by Regine Abel
Agent Thomson stared intently at me for a moment and then snorted.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Mistwalker.”
“Your word,” I insisted.
He narrowed his blue eyes at me, a speculative look on his face. “You have my word,” he added after a beat. “But break yours, and you will see a very different side of me.”
I acknowledged his barely veiled threat with a nod. He returned the gesture then put his sunglasses back on.
“Farewell, Mr. Dale,” said Agent Thomson.
“Safe travels, Agent Thomson,” I said, watching him turn around and get into his car.
CHAPTER 7
Jade
Three years after I believed my entire life had fallen apart and lost all meaning, I finally realized that I’d never known true happiness until now. Kazan was more than a dream come true. Sure, we still had our little issues to work out, and granted, during the honeymoon phase of a new relationship, things always seemed perfect, but this was different. No man had ever made me feel so loved and worshipped.
In our first couple of weeks together, I feared he might prove not alpha enough with his almost subservient way of trying to please me. I didn’t think myself particularly submissive and most certainly didn’t want anyone thinking themselves my master. I also had no interest in BDSM aside from the occasional kink play, but I liked dominant men. Kazan had certainly proved that he possessed that trait in the bedroom. The ridiculous number of explosive orgasms he’d given me in the past week still had me reeling… and craving more.
Although I didn’t want to trash talk Patrick now that he’d moved on to someone else, I couldn’t deny that he’d often been a bit selfish in our intimacy. Kazan never climaxed without making sure I had, and usually at least twice at that. But sex was just the amazing cherry on top. Aside from food, Kazan and I liked so many of the same things. He loved art and excelled at it. He didn’t begrudge me the time I spent drawing and painting, getting ‘into the zone’ as I called it. Instead, he shared it with me as we painted side by side, in harmonious silence, content with the presence of the other. He loved playing video games and would lose graciously to me or win with class against me. We both enjoyed reading, watching nerdy TV shows—mainly of the sci-fi and paranormal type—and hanging out at home in baggy clothes or mostly naked.
With the exhibition planned for the end of next week, we didn’t get to go out much, which frankly didn’t bother either of us. I loved posing for Kazan, and waiting to see his finished work had me all but climbing the walls. Since we’d become intimate, he no longer asked me to think naughty thoughts to get me in the right headspace and show him a lascivious expression. He would go down on me or flat out make love to me right there on the set, then rush to sketch or paint me while spasms of ecstasy continued to course through me.
Since his first night at my house, things had changed… for the better. While Kazan still bent over backwards to please me, after that first breakfast when I forced him to try multiple variations of coffee, he became more vocal about expressing his preferences when they differed from mine. I loved to see the little quirks that made him unique, not the borderline creepy mirror of myself he had displayed at first.
Although it didn’t impede on our happiness, I was more than ever convinced that Kazan suffered from some sort of condition. Not wanting to make him uncomfortable, I didn’t bring it up and hoped he’d feel comfortable enough, sooner or later, to confide in me. I no longer thought it to be Aspergers and couldn’t find anything through my Internet research that matched his ‘symptoms’ if they could be called that.
Kazan was an incomplete masterpiece, like someone had sketched him, done the contour with gradation, and then gave up on coloring with less than 15% left to do. So many things—everyday things—appeared to be new or completely unknown experiences to him. For a gamer, how could he be so clueless about any type of board games? Even non-gamers knew how to play checkers or tic-tac-toe. His knowledge of geography, the political state of the world, and food or fashion trends were less than shallow. Granted, neither of us really watched the news or documentaries, happy to remain in our little bubble, but things seeped in regardless just from living within a society, even just through overheard conversations or magazine covers on newsstands.
That made me wonder if maybe he suffered from some kind of memory disorder, but even that didn’t work because, aside from general things people normally knew, he didn’t show any inability to remember anything we discussed or did; quite the opposite. Asking Laura about it would have been great, but I didn’t want my sister to think my boyfriend mentally impaired before they had a chance to meet.
It confused me but didn’t actually concern me.
My phone beeped with the sound of a notification. Peering at it made me smile.
“I miss you.”
My Kazan…
I replied that I missed him, too. My chest tightened as I glanced up at the closed shutters in my living room. In a few minutes, the City Defense Alarm would go off. For the hundredth time, I kicked myself for declining Kazan’s offer for me to spend the next Mist at his house, or for him to spend it at mine. My insistence on staying home alone during those three days had confused the heck out of him. Coming up with a valid excuse had been a struggle, and I’d failed miserably.
When I told Kazan he needed the quiet time to finish the collection, he’d argued that my presence wouldn’t stop him from working, as proven by the past week. I countered that he’d have been even further along without our countless naughtier distractions, which he couldn’t argue. When that didn’t convince him, I claimed to have lots of work, which required concentration as well. That wasn’t actually a lie. Over the years, I’d seized the three days of the Mist as an opportunity to catch up on my work, be it professional or personal.
But work had nothing to do with it.
This would be my first Mist since the Mistwalker had entered my life. I needed to set the record straight with him and didn’t want to risk Kazan witnessing any of it. Since the fog had lifted, the Mistwalker had not visited me at night, although he’d been present every time Kazan and I made love. If my instincts proved right, he had entered into some kind of a deal with my boyfriend, and I needed to understand what that meant for us as a couple.
I’d followed Kazan’s directive to focus on him, think only of him during our intimate moments. It had been a little challenging the first time, but now, although I couldn’t simply block out the Mistwalker, since I felt his presence so strongly, he’d become some kind of extension of my lover, an intrinsic part of him. Still, some sliver of guilt lingered. Despite Kazan’s apparent blessing, I still didn’t feel comfortable in what I perceived as a threesome. No matter how much monster porn turned me on, I wanted to belong to a single man and him to me.
A few minutes after 8:00 PM, the wail of the siren rose outside. Being a creature of habit, I instinctively rose to my feet and did the round again to make sure every access to the house had been secured. As a proper night owl, I rarely went to bed before midnight—although 1:00 AM qualified more as the standard. Tonight, however, I had a date with a monster. After turning off all the lights, I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, my pulse increasing with each step. Slipping out of one of my many oversized shirts, I rummaged through my sleepwear drawer, shocked to find it mostly empty.
It shouldn’t have surprised me though. Over the past week, more and more of my clothes and personal items had made their way to Kazan’s flat, while a non-negligible amount of his own wardrobe had found its way into mine. When he gave me a set of his house keys, Kazan had hinted in the least subtle of ways that he’d like me to move in with him. Even though my head said it was too early, too soon, it felt right; but not until this whole mess with the Mistwalker had been resolved. If all went well, I would surprise him by accepting on the night of his exhibit.
Ignoring the two remaining frilly babydolls in my drawer, I slipped on a plain, black cotton nightgown. There woul
d be no tempting my Mist demon.
Crawling under the blankets, I sent one last text message to Kazan letting him know I was calling it an early night so he wouldn’t worry if he tried to text me again and I failed to answer. Who knew how long it would take to settle things with the Mistwalker.
‘Goodnight, my Jade.’
‘I’ll dream of you.’
And I would, as soon as I’d handled this thing.
‘See you in your dreams.’
I responded to his last message with a heart emoji then put the phone on the nightstand, an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Closing my eyes, I began the ever annoying toss and turn marathon, waiting for the ever elusive sleep.
Time ticked by, minutes, hours, God only knew. As I began turning for the umpteenth time, the most powerful tingling I’d ever felt descended upon my skin. Before my eyes even flicked open, I already knew he’d be inside my room. Rolling onto my back, my breath caught in my throat as the ominous, shadowy wraith-like form of the Mistwalker hovered at the foot of my bed.
“My mate,” his disembodied voice said in my head.
Startled, my gaze flicked to my window, perfectly secured like I’d left it. No Mist swirled around the floor either, indicating that any other door or window might have been breached.
“You cannot be inside my house,” I whispered, horrified and yet not fearing for my life. However he got in, he didn’t want to harm me and wouldn’t allow any of the Mistbeasts to do so either. “It’s impossible for you to get in.”
I tried to sit up but a wave of energy pinned me in place. Dark, smoky tendrils, flowed from his shadowy aura, slipping under the blanket and wrapping like vines around my body. His ethereal form glided over the footboard of the bed as he hovered over me, his face stopping inches from mine.
“I can come and go as I please, my Jade. You invited me in.”
“No! I didn’t!” I said, refusing to acknowledge the little voice in my head calling me a liar.
I’m not ready.
A deep part of me knew what I wasn’t ready for. Even as the thought crossed my mind, I couldn’t quite put into words what I feared, what I’d sheltered myself from under a thick coat of denial. But I knew that facing that truth would destroy the happiness I had found. If closing my eyes and enshrouding myself in flimsy rationalization allowed me to hang on to it, then I didn’t want anyone messing with it.
“Time to face the truth, my love,” the Mistwalker said, as if he’d just read my mind.
He lowered down into me, his ethereal form passing through my body while a million tiny ice shards stabbed at it. I screamed at the unpleasant—but not painful—sensation then screamed even louder as I seemed to fall out of my body at an incredibly high speed and into an endless void.
“Do not fear, my Jade. As long as I am by your side, no harm will ever come to you.”
My stomach lurched as the speed of my descent rapidly decelerated, then came to a halt, with the same queasy sensation one gets on a roller-coaster. Still paralyzed, I watched helplessly as my body straightened into a vertical position before landing, light as a feather, on a dark grey surface. My feet slightly sank into the unfamiliar, cushion-like terrain. Delimited by a wall of Mist, a wide and empty circular area surrounded us, reminding me of a circus ring.
The Mistwalker glided out of my body, leaving me with a strange sense of loss. He turned around to face me, his glowing, yellow eyes hypnotizing me.
“Why did you bring me here?” I blurted out without thinking.
“Because you wanted me to,” he said calmly.
“No, I didn’t!”
“Would you prefer we have this conversation in your house?”
Although featureless, his eyes, combined with the mocking tone in his voice, made my face heat. I hated stupid people, but even worse were those who merely feigned stupidity. I’d been doing plenty of that in the past few weeks as a coping mechanism.
“What is this place?” I asked to shift the topic. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The Mistwalker glided around me, like a predator circling its prey. I could move, yet remained rooted, only turning my head to keep an eye on him over my shoulder.
“This is the Mist Plane, where dreams are born and come to die.” His wistful tone stirred something strange within me. “The place where everything is possible if you wish it hard enough.”
He circled back and stopped in front of me, barely three feet between us.
“You know perfectly well who I am, Jade. I am your greatest Wish, and I want you to be my mate for eternity.”
His words, his proximity, and the intensity of his gaze unnerved me. I took a step away from him.
“What’s my name, Jade?”
The yellow glow in his eyes shone brighter as he took a step forward.
“I… I don’t know,” I said, suddenly out of breath, then took a couple more steps back.
“Yes, you do. Say my name, Jade. Say it!”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” I said in a loop, moving away as he continued to advance on me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the wall of Mist looming nearby. Casting a panicked look over my shoulder, I realized that three more steps would put me inside the Mist; a more dire prospect than facing him.
“What’s my fucking name?” the Mistwalker shouted, his hands grabbing me by the shoulders.
My heart leapt to my throat with the irrational fear that he would shove me into the Mist.
“Kazan!” I screamed, holding on to him, surprised that my hands didn’t go through his body. “Kazan… Your name is Kazan,” I said in a broken voice as something deep inside me shattered.
He pulled me into his embrace, his ethereal body taking on Kazan’s human appearance. Burying my face in the crook of his neck, I bawled my eyes out. Through my broken sobs, I felt his confusion and distress as he caressed my hair in a soothing motion.
“Why such sadness, my Jade? You knew from the first time we met in that supermarket. And yet, you wrapped yourself in a thick shield of denial, even going so far as to imagine you were cheating on me with some demon. Why? You wished me.”
What did that even mean?
“I don’t understand,” I sniffled as more tears poured down my cheeks.
He picked me up in his arms and carried me back to the center of the ring. The scenery around us changed. My throat tightened as I recognized the locker room of Pine Hill High School where Aunt Clara had sent me after my parents had died. I’d been so miserable there, not only from mourning the still recent loss of my parents, but also from bullying for being such a misfit. I’d just turned thirteen. Joining a new school, halfway through the semester had been bad enough, but worse was doing so while going through that terrible teenage phase where my arms and legs seemed too long for my body, my face kept erupting in pimples, and my nicest clothes were hand-me-downs from my cousin. Being a nerd hadn’t helped my cause either. At least I’d never needed braces.
Kazan sat down on one of the benches in the locker room and cradled me on his lap.
“This is the moment of my true birth,” Kazan said, looking around the room with wonder. “You might have wished for me before that day, but if you did, they’d all been shallow and passing, which would have made me no more than a spark at the back of your mind.” He wiped the tears off my right cheek in a gentle caress. “But that day, you’d been terribly hurt and wished for me harder than you’d ever wished before; hard enough that I became self-aware. You wanted someone who would love you unconditionally, just the way you are, with all your perceived flaws and quirks; someone who would never mock or ridicule you, hurt you, or lie to you. Someone who would be proud to tell the whole world that you were his, and he was yours. You wished me.”
A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered that day. Nicolas Merryl had been one of the school’s heartthrobs. When he first started showing me some attention, I pushed him away, thinking he was trying to make fun of me, but he didn’t rel
ent. For weeks, he hounded me, escalating the intensity of his efforts to sway me until I finally began to believe it. The first time I let him kiss me, he’d dragged me into the girls’ locker room during lunch time when everyone else was at the cafeteria. That kiss started out as magical. I had never been kissed before and never imagined my first would come from such a handsome, popular guy. Things quickly went south, literally, as Nicolas tried to grope me. When I fought him off, he lost his cool, yelling at me that he was done with this fucking bet, to just let him get to third base. I’d punched him and screamed loud enough to make him run away for fear of getting caught. After he left, I sat on the bench, at the same spot where Kazan and I were currently sitting, and cried my broken heart out, wishing for someone just like him.
“After that, we spent a lot of time together,” Kazan said wistfully. “You dreamt of me every night. They were nice dreams, sweet dreams, full of innocence and laughter. You wanted a handsome companion who would enjoy just being with you, playing Dungeon & Dragons, holding hands, stealing kisses—no tongue—and taking you to the movies, the park, the beach, etc. It was a lovely time.”
I didn’t remember those dreams, never remembered any of them in the morning, but yes, I would have wanted all that he’d described.
The scene changed around us, becoming my small room at Uncle William’s house after Aunt Clara had deemed she’d done her fair share of caring for the orphans. Having turned sixteen, I’d pleaded with him to let me turn the old storage room in the basement into my personal bedroom. Sharing my room with my then ten-year-old sister, Laura, had long since stopped being cool.
“In the sixteen months leading to that day, you’d been dreaming less and less of me. Having passed that awkward phase, you’d been blossoming into a beautiful young woman and had your first proper boyfriend,” Kazan said. “It was a difficult, lonely time for me. I would sit in your high school locker room to dream of you and hope you’d remember me. And then you saw that racy picture of the Beauty and the Beast on an art forum. From that day forward, you dreamt often of me. Instead of the cute teenaged boy you used to picture me as before, you’d dream of me as the Beast ravishing you as Belle, or as a werewolf having his way with you wearing nothing but your red hooded cape, or increasingly, as an alien abducting you before turning you into his very willing sex slave.”