They stood, equally matched as they glared at each other, neither willing to back down. Eventually, Christian shoved Nate back, letting him go and breaking his grip. He straightened his shirt, not dropping his gaze.
“As I said,” he turned and walked towards the door, pulling it open. “Thanks.” He swaggered out of the room without a backwards glance.
Nate stared, dumbfounded, as the door swung shut behind him. He blinked, grudgingly impressed at the Guardian’s nerve, before he straightened his shoulders, chuckling ruefully as he stepped back out into the night.
***
Rose woke as Christian slid back into her bed in the dark.
“Sorry,” he whispered, as she shuffled over to make room. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
They lay together for a moment.
“Are you okay?” Rose asked, eventually, as she felt Christians disquiet. “You seem … tense.”
Christian smiled tightly. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just thinking too much.”
Rose smiled in the dark. “Need distracting?” she asked, running her fingers along the buttons of his shirt down to his stomach.
He caught her hand as it trailed lower, rolling over and trapping her beneath him. He looked at her for a moment, his expression unfathomable, before he kissed her.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss, not soft or tender. It was deep and dark and urgent. His tongue slipped into her mouth almost roughly as his hands slid underneath the hem of her tee shirt, fingers splaying out over her ribs and stomach.
Rose’s surprise at his sudden intensity became fuel for the fire that ignited inside of her, the heat of his hands leaving burning trails along the sensitive skin of her sides. He pulled the tee shirt up around her and, impatient, she tugged it over her head and dropped it onto the floor before bringing her mouth back to his, biting sharply on his bottom lip. Christian groaned in approval, the soft sound slipping past her ear as he captured her face with his hands.
She sat up and he moved with her, rocking back onto his knees as her fingers made short work of his shirt, pushing the fabric off his shoulders as he pulled her against him. His bare skin was hot against hers as she reached for his belt, unbuckling and tugging at the constraints of his clothing. Tearing his mouth from hers, he trailed a line of kisses down her neck, across her chest, down her stomach, leaving fire in his wake as he finished the task, shucking his jeans in single sweeping haste.
Rose arched into the touch, his teeth and tongue on her skin, and he lifted his head, dark eyes trailing over her body almost greedily.
“You’re beautiful,” he said simply, before bringing his mouth to hers once more.
Rose clung to him as the force of his desire crashed into her, the onrush of emotion ricocheting through her senses; so much love, so much need.
She gave herself up to it, losing herself in the heat of his embrace to revel in the emotion that swirled around them both in a heady circle, blending and intertwining, until it was impossible to tell them apart.
19
Ben watched as light trickled through the crack in the curtains; a bar of warm gold dividing the room as it spread across the floor, announcing the coming dawn. He knew he should sleep, but the quiet between night and morning was his favourite time to think, and Ben had a lot on his mind.
He reached out to fiddle with the square white cushion that lay beside him, the letters ‘Ctrl’ printed in large black type across its front. He threw it onto the floor, where it joined its friends ‘Alt’ and ‘Del’ that had inexplicably found their way into his room. He let his mind wander, eyes roaming across his eclectic mix of old books and modern gadgets.
Ana shifted in her sleep, distracting him, her hand reaching out across his chest and she curled into his side. Ben pulled the duvet up over her shoulders, gently tucking her in and waiting for her to settle, before folding his arm under his head and returning to his pondering.
Ben hadn’t dealt with the last few weeks very well. In fact, he was ashamed to admit, he’d flat out avoided Rose and everything to do with her since she’d informed him of her …heritage.
Embracing the opportunity to think rationally about the – entirely irrational – events that were unfolding around him came as a welcome relief and, as he relaxed into Ana’s arms, the first thing that came to him was Rose’s voice.
Feeling her, literally, in his mind like that after she’d said that she was the Daughter of God – and not in the spiritual We’re-all-God’s-children kind of way but an actual, physical blood-descendant-of-Christ way – had been a little too 80’s sci-fi for him to handle. Ben suppressed a shudder at the memory, feeling an echo of those tendrils slithering through his skull.
Things were different now, he’d been glad to realise. Ana had helped him understand that Rose was still the same girl. That nothing about her future – whatever that might entail, could erase her past. That she would always be his best friend, no matter what being this “Archon” thing required of her.
Ben smiled briefly as a quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet sprang to mind. No, her name meant nothing. Human or superhuman, she would always be just Rose to him.
Accepting this, however, opened the door to another, rather unwanted, avenue of thought, and Ben squirmed, realising it had sneaked into his mind once again. He’d been doing his best to ignore it, but the very real evidence of the matter that quietly slept in his arms made that pretty much impossible.
Ben had always been a very practical kind of mind. He held no stock in the spiritual, preferring old fashioned science over unerring faith. He viewed religion as a whole – and particularly the Christian tale of God and Christ which had been relentlessly pushed upon him throughout his education – as good, traditional, and moral fables but, without quantifiable proof to suggest their reality, fables nonetheless. His dating a ‘half-angel’, however, had thrown all that out of the window, and he’d been forced to knit together a new reality from the shattered pieces of his once solid world.
He knew he should be grateful. He’d been given absolute proof of an existence outside of their own. Of a higher being. A meaning to the drama that was life. He was now certain of life after death – a privilege few were granted.
Unfortunately, instead of the peace of mind one might expect from such a revelation, it had only caused him to change the question from is there a heaven? to am I good enough to get in? An altogether more frightening query. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from replaying the major scenes of his life, viewing them with a critical eye as he considered his previous actions.
What were the factors, the rules? For example, did climbing that tree to save his neighbour’s cat that one time cancel out his stealing that bag of pick-and-mix in junior school? Was it all relative? Based on intent? Or did it all add up to a total at the end of his life? Would he reach Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, only to be turned away for not blessing someone as they sneezed on the bus back in two-thousand-and-five? This tiny omission being the straw that broke the figurative camel’s back?
Even more terrifying, did his having solid proof of God’s existence disqualify him entirely?
Ben took a deep, calming breath, no longer able to deal with where his thoughts were taking him. He pushed the frustrated thoughts away until he could figure out – or better still, ask someone – the rules. Instead he moved onto the, hopefully more pertinent, question of what was going to happen to Rose.
He was worried about her. The fact that she was learning how to protect herself said that, at some point, she would need to do so, and Ben didn’t quite know how to deal with that. The idea of Rose having to fight, on any level, left Ben with a sour taste at the back of his throat, and a baffling desire to don a coat of arms and rush to her aid like the knights of old.
Not that he would be any help. Ben had never been in a fight in his life, choosing to avoid all levels of physical conflict entirely. Rose would probably end up having to save him instead – just like she always had.
; Ben smiled as he recalled his first memory of Rose:
Every face in the classroom was strange. Every brightly coloured finger painting taped to the wall was created by someone he didn’t know. The single word on the blackboard was written by a teacher whose name he couldn’t remember.
Ben, five years old, sounded the word in his head. Carst-lee. What was that?
As if she had heard the thought, the teacher – Miss Arn-something – turned to Ben and spoke, her voice bright and encouraging.
“Ben, as the newest boy in the class, can you tell us what this word is please?”
Ben’s throat had closed instantly, even as his mouth opened, because something said that Carstlee wasn’t the right answer, and that something was now stopping him from speaking. Silence stretched seconds into hours until, from behind his right shoulder, an excited voice called out.
“Castle!” and followed, without breath, “Are we going to a castle Miss Arnthorp?”
As the conversation continued without him and Ben began to breathe again, he turned slowly to look at who had saved him a school term of cruel nick-names and taunting about the shyness he so wanted to overcome.
There sat Rose, her wide blue eyes – so familiar to him now – even wider as she excitedly discussed fairy castles with a teacher obviously keen to get back to the topic at hand.
As he’d left the classroom for morning break, Rose had appeared at his side and continued a conversation Ben was fairly sure he had never started.
“Most people go out and play skipping or football but I like to go to the library. Did they have a library at your old school?”
“Y –Yeah,” Ben managed to force the reply out, stuttering around the blush that coloured his cheek, “Sort of.”
“Want to come see ours?” Rose had smiled brightly and skipped ahead without waiting for an answer. “Come on Ben!”
Soon, they were inseparable, and when the accident had left Rose jumping at shadows in the dark, Ben had taken it upon himself to rescue Rose right back in the only way he knew how.
He’d always been there whenever she needed him, the one that she relied on for support, long after she had recovered from the trauma and was almost herself again, although she would never be the little girl that talked a mile a minute, finding excitement in every little thing, the girl that had accepted the new boy in her class without a second thought.
That little girl had been lost when the drunk driver had ploughed into her uncle’s car, leaving the one who survived to walk an entirely different path. Her approach to life was more subdued, more cautious, but Ben still saw the light in her eyes and knew the quiet fire that resided within her. He knew that Rose was strong. Strong enough to deal with whatever being the Archon would throw at her – but he would trade places in an instant if he could.
“Hey,” Ana’s voice jerked him out of his thoughts. “Are you okay?”
Ben rubbed a weary hand over his face, noting that the sun was up. He’d been thinking for hours.
“Ben?” Ana raised her head from his shoulder, concern in her eyes, still heavy with sleep.
“I’m fine,” he said, smiling wryly. “Just the usual.”
Ana frowned as she yawned, her hand coming up to cover her mouth daintily, before she dropped a closed mouth kiss onto his lips.
“You need to talk to her,” she chastised, “If only to get some sleep.” She reached over him to where her mobile lay on his side table, and unplugged it from her charger. Her eyes widened as she looked at the time that lit up on the screen. “Ben! Its eight-thirty!” she scrambled out of bed, throwing off the duvet as she crossed the room in three quick strides, hands fumbling in the top drawer of his dresser that had unofficially become hers.
Ben, his peace and quiet shattered, rolled over with a groan, before sitting up. Ana rushed around, and he wondered what the panic was, before it dawned on him.
Of course. He fell back against the bed with a resigned thud as he remembered what today was. His day of reckoning. He was going to Church.
Ana, noticing his lack of movement, turned towards him, hands on hips.
“Are you not coming?” she asked, not waiting for his reply as she turned back to rummage in the drawer once more.
“Why do you do this?” Ben asked, sitting up as he spoke.
“I thought that would be pretty obvious by now?” she replied sardonically, tugging a comb through her hair before expertly pinning it up into a complicated-looking knot.
“Why you believe, yeah,” Ben shrugged. “Why you go to Church and listen to lies? Not so much.”
Ana stopped, hands pausing in her hair as the reprimand stuck on her lips, seeming to consider his point.
“I’ve always avoided Church because I thought the stories were made up,” Ben continued. “You know for a fact that they are – most of them anyway – and yet you still go?”
Ana looked at him for a long moment, deciding, before moving to sit on the edge of the bed.
“So few people believe in God these days,” she said quietly, her eyes on the grey and white chevron striped duvet cover, before she raised her eyes to meet his questioning gaze. “Even if the people in church have the details wrong, they still believe in something. Something that I have to hear derided on TV and in films every day of my life.” Her fingers traced the pattern under her hands absently. “I go to church because, one day a week for a couple of hours, I can be openly spiritual. I can talk to God, about him, without having to tolerate the names and the looks and the –” Ana stopped, before rolling amused eyes in Ben’s direction, “And the ill-timed questions of faith when we are already running late.”
Ben chuckled quietly, subdued in this new understanding, as Ana jumped up and pulled a yellow dress from a hanger in his wardrobe.
“So get a move on,” she admonished, pulling him out of bed with her free hand. “I want you there with me.”
Ben allowed her to haul him up, before pulling her to him. He wrapped his arms around her, ignoring as she continued to grumble about being late.
“I get it,” he said, looking down to meet her gaze. “Thank you for explaining.”
Ana smiled, squeezing him around the middle before shrugging out of his arms. Ben let her go with a small smile, reaching around her to grab his best pair of black jeans from the wardrobe as she continued to fuss with her hair.
“Have you seen my black heels? The pair with the –” Ana began to ask, searching around, before comprehension dawned on her face. “Oh wait, never mind, they’re in my room.” She quickly packed up her bag. “You know, it would be a whole lot easier if I just moved all my stuff in,” she teased lightly, as she headed for the door.
“Why don’t you?” The words just fell out of his mouth.
Ana paused, having pulled the door open. “What?” she asked, surprise etched on her face.
Ben shrugged as nonchalantly as possible as he pulled on a royal blue blazer. “Why don’t you?” he repeated, his quick mind having already processed the idea and decided that it was a great one – if mostly terrifying. “I mean,” he glanced about at his already overcrowded room, “Maybe not here, but perhaps next year?” He smiled at her astonished expression. “I’m sure if we put our money together we could afford a place big enough for the two of us.”
Ana stepped back into the room. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”
Ben’s heart thudded as he realised that was, in fact, exactly what he was asking. How many black points against his entry to Heaven was living in sin? Ben didn’t care.
“Yeah,” he said, pleased that he sounded more confident than he felt as he waited for her reaction.
Ana said nothing for what seemed an age, before she broke into a radiant smile. She crossed the room in three quick steps and threw her arms around him, planting a hard kiss onto his mouth.
“Deal,” she said simply, kissing him once more before letting him go and returning to the door, flashing him an exultant grin as she pulled it open and disappea
red from view.
Ben watched the door swing closed behind her, unable to help the silly grin that crept across his face. He turned back to the dresser, feeling slightly dazed.
***
Rose lay curled up with Christian on his sofa, watching the credits of the film that had just ended, and wondering how to broach the subject on her mind. Christian turned the TV off with a click of the remote.
“Did you watch any of that?” he asked, with a smile, as she turned over to face him.
Rose looked up in question.
“You’re thinking,” he accused.
She grinned, abashed. She should have known he’d figure her out.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked, idly toying with her hair.
“I don’t think you’ll like it,” she said, frowning.
“Go ahead,” he encouraged, warily.
“I’ve been thinking about how Nate pushed the demons away from him the other day,” she said, watching him closely. Christian remained expressionless, so she continued. “I was wondering if I could get him to show me how he did it …2” She trailed off, waiting.
“No,” he said, simply.
Rose moved to sit up. “But –”
Christian pulled her back to him, holding her in place. “I’m not arguing with you,” he said, fighting a smile. “So don’t get up and stomp your feet.”
Rose smiled despite her annoyance. “I do not stomp my feet,” she grumbled as he kissed the top of her head. She relaxed into him again as she thought of a way to convince him. “It’s a better option,” she said eventually, “Then the burning thing,” she added, quietly.
Christian frowned, feeling her tense. He rubbed her back reassuringly. “You don’t need it,” he said, firmly.
Rose was quiet for a moment. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said. “Not if I can help it,” she amended. “Surely you understand that?”
Christian sighed. “Does it have to be Nathaniel?” he asked. “Perhaps I can help you.” He sat up, pulling her with him. “Try it.”
Revelation: Trinity Part 1 Page 23