by Gina Manis
My desire is to heal, and it is hard to resist the tears of women. My whispers call them, and they trust my wind. I know what they need and can help if they give in to my powers. I can’t hurt them or do anything they don’t want themselves. They need my influence, and with my touch, they can lose some of their fear and pain.
The fire blessed me with the ability to read minds, which gives me the tool I need to get close to their pain. They hide from it, but I have to draw it out. My wind is not only my voice, but my seduction to lure them in to trusting me. Trust is the one thing I need most of all to heal them, and they love my wind. With it, I am no longer alone in this world that cuts me out because of my silence.
Shifting is my only other gift and it can take me anywhere. My brother is right again as I do disappear with my women. I like to take them to beautiful places and allow them to escape their world for a time. I have traveled and seen so many beautiful places by my brother's side. I am so grateful to him for always being there for me, and it is because of him that I have grown into my powers.
Alec is not my blood brother. His parents adopted me when I was around five. They are a wonderful family for taking in a mute child and learning to speak with me when I used sign. Alec was the first to pick up on what I was doing. He took the time to learn and then showed the others. To me, he is a great man, and I love and respect him dearly.
It is the woman in the woods that concerns me now. She is beautiful, yet small, with long dark hair braided back from her face. She sits against a tree and listens for sounds. I sense from her the fear of a man’s touch, even the man she is with. How to help her? A challenge is what she is.
First, I must get her away because the other Wind element is going to be on us soon. Sorry to do this to him, but he will never have her the way things are going. She will eventually push him away once he becomes intimate with her. He has no chance, but I can feel the love he has, and it is worthy of hers.
Her silent screams in the back of her head never go away, but they must do exactly that in order for them to have a chance. I can quiet them in her mind with my touch, but only if she allows me to go that far.
There is no way to predict how she will respond until she sees me. My looks again appeal to the damage. I am not a large man, just barely a few inches taller than most women. My body is not sculpted like other elements. I am not large or intimidating. Instead, I am slender, toned with light hair and clear blue eyes. My features are softer and women do not fear me like other men. It is often why people think I am younger than my age of twenty-two.
I shift in front of her, and she jumps at my sudden appearance. I place my fingers at my lips and pull my hand away, mouthing the word hello slowly. It is the best way I have learned to greet people and to let them know I can’t speak in a voice.
She stands and slides halfway around the tree, holding the knife out in front of her. “Who are you?”
“I am Bran,” I whisper to her on the wind, and smile. “A big knife you have there. Is it heavy?”
She tries to keep it steady as it trembles. “Go away.”
I shake my head. “Quiet the screams, Jenna.” She looks at me with surprise that I know her name. “They hurt my ears.”
“What?” She asks me, and I know I confuse her. My words always come from thought and not by will. I cannot lie or speak untruths as something inside me prohibits those hurtful attributes. I don’t care to use them anyway.
“You are strange,” I whisper to her, needing to let her see she can trust me. “I’ve never seen another use their pain as a shield. Are you about ready to drop it? I can show you how.”
“What are you talking about?” She screams at me, but she senses the truth in my words. Her mind is begging me to release her from the pain. To do so, I have to bring it out.
“Cole.” It all began with that young man. The fear leaps in her heart from me saying his name. She trembles and cries as the blade slowly slips down to hang by her side. “Are you ready to forget him?”
“Can I?” she asks me, her lips trembling. She already shows the first signs of trusting me.
“I don’t know yet,” I tell her truthfully, as each woman is different, but I haven’t not helped one yet. First, I have to get her away from here before her man arrives. There is no way he will trust me to do what needs to be done to help her. A quiet place where we can come together. “I would like to try. Will you come with me?”
“I can’t.” She shakes her head. She thinks of the man, Arrow, and what he would tell her to do. She trusts him but not enough.
“When given the chance to leave Cole in the past, you choose not to?” I ask her, knowing it has been her long time wish to do just that. “To heal, you must trust me, but that is your problem, right? Because you went with him so willingly.”
“No,” she cries and breaks down then, covering her face with her hands as she shakes her head, trying to forget, but she can’t. It is hard to see any woman like this, but I can’t just whisper in her ear and make this all better. She has to learn it is okay to touch and be touched.
“You must face your fears, Jenna, to overcome them, but you don’t have to do it alone,” I whisper softly, stepping forward. “Come into my arms and let me show you. Trust that there are some good men, like your Arrow.”
“What have you done to him?” she asks. That gets a rise out of her. It is good that she is protective of him, and shows me that he is important to her even if she doesn’t realize it. I want to see them happy and together, but it will take some time before that happens.
I shake my head at her question. “He comes for you now. It is not me who will hurt him, but you. When he offers you his love, and you hide behind your fear.”
“Jenna!”
She looks to the sound of his voice calling to her as he runs toward us. He will be here soon and then it will be too late. He will do what all men do to protect their women and pull her away from me.
I hold out my hand to her, “Last chance, Jenna. It is time for you to choose. Will you stay in the past, or move into the future?”
She is unsure as she turns from me and looks to her man running towards us. I can see the doubt in her eyes, but this choice she must make on her own. If she doesn’t accept my help, I will have to deal with the pain and walk away. Something I’ve only done one time before when I first started to use my gifts. I didn’t know then, the nightmare it would give me. Something I strive not to encounter again.
Finally, her thoughts tell her she has nothing to lose. Her will to separate herself from her own nightmares is too great for her not to try. She steps forward and reaches her shaking hand out to me.
“Jenna, no!” Arrow shouts, almost on us. He is fast, and I can see the fear in his eyes. I tell myself this is for him just as much as it is for her, and the pain he has to endure for a brief time now will be better than him living the rest of his life with it.
I reach out and take her hand, and she gasps as she looks at me, still so uncertain as I blow my words toward her, “Trust me.”
She looks to Arrow one last time before she steps into my arms. Just as he is there, I shift us away. I hold onto her tightly in the white void. It tries to pull at non-wind elements, but I have conquered that skill. I know of a beautiful waterfall, but I don’t shift us to it. Instead, we land in the grass on the prairie.
“Thank you for trusting me,” I whisper in her ear, and she sighs with the awakening of my wind. Now that she is close enough to me, she can feel its charm. I release her so that she can look around. The prairie is beautiful at night. You can see the stars' span across the vast sky and the moon is high above us tonight, giving plenty of light.
I control the wind, running it through the grass, giving it more volume than it already had, and letting its breeze caress her skin.
She looks around, discovering this land for the first time. She is a curious female, and I like that about her. She hasn’t seen much of this world and has
hidden away from basic activities with others. Her fears keep her trapped in more ways than one. She likes this place's beauty, its openness and it relaxes her as I hoped it would.
“I am Bran,” I whisper to her and she turns to look at me. She is not sure what to make of me as she looks me over. She likes my eyes. Many women do. They are a crystal blue and light in color as I have been told. I don’t rightly know myself as I am blind to color.
“You say you can help me?” she asks, looking into them now.
I move a little closer to her so she can hear me but stay back until we have had time to talk. “I can help heal the mind… but not the heart. I don’t know how to touch it.”
“How do you know so much about me? My name… his… name.” She looks down, and I can see she is ashamed to talk about Cole. She blames herself so much for what happened.
“I can read your mind,” I tell her honestly. “I can see the fear in memories. I have a sense of people around me; they give me vibes. It is how I knew you were in the woods.”
“And you sought me out. Why?”
I look out at the moon, not sure what to tell her. I have rarely spoken of my gift to other women. I let myself go to them, heal their fears. Not many have asked me personal things before. It is usually about them. It isn’t that I hide it, more than most trusted me and gave in soon after I spoke with them. I don’t always have to speak so much, but she is different.
“It is what I do.” I look back at her. “I am not like most other Elements. I am touched by Wind, but there is a trace of Fire in me. Why I do not know. I hear and feel the pain and… I must do something about it.”
She looks away from me. “You know what I live with?”
I don’t answer her until she looks at me again and I nod, “Your nightmares lock you in the past. I can take them away. Replace them with new dreams. You will still have your memories, but you will never relive that pain again.”
“How can you?” she asks, her mind still hesitant to believe. Dreams can be happy, but trauma, as she has suffered, shadows them. She can only see the nightmares when she sleeps and living with them can destroy a person's soul. It has already begun destroying her, how closed off she is, which only makes the dreams worse.
I can’t help but smile because, to me, this is the best part. “You will dream of me, instead.” I slowly circle her, closing in the space between us. She doesn’t move but watches me. “A dream of pleasure and passion that will have you moaning in your sleep.”
I breathe out around her, and she feels the effects of my breath touching her skin. I do not force it, but seduction must have a place in this if it is to work.
“What do you… intend to do?”
I come to a stop in front of her just a step away. Slowly I raise my hand, extending it out, and run the back of my fingers up her arm. She shivers with my touch but doesn’t move away. “Usually… I make love to a woman until she calls my name in pleasure. Would you like me to do that for you?”
I can’t help teasing her just a little. She is very aware of me but doesn’t like the idea of sex. Jenna is too scared of it and will never let me take this that far. I am good with that, but she must know she can call the shots here. Nothing will go any further than she needs.
“I can’t do that,” she tells me, pulling back a step as she looks into my eyes. “I… I hate men.”
“If I was a woman would you allow it?” She looks at me, shocked, and doesn’t respond. “You do not hate men; you hate the nightmares and the men in them. The idea of being close to someone, a man most of all, scares you. A woman doesn’t frighten you, but you still wouldn’t allow her to touch you passionately.”
She considers a woman's touch but doesn’t find the idea of it erotic. She is not attracted to them, nor men. At least not sexually. She does find me pleasing to her eyes, and I can’t help but feel pleased by that.
“We do not have to have sex. It is just an option,” I assure her, though I wouldn’t mind showing her all the joys of her body. My ability to read her thoughts gives me an advantage to bring out her deepest pleasures. Things she doesn’t even realize she wants. “My desires only go as far as yours do. Only if you truly allow it, will it come to pass.”
She is relieved at that and relaxes with me again. This is going to get interesting, though, I am sure. Never have I had a woman pull away from me before with the pleasures I am able to give them. There is a first time for everything, though. Will she be the one?
I step in front of her and lift her chin to meet my gaze. I take my time studying her as she does me. “You are a beautiful woman, but you don’t see it. You don’t like the idea of attracting men, but you do so naturally. You need to learn to own your beauty. Just because men see you as desirable doesn’t mean they will hurt you with their desire.
“I’m afraid of them,” she tells me softly.
“I know,” I whisper to her. “I want to show you that it is okay. I can show you, Jenna. You feel the good in my power and know deep down, it is true. I can’t change your memories because they are what has made you who you are. I can only change the nightmares that keep you trapped in the past.”
She nods her head, her thoughts telling me that she trusts what I say is true. She holds the nightmares so close that it is hard to believe I can take them away, but she is willing to try. “What do I have to do?”
“We have to go back, Jenna. To that moment of your first attraction to a man. To the one who caused you the most pain.”
“I don’t want to.” She cries, and a tear slips from her eyes. I brush it away, knowing that she is already there in that moment. I know it is me drawing out the emotions that upset her so. She relives the past but doesn’t share it with others.
“We will start slow.” I lean forward, pressing my face next to hers and whispering in her ear, “Run with me. Be carefree once again as you were in your youth. Let’s go back to that childhood innocence before it was lost.”
I pull back and smile at her as I take her hand. Slowly I move around, and she follows. It is my call that gives her the courage to trust and let go. I pull her along as we run over the prairie lands. I want to give us time to let go. To be carefree in this wide-open space and have some fun with her. This will become a part of her dreams, rather than running in the markets as she did that day. The feelings she had then were good, but events afterward overshadow them now.
I will lead her down into the forest ahead, down into the gorge where I know of a beautiful waterfall. It holds so much beauty. There, I will show her the beauty of touch.
Now, we start to rebuild.
Chapter Seven
Jenna
I don’t know why I trust this man. He differs from the others. His whisper calls to me to let go and follow his lead. I get the sense that he cannot lie to me, and everything he knows and says is the truth.
I live in fear because of my nightmares, reliving them every night. If he can change them, make them less painful, I can’t say no to that. A chance to be free of my nightmares is a blessing offered. Even if I am unsure, I am still hopeful.
I run with him through the grass, down into a cover of trees. He slows, but we keep running. We are coming on to a cliff, but he doesn’t stop. I pull back, but he spins around, taking me into his arms, and we go flying over the rise in a spin. I wrap my arms around him, holding on as our feet touch the ground again on the other side.
He looks at me, and smiles before we take off again. We are traveling downwards, and the terrain is steep, but Bran lifts me over logs and leaps us from rock to rock. It is dangerous, but his powers keep us safe, and I enjoy the fun of it.
An enormous drop off is coming up, and I don’t pause as we both leap into the air off it. Bran pulls me to him, and we float down in a slow spin. I lean back in his arms and enjoy the sense of flying.
It surprises me that I do this so easily with him when I can’t with Arrow or any other man. I think of Arrow as I look back at
Bran.
“You will trust him one day,” he whispers. “When the time is right.”
It amazes me he knows what I am thinking. I don’t have to explain to him how I feel. Some people might find it intrusive, but I don’t. Not from him. Somehow, I know he is good and will never harm me.
We touch the ground in a rocky area with a running river flowing through. Bran retakes my hand, and we run towards the waterfall. We leap from rock to rock as we grow closer. The water sprays me in a light mist as he takes me around the side and in behind the waterfall. I laugh as we run through a stream of water before he stops and pulls me into his arms.
I feel strange touching him like this, almost like a dream I’ve never had. My hands rest on his chest as his run up and down my arms. I don’t feel the urge to pull away from him, but lean closer. He smells of honey and water this close. It is soothing to me.
There is a tingling in me that realizes I am in a man's arms. It is different from when Thomas touches me with a brother’s love. I feel an awakening of something sensual and it doesn’t scare me with Bran.
I feel so safe with him, and it is a comfort. His hand comes up and touches my face softly as we catch our breath. His eyes are so beautiful, like clear crystals. I’ve never seen their equal before. His thumb brushes over my lips, and I can’t believe it, but I like the warmth of his touch. “You have soft lips, and I want to taste their sweetness. Can I be the first kiss for you?”
A kiss? My pulse quickens at the thought of him kissing me. His warm breath already touches my lips, and I don’t want to fight the urge his whispers call to. His face moves closer, and I know he is going to kiss me. I feel none of the fear I would feel with another and being this close to him makes me wonder what it would be like?