Fallen Dreams - Elaine Brown (free romance novels txt) 📗

them that, are vivid and plagued with images of fire and war. A face, above the flames, grotesque and pale, glares at me with strange red eyes. Not red-rimmed, as one who had been crying, but the irises are a deep, glowing blood red.

VII

Suddenly my plain room swims back into focus. As the aging memory of my first meeting with Riel fades, I swing my feet over the edge of the bed. Always, abruptly, my flashback ends at this moment, the moment when I first witness the master of the Towers. The Blade inked across the pages always vanishes, the blood red eyes always tear at my soul. Panicked and frightened, I always push the images away. There is much more to this story that even I do not fully understand, things Riel has not deemed fit to share with me. My memory has wiped itself clean of that time, when I collapsed and remained submerged within myself. I remained unconscious for over a week, they tell me.
Sighing, I push myself to my feet, crossing to the small dresser opposite my bed. My hands, as always, are shaking as I open the familiar, cedar drawers. Numbly I pull a soft blue tank top over my slim shoulders, smooth the fabric across my clammy flesh. Barely seeing my hands, I pull a pair of worn, slightly singed pair of plaid shorts from the dresser.

Excerpt from Part Two

When I reach my current “home” I’m only slightly surprised to find that the front door is unlocked. Riel usually enters through the back door, but he sometimes uses the front like a normal person would. Who am I kidding? Riel could never do anything a normal person would, he’s just not normal, period. The soft color of the stained glass is a pleasant, familiar sight after such a long day; it’s nothing compared to the back porch in my old home, with all its memories, but… I shake my head against the thought; now’s not the time to be depressed about something that no longer exists. My home is gone, end of story.
I sigh sadly as I push the door open and step into the house. The hallway splits into two openings, the left leading to the dining room/kitchen and the right leading into the living room. I drop my bag to the floor beside the door and freeze as my eyes drift to the living room. There, standing in front of the large wall to floor window and china door, leaning against the short table that took up the space in the middle of the room was the one person that could have ruined the rest of my day. So it hadn’t been Riel after all.
Somehow I manage to reach the alcove without completely losing my head. I clench my fists and feel my face flush with rage. As I stare at him from the edge of the room, all that runs through my head is fury; how

dare

he come into my home, after he’d ruined the only home I’d ever known?
“Hello, Orin.”
My eyes narrow suspiciously, and he smiles casually, as if talking with an old friend. Which, I suppose, we were, once. Not anymore. "Get out, Shawn."
His smile fades and he takes up an expression of mock disappointment; had it been under any other circumstances (such as him not being a black hearted idiot I could no longer stand) I would have laughed at the familiar expression. I’d seen it on the familiar face so many times when we were kids; I’d even seen it in the mirror, when I was practicing to be just as good as him at fake expressions.
"That's no way to greet someone. Come on, Ori, you can do better than that." I feel a prick at the back of my eyes; it had been forever since he’d called me “Ori” instead of stupid “Rin”. Even now, after what he’d done to me, I can’t stand him calling me “Rin”; for some reason, I still care what he calls me… I shiver a bit, and I’m absolutely sure that it wasn’t because of the cool of the house. I try to cover the shudder before he can continue. He peers around the room as if it were full of gossiping people and leans a little closer, one hand against his mouth to "protect" the "conversation", and whispers, "Come here, I'll give you a gift." His eyebrows raise and fall suggestively.
Instantly, I feel the corners of my mouth pull down as I glare at him, arms crossed over my chest, both for affect of stubbornness and to protect myself, who knows how. I find myself wondering how much force it would take to throw him backwards, through the window. “Aww, is someone deprived of love? Hmm, here’s a thought; you wouldn’t be if you hadn’t killed every last person who loved you! Thanks, but no thanks; you can go screw yourself for all I care. Get out.”
Shawn’s eyes flash dangerously and I know I’ve struck a nerve; I smile privately to myself and raise my chin proudly and defiantly. Suddenly, he is completely indifferent, and a cold smile matches his cold eyes as he strikes back. “I didn’t kill you, did I?”
I wince slightly and take a deep breath. “You didn’t have to. You said yourself that I’ve never cared about you or your feelings. If I had felt anything for you before you left, you definitely destroyed it with what you did.”
Slowly, he shakes his head and pulls himself up from the table, kicking a chair out of his way and sending it crashing to the floor as he takes a step toward me. I flinch at the sound but stand my ground. He’s no longer smiling, and suddenly he sighs a tired, old man sigh, as if he’d aged ahead of his time; “Don't be stubborn, Orin, you know why I'm here. Give me the Blade. Oh, and that little pet of yours, the "guardian" that follows you around like a lovesick puppy? Tell him that I'll be back for what else is mine, and to slit his throat."
I grit my teeth as I try to control my anger; what did he know of Riel? They weren’t even in the same category; Riel would always seem more human to me than this monster. But I fail in my attempt at control, and I feel my feet leave the ground as I launch myself at him, knocking his stunned frame back against the table. The tackle knocks the wind from my body, but I pull my arm back, ready for the punch…
By now he has recovered from his initial shock, and is waiting to catch my fist. Shawn grips my bunched up fingers tightly and forces my arm back to my side. In the same instant, his free hand reaches the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine and preventing my escape. Slowly, he tugs me closer, bringing my face inches from his own; it takes all of my force of will not to hyperventilate. His lips, so close to my own, curve up at the corners in an absentminded kind of way; the hand that had caught my own is now free, and his arms snakes around me just above the small of my back. As I am slowly and inescapably pinned against him, I feel my eyes widen with something not unlike fear, but somehow I am not afraid. The black eyes are watching me, searching my face, my eyes; they seem to see beyond the fear, seem to see something else…
"It's your choice," he whispers, acting upon some hidden emotion that I cannot see, or perhaps that he has found in my eyes. His lips brush mine when he speaks, and mine would have brushed his if it had been my words; that’s how close we were. Leisurely, the hand on the back of my neck begins to make small, soothing circles and works its way up my neck to play in my hair; my eyes drift closed automatically and there’s a catch in my breathing against my will. "Don't fight it; the longing is there. Let yourself have what you want."
Somehow, we're even closer, but our lips still only brush when speaking. "How could you possibly know what I do and don't want?"
"I can feel it, and it's written clearly on your face, your stance. You're the easiest person to read I've ever known." He's leaning in so close I don't even dare breathe. "You're gullible, too." He smiles harshly, but doesn't pull back or let me go. "Give me what I want, and you can have what you want, what you crave."
I glare at him with and intensity I didn’t even know I could harbor. "Even if I did want what you're implying I want, what's stopping me from taking it?"
His arms loosen a little as I feel his laughter rumble through his chest, a laughter that held no malice; this laughter wasn’t harsh, it was a laugh that I would have heard from the old Shawn, a laughter that I had missed for all these years. I feel the prick at the back of my eyes again, but don’t miss my chance. Though the pressure around my midsection had barely lightened, I find enough room to maneuver. Matching his leisurely pace, I study his face as my fingertips skim their way seductively up his chest, around his shoulders, and meet behind his neck. He has stopped laughing by now and has his eyes narrowed on me, but not before I see them flash with some other emotion. "I can read the want on you, too," I say in a low, innocent, flirtatious tone. "You can't hide behind that mask of malice. Not from me, Shay."
I tilt my face slightly, taking my lips out of range of his. "You'll never—" I kiss his jaw lightly "—even—" I move up to his cheekbone "—get—" My lips brush along his cheek, down toward his mouth "—a taste." I kiss the very edge of the corner of his mouth. A low groan, barely audible, escapes from deep in his throat. Shawn’s eyes drift close, and I can tell that he can’t control his reaction. He leans into me, trying to get closer, I suppose; he’s heavy.
I’ve had enough; the torture I’m putting him through isn’t even enough to lift my spirits today. Before I let him get too comfortable, I burst out with an exasperated sigh and shake my head frowning. "And you say I'm gullible. This is pathetic."
As I begin to pull away, he seems to have regained control of him self, at least partially. I’m almost free when he suddenly pushes me backwards and forces me up against the wall. There’s a dull thud on impact and a small sound escapes my lips; yeah, I definitely should have pushed him out the window instead. He releases my head and waist, just to capture my wrists and pin them against the wall beside my head; I’m breathing hard, but I clench my jaw and meet his stare with a hard glare of my own. His old, signature harsh, evil grin works its way onto his face; at least the old one had been fake, this one looked utterly real. “Pathetic. Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
The comment surprises me almost as much as the pain and misery I see in his eyes. I blink and struggle not to shudder or shake my head. What had happened to this person I’d once called my best friend? Suddenly, he rests his forehead on my shoulder and something cold and metallic hits my collar bone. I wince slightly and look down to investigate; hanging