Fearless The King Series Book One - By Tawdra Kandle Page 0,135
his body, and we were both trying to catch our breath.
I don’t want to stop. I could stay like this, right here with her, forever and never get tired of it…
My mouth was still close to his, and I smiled against his lips. “I think you might change your mind after your legs go numb.”
“Nope. I told you, there will be no mind changing here.”
“I think someone would miss us, eventually. And find us.”
Michael stroked my back. “Probably. We could lock the doors.”
I giggled. We didn’t often take time to be silly like this, just in love and talking nonsense. And after the intensity of our conversation, the levity was a welcome relief.
But even as I rested my head against his shoulder, smiling in the simple joy of being with him, a thought crossed my mind. It had been skirting my memory for a few days, refusing to stay down.
“Michael,” I murmured against his neck. “I was thinking about something.”
He brought my lips to his again and whispered, “Something like this?”
“No. But that was very nice, thanks. No, I was thinking about that first time in the woods, with Nell and Amber.”
He straightened a bit, shifting me slightly so that my head lay against his arm. “What about it?”
“What do you think happened to the knife?”
Michael didn’t ask me what I meant, and I knew that it had been troubling him, too.
“I don’t know. I told myself that she’d thrown it somewhere, but I don’t see how she could have done that without me seeing it. I was on top of her so fast.”
“Did you even see it in her hand that night?”
He hesitated, frowning again. “I think—I think I did. Just a flash of it. But then again, maybe I didn’t. It happened so quickly.”
We were both quiet, considering.
“You know, when she had me tied in the clearing, she made fire.” I spoke as evenly as I could. I hadn’t mentioned that to anyone before now.
“What do you mean? She lit a fire?”
“No, I mean there were rocks, then—I could feel this shot of power going out from her—you know, I was trying to stay really attuned to her mind then, trying to keep a step ahead of her. So when that power went out—it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It knocked the breath out of me. And then there was fire.”
I could feel Michael’s thoughts, troubled and uncertain. “If she did somehow make that knife vanish… and manage to conjure fire from nothing, what does that mean?”
I shivered, even safe in the circle of Michael’s arms. This was the disturbing possibility that had been eating at me for days.
“I guess… I guess it means there really is a lot more to the world than meets the eye. And going back to what you said earlier… maybe it means that we were supposed to be here, in this time and place, to fight what Nell was doing.”
Michael’s arms tightened around me. “If that’s the price we pay for having each other—then it’s worth it. As long as it’s over. As long as you’re safe. As long as we’re together.”
We clung to each other, a tiny island of serenity amidst the storm that blew around us.
Thanksgiving was late that year, at the very end of November. The news reports from Wisconsin showed several inches of snow and temperatures hovering around the freezing mark.
In Florida, the sun was shining, light breezes stirred the palm tree branches, and the grass was green.
We were celebrating the day with the Sawyer family out at the nursery. This was new territory for my family; since my grandmother had passed away when I was ten, our holidays had been quiet affairs involving just the three of us. Occasionally one of my father’s co-workers who was far from home or single would join us, but I had always thought wistfully of the large family gatherings I’d seen on television shows or read about in books.
Michael’s paternal grandparents had driven down from the Panhandle for the holiday, and I had met them the day before. They reminded me of Luke with their easy-going ways and warm embraces. Both insisted that I call them Gram and Poppy, and I loved feeling so much a part of the family.
On Thanksgiving Day, Michael arrived at our front door promptly at noon to collect me. My parents would follow later in the afternoon, and my mother was in the kitchen baking pies for dessert.