Parallel (Mortisalian Saga Book 1)

by L. J. Stock

  “I really don't think there's anything she could–” I'd started to turn, the words disappearing the moment I saw who was standing behind Alexa. Frowning, she spun to see what had caught my attention and grunted her displeasure.

  “You're a pain in my ass, Damon.”

  Ignoring her completely, he stepped deeper into the room, but Alexa wasn't going to be ignored and stepped in his path, her attitude making up for what her frame lacked.

  “Move, Alexa.”

  I was so used to the disembodied voice that I hadn't thought of Damon in a solid form, even when I was waist deep in water. Now, I was too stunned by the corporeal form of the man who stood facing me. He was real, so real I could physically reach out and touch him.

  “No, ass monkey. You heard what she said.”

  “That she wasn't ready to talk. Yes, I speak English just as well as you do, Alexa.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To see if she'd speak to me in person.”

  I almost laughed aloud. Acantha had mentioned that we could cross between the dimensions easily, but it had never once occurred to me that Damon could do it, too. Maybe that was because I'd always thought that if he could make it to me, he would have. Obviously I'd been wrong. He’d been everything to me – my anchor when I felt untethered, my strength when I was weak, and my comfort when I was uncomfortable in my own skin. His disappearance when were been kids had destroyed me.

  “It's not fair to do that to her and you know it,” Alexa said angrily, pulling me from my own head as she leaned toward him. “This is not a part of your orders.”

  “No, it's my personal choice. I'm off duty.”

  “Even less reason for you to be here then.”

  “My history with her goes back further than yours does, Alexa.”

  “Twelve years ago, maybe.”

  “It's still a history. A history you have nothing to do–”

  “Will both of you just... Shut. Up,” I huffed, rolling my eyes and dropping into the window seat. “I'm in the room and I'm perfectly capable of making my own decisions.”

  “Cass–” I held up my hand, cutting Alexa off.

  “I know you're trying to protect me and I'm grateful for it,” I said to her before looking at Damon. “And I know you want to explain, and I appreciate that, but with the amount of information floating around in my head right now it feels close to busting at the seams. Maybe it's best that you just wait.”

  “I'm here now, Cass.”

  “She just said she saw that,” Alexa said with a smirk curling her lips.

  “Stop!” I growled out.

  I rubbed my face with the palms of my hands and sank deeper into the window seat, leaning against the wall and pulling my knees to my chest again. I looked over at the two of them, watching and waiting for me to make the call.

  “Alexa, I appreciate you protecting me, but he's here. Maybe it's best I get this over with now.”

  Alexa turned to look at me, her penetrating gaze reading between the lines as she tried to figure out whether or not to let it go. For whatever reason, the two of them seemed to actively antagonize one another. Giving her a nod to reassure her that I was okay, I watched her back away from the confrontation.

  “I'll be in the next room if you need me.”

  “Thanks, Lex,” I whispered, noting her nod in my direction while she gave Damon one last glare. Stepping around him, she headed to the door, pulling it closed behind her.

  It was odd being alone in a room with Damon. As children we'd done it a thousand times, even if we could never touch. I'd fallen asleep to the sound of his voice more than once, but this felt different. He was touchable, solid, and very, very real… and I wasn’t just a kid anymore

  “Thank you,” he said quietly, requesting to come in with a subtle hand gesture. I nodded and watched him move until he was sitting at the other side of the window seat from me. Neither of us said anything for a while. We just stared at one another in some level of shock.

  “This is weird,” I finally said, meeting the penetrating gaze of his beautiful hazel eyes. They were dark, just as I knew they would be. They'd always moved closer to brown when he was thinking.

  “A little,” he agreed, resting one hand on my calf and shuffling closer. My body seemed to react the moment he made contact, my abdomen growing tight and fluttering wildly. My heart sprouted tiny wings that beat against my chest relentlessly. I'd been so lost in my own emotions before, I hadn't let myself feel anything other than anger, but as I sat here with him it was glaringly obvious.

  “When did you learn you could...?” I made a motion with my hand in his general direction.

  “Realize I could move between the dimensions? Translocate?”

  I nodded, moving my hands to my stomach to stop the endless fluttering.

  “About a year after I last saw you.”

  “You didn't think it would be prudent to let me know you were alive?” Not all of my anger had dissipated. In fact, it ebbed around me in little waves as I thought about the months following his disappearance.

  “If it were that simple, I would have.”

  “Liar.”

  Damon sighed and shuffled closer, his other hand mirroring the position of the first on my neglected calf. Flexing his fingers, he squeezed the muscles before loosening his grip again. My flesh tingled under his grip, ignoring the anger and frustration that resided in my head, instead accepting the warmth and comfort the action offered.

  “I thought about it every day for years after that night, but some things are bigger than you or me, Cass. I had orders. First there was the training that left me very little time, and then there was–”

  “Orders? Damon, I was twelve and I thought you were dead. Do you have any idea what that did to me? I...” I shut myself up, snapping my jaw and dropping my head to my chest to gather my wits. I wanted to yell and scream at him – to release twelve years of fear and mourning that were bubbling inside of me into a tension-filled ball of anger.

  “I would have come to you if I could have.”

  “You had a choice?”

  “Not entirely.”

  I lifted my head to look at him. I could feel the emotions gathering like a storm as I studied his handsome features. All those years imagining him hadn’t done him justice at all.

  “I waited for you. Every single day for twelve long years, I waited. I called your name and there was nothing, just an empty space where you used to be – an empty space and death.”

  I pulled my hands out from my stomach and dug the heels of them into my eyes.

  I had been in love with Damon even at twelve years old. That was more obvious to me now than it had been back then. I'd set him on a pedestal and made him a martyr when I thought he'd died. To have all of that come crashing down around me made it all harder, and yet I still felt the connection to him that had always driven me crazy in the past. That same static electricity that shimmered over the surface of my skin when he was near was tenfold while he was touching me. A small part of me resented him for that, while the rest of me was hungry for more.

  “I could give you a hundred excuses, but there is only one, Cass. I had to follow my orders. I had to repay the debt for my life. The king and his guard saved me from a raid on my village and I owed them. They earned my loyalty and I gave it to them freely even after the debt was paid.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I believe in them. I believe in what they stand for, what they fight for. The king is a good man, a fair man, and he’s trying to make a difference. I want to protect him. So I took an oath and every word I said, I meant. I still do.”

  “How very honorable of you,” I spat at him, knowing how unfair I was being.

  “You don't mean that, but I hope one day you’ll understand. Our paths are crossed now, and I needed to talk to you while I was off duty. I needed to bare myself to you because I owe you this.”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  “You know that's not
true. All those days I was alone, living in the forest outside of Felgar, you gave me hope, Cass. You kept me going even on the darkest of days.”

  I looked out of the window at the colorful sky, hating the prickle of tears as they rose rapidly. I'd been strong for so long, I hated that this was going to be the thing to break me. I hadn't cried since I'd woken up in the hospital and been informed that I would be staying indefinitely. I’d made a promise to myself that I would never be that weak again.

  Swiping resentfully at the first of the tears to fall, I straightened my shoulders and stood, moving away from the source of my uncivil emotions.

  “Cass?”

  I shook my head, unable to get the words past the lump in my throat and sound normal. Even after all this time, all the years of wondering, and the new anger that was growing like a wild fire, I still wanted him. I still felt that raw draw to him that I couldn't explain. The tears were frustration at being ridiculous. They were anger directed at myself for feeling so strongly about someone who was making it perfectly clear he was married to his job. A job in which he risked his life daily.

  Damon had lived a full life without me, whereas I hadn't lived at all. I was an aging shell of a person. That aging was going to slow down eventually but I was still wasting years, and like a light illuminating the darkness, everything fell into place. I was finished with sitting in a box and watching the world pass me by through a set of barred windows. This was my life, I only had one shot at it, and I was going to live it.

  “I'll do it,” I choked out.

  “Do what?” Damon asked, clearly not following my thought process.

  “Join the Vis Liberi to fight for the cause,” I said, folding my arms across my chest and nodding in his direction. “I’ll do whatever they ask of me. It's better than the empty existence I've been living up until now.”

  “Is that what they told you?”

  “Not in those words,” I admitted, running the tips of my fingers over the comforter on the bed. “They read off some prophecy, but that's not really who I am. It can't be. My grandmother is a nymph though, so I want to help. I want to save people from the pain I've been hearing all these years. I want to have a purpose.”

  Damon was on his feet in front of me before I'd even finished speaking. He was so close I stumbled backward, huffing a stuttered breath that I had to recover from with a small cough. He wasn’t interested in my reaction to him, though; instead, he grabbed my upper arms and squeezed hard, tilting my body at an angle so I had no choice but to meet his steely glare.

  “Absolutely not. Your life is worth more than that. I won't–”

  “If you say let me, I will knee you in the balls so hard you'll be able to feel it for a month this time.” I pinched him to make a point.

  The fact that he said nothing was a testament to how well I knew him and could read his looks. His belligerent glare of stubbornness was almost legendary for me. It had also been the very reason I’d almost broken my ankle when I was seven. No one told me I couldn’t do something, even when I knew it was stupid.

  “It's not your choice to make. Nor is it mine. It's the king’s.”

  “Fine,” I said, lifting my head so it was closer to his. “Then take me to him.”

  “No. You want to talk to him, learn to translocate yourself.”

  “You're a stubborn pain in my ass.”

  “Now you sound just like Alexa. I told them she would be a bad influence on you.”

  Every word we uttered seemed to make the tension between us grow. Our bodies had begun to gravitate toward one another, until our faces were only inches apart. He was so close I could feel his breath washing over me in small waves. If I moved an inch forward, our lips would meet.

  I didn’t think I’d ever wanted anything more in my life, and I actually considered rocking forward and closing the distance between us. Unfortunately, Damon seemed to realize our closeness at the same time I did and backed away, marching out of the room and slamming the door behind him, leaving me bewildered and much less emotional than I had been.

  It sucked to watch him walk away, but I had finally figured out what I wanted. In order to get that, I had to accept my part in what was going on and make it my future to do some good. If I wanted to fight, I had to earn the right to do it, and I planned on doing that, too. First thing after I woke up... because the only thing on the agenda for me at that point was sleep.

  Fissures

  The room was almost pitch black when I woke up. The shadows seemed to have moved all the way around the walls, while my limbs ached, telling me I'd been too still for far too long. It didn’t matter. It was the best sleep I’d had in years, thanks to the silence out there in the middle of nowhere. When I finally pushed up on my elbows to look around, my stomach growled angrily, letting me know that it was long past breakfast, lunch and probably dinner too.

  I'd expected to wake up confused, unsure of where I was or who I was with, but the fluttering of my eyelids had brought perfect clarity. I knew exactly where I was and why, and I still wanted all the same things I'd wanted before I fell asleep. If anything, I was more determined than I ever had been. This would give my life purpose. This would give me something to aim toward.

  Purpose and direction – two things I’d never had before.

  Rolling out of the bed somewhat reluctantly, I shuffled into the bathroom while rubbing my eyes. With none of the noise I was used to littering my head, I eyed the shower skeptically. I needed one, desperately in my opinion, but I was nervous about what I would see. I’d been too distracted by the history lesson to focus much on the silence around me, but being alone, it was the most prevalent thing in my world. I’d never been gifted with a silence quite like this.

  Leaning forward, I turned on the water and pulled the stem to move it to shower. Holding my hand under the stream to test my reaction, I waited for anything at all to happen. I was pleased to find that there was nothing but open fields and forests surrounding me when my vision flickered and settled in the other dimension. It was the first time in years I hadn’t seen another soul when I’d been in water. Taking a chance that it would stay that way, I stripped down and stepped under the spray, fighting the urge to hurry like I always did. Instead, I savored the moment, enjoying the slow sluicing of the warm water as it made a path over my body and immersed me in the scenery of the other world and its natural, untouched beauty.

  Once I was finished with my routine and dressed in the clothes someone had thought to leave out for me, I wandered out of my room and headed to the stairs, listening for the voices of the house's other inhabitants. It didn’t take long. I found them all in the kitchen, minus Damon but with two new additions.

  “Here she is,” Acantha sang, floating through the group toward me. She embraced me with the same warmth she’d offered the night before. As much as I wanted to reciprocate, the shadow of doubt at the back of my mind had my arms floundering awkwardly before patting her on the shoulder.

  “Umm. Hi.”

  She smiled, unaffected by my lack of embrace, and dragged me deeper into the room. “Come and meet Litsa and Galen. Zander is shocking them both with modern convention.”

  “Aw, leave them alone, Acantha.” Alexa laughed, slipping up onto the counter. “It's been a while since they were here last.”

  The other woman, who was slight and petite, turned on her heel and blushed furiously. Her eyes widened as she looked me over, seemingly undecided on how to address me. As perplexed as I was, I couldn't help but notice the amusement of the man who I assumed must be named Galen, as he looked between the two of us.

  “Hello, uh, Cassandra?” She offered me her hand before retracting and offering it once more. She still looked unsure of whether it was the right greeting to offer, and didn't seem convinced until she looked at Zander who, while laughing hysterically, gave her a nod of approval.

  “Hi. Litsa?”

  Smiling, Litsa nodded, squeezing my hand as I took hers gently, before stepping away and nudging
Galen forward in her place. Litsa smiled as he approached, looking less than enthusiastic and slightly bored with it all.

  “Pleasure,” he said in a monotone. It wasn’t very convincing, but I accepted with a nod and offered my own greeting in response.

  “That's the most enthused I think I've ever seen you, Galen,” Alexa teased, smirking at me from over his shoulder. He dropped my hand respectfully and backed away, turning to glare at Alexa, which only spurred her laughter all the more. Even as a nurse she'd been like this, even if it was executed in the most professional and appropriate of ways. It was why most of the patients had loved her. No matter what was going on, she always managed to bring a smile to our faces, making the days less regimented and never-ending.

  “Litsa and Galen are our watchers. They work with us from Mortisali. They fight when it’s needed, but mostly watch our backs and keep us safe when we're on assignment. The king recently changed the law so that the Vis Liberi could move to either dimension where they're needed. The past couple of years has seen the fight get more intense, so the added backup has been much needed.”

  “Is that why it’s been a while since they were last here?”

  “There's never been a need for it before,” Litsa said with a smile. “Not for us anyway. Fortunately, we're on security detail today. We have to keep–”

  “See how that works,” Zander said casually as the microwave dinged, pulling Litsa's attention away. Not that it managed to distract me. I wasn’t willing to let the diversionary tactic go.

  “Why would we need extra security?” I asked respectfully, as though it was no big deal.

  “We always bring in extra protection when people come home for a while. It's just extra insurance in case they were followed. Zander was safe, but protocol is protocol.”

  I had a sneaking suspicion I was having smoke blown up my ass, but I ignored it in favor of the plate Zander was holding out to me with reheated Chinese food on it. I accepted it gratefully and slipped onto the stool by the kitchen island and dug in, the bottomless pit I called my stomach grunting with pleasure as the first mouthful hit with a dull thud.