Souls of Fire
Book One of the Souls Series
EXCERPT
Prologue
Darkness was biding its time. There was no need to force that which was ordained. The future was written, no one could change it…no one would dare try!
Destined to fear, hate and destroy, all mankind had ever needed was a little nudge in the right direction. And Darkness lived everywhere, in the best and the worst of living creatures, hiding patiently in the most remote recesses of the mind.
Where human nature was frail, Darkness seized power at the right moment, turning its once planted hateful seed into a pit of purest black and opening the souls up to evil. That was all that was needed; just a tiny push…and a model member of society went over the edge, taking down whoever stood in his or her way.
Thinking of mankind’s inability to grasp the true nature behind evil, anger washed over Darkness once more. Evil was all humans ever talked about, it got all the limelight. Whenever madness ensued, it was because of evil. Darkness was sick of it!
Why would they not understand? Evil could only do so much. It was not everywhere, Darkness was. It had existed before evil…was the very foundation for it. Without Darkness, evil could never exist! Darkness crept into the purest of souls, into souls in which evil could not penetrate. But Darkness was there, since the dawn of time, waiting…
And now, finally, the time had come: there would be no more waiting. The end of the world was perceptibly nigh, though humans perceived nothing! Humans…they would recognize the end when it was upon them. But then it would be too late. Then, everything would be dark for all eternity.
Everything Darkness had longed for was virtually within its grasp. The world was slowly unraveling… mankind’s true destiny gradually unfolding. Darkness’ reign had come at last.
And no power on this earth would stand in its way…
On a dark night long ago, underneath a blood-red moon
Was born a legacy, a foe
A darkness that arrives too soon
The world will end in blazing fire,
Will turn to dust and blow away
Humanity will thus expire, condemned to watch, to hope and pray
Charcoal black and red as blood, drawn like moths to the flame
Desire rushing like a flood, sending fire through their veins
Star-crossed lovers meant to die, born to a dark and twisted fate
Taking down with them the sky
Mankind’s outcry comes too late
Cursed to live aside each other as they are consumed by lust
Bound to one another until the earth is naught but dust
Thus will come about the end when the rose is in full bloom
Lest another’s heart should mend
Beware impending doom
Darkness shall fall and cover earth with everlasting night
Say your goodbyes to friends and foes
To love
And to the light
Chapter 1 *Petals
I sat on the window ledge of my bedroom looking out at the stormy clouds rolling in overhead. Sitting here on the large wooden window seat, leaning against squashy pillows and all cuddled up in cozy blankets, I always loved to look out at the stormy sky, at trees being swayed and branches being whipped in every direction by the sheer force of unrestrained nature.
It always looked like a dramatic dance to me. Trees bending over as if in desperation, their branches powerfully yet gracefully reaching out in silent pleas. And it usually gave me a strong sense of safety, sitting in the warmth of my room while a storm was raging right before my eyes. A storm, which although so near I could see it, hear it, and smell it in the air, did not have the power to touch me in my beloved sanctuary.
But today something was off. Today I didn’t feel safe or cozy. I felt afraid and lost.
“Persephone, dinner will be ready in five minutes. If you haven’t washed up yet, you’d better do it now, Sweetie….Sweetie?”
It took me a while to get my hazy thoughts clear enough to grasp that I’d been spoken to. Although I hadn’t paid any attention to the actual content, I knew the gist of my mother’s words. I knew them by heart.
“‘Kay mom, I’ll be right down,” I called toward the kitchen.
Still not having moved an inch away from the window, my gaze now followed the small glistening drops of rainwater collecting on the windowpane, sliding slowly down the outer surface and dropping out of sight.
I didn’t really know why I had this strange sense of unease, this inexplicable feeling of no longer being safe; or more importantly, this mind-numbing fear I just couldn’t seem to shake. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It felt as if the world I knew and loved was slowly but irrevocably beginning to spin out of my control.
I didn’t even know what to be afraid of. All I knew for certain was that this feeling had not developed over any length of time. It had crept up on me seemingly overnight as if something had happened, as if some cataclysmic event had occurred to set it off.
Oh man, cataclysmic event? Okay, I’ve officially lost it!
I threw off my cuddly white woolen blanket and got to my feet. I let out a long sigh and left my room to go downstairs for dinner.
“I’ve got a surprise for you, Persephone,” my mom was grinning from ear to ear, looking at me expectantly, obviously waiting for some kind of response; probably hoping that I would be out of myself with curiosity.
Not wanting to hurt her feelings or be made responsible by my dad for my mom complaining about my mood swings to him throughout his favorite television show later in the evening, I made my mouth turn up at the corners as much as I possibly could ― which wasn’t much ― and let some curiosity seep into my voice.
“Really? What is it?”
“I know you said you didn’t want us to make a big fuss about your birthday,” her voice trailed off.
“But?” I asked in a resigned voice, already knowing this wouldn’t end in the way I’d hoped, and knowing there was nothing I could do about it once my mom had ganged up on me.
Even though I hadn’t glanced in my father’s direction, I knew he represented the other part of the ‘gang’. My dad didn’t have to say anything on the subject for me to know he’d automatically take my mother’s side.
“Well, I just thought we could at least have some birthday cake for dessert. That hardly qualifies as a ‘fuss’!”
I’d spent the better half of the past week trying to explain to my mother that I didn’t want a big party. Even though my mom had gone on and on about the importance of not missing out on things I would regret having missed later on in life, I’d tried to get out of throwing a birthday party or of being presented with a surprise party. Therefore, I was actually relieved to hear the surprise was only a birthday cake and nothing more. Cake I could do.
It was only the idea of throwing a big party that I just couldn’t warm up to. It was my eighteenth birthday, a birthday that deserved a greater celebration than just any birthday. But the thought of having lots and lots of people there that didn’t care about me in the least just didn’t seem so thrilling.
I preferred to have just this little celebration at home, surrounded by the people that loved me, instead of having a million people around that didn’t give a damn.
“Okay, I give up!” I cried, throwing my hands up in front of me in a playful gesture of surrender.
“Cake is fine,” I added with a smile.
Actually, my birthday was almost over. I was born at eleven p.m., so my birthday had already started yesterday. Seeing as my parents had to get up early for work and, therefore, went to bed timely, I always celebrated it the day after so that they could celebrate with me.
My dad was a sales man in his late forties. His once dark brown hair had started to go grey a couple of years back and was gradually thinning out. He was a man of medium height and medium build, not too fat, nor too thin. His face was kind, and his brown eyes had a soft warmth about them. To the casual observer, however, there was nothing remarkable about him.
My mom was in her mid-forties and waited tables in a high-class French restaurant in town, always a little stressed out when coming home from a hard day of running around for hours at a time and never failing to complain about her aching feet. She normally worked the early shift, even helping out in the kitchen long before opening hours so that she could be home earlier to do her housework during the light of day. She had long straight dark-blonde hair, blue eyes, and a nice body for her age, which probably came from walking to and from tables for hours on end.
I loved my parents dearly and was grateful for everything they did for me, but I had never really been close to them in the sense of fully understanding them or confiding in them about my dreams or about the things that moved me. I was very unlike my parents in many ways.
There was a barrier separating us, an invisible line that kept me from telling them about my life, my dreams, my fears. Somehow, without even attempting to let them know me better, I’d always known they wouldn’t really understand me. My parents loved me very much and would have done anything for their ‘little girl’, but that didn’t mean they knew me at all.
As different as my thinking was from theirs, so were my looks. I had fair skin, was rather tall, and had a slim build. I was not too skinny, though, and therefore, didn’t lack feminine curves. Although I didn’t work out and was not really the athletic type, my height and the fact that I had long legs seemed to work in my favor.
According to my parents, my hair and eyes had been the biggest surprise to them upon my birth. Apparently I had glimpsed this world with thick curly hair the shade of gleaming red flames and the brightest emerald eyes imaginable. Both my mother and father had been at a loss to uncover, which one of their family members had ever had such fiercely red hair or exactly that shade of emerald-green eyes; or more accurately: which family member had even remotely red hair or green eyes.
As the months after my birth went by without a change to either my hair or my eyes, they had allegedly just accepted this little ‘abnormality’ in their families’ bloodline and hadn’t thought about it from here on after.
My hair was now so long that the thick red curls fell slightly past my waist. I didn’t have any of the freckles which usually accompany fair skin and red hair. The only marking on my white skin was a birthmark on the left side of my chest, placed on the rise of my breast, above my heart. It was light brown in color with an almost reddish hue and was as big around as a quarter.
I’d often stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in my room trying to distinguish some kind of shape that would render it interesting, but had never been able to see anything in particular. It was just a formless birthmark which happened to be located at exactly the right spot on my body to be a constant burden to me.
I’d never been able to wear anything even remotely sexy for fear of having everybody laugh at the ugly birthmark on my chest. I’d always tried to hide it from my fellow students, wearing only T-shirts or high-necked sweaters.
Tomorrow would be different, though. Tomorrow I was going to start my first semester at college.
I had been accepted to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. It had been quite a shock to find out they had actually accepted me! Though I’d applied as one of the top students of my year, I had never really envisioned being so lucky.
Tomorrow a new chapter in my life would start, and I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t hide anymore. Ugly as I would always think my strange birthmark to be, I would no longer let it rule my life. I would not let it continue to inhibit me.
Of course, I wouldn’t dress in anything tacky from now on, but I would wear low-cut clothing that showed at least a little bit of cleavage. Even a little bit of cleavage was enough, though, to have my birthmark in plain view.
The next morning I stood in front of my mirror and looked at my reflection through droopy eyes. I hadn’t slept well. All night long, I’d tossed and turned, and just couldn’t seem to settle down enough to drift off to sleep.
I was terribly nervous about going to college.
I didn’t know if any of my former fellow students from my home town of Woodstock, Vermont, were going to Brown University, seeing as it was an elite college. Even if they were, it made little difference, as I didn’t have any friends among them.
Actually, I didn’t have any friends.
I’d always seemed too strange to the other kids for them to want to get to know me. I never really got along with any boys my age, and girls my age had other interests. Unlike them, I didn’t constantly obsess about boys, and although I was very pretty, I didn’t give my appearance any particular thought.
Of course, I did try to look nice for school, but I didn’t make as big of a fuss as other girls did. I managed to look good without trying, which made the other girls who tried too hard angry, and made popular boys ask me out ― which, of course, made them even angrier.
I did my homework most of the time and studied hard when it was required, so I did very well in school. But other than being a means to an end, enabling me to go to college one day, my studies meant little to me and didn’t fulfill me.
I lived in my own little world. A world of fantasies and myth, of heroes, fairy tales and horror stories, monsters and demons, fairies and angels. A world made up of every story I had ever read, of every moment I had ever dared step into the pages of an unknown world full of every unimaginable beauty and horror.
A world made up of images so heartbreakingly beautiful and real to me that I couldn’t believe having only pictured them in my imagination.
More than anything, I longed to lose myself in the books I read, to leave everyday life behind and be part of something important, something meaningful. My own life in comparison seemed strange and forlorn to me. This normal life, without any of the glorious images I pictured in my mind while reading, didn’t hold much pleasure for me.
I craved the unexpected, the impossible, the unimaginable. In short: I was lost in my own little world of stories in which no one really existed but me, so that I had nobody to share it all with. Ultimately, that might also have been the reason why I had never felt the least bit attracted to the opposite sex ― boys just hadn’t felt real to me.
This will just have to do, I sighed internally, looking at the outfit I had selected for that day. There really wasn’t anything wrong with my looks, but I felt so nervous and insecure at the thought of all the strangers I would meet, students as well as professors, that I wanted to look nothing short of amazing on my first day at college. Too bad, I would have to settle for looking pretty.
I was wearing an airy white ruffled cotton blouse cut out in a square, showing part of my white delicate shoulders and the skin above my breasts along with the birthmark I no longer wanted to hide.
The blouse reached down to a little past my hips. Its long flowing sleeves hugged my wrists and then widened, letting the laced cuffs spread out to the middle of my long pale fingers.
My thick fiery curls sprung up around me in an untamed manner and spiraled downward to come to rest against the hem of my favorite pair of low-cut stonewashed blue jeans, which I wore on top of a pair of candy-apple red high heels. As I was blessed with a nice rosy complexion and very long dark eyelashes despite my red hair, I didn’t need to put on any makeup.
My full lips had a nice rosy color as well, but I liked them a little redder, so I grabbed the dove-grey bag I had already slung around my shoulder and stuck my hand inside, shuffling around books, pens, used and unused tissues and packs of chewing gum until my groping fingers finally found my favorite lipstick. I puckered my lips in front of the mirror and applied a thin layer of crimson to them.
Placing the lipstick back in my bag, I was turning away from the mirror, when I caught a glimpse of my birthmark out of the corner of my eye. I whirled back around to look at it more closely and gasped.
It can’t be! I thought, my heart beating loudly in my ears. A sound like rushing water was drowning out every other sound but that of my pulse.
When was the last time I had looked at it? My mind was racing, throwing images upon images of the past days at me, bleeding together into one confusing swirl of color and motion. Panic pulled me under, clamped down painfully on my chest, and made it impossible for me to breathe.
Calm down ― Oh God! ― Breathe! Breathe! I silently screamed at myself, otherwise unmoving, trying to get a grip on myself.
It’s just my imagination! Nothing else! I’m in the real world, remember? Right?
I blinked a couple of times, desperately trying to get my blurry vision back into focus. I took a deep controlled breath and let my eyes move once more in the direction of my left upper chest, utterly convinced of having hallucinated.
A shiver ran down my spine.
Impossible! , my mind screamed over and over again, the word seemingly echoing around my thoughts as if bouncing off imaginary walls; the word as clear and distinguishable as if I had spoken it aloud.
Or had I actually screamed out loud, I wondered, listening into the silence for panicked sounds coming from my parents’ bedroom, which would have indicated that my screams had been heard.
Nothing. No sounds at all.
Of course, my dad was already at work as it was already later in the morning. My mother, though normally also at work by now, was sick in bed this morning with a mild case of the flu that had started up last night, and would have heard me if I had screamed out loud.
Gasping for air, I rushed to my bedroom window, clawing at the window latch with fumbling fingers, my hands shaking violently. After several moments, I finally managed to open the window. I flung my head and upper body through the window frame and greedily sucked in the cool crisp morning air.
It was September, and the usual chill that set in this time of year was intensified by the aftermath of a stormy night. The air had a fresh cleansing feel to it that soothed the burning pain in my lungs and immediately started to clear my thoughts. Sitting on my window seat, cool air caressing my face, I tried to reason with the small part of me that actually believed in the paranormal, or in magic.
Or in whatever inexplicable experiences are called, I thought wryly.
The image I had seen had already irrevocably burned itself into my consciousness. It wasn’t the image itself that had made me panic. The image was harmless.
A beautiful rose.
As innocent an image as ever was; and as common as any rose tattooed to anyone’s body.
Tattooed, I thought. Tattooed being the operative word! I was definitely not tattooed. Never had been and never had wanted to be. Well, maybe I had thought about it once or twice…
So unless I had somehow managed to get really drunk at some party I didn’t even remember going to, had woken up tattooed the next morning like many before me, and had then successfully managed to repress every second of it, I definitely had a problem! There just wasn’t a reasonable explanation for a shapeless birthmark suddenly turning into a rose.
I thought back hard. Two nights ago, I had been standing in front of the bathroom mirror after stepping out of the shower. After clearing a little round space on the mirror with the aid of my hair-dryer like I usually did in order to have a clear view of myself, I had shot a glance at my birthmark.
I only remembered so well, because at the time I’d thought that eighteen years of hiding were enough and that I ought to be more grown up about it.
That had been on the evening leading up to my birthday, and it had looked like it always had: shapeless! I had gone to bed early that night, before eleven o’clock ― my actual birthday ― and hadn’t really looked at my birthmark since.
Now the shapeless mark had changed. Seemingly out of the blue, colored lines had sprung up to form outlines of petals. They danced fluidly around the once drab birthmark, forming a beautifully contoured rose in various shades: a darker red outlined the petals and filled in the areas that were supposed to be shaded.
The petals themselves were of a lighter reddish-pink. Cream-colored hues depicted the sections where the light softened their color. The petals remained tightly shut around the bud. There was no stem, nor leaves or thorns, just the rose.
A bubble of hysterical laughter threatened to work its way up my throat.
Changed…into a beautiful rose the moment I turned eighteen! Right…isn’t that what every girl wants: to blossom? The wave of hysteria worked its way through my throat and came out in a choked laugh that turned to horrible coughing.
Admit it: you’ve finally lost your marbles! I thought. Yep, one of the first signs of losing one’s marbles: talking to yourself!!!
The laughter that had finally clawed its way out of my throat filled the bedroom.
Hysterical giggles bounced off the walls and out through the open window. The sound of my laughter finally made me snap out of the madness that had held me in its grip. I needed to calm down. Reasonable explanation or not, I would have to stay calm and deal with whatever it was that needed to be dealt with. I would feel better if I actually knew what that was, though.
How was I supposed to cope with…this, I wondered. If I really wasn’t going insane, then the altered birthmark must mean something. How on earth, was I supposed to find out what it meant?
Aren’t there people who deal with supernatural stuff? But for something like this, who are you going to call? Okay, yeah, Ghostbusters! Or Sam and Dean?
A thought suddenly occurred to me. I recalled something I had stumbled upon earlier, but hadn’t looked at thoroughly. I jumped up from the window seat and ran to pick my bag off the floor by the mirror. Not even having noticed, I’d dropped it there during the shock off seeing my new ‘tattoo’.
I opened the latch on my bag and dug my hand in looking for something I’d only cursorily glanced at before. Pulling out the brochure of my college, I plumped myself down on the wooden floor ― legs folded under ― and swiftly opened it up to the first page, running my forefinger slowly down the index.
Here it is! I thought, a peculiar sensation stirring in my gut; a mixture of excitement and fear. I stared down at the title of one of the many college classes up for selection:
‘Paranormal Phenomena in Today’s Society’
In a nutshell, I thought, absent-mindedly twirling my hair around my fore- and middle finger.
My gaze shifted to the right and came to rest upon the name of the professor who would teach this class:
Aaron Chambers
A chill ran down my spine at the exact same moment that my heart skipped several beats.
What is wrong with me today? I asked myself not for the first time this morning, clawing at my hair in frustration, a habit I had unfortunately picked up sometime during my childhood and had never been able to throw off since. With all the frustration I’d gone through in my teens up until this day, it was a wonder I still had hair.
Letting out a long sigh, I closed my eyes and tried to relax a bit. I was so freaked out about the mysterious transformation of my birthmark that I couldn’t think straight anymore. I gathered my balance must be so off that my body reacted to every little thing I focused on and sent completely scrambled signals to my brain.
I concentrated on breathing, pulling the air slowly into my lungs and letting it linger there for a few measured moments before slowly and evenly pushing it back out.
Aaah…that felt good, I sighed internally, letting go of the tension that had taken hold of my entire body as well as my mind.
I was determined not to let my thoughts linger on my birthmark and to completely ignore any reactions my body might hold in store for me today. I just couldn’t trust myself at the moment!
After carefully getting to my feet and making sure my legs had stopped shaking, I crossed the length of my room and grabbed the suitcase I had deposited next to my bed after having packed it haphazardly the night before, having left it to nearly the last minute as I always did whenever I went on a trip.
Although I had at first felt some trepidation at the thought of living on campus, I’d gradually warmed to the idea of ‘broadening my horizon’ and ‘making new experiences’, as my mother and father would put it, and now actually felt almost excited about this new development in my to date rather uneventful life.
Still, I felt unsure about my ability to be a good roommate. I loved my privacy, my own personal space where I could roll up into a ball and lie for hours immersed in my reading or just thinking about things that occupied my mind.
Number one, I thought, work on your people skills, and at least try to keep up a semblance of social behavior! Number two, the thought immediately followed the first, don’t try too hard or you’ll look like an idiot!!!
Hmmm, some things might be better left alone, I sighed, thinking of my chances of actually making friends at college. I tended to always say the wrong things and in general never knew what pleased other people. And since I hadn’t changed in the least since finishing school, I didn’t know why that should suddenly change.
Heading for the door, suitcase in hand, bag slung over my shoulder and my coat hanging over my arm, I took a last intense look around my room, my gaze slowly roaming over everything I had known and loved my entire life, trying to determine whether I’d forgotten to pack something of vital importance.
The morning sunlight slanted into the room through the window above my favorite perch, revealing a line of swirling dust motes, lending a soft white glow to the white see-through curtains, highlighting the radiant colors and soft pastel hues of my throw pillows, and throwing multi-colored reflections from a stained-glass pendant against the bare wooden planks of my bedroom floor.
My beautiful bronze-colored wrought-iron bed with its delicately interlacing design stood in the middle between the door and the window with its headpiece against the right wall. It was neatly made up and covered with my favorite quilt. My stuffed animals ― remnants of my childhood ― sat cuddled together on the center of the bed, looking in my direction as if to bid me farewell.
On the left side of the wall opposite the bed and next to the door leading to my own small bathroom, stood my tall silver mirror.
Most of my belongings were neatly stashed away inside the walk-in closet that lined the wall next to the entryway, or in pastel-colored vintage style boxes of different shapes and sizes spaced throughout the room.
But some of my clothing was draped over the back of my chair; my desk ― which stood to the right on the wall opposite my bed ― had a rather cluttered air about it, and two bits of crumpled paper were strewn across the floor next to the garbage bin, all together giving the room a lived-in feel.
Satisfied that I had everything I needed, but with the usual odd feeling of having forgotten something of vital importance, I stepped into the hallway, turning my back and closing the door on my bedroom. Little did I know that I had just glimpsed it for the last time…
It hadn’t been more than a few hours’ drive, but my body felt as if I had sat on the bus for days rather than hours. The bus had been full of young people riding to college that morning, and the uncomfortable cramped seats did little to keep my body from aching all over due to the inability to stretch my legs.
There would be no classes on the first day, giving the students a whole day of orientation in which they were presented with class schedules, the layout of the campus, received information about their dorms and room-numbers and last, but not least, got to meet their roommates.
I got off the bus, picked up my suitcase from the luggage compartment on the side of the vehicle and walked towards the registration office to get the information I needed. I joined the long line of waiting students outside the office and took a good look around, wondering if my new roommate was among them.
Thirty minutes later, I was standing outside the door to my appointed dorm room on the third floor, wondering whether to use my key or knock politely, in case my roommate was already there. Staring at the number on the door ― 311 ― I raised my fisted hand and rapped lightly. There was no answer, so I took out my key and unlocked the door.
Stepping inside, I was surprised to see how nice the room looked. Empty and bare as it was, due to the absence of personal items, it, nevertheless, had an invitingly open and light air to it. In the center of the opposite wall, right between the two beds, was a white, high arched window with a broad ledge on the inside that served as a seat.
The double doors of the floor-to-ceiling window lead to a small balcony ― enclosed by a black wrought-iron railing ― that could be reached by climbing over the window seat. Opposite the beds were a desk and chair for each student, and to the right of the entrance was a small refrigerator used to stash away snacks that had to be kept cold.
I walked over to the right bed and plunked my suitcase down on top of the bare mattress.
In about thirty minutes, I’d finished depositing all my clothing as well as my empty suitcase in the built-in closet next to my bed, and was about to go looking for the girls’ bathroom down the hall, when there was a sharp rap on the door. Anticipating the arrival of my roommate, I swiftly smoothed out my blouse and took a deep calming breath before answering.
“Come in,” I croaked, my voice displaying the awkwardness I always felt when meeting strangers.
I wasn’t prepared for the person who opened the door. One short glimpse of the woman was enough for me to see that this could not be my roommate.
A woman of fifty years or older was standing in the open door, looking just as awkward as I felt. Her hair was pulled back tightly into a bun, its brilliant bronze color turning grey in some areas. She was wearing a conservative looking ensemble and, all in all, looked like a very stern woman.
The clearly discernible look of distaste she wore suggested that she had more important things to do than whatever had brought her to my door and that she didn’t appreciate it in the least having to perform such a menial task.
“I’m here to inform you, Miss Jones, that you will not be sharing your room. The student who was to be your roommate evidently had grander plans than attending college. Seeing as all the other students already have their rooms appointed to them, you will, therefore, have the room to yourself, at least for this semester. Now, if you will kindly excuse me, I have more important things to get on with. Good day to you, Miss Jones,” she added in a cold and superior tone, clearly turning her nose up at me.
Sour grapes, I thought. I understood that the woman might have pressing matters that occupied her time, but for the life of me, I would never understand how some people could be so terribly rude and unfriendly without cause!
Not even one comforting line of ‘Welcome to College, I hope you will feel at home here soon’. Come to think of it, I didn’t even hear a ‘hello’. The woman couldn’t care less; students come and go, why should she care? I’d thought adults, at least, were grown-up enough to be capable of civil behavior. I’d undoubtedly been wrong!
So, my roommate had run away screaming before she even met me!
Well, that was a first, I pondered, not really depressed by the thought of not having to share my own personal space with a stranger. This development suited me just fine!
I opened the double doors of the window to let in some fresh air, and immediately decided that I just had to take in the view from the balcony. I climbed carefully over the ledge and got to my feet. The balcony was so small that there was just room enough for two people standing side by side.
Pressed up against the railing, I gazed around. My room was on the third and uppermost floor, high enough to give me a little anxiety about the railing not being secure enough.
The dorm buildings stretched out to both sides. There were three dorm buildings altogether, situated about half a mile from the college. The three buildings came together creating a U-shape, the balcony I stood on being at the center of the U’s shortest line.
Ahead of me, and between the other two buildings, there was a little park, in which the students could go for strolls; the park was probably also a popular area for social gatherings such as parties or barbeques. There were a number of benches set around it, and a couple of trees stood on the lawn. Most of them were small and insignificant. Yet one of them caught my eye.
It was an enormous oak that stood tall and proud in the center of the park. Judging by its height and the size of its trunk, it was a very old oak, probably hundreds of years old. Its leaves stood out against the clear blue sky in a rainbow of colors.
Every now and then, a leaf would sail downward to its temporary resting place among its already fallen brothers and sisters, covering the ground at the oak’s feet with shades of red, orange, brown, and yellow, and waiting to be carried away with the next gust of air.
A figure was leaning against the trunk of the oak, apparently oblivious to the slightly wet grass or the light chill in the air. From the balcony, I couldn’t make out any features or even the gender with the branches obscuring my view. Yet somehow I rather felt the person to be masculine.
Suddenly my vision started to blur, the colorful leaves swimming before my eyes. My fingers gripped the railing and dug themselves into the iron as an overwhelming wrenching sensation seized my whole body, making my knees buckle and nearly sending me off the edge of the balcony.
As suddenly as it had occurred, the uncontrollable feeling evaporated, leaving me breathless and shocked out of my senses, adrenaline rushing through every fiber of my being.
As the adrenaline subsided, my weak knees could no longer support my trembling body, and I slumped down to the floor of my balcony, unable to move for several heartbeats.
Chapter 2 *Desire
The following morning I got up at seven o’clock and spent the next thirty minutes standing under the scalding hot stream of water pouring down from the showerhead in the girls’ communal bathroom. Letting the water flow over my tired body, the heat slowly seeping into my bones and making my body’s tensed muscles relax a bit, I almost felt human again ― almost.
An hour later, I was sitting alone at a small table in a corner of the crowded cafeteria, listlessly munching on a stale half of an onion bagel with cheese and sipping a cup of strong coffee with milk, letting the caffeine run through my system and slowly revitalize my foggy brain. I really hadn’t slept well! With any luck, I’d be able to understand most of what the psychology professor would be teaching in class in twenty minutes’ time, I thought.
Then again, maybe not!
I cleared away my tray of half-eaten food after having guzzled down the last dregs of cold coffee ― I was going to need every single drop! ―, and hurried towards the auditorium to my psyche-class, not wanting to be late on the first day.
Psyche was interesting enough, but the professor, a tiny man with a big belly and a white bushy beard and mustache, seemingly took a sadistic pleasure in confusing new students and went through a lot of material in half the time it would have taken anybody to grasp what was being said.
So it was with a slightly withered air that I left at the end of the two hour long lesson and headed to the cafeteria for lunch. I got myself a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, which I sincerely hoped would taste better than the stale bagel I had eaten, or nearly eaten, for breakfast.
Taking hold of the Parmesan dispenser on the counter, where the food was distributed, I shook a substantial layer of Parmesan on top of my spaghetti, grabbed a bottle of water on my way to the cash register, and handed the cashier the necessary amount of money.
Sitting at the same corner-table I had sat at for breakfast, I opened my bag, pulled out my lesson schedule, and started twirling my fork around in my spaghetti. I placed the first coil of spaghetti in my mouth, looked down at my lesson schedule for my next lesson, and nearly choked on my food.
Professor Aaron Chambers.
Aaron Chambers
The name jumped out at me from the page, the letters slowly burning themselves deeply into my retinas. It was the same name, which had brought about such a strange reaction the day before in my bedroom. This time, though, the sensation was a great deal more powerful than before.
My heart started racing at the same time as a white-hot fire started to burn its way through my entire body, the flames starting at the roots of my hair and eating their way down to the tips of my toes, which tingled in the aftershock as the impression of being burned gradually faded.
I had never felt anything like it! If anyone had asked me what it had felt like, I would have answered without a second thought: “Like being burned at the stake, I imagine.” Yet I had managed not to cry out. How I had managed to keep quiet during the overwhelming pain I had just experienced, I didn’t know and didn’t care to guess, but I was extremely glad I hadn’t made a spectacle of myself in front of all the other students.
Steeling myself, I raised my head and took a careful look around at the other students there. Nobody was looking straight at me, and none of the students appeared to have looked away hastily, embarrassed that they had been caught staring.
Therefore, it seemed, nobody had noticed my ‘insanity’.
Though very shocked by this unexpected occurrence, I calmed down again after a couple of minutes. I was sadly already getting used to the strange reactions my body threw at me of late, and was more and more determined to get to the bottom of them. I was beginning to see a pattern.
Whatever any of it meant, it had something to do with that name. I definitely reacted every time I laid eyes on it. Maybe I was destined to go to the professor’s class. Perhaps he could explain what was happening to me!
Taking a deep breath, I opened the door to the ‘Paranormal Phenomena in Today’s Society’-class an hour later, entered, and quietly took a seat near the entrance in the row farthest back from the professor’s desk that was situated in the middle of the fairly small auditorium.
Due, no doubt, to the rather unusual nature of its content, the class had apparently been surmised to be of little importance to the bulk of the student body, so that a small auditorium had been deemed sufficient. One to two hundred seats sloped downward, divided by stairs, which ran down the middle toward the professor’s desk at the bottom of the room.
The professor wasn’t there yet as it wasn’t quite time for the lesson to start.
In groups of twos or threes, with the occasional loner in between, students began filing into the room, taking seats and talking to each other in excited voices that carried through the room.
I busied myself with taking my paper pad and pencil case out of my bag and placing them on the small table in front of me, getting ready to jot down any information that could bring light into my increasingly dark world. I glanced at the watch on my wrist. I was way too early.
Fifteen minutes, I groaned inwardly, feeling stupider by the minute, sitting there waiting, with nothing to do but stare holes in the walls while nearly everybody else was immersed in conversation. Bored in the extreme, the minutes going by like hours, I took a pen out of my pencil case and started doodling on my pad.
Footsteps echoed off the walls in the hallway outside the open door of the auditorium, their sound a rhythmic “thump”, “thump”, “thump”. The doodle on my page began to blur around the edges as my eyes lost their focus. A ringing sound filled my ears, and everything around me slowed down as if being viewed in slow motion. I could hear my heart beat slower and slower, until…it stopped.
Suddenly, as everything rushed back to normal, my heart started up a frantic beat, my pulse racing desperately through my body.
Fire consumed me, slowly and agonizingly eating away at my flesh.
For the second time in two days, I was in the grip of something so violent, that all I could do was dig my fingers into the seat in front of me, refusing to give in to this sudden urging sensation, my knuckles white with the strain of holding on.
The footsteps continued to echo across the hall, “thump”, “thump”, “thump”, in time with my heartbeat. They came closer every second, at length reaching the door.
Darkness took me…
Slowly I opened my eyes and tried to get my bearings. I felt drained, as though I had run a marathon or two. The last couple of days had been so full of terrifying sensations that I was utterly exhausted.
As my eyesight slowly returned and objects began to come into focus again, I gingerly raised my head off my arms, where it had rested during my spell of unconsciousness, and took in the room.
I hadn’t been out of it for long. Barely two minutes had passed, it seemed. The other students had all sat down in their seats, and most of them had quieted down. There were, however, still occasional whispers to be heard, indicating that the professor had not yet started his lecture.
I took a moment to evaluate my emotional state. I was still a little shaky but otherwise okay. I didn’t seem in any immediate danger of blacking out again as far as I could tell, and the violent pull I had once again experienced felt different.
Different…but not gone!
Why hadn’t the feeling gone up in smoke like the last time it had happened? Yesterday, actually…had it really only been yesterday? It seemed much longer ago than that!
I took another moment trying to pin down the sensation. It did feel different from before. What had started out as a sudden and violent attack on my body, now felt like a powerful steadily flowing stream, winding its way from my consciousness to another’s, which I felt but couldn’t quite locate.
Though I didn’t have the slightest idea how I knew what I sensed, I recognized without a doubt the pattern of someone else’s consciousness. The feeling, although quite strong, didn’t come with an instruction manual, though, and having never dealt with anything out of the ordinary my entire life, I couldn’t, for the life of me, tell to whom this consciousness belonged.
I was certain of only one thing: the person in question was in the auditorium this very moment.
My gaze roamed the room and ultimately came to rest upon the figure standing behind the professor’s desk, leisurely extracting papers from the depths of a black leather suitcase and arranging them on the large empty desk.
My initial reaction was that Aaron Chambers did not look like a professor at all ― weren’t professors, by hazard of occupation, supposed to be stuffy, tweed-wearing, in short, boring members of society? Aaron Chambers was none of the above!
He was tall, with thick and dark, almost charcoal-black hair that fell in soft waves, partly covering his brow and leisurely resting against the sides of his face which was unlike any I had ever seen. I had seen a great deal of good-looking men, celebrated models and movie stars. But none of them could hold a candle to this beautiful man. He was breathtaking and charismatic, the faintest stubble covering his strong, finely chiseled jaw.
He was wearing tight-fitted jeans over running shoes and a white shirt, the topmost buttons casually left open. The layer of clothing, though hiding the exact shape of his body from view, was ineffective at concealing the small bulges that formed on his sleeves and pant legs whenever his strong, muscled body was in motion.
His powerful appearance, as well as the confident manner in which he handled himself, immediately commanded admiration and respect; and probably had half the student body ― mostly female ― fancy itself in love with him within minutes of first laying eyes on him.
Constituting no exception to this phenomenon, I at once felt the overwhelming power of the attraction slamming into me with the force of a raging bull.
OH MY GOD! I thought, completely ignoring ― in light of my current state of mind ― the misgivings I usually had about using this particular phrase, as I wasn’t sure if I believed in God. Not that I begrudged anyone else the solace in belief. I, myself, just wasn’t certain.
Although, if there were a God, I thought, it would explain such gorgeous creations as the one before me!
My heart skipped several beats, my stomach feeling as though a million tiny butterflies were frantically beating their beautiful colorful wings against the inside of my belly, desperate to escape their confinement. While the fluttering slowly subsided, I kept my head down, not wanting to meet anyone’s gaze while trying to assess how long it would take my glowing cheeks to return to their natural pale color.
How embarrassing!
I felt like a common teenager. Face as red as the lipstick my mom never let me buy, and a fit of swooning on the way! Granted, some people would say I was still a teenager, being only eighteen years old, but that’s not how I would define the word. How could this guy manage to make me revert to the emotional state of a teenager in under a minute?
What am I, a silly giggly little girl? By all rules of nature and in the spirit of maturity, it shouldn’t be allowed!!!
I raised my head again, feeling more comfortable about meeting other people’s gazes as I felt my cheeks returning to their normal state. Never having felt particularly attracted to the opposite sex, I felt the impact of this sudden allure even more acutely. I was at once determined to defy the attraction I felt, an attraction so powerful that it frightened me.
To feel this strongly about a man I had never met face to face and to whom I had never spoken even a word, went against my better judgment. This kind of hormonal enslavement I would never accept, I thought savagely.
For one and a half hours, I sat in class, my shoulders aching more with every endless minute that went by. I was so tense, trying to ignore Professor Chambers while at the same time trying to follow his lesson ― a task not easily accomplished ― that I would probably need a whole week worth of massages to get my muscles to relax again.
Not in the least inferior to his amazing looks, his deep calm voice had a mesmerizing sensual quality to it that threatened to pull me under. As if in a daze, I got through class somehow, catching bits and pieces of the lesson, vaguely noticing in a remote corner of my mind that Professor Chambers’ attention wandered at times, his gaze sweeping distractedly over the students, as if in search of something or somebody, seemingly growing nervous by the end of the lesson.
I had kept a low profile all during class, sitting behind a row of girls which had kept me hidden throughout the lesson. Once the lesson was over, I decided to take my time and wait until everybody had filed out of the auditorium.
Carefully keeping my back turned to everyone else, I slowly put away my pencil case and pad and put on a good show of roaming through my bag in search of something important. When I could no longer discern any noises around me, I got up, grabbed my bag, and headed toward the door.
I got within two or three steps of the door leading to the hall, when Professor Chambers suddenly stood in the doorway facing me.
It seemed he had already left but had turned back for something. I wanted to run and hide, but hiding wasn’t an option anymore as he had already noticed me standing there.
I could have hurried past him into the hall ― the door was certainly wide enough for two people to pass each other ― but that would have meant coming physically closer than I felt comfortable with.
Desperately fighting the urge to look at him, I stood my ground, gazing at the floor…and lost the fight.
Our eyes met.
His were the prettiest shade of blue I had ever seen. I felt hot and cold at the same time. A chill ran down my spine, and flames erupted, setting my body on fire. Rendered speechless, I stared at him, feeling terribly awkward and shocked beyond measure.
His face was the mirror image of mine; it was obvious he was at a complete loss for words. Gradually, as my body got over the most recent shock of sensations, I became aware of the same strange feeling I had experienced earlier in class.
Closing my eyes briefly, I could again sense the peculiar stream flowing between my consciousness and…the consciousness in front of me.
There was an undercurrent of violence to it. Like the violent pull that had taken hold of me before.
My eyes snapped open, staring unbelieving at the stranger opposite me. My mind was blank. I couldn’t think straight anymore; couldn’t wrap my thoughts around a concept so utterly alien to me.
What the hell was going on? I didn’t believe in such things! I couldn’t even explain what ‘such things’ were! I didn’t have the slightest inkling of what any of this meant, nor how to deal with it. Hadn’t I come to this class in order to get some answers?
It was supposed to get better, not weirder by the minute! I thought, as the rest of my mind spun around in confused patterns, trying frantically ― and failing abysmally ― to regain a hold on the reality I knew, understood, and accepted… the reality that was about to be shattered.
I couldn’t take any more. My mind screaming at my spellbound body to break free, my muscles finally obeyed, carrying me in a headlong sprint right past the professor, who stood left behind, his face a mask of confusion and shock.
I quickly headed for the cafeteria. Lunch was over, but the cafeteria was open until eight p.m., selling sandwiches and other cold refreshments in between eating hours. I swiftly grabbed a sandwich, two large bottles of water, a plain yoghurt and an apple, went through the cash register and headed for my room, walking carefully so as not to drop my yoghurt and the apple which I had piled unevenly on top of the sandwich I was holding in my left hand.
Reaching the safety of my room, I carefully put down the food and water, feeling relieved to be free of the load. It hadn’t been heavy, but awkward to transport without a bag to put it in, my book bag being already full.
I managed to put the food and water in the refrigerator, and then sank down onto my bed, emotionally exhausted, and wanting nothing more than to disappear inside my room for the rest of the day. Already lying flat on the bed, and too tired to get up again, I kicked off the black sneakers I had put on this morning ― my red high heels being too uncomfortable to wear too often ― and pulled a quilt I had brought from home up and over my body. I curled up into a ball, snuggling into the cover, and fell asleep in a matter of seconds.
Darkness had fallen, bathing the room in inky black shadows. As my eyes gradually adjusted to the dark, areas of grey sprang up between the black where the shadows were less dense, making it easier for me to make out my surroundings.
Dimly I realized this was not my room. Along with this realization came the sudden comprehension that I was dreaming. As in most of my dreams, though aware of it being merely a dream, my surroundings felt very real to me.
Suddenly, glowing coals in a big hearth opposite me that I hadn’t noticed before, set fire to the wooden logs piled on top, gradually bathing the room in a warm, soft light and heating up my freezing body. The rising flames in the fireplace threw long shadows against the walls where the light reflected off the furniture and other decorative items throughout the room. I was in a room I felt sure I had never seen before. I was about to look around more closely when I realized why my body had felt so icy.
I was naked, lying on a king-sized bed with no idea where I was, what I was doing there or how I had gotten there in the first place.
All of a sudden, a large hand, equally strong and beautiful, reached for me out of the darkness beside me. The fingers stretched into my long tangled tresses and wound themselves around strands of my hair, finally cupping the back of my head and leisurely pulling me forward.
The face before me was in shadow, even though I lay bathed in light; by all rules of nature, the fire in the hearth should have bathed him in light as well. Yet these rules did not apply to the realm of dreams. His face and body remained obscured.
I didn’t need any light; I knew without a doubt whose fingers were tangled in my hair, whose warm breath I could feel on my face, and whose soft full lips were but inches away from touching my own.
I could already taste the sweetness of his mouth, my body tingling pleasurably in anticipation. He inched closer, any second now I would be able to feel him, my mind picturing the exact shape and color of his sensual lips. Closer…closer…
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring? What…? What’s that…ringing sound?
Where did the fire go?
Why is the room so dark?
Abruptly, I was torn from my dream. Slowly getting my bearings, I sat up, realized the phone that had awoken me at the worst possible moment ― and in some ways just in time ― was still ringing, and reached out toward my night stand, groping for and finally hitting the switch on my bedside lamp before picking up the phone.
“Hello?” I inquired, my voice still layered with sleep.
“Honey, were you already in bed? It’s only nine o’clock! Classes must be really exhausting for you to have gone to bed already, hmm? How are the classes? And the professors are they nice? Did you make any friends yet?”, my mom trilled into the phone, keeping up a steady monologue of questions without giving me the chance to actually answer any of them, and making my ears ring and my head hurt in under a minute.
That’s got to be a personal best, I thought.
“It’s all fine, mom! No need to worry and grill me about everything, okay?”
“Oh sweetie, come on. Don’t be like that. I just want to know what you’re up to. It’s got to be so exciting, going to college and meeting all sorts of different people! I’m your mom, I’ve a right to know how you’re doing, you know,” she ended her sentence on a sulking note.
Grrrr, I thought, of all the moments you could have chosen to call me! I so don’t have the patience to deal with a million questions right now!!!
“Okay, fine. Don’t be mad, I just don’t have a lot to tell yet. I’ve only been here two days, remember?”
“So you didn’t make any friends yet? This is so typical of you!”
“Sure I did, that is, I met this girl in class this morning. She’s really nice and fun to hang out with,” I lied through my teeth, hating the necessity of having to lie to her, but knowing beyond a doubt that I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t produce a friend to make my mom happy. And judging by the way my past attempts at friendship had gone, I would have to make do with a lie.
“Really? Oh, I’m so happy for you, baby! That’s great! What’s her name? Where’s she from? Is she blonde, or brunette?”
That’s what you get for making up a friend, I thought, sighing inwardly and making a mental note to write down all of the characteristics of my ‘friend’ so that my mom ― who had an amazing memory when it suited her ― wouldn’t get suspicious.
“Um, her name’s…Candy. She’s tall, thin and has long blond hair and long legs.”
Great, stick her in a cheerleader outfit and find her a running back- boyfriend named Brad!
“As for where she’s from, I just met her, and it hasn’t come up yet, so why don’t you just give me a couple of weeks to settle in here, get to know Candy better, and I’ll give you a call then and fill you in on the blanks, okay?”
“Are you blowing me off?” my mom persisted on the other end of the line.
“Yeah…I’m sorry, but it’s just a really bad time right now. I haven’t eaten yet, and I’m really exhausted. We’ll talk in a little while, alright?”
“Okay, honey. Take care, and don’t forget to call me! Love you!”
“Love you, too, mom! Say hi to dad for me. Bye.”
“Bye, bye.”
After my mom hung up, I put the phone back on its cradle and let out the frustrated breath I’d been holding. Finally some peace and quiet, I thought, relaxing into the pillows behind my back.
With no other thoughts to occupy my mind now that my mother was no longer on the phone, my thoughts wandered back to the images and sensations of my dream, and I almost wished I hadn’t cut the phone call short.
I didn’t want to think about the dream, but the pictures came rushing back at me, the emotions so vivid they made my head spin with weakness and desire. I could feel the heat of the fire on my body, taste his lips on mine, even though the dream had been interrupted before he had managed to kiss me.
I got up, opened the refrigerator, and got out the sandwich I had bought earlier. The sandwich looked delicious, but I put it back after one short glance at it, suddenly no longer hungry.
An ache that had nothing to do with hunger in the usual sense ― this hunger was of a different nature ― was slowly taking hold of my body and mind.
I was becoming restless, walking around the room aimlessly not knowing what to do. I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I wasn’t sleepy anymore after having slept for nearly seven hours. Nor did I welcome the prospect of having another extremely vivid dream.
But staying in my room, where I had nothing to do but pace in small circles, was out of the question. I would go mad if I didn’t get out, I thought, grabbing my thick warm coat against the evening chill and heading for the door.
Outside, the crisp atmosphere had a revitalizing effect on me, clearing my mind as I inhaled great lungs full of cold fresh air. It was a beautiful night. The sky was clear, with brilliantly shining stars strewn across the black horizon. I took a stroll around the small park I had detected from my balcony the other day. As it wasn’t very large, I had nearly walked once around it in twenty minutes.
Deciding to stay outside so that I could enjoy the star-lit sky a bit longer, I headed toward the old oak at the center of the park. The shadows were so dense in that part of the park that I only noticed the dark figure at the base of the tree when I stumbled straight into it.
I could tell at once that it was Aaron Chambers ― I felt it in every fiber of my being. How unlucky that I should happen to run into the very person I was trying more than anything to avoid. At least he seemed equally startled by my appearance.
I deemed it weird that I had felt neither a pull nor any other strange sensation. For, I was now absolutely certain that all the crazy stuff that had happened to me emanated from him.
From the moment I had felt the odd connection ― the bond ― between us as he was standing opposite me in the doorway of the auditorium, everything had started to click into place. I hadn’t really consciously gone through every incident. It was more like a feeling I got, deep down, when I found myself in his presence. I rather felt than knew that he was at the root of everything that had happened to me of late.
I would bet anything that he was the figure I had seen leaning against the trunk of this old oak the day before when I had to grab onto the railing of my balcony for dear life. Had it been his nearness that had caused the occurrence? I could still feel his presence very strongly, but there was no pull now, no fire spreading through my body, or anything else that I would have classified as ‘strange’.
Maybe it’s fading, this…whatever it is…
Mere seconds had passed since I had stumbled upon him. All of these thoughts ran through my mind in quick succession, until they were suddenly interrupted by the sound of his deep voice.
“Who are you?” he asked, reaching for me, his hand closing around my wrist in a tight powerful grip, his fingers painfully digging into my soft delicate flesh. His voice had a dark menacing quality to it, an icy edge that made my blood run cold.
Here I was, alone with a complete and possibly dangerous stranger, in the center of the deserted park, enveloped by pitch-dark shadows, with no one to help me and no one to find me in the first place.
Well done, Persephone, that’s probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done! And possibly the last! I thought, terrified, trying to come up with some way of getting out of this mess, and only succeeding in talking to myself ― again.
Getting no answer out of me ― I was scared out of my wits and couldn’t form a coherent thought ― Aaron Chambers asked me the same question again, his voice more dangerous than before, as he shook my body violently.
The shaking and the increasingly painful hold on my wrist tore me out of my terrified frozen state and had me calling out in pain and fear.
Apparently not having expected this kind of a reaction from me and having heard the fear in my voice, Professor Chambers stopped shaking me and immediately let go of my wrist.
“I won’t have to hurt you if you tell me what I need to know,” he said in a gentler voice that still held a menacing undercurrent ― apart from the more obvious threat of his words.
“Who sent you?” he pried on, looking at me intently through narrowed eyes.
Having finally calmed down enough to find my voice again, I spit out the first thing on my mind.
“Are you insane?”
That, however, seemed to have been the wrong response to his question, as he grabbed me again and pressed me hard up against the trunk of the old oak, the ragged edges of the bark slightly scraping the skin on my back even through my clothing.
“Ouch, what is wrong with you?” I screamed, my voice getting higher and higher as my terror rose. Not wanting any attention drawn to us, he pinned me against the oak with the weight of his body and clamped his hand over my mouth.
“If you bite my hand you’ll be sorry,” he said in a low voice, looking at me intently, obviously waiting for a nod of the head indicating that I understood.
I nodded slowly and pressed my lips together tightly underneath his palm, so as not to be tempted into biting him after all. The temptation was, indeed, incredibly strong.
“So, let’s try this again. Who are you, and why are you here?” he asked, lifting his hand away from my mouth a few inches, giving me the opportunity to answer his questions.
I swallowed hard. My mouth had gone dry, and I had difficulty finding my voice. After clearing my throat, I gave the only answer I could give ― the truth.
“My name is Persephone Jones…and I’m a student in my first year of college. I came here to study, that’s all.”
Professor Chambers’ eyes hardened as his body moved closer to mine, giving me a look that clearly stated that he didn’t believe a word I was saying.
“Now cut the crap, and tell me the truth!” he spat, apparently infuriated that I had dared to feed him such an obvious lie.
I was very aware of his body pressing up against mine. Even though this man frightened me, the part of me that had felt attracted to him the moment I had laid eyes on him, and the part of me that remembered the images and sensations from my dream, felt aroused by the pressure of his body against mine.
Once again I pictured his lips on mine, pictured his strong hands slowly and confidently moving over my body. I could feel my cheeks turn hot. My body started to tremble with the desire I felt.
Yes, I yearned for this man, this stranger who had violently pinned me against a tree and was threatening and hurting me. It was insanity, but I couldn’t help the way I felt. There was no cure for it. I wanted him.