The Quarter Moon (Afterlife saga) (14 page)

I felt the weight lifted from my head and it felt strange without something I had carried around with me every day for years. But now it was done and I shook my now short hair around my face and looked down at the plait that lay by my side. I had cut all my hair off for Draven to have and I just hoped that one day, he would know what I had given him.

I picked it up and placed it on top of the letter before covering both with the pillows. I didn’t want the weather getting to them, if it even could from this far in but just in case, I kept them hidden. I got up from the bed, stared down at it for what could be the last time before turning round to find an Angel stood watching me. With the sun now set, all that I could see was the shadow of a man with wings and my heart hammered in my chest for a second as I thought it was Draven. But then a voice cut through the illusion and I sucked in a breath.

“Keira…what
…what have you done?” Vincent asked as he stepped forward into the light. His eyes were framed by a frown but his voice was a soft lure.

“I buried him and I said goodbye the only way I knew how
.” I said walking past and the strange sensation of the ends of my hair brushing against my neck had me touching the tips with both hands. I looked out to the night and the moon that had graced the land with its full glow.

“You didn’t need to do this…you…”

“It is done Vincent, now please take me home.” I said knowing that by home I meant Afterlife, but also knowing that the place he took me would be far from there. I felt him come up behind me and he placed his hands on my shoulders then down my arms.

“I wish…” He started to say something but then stopped and after a moment of hoping he would continue, he just cleared his throat and I could feel him shaking his head behind me.

“It matters not what I wish and it is like you said, it is done now. Come, I will take you home.” Then he hoisted me up into his arms once again and this time I couldn’t help but hold him to me tighter than before. The comfort having him so close gave me, was something I needed right now and I was not in the right mind set to hold back the deep currents of my emotions.

So I clung on
to him like I never wanted him to leave me and when I felt the kiss planted to my temple, I knew he knew it too. He held me tight and we took off into the night.

I didn’t know how he knew where he was going but soon we were descending and the moon could be seen glinting off the chrome on his bike. He set me down, put back on his jacket and gloves and lastly my helmet. All was done in silence
, as there were no words for either of us to find after the great sadness that had infected us once more.

We rode home but this time, I didn’t get the same thrill from the ride as I did earlier. I knew why, it was easy to gauge, as the bike took me closer to the time that we would have to part ways and the thought that I might never see Vincent again was too much to stand.

I even tensed as my house came into view and Vincent knew it because he covered my hand with one of his and gave me a little squeeze.

“It will be ok
.” He said once he cut the engine, getting off his bike and turning back to face me. I really didn’t know who he was trying to convince with this statement because it wasn’t ever going to be me. However, I didn’t respond, instead I just nodded my helmeted head before fumbling with it to try and get it off.

“Here, let me
.” He said pulling my hands back down and going to the strap. He pulled it off me and then looked down at me all wide eyed. I bit my lower lip and he smiled. He reached out and rubbed a strand of my cut hair in between his leather covered thumb and forefinger.

“You know it suits you, although it makes you look even more innocent and cute, something I never thought would be possible
.” He started doing the same with his other hand and soon he was smoothing the hair behind my ears. His leather hands remained on either side of my face for the longest time but no words were said. There was one moment when it looked as though he was going to even kiss me, but abruptly he shook his head, as if to clear his mind.

I was left feeling breathless but once again he helped me off the bike to keep me steady. He even walked me to my door as if this had been a date. The thought made me blush.

“Would you like to come in?” I asked and for a second I saw his eyes flash lighter before a darker shade overtook them too quickly.

“You know I can’t
, Keira.” He said quietly and I nodded in shame. Yes, I had known that but a girl could only hope couldn’t she.

“I know, but since we were already breaking the rules I thought that by you staying a little longer wouldn’t hurt
.” I said trying to justify something his look said I didn’t need to.

“But it will hurt Keira, it will hurt both of us and even now, this should not have happened but…”

“But?” I couldn’t keep the hope out of my voice.

“I could not have turned you away for all the
Gods’ commands, let alone my brother’s.” He closed his eyes for a second and his long dark lashes created shadows on his high cheek bones.

“Thank you
, Vincent.”

“For what
, Keira?” His eyes snapped open and he took a step closer to me.

“For helping me today and for not turning me away like you should have
.” At this his eyes seemed heavy lidded by my words.

“You are welcome
, my sweetheart.” His voice turned to warm honey and I felt myself take a step closer to him. Soon we were so close together you couldn’t have got anything between us, but we were just staring at each other like we were trying to take every single piece in, to store in our precious memory bank.

“I should go
.” He finally spoke but it was far from breaking the spell as despite his words, he didn’t take a step from me.

“Me too
.” I uttered but again it didn’t change things. My heart was pounding and he must have been able to hear it. I didn’t know what was happening between us but it not only felt electrically charged but also magically. What I wanted and what was right was being merged into something else and the need for him to place his lips to mine was confusing. I had never wanted anyone to kiss me as badly since Draven and that thought was sobering.

Then another factor came into play as I felt a tiny vibration of the coin in my pocket. ‘
A kiss by a Royal Angel’. This was what it wanted but could I really take that step, could I do that to Vincent?

While I was thinking about this I watched Vincent as he raised one hand to my cheek and then he frowned.

“Not enough.” He said and before I could ask him what he meant he raised one of his fingers to his mouth and he gripped the leather between his teeth. I gulped at how sexy a simple action could be but the sight of Vincent gripping his leather gloves in his teeth as he pulled them off was definitely a hard swallowing moment.

Once he had both gloves off his hands he threw them to the ground and went back to running his fingers down my cheeks and neck.

“You are so beautiful, so perfect… it pains me to know I won’t be able to see you like this again.” I could have cried at hearing this but instead, I reached out and grabbed onto his jacket.

“I wish you didn’t have to leave me
.” I whispered and this time he ran the pad of his thumb over my lips that had started to tremble.

“And I
too wish I didn’t have to leave you, but I have no right to you, Keira…no right at all.” He said leaning his forehead to mine and I took a shuddering breath.

“I…I wish…”

“Please don’t finish that sentence Keira, or nothing will hold me back and we would both regret the aftermath greatly.” He was right and I forced my body to pull back on hearing it. He let me and the coin vibrated harder in my pocket. I took another step back and I watched as he did the same. I knew part of my quest required this kiss but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take that from Vincent, even if it wasn’t for the wrong reasons. I didn’t want Vincent to feel any guilt at all and I knew that if we would have taken that step then it would have hurt both of us. So I would just have to take my journey without the coin but keeping my heart intact in the process.

“Good
bye, Keira.” He said and it was as if I could hear another crack split its way down to my fragile heart.

“Good
bye… Vincent.” I said and felt the single tear drop down as my eyes overflowed on a blink. He took in the motion and looked like he was going to reach out again but then held himself back. Then he nodded and turned round to walk back to his bike. I painfully did the same and made my way back to the house, this time letting the tears flow more freely without him looking. I was waiting for the sound of his motorbike to fill the silence and at least then it would mask the sounds of my pain.

“Oh fuck the aftermath!” I heard Vincent shout and when I turned back his way, he was storming his way back to me. Before I could fully take in what was happening he grip
ped the sides of my head, slanted my head and took possession of my lips.

And I finally got my wish…

Kissed again by an Angel. 

Chapter 14

Flip Side of a
Coin

I couldn’t believe what was happening, but just because I couldn’t believe it, it didn’t mean I could have stopped it. It was fast becoming an unbreakable force and one certainly to be reckoned with.

My gasp was an open invitation for his tongue to sweep in and taste me, which managed to light up every nerve in my body. If I thought just being around the supernatural had my cells singing, well this had them all screaming out the chorus!

He took things deeper and fisted a hand in my shorter hair that he then gripped and turned my face to enable him to delve
even deeper. If I thought a kiss by an Angel was going to be a gentle and soft affair then how wrong I was. It was all mind consuming, heart stopping and blood racing to jump into a red ring of fire!

His other arm anchored my body to his as if I was never going anywhere again and at that moment, I didn’t want to. It was a kiss I would never be able to forget and one that would be imprinting itself onto my very skull, it would be that deeply embedded in my memory.

I don’t know how long it lasted, as time seem to belong to us and do with it what we wanted, and right now we wanted it to last a lifetime. I don’t know when it clicked for Vincent that forever wasn’t ever going to be in our cards, but it didn’t make him just drop me and let me go. No, instead he pulled back slightly making his kisses softer until he trailed them to my neck and back up again until he hovered over my lips.

“That is how I’ve always wanted to kiss you and it scares me at how something so wrong, felt so right. But I promise never to touch you in such way again, as much as it pains me to say so, it is the only way it could ever be.” Even as he said this he still held me to him and dipped his lips to mine one last time. He lingered there, tasting the seam with one last swipe of his tongue and I looked up to find him smiling. I couldn’t help but do the same.

“Thank you,” I said and he winked at me.

“If you’re thanking me for attacking your swee
t lips, then I must be better a kisser than I thought.” He joked and I poked him in the side for being cocky.

“
Oi!” But he just laughed harder before pulling me in for a full bodied hug. I wrapped my arms around him and I felt him breathe me in deeply at the neck before letting me go for a final time.

“Thank you for your greatest gift
, Keira, I will forever treasure the memory.” He said taking my hand and kissing the back of it. I then watched him walk back to his bike and this time, he didn’t look sad but more…liberated.

“Wait! Just tell me, what did you mean…what gift?” I shouted to him, staying closer to the house, afraid if I went over there I would never let him go. He looked up at me and I could see his eyes flash for a second before he answered me.

“The brief encounter in giving me the gift of your heart.” He said and then put the helmet on his head and before I could blink, he had skidded the bike round and rode off out of sight. I turned back to my front door, took the coin out of its hiding place and kissed it on each side before replacing it. It even hummed in pleasure.

I was sat back in this lonely house that for once didn’t get to me. It was like that kiss had given me a kind of hope and filled me with peace. I couldn’t find one single emotion that even touched on guilt or regret. Vincent had given me a gift also and I wasn’t sure he knew it or not. The heart I thought broken was healing and doing so in the knowledge that one day soon
, I might be seeing not only him again, but also his brother. It was as though in that one kiss I felt the power of the coin come to life and with that my hope bloomed.

Now I was sat in the kitchen
, where I hadn’t moved since coming in and was picking at the sandwich I had made whilst on autopilot. I thought the sight of Vincent leaving me behind would mean a night of needing a vodka bottle just to get by but it wasn’t the case. Every time I touched my lips it took me back to the way he heated my body and it was nice to know it was still working right.

It was only when I felt my neck as I was burning up that I realised something. I dropped my crust and bolted from the chair.

“Shit!” I said as I ran up the stairs to the main bathroom. I still hadn’t even taken off my jacket or my bag, I realised as it flapped around me when I bounded up each step.

I came to the main bathroom and practically skidded to the mirror to check out the butcher’s job I had done on my hair.

“Double shit!” I cursed as I took in the straight cut of my hair that now hung longer at the front from where I had cut it in a hair band. I moved my hair back and forth and knew I would need to cut it into more of a style, so I took out the scissors and started snipping away.

By the time I had finished it didn’t look that bad. I had first levelled it out as much as I could and then trimmed little layers into it as I had once done for my friend in high school. I feathered the shorter parts round my face into a side fringe that flopped into one eye. It took me longer than I thought but after using a hand held mirror behind me, so I could see the back, I managed to get it into something that didn’t look like I had cut it with my teeth.

I mean, I wasn’t about to win any hairdressing awards but I was just happy I didn’t look like someone had put a bowl on my head and cut round it…I didn’t think I would suit the monk look! Of course the next part was harder to do. I walked back in my room and got out a plastic bag that I had kept the hair dye in, away from Libby. I knew I had no choice and there would be a few surprised looks when I got back from this ‘Mission’ but the most important thing was that I’d done as the letter had told me to and changed my appearance.

I didn’t know how much of the supernatural world knew about me or whether they even knew what I looked like
, but the less chance of me sticking out like the ‘Lucky dip human God child’ the better. Nevertheless my hands still shook as I looked down at the colour.

I got changed into some old clothes Libby had given me that I wore to h
elp her paint Ella’s room, so that I wouldn’t get hair dye on any of my clothes. I then went into the bathroom to do the deed and didn’t come out again until a different Keira was looking back at me in the mirror.

One with black hair. 

Hours later I found myself sat in my room, once again going over all the letters and that’s when I decided to take a closer look at the coin. I fished it out of my pocket and my first thought was a panicked, ‘it had been swapped’. But then I held it under my lamp and saw that the symbols had changed since the kiss and something told me this was all part of the plan. 

The side that once held the head now had the Draven’s family crest engraved there but the other side was even stranger. It was a large circle with a smaller circle inside but around the edge had the letters A.S.M.O.D.A.Y and then an intricate symbol in the middle. It started with a vertical line in the centre with a devils tail to one side. The other side had a U shape on its side with smaller circles attached and in the centre was a number two in roman numerals on its side. The last part had a tiny cross inside the design that would be easy to
miss and it reminded me of the same cross a solider would have received for bravery.

By the time I had finished examining the coin my eyes stung from squinting
to see all the minute details and I had to turn off my lamp.

I had no clue what any of it meant but the very fact that the coin had changed told me the deed was done. It had received the kiss and was now ready
for the next part of my mission.

But was I?

Later that night I was just drifting in and out of sleep when I was transported back in time. I heard the same scratching at my window I’d heard on my second night in this house and the very same reasons for it went through my mind. Was it a cat, no we didn’t have one, was it a tree, no there wasn’t any close enough. This was when one name slammed through my system and I bolted upright.

“Ava!” I looked to the window and saw her sat on the ledge on a window that was now wide open. But how? I was just about to get up to go to her when I noticed Ava hadn’t come alone.

There was a massive shadow of a man stood watching me from the corner and I froze.

“Don’t be afraid
.” That voice! Could it be?

“Draven?”  I whispered
, too afraid it would disappear and this living fantasy would go back to the confines of my life’s most perfect memories.

“I shouldn’t be here
.” He said this time stepping closer but remaining in the shadows and the second time hearing his voice, the beautiful reality was confirmed, it was Draven.

“You told me that once before
.” I said softly as he approached the bed. I couldn’t move but I wished I’d had the courage to. I was more than stunned as this didn’t feel like a dream but more and more like living, breathing, certainty that this was really happening and more importantly, it was happening now. 

“How?” I asked and I wished I could have taken it back as soon as I saw Draven halt his footsteps. He didn’t answer me and I hated the distance between us but more importantly, I didn’t understand it.

“Draven?” I said after he just seemed frozen to the spot. I still couldn’t see his face but from his voice alone I knew it was him.

“This is wrong, I should not be doing this
.” He said but it sounded more directed at himself than at me.

“What’s wrong, why is your being here wrong…I…don’t understand
?” I said trying not to feel the massive weight crushing me down every time he spoke.

“I can’t control it…I need to control it…
I didn’t mean to come here.” He said but again I didn’t know if it was meant for me to hear.

“Why are you saying these things?” I almost crumbled and broke down.

“I am sorry…so sorry, this should not be happening…but…” His voice sounded so strained, like someone speaking whilst lifting weights.

“But what?
Tell me!” I shouted feeling more and more hurt by the second.

“But I can’t help myself, it’s not just my body that is drawn to you
, but it is my very soul and it seems even Hell itself can’t keep me away.” He said and at this point I couldn’t stand it a moment longer. I jumped off the bed, into the shadows and flung myself into his arms. He tried to move back at first but as soon as I reached up and pulled his face to mine, all resistance fled him.

He descended on me like a starved man and his kiss broke every rule. But I didn’t
care, he was here now and that was all that mattered. As soon as our lips connected, so did our souls reunite. It wasn’t gentle and it wasn’t soft, but it was undiluted raw lust and love combined. His mouth took possession of mine and claimed it with every move and every taste.

His hands gripped on
to me like someone would soon be dragging me away and it was the point just before pain. Again I didn’t care. If anything I wanted it harder, rougher just so that I could feel every hard inch of him. I was close to crawling up like a cat and it was only when my hands went for his hair that something clicked. Draven’s hair was shorter, cut close to his head and it didn’t feel like the usual straight, thick strands that I remembered entwining with my fingers.

“Draven?” I said his
name but then he lost all willpower that was holding him back, because the next thing I knew he had hoisted me up around his waist and was pushing my back into the wall, taking the kiss further.

I was panting and quickly getting lost in the feel of what I once had every day of my life
, but all the while that niggling little feeling something wasn’t quite right kept scratching at my brain. It was like there was a miniature version of myself pounding on the window of my mind, screaming something was wrong. But I couldn’t hear her words.

“Just…need…you
.” Draven’s voice filled my mind and started to cloud out that same window. His touch, his smell, his taste all told me this was him, really him. The man I needed in my life and now here he was. He was really back.

“Draven
.” I said before he took my lips once again. I could feel him trying to tear my clothes from me to get to the skin underneath. I felt dizzy and lightheaded by the drug that Draven was injecting into me with every grip his fingers made. Of course, this tripled when his fingers dipped down and found my core. They ran down the centre and flicked at the bundle of nerves there sending my head back and a cry of pleasure to escape.

“Yes…yes
.” I said and he growled.

“Come, I need you to come for me
.” He said, his voice turning into that demonic creature that at this point couldn’t be contained. It commanded my pleasure like it needed it to breathe. He drummed at the entrance, drawing it closer and closer until,

“Come!” He growled as he plunged deep with two fingers and this was my undoing. I screamed out my orgasm and he pulled at the waves as if feeding his addiction.

“Draven!” I shouted as he continued his sexual demands, trying to draw another out for his feast. He took my plea and pulled from my sensitive flesh that had now coated his hand with the evidence of my release. He raised it up to his mouth and sucked every drop from his fingers, all the while in shadow.