Read Between the Waters (Symphony of Light) Online

Authors: Renea Mason

Tags: #Paranormal Romance, #Paranormal Erotic Romance

Between the Waters (Symphony of Light) (2 page)

BOOK: Between the Waters (Symphony of Light)
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“They are magical; the moon shadows, I mean.”

It sucked having him in my mind. A few seconds after a thought crossed he had full access to it as a memory. I was never alone except when he grew too weary to maintain the connection or when it dropped like bad cell phone reception. His presence was always a surprise. During rare merciful times, he’d let an embarrassing stray notion vanish without comment, but that was a rarity most days. The constant focus on controlling my thoughts wore on me. It was impossible to stop them from forming without thinking of why they shouldn’t be formed in the first place. Either way, I was screwed.

He must have sensed my turmoil because he changed tactics.
“If you’d be so kind as to oblige my request…”
But his attempt at manners was undermined by the growl reverberating between my ears. I couldn’t even roll my eyes in peace.

“Request, my ass. Besides, it’s cold.” No matter how much I wanted to resist, the guilt that gripped me for trapping him outside his body softened my response to his bullshit every time.

“You won’t be for long. Now get on with it; we haven’t got all night. I’m growing tired.”

Another quick look around revealed row after row of headstones. The crisp nip of winter air and the moon-bathed landscape awaited me. I shrugged off my coat, removed my shoes and socks, shimmied the jeans over my hips, and pulled the sweater over my head. Standing next to a pile of clothes in only panties and bra, I wrapped my arms across my chest. With the temperature near the low thirties, I shivered and looked up to the sky. Closing my eyes, I grumbled, “Now what?”

He laughed.
“Oh, my dearest Linden, open your eyes and look down.”

Busted.
I looked, but focused several feet away, avoiding my body. I focused on the grass trimmed in tiny white crystals of frost. So fucking cold.

“You naughty girl. When I told you to take your clothes off, I meant all of them. Do it. Then let me see.”

I huffed and reached around to unfasten my bra. The task proved difficult as my hands shook from the temperature, anger, and anxiety. Working the panties down my legs, I complained, “I’m going to die from hypothermia.”

Standing on a hill overlooking the Laurel Mountain range, in a cemetery, at midnight, talking to nothing but the night air while taking orders from a voice in my head was all the evidence I needed. I had finally gone insane.

“Show me.”
The menace gone, seduction in its place.

I sighed and complied. My nipples were so puckered and hard they could have chiseled ice. My skin reddened from windburn.

A sound in my head like air being sucked through teeth echoed between my ears.
“You are so beautiful. When I’m back, I’m going to dedicate a week to savoring each part of your body. I’m going to wrap my lips around each of those rosy buds. Without touching any other part of your body, I’ll make you writhe, pant, and moan for me.”

Damn him. The breeze blew, but I was immune. The heat that grew from within, negating its effects.
“Cyril, please…” I intended a warning, but he interpreted my words as a plea.

“I feel your need. If I was there, I’d bend you over the bench, watch your red hair drape over your back, and fuck you until you screamed my name. When the echoes of your passion stopped filling my ears, I’d sit you atop me and bury myself inside you and lathe the milky white skin of your breasts with my tongue. When those beautiful green eyes told me you surrendered, I’d bite and consume you as you consumed me.”

“Stop. Cyril, please. I am on edge. I’m ready to ignite. You can feel it. Please don’t make it worse.” He held a switch to my body’s thermostat. The only thing chilled was the place between my legs where moisture pooled. What other woman could say that she bedded a god made for sex? The goddess who created him, to see to her every physical need, perfected every detail. The man was a Titan in bed, and damn my luck, the universe gave me a taste before taking him, just so I’d know what I was missing. Fucking fates.

“When you bring me back to you, where I belong, I’ll make it up to you. You have my word. Are you still cold?”

“No.” In fact, I was surprised I didn’t combust.

“See, you should trust me more often.”

I scoffed.

“Now your lesson…Light, close your eyes.”

Lowering my lids, I did as he asked.

“Can you feel the pulse?”

I focused, blocking out the whistle caused by the breeze blowing across my ears. The cold numbed my skin once my Cyril-induced inferno extinguished. It shook the hairs on my arms, tickling.

“Walk to it.”

I did. As I got closer, it thundered in my brain. Cyril’s identity, my anxiety, and the strange sensation caused something akin to a headache to take hold. “It’s making my head hurt.”

“That’s expected. The pulse has increased. Now, find the place where it’s so fast, it’s sustained. The pain will subside when you are in the precise spot. You’ll learn how to pace out the pinnacle, and you won’t need to focus on the feeling.”

“Is that what you were doing the first time I saw you here? You were counting.”

“Yes. The lines shift with the season, and winter is two paces to the left of summer. It’s easier to count since I’ve been here before. Better than getting naked and risk you attacking.”

“I never would have attacked you!”

“You may have been young, but the hunger in your eyes for me, even then, was unmistakable.”

“You are impossible. Hurry, I’m getting cold.”

“Do you need me to heat you up again? Should I tell you about how, if I was there, I’d drop to my knees, spread your legs and run my tongue up the inside of your thigh, savoring the essence. I’d lick—”

“Stop it. You can’t keep talking about sex.”

“Yes, I can. I’m made for sex. I am inseparable from sex.”

“But you’re not here, and it’s torture.”

“Seems a fitting price for not trusting me with our future.”

“I was only trying to help.”

“By giving yourself to a psychopath in a ridiculous effort to save me? I’m the closest thing to a god that exists here, and you thought to save me? My only vulnerability is you. You will be my destruction. Now that I have you, I won’t be without you. It’s your stubbornness that risks us both.”

“Well, sorry I told you I loved you. I should have left with Michael and kept you in the dark, wondering.”

“I would have found you. Besides, it was your careless disregard of magic that lead to my imprisonment.”

“Imprisonment? Really? Could you be more dramatic? I was trying to protect you.”

A sound that reminded me of a snort resonated.
“Yes, and a ridiculous notion it was. Keep moving toward the source.”

“Whatever.” I cracked my lids the slightest bit to look for obstacles in my path. The pulsing stabilized at the center of the large circle of gravestones. The Nester family, I remembered. “Now what am I supposed to do? The frequency is sustained, and the headache is gone.”

“Still cold?”

“Fuck you.” He knew I wasn’t. Another one of his games was to ask questions he already knew the answer to just to prove his point.

“That’s my girl.”
He laughed.
“Clear your mind.”

“Easier said than done with the current infestation.” Removing all thoughts of Cyril and his tongue proved difficult. I focused on the grass, taking in the uneven blades.

“Now visualize. Look through the surface of the Earth and picture the energy. Picture pulling it through your body. As I said before, magic is little more than focused will, woven with the forces that sustain this world.”

It took a while to clear my head, and thankfully, he remained silent. Allowing numbness to fill my limbs and seep into my mind, I penetrated layers of earth, reaching the electric white lights branching under the surface. Each juncture enhanced the brightness. I focused on the nearest point and pictured drawing it toward me.

Soon a surge started in my feet, pins and needles followed, as the energy crept through my nervous system. I closed my eyes. The current continued until I was enveloped in the light, feeling invincible, but only for a moment. The energy started to recede.

“Linden, don’t let go. Use the chant. Remember how I told you to use the words to focus. Say them slowly. Nium parnum omsti narum.”

Mentally I grasped at the light as my lips formed the words. Even though not magical, each syllable helped channel the essence. I regained control and was once again overcome.

His next command caught me off guard.
“Do not speak. Think of Clarence.”

Clarence? Why? I thought it odd but didn’t comment. Clarence, my friend and colleague, was the furthest thing from my mind. We spoke the night before. He was still vacillating between being pissed at me for bringing him into all this supernatural bullshit and appreciating me for adding excitement to his life.

Another set of instructions.
“Think of how he looks. What he sounds like.”

Clarence. His smooth, coffee-colored complexion, baldhead, swimmer’s build, and slight Southern drawl.

My skin rippled like water and blended with the tingling caused by the energy. A straining from within—stretching muscle, shifting bone—caught me by surprise. It was not wholly painful, as the pulse served as an excellent analgesic.

“Keep thinking of him, concentrate.”

Entranced by the light and Cyril’s words, Clarence’s mannerisms came to mind. The way he fiddled with his collar, the strange way he cleared his throat when we passed a sexy man and how he held my elbow each time we crossed the street. I was all-things Clarence. I held the image, unmoving.

“That’s it. Feel him, know him, become him.”

Another focused thought on Clarence’s wide, mischievous smile and the corners of my lips lifted, mirroring my thoughts of his actions.

“That’s it, become Clarence.”

Deep breaths helped my concentration. I embodied his six plus feet of height. His toes, his large hands, his… “What the hell?” My eyes flew open.

Cyril screamed in my mind,
“No, gain focus. Gain focus! Use the chant!”

Oh, dear God. I was a six-foot-tall…African-American…man. Holy shit. I was Clarence. What. The. Fuck!

“Linden, you have to calm down. Don’t let the magic snap back. If you do, it will be much worse. It’s going to be bad enough already.”

I turned my hands over and over again, taking in their size, color, and masculinity. Another glance revealed I no longer had breasts and a little lower… I was going to need more therapy.

The hands I scrutinized shook, and the sight disoriented. Rippling started in my skin, and the light began to recede.

“Damn it. Too late. Linden, I’m so sorry.”

Why was he sorry? For turning me into Clarence? But my knees buckled, and I fell to the ground. The energy sucked the last bit of warmth with it as it receded into the earth. My bones gave and muscles cramped in places I didn’t know I had. The pain crippled as I lay writhing on the ground.

“So sorry. Breathe through the pain.”

“Ahhhh…” The scream escaped from between my teeth. My eyes closed from contractions that raked my body. Some kind of grunting pushed through my throat. I was going to die.

“You’ll be OK. I wish I could help you.”

“Fuck you! What did you do?” Another violent spasm and sweat broke out across my skin. So cold.

“It should end soon. Just a little longer.”

Another groan I couldn’t control. I gritted my teeth from pain and the chill. More perspiration. I wanted to cry, but it would’ve hurt too much.

The jerking muscles quieted, and with that came the ability to move my limbs. I forced my eyes to open. Thank God!
I had never been so happy to see my breasts.

“Light, I didn’t do anything. It’s all you.”
Because Light was his pet name for me, I both loved and loathed him in that moment.

I formed my mouth into an O, and I steadied my breathing. Something wet slid down my forehead. What on earth? I opened my eyes to find my entire body covered in a thick, clear, mucous substance. It wasn’t sweat after all. I collected some and flung it from my fingertips. “What the fuck is this?”

“That, my dear, is shifting residue. It’s the by-product your cells produce when you take the form of another. You used to be quite found of it. It’s what your dearly departed Michael used to craft those little animal figurines he gifted you. Isn’t it romantic?”

“I would so punch you if I could.” I wiped the sticky disgusting liquid from my cheek.

“Do you have any idea what this means?”
Elation sounded in his voice. My body felt like I fell from a thirty-story building, and he sounded like it was his fucking birthday.

“It means I’m bare-ass naked, lying on the ground after midnight, in a cemetery covered in goo. Oh…and a minute ago I hallucinated that I had a penis.”

“That was no hallucination, Light. Isn’t this wonderful?”
He was excited. Cyril didn’t get excited. Even when we first met and he discovered my immunity to his curse, he never let his enthusiasm show.

Another sweep of goo from my arm, I breathed heavy, rising on all fours. The slime dripped from my body, leaving tiny pools. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t see the wonder in all of this.”

“Linden, you mimicked Clarence. You changed shapes. You became him. I can’t even do that. I always envied Michael. Think of the possibilities.”

“Became Clarence? I feel like I gave birth to him.” The substance coating my skin started to harden. My clothes lay in a pile about ten feet away, but it felt more like ten miles.

“The process is a bit messier than I expected, but do you know what else this means?”

Right hand, left knee, then left hand, right knee. Each movement required thought, conviction. I needed to get to my sweater before the stuff hardened. “I.” Breath. “Don’t.” Huff. “Know.” Grunt. “What. Does. It.” Hyperventilate. “Fucking.” Growl. “Mean?” I fisted the sweater and rubbed at the small crystals forming on my skin.

BOOK: Between the Waters (Symphony of Light)
10.84Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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