Within the Realm (The Gifted Realm Book 1)

by Jillian Neal

  It was the end of May, and the weather in Arlington couldn’t have been more beautiful. As he thought that he’d very much like to take Emily on a drive up the parkway with the top down, instead of going to make certain his uncle actually had food and that rats hadn’t taken over the apartment again, Rainer sighed and wrapped his arm around Emily.

  “Can you believe we’re actually done?” she gushed excitedly. He kissed the side of her head as they walked.

  “I can believe that I am actually done; I cannot believe you are actually done.” She beamed as they approached his car in the parking lot off of the Humanities Building.

  His father had written into the will that Rainer was to be given a portion of the estate upon turning sixteen, for the purpose of purchasing a car. Rainer had taken to the task with great finesse. He wasn’t terribly interested in acquiring the rest of his parents’ estate in two days’ time; other than to pay back the Haydenshires. He saw his acquisition as a complication, for the most part.

  The money for the car had been earmarked and, as he and his father shared a fanatical love of the automobile, he’d been left enough to purchase something top of the line. He held open the door of his 1965 crimson Mustang convertible, with Le Mans stripes.

  He placed his hand on the curve of Emily’s back and guided her into the seat. That touch alone had him reeling. He ached to run his hands over all of her luscious curves, but her proposition had him nervous again as he sank into the cushioned leather seat and turned the key. He revved the engine, just to make her smile. He slung his arm behind her seat to ease out of his parking space.

  Rainer chuckled as he took in Logan backing Adeline up against the brick wall of the breezeway between the Humanities building and one of the Science buildings. He leaned, and she gave him a grin that unmistakably said, ‘come get me’. Rainer backed out as Emily giggled at her brother’s moves.

  He took it slow through the winding lanes of the Academy, while he tried to get his mind off of what he’d like to be doing with Emily. He reminded himself to take in the campus, as it would be one of the last times he’d be making this drive as a student.

  “Rainer, I want to go with you,” Emily started in as soon as they made their way onto Venton Drive.

  “Em,” he shot her a pleading gaze. “I’m just gonna go up there and make sure he hasn’t imploded. I need to go today. I want to spend all day with you tomorrow, and I really don’t want to see him Friday.” She knew perfectly well why seeing his loafing uncle on his twenty-first birthday could be problematic, to say the least.

  “But none of that is a reason that I can’t go with you now,” she huffed. Rainer’s jaw clenched slightly as he made the turn onto the highway.

  “You can’t go with me now, Miss Haydenshire, because he is a vile, repulsive individual who I would never allow you to be within arm’s length of. And because he lives in the most dangerous part of Norfolk, which is saying something.”

  Emily gave her customary eye-roll.

  “Says my boyfriend, head of Ioses Order.”

  “Em, he’s my uncle, my only living relative. I owe it to my dad to go check on him, but I don’t care how well-trained I am, or what Order I’m the head of. I’m not dragging the love of my life into God-only-knows-what I might find when I get there.”

  Rainer tried not to pout as he began thinking that he’d love nothing more than to spend the six plus hours, round trip, in the car with her. Especially if, along the route somewhere, they could stop and maybe do a little more than talk; but he wasn’t giving in. He’d walked in on too many extremely disturbing things on his bi-weekly trips to check on his uncle. He would never allow Emily to be near his Uncle Stan. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the open top of his convertible. She glared at the onslaught of pine trees, like they’d greatly offended her.

  “But you’ll be gone all afternoon and half the night,” she gestured angrily at the clock on the dashboard. Well aware that she might smack his hand away, he dropped his arm from the back of her seat to her thigh.

  “I know, baby,” he soothed as he stroked her leg. “But just please let me go do this, and then tomorrow we’ll do whatever you want to do, ok?”

  “Whatever I want,” she huffed incredulously.

  “Em, please,” he willed calm into his tone as he turned onto the two-lane that lead to the Haydenshires’ vast farm.

  “We are going away this weekend,” she demanded.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “You know, I’m kind of starting to get a complex.” He saw it as her eyes flashed, and she blinked back tears. As many times as he’d tried to explain to her why he was nervous, she just kept settling on the preposterous idea that he didn’t want her. He hit the brakes and made a turn down a dirt lane, several miles from her parents’ homestead.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We’re going to talk.” He took it slow over the bumpy lane. He pulled in to a spot that overlooked the ridgeway and turned off the car.

  “Now, you want to tell me why you’re so upset? I know that you know I have to go see my uncle. And you also know that there isn’t anything I want more than you. So, what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?”

  “I don’t know,” her voice caught, as she gazed at a blue bird building a nest in a tree nearby. He put his arm around her and scooted her closer to him. As he thought, once again, that perhaps he should have purchased an automatic, as the gearshift was between them, he waited. He knew there was more, and when you’d been with the same girl since you were seven years old, you knew when to wait and when to talk.

  “Everything is changing,” finally spilled from her lips in a quivering gush. “You’re going to go off and join Iodex, and I’m going to try desperately to play for the Angels, or go and work for Auxiliary Order, and what then?” Her chin trembled slightly. “I didn’t do all of this work to graduate with you to never get to see you.” She wiped away tears, and he leaned across to hold her on his shoulder. She began to cry in earnest. He held her and rubbed her back as he kissed her forehead.

  Receivers like Emily felt every emotion of the Gifted people around them. It tended to make them extremely empathetic and also very emotional themselves. If Rainer was nervous or upset, Emily could feel it. If her parents or one of her brothers was having a difficult time with something, she felt that as well. Because Receivers could feel emotions all around them, they tended to develop their own internal shields, of sorts, but relationships between Receivers and Ioses Predilects, or Shields like Rainer, were extremely common, and they tended to last. Receivers needed Shields to protect them from the often exhaustive emotional lives they led. If a Receiver was inside of an Ioses’s Shield Cast, it would block out the emotions all around them. Protectors needed Receivers to soften their view of the world. They usually needed help thinking with their hearts and not always with their logistical minds.

  “Baby, nothing, not one single thing, not Iodex, and not the Angels, or the Auxiliary is as important to me as you are. I would give it all up in a second if I thought any of that was going to come between us. I will do whatever you want to do.” He tenderly wiped away her tears with his thumbs.

  “I don’t know if you know this...” he teased. “But I do happen to be coming into a fair amount of money here in a day or two. If you still want us to move in together, then nothing would make me happier. I am a little worried your dad might shoot me, however.” He’d finally made her giggle softly. Her smile faded fast though.

  “So you want to move in with me, you just won’t sleep with me.”

  “Emily Anne Haydenshire, I feel very, very certain that I’ve said all of this before, but allow me to reiterate. Our first time will not be in my car; it will be in a bed, and for you that bed should be in a palace.”

  She rolled her eyes at what she considered hyperbole, but he was quite serious.

  He continued, “Em, your parents have given me everything good in my life; most importantly
you. I want to be able to look your father in the eye when I sit down at his table and eat his food. That may not be a big deal to other people, but it’s a huge deal to me. I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you’re ready for us to start sleeping together, then I want that as well, but it will be treated with the respect that it deserves and that you deserve.” This finally seemed to elicit a genuine smile.

  “I know, and I love that you feel that way, but I want to be with you like that. I want to move in with you, and marry you, and I want us to go off this weekend and celebrate being done with school. Just take a little time for us before we go about doing all of the things we’ve been training to do for the past six years,” she used the full power of her emerald green eyes to plead her case.

  “You’re sure?” He’d heard this often enough to know that she was.

  “Yes,” she urged impatiently.

  “And you don’t think it might irk your father, or any of your brothers, that I’m taking you off for the weekend to have my way with you?” he gave her a cocky smirk.

  “Well, I might not phrase it that way. I know Henry and Keaton can be terrifying.” He rolled his eyes. The toddlers weren’t really who he was concerned about. “But, no, I don’t think they’ll mind. I mean, I’m almost twenty years old. Everyone thought we’d done that after we got back from London.”

  He glanced at the clock discreetly. He didn’t want to rush her if she needed to talk, but he also didn’t want to be driving back from Norfolk at midnight.

  “Ok, where do you want to go?”

  “How about the beach house?” she urged as a delighted grin lit her face. Rainer nodded and kissed her cheek.

  “It’s still too cold to swim.” He studied her.

  “I don’t want to swim.“ Her eyes darkened slightly, and he felt his jeans begin to tighten. He nodded and drew a steadying breath as he considered her proposal.

  “You think your parents will be ok with that?” He’d been with the Haydenshires to their beach house numerous times, even with his parents when they were alive. It had never entered his psyche that he might be staying in one of the master bedrooms, with the Haydenshires’ only daughter. Emily gave him a sweet grin and nodded.

  “Yes, Rainer, I think they’ll be fine with it.” She was clearly growing annoyed with his constant concern over what her parents might think.

  “Do you want me to ask them?” He felt certain that he should be the one doing the asking, but she shook her head.

  “No, I’ll ask them tonight, while you and Logan are gone.” She smirked; she knew him too well. She’d known all along that he’d ask Logan to go to Norfolk with him, and that Logan would agree.

  With a chuckle, he nodded, and then turned back to her.

  “I love you,” he gazed into the depths of her emerald eyes.

  “I love you, too,” she leaned in as he placed his hand on her cheek and guided her lips to his.

  Norfolk and his uncle could wait, he decided as soon as he tasted her lips. She was the sweetest candy he’d ever had in his mouth. He slipped his tongue between her lips, and devoured her mouth as he held her face tenderly.

  He let his other hand travel back to her thigh. She shifted, and his hand slipped under her skirt. With a hungry moan, he began to knead her silky skin. He felt her hands brush over him as she began to caress him through his zipper line. He needed to stop her, but he desperately wanted her to keep going. Unable to fight it, he traced his hands up her thigh and hesitantly caressed the scrap of damp satin between her legs. She panted and let her legs fall further apart.

  “Not in my car,” he vowed more to himself than to her. She nodded and let her eyes open hesitantly. She seemed to be willing composure as much as he was.

  “Ok, but Friday night, at the beach house.”

  Rainer swallowed hard, as he nodded, and cranked the car again. He backed up enough to turn around, and then proceeded back down the dirt road. His mind was full of her, the sweet heavenly way she smelled, the way she tasted, the way her hands felt on him, and the way she felt in his hands.

  He shook himself from his reverie as he turned down the gravel lane that led to Haydenshire farm. He proceeded through the massive wrought-iron gates that displayed the Haydenshire crest--the lion seated inside the widespread falcon wings. It was the perfect crest. The lion represented the strength of family, and the falcon was the sign of all Gifted families within the American Realm. It stood for the understanding of the Earth’s energies. The Lawsons’ crest had a Phoenix splayed over the falcon wings, overcoming impossible odds. Rainer sighed; that was certainly what his father had done and what he’d expected of Rainer. As he forced that pressure from his mind, for the moment at least, he held Emily’s hand and made the approach to the large barn where all of the Haydenshires parked their cars.

  Logan’s hand-me-down Accord was already there, as was Mrs. Haydenshire’s Suburban. The Governor’s minivan was missing, as was Patrick’s recently-acquired F150. They were both still at work in Arlington, Rainer assumed.

  He slid out of his seat and moved to open Emily’s door.

  The Farmhouse

  They proceeded across the gravel driveway and took in the expansive farmland. Rainer opened the door on the side of the house and they entered the kitchen.

  “Where’d you go?” Logan mumbled with a hunk of apple he’d just plucked from a bowl on the windowsill in his mouth. Adeline giggled as she watched him and shook her head.

  Rainer shrugged, “Just to hang out for a few before I head to Norfolk.”

  Mrs. Haydenshire rushed in, following the twins. Both boys were wearing nothing but diapers, and wielding water guns. Rainer laughed as he and Emily each scooped up one of her little brothers.

  “We only play with water guns out in the yard,” Mrs. Haydenshire drawled. She used the opportunity she’d gotten with the twins unable to run away to slip t-shirts over their heads. “Not in Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom,” she finished her scolding as everyone tried not to laugh.

  Emily’s eyes lit up. “Adeline, why don’t you stay here with me, since Rainer is just about to ask Logan to go with him to Norfolk?” She raised her eyebrow at Rainer. He tousled her hair and helped himself to an apple.

  “Actually, I was going to offer. We haven’t hung out in forever, and I’ve been craving D’eggs,” Logan drawled excitedly.

  Logan was well over six feet tall, just like his father and brothers. They were all tall and muscular, but Logan was also perpetually hungry. D’eggs was a diner in Norfolk, and its most- bragged about dish was a seven egg omelet. It was Logan’s favorite.

  Rainer, who stood just below six feet, was several inches shorter than Logan. He was thankful that Emily had taken after her mother, and was on the shorter side. He’d never understand Emily’s concern that she was too short and too curvy, which she informed him of on a regular basis. To him, she was utter perfection. She was petite and had ample cleavage, which Rainer generally drooled over. It went right along with her equally-luscious backside. She, however, qualified herself as short and in need of losing weight; no matter how many times Rainer adamantly disagreed.

  Mrs. Haydenshire relieved Rainer of Keaton, and patted his face consolingly.

  “You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved, Rainer,” she offered kindly. Her words shook Rainer from his reverie over Emily. Keaton placed his thumb in his mouth, and laid his head on his mother’s shoulder.

  “I know, Mrs. Haydenshire,” Rainer soothed. This was something she quoted to him whenever he insisted on checking on his uncle.

  Adeline looked concerned.

  “I probably shouldn’t stay; I need to get home,” she fussed, and Logan clenched his jaw. Adeline’s mother was a source of constant tension in their relationship. Logan had been begging her to come and live on the Haydenshires’ farm for years now, but she’d adamantly refused to leave her mother to fend for herself.

  Mrs. Haydenshire stepped in again.

 
“Adeline, sweetheart, we’d love you to stay for dinner. I’m certain you and Emily have loads to talk about, what with graduation Friday.”

  Mrs. Haydenshire was always happy to celebrate any child’s accomplishments, whether she’d given birth to them or not, but she’d been a bit melancholy over having Logan, Emily, and Rainer all graduating in the same year.

  Adeline’s weight was another concern for both Logan and Mrs. Haydenshire. She was painfully thin. It was well known that any money that Adeline’s mother, who’d renamed herself Candy a few years before, received went to support her many varied habits and not to feed her daughter. To combat this, Mrs. Haydenshire plied her with food any time Adeline was at the farmhouse.

  There was already a cherry pie in a covered cake plate on the large island that ran through the center of the Haydenshires’ kitchen, that Adeline had been eyeing.

  “Why don’t you stay here tonight with Emily, and then Logan can take you home tomorrow?” Mrs. Haydenshire urged. Relief played heavily in Adeline’s eyes.

  Rainer felt his heart prick; he couldn’t imagine what Logan must go through as he watched the abuse Adeline suffered at the hands of her mother.

  “Are you sure it wouldn’t be any trouble?” Adeline whispered as Logan shook his head and held her hand. Mrs. Haydenshire blinked back tears as she stared adoringly at Adeline.

  “No, sweetheart, we’d be thrilled to have you as long as you’d like to stay,” she urged, for what must have been the hundredth time in the four-year span that Logan and Adeline had been dating.

  “Thank you. I’ll just call my mom, Logan pulled his cell phone from his pocket and handed it to her. She smiled up at him sweetly, but he braced himself. He seemed to have a pretty good idea how her conversation was likely to go. Everyone in the kitchen heard Adeline hesitantly explain her plans to her mother and then insist that she had no money. She promised that she’d see if she could come up with some by the next day. She rolled her eyes in an effort to keep from crying.