sister Grace. Released from her watery grave, she offers Cole a devil’s bargain. But to Cole, no price is too high when it comes to his beloved.

  Allie thinks it’s almost too good to be true: a week of bliss alone with Cole. His promise kept; after all they’ve suffered at the hands of her sister. To feel the strength of his arms around her again. But when she learns of the sa
crifice he made to be with her, she plunges into despair. Forever has slipped from their grasp—unless forever apart is their true destiny . . .

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  Chapter 1

  Cole

  I’ve died eleven times.

  Part way through round twelve, I finally found a chance to be happy, but I had to live in a shabby hotel two towns away from Allie so I could get the animal under control. I barely made it through a kiss with her without the animal threatening to rip her to pieces.

  My bags made a plop on the worn carpet. From the looks of the place, at any second, a cockroach could crawl from under the sagging bed and carry it into the dark shadows.

  I put it on the table.

  Sure, I was used to sleeping outside in whatever animal form I chose on particularly stressful days, but cockroaches were the lowest form of pest. I voluntarily shuddered at the thought of them crawling in my bags or on my clothes.

  The air conditioner was too small for the room or even a closet. The knob fell off into dry-rotted clumps of plastic in my hand. At least it had turned to high before it broke. I was always a little hotter than the normal human, so if it stayed on constantly, good.

  Pulling the neck of my T-shirt from the back, I tugged my shirt over my head.

  A shower might help—an ice-cold one.

  At the front desk, soap and towels cost five dollars extra. The hotel owner had to make his money somehow. It sure would not come from people visiting a second time around.

  A ten-minute cold shower did no good, so I got out and toweled off.

  Wet, frustrated, and needing the love of my life with me, I searched for the television remote. It was under my bag on the bed earlier. In minutes, the room looked as though I’d lived in it for a week, but I had the remote in hand.