‘You’re getting too big,’ I told her as she kissed me.
‘I’m still little,’ she said. ‘I’m not seven till next year.’
‘Good job, else I wouldn’t be able to pick you up.’ I gestured to the coffee and Beth gratefully retrieved it before sinking into the closest chair, leaving the kids to bombard me.
‘I’m big,’ Gracey said, grabbing onto my leg. ‘I’m seven too.’ She brushed her dark curls from her face, revealing pale blue eyes the size of saucers.
‘No you’re not,’ Neave told her. ‘You’re only three.’
‘No I’m not,’ Gracey shouted. ‘Mummy, tell her.’
‘You’re a big three,’ I told her. ‘Now, leave mummy alone, she’s having a coffee.’
I touched Ava’s blond hair, pulled tight into a ponytail as it was the only way she would have it. She shifted under my touch and focused her eyes on the corner of the room. The crowding of the other two was overwhelming her, so I removed my hand and winked when she glanced at me.
When they had all managed to say their piece, I peeled Neave off me and ushered them into the lounge with a biscuit. As soon as they spotted the box of toys I was forgotten. It was a relief to have all my limbs back.
Closing the kitchen door to dampen down the noise level, I joined my younger sister at the table, and studied the dark smudges under her eyes which were in contrast to the large smile she gave me. Her golden blond hair was hanging limply to her shoulders, though she still had a twinkle in her eyes that revealed her infectious personality. It was what captured everyone’s attention, though she needed to divert most men from her breasts first.
‘Bad day?’ I asked opening the biscuit tin.
Beth helped herself to a couple of custard creams. ‘Ryan’s spent the night being sick, Gracey was up at the crack of dawn and I couldn’t face the housework.’
‘Just think,’ I said. ‘You have fifteen more years until the kids leave home.’
‘Yeah, and then I’ll still have Ryan. He’s as much of a pain as they are. I swear, he hasn’t changed since I met him.’
I laughed. ‘Well, that’s what happens when you marry your childhood sweetheart.’
She grumbled under her breath. ‘I am beginning to think that everyone was right. We were too young.’
‘You don’t fool me,’ I said, leaning forward to peer at her. ‘I still catch your eyes lock across a crowded room, and you laugh all the time. That’s got to mean something.’
‘Not laughing today,’ she muttered. ‘He’s got a twenty four hour bug, though you would believe he was dying if you listened to his complaints.’
‘That’s men for you.’ I laughed, while wondering if Gabriel would ever suffer from a case of man flu. I didn’t even know if it was possible for him to get sick.
She ate her biscuit with a delicacy I just couldn’t muster and gave me a smile.
‘So how is Gabriel?’ she said. ‘I can see you have fallen in love with him. Have you told him?’
Nobody knew me like she did and we had no secrets from each other. The heat rose in my face when I realised that we now did and I quickly looked down to hide it. How I wished I could tell her the truth.
‘I have.’ An uncontrollable smile spread across my face until I was beaming. ‘Last night actually.’ There was no need to tell her about the crying fit that accompanied it, she knew me well.
Beth clasped her hands together, and her eyes filled with tears. She quickly got up and came around the table to give me a hug.
‘What’s that for?’ I asked.
She pulled away and dabbed her eyes with the palm of her hand. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just, I never thought that I would see this day. After what happened, I never thought that you…’ She hugged me tightly again. ‘I’m just so happy for you.’
After several seconds of being trapped in her arms, I gently prised her off. Thankfully, she returned to her seat, but continued to stare at me with brimming eyes, causing me to shift uncomfortably before getting up to put the kettle on.
‘Well, I figured I couldn’t live in fear forever,’ I said, forcing myself to laugh.
‘Does that mean you have told Gabriel about Nathan?’
‘It’s in the past,’ I said with more irritation than intended. She gave me one of those smiles, intended to be loving and supportive, but always managed to come off as patronising.
We spent the next few hours talking about many things including men, the kids and anything trivial that came to mind. It was as if it had been only minutes, instead of hours, when she stood to leave. It helped that the kids had been little angels.
As we were getting their coats on we made plans for the girls to spend a night at mine. This was met with much excitement from them, as they knew they would be spoilt rotten, and a sigh from Beth as she knew they would most likely end up coming home experiencing a sugar crash.
We hugged at the door and I waved goodbye as they drove off, before returning to the kitchen to wash up the few items left over from lunch. The house felt empty now they had left and I couldn’t wait for Gabriel to return.
That night I couldn’t help notice the change between us. It was as if he had become my centre of gravity, and I his. When he moved, I unconsciously followed, as if he was a magnet drawing me to him. There were few words spoken, communication achieved more through contact, such as a brush of the hand or touch of the face.
It was as if a low current continually passed between us, leaving me barely able to register my surroundings. We were there, but not, drifting in a sea of fuzziness whilst feeling complete clarity in regards to each other. By the end of the night, his face was filled with as much confusion as mine.
‘What..?’ My voice broke as if I hadn’t spoken a word for days. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I,’ he whispered, the unsteadiness in his voice as pronounced as mine. ‘It shouldn’t happen like this.’
‘How should it happen?’ I needed to understand this phenomenon. It was as if my free will had been taken from me, but I had not been informed and was too bewildered to truly realise it yet. A bell rang dimly in the back of my mind, telling me to be afraid and resist, but the impulse to embrace the feeling was so much stronger.
He went to speak and hesitated, chewing on his lip in a way that made him look like a boy. ‘I think it will easier to show you.’ He gestured with his hand to the coffee table and two spheres the size of golf balls formed out of the pine wood. The act was silent and the table appeared unharmed, though I was willing to bet it was marginally lighter now.
‘Imagine those spheres are each a member of my race. Throughout our existence we are like these two spheres, we are free move wherever we choose.’ As he spoke the balls started rolling around the table in random directions. ‘If we meet and a connection is made, call it love, we then become one.’ The balls rolled towards each other and when touched, merged together to form one larger ball. ‘This is a permanent connection that can only be broken by death.
‘When as a whole, we cannot be separated from each other as the pain would be too great for each of us to bear. If death occurs for one of us we are ripped apart.’ The ball split jaggedly through the middle causing the two half’s to fall apart. One half dissolved into the table, leaving no sign it had ever been there. ‘It feels akin to the pain of having your chest hollowed out slowly, without the release of death.’ The remaining half looked so pitiful, lay broken and alone, that my chest restricted and eyes pricked. ‘This pain lasts for many decades before it starts to ease, many take their own life to escape it.’
His face was drawn and pale, his eyes tight and distant. The grief radiated from him in a dense cloud and I could barely breathe from the severity of it. I reached out my hand to touch him, but instead let it fall back to my lap.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
Gabriel turned to me, the horror of losing the person he loved and the anguish suffered because of it, etched nakedly upon his face. I brushed his face
with my finger tips and his pain rippled through me. The agony was like none I had ever come across before. My chest felt crushed, making it impossible to draw breath, but that was nothing when compared to the feeling of my soul being ripped from my body. I couldn’t bare it and would never understand how he had.
I heard a low whimpering and it took a moment for me to realise that it was coming from me.
He swiftly lifted me onto his lap and embraced me tightly, while wiping away tears I hadn’t even known I was shedding.
‘Don’t worry my love. It won’t be like that for us. I am sure of it.’
He couldn’t know that the tears were not for me, they for him, and others of his kind. For the anguish and pain he had suffered, the life he deserved lost, and for the nameless woman who was effectively his one true soul mate, taken away forever. I was grieving for the unjustness of life.
There was no way to tell how long I cried silently in his arms, only that after a while redness crept into my face for my actions. I had wanted to comfort him and ended up being comforted. I shifted in order to place my hand on his cheek and look into his eyes. His face was pinched with worry for me, the signs of his suffering no longer apparent.
‘I should never have scared you like that,’ he said gruffly. ‘Please do not worry, you are human, it will be different.’
For someone who could read emotions he sure got a lot wrong.
‘It isn’t that. I won’t worry about what I can’t change and I am in too deep to walk away now.’
‘I don’t understand.’ He held my face gently in his hands. ‘I have never heard you cry like that, or felt you hurt with such intensity, even when you have been at your lowest.’
I lay one hand on his heart and the other on mine. ‘I felt your pain. It was so awful and sad, I couldn’t bare it.’
It dawned on him what I was saying and he crushed me to him, groaning loudly as he did so.
‘This is wrong,’ he muttered into my hair. ‘So, so, wrong.’ I tried to turn to see his face but he had me pinned to him, leaving me barely enough room to breathe, causing my heart to race with panic.
‘Please forgive me,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I had done something wrong, but didn’t know what. Maybe he had had enough of my tears that fell so frequently. I needed to try and be stronger for him. I made a silent promise to myself that I wouldn’t cry again.
An intense flair of anger shot from him, a white hot poker searing across my brain. Locked in his arms, I fought to get away from him. The terror rose in me until my heart threatened to explode out my chest. It was only seconds until my fear penetrated his anger and he released me immediately. I flew to the kitchen doorway, where I turned to face him in a protective stance.
My heart nearly broke when I saw his face drawn in horror. He hadn’t acted in any way that should have scared me, but his anger had been too intense and my instincts too ingrained. I wanted to put my arms around him and comfort him, to tell him it wasn’t him, it was me, but my mouth remained locked closed, my lips pressed so tightly my jaw hurt.
I felt an intense spark of hate for Nathan, for the person he had changed me into, the fears he had left me with. As soon as Gabriel sensed it, a single tear escaped to travel down his cheek. That did it, there was nothing like a grown man crying to help overcome fear, especially one who was thousands of years old. The anger had gone from the room and I rushed over to him.
‘Please do not hate me,’ he whispered. ‘It was never my intention to scare you. I swear I would never hurt you, if you wish, I will leave right now.’
And they say females are dramatic.
‘I don’t hate you and I know you wouldn’t hurt me.’ I lifted his face so that he could see I was speaking the truth as it was impossible to rely on the emotion reading stuff.
‘You cannot lie to me, I felt your fear, and saw how it caused you to react.’ He choked a little, as if the words stuck in his throat. ‘I also felt your hate for me.’
The frustration built within me and I squashed it as quick as I could as it wouldn’t help matters, only confuse them.
I bit my lip and pondered for a moment on how to proceed. ‘I felt your anger and I admit I acted badly. Please try to understand that I’ve learnt to fear it and my body kind of took over.’ I smiled to try and make light of it. The pressure was getting to me now and I needed to see his smile, to know all was well again.
He didn’t oblige.
‘If that is true, why do you hate me so?’
‘I don’t hate you,’ I said a little too sharply. ‘I hate that I can still act so pathetically, like a skittish rabbit afraid of the world. I hate that the evening started so fantastically, with me feeling loved up to hell, and ended up falling apart, and I hate all this emotion reading crap, it screws everything up.’ My voice increased in volume, and to make matters worse as I blinked, tears fell from my eyes. ‘And I hate that my eyes won’t stop leaking.’
I stomped off into the darkened kitchen in a proper childish temper tantrum, slamming the door behind me, only then remembering that the light switch was on the lounge side of the doorway. I was too stubborn to walk back in to turn it on.
I had no idea how long I spent sitting in the dark, only after a time I started to feel extreme weariness seep through me, coupled with a twinge of stupidity. Sat with my eyes closed, I was in the process of drowsily convincing myself that it would be better to swallow my pride and go back, rather than spend the night sitting in the pitch black, when a hand touched my shoulder. I jumped up and let out a tight yelp.
‘It’s only me. I should have spoken first.’
I reached for him in the dark and moved towards his chest. ‘Please just hold me.’ I was being needy, but had gone beyond caring.
He pulled me into his arms. ‘Do you forgive me?’
I snuggled in closer and murmured, ‘No more asking for forgiveness or apologising, there’s no need. Now I just want you to hold me and tell me it’s all going to be alright, even if it’s not, tell me anyway.’
He chuckled lightly. ‘It will be. I promise you.’
I thought I heard something in his voice, but was too tired to figure it out. Now in his arms, it was nearly impossible to fight the descending tiredness.
‘I’ll figure it out tomorrow,’ I mumbled to myself. Disaster had been averted and I was falling asleep on my feet and should go to bed. But I didn’t have the energy to move, it had been one hell of a taxing day and night.
There was a sensation of falling, followed by a rocking motion. Some distant part of my brain had time to acknowledge that I was being carried up the stairs before I fell into a deep sleep.
I awoke later that night, sat upright in bed, screaming Gabriel’s name. He pulled me back down under the covers and held me in his arms as I cried. I couldn’t remember the dream, only the deep sense of loss that lingered after.
Chapter 6
When I woke up I felt like hell, the happenings of the night before leaving me in a state of darkness. Making a cup of tea had become a chore that I couldn’t face and eating was just too much of an effort, ensuring that I could do little more than pick. Gabriel made an effort not to be dragged down into my misery and I reduced the physical contact I had with him in order to help. The intensity of his feelings had completely thrown me off balance and even though I used every trick in the book to drag myself out of my depressive bout, it barely made a difference.
Sometimes I would catch him out of the corner of my eye, holding his hand out to me and giving it a little flick. During these times numbness would spread through my mind. It didn’t really make me feel any better, but I suppose it stopped me feeling worse.
My nieces came to spend the night as planned, and I managed to smile, though it was strained, while watching Gabriel play with them. He helped make their stay fun which was a Godsend as even though I participated with what happened, I spent the time distracted by my own thoughts. I acknowledged them when they talked to me, and I did my best to answer in al
l the right places. I even managed to laugh at times, though it sounded alien even to me. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to realise anything was wrong.
We played board games with them before bed and Gabriel’s laughter joined with theirs, but even though I was sat on the floor with them, it sounded distorted and hollow, as if it had travelled down a long tunnel before reaching me. At one point, whilst Gabriel was laughing, I touched his arm in the hope of feeling some happiness or pleasure. Mostly I just got a sense of his concern for me, which didn’t help.
The whole week was spent treading water, fighting against the impulse to give in and wallow in self-pity. Gabriel stayed every night holding me in his arms, though I couldn’t remember a single word we said to each other.
Eventually I started to take an interest in what was happening around me, colours became brighter and I could actually focus on what people were saying.
It had been eight days when we finally made love again and it left me feeling human once more. It felt good to be back.
Over the next couple of days I caught up on coursework, this particular essay being about personality types. I had taken the personality test a few weeks ago and scored as neurotic, no shock there, and figured it wouldn’t do any harm to complete it again, this time only to discover that I was now classed as stable.
Smirking with amusement, I decided that was enough work for the day and was in the process of packing my books away when Gabriel let himself in.
He held me tightly as we kissed, causing me to step back as I could feel the nervousness and determination coming from him. I was able to feel his emotions intensely when we touched, which often left me feeling somewhat confused as half the time I never knew who was feeling what. I had spent the last few years getting to know how I feel in great detail, and had learnt to block other people’s emotions in order as not to upset the balance. With him I had to decide how I felt before we touched. It wasn’t like I got overpowered by the sensations every time; it depended on how strong his emotions were in comparison to mine.
Night of the Fae (Ana Martin series) Page 6