Enlightened (Love and Light Series)

by Melissa Lummis

  “What is it?” Wolf ‘s voice was sleepy and relaxed.

  “A shooting star.” Loti stroked his back. “How? What happened to the ceiling?”

  “Magic.” His lips brushed her ear. “Rachel did it. She cast a spell that mirrors the sky.”

  “When was Rachel here?”

  “That night . . . the night we met. We had just gotten back when you showed up.”

  “You brought her here to do this?”

  “To work on the protection wards. She did this as a gift.”

  She snaked her arms around his back, hugging him tight. Little aftershocks rippled through them as they lay under the open sky for long minutes without talking. “What will that do to me?”

  Wolf shifted his weight off of her, to her disappointment. “You’ll feel a little weak, but it won’t hurt you—I didn’t take that much.” He paused. “You’ll want to be around me more.”

  “I still have a choice?” She snorted.

  “Yes, you do.” He rolled to his side, propping the pillow under his neck. Pulling the blankets over them, Loti rolled to face him, but shot straight up instead.

  “Oh my god, Wolf. Your aura!”

  Wolf’s aura was a huge pulsating cloud of color—an animated rainbow flowing red from his legs and groin to the spinning crown of white above his head.

  She looked down at her aura. It was brighter and bigger, but the oddest thing, the thing that scared her, was the heart chakra. The green vortex spun out to Wolf and swirled in him.

  “Stand up.” She jumped up yanking him to his feet beside her on the bed, steadying herself with a hand on his arm as she looked them both up and down. “They’re mixing, Wolf. Our energies are mixing.”

  “That explains a lot.” His voice was distracted as he mirrored her movements, although he couldn’t see what Loti was seeing—not exactly. “Why didn’t you see this before?” he said more to himself than to her. He could sense what was going on in her head—actually, now that he focused on it he could hear it. I don’t think this was happening before, she thought.

  I can hear your thoughts.

  Loti’s head snapped up. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, she experimented.

  “Red, orange, yellow, green, blue,” Wolf said out loud, just a hair behind the thought. “My turn.” He leaped off the bed. “Close your eyes.”

  She did, but something wrenched in her chest, and she suspected the cause. “What are you doing?” she yelped.

  “Try to see what I’m seeing,” his voice drifted from the living room.

  “Oh. I can see the fireplace and the glowing coals under the ash.” She jumped off the bed, running to the living room to see what he was seeing and to stop the sharp tug. She peered into the fireplace seeing black, banked coals because she didn’t have his vampire eyes.

  “Okay, now you. Close your eyes.” Careful not to go too far too fast, Loti edged up to the breakfast bar and turned back to study the translucent taffy that stretched between them.

  “I see it. That’s what you’ve been seeing? How the hell do you look at that all day?” He opened his eyes, beautiful with awe, and walked toward her.

  “I don’t know. It sort of blends into everything, but it wasn’t anything like this yesterday. This is intense.”

  A sudden cold sweat broke out all over her, her knees going limp. She grabbed the counter. Nauseous, she fought against the narrowing tunnel of light as her chest fluttered, and she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Wolf hurried around the counter and opened the fridge. Suddenly, she was in his arms and being carried, something cold and damp against her back.

  “Hey, what’s that?” she protested.

  He carried her back to the bedroom, lowering her to the bed and handing her a carton of coconut water. “You need to drink this. I shouldn’t have fed on you.” He ran an agitated hand through his hair. “You’re still weak from exposure.” He flipped on the reading lamp on her side of the bed.

  “No, Wolf, it’s okay. Don’t say that. It makes me feel like you regret it.”

  He huffed out his nose, rubbing his face with a hand. “That’s not what I meant.” Climbing into bed, he jerked the covers up around them, dropping his head back to the pillow.

  She kept wary eyes on him as she took a slug from the cartoon. It tasted damn good.

  From his back, he watched her chug the cold sweetness and lick her lips. Looking around for somewhere to put the carton, she noticed that the bed was a king and there were two plain night stands beside it. Across the room on the opposite wall was a simple wooden chair and desk with full bookshelves on either side. It took her a moment to figure out what was wrong with the wall; it was curved rock. She turned her head to follow its contour around the room.

  Her insecurity forgotten, she asked, “What is this room? It’s not like the living area.” Her eyes still on the stone wall and starry sky ceiling, she reached behind her to set the carton down on the night stand, almost dropping it on the floor.

  “When we dug down, we found a cave. We incorporated it into the design.” He shuffled the blue pillows so he could lie on his side.

  “Neat.” She turned her eyes back to Wolf, her anxiety returning. “Anything like this ever happen when you feed on others?” Loti rolled onto her side and tucked her arms under her head.

  “Nothing like this.” Wolf’s voice was subdued as he watched her face flick through emotions.

  “I’ve been told that normal vampire bonds don’t happen without blood exchange, but that feeling I—we had on Davis Street was the start of ours. Explain how that could happen, and now that we’ve shared blood, what will happen?”

  “Like I told you, it’s not supposed to happen without blood, but there’s a legend Calisto told me about Light Walkers.”

  “Jyotika?”

  He nodded. “Supposedly, they’re metaphysical healers—more than and different from a tribal healer.” He sat up a little taller, leaning on his elbow. “While a tribe healer can help your body heal, a light walker is supposed to change your energy. I think the Cherokee’s nunne’hi tales are based on the same people.”

  She snugged the covers around her neck and supported her head with her arms and hands. He sank back down into the pillows, sliding one arm under her neck, while his other hand gripped her hip under the covers and dragged her to him.

  “But she can’t do it alone, according to the legends. She needs a vampire to bond with, and they don’t get a choice about it.” He let that sink in.

  Her bare stomach touched his. It dawned on her that she hadn’t felt the buzzing sensation in her spine for a while. When had it stopped? She couldn’t remember feeling it at all since she woke up with Wolf’s blood in her mouth at the base of the mountain.

  “So, it just happens when a light walker and a vampire get close enough to each other?”

  Wolf’s eyes narrowed. “No, not just any vampire.”

  She nestled into his chest. “Not just any.” She rubbed her cheek against his chest. “Then, you and I were supposed to meet.”

  He rested his chin on her crown. “Something like that.” He moved, lifting her chin so she looked into his eyes. “Maybe. Or maybe we’re just the right fit, and if we happened to meet, then the bond would take effect.” He studied her deep blue eyes, her full, pink lips, and the small cleft of an imperfection in her upturned nose. “Maybe, if you hadn’t been on that street at just the right time, this never would have happened.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” she said. “We were bound to run into each other at some point. You’re part of Rachel’s family, and her family is my family.”

  Wolf let her chin drop and collapsed onto his back, shoving his hands behind his head, staring at the night sky. “You’re probably right. What does that mean? We were meant to be?”

  Loti didn’t like the change in his tone. She curled up like an unborn child, pulling her knees in protectively and tucked her hands deeper under her head. For just a few moments, she’d felt safe, bu
t she should have known it wasn’t permanent. Nothing is.

  Wolf’s head snapped around, his eyes full of frustration, his mouth hard. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This is permanent.”

  “How permanent?” She shrunk back a little.

  “’til death-do-us-part permanent. Vampire bonds become permanent with enough blood exchange, and it’s only when the bond becomes unbreakable that the pair can read each other’s thoughts.” His tone grew angrier with each word.

  Loti whispered, “You just fed from me for the first time.” She curled tighter into herself, her gaze fixed on Wolf’s chest so she didn’t have to look at the hardened lines of his face. She couldn’t stand it. David would get angry like this, and it broke her heart. Cool knuckles brushed her cheek, and she realized they were wet. Looking back up at Wolf, his face soft and blurry now, she unclenched. It had been such a long time since she and David had made love. She forgot how sex opened her up. The week after his diagnosis, they’d made slow, sad love, and she had cried herself to sleep in his arms.

  “You’re thinking about your husband.” Wolf’s fingers traced her jaw, and his thumb stroked her bottom lip. “And it hurts.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Wolf. I don’t mean—”

  “You don’t need to apologize.”

  Turning around, she cuddled her backside against him, and his body molded to hers as she lifted her arm, letting him slide his top arm around her waist. Tucking his hand under her side, she squeezed his arm with hers. His arms were solid enough, his chest wide enough to keep the whole world out, and she rested her head on the arm he slipped under it. I could stay here forever.

  “You can.”

  She jumped. This bond was going to take some getting used to. She wasn’t sure she wanted it, but then again, she craved it—she was starved for it. I’m so sick of being alone. A lump welled in her throat.

  “You’re not alone.”

  And like he was Aladdin speaking the magic words, the floodgates of her heart opened. They both made room for the waves of pain and grief that rushed like water through sand, carving out more space inside of her, inside of him. It was then she realized she was able to feel what he was feeling: his confusion, his awe, his tenderness. She let the breath out of her lungs, startled at all of those feelings dwelling side by side—her grief for David, her feelings for Wolf, Wolf’s feelings for her. Grief waned and fire-spitting anger rushed in to fill the vacuum. She gritted her teeth against the vicious flames eating at her soul.

  “Don’t fight it. Fighting makes it worse. Just breathe. Do what you were doing—make room for it,” Wolf whispered in her ear.

  She nodded, watching their heart chakra as the anger burned itself out and a slow, soul-killing wad of guilt expanded in its place. She gagged on it. Wolf grimaced and slid the arm under her neck across her chest, till his elbow wrapped around her neck. Gripping hard over her breast and under her armpit, he whispered fiercely into her ear, “There’s something you need to say.” His voice vibrated inside her chest and up her throat, trying to shake the wad loose.

  No. Stop. I can’t speak it

  He kissed the dip in her shoulder. Then show me.

  Loti grabbed his hand over her chest, digging her fingers into his and led Wolf down the rabbit hole to the buried memory.

  “Loti, I need you to make up your mind.”

  David lay in their bed under the Amish quilt Katie Brown had gifted to them at their wedding. His hair was gone and there were bluish-purple circles under his eyes. The cancer was merciless, cruel, and killing him painfully.

  “Now?”

  She handed him the cup of ice water, and David hurled it across the room, water splashing on the bedspread, ice cubes skittering across the floor.

  “Damn it, Loti. Yes! NOW. I told you what I want. I’ve been telling you and telling you. Its time. I’m DONE.”

  Loti ran into the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and paused to steady her shaking hands. When she returned, her hair covered the side of her face closest to David as she dabbed at the water, trying not to push the water in, flexing her jaw.

  “Leave the damn water alone and answer me for Christ’s sake,” David snarled.

  Her heart clenched in a gush of adrenaline. Even drained, weak, close to death, he could still scare her.

  “I can’t, David.” Her voice was strangled. She threw the towel at his face. “Jesus, you’re asking too much.” Her arms clutched her stomach. David closed his eyes and sank bonelessly into the bed, not bothering to move the pink fleur-de-lis towel.

  “That’s your answer then. I have to do it alone.” He took a slow, difficult breath. “Then that’s what I have to do.” He reached for the brown dopp kit on his night stand, and Loti slumped to the edge of the bed, shaking her head. Her hand circled his wrist before he could pick it up.

  “No, David. That’s not my answer. I just . . . I don’t know how to do this.”

  “You think it’s easy for me? Leaving you? You are the only reason I’ve put up with this . . . why I’ve fought so hard, but it’s too much. You have to let me go.”

  She hated herself for making him beg. She hated him for asking this. Eyes burning, she stared up at the ceiling, nodding, chin quivering.

  “You’re done.”

  David nodded once. “No more.”

  Her face still tilted to the ceiling, still nodding, she managed, “Okay.”

  “Now. Please.”

  The tears spilled as she turned to him. His eyes clouded over as he sat up, cupping her cheek with his hand. Lowering her eyes to her hand covering his, she swallowed before looking back into his eyes. She rose from the bed and walked around to her side, and as if settling herself for an afternoon of quiet reading, she arranged the pillows. Climbing in, she leaned her side against them, drawing her knees up and tucking her feet behind her. He never took his grateful eyes off her sad ones until she was settled. He slid over to her, lowering his bald head to her lap, tucking a hand under her thigh. His thin fingers grasped the soft inside, while she stroked his stubbled cheek over and over until his eyes closed.

  She told herself, I won’t cry anymore. She absorbed his thin face, memorizing the little bump in the middle of the bridge of his nose, the crooked turn of his top lip, and then she let her eyes unfocus, his face blurring. She felt the struggle inside of him: the cancer, the anemic flow of his energy. Where was it?

  But she knew. She needed to open the door, the way she opened a channel to fix an imbalance as her healer had taught her.

  Just open the door, Loti, and he’ll find it.

  There. Here, David.

  Thank you, my dear, sweet, beautiful wife. I have loved you since the day we met—no matter what anyone might tell you, I’ve always loved you, and I’m so grateful you chose to love me back. Goodbye, Loti.

  Goodbye, David.

  And his soul flowed from his body like mist rising over a summer meadow. Softly, quietly, it rose into the ether. For a moment, she flashed on what she thought was their last love-making, but it was indistinct, covered in the gauzy film of guilt. Like sunlight melting the morning mist, he was gone.

  Wolf lay sleeping beside her while she read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was one of the many books on his bookshelves, and she’d never read it. Being underground messed with her circadian rhythms and she couldn’t sleep. Wolf had cooked for her earlier, dismissing her protests that she could do it herself. This time he made curried lentil soup—her favorite.

  “How’d you know?” Her mouth watered.

  He paused his stirring. “I don’t know.”

  He also brought cranberry chipotle cheddar to grate over top, and the pièce de résistance was a crusty French baguette with rosemary infused olive oil for dipping—Margarite’s idea. Still, Loti could only manage a small cup and a few bites of bread, her stomach resisting that little bit of nourishment.

  “Does anyone know where we are?” She’d asked.

  He’d said Katie a
nd Calisto agreed it would be best if the two of them stayed here. Someone out there still wanted something from her, and she’d be safer recuperating in his lair; where, besides the wards, the iron ore helped block any magic.

  “Rachel just reinforced the existing wards, so no one should be able to find you here.”

  “What about Patrick?”

  Wolf tossed the dirty dishes in the sink. “Katie’s working on it.” He scrubbed a cup. “Korinna is going to stop by tomorrow night with fresh supplies.” Wiping his hands on a white dish towel, he turned around. “You can send a message to Rachel if you want.”

  They talked in front of the fire and even went above ground for a little while where Wolf showed her how the cave was ventilated and where the chimney was.

  A Whip-poor-will took up guard duty in the tree by the chimney and called faintly down the chimney shaft. It wasn’t annoying, yet. She reached for the ever-present carton of coconut water Wolf insisted on, and her bare hip brushed against Wolf’s hot side. She paused, hand hanging midair. Lowering the book, she touched his side. He was burning up. Fumbling to her knees, she leaned over him, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. He definitely had a fever. Perplexed, she rested her cheek on his chest just to be sure.

  Thump.

  As if slapped, she jerked her head away, eyes bugging. Unsure what to do next, she knelt beside him. Eventually, curiosity won out over panic, and she cautiously touched her cheek to his burning chest again.

  Thump. Thump.

  Thump. Thump.

  What the hell? That was definitely a heartbeat. He didn’t have one before, but he had one now. Maybe he had some kind of vampire flu and that was one of the symptoms? She grasped at straws because she’d never heard of vampires getting sick—and that was in the text book. They didn’t contract disease, so they couldn’t pass on diseases, and they also couldn’t have children. She had no idea what was wrong with him, and fear gripped her as Wolf groaned and thrashed about in his sleep. Rolling over, he faced away from her, flinging the covers off his legs in the process. He settled down, his breath lengthening. As nice as the view was, she slipped the covers back over his hips, leaving his upper body exposed to let the heat dissipate.