Vital (18 page)

“Why didn’t she just say something, find a different way to tell me?”

I thought back over the argument I had with her, trying to remember if I’d given her the chance to.

“She knew you’d see it in a different way, and she thought if she provoked you that she could get you to release some of your anger in a controlled environment. She just thought she’d be able to make you listen to her before you took off.”

“I’m learning to listen. It’s dangerous for her to have that tattoo; me killing her is nothing compared to whatever the spies that are in Delen would do. I saw a martyr, and it made me mad. My biggest fear is losing this family, for it to be my fault.”

“You’re not gonna lose us, Willow,” Clarissa promised quietly, squeezing my hand.

I glanced to my side at her. “We’re already starting to break apart. I’ve sat here and watched your heart break, and I was the cause.”

“No, you’re not. This is between us. He can use whatever excuse he wants; don’t blame this on you.”

“I have to call her,” I said, standing.

Felicity caught my arm. “She’s gone. She went home to Franklin again – to find that song.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, sitting back down. “She didn’t go to Esterious?”

Felicity shook her head no.

Clarissa leaned forward and looked deep in my eyes. “I told Chrispin about the spies, how dangerous it was. He said she would cover the tattoo if she went out of the palace and that because of the dream, he wasn’t worried. He knew they were obviously gonna be there at the breaking point of a trial and that Olivia was safe because she had the tattoo.”

I wanted to give them a speech about how they all needed to stay away from Esterious, to let me do this on my own, but Olivia’s words echoed in my mind. It took all I had to listen and not tell them what I wanted them to do.

I felt Landen and Brady getting closer, then looked at Clarissa. “Brady just got back. Landen’s almost here, too,” I said as my heart began to beat rapidly. I had no idea how to tell any of this to Landen.

“Will you take me home – like now?” Clarissa asked Felicity.

“Stay at my house. Brady won’t say anything; I won’t let him. I don’t want you to be alone.”

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

I stacked my plate on Clarissa’s, and they were gone before I even had a chance to say goodbye.

I walked to the window to pull the drapes closed and saw Felicity’s car leaving. Brady had driven there, and Landen was talking to him. I pulled the drapes closed tight, trying to keep the heat in.

Every possible way I thought of to explain Dane to Landen led me down a dark road. I’d watched Landen slowly lose his patience over the last few months. I knew it wouldn't take much for him to snap, to let everything we’d been through finally explode in rage. I knew Dane would pay the price not only for what he did to Clarissa, but also for what we’d all been through, and right now I had to figure out how to keep him in my life; if I lost him, the others would surely follow one by one.

I paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, waiting for Landen. He must have felt my anticipation, my dread, because he ended his conversation with Brady abruptly and came in. I stopped my pace and locked eyes with him once he reached the living room doorway. He walked casually to the couch, moved the blanket Clarissa had been hiding under, and took a seat. He tilted his head, holding a placid expression. “Are you ready to tell me?” he asked.

My eyes told him no as I felt my heart race. He’d always given the impression that beyond me, his family is one of the most precious things in this life to him. I knew he’d developed a distant opinion of Dane; I knew if Dane had just left me alone that night we moved the wall and not tried to take me away, this would be so much easier. Landen had told me that he didn’t think we could completely trust anyone, that the devil could use anyone to come between us. I didn’t believe that. I didn’t believe in the memories that Drake had of Dane being a dark person, hurting me.

He reached his arm out for me to come to him. I walked slowly, keeping my head down, avoiding his eyes. I sat on the table in front of him, and he leaned forward. “I thought we were holding our head high now?” he said quietly as his fingertips reached out to encourage my chin to rise.

I caught his concerned stare, the piercing deep blue. “I don’t know how to explain it...I don’t want you to think I left something out or made it seem less or more than it is.”

He reached for my hands and held them tenderly in his. “Feel the emotion again. See it in your mind, and you won’t have to say a word; I’ll see it through your eyes,” he said quietly.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and squeezed his hands, then remembered the emotion I first felt, the seductive, heart-racing desire; I let my mind play out what I saw, what he said and what I did.

I felt an anger so strong that it was near rage rise inside Landen. I pulled my hands away before I showed him what he said to me and Drake in the hallway.

Landen stood abruptly. “I’m gonna kill him!” he bellowed, charging toward the door. As he opened it, I slammed it shut with a glance. I was furious that he didn’t even try to understand that something was wrong with Dane, that he’d been possessed, or at least brainwashed.

He bowed his chest out. “You’re gonna have to control that; you’re becoming dangerous.”

“Me?! You’re the one that said you were leaving to
kill
someone,” I retorted as I stood and folded my arms across my chest, prepared to fight this out.

“Figuratively, Willow. Figuratively,” he said shortly.

“I can feel you; you’re mad enough to hurt him, and I’ve done enough damage to him today.”

He briskly walked toward me, seething with rage. “No one – and I mean
no one
- talks to you that way. List? What list did he want you to add him to? I’m sick of his remarks about you - Drake!”

“That’s what you’re mad about? That he found it odd that I hadn’t felt emotions like that? Did that insult you? I thought you were mad about your sister? I guess you have a one-track mind.”

“Me?!” he said, pointing at his chest. “You’re the one who thinks that you can hide your emotions from me – who thinks that I can’t feel the desire building inside of you!”

“Desire?! This was
your
idea! ‘Give him your power, Willow. Let’s move the wall’!” I yelled.

“
My
idea?! Think again, Willow. I stopped time and sent you to talk this out with him because my heritage, my blood, told me that soul mates couldn’t be divided. I wanted you to find peace with him so we could move on and focus on what really matters – and what did you do?! You let him inside; you let his energy into your soul. How long did it take, Willow? Did you even think of me as you let that happen? Did you even care that I was in the same building - that hours before I’d watched you die? Did you?!”

The wind was knocked out of me, and I was speechless for a second as I replayed what had happened during Venus, as well as every move I’d made.

“You’re all I ever think about. I don’t get it - why you’re both here.”

“Oh, so one of us needs to go - is that what you think?”

“Stop putting words in my mouth! I didn’t say that. I hate that he has memories of me, that I can’t remember them, and that I can’t argue with him about our past. Was it a mistake to let him try to prove that he’d loved me? Yes! Hell yes it was! But you never once showed me any reason to believe that I’d made a mistake. In fact, you encouraged that act to happen again - and where I come from, they call that a hypocrite!”

“I didn’t show any emotion that would give you doubt because if I ever push you - if I ever try to steer you away from the gates of Hell - you’re taken from me! I’d rather live in misery and know that you’re safe than walk away from you.”

“The only thing that’s gonna break us apart is each other; you’re pushing down just as many emotions as I am!”

“Yeah, well I’m the one with no choice.” His blazing blue eyes rushed over my face. “Now the three of us are connected - in this until the end.”

“You think I don’t know that?!” I bellowed. “That I have a choice? That I can’t see the building rage inside of you? That I haven’t noticed how you lose your temper faster than ever before? What would happen if you
did
feel what I’m hiding - where would we be then, Landen?! I love you, I always have - but I have to understand why he’s here. I have to find her; when I do, all this tension will leave.”

“It’ll leave?” he said, raising his eyebrows, clearly mocking me. “There’s a switch? When some phantom girl arrives, you’ll no longer lust after him?”

“Lust?!”

“Yes, lust. I basically begged you to just run away with me today, just take a breath - but no, you wanted to go to Esterious...to see him.”

“See him?! Think again! I wanted to save those people!”

“The people that
he’s
saving. What am I, just an arm ornament?!”

“What has gotten into you?! You are
everything
! You found a way to work with him - and that makes you more of a man than he is. But now you’re acting just like him, like I’m some object!”

“You’re not an object!” he said as he stepped forward and aggressively pulled my hips against him. “You are my
life
.” His eyes rushed over me. “I’ve tried. I’ve tried to be the man August encouraged me to be. I’ve held on to his philosophies, his teachings, as long as I could - but I can’t anymore. I’m not gonna stand by and watch you destroy us.”

“How am I destroying us?” I said, pushing myself away from him.

“Dane,” he said through a locked jaw.

“What does he have to do with this, besides the fact that his actions have finally caused you to tell me how you really feel about all of this?”

“He’s poison. God help me, Drake was right: that evil bastard has been at your side from day one - and now not only has he broken Clarissa’s heart, he’s driven a stake between us. He’s gonna throw what’s going on between us and Drake in our face over and over until he builds doubt - which tells me he’s on the side of the devil.”

“Where is this coming from?! Dane is
not
evil; he’s possessed. Quit blaming this fight on him! You know what infuriates me more than anything? That I’m the last one that knows about this. Why did you talk to my dad about me? How many other people have you talked to about these emotions we push down? Does Brady know? What about Marc? Who else knows that we can’t handle any of this?!”

He shook his head from side to side and tried his best to gain control of his rage, but the peaceful Landen that found me in Montana no longer existed; this man, one that had the heart of a warrior, the soul of a king, and a fearless mind was in place. “Your dad basically begged me to tell him what was wrong, but I didn’t tell him everything. I told him it was impossible for you to hold everything in and stay strong. No one else knows anything; I carry this burden on my own.”

“So I’m a burden?!”

“Are you trying to distract me from the fact that Dane is out of line? That he doesn’t belong here or in Esterious? He needs to go home NOW.”

“He’s not going home – like you could make him; he can see in the string. This is just a fight -”

“It’s not a fight, Willow! Everything, everything Drake said about him is coming true. He warned you, he warned me, and I refuse to let him destroy us.”

“Your sister has a broken heart. That’s what you should worry about – not us - because I’m not worried.”

His blue eyes raged with fury. “Really?! Then stop pushing what I know you feel for Drake down!”

“Fine!” I yelled.

“Fine,” he said as a sarcastic smirk came to the corners of his lips.

I glared back at him.“You’ve been looking for a reason to push Dane out of my life since the day we moved that wall, and I’m not gonna let you. Who will be next? What if my dad said something that made me mad tomorrow – would you tell him to go back to Infante?
Then
who would be next?!”

“Do you hear yourself? Really, Willow. No one else has dark history. Beyond that, did you feel those emotions he had for that girl? The betrayal alone should infuriate you. Are you satisfied that you hurt him? Is he forgiven now?!”

“No! He is
not
forgiven! I just watched your sister cry her last tear. I heard her say he wasn’t her soul mate – that he never was. She was more afraid of telling you, Brady, and Ashten than she was to lose him – how sick is that?”

“I’m not mad at her. She was too hasty, and now look what we’ve managed to do: let a traitor into our family.”

“Traitor?! Did you hear what he said about the meetings, about finding out who all the players are? It’s our fault this happened, not his.”

“This isn’t our fault. It’s just too weird that he was always at your side.”

“How is it weird? He’s my best friend!”

“No, Olivia is. She’s the one that’s supposed to protect you. I wonder what damage he could have done if she wasn’t there.”

I let out a frustrated grunt. “Am I talking to Drake or Landen – because I can’t tell anymore?!”