The Awakening: A Witch-Vampire Romance: Feel the Heat. (18 page)

He looks
at me like I have lost it completely.

“What in fiery hell
do you think you are doing,” Gavin demands in an angry voice.

“We are stronger together. I might be weak in body
, but my mind is well again.”

Gavin shakes
his head again, clearly thinking I am delusional. We make it to the front door still hand in hand, sharing the energy sparking between us. Our free hands are glowing brightly with jade fire. I gasp as I look at them. This is new. I knew I could make my hands glow, but not anything like this. Gavin looks just as amazed by this as I am.

Gavin opens
the door and I gasp out loud, letting go of his hand and throwing myself at the door to get to the person that is on the other side. When I reach the door I don’t move through the empty space as I am expecting to do. I bounce back, repelled by thin air. I look at Gavin amazed.

Jaxx
is standing outside the front entrance looking broken and bloody. I try to get through the door again. This time I use my glowing palm as a sort of key to break through the bound space. It works handily. I rush to Jaxx as fast as my weakened body will allow. I want to throw myself into his arms, but I am afraid to touch him. Not just because it might cause him pain, but I am afraid he will reject me.

Gavin grabs me by the arms and plants
me firmly behind him as if Jaxx might physically hurt me.

“What are you doing here? How did yo
u find this place,” Gavin snarls at Jaxx. He is firing up his palms once more. Readying for a battle if he doesn’t like the answer he gets.

“I can follow my d
estined anywhere. You know this,” Jaxx answers weakly. He is swaying on his feet.

“Where have you been while your destined has been laying here dying
,” Gavin demands.

Jaxx pale
s even further.

“
Let’s get him inside, Gavin. Can’t you tell he has been through hell himself? He isn’t going to hurt me. I can feel his intent and his emotions. They are pure.” I look Jaxx in the eye as I speak.

“Fine. You may enter
, but if you try to hurt her I will finish you,” Gavin warns.

“Understood.”

Gavin walks back into the house, leaving Jaxx and I alone. I step closer and grab his arm, trying to make sure he isn’t going to fall over. He is still unsteady. When I get close enough to touch him, Jaxx drops to his knees and pulls me tightly to him. He shoves his face into my stomach and starts to shake. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and look down into his face. Silent tears are streaming down his cheeks.

“Please for the love of the Goddess forgive my trespasses against you
,” he pleads.

“Of course I
do.” I drop down onto my knees and face him.

“You do
n’t even have to ask,” I assure him as I pull him to his feet and use the porch railing to reach mine.

“Let’s get you inside,” I say
, trying to lead him into the cabin.

“I didn’t leave you
, Ella. You have to believe me.”

I stop dead. Stone still.

“Wh
at? I saw you leave. You misted!” I am starting to get angry. I know I said I forgive him, but I will never forget the feeling of him leaving me. Not as long as I live. Jaxx’s knees give way beneath him.

“Gavin, get your ass out here and help me with Jaxx
,” I yell.

We heave
and get his huge frame onto the couch.

“Answer me, Jaxx. What do you mean you didn’t leave me?” I look at him in the face.

His eyes
are deadly serious.

“I was pulled. I couldn’t control it. I was transported into a cavern. I don’t know where it
is located, but it was deep in the earth, a long way from the surface.” He shudders at the thought of it.

“What happened when you got there
,” Gavin asks.

I si
t down beside Jaxx and take his hand in mine, but he isn’t having that. He pulls me into him, holding me tightly. I stiffen slightly.

He turn
s to me, his eyes pleading. “Listen to what I have to tell you. Please, pretty eyes.”

Tears beg
in to stream down my face at his use of the nickname he’d given me. But my body stays slightly stiff.

“Talk,
” Gavin demands once more.

Jaxx nods
. “When I was pulled by an unseen force into the cavern there were a lot of men there waiting for me. I was so disoriented from being forced through whatever it was they pulled me through, that they were able to capture me easily. They put me in chains that blocked my gifts. I was powerless.”

“Why would someone
do that,” I whisper more to myself than anyone else.

“When they had me secured
, they started to question me. They wanted to know about Ella.” He looks at me.

“They wanted to know about your gifts, your strengths,” he
tells us, turning back to Gavin.

“Whether you and she we
re more powerful together or apart, they wanted to know what kind of connection the two of you have since you are twins.”

I look at Gavin with horror in my eyes.

“I wouldn’t talk, so they tortured me,” Jaxx breathes out in utter desolation.

I stiffen
, anger building in my chest. I can feel the first rumblings of the ground moving beneath my feet.

“What-
,” I start to ask, but Jaxx cuts me off.

“No, my
raven, I won’t tell you that part. I don’t want you to share my nightmares.” He looks at Gavin.

“The man in charge went by the name Celian,” Jaxx tells Gavin in a grave voice.

Gavin explode
s from his seat.

“That son of a bitch! He knew about her all along!
Now I know why he wouldn’t come here to help! That fucking son of a bitch,” he seethes out his anger.

“The
re’s more,” Jaxx says.

“Your father’s clan wants Ella dead. They think she will become too
strong. That both of you will, because you were born twins. That in itself isn’t supposed to be possible, so they are running scared. I heard him talking to his men about sparing you, Gavin. He wants to mold you into someone he can control.” Jaxx leans his head back onto the couch and winces. I can see that he is in a lot of pain still.

Gavin
is up and back to pacing the floors.

“Well that sick son of a bitch can’t have me
,” Gavin snarls.

“Celian killed his son, y
our father. He took great delight in telling me that. He said if he could kill his own son, he would not have any trouble doing the same thing to me.”

I just s
it silently watching them. I already know all of this, but I keep it to myself.

“They were happy when you called
, Gavin. When you told him that Ella was dying, he was enjoying his triumph and taunting me with the ways he was planning on killing me. But then something happened that scared him.
Badly
.” Jaxx looks into my eyes and I know that he knows that it had something to do with me. Somehow he must have felt my presence there in that dark and dank place.

“They all left to go to some kind of meeting after that. I was trying to escape when someone came into the room where t
hey were holding me.” Jaxx looks back at me apprehensively, pulling me closer to him and hugging me tighter, so that I can’t get away from him.

“Ella
, please don’t pull away. What I have to say won’t make you very happy at first, but please just listen until the end,” pleading with me again.

I nod
, still sitting stiffly in his arms, because I have a feeling he is about to bring up someone I do not want to hear about.

“It was Valkyrie. I was still in chains and injured
.  She just came sauntering into the cavern. To say I was surprised would be an understatement.”

I start
to pull away, not wanting to hear the rest.

“Ella, l
et him finish,” Gavin instructs.

I still.

“She started bragging that she and I had never been together. That she’d thought if I had defiled myself for my true mate that she could have me. Have me for herself.” Jaxx’s face is twisted.

I
am reeled by the news. He had never touched another as he had thought. I am afraid to believe it, but I want so badly for it to be true. I turn to face him and gaze into his eyes and see the truth for myself. My heart soars.

“But that didn’t work out for her so well. So she
decided to help your grandfather as a sort of revenge towards me. She is the one that let me out of the chains. She had heard that you were most likely dead, but I
knew
because of our bond that you weren’t,” Jaxx says passionately.

“
That you were somehow getting stronger again, but she wasn’t aware of that. She was trying to seduce me for real this time, saying that since you were out of the way for good that we could be together,” Jaxx storms as anger floods his face and voice.

“She was
dead
wrong,” his voice is lined with steel.

“What
do you mean,” I ask.

“I killed the bitch. I wrapped my hands around her throat and squeezed with all the strength I had
left in me. I left the evil, lying bitch lying there dead, her body cooling in the dirt, for your grandfather to find.” He looks at me, defiantly, almost daring me to not accept what he’d done.

“Ella
, I’m not sorry for it. She could have ruined everything. She was feeding information about me to Celian. She caused all of this pain for the both of us. She deserved what she got,” he tells me so earnestly, pleading with me to understand.

“He
is right,” Gavin agrees.

“
I’m glad she’s dead, Jaxx,” I tell him gently.

“I’m sorry that you’ve had to carry that with you for so long. I’m sorry that she caused you pain. Thinking that you had shamed yourself in some way, but I would have forgiven you if you had. You
have
to know that. I would forgive anything, short of leaving me ever again.” We stare at each other as if we are the only ones in the room.

“And that
is my clue to leave,” Gavin chuckles as he leaves the room.

We
are alone at last. I am still all over the place at all of the new developments, but the only thing I want to do right now is be as close to Jaxx as possible.

“I need to heal you,
” I tell him, taking his hand in mine.

“We need to heal each other.”

“In more ways than one
, little raven,” he agrees.

I climb into his lap and snuggle
into his chest, starting to cry.

“I have missed you so very much. More than you can understand. Please don’t leave me again.”

“I swear it on my life. I will never,” he assures me fiercely, hugging me tighter to him. Jaxx pulls back from me and runs his fingers under my eyes, drying my tears.

Jaxx st
ands up from the couch and pulls me up with him. He is still moving stiffly, but he is trying to hide how badly hurt he really is.

“Where
is your room,” he asks.

I grab
his hand in answer and lead him down the hall to my blue room. When we enter he looks around and catches sight of the holes that had been pounded into the walls.

“We still have a lot to talk about
, Ella.”

“Later.” I tug
him to the bed and make him sit on the edge. He reaches for me, but I move his arms back to his sides.

“Let me
do this for you, let me heal you.” I start to unbutton his shirt, but I get impatient with my shaky hands and rip the shirt open. Buttons fly around the room, pinging on the floor.

“Impatient aren’t we
, little raven?”

“You have no idea.” I smile wickedly at him.
I roam my hands over his sculpted shoulders, removing his shirt. I gasp at the bruising that is covering his chest and stomach. There are gashes and burn marks everywhere also.

“Don’t worry
, Ella. Your touching me is healing me, the pain is fading. I promise.”

I just nod my head.
Leaning forward, I start to run my now glowing hands over his various bruises and abrasions. It still amazes me every time I get to use my gifts.

Jaxx reaches down and pulls me up off my knees. Then
he pulls us both into the bed, me laying across him like a living blanket. I am comforted to hear the now familiar beat of his heart.

“You are so beautiful to me, Ella. More than moonlight,” he mumbles as he falls into a deep slumber.