Forgotten Visions (The Divinities Book 1) (8 page)

“
I thought Khloe
stopped dancing to take over your mother’s computer business.”

Kalissa shrugged. “She teaches when they need her.”

Ayden grabbed her free hand, linking his fingers with hers. She turned her head to look into his eyes with that hint of panic still there. He couldn’t hold back any longer, Noah’s warning still heavy on his mind. What other choice did he have? Unwilling to spend the next day and a half to two days pretending that they were nothing more than friends and never had been, he had to do something. Insanity would take over his mind. The pull between them was too strong to push aside. Turning to face her on the sofa, he drew in a deep breath, taking in her confusion and curiosity. “You suffer from headaches. Why is that?”

“They’re just headaches,” she said with a smile that told him she was hiding something.

“Something tells me that it’s more than that.” He studied her face.

Kalissa shrugged and looked down at their linked hands. “I get them…sometimes.”

“When you have visions?” he asked.

Kalissa snapped her eyes back up to his face. “How did you know?” she asked accusingly.

“A guess. I had to pull the vision of what happened to Willow out of your subconscious. Why is that, Kalissa? Why do you lock up your Divine gift?” He tried to keep his tone soft and gentle. The betrayal still lingered beneath the surface and made it hard not to be angry with her. But she was a victim in this as much as he was.

“They became too painful,” she whispered after a long silence. 

Ayden took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The headaches?”

She nodded. “And the emotions.” There was silence again. He wasn’t sure if he understood what she was trying to say. Finally, she spoke again. Her words were more random, like she needed to get them all out in the open. “At first, after Liam died, the visions were more like memory clips. I didn’t understand because I didn’t remember them as mine, but I was in them. When I tried to remember or force the visions, I got sharp pains in my head. Then the visions got more frequent, and so did the headaches. A few months later, the dreams started.”

Ayden’s heart ached for her. Her emotions were so loud they pounded on the wall he’d put up to block them. The dreams could’ve been her locked down memories or something else entirely. “What were the dreams about?”

She looked at him. Her violet eyes shined with unshed tears. “Death. Everyone I care about is going to die.”

His gut wrenched, and he tightened his grip on her hands slightly. “You know that visions can be changed. Nothing is set in stone.”

She pulled her hands free, stood up, and walked to the bay window that overlooked the back of the property. “That’s just it. I saw the deaths and nothing else. Nothing before to tell me when and where.”

The memory spell. It must have had an effect on her visions. It was the only thing that made sense. “So you locked them down?” he asked.

She didn’t look at him as he got up and walked over to stand next to her at the window. He spoke softly, trying to soothe her. “I think I know what’s wrong with your visions.”

She turned to study his face. He stepped closer to her, reached out with his fingers, and slowly traced his fingertips down her cheek to her jawline. Cupping her head, he lowered his and pressed a gentle kiss to her soft lips.

The second Ayden’s
lips touched hers in a soft, sensual kiss, an image of them as teenagers sitting in a barn kissing flashed in her mind.  “Oh,” she whispered, pulling back from him. “You kissed me. I mean, when we were kids.” 

Ayden nodded and touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. The silver swirled in the blue of his eyes. “You were my first real kiss,” he whispered, just inches from her lips.

She swallowed hard and waited for the panic to rise. Surprisingly, it never came. Instead, a strong urge to grab him, rip his shirt off his muscular chest, and nip and lick every inch of him arose. The much too brief kiss had ignited something inside her. Need boiled.

“And you were mine,” she admitted. The memory of that afternoon was so clear now, as if it had happened yesterday. How did she remember something that only a few moments before, she’d had no recollection of at all? 

They were both fifteen and playing hide-and-seek with the other children in the coven. Ayden was the seeker.

Kalissa hides behind the bales of hay in the loft of the coven’s barn. Footsteps enter the barn, butterflies swarm inside her belly. Then she realizes there is only one way to go. She is so busted.

Ducking farther behind the hay stacks, she listens to Ayden walk around below her. She could teleport, but that would be cheating. She jumps when the ladder moves slightly, indicating that someone is climbing up it.

“I know you’re up here.” His soft chuckle reaches her ears, making her feel giddy.

Kalissa steps out of her hiding place and faces him. His smile reaches his baby blue eyes. She moves to the right, and then darts left to go around him. But he is too fast and grabs her waist, pulling her to him hard enough that they fall into a pile of loose hay. He kisses her before she has time to think. It’s her first real, adult kiss.

“It took me a long time to get up the nerve to kiss you.” Ayden’s voice pulled her from the memory. She let out a soft gasp when he captured her mouth gently in a real-time kiss. His warm tongue licked her lips to encourage her to open for him. Without hesitation, she opened to the invasion and met his tongue halfway with hers. Feelings rose in her that she recognized. The electrifying desire swirled around them, intensifying their connection. It was the same as their first kiss.

The softness of a bed broke their kiss. She looked around. They had somehow teleported into the bedroom adjacent to the living room. He looked down at her from his position above her. “Did I do that, or you?” he asked with a crooked smile.

She laughed. “I think it was a combined effort.” Her laughter died as Ayden kissed her again on the lips and then trailed feather-light kisses down her cheek to her jawline. She couldn’t think. Being kissed by him was unlike anything she had ever known. Soft, gentle, and demanding all bound into one passionate kiss. Yet she didn’t feel pressured or controlled by it. Yeah, Liam had been a good kisser, but there was always possession behind it, a need to control.

Pressing his hips into her center, Ayden kissed her neck. He slid his hand under her blouse and up her ribcage to cup one of her breasts.

“Wait, wait, wait. Stop!” The panic she’d expected a few moments ago took her over. Flashes of Liam’s possessive and angry face entered her mind.

Ayden lifted up over her; worry lines formed across his forehead. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t…”

Ayden kissed her on the forehead and sat up on the bed next to her. His hands clenched into fists. Kalissa sat up, folded her legs under her like a pretzel, tugged a pillow into her lap, and hugged it to her. He was mad. Embarrassment and guilt triggered her own anger. Why couldn’t she let it go? She thought her fear of intimacy had gone away. Boy was she wrong.

Grow up, Kalissa!
She scolded herself.
Toughen up and face your fears.
It’s the only way to get past them. To heal them. The problem was, she didn’t know how.

“Don’t ever apologize for saying no.” Ayden’s voice was strained, almost a growl, but his aura shone bright blue. He wasn’t mad at her. Turning to face her, he reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek that she hadn’t realized had fallen. His tone softened. “What did he do to you?”

Kalissa looked away from him. There was no way she would reveal that, not yet. She shook her head and was glad that he was empathic. He would sense her pain and fear and read between the lines.

Ayden sighed and leaned into her. His lips gently pressed to hers in a quick kiss. When he pulled back, he said, “I could never hurt you.”

Her subconscious grabbed on to the truth that hung on his words. She relaxed. Ayden was nothing like Liam.  

The silence between them started to wear on her nerves. Thinking back on what he’d told her earlier about her visions, she asked, “Why did I not know about our first kiss?”

“We believe you may have had a memory spell placed on you.”

Memory spell?
She asked silently in her head, then asked aloud, “We?”

“Khloe, Papa, Zach, and I. Lo said she asked and hinted around, but you would get frustrated, and a headache would come on. She stopped asking questions for fear of hurting you. Papa said not to force the memories because the spell may cause you harm. He said that memory spells can damage the mind.” Ayden got quiet, and sadness infused his expression. “I believe it’s why your visions are misfiring,” he added after a brief pause.

“Because of the past, present, and future thing.” Kalissa’s gift as a seer not only allowed her to see visions of the future but the past and present, as well. If she were under a memory spell to forget part of the past, then her visions would be affected. It all made sense to her now. She couldn’t use her gift to its fullest without terrible headaches. She’d finally had to lock them down.

But who would do such a thing? And why?

Kalissa glided through
the forest, enjoying the beautiful blue sky and warm summer breeze caressing her skin. The birds sang. Trees swayed, creating a melody of their own as the wind blew through their branches. She could hear the wildlife all around, taking advantage of the perfect, not-too-hot, not-too-cool weather. 

She loved it here. The forest surrounding her family’s cabin on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains was so peaceful. The air so clean and crisp. All the elements and nature were alive. Regret for not coming here the last two years filled her.

Kalissa walked down a footpath that’d been there for as long as she could remember. The trail split off in three directions about twenty-five yards from the cabin. Left led to the river that flowed through the mountains. The path to the right opened to a meadow where her family had held their rituals. But she chose to go straight, where another seventy-five yards up the path was a cave. She and Khloe had loved to play in that cave when they were little. But something called to her now. Something was in that cave, and she wanted to know what it was.

When she came to the end of the path, the cavern came into sight as she emerged from the tree line. Ayden stood next to the entrance that appeared to be blocked by something.
A spell?

He stepped forward, closer to her, and held out his hand. “We were waiting for you.”

We?
She looked around. Khloe stood to their right with Zach, Lydia, Jacen, and a dark-haired woman. She recognized Jacen and Lydia from photos in the family albums. Kalissa did not know the other woman, at least not by name. She had seen her before, but couldn’t remember where.

“You are the only one who can open the cave,” Khloe said.

“Why me?” Kalissa asked.

Khloe gave her a sideways smile, almost a smirk. “Not sure. Plus, I already tried.”

Kalissa laughed at that. It was so like Khloe to start without her. “Maybe we both need to be present.”

Khloe came over to stand next to Kalissa at the mouth of the cave. Ayden kissed her on the forehead and fell back with the others. Kalissa linked hands with her sister. Just before they began their chant, a breeze blew through Kalissa’s hair and a whispered voice drifted by. “They’re coming.”

They locked gazes. “Who’s coming?” Khloe asked. Because she could control all elements, she was connected to them the same way Kalissa was connected to air so she’d also heard the voice.

Kalissa turned around in time to see several demons step out of the trees around them. Everything happened so fast as the demons rushed them. Falling into a crouch, she braced herself for impact. Adrenaline raced through her veins in anticipation. Demons weren’t people, so she had no qualms about taking a few out. Her attacker barreled into her, knocking both her and him to the ground. They rolled until she managed to overtake him, then she conjured a silver dagger and plunged it into his heart. 

A movement from the tree line grabbed Kalissa’s attention. A larger demon had his arms raised in front of him, palms to the sky, and he was building an incredible amount of energy into a large sphere. With an evil gleam in his eyes, he directed the magical sphere at Ayden and let it go. She screamed and ran toward him, only to have hands grab her arms, holding her back. She couldn’t move. She started to cry, yelling for him to move. She struggled to get free, to get to him. Another scream ripped from her throat as the energy ball sailed through the air. A look of shock and horror masked Ayden’s face.

Kalissa came awake with a gasp. Ayden loomed over her with his hands on her arms. When he released her, she flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist. She shook as hot tears streamed down her cheeks. The beating of his heart in her ear soothed her as she held him close so she would know that he was alive. It was just a dream. No, not a dream. It was a vision.

Ayden held her
as she cried into his shirt. Her panic hung in thick waves around her. Her screams had awakened him. Fear spiked through his whole body until he’d teleported to her side. 

He brushed the hair from her face, then rubbed her back in slow, circular motions to soothe her. They sat there in each other’s arms for the gods knew how long, and he would gladly stay like that forever. It felt good to hold her in his arms again. Her hair still smelled of jasmine and fresh rain. Maybe that was her natural scent. Whatever it was, he loved it.

Kalissa finally stopped shaking and fell completely still. At first, he thought she might have fallen back to sleep. Lifting her chin with his finger, he peered into her vivid violet eyes, reddened from tears, and gave her a soft smile. “Better?”

She nodded, pulled away from him, and with a frown, reached out to the wet spot on his shirt. “I’m sorry…”

Ayden cut her off by taking her hand in both of his and placing a tender kiss to her palm. “It’s just a shirt.” He stood up, still holding her hand. “Come on. I’ll fix you some coffee, and you can tell me about your vision.”

Kalissa sat at the
kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a spiral notebook in front of her. Ayden had found it and brought it to her along with a pen shortly after fixing her coffee. She asked how he’d known about her dream journal.

He smiled and said, “You told me once, plus, Noah keeps one.”

All seers kept one to keep track of and decipher dreams from visions. Sometimes it was hard to tell them apart. Dreams could be very real and as vivid as visions. On the flip side, visions could be very dreamlike and unclear.

She sat at the kitchen table with the window open, taking in the pleasant morning breeze, writing down as much of the dream-vision as she could remember. Ayden left her to go shower and change. Apparently, she’d woken him up when she’d screamed out in her sleep. He’d thrown on his clothes from the day before and teleported into her room on the first floor. Although, now that she thought about it, she was a little disappointed. It would’ve been a bonus to press her cheek to his bare chest instead of a cotton t-shirt. 

Kalissa was still dressed in her pink pajama bottoms with black witch hats and a black tank top. She hadn’t bothered to brush her hair. Instead, she’d twisted the mass of blond waves up in a loose bun on the top of her head. After embarrassing herself by clinging to Ayden and crying in his shirt like a child waking from a nightmare, she was past trying to be impressive.

Ayden had still called her beautiful as he’d kissed her forehead before heading upstairs.

The change in Ayden since he’d told her about the memory spell frightened her. He seemed to fall into the comfortable role of boyfriend, like he hoped to pick up where they’d left off. Wherever that was, she didn’t remember. Being with him, even for the short time of one full day, she felt things for him that she couldn’t explain. Desire flared, warming her entire body when he walked into the room. His husky voice captivated her. She was drawn to him like nobody else.

But hesitation bounced between them—her hesitation. And fear of sex. Gods, she had to get past that. He deserved more than her insecurities.  

Willow came drifting in from the living room to the kitchen. Kalissa smiled at her. “How do you feel?” She smelled like the forest. The wonderful earthy and floral scent Kalissa had grown up loving. The healthy and magical glow to Willow’s skin told Kalissa she’d just come back from her burrow. Her underground hideaway had a natural spring that ran deep in the earth. Through the spring, she could travel to the other side. It was where Hecate had gone to live after the Underworld was taken over by Khan. In the Afterworld, Willow could regenerate and heal faster than in the human world.

Willow did a little pose to show herself off and twirled around. “All better.”

“Thank the gods nothing was broken, just bruised.”

“Tell me about it. I would have been down for a couple of days.” Willow wrinkled up her nose at Kalissa playfully, walked over to the refrigerator, and started pulling things out of it.

“What are you doing?” Kalissa knew what she was doing, but she still asked.

“Fixing you breakfast,” Willow said without looking over at her. “You took care of me last night. I’m taking care of you this morning.” She turned around and gave Kalissa a gentle smile. “Where is that man of yours?”

Kalissa grinned and turned to look out the window to hide her flushed cheeks. “He’s not mine.”

“Oh, but he could be,” Willow said with a tiny laugh that sounded like wind chimes.

Kalissa thought differently. Especially after the vision she’d had. There was no way that she could live through another loved one dying. If she gave her heart to Ayden, that’s exactly what she would have to do. She wasn’t sure her heart could take it. Witches could die of a broken heart.

Before she could answer Willow’s question on the whereabouts of Ayden, he walked into the kitchen. His wet hair was towel dried, leaving it in an unruly mass of golden brown waves. Kalissa bit her bottom lip to keep a giggle from escaping. It reminded her of Zach’s normal just-climbed-out-of-bed look. 

He shook his head. “Don’t say it,” he said as he walked over to the table and sat down across from her.

Kalissa tried to look like she had no idea what he was talking about. “Say what?”

Ayden smiled at her. “That I look like Zachary.”

“Okay, you look like Noah…with Zach’s hair.” Kalissa burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry. I think my sister is rubbing off on me.”

He cracked a sideways smile at her. “Bethany was the first to make that observation when I moved in with them.” He reached over and covered her hand with one of his. Her desire spiked like electricity racing through her body.

His free hand hovered over the notebook. She pushed the journal toward him with her mind to give him permission to read her entry. The horror of seeing Ayden die in her vision was too raw. Words tangled with each other and refused to leave her mouth. 

His fingers lightly caressed her hand and wrist as he read. Worry and fear played in the lines of his face. But his touch was soothing and provocative. It was strange how his touch sparked a flame inside her that could spread and consume her like a wildfire. She looked down at his hand and then his forearm, where his rose birthmark lay perfectly etched on his sunkissed skin.

Kalissa drew her eyebrows together. He had two roses. One was a faded replica of the other, indicating that he had found his magical partner. The urge to look at her own arm, or ask Willow if she could see it nagged at her, ridiculous as it was. There was only one way Kalissa would be able to see the faded rose.

Don't go there.
She couldn’t give her heart to someone only to watch them die. Again. What if he turned out to be as possessive and controlling as Liam? What if she could never make love to him?

The mouthwatering smell of ham and cheese omelets brought Kalissa out of her worrisome thoughts. Willow had brought their plates to the table, set a plate in front of each of them, and went back to the island countertop to grab her own plate of food and the platter of crispy bacon. Just like Kalissa liked it.

“Hmm. This smells wonderful. Thanks, Willow,” Kalissa said, breathing in the different aromas as she snagged a couple of pieces of bacon.

“You’re welcome.” Willow beamed with delight.

“Willow, can I ask you something?” Kalissa asked. She hoped that Willow wouldn’t take offense to what she was about to ask.

“Of course, you can,” Willow answered, taking some bacon for herself.