“A little birdie told me,” he winked at me. “The same one that told me you wanted to go parasailing and that you like jet skiing.”
“A bird huh?” I laughed knowing full well where he got the information from. My question was how and when.
“Fine I’ll fess up. I might know a person that’s sort of a techie genius and I might have asked him to get your best friends number for me. And I might have called her to call and check on you because you weren’t answering any of my calls or your apartment door. She might have told me to give you a little time and I might have told her that I knew what today meant to you and I wanted to do something to make it not so bad of a day. She might have given me a couple of pointers on how to go about doing that and I might have listened.” He nudged my shoulder with his. “So am I doing a good job so far?”
I stared into his sparkling blue eyes momentarily unable to speak. I was stunned by the fact that he’d cared enough to make the effort. It made me want to open up, to say things I normally kept bottled inside. Because as I lounged beside him on the deck of the boat, his presence when I thought about them made my grief markedly easier to bear.
“As hard as the days surrounding this day is for me, none of it compares to what I feel on the actual day of their deaths. I manage to keep my head above water the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year, but on this day I wake up drowning in grief. It has been like that since they died. On the first anniversary of their deaths I sobbed non-stop the entire day and the day afterwards. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep, I didn’t move out of my bed. I just cried and cried and cried until I’d cried so much that there were no tears left. The year after that was the same and the year after that…” I held my left wrist out rotating it so that the inside of it faced up. I looked down at it, unable to look at him as I continued. If he looked closely, which I knew he would, he would see the faint horizontal shadow of a scar that had had years to fade to near unnoticeable. “The grief became too much to live with. Even without ever hearing of the prophecy, I thought my parents’ deaths were my fault. We were at the camp ground because of me. My mother hated the outdoors and my father didn’t really have the time to take off work to go. But I begged them and I pestered them until they caved and gave me what I wanted. I’d seen some stupid 60s movie, The Parent Trap, where they’d gone camping and I wanted to go. At first I shut my eyes against the horror I knew was about to happen. Their screams are what pried them open. I looked on as my parents weren’t just killed, but were butchered. Afterwards, the daemons responsible left in the direction they had come from without even sparing me a glance. I collapsed on the ground and when I started vomiting I couldn’t stop. Parts of my parents’ bodies lay mixed together and strewn across the campground around me. The park ranger and the state troopers told my grandparents when they came to get me that it had been an animal attack. Most likely a pack of wolves or a big cat. I didn’t tell them anything different. I’d never seen a daemon before then but my father had told me all about them. Even though he left the Society when I was born he never kept my heritage or his a secret from me. He told me of the Nephilim and the duty they were created to perform and that he had abandoned that duty because he loved me so much he wanted a different life for me than he’d had. I don’t think words exist that can describe the sheer horror of that day. And I relive it frame by frame, choice by choice every year on this day. It’s the one day doing what Bennett taught me doesn’t work. The bars I shut it away behind creak open and the mountain of granite I bury it beneath blows the fuck up. Thirteen was the only time I tried to kill myself but it wasn’t the only time I’ve wished I was dead. Sometimes I still do. If I were, others might still be alive. I don’t talk about that day. Not with anyone. Not ever. I don’t talk about what happened, I don’t talk about how it’s my fault, and I don’t talk about how much it still haunts and hurts me. Just thinking about it is painful enough. But I am sitting here, talking to you about it, telling you feelings I’ve never told anyone and it’s like a knife to my gut, but it’s not unbearable. The grief isn’t pulling me under and I feel… lighter…less burdened than I’ve felt since it happened. I’m smiling, I’m laughing, I’m looking forward to spending the remainder of the afternoon with you on the deck of the boat and I’m wondering what I’ll have to do to talk you into letting me drive back. So yes, you’re doing a great job so far.”
The boat had turned to where the sun beamed straight into my face when I looked up at the cloudless sky. I squinted my eyes against its blinding rays. When I opened them again I stared into a blue more breathtaking than the clearest of skies on the sunniest of days.
Chase rubbed his thumb gently over the faded scar on my wrist. “I’m sorry for your loss, and from the things you’ve said it sounds like you’ve experienced losing someone close to you more than once. But I’m grateful you’re alive and I want you to stay that way. Like I told you on the way back from Savannah I’m strong enough to take care of the both of us. You don’t have to worry about me. You don’t have to add me to the weight you carry. Yes, Nephilim fight and die young but I’m not a Nephilim remember. I’m something different and something much more. Whenever you need a day like today just let me know.” He tucked a strand of hair that the breeze had blown loose behind my ear. “I understand what you’re going through.”
His tenderness tugged at me, pulled at feelings I knew were better left unfelt. It made me feel anxious and slightly frightened. “How can you possibly understand,” I snapped at him in response because of those feelings.
The words were out of my mouth before I saw the ghost of a pain similar to my own behind his eyes that told me he spoke in earnest and not simply to soothe me. He flinched at my words and I mentally kicked myself for the reaction.
“Because,” he spoke quietly, “I’ve lost people too. People whose deaths actually were my fault. I would have given my life in exchange for theirs in a heartbeat but any choice in the matter was taken from me.” He ran a hand through his short curls then picked up his beer.
“I’m sorry.” The words were lame and an inadequate excuse for my previous ones.
He took a long swig of the beer then sat it back down. “It’s cool. You didn’t know.”
He stayed quiet for so long that I thought he wouldn’t say anymore on the matter. I didn’t feel any type of way by his silence. I wholeheartedly understood it. It took me by surprise when he started elaborating.
“I resent my mother about as strongly as I hate the Archangel and for many of the same reasons. He only divulged that being his Chosen Ones meant that we were created from The Twelve fourteen years after he told our parents that we were special, but even before then we were placed on a pedestal. Watched over and protected and suffocatingly coddled more than is healthy or normal. Of all of our parents my mother was the worst and out of all the Chosen Ones I hated it the most. For as far back as I can remember she’s always acted like my life means more than everyone else’s and it’s bullshit. I had a little brother. My parents had him three years after they had me. We were thick as thieves. Whenever you saw one of us, the other wasn’t too far behind. We each had our own rooms but we might as well have shared one. When he became too big for his crib my parents replaced it with a toddler bed. The first night he was supposed to sleep in it he climbed out of it after my father put him to bed and made his way to mine. He did the same thing every night after that. For my eleventh birthday I asked for a bunk bed. It was supposed to be my gift but we both wanted one. I think my brother might have even wanted it more than me. We argued over who would get the top bunk. Seth wouldn’t concede that I should get it because I was older. We wrestled each other for it and I ended up letting him win. The bunk bed had initially been his idea. I asked for it because my birthday was first and Seth was too impatient to wait the eight months until his. On my birthday my father had my mom take us out for pizza while he set it up. On the way back a driver of a Suburban truck fell asleep behind the wheel and collided head
on with our SUV. It flipped over the bridge’s guard rail and landed in the river below. I hit my head hard enough against the window during the collision to leave a crack in the glass. At some point I blacked out. When I regained consciousness our SUV was completely submerged under water and it was rapidly filling the inside of it. My little brother was hysterical beside me, but it was me my mother’s hands were working to unbuckle and then pull through the window she’d busted out. I tried to fight her. I told her to get Seth. He was crying and terrified and the baby of our family. It should have been all of our jobs to protect him. To see to his wellbeing first and the rest of ours second. But my mother didn’t listen and she didn’t make the decision she should have made. She pulled me from the car and to safety first. She left my little brother crying and screaming hysterically in the seat beside me. The last memory I have of him is the terrified and helpless look on his face as he reached a hand out to us that my mother didn’t take. She went back for him but she knew the fate she’d left him to when she pulled me from the car and not him. Seth never got to see the wooden bunk bed my father put up at the house and I will never stop hating both my mother and myself for that. I remember hearing an argument between her and my father the morning of Seth’s funeral. He asked her how could she, and she responded that I was special. He said that my specialness made me more vulnerable than other Nephilim. Seth could be healed but I couldn’t and I had an important role to play. He told her that after the funeral he was leaving and he made good on his words. A week later I overheard a conversation between my mom and the Archangel. He asked her if my father could be trusted without being around for her to keep an eye on. She said yes, but not before hesitating a moment. I haven’t seen my father since he returned to the house after Seth’s funeral, packed a bag and left. But I know after the grief had lessened enough for him to think clearly he would have come back for me. He was our primary caregiver, not our mother and it was he who took care of us not her. Our mother was too busy leading the Orlando sect and cavorting with an Archangel. He wouldn’t have permanently left me to be raised by her. Even if he could no longer stand to be around her, he wouldn’t have disappeared on me. Every time I think about that conversation between my mother and him and her moment of hesitation, I also think about my father and get this feeling that I’ve never shook. It might be all in my mind and it might not. But if I ever find even a shred of evidence, and believe me I’ll never stop looking, then Archangel or not, nearly invincible or not, I will find a way to make him pay… And I’ll never stop hating myself for that too,” he added with a self-directed bitterness that I was all too familiar with.
I reached my hand out to find his and when they connected I laced our fingers together and gave his a firm squeeze. I didn’t bother with words because I knew there were none I could say to make him feel less of what he felt. But lately I’d been finding that a squeeze of his hand, a flash of dimples, the graze of his lips against mine, or just his nearness made that ever present weight pressing down on me not feel so heavy.
When Chase turned to look at me quizzically, somewhat startled by my display of support, I forced a smile to form on my lips and in my eyes. I closed the distance between us and brushed my lips against his. It was soft at first, but he exhaled deeply and then his arms were circling around me, pulling me into his lap and his lips were deepening the kiss.
We stayed like that until the sun hung lower in a sky that had turned from cloudless blue to red-orange and we had to go below deck to get ready for my grandmother’s party.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Confessions
“Did I mention how ravishing you look?” Chase murmured to me as we walked up the boarding ramp of The Prestige.
My grandmother alternated between hosting her white party at Lanier Island’s Evergreen Resort and renting out The Prestige, a gargantuan monstrosity of a luxury yacht that was over 24 meters long and made to hold as many as two hundred people.
“Thank you,” I said fighting the blush that crept into my cheeks each time he had complemented me on my appearance since I’d gotten dressed.
As usual, Charissa was dead on with her selection. I wore an off white shift that had a pearlescent sparkle to it and left one shoulder bare while the other boasted a strip of willowy fabric draped across it. The dress stopped mid thigh, showing off an amount of leg that was just short of indecent and the pair of gold strappy sandals with spiked heels and matching belt she’d picked out complemented it perfectly, giving the understated elegance of the dress an added flare of edginess.
“You look nice too.” Judging by the multiple pairs of female eyes and a few male ones that stared as we walked past I wasn’t the only one that thought it. I was having to try extremely hard to keep myself from drooling over him too. He looked as good in the white linen pants matching polo shirt and blazer slung over is shoulder as he had in the black tuxedo. He looked like he should be walking down a runway instead of across the deck of a boat.
His eyes roved over me with an appreciative glint that sent little shivers down my spine. “Not as good as you.” The look in his eyes hinted at things not yet explored between us. It sent a rush of heat spreading between my legs.
“Alexandria.” My grandmother’s crisp voice cracked across my thoughts like a whip, yanking me out of the fantasy that was taking form in my mind.
“Hello, Grandmother.” My smile was tight-lipped until I turned to my grandfather beside her.
“You look lovely sweetheart. The older you get the more you become the spitting image of your mother. You have her eyes and her hair and certainly her spirit.”
My grandfather’s words, though kind and filled with love, would have normally made me inwardly wince but the comforting hand Chase had placed at the small of my back while he spoke helped to make them not cut so deeply.
“Grandfather, this is Chase Vincent. Grandmother, you met him at the charity ball.”
“Hello, Mrs. Sinclair. It is nice to see you again. Mr. Sinclair, it is nice to meet you.”
My grandmother soundlessly huffed then turned her nose up at Chase a fraction more. It was a quite a feat, even for her, considering she was a good twelve inches shorter than him. My grandfather considered him for a full minute, taking his measure and deciding if he was worthy or not. To Chase’s credit, he didn’t shrink away from the stone-faced stare that intimidated CEOs of fortune five hundreds and political leaders alike. He unflinchingly stood by my side, holding my grandfather’s gaze and never moving his hand from its position at my back.
My grandfather nodded his head once in pending approval then extended a hand to Chase. “Do you golf son?”
“Not often but I am from Florida Sir. I am no professional but my game on the green is decent.”
“Good. Next Sunday I am planning on taking to the green with a couple of associates of mine. I’ll make sure my assistance gets a business card to you before the night is over. Would you like to accompany us?”
I nearly swallowed my tongue.
“Of course, Sir. I always welcome an opportunity to improve my game.”
My grandfather nodded again. “Great. I’ll see you then.”
I was not fooled for one second by his act. My grandfather’s invitation was his way of setting Chase up to spend some time alone with him without me around so that he could interrogate him properly. By the way the right corner of his mouth just barely visibly twitched in contained amusement I suspected that Chase had gathered the same thing.
“You didn’t outright introduce me as your boyfriend but your grandfather guesses that I am anyway.” The amused smile broke free once my grandparents left to greet the guests as they arrived. He led me to a tall round table situated along the railing of the ship’s immaculately polished deck. A horn sounded, indicating its pending departure.
“You aren’t really going to go golfing with him are you?” I asked horrified by the very thought of Chase alone with my grandfather.
It was just too normal of a
thing that boyfriends did with male parental figures of the girls they were in relationships with. The whole boyfriend and relationship thing was still new and anxiety-inducing for me and Chase being interrogated by my grandfather to see if he was good enough for me was just too much like something that would happen in a real, normal relationship. I was babbling in my head and I knew it but I figured it was better to babble inwardly than outwardly. At least then I was the only one who could hear me. I couldn’t embarrass myself.
Chase’s smile spread into an all out devilish grin. “Of course I am. Isn’t that what boyfriends do after they meet the parents, or grandparents in your case? I’m not going anyway so I figure I should get to know the other man in your life. You know, try to gain his approval and build a relationship with him. Prove I’m worthy and all that good stuff.”
I rolled my eyes at the preposterousness of what he said. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve only ever had one boyfriend before and well…shit went south before I brought him around to meet my grandparents.” I thought about Deacon and Danielle, the people in my life I did allow him to meet then shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if he had met my grandparents too. “You don’t strike me as the type who would care,” I said playfully, purposely trying to keep the mood light. I gave him a slow up and down appraisal. “You seem more like the casual fling type. With a string of melted and broken hearts that you leave in your wake. Besides, that’s how a relationship between a normal couple would operate. I am not normal. You are not normal. Our relationship is not normal. We fight daemons and Brethren and have a potential end of the world as we know it war between Archangels and Brethren on our hands which I’m supposed to make a fate of the world hingeing choice and then die in the thick of and I’m pretty sure that somewhere along the way that choice or another choice I make is going to end in—”
Craved: A Chosen Ones Novel Page 24