by C. R. Jane
“I’m sorry too,” I whispered to him.
I spend the next hour using a cloth to dab his wounds. He never wakes up, and I’m grateful for that. I try to pretend like he’s sleeping as I work. I whisper stories about my childhood to him. I tell him about my mother. I go over all the good things in my life that I’ve almost forgotten about. The sound of my voice seems to calm him and his breathing evens out.
I manage to clean the blood off, but there’s nothing I can do about the fact that he no longer has his beautiful wing.
I can only hope that he will forgive me someday and that I can save his other wing.
The hour is over before I can blink, yet it somehow feels like an entire lifetime has passed.
I take another moment to look at my beautiful warrior. I remember what I said to him in the garden that day when we had all the hope in the world that things were going to be different;
“Because nothing beautiful survives me. Do you understand that? My love will destroy you. It has destroyed everything good that has come into my life.”
I had been right.
I sit on my bed, waiting for Aiden to knock on the door. I feel numb, the kind of numbness you feel when you’re so sick that your body just shuts down. That’s how it feels right now, like my body has shut down. I wish my consciousness could shut down for this next part as well.
The door finally opens, and I feel agony pinch at my spine. Aiden walks in, dressed in a simple set of breeches and a white top. Looking at him, it still amazes me that such evilness can lay underneath such a beautiful exterior. What would he have been like if he had never set eyes on me? Did I twist something in his brain when he saw me, or has he always been like this and it would have just been another hapless woman who would have garnered the same fate eventually.
“Eva,” he said, like he was uttering a prayer.
He thinks he knows what love is, but what he feels for me isn’t love, it’s an insidious obsession that has blinded him to anything else. I know what love feels like; I’ve felt it now three times. Love doesn’t bind you; it frees you, and that’s something that Aiden has never realized.
He comes to stand in front of me and reaches out a hand to touch my face. I immediately flinch and he frowns. “You said yes to this,” he reminds me.
I try to relax and nod, knowing that I did say yes. It’s only to save Damon, I think to myself.
“Will this save Fairie too?” I ask hopefully, looking up at him.
He laughs, his usual amused, cruel laugh that he saves for anything concerning me. “One at a time, darling. We’ll see if there are future deals to be had if you live up to expectations this time around.”
My stomach threatens to heave with the thought of having to do this more than once. My brain can’t even comprehend it.
He lays a kiss on my lips suddenly and I squeeze my eyes closed, desperately trying to keep the tears at bay. Imagine it’s one of them, I chant to myself, trying to picture that Aiden is actually Beckham, Mason, or Damon. But it doesn’t work. No matter that my eyes are closed or that I’m desperately trying to imagine he’s someone else, everything is wrong. His kiss is different, the feel of his skin is cold, and I can’t get it out of my head that he actually murdered and tortured my loves.
I whimper in a desperate way when he tries to force my mouth open for a deeper kiss. He grips my head harshly, forcing me to open my eyes. The seriousness on his face strikes fear down in my gut. His tongue is in my mouth. He tastes like peppermint and cloves, which should be pleasant, but somehow it tastes more like poison to me.
I want to pull away. I don’t want to taste him. But he doesn’t let me move. He keeps pushing deep into me, his tongue tracing across my lips, darting inside. His lips are strong, demanding.
“Wrap your arms and legs around me, Eva,” he whispers.
But I’m frozen.
“Now,” he grunts, and my arms and legs obey him. The feel of him against me creates a panic inside of me. I pull away. “No, no, no,” I cry out, shaking my head back and forth. “I can’t do this. Please, is there anything else I can do to save Damon?” I beg.
Aiden has a calm look on his face. Reaching into his pocket he pulls out a bloody ebony feather that I recognize as a feather from Damon’s beautiful wings. He pulls away from me. “I guess your angel is going to lose his other wing,” he says matter of factly, moving towards the door.
“Wait,” I cry out, my whole body trembling. “I’m ready now.”
He looks at me, his eyes dragging from my barefoot feet to the top of my head. “I don’t want it to feel like you don’t want this,” he says. “Make me feel like you want it and I won’t leave the room.”
“And Damon will be alright?” I ask, as I stand up.
“Don’t utter his name again,” he seethes, his eyes fixed determinedly on me. I nod.
“Just promise me you won’t hurt him again.”
He nods. “I promise.”
Shakily, I stand up. Not looking away from him, I push the sleeve of my dress off my shoulder. First the left, then the right. Pulling on the strings attached to my corset, I loosen them until the dress slides off of me and falls to the ground, leaving me standing there in nothing but my underthings.
Aiden’s eyes are like fire as he watches me, his chest seizing up and down like he was about to have a heart attack. If only…
I hold out my hand for him and he strides towards me, tearing off his shirt as he does so. His breeches quickly follow leaving him completely nude. Just like my loves, his body is a work of art.
He pulls me towards him, too impatient to let me have any control. His hands are all over me, leaving not a piece of me untouched. I feel so dirty, like I’ll never be clean again. I’ll never be able to look at myself the same again.
He grunts words into my neck and lays me more gently than I would have thought he was capable, down on the bed. Staring into my eyes, his face is rapturous, like I’m giving him more than he ever thought was possible.
It’s too intense to have him looking at me like that, so I close my eyes, my head turning to the side to get away from his burning stare.
“Look at me,” he growls. My eyes flash open and I’m once again caught in his gaze.
My body is still shaking as he removes the last barrier on my body that separates me from him.
“You’re exquisite,” he whispers worshipfully.
I want to die, is all I can think.
He begins to kiss down my body, finally coming back up after he can’t seem to get a reaction from me.
“Tell me you want this,” he says, his voice almost begging as he speaks.
The words stick in my throat.
“Tell me,” he growls, grabbing my throat tightly in his desperation to keep my eyes on him.
Maybe he’ll just choke me to death. I don’t even struggle.
He realizes how tightly he’s clenching me and lets go, allowing me to speak.
“I want this,” I lie.
He knows it’s a lie as well, the biggest I’ve ever told. Nevertheless, it still somehow manages to soothe the monster inside of him.
He brushes a kiss against my lips as he slides inside of me, erasing any good that I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’ve turned into a shell of a being as I lay here. Never to be the same again.
He starts to move, muttering a low curse as he does so. Words flow from his lips about how perfect I feel, how he’s never felt better, how he loves me.
It all falls on deaf ears.
“Touch me,” he orders, and reluctantly I pull my arms around him, feeling the ripple of his muscles under me as he continues to move.
He’s obviously a skilled lover, would probably have made any other girl feel good, but it does nothing for me.
Under my calves I feel his butt clench as he drives into me. His body is so muscular and strong. This isn’t a boy; this is a man, a man I hate with every cell in my body.
Half of me floats away. I’m suddenly ab
ove my body, looking down at the scene below to a motionless me. My eyes are staring at the ceiling, wet with unshed tears.
I start to sob. Loud, uncontrollable sobs that seem to spur him to move faster. He pushes harder and harder, gyrating his hips until he hits something inside of me that makes me jolt.
My mouth is wide in horror, and my legs are shaking --- hard. He grabs me roughly by the hair and holds my cheek to his cheek. I let out a cry of pain and as he explodes, chanting over and over how much he loves me.
He falls limply onto me, out of breath. “Fuck!” he growls into my ear, and then he begins nuzzling hard all over my face and neck and chest, rubbing his rough stubbly face all over me. He doesn’t seem to notice that I’m sobbing, soaking his chest with my tears.
He lets go and gathers me to him and flips over, holding me tight against his side, brushing my hair away from my face with his fingertips on one hand and sliding his hand so that it lays over my heart.
I shudder.
My body is still, but my mind is racing, sending out prayers to the universe to anyone watching right now that I’ll be taken.
“You were so perfect, better than I even imagined,” he whispers. He can’t stop touching me, as if he can’t believe that it happened.
My brain emotionally can’t handle anything more and finally my body lets me float into exquisite darkness that’s free of any thought or any memory of the events that have just taken place.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” his voice is husky, sleepy. He leans over so I can see his face and gives me a dazzling smile as he trails his fingers slowly down my body.
I want to scream. For a moment, when I first woke up, I thought that I was somehow with Damon. Now everything is back, and my body is sore from his ministrations. Thank the gods that any pain I feel will be gone soon. I don’t need a physical reminder since the mental reminder will never go away.
I fist the bed sheet as his movements become more intense. I’m about to voice my complaint and argue that this was a one-time thing, but he pulls away before I can say anything.
“I’ll let you rest now, darling. You’ve made me so happy,” he says, looking down at me with genuine emotion. He seems lighter, like a man who’s just received everything he’s ever dreamed of.
He kisses me on my neck and sucks on my skin for a moment.
“I’ll go get us breakfast,” he says as he strides away, somehow not realizing that the Eva he once knew is no longer present. She’s gone forever.
“At least he’s safe,” I whisper to myself, before the tears come again, threatening to drown me.
My chest is tight as I wake up, true sorrow running through my veins. I’m unable to comprehend the vision that I just saw. I had been so sure that my body was the one thing I’d been able to keep from Aiden. After what I just saw, it’s clear that he took everything from me.
It was so frustrating to have no control of these things I saw. I needed to know the rest of the story, both of the stories that I kept seeing. I felt like it was leading me to something, something so big that it would change everything.
Sliding out of bed, I almost throw up.
Even though I know I did nothing wrong just now, the fact that I had that dream in the bed that I shared with Mason made me feel dirty.
Getting in the shower, I scrub my skin so hard that it’s red and inflamed. But still nothing can make me feel better.
I’m just getting out of the shower when Damon comes into the bathroom, delicious in a pair of low-riding sweatpants, his hair still wet from the shower he must have taken after practice.
“Hi baby,” he says, as his eyes devour me. He pulls me close to him and I shiver as he softly touches my face.
In my head, I try to replace Aiden’s phantom touches with the feeling of Damon’s hand. It was just a dream, yet I can feel his touch still imprinted on my skin like it happened in this lifetime.
I shiver, but this time it’s not in a good way. Damon’s eyes flash with concern.
“What’s wrong, baby?” he says pulling away from me so he can see my face better.
I struggle with what to say. How do you tell someone that you traded your body in another life to save them…?
Didn’t seem ideal.
I had already kept so much from them though. I had thought that I could handle everything on my own, but the burdens of the past were becoming too much. Maybe it was time to let them shoulder some of it with me. After all, if everything I was seeing had happened, it was their pasts as well. Pasts that they couldn’t remember.
I thought about the fact that Beckham had only a portion of his past returned to him, just the part where we were happy. It seemed a bit cruel that Lexi had only given him that. Maybe it would have made everything easier for him if he had known what had actually happened in the end.
I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts and prepare myself for the difficult situation that lied ahead.
Looking up at Damon, I gave him a sad smile. “I fell asleep after Mason left…” I begin.
Chapter 5
Damon’s eyes widen at my announcement. He knows exactly what I meant and by the look of him, he’s afraid of what I am going to say.
“Just give me a second to get dressed,” I say softly. Damon stands there waiting for me to change, but I feel like I need another second alone to prepare myself for our talk. “Can you wait in the living room?” I ask, hating the look of hurt in his face.
“Sure,” he forces out of his mouth stiffly before leaving the room and closing the door behind me.
I sink onto my bed and put my head in my hands.
“Did you miss me?” comes a whisper from behind me. I stand up and whirl around, clutching my towel closely to me before it falls off.
He’s here.
“You have some nerve coming here with Damon home,” I hiss at him.
“It’s so much more fun to play with you when you least expect it,” Aiden taunts.
He’s dressed in a pristine suit today as if he’s about to head to the office for an important meeting. He leans against the wall in the bedroom casually as if he has all day.
“And besides...I think we’ve established that your angel is no match for me,” he says with a wink.
I gasp in horror as he pulls a familiar blood-soaked feather out of his pocket.
The door swings open at that moment and Damon is there. He lets out a roar of rage when he sees Aiden’s mocking expression. Damon’s wings fly out of his body and in less than a second, he flies towards Aiden.
But Aiden just disappears. Damon barely stops himself from crashing into the wall. He turns around in a fighting stance, his eyes darting all over the room as he looks for Aiden. When he doesn’t see him, Damon flies out of the room. I can hear crashing as he zips from room to room, making sure that he’s gone. There’s a tingle on my skin as I too look around for Aiden, still somehow sensing his presence.
I feel a slight kiss on the back of my neck and Aiden’s voice whispers, “soon.” I hear a small popping sound and it’s only then that I feel like he’s really gone.
Damon returns to the room at that moment, his face drawn tight with anger.
‘What was he doing here?” he barks at me. I look at him in shock.
“What are you talking about?”
“Just seems kind of strange that you ask me to leave the room and Aiden appears all of a sudden. And it’s not like you screamed. I only came to check on you because I heard you talking and wondered who you were talking to,” Damon says.
All I can do is keep staring at him. “Are you saying that I want Aiden to stalk me?” I whisper, my heart clenching in my chest.
He stares at me for another moment before his countenance falls. He rubs a frustrated hand over his face.
“Fuck. No, that’s not what I’m saying. Of course that’s not what I’m saying,” he seethes.
“Well, then what are you saying?” I snap back.
“I don’t know. I’m just frustrat
ed. We’ve had peace for a little bit, and I was hopeful that…”
“You were hopeful he gave up?” I say with a bitter laugh, thinking this was the exact reason that I shouldn’t have kept any secrets. If he knew all the dreams that I’ve had he would know that Aiden would never give up. He wouldn’t give up until I was his. Or I was dead...But even that didn’t seem to deter him since it seemed obvious to me that I had been in this tangle with Aiden through multiple lifetimes.
“Yes,” Damon says defensively.
I’m exhausted all of a sudden even with all the naps I’ve taken today. “Stay in here while I get dressed,” I tell him softly.
I go over to my dresser to get some clothes and I let out a little cry when I see the present that Aiden left on top of the dresser.
It’s the feather.
Damon rushes over and stops when he sees the feather. He picks it up slowly and examines it.
“This almost looks like it came from my wing,” he says as he continues to look at it.
I’m quiet, waiting for him to realize that it is.
“You’ve been keeping a lot from us again, haven’t you?” he asks, shaking his head as he clenches the feather in his fist, crushing it. I can see dried blood sprinkling to the floor from the mutilated feather.
I don’t say anything; I just quickly get dressed. It says something to how on edge both of us are feeling that Damon doesn’t even look at my body when I drop my towel. I hate how easily Aiden springs into my life and dismantles everything. He’s biding his time for something, and I’m terrified what the final product is going to be.
I leave the bedroom and Damon follows silently behind me. I perch in the corner of the couch and Damon sits on the other side of the couch. The distance between us feels like an immense chasm.
“I’ve had a lot of dreams or visions...whatever they are, that I haven’t told you about,” I start off.
Damon looks resigned as I speak. He’s always been good at sensing when I’m hiding something. It’s probably why I clash so much with him compared to the others because he’s the best at digging under my skin to find the things I don’t like talking about.