by Kristie Cook
“I’m sorry. I’m too distracted, I know,” I said as my finger spun the bracelets on my wrist.
Another bad habit to break was squelching my true feelings. I’d become better about being my real self, especially when I was with Jeric who knew me better than I knew myself, but it was harder around those I still viewed as “authority.” Or maybe it was Theo’s elderly status that got to me. Because, in reality, I had much more authority than he did.
I was a Phoenix Guardian. A soldier. A warrior. Theo was merely a Guide. Jeric’s and my souls had reached one of the highest echelons—the point where they’d become One. We’d practically been angels before Enyxa, ruler of the Dark worlds, had invaded our world and Separated our soul, making us Twin Flames. At least both of our halves had made it to the Space Between and chosen to come here to Earth so we could eventually find each other. It took us two tries—Jacey and Micah hadn’t quite reached the Gate to be Forged—but we’d made it. Otherwise, if Enyxa had sent us to two different worlds after splitting us … I shuddered at the thought of going Dark.
Brock and Asia remembered that world, too, and had been just as lucky as us. I’d been wondering if this Nathayden and Rebethannah hadn’t experienced our same luck. I just wished I could remember them, especially after what happened at the Gate the other day. My soul still hurt from what I’d felt, and I hated the thought of anyone being so desperate. That was one of my distractions.
“You’re still thinking about your parents,” Theo said. That was another distraction.
And the real reason I was in this room with him.
I rose from my seat in the generic office the Guides shared when they were at the manor and not out in the world, guiding other souls. I hadn’t stopped thinking about my parents, and since Theo had known them, I’d snagged a few moments with him, hoping to learn something new. He thought I’d wanted his help with remembering other lives. He was wrong.
I strode over to the window. The room was part of the main offices of the old hotel the building had once been. To outsiders, it still looked like an abandoned hotel. To us members of the Phoenix, the hotel was ugly and dilapidated on the outside, but the interior retained the simple elegance it once had, although a three-story mansion sat in the middle of it. According to rumor, the best history we had, the mansion had been here first, built by a member of the Phoenix, but the property was later sold and the hotel replaced the home. When the Phoenix regained ownership, the magic of the Guardians (one of those things human minds can never fully comprehend) returned the mansion to existence where the hotel lobby and ballrooms had been.
Only we could see the mansion, though, which was the heart of the Guardians’ living quarters. Jeric and I could have chosen a bedroom in it, but we’d chosen a hotel room instead, as far from the center of activity as possible, on the top floor of the eight-story building. Brock and Asia were up there, too. We must have all known in some part of our souls that we weren’t like the other Guardians, and instinctively set ourselves apart.
As far as I knew, my Airstream camper was still parked at the RV park near the Florida-Georgia line. Melinda said they’d ensured the lot rent was covered for several more months, and my truck had been taken care of, too. Both waited for my return, although I had no idea when that would be. The only times Jeric and I had been able to leave the manor was when we were in our astral forms. Our physical bodies hadn’t left since the night we arrived and almost died. At first, it was so Melinda, Uri, and the other healing Guardians could do their thing and help us physically recover. For the last few weeks, however, we’d been in training. Jeric and I were both growing antsy to get away from this place, at least for a while, but that would mean taking on our own mission, which I wasn’t sure we were ready for yet.
The office was on the first floor and had an unappealing view of the crumbling asphalt of the parking lot. But that’s not what my eyes really saw anyway. My vision filled with the memory of my parents: my mother with her light Creole skin, dark eyes, and frizzy, black hair smoothed back into a tight bun, and my father, with his Italian olive-toned skin and green eyes just like mine. I used to think he looked like a younger version of his uncle, Theo, but now that I knew the truth, I didn’t think Theo looked anything like us. He may have been Italian, but his skin tone was lighter than Daddy’s and his eyes were hazel, almost brown.
“How could my own parents forget I ever existed so easily?” I asked as I continued staring out the window, my back to him.
“You can’t blame them,” Theo said for the hundredth time. “They don’t know any differently any more.”
“But that’s what I don’t get. You’ve said before that there can be a connection between souls. Not just between Twin Flames, but between other souls, too. Like soul mates and siblings and parents.”
“Yes, a connection can exist. Not nearly as strong as Twin Flames or even true soul mates, but yes, connected souls are often drawn to each other. They can be parents or siblings, but that kind of draw is stronger, a connection made before conception of the physical body. More often, connected souls find each other later in life, what humans call best friends. What’s the term you told me once? BFFs?”
I ignored his obvious reminder of our past relationship, which had been close—before he left me to fend off the Lakari on my own. “So if my soul had been drawn to my parents’ at conception, then we could have that deep connection. Why would they forget about me? How?”
A hand dropped on my shoulder and pressure forced me to turn. Theo stood in front of me, his forehead and mouth drawn down in concern. “Little bird, you need to be honest with yourself. Do you believe your parents are Twin Flames for each other? Or even soul mates?”
I didn’t have to think about their relationship for long to know the answer. “They never seemed very close to each other.”
In fact, I often thought their marriage was one of convenience. My mom didn’t want to be the single, black mother left to struggle on her own to raise a mixed-race child as my grandmother had. My father was always the type to do the right thing, especially for those he was responsible for. Did Mama even love my father and he love her? They showed little affection toward each other, although the words were always there. Of course, Mama kept her feelings behind a mask, so maybe they were more loving behind closed doors. Oh, who was I fooling? They certainly did not have the kind of bond Jeric and I did or any of the other dyads here.
“They’re not close,” Theo confirmed. “They have no lasting bond. They’re two souls who came together for other reasons than being made for each other, as many souls do, especially in this world. It is a temporary connection. Do you honestly feel your soul’s link to theirs is any stronger than that? Do you truly believe, deep down, that your souls go back together beyond this lifetime? What does your instinct tell you?”
I gnawed on my lip, not wanting to think about that question too hard while standing here in front of Theo. Already my heart tightened and my eyes began to burn at the answer that I felt deep down, but didn’t know whether to believe. I inhaled a deep breath and blew out the anxiety that threatened below the surface.
“Let’s just forget about them like they forgot about us,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. He needed to see that I’d moved on, even if I really hadn’t. “If you do have one of those permanent connections with another soul, you feel it, right? Like you do with your Twin Flame, just not quite as strong?”
“Yes. Do you feel it with Asia and Brock?”
“I do. It wasn’t immediate like it was with Jeric, but something deep inside me—”
“Your soul,” Theo suggested.
“Right. I feel a bond with them. Like we’ve known each other forever in one way, except I don’t feel like I really know them at all.”
“It’s your soul recognizing the connection when your brain does not. Yet. You don’t necessarily recognize the peopl
e—the entire package—they are now, but you do at the soul level.”
“Yes,” I agreed. That was exactly how I felt with them. And they weren’t the only ones. “And that’s something that would remain even when the world or universe or angels or whatever are trying to erase the relationship, right?”
Theo’s eyes scrunched, and he tilted his head. “What do you mean, little bird?”
I suppressed the need to roll my eyes at the nickname. How could he not see things had changed between us?
“You and Mira said the universe makes things happen so we can serve our roles as Guardians. Things like all evidence of our existences disappearing. People forgetting we were ever in their lives. And by universe, I’m imagining angels.”
He nodded. “That’s how we understand things.”
“So whatever it is the angels do,” I continued, “these soul connections are stronger, right? That’s why we feel something with Brock and Asia, because it goes beyond this current lifetime?”
“Correct. That kind of bond is at the soul’s level, not the physical level. You’ll know it when you see such a soul. In fact, because you are more in tune with your own soul now, you’d feel the connection even more strongly than you did before, even when the physical world denies your part in it.”
My throat tightened at his words. Or maybe at how easily he said them, as if it were no big deal that the world denied your existence. Even your own parents. Ugh. I couldn’t push that from my mind.
“Leni,” Theo said, his narrowed eyes trained on me, “are you still thinking of your parents?”
“No,” I answered, probably a little too quickly. “I’m just trying to understand it all because of Brock and Asia and—” I paused, choosing my words carefully. “—and what you all said about Nathayden and Rebethannah. I was wondering if we’d recognize them if we ever saw them.”
Theo’s eyes had tightened infinitesimally at the mention of the dyad’s names before he pivoted toward his desk. He cleared his throat as he sat down. “Yes, you would most likely know them, at least at a soulful level. Of course, if you could remember from other life cycles, you’d recognize them easier and faster.”
A dismissal and an assignment all rolled into one sentence.
“I’ll work on it,” I muttered as I made my way to the door. I knew everyone was right about that being a priority, and trust me, I wanted to remember. There was nothing like having glimpses of yourself across time and being unable to clearly recall it all. I only wished everyone could agree on the best way to do so.
Mira thought the most painful memories would be easiest to recall since they’d be imbedded deeper, and she thought it also most effective because they contained the life lessons that would make us better Guardians and achieve more in this lifetime. Anything else we remembered was superfluous in her eyes. She tried to convince us that focusing on the pain in our hearts and souls would lead us to the pain from our past lives, but all it did was remind us of the horrible things we’d been through in this life. I hated when Jeric had sessions with her, because he had enough pain in this lifetime and Micah’s that Mira drew out too easily, making him rehash it all every time.
Theo, on the other hand, believed we suppressed painful memories, and they would be the hardest to recall. He believed in the gradual-then-suddenly theory that we’d slowly regain glimpses of our past lives if we tried to focus on certain triggers, and then, suddenly, one day we’d remember it all. He suggested looking at pictures or bringing out heirlooms of past eras, but it hadn’t done much for me. He figured it was just a matter of finding the right trigger.
“Have you been using the Book?” Theo asked as I opened the door. He referred to the Book of Phoenix, the journal where Jacey had written down her and Micah’s story to help us remember things faster this time around.
“I write in it, yes,” I said as I paused in the doorway.
“Keep doing so. It has more answers than you realize. It belonged to Jacquelena in previous lives, you know.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. Why hadn’t he mentioned this before? But his glasses were on as he focused intently on a paper in front of him. I shook my head and closed the door behind me. There was nothing in the Book from previous Jacquelenas except Jacey’s story, and I’d read it a thousand times already. If there was anything to glean from her writings, we already had. And I’d jotted down things from time to time since being here at the Phoenix manor, like the few bits and pieces I remembered from the cycle before Jacey, when Jeric and I were One soul—but it’s not like the Book suddenly began filling in all of the blanks.
Then again … Theo wasn’t the first one to tell me the Book was more than a journal. The Keeper in the Space Between had said there was more to the Book than I knew.
Hmm…
Several Guardians mingled in the outer offices, and I pushed past them, feeling Jeric’s presence just outside. Neither of us had taken the opportunity to get to know too many of the others; only Brock and Asia and a couple of other dyad pairs who we’d been assigned to Gate duty with. I honestly didn’t know who permanently belonged at our Gate and who didn’t, because people were constantly coming and going. Some went out and returned from missions. Some were visiting from other Gates around the world, while our own were out traveling, too. And we knew there were some we’d yet to meet who’d been on missions since before Jeric and I had even crossed paths in Italy. According to Melinda, there were seven Gates on Earth with over a thousand Guardians at any given time. Considering the population of Earth, that was a miniscule number, but I found it hard to believe so many of these people were scattered about the planet as complete unknowns to the regular world.
“Hey, babe,” Jeric said, snagging my hand as soon as I stepped outside. He’d obviously been waiting for me, and rather impatiently since he tugged me so hard, I nearly fell into his arms. After he gave me a quick kiss, I pulled back to get a good look at him and gauge his needs.
His blond hair had grown out a bit since we’d been here, and it was at its usual level of disheveled-ness, rather than being a complete mess standing on end as if he’d been pulling it. And he wore a big smile with dimples that made my thighs clench, and the grin reached all the way to his bright blue eyes. I couldn’t help but return the smile. He was in a good mood, which meant Mira had gone easy on him this time … or had ditched him again.
“Good news. We got a shift,” he said as he entangled his fingers with mine and pulled me toward the stairwell. “It starts in ten.”
I hurried alongside him although his strides were much longer than mine. “With Brock and Asia?”
“Nope. Beggars can’t be choosers. We’re filling in for a pair who had to take off for something going on up in Atlanta. We’re with Mat and Kel.”
I snorted and looked up at Jeric. “Can you behave?”
He shrugged. “No problem. I’m secure in my manhood. As long as they don’t try anything. Not that I’d blame them with this bod.”
I slid my arm around his waist and squeezed. “This bod is mine.”
“Damn straight.”
I giggled at the double entendre.
Chapter 3
“Oh, this should be interesting,” Mat said as soon as Leni and I met him and Kel near the water for our shift a few minutes later, the golden light of the afternoon sun reflecting off the bay’s surface and through their translucent forms. His voice sounded even more feminine than usual in his astral state. Probably because his soul was in its more natural condition—or was it her soul I should say? Even his essence took on more of a female shape.
We’d met Mat and Kel one of the first nights we were allowed out of the recovery room after being Forged, when Brock and Asia were showing us around the grounds of the Phoenix manor. Mat was shorter and thinner, cut like a skateboarder, with long, brown hair that only emphasized his fe
minine looks. Kel was taller, with a buzz cut, and a body more like Brock’s and mine. We’d come through the mansion Leni and I had argued over so many times, and out the large wooden doors that led to the grassy lawn with the oak trees I’d seen in my dreams. Beyond the lawn was the water, and there I’d stopped short with my mouth hanging open. Mat and Kel had been standing by the shore, kissing under the moonlight. Or, at least, I assumed they were. I had to look away as soon as my brain caught up with my eyes. I’d done some kinky shit in my life, but watching two guys make out? No thanks. Not my thing. At. All.
To be honest, I was surprised to see a gay couple as dyads. Leni and I hadn’t been told much at that point, but we’d learned that each Twin Flame pair had what we humans would describe as a masculine side and a feminine one, two halves of a whole soul, although the differentiation was more complex than that. So at the time, I’d assumed that meant each dyad pair consisted of a dude and a chick. Obviously, I assumed wrong.
According to Brock, who gave us the low-down, Mat’s soul’s name was Matoria, and she was the feminine half with Kelverich, the masculine side. In other words, she usually took a female body, and he took a male one. When Matoria came to Earth for this life cycle, her soul found its home in a male fetus. Brock said her soul had almost gone Dark because her so-called Christian parents disowned Mat because he had the hots for guys. After being on the streets for a while, Mat finally found Kel—who’d had no interest in men until he met Mat. Total wig out at first that Brock said included a fistfight, but once they remembered who they were and reached the Gate, it all made sense, and they were just as much together as Leni and me or any other dyad couple. I’d heard we had a lesbian couple at our Gate, too, but they’d been out on a mission for weeks, and we hadn’t met them yet. Not that I gave a shit before about who loved who—Leni’s concern about my potential behavior came because I loved pussy, and I wouldn’t stand down from an argument that it was the best thing God gave man—but I now had a whole different perspective about homosexuality.