Ever (The Ever Series Book 4)

by C. J. Valles

  “I’m sorry if this disturbs you.”

  She shakes her head.

  “It’s not that. I was just thinking—why can’t these demons, or whatever they are, just materialize? What do they need me for?”

  “Unlike us, they require a body. And a life force from which to sustain themselves.”

  She swallows.

  That would make me the car and the gasoline, she thinks.

  Her train of thought shifts so rapidly that it takes me by surprise.

  “Then what happens now?” she asks quietly. “I mean for the rest of my life? You can’t watch me forever. That’s not fair to you.”

  Her voice betrays her emotional state, and she quickly looks away.

  I don’t know whose punishment would be worse—Ever for feeling obligated, or me for loving someone who’s tied to me out of duty.

  Reaching my limit, I jerk the car to the side of the road and shift to the opposite side of the car, opening Wren’s door and gently extracting her from the seat. Capturing her face between my hands, I bend toward her. Her breathing hitches, and her eyes widen, her pupils dilating.

  “Close your eyes,” I tell her softly.

  “Why?”

  Such an argumentative girl. I smile briefly.

  “So I can kiss you.”

  I trail my thumb along her jaw, and she finally closes her eyes. I hesitate only a fraction of an instant before being overcome with suppressed longing. Bringing my mouth to hers, I feel a flash of pure pleasure. As my lips graze hers again, she trembles beneath my touch and I feel a sharp ache spread through me. When her knees give way, I bring my arm around her waist, pulling her as close as I dare. Her arms wind around my neck as her fingers slip into my hair, and I draw her closer still, feeling her heart beating in her chest.

  She shudders. Suddenly I can feel her pleasure, sharp and unfamiliar, spreading through her nerves—her own desire mirroring mine. When a growl escapes my throat, I know I am on the edge of losing what tenuous control I have. Gently, I lower her to the ground, keeping my hands on her shoulders, both to maintain her balance—and because I never want to let go of her.

  I close my eyes, frowning as I feel the pull of a time loop. Suddenly I see her in my arms as I carry her toward a white linen bed. I recognize the geographic coordinates instantly—the island in the Indian Ocean. When I open my eyes, Wren is staring up at me, holding her breath. Lifting my hand to brush the softness of her cheek, I smile sadly.

  “Do you understand now what I feel for you?”

  What I feel for her is the reason I must leave this place. Tonight.

  12: Exile

  My first kiss, Wren thinks with a mixture of shock and jubilation.

  Her thoughts sting me during the drive to her house. I wish that I could share in her exhilaration. More than that, I want any reason to stay, but I cannot.

  How can I, knowing what I now know?

  Parking, I open her door and take her hand as we walk the short distance to her house. When we reach the front door, she looks up at me, a shy smile on her lips.

  More than anything I want to stay in the present moment forever, she thinks wistfully.

  She has no idea what she is wishing for, and as I look down at her, I realize how much of a danger I am to her. In this moment, I know that I would gladly turn her into a creature like me and keep her forever. I have enjoyed much more in this existence than I thought I would, and that must be enough.

  “I’m glad I was the first to kiss you …”

  Reaching up, I trace her lower lip with my fingers, feeling sensations from our kiss ripple through her. She stiffens, her expression full of dread.

  “But I had no right,” I finish, dropping my hand away from her.

  How did today just go from my best to my worst in a few seconds? she wonders.

  “What are you talking about?” she asks desperately.

  “It was a mistake. I could have hurt you, or worse. That first morning you nearly died because of what you saw through my eyes. The closer I am to you, the less in control I am—and the more dangerous it is for you.”

  “But nothing happened. I’m fine. Never better.”

  Her smile is tremulous and difficult to resist. I want to deny what I foresaw in the time loop, but how can I? How can I claim not to want things of this girl that I have no right to want? I shake my head with more conviction.

  “That doesn’t change the fact that I shouldn’t have,” I whisper.

  She stares up at me with an empty expression.

  “Then, that’s it?”

  I allow myself to brush her cheek once more before turning away. A yawning chasm seems to open before me as I retreat, feeling her heart beating in my mind with each step. She remains completely still as I walk to the car, watching as I depart. Finally she opens the front door, closing it behind her as she sinks to the floor.

  I drive two blocks before leaving the car and shifting to the coast. Regardless of my physical distance from her, I am unable to mute the sound of her quiet weeping. Again, I feel like the wolf from Little Red Cap. What right did I have to touch her?

  Reaching for a solid silver globe on the entry table, I hurl it across the room, watching as it explodes into silvery dust when it collides with the unbreakable material that coats the entire structure. I close my eyes and imagine her eyes widening as I bent to kiss her. No, I do not regret kissing her. It is a memory I will hold with me for many more eternities to come. Pressing the code to disarm the structure’s security system, I walk outside.

  “Chasen.”

  The instant I say his name, he appears before me.

  “You have trusted me this long. Will you now?” I ask him.

  “You know I will follow you until the end of this world and the next, but you should have told us,” he says without anger.

  I smile bitterly.

  “I should have come to you and confessed that I love”—Chasen’s eyes widen a degree at the word love—“a small human girl?”

  I look down, wishing, not for the first time, that I could find respite in sleep.

  “You?” he scoffs. “In love? With a human?”

  I smile, my expression ironic.

  “Impossible, is it not?”

  “Impossible,” he agrees. “Alistair will be so pleased. A normal mortal girl—even worse than his transgression.”

  Alistair’s transgression, as Chasen calls it, is Persephone, who has existed among us for nearly the entirety of human history. When Chasen shakes his head in amusement, I turn away, hiding my unease. Wren is very far from a normal mortal girl, but Chasen must not know that until long after she is dead and gone. My concealment should outlast her mortal lifespan. However, the mere thought of this causes everything inside me to recoil as I imagine her cold, expressionless … lifeless.

  “Now do you understand why I must go?” I ask him.

  Chasen nods. He knows the alternative is to watch a mortal wither and die, as is their nature.

  “I will ask you for one last kindness until we meet again.” Reaching into my pocket, I retrieve the pendant, which I have affixed to a chain. The ring, however, I will keep with me for eternity, a reminder of the girl who brought me out of darkness. “Give her this, and keep her from harm. Just know that she is exceptionally stubborn—I expect she is the only creature more stubborn than you are, my brother.”

  And as long as she wears the pendant, I will know if she is in danger—danger that Chasen cannot anticipate. Namely Iago, the traitor. If he breaks through my concealment, I will know, and only then will I infringe upon Wren’s mortal existence.

  “She will die eventually, brother,” Chasen says, his tone kind. “It is their nature.”

  “Yes, but at the very least I can grant her a normal mortal life. You know as well as I that if Victor rises in this dimension, he will seek to destroy all we care for.”

  “Then I will see you again in … another hundred years?” he asks with a trace of humor.

 
I nod.

  “And if Victor rises, so shall I,” I promise.

  When I reach out, he clasps my hand.

  “Until the end.”

  “Until the end,” I repeat.

  The deepest part of the ocean, the Challenger Deep—beneath the western Pacific Ocean in the southern end of the Mariana Trench—runs several hundred kilometers southwest of the island of Guam. More than eleven-thousand meters deep, in eternal darkness, this shall serve as my resting place until long after Wren is dead and gone, having lived her life without the shadow of our war cast upon her.

  In the darkness, beneath thousands of pounds of water—more than enough to kill a human being—I feel time passing with an aching slowness. Eternities have passed meaninglessly; yet now I find myself unable to surrender myself to a state of inertia. This state of being is as close as we will come to sleep or death, and usually I welcome it. A respite from an unending existence with little to look forward to. Minutes, rather than years, pass by slowly, eating away at me. Each moment I remain entombed is a moment of Wren’s life I will miss.

  I close my eyes. My only hope is that soon she will forget me and live her life.

  ***

  When the pendant sends out a pulse of energy, my eyes open in darkness. Iago. First my enemy, briefly my ally, and now my enemy once again. He has found Wren.

  I shift onto the street and see Wren sitting on the sidewalk, having toppled backward in her haste to escape a creature she recognizes is not human. Seeing the expression on Iago’s face as he gazes upon her fills me with loathing and possessiveness unlike anything I have felt before.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” I tell him.

  He stops, the smile on his lips vanishing. Taking hold of Wren’s book bag, I lift her from the ground as I step in front of her. When he recovers his composure, Iago begins to laugh.

  “We have unfinished business, you and I,” he says jauntily. “I could have done without the others, but this one …” He smiles. “I do like the look of her. But then, I suppose you did, too.”

  I reach and take Wren’s hand in mine, urging her in the opposite direction. Her movements remain awkward and halting, and when I look down, I find her eyes glazed over with fear. Wrapping my arm around her shoulder, I find it easier to hasten her progress. For a brief moment, she looks around, her eyes wild with fear, before she looks up at me again.

  Should I be angry, relieved, or terrified?

  “I’m sorry, Wren.”

  “He wasn’t … human,” she gasps finally.

  It would be ill advised to stop and explain here on the street. I continue to propel her in the direction of the car. When we reach it, she stops and stares in alarm.

  “You’ve been here the whole time?” she mumbles.

  Opening her door, I wait for her to step in, afraid to touch her again. When I appear behind the wheel, she turns toward me, expecting an answer—one she most likely will not be pleased with.

  “No.”

  She shakes her head in confusion.

  “But your car—”

  “I left it here in the event I returned.”

  She shakes her head again as she attempts to rank her fears in order of importance.

  The crazy stranger with the dead eyes, the fact that Ever truly might have been planning to never return—and maybe he’s just going disappear again at any second. Okay, immediate danger first, she decides.

  “All right, what just happened?”

  “His name is Iago.”

  “Shakespeare. Seriously?” Her eyes widen. “Whoa! Hold on! You knew him?”

  I nod as I begin driving toward the high school.

  “He was one of them?” she asks impassively.

  I look at her, unsure of how she will absorb this next piece of information.

  “No. He is like us.”

  She frowns and shakes her head.

  “I don’t understand. Like you? Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t that make him one of the good guys?”

  Her frown deepens.

  From a human perspective, I’m not sure Ever would qualify as a good guy.

  “He’s a traitor.”

  Seeing my expression, she looks away, her mind spinning again.

  “Iago …” she whispers.

  The traitor from Othello. More specifically, the one ultimately responsible for getting Desdemona killed.

  “So?” she asks. “If he’s like you, then what does he want with me?”

  I pull into a parking space at the end of the student parking lot, studying her expression.

  “There are only a few, if any, left whose minds can bear indefinite possession. And those who can have become a valuable commodity. I expected it would take longer for them to find you.”

  More accurately, I had hoped Iago would not find her.

  “Them?”

  “Bounty hunters.”

  The term is one she will understand, though traitor or double agent would be closer to the truth. Wren’s expression suddenly crumples.

  “And you showed up this morning because … because something was about to happen to me. That’s it, then? I’m a pawn on a freaking chessboard for the rest of my life? You’re just going to show up when someone is about to turn me into a meat puppet?”

  Tears form at the corners of her eyes, and she looks down, her expression caught between revulsion and desolation.

  “Forget it. Just let me out here. I’ll take my chances.”

  This stings more than anything—that the only thing that keeps bringing Ever back into my life is obligation and guilt.

  Turning to see where we are, she flinches when she realizes the car is parked in the student parking lot. She has every right to feel like a pawn in a war she has only witnessed the edges of; yet it still rankles me that she cannot see the truth—namely, that every action I have taken has been for her. She reaches for the handle and pushes open the door, trying unsuccessfully to stifle her tears.

  … I wish more than anything that I could shut off my emotions like he can.

  Taking her hand in mine, I will the door closed. Wren instantly bristles, her anger overwhelming her sadness.

  “Let me out,” she demands vehemently, keeping her eyes from mine.

  I smile thinly.

  “You are terribly stubborn.”

  “Yeah, you said that already,” she snaps, her tone sardonic.

  “It bears repeating.”

  She turns reluctantly to face me, and when I reach to touch her tear-stained cheek, she winces. I retract my arm.

  “Wren, listen to me very carefully. I came back because I care about you, and I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to you because of me. … And I left the other night because I wanted more than anything to stay with you. To be with you every second.”

  Frowning, she shakes her head.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Leaving seemed to be the best—the only—action I could take for someone I … love.” She stops breathing and continues to stare at me. “That alone should have been enough incentive for me to stay away—”

  No thought process precedes her small hands coming up to grip my face. Closing her eyes, she leans forward. After imagining I would never see her again, I do not hesitate for an instant. She shivers at the burst of energy when her lips touch mine. My hands grip her waist, holding her still as I try to contain both my thoughts and my physical response to her unrestrained enthusiasm. It requires more strength of will than I imagined I was capable of to maintain some semblance of control. Gasping, Wren pulls back a degree and looks down, blushing.

  “Sorry,” she murmurs with a shy smile.

  When she looks up at me, her eyes still bright, I resign myself to being utterly under this creature’s power.

  “I had hoped to say that under better circumstances,” I point out with a whisper of regret.

  The parking lot is empty, and when the second bell sounds, I shift to Wren’s door and hold it ope
n for her. Stepping from the car, she looks up with an expression of abject disappointment.

  “Class?” she asks.

  Nodding, I laugh.

  “And here I thought you were against delinquency. I would keep you here … which is all the more reason for you to go to class.”

  Yes, I would very much prefer to keep her here, or shift to any number of secluded locations. I could happily spend the next year kissing her. Perhaps she sees something predatory in my gaze, because she nods and begins walking quickly toward the campus. Her anxiety finally solidifies into fear of her peers’ reaction to seeing us together.

  How am I going to explain any of this to my friends? Disappearing and reappearing at will might be normal for Ever. Not for me.

  “You know, my friends are going to wonder what’s going on with us,” she says carefully. “I mean things have been a little … unpredictable. Should I tell them we’re friends, acquaintances, study partners … ?”

  I pull her to a stop as we reach Gideon’s classroom. Bending down, I press my lips to her forehead, immeasurably grateful to have found her.

  “Tell them I’ve waited forever for you.”

  Blushing, she becomes aware of her surroundings again and abruptly realizes that first period has begun. I reach down and take her hand in mine as we enter the classroom.

  So much for a low-key entrance, Wren thinks dryly.

  Gideon looks over and loses his train of thought when he sees us. Quickly recovering his senses, he smirks.

  “Ms. Sullivan, I don’t recommend letting your boyfriend’s attendance habits rub off on you.”

  He smiles and shakes his head in mock exasperation. Blanching in embarrassment, Wren pulls her hand from mine and rushes to her seat before glancing at me. Suddenly her expression is exultant, and I smile, basking in her elation.

  After class, as I escort her to second period, I inventory the missteps I have taken since laying eyes upon her. In this moment, I vow never to take for granted a moment with her. As she comes to a stop in front of her next class period, I look down at her with the awareness that I will forever feel compelled to seek her consent to remain in her presence.