by Lila Felix
The tiniest of jolts resonated in my chest as she landed. Involuntarily, I closed my eyes and pictured her in my head, as I grasped at ways to pinpoint her location.
Rebekah—she’d gone to see her Grandmother. To seek her counsel, no doubt.
“She’s gone to Rebekah,” I relayed the information to my parents.
“You two try so hard to escape each other. The world itself will turn on its axis when you finally give in. And I, for one, can’t wait.” My father chuckled and kissed the temple of my still weary mother’s head.
“What do I do, Dad?”
My father and I had a decent relationship. He’d reared me to be calm and patient, yet headstrong, just like him. It had caused a rift between us when I was a teenager. But by the time I was eighteen and needed him after Colby had left me, the tension fizzled.
My head hung and then plopped into my palms. She aggravated the fire out of me. This is the problem and the glory of Lucent women. You can’t hold them down. Any man in love with a Lucent female is doomed and blessed to eternally chase her lightning. You can’t anchor them. You can’t guarantee they will be in your bed the next morning or anytime at all.
But when I had Colby—I had her heart and soul.
I smelled the cologne that was uniquely my father’s as he kneeled down in front of me. He didn’t force my hand. Instead, he waited for me to look at him. When I met his eyes, I expected to see pity. I wasn’t in the most predictable situation. There was only hope.
“Theodore, we will work through this. And you may hate me for saying this, but I think Colby accompanying you is the best option. She has bravery where you would rather fall back and remain safe. She has an ability to see the details the rest of us miss. But she needs you to ground her—she can be a bit—boisterous in all things.”
I saw his point. “I won’t tarnish her reputation with the Synod. The Almighty knows she’s already in trouble with them every time she turns around. I know we’re in the modern world, but the Synod is still in the nineteenth century.”
He chuckled, causing him to fall right on his ass. “So, we have a job to do—convince Colby to bond with you.”
~~~~
Everything was clearer close to the coast. The moon stared at me in judgment as I lay in my room after several more hours of pointless discussions about what if. It was almost like it knew the thoughts revolving through my head.
Even the moon knew what a head-case I was.
Colby was still with her grandmother, discussing who knew what. My stomach churned at the thought of her speaking to her about me—how to manipulate me into giving into her.
They were all against me—the lot of them. I expected my father to agree with me. I expected him to say he would help me convince Colby to keep her pretty nose and, in turn, her pretty life, out of my business.
He was a traitor.
As I lay there, arms crossed behind my head, I concentrated on where she was. Inquisition consumed my thoughts. I could almost picture her there, in her grandmother’s grand mansion.
“Rebekah, please. Stop speaking to me in riddles and tell me what to do.”
Shooting straight up in the bed, I looked around the room, thinking I had inadvertently flashed to Rebekah’s home. But I hadn’t seen Colby, nor Rebekah—only heard her words. Maybe I’d just began to fall into a dream and imagined her voice.
It must’ve just been a dream.
Chapter Eight
Colby
Lucent gifts are to be used with honorable intentions.
“You should eat some fruit.”
I threw myself dramatically onto my grandmother’s French blind-stitch couch. It didn’t give an inch—none of her furniture did. All of her living room furniture and dining room chairs were covered in plastic and were harder than brick covered in steel. Every time someone moved an inch while sitting in them, the plastic gave off the most curious sounds.
My grandmother, the oldest Prophet, had stopped progressing, in terms of technological advances, when the Synod took its place among our people. She only spoke to me about such things. She said when they cut themselves off from her and the sight given directly to her by the Almighty—it was akin to death. She felt useless and discarded. Since the formation of the Synod marked nefarious advancement in her eyes—she’s stopped advancing in protest. Stepping into her home and her presence was like stepping back to an age where Xoana ruled the Lucents and we were queens.
Now the Synod were the queens.
And my grandmother was forgotten by most.
We, technically, weren’t supposed to call her the Prophetess, but that’s what she was, regardless of what they said.
“I’m telling you that my—Theo—could possibly be the next Eidolon and you’re suggesting I eat a tangerine and it will all be better? Come on Prophetess, give me something other than that.”
She slapped my thigh and it stung through my lightweight maxi dress. A rebellious tear came from my eye and I swiped it away before she saw it—not for the slap, but for Theo. She grabbed my hand with hers in reaction to my crying. I loved my grandmother’s hands. With age, her fingers had become slim while her knuckles stayed the same size. Her hand wrapped around mine was like being surrounded by silk.
“Don’t sass me, Colby Sage. I can still tear your behind up.”
My grandmother hadn’t whipped me since I was seven. I’d lied to her and told her I was at the library when really I was in Madagascar after seeing that movie by the same name. I’d inadvertently gotten on the news for some weird flashes of lightning they saw on the top of one of their mountains.
Oops.
Busted.
“I’m sorry, Grammy. What’s fruit going to do for me?”
She let go of my hand, picked up her never ending cross stitching, and shrugged. “I thought maybe I could think if your mouth would stop running for five seconds.”
I pulled my other arm away from where it was shielding my eyes from the world. Grammy was pooching out her lips and sucking in her cheeks in order not to laugh at her own sassiness. Where did she think I got the sass from? Her.
Theo was still in Belize. I could feel him there and then a fuzzier version of him in New Zealand, which was disconcerting to say the least.
My head was a mess. This was why I’d broken up with Theo—to keep him safe from being on the receiving end of—me. But what had he done? Gone and gotten powers and abilities. He was making my job nearly impossible. Not to mention, he’d not let me have my way earlier on the island. That was the most aggravating of all.
Since when don’t I win?
With his admission that he may be Eidolon, which I hoped he wasn’t, he’d made a whole plethora of new enemies. He had the usual nemeses, the government, the Resin—but now he had the whole Lucent community as well as the Synod. There was a reason they’d formed so long ago. They weren’t pleased with what the Prophets foretold and so they thought writing a book and sitting at a long table would suppress the prophecies.
They were dead wrong.
I grew serious as I addressed my grandmother then, not as a granddaughter, but as a Lucent looking for guidance from the Prophetess. I turned to her and smiled at her features. Her hair was still blond, but glints of silver peeked out around her hairline and in the round part of her bun. Her skin was flawless. She could easily pass for someone in her forties.
I hoped I could be half as breathtaking when I was her age.
“Rebekah, did you see it? Did you see Theo in a vision?”
“Be specific in your questions.” She caught my tone and in turn changed hers. It was like the very atmosphere turned to the past where she was revered and I longed for her words.
“Did you see the coming of another Eidolon?”
“I did. I’ve seen it many times. He will be the one to restore the Resin—the ones who want it. But only if he can conquer his greatest fear. This fear is keeping him from attaining all of the power and it will prevent him from closing the door. It is
a shallow fear, but one whose roots bind his hands and anchors itself into his very soul.”
I blew out a breath. I’d hoped against hope she would say no. I needed her to say no.
Why couldn’t she just say no?
Theo didn’t fear anything—I’d never seen him cower at horror movies or any of the heeebie jeebies most people run from. He wasn’t afraid of anything.
“What is his fear?”
She cut her iridescent green eyes at me, “That’s not the right question.”
Now I knew she was in full Prophetess mode. She struck down any question whose answer would be the one I needed. Instead, I had to ask vague questions that led to nowhere. I was aggravated beyond anything.
“Rebekah, please. Stop speaking to me in riddles and tell me what to do.”
“Find the truth. Even the so-called upholders of the truth are expert liars. Search and find the truth for yourself. False truths camouflage lies which are the truth no one wants told. There is one keyhole, but many keys.”
What—the –hell.
“I have to convince him to let me go with him.”
She got up and I expected something profound from her.
“I think I have some leftover meatloaf.”
I shuddered, “Meatloaf, Grammy, really?”
“I no longer flash, child. I can eat whatever I want. Now go. I know you’re going to him. Best do it now while he’s open to your ideas. By morning he won’t be so obliging.”
Theo was asleep when I flashed into his room an hour later. I waited an hour just out of spite—one day I supposed I would grow out of that. I couldn’t wait until the day when I grew out of all my finicky habits. He must’ve been exhausted because he didn’t even stir when I flashed in, nor when I sat on the edge of his bed. I hated to see his face in a scowl while he slept. All this time I’d been thinking of how difficult it would be for me to protect him. But looking down at his brow furrowed so heavily in his sleep, I could see how all of this was affecting him. I flashed from where I was on the side of the bed to the other side of him in the middle and leaned over his face. He had no pajamas on, only a pair of those plaid boxers that I loved to hate. They were so awful. He looked like an old man. I giggled at how much I hated them, plus how good he looked in everything he wore.
I rubbed my thumb between his eyes on the bridge of his nose, attempting to get him to relax his brow. He stirred and woke.
“Querida, are you okay?”
He looked me up and down—what he was looking for, I didn’t know.
“I’m fine. Can we talk? No sarcasm or joking, just talk?”
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Brown hair fell every way but the right way and I loved it. Rarely was Theo disheveled and so to see him first wake up or after he was well riled up—it was a treat. It had been way too long.
“Of course. Whatever you want.”
Whatever you want—those words were like a dream to me. Theo and I were so similar. He and I pretended to be so strong and solid to the outside world. We almost prided ourselves on being the ones who stood in strength as others faltered.
But when we were like this—one on one—shut out from the world—this was when we were real, raw, and allowed to be weak.
Anything I’d ever mentioned in passing or called a faint desire for, he got me. We went to a parish fair one time and I saw some cheap silver turtle necklace. I hadn’t even wanted the damned thing, it just caught my eye. Theo and I were thirteen at the time, and he bought it for me. The next week, I found out he’d spent the last of his allowance money on me. I cornered him by the lockers at school and tried to pay him back. I asked him why he would do that.
“Anything for you,” his pimply self shuffled his shoes. Then he shrugged and added, “Whatever you want.”
Theo touched my arm, bringing me back to the present. “Talk to me.”
“Why don’t you want me to come with you?”
He blew out a breath causing his cheeks to bubble out. He was thinking again—way too much for my taste.
“It’s dangerous.”
“If something happens, we flash.”
“The Synod will not look well on our travelling together at our age without being bonded.”
He turned away from me as he said it. I knew we would come to that subject, but I’d hoped to avoid it.
“We are just friends. There’s no problem.”
His shoulders slumped.
“Don’t kid yourself, Colby. No matter what you do, you and I will never just be friends.”
“So let’s do the bonding thing. We can go together without anyone meddling and I can help you.”
Silence filled the space between us. I realized the sharpness of my words after they came out—typical me. Theo asked me to marry him when we were sixteen and in the middle of a heady kissing session, I’d agreed.
I tended to blame everything on Theo’s talented tongue.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You ended it with me because I’m some fluke. I understand that now. But I can’t just pretend I’m only your friend.”
“You’re not a fluke. Well, you are. I ended it because I’m already in everyone’s spotlight. Yours and my being together is like taking out an ad on a billboard. Is that what you thought?”
Theo turned on me, battling something so vicious inside him that he shook as he spoke.
“What was I supposed to think? You wouldn’t talk to me. You never talk to me—good or bad.”
I threw myself backwards on the bed. He was right. It was completely purposeful. I could barely look him in the eye after I’d broken it off between us, because I knew if he muttered one damned Portuguese word or even touched me that I would be done for.
I felt a depression on the bed and then before I knew what was happening, his weight was on top of me, his arms pinning my arms above my head.
“Why must you break me?” He breathed into my face. His hair danced along my forehead.
“I’m not.” I defied him.
“Yes, you do. Every time I’m in a room with you and I can’t touch you—you break me. Every time you pretend that we are only friends—you break me. Does it make you happy to break me, Querida?”
“No.”
“Do you remember when you agreed to bond with me all those years ago?”
Another nod. My throat was constricting because I knew that tonight, Theo was going to break me.
“Why?” He phantomed kisses along the line of my jaw. He knew it was my undoing.
“You know why.”
He shifted, letting my wrists go. His expression changed back to the gentler, less Alpha Theo that I was used to. “Just once, Colby,” he begged.
“Must you break me?” I mimicked his earlier sentiment.
“Ahh, Querida.” He pushed some miscreant hair behind my ear. “I’m not trying to break you—just your walls. When are you going to let me in?”
“When you can promise not to hurt me or leave me.”
“Says the woman who continues to break my heart and push me away.”
We were at a standstill. He’d never been so blatant in demanding an emotional response from me in words. He’d never demanded anything of me. I squirmed under his stare. Blue eyes bore down upon me, pleading for a piece of me. It ripped me open.
This was the moment I’d dreaded forever. It was like reaching inside myself without anesthesia and plucking an organ out to give to him. That’s what it would feel like.
Right?
But my heart wanted to reach out to his and soothe it.
“Theo.” The tears formed in my eyes, “You know I love you. I always have.”
He buried his head in the crook of my neck the way I had the night before.
“I didn’t expect that,” he murmured, his voice reverberating against the sensitive skin at my neck.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. That may be the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
My unemotional
soul wished he would just forget he ever heard it so I could tally up how many bricks were lost in that small battle and replace them—quickly.
“What now?” I questioned.
“We go looking for whatever I am.”
“What about the bonding ceremony?”
“I don’t care what they think. I know what we are. And I know who you are. I’m going to be sealed to you heart and soul one day. If they don’t like our travelling unbonded, they can just suck it.”
The man I loved was a sly, sneaky rat.
I smacked his bicep as hard as I could, “You ass. All that crap and you don’t even care.”
“Meu coração está completo.”
A shiver tore through me at his chosen speech. I didn’t even care what the hell he was saying. I just wanted him to say more of it.
“Speak English.”
“Doesn’t work as well on you,” he quipped back.
Ass.
Chapter Nine
Theo
The Resin are no longer considered Lucent.
I had to admit, forcing Colby to say that she loved me wasn’t what I expected to come from her
I’d almost settled myself in for a lifetime of not hearing it.
She got up from the bed, leaving me there wanting so much more. We wouldn’t bond. I wouldn’t force her hand just because the Synod expected her to. She never was much for rule following anyway.
“Where are we going first? I need to speak to my mother and Ari. I should tell Sway. How long will we be gone?”
I hopped down from the bed. Realizing I was only in boxers, I quickly grabbed a pair of jeans from the chair and threw them on.
“I think Tibet is the best place to start after we finish in New Zealand. Collin knows a good deal about Eivan. But Sevella’s handwritten journals are in Tibet.”
She said nothing, so I turned around, buttoning my pants, to see what was going on. She was mulling something around in that pretty head of hers, I could tell.
“What?”
“We’re going to one of those monasteries?”
“Yes.”
“With the shaved heads and the gongs and the orangey robes?”