The Sweet Series Box Set: Books 1-4

by Bailey Ardisone

  “They won’t. I’ll leave a trail away from here if by chance they do. They’re not interested in you, love. Only me. And if they think I’ve left, they’ll try to follow. Okay?” He tipped my chin up so that I’d look into his bright aqua eyes. And it killed me.

  His intense stare left me breathless, and I could not turn away from the multi-faceted blues, purples, and greens he had me mesmerized with.

  “I don’t even think I believe any of this. Is this just a nightmare I’m not waking up from?” I asked quietly. Should I be scared he wasn’t human? Scared that Rydan wasn’t, and had never been? Scared that...I wasn’t either? None of this made sense...If I didn’t feel so drawn to the both of them, if it didn’t feel so right to be near them, I would have run and hidden in a hole somewhere by now. But how could I run from myself?

  “You know it’s all true. I can feel that you know. You feel it in your heart and in your bones,” he said, matching my volume.

  “I don’t want you to go.” I sniffed, unable to stop the single tear that rolled down my face. It hurt to even say the thought out loud. He wiped it away with the back of his fingers.

  “I know you don’t. More than anything I can feel you don’t,” he pitched his voice low and drew closer to me. He bent to whisper in my ear, “And you must know, that no matter where I am, my every thought will be of you. Only you.”

  Then he pressed his lips to mine. Gently, slowly, he kissed me. It was a kiss full of longing and earnestness. Like he wanted me to remember him just by this kiss, and to memorize the way my lips felt tangled up with his. And I would. I raked my fingers through his hair and pulled him even closer to me, and memorized that too. The feel of his silky midnight blue hair laced through my fingers. The way his warm body felt pressed against mine—hard yet perfectly contoured to fit me.

  The taste of salt mixed with vanilla sat on my tongue as he pulled away. I touched my face, realizing I was crying, and wiped the tears that were running toward my lips.

  “I’ll come back as soon as I can. Wait for me,” was the last thing he said to me.

  “I don’t know if you’ll believe me,” I finally answered Zaylie and wiped the fresh tears away.

  Chapter Two

  ~Naminé~

  The cold, unyielding manacles cut deeply into my skin as I lay helpless on the floor, desperate to succumb to empty oblivion. From deep within my bones, to the very center of my heart, I would welcome anything to escape the agony and torment of what befell me just hours before.

  There would be no comfort from Calen. No strength, no bond, no…nothing at all. The sense of loss was almost too much to bear. I shivered from the thought, though I could feel beads of sweat pouring down my face. Heavy sweat mixed with tears formed a puddle on the ground next to my powerless and seemingly broken body.

  I knew my face bled somewhere. I could see the blood slowly dripping off my nose, adding to the puddle of sweat and tears. I desperately wanted to shut my eyes off to the world and say a sweet goodbye, to surrender to the unknown abyss of death and be myself no more.

  After hours of lying helpless on the cold dirt floor, I had finally stopped screaming. My throat was raw and coarse, my lips parched and cracked. I tried to scream one final time, to release the anguish that I felt, but alas, nothing came out. Tears no longer fell, the ducts being cleared out and dried up. I felt empty. Hollow. Alone.

  Just when I felt my eternal torture would never cease, the feeling came true when I heard a loud banging noise and the deep dark voice of the one that would haunt me until the end of time. I lay very still, hoping he thought me to be asleep...dead...gone from this world forever. I did not care.

  “Open the door now!” the terrible voice said to the guard.

  Nothing was replied as I heard the fumbling of keys and creaking of the iron door swinging open. Boots entered the cell, and with a very loud and exaggerated sigh, I was suddenly picked up off the floor and carried in someone’s arms. I dared not open my eyes, for I wished not to see the one whose arms I was in. I hung loosely as he carried my defeated body up several flights of stairs. Up and up we went, hours seeming to pass before we finally stopped.

  “Sarqua, take her to my chambers. Lock her in Salmé’s room. See to it she is awake and alert by the time I return,” said the dark voice, as I was suddenly shifted and transferred to a new set of arms. Strangely, these felt warm and comforting. A nice welcome compared to the cold, iron set arms of my previous owner.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “And Sarqua, if she utters one more heinous scream from that delicate mouth, you will silence her, is that clear?”

  Instantly, the warm and comforting arms tightened their hold on me and were not as welcoming when the voice said, “With pleasure, Your Majesty.”

  I did not know how much time went by since the King had left me in the hands of his right hand soldier, Sarqua, but it felt like days. I sat up in a bed with my back against the wall trying to determine my surroundings. To my relief, I had stopped shivering and was now warm inside the blankets and new set of clothes I was given.

  How those arms, that for a brief second had been warm and comforting, could take such pleasure in dumping me in a tub, followed by the pouring of multiple buckets of frigid cold water upon my small fragile body was beyond me. How someone could be so cruel, so menacingly cruel as to deliver torture, watch you suffer, and enjoy it was repulsive. True to his word, I would be awake and alert when the King returned. I did not want to see what he would do if I uttered one scream, so I did not test it.

  I mentally shook the thoughts aside as I relished the warmth that my physical body finally felt. The room I was held in was massive. I had heard the King say this was Salmé’s room, who I knew to be the King’s current personal Maite’Ona servant. I did not find comfort from the thought of being in this room where she stayed. I would be used for my gift, I was certain, as was Salmé, and being kept as a prisoner was unpleasant regardless of how luxurious the furnishings were.

  I looked around and saw that it was not very feminine. It did not look like a woman stayed here at all. The curtains were black and the bed coverings were black. Even the rugs on the floor were all…black. There were paintings hung around the room of different aspects of Aselaira.

  To my right was a painting of the castle, or at least of the castle as it once was—Beautiful and magnificent. The sun shone down on the castle and magnified the beauty it once used to be. Several on my left were of the snowcapped mountains that stood to the North. They reminded me of the cold I had shivered from just moments before, so I hastily looked away. The wall directly in front of me had the largest painting of all. It was not a painting actually, but a mural that just about took up the entire wall.

  It was absolutely breathtaking.

  It was a picture of the Aselaira Ëlemmiire—our sacred tree. In the mural it stood tall and proud upon its large base of a trunk and its long swaying branches. This mural held every detail, having the appearance of being intricately carved right into the wall. I knew this was special. It must have been painted by one of the Enÿalie—a Maite’Ona that held perfect memories. Once recorded in their mind’s eye, they would never forget the smallest detail. It was as if they could always see it exactly as it was, the real object projecting in front of them.

  In this case, the real object did not exist anymore. The Ëlemmiire was destroyed cycles ago. Our most precious and sacred of trees was burnt to the ground, never to be seen again.

  My breath caught as I thought of the destruction and havoc that act had played upon our race. I did not know the details of that treachery, but it was considered a grave transgression.

  Would our race always be doomed to such terrible and somber disgrace?

  As I started to hear voices outside the door, I sunk deeper into the bed and pulled the blankets tightly around me. They would not by any means serve as a form of protection, as I feared nothing would, but I needed something to hold me together in this dismal position.
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  Suddenly, the door opened and I looked up into the menacing eyes of King Ohtar as he strutted into the massive room. I choked down the thought of him being the false king and that Remycah should be on the throne.

  “I see you are awake,” he said as he stood in front of the bed with his hands held behind his back. His long, sleek black hair fell down his chest, but was pulled back from his face, and even though I could see the family resemblance, I knew he was nothing like the Zafriel Kings of old.

  “And you have finally stopped screaming,” his voice hardened. “If you ever scream like that again I will cut off your fingers one by one and then your toes, is that understood?”

  My voice was spent, so I only nodded. No longer looking into his dark eyes, I focused on the mural on the wall. I had a disturbingly deep hatred for the man standing before me. Not only had he doomed the race of our people and desecrated the castle and the outlying lands, but if I ever heard what he did to Calen I would—

  “You will obey me. You do not have a choice. You are mine from this day forward,” he said with an evil grin plastered on his face.

  I suddenly couldn’t breathe as I waited for him to continue my prison sentence.

  “You are my Dream Weaver. Expect punishment for failing to declare your gift; a brazen defiant stance you assumed. However…you will use your gifts to aid me,” he said, I could tell his eyes were boring into mine. I still refused to meet his hard gaze.

  He continued, “If you fail to cooperate, your servile parents will meet the untimely demise that befell your brother.”

  A tear unforgivably snuck down my cheek as I gasped in a breath I thought I no longer had. This couldn’t be happening. Did he know something about Cathar, was he in fact…dead? No! No, please not him too.

  I started to shake my head. With every ounce of strength I could muster I began to say, “I can’t…I need—” The tears started to stream down my face, as I couldn’t bear to say her name. He took her from me. She was gone. I no longer had my gift…my soul would be torn at the seams without her. She was…she was—

  “Stop that!” he bellowed. “Your odious Fëa is not dead, you traitorous twit. I had that quisling bird caged and weakened so you could no longer connect.” He stalked over to the window and opened the dark black curtains. It rained outside as usual this time of year. Another reminder of his false reign, I wanted to shout loudly to him.

  Yet I was solely focused on his words that Calen was alive! All this time I had been aching and in agony over her demise. My heart hurt at the thought of her being caged and weakened, but the fact she was alive gave me renewed purpose.

  I no longer wanted empty oblivion. I knew I had to continue on and help restore the rightful heir to the throne.

  As he turned around from the window, I looked into his dark eyes, no longer with fear and hatred, but with determination. A determination so fierce and strong it would take the blackest of evils to devour.

  I did not know how I had been found out, but my path was clear.

  With every ounce of my being, every beat of my heart, and every breath that I took, I would help defeat this false king.

  We would exact revenge for his evil and restore the land as it truly should be.

  I would give my life, my soul, my everything, to fulfill this purpose.

  We would not fail. We would not break. We would succeed…until the rightful true heir was king once more.

  Chapter Three

  ~Nari~

  I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t look at Zaylie. I felt her eyes on me, and I felt her worry just by the soft pressure of her hands clasped around mine. Her support was wonderful, but I was breaking. I was crumbling. Disintegrating. My soul fell apart with each second that ticked by, with every passing moment that Mycah wasn’t near me.

  I didn’t want to be like that. I didn’t want to be one of those girls that fell apart when their boyfriends left. I couldn’t stand girls like that.

  But there I was, a mere shell of a person without him.

  How could that be? How could I be the very person I couldn’t stand?

  I didn’t know what it was, but something told me there was more to these feelings. That there was a reason they ran so deep. But I only had my suspicions.

  “I don’t think you’ll believe me because...it is really freaky, and scary, and totally mental. Part of me doesn’t even believe it myself.” I closed my eyes and willed myself to not have an emotional breakdown. It hurt to talk about him. It hurt to think about him.

  Heck, everything about him was tearing my flesh away from my bones.

  “Nari, please, you’re killing me here. Just tell me. You can tell me. I promise. I love you, you can tell me.” Zaylie spoke so softly and gently, it brought on a new wave of emotion. Dang it!

  Through the tears streaming down my face and my throat tight and thick from emotion, I forced everything out in a rush, “Zales, I love Mycah so much it hurts. It is literal torture I am going through without him. I don’t understand it. I hate it. I hate feeling like this. I want to tell you where he went, I do, but I just don’t know if I can. I don’t want to bring you into any danger. I am so conflicted right now.” And then I wrapped my arms around her neck and held on for dear life.

  I cried.

  I cried hard. There was no stopping me now, and so I let it all go into the side of Zaylie’s neck with my eyes closed tight and my face buried into her curly, golden-blonde hair.

  And she let me.

  She held onto me the same way just as tightly, just as passionately, and let me cry on her shoulder. Let me soak my tears into her skin and turquoise shirt.

  I’ve never before felt more grateful for my dear Zaylie.

  She didn’t say anything. She just let me get it all out. She didn’t prompt me to explain, or force me to tell her anything I didn’t want to tell. She was amazing. I didn’t know what I would ever do without her.

  Eventually, after an agonizing episode of raw emotion spilling out of me, I decided not to tell Zaylie the truth after all.

  “I am so sorry, Nari. Truly. If there is ever anything I can do, please just say the word. I can’t promise you that it will be okay, or that he will come back. I can’t tell you that Rydan is okay and that he’ll come back either. I won’t give you false promises when I have no knowledge on whether they could possibly be true. But I will promise you this—” She brushed my hair away from my face and looked straight into my eyes.

  “I will always be here for you. No matter what. I’m on your side. Always and forever. Like...Best Friends Forever And Ever.” She sniffed through a smile and wiped the tears from her own eyes.

  “Thank you, Zales. I love you.” I hugged her again.

  Zaylie dropped me off at O’Malley’s Bed & Breakfast. The one Rydan’s family owned. It hurt to be here without him. It hurt to look at it. I dragged my feet with every step I took, avoiding looking in the direction of the room where Mycah once used to stay, and made my way to my room upstairs. The ‘Duck Room.’

  I didn’t have a home. If Ray, my horrid foster father I used to live with, hadn’t kicked me out of his house, I would have left anyway. Actually, he wasn’t even technically my foster father. His wife Elizabeth, the woman I thought of as my mother and who tragically died when I was seven because of my own stupidity, found me abandoned in an alley as a newborn and took me in. Took care of me like I was truly hers to take care of. She kept me and looked out for me, was kind and wonderful to me. She had been my everything at the time. But I recently found out that they weren’t ever really my true foster parents, and Ray was only keeping me around to fulfill a promise he had made to her some time before she died.

  So now I lived at the B&B. I crawled into bed and felt myself shatter against the mattress. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything but feel...less. Less whole. Less myself. Less normal.

  I anxiously pressed and held #8 on my cell phone. It dialed. I waited.

  His deep voice began and instantly two things
happened at once—my heart shattered all over again, and my mind and entire body relaxed, as if taking a big sigh.

  “I’m sure you already know you were trying to reach me, Rydan, so leave a message. But only if it’s important.” Beep.

  I still couldn’t breathe. It was torture and relief at the same time. I didn’t know how that could actually make sense, but that was what it was—Torture and relief.

  Torture, because I missed him so dang much it was killing me. It was more than I could take.

  Relief, because I missed him so dang much just hearing his voice made it better.

  That relief and torture flooded through me until the voicemail greeting was over. So I replayed it. Over and over I replayed it. I just couldn’t get enough.

  It would never be enough.

  I wanted to poke my eyes out and rip out my hair. I knew that was childish, but I was in such anguish anything seemed better than just lying there doing nothing. Lying there without them. I could feel my sanity breaking. I feared their absence was going to make me psychotic.

  I depended on Rydan so much. He became my everything after my mother died. He was all I had. He carried me through so many things—through so much turmoil and heartache, he took care of me. Protected me. Always made sure I was okay.

  I needed him.

  No, I need him.

  Mycah’s hypnotic blue eyes with his black hair falling over his brow flashed into my mind, and I cringed. I squeezed my eyes closed as tight as I could, and buried my face into my pillow deeper.

  Please don’t think about him. Please...

  There was something wrong with me. I was 100% sure of it. Something was definitely wrong with me. There was no way this behavior was normal.

  I let the sound of my cries and feel of my hot tears against my skin lull me to sleep.