Remembered (27 page)

Someday, this beautiful girl would meet a man who would
treasure her, who would take care of her, who would give her all the comfort
she needed. Kellus wanted this for her, but for himself, the thought caused a
severe ache to pulse through him. And so, he held onto her hand for another
purpose also, to sear the feel of it into his memory, knowing that’s all he’d
ever have.

When they reached her house, He couldn’t bear to be parted
from her just yet, so he made a silly excuse about being too tired to drive
home right away.

Once again, they talked the night away, sitting at her
kitchen table.

Not far off dawn, just when Kellus was about to announce
that it was time for him to leave, Annie suggested that she read his cards. He
knew this was a sham, but wouldn’t dream of dampening her enthusiasm.

After he’d picked a number of cards, she laid them out in a
strange formation then turned them over. She studied them for a split second,
then erupted into heavenly giggles—a sound that he found very appealing.

“I told you this was make believe,” she warned playfully.

“What?” he asked, laughing along with her.

“According to your cards, you are going to marry soon,” she
informed him.

“I’m going to marry?” he asked, amused. “I’m sure the men at
the Citadom would be interested in this information.”

“Oh, it gets better, Kellus. Not only are you going to
marry, but you are going to marry a woman that you are desperately in love
with, a rare and almost magical love that most people don’t find in a
lifetime,” she announced, her head still bent over the cards. “Did you always
know you would never marry?” she asked, looking up at him. “Was there ever a
time when you thought you would before you decided to join the apprenticeship
at the Citadom?”

“Once, I dreamt of it,” he confessed. “I once lost my heart
to a beautiful girl. I imagined for weeks after what it would be like to have a
girl like that all to myself.”

“Did she feel the same way?” she asked.

 “She didn’t even know I existed,” he said with a sigh. “I
was very young at the time. It passed, I guess, and then shortly after, I
learned that there was a position secured for me at the Citadom, should I wish
to take it. It seemed like a more noble life to me, being in service to the
public. So this is the path I’ve chosen.”

Out of nowhere, a brutal loneliness engulfed him. He looked
into her eyes, wanting nothing more than to drown in her, to throw his arms
around her and beg her to love him.

The truth hit him like a boulder to the head.

He was in love with her.

He’d loved her from afar as a boy, and he loved her now in
the most natural way a man can love a woman.

His father had been right.

Sensing that his swift change in mood was making her
uncomfortable, he stood to leave, but decided to stay for one more cup of tea.

And that’s when she—to his horror—went tumbling towards the
open stove.

He jumped up and grabbed her hand to inspect it, and then
sighed with relief that she had not obtained a serious injury. In his concern
for her almost potential disaster, he’d let his defenses down, allowing the
savage to break through his shield.

Without thought, he found himself kissing her forcefully,
keeping her head locked tight in his grip, leaning into her, and moaning with
desire.

She didn’t recoil from him. Instead, she welcomed the savage
into her arms and into her mouth. She continued to stroke the flames of the
beast, pushing her body against his, greeting his every move.

‘Strip her naked and take her right here on the floor,’
the savage urged.

‘No!’
he argued firmly. He loved this woman. He would
not deflower her on a cold kitchen floor. She deserved so much better than
that.

The savage was persuasive, however.
‘She won’t stop you.
She wants it too. See how lonely she is?’

‘Yes,’
Kellus agreed. The savage was right…or was it?
‘Stop it!’
He hollered into his head, confused. But the savage had taken
control of his hands, and before he knew it, he was massaging her breast
through her thin shirt.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, he found the strength
to cage the beast again. He pulled away from her, horrified by what he’d nearly
done. He knew then, in that very moment, that she was in danger from him. He
loved her too much to use her in the way the savage wanted, but being near her
would provoke his savage side, and he knew he couldn’t keep it locked up
forever.

And so, he made the decision to leave her alone, to let her
go on with her life without him, even as she begged him to stay, even after she
confessed her love for him also.

He looked upon her beautiful face one more time, and then willed
his reluctant legs to walk through her door.

For the next four weeks, Kellus lived in near constant
suffering.

Every day, his heart broke for Annie.

Every night, the savage burned with unquenched desire.

The only comfort to the misery was that he was sure he’d
made the right decision. Annie would have a beautiful life someday. Someday,
someone would treat her like the treasure she was—it was the very least she
deserved.

Many nights he contemplated her offer, he considered
agreeing to make her his mistress, but that was not worthy of the love he felt
for her. That poor, lonely girl needed her man at home to take care of her, to
give her all the things she couldn’t provide for herself. The simple fact was
clear: he just wasn’t good enough for her.

He kept his resolution as strong as he could until the
afternoon that Danus ran from the hospital to tell him that Max Derlyn had just
been there. Seemingly, Max’s sister was terribly ill and needed attention
immediately.

Kellus felt a knot form in his gut.

When a peaceman named Odis announced in passing that a
carriage approached with a sick girl, Kellus knew instinctively that it was
Cora.

He ran through the complex and pushed opened the back door
to the courtyard to see Cora laid out on a stretcher, looking green. “Cora!” he
yelled. “Is she alright?”

Conor remembered that Kellus knew her and told him to join
them in the hospital.

It wasn’t until he followed Annie and Max to the small
library to wait for news that he fully registered that she was there. His heart
began to thunder in his chest.

He stopped in his tracks, in front of her, as she sat on one
of the couches.

What was she fucking wearing? Not only were her breasts half
exposed, but if he looked long enough, he was sure he’d see her nipples right
through the tissue thin material.

He gaped at her; unsure if what he was seeing was real. She
looked just like the woman he loved, but his Annie would never go out in public
looking like that.

Kellus felt sure that any man that may have seen her as she
travelled to the Citadom—including his fellow apprentices—would have her front
and center in their fantasies for the next few days; a fact that had him
seething.

The savage, however, roared its approval. The savage loved
this little yellow dress.

By the time the day was over, his resolve was in tatters.

 Seeing how beautiful she looked in an apprentice uniform,
sitting at the head of his table at dinner, was so far past teasing the savage,
it crossed the border into bullying. Kellus felt his eyes sting. The savage was
curled up in a ball, cowering in a corner of his mind, whimpering.

He excused himself, went to his room, and spent the
remainder of the night contemplating how he could go on without her.

Like any addict, he realized that the one-day-at-a-time
approach was best. Every morning, when the urge to run to her came, he
convinced himself to hold out for one more day. This seemed to be working, for
six days at least, until the Master came to his room to inform him that he
would be going home with Cora Derlyn.

The following day, he found himself in the only place he
wanted to be: in Annie’s kitchen. His heart felt complete to be near her, and
he wondered how he’d found the strength to stay away from her for so long, or
why he even wanted to.

Later that night, he stumbled in the dark, making his way to
the kitchen for a glass for water. He sat at the kitchen table and looked
around. Being in this room reminded him of the last time he’d been there a
month ago.

He knew it was hopeless, he’d never find the will again to
stay away from her. He’d come running here every chance he got, spend what
little time he could at her side, let her make the decision.

He heard someone enter the kitchen and determined, by the
lack of greeting, that it was her.

The savage stirred.

“Forgive me if I woke you,” he said quietly.

No reply.

He turned his head to look at her.

The savage bolted upright.

She was wearing a blue nightshirt that barely covered her
beautiful thighs. A clear picture entered his mind—him, running his tongue up
her gorgeous legs.

He looked away quickly and ran his hands through his hair.

The savage quivered in agony. His will power was nowhere to
be found. “I can’t do this,” he muttered.

“Do what?” she asked.

“I don’t know how to stay away from you,” he uttered.

“Then don’t,” she said quietly.

“I have to.”

“No, you don’t,” she answered.

Was she right? Why did he have to stay away from her?

He stood to face her and knew he was losing the power to
fight the savage.

He begged, pleaded with her to get away from him, but to no
avail, she wanted him, he could see it in her eyes. She refused to help him
fight the savage.

He kissed her ardently, his heart swelling in the
process—along with another part of his body. He ran his lips across her
gorgeous jaw and kissed her neck. “Please get away from me,” he moaned into her
skin.

Her only response was to hold him tighter, lean her body
into his, and press her mouth to his lips.

Fuck it!

The savage would have it’s way this night.

He took her hand and led her to the room he occupied.

“Stop me, Annie.” In a moment of doubt, he pleaded for her
help.

“I don’t want to,” she replied.

The savage threw up it’s head and growled, reveling in it’s
moment of near victory. “Silly girl,” he said, pulling her onto the bed.

The savage licked its lips in anticipation.

Being on top of her, kissing her passionately, feeling her
taut nipple through the thin cloth, and listening to her heavy breathing, was a
form of delicious torture that he couldn’t believe felt so good.

His fingers slowly crept to the inside of her thigh. His
heart thumped in his chest, thankful to be so near to the woman he loved.

The woman he loved.

He loved her, and if he had her now, he’d never stop. He’d
come here all the time for that purpose alone.

“You must stop me,” he murmured. “You can’t let me do this.”

“I don’t want to stop you,” she countered. “I want you to do
it.”

To the savage’s utter dismay, Kellus mustered every ounce of
self-control he could and pulled away from her.

The beast was so tortured that Kellus put his face in his
hands and let out a pained groan.

Then her arms were around him, comforting him, and he knew
he’d made the right decision. She deserved so much more than that.

But after he explained to her why they would not be having
sex, she looked so sad and rejected. She jumped up to leave the room.

His heart cracked down the middle. He couldn’t bear to be
away from her. “But…” he said, jumping up after her, “I meant what I said
before that. I don’t know how to leave you alone, and I don’t want to anymore. I
want you stay here with me anyway. I mean…I just want you to lie here with me…I
want to hold you while you sleep.”

Thankfully, she happily agreed.

He held her in his arms, looking down at her face, and he
made a decision: he would spend as many nights as he could this way, but he
would never let the savage have her, he would never make her his mistress.
‘For
her love, it would be easy to control the beast,’
he thought.

He had no idea how wrong he was.

The two weeks he spent with her were by far the best of his
life; he had never felt so happy.

At night, holding her was beautiful and easy…when she was
sleeping. When she was awake, Annie did everything in her power to provoke the
savage, dangling sweet treats in front of it constantly.

On more than one occasion, Kellus had to fight her advances
with determination that he didn’t know he had, but she was a worthy opponent,
and all too often, she came very close to wearing him down completely,
especially the day that Loc caught them together.

He sat in the kitchen afterwards. She climbed up on his lap,
and he wallowed in the sensation, in the pure ecstasy of her soft, tiny hands
roaming around his body. When he didn’t— couldn’t—stop her, she pushed her luck
further and tried to slip her fingers inside his waistband.

The savage purred.

When he grabbed her hands and put them over her chest, he
could see her disappointment clearly. Then her eyes flashed with anger. She
climbed off him and sat back in the opposite chair, huffing.

He went to his bedroom and returned moments later, wearing a
clean shirt. He knelt on the floor in front of her and tried to reason his
decisions, but she was having none of it. She argued that she would love only
him forever, and didn’t want to die with her virginity intact. “This is so
stupid,” she moaned finally.

And suddenly, Kellus knew that she was one hundred percent
right. It was stupid.

He knew at that moment that he could never bear the agony of
her with another man. The thought of someone else taking care of her, holding
her at night, making love to her, was excruciating. She should be his and only
his.