Dark One- The Khiara Banning Series Book 1

Thirteen

I slowly drift awake in the early morning to the sound of soft snoring. Not wanting to open my eyes, I lay there quietly, trying to remember where I am. Groggy, it takes a couple of minutes for the memories to come to me, but when they do I smile. They’re like pictures at first, snapshots of the fun we had; Cael laughing at my expression after he threw a pillow at my head, our crappy attempt at a couch fort. Then they start to move together like a reel. He was tickling me and I kicked over my coffee cup, and I felt such horror and embarrassment at first but then our laughter continued as he said it didn’t matter and continued to tickle me anyway. I replay the moments that lead up to when I eventually must’ve fallen asleep, and I lie there in our terrible attempt at a couch fort, listening to Cael’s snores, feeling his chest move up and down under my head with his breaths and I realize something. This must be what it’s like to fall in love.

***

I never thought anything like this could be possible but here it is, this situation that has my kind-of-human heart beating fast and hard in my chest; the chest which her head is currently resting upon deep in slumber, her breaths even and deep. I find myself smiling as she mumbles something incoherent in her sleep and shift my arms around her a little tighter and she sighs into the embrace as if there’s nowhere she’d rather be. There is nowhere I would rather be either than right here, right now. I will protect her and I will find a way to break her curse. The Battle is fast upon us, and I need to find a way to tell her fast.

“Father,” I whisper. “Please help me.” In response, thunder rumbles in the distance and the rain pelts the windows and roof harder. My heart lurches. He cannot help even if he wanted to. God can only do so much. 

***

My eyes pop open at the sudden movement underneath my head. I scan my surroundings and realize I’m still at Cael’s. Yawing, I sit up and stretch as he does the same.

“Sorry to have woken you,” he says, running his fingers through his sleep-messy hair. “I was about to get up to put the coffee machine on. Do you want some? I also have tea and hot chocolate if you’d prefer.”

I smile gratefully. “Coffee would be heavenly, thanks.” I begin to yawn again but stop half way when panic strikes me; I must look like a total mess! I stand up rather abruptly. “Uh, I’ll be right back. I have to go to the bathroom.”

Cael smiles a knowing smirk and nods his head. “Aye then, I’ll go start the coffee.”

It takes everything I have not to run to Cael’s small but tidy bathroom, but when I get there I close the door behind me and take stock of my reflection in the mirror above the sink. I don’t look half as bad as I thought I did, which is probably saying something. My hair is a greasy mess, there’s dried drool in the corner of my lip on the left side of my face and what little makeup I’d put on yesterday is miraculously un-smudged, but my eyes are red like they always are when I first wake up. Sighing, I splash some water on my face and decide to put my hair up in a messy bun using the hair elastic I always keep around my wrist just for emergencies like this. When I’m done, I don’t look half bad.

I exit the bathroom, walk down the hall to the living room to see that Cael has already taken down our fort and folded the blankets and sheets. “Did I take that long fixing myself up?” I ask.

The coffee machine beeps, letting us know that it’s full and he laughs. “Does that answer your question?”

For the next couple of hours –we got up at around eleven– we sit and talk about random things, what I’m doing at school, what we’re both currently reading; I’m reading Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and Cael’s reading a book of Yeats’s poetry that he picked up at the bookstore he works at, which I finally – after such a long time, I realize – remember is called Yes Books.