Exaltation (5 page)

“No, no. No need for lawyers,” LaDay said, raising his hands. “What objections do you have, Dr. Newberry? Are the test scores sufficient enough for you?”

“I have no way of knowing if Raven has completed her work on her own or not.”

“And my word is not good enough,” Jamison said with a sly smile.

Ignoring Jamison, Duncan went on. “Starting next Saturday there will be a class for the students who have fallen behind. If she attends those classes until the end of the semester, I’ll be satisfied.”

“That seems reasonable. I was going to state all three of them were to attend Saturday school for at least three weeks for this indiscretion,” LaDay added.

“Saturday school, yes, but I told you I wasn’t fond of him teaching my daughter and you’re giving him one on one time with her. That simply will not do.”

“Dr. Newbery spends his weekends immersed in his breakthrough research. He will not teach the weekend course. Mrs. Whilham will. Raven only has to attend his forty-five minute class during the week.”

Jamison glanced at River and Ash when he heard the name of the new teacher. They nodded once in approval.

“And exactly why are the twins not in this class? I’ve seen their test results. They obviously enjoy the course,” Emery asked, wanting to protect Raven and knowing that her twins had done so more than once.

“They have both taken classes that have given them the credit for the course. They do not have room to take it again for pleasure,” LaDay answered.

“Is the class full?” Jamison asked, on the same page as Emery.

“Why, do you want to attend? Need me to advise you?” Duncan snapped.

“Well versed. How could I not be when I have the pleasure of keeping company with Miss Sabien,” Jamison said with a cold glint in his eyes. “I merely asked for the fact that I’m aware of another student who would like to take this class. It’s not offered at his current school. I was speaking with his mother last week. She made me aware that she wanted him to transfer to this school.” He glanced at LaDay. “Did you receive the emails that were sent to you?”

LaDay seemed befuddled as he rose from the table and went to his desk. Honestly he had every right to be. Jamison hadn’t made sure those files were sent to LaDay until a moment or two before he walked into the meeting. He felt something off at the school and wanted all the kids in one place.

“This is not a dating service. I do not approve of you playing matchmaker in my class.”

“Do you honestly think that I would eagerly match my beautiful, brilliant daughter up with a boy? The fact that I even mentioned this should tell you I respect his family.”

“Family,” Duncan repeated with heavy sarcasm.

Soren was a year ahead of the girls but he was one of their best friends, always side by side with them when the ‘prickles’ seemed to emerge. His family was within the Dominarum coven. He was a direct descendant from the original members, just as Emery was.

“I have it right here. Soren Wade. Impressive. I can easily approve this. And he’s missing this credit. Would that satisfy everyone here?”

“It satisfies me,” Jamison said, as he leaned back in his seat and put his arm around Emery. He knew she would be, too. Soren was as laid back as River, but like River, he surely would be able to call out something amiss and knew exactly how to handle it or who to call.

“Dr. Newberry?”

“No funny business in my class. She attends Saturday classes until the end of the semester. The other two in Saturday detention.”

“Agreed.”

“Fine. Then myself and Miss BellaRose have a class to attend in fifteen minutes,” Duncan said as he stood.

“I’m taking Raven home. No sense in her embarking on a new beginning at the end of a week.” Jamison glanced at Emery as if to question if River and Ash were to be dismissed as well.

“Yes, I planned to have them all leave with us today so we can discuss this as a family. And ensure that they are ready for next week.”

Jamison stood, gently pulling Emery up with him. “Do I need to sign them out or can you handle that for me?” he asked LaDay.

“No issues at all. We’ll start fresh Monday in the right classes.”

“Go get your things,” Jamison said, with a nod to Raven.

He waited until the girls and Duncan had left and Mr. LaDay had turned his back on them before he put his arm around Emery, encased her in his energy and whisked her away, manifesting under the football bleachers outside. He knew he had to calm her down and they had to figure out what to do next.

Chapter Five

Staring down at Emery in his arms, seeing the worry in her eyes caused Jamison to reflect on the path the pair of them had traversed both together and apart. How it lead them to this moment of reckoning. He knew time was running out, that they could no longer shelter the girls from the fate clearly beckoning more and more each day.

As the coven leader, Jamison was always there for the naming of the babes, the small ceremony. Those days brought peace to him, outright bliss, for he knew that birth meant the coven, all its power, would live on for generations.

It was different with Emery’s name day. The entire day he’d felt nervous, had some odd vibration of energy that, in all the ages he had lived, he’d yet to experience. It jarred him. It was one of the very few moments in his existence he could recall being caught off guard.

It bothered him so much that he left her ceremony far earlier than he should have and made it a point to never cross her path unless it was beyond necessary. It was easy to do because back then Jamison primarily spent his time with the coven originals, more so Saige than anyone. Births and deaths, those were the instances he visited others.

The first time Jamison saw Emery after her name day was when she laid her parents in the grave at the age of seventeen. That eccentric feeling was even more insane then. It wasn’t a distant feeling, one you knew was there but thought it better to ignore. No, the surge of energy was so intense it nearly knocked the wind out of him.

He couldn’t handle it, feeling something so unexplainable, so he made it a point to ensure the coven gave her everything she needed for the finest schools. Then he watched her leave town.

It was nearly ten years later when she surfaced in the Quarter again. Emery had caused a stir in the coven for more than a few reasons. For one, she was striving to become a mythologist and was eager to learn of her family’s history—but not so she could immerse herself within it, it was purely research to her. You can’t research the lifestyle; you have to live it to understand it.

She had also decided she wanted a family, wanted her parents’ legacy to live on. She had both physical and emotional issues withholding her desire. Her body refused to be a temple and her spirit refused to rescind its independence—to fall in love with another.

Her only choice was to grasp unconventional ways of obtaining her babe, which shocked the orthodox followers of the coven. Several members came to Jamison, asking him to reach out to her, explain to her how precious her blood was, her vim, how she had to be careful.

Jamison did his best to avoid the topic, knowing that if he went anywhere near her he would feel the eccentric pulse and pull once more.

One day he gave in, or rather saw her in the Quarter and thought to himself it wouldn’t hurt to take her out for coffee, see how she was doing, you know, do his part as the coven leader. As he approached from a distance, he not only felt the hum deep inside, but he felt his heart ache.

Emery was staring into a window, one with baby displays. There was so much love in her eyes, a humble longing. In that moment he knew nothing would stop her from having the family she wanted.

Instead of speaking to her he went to the doctor the coven utilized and gave his donation. Cleary situations like that are anonymous and Jamison wanted it to stay that way. He wanted to leave it to chance, the fates he respected. He told himself at the very least, out of each of the files Emery had, there was a chance she would not only carry on her parents’ legacy but also the power the coven had at its core.

Emery left town not long after on one of her long research adventures which took her across the globe. As far as Jamison knew she had let the idea of being a mother rest for a time.

Three months later Raine crashed into Jamison’s life, cast her net of seduction around him. The year she was in his life, staying in his home, he rarely left, had next to nothing to do with the coven. He was too busy trying to figure out how to protect the child he knew without a doubt was on the way.

Jamison didn’t realize he and Emery had created life—that she had, indeed, blindly chosen him. At least not until Raven’s naming ceremony.

The entire coven came. Thelma Ray brought bags and bags of clothes. Food, laughter, and joy were available in abundance, so was clandestineness. No one dared to question where Raven’s mother was, why she left, who she was, and Jamison chose to not explain. The day was long and not once did Jamison put Raven down. Each time he’d dared to do so since she was born she cried and he couldn’t handle it.

Once the party was over, as he rocked Raven in his arms and stared out his window, he watched as Emery made her way up the street with a dual infant stroller.

The volt of energy he always felt around her was three times as strong at that moment. His eyes rushed to the babes, to her. It took all the willpower he had not to manifest at her side. Not to gaze down at those babes and see if he did, indeed, sense his essence as he was sure he did.

All at once the haze around Jamison, around the impact Raine made upon him, lifted. He glanced down to Raven then to the babes with Emery, and nearly lost his ability to breathe. The emotion was so rich it virtually drowned his soul with a melody of bliss and fear.

Ages before, in another dimension, the Dominarum coven wrote the prophecy of a coming Rapture. Jamison fell into their world not long afterward, a lost soul looking for a new beginning. He knew each word of their predictions by heart.

Some stated that fallen angels would bring forth a child of exaltation, that the father would bring forth twin female guardians—the original line of the coven would bring forth a solitary male guardian. The three guardians would stand in trine as they protected the rising Sovereign of Exaltation.

The prophecy was lyrical, and the birth of the souls was only mentioned in a few lines. He told himself that was why he didn’t recognize it when the words became his
life
. Even though he was sure the Creator himself had blinded him purposely. Knowing he would never agree to this course of life for any child of his.

Jamison knew at that exact moment Emery’s twins, his, were the guardians to Raine’s daughter, the one she removed all claim to. He knew how hard and dark the innocent babes’ lives would be. He felt sick to his core, sick his daughters were a part of this Rapture, that he had pulled Emery within it. He knew Emery, someone who by all accounts saw her heritage as myths, would never forgive him.

That day he watched as Thelma Ray took over the stroller and Emery pulled a gift from underneath it. She kissed the babes then nervously looked at Jamison’s home. Thelma Ray nudged her to go on, and a few seconds later she did.

The idea of being alone with her, after what he had just been through, what he knew was now between them, was overwhelming. Any sense of calm he was known for in the coven was lost in the brief meeting with her that afternoon. He couldn’t meet her eyes, couldn’t find words to speak. She was the only woman who had ever made him edgy, stole his breath.

Emery had taken mercy on him, was kind, patient, and offered to help with anything he needed. It was a few weeks later when Jamison was doing his best to calm Raven by strolling through the streets of the Quarter with her in his arms, that he found himself at Emery’s home.

She invited him in for dinner and found it odd he still wouldn’t put Raven down, had her snug against his chest at all times. Gently she took Raven from him. To his shock Raven didn’t cry. She was at peace right next to the twins, even though they were older, more mobile. Watching them play eased Raven.

Jamison stayed the night. He stayed every night for those first two years. He slept on the couch and did his part to help with the nightly feedings and changings. It was all a blur, and somewhere in that haze he fell even harder for Emery.
Mine, made of me.

Falling for her felt like sin. He knew that though he gave her the family she wanted, he’d also placed all she deemed precious in mortal danger. He went to tell her, over and over, but each time something would halt his words. It was her bliss…when he saw it in her eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to lay their children’s ominous fate on her lap.

He knew if he touched her, held her once, he wouldn’t have the power to withhold any truths from her. And that’s why, diligently for two years, he rarely met her eyes even though they lived side by side. His focus and her focus was squarely on the girls at all times, marveling as they passed through infanthood.

Late one night when he came in from work he found her lingering in the girls’ doorway, just smiling at them as they slept.

Emery was breathtaking. Not just because of the classic beauty she carried but also for the hum of her soul as it reached out to Jamison, constantly beckoning him closer.

That night for some reason the glint in her eyes when she looked up at him, saw him—really looked deep in his soul—slaughtered every inch of Jamison’s willpower.

He couldn’t stop himself. He pulled her from the doorway, leaned her against the wall, and deepened the absorbing gaze between them. Emery’s chest was rising and falling. There was fear in her eyes, enough to make him hesitate, but then all at once she leaned up and took his lips.

The sensation was mind-blowing to Jamison, and nearly brought him to his knees. They had never spoken of his immortality before then, his power. As far as he knew Emery was oblivious to it. Hiding that element of himself from her just then was impossible. His energy wrapped around her and he whisked her to her room. Slowly, they explored each other, fell into a high which was hard to explain—numb, captivating, astounding.

Jamison barely stopped himself that night and when he did the only emotion on Emery’s visage was shock. Out of breath he sat on the edge of her bed, shirtless, his belt undone, slacks all but opened wide, and stared forward. The truth of his sins spilled from his lips in a whisper that caressed the darkness around them.

Emery sat eerily still as he spoke. After a long silence her gaze drifted over him, and then told him she knew the prophecy, that the very Rapture her parents were waiting on was what inspired her love for her career. She told him she had felt it, the truth of it, as she watched the girls play, as she realized how alike all the girls looked, how they carried Jamison’s features.

Emery approached everything logically, and that is how she saw the pair of them, the course before them. It was months later she asked on a heated breath of passion for him to give her immortality, asked him to allow her to see their girls’ path she was sure was generations ahead. No hesitation came from him. He wanted her strong, safe, and at his side—forever.

The life they led currently, the distance between them, before the girls and before the coven, was Emery’s idea. She didn’t want anyone in the coven to see the truth, to see that their children, along with Soren, were now born. She didn’t want them to know the Rapture was due to come—that the fallen angel and the womb-less woman were silently raising warriors.

Today, only select members knew what the girls and Soren were destined for. Others surely assumed, enough so that Jamison didn’t feel Emery’s reasons for their secret love affair made any sense. He didn’t like that only one of his daughters called him father, even though he’d raised them all.

Carefully he leaned Emery against the wall under the bleachers. His gaze slowly eased over her as his hands moved down her sides, his thumbs grazing her chest seconds before reaching her hips and squeezing slightly before he leaned his forehead to hers.

Emery moved her hands up his chest, doing her best to hide the fast breaths that he still, to this day, elicited from her.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered. Duncan had caused hell in their lives in the past. He’d harassed, stolen, threatened. He was a nightmare, and now he was back and their daughters had recognized him as a threat.

Jamison leaned down, let his lips linger before he kissed her. Nice and slow at first. Just a
hello, I’ve missed you
kiss, but then his hands moved around her waist and he pulled her flesh against him and deepened the kiss.

Emery gave in momentarily. High on the sensation of him. On the feel of him against her in their stolen moment. But then she pulled away and reached to cradle his face as she looked into his eyes. “You’re distracting me on purpose. Tell me what you sense.”

Jamison’s eyes searched hers rapidly. He didn’t want to tell her he sensed danger. An Escort, more than one, in this school, and they were from the very line Raven was set to rule one day, Exaltation. He didn’t want to tell her Duncan wasn’t the issue, it was them.

“Someone from my past is lurking close.”

Emery dropped her gaze, her hands, and flushed as she looked away, fearing it was Raine. Her return was a dread that stayed with Emery; she knew the deity Raine could rob her of her bliss long before the girls’ fate. “Then she should meet her daughter.”

They didn’t disagree or fight much, and when they did it was silent fights. Emery struggling with her thoughts and him striving to earn a trust she would not completely surrender.

He’d told her a million times every detail of Raine’s time in his life, and to this day Emery didn’t accept it was as simple as he claimed.

Jamison furrowed his brow then dipped his head to catch Emery’s stare “There is no Raine. I don’t know how else to prove it to you. Her purpose was served and the Creator moved her on.”