The Forbidden Chapters Part 1: Afterlife Saga

by Stephanie Hudson

  “Can I…” I had to pause as my voice hitched and I bit my lip to stop the tears momentarily before carrying on,

  “…have a moment alone please.” I finally raised my eyes to Draven and his look of remorse was painful to see. He looked about ready to say something more but instead must have thought better of it, so he simply nodded. I held myself around my corseted body and shivered finally letting the cold to seep past the anger that had kept me warm until this point. Draven saw it and slipped out of his suit jacket. Then he walked up to me and I took a step back, no longer able to stand being so close to him. He looked hurt by the action but chose to ignore his inner feelings on the matter.

  “I will leave you a moment but only if you wear this,” he said handing it over and I took it without looking at him. It was too painful for what I knew I had to do next. He took a deep exasperated breath and after a brief pause next to me he continued to the door.

  “You may not think I care Keira, pero no podrías estar más equivocado,” he said before walking through the door. My mouth dropped open as he had finished his sentence off in Spanish, a language he didn’t know I could speak. So, he didn’t know he had left me wondering why he ended that sentence with ‘…But you couldn’t be more wrong’.

  “Time to prove it, Draven,” I said aloud dumping his expensive jacket on the floor and walking to the edge of the balcony. I knew from seeing it so many times in the daylight that thick ivy covered all this side of the building, so just how strong was it, I had to wonder? Well there was only one way to find out. I took a deep breath and put one leg over, closest to the wall and tested the ivy’s strength by pressing down on it to see if there was any give. Doing this in heels wouldn’t have exactly been my first choice, but neither would climbing down some overgrown ivy bush have been …but that’s where we were.

  “Well, time to see if this crazy idea ends with a broken neck,” I muttered to myself and added my other leg, gripping on to the balustrades. I lowered myself over and slowly used the ivy as a ladder to the bottom. I was surprised how well it worked, although when my feet finally touched the floor, I did feel like shouting Halleluiah and high fiving myself for not doing something even stupider…like dying! I looked up and shook off the dizziness I felt.

  “Now that is what you call reckless, Draven!” I said and gave the empty balcony a one finger salute before making my way round to the front of the building. I rounded the corner, looking back over my shoulder, and swiftly bumped into a hard chest. Hands shot out and grabbed me by the tops of my arms to steady me. I looked up slowly into a pair of glowing purple eyes and swallowed hard. Draven looked down at me furiously and instead of shaking me to death as it looked as though he wanted to, he simply answered my earlier comment about being reckless.

  “Yes, it was Keira…extremely.” Then he pulled me closer and I stumbled into him placing my hands on his solid stomach. I looked up at him, too dumbstruck by his raw beauty to speak. He looked down at me and closed the space between us so much, I thought he was going to kiss me.

  I even closed my eyes ready as he whispered a dark promise…

  “Now it’s my turn.”

  AUTHOR INSIGHT

  Chapter 34 – Book 1

  Now in this next chapter we see Draven being pushed to his limits as he must choose between hurting Keira by letting her go or taking a chance that his loving her won’t get her killed. I think it’s a great chapter as things certainly heat up between the pair, but unfortunately another one I couldn’t use in the end as it is a continuation of the last one.

  So here it is, the woulda, shoulda, coulda of Chapter 34.

  Enjoy.

  Chapter 34

  Clifftop Confessions

  Book 1.

  NEW

  “Uhh…mmm…your turn to do what?” I asked after stumbling to find the right words. He smirked, lifting my face up by applying slight pressure under my chin so that I couldn’t look away from him.

  “To be reckless.” He then lowered his lips to mine and I sucked in a startled breath without releasing it again. He was close, oh so close to kissing me that I was quickly losing my grasp on reality again.

  “Breathe, sweetheart,” he whispered over my lips without yet making contact.

  This was it. This was now. This was finally us…

  Our time had come.

  I reached up on tiptoes holding onto his hard biceps to keep myself steady. I wanted this, he wanted this and nothing was going to stop it…nothing was going to…I opened my eyes and saw he was no longer that close and worst of all, I was no longer his sole focus.

  “Draven?” I braved saying his name as he was looking over his shoulder at the sound of a car driving into view. I looked around his large frame and saw it was a long black limo driving from around the other side of Afterlife. But instead of driving away as I hoped it would… it didn’t. No instead it pulled up to the front doors and it took me a minute to register why. My breath left me all at once and Draven didn’t miss it. He snapped his head around to me and his face said only one thing…he knew.

  “What did Malphas whisper in your ear at my table?” His voice had changed from caring to cold in a heartbeat. The deep grate in his voice told me this time to be cautious but his hand held at my throat even more so. He wasn’t hurting me but it was placed there as a warning, one I took seriously enough to answer him.

  “He told me to meet him out the front and he would take me home,” I whispered hoping my small voice would help in calming this unpredictable situation…it didn’t. His eyes flashed purple and I shuddered wanting more than anything to ask what he was. But that fury in his eyes told me not to speak. I half expected to feel him applying pressure to my neck but strangely his thumb simply moved up and down its length in a seductive way that could have been his way of drawing secrets from me. He looked back up to his balcony as things for him started to click into place.

  “And was that where you were headed when you left me?” It was a dangerous question, one I knew to answer cautiously as he looked close to the edge.

  “I…I…” I couldn’t answer him but that wasn’t good enough for him. So, he changed his tactics, to one he knew I wouldn’t have been able to resist. That or he knew how much he was frightening me. He ran the back of two fingers down my cheek and using that velvet smooth voice of his to extract what he wanted to know.

  “It’s all right sweetheart, you can tell me.” So, I looked up at him, my eyes wide, open and honest… then I told him.

  “No, I left because your words hurt me.” The briefest look of pain flashed in his eyes for a second before the sound of the engine revving drew his attention back.

  “He will pay,” Draven said with a deadly rasp to his voice that sounded as if it came from somewhere buried deep within. Then he let go of me and was gone. I blinked once, twice, and then saw him standing in front of Malphas’ car, looking as though he had the power to command it and those in it.

  I couldn’t understand how he had reached the car so quickly. I didn’t know what he was going to do but I felt I needed to stop this before it got out of hand. So, I ran over there as fast as I could just as he calmly walked around to the passenger side door.

  I reached them just as the window wound down and what I heard made me stop in my tracks.

  “I know not this game you play Malphas, but if you ever touch what is mine again then that game ends with your life…am I understood?” Draven said with deadly intent lacing his words. I didn’t know what not to believe first, the fact that he had threatened to kill someone for approaching me or on hearing him calling me his.

  “I intended no harm my Lord, a simple chance to understand the fates more clearly. It is obvious who she really is and the part she must…”

  “Enough!” Draven hissed slamming the window the rest of the way down with both hands. The sound of it shattering in the door frame made me jump and Draven heard it. He turned to look at me and our eyes locked for seconds that felt like a crushing eternit
y. I backed away a step and his focus shot to my movements.

  He mouthed one word at me… ‘Stay’ and suddenly I wanted to do the opposite.

  When he seemed assured that I would obey his order he turned back to Malphas to issue one last warning.

  “You will leave this place and never return, do you understand?”

  “As you wish, my Lord.” I heard him reply and Draven leant closer in and I gulped as I saw him crush the bottom of the window’s frame in his grasp. It was impossible!

  “You mistake me servant, I do not wish… I fucking demand! NOW LEAVE!” I didn’t hear anything from Malphas after this, just the sound of the car driving away. Draven stood there and watched it leave until he finally turned back to face me.

  So, there we were, one minute closer than ever, about to share our first real kiss and the next, well the twenty feet between us could have been an infinite chasm for all it was worth.

  He had lied.

  “I didn’t lie,” he said as if hearing my thoughts and I shook my head, an action that said this wasn’t happening.

  “You said I was just a waitress,” I reminded him. He looked away for a moment as if trying to compose himself ready for what was to come.

  “I said that to Malphas yes but…” I didn’t let him finish.

  “You told me there were misjudged affections that do not exist.” I told him repeating his very words back to him. He winced and closed his eyes for a second as if seeing it on playback for himself.

  “I…”

  “You said that!” I repeated hissing it at him.

  “I did,” he admitted. I swallowed hard and knew this was my one and only opportunity left to get answers, so I took a deep shuddering breath, hugged myself as if this would help and asked the question,

  “Was that a lie?”

  “Keira please…”

  “Answer me, Draven. Was that a lie?” This time it was my demand to be voiced in the dark, cold night.

  “I lied,” he admitted again and I wanted to crumble to the ground and wallow in my own pity. How could I be in love with a man who would play with my heart this way?

  So, I took a deep breath and made my decision.

  “Then I am done,” I said firmly before I started walking. I didn’t care about the cold. I didn’t care about my heels. I didn’t even care how far it was I had to walk. I just knew one thing and that was how much I needed to get away from him right now.

  “Keira don’t be foolish, you are not walking home,” he said frustrated but something in me snapped.

  “You have no say over what I do, Draven,” I reminded him and he had the audacity to scoff at this.

  “If you think I am going to just let you walk home then you’re wrong.”

  “And if you think I am going to keep letting you play with my heart then so are you!” I shouted back at him walking past. I must have made it about six feet before I was suddenly in his arms. I tried to struggle free but it was useless.

  “I’m not letting you go,” he told me sternly and I wanted to hit out at him.

  “You have no choice, I am not yours to keep,” I told him, despite the lies he told Malphas. His arms tightened for a moment as if my words had deeply affected him.

  “You have no idea just how wrong you are,” he told me and I couldn’t help it when the tears started to fall. My mind just kept going back to that day on the balcony and back to the beautiful redhead who walked through those doors and crushed my fragile, vulnerable heart.

  “I think your fiancée would disagree,” I told him and then pushed myself out of his hold. I knew he could have stopped me, I was just thankful when he didn’t. I needed space and I needed to think.

  “Alright Keira, have it your way. You need your space, I get that but if you think this conversation is over you are wrong.”

  “What, just so I can hear more of your lies?” I threw at him. He folded his arms and I hated seeing the way his shirt tightened across his muscles. I didn’t want to want him the way I did but it was like a sickness. It was as if the more I saw him, the more I would fall into this spell until I couldn’t ever see a way of getting out.

  “Any lies I told you were…” I held my hand up to stop him and snapped,

  “Save it. I’m done,” I said firmly, but the next thing I knew I was back in his arms and he was whispering in my ear with even firmer intent,

  “We will never be done you and I…ever.” I shuddered in his arms at the feel of his lips at my neck.

  “Let me go,” I asked him softly but this only provoked a growled promise from him.

  “Never.”

  “Draven, please,” I begged, my voice near breaking point.

  “Alright Keira, I will let you go home but the only way I am allowing it is if I drive you myself.” I closed my eyes, hating that I knew I had no choice in the matter and just to confirm I was right I asked,

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “You already know the answer to that,” he told me sternly and then just like magic, a car came around the side of the building, stopping next to us. He hadn’t even called anyone so how did that happen…had he planned for this? Speaking of which, how did he get down to me so quickly when leaving that balcony? Unless he knew the second he walked though those doors that I was going to run? But even then, if he knew would he really have let me climb down some stupid ivy where the chances had been high for me falling? There were just too many questions but only one left my lips.

  “Who are you?” I asked on a whisper, one he heard despite the distance he had put between us. His look said it all…there was something.

  The huge black SUV was like the one I had seen pulling up outside the campus. I bit my lip when thinking back to how I had fallen inside only to find Draven there. Well, this time he wouldn’t be sat in the back being driven, this time he was driving. A man got out from behind the wheel, one I recognised from Draven’s garage who was dressed in a grey jacket and grey hat.

  “My Lord,” he said nodding and leaving the door open for him. Then the guy walked away.

  “Keira, if you please.” I tore my eyes away from the sight of the guy disappearing around the corner and saw that Draven was now holding open the passenger door for me. Before walking over to him I looked back over my shoulder longingly wishing I had my own car, so instead of going home, I could just drive…far away.

  Draven cleared his throat and that was my cue. I walked over to the high vehicle and then down at the small step wondering how I was going to accomplish this in these heels. In the end, it was taken out of my hands as Draven put a hand either side of my waist and hoisted me up as though I weighed nothing at all. I sucked in a sharp breath from the feel of having his hands on my body, hating myself for wishing that they would never leave me.

  “Uhh…thanks,” I muttered with my head down to hide my damn blush. I didn’t like how my body responded to him the way it did. It felt like it was betraying me.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, once more leaning into me and obviously not giving a damn about personal space. Then he shut the door, the sound making me jump. He got in the other side with ease thanks to his long legs and started up the engine. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. Instead I looked out of my window and was greeted by my own reflection staring back at me. I looked how I felt…like a lost girl on the way to nowhere. Because I had spent the last two years trying to smile and mean it. Well, since meeting Draven I had finally had something real to put behind that smile, even if it had been done in secret. I had thought about him and that smile had been real but now… well now,

  I wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “Wait, why are we going this way?” I asked when he turned the opposite way to my house.

  “You will see,” he told me cryptically and I folded my arms, releasing a heavy sigh, knowing there was no point arguing.

  “Relax, I will get you home but first there is a place I want you to see.” I looked at him side on and tried to judge the impos
sible, that being, what was going on in his mind. Half of me wanted to demand he take me home, the other half demand that he give me answers. So, the bottom of that list was having him take me somewhere I didn’t know and into a situation I couldn’t control.

  We sat in silence for most of the drive and every now and then I would feel his eyes on me but I refused to look. Instead I continued to look out of the window, seeing the night flashing past and with it adding even more miles between me and home. He saw me holding myself as I usually did when I felt uneasy and he must have taken it for being cold because he reached for the controls and put the heater on. I wanted to say thank you but in the end, I couldn’t find the words, so we continued our silence, that was until sometime later Draven broke it.

  “Almost there,” Draven said with a sigh and I couldn’t help but get the impression that this was something he didn’t want. Which then begged the question…why? He pulled the SUV off the main road and turned onto a dirt track that was surrounded by thick forest on either side. I felt my palms start to sweat under the thick gloves I wore and I fidgeted in my seat, not liking the uncertainty I felt.

  “You have nothing to fear from me, Keira.” I almost jumped out of my skin when Draven said this. As if once again he had been tapping into my thoughts. But it wasn’t the physical type of pain I feared Draven would inflict. It was the emotional pain I knew he could inflict that had me terrified of getting out of this car. There was only one reason he would bring me all the way out here that I could think of. A place that not a soul for miles could play witness to what Draven wanted me to know…was it finally the truth? And if so, was it really that bad that it needed to be done somewhere totally remote to ensure this? I didn’t know but I was suddenly terrified to find out.

  We kept driving for a short while longer until the woodland started to become sparse and the road became wider. Then it suddenly opened up as if God had swiftly lifted a veil on a proud piece of art work of his. I couldn’t help but gasp at the sight of the national park in all its dark, mysterious glory. We looked to be on top of it all and at one of the highest points of the park. A blanket of stars above and the moon casting light upon the black silhouette of thousands of trees below.