“You seem a little sturdier, now. How about we try to stand up?” He cleared his throat and said, “I’ll go grab you a robe first,” in a much higher tone than normal, which made me smile a little against my will.
He stepped out of the shower quickly, then out of the bathroom as I growled inwardly at my traitorous body, then he returned with a thick, blue terry cloth robe. He draped it around my shoulders then helped me shrug my arms in before helping me to stand up.
Big mistake.
I was a little woozy still, but not terribly. Just enough to come up and forward too fast and stumble into him. My robe was open, but luckily, I was holding my towel under my arms still and he caught my biceps in his hands steadying me as I fell against his chest. There wasn’t much I could do about it, having run right into the evidence of his desire, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
What I was least prepared for, was the evidence of my own response to him. It hit me like a freight train. I could feel every muscle in his body vibrating with nervous energy just beneath his still damp skin. Just like before, my nostrils flared, my pupils dilated. I felt them. I could feel everything. I could smell him: sweat, soap, and hints of coconut, cinnamon and coffee. I felt a sudden tightness in my chest and my core clenched. I could smell his arousal and my own, but apparently so could he.
His golden eyes lit up, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of my desire. His features tightened, brows pulled together, and he looked like he was in pain. I wanted so much to ease his suffering, to take away the hurt and fill that space with pleasure and passion, and when he finally looked up at me, I leaned into him, searching his eyes.
That was all it took. Intent. He was on me in a flash, his body pushing me back until I was trapped between him and the wall. His lips were a breath away from mine, and I wanted it, that breath. I wanted to consume it, consume him, and remove the final vestiges of resistance between us.
He growled deep in his throat as my fingers traced a tentative path over the sensitive skin stretched over his ribs. He grabbed my face with both hands, burying his fingers in my hair, his thumbs gently brushing across my temples. For one miraculous moment, his lips met mine, and it sent a shockwave through my body, like a sudden discharge of electricity, and he pulled back, stopping with his lips only a hair’s breadth from mine.
I wanted more than anything to bridge that gap, but something inside me recognized the wounded animal before me. As much as it pained me, I would have to be patient and let Ash come to me. If I pushed him, he would spook and run. I knew that like I knew my own name, and who knew how long it would take to rebuild what little trust we’d managed? So I did nothing as he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine, releasing a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl.
“Ash?”
“I don’t wanna hurt you,” he whispered against my lips.
I took a breath, preparing to vocalize my protest, but then he began to shake.
“I'm trying to control him... me... I’m not even sure who I’m trying to control anymore. I’ve just… I’ve wanted you for so long,” he whispered, almost to himself and visibly shaking now.
I sighed in defeat and irritation. This man would be the death of me. He was driving me absolutely insane. But to be fair, he’d had a lot of help this week.
“What does that even mean?” I demanded. “You keep saying things like that! What don’t I know?”
His little comment had served as more than a distraction. It was an instantaneous reminder that he wasn’t the safe harbor I kept mistaking him for. This man had secrets. Given the severity of what he’d chosen to share, it seemed appropriate to be wary of anything he was still hesitant to reveal.
He looked up at me then, and as I met his gaze, I felt it, the chasm between us, like a living thing. It was filled with everything he was keeping hidden. Most surprisingly, I could see the need in his eyes. It wasn’t a physical desire but a deep longing, a hint of what this would mean to him, and that shook me to the core.
Ash’s eyes searched mine in return. For exactly what, I’m not sure, but I knew what he’d find there. Fear. Indecision. Guilt. Whatever it was he was hoping to see, he wouldn’t.
I saw it happen, watched the barrier he usually kept firmly in place, the one he’d finally let slip today, slam back into place between us. He pushed away from the shower wall, leaving me cold, confused, wanting.
“I gotta go. I was getting ready for work when your latest catastrophe interrupted. I may be gone a few days. I have a lot of catching up to do after babysitting the past week and a half, and the wedding before that.” And with that, he walked out of the bathroom.
It was all I could do to keep the tears from falling in front of him, but as soon as the bathroom door closed behind him, I let them go. Holding them back simply required more strength than I had left to give.
My hearing was improving, and I heard him stop at the closet and grab something off a hanger, heard a long zipper and the sound of fabric being shoved in a bag, then lighter than natural footsteps padding toward the front door.
I’d love to say that at this point I found my courage and went after him, but I didn’t. I looked and found nothing. No courage. How was I supposed to be anyone’s savior... anyone’s Guardian? A hero? I wasn’t brave. I flinched when I heard the front door slam, and still, nothing.
Seconds later, a piercing howl shattered the serenity of the evening. My eyes widened in surprise. In the midst of everything else, it had never occurred to me that Ash was a werewolf. I had known it on some level, like you acknowledge that someone brushes their teeth, but I’d never really thought about it. I wondered what he looked like in wolf form. Ash would probably be a black wolf. Rare and dark. That would make the most sense. And massive. There was zero chance he was a puny little wolf. All that easy self-assurance came from somewhere, and it wasn’t his mastery of his emotional security that he was so confident about.
I closed my eyes against the barrage of emotions threatening to break down my own carefully constructed barriers and shoved them all back beyond the wall, but they wouldn’t quite fit. I tried to divert my attention to something else, anything else, but it just wasn’t working. Random hurts and fears kept tumbling back over the edge into my consciousness.
One by one, I tossed them back over, but I felt like someone was dragging my soul over hot coals trying to keep them all in. I sank to the ground and wrapped my arms around my body, desperate to hold myself together until the final pieces of emotional baggage disappeared over the wall.
12
Alex
Satisfied that Ash was gone and that my tears were all dried up for the moment, I left my wall and the shower behind. I’d been drowning in emotions earlier, but having released some of the pressure, I felt better now. I think it was everything. Andrew, Ash, Jade, the Guardian, my discovery of all that the world truly held, Ash… I opened the bathroom door, intending to get dressed and drown my impending panic attack in Irish coffee and a Netflix marathon of some ridiculously addictive show, but I ran face first into Jade instead.
“Hey,” I started, but then I saw my overnight bag over her shoulder. “My clothes!” I rejoiced as I stepped around her grabbing my bag off her shoulder to rummage through it on the bed as Jade rolled her eyes at me.
“Hello to you too,” Jade responded. She’d gone simple, but that was fine. There were a few sports bras, one of which I slipped on while perusing the rest of the bag’s contents. You don’t realize how much you want a bra until yours is covered in blood and you have to go without for several days. Luckily, there was also one good bra, underwear, jeans, yoga pants, a few long sleeve T’s and…
“My favorite hoodie! Thank you! Oh! My bath stuff! Jade, you’re the best! I can’t wait to shave my legs,” I exclaimed as I slipped on a pair of jeans, then a t-shirt.
“You’re welcome as long as you don’t squeal in my ear anymore,” Jade chuckled. “Good thing that wolf’s not here anymore, y
ou’d have struck him deaf. Speaking of which…”
“So, how was the apartment?” I interrupted. I was drowning in denial with no intention of coming up for air any time soon. Until I caught a glint of something shiny in her hand, something reflecting the dwindling sunlight trickling through the windows. My locket. The one Andrew had given me when we’d graduated, when we knew we were going to two different colleges. The one he told me would make sure he was always near my heart, even when we couldn’t see each other.
“Alex?” Jade placed a hand gently on my shoulder, and I glanced up at her. “I thought you’d want it. I know how important it is. I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have—”
“No! No. Thank you for bringing it. It means a lot to me to have it. Not sure I could bear it if it was lost.” I smiled and hugged her again, too tight but she’d never complain, and when I pulled back, she wiped the tears from my eyes.
Jade nudged me. “Anything you’d like to share?”
“No.”
“Alexis Elizabeth Allen! When I left you were in the shower and your hair is dripping all over your clothes! Do not tell me there’s nothing to share.”
“Fine! God, you’re so bossy!” I chuckled weakly and shook my head, eyes rolling entirely of their own accord now. I didn’t really know how to start, but when I didn’t continue quickly enough, she prompted me.
“I heard his furry butt haul ass outta here just as I arrived, so what happened?”
“I don’t know. We had a moment in the shower, and—”
“Whoa!” Jade yelled, waving her hands around in front of her. “Seriously?”
“Oh! No! Definitely not that kind of moment.”
“Then pray tell, what kind of moment does one have in the shower with a hottie like that?”
“I had a little… incident.”
One perfectly arched brow raised higher as she fixed me with her unnaturally motherly glare that said, ‘speak now or die painfully.’
“I passed out in the shower talking to her again. Ash heard me hit the floor, I guess. I don’t actually know, I just know I woke up on the floor of the shower, wrapped in a towel, with Ash holding me.”
“Well, that doesn’t exactly sound painful. Logic would suggest I should’ve walked in at an extremely awkward moment when I arrived, but I didn’t, so what crawled up his furry butt? Why’d he ghost?”
“He had to go to work?” I began, shrugging awkwardly. “I didn’t realize rich, vapid, playboys had jobs,” I spouted sarcastically. No part of me believed Ash had a job to go to, which left me wondering what had really happened in the house and why he’d run away.
“Work, huh? Funny he never mentioned a job while he was pacing at your bedside. Or laying in the bed with you. For over a week.”
I ignored her.
“Okay, so spill. I need details. We haven’t had an opportunity for normal girl talk in a long while. This could be good.”
I proceeded to catch Jade up to the events that transpired in the shower. There was, of course, the fact that I’d had another unconscious conversation with whatever spiritual, supernatural being now resided somewhere inside of me, but all Jade seemed to be capable of focusing on was the fact that Ash kissed me in the shower.
“On the neck, Jade,” I clarified for what felt like the thousandth time.
“I love how you keep saying that like it’s less sexy,” she challenged. I had to admit, she had a point.
“It was some weird oath, or vow of loyalty, or something. I don’t even know how to explain it.”
“You mean to tell me he held you in his arms, wet and naked, kissed your neck to seal some kind of solemn vow, then held back when shit got real?” I nodded, reluctantly, and she continued, “Lord, that boy’s got it bad.”
“Not bad enough to stay. And what do you think he meant by all that ‘wanted you for so long’ stuff? Is he just so used to getting whoever he wants whenever he wants that a few days of waiting is ‘so long’? And how does he know so much about me? And—”
“There’s a lot you still don’t know, sweetie. That family…” Jade’s eyes softened as she watched me, then she shook her head slightly and turned her gaze to the window. “Don’t judge him too harshly just yet. Okay? There are things about him and this world you’ve yet to learn.”
I sighed audibly. “So why don’t you teach me?”
Jade smiled and turned back to me. “Oh, I will. And I won’t be the only one doing the training. But… One thing at a time. Let’s get some food in you. Get a good night’s rest, and then tomorrow we’ll start your training.”
She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and led me from Ash’s room. Rifling through the kitchen cabinets, we realized someone would need to go grocery shopping soon but managed to find enough random ingredients to throw together a decent dinner. We chatted as we cooked and sat at the dinner table, having our first real meal in almost two weeks and talking more openly than we ever really had, if only because Jade no longer had to hide her true self from me. She shared a few details of her long and many lives with me, and I busted my ass trying to keep my chin from hitting the floor at every new divulsion.
It was impossible not to give in to the draw of camaraderie and familiarity in the face of the nightmare that was my new normal, even if I knew it couldn’t last. Tonight, I would rest and refuel. Tomorrow, I wasn’t taking no for an answer anymore. I needed to know everything about this world I’d been thrust into, and I needed to know how to defend myself.
And apparently the world.
13
Alex
Iwoke the next morning to the sun streaming through an unfamiliar window. Jade and I had moved our stuff into two of the guest rooms after dinner the night before. Jade hadn’t been sleeping anywhere because physical embodiments of the earth’s magic didn’t actually sleep, apparently—I guess she’d been faking it all these years—and I couldn’t continue sleeping in Ash’s bed. I had been unconscious or too broken to care since we’d arrived, but I felt bad now about inconveniencing him for so long when there was another bed right here. Although to be fair, I hadn’t known that. Ash obviously had, but I didn’t know what to make of that, anymore.
I stretched my arms above my head and rolled to get up. I quickly stripped and pulled on a sports bra, t-shirt, and some sweats, then slipped on my socks and sneakers before heading to the kitchen. It was training day. I was excited and nervous, but mostly, I needed coffee. Jade and I had opted to open a bottle of wine with dinner last night. Apparently, angel parasite powers didn’t include avoiding hangovers.
What happened to the magical healing, anyway?
A sudden heat filled me, spreading like wildfire through my limbs and into my eyes. It took me off guard, and I stumbled as wings exploded from my back, bumping a vase on the bedside table and sending it cascading to the floor where it shattered. Shit. I was going to owe Ash a new house by the time this was all over with. About the time my head suddenly cleared, and all the pain disappeared, I heard a familiar voice inside my head.
We are not one yet. You only have my power when you access it. Though I do not think curing a hangover requires a Guardian.
Are you seriously chastising me for having some wine with a friend after the couple weeks I’ve had? I asked.
Ignoring me completely, she added, I am curious why your natural power hasn’t emerged. You’re still quite young, especially by angelic standards, but perhaps they are bound by something. Or someone?
Who would do that? Bind my angelic power? I asked, but in truth I was fairly certain of the answer. The only people who had known about my heritage. My parents. Whoever they were.
Yes, it would seem they hid you, but from whom? And why? she wondered. Even within you and with my considerable power, I cannot find what’s been done to you. This magic required a very strong being indeed. Stronger than me.
Stronger than her? Who or what exactly is stronger than you?
Only the Entity and the Archangels are stronger than the Cherub
im.
I felt all the hair on the back of my neck stand up and a chill slither across my skin. My breath came faster, and my heart began to pound. The Entity… God… or an Archangel? I didn’t really want to hear the answer, but I felt compelled to ask anyway. What does that mean?
While not impossible, it is unlikely the Entity would have gotten so directly involved. The Archangels are not known for their involvement in the matters of men, and they have been separated from mankind by the Veil for a very long time.
So what the hell does that mean?
It means I do not know yet. I have a theory, but it will take time to confirm.
Care to share with the class? I snarked.
I do not wish to alarm you without reason.
Alarm me?!
Suffice it to say that it doesn’t matter because you have me. First, make us one, then we will find a way to access your true nature together.
How do I do that? I asked, still unsure what accepting her entailed, or how to do it.
Accept that I am you and you are me. We are—
Both and one, yeah, yeah, I get it.
“Alex?”
My eyes focused suddenly on the room in front of me.
“Are you okay?” Ash asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” I said, a little surprised, realizing I was still standing and had managed to stay conscious.
“What were you doing? You were just standing there, not responding to—Wait… were you talking to her again?”
“Yeah, I was,” I said with a smile.
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