Tilting her head the opposite way, Heidi once again forced any thoughts to leave her mind that had nothing to do with this kiss. She matched his slow tempo even though her heart begged to differ. She felt as if she could go into cardiac arrest at any given moment, and if she did, she sincerely hoped that Brison knew CPR.
No wonder the ladies in movies seemed as if they could swoon from being kissed. Heidi understood now. She hadn’t realized that so many sensations came along with such a simple-yet lovely-act. Thinking? What was that? She had lost the ability to do so as his lips parted hers and she felt the tip of his tongue entering her mouth. She let out a gasp of surprise, but she didn’t pull away. She didn’t want to pull away.
She moved her arms up to wrap them around his neck, attempting to pull him closer as her tongue crept forward to touch against his. What a spark! Heat washed over her entire frame, from head to toe. She could feel the flutters of metaphoric butterflies in her stomach as Brison’s tongue slid over hers. He tasted wonderful. He reminded her of honey milk. Was it possible for a kiss to taste like honey milk?
“Mm,” He groaned deeply, attempting to pull away from her. No! He couldn’t pull away yet. She pressed her hand against the back of his neck, hearing another low groan sound from his throat as she echoed with a small sound of her own. She hadn’t realized such a simple kiss could intensify this much; nor had she ever imagined her first kiss would be so steamy.
Oh no. Steamy. Steam. There was literal steam. He broke the kiss, gasping as he reached behind his head for her wrists to pull her arms away.
“Ow,” He muttered, wincing as he glanced down at her fingers, frowning. “That hurt, Love. Nearly felt like you had a lighter against my skin.”
Oh, how humiliating. Heidi felt her face flushing further as she gazed at him with terrified eyes. She quickly stood from where she had been sitting, trying to put distance between them as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat.
“I’m so sorry,” She said gently. How was she meant to explain that? She couldn’t explain it. There was no possible way to explain what had just happened or why it had happened. Brison wouldn’t understand. He couldn’t know. Oh, she was so stupid!
“I need to go,” She whirled about, reaching for the door handle and turning it quickly.
“Heidi, wait,” Brison started, moving towards her. “It’s okay. Stop.”
“I’m sorry, Brison. I must leave,” She said, feeling a little sick to her stomach as she yanked at the door, finally getting it open. She hurried out into the cold night air, the door closing shut behind her as she hurried down the side walk to put as much distance between them as she could.
Brison was yelling behind her, calling for her to come back. But she couldn’t. This was so terrible. Again, Isaiah had proven his point. He was always right! She couldn’t possibly have a relationship with a human boy. She would hurt him. This was all because of her stupid body and her incapability to control her emotions. Stupid!
“Heidi, come back!” Brison yelled, his breath disappearing into the air as he watched her getting further away until she had disappeared around the corner. He sighed, shaking his head. He hadn’t meant for her to run away from him like that. She seemed so frightened.
It was only in the silent moments following that Brison lifted his right hand, realizing that his palm was red and blistered. The confused Australian glanced back to the door and saw the dull red glow, like a sword that had just been pulled from a flame. His brows furrowed as he gazed back to the direction in which Heidi had trekked, wondering why it was that the young woman always seemed to be running. Was she running from him or from herself?
12
The weeks were passing quickly. A certain Ice Prince may have begun to worry when he hadn’t heard nor seen from a particular brunette since the evening of a rather ridiculous hit and run that resulted in her leaving with a thick headed Aussie who was to blame for the whole incident in the first place. He had stopped by her dorm room on four different occasions.
The first time he had been greeted with the excuse that Heidi was sick. Her short beanpole roommate Sarah had insisted Heidi didn’t want to give the virus to anyone else and that if Isaiah knew what was good for him, he’d come back at another time. Fair enough. Sick didn’t look very good on him.
He returned the following Tuesday only to be stopped at the door yet again by Sarah. This time she said that Heidi was having lady issues and the great crimson flow had given her cramps. It was entirely too much information that he could have lived without knowing, but he wished her well and was on his way.
The third attempt came on Valentine’s Day, when Isaiah felt himself to be particularly clever in arriving with some chocolates and a teddy bear. It was merely a gesture to make Heidi feel better, and he was somewhat offended when Sarah blocked his way once again.
“What is it this time?” He asked with a roll of his eyes.
“She’s on the phone with her dad.”
“Now I know you’re lying through your teeth. I assure you that her father wouldn’t know how to work a telephone if his life depended on it,” He took a step forward, only to have her lift her arm, blocking his path.
“Seriously, Dude. She’s busy. She doesn’t want to see anybody.”
“Or she just doesn’t want to see me? Honestly, I’ve dealt with her little tantrums before, Sarah-who-deemed-herself-Heidi’s-Keeper. Move out of my way.”
“No,” Sarah replied, her brows furrowing as she stared at him behind her thick framed glasses. “You need to go away. If Heidi wants to see you, she’ll call you. She’s seriously not taking any visitors. Not even the Australian dude who keeps popping up.”
Isaiah tilted his head to the side. “Brison?” What the hell was he stopping by for? What did he do to her? Was that why Heidi was acting so strange? Isaiah really couldn’t describe what he was feeling at the moment, but he didn’t like it at all. It was somewhere between wanting to punch that Aussie in the face and wanting to jab an icicle up his rump. Either option was a good possibility at the moment.
“Did something happen between them?” Isaiah inquired, trying to poke his head in the room. Sarah was stronger than she looked, and just as bloody stubborn. No wonder she and Heidi got along so well.
“That’s none of your business,” Sarah said, moving her head in the same direction as his. “Now, do you want to leave a message for her and go, or do I need to pepper spray your ass?”
With a roll of his eyes and a rather sarcastic scoff, Isaiah left the bear and chocolates. He wouldn’t give up so easily.
It was nearing the beginning of March when Isaiah decided enough was enough. Sarah could try to stop him if she wanted, but he was going to see Heidi one way or another. He hadn’t promised his father he’d protect a girl just so she would pull a stunt like this to where he couldn’t even see her. That wasn’t how this agreement worked.
Yeah, he got it. Heidi was upset over the Edie situation. Maybe he’d gotten her a bit riled up, but honestly, how many times had she done the same thing to him? She was too touchy for her own good. Girls.
He waited beneath a lone maple tree near the edge of the campus, seating himself against the dry earth as he waited to see the young human girl pass by. He knew that once Sarah went to class, he could get into Heidi’s room without her little bodyguard there to stop him. He only wanted to talk. Why was that so hard?
It was oddly warm. Isaiah wasn’t sure he liked it. For the beginning of March, the lower sixties wasn’t something he was entirely comfortable with. He preferred the forties and below. It was too early to be in temperatures such as this.
Glancing up towards the naked branches of the maple tree, Isaiah wondered what the trees knew. He was aware they were alive. They could hear the conversations that happened around them. They could hear what the wind was saying and what the rain drops would whisper as they fell.
He also knew the trees were incredibly vulnerable at the moment. Without their leaves, tree
s could not hide their secrets as easily. If Isaiah played his cards right, he could get whatever information he wished from the bark-heads. The only issue was that he was not a person of the Earth. No, not the humans; the actual Earth people. The diggers-those damn Dirties.
Shifting a little, he turned around until he could sit facing the tree. He reached forward, resting his fingertips against the trunk as he gazed upwards.
“What do you know of the happenings with my kind?” He asked quietly, not wanting anyone to walk by and think him mad. He wasn’t mad; they just wouldn’t understand his capabilities with nature. He would find it odd for someone to be talking to a tree as well, he supposed, if he were human. But he wasn’t.
He heard the faint groan of the Maple tree as a gentle breeze swept over the campus. Strands of platinum blonde hair fell against his cheek and he moved his free hand to push it away, fully concentrating on any communication the tree may have been trying to make with him.
As the seconds passed by, Isaiah’s brows furrowed. The tree wasn’t going to participate. He could tell it still had sour feelings towards him for the heavy snows that had damaged its branches. Honestly, why did the blame always fall on him?
With a heavy sigh, he pulled his hand away, glaring up at the tree as he pushed himself into a standing position and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“You’re a stubborn, bark-head. Y’know that?” He asked.
It was then that his fingertips brushed against the smooth surface of the heart shaped pendent within the safety of his coat pocket. He had been holding that necklace for safe keeping so he could return it to Heidi. The only issue was he hadn’t been given the chance to give it to her.
He turned his head, wanting to kick himself in the arse for forgetting this was a stake out of sorts. Blasted trees and blasted circumstances. He didn’t like this a bit more than Heidi did, and if he were given the opportunity to be around her, he would complain. It wasn’t as if he was given the chance to blog about it like any other young person could.
Oh yes. He could see it now. He could imagine what sort of responses he would get for his blog posts.
My Father won’t let me come home because our kingdom is being invaded by unknown enemies and he’s afraid I might get myself killed.
Or perhaps he would just get straight to the more frustrating point and rant for hours, keyboard smashing and becoming incomprehensible.
My family has a truce with our natural enemy in an effort to make the worlds more peaceful with one another and the enemy’s daughter is a royal pain in my arse.
Yes, that would work out quite well. He was confident that it would only be a matter of time before men in a white van showed up at his door step to escort him to a small facility where they would want to experiment on his brain and treat him with electro-shock therapy. That was the thing about humans though. Not everyone was insane on this planet. There were some who had witnessed very real things. There were others who refused to believe anything else could exist aside from humans. If only they knew.
Isaiah was tugged out of his thoughts as he saw the familiar thick framed glasses and annoyingly bright yellow beanie hat come into view.
“There you are,” He said lowly.
He watched as Sarah disappeared into the building before he turned in the opposite direction, resuming his mission of finally reaching Heidi in person. She would have no choice but to talk to him today, whether she wanted to or not.
13
Six months had passed since she had first arrived on this planet, and for the first time since she’d gotten there, Heidi finally felt at peace. Two weeks prior she had made the decision to drop out college, and she had until the end of this week to move to a new place. That was going to be a feat within itself.
She knew it probably would have been easier to ask Isaiah if she could stay with him, but she was mad at him! She was not about to ask him for anything. She couldn’t ask Brison. She couldn’t even face Brison. She knew that he had questions and she was unable to answer them. She had nearly burnt the poor man. He was off limits as well.
The only choice that she had had in those first desperate moments was to cut off communication with anyone aside from Sarah, because even though she and Sarah hadn’t talked much more beforehand, she felt oddly comfortable with the human female. Besides, Isaiah was probably too busy with Edie and the other little Earth girls he had been belly rubbing with. She didn’t have time for his nonsense. She didn’t have time for any of it!
She clung to the hope that Lille would return, but that never happened. It seemed the young Fire fairy was gone for good and Heidi was once again on her own, left to ponder what was happening in her kingdom and if her father was still alive. There were some nights when she awoke in such a panic, such a deep paralyzing fear. All she could do was lay there and weep.
It was unfair that she felt so hopeless. She knew she could do more than play little damsel in distress, locked away in a dorm room on a planet that was not her own. Why did her father lack faith in her? Why had her father trusted Isaiah to stay with her here? Was that dumb Icer meant to comfort her? Distract her? Well, he was doing a grand job of that, now wasn’t he?
Heidi glanced at the bright illuminated screen of the laptop sitting upon her bed. She had never really used much technology here before. She thought that telephones were very peculiar and she did like that humans could watch cat videos at any time they desired; but she really felt that these gadgets were of no use to her.
In her kingdom, if she needed to contact her father, she would simply think of him. It was not uncommon for Fire people or Ice people even, to use telepathy to communicate with one another. They were capable of entering one another’s minds during dreams, too; at least with their own kind. She supposed she should have been grateful for that considering Isaiah had been pretty persistent with trying to contact her as of late.
Why was it so hard for the boy to take the hint she didn’t want to see him? He wasn’t the only person she was avoiding! She did feel sort of bad to avoid Brison. Brison hadn’t done anything wrong. Brison was nice. She liked Brison. She could still recall their kiss quite vividly and she felt guilty every time she thought about how she burned him.
That’s why she couldn’t be around anyone. That’s why she had to be closed off from the world. That’s why she was leaving this town and going somewhere else, preferably to be alone until she was allowed to return home.
She lifted her hand to pinch at the bridge of her nose, feeling the pressure building up in her head. She was so stressed. Why hadn’t her father contacted her? Why hadn’t Lille returned? Why had she consumed every last chocolate in that stupid little heart shaped box that Isaiah had left for her?
She collapsed against the bed, fully prepared to sleep away the afternoon when there was a sudden knock upon the door.
Oh no.
She held her breath, eyes wide as she stared at the door. If she was perfectly quiet, perhaps whoever it was would go away. Or maybe it was Sarah. Had she forgotten something?
“I know you’re in there.”
Drat! It was Isaiah. Why wouldn’t he give up already?
Her lungs were beginning to ache, begging for her to exhale as she closed her eyes tightly. If she was just silent and still, he would go away. He had no choice but to go away. The door was locked. He couldn’t come in. She was safe to drown in her self-pity for another day.
It was only when she heard him mutter “ridiculous” that she glanced at the door again. She could hear the ice that was crystalizing, freezing over the metal door handle before there was a faint click. That cheater!
She pushed herself up quickly, nearly knocking the laptop off the bed as she watched the door swing open. She met his eyes, only to watch him roll his own.
“Honestly, Heidikin. Was that necessary?”
Heidi frowned, brows furrowing as she stared at him. “You broke my door.”
“You broke my dignity,” He retorted, shutting the door
behind him. It slowly swung back open when it didn’t catch. He glanced at it. “I’m sure that can be fixed.”
“What are you doing here?” Heidi asked, standing up from the bed, moving over to the closet and opening it. She pulled out an overnight bag that Sarah had given her, placing it on her bed as she began to rummage through it for something to put on. She didn’t feel comfortable being in her pajamas around Isaiah.
“Well I’m making sure you’re alive, first off,” He replied.
“You know I am alive,” She stated with a shake of her head. “The sun is still in the sky, is it not?”
“It’s nice to see you’re still delightful,” He commented, moving over to sit down upon her bed. Why did he always insist on doing that?
Heidi pulled a blouse from the bag and lifted her eyes to gaze at him. She just didn’t have it in her to do this today. She didn’t want to bicker with Isaiah. She didn’t want to get into another one of these senseless tiffs. Had he nothing better to do with his time? Had he ran out of pretty Earth girls to seduce?
She held his gaze for a moment longer, only looking away when he began to speak again.
“Something’s wrong with you,” He pointed out, cocking his head to the side. “What happened that night after you bumped your noggin against the road, Heidi? You went off with that imbecile and left me there to look like an arse. You humiliated me in front of Edie and trust me, it wasn’t easy trying to explain why you were there throwing a fit in the first place. She was convinced we dated.”
“But we’ve never dated!” Heidi blurted out suddenly, frustrated with him. “We will never date,” She glared at him, gripping the shirt tightly within her hands. “You are the most arrogant, self-centered, annoying, thick-headed, pompous….jerk I’ve ever met,” She was trembling as she stood there, fingers tangling into the material so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.
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