The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (111 page)

             
“I'd sooner let you die before me. Though honestly, the two circumstances are synonymous. If you were to accompany me into the north, you would more
than likely die before I could save you. I cannot afford to have one eye on the battle and one on you. Do you understand?”

             
“I guess.” She crossed her arms. Any body language expert would say that the gesture was evidence of her feeling anything but under
standing. I smiled slightly; she was so headstrong and so set in her beliefs. She could fight perfectly fine and yet I was sticking her on the sidelines. No amount of time that she stood with her arms crossed or her lips pursed in irritation would change m
y mind, however. She was not going to come with James, Elijah and me to fight the Bachums. I would not lose her in that bloody struggle.

             
“Remember what I said. I will see you tomorrow night.”

             
I looked at her for one quiet moment of remembrance. If that w
as the last time that I would see
my sister, I wanted to etch every detail of her young, beautiful face into my memory. If I was going to die that night, I needed the comfort of familiarity; I needed my sisters' faces in my mind to remind me why I had lost
my life. I would gladly die fighting for them. I shuddered to think of them facing that hostile world alone, without my guidance or tough love. I turned away from her, forcing those breathtakingly fearful thoughts from my mind.

             
“Brynn?”
             
“Yes?” I asked w
ithout turning around.

             
“I love you.”

             
I smiled slightly and turned to her, acknowledging mentally that whatever strife had been between us had dissipated.

             
“I love you too, Violet.” I was surprised that I had no urge to vomit upon saying such heavy words.
Something was changing in me. Some softness I more than likely could not afford was beginning to set in.

             
She deserves your kindness,
I reminded myself,
Here of late, you have taken far more than you have given.

             
“No tears, ma'am. Keep it tough.” I
ordered her, but my own throat had clenched. A renegade tear more headstrong than my will to suppress all feeling streamed down my face. I wiped it away and observed the drop on my hand as though it was a newly discovered species. My heart jumped in surpri
se and cowered in disgust at the sight simultaneously. Mainly, I was
fascinated
.

             
“Look at that. Real tears.” Violet told me and when I looked up at her, she had many streaming down her face. She rushed to me and threw her arms around my neck. Though I all
owed no more of my own tears to fall, I did hold onto her tightly, feeling that ever-present darkness rearing its head at us and bearing its fangs. It was poised to strike and hissing evilly in a final warning.

             
I walked away from Violet knowing something
terrible was on the horizon. Whatever strength I had on Pangea was going to fail me soon enough. My world was going to be rocked and squeezed in the iron fist of someone's rage. As I kissed Violet's head and left her there to tend to Penny, I swore to figh
t the impending event until my very last breath. When I returned, I would keep them in my sight. I would keep them next to me, destroying any harm, tangible or otherwise, that hunted them.

             
I should not have walked away.

XXX

             
James and I walked in silence
, side by side.
             
I could sense his exasperation with me. We had come so far together; for once in his life, he was committed to one woman. For the first time in my life, I was in love with a man. Not only was I in love, but I was in love
passionately
.
That
love ran far deeper than I could possibly gauge. But the events in the world were pushing and pulling us together and apart. I could not deny that awful truth.

             
“Say something.” I urged him quietly.

             
“I don't have anything to say.”

             
“Tell me why you are a
ngry. I know how much you love doing that.”

             
He ignored me, opting to stare ahead instead of providing me with a straightforward answer. I looked over to see that the torch light was once again casting a shadow over his eyes. It perfectly complimented his
present emotional state of anger and unease. Just for a moment, I allowed myself to push into his thoughts.

             
Regret. There was so much tortured guilt. He had killed a young boy. Though he was still furious at the things the boy had said, he wished that he
had been able to control himself. Why couldn't he control himself anymore? I made him so angry sometimes. What if he hurt me even when he was in his right state of mind?
             
I grasped his hand and pulled him away from the group.

             
“Believe me when I say that e
very time you've walked in front of me, I've been checking you
out because those pants look awesome.” He told me quickly, “I'd like nothing more than to rip them off of you. But now isn't exactly the best time, my dear.”

             
“Shut up!” I whispered gently.

             
I
placed both of my hands on his face and stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. I slid my tongue into his mouth and shivered delightfully when I felt his moving against mine.

             
“Well, if you insist...” He said in between my kisses.

             
But then, just as he was beginn
ing to ready himself for another passionate round of animal love-making, he pulled away. There was torment in his eyes as he ran his hand over his head and looked away from me.

             
“I think we need to stop seeing each other for awhile.”

             
Now, ordinarily, I wo
uld have immediately gone on the defensive. But luckily, I had trespassed into his thoughts for that one second. I had felt the tortured pain in his heart. I had felt his nauseating fear that I would one day be on the receiving end of his rage.

             
“Really?”
I asked him after putting one hand on my hip and turning my head on the side as I observed him. He had become used to that stance; I used it when I was displeased with something he had said.

             
“Don't stand like that.” He warned me breathlessly as his gaze s
corched into my own, “You know what that does to me.”

             
For some reason, the stance that showed my discontent provoked a heightened state of arousal in him. I wondered briefly what that said about our relationship. Realizing that it meant nothing, I returne
d to the topic at hand.

             
“You would never hurt me. So, stop worrying.”

             
“What are you...” He stopped and raised an eyebrow at me. Now he was the one that was displeased. “Really?! Brynna, I know we haven't exactly had a chance to talk about this, what with
this ridiculous war going on, but we really have to set up some boundaries with your new ability.”

             
“Why? I happen to know that given how I baffle you so frustratingly, if the situation were reversed, you would be in my mind constantly, trying to figure m
e out.”

             
“Yeah, but that's because...” He stopped upon viewing the look on my face, “Alright, I just led myself into a black hole. Resurfacing...” He shook his head back and forth quickly to clear and reroute his mind to the current topic of discussion.

             
I
walked ahead of him, keeping the torches of the others in my sight.

             
“Do you love me, James?”

             
“What?”

             
“It is a difficult question, I know. Surely, loving me is very difficult. You deserve a medal.”

             
“It isn't difficult, baby.
You're
difficult, yes. But that makes me love you more, I think. Yes, I love you. There's the answer to your difficult question: I love you. Don't ask me how it happened so quickly because I wouldn't be able to tell you.”

             
“I chalk it up to our animal nature.”

             
“I chalk it up to how hot you look in those pants.”

             
I turned back to him and beamed.

             
“Wow, James; you really know how to make a girl go weak at the knees. I would have mistaken you for a boy my own age when you said that.”

             
“Hey, you throw some tight jea
ns into the equation and every man becomes a drooling, overly hormonal twenty-two year old. Not twenty-two even; more like sixteen.”

             
“I do not know about jeans being the surest way, especially tight jeans. I mean, what if I were very overweight, or had a
tail, or something?”

             
“Oh, my God!” He groaned before wrapping his arms around me from behind. He pressed his lips to my neck, right on the spot that always sent a burning, sensuous tingle down my spine. “You drive me insane! Why the hell would you have a
tail?”

             
“Well, we are far more animalistic now than we were on Earth. A tail might be right around the corner, and you will have to deal with it.”

             
He laughed and I looked back at him; my smile grew upon seeing the light returning to his eyes.

             
“Well, this
is proof that we've come a long way, my dear.” I smiled as he kissed me gently.

             
“What is?”

             
“If anyone would have threatened to end a relationship with me...”

             
“You would have knee-capped them?” James asked, “Should I be worried?”

             
“No!” I replied throug
h my laughter. “I would have ended it first. I would not have waited for any reasoning. I would have been gone before my pride could be too badly shaken.”

             
“And then you would have knee-capped them?”

             
I punched him lightly in the chest several times. He le
t me land a few before he picked me up and held me against a tree. His mouth claimed mine as my legs wrapped around him and my hands grasped either side of his neck.

             
“This is the last thing that should be on our minds right now.” I told him, but I was kis
sing him back, needing to extinguish the growing lust in my heart for him. The battle with the Bachums could wait. We had to have one last round, just in case it was the
very
last time.

             
He pulled my shirt over my head and as my lips moved down his neck, h
e laid me down in the grass beneath a weeping willow tree. I watched for a moment as the flowing leaves swayed lightly behind him in the deliciously pure, crisp wind. I unzipped his jeans and reached beneath the hemline of his boxers...

             
“James! Brynna!”
             
We both stopped, still breathing heavily. His forehead was pressed to mine and his eyes were squeezed shut.

             
“I'm going to kill that man, Brynna.” He muttered to me before turning back to face the direction from which Don's voice had come. “What do you wan
t?!”

             
I covered my mouth as I giggled. I could not help it. It was somewhat humorous. James looked at me, his white eyes turning back to their normal shade of soft brown. He leaned down, smiling slightly, too. His lips grazed mine and then pressed to them,
this time harder than before; he was telling me silently that we would finish what we had started later.

             
“You think it's funny?” He asked me teasingly as his hands ran up the sides of my thighs and moved around to caress my backside that had been catchin
g his eye so frequently that evening. He pulled me up so that I was sitting in his lap.

             
“Only slightly.” I kissed him quite amorously, for I was aching to continue. But knowing that Don was still lurking about, waiting for us to join him, ripped the roman
tic mood to shreds. I was certainly not going to follow through on those carnal urges while someone, especially him, stood so near.