Beyond the Eyes: YA Paranormal Romance

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  By Friday I felt back to normal. Carrie called me a few times during the week, complaining about spending most of her spring break working at her mom’s store. I asked her if she’d been hanging out with Matt, and she said only once since the night at Café Nation. They went to the movies and made out in his jeep. I asked her about Friday night, if she and Matt were still planning on going to see Alchemy play. She told me they were. I told her we were too and Tree would be there as well. I also informed her Tree and Nathan were becoming good friends, which silenced her for a minute because we used to talk about how cool it would be to have boyfriends that were best friends like us. And then she had to go.

  My mom also called. I told her I’d been sick for days, but I felt fine now. She asked me about Nathan, and I told her we were still dating and how sweet he was. She was looking forward to meeting him, which would be around Easter time. I wasn’t holding my breath on that one though.

  Nathan got a hold of Anwar and found out he was in the thick of things and wouldn’t be here anytime soon. Nathan reminded me about us keeping a low profile until he got here. I gave him a complacent nod, but truthfully, I wasn’t planning on being holed up in this house until then. So I was happy when he told Tree we would be going to see Alchemy play.

  After my nap and a cup of coffee, I went behind Nathan–he was sitting at the kitchen table, catching up on world events on his laptop–and slipped my arms around him. I looked over his shoulder at the computer screen. An article on a sleeper terror cell in the United Kingdom caught my attention. Apparently, a radical planted a car bomb in London, but it failed to go off. I wondered out loud if this was the same person Anwar was tracking.

  “I don’t know,” Nathan said, rubbing my forearm. “But I think these failed car bomb attacks are coordinated for a purpose.”

  I rested my chin on his shoulder, staring at the picture on the screen of parked cars and people walking in downtown London. “Why do you think that?” I asked.

  “Because they like to toy with people’s emotions by instilling fear into them. It’s a game to them to watch humans give up their freedoms for a sense of security. It makes them feel omnipotent.”

  “I can see that, but what about the bombs that do go off and kill people?”

  “It’s the same thing. They’re just playing chess with these failed attacks.”

  “Does a dark spirit reside in all terrorists?”

  “No, but the ones who have a soul have the propensity to turn dark when they die. But then again, it’s not for me to judge. I’m only going by my own experiences on the matter. But the leaders I’ve come across had a dark spirit residing in them.”

  “The one Anwar is tracking down. He’s the leader, right?”

  “He thinks so.”

  I kissed his cheek. “Do you wish you were there helping him?”

  He moved his head back and looked at me. “I’m not leaving you.” His voice was firm and resolute. For some reason his reaction made that burning desire in my belly swell.

  I lowered my lips to his, and he pulled me onto his lap, giving me slow, lingering kisses at first, flipping my stomach like he always did. But when his fingers knotted inside my hair, his kisses became more intense and passionate. My lips and tongue followed, eager for more. With thick, uneven breaths, I tugged on his shirt. He cradled me in his arms and carried me to my room.

  And then the world around us melted away into an Elysium, in the fading light of my room, in a tangle of arms and legs. I shook beneath him, feeling a feverish energy charging the air. It encapsulated us in a thick cloud of unspoken desires and pleasures. I knew he felt it too, by the way he touched me and moved. By the way his quickened breaths kept in time with mine. And by the way he looked at me and said he loved me with pure honesty. I held his face in front of mine and told him I loved him too, and I was his for as long as he wanted me.

  He lowered his face, his lips next to my ear, and whispered, “Then it will be for eternity.”

  Chapter Ten

  The Lion’s Den