by Dale Mayer
She gasped. “Stefan.”
And damn if he didn’t reach over and grab her hand physically and squeeze. “I’m here.”
She burst into tears. She leaned over and was crushed in his embrace. After a moment she felt something hard, small, and round between them. She lifted up slightly, her hand grasping the cold object. “What’s this?”
“You’re welcome,” Lissa said from the side, but there was no condescension in her voice this time. In fact, if Celina wasn’t correct, there just might have been tears clogging the teenager’s throat.
“You are some special ghost, you know that?” Celina straightened, her heart full and happy.
“I’ll admit you’re turning out to be not too bad after all yourself.”
Celina beamed. Peace with Stefan’s ghost. Just about perfect.
Her fingers played with the object, a frown on her face as she tried to identify it. After a couple of moments she realized there was only silence from Stefan.
“Stefan?”
“I’m here,” he murmured, his voice the barest of whispers.
She sagged with relief.
“Lissa brought this.” She held up the object. “It’s the first I’ve known of a ghost that could move objects.”
“Some do,” he said quietly. “Lissa is getting more adept.”
She tilted her head and smiled, a tiny quirk to her lips. “So what is this?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
The edge of one side of the object caught her attention. Her heart froze. She couldn’t breathe. Her mind was too shocked to make any sense of what just happened.
“It can’t be,” she whispered. She shifted so she could put her hand into her pocket and withdrew her precious Caslo rock that she’d been holding so much today. Hands shaking, she carefully lined the two up and felt them settle into place. “Caslo,” she whispered. “Is it really you?”
“Why don’t see for yourself?”
See? As in, if the predator was gone could she really see? “I tried earlier but there was just grayness.”
“Try again.” Stefan’s voice held a hint of amusement. She frowned at him. But fingers whispered across her closed eyes just then. He said, “It takes something else – belief.”
Scared to try and terrified not to, Celina opened her eyes and saw Stefan, as in really saw Stefan. For a long moment a vision of Caslo’s younger self from her memory banks settled over the top, adjusted, then lined up with the Stefan she knew today.
And she could see him for the first time.
The boyfriend of her childhood, the best friend of her heart, the beautiful youth she’d loved forever, the same one she’d sent away permanently – lay on the floor watching her, a little wary, a little uncertain, and just as she’d last seen him, always full of love – for her.
As she’d always loved him.
Caslo!
*
An hour later a cool cloth over her eyes to ease the burning from the bright lights, and curled up against the one man she’d thought never to see again, Celina realized she’d be happy to never move again.
He cuddled her closer.
There should have been no tears left, she didn’t want to cry any more, but a few snuck out the corner of her eye to trickle down her cheek. Tears of relief at having the predator gone. She couldn’t even begin to digest that it had been her fiancé. Right now all she wanted to focus on was having Caslo back. And then there was the miracle of her vision, her eyes that could actually see now.
“You okay?”
“I’m just fine,” she whispered, tilting her head to look at him, “now.”
He grinned. She’d never get tired of looking at him. He was stunning. He’d been a pretty youth and had grown into those dynamic looks so well. She sighed with pleasure. “I’m glad I couldn’t see you at the beginning.” At his raised eyebrows, she explained, “I’d have been so distracted by your good looks.”
“You used say I was as pretty as a girl,” he accused, but the twinkle in his voice belied the words.
She grinned. “And you were. I was terribly jealous.”
“Ha. You were always stunning.”
She waited a moment. “Why?”
“Why did I leave and not come back?”
She nodded, almost hating to hear the answer.
“Partly because you sent me away. Partly because you were determined to believe I was a ghost, and partly because there are laws in the universe and when I had to step back to that extent, I had to stay out of your way until the timing was right.”
She pondered that. “I really thought you were a ghost. I couldn’t possibly have imagined that you could leave your body and appear as yourself.” She shifted. “And then there is your name…”
“Ah, yes. You see, that place I was taken to was for ‘special people’ so I could get help. But it was more of an institute for those beyond help.” His voice was wry, pensive as he added, “When I escaped it was imperative to change my name. To keep from being discovered and hauled back. I’d learned a very big lesson there. One I wasn’t going to forget again.” He laughed, a boisterous laugh that made her sigh happily. “Besides, Stefan is my name. Stefan Caslo Kronos.”
“And your parents?”
“They were foster parents, and I think they were quite happy to wash their hands of me. Many years during that time are a complete blank. As such, it’s hard for me to even identify with my old self.” He hugged her close. “It was hard to always appear in the form you would recognize. And then after you sent me away…”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I hated to do it, but I thought it was for your own good.”
“If I’d been a ghost, it would have been, yes.” He stroked away a tear. “You needed time to understand. You couldn’t have understood what I could do, to see me in my many forms. To be with me. You had to grow too. To learn and to remember the love inside.”
“But I didn’t, so I sent away the one person in my life that I loved.” She rubbed her hand across his chest. The bright light still hurt her eyes, so she just looked through her lashes, loving the gift she had back. To have been blind and now to see… was priceless.
She said out loud, “To have back someone I thought was dead…”
He was silent for a moment then said, his voice low and solemn, “And the reverse is also true.”
Something in his voice had her pushing back to stare at him. “Is that comment directed at something specific?”
He opened his eyes and said, “While you were blind you lost track of reality on some levels.”
Frowning, she sat up and stared at him through her lowered lashes. “On a lot of levels. Which are you talking about?”
He stared at her, reached up, and caressed her cheeks. “Jillian and Gordon?”
“My friends?” She frowned. “What about them? I haven’t seen Gordon since the hospital.” Her face cleared and she smiled. “But you were there with me, weren’t you?”
“I was, but Gordon was there in spirit only. As was Jillian in your apartment.”
She gasped. “Gordon is dead?” Another shock to her system. Another shock to her reality. How had she not known? She thought of all the conversations with Gordon. He’d been dead all this time, and yet there for her.
Jillian, her friend, saying yes to tea and never drinking any. Damn. How could she have not seen it? And that was of course the problem. She’d been living in the dark and assuming that her friends were there in the flesh. She didn’t know what to say or how to feel. She was sad for them, but as she’d stayed in touch with them over the last year it just felt…odd. Distant. “How could I not know?”
“When you lost your sight you saw energy in different depths and easily confused the physical entities with ghostly ones. Reality was also easier on you this way.”
She shook her head. “You must have thought I’d lost it.”
“What I thought was that you were the most beautiful woman in the world and the only one
for me. The rest were issues that could be dealt with. You’d had a tough couple of years, but nothing you couldn’t recover from.”
“And now?” she whispered.
“Now? Now I’m just happy to be back in your life.” He tilted her head and kissed her. “I have never stopped loving you.”
Once again tears misted her eyes. She burrowed close against him and whispered, “And I love you. I always have.”
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Eyes to the Soul! If you enjoyed my book, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a review.
Dear reader,
I love to hear from readers, and you can contact me at my website: www.dalemayer.com or at my Facebook author page. To be informed of new releases and special offers, sign up for my newsletter. And if you are interested in joining my street team, here is the Facebook sign up page.
Cheers,
Dale Mayer
Thank you for reading Eyes to the Soul. The series continues with Now You See Her.
Excerpt from Now You See Her…
Book 8 of the Psychic Vision series
Dean leaned back against the hallway wall. Why did the extra shifts he’d picked up have to be at the hospital? Didn’t the boss understand – people died here.
Too many of them.
He shook his head but stayed at his post. He’d been a cop for a decade, and now that he had his little boy to think of, extra money was required. But nighttime? At a hospital? Good thing Grandma had Jeremy at her house for a sleepover. Then again, Jeremy loved his mam almost as much as he loved his dad.
Thank heavens.
A few staff members walked down the hallway. One talking to another and the third muttering over something on his tablet.
Nothing major and nothing unusual.
Not here on the psych ward. He hated that even worse. It was one thing to have a thing about hospitals where people died, but on this side of the building they were bat-shit crazy.
Especially the beautiful woman he was here to protect. At least according to her team of doctors. Sure they had fancy names for her condition, but that was the bottom line.
And why was he here again? Right, because Stefan Kronos had asked. And was apparently footing the bill.
So far the woman hadn’t even had a visitor, medical or otherwise.
He crossed his arms over his chest. It was past one a.m. He was here for another hour then would be replaced by Greg, another cop he knew. Sad that so many of them needed the extra money these days. At a quarter past he walked into her room and took a look to make sure all was well. She slept soundly.
Good – he wasn’t sure what he’d do if she woke up and started doing anything weird. Although if she did wake up, the machines she was hooked up to would likely go nuts. How appropriate.
He turned to leave when the hair on the back of his head rose. He spun around, his hand to the gun holstered at his side. “Who’s there?”
Silence. Taking a deep breath he checked outside to make sure nothing had changed, his gaze slipping past the bed, then hitting the brakes and jamming into reverse. The bed was empty.
He spun around in a panic.
But the windowless room was empty. Where the hell had she gone? And how?
Psychic Vision Series
Tuesday’s Child – FREE
Hide’n Go Seek
Maddy’s Floor
Garden of Sorrow
Knock, Knock…
Rare Find
Eyes to the Soul
Now You See Her – Fall 2015
Psychic Visions 3in1
Touched by Death
adult RS/thriller
Get this book at your favorite vendor.
Death had touched anthropologist Jade Hansen in Haiti once before, costing her an unborn child and perhaps her very sanity.
A year later, determined to face her own issues, she returns to Haiti with a mortuary team to recover the bodies of an American family from a mass grave. Visiting his brother after the quake, independent contractor Dane Carter puts his life on hold to help the sleepy town of Jacmel rebuild. But he finds it hard to like his brother’s pregnant wife or her family. He wants to go home, until he meets Jade – and realizes what’s missing in his own life. When the mortuary team begins work, it’s as if malevolence has been released from the earth. Instead of laying her ghosts to rest, Jade finds herself confronting death and terror again.
And the man who unexpectedly awakens her heart – is right in the middle of it all.
By Death Series
Touched by Death – Part 1 – FREE
Touched by Death – Part 2
Touched by Death – Parts 1&2
Haunted by Death
Chilled by Death – March 2015
Vampire in Denial
This is book 1 of the Family Blood Ties Saga
Get this book at your favorite vendor.
Blood doesn’t just make her who she is…it also makes her what she is.
Like being a sixteen-year-old vampire isn’t hard enough, Tessa’s throwback human genes make her an outcast among her relatives. But try as she might, she can’t get a handle on the vampire lifestyle and all the…blood.
Turning her back on the vamp world, she embraces the human teenage lifestyle—high school, peer pressure and finding a boyfriend. Jared manages to stir something in her blood. He’s smart and fun and oh, so cute. But Tessa’s dream of a having the perfect boyfriend turns into a nightmare when vampires attack the movie theatre and kidnap her date.
Once again, Tessa finds herself torn between the human world and the vampire one. Will blood own out? Can she make peace with who she is as well as what?
Warning: This book ends with a cliffhanger! Book 2 picks up where this book ends.
Family Blood Ties Series
Vampire in Denial – FREE
Vampire in Distress
Vampire in Design
Vampire in Deceit
Vampire in Defiance
Vampire in Conflict
Vampire in Chaos
Vampire in Crisis
Family Blood Ties 3in1
Sian’s Solution – A Family Blood Ties Short Story
Broken Protocols
Buy this book at your favorite vendor.
Dani’s been through a year of hell…
Just as it’s getting better, she’s tossed forward through time with her orange Persian cat, Charmin Marvin, clutched in her arms. They’re dropped into a few centuries into the future. There’s nothing she can do to stop it, and it’s impossible to go back.
And then it gets worse…
A year of government regulation is easing, and Levi Blackburn is feeling back in control. If he can keep his reckless brother in check, everything will be perfect. But while he’s been protecting Milo from the government, Milo’s been busy working on a present for him…
The present is Dani, only she comes with a snarky cat who suddenly starts talking…and doesn’t know when to shut up.
In an age where breaking protocols have severe consequences, things go wrong, putting them all in danger…
Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy Series
Broken Protocols
Broken Protocols 2
Broken Protocols 3
Broken Protocols 3.5
Broken Protocols 1-3
About the Author
Dale Mayer is a prolific multi-published writer. She’s best known for her Psychic Visions series. Besides her romantic suspense/thrillers, Dale also writes paranormal romance and crossover young adult books in several different genres. To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in digital and print formats.
Connect with Dale Mayer Online
Dale’s Website – www.dalemayer.com
Twitter – @DaleMayer
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Also by Dale Mayer
Published Adult Books:
Psychic Vision Series
Tuesday’s Child – FREE
Hide’n Go Seek
Maddy’s Floor
Garden of Sorrow
Knock, Knock…
Rare Find
Eyes to the Soul
Now You See Her – Fall 2015
Psychic Visions 3in1
By Death Series
Touched by Death – Part 1 – FREE
Touched by Death – Part 2
Touched by Death – Parts 1&2
Haunted by Death
Chilled by Death – March 2015
Second Chances…at Love Series
Second Chances – Part 1 – FREE
Second Chances – Part 2
Second Chances – complete book (Parts 1 & 2)
Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy Series
Broken Protocols
Broken Protocols 2
Broken Protocols 3
Broken Protocols 3.5
Broken Protocols 1-3
Broken and… Mending
Skin
Scars – February 2015
Collections
Dare to Be You…
Dare to Love…
Dare to be Strong…
RomanceX3
Standalone Novellas
It’s a Dog’s Life
Riana’s Revenge
Published Young Adult Books:
Family Blood Ties Series