“I can feel he’s nearby,” he continued, “and I must keep you safe, Layla.”
I looked down at the antique ring on my finger. It had a tree and five-pointed star design which should offer protection if I needed it.
“Who?” I asked.
His brow furrowed. “Someone that wants to destroy my kind.”
I nodded slowly and could sense him perceiving my thoughts again. It was easy for him to answer my next question. He let go of my hand and took a step backward. I took a step backward too, suspecting what might happen next. It wasn’t until it did, that I truly believed my suspicions about the naked, olive-skinned stranger.
The gray sweatpants dropped to the floor as his limbs and torso shrunk to the size of a small child. His skin became a feathered mantle and wings replaced his arms. The man was gone and I looked instead at the bird of prey in front of me. Its dark eyes were mesmerizing. Thick yellow claws clung to the metal bar of the balcony railing. Its strong legs supported its majestic white and brown-feathered chest and its dark brown wings were folded at its sides.
“Te-” I began and closed my slackened jaw.
“Layla,” the voice in my head replied, “I will see you again.”
~*~
My living room was empty and suddenly seemed too big as I ambled around it. I picked up the book I was reading, read a line and looked up as I rubbed my finger over my ring. When would I see him again, I wondered. And who had he gone to fight? I prayed he would be okay.
The downstairs buzzer chimed. I put my book down on the sofa. I was not expecting any visitors. Could it be him? But why would he ring the doorbell? His face and the image of the bird took over my mind and I rushed to the door.
The image in the viewer crushed my hopes. It wasn’t him, but it was another man. He was handsome too. The buzzer chimed again.
I pressed the button.
“Yes,” I replied, “can I help you?”
“Miss Bradshaw?” his deep voice replied.
“Err – yes. Can I help you?”
“I have to talk to you,” he continued, “it’s about the man you recently met.”
“Wha- what?”
“You must let me in,” he said, “There’s something you need to know about him.”
His head was partially concealed in the hood of his dark gray coat, but strands of bright red hair still fluttered out. His eyebrows were pulled close together.
“I – err,” I hesitated.
I didn’t know this man at all, but then again, how well did I really know Teseen. Then I noticed his hand and buzzed the door open.
“Thank you,” he said, stepping inside my apartment and rubbing his hands together.
I stared at his tattoo as he tucked his bob-length hair behind his ear.
“Who are you?” I asked looking up. “And why do you know my name?”
He shifted his weight to his other foot. He had on a fitted white shirt under his coat, tucked into a pair of snug fitting jeans.
“I am Nesu,” he said.
I saw him glance at my ring.
“Has a man come to see you recently?” he asked, “A stranger.”
“Like you?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.
“He is tall and has brown hair,” he added, “and his name is Teseen.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Teseen-” I repeated.
He nodded.
“He’s a dangerous man, Miss Bradshaw,” he said, “very dangerous.”
“I don’t know anybody by that name,” I responded.
My hand wrapped around the Azurite crystal in my pocket as I took a small step backward.
He frowned.
“Are you sure he hasn’t been here?”
The crystal was warm in my hand.
“No,” I replied, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Nesu looked down at his hand and promptly hid the three intersecting triangle design in his pocket.
“Well, if he does come to see you,” he added. “You should know, he’s not who he says he is.”
But he wasn’t the only one, I thought.
“You must let me know if he contacts you,” he continued.
The crystal boosted my confidence too. I nodded at him and moved closer to the door.
“And how will I get in contact with you?” I asked.
He stepped backward. “I’ll be around,” he replied.
He turned around and left. I watched his long, gray coat disappear across the road and between two cars, from my kitchen window.
Chapter Five
The library had asked me to help out at one of the kid’s events, as one of their staff was off sick. The children were going to be making turkeys out of all kinds of materials. I didn’t mind working with children, but wouldn’t have wanted to be in the kid’s section permanently.
The room filled with moms and dads and kids. Some of the kids seemed to be there without parents. I noticed a little dark-haired girl in the back of the room. There was no adult with her or any other kids. I walked up to her and knelt down beside her.
“I love your picture,” I told her.
She nodded shyly at me and didn’t say anything.
“Do you want to join a table with other children?” I asked her.
She shook her head and kept looking down. “They don’t like me,” she turned her head slightly and whispered to me.
Then I recalled seeing her mother drop her off. She had been wearing a hijab. Was that perhaps why she was sitting by herself, I wondered. I knew what it was like to be alone and feel like everyone resented you.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Seven,” she said.
Her name was Abida she told me. I looked around the room and spotted another young girl sitting by herself. I walked over to her. She was supposed to be joined by her friend, but then her friend had gotten ill and couldn’t make it. I took her over to Abida’s table and knelt down next to them.
“Abida, this is Kirsten,” I said, “she was also sitting by herself.”
Abida looked up at me.
“Hello, Abida,” Kirsten said and smiled at her.
Abida smiled back and pushed a few coloring pens over to Kirsten’s side of the table. I stood up and walked over to a group of kids who were being very noisy, to see if they needed any help. I glanced back at Abida later and saw her laughing.
At the end of the afternoon, Abida’s mom came up to me.
“Thank you!” she said.
Abida came forward and gave me a hug. They both waved goodbye as I watched them disappear with the rest of the kids, parents, and turkey paraphernalia, quickly wiping a stray tear that snuck down my cheek. If I ever had children, I thought, I hoped they wouldn’t be ostracized.
~*~
I heard the flutter of wings and jumped up. Was it him? I hadn’t seen him for more than a week and had begun to fear he might be dead. As I reached the glass door, he landed elegantly on the balcony floor. He tucked his wings in and the feathers were replaced by his olive skin. His form shot upward and his tall naked body adorned my balcony. I handed him the sweatpants quickly, casting my gaze aside. My body was buzzing with energy now that he was back. I followed him inside and began to babble non-stop with the news of the strange man’s visit.
“And he had a Triquetra symbol on his hand,” I said.
Teseen sat quietly and listened on the sofa. Then he leaned forward and placed his hands on my shoulders when I stopped and took a breath.
“He said his name was Nesu?”
His lips were drawn tightly.
“Yes,” I replied, “and he said I shouldn’t trust you!”
Teseen shook his head, stood up and paced around the living room. I looked up at his bare back. The cuts were still healing, but were less red around the edges. I could see the poultice had worked on the infected wound on his side. It may not even scar. The first time I had made one, I had read the instructions in a book, naturally. It wasn�
�t a book I loaned, but rather one a close friend had bought for me. My mother had frowned when she read the title one day when they were visiting me.
“The art of Wiccan healing,” she said and looked at me with raised eyebrows.
Teseen slapped the kitchen counter, drawing my attention back. My gaze travelled down to the line of the sweatpants below his waist and the top of his pelvic muscles.
“I can’t believe he came here!” he said. “Nesu.”
“But it’s okay,” I replied, “I didn’t believe him.”
I stood up and grabbed hold of his hand. He let my hand go.
“It’s not safe for you if I stay,” he replied, “He may come back!”
He took a step closer, leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. Warmth travelled down my body.
“I have to go.”
“Wait!” I cried, “Please don’t go!”
He had barely been there a minute and he was now back at the balcony door.
“Teseen!”
He shifted into his hawk form and disappeared into the night. I stared at the door, but he didn’t return. How could he just leave again like that, I thought. I prayed Nesu wouldn’t come back. When he had been there the last time, I had held the crystal in my hand and an image had come into my mind. I saw Nesu drawing a bow and releasing the arrow. The arrow sailed through the air and sunk into the flesh of a bird in a tree. The bird crashed to the ground and Nesu laughed cruelly. The bird’s blood spread out like a red velvet river over the snowy bank. I could see the bird was a hawk.
The vision had not surprised me at the time. When I thought about it afterwards, I wondered why I had started having strange dreams and visions. I had never had them before, just small premonitions or déjà vu experiences which seemed natural. It all started just before I saw the hawk for the first time.
Now Teseen was gone. I was alone again and confused. When would I see him again? Was Nesu coming back? Could I really trust either of them? My mind and body felt heavy and occluded. My emotions were pressing through my resolve.
There was only one thing I felt like at that point. I had a standalone bath with clawed feet in my bathroom. It was my favorite thing in the apartment. I filled it with steaming hot water and added a few drops of lavender oil. I stripped off my clothes, threw them on the ground and climbed in. I sunk lower into the water until my shoulders were covered. Then I couldn’t keep my emotions under control any longer and succumbed to the flood of tears. I rested my head against the bath and sighed between the cascades. Why was all of this happening, I asked myself. I felt like I was being punished, like I was back at school again. I would never forget the incident.
“Here comes the weirdo!” one of the bitch club had called out, as I walked out of the school gym.
I had survived having people stare at my skinny legs for an hour and thought I was safe again, back in my uniform and pantyhose. I carried on walking towards my locker, clutching my gym bag in front of my chest.
Then I tripped.
The passageway erupted with cruel laughter and jeers.
“She’s so spastic!”
“Ha weirdo!”
I wished I could have just disappeared at that point, from the passageway, from the school, from the planet.
Chapter Six
A week passed and then another and still no Teseen. No hawk. I even resorted to visiting my parents to spend some time out of my deathly quiet apartment. But they were just more concerned about me when they saw how down I looked. My mother naturally invited me to come with her to church, which I politely declined. In the home of guilt and judgement, called the Catholic Church, I would either have harmed myself or many others at that point, I fantasized.
Five minutes after I’d returned from visiting them the buzzer rang. Had someone been watching me, I wondered. I hopped over to the viewer next to the door.
“Miss Bradshaw, I know it’s late -”
It was him again. Teseen said he was dangerous and I shouldn’t let him in, but I liked to make up my own mind about things. I knew what I had seen in my mind the last time he was there, but I had questions that Teseen wasn’t around to answer. In the weeks of his absence I had been having my strange dreams more frequently.
After the last one I had woken up with sweat dripping off my body. I had seen some kind of war that took place a long time ago. The sound of stamping feet surrounded me. Even my feet could not refrain from stamping on the clay ground in time to the beat of a drum which resonated through our bodies and the whole valley. I was dressed in leather, was bare foot and had an amulet around my wrist. The stone set in the center of the bracelet was an Agate. I was surrounded by other men and women dressed the same as I was. We had streaks of red and white painted on our faces and dark-skinned limbs. I could feel the group I was with were more than human. And I was too. Energy waves pulses between us and gave us great power as a collective. It was a war of magic, and magic our opponents possessed too, just different from ours. Theirs was dark and ours was light.
There was another major difference between them and us. While our feet stamped on the ground, they hovered above it. They did not have a corporeal form. They looked like a white, gray mist which changed constantly. There were distinguishable individual forms, if you stared long enough at the hazy mass, but staring at them too long was dangerous and brought a madness to the mind.
I could smell the strong scent of perspiration and herbs as the energy began to pulse stronger through our group of about one hundred men and women. The energy began to draw together and focus. Some of our people began to change, to channel more power in their natural form. I saw a bear, a tiger, a hawk, and a fox among the human forms.
Just as I saw the red fox, my conscious mind began to pull me out of the dream again. I clawed to stay and see what would happen next, who those other ethereal beings were, but I was yanked out into an awake state.
Now as I looked through the viewer at Nesu, I felt a mixture of fear and another emotion which I didn’t recognize immediately. Then I realized what it was I was feeling, he didn’t feel like a stranger. I buzzed the complex’s security door open and let the other curious, handsome man up to my apartment.
~*~
He stepped through the door and as he did, I knew what he was going to do just before he did it, but could do nothing to stop him. He grabbed me by the throat and pushed me against the wall.
I reached up to try and break his grip, but his knee smashed into my chest and my body collapsed. He put both hands around my neck and started to grip tighter and tighter. Panic closed in on me and my mind rushed at amphetamine speed. My throat was closed off and I could not get in any air. I felt small and weak as he began to throttle the life out of me. All I saw were his narrowed green eyes as I struggled against my complete helplessness.
A crashing sound made him loosen his grip for a second and my world grew a fraction larger. Then a sudden motion rammed him off me and onto the floor. I stumbled to the side, collapsed onto my knees and sucked in as much air as I could in one breath.
“I knew you’d come for her, you bastard!”
The tall naked man swung his fist. It landed with a thwack on his opponent, making him trip over the armchair. My heart pounded like the drum in my dream, faster and faster. My body felt rigid and icy with fear. I couldn’t move as I watched the two men pound each other.
Nesu threw Teseen into the bookcase, sending it crashing down on top of them. Books, trinkets and candles cluttered to the floor.
“Teseen!” I cried out.
“I told you I would take out your kind!” Nesu shouted at him.
Teseen brought his leg up swiftly, turned and pounded it into Nesu’s stomach. Nesu folded over and staggered backward. He turned his head and looked at me.
“But I thought I’d first kill the one thing you love,” he added and winked at me.
Teseen had a piece of the bookshelf in his hands. He lifted it over his head and swung it down onto Nesu’s head. Nesu’s b
ody collapsed to the floor.
“You leave her alone!” Teseen shouted back, “She’s got nothing to do with this!”
I pushed myself up and clung onto the kitchen counter.
Nesu got on his hands and knees and brought his leg up, sending Teseen flying backward into the coffee table.
“She has everything to do with it!” Nesu exclaimed, lunging for him.
He dived on top of Teseen and punched him in the face. He raised his hand to strike Teseen again.
“Aargh!” Nesu cried out.
I staggered closer, holding on to the top of the sofa.
Nesu lay completely still on top of Teseen.
“Teseen!” I wailed.
Then Nesu’s body flopped off the table and landed with a thud on the floor revealing Teseen’s naked heaving chest.
“You’re-”
“It’s not my blood, Layla,” he said.
Then I noticed the knife in his hand, dripping red.
Nesu’s body began to vibrate. The air around it became hazy and then his body was gone. In its place was a red fox.
~*~
Teseen pulled me into his arms.
“Thank god, you’re okay, Layla!”
I had so many questions, but they could wait. I stood up on the tips of my toes, tilted my head up and kissed his lips.
He didn’t move at first, then pulled me right up against him. He pushed his tongue into my mouth and tangled it up with mine. As he kissed me, if felt right. Multiple doorways of emotion suddenly opened. I felt such a strong connection with Teseen, it was as though we had known each before, known a deep, long-lasting love.
His voice channeled in my head.
“You know I can’t live without you!”
“I knew you would find me again,” I replied.
His eyebrows raised up suddenly and he grinned. I frowned. Then I realized my reply to him did not come out of my mouth. None of this made any sense, but it felt like it was meant to be and I wanted more of him, all of him. An urgency possessed me which I couldn’t stop. It was greater than just me, Layla.
He yanked my long sleeve dress up over my head and pulled me down on top of him on the sofa. I felt the pounding of his heart through my skin. As his lips touched mine I remembered a hundred other kisses going back over the eons. Under a cactus as a sand storm rose up in the distance, hiding away under the floor boards of a house as bombs exploded over our heads, after dancing around a roaring bonfire naked, holding a new born baby in my arms, a man just changed from being a hawk.
Sold To The Dragon Princes: The Novel Page 26