DESIRE (13 page)

I looked for a trace of mockery in his eyes, but saw only the opening of his heart.

“I think I do, Torrid.”

“You're young and impressionable. Girls your age fall in love at the drop of a hat. Were it not for that simple fact, teen idols wouldn’t exist.”

“I’m not that young and I’m not that impressionable,” I argued, insulted by his generalization. “I’ve spent the last month learning from you, spending more time with you than I ever did with Liam. I’ve told you things I never would have told him. You’ve taught me so much and opened my eyes to a whole new world, a whole new existence. You’ve shown me who I am and what I can be.”

“Your desire for me may only be gratitude and appreciation. I’ve become a mentor to you. It’s only natural for you to feel…”

“I felt the desire the moment I saw you,” I whispered, fearful of what he’d say next. Would he continue to deny the possible feelings I had for him? “We’d not spoken a word, yet I felt it. You stood yards away from me, across the street, and yet I felt it.”

“Lust and physical attraction can often fool the heart.” His tone was painfully pragmatic.

I swallowed the sting of his rejection and gathered my pride. Shifting over, I got to my knees and prepared to stand. “If you want to continue to deny how I feel for you, fine, but I know the desire I feel in my heart. That you don’t feel the same for me is perfectly understandable and I don’t hold it against you.”

He held me down, gathering my hands in his and getting to his knees to face me. While I remained cool and unperturbed on the outside, inside my body was exploding with pleasure and pain. To have him so close, the strength of his torso almost touching mine, it was the sweetest torture I’d ever been victim to. I could feel the heat of his skin and only wanted to feel more.

 “I didn’t mean to deny how you feel, Kama, I simply wanted to ensure your feelings were true. Love can play tricks on the heart, leave us thinking we sense one emotion when it is entirely another.”

“All I know is that I want to be with you,” I whispered, my eyes brimming with tears of joy and fear. My desire for him was so strong, I wanted to collapse into his arms and forget the world existed. But my fear of his rejection lingered.

Torrid’s face crumbled into defeat. “Kama,” he said softly. “I didn’t want this to happen. But your strength, your bearing…you remind me so much of the best in your father. He is an admirable man, a true leader, whom I would loyally lay my life down for. You have all of his qualities including that adorable stubbornness, that inner fight, the strength that will make you persevere through all pain. I can feel it within you, Kama. You are your father’s daughter, yet you have your mother’s beauty and elegance. It is no wonder why I fell for you,” Torrid said quietly. “I didn’t have to spend so much time teaching you your lessons of magic,” he confessed. “You're a quick learner and you’ve picked up on the necessities of magic weeks ago. I could have spent an hour or two a week with you, leaving you to practice your lessons on your own, but each lesson was a convenient excuse to be with you, alone.”

He released my hand and ran his palms up my arms. I wanted to melt, but I remained upright, unwilling to yield to him so easily.

“I was sent to inform you of who you are, where you belong,” he said, his voice throaty and thick. His hands rested on my shoulders, a stray finger playing with a strand of hair that fell over my shoulder.

I wanted to reach up, brush my hand over his cheek, push my fingers into his hair, cling to him and bring him closer. All my life I thought it’d be with Liam. He’d been such a huge part of my life, such a huge part of the future I’d planned, and now I was not as certain, yet I still felt that I was betraying him somehow. 

My life had turned around, become so unpredictable so quickly. My head spun while my heart searched for answers.

“Is this what you desire, Kama?” Torrid whispered, his lips so close they almost brushed against mine.

“I don’t know,” I murmured. I was torn between the love I knew Liam had for me and my own desire to find my true destiny.

My heart raced and every inch of my skin was alert to Torrid’s touch as his fingers crept up to the nape of my neck. I swallowed my aching desire to kiss him as I watched his lips come closer still. My skin tingled with anticipation.

His lips were softer than I’d imagined, sweeter than I’d anticipated.

“Is this what you desire, Kama?” he asked again, his lips fluttering ever so lightly over mine.

“Yes,” I groaned. “This is what I desire. You're who I desire.”

He pressed his lips harder over mine, gently prying my lips apart with the gentle movements of his tongue. My tongue responded to him, teasing him and playing in a dance that had us pressing our bodies closer together.

The tears that had clung to my lashes flowed over my cheeks, heated with the passion I’d kept in check for so long. Was this what love truly felt like? It was bliss in its truest form.

I wept with the joy of having finally found where I belonged.

I wrapped my arms around him, my fingers hungry to feel his skin. My world melded into his and I knew I wanted him by my side no matter what my future held.

“I knew you were beautiful.” He pulled back, his heated lips brushing over my cheeks while his hot breath sounded labored and difficult. 

My eyes narrowed under my heavy lids. I just wanted to lose myself in his kiss again.

“I’d been warned by elders who knew of your perfection, (you had been born from magic, the daughter of such a powerful man of magic) but I’d seen beauty before and thought I could handle it,” Torrid went on, his fingers tracing over the lines of my face. “But you. You're more than beautiful. Your hair, your eyes, your lips; you drew me in the very first time I saw you, and I knew I had to remain strong. Then I met you, spoke to you, shared the magic with you and knew it was more than a physical attraction.”

He kissed me again, and I felt the depth of emotion coursing through us. We were becoming one and I’d never felt so completely and utterly right about anything.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

I heard the regret in his voice and instantly felt the wave of panic rise to my chest.  It was crushing and painful and I wanted to stop it before it broke everything. My body stiffened, prepared for the blow to come.

“I shouldn’t be holding you like this.”

No, I thought. Don’t tell me this isn’t right. Don’t tell me we can’t be together. Don’t tell me we come from different worlds and it makes our union an impossible one. Don’t tell me!

He inched back and I couldn’t bear to face him. I leaned my forehead to his chest, dreading the explanation he’d deliver.

“My directives were explicit, Kama,” he whispered. His breathing was still heavy and laden with lust. “I was sent to prepare you for what’s to come. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” The word came out on a gurgle of restrained tears. How dare he take me into his arms, kiss me so tenderly, open my eyes to the possibilities of a future I’d never imagined possible, only to shatter my vision with a lame
I’m sorry
.

“Spending these mornings with you has been torture and I succumbed. I took advantage of the situation and I was wrong. I was weak.”

“But this feels so right, Torrid.” I looked up at him, though I knew my eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I’ve loved Liam since I can remember. As a little girl I had a huge crush on him wanting nothing more in life than to be with him. As I grew older I dreamt of the day when I’d be his. It was every young girl’s dream and I’m the one he fell in love with. I thought it was fate, meant to be. These past years with him, I envisioned myself as his wife, as the lady of the Governor’s mansion. Throughout all that, a part of me has always known I didn’t truly belong. I’m from Amethysts and people from Amethysts never move to the Diamond District, never. I shoved that fact aside, wanting so badly to belong, wanting so fervently to be with a man like Liam. And he loved me. Imagine that. He loves me so much he’s willing to be banished from Arcadia in order to be with me.”

“Kama, you don’t understand all that is expected of you.”

“And now I finally find myself with you, feeling so completely right, like I’ve come home, where I’ve always belonged, and you want to tell me you're sorry?” I leaned back and got to my feet, my anger finally shoving aside the pain of his ploy.

“Kama,” he called after me.

“You're a pig,” I shouted over my shoulder as I stormed on.

His footsteps resonated behind me and I wished my magical skills could have me vanishing, the way he so often did, but I had to rely on my legs to carry me away from him.

“I’m a man,” he said, grabbing my arm and turning me to him. “I’m a soldier, a warrior who was sent on a mission and I allowed my heart to get in the way. I allowed myself to listen to my heart. Will you fault me for that?”

My fists balled up and I wanted to pound them against his chest. My lips contorted into a grimace of pain and heartache and my eyes stung as a fresh batch of tears prepared to streak my face.

For all the pain of the past months, my broken dream of a life with Liam, my empty Life’s Plan, none of it compared to the aching I now felt.

“You are the daughter of the General, Kama.” Torrid grasped my shoulders.

“Don’t touch me,” I said as I shrugged off his hands.

His jaw tightened and his eyes became shielded while his hands remained limp at his side. “I’m the General’s knight,” he said. “To touch his daughter, to betray his trust, to cross the line and abuse my position…”

“You should have thought of all that before you touched me.”

“I did. I have, constantly since first seeing you. I have had to remind myself every day of who you are and what my role in your life is. I desire you as much as you desire me, Kama. Perhaps more…” 

He stepped closer and I didn’t have the strength to back away.

“And what about what I feel,” I muttered. “Don’t I matter in this?”

“I was sent to prepare you for battle, not steal your heart.”

I looked up at him. “You never said anything about a battle. You said I had to learn how to get through the shield, to free the people here, but battle?”

“Arcadia isn’t going to just let everyone slip out that easily. They’re going to put up a fight. Pim has put so much time and energy into creating this perfect world, he’s not going to let it go without bloodshed.”

I turned away from him, overwhelmed by it all. My heart ached for the man I’d come to love and now my world was destined to crumble beneath my feet.

“Despite all the Magical Ones Pim has under his control, he continues to send his Catchers out to capture more and more of us. We can’t rest, we can’t let our guard down and we can’t continue to allow our people to be so unjustly imprisoned.”

“Why does he need more? You said the Magical Ones were responsible for making Arcadia perfect. Well, it is perfect, as perfect as the clear blue sky above. What more does he want?”

“Men who reach the status Pim has are rarely satisfied, even once they’ve achieved their ultimate goal. They want more. Pim is greatly ambitious and wants to expand Arcadia. He wants more land, more power, more perfection, and for that he needs more Magical Ones. He needs the more powerful Magical Ones. We fuel his power. He takes from our magic to build cities, towns. It takes a lot of magic to run a state as big as Arcadia.”

“This is crazy. I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t know what to believe anymore. You're making Pim out to be a monster. My own mother is fond of him, would have made her life with him if she’d been allowed to. I was set to marry this man’s son. Are you telling me that Liam is a monster as well?”

“We are all born pure and joyous, Kama, but greed… it is insidious.”

I glared at him, angry that he should put such an unappealing trait on Liam’s shoulders.

“Liam is a good man now,” Torrid went on, “honest and devoted, but power can often crowd out honesty and devotion. It is intoxicating, and few men can resist.”

“Then Arcadia really isn’t that perfect after all,” I mumbled.

“No, it is far from perfect, but all Pim cares about is the illusion of perfection.”

I stepped away from him, the need to breathe on my own pressing me to put some distance between us. I paced along a perfect line of blue dandelions that swayed in the breeze, seemingly following my every step.

Pim Seer was such an attractive and charming man. Torrid had to be wrong.

“How did he find out about the Magical Ones to begin with?” I ventured. “How did he get the idea to build a city in such an unorthodox fashion?”

“Wars between Magical ones and mere mortals have gone on for ages. We’ve been captured and enslaved for centuries, though our existence has always been a well-kept secret.”

His arms crossed before his chest, he watched me, his gaze patient.

“And Pim learned of this secret?”

He nodded, came to my side and halted my pacing by reaching for my hand and holding it securely. “Pim Seer is a Catcher, a mortal who has a gift for catching our kind. As a young man, he was the best. He caught our kind for others, but he finally realized with Arcadia what catching our kind and enslaving us for our magic would do for him.”

“Pim is only trying to recreate the town he and my mother grew up in…the town that was destroyed in war. He wants what’s best for my mother and others who became homeless after the war destroyed their homes,” I said.

“His intentions may be good, but not when people are enslaved,” Torrid said. “He does care passionately about his people, but…”

“I’m part of his people, too,” I said. “My mother is mortal…”

“That’s why you will be able to break the field, Kama. But you’re the General’s daughter, too,” Torrid said.

“What are we, Torrid?” I asked, too frustrated to wait. “I need some answers…”

Torrid held my hands in his and looked lovingly into my eyes and said, “We are an ancient magical race. We have been around for ages, and have been immortalized in television and folklore. Some call us djinns, but we are better known as genies.”