The Seer's Lover (The Seven Archangels Series) (28 page)

Ellen was rewarded with a pre-med hottie while Calise got an accounting major who was a small boy with a pleasant combination of drool and food stuck in the corners of his mouth throughout dinner. How could she not find him enchanting? He had the gall to grab her knee during dinner, and she was lucky to get a close-up on his longish yellow fingernails.
Guys that are the biggest dorks are sometimes the gutsiest.
He smelled like compost, and Calise read his energy, too. It was negative, but flaccid and limp, like a noodle.

Then
he
walked into the room. Shane. Her Shane. With Nara. Ok, not her Shane just yet, but Calise’s drunken, klutzy first impressions weren’t always her finer moments. Ask Ellen.

“Can I show you my room?” Calise’s “date” asked somewhat politely after dinner.

She figured she’d quickly appraise his room, then feign an ailment and casually run into Shane on her way out of the house. Via this encounter, Shane would be convinced of her utter perfection wherein he would break up with Nara and become hers.

Stellar plan.

“Sure,” she conceded and followed him upstairs. His roommate claimed the top bunk bed while her “date” slept on a mattress on the floor. She walked in and looked around to appease the little geek. When she heard the door click shut behind her, fleeting panic reminded her that she’d neglected to tell Sarah and Ellen where she was going. Now it was too late.

His energy changed. Instead of malleable it was steel. He’d tricked her. When he turned around to face Calise, she knew how wrong she was about his geeky outward appearance. He became a predator and his sinister eyes now said that he meant business.

Shit. Now what?

She’d yell if he tried anything, but then she began to doubt herself. Who was she kidding? Would he try something right here in the frat house with all his
brothers
around? She could hear her older brother Dean smiling and saying he wouldn’t trust any of his frat brothers alone with her.

She took a hesitant step backwards and accidentally fell onto his mattress and just that fast he pounced on top of her. The air around him seemed to darken. He was deceptively strong. She always thought in a rape situation she’d pull the guys nuts off or bite off part of his cheek, but she froze. He pinned both of her wrists over her head in such a firm grasp that she couldn’t move. His unnatural pressure on her legs intensified so she clamped her thighs tightly together.

“Get off,” she managed to say. Her struggling actually helped him spread her legs. His hardness pushed down on her.

He gave a wicked smile and drooled on her face. “Oh, I plan to,” he said, cold as ice.

Everything was going black as she started to succumb to the shock of it all. Maybe she should close her eyes and he’d be done fast like her high school boyfriend. Then the sane part of her mind woke.
Fuck that shit.

“HELP!” she yelled in the loudest voice she could muster with such a shaky undertone. Calise fought in earnest now. No way would she go down without a fight.

“This happens all the time here, missy. We boys are
brothers
, remember? We protect each other, not little shit sluts like you.”

She’d have to call her brother Dean when she got her ass out of this mess and thank him for not letting her visit his frat. Ever.

Just then, she heard a pounding on the door.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Strong hands hit the locked door. She heard Ellen’s frantic voice. “Calise! Are you in there? Are you ok?”

“We are BUSY. Go away.” His eyes bored into hers and she succumbed to sheer panic. He was going to finish this one way or another.

“Open up now!” Calise heard what she knew in her heart was Shane’s voice. Hope pierced her for a fleeting moment when the creep’s head turned toward the door. Her attacker was not put off, but simply annoyed. He wasn’t afraid of Shane, but this frat loser should have been.

“You haven’t been summoned to this place. Go away!” he growled.

“ELLEN!” she risked yelling. He released her left wrist and backhanded her hard to shut her up.

The door broke open. Shane and Ellen bore such a sharp contrast to the dark shadows of the creep and his room that Calise breathed in deep and drank up their light. The faint music and laughter from downstairs wafted into the room with a haze of smoke.

Shane and Ellen were on a mission: Save Calise.

“I suggest you remember who her friends are, and leave her alone,” Ellen barked. She was by Calise’s side and in his face. He held up his hands in mocking defeat and rolled his eyes at her. Ellen dragged Calise out of the room under Shane’s bulk, which blocked the door and the creep’s escape. No one ever saw him again.

****

“The creep was a demon, wasn’t he?” Calise let the memories seep back into her like rain water soaking into barren, cracked soil after a rainfall.

“Yes. Do you remember our first kiss?” Shane pushed deeper into her subconscious, letting his lips brush softly again hers.

“Mmm,” Calise murmured recalling Shane in all his splendor…

****

Shane had sent Calise flowers with a card that read,
I’m sorry for what happened to you at my frat house. Let me help you regain trust in my gender. Dinner at Paison’s next weekend?

Giddy with anticipation, Calise arrived at the Italian restaurant early to let the butterflies in her stomach settle. Two glasses of sangria later she checked the concealer job covering her remnant bruises and couldn’t help but smile when Shane sauntered into the restaurant. His head scanned the tables, seeking Calise. He waved and she swallowed hard and tilted her chin up and smiled.

Chill, Cali, chill,
she repeated to herself.

“Calise, right? I’m sorry we’ve never formally met. I’m Shane.” He burrowed both his hands into his pockets when all she could think of was touching them again to see if they still pulsed with heat. She could tell him it was purely a scientific curiosity, that she wanted to examine the bone structure and strength of a drummer’s hand…

Shut down the nerdy science part of you, Cali, NOW!
her mind screamed.

He slid into the booth across from her and poured himself some sangria. “You must have a good fake ID?” He had donned jeans and a tight old Metallica concert t-shirt that hugged his upper arms just right.

“It works some places, but I don’t look anything like the girl. It works at The R&R Station, which is my favorite bar, of the ones I’ve been in.” The bar offered darts, pool, and heavy metal: her holy trinity.

They ordered dinner and another pitcher of sangria. She drank him in and he tasted better than the sangria—his chiseled features, his thick mane, square jaw, and Caribbean turquoise eyes that sparkled like the sea.

“So, I have to ask you, Calise, how did you end up in that creep’s room last night? He is gone now, by the way.” He looked away.

“Where did he go?”

“Let’s just say he won’t hurt anyone again anytime soon.” When he looked at her, his eyes held pity. Or was it remorse? Calise figured he felt sorry for her bad judgment. She hated pity.

“It was my fault. I can usually sense when things aren’t right, but that guy took me by surprise. Thanks for last night; if you and Ellen hadn’t come—” She pushed the thought away.

“What do you sense about me?”

Calise dared not blink so as not to miss a moment of adoring him. She sensed rhythmic peace that pulsed around him in waves. A man you’d follow around the world because he could save it. “I sense you don’t just try to save people, you succeed. Like Nara. How does your girlfriend feel about us being out to dinner?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

Shane furrowed his eyebrows and rested his chin in his hand while he talked. “Nara and I are complicated. She knew the night of the party that I was interested in you. You held your own against her. Impressive.”

He gave her the sexiest half-smile with that one compliment that a girl could fantasize about. Had she heard the word
interested
in reference to herself? “So you two are dating then?”

“She needs someone to set her on the right path, so to speak.” He heaved a big sigh with
burden
written all over his face. “I thought I could do that for her, but now I’m not so sure.”

“I’m sorry, did you two break up?” she said, sounding way too cheerful.

“I’ll probably never really be rid of her, but for now, I told her she’s on her own.”

“You are a fantastic drummer. I loved watching you with the band.” He blushed and looked down.
Modesty is good.
“You were incredibly…” It was her turn to blush. “…talented.” She wanted to say “sexy” but scaring him to death wasn’t on her to-do list tonight.

“Thanks. I feel whole when I drum. The music consumes me, and I can get lost from everything that’s bad in the world.” He brought his hands out on the table, laced his fingers together and slowly began to twiddle his thumbs. His long hair was in a ponytail, and Calise couldn’t help thinking of her mother’s reaction to his hair being longer than hers. Part of her couldn’t wait to introduce them.

“Not everything in this world is bad, Shane.” She reached across the table and put her hands over his. They pulsed before she even touched them. “You aren’t bad.”

He pulled away. “I know I shouldn’t feel anything for you Calise, but the first moment I saw you, I trusted you. And you trusted me. We feel right.” He reached forward and squeezed her hands.

The effect was immediate. Heat pulsed in waves up her arms and through her whole body. Calise inadvertently closed her eyes and inhaled. Through closed eyes she saw her mother clapping for her at a piano recital then she and Ellen sitting on a front porch swing chatting on a summer day. Two of her happiest memories.
Where did that come from?

“What are your plans for after dinner?” Shane asked.

How about never letting you leave my side?

Calise glanced at their reflection in the window of the restaurant on their way out. She couldn’t stop staring at Shane.
He
was walking out of the restaurant with
her.

I rock
.

“Although I have enough studying to keep me busy for the rest of my natural life, I won’t be able to concentrate tonight. What do you have in mind?” she ventured, to see if she was a “pity” date or an “I’m interested” date.

“I was planning on going to the Observatory. It’s open to the public tonight. We could see the rings on Saturn. Come with me?” He lifted an eyebrow and if Calise wasn’t already enamored, she was now.

“Yes, I want to come.”

At the observatory, astronomy students and couples on dates took turns looking at Saturn. While they waited, Shane softly put his arm under her jacket and pulled her close. Calise closed her eyes and inhaled. Her eyes fluttered open. He smelled different than what she expected. He smelled of the north wood’s pine trees and rain. She closed her eyes again and leaned into his shoulder.

He walked her home.

Outside her dorm, he paused and pulled her in for a warm hug. Parting reluctantly, he grabbed her chin with his forefinger and thumb. He pulled her close to him and…

*****

Calise jerked herself out of the memory of their first kiss, their first everything else. Ancient history.

Shane held her so tightly that her feet were off the floor.

In the sane part of Calise’s mind, she understood that he knew she couldn’t have resisted him.

Standing in her apartment, he cradled her head in his hands and whispered hoarsely in her ear, “Remember us.”

She wanted to open the floodgate of memories to their past but fought him. “No, Shane. It is over. We are over.”

“You do still love me like you did then, don’t you?” Shane panted.

It caused her physical pain to answer him. “You own a piece of my heart that loves you. But I’m in love—”

“Yes?”

“I’m in love…with Lucas. Shane, I was eighteen. You knew I couldn’t resist you. You were so perfect, I couldn’t compete. But when you quit college, I—” She didn’t want to tell him why she broke up with him. The real reason was that there was no reason.

“I broke up with you. Remember that…”

****

Dating Shane had provided Calise with emotional sustenance. She learned a lot about him and his heart, which was so pure and holy it was scary. She was raised Catholic and would have preferred to forget that in college. But he continued to appear at her dorm room every Sunday morning with his gray tie clinging to his freshly pressed white shirt and a grin on his face. She would just laugh, give up and follow two steps behind him all the way to St. Paul’s, clutching his hand like he was her own personal morality meter. He was a fervent believer in God which she found kind of sexy because although she sometimes thought he was always saying Hail Mary’s to thank God for her, he never pushed his beliefs on Calise or anyone else. He was more one to challenge intellect and question people’s decisions and motivations. He cared about what made people tick.

Poor, sweet, beautiful Shane.

Calise hated herself for it, but she was slowly beginning to resent him.

Frustrated, she guarded her heart from him more and more every day, while he increasingly opened his heart to her.

Calise felt like she was ripping the pages out of a good book without reading it, and burning the pages. Still, her mind and heart were in agreement; she would not spend her life following in Shane’s do-good crusade shadow. She needed to rise and find herself, not follow another person like she’d followed her parents’ advice her whole life.

He will be fine. He is great, but…

She had nothing. Only that her love was based on adoration more than emotion. The only person on her side, the only one who seemed to understand, was Ellen. She had no reason to break up with Shane. The dropping out of school thing was an obstacle she created to comfort herself.

If she broke up with him, nothing he did afterwards would be her fault or responsibility, would it? She didn’t want to hurt him.

On the Saturday night after her last Spring final, she decided to go over and see him to do the deed.

Calise needed to be with someone who was going somewhere but Shane seemed to be waiting for her to get somewhere. She didn’t want to save the world standing behind someone; she wanted to be in front with her own concrete answers.