by J. Meyers
A frenzy of fire crackled in her very core, and the tingling sensation he’d started with a slight touch to her lips now had her whole body humming. His tongue traced her lips, and she thought her solar plexus might explode right then. She felt hot all over and couldn’t begin to get enough of him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and ran her hands down his arms, feeling the rise and fall of muscle meeting muscle. She reached up to cup his face, and ran her fingers through his long red hair, tangling them in its soft waves.
“Are you still hungry?” His voice was a ragged whisper near her ear.
“No. You?”
“Not even a little.”
She smiled and he leaned in to kiss her slowly, sweetly. Very gently he nibbled her lower lip as his hands lightly traced the lines of her neck, her arms, the sides of her body. They came to rest on the small of her back where his fingers grasped the hem of her shirt. He pulled her toward him, her shirt bunched in his hands, his kisses deepening. There was no space between their bodies, nothing keeping them apart.
Sera could feel his heart beating right next to hers. She tightened her legs around his waist, ran her hands over his strong, smooth back. He felt so good. So right.
His kisses became more intense, more insistent, and Sera could feel her whole body throbbing with want. She wanted him, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for this kind of thing. She pulled back slightly.
“Sera?” he said, looking at her face. His pupils were huge, eclipsing most of the blue. She felt a tinge of panic at the look in his eyes.
“I can’t…” she said. “I mean, I’m not…”
“I know.” He smiled, followed along her earlobe with one finger, tucked her hair behind that ear. “I know. It’s okay.”
Oh. He was perfect. Whatever she had done to deserve this perfect boy, she was so glad she’d done it. She placed her hands on either side of his face and leaned in to kiss him again, gently but hungrily.
He kissed her for a moment more, but then turned his head to look at the inside of her wrist. Her long-sleeve shirt had slipped up her arm a bit, exposing the fleur-de-lis. She’d actually painted it on her wall in several places because she’d liked it so much, and had started doodling it in her notebooks when she got bored in class. It had been a couple of weeks since Fey had done it, and it was fading slowly. Once it really faded she was going to ask Fey to draw it again.
“What’s that?” Marc said, holding her wrist in his hands, running his thumb lightly over the image, sending little thrills up her arm. “A tattoo?”
“Nope. Just something Luke and Fey and I did. It’s a fleur-de-lis.”
Marc inhaled sharply. “It is?” He brushed his thumb over the drawing again. “I’ve never seen one like this.”
“I know. Isn’t it cool? I love it.” She looked up from where he was gently stroking her wrist to find that he was staring at her. She leaned in to him again, ready to pick up where they’d left off.
He kissed her, then slid his warm, soft lips along her jaw line and up to her ear. He lapped at her earlobe, and she gasped at the sparks it set off in her core. Then he whispered, “I’ve been looking for you.”
Sera’s heart beat as if hit with electric shocks. She leaned back a little to look into his eyes. The eyes currently enchanted with her lips. “You have?”
“For months. I heard about you and your abilities.”
She leaned farther back, eyebrows knit together. “My abilities?” He couldn’t know. Her heartbeat was peppered with fear now. No one knew.
“You can heal people. I watched you do it this afternoon at the soccer game.”
Sera’s heart stopped. Her breathing stopped. Time stopped. His words echoed in her mind. You can heal people. I’ve been looking for you. Cold panic shivered down her back, raised goose bumps on her arms. He knew what she could do. She wasn’t sure whether she should play dumb or deny it and call him crazy. But then her eyes locked with his—one of the few times he solidly met her gaze—and she knew there was no denying it to him. He knew.
“How did you know?” Her voice came out as a scared whisper.
“I heard people thinking about you. Thinking things they couldn’t say out loud without others believing they were crazy. Thinking you had healed them.”
Sera watched his lips as he spoke, and felt a flutter in her stomach. He knew about her and hadn’t run away screaming, cursed her, or called her a freak. He knew and he still wanted to be with her. She leaned toward him again, wanting his lips on hers. And why should he mind that she could heal when he was able to hear people’s thoughts? She stopped, leaned back.
“You hear people’s thoughts?” Her eyes searched his face. “Can you hear mine?”
He closed his eyes, looked like he was concentrating, then opened them again and laughed. “Actually I can’t. I don’t know why, but I can’t hear your thoughts. Or Luke’s. Or Fey’s. Everyone else’s, yes. But there’s something different about you three that keeps your thoughts out of my head.”
“Or keeps you from getting inside our heads?”
“No, it’s not like you’d think. People’s thoughts intrude into my mind, not the other way around. I can open my mind to hear what people are thinking, but I can’t actually enter someone’s mind. It just doesn’t work that way. At least not for me.”
“Are there others like you?”
“I don’t know. Probably, right? I mean, if there’s someone like you, and like Luke—he can See the future, right?” He said it like it was no big deal. Like it was normal. Sera nodded, dumbfounded. “So, if there’s you, me, and Luke, then there are probably more people like us. With similar or very different talents. Don’t you think?”
“I’ve never thought so before. I always figured we were alone, Luke and I. But with you—yeah, I guess there must be others. Wow.” Sera flopped backwards onto the bed so she was looking up at the ceiling. Her mind was a tumultuous mess. She needed to go home and paint. But she still had so many questions.
“Yeah, I used to think the same until I heard about you and Luke.” Marc moved their picnic spread off the bed. Then he lay next to Sera and stared up at the ceiling with her. “It’s nice, though, isn’t it? I mean, knowing you’re not alone?”
“Yeah, it is.”
He laced his fingers through hers and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze. She smiled all the way to her toes.
“How does it work?” he said. “Healing someone.”
She was quiet a moment. This was so odd—she could actually be honest with him. She could tell him anything about her ability and he’d be fine with it. It was a totally new experience for her. She almost didn’t know where to begin.
“It only works when there is something to heal.”
“Like the boy on the playground.”
“Yeah, but also hurt feelings, stress—that sort of thing, too.” She paused, took a deep breath, quelling her nervousness at saying this all out loud. “If there’s something to heal, then the light just flows into whoever I’m touching and it heals them.”
Marc turned to look at her. “Is it going into me right now?” He lifted their intertwined hands.
She shook her head. “Nope. You are obviously feeling just fine because there’s no light.” She tightened her fingers around his. He felt better than fine to her.
“How do you control it?” He was staring at her lips now and that just made her want to roll over and kiss him. But she tried to concentrate on answering his question.
“I don’t, really. I mean, I don’t think I can. The light flows on its own or doesn’t flow. If I focus on healing it feels like it goes faster and stronger, but if there’s nothing to heal it won’t come at all.”
Marc gazed at her a moment. “You’re amazing,” he whispered.
His lips were so close to hers, open, soft, inviting. She licked her lips and leaned in to kiss him, really kiss him. She could feel her defenses collapsing as she kissed him deeper and deeper, and she let this beautiful boy deeper and deep
er into her soul.
Marc watched Sera wave to him from under the single light on the front porch, then turn and go into her house. He sat back in his seat for a moment and grinned. He could still feel the lingering heat of her touch. In fact, he felt thoroughly filled with warmth and light. And that was even without her healing him. A healing must feel incredible.
His grin faded. He knew. It was official. She was Marked and he’d seen her heal. It was them, without any tiny little nano-speck of doubt. His shoulders slumped. He could report in to the Shadows tonight if he wanted to and be done with them. He could have his life back.
He could be free.
Assuming the Shadows were good to their word. A risky assumption to make.
But how could he? He liked this girl. Maybe he even loved her, he didn’t know. But he did love the freedom he felt with her—the freedom to be who he was, to have someone else know his secret gift and not turn on him, curse him. He knew Luke would know soon. And Luke could handle it, too.
He had friends. Real friends. Perhaps for the first time in his life.
If only he’d known this might happen. Marc closed his eyes, shook his head. It had been easy to agree to work for the Shadows when the people they were looking for were unknown, strangers. But now? He sighed. If only there was another way out. Another choice.
Well, there was another choice. He could kill himself. The Shadows would get no more information out of him. He wouldn’t need their medicine. He wouldn’t ever again experience the unbearable noise and pain in his head.
He could do it.
He didn’t want to.
But would he do it for Sera and Luke? Would he end his life to save theirs? If he were a really good person, he’d say “yes” right away.
He sighed again. He wasn’t a really good person.
And in all reality he didn’t know if his death would actually save their lives. The Shadows already knew they were here. His death wouldn’t stop them from figuring out Luke and Sera were the ones. It might slow them down, sure, but it wouldn’t stop them.
So killing himself wasn’t going to solve anything.
If only he didn’t need the medicine. If only he didn’t need the Shadows to cure him.
Wait. Maybe he didn’t need the Shadows to cure him.
What if Sera could?
Marc leaned his head back and grinned. She could heal him, and then he wouldn’t need the Shadows anymore. He could tell them he was wrong and that Sera and Luke were definitely not the twins they were looking for. And he could lead them astray, then disappear.
And come back here to be with Sera.
It was perfect. It solved everything.
Marc put his car in gear and headed back to his motel. He had a couple of weeks to plan this, get Sera to heal him, and then deal with the Shadows again. He had until the next new moon. He laughed and drummed his hands on the dashboard. He hadn’t been this happy in a very long time. What a nice change it was.
Luke lay on his back on Sera’s bed, tossing a tennis ball straight up toward the ceiling and catching it with one hand. It made a satisfying thwock every time it landed in his palm. His senses were all on overload, his feeling of impending doom had been full strength since Sera had left to see Marc earlier. While he was glad for the long lead time since it meant there was still time before the vision was realized, the anticipation was killing him. He knew this vision would be about Sera. Thankfully their conversation was an incredible distraction.
“I knew there was something different about him,” he said, catching the ball again. “That’s an interesting gift he’s got. I’m sure it must be disorienting sometimes.”
“Yeah.” Sera stood back from the wall to get a better look at what she was painting. “Marc said it actually became a problem a couple of years ago, which is why he dropped out and got his GED. He couldn’t be around people at all because it was just constant noise in his head. He takes some kind of medicine, I guess, that keeps it under control.”
“That would suck.” Luke looked over at her. She was painting minute details on another replica of their fleur-de-lis. “You’re getting really good at that. Is yours still there?”
Sera looked down at her wrist. “Mostly. It’s just starting to fade a bit. Fey must have used permanent ink. How’s yours?”
“Same.” Luke launched the ball in the air over his face again and caught it. “He really can’t hear our thoughts, though?”
“Nope. That’s what he says.”
“Weird. I wonder why.”
Sera paused, considering her work. “Maybe because we’re gifted too. Because we’re different. Maybe there’s something that puts us off his radar? I don’t know.”
“Yeah, but you said he can’t hear Fey either. And, though she is aesthetically gifted—stop rolling your eyes, you know she is and I’m just saying—she is not gifted like us.”
Sera was quiet for a moment and Luke turned to look at her. Her head was tilted to one side, a pensive look on her face. “How do you know?”
“What?” Luke stopped tossing the ball.
“How do you know? We didn’t know this about Marc but, as you said, there was something different about him that clicked with us. The same could be said for Fey.”
Luke couldn’t speak for a moment, then he shook his head slightly and said, “But we would have noticed.”
“She told me once that she can’t lie, and she always knows when I’m being less than truthful. Always. Like she can smell it.”
“I’m not sure that’s the same,” Luke said. “And besides, we would have seen something. She would have told us.”
“We haven’t told her.”
“I would have Seen it?”
“Ha!” Sera snorted. “Like you Saw Marc’s ability?”
Luke was silent for a moment. Sera went back to painting her wall, and he eventually started tossing the tennis ball up again. Thwock silence, thwock silence, thwock silence. “Do you really think she is?” There was wonder in his voice.
“I don’t know.” Sera didn’t turn to look at him. She was painting what looked like a large red stone. “But there is something different about her. Which is why we love her.”
“It’s kinda fun having someone else around like us, huh?”
“Yeah.” She turned to Luke again, her eyes sparkling. “I really like him, Luke.”
“I know. I can tell.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “Just be care—”
“Luke.” She cut him off. “Don’t.”
“I just—”
“I know. But don’t.”
He pressed his lips together and gripped the tennis ball tightly in his hand. He didn’t want her to get hurt. He wanted to save her from that. And he was failing.
Which meant that even with something as minor as a broken heart, he couldn’t change the future. Luke closed his eyes and lay one arm across them.
So Sera was going to get her heart broken. Big deal. He certainly didn’t want it to happen, but she’d live, it wasn’t the end of the world. But her death? That was the end of the world. His world.
Luke suddenly needed to move. He needed to go for a run, clear his head. Figure this out. He swung his legs off the bed, and stood up.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m just going to go for a jog. Fresh air.” He stood next to her and admired her wall. With his haywire senses, the colors were crazy intense. He reached out to touch one small blue and white swirl on the wall, and the room disappeared.
Fire from torches in wall sconces flickered across the blood red stone walls, giving the illusion of dancing shadows in the corners. At least, Luke assumed it was an illusion. The shadows were the darkest he’d ever seen and they almost seemed to move of their own will rather than as an effect of the light.
He was back in hell, or wherever this place was. He looked around. Where was the psycho woman?
There. She was magnificent. Again. He felt a pull toward her, as if his body was no l
onger under his control. But then a moment later she was hideous, the spell was broken, and he backed away from her.
The black stone floor shone in the torchlight, and Luke could make out more people this time. He searched the cavern frantically and didn’t see Sera anywhere. Maybe something had changed. Maybe she was no longer in danger.
“Jonas!” the woman said and laughed—it was a sound that sent shards of ice into Luke’s heart. “You’ve brought me a gift!”
Luke turned to look where she was gazing. Sera and Jonas walked into the room. His shoulders slumped. It didn’t look like anything had changed after all.
But maybe this was a clue, Luke thought. Maybe the person he needed to stop was Jonas. Because if Jonas was the crazy lady’s minion and Luke could somehow remove him from the equation, then Jonas couldn’t take Sera there and she’d be saved. At last there was something concrete he could do to prevent this vision from coming true.
He was not going to let Jonas sacrifice his sister.
But as he watched, Jonas glared at Lilith and stepped in front of Sera. Luke closed his eyes, collapsed to his knees. Jonas was protecting her, not delivering her. Luke was back where he started. Nowhere.
Luke gasped and was back in Sera’s room, touching her painting wall.
Sera looked over at him. He knew he had to look as distraught as he felt. Luke could feel droplets of sweat skidding down his back and his heart beating at breakneck speed. Goose bumps covered his body, and he was gasping for breath as if he’d been running for his life.
He felt as if he’d been running for his life. For a moment he wondered if this was what a panic attack felt like.
“Luke, what’s wrong?” Sera’s eyebrows knit together in concern.
He looked at her and didn’t have a clue what to say. He couldn’t answer that question. His mind was swimming. It didn’t make sense for Jonas to take Sera there if he was trying to protect her. Why would he do that? Luke was suddenly angry with himself. He wasn’t doing enough, he wasn’t figuring it out.
“It’s, uh…I’m fi—it’s okay. I just need to go for a run.” And Luke bolted from the room. He grabbed his running shoes by the front door and quickly laced them up. Then he was out the door and running.