Lightning Kissed

by Lila Felix

  ***

  Theo was asleep when I flashed into his room an hour later. I waited the hour just out of spite—one day, I supposed I would grow out of that. I couldn’t wait until the day when I grew out of all my finicky habits. He must’ve been exhausted because he didn’t even stir when I flashed in, or when I sat on the edge of his bed. I hated to see his face in a scowl while he slept. All this time, I’d been thinking of how difficult it would be for me to protect him. But looking down at his brow furrowed so heavily in his sleep, I could see how all of this was affecting him. I flashed from where I was on the side of the bed to the middle on the other side of him and leaned over his face. He had no pajamas on, only a pair of those plaid boxers that I loved to hate. They were so awful. He looked like an old man. I giggled at how much I hated them, plus how good he looked in everything he wore.

  I rubbed my thumb between his eyes on the bridge of his nose, attempting to get him to relax his brow. He stirred and woke.

  “Querida, are you okay?”

  He looked me up and down—what he was looking for, I didn’t know.

  “I’m fine. Can we talk? No sarcasm or joking, just talk?”

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Brown hair fell every way but the right way and I loved it. Rarely was Theo disheveled, and so seeing him when he first woke up or after he was, well, riled up—it was a treat. It had been way too long.

  “Of course. Whatever you want.”

  Whatever you want—those words were like a dream to me. Theo and I were so similar. He and I pretended to be so strong and solid to the outside world. We almost prided ourselves on being the ones who stood in strength as others faltered.

  But when we were like this—one on one—shut out from the world—this was when we were real, raw, and allowed to be weak.

  Anything I’d ever mentioned in passing or called a faint desire for, he got me. We went to a parish fair one time and I saw some cheap silver turtle necklace. I hadn’t even wanted the damned thing, it just caught my eye. Theo and I were thirteen at the time, and he bought it for me. The next week, I found out he’d spent the last of his allowance money on me. I cornered him by the lockers at school and tried to pay him back. I asked him why he would do that.

  “Anything for you.” His pimply self shuffled his shoes. Then he shrugged and added, “Whatever you want.”

  Theo touched my arm, bringing me back to the present. “Talk to me.”

  “Why don’t you want me to come with you?”

  He blew out a breath, causing his cheeks to bubble out. He was thinking again—way too much for my taste.

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “If something happens, we flash.”

  “The Synod will not look well on our traveling together at our age without being bonded.”

  He turned away from me as he said it. I knew we would come to that subject, but I’d hoped to avoid it.

  “We are just friends. There’s no problem.”

  His shoulders slumped.

  “Don’t kid yourself, Colby. No matter what you do, you and I will never just be friends.”

  “So let’s do the bonding thing. We can go together without anyone meddling and I can help you.”

  Silence filled the space between us. I realized the sharpness of my words after they came out—typical me. Theo asked me to marry him when we were sixteen, and in the middle of a heady kissing session, I’d agreed.

  I tended to blame everything on Theo’s talented tongue.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “You ended it with me because I’m some fluke. I understand that now. But I can’t just pretend I’m only your friend.”

  “You’re not a fluke. Well, you are. I ended it because I’m already in everyone’s spotlight. Our being together is like taking out an ad on a billboard. Is that what you thought?”

  Theo turned on me, battling something so vicious inside him that he shook as he spoke.

  “What was I supposed to think? You wouldn’t talk to me. You never talk to me—good or bad.”

  I threw myself backwards on the bed. He was right. It was completely purposeful. I could barely look him in the eye after I’d broken it off between us, because I knew if he muttered one damned Portuguese word or even touched me that I would be done for.

  I felt a depression on the bed and then before I knew what was happening, his weight was on top of me, his arms pinning mine above my head.

  “Why must you break me?” He breathed into my face. His hair danced along my forehead.

  “I’m not.” I defied him.

  “Yes, you do. Every time I’m in a room with you and I can’t touch you—you break me. Every time you pretend that we are only friends—you break me. Does it make you happy to break me, Querida?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember when you agreed to bond with me all those years ago?”

  Another nod. My throat was constricting because I knew that tonight, Theo was going to break me.

  “Why?” He phantomed kisses along the line of my jaw. He knew it was my undoing.

  “You know why.”

  He shifted, letting my wrists go. His expression changed back to the gentler, less Alpha Theo that I was used to. “Just once, Colby,” he begged.

  “Must you break me?” I mimicked his earlier sentiment.

  “Ahh, Querida.” He pushed some miscreant hair behind my ear. “I’m not trying to break you—just your walls. When are you going to let me in?”

  “When you can promise not to hurt me or leave me.”

  “Says the woman who continues to break my heart and push me away.”

  We were at a standstill. He’d never been so blatant in demanding an emotional response from me in words. He’d never demanded anything of me. I squirmed under his stare. Gray eyes bore down upon me, pleading for a piece of me. It ripped me open.

  This was the moment I’d dreaded forever. It was like reaching inside myself without anesthesia and plucking an organ out to give to him. That’s what it would feel like.

  Right?

  But my heart wanted to reach out to his and soothe it.

  “Theo.” The tears formed in my eyes. “You know I love you. I always have.”

  He buried his head in the crook of my neck the way I had done to him the night before.

  “I didn’t expect that,” he murmured, his voice reverberating against the sensitive skin at my neck.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. That may be the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  My unemotional soul wished he would just forget he ever heard it so I could tally up how many bricks were lost in that small battle and replace them—quickly.

  “What now?” I questioned.

  “We go looking for whatever I am.”

  “What about the bonding ceremony?”

  “I don’t care what they think. I know what we are. And I know who you are. I’m going to be sealed to you heart and soul one day. If they don’t like our traveling unbonded, they can just suck it.”

  The man I loved was a sly, sneaky rat.

  I smacked his bicep as hard as I could. “You ass. All that crap and you don’t even care.”

  “Meu coração, está completo.”

  A shiver tore through me at his chosen speech. I didn’t even care what the hell he was saying. I just wanted him to say more of it.

  “Speak English.”

  “Doesn’t work as well on you,” he quipped back.

  Ass.