Page 37 of Gifted Destiny (Hidden Libraries #3)
Kodi
O ne of the worst things about being a ghost is that I still experience boredom. Before my spurts of solidity, I could will myself into a state that felt like sleep and wake up hours later. I haven’t been able to do that since that morning that I actually slept – or whatever it was that happened. I can’t enter that sleep-like mindset at will, though, and I can’t relax if Zosia’s not beside me.
The others are counting on me to watch the stupid, unmoving book, but it hasn’t done a damn thing. I hover back and forth along the aisle, imagining what the others might be doing and trying to whistle. Evidently, I can sigh and make breathing noises but not whistle …. It’s fascinating.
When Bren joins our bond, taking his place alongside the others and me, I chortle with glee and relief. If they weren’t taking advantage of their time alone, I was prepared to have a serious talk with them. Seconds later, Zosia’s pleasure rises and falls before building again. I applaud Bren without solid hands. The man might seem antisocial, but he knows how to pleasure a woman – our woman. The warmth in my chest and the slightest twitch of my body reassure me that I’ll recover from the backlash of the stupid spell.
Zosia’s ecstasy reaches a pinnacle. I expect her to scream loud enough for everyone on campus to hear. Then …, shit gets weird.
I feel like I’m dying again, but I can’t be extinguished by internal causes. As for my external environment – at first, I think it hasn’t changed. Tiny differences appear one at a time. The air stills. It’s difficult to explain, but it’s suddenly harder to breathe. I remind myself I don’t need air and don’t need to breathe, but the discomfort remains. It’s as if the library and I are suddenly stuffed into a box barely big enough to hold us. Sound and light further dull my muted senses.
I glare at the spelled book, but it hasn’t changed. In fact, it seems less threatening than it did minutes ago. It feels like an inanimate object, not even a book. It definitely doesn’t feel like a dangerous artifact with a malevolent spell and a soul trapped inside.
Zosia’s climax rocks through me, but it doesn’t hit me as intensely as the previous one. She feels miles away instead of two floors above me. When Garrett and Avery appear, their movements are slow and graceless. They look like they’re wading through quicksand.
“What the fuck is going on?” Garrett demands.
I almost answer his poor greeting with an equally rude reply, but the bond reveals his fear. He’s scared shitless, and he uses anger to hide this vulnerable emotion. The vampire appears less upset, but his glowing red eyes and alarm suggest otherwise. My ghostly form must not comprehend the gravity of the situation because they’re both exhibiting uncharacteristic levels of distress.
“No clue,” I answer calmly. “Nothing has changed here.”
Bren’s mental voice calls me to the roof. Avery’s and Garrett’s simultaneous jerks of surprise indicate the request is being asked of all three of us.
I utter a half-hearted protest about guarding the book, even though I’d love to get away from this aisle. If I could feel my body, it would protest the amount of time I’ve been in one spot. I’m instructed to leave it, so the strangeness must be more important.
“Bren broke the world by having sex with Zo.” My tone is flippant, but I’m scared the words might hold some truth. Something is definitely wrong, and the mage commands more power than we understand.
Zosia has shuddered through two orgasms, which implies the pair’s naked fun is over. I’d be down with joining them if it wasn’t, but I doubt Bren would invite his brother. The alpha beast’s jealousy might have abated, but he doesn’t seem like a team player in the bedroom. He barely manages out of the bedroom.
Ideas about a foursome with everyone but Garrett are diverting, but they diminish with every bit of progress we achieve. The further we travel from the aisle, the more visible the world’s differences are. The air is stagnant, the usual ambient noises of the library’s internal workings are absent, and each second lasts a minute. My internal discomfort grows with each additional glitch in the matrix, and my companions’ panic grows.
“This is the weirdest fucking thing,” Garrett grumbles.
“What do you feel? I can sense something is off, but it’s just kind of muffled, and the air feels different.”
Garrett’s massive body shudders, but it happens in slow motion. I stare in fascination as the ripple travels down his body from his nearly bald head to his huge feet. “The air is what I noticed first. It suddenly got harder to draw in a breath. Then, I realized my heart was beating slower, and I wondered if I was having a heart attack. Each step feels like battling the current of a river. My chest is still tight.”
“I am experiencing the same anomalies. In addition, my hunger has vanished. My heart is barely beating. I feel like I’m experiencing what it’s like to be a made vampire.” Avery’s tone is filled with dread.
Their descriptions fill me with a strange gratitude that I can’t feel the same. It sounds horrid, especially out of the blue. Ha! Speaking of blue ….
The world has been swallowed by the sky. When Garrett shoves the door to the roof open, blue fog greets us. It crackles with strange electricity that makes both of my companions shiver. The strange miasma is so thick that the gargoyles are barely visible. The dome is still visible, however. Its clear expanse indicates that the central portion of the roof and the area surrounding us is unaffected. The clarity follows us when we begin to move, as if our presence clears a path. I don’t want to consider whether it will react to just me.
“What the actual fuck?” Garrett’s fear increases with every step, and the pull of the atmosphere is the only thing preventing him from sprinting toward his brother and Zosia.
I don’t blame him. We might have the bond, but seeing them and speaking to them is necessary to confirm their safety. When we round the dome and spot them, tripled relief saturates the bond.
Zo sits on a blanket with her back against the dome. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is mussed, proving the climaxes weren’t my imagination. As if we needed further evidence, Bren is half-naked and smiling the way a giddy child does on a holiday morning.
An intrusive worry pushes forward. Perhaps we’ve all died, and this is a dream or eternal punishment – forever trapped in a possible life. At least I’m not alone this time. The thought offers so much comfort that my skin tingles in the familiar way it does before I gain solidity.
The comfort is short-lived, however, as memory assaults me. I was alone the first time I died. The horrid sensation of my body leaking blood and warmth returns with a vividness that stops my forward movement. My neck throbs and my chest aches as if the slavering wolf has just ripped my throat out a second time. I double over, frantically searching my body for various puncture wounds.
“Kodi?”
My name on Zo’s lips is raw with fear, and I look up to see her lean forward. She intends to claw toward me because she can’t crawl. I hold a hand out toward her, focusing on the only sensation that matters – the bond with her, the others, and the library – and systematically erasing every bleeding wound that Addington gave me. They don’t exist. I am here now.
“I’m okay,” I reassure the others but maintain eye contact with Zosia so that she knows I’m not lying. “It was just a memory.” I shake my head and straighten my spine. “It was so vivid. It felt like I was reliving it.”
“Time is thin here,” Bren remarks in a casual tone as I recover fully and join the others near the blanket. The image and its accompanying sensations have receded, but my intuition suggests that I’d be able to conjure it, or other memories, with frightening precision.
“Where is here exactly? What is going on?” Garrett demands.
Bren’s excitement barely wavers when confronted by his brother’s anger. The blue light appears concentrated around Zosia and the mage, reflecting off their skin and hair until they both resemble creatures from that alien movie where everyone was freakishly tall and their ponytails …. Focus, Kodi.
“Something strange has happened. Zo thinks my magical abilities – the foresight and atmospheric powers have merged.” He frowns as he tries to explain. “She calls it a time storm, but I’m not certain that’s entirely accurate. Regardless of what it’s named, we think it can be used to our benefit. I just tried to study my visions to get more insight. While there are more possible futures, I’m still not sure how to attain them.”
“So … you stopped time with an orgasm.” My tone is flat, and the envy that accompanies it is unexpected. I thought I was cool because I gained a solid body just by thinking about sex. Bren’s sexual talent trumps mine.
While Zosia turns a pretty shade of red, the mage appears thoughtful. “It’s not exactly stopped; it’s just slower and thinner. I doubt anyone but us has noticed anything. It might not even spread beyond us.” I’ve never seen the intelligent mage so confused and happy about it. Meanwhile, the lack of answers is killing his brother.
“Why does it extend to the three of us?” the shifter asks. His show of calm isn’t fooling any of us because we can sense his fear. No information means nothing to control.
“We’re bonded,” Bren replies with a shrug. “Time considers us a unit of one.”
“If time is thin, can we time travel and change the current situation?” I ask excitedly. “What if I didn’t die? What if Zosia’s legs weren’t broken? What if Agustin …?” My words falter because Zosia starts shaking her head the minute I start speaking.
“I already thought of that,” she says in a sad voice and proceeds to explain how everything is connected. Even changing one thing, like preventing my death, could alter everything and erase the years we spent together. I might be a ghost, but we fell in love after I died. She only escaped the prison because Addington was distracted while he killed me. The list of events I’d love to change is long, and every single one would change the circumstances of the past week. This past week has been the best of my entire life and afterlife.
I pout dramatically. “Rude. Destiny gives us the ability to manipulate time, but we can’t do anything without risking the best thing that’s ever happened to us? What’s the use in all this, then? When will it stop?” I gesture to the thick, blue fog.
For once, the shifter agrees with me. “The ghost has a point.” Zosia’s calm has settled some of his fear, but he’s still nervous. The muscle in his jaw clenches rhythmically, and I expect his teeth to turn into powder. “What do your visions say, Bren?”
The mage shrugs, bringing attention to the fact that he’s still not wearing a shirt. His muscles aren’t as big as mine are – were – but the leanness suits his pretty face. The reflection of blue on his pale skin is definitely alien, though. The blue in Zosia’s hair suits her, though. She looks edgy rather than alien, and I kind of like it.
“I tried to access them. I thought I’d be lost in them when you arrived, actually, but it’s as if the visions have been transformed into power. I can see very little.” He sighs heavily. “Maybe we can’t change a keystone event, but ….”
Zosia shakes her head adamantly. She’s not usually so confident about her convictions, so I think it’s important to listen. “Changing anything is too risky. I strongly disagree with meddling with time – even slightly. What if we can’t return after we’ve decided to change something? Bren told me that time branches in different directions, and we could potentially split our party. A different us might take over. It will still be us, I guess, but not the us that we are right his second.”
If I weren’t already dead, my brain might explode. The only part of Zosia’s words that I understand is time travel is bad .
“Time meddling …,” Bren whispers, but he’s disappeared into his head again. While he thinks, Garrett hands him his shirt. He takes it without missing a beat and slips it on as he paces the short distance of the small area not overtaken with blue fog. In this spot, time seems to be working normally because the living’s movements are at regular speed instead of slow-motion.
“What are our options if we ignore this opportunity?” Garrett asks Zosia. “We face trouble right now – in this timeline – or whatever it is. Did you two attempt to create mage fire?”
Zosia’s face reddens again, but she doesn’t look away. I give her less than a week before she stops flushing every time we mention sex. Her boldness grows every day, and her newfound confidence makes her glow even when she’s not channeling magic.
“I think they were busy,” I tell Garrett as I send a wink in her direction.
“We were, but ….” She holds her hand out, palm up, as if she’s going to offer us something. At first, I think the occasional static crackle of electricity around us is refracting light in a strange way. Within seconds, however, an obvious blue flame appears in her outstretched hand.
“Magnificent,” Avery whispers, breaking the silence he’s maintained since we joined the others.
“What do you think, Avery? Any thoughts on this time travel business?” I’m curious to hear his opinion; the vampire has proven uniquely intuitive.
After Garrett nods his approval, Zosia extinguishes the small blue flame and leans forward eagerly. “Yes, Avery. What do you think?”
The vampire’s posture is stiff as he considers the precise words. Although we’ve grown accustomed to his careful speech, waiting is still difficult for the most impatient of us … me – it’s difficult for me.
“I am hesitant to say anything without knowing exactly what Bren is considering at the moment. He told me everything Fin said about timelines, the future, and the past, and I believe his current rumination will provide insight. I also second Zosia’s opinion. Traveling through time with the intent to alter it could be catastrophic. Although our current situation is dire, our problems can always increase. Manipulating a fundamental law of nature to our benefit seems like a blatant request for punishment. Our destiny has led us to this moment, and destiny likely has a reason. I doubt the solution requires us to thwart destiny’s will by erasing this moment.”
Although I understand Avery’s explanation slightly more than Zosia’s, the concepts of fate and destiny are as nebulous as the idea of a god or gods. I’ve grown more accepting of the things I can’t comprehend since I literally returned from the dead, however.
Zosia nods. Her admiration and affection for her four mates flow along our connection like water, sinking into each of us. Adding Bren feels like the return of something that I never knew was missing. Although my form remains incorporeal, I feel more alive than ever. I belong here and now … with this group of amazing people and this strange, sentient building.
Do I owe this moment to fate, destiny, or the will of a higher power? Maybe it’s just dumb luck? How I got here doesn’t matter, but I’m more convinced than ever that I shouldn’t risk everything I’ve found. Whatever Bren suggests, he needs to reassure me that we’ll still be us when it’s over. My happily ever after doesn’t exist without them.