(Sur)real

Changing sounded like a good idea until I tried lifting my arms while leaning forward. The fire that lit my back helped me decide the pain wasn’t worth the effort of putting on a shirt. I considered changing my pants because the waist stuck to my skin. However, clean clothes wouldn’t fix that problem entirely. I needed to wash.

How many days had it been since I left Blake’s home? Since my last shower? I gingerly lifted my hand, felt my greasy hair, and wrinkled my nose. Bloody, half-starved, and stinky, I wanted a shower. I wanted to show Jim I could be more than the waif he likely saw. I wanted the freedom to choose my own destiny. I wanted a lot that I wouldn’t get. Showering was as out of the question as putting on a shirt. Both would hurt me more than I cared to endure.

I ran my fingers over the pile of clean clothes then turned from them, grabbed a towel, and held it against my front. There, I hesitated and watched Jim.

He stood by the desk with the hotel phone to his ear. The Others seemed to like him. Too much. An ache started in my middle for all the things that might have been in my life had I not been born a Judgement. Normalcy. Dating. A first kiss that meant something.

Jim hung up the phone and turned to face the bathroom. Taking a deep breath, I held the towel with one hand and opened the door with the other while trying my hardest not to stretch the skin on my back.

He didn’t say anything when I stepped out. The awkward silence grew, and I felt the need to break it.

“I’m sorry about the towel,” I said. “It hurt too much to try to be respectable. I just want to lay down.”

“That’s fine. The food will be here in an hour.”

“Thank you.”

I walked toward him since he stood between the two beds. He remained quietly watchful as I sat on the mattress then eased onto my stomach.

“What did you order?” I asked.

“One of everything they had. A feast. Would you like some ice for your back?”

His endless consideration never failed to send a jolt of pleasure through me. This close to the end, I didn’t bother trying to suppress it.

“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

He left the room while I waited on the bed. I could feel Blake in my mind and pictured him pacing in his room. He, too, knew how little time we now had. The fight for the Judgements would happen tomorrow. Blake would try to make his move tonight. Would I be enough to stop him? Something would, I knew. Michelle’s premonitions wouldn’t lie and wouldn’t change.

I lifted my head and spotted Jim’s familiar form down the hall.

“Mother, is there no other way?” I asked.

Have courage, daughter. Her whispered words came with a gentle touch that tingled over the top of my head and stroked down the length of my back. I shivered at the contact and almost shouted in joy. Her rare touches infused me with whatever I needed most at the time. Now, I felt the absolute certainty and determination to complete what still lay before me, as well as a relief from the pain that had heated my back.

“Thank you, Mother.”

You are not alone, loved one. Never forget.

The door opened and closed gently.

“I have some ice.” The brush of Jim’s feet against the carpet announced his approach.

Instead of setting the ice on my back, I felt the light touch of a fingertip trace my skin from shoulder to spine.

“It’s less red,” he said, surprise lacing his words. “Less swollen, too. How?”

“It was the Lady,” I said. “She came and eased my pain.”

The mattress dipped as he sat beside me. He used the loose end of the towel to lie over my wounds then set the ice on top. In the absence of relief, I only felt a slight chill.

“I don’t think I need the ice anymore,” I said.

“That’s bullshit,” he said.

The calm way he spoke confused me, and I lifted my head, wishing I could see his expression.

“What’s bullshit? I honestly feel better now.”

“You shouldn’t have suffered in the first place. She helps when it’s convenient for her to help. Not because she can’t, but because she won’t.”

I set my head down and smiled slightly.

“I fail to find the humor in that,” he said.

“I’m not laughing at how you feel. The humor is because I spent most of my early teenage years feeling the same way. And then, she began to explain things to me. My purpose. My place in this world and what would happen if I don’t fulfill my purpose.” I breathed deeply and noticed the complete lack of pain.

“How does it look?” I asked.

“Your back?”

“Yes.”

“Well on its way to being healed. Do you want to try sitting up?”

He stood and offered his hand. I cautiously sat up while clutching the towel. The skin on my back pulled but remained pain free.

“Tell me what she told you,” he said, releasing me and sitting on the bed across from mine. “Help me understand.”

I considered his request for a moment. He needed to know, eventually. I just wasn’t yet ready to tell him everything. Would he sense it if I told him half the story? I hoped not.

“The Lady told me the story of the four races. In the beginning, we existed together. She described a lush, beautiful world full of food. A world abundant with animals. The four races were equal in numbers, tens of thousands of each. In a world so large, that left vast unoccupied spaces. For a long time, each race lived in ignorance of the existence of any race but its own. However, while humans struggled to survive in a world so filled with harsh, primitive life, the Urbat and werewolves thrived.

“Urbat were the first to find humans. To them, humans had no use beyond another possible food source. However, because of their intelligence, humans were not as easy to kill as a deer or an ox, and the Urbat left the humans in a tentative peace, harrying them only for fun. Humans retreated further to safety, into caves and other places clogged with pungent scents that the Urbat preferred to leave alone.

“The werewolves discovered the Urbat next. The two races, so closely made, bonded. Pairs coupled. Life for the werewolves and Urbat remained peaceful only a short period of time before the Others found them.

“The Others were stronger and faster but had no form to interact with the world in which they’d been born. Years of seeing the beauty and the abundance without partaking left them craving more than just an observatory view of the world. Then, the Others discovered the werewolves and Urbat. They saw how both races could touch, taste, and smell everything around them; and the Others knew they’d found a way to get what they wanted.

“In order to interact with the world, they needed the three races that did have form. They needed flesh. Not to eat, but to wear. The first few tricked a handful of Urbat and werewolves into giving them their skin. Imagine your skin is just a jacket someone can steal. But without it you would no longer exist and your stolen jacket would start to fall apart at the seams.

“I’m sure you can imagine what happened next. Those with tattered jackets, threw them aside to steal nicer ones. The werewolf and Urbat numbers declined.

“Some of the Others realized very quickly what would happen if all of the other races died. The Others would be without skin forever. Without any chance to ever again interact with this world. So a veil was created, a separation from the Others and the rest of the races.

“Once again the Others found themselves watching what they considered paradise from afar and fought to find a way back. To prevent that and pacify the Others, a system was set in place. So long as the three races could exist together in balance, the existence of the veil and the decision to separate the Others from this world would remain in place. However, if any of the three races ever started to dominate the remaining two races to the point of an imbalance, that decision would come under review. Not by any of the four races but by an impartial fifth. The Judgments.

“Without the need for balance, the Judgements wouldn’t even exist. I’m not human. I’m not werewolf. I’m not Urbat. The Judgements are children born of the Lady and the strongest of the three races. We are not one race but a combination of two. Unnatural. Born of necessity and given a single purpose. My sisters don’t understand. I do. The Lady helped me see that I have no place here without my purpose. So I embraced it. And whatever comes once Judgement is made, I accept because you’ve shown me there is so much in this world we need to save.”

He remained quiet for so long after I stopped talking that I began to wonder if my story had put him to sleep. When he finally spoke, I jumped a little.

“I’m still calling bullshit on her.”

I knew he meant the Lady.

“In what way?”

“Her help is given when it suits her. What was the point of even letting the Others take your flesh? Yes, you made a deal. So what? She could have stepped in if she wanted to.”

He is right. I chose not to save you that pain. The pain that will—

“Stop,” I nearly shouted, cutting her off. I didn’t want to hear more. I already knew.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Jim said tenderly.

He stood and came over to offer me a hand again. I took it and stood.

“I wasn’t yelling at you. She could have helped me and acknowledges that. There are reasons she doesn’t and times she takes pity on me despite those reasons. She is not bad or good. She just is. Just like the rest of her kind. They exist. They want to enjoy our world. They don’t think ahead of what their unbridled enjoyment will mean to the three other races or to the planet. That’s why they need to stay where they are. That’s why we need to pass Judgement and bring the three races back into balance.

“Do you understand? This isn’t about me or about you. This is about every creature that lives and breathes. This is about preserving this world for another tomorrow instead of blindly believing there will be another tomorrow regardless of our choices today. We are not the Others. We are more. So much more.”

JIM…

I couldn’t argue with Olivia’s passionate words. From the way she spoke, she believed them to her core. So did I. The Judgement needed to be made and those Others needed to stay where they were. That didn’t mean I believed or trusted this Lady’s role in everything, though.

“She told you all that? The history, the future of this world, just so you would understand your purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Then ask her about mine. They have to be connected, right? Because we are.”

She turned her head away from me and nibbled at her bottom lip.

“I don’t need to ask her. I already know,” she said softly. “Will you trust me a little longer? Just long enough to put a shirt on and eat a meal and maybe talk about something that doesn’t involve Blake or the Others or my sisters?”

When she turned her head to look at me, I couldn’t say no.

“All right. Do you need help with your shirt?”

“No. Thank you. There’s no pain now.” She turned her back to me and walked to the bathroom.

She’d destroyed and recreated my world with my first glimpse of her. In less than a heartbeat, everything, yet nothing, had changed. The pack still needed to come first, and everything I wished for as I stared at the pale, soft line of her back came second.

The door closed quietly, and I rubbed a hand over my face. The fact she didn’t want to talk about her big secret, yet, worried me.

If this Lady knew everything, she knew my tie to the pack. No other reason made sense when I asked myself, “Why me?” But, how was my tie to the pack important? As my first glimpse of Olivia had proven, I couldn’t make a choice that I felt wasn’t in the best interest of the pack. If the Lady thought otherwise, she would be in for a surprise; and I would probably end up dead because a deep, cynical part of me believed that the Lady wanted Olivia to ask me to do something that would put Olivia first.

The shower turned on. I sat on the bed with a sigh and reached out to Winifred. I hoped that relating the story would distract me from thoughts of Olivia completely bare on the other side of the insubstantial wood panel. However, the conversation didn’t last nearly long enough.

Alone, with nothing to do, I waited and listened.

Olivia swore softly, and I quickly moved to the door.

“Is everything all right?” I asked, hand already gripping the knob.

“No. I need your help.”

The panic and urgency in her voice had me thrusting the door open. A single step took me to the shower where I yanked the curtain aside. I’d expected blood, open wounds, Olivia with soap in her eyes…anything but the trembling, sexy, wet, woman staring at me.

I tried to focus on her unusually pale face or the way she shivered in the steamy shower or the scent of her fear. I really tried. My damn eyes wouldn’t cooperate as I took a sweeping glance at the length of her, searching for the source of the problem. All I saw was curve after delicious curve.

Need pooled in my gut. With my gaze fixed on the trail of water cascading from her belly button, I tried to speak.

“What’s wrong?” The words came out a raw rasp.

“I’m sorry,” she said, a moment before she lifted her arms and wrapped them around my neck.

In the next second, she touched her lips to mine. The contact seared me. I could barely breathe, let alone think. The taste of her, sweetness like I’d never before experienced, had blood rushing to every cell in my body. I wanted. I needed. Her taste. Her touch. Her teeth sinking into my skin.

I shuddered. Driven by that primal need, my hands rose to grip her arms and pull her flush to my chest. The feel of her breasts crushed against me almost made my knees buckle. I growled, needing more. So much more.

Without breaking our contact, I stooped and gently lifted her out of the warm spray. Her wet, slick skin filled my palms. My heart pounded in my chest. She slowly brushed her lips against mine, letting me memorize the feel of them as I turned and walked us back into the bedroom. I didn’t try to lay her on the bed. Instead, I sat on the edge of it and kept her in my arms.

She ran her hands from the back of my head to my shoulders while her mouth teased and tested mine. Another shudder ran through me when she kissed my bottom lip. I desperately wanted her to open for me, but didn’t try to rush her exploration.

Her lips abruptly left mine.

“Take your shirt off, Jim.” I didn’t need to be told twice. Some of the seams ripped in my hurry to remove it. Before it fell to the floor, she set her hands on my shoulders and nudged me back.

Blood pounded in my ears. We were in a hotel, alone. No one to stop what might happen. Honestly, I didn’t care if making love to Olivia would kill me. It would be the best half a second of my life.

“Jim, you’re shaking,” Olivia said softly.

“I know. I’ll be all right.” But, I wouldn’t. The sight of her naked and straddling my jean clad hips was seconds from destroying me.

She leaned forward, her breasts skimming against my chest. My shaking grew worse, and I closed my eyes, losing coherent thought as I focused on the feel of her softness. Her fingers trailed over my chest and toyed with my neck. I growled and fisted my hands.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” she said.

I shook my head, not wanting her apology. I’d be patient. I liked that she wanted to play.

Her lips pressed on the skin over my heart, followed by her tongue, then her weight settled more firmly on my hips. She moved a little. I struggled to hold still. Need pounded through me.

A moment later, I heard beeping. I shook my head, trying to understand and place the noise, but I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t think I could look at her and not have her under me in the next second.

“He needs to know what I’m doing to you,” she said. “Tell him. Everything. If you stop talking, I stop doing.”

I frowned, not understanding. Before I could ask what she meant, she leaned over me again, nuzzling my neck in the sweet spot. I groaned.

“Talk, Jim, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

She nipped my neck.

“Do it again,” I begged.

“Do what? Say what you want.”

“Bite my neck again. Harder.”

She did. I growled in response and almost lost control when she trailed her tongue down to the hollow of my neck.

“Yes,” I panted as she licked her way down my sternum. When she pulled back, I knew she wanted me to beg some more. I didn’t mind.

“Keep licking me. Every inch of my chest. Then, it’s my turn.”

“And after that?” she breathed.

“After that, you’re mine.”

A howl penetrated the fog she’d created in my mind. The tinny, faint echo of it seemed wrong.

She slid off me and started talking.

“I warned you. Decide now. Push and lose everything, or wait and see what tomorrow will bring.”

Reality came crashing down on me. She’d used me to stop Blake, just as she’d promised she would. I sat up with a sick feeling in my stomach.