Convergence Ch. 01

Hey guys! I'm finally back. I apologize for my extended absence from writing, and I know a lot of you are very eager for the conclusion of Ivy and Hunter's story. I truly appreciate all the emails and comments, and I am very sorry I've kept you waiting. I've been slowly working through each prior chapter, heavily editing a few things I needed to change before I could start the last chapter. I will let you know when they have all been updated, in case you'd like to read the revised chapters before the conclusion.

I also haven't abandoned Adrika and Killian's story, but again, I'd like to go back and heavily edit the first two chapters before I continue.

A lot of things happened during the months (year-ish?) I've been absent. Some good, some bad, and to be honest, I just completely lost the motivation to write. Very recently, a good friend passed away from covid-19 complications. He was an incredibly gifted writer, and would most definitely have been on the best seller list at some point in his career. He and I used to trade story ideas and our writing with each other. Going back through some of the stuff we shared, I just felt like there was this story hidden there, and for whatever reason, my desire to write came back.

The very first scene in this story was something of a writing prompt. As in, the first few sentences. His story went in a completely different direction, and mine, pretty expectantly, went into some deep, dark places. So, this is my trigger/content warning to you. I promise there will be a happy ending for Aidan, but her story starts off in a very dark place.

I tried something different for the prologue and wrote in first-person narrative, because that's how the writing prompt I shared with my friend started off. This will only be in the prologue, so if you're wondering why it shifts halfway through, there's your answer.

Thank you for being patient and sticking with me. I'm working hard on getting Poison Ivy to a good place for the conclusion and hope to post it within a week or so. Okay, enough rambling. I give you: Convergence.

Chapter 0.5 and 01 soundtrack:

Runaway by The Rigs

Comatose by Amy Guess

Dark Side by Bellabeth

Wicked Games by Parra for Cuva with Anna Naklab

Scary People by Georgi Kay

Resurrect Me by Skrizzly Adams

Mind Games by Collide

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Prologue (Chapter 0.5)

I wake, the sound of running footsteps echoing inside some wretchedly dark corner of my mind, and I think I might have dreamt of her once more. My hand slips tentatively across the wide expanse of empty mattress. My fingertips touch only the cool fabric of stale sheets. There is something almost obscene about the emptiness, the void I find where I once might have buried neglected fingers into silken hair the color of sunshine filtered through honey, and I recoil, disgusted. Silvery moonlight paints wretched shadows across the stale room, the towering oak outside my window pulling their strings as if they were puppets, making them jump and dance across the floor in a macabre midnight waltz. I scowl at them, resentful of their glee. I reach below my head to fist the lumpy pillow responsible for an enduring ache in my neck, and heave it across the room at them with an angry snarl. I swear, I can hear them cackle and screech and snicker, but the pillow fulfills its purpose, and for a moment, the shadows scatter.

I close my eyes and breathe deeply, letting the unpleasant stale tang of unwashed linens combined with the scent of vanilla and cloves, a scent that is so undeniably her that it causes my chest to constrict painfully, to wash over me like an unexpected rainstorm. "Fuck." My voice sounds scratchy and absurd, even to my own ears. "Fuck!" I say it louder, if only to work the lingering weakness out of the violent sentiment, a reminder that I am not the same man I was back then. Taunting snickers seem to reach out from the empty, empty corners, and enraged, I want to scream. "FUCK! GOD FUCKING DAMNIT, SLOAN! FUCK!"

Saying her name out loud cripples me, and like a surgeon's exacting cut, the anguish hiding beneath that layer of enraged profanity slices through my fury, and I have to shudder back a broken sob.

Enough of this.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, two sockless feet planted shoulder-width apart onto the frigid hardwood floor. I cradle my aching head in my hands, perhaps to stem the inevitable rush of pain I have purchased with yet another night of cheap liquor and dangerous thoughts, or perhaps to steady the convulsions ripping unapologetically through my body. Like a man possessed, my fists grab onto unkept hair the dull color of a winter moth and tug, the pain in my scalp acting as a tether, anchoring me inside my own contemptible body.

I never should have come back here.

I hear the pained gasp of creaking wood and look up. Ten-thousand sharp icicles imbed themselves along my spinal column. Poured concrete replaces taut muscles, and all of a sudden, I am sure that my lungs have been torn from my godsforsaken chest.

Had it always been there, this agonizing reminder of the bliss that had been so close within my reach? Had I intentionally barricaded conscious thoughts from the sight of this ethereal reminder of my utter and complete failure? My failure to keep her close, to keep her safe?

Some cruel deity takes control of me then. Unbidden, my body rises. Involuntarily, my legs begin to carry me forward. Unprompted, my hands reach up to stroke lovingly that revered, smooth wood. There is a sound like a dying animal, a terrible, mournful keening, and twin bolts of lightning twist up from where my knees have hit the floor. I taste blood, coppery and sickly sweet, and it makes me double over, light bursts exploding behind closed eyelids. I lower my brow to the stained cherrywood bars, and for this moment, in this moment, I fracture.

"Get up."

The sultry low voice, like black silk dragged across sensitive flesh, wakes me from my broken thoughts. Startled, my eyes fly open and my head whips to the side.

At first, I don't understand what I'm seeing. Wispy lengths of pearly fabric pool languorously around a petite pair of feet. My gaze follows the soft, sensuous lines of long, slim legs up to a waist I could easily circle between my two hands. Slender arms hang relaxed from narrow shoulders, delicate fingers visible beneath too-long sleeves of white gossamer. Dark hair spills out in lush curls, enveloping lengths of flesh like crashing waves over a rocky shore. Above a gracefully long neck is a face so beautiful that to look upon it is to suffer with the knowledge that nothing you have seen and nothing you will ever see again will measure up to such exquisite artistry. Full lips quirk upwards in one corner, a hint of either amusement or annoyance. Sharp cheekbones cut defined lines in an otherwise soft portrait. Stunning narrow eyes, lined with kohl, glimmer silver in the moonlight streaming in from the open widow.

I am rendered speechless. One perfectly shaped eyebrow inches upwards in a silent question.

"I... what?" I ask, my tongue feeling sluggish and foreign in my own mouth.

"I said get. Up." She repeats, a dagger of tension slicing through a voice as sickly sweet and dark as pomegranate molasses.

Numbly, I rise from my crumpled position on the floor, my body unfolding like a creased and age-stained letter. My joints pop and creak with the movement, but if it hurts, I cannot feel it. I am unaware of all sensation, save that of the intoxicating pleasure of being in this slight beauty's presence. She waits until I stand tall before her, towering over her by at least a foot. I am easily twice her weight. Despite a graceful neck straining to look up at me, it is I who feel small, nearly insignificant in her presence. Her narrowed eyes flash with approval, and if she would simply say the word, I would fall at her feet in gratitude.

"Who..." I have to stop and clear my throat, swallowing thickly before I start again. "Who are you?"

"That is not the right question, Soren Thorne."

I shake my head to try to rid myself of the cobwebs that have trapped the stilted thoughts in my mind. Her voice, so heady and musical it hurts to hear it, becomes even more painful when it falls to silence. "My name is Kai."

She says nothing, simply cocks her head slightly to the side, a look of expectant curiosity flashing across her fine-spun features. My booze-addled mind struggles to interpret the importance of her words. "What is the right question?"

This time, when the corner of her primrose mouth ticks upwards, I am sure it is in amusement. Silence permeates the congealed air between us as she holds out a hand with magnetic grace. I am powerless to stop my own from reaching out and trapping delicate fingers with a desperate grip. A volatile thunderclap of electric energy surges beneath my palm the instant my skin touches hers. Poisoned pleasure flows from her body into mine, and I stifle a pained groan, unsatisfied with the limited contact she has allowed me. I want to burrow beneath her silken caramel skin, crush her to me in an unforgiving embrace, steal her words and breath and lips for myself so that no one but me will ever feel this way again. The force of my desire is shocking and terrifying. Have I ever felt this desperate, violent need to possess before? Has anyone?

She turns away from me, and I fight the urge to yank her back, to force her gaze back to mine with a crushing grip around her jaw. We take no steps that I am aware of, and yet we advance forward, passing through the threshold of the room haunted with so many painful memories. Memories... of what? I struggle to recall why it had been so hard to be back in that room, what had caused such distress as I kneeled, broken and breathless, at the cherrywood cradle huddled in a shadowed corner.

"Where are we going?" I ask, my voice scratched and jagged compared to her melodious perfection. Her head cants to one side, as if listening for some distant sound, but she does not turn and she does not speak. As we move out of the house, with its damp, decaying interior and neglected, crumbling exterior, we pass beneath a single street lamp, its sallow light flickering like the last croaking gasps of a dying man. Her hair seems to come alive, it's salt-teased curls and waves twining and shifting as if the night itself had succumbed to her excruciating beauty and was running windy fingers through her wild mane. In the shifting light, I am not entirely sure of its color. It has the ambiguousness of an opal in sunlight, appearing raven black in one moment and snowy silver in the next. The sleek, fluid lines of her body make no familiar flowing movements, but instead seem almost liquid in their evolution. So focused am I on her shifting agility, that when she finally turns to face me, I realize that I have released my crushing grip of her hand and that we are no longer anywhere recognizable.

My throat works as I struggle to understand the landscape around me. "Where..." I whisper hoarsely, spinning slowly in a circle as my eyes try to take in the vast mystery surrounding us. Thick, golden light tinged with deep shades of pink bathe a perfectly circular clearing in subdued warmth. Satiny sand of the purest white sparkle like countless tiny diamonds beneath our feet. Towering trunks the color of deep lavender stand like silent sentinels at the edge of the dell. Spidery limbs reach far up into a fiery sky, rosewood clouds obscuring whatever strange sun had sent such clever rays to blanket this alien terrain. "Where have you taken me?"

She is silent for a moment, allowing me to make a full rotation until, once again, I stand before her and tear my eyes away from the hypnotic scene. Startled, I stagger back, nearly tripping over my own feet in my confused awe. If she was beautiful before, back in the long-abandoned bedroom, she is fatally devastating now. In the honeyed light, her skin glows with ethereal luminescence. The eyes that had looked silver in the dull moonshine now gleam a green so vibrant, it looks to be lit from within. As I watch, the shade oscillates between bright seafoam to deep pine and back again. Her silken curls have settled into an inky black shade that reveals undertones of sapphire when the unusual clouds surrender to glittering sunlight.

"That is not the right question, Soren Thorne."

There's something dangerous about her voice. Something that threatens to slice through my defenses, to strike deep and hard between my ribs to the broken heart beneath. An unexpected flash of rage takes hold, and my body goes rigid. I narrow my eyes and release a low, impatient growl. My fingers ache to bury themselves into her hair, clench around buttery soft tresses to crush her into me. I want to wrap my hands around her delicate throat, tighten my grip until she is subdued and afraid, restrained and at my mercy. The violence of my own thoughts startles me, and I blink, stare down at hands that do not feel like my own as they slowly relax.

Again, she cants her head to the side, like a curious she-wolf who has seen something she does not quite understand. The movement is oddly endearing, and I feel some of that lingering rage fall away like rivulets of rain.

For a long moment stretched taught between us, we both say nothing, studying each other's features in the tense silence. My eyes are repeatedly drawn to her lips, full and parted and the color of ripe watermelon. I wonder how they would feel beneath my exploring fingers. I wonder if, against my own hungry mouth, she would be soft and pliant, or firm and resistant.

Her eyes, a mossy green now, search my own. "Do you remember me, Soren Thorne?" she asks, her musical voice singing the question more than speaking it. The sound threads invisible tendrils of calm through tensed limbs and strained muscles. She is dichotomy personified, a pendulum that swings wildly from maddening rage to tender calm. I am silent as I consider her question. A quiet breeze carries her scent to me, and I breathe deep. She smells like the wild woods, of sugar maple sap and fresh pine, of mint and rain. It's intoxicating. My head spins.

One would think I would remember meeting or even glimpsing this woman, with her wild raven black hair and luminescent skin and gleaming green eyes. There is something quite other about her, an unfamiliarity that borders on discomfort. And yet... That scent, that voice...

I'm running through a crowded market street. Pedestrians quickly move aside when they see me approaching. My path clears as I move, but hers does not. It would be easy to command some merchant or denizen to take her down and put an end to this pursuit, but I am enjoying myself entirely too much to let someone else claim my prize. Satiny strands of fabric, every shade of green to match her constantly fluctuating eyes, are woven into her tightly braided tresses. Pitch black wisps of escaped hair trail behind her and dance with the lovingly threaded plait as she runs. Even now, especially now, as she runs from me, she is beautiful. I know that when I catch up to her, a deep flush will paint her cheeks cherry red and her eyes will be wide with fear.

The poor little fugitive is tiring. Her movements become slow and languid as she begins to feel the effects of the belladonna slipped into her morning meal. Her foot catches on the side of a wheeled cart and she stumbles. My arms wrap around her waist as she falls, and I yank her back into my chest. She releases a pained gasp and tries to move away from the steely arousal grinding into her lower back. Even at full strength, she would be no match for me. Weighed down heavily by the poison pumping through her veins, her panicked efforts to pull away are no more effective than a kitten swatting at a wolf.

"It was an intrepid attempt, my little truant," I murmur to her, my lips pressed to the hot shell of her ear. "But it's over now. It's all over." I stroke damp strands of midnight black from her brow. She trembles in my hold, and I cannot keep myself from leaning down to clamp my teeth around the soft flesh of her neck. My tongue finds her pulse, and I lick at the thready staccato rhythm as she pants and starts to sob.

I release her deliciously salty skin and walk her into a darkened alley before I spin her around to press her against the cold bricks of the merchant's guild. "Shh," I whisper, my hands cradling her exquisitely ruined face so my thumbs can swipe away her tears. My hips pin her to the wall, the hard length of my cock now pressed to her belly. My hand moves to possessively circle her slender throat, my fingers pressing hard into tense muscles until she gives in and goes slack. My other hand cups her jaw, lifting her gaze until her extraordinary eyes lock onto mine. "Good girl," I croon, running my thumb over her swollen lips before I lean down to place a kiss on her crown. "Such a good girl." I inhale, her heady, rousing scent causing my cock to twitch in excitement. A terrified whimper, the sound a cornered animal might make just before a predator tears into its exposed belly, escapes from my trembling, broken captive. The belladonna finishes its work, and she goes limp against me. I breathe a soft laugh as I scoop her up into my arms. When I turn back toward the market square, a familiar, enormous figure blocks my way. I walk up to him, my errant betrothed cradled against my chest, and meet him at the mouth of the alley.

"Take her," I command, gently depositing her unconscious figure into arms as wide around as a juvenile evergreen. "I want her ready for me in the south wing. Un-fuck your men, Captain. If they can't control a tiny wayward female without poisoning her food, they have no business among my ranks. This happens again, heads will roll."

The giant says nothing, merely nods his head as he glances down at the sleeping princess draped across his arms. Slowly, he turns to face the capital and makes big, lumbering strides into the market square.

I watch the overgrown oaf holding my little hostage for a moment, confident all will be put back to rights by the time I return. I sigh, brushing loose strands of chestnut brown hair from my eyes, and turn back to the alley. I've been meaning to visit the Council of Merchants for some time now, and Aidan's little escape into the city allows me the perfect opportunity to make an unplanned, and therefore unexpected, visit.

I raise my hand to grip the bronzed knocker on the door to the back, private entrance. A sharp, almost painful buzzing in my head draws me back, my palms clamped over my ears as I look around frantically for the source of the sound. I turn away from the door, and cannot understand what is before me. What...?

Gasping, I jerk upright, disoriented and surprised to find I had been lying supine in the sparkling sand. The woman, Aidan, kneels at my side, her strange, transient, sorrowful eyes watching me, her hands clasped in her lap.

"What the hell was that?!" I shout, struggling to my feet. My fingers clutch at my close-cropped hair and I tug hard as I begin to pace, my mind struggling to find a reasonable explanation for this, for all of this.

I'm hallucinating. This is all just a very strange, very vivid dream. Perhaps going back to the house was simply the last thing my sanity could process, and this is some kind of fantastical situation my overstressed mind created to shield me from painful reality, to prevent me from facing a world without Sloan. Yes, that's it. I've imagined this impossibly beautiful and strange woman, and that impossibly vivid and real flashback as a way to cope. Maybe process some of my anger. I certainly feel an instant, toxic flood of rage when I glance down at her. She hasn't moved except to turn her head up to watch me pace. Her slender fingers are still woven together in the cradle of her lap. She looks so serene, so graceful, her unbound hair framing her face like a veil, eyes flashing vibrant emerald.