Lost Energy

by Lynn Vroman

  I enlarged the area. “We’ll open a portal in the field beyond the drawbridge, where no one is, and return at this spot here. I’ll have Tarek tell Wilma when we’re coming back, and she’ll make sure nothing happens when we return.” I tried hard not to start sobbing, my desperation bubbling up and threatening to consume me. “Please, we–”

  Farren silenced my hysteria with a finger to my lips. “I’m convinced.”

  Tears blinded me. One last time. If I had this one time, I’d take it. “Thank you.”

  “Guess we deserve a day.” His serious tone didn’t quite pull off the flippant remark.

  I grabbed his hand, pulling him to the door. “We’re taking one, even if we don’t.”

  We raced through the manse, trying to be as quiet as possible. Farren struggled a little, but his leg didn’t seem to bother him much. More than likely thanks to some magic Empyrean meds, the same that Wilma used to mend my hand. In our rush, I ran into a bronze bust sitting on yet another marble pedestal. The head of some obviously important guy would’ve toppled if not for Farren’s quick hands.

  Stupid. Bronze clanging on marble floors would boom like cannon fire.

  “Sorry.” My thin whisper echoed through the empty hall, bouncing all the way down to the opposite end.

  Farren shook his head, motioning for me to keep my mouth zipped.

  I nodded, feeling like an ass, and kept moving. All it’d take would be for someone to scream or accuse us of going AWOL and alarm bells would start ringing. Well, not so much alarm bells as Wilma yelling while she dragged us to our rooms.

  Every time we passed a window, the acrid smells and faint sounds of agonizing screams tore at my heart. Cara slaughtered next to her child raced through my head. The thought almost changed my mind. I did want to save them, all of them, but no way would I be any good if I didn’t leave for the night. Farren, I’m sure, felt the same. My reasoning was selfish, but I stuck to that excuse, replaying it inside my head until it rang with truth.

  By the time we made it to the thick door leading outside, relief made me giddy. A few more steps, and–

  Static.

  “Where’re you going?”

  FORGIVENESS

  Zander’s voice poured into my ears like ice water. The urge to jab him in the throat and run almost won over being mature.

  “If you say a word, I’ll take you out. Swear to Christ.” Okay, mature might have been a stretch, but hysteria causing my voice to sound like a soprano also skewed my better judgment.

  “Damn, Lena.” Farren elbowed my side and grinned.

  Zander looked as though I killed his dog. “I-I won’t say anything. Just be careful, okay?” He turned in the opposite direction, head bent and kicking an imaginary can down the hall.

  Really? Not even a fuck you? I felt like an even bigger shit. Swallowing the crazy, I jogged after him. “Zander, wait.”

  When he stopped, he didn’t bother turning around. I had to circle to the front of him and lift his chin to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry. God,” I ran a hand through my tangled hair, getting fingers caught in knots, “I’ve had to say that a lot lately.”

  His face, so deceptively adorable, made the guilt fester. “You don’t have to be sorry, Lena. Not with me.”

  Ugh! Didn’t that make the guilt happy?

  “Yes, yeah, I do. It’s… I need to see him.”

  He smiled that same smile that melted my heart in the past–and maybe a little now, too. “Always knew Him would come between us.”

  When he used my name for Tarek before I knew he was more than a dream, tears threatened. Memories whipped through my mind. Again, simpler times flashed through my brain, when I was just a girl and he was just a boy. I wrapped my arms around his neck.

  His fingers kneaded my back, taking the tension and hysteria away. He let go and wiped the tears from my cheeks. “Don’t be long, or Wilma will blow a gasket. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be on her bad side.”

  I laughed even though the tears still came. Man, I’d cried more in the past few days than I had the last six months. “Yeah, I’m sure everyone will know I’m missing when she starts throwing stuff.”

  “I’ll make sure to duck.”

  I smiled. “Good plan.”

  Then he did the unthinkable.

  Zander leaned in and kissed me–and I let him. His lips were soft, almost imagined when they found mine, but the brief touch reached a tiny place in my heart. “Hurry back.”

  I nodded, tingling spreading to my fingertips. “I will.”

  He brushed my cheek and continued down the hall, never looking back.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Hail smacked our bodies as soon as the portal dropped us close to the castle. The sky, so dark it blocked our path, kept beating us with precipitation, the golf-ball-sized ice bombs stinging my back, knocking me to the ground. As Farren bent to help me, his face twisted in a pained grimace, the door swung open. Tarek hauled me up and kept me in his arms, the ice hitting him going unnoticed.

  Farren barged past us when we didn’t move to get away from the storm. “You guys can get beat up all you want. I got stuff to do.”

  Tarek didn’t even acknowledge him. He held me with trembling arms and cupped the back of my head as he turned to protect me from the ice. The storm ricocheted off the stone walls, piercing my eardrums. Still Tarek didn’t seem to notice, holding us there, letting the storm attack him.

  I stood on my tiptoes and found his ear. “You need to calm down. The ice, it’s gonna kill someone.”

  He buried his face in my neck and breathed in deep. The storm let up, though the pelting ice still smacked hard against his back.

  One thing left to do–my favorite thing.

  I pulled away far enough to capture his lips with mine.

  There was the fire. The blood-heating kind that proved exactly who held my heart. When his tongue pushed past my lips, and the kiss deepened until I swore even my toes melted, the deadly ice disappeared with a whimper. The sky transformed to its normal silver-gray–the same intense gray as his eyes.

  His shaky hands pushed through my hair, the kiss going on forever.

  Forever was never long enough.

  When we came up for air, I finally noticed the bags circling his beautiful eyes. Guilt waltzed back into my conscience, jumping around and getting cozy. I did this to him. Not only did I do this to him, I put my family in danger because of stupid jealousy.

  That didn’t help alleviate seeing green, though. I still had to share him with a ghost.

  Damn. Maybe it was time I learned how to share.

  “What I said… I didn’t mean it.” I held his cheeks, hoping he’d see down to my soul. “How could she not love you? And, I’m so sorry for… I let anger at her–my jealousy–hurt you. Christ, I put Farren in danger because of it, too. I should’ve never left. I’ve seen what real devastation is,” Cara’s face swam in my mind, “and what I did… So stupid.”

  He grabbed my hands and kissed each fingertip, saying nothing. His face, pale and sunken, made me want to crawl inside him and attack the pain. The pain my words caused.

  “I-I understand why she did what she did. I don’t like how she did it, but I get it. I do. She…she tried to do the impossible and lost. Lost everything. Lost you.”

  He leaned in, touching his forehead to mine, holding my hands to his chest. “You were right, Lena.”

  “No, no, I–”

  “Yes. She lost herself, a long time before her death. I never wanted to admit it. She…she blocked me out, barred me from her life, what she planned. But you…you’re so different. So passionate, never hiding anything. With you it’s so raw, so real.” He smiled. “I need to learn to adjust to, ah, actual emotion. Anger. Pain. And I’m more than willing because the way I love you–you–scares me. I like it. A lot.”

  “Yeah?”

  His dimples appeared, making all my problems go away for a second. “Yes.”

  He bent to kiss me, and I
reveled in the explosion bursting in my heart. He loved me. Me. Now all I had to do was deal with my own pettiness.

  What the hell do you think you’re doing!

  “Ah!” I bent forward, Wilma’s voice blaring like a bullhorn in my head.

  “What? What is it?” Tarek grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up.

  “Wilma.”

  “Shit.”

  Get your ass back here! Are you insane?

  I clapped my hands over my ears as if that would quiet her down. No such luck.

  You’re putting yourself and everyone else in danger. If I have to come get you…

  “Tarek, tell her…tell her to knock it off.”

  He nodded and closed his eyes. His facial expressions went from angry to contrite to plain wincing as he had a conversation with her inside his head.

  After what seemed like hours, one more blast wrenched through my tender brain. If you’re not back before everyone wakes, I’m coming to get you and it ain’t gonna be pretty. These people are looking to you as a leader, and you failed!

  Oh, damn. Nothing like giving the guilt party extra fuel to get it really rocking.

  I cleared my throat and took my hands from my ears, feeling like a glob of crap. “I have until morning.”

  He grabbed my hand, heading to the cabin. “Then we should make the best of it.”

  “Wait. My mom.”

  Confusion clouded his eyes before understanding made him smile. “Right. She’s worried about you. Jake too.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been a shitty daughter lately.”

  He switched directions, heading toward our main room. “No, you’ve been busy. Big difference.”

  Once we made it into the room, a roaring fire blazing to combat the now quiet hailstorm, Mom jumped from the couch, yelling what sounded like my name. Jake followed, taking us in his arms. Sandwiched in between Mom and Jake, I gave Shaina a nod, who returned it while staying on the couch. She didn’t look worried or scared, which confused me. Belva and Farren were long gone, more than likely spending the stolen time in one of the rooms upstairs.

  After all the “I love yous” and “everything will be fines,” I sat next to Winston’s girl. “You’re not scared?”

  She smiled, making her pretty face shine. I mean, the crazy weather Tarek’s emotions created, her man about to go into a battle, not to mention sitting on a sofa in an entirely different world, and she grinned as if we were hanging out at a coffee shop discussing Teen Vogue.

  “Winston promised to come back to me, and I believe him.”

  “Just like that, huh?”

  “I have faith in my man. He’ll be back for me.”

  Wonder if she charged for optimism lessons.

  I hugged her, hoping that positivity would rub off on me.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The walk to the cabin was silent except for the moaning squid, who obviously were tired from weathering what amounted to a tropical storm in the warm sticky part of Arcus. The forest’s weather the exact opposite of the hailstorm near the castle, but raged the same. Christ, I hoped they’d have enough time to recuperate before Tarek bled the lines. Belva’s pink, squishy friends were important for the plan to work right.

  I broke the silence, pointing up. “You think they’ll be ready?”

  “I’ve been such an ass.” His face flushed as he opened the cabin door.

  I pulled him in, kicking the door shut. “It’s not like being Arcus’s Warden comes with an instruction manual. You’ll learn to control the place–even when I’m being a bitch.”

  He wrapped me into his arms, tugging me close. “Now, that’s no way to talk about the woman I love.”

  Woman. Huh? Weird.

  “She can be a bitch sometimes, especially in the morning.” I reached to kiss the tip of his nose before going to the stale granola stash.

  His laugh followed me. “Well, since I haven’t been around you much during the morning, I’ll take your word for it.”

  My fingers froze, the granola wrapper going unopened. Clarity sucked. He hadn’t been around me much. Ever. In the past five months, our conversations were all one-sided. I knew a ton about him, but…not exactly the best way to get to know someone.

  I swallowed, opening the wrapper and breaking the bar into pieces, trying to find words. I faced him, his face brighter, though the bags still lingered. Little things weighed on me. All those tiny little things that made me the neurotic person I was.

  Like how I had hated granola since puking it up one night after a tough track practice.

  “Hey, um, can I ask you a question?”

  His brightness dimmed. “Of course.”

  Whatever I asked, his emotional wellbeing came first. The squid probably wouldn’t have been able to take much more. But I had to ask one thing. Just one. “What’s my favorite color?” The question didn’t matter. What mattered was his answer.

  His shoulders relaxed and he took the few steps to me, leaning down to touch his lips to mine. When he pulled away, he said, “The color of sunset, deep orange with hints of gold.”

  Stunned, I smiled, smoothing his silky hair from his eyes. “Yeah, it always reminds me that–”

  “Tomorrow you can start over.”

  “How’d you know?”

  He grinned. Ah, dimples. “Wilma.”

  “Huh?”

  “What do you think we talked about every time she came here?”

  “Hmm, well…” Feeling a little self-conscience, I looked down at his feet. “So you know everything?”

  He tilted my chin. “Every. Single. Gory. Detail.”

  “Like wh-what?”

  He smoothed a thumb across my lower lip. “Like you cry every time you watch…ah…E.T., I think she said?”

  My face heated. “It’s a good movie.”

  He kissed one cheek and then the other. “So good you made her play it over and over when you were little, every time you’d go to her house for peanut butter and fluff, your favorite sandwich.”

  His warm fingers and roaming lips made it hard to concentrate, but with every detail he gave, another fear evaporated. “What I wouldn’t give for a peanut butter fluff right now.”

  Full lips skimmed my face to hover above my mouth. “I also know you sleep with my shirt wrapped around a pillow.”

  My face went from hot to burning. “It smells like you.”

  “Like sweat? Dirt?” He grinned, his lips touching mine as he spoke.

  My breath came out in sharp intervals, his touch never failing to stoke the flames. “No…apples.”

  “Apples?” His warm chuckle vibrated off my mouth, melting my knees.

  “Yes…” Big hands trailed down my back, forcing everything but his touch from my mind. “Please.”

  “Please, what?”

  “Shut up.”

  His smile turned a little dangerous, his warm breath turning my blood to fire. He kissed me, deep and long, until my knees gave and he had to hold me up.

  I wanted more. More than his lips. I wanted everything. This could be the last time I ever saw him. After I left…I might not come back from Empyrean. Not alive.

  I wouldn’t ask him.

  I’d show him.

  I stepped back and lifted my shirt over my head.

  His breath hitched as he stared at me, his trembling hand wiping his mouth. “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t move.

  So, I went to him.

  Keeping my eyes locked on his, I slowly pulled his shirt up, revealing his tight stomach. He closed his eyes and stilled my hand. “Lena…”

  I wouldn’t take no for an answer, not this time. No reasons to stop separated us. He was mine and I was his. As crazy and bizarre as our relationship had been, I loved him. Who cared about all the reasons people might throw at me, claiming it wasn’t possible? Five months? Not enough time…

  To hell with them.

  Why?

  As Tarek always whispered in my ear during those five months: Your energy was th
e reason why mine was made, and with everything in me, I’d love him forever. At that moment, I knew it, maybe for the first time.

  Standing on my toes, I touched my lips to his until his hold on my hand went lax. Our lips drifted apart long enough for him to yank his shirt off, his shaking hands finding my cheeks after. I guided us backward, toward the bed, willing the spell to remain unbroken, needing him. Like he needed me.

  As he pressed me against the mattress, his body fitting perfectly to mine, he searched my eyes. “Are you sure?”

  My hand, strong and steady, touched his face, my heart bursting. “Yes.”

  He smiled and glided a hand across my collarbone. Lower. Nerve endings that must have remained dormant ignited in a thousand little sparks as if they waited for his hands. Waited for this moment. “You’re beautiful.”

  After that, there were no more words.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  In the darkness, we lay on that narrow bunk, bones and skin preventing me from getting as close as I wanted. I settled for resting my chin on his bare chest to watch him sleep.

  After a minute, his dimples flared. “It’s not polite to stare.”

  I ran my fingers over his chest, memorizing every muscle, cementing it in my mind. I always thought I’d be nervous my first time. No. This…this was heaven. “Admiring my man is all.”

  Keeping his eyes closed, he drew me closer, his smile soft. “Carry on, then.”

  I kissed his heart. “Tarek?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  He opened his eyes, his smile deepening as he pulled me up until we were nose to nose. After brushing knotted hair behind my ear, he cupped my chin. “Green.”

  Perfect… He was perfect. “I love you.”

  “You’d better.”

  Fear picked that moment to interrupt. If the worst thing happened…I had to ask for his word. “You have to promise me something.”

  He played with my hair. “Anything.”

  I captured his fingers in my hand and squeezed. “If I die, do whatever needs done to make sure my energy is sent here to you. Keep it safe until…until we can figure out…I don’t know…what to do next?”

  His eyes hardened, along with the rest of his face. “Nothing will happen to you.”