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  His eyes met mine, and I showed him. I let him see the crow land between us, how Madison ran to them, the men. How Silas killed them. I couldn’t judge his mood from his placid expression.

  “Then there was the witch,” I mumbled, letting him see how two of the images Madison had sketched had already appeared and that there were darker ones sure to come.

  “Tell me that’s not Madison on that floor. Tell me this demon isn’t going to kill her when she figures out that the boy she dreamed of is trapped by him and she goes to save him.”

  Draven sighed. “I can’t...because I don’t know.”

  A tear escaped and ran down my cheek. “This whole time, I’ve been worried about us, what’s happening to us, even though I knew that prince was real, that her dreams had come to life before. I never saw this coming.”

  “I’ll get you to a safe place,” he said quietly.

  I knew him well enough to know that he was choosing his words very carefully. He said ‘you,’ not ‘us’ – not ‘them.’ He said ‘you.’

  “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  “Don’t do this to me,” he said as he leaned forward again.

  To you? Seriously? “Do what?”

  “You just don’t get it. You don’t understand that the world itself is telling us that we can’t be together. That I’m fighting as hard as I can against forces I can’t see to be with you. You don’t understand how hard it is to look at you and know that I can kill you with a thought. That I could become what I’ve always fought to end.”

  “You aren’t becoming anything,” I argued.

  He stood abruptly and began to pace. “You think this is all in my head? That I don’t see a glow all around you – around others? That I don’t sense energy on every level? That I don’t feel weak when I refuse to give in to that call? Do you think that I haven’t tried everything to be who I was? To understand why this happened to me? That I haven’t analyzed every single memory of every past life – a life with you – a life I ended?”

  “It’s called change, Draven,” I said as I stood and began to match his pace. “Life is about change - every second we change and we grow and become something else. Is some change hard? Yes. Is it impossible to weather? No.”

  He stopped, and his green eyes pierced into mine. “This isn’t puberty, this isn’t a move across the ocean, this isn’t me deciding not to become a career musician – this is life and death. Your death.”

  “What’s the purpose of living if all you feel is pain? Because if we let this darkness win, if we let it rip us apart, we’ll both be in agony, and you know that. I know you love me ... I need you to love yourself.”

  “I would rather you live in agony than die.” He said under his breath as he glanced away. I could swear the room had turn colder in that instant. He was pushing me away.

  My frantic stare rushed over his additive image. I was going to ignore that goodbye in his eyes and fight like hell to keep him at my side. “You don’t even know if you can do that – you think you can.” I bit out. “You have no idea what you’ve become. No one does. Quit selling yourself out.”

  “Silas was very clear with me,” he stated with coldness as his jaw locked and fury immersed him.

  “When?” It was clear now why his self-loathing was amped up to a new level. Silas. Freaking Silas.

  “After you left.”

  “What did he say?” I demanded as I tried to see my answer.

  He balled his fist as the room dropped another few degrees. “We have a deal.”

  “What do you mean?” If those two thought they were going to bargain over my fate – they’d lost their damn minds.

  “We aren’t going to let you die.” Was his very emotionless response.

  “How is that a news flash?” He was talking in circles and it was making me dizzy at this point. I mean how many times could you have the same exact argument?!

  “Don’t you get it?” he said as his eyes locked with mine. “He’ll always be a breath away, and the moment I even come close to losing control, he’ll kill me. We can never be alone again. We can never rest.”

  I was seething with anger. I could feel it pumping through my veins. “I don’t care where he is – don’t you get that? Am I grateful that he saved my life? Yes. Do I think he knows what’s going on around us, around The Realm – that he can help us? Yes. But I swear to you, if he lays one hand on you, I won’t rest until he dies.”

  “Let me explain something to you,” he said as he stepped closer to me. Matching my furious glare. “This will not be a poetic death. When light leaves you, you will die every death that you’ve ever escaped. It will not be swift; it will take months -- and you will live in hell.”

  “Who says?” I made sure my chin was up; that my stare and stance were matching his. If he was trying to make me fear death he was insane. I only had one fear. And he was pushing me to face it. Losing him was worse than any death.

  His emerald stare rained down on me with sympathy and a tinge of regret. “Silas. It’s happened before; he showed me.”

  “Showed you what?”

  I could swear I that I felt the air in the room ache with grief as he continued his stare. If he had the power he would turn back time, go back to our beginning and ensure that we never met, and that was agony. Seeing that in his eyes was death.

  “After my death in our last life, you ended your life, but you didn’t die instantly...I guess that’s why I’m almost a year older than you. Silas watched you go through that, and he swears he’ll never witness that again.”

  “I guess my point about change has been proven.” I said with a smirk. That expression was my only defense. I could not let him see how afraid I was. I knew if I wavered from my resolve that he’d find a way to leave me behind while he fought this evil.

  “What point?” he asked with an ache in his velvet voice.

  I swallowed trying to hide my nervousness. “That it happens and it hurts, but when it’s over, you have no regrets, no pain.”

  “How was that point made?” he bellowed, looking at me like I was insane. His anger and fear only made me love him more. Made me want to fight harder for him to see that I didn’t care. He was mine. I wasn’t walking away from us. Ever.

  “What bad came out of my death then? Let me think. We were born again, we fell in love again, we stood by each other in innocence, every first, every beautiful life changing experience was shared with you. Eighteen years isn’t long enough for the sacrifice you say I made. If you regret my death, then make it up to me now; love me fearlessly and never let me go.”

  With one swift step, he pulled me to him and kissed me passionately. I felt his warm lips encasing mine, his strong hands gripping my sides. My lips moved across his jaw, and in his ear I whispered, “I’ll let you know when your debt is paid, a million years from now.”

  His arms tightened around me and swayed me from side to side. The coldness in the room vanished and his warmth was all I could feel. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  “You have no reason to be sorry.”

  He leaned back and looked into my eyes as he traced my jaw with his fingertips, which were gently humming with his energy. “I’m sorry I can’t beat this.”

  “We’re beating it right now.”

  “I love you,” he murmured as his eyes fell into mine. “No matter what happens, never forget that.”

  “What’s going to happen? What do we do now?”

  He let his hands fall from my face, then walked to the couch and fell into it. “I can’t get to those boys. I tried.”

  That statement made my heart jump. I knew who was guarding those boys. “What did you do? How did you try?”

  His soulful eyes gave me a quick glance, assuring me he had stayed on the safe side of that devil. “I recreated the place that was destroyed in that dimension. I looked everywhere for them. Every time I thought I was close, they’d vanish. It’s like they’re asleep inside a nightmare. I know I’m reachin
g them because they repeated those lyrics, an angel falling, a devil risen ... I just can’t get them to wake up. They must think I’m a part of it, that I’m going to hurt them or something.”

  “Sounds like you got closer than I did,” I muttered, letting out a deep breath. He hadn’t seen the devil I’d fought.

  “Maybe if I can find their bodies outside of The Realm, I could see where they were, chase them from their perspective.”

  I sat down next to him. “Are you sure it’s Landen? That they took our escape?” I asked, having no idea how we’d find the bodies of people we didn’t even know.

  He nodded.

  “How? How can you know for sure? We’ve never seen him. Even in The Realm, I couldn’t make out their faces.”

  He let his head fall back on the couch and reached to lace his fingers through mine. “I can’t figure out how I even knew to go back, how what I saw was in reality. I really thought it was just a game Bianca was playing.”

  “We’ve stepped into reality before,” I mumbled.

  We’d figured out that when we saw ourselves into a memory, moved to a place with a thought in this world, sometimes the people there could see us, and sometimes they couldn’t. We assumed it was because some people were more aware than others. We were always careful when we appeared somewhere. We didn’t want to terrify anyone, and at times, from the fearful expressions of those around us, we understood that we were perceived as ghosts or something like that.

  “But never from The Realm,” Draven countered. “Somehow, The Realm led me to someone else’s reality, and that opens more questions than I have time to weigh.”

  “Madison thinks The Realm is a veil to something bigger. That we’ve barely begun to understand it.”

  He nodded to agree.

  “You never told me how you know it’s Landen.”

  Draven cleared his throat. “How many people do you think have a soul mate named Willow that would be fighting pure evil?”

  “She was there?” I asked as my stomach twisted. I could only imagine the grief she’d be going through if that were true.

  Draven nodded once. “She screamed his name.”

  “What are you not saying?” I asked in a shaky voice, knowing that absent look in his eyes all too well.

  His hand tightened around mine. “The reason I thought it wasn’t reality, that it was The Realm, was because the prince was there. Madison was there.”

  “What do you mean?!” I said as I sat up.

  “It wasn’t her. Another guy pulled her away, and he called her Willow.”

  “Are you serious?” I said as a sick feeling eased up my throat.

  “They could be twins,” Draven said as his eyes stared forward. It was clear he was completely mystified.

  “Oh. My. God,” I said as I let go of his hand and leaned forward and tried to breathe.

  “Charlie? Charlie! Look at me. What do you know? What are you not saying?”

  I raised my head up slowly and looked into his frantic eyes. “This whole time, through all of this ... I ... I should have figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “I don’t even know. She told me that when she dreamed of him that sometimes he was looking at her and sometimes he was looking at someone just like her. She keeps telling me that she won’t be anyone’s second choice. I thought she was talking about Britain. And she’s dreaming about some fight with this girl. Now he’s been taken? Now some witch says the Goddess of Mother Nature has called Madison? Draven, what if they’re calling her to be some kind of sacrifice?”

  “Charlie, that makes no sense.”

  “How does any of this make sense?! Why have we not been able to leave for Chara? I’ve been in that dimension every day, just waiting for a glimpse of them – nothing. And now that the prince is in danger and Madison is told she’s called – we’re walking right into this.” I couldn’t sit still. I stood and began to pace. “And not mention that demon – he literally blocked those boys from us. How is one demon connecting us all, and what’s with the dreams? I’m terrified of Madison’s, mine, definitely Monroe’s. I think that was her dad. I really do.”

  Draven stood and stopped my pace. “Shh,” he said as he cradled my face. “Sit down. We’ll figure this out.” I gave in to his simple request and sat down by him. “Listen, we knew Austin before this happened. I doubt that Landen and Willow have purposely been waiting to use Madison as a sacrifice. Austin would never lead us into something like that. They’re victims just like all of us.”

  “Then how do we connect?”

  “I think it has to do with our past lives, at least I think I’m connected from a past life.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it. The first time you showed me the prince, I thought I recognized him; I figured he just reminded me of someone. But when the memories from my past life started coming to me, I saw him.”

  “Was he bad?” I asked timidly.

  Draven tried to smile, but sadness wouldn’t let him. “No. In my memories, I’m a child, then he dies or something, and as I became the evil I was, I hear his voice in my head. I feel like I’m letting him down, but I can’t be sure. I might just be making the connection because the kind of place he lives in is a lot like what I ruled in. But I know one thing: that person in my memories fought the evil we’re fighting now. We’re just a younger generation, one that lost where they prevailed.”

  “How sure are you about this, Draven? Do you really believe this?”

  “Not sure enough for us to tell anyone. I’m going on gut feeling here. That prince, Willow, and Landen -- they aren’t our problem. If we’ve been kept apart, it’s not because of some waiting sacrifice; it’s because together, with time, we can defeat this.”

  “How does Monroe play into this?” I asked.

  “How do they all play into it is the question.”

  “I saw Winston bargaining with Bianca in The Realm today.”

  Draven sat up quickly. “Show me.”

  I let him see it all, every second I was in The Realm. I didn’t want to leave anything out that would give us the answers we needed.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Draven said as he clenched his jaw.

  “What’s going on with him?”

  “I don’t know. Grayson doesn’t either. One minute I think he’s cocky, the next I think he’s a scared boy looking for his mom.”

  “How can she be in The Realm? How could she leave them behind?”

  “Grayson said love.”

  “I thought Escorts couldn’t be in love, not once they chose to give in to their nature?”

  We were told that by Britain. Well, he told Madison that. At first I thought he said that because he was playing some kind of game with her, saying that so he wouldn’t ever have to utter that word to her, but Madison said she felt the fear in him when he told her that. She said that the word ‘love’ was poison to them, that if they said it or felt it they’d perish from what they were, that whatever existence they had or could hope to have would end. That’s why Draven made it a point to say that word to me as much as possible. I made him say it every time he was mad or lost; most of the time it made him calm, helped him hold on, and subdued the hunger in his eyes, but sometimes it looked like the word hurt him.

  “Their mom wasn’t an Escort; she was light. Grayson is vague with me when it comes to his mom. All he ever really said was that his mom told him that Monroe would protect them and that they were to protect her.”

  “That demon, his entire mood changed when he saw Monroe – I’m terrified for her.”

  He grimaced. “If there was a sacrifice that I would worry about, it would be her. She’s the key to this; she has to be.”

  “Why do you say that? Did Grayson say something?”

  “Just that she’s balance. That within her, both darkness and light reside. That she cannot find fault in either; she’s at one with who and what she is. Grayson thinks she’s a marker, an example
of what we should all be. He wishes he was like her, that he could find a way to not hate part of who he was.”

  I smiled slightly, and his eyes questioned me.

  “In this life, both darkness and light are within me. I find no fault with what they think may be inside of you. I have no anger for the shadows or whispers that haunt me. I want the war to stop between good and evil and to use Madison’s words. I want to rise above dualities.”

  A smile that I’d missed so desperately spread across his face. He leaned toward me and let his lips rest gently on mine. I kissed him back slowly at first, but then the passion in my soul took over and I became more eager. Greedy.

  “I love you,” I whispered between his kiss.

  My words ignited something in him. He pulled me to his lap, then picked me up and carried me to my bed. As he laid me down, I fought to get as close to him as I possibly could. I wanted him to feel how much passion and love I had for him. I wanted him to know that his soul was mine and that I’d never let it go. We pulled at each other’s clothes trying to get skin-to-skin as fast as humanly possible.

  In the heat of passion, my phone beeped on my waist, letting me know that a text had come in. I pulled it off my waist and threw it across the bed, then gave in to my breathless passion, fighting to get as close to him as I could. A moment later, it began to ring. We ignored it at first, but just as the ringing stopped, it began again.

  Draven’s lips halted. “Someone doesn’t want this moment to happen,” he said, trying to catch his breath.

  “I don’t hear anything,” I said, pulling him back to me. He smiled through my kiss and reached for my phone.

  I sighed and sat up. It had stopped ringing. I looked through the missed calls: it was Wesley. My eyes grew wide with hope as I read the text he sent: Told you so. He’s on his way to your house. Hope you’re there.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Draven. He’d read the text; the only problem was, I didn’t see relief in his eyes. I saw a goodbye.

  Chapter Six

  My heart started to race as my skin flushed. I felt tension suffocate the room, taking away the essence of passion. I turned to look at him, hoping that I was reading him wrong, that now what I’d been waiting on was here, that it wouldn’t be too late.