Rivulet (35 page)

“I’m not kidding. That Aliyanna girl is no joke. She insisted that we do the spell, and she was driven near insane. It was her idea.”

He smirked. “Trust me, Sunshine is easier to handle when Guardian is around.”

I leaned forward slowly as I reached for his lips. I didn’t know what Jason meant about my transformation, but I knew I wanted to feel the fire of his touch, that I had fought too long and too hard to be where I was, to let my weakness hold me back.

He moved closer, letting his lips frame mine as his arms went around me and he laid me gently across the bed.

“Do you trust me?” he whispered.

I stared into the gray of his eyes, the breaks of fire that raced through them. What I was about to do was going to take more courage, more adrenaline than any car crash, any brush with death, or even Rasure herself.

I swallowed nervously as I held his gaze. “I love you.”

A gasping smile came across his image. “Are you sure, Love? Forever is the commitment of all commitments. Rather suffocating idea to some.”

“Do you want me to say it a million times?” I said as I felt the power behind that commitment.

Phoenix could never suffocate me. We were both too independent, too full of determination, with matching flaming tempers. He would let me fight my war, he would never hold me back, and he only wanted the same in return. He only wanted to know that in-between our passions for life that we would give each other passion, that we would find a home inside of each other.

Slowly, he raised his hand over my chest. Holding my stare, he let his warm touch rest against my skin, then he whispered, “I love you” as his hand pushed through what should have been flesh.

My back bowed as I felt fire explode inside of me, as I saw fire and ice colliding into one, as I felt his soul merge completely with mine. I struggled to get closer to that flame of his soul, to completely hide myself within him.

‘Rapture’ was the only shallow word I could use to explain this rush. This empowerment, this total, absolute feeling of being whole, one with another soul. No rush of passion, no moment that was skin-to-skin could dare match the emotions coursing through us. Complete transformation took control over my very being.

It was the plane that we dared to rise to the last time he held me, that night he had only given me a glimpse of what we could create together. I fought never to leave this feeling, to forget that that world around us existed, that a war was waiting on its warriors and I won that fight for what seemed like an eternity. Hours, maybe days had passed before he slowly pulled his soul from mine, before his eyes met mine once again.

“You are forevermore
mine
,” he said in a heated whisper.

Words that would have suffocated the life out of me if I heard them from anyone else were now my salvation.

Finding strength and clarity for the first time in what seemed like forever, I let my hands move up his strong arms, which were holding him above me. “Dare I say that I feel sorry for you? I was rather difficult to handle as a human, and as a ghost. God only knows how difficult I will prove to be now.”

A beaming smile spread across his face as a laugh bellowed in his chest. “Bloody hell, woman—truer words have never been uttered.”

His arms were around me, and I was lying on his chest within the next beat. I dared to look up into his eyes, which were slowly taking every part of me in. “Am I cured now? Is this over?”

“It has just begun, Love,” he said as he tucked my long bangs behind my ear. “Your mind will struggle with what you are…you will shock yourself a time or two with your speed. Your emotions may toy with you, and the demons you fought in your life will become your determination, a determination that will seem far too confining to bear…but you will overcome.”

My eyes grew wide as clarity came to me. “The guys. Who’s helping them?”

“They transformed instantly. Skylynn said that must have been part of the spell you cast before, that they had to be risen to raise you, that it was all or none.”

“Why did I struggle?”

“Fire and ice. I believe the spell was cast the way it was so that you would not only have guardians throughout your war, but also as you transformed.”

I pulled myself up on one arm. “Wilder,” I said as my battle with Rasure flashed before my eyes, as I remembered that my own sister had forsaken me.

“He fooled you.”

“What?”

“He is a bigger part of this than you can understand right now.”

“I’m not a fool,” I bit out.

“I didn’t say you were. He is not to be underestimated.”

I didn’t care to think that someone else I had trusted, not right now anyway, had fooled me.

“Cadence?”

Anger engulfed his eyes.

“Did you not kill her?” I pushed.

“No,” he said with disdain. “She was not in full form. Rasure was your distraction. You ended her simply because you set your family free.”

“I don’t understand how I was fooled for so long by Cadence,” I said as I sat up and felt rage boil through me.

He leaned up as I moved, trying to catch me before I fell into my rage. “You were not a fool, you were the Trojan Horse. She had no idea who you were until you refused to die. You masked yourself amongst evil, and you protected our home and set our family free, just as you always planned to do.”

“Are the souls still in the clocks, the ones under this house?”

“Some, I’m sure, but you cannot charge down there and open them. You are going to have to find the spells that bind them, the words to open them. You are going to have to tread carefully, patiently. Evil knows no time. It counts on our impatience to end us, and more often than not we bring our own demise with that fault.”

“What do I tell my family? How do I explain how I got out of that fire? Where you came from? Where Cadence and Rasure went?”

He leaned forward and let his warm lips rest on my forehead. “Your Uncle Jamison is filing divorce papers, told your brother that Rasure and Cadence left the country. Ben found a money trail from Rasure to the people who confessed to burning your floor down at the hospital. Jason and others from Guardian’s world created a background for me, one that your brother believes. The boys are strong. They have moved into this manor with you, declaring that they need to keep you safe.”

“How long was I out?” I asked with a gaping smile.

“Not as long as you think. I promise.”

“What does my uncle remember?” I asked, wondering how I’d lost so much time.

“Nothing. He actually stated that he had no idea why he even brought Rasure here. In his mind, he’s thirty-five. His life with her was nothing more than a nightmare he woke up from.”

I looked down. “One that we all woke up from.”

“That you did, Love.” He reached to turn my chin so I would have to look him in the eye. “Next time, let your fear rise sooner. It calls me. It always has. I came to you the second I felt it, and I was almost too late. Promise me you will never be too stubborn to ask for help again.”

“The boys told me to play my part, and I did. I held the fear in until Rasure said you were gone…out of it all, that was my only fear.”

He let his fingertips move down my neck, my chest. “Now that we are one, that your power is unsealed, what was your curse will be your virtue. You will learn to guide the ice and fire, and you will always know if truth is spoken to you.”

“Truth,” I whispered, feeling the certainty behind what he said, wondering where my life would take me from this point on, which caused me to look back for an instant.

“I want to pay my respects to my grandmother,” I said under my breath, expecting ice to form with my grief, but it didn’t.

He nodded, understanding, then vanished for an instant and returned with clothes in his hands.

“Let’s say we get you out of those death shrouds,” he said with a grin.

Agreeing, and wanting to prove that I was stronger and faster than he thought, I shed the outfit I’d worn for days and pulled on the dark denim, skin tight jeans, black long sleeve top, belt, and unlaced black boots within an instant.

He moved his head from side to side as a sinful smirk came to his lips. “A little faster than I would have preferred.”

I raised one eyebrow as my eyes matched the desire in his. He reached to trace the base of my eye. “Those are the eyes I remember.”

Before I could question him, I was across the room, standing before a full-length mirror with him just behind me. I barely recognized the girl in the mirror.

My skin was flawless, the color of ivory. The slight heat in my cheeks and my flaming red lips accented the shade of my skin. But that was not what took me by surprise. It was the color of my eyes; they were a deep, rich blue. The color that often had warned that my curse of ice was surfacing was now permeated, and behind them I saw a power. I saw a girl who was determined, who had both fire and ice in her soul. A girl who was claimed by a phoenix, who was guarded by two of his sires. I saw the Indie I always wanted to be. The Indie my mother, my family had told me I was. The girl I always was beneath the surface.

I drew in a nervous breath as Phoenix’s fingertips slowly moved down my sides. His lips leaned into my ear as his stare held mine in the mirror. “Skin pure as snow, lips that breathe fire, and eyes that carry the depths of the ocean…I was bewitched the first instant I laid eyes on you. I knew then I would move Heaven and hell to hold you.”

He moved me to face him. “Your soul was frozen by evil, but now the fire is bringing forth rivulets, rivulets that will become raging rivers that enforce change. You are unstoppable, Genevieve.”

“
We
are unstoppable,” I whispered.

A wicked smile echoed on his lips just before they met my neck, and his arms tightened around me.

Before the moment had a chance to carry us away, there was a knock on the door.

“To be continued,” he whispered as he squeezed my hips and nodded to the door, which flung open.

Jason was there. He looked to the bed, then found us just beside him. He smiled warmly as he carefully looked over me. “I see you followed the doctor’s orders and are on the mend.”

“On, or past it?” Phoenix asked as he squeezed me closer.

“Past the troubled waters. Until you have had a chance to join your energy more times, I would take it easy on testing her powers. I’ll let her brother know she is awake and moving around, that I suggested for her to do just that.”

“Thank you,” Phoenix said as he nodded to him.

Jason looked over me once more just before he bowed his head and left the room.

“So, is that, like, the doctor for the supernatural or something?”

That made Phoenix laugh. “He’s from Chara. Several people from there have gifts that seem extraordinary to most.”

“Where is that?” I asked, wondering how far Jason had traveled to see me.

“One day at a time, Love. There is so much I plan to show you.”

When we reached the hallway before my room, I saw the oval table that always accented this hallway adorned with a breathtaking amount of red roses. Along with the roses, there was a pad of paper, a red ‘X’ taped to a line, and one of my brother’s trademark pens lying beside it.

I was at the table within a beat, and my eyes flew across the words. This was the document that I had dreamed of signing, the one that released my inheritance to me, the one that released the manor to me, the one that gave me the powers to continue my parent’s work.

I signed my name boldly as I felt the victory rush through me.

Skylynn appeared at that instant. “I promised you this day would come, Indie girl.”

“That you did,” I said as I reached my arms for her to come to me. “Thank you,” I whispered into her ear, knowing that she had saved me a million times over, that she had been the blunt voice of reason when I was spiraling out of control.

She extended her arms so she could look at me. “If you ever—and I mean
ever
do something as foolish—” she held out her hand to block Phoenix’s glare before continuing, “as foolishly brave as you did the other night...” she let her hands fall and bowed slightly, “I request permission to fight at your side.”

“You were there,” I said with a slight smile. “You helped me become who I am. You led me to this day, and I will repay you—one way or another.”

She smirked. “Well, you can start by telling Mason that I have my eye on another drummer and I am not amused by his banter.”

At that instant, Mason appeared at my side as if he had been called. He tilted his head slightly and let his chocolate eyes rain down over Skylynn. “I wasn’t trying to amuse you. Gavin is the funny one.”

I had to smile at that. Gavin was entirely too serious to be considered funny, and as if he were beckoned too he appeared at my other side, letting his steel blue eyes pierce into Mason. “Now I’m the one who’s not amused.”

That made me smile, really smile. I reached my arms out for them, and they both embraced me. With their touch, I felt the heat of their skin, I felt the phoenix inside of them.