From Ashes

by Amanda Perry

  While he walks, I use my other senses in hopes of figuring out where we might be. It’s quiet aside from a rushing noise not far from us. It isn’t traffic, but I can’t quite place it. The air around us smells different somehow—it’s fresh and cool, but it has an added scent I’ve never smelled before. The breeze is stronger and cooler where we are than it was at the house. Goosebumps break out over my arms, and I huddle closer to Caleb.

  “You cold?” At my nod, he tightens his hold on me. “We’re almost there.”

  As soon as he says the words, his footing shifts. Whatever he’d been walking on, he isn’t anymore. There’s a quiet crunch under his feet with each step he takes. My mind wanders in search of a cause for the new sound. It could be rocks or maybe leaves. It’s autumn and leaves crunch in the fall... Except the crunch sounds lighter than leaves.

  “Are we almost there?” I’m aware I’m whining, but I can’t wait any longer. Luckily, I don’t have to.

  Caleb comes to a stop at last. “Yeah, baby, we’re here.” He sets me gently on my feet, and my sandals sink into the ground slightly. I nearly stumble at the unexpected sensation, but Caleb keeps his hands on my hips until I’m steady. He shifts his stance until he’s standing behind me, his hands gliding across my stomach as he moves. I shiver for a different reason. “You can take the blindfold off.”

  My hands eagerly grab the silky fabric over my eyes and jerk it up and over my head. I blink several times to allow my eyes to adjust to the light and my surroundings. When I’m able to see again, my jaw hits the floor. Actually, it hits the sand—the soft, smooth, warm sand of a beautiful beach. The rushing sound I’d heard makes sense now. It’s the crashing waves only feet away from us. The setting sun reflects off the bright blue water, causing it to sparkle and shimmer as it rolls up and down the shore. The scent in the air comes from the salty water. It makes sense to me now that I couldn’t place it before because I’ve never seen the ocean. It’s always seemed like a peaceful and beautiful place. I’ve wanted to see it since I saw a picture of a beach on one of my first trips to the library as a kid. This moment is literally a dream come true.

  I take my time soaking in everything, spinning in a slow circle and doing my best not to blink for fear I’ll miss something. It’s clear Caleb spent time setting up the area he brought me to. There’s an unlit bonfire set up beside us with large driftwood logs surrounding it to sit on. A picnic basket sits between two of the logs with Caleb’s jacket draped over it. The logs themselves are completely covered in deep red roses with additional petals sprinkled around them.

  My gaze turns to the most handsome man in the world, and I drink in the sight of him. His usually messy hair has been slicked back to perfection. He has a deep blue, long-sleeved, button-up shirt on with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. His black jeans hug his legs, and his bare feet make me want to kick off my sandals. He’s truly beautiful, though I don’t think he’d appreciate being called that.

  Caleb waits silently for me to say something. He thought of every little detail and made it perfect. I open and close my mouth several times to tell him my thoughts, but words won’t come out. Instead, several tears leak from my eyes, and I curse them for not listening when I try to stop them.

  “Hey.” Caleb wraps his arms around my waist and pulls my body into his. “What is it, baby? Do you not like it? We can do something else.”

  Laughter breaks through the tears. “I’m pretty sure we couldn’t do anything more perfect than this.” I take a moment to gather myself and put a stop to the waterworks, so he can understand me better. “I can’t believe you did all of this for me. It’s just so perfect. I don’t know what to say.”

  He bends his knees to get eye level with me. “So, those are happy tears?”

  My nod is overly enthusiastic. “Very happy tears.” I launch myself into him, wrap my arms around his neck, and hold on tight.

  He catches me easily around the waist and throws his head back, laughing. “I’m happy if you’re happy.”

  “I can’t believe you brought me to the beach.” As he sets me on my feet, I swirl around to face the ocean and watch the waves crash in the distance. “My first trip to the beach!”

  I allow my excitement to overflow. I kick off my sandals and dig my toes into the sand—something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember. “Oh, it feels so weird. I like it.”

  Caleb wiggles his bare toes. “It’s still warm since the sun hasn’t fully set yet.”

  “The air is cooler here than it was at home,” I muse and pull my thin cardigan closer around my body.

  “I thought of that already.” Caleb takes my hand and leads me around one of the driftwood logs. He collects several roses and hands them to me. “These are for you. Actually, all of them are for you.”

  I bring the deep red flower to my nose and inhale deeply. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Speaking of beautiful...” Caleb sits down on the log and pulls me down next to him. He uses the hand not holding mine to push a few stray strands of hair away from my face. “You look absolutely stunning tonight.”

  Warmth fills my cheeks, and I duck my head to hide a shy smile. “Thank you. You look pretty amazing yourself.”

  “You want to use some of that heat making your cheeks all red?” he asks with a smirk.

  My head tilts to the side. “Use it for what?”

  Caleb gestures to the set up for a bonfire in front of us. “I knew it would get a little cold, and I wanted to make sure you stayed warm. I was going to light it before you got here, then I thought it would be fun to do it together.”

  “I’d love that.” I bounce enthusiastically in my seat. “Let’s do it.”

  “We have to be careful,” he warns me. “If we aren’t fully in sync with each other, we could end up making a massive fire instead of a nice little bonfire. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to keep my eyebrows.”

  My mouth forms an O, and I nod my understanding. “I like mine where they are, too. So, we need to be in sync. How do we do that?”

  “Remember when I was first teaching you how to control Fire?” He waits for my nod before he continues, “Put the same energy into focusing on my Fire as you did back then. I’ll put my Fire into yours, and you do the same. We’ll turn our slow burn into a roaring fire.”

  “Okay.” My reply is barely a whisper, but Caleb hears me.

  He scoots his body closer to mine and wraps his arm around me, holding me close. I lean into him, enjoying his smoky scent as the wind swirls around us.

  When Caleb makes a small spark at the base of the firepit, I know he’s ready for me to join in. I expect our fire to build quickly, for us to be done in minutes. Instead, something I never expected happens—my hand tightens around Caleb’s as I pull a spark from the heat of his tiny ember. My spark causes a small ember to light on top of Caleb’s. The moment our embers join, my body jolts. It’s like my entire being leaps from my body, into his, and vice versa.

  Caleb gasps at the same time as I do. Our little embers gain momentum, catching on one of the logs, growing to a small glow. Usually when we work to build a fire, we need to find a source of heat nearby and pull from it to get our fire growing. This time around, our Fires feed off each other’s heat. It seems that Caleb and I do the same as our Fires. We turn to each other as the embers smolder both on the logs and in our eyes.

  “Do you feel that, baby?” Caleb asks with wide eyes.

  I can’t find it in me to speak, I can only hum my confirmation.

  Our breathing picks up as the blaze expands. “I can feel you inside me.” He drops his forehead against mine, panting as if he’s run a marathon. “It’s incredible.”

  “I love you.” I don’t mean to say it out loud, but it’s the only thing racing through my mind. As our flames grow, my love for him grows with it. “I love you so much, Caleb.”

  “Baby.” He draws in a shaky breath. “You’re my everything.”

  Before I can blink, his mo
uth is on mine. My heart skips a beat the moment our lips touch. I’ve been waiting for what feels like forever for this. At first, the kiss is slow and easy. We take our time exploring each other again. When I lean into the kiss and sigh, it spurs Caleb on. His hands take hold of my hips, and he easily lifts me onto his lap. I curl my arms around his neck and press my body against his.

  Our soft, sweet kiss heats up quickly and turns into something much more. One of Caleb’s hands rests on the small of my back while the other lands on my knee. I lace my fingers through the back of his hair and give it a slight tug. He growls and deepens the kiss. His hand on my knee slowly slides up my thigh, taking the hem of my dress with it. My heart thumps heavily in my chest with excitement and nerves. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but I’m not ready for him to stop yet.

  His mouth leaves mine, and I let out a whimper. Caleb chuckles with his mouth against my cheek. “You’re driving me crazy, baby. I don’t know if I can stop.”

  “Please don’t stop,” I beg. My voice shakes with a need for something more from him.

  Caleb’s hand on my thigh inches higher until he reaches my hip. His fingertips play with the white lace of my panties while he drops open-mouthed kisses down to my jaw, then my neck. I grab at his back, desperate for something to hold on to.

  Caleb takes hold of my hip and gives it a squeeze before he drops several more kisses to my neck, jaw, then lips. “We have to stop, baby.”

  “No, we don’t,” I cry out. My hands tighten around his neck, and I desperately tug him toward me. “Please, Caleb.”

  He shuts his eyes tight and hisses through his teeth. I freeze in place, wondering what went wrong, but I’m too afraid to ask. “I love the hell out of you, baby girl, but I’m going to need you to hold still for a few minutes.”

  “What’s wrong?” I lean back on his lap and search his body for any signs of injury. “Are you hurt?”

  Caleb groans and drops his head back. “Yeah, I’m hurting, but not the way you think. I got a little worked up, that’s all...”

  “Oh.” I relax when his words register, and my cheeks heat. “Is that why you have to stop?”

  He shakes his head slowly, a wicked smirk on his swollen lips. “No, we have to stop because we may be alone, but this is technically a public beach. As much as I’d love to strip you down and explore every inch of you right here and now, I don’t want anyone else to see you like that.”

  A tightness hits me low in my belly, and I whimper before I can catch myself.

  Caleb shivers and drops his forehead to my shoulder. “You’re gonna be the death of me, baby.”

  “I’d say I’m sorry, but I don’t want to lie to you.” I bite my lip to hide my smile from him, not that it works at all.

  Caleb lifts his head and raises a brow at me. “Smart ass.”

  I give his lips a quick peck, then hop off his lap. “I think we need a distraction.” From the corner of my eye, I notice the bonfire fully ablaze. “Hey, we made a bonfire.”

  Caleb moves and wraps his arms around my waist, holding my back to his front and sways side to side as we watch the flames dance. “We should make bonfires more often if that’s how we do it.”

  I break into a fit of giggles. “I can’t disagree with that.”

  With a swift kiss to my neck, Caleb lets me go and shuffles over to the picnic basket. He pulls a large blanket out first and winks at me over his shoulder. “Help me spread this out?”

  We make quick work of the soft blanket, spreading it on the sand on the opposite side of the log we were sitting on. Caleb directs me to make myself comfortable on the blanket while he spreads out a variety of food for us.

  He takes a seat beside me and pulls wine glasses from the basket. My eyebrows raise to my hairline, and Caleb snorts. “It’s not alcohol, baby—your brother would murder me. It’s sparkling cider.”

  I perk up. “I’ve always wanted to try that. It looks delicious.”

  Caleb hums and presses his face into my shoulder. “So do you.”

  A shiver runs through me, and I know Caleb feels it. He smirks as he pulls away and goes about pouring us each a glass of the bubbly drink. He holds up his glass and proposes a toast. “To first dates.”

  I recognize what to do thanks to all the cheesy movies Cassie and I have watched. I clink my glass to his. We take sips of our cider, and I’m pleasantly surprised. “This is really good.”

  “I’ll get some for Thanksgiving,” Caleb promises. “I’ve always liked it, too.”

  We’re quiet as we dish up our food and start to eat. “I think you made a mistake with this date,” I say as I take everything in.

  Caleb tenses beside me. “What mistake? What don’t you like?”

  “Nothing,” I assure him. “That’s the problem. You made it all perfect. How will we ever have another date again when you made everything completely perfect for the first one?”

  Caleb’s shoulders relax and he mock-glares at me. “You love to see me sweat, don’t you?”

  My only reply is a shrug.

  Caleb rolls his eyes and takes the last bite of his dinner. “I bet I can think of more good date ideas. There has to be something about this one I didn’t do what you wish I had.”

  I think it over while I finish eating, but nothing comes to mind. “No, you really did think of it all. I’ve always wanted to come to the beach. We talked about making a bonfire, and we did that. You brought perfect food and the most beautiful roses. I love that you get me roses all the time.”

  “All the time?” Caleb tilts his head to the side. “I wouldn’t say all the time. It’s only been twice.”

  I frown and shake my head. “No, it’s been several times. Usually, it’s the blue ones, though.”

  “Blue? I’ve never given you blue roses, baby. Only red.” He points to my arm where my Fire mark of a burning rose is. “It matches your mark.”

  “But... What about the blue ones? There have been several times you’ve left blue roses.” He’s the only one who would have left them for me; it has to be him.

  Caleb sits up straighter, his tone serious. “When did I leave them?”

  “The first time was in Sacramento. When you sent the big bouquet of red ones, you sent the blue, also. Then when we got back from our trip, I found a single blue rose in my box that you got with my necklace.” I think for a second about when I’ve noticed the roses. “Oh, also at the mall. The day Cassie filled Jaxon’s car with water, there was a blue rose on the passenger door of Cassie’s car when we left. I think that’s all, but I can’t remember for sure.”

  Caleb pales with each occurrence I mention. “Baby, I didn’t leave any of those for you. I’ve never left any blue flowers for you.”

  I bite my lip nervously. “Then who would leave them?”

  Caleb swallows hard and shakes his head. “I have no idea, but I’m going to find out.”

  My heart drops into the pit of my stomach. It doesn’t make any sense. No one but Caleb has ever given me flowers before, and I would definitely never accept flowers from anyone I didn’t know. I was sure they had been from him the whole time. Now that I think back, I remember an uneasy feeling I got every time I received one of them, but I brushed it aside as my anxiety causing me to be irrational. Now, though, I wonder if I should have dug deeper into the reasons behind the feeling. Someone had to have left them for me. I only hope it was someone I know, and the two of us are reading more into it than we need to.

  “Don’t worry about it right now, baby.” Caleb lies back on the blanket and tugs on me to lay next to him.

  I don’t need any convincing. I drop down next to him and cuddle up to his side. “You don’t think it’s a big deal?”

  “Right now, the only thing that’s a big deal is the fact the two of us are on our first date.” He kisses the top of my head and hugs me tighter. “Everything else can wait until morning.”

  It’s difficult, but I decide to take his advice and push my worries away for the time bein
g. At this moment, everything is perfect. I’m with the man I love, the other half of my soul. He loves me, and he went through a lot of trouble to create the most epic evening for me. It goes a long way to show me how much he cares. Maybe it’s my turn to find a way to show him how much he means to me, too.

  As I turn onto my side to see Caleb better, something grabs my attention in the distant darkness, and I sit up to inspect it further.

  “Baby?” Caleb sits up as well, his eyes on me. “What’s wrong?”

  I wait to answer him, hoping the sight will disappear, but it doesn’t. “Someone is watching us.”

  Caleb’s head shoots around, his gaze going where mine is fixed. His shoulders tense when he catches sight of the tall figure looming in the distance. Their body faces us, and they remain stone still as they stand just far enough away I can’t make out any features.

  “Do you think it’s Samael?” I whisper.

  Caleb shakes his head. “I don’t know, but I need to get you out of here in case it’s him.” He jumps to his feet and pulls me up with him.

  “Where did you park?” I ask, my gaze never leaving the figure on the beach. “Is it far?”

  Caleb scoops up the cooler with our stuff inside and grabs my hand. “It’s in the corner of the lot. We’ll be fine, baby, let’s just get out of here.”

  My hand tightens in Caleb’s, and I let him lead me through the sand. I refuse to take my eyes away from the figure. When we reach the barrier that breaks up the sand and the asphalt, our watcher makes a move, rushing our way.

  “Caleb! They’re coming this way,” I cry out in a panic. “They’re moving really fast.”

  “Run, baby,” Caleb orders. “Get to the truck and don’t look back.” He takes off in a sprint, and I struggle to keep up with him.

  If it is Samael behind us, we are in a lot of trouble. No one is around for miles and Samael wouldn’t hesitate to kill us right here on the beach. If he catches up to us, we’ll have no choice but to fight him, and I’m not sure we would win.