Visions (The Daevas #2)

2 | Smooth Move

Present day

Up ahead the skies, a thousand droplets of rain didn't cease to stop. It was like a beating of drums, pounding mercilessly on the roof of this cottage I was secluded in.

There wasn't much to do. Actually, there wasn't anything to do at all.

A thunder struck down on the earthy soil, its light so bright and its power so shocking. It could be heard all throughout Woodville. I lifted my eyes to the cold glass of my little window, seeing water slip down like a waterfall. It was so dark outside, there wasn't a sign of the usual snow that Woodville was known for.

Never had it rained here. Not once.

But now -- it was strange. What kind of sign was the rain telling me -- us, the Daevas? There was not much solution to the answer, and maybe the rain was just a simple miracle or a cause of global warming.

But in my heart, I knew that this was some mysterious sign.

I just couldn't figure it out. Not yet.

I lifted a finger and touched the glass. It was misty and so cold...just like Roman. I slid my index finger down on the moist glass, tracing a line as I did so. I made circles and odd swirls, my mind on him. Who was he to me, really? He seemed like he really cared about me, but was too prideful to show.

I remembered what happened four days ago, when his elder brother Alexander -- whom I believed killed my human family and my royal mother -- who confessed that I had been (and still was) his wife, and that Roman had showed up to stop him from coming near me, ending up with the two of them, blood-related, killing one another to the pinnacle of death.

I remembered Roman coming toward me as I'd knelt down on the cold, snowy ground -- after Alexander used his power to keep me away from their fracas -- kneeling beside me to gather me in his strong arms, trying to soothe me as he had gently rocked me. Roman had told me that he cared about me. I had asked him, my eyes tearstained, what he was to me, but he had only replied that it was not the right time for me to know.

When Roman wanted to take me back home to my newfound father's castle, I had told him that we couldn't leave Alexander alone, laughing like a lunatic, but filled with blood and full of pain at the same time. He had only clipped in a hard tone that I had to stop talking about Alexander.

Just last night, after I had woken up from a strange dream I had of me and a twin sister named Anne in the mediaeval time, I came out of my room -- finding myself in a small cottage where Roman took me to, after he allegedly kidnapped me saying that he'd keep me safe -- and asked him questions, in which he didn't help me out with. The final one was who I was to him, but he only said that I ought to get a rest, for I needed it.

And this time, I was inside my room, not coming out. I couldn't. It was dawn, but it looked like it was already ten in the evening. I sighed. There were so many things that happened so quickly in my life. Just a few weeks ago, after my parents and siblings had been killed, I found a home, where a girl named Georgiana Van Allen gladly accepted me. I had been okay with her four brothers living with her: Alistair, Roman, Axel, and Gabriel; my relationship with Alistair was unreadable, but I knew he treated me as an equal; with Axel, we were...something; with Roman, I sure in hell didn't know; and with Gabriel...well, we had our ups and downs.

Georgie and Axel were the siblings I was closest with. Seeing now that I was alone with Roman, of all people, I didn't feel good. My stomach lurched, demanding that I should eat, but I couldn't go outside my tiny room, knowing that I would see him. He didn't, not once, come in to check on me. All I heard through the long hours were his footsteps pacing the living room, occasionally. He sometimes went outside these past few hours, me not meaning to use my powers to hear. I heard him click the door to go outside, with the rain pattering on the ground, him opening his car, and grabbing something. He sometimes listened to his music there, and he also gathered firewood to keep us warm. But I felt cold, no matter how many firewood he burned.