This was another thing entirely—and what was happening between them was something so much more than just sex.
She felt as though he was staking some kind of claim to her.
And damn it, she wanted everyone to know she was his.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
After the fall of night, Rahvyn returned unto Luchas House. Or perhaps, more properly, “was returned.” As if she were a satchel mislaid.
The van that took her back was driven by one of the social workers, and there was another male with her, one who had had a foot broken whilst playing a game called “basketball” and had had to have the bone set within a case. During the travel, Rahvyn said not much a’tall. The male and the social worker, on the other hand, chatted about all manner of trivialities, a relief really.
When there seemed not much relief to be found anywhere.
Upon arrival at the house, Rahvyn made her excuses and said that she required air. What she had intended was a return to the destination that had been pulling at her ever since that dream of the book. What she was granted was a reprieve of some short amount of time, after which the social worker was going to “come check on her.”
An anger, deep and sour, curled in Rahvyn’s gut at the kind shepherding—and she was well aware of where that emotion led. Therefore, she nodded and walked away from the house, into the barren field. Out under a cloudy sky that offered no moon and no stars for illumination, she was struck both by the calling that refused to relent and a conviction that she would not hurt the compassionate female.
She could have, though. If she’d been so inclined.
And therein was another inner conflict she did not enjoy.
“Oh… whatever shall I do,” she whispered into the night.
The question was not wherever shall I go. She knew the answer to the inquiry of destination. Knew also that she was setting into motion monstrous things, the implications of which should have shocked her into inactivity. But sure as if she had been marked, there was no way of stopping any of what was about to transpire.
That book, the one from her dreamscape, was not only calling her, it was demanding that she come unto its location. And she knew what it was asking of her, knew as well why she was the one it had chosen—
“I had to see you.”
Rahvyn spun around. When she saw the angel with the long blond-and-black hair, her first instinct was to smile. But then she remembered who she truly was—and who he mistakenly thought she was.
“Hello,” she whispered.
He took a step toward her, and in the darkness, she could see a tightness in his face, in his body. Had he somehow divined what she intended? she thought with a sudden shame. Could he read her mind?
“I just want you to know something,” he said, his face grim. “It’s not going to make a lot of sense to you. Or maybe it will. I don’t know.”
“What is wrong? What ails you?”
“I have to save two people tonight. I have to… sacrifice something to save them. And after this, it’s all going to be different. For me. For… you.”
In the silence that followed, Rahvyn was so struck by the magnificence he carried within him that she momentarily forgot her own troubles.
“May I help you?” she inquired.
“No, I have to go alone.” He seemed so full of sorrow, she wanted to embrace him. “I just want you to know something, before I leave.”
As he stared down into her eyes, she had a feeling that she knew what he was going to tell her.
His revelation had been foretold during his visit unto her healing bed, when he had hovered o’er her slumbering body and yearned for her. Verily, if he had known she was aware of him, he would have hidden his true intentions.
“From the first moment I saw you,” he said in a hoarse voice, “that night when Sahvage and Mae came here… there was just something about you. I couldn’t look away.”
Flushing, she glanced down at her hands. “I could feel you staring upon me.”
“I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“You did not.” And then, maybe due to the fact that she herself was departing, she added, “I rather liked your eyes upon me. Not just then, but later. And now, in this moment.”
There was a pause. As if she had surprised him.
“You came to see me at the healing place,” she said as she looked back up at him. “I sensed your presence o’er my bedding platform.”
“I needed to make sure you were okay.”
“And if I had not been…?”
“I would have done what was required to save you.”
Tears entered her eyes, putting a gloss over her vision that blurred him and the meadow. “Why,” she breathed.