Waken (The Woods of Everod Book 1) (17 page)

The heat radiating from him had me snuggling close. Burrowing under his arm, I longed to be the girl that knew what to do. I wanted to take control and make the first move, but even with the courage, I didn’t know what the first move was. The memory of his lips on mine, the way they had been the first time he’d kissed me, brought a blush to my face, I felt the heat pooling in my cheeks.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked me, eyeing my flushed face.

“Nothing.” The heat in my cheeks burned.

“Janie, you’re face is on fire.”

He smirked. He knew what I was thinking. I refused to be embarrassed, but I didn’t know what to say.

“If you want to kiss me, you can,” he said, and his smile grew, showing a cocky side I hadn’t known was there. “You don’t even have to ask permission.”

I wanted to tease back, give him a playful smack, but more intense was the desire to do what he’d said and kiss him. I raised my hands and linked them behind his head, threading my fingers through the curls at the base of his neck. Bracing myself against his neck, I arched up and pressed my lips to his. His lips were supple, moist from the water he’d been sipping.

My stomach clenched and I trembled. I parted my lips and inhaled his breath, tasting him, thinking that there was nothing sweeter. The control I had was swiftly taken over by him. He grasped my arms and leaned me back on the couch, hovering over me. The sound of the television dimmed and Tristan was the only thing I could concentrate on. His teeth scraped lightly over my lower lip, tugging playfully, before he deepened the kiss.

Eventually we pulled apart, more from the awkward position we were in then any desire to separate. He slid from the couch and settled on the floor beside me. I rolled to my side and curled up, resting my head on my folded hands. I tried to take my eyes off him, but he was such a compelling visage, strong and stunning. The frustrated expression only added to the attraction.

“You didn’t have to stop,” I said, my heart still racing.

He looked at me a small smile parted his lips. “Yeah, I did. If we keep going, Tim and Justin could end up walking in on something they’d never want to see.”

My face burned again and he chuckled. He was so relaxed and approachable. I searched my mind for something to bring me out of our little fantasy. The only thing that came to mind was Rachel.

One thought of her and every other strange thing I’d noticed about the town came rushing back. Earlier that afternoon, I’d thought I was able to wait, but it seemed as if that’s all I’d been doing. Waiting. I sat up abruptly.

“What was Rachel talking about? What are you supposed to tell me?”

Pressing the mute button as the credits of the movie rolled across the screen, he sighed and dropped his head back onto the edge of the couch. “I already told you as much as I can.”

“That’s bull. I’m so sick and tired of this, Tristan. I want some answers. I’m done waiting.” The passion drained, leaving my blood bitterly cold with frustration.

He twisted to look at me, surprise splashed across his face. “It’s the truth. What she was talking about isn’t just about me. It involves everyone in town and I don’t have the right to tell you. Not yet.”

I stood up and walked to the window. I felt movement behind me and knew he had followed me. I pushed the curtains aside just as his arms slipped around me. Resting his chin on my shoulder, he whispered, “This weekend. I promise.”

I placed my hands over his. In our reflection in the windowpane, our eyes met. The acrid taste of fear filled my mouth. “Just tell me now. Waiting is just going to hurt me more.”

“It’s not like that, Janie.” He turned me in his arms and leaned down to press his forehead to mine. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I swear I will tell you everything at the cabin.”

“If you don’t...then I can’t be with you anymore. I won’t let myself be like that. And I can’t handle anymore of these battles with Rachel. Not without knowing what I’m fighting about.” I wasn’t sure I could stay away from him, but I would try. As much as I wanted to be with him, I couldn’t live with the uncertainty and the fear building in me.

His head shifted to rest atop mine and I felt him nod, possibly hoping to pacify me. The comforting embrace tightened for a moment, before it suddenly disappeared. I looked up at him as he parted the curtains and stared out into the yard. Despite the porch light being on it, was hard to see anything. I reached over and flicked off the living room lights, plunging us into semi-darkness.

A white blob caught my attention immediately. My lungs sucked in a sharp breath when it moved towards the porch. I blinked and leaned closer to the window. It was the wolf.

“Kas,” Tristan hissed. He pulled me back from the window and quickly drew the curtains closed.

“What is that wolf doing in my front yard?” I asked the question even though I knew he’d avoid any real answer. But how clueless could I pretend to be? A freaking wolf was getting ready to climb the porch steps and I was supposed to think that was natural. “No more evasions. Just tell me.”

“I... This weekend, I promise.”

“No. Tell me now, or I won’t go this weekend.” Any agreement I’d just made to wait vanished from my mind. All this mysterious crap was driving me nuts. I wanted to yell at him, but didn’t trust myself to be coherent. The normal glow of peace I felt with him was gone.

“I can’t tell you yet.”

“Why?” I snapped, my patience at an end. Every ounce of frustration was now pushing on my last nerve, causing me to sink heavily onto the couch.

He walked to the fireplace where glowing embers rested in a bed of ash. He picked up a log, placed it within the pit, and blew gently until the flames licked its sides. He acted so casual, brushing the dirt from the log off his hands then looping his thumbs through his belt loops.

Could I tell him every dream I’d had, every crazy emotion and sensation that he drew from me? How could I put it into words, when I didn’t even understand what I felt, what I had been going through? My life since coming to Everod had been so surreal. Before, I may have been hiding inside myself, but I’d been relatively content with the way things were, just Tim, Justin and me. Now I was sitting there with no idea what was going on, of what he had to tell me.

Being with Tristan had changed me more than I had wanted to change myself. I loved the way I felt when I was with him, the way he made me feel cherished and wanted. Worthy. But inside was a part of me that questioned that. A part that actually resented the control he had over me, how I had automatically gravitated towards him from the moment we’d met. All of the cryptic warnings and the questions were pooling in my mind and I wondered if anything was real.

“The night of the accident, I thought you were dead.” I wrapped my arms around myself protectively; the still fresh memory was terrifying. “You were cut, bleeding everywhere. We tried to get you out, but the door wouldn’t open, no matter how hard we pulled. Then before we could try anything else, there you were, unhurt.”

He wasn’t stopping me or interrupting to tell me I was nuts. I continued tentatively, questioningly, “Rachel and Bryce have been warning me to stay away from you. Why?” I paused, giving him a chance to answer. He said nothing. “You wanted to explain, well here’s your chance. Explain or leave.” My voice quivered. I was tired of waiting for an explanation.

Nothing. I thought he was going to leave. I started towards the door, but his quiet words stopped me.

“Will you really listen? Because all sense of logic you have will reject what I tell you and you need to hear everything, then you can decide what you want to believe.”

“I need to know, Tristan.”

He moved soundlessly to the window gazing out at the glittering dewdrops that clung to the glass. “God, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Anywhere.”

“I’m not normal. The people here, in Everod, are not normal.”

Restlessly, he paced back to the fireplace. He placed his hands on the mantle and rested his head on top.

“Since I was ten, I’ve known what I would become, what everyone around me is. That was when the change first started. As a child, you don’t notice the little oddities of our town. Mom and Dad are just Mom and Dad.”

I shook my head, trying to clear it of everything but his words.

“I’d always been healthy, but on my tenth birthday I was running with the cake knife. I slipped and fell. It sliced right through me. I was terrified. I’d watched enough horror movies to know that a knife through your stomach wasn’t good. But Dad just came over and pulled it out. He said ‘Slow down or one day you may hurt someone’.”

“I suppose next you’ll tell me you’re a vampire.” I shoved myself off the couch. His head jerked up from the mantle and he spun around.

“What?! No, definitely not vampires. I wish it was that simple. We don’t bite. Well, maybe, but only for fun.” His smile turned faintly flirtatious and, despite everything, I could feel myself blushing, then just as quickly the seriousness returned.

“Come on, Tristan. Do I really seem that stupid?” My shoulders drooped as Elin’s voice came back to me.
Pathetic.

He watched me pick at the fine dusting of dirt on my jeans. “You don’t believe me,” he said after a moment.

“Would you?” I glanced at him from under my lashes.

“I still don’t believe it and I’m living it.” He lifted an envelope knife from the mantle, and ran his finger along the broad side, the flickering flames glinting off the edge.

Before I could guess what he meant to do, he gripped the knife in his palm and slid the blade through his closed fist. When the blade emerged, a vibrant red stained the edge and a drop of blood pooled on the tip.

“Oh my God!” I cried, surging forward. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

I grabbed his hand and pried his fist open, intent on inspecting the cut. But there was none. The only evidence that he’d cut himself was a drop of blood and a thin red scratch, that faded even as I watched. My fingers burned and I dropped his hand.

“Why would you do that?” I demanded, angry that he had done something so stupidly dangerous.

“You didn’t believe me,” he answered.

“So, what? You can’t be hurt? You can’t die?”

“No.” He laughed miserably. “That hurt like hell, so I hope you don’t want a repeat performance.”

“But you can’t die?” I persisted.

“We die. It’s just not very common unless you’re old.”

“Old? How old?”

“About as old as an average person. The infection increases our body’s ability to heal and regenerate our cells, but there are injuries that even the infection can’t heal. We’re still human.”

An infection I could handle. That could be cured, right? There was a way for him to be normal again. I tried a smile of encouragement, but my lips were stiff from disbelief no longer with his story, but in the actuality of the existence of his story. How was it possible that something like him could exist, and the world be unaware, unsuspecting?

He smiled and pulled an old sepia colored photo from his wallet, then handed it to me. Taken in the sixties or seventies, a young couple smiled in front of a newer looking Trail’s End diner.

“That’s my mom, Katrina, and my dad, Adam. We don’t completely stop aging, it only slows us down. That photo is from just after they got married. Mom is sixty-five and Dad won’t admit it but he’s almost seventy.” He looked down at it. “They still look pretty much the same now. Dad says it’s like being stuck in the prime of your life, until we hit about eighty then it all catches up with us.”

He put the photo back in his wallet and walked to the window, before turning back to face me.

“How is this even possible?” The words tumbled from my lips.

“Do you remember the story Samara told you about the Wolf? How he infected the villagers?”

“So, the infection is contagious?” There was something else nagging my brain. I’d labeled it a folk tale, nothing that could be true to life. Even with the fascination the town had, I hadn’t taken it seriously and the small details of the story had faded.

“It is. It passes easily during pregnancy, and for Ericka it could be as simple as a few drops of blood. For the rest of us, it takes a lot of our blood to infect another.”

“So basically you - this town - are a walking eternal fountain of youth?”

“It’s not eternal, more like an extended youth.”

“Sounds great.”

“Some people think so,” he replied.

“You don’t?”

“No. For seventeen years I’ve been pretty much normal. The healing doesn’t bother me. But the idea that I’m never going to play pro football, or live somewhere other than Everod. All I’ve ever wanted is for a cure, to be normal.”

“I know it’s hard to accept, but you need to know what we are. Everything we are.”

“There’s more?” What more could there be?

“Yes, but this...it’s better if I show you.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t- I know. I know,” he said and held up a hand to cut off my interruption. “But this is entirely different. Telling you without the permission of the Council could end up causing a lot of problems.”

“So when?” Now that I had some answers, I wanted to know everything.