Eternal (21 page)
Authors: London Saint James
“Back off!” Cayden said through clenched jaw,
inches from this man’s face.
I started shaking. It was complete unadulterated
panic. Worried this crazy man was going to try to hurt Cayden. My fears flooded
me. Not necessarily fear this man could physically overtake Cayden, who was
young and strong and could hold his own in a fight, but w
hat if this man had a weapon?
I
pulled at Cayden’s arm in fear. I was trying, all be it unsuccessfully, to move
him back from the man. I felt the adrenalin coursing through him. A storm
rolled through his body. The man seemed to move forward, but Cayden stood his
ground. He never broke his grip from my waist.
“I will take her from you, demon,” the man said.
Cayden tensed as though he were going to rip
this man apart. “You will never touch her!” Cayden practically spit the words.
The man threw his hands up into the air saying,
“She has always been your whore! You breathed your last breath, and you still
took her. You can’t have her soul!”
Jayden shot forward. He was standing in front of
Cayden then Langdon swooped in. “Sir, you need to leave,” Jayden instructed in
a harsh tone.
Langdon positioned himself right beside Jayden.
They were creating a wall between the man and Cayden.
wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
“It’s okay. Everything is okay,” he whispered in
my ear.
Flashbulbs went off in constant blinding bursts.
News commentators with their camera crews were still coming toward us, and the
crowd screamed nonstop for Cayden. Strange. No one cared about the scene that
played out on the red carpet. Being frenzied themselves, they only cared to see
or touch Cayden. There was so much noise no one but the few of us could even
hear the man. The crowd would have no real idea of what he was saying, and they
seemed uncaring or oblivious to this crazy man as though he wasn’t even there.
The photographers on the other hand focused on us, the man, and kept clicking
their cameras.
The man yelled. “I love her! He’s a demon, a
demon! I need to save Winter from the demon!”
Jayden moved forward in a quick preemptive
strike before this crazed man started lunging toward him like some sort of
animal. Cayden turned around. He looked at me with sheer panic on his face
before smoothing out his expression. I had never seen him so unhinged before.
My nightmares of someone hurting Cayden were nonstop. They played out in my
head. A knife, a gun…. I shook intently and knew the exact moment my eyes
glazed over.
“Winter, just look at me,” Cayden said. He
lightly shook me. “Look at me and no one else. Focus on me.” He stared at me
intently. In the back of my mind, I realized he was trying to keep me calm,
trying to pull me out of my fears, trying to protect me from the chaos that was
breaking out like a scene from a horror movie. “Winter, please baby, look at
me.”
I shook my head in agreement. I gazed into his
face, into his eyes. “Cayden.”
“There you are, baby,” he said with a sense of
relief. “I’m here, and I have you. Stay with me, look at me.” Cayden’s voice
was calm and quiet as he spoke.
right hand around my waist, and he kept his gaze locked with mine. I do not
know how long we stood this way. The sound of the crowd crammed my ears, but
Cayden’s perfect face flooded my eyes. Langdon came over and whispered
something in Cayden’s ear. Cayden nodded his head in agreement. He glared at
“He’s gone. He has been arrested. Let’s go,
back at me. “I have you,” he assured.
Cayden turned around. Without pause, he took a
hold of my right hand and intertwined his fingers with mine.
and Langdon lead the way up the red carpet into the theater, cameras flashing
the entire time.
Once we were inside the theater, Cayden stopped
walking. He squeezed my hand as he turned his attention to Jayden. “Jayden,” he
said, quietly, “we need to get Winter out of here.”
Jayden nodded. He started speaking to Langdon. I
was unable to hear what he and Langdon were saying.
“No. I’m not leaving you here,” I protested
quietly to Cayden.
“We are all leaving,” Cayden replied as he
squeezed my hand once more.
Zander and Melissa came out from the darkened
theater and walked over to us. “What happened?” Zander asked.
“Some crazy man,”
for a few seconds.”
“He got close enough to touch her,” Cayden
interjected, his voice flat.
“He got to Winter?” Zander asked.
I witnessed something flash between Cayden and
Zander.
Cayden nodded his head slightly. “Yes.”
From behind us, Cheryl Lynn along with her
entourage entered. I heard her voice cutting though the panic in my mind.
“The crowds are wild tonight. I simply love it!”
She walked around
intertwined in mine. “What are you doing?”
“We had an incident coming in. Someone got to
Winter.” Cayden practically hissed the words in response to her question.
She sniffed.
“Why are you holding her hand? Cayden, have you
totally lost your mind? I thought I was wrong, but I’m not. You are….” Cheryl
Lynn looked mortified. She stopped talking. She stood in her sheer golden dress
like a picture perfect statue of a goddess, a tribute to sex, staring at Cayden
then at me.
“I’m holding her hand, too,”
attack her. We are making sure she is safe, Cheryl Lynn. It was very confusing
and upsetting. Winter isn’t a pro like you.”
She laughed. I watched her flick her long hair
over her shoulder as though she never heard
“You are in love with her,” she said to Cayden
in a statement.
He stared at me for a long moment. He smiled
tenderly before he returned his attention to Cheryl Lynn. “Yes,” he replied
without any hesitation.
“We need to go, Cayden,”
Cheryl Lynn looked strange, her porcelain
features smoothed. “People try to attack me all the time. That’s what
bodyguards are for. No reason to make such a big deal of it. Winter looks
perfectly fine. No harm done.”
“Leave!” Cayden said to her.
Cheryl Lynn had a dumfounded expression for all
of a minute. Her mouth open, jaw dropped, she gawked at Cayden as if he had
picked up a gun and shot her.
“Excuse me?” she finally said, her eyelashes
fluttering.
“Now is not the time,” Cayden replied.
Jayden came over and whispered something into
to stand behind me.
“The limo is back, we are leaving now.”
announcement to all of us.
“We have to go back out there?” I asked.
Cayden turned to look at me. “I’m here,” he said
while he held my gaze.
“I will stay, do some damage control,” Zander
said.
Melissa looked aghast.
“They arrested him,” Cayden said. Zander nodded.
Cheryl Lynn was taking it all in with wide eyes.
“You can’t leave, Cayden. This is our premiere!”
Cayden’s voice became hard, and his blue eyes
flashed thunder in her direction. “Goodnight, Cheryl,” Cayden said. We all
turned to follow while Jayden and Langdon led the way back down the red carpet.
Once we were securely in the limo, Cayden pulled
me onto his lap. The warm gust of his breath skipped across my cheek. “Baby, I
am so sorry. Are you okay?” he whispered in my ear.
“Yes,” I said.
“Winter, I am sorry,”
mine, but then I was cornered. I thought you would stay next to me. Cayden got
to you before I could. Are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt.” I was surprised at how calm I
was. “It was my fault. I moved forward, away from you,
I was never scared for myself only terrified
someone would hurt Cayden. My head spun. I thought for sure I was going to
faint. Cayden must have felt the shift of my body within his arms.
“Winter, are you all right?” Cayden’s voice was
almost panicked. “Baby,” he said as my eyes closed.
I tried to gain control. It took me a moment.
“A little lightheaded,” I admitted.
“Relax, breathe,” Cayden whispered. “I have
you.” He secured me tighter to his chest. I rested my head on top his shoulder.
“This is why you need Jayden, baby. I should have never agreed to let you go
out without him. I know better, this is entirely my fault.”
“No. You need both of them with you. If someone
would hurt you I could not live.” I closed my eyes. “Cayden, it terrifies me,
the thought of someone trying to hurt you.”
“Shh…my love.” He rubbed my back in small
soothing circles.
“You know they have pictures of us tonight. You
know this is going to get bad for you, not to mention you told Cheryl Lynn.”
“Winter, I don’t care what Cheryl knows. I don’t
care what kind of pictures they have either. You were in danger. I could not
allow that strange man to touch you, hurt you.” Cayden had distress breaking
through his usual smooth voice. “When I saw what was happening I almost lost my
mind. You have no idea how hard it was not to lunge out and kill that man.”
“Mr. Cain,” Jayden said, “it was the same man we
encountered in
so he knew Winter would be here.”
“What?” Cayden asked, shock playing strongly
through his voice.
“I don’t like that fact any more than you do,
Mr. Cain,” Jayden replied.
“Are you sure, Jayden?”
“Yes, I am positive,” Jayden replied.
“Cayden, he could have been dangerous. He could
have hurt you,” I said, hiding my face into Cayden’s shoulder. He held me close
and rubbed my back.
Chapter Twelve
How do I hold on?
The rest of the drive was quiet, tomb-like
quiet. I stayed locked in Cayden’s arms. I pressed my face into his shoulder
and neck. All I could think about was losing him. And the press was going to
make things so much harder. They had pictures of Cayden protecting me, of him
holding my waist, my hand. I knew what the world would see in those pictures
when Cayden and I looked into each other’s eyes. It would be the truth. People
would know I loved Cayden as well he loved me. Within those few seconds, within
a flash, we were exposed.
He carried me from the limo, into the house then
up the stairs into his bedroom. He held me in his arms, not saying a word. I
clung to him. Soon my world was going to change. I felt it. It had already
changed. I didn’t know how to hold on. Cayden sat down on the end of his bed.
He kept me cradled against his chest. He rocked me there for a moment. The only
sound in the room was the
ticking
of a clock and the slight
hum
of the air conditioner.
Cayden reached down and started untying the
straps around my ankles. He let one spiked heel fall with a dull
thud
to
the ground and then the next. He placed his fingers to the scar around my right
ankle. He outlined it gently. I’d never told him how much I disliked wearing
heels or the pain they cause me yet he seemed to know, somehow. Cayden tenderly
rubbed the scar. He did this for a long moment before he held his hand palm
down against it, cradling my ankle within his large hand.
My fingers wrapped around the collar of his
shirt. I pulled his tie loose before undoing the buttons from his neck. My
fingertips roamed over his collarbone, outlining the shape. His tie fell, hit
the corner of the bed, dangled there. In the next moment his hand wrapped
around my ankle, securing it, shackling my flesh for his possession. He
massaged the arch of my left foot. Cayden laid me back onto the bed and took my
right foot. He pressed his fingers into the arches, balls, and heels of my
feet. Something like electricity shot from my feet, through my loins, to my
head. I bit at my bottom lip.
Cayden continued massaging my feet sinuously. Like
magic, the ache left. He placed my ankle to his mouth. His lips kissed my
scare.