IN FULL COLOUR - Dark Fantasy
Chapter 46

Axel

The rest of the trip had been a complete and utter blur. I couldn’t focus on anything, not after the bomb Ray had dropped on me earlier. I wondered if Mat knew. He had been the one to take her in after his border patrol found her in the south-eastern corner of his territory, beaten up and badly bruised. Surely, he must have been with her in the infirmary at one time or another. Why hadn’t he ever said anything? After all, I did consider him a dear friend. Was he afraid of what it might do to me or was he unaware of it?

Gabrielle knew instantly that something was wrong the moment her eyes landed on me when we met up with the girls about an hour later. Right. Her gift. She could see my emotions. It was pointless in trying to hide it from her, and Lily couldn’t see my face anyway, so I spent the rest of the day walking around with a scowl.

When we finally got into the car for the ride back, Gabrielle insisted on sitting in the back with me. She kept her tone friendly, and Lily never suspected a thing. My sister happily slid into the front passenger seat and winked at Ray when he rested his hand on her knee and squeezed gently before starting the engine.

I turned my gaze towards the window but closed my eyes instead of looking out. Lily and Ray chatted light-heartedly in the front, while we sat quietly in the back. It wasn’t long before I felt a warm, gentle touch on top of my left hand, which had been resting on the black leather covering of the empty seat beside me. Tingles sprang from her touch and spread up my hand, down my arm and into my empty chest.

A calm like no other washed over me and I had this insatiable desire to look at her. Gabrielle’s beautiful, but worried caramel orbs bore into me with a gentleness I so desperately needed.

She lifted her shoulders and cocked her head in question as if to ask “what’s wrong?”, but I shook my head and gave her the tiniest of smiles. It was the best I could muster at that stage. I couldn’t talk about any of it here, and I wasn’t even sure if I could voice it aloud at all.

Her eyes softened in understanding, but as she retracted her hand, I closed my fingers around her wrist. It wasn’t a threatening grip, but rather a hesitant, pleading grip. Tender.

She didn’t pull away.

After a moment, I loosened my grip around her wrist entirely and slid my hand over her's. The back of her hand lay flat in my palm as I slowly brought it up to my face.

I needed her touch. Her calming. Her care.

Carefully, I pressed her palm to my cheek and closed my eyes, inhaling her scent. The warmth from her touch seeped through me. Cleansing me from all things negative, all things broken within me, even if it was just for a minute or two.

I could feel the pulse of her heart beating steadily through her palm as she moved to cup my face in her other hand as well. A silent reassurance of some sort. She gently turned my head to fully face her and moved her hands over the stubble covering my chin. Exploring the roughness of my skin against her smooth soft palms.

When I, at last, opened my eyes, she was still studying my chin, my mouth, my cheeks. Slowly, her gaze travelled over my face, up and up, until it found its way back to mine. There was a light in her eyes. A glimmer of hope. Of a possible future without any evil in it.

Everything around me faded away and I couldn’t stop myself from leaning in and kissing her.

She went holly still for a second. Her breath caught in her throat, muscles stiff. From the way her body reacted, I could tell she wasn’t expecting that at all. Her hands remained motionless, resting on the sides of my face as I pulled away to see what her reaction would be.

Her pupils dilated and again, scanned every inch of my face. She was trying to read my expression but couldn’t. Her lips were slightly parted in surprise and I found myself leaning in again and taking her bottom lip into my own. Kissing her again. Slow and deliberately.

I didn’t care that Ray and Lily sat in the front. I didn’t care about the world or its hatred of all things good. I only cared about her soft lips on mine. The lingering of her hands on my face and the smell of her sweet scent in my nose.

The tingles spread from my mouth to hers. And with it, I felt the darkness inside of me dissolve, fading away in the presence of her unfaltering light.

She finally closed her eyes too and returned my kiss, moving her lips against mine in slow, sensual movements, her hands slightly tightening around me.

She tasted like nothing I have ever tasted before. Sweet and intoxicating.

“Did you hear what I said, Axel?” Lily’s voice finally registered in my mind, harshly jerking me back to reality.

“Hun,” Ray grumbled from beside her.

“What!?” She demanded.

Raiden spoke in a hushed voice, leaning in closer to his wife, “they were kissing.”

“Oh,” she replied awkwardly, “well, it’s about damn time if you asked me,” she quickly added and crossed her arms over her chest.

I smiled against Gabrielle’s lips before pulling away and rubbing my brow with my thumb and index finger. A goofy, stupid smile took over my face and I tried to hide it, but it wouldn’t go away.

Glancing sideways at Gabrielle, I saw her smiling too AND blushing.

“Sorry, what were you saying, Sis?” I asked grinning violently at my beautiful mate.

~

Later that evening, after dinner, I strode with Gabrielle on my arm towards the private lounge in the guest wing where we would be meeting Lily and Ray for a final drink and goodbyes. We had decided to say our goodbyes tonight, as they were planning on hitting the road well before the crack of dawn in order to reach Shadow Creek before nightfall.

I still had the goofy grin plastered all over my face as we entered the cosy little sitting room, but a quick scan of its interior had the smile instantly fading into a grim expression.

Ray wasn’t there yet, and Lily sat peacefully in the right corner on a large modern couch, blindly fiddling with a ball of yarn that had somehow gotten tangled with one of her knitting needles, a somewhat strange hobby she had taken up after losing her eyesight and her ability to read.

A half-knit item lay on her lap as she fussed with the yarn, totally oblivious to the eerie presence that hung in the room, mere feet away from her.

My gut clenched and Gabrielle’s grip tightened around my arm with such intensity, I didn’t have to look at her to see that she was seeing what I was seeing.

In the farthest left corner of the room, near the ceiling hang a black mass of unnatural-looking mist. It was so dark, I couldn’t see the wall behind it. The darkness moved in place, wafting and slightly fading in and out as though it was breathing. A quick glance at Gabrielle’s horrified face told me that this wasn’t one of their so-called friendly fae creatures and I couldn’t recall seeing something like that painted on her bedroom wall either.

Shit.