Ravens (22 page)

“So the bedroom is all set up. There’s a
ceiling fan in there if you get hot, and not that you’ll need it, but blankets
are in the closet. Do you want something to wear to bed?” he asked as they
stood in the dimly lit hallway.

“Oh.” She hadn’t thought about it. Jeans
were uncomfortable to sleep in. “Maybe just some pajama pants or sweats.”

“Here ya go.” He pulled out a pair of
drawstring cotton shorts. He tossed the article of clothing to her. “Hopefully,
you can tie the drawstring tight enough that they stay up.”

He chuckled. “Hopefully” was a good
word. Randal could fit two Kendra’s into his clothes. Kendra tugged the
drawstrings so tight she looked as though she wore a weird skirt. Randal
couldn’t help but laugh.

He glanced at the shorts. “You might as
well wear nothing at all.” It slipped.

Kendra felt the heat rise in her cheeks.
“I bet,” she muttered.

Randal’s face reddened. 

“Goodnight,” she whispered from the
doorway to the guest room. Her slender hand rested on the frame at waist level.

“Night.” Randal crossed his arms and
watched her from his doorway.

She didn’t want to lead him on, but that
simple gesture couldn’t possibly be taken as a come-hither sign. But, if he
took it that way, would she really mind? After all, she didn’t mind his kiss.

Who was she kidding? Fooling around
differed compared to a sudden “I’m so relieved that you weren’t abducted and
raped” kiss.

Kendra closed the door behind her and
slipped into bed, pulling the sheets to her waist. The ceiling fan provided a
nice breeze. She shivered in delight. She felt safe, comfortable, secure, and
above all things, she would sleep neither in the barn nor at her parents’
house.

It didn’t take long for Kendra to fall
into the strong arms of sleep where she rested, unconscious between reality and
illusions, unable to decipher truth and imagination. Her mind entered a vivid
world, as if she ran through the streets of the city herself. The stars twinkled
around a full moon in the late evening. The red, dwarfed moon in the distance
glowed eerily behind the larger, silver and gray moons in the forefront. The
summer night air held a refreshing bite. She shivered.

Kendra ran, and the wind whipped her long
tresses behind her. She slowed down and came to a halt near a suburb behind
tall, concrete buildings. She gazed down at her hands as she raised them to her
face, palm side up. White sparks encircled them like hovering snakes, striking
at her fingertips. She noticed her tight leather pants and knee high boots,
then back up at the leather corset encompassing her torso.

She focused on the noise, a mixture of
fighting, grunts, yells, cries, explosions, and gunshots. She ran toward the
commotion and the bursts of white flashes. She skidded to a stop and gasped.
Wounded hunters struggled in the middle of burning homes, set ablaze in red and
orange flames. Several humans fought with machine guns, rifles, and knives. All
this heated battle against one young man, Liam.

Several humans lay in unnatural
positions, slain by the fury of the lone, male Raven. Deep, wide gashes ripped
their flesh, and blood poured onto the ground as witness to this massacre. When
they lived a brutal life, they died a brutal death.

The remainder of the hunters surrounded
Liam, who paused to regain his balance. He stood with his feet apart and knees
flexed. He bent his arms at the elbows, and tightened his fists near his chest
as if ready for hand-to-hand combat. The sparks covered his entire body, and
his eyes sparked white with rage. He almost glowed.

The entire scene unfurled in slow
motion. Smoke and flash erupted from a gun barrel, and the bullet raced out.
The metal projectile sped toward him, but he maneuvered out of the way.

Liam moved as if he played a game. He
opened his hands, and exposed his palms. He leapt into the air and spun as a
blast of energy radiated from his body. A low growl rumbled through his throat,
rushed up to the roof of his mouth, and roared from snarling lips.

He obliterated the humans.

Kendra gasped and ran off before Liam
recognized her. His energies died, and calmness washed over the suburb. Kendra
snuck away and tip-toed to a concrete building. She moved away from Liam’s
sight and kept creeping until she rounded a corner. In that instant, Liam
appeared in front of her. She thought she could evade him. Instead, she almost
walked right into him. His passive and relaxed pose, as if he waited, startled
her.

Liam stood before her as if he waited
for her all this time. He wore a shredded and singed shirt, offering forbidden
glimpses of his bare shoulders, chest, and abs with sneak peeks of his glorious
tattoos. He looked up at her through smoldering, electric eyes. His face
remained calm, but his jaw stiffened. The muscles tightened and jutted beneath
the scruff of an unshaven jaw. He curved the left corner of his lips upward in
an amused smile.

He leaned in, drawing her closer simply
with his presence. Unknowingly mimicking his movements, she tilted toward him.

“Can’t deny what I am,” he spoke low.
His voice sent tremors through her. Her breathing escalated. “I
am
the
bad guy.”

The statement clawed at the fibrous
portions of her guts, tearing her up, and threw everything to pieces in hectic,
unreasonable tremors.

Liam lifted his right hand and took a
few strands of her hair, rubbing the silky threads between his thumb and
fingers, sliding down the length of the long strands that fell to her ribs,
just beneath her breasts. He did not surrender to touch. 

He leaned in further, his lips so close
that she could’ve raised herself on her toes and pressed against his mouth. He
knew how to stop her dead in her tracks, how to make her putty in his massive,
rough hands. He didn’t even have to try.

Liam lowered his chin. “Maybe it was
best you went back to your good boy.”

The words cleaved through her.

Maybe this wasn’t an illusion. Why would
he want Kendra to see him like this, to know this most primordial being that
surged stronger than any overlapping civilized quality?

Kendra would never go back to him. She
would never forgive him. Now, she would never view him as anything other than
an animal. He had to cut off his connection with her lest he drive both of them
insane. He forced her to sever their relationship because of manipulations. Now
he pushed her further away by revealing the gloomy, manic side of him that
liked violence and blood. Kendra would never think of him again and both would
be free of this poignant era. It was time to move on.

****

Earlier, Randal stood at his bedroom
door for several minutes, contemplating going to Kendra. Eventually, logic
reigned. The worst time of year was emotionally draining. She needed to step
away from it all and took refuge with him. She might access those dangerous
moves from her test to knock some sense into him if he didn’t reciprocate.

Randal retreated into his room and
climbed into bed with his own ceiling fan providing a low, mundane noise. He
peered out his door into the dim hallway. He yawned and fell asleep.

Sometime later, he stirred from his
slumber at the sound of Kendra’s voice. He inhaled and exhaled with a moan,
then looked around. Pulling the sheets at his waist away, he crawled out of bed
and dragged his right hand down his face. He yawned.

He walked to the adjacent room, and
tapped on the guest bedroom door. He leaned forward, but heard nothing aside
from Kendra’s muttering. He opened the door. The faint illumination from the
living room cascaded onto her sleeping body.

The sheets crumpled around her waist,
her left leg hung restlessly over the edge of the bed, and her head turned back
and forth in slow movements. Randal approached her as she slept. Her eyes moved
in REM, and her lips twisted and squirmed in mutters.

Randal leaned toward her.

“No, Liam, don’t,” she pleaded. “Wait,
Liam, no...”

Randal sighed and straightened up. Her
heavy hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. He lowered his hand and moved a
few strands away from her face. She continued to move beneath his soft touch,
writhing as if in pain.

What he wouldn’t do to crawl into bed
with her and hold her, ease her pain, and take her mind off the horrid
memories. Somewhere inside of him, he knew she didn’t really want that. After
denying it for so long, perhaps she didn’t want him at all. Perhaps she was so
profoundly caught up in her disillusioned past that her mind created an
alternate reality in a desperate attempt to fuse the gaps. A mind like hers
would never settle and would never welcome him with normality.

Randal wondered if his patience would
ever pay off, or if it neared its end. There was nothing sadder than waiting
around for a girl who might never reciprocate his feelings. He wanted the
elusive and beautiful fighter for so long, but now, seriously questioned if he
should back away from her altogether.

Chapter Twenty-One

Kendra moaned as she awoke. She had a
splitting headache and tried to recall her nightmares, but it was hopeless. She
remembered the white flames and those dark, penetrating features. No doubt Liam
lingered in her thoughts last night. She knew he didn’t try to contact her
because she rarely remembered her dreams, but always remembered his illusions. 

She stood on the verge of freedom;
freedom from an unsolved past, liberation from sultry delusions and his sexy
voice.

Shake it off
, she chastised
herself. Was she a glutton for punishment? She’d been pissed when she realized
he manipulated her, and now, she found herself
missing
him. It was
foolishness, sheer stupidity. He engaged her thoughts, even when he wasn’t in
her head.

The clattering in the kitchen and the
smell of food drew her out of bed. Her stomach gurgled. Kendra sat up,
stretched, yawned, and staggered to her feet. After a brief few minutes in the
bathroom, she sauntered lazily to the counter, where she found Randal busy on
the other side.

“Morning, how’d you sleep?” he asked
from the kitchen without looking up.

The apartment smelled like pancakes and
bacon. Kendra smiled and stared at the food. “Morning. That smells good.”

Randal frowned at her purposeful
avoidance of her sleep. She walked around the counter, to the kitchen, and
peered into the skillet. With a spatula in one hand, Randal moved aside. Kendra
stepped in front of him.

“So, you can cook breakfast?” she asked.

“Only for company. Don’t think that if
we hooked up, I’d do this every morning.” He trapped her between his warm body
and the hot stove.

Kendra tried not to get burned as she
leaned against Randal. What a sly way to get her to back into him. He grabbed a
plate with his left hand, bringing it around Kendra’s waist, while he scooped
food onto it.

Randal placed his face on Kendra’s
shoulder, nuzzling her neck. “You are hungry, aren’t you?” he muttered into her
ear.

Kendra shivered. She giggled. Giggled?
Wait, what happened to that low growl in her head? Liam was finally gone.

“But first.” Randal spun her around,
moved her away from the stove, and backed her up against the pillar at the edge
of the kitchen.

Something wicked clawed through her gut.

He pressed her into the cool wall, his
hands on her hips.

“Yeah?” She smiled up at him.

He grinned, taking hold of her
drawstring and snapping it open with one quick motion.

Kendra gasped, grabbing the overly loose
shorts and clutching them to her waist. “What are you doing?” Her tone was
neither flirtatious nor angry. 

“So, Ms. Kendra, I’m giving you an
ultimatum.”

Randal tilted his chin and maintained an
intimate distance by standing so close that they almost hugged. He rubbed the
bare flesh between the hem of her tank top and the sagging shorts, over her
dragon tattoo.

“And what would that be?” she asked, her
voice raspy with sleep and a little excited.

She expected to hear Liam’s voice tell
her to stop. Why did she care? Didn’t she want Liam vanquished so she could
return to normality with Randal?

Randal exhaled. “Either you trust me and
tell me what’s going on.”

She groaned.

“Or,” he went on, lowering his head to
her neck and muttering in her ear, “I hold you captive against this wall until
something else gives.” He kissed her neck. “I’d be happy either way.”

He ran a warm tongue across her throat.
With a gritty voice, he asked, “Hm? What’s it gonna be?”

Kendra tried to enjoy the moment, but
kept thinking back to Liam. He was finally out of her head after so many years.
She had total control, but, somehow, she felt so empty without him. Randal was
the nice guy, the honest one, so why couldn’t she forget Liam?

In any way, Liam would drive her insane,
whether his memory, his teasing illusions, or his body against hers. She could
never get enough and she didn’t want it any other way, she realized. If madness
was the endgame, then so be it. Madness never seemed so appealing, never so
worthy. Insanity was her reckoning, the sweet, tempestuous, incredible, and
ultimate ambition. Cursed her life, she missed him and she missed her energy.