"I'm going to bed," I announced.
Indy's attention rose from her plate of linguini with a noodle hanging between her lips. Slurping it down, she said, "But they haven't gotten their instrument into the tornado yet."
Micah wasn't back from his "phone call," and somehow movie night had turned into the Weather Channel's special edition of "Storm Stories: Tornado Alley." Call me particular but turning up a show about tornados really loud didn't exactly do much to drown out the sounds of an actual storm-in-progress.
I rose from the sofa and went upstairs, only to find the quiet of my bedroom made things worse. Even after lowering the shades to block out the lightning flashes, I paced, sweat trickling down my spine to make my nightshirt stick.
Fear seized me when a close ka-boom boom shook the hillside, and in the almost full darkness I stopped pacing. I stood poised in front of the closet door. My breath slipped from me in panicked rasps as I hesitated with my hand a whisper above the handle. I can't do this anymore. My mother was dead, and I was all alone. I choked back a sob and lowered my hand to grasp the cold steel.
My fingers curled instead around the warmth of another hand. Jerking back, I let out a gasp when I was suddenly yanked forward into a burst of fresh air and rain-damp skin. My feet were no longer on the floor as he embraced me.
"There will be no more of this," Micah said over the sob that escaped me.
His hand slipped into my hair, and he traced the groove of my hidden scar. His foot touched the underside of my right foot, making the exit mark tingle under the sock.
"Y-you know," I managed, trembling as his own scar burned hot against my inner elbow.
His fingers were gentle as they untangled from my hair to cup my face. "That night, at the hospital, I could smell the hours-old remnants of electricity on you." He shifted our combined weight until we were walking. "I searched through your hair and found the entrance point. It was strange how the burns were healed so they seemed old, but I knew better."
"Indy—you told her?"
He slipped an arm under my knees to lift me as he sat us on the edge of the bed. "It was a calculated shot, meant to kill," he told me, "and yes, she knows. The fact it was premeditated was important to the investigation that followed."
"I was targeted?"
He was silent while I forced this new reality to fit in with everything else that had already caused so much hurt, increasing my regret tenfold.
"I killed her," I whispered finally.
His head jerked from where it had settled against mine, his amethyst gaze a soft glow in the dark. "You can't possibly believe that. You were just a child."
I curled my toes when a flash of heat overtook the scar. My feet had been resting in Mom's lap while I slept sideways in the passenger seat. "She took the kill shot that was meant for me. I passed it on. I shouldn't have survived."
"Don't speak such nonsense." He touched my chin, his eyes pleading. "I'm glad you survived, Aurora, I—"
"I wished I hadn't!" I burst out. "Everyone would be much better off if I'd died! Mom, she—she would still be alive."
A gust of wind leaked through a crack in the window to shift one of the shades, spilling in factory light. I closed my eyes against the pain in his expression.
"You wouldn't have to devote your life to watching over me, Micah. You would be—"
"Alone."
My lashes fluttered open at the vivid emotion in that single word.
"The most important person in my life wouldn't exist." He ran a hand through his hair to push it back before he touched my face again. "You wouldn't be here, and I would be alone."
I bit the inside of my cheek. Am I so heartless to upset him so?
I took a trembling breath to tell him, "You would find somebody else."
Alex already had.
Micah's tone was stubborn. "I don't want anyone else."
He pulled me along as he slid to the middle of the bed, curling himself around me. I pushed against his shoulder, rolling away. We shouldn't be cuddling. But the gentle strength with which he wrapped his arms about my waist to drag me back rendered my attempts at getting away useless, almost inducing another bout of fresh sobs. My throat tightened to the point where I couldn't breathe. He was making this incredibly hard.
"My heart only aches to be with you," my guardian whispered.
"Oh my god! Don't you get it?" I cried out, my voice strangled with frustration. "Micah—you and me. You're not meant to be with me! I'm not strong enough for you! I'm. Not. Strong."
"Aurora, who has been saying such things?"
I found myself looking up at him when he turned me to face him. His hands became lost in my hair, and my heart nearly broke when I smelled tears that weren't my own.
"Who has been filling your head with this garbage? Indy?" Micah demanded. "Or is it that water devvi male? Gods, I'll shred him to rain if he's telling you such things to make you leave me for hi—"
"I don't belong with him either. I don't—belong, anywhere..." It came out as a soft admittance, as if all of my inner turmoil suddenly deflated. "I was never meant to fit anywhere. I'm a half breed, stuck halfway in between."
"Aurora," Micah soothed in understanding. "You're not alone."
I am.
"I won't let you be alone," he reiterated, as if he could sense my inner protest.
"There isn't anyone else like me." I turned my face from his, but I didn't move away any farther.
He continued to lie next to me until the rain finally let up, touching me gently but not venturing forward. We stayed like that for the better part of an hour, just breathing, touching...
Eventually his respirations became slow, rhythmic, and in the far distance, the pacified rumble of departing thunder wasn't nearly loud enough to drown out the rumbles that vibrated in his chest. The sound of it was oddly calming, and I knew if I let him embrace me, the vibration would resonate in me core deep. I turned to look at him— and I wanted him to hold me. Abandoning my distance, I moved that last separating inch. I even allowed myself to be moved so that I was snuggling on top of him, my head finding his shoulder.
"I will always be here for you," he said, those truthful words filling me with a much-needed peace that I could have never found on my own.
"I don't feel alone whenever you are with me."
Exhaling in resolution, he added, "And you don't need to be any stronger than you are capable of. Allow me to be strong enough for the both of us."
I nodded but didn't say anything.
He coaxed aside the black hair puddled around my shoulders, touching below my ear. I made a small noise of surprise when, a moment later, his tongue replaced his fingers. Holy cheddar, can he act any more like a big jungle cat?
I closed my eyes as he found my throat, where he continued to lap slow, prolonged licks. The rumbling in his chest deepened, as if he found some enjoyment in the flavor of an act probably meant to calm one's partner. The sensation his saliva left on my skin was odd, a pins and needles tingle, but the way I reacted to it, on an instinctual level, was all the stranger. My body went slack on top of his, and I sighed; this was exactly what I needed.
With the last of my tension melting, I mumbled incoherently when my sky lion shifted, his arms becoming two lines of pulsing heat around my waist as I drifted to sleep.
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You've made it to chapter Thirty-One! (you awesome reader, you!) that right there deserves a VOTE! :D
Chapter Thirty-Two posts tomorrow. See y'all then!