“Aye!” he answered with a firm nod. “Ye moost nae forgit tae practice yer sword fightin’ nor trainin’ yer body tae ready it fer combat.”
“Oh,” I replied glumly. The image of my personal trainer, Ael, whom Tallis had brought me to in his attempt to tone my body into proper fighting shape, detonated in my brain like a bomb. Ael was a demon; so to say the training sessions were never easy would have been putting it very mildly. They were literal torture. So, yes, I wasn’t particularly thrilled to resume my physical training. As for my swordplay, Tallis did have a good point. Soul Retrievers had to be prepared to battle any of the various creatures of the Underground City. I couldn’t allow myself to slack when it came to swordplay. My sword was basically the only thing standing between me and certain death.
“Ah will take ye oop oan ah glass o’ milk,” Tallis interjected suddenly as he headed toward the kitchen and pulled out one of the stools in front of the bar. The stool creaked and groaned as soon as he sat down on it, and I half wondered if the cheap pine could support his massive weight.
“Oh,” I answered, resigned to having my thoughts blindsided again. “Sure,” I said as I followed him into the kitchen. His immense presence nearly encompassed the smallish space. I had to sidle up next to him in order to reach the fridge. When my hip accidentally grazed his, he immediately withdrew, pulling away from me, as if I’d just burned him. Refusing to get offended, I retrieved a glass from the cabinet and opened the fridge for the milk as I turned to face him.
“So when are we supposed to resume my physical training?” I asked as I poured a glass of milk and handed it to him.
“Thank ye,” he said with a quick nod before downing the contents in two gulps. He put the glass back on the granite countertop with a little too much gusto and the glass made a loud slapping sound but, luckily, didn’t break.
“You’re welcome,” I answered with a hesitant laugh, wishing I didn’t always feel so goofy around Tallis. Would the moment ever come when I could just comfortably be myself while in his presence?
“As tae yer lessons, there is nae time like the present,” he said as he stood up. I half wondered if he planned to pull out his sword and challenge me to a duel right there in my living room.
“Right now?” I asked.
“May Ah bother ye fer another glass o’ milk?” he interrupted me.
“Sure,” I answered, taking his glass and setting it on the counter before retrieving the milk carton again. After refilling his glass and handing it to him, an important topic suddenly flashed in my edgy mind. “By the way, Alaire texted me in regard to that favor I owe him,” I said while Tallis reached for the milk.
It wasn’t so much that I watched the glass slip out of Tallis’s hand as I heard the screeching sound as it shattered into a thousand pieces after getting up close and personal with the hardwood floor. Feeling trapped in slow motion, I grabbed a dish towel that was hanging on the oven handle. I kneeled down at the same time as Tallis did, and both of our heads nearly collided. In my feeble attempt to avoid a potentially throbbing headache, I leaned backward, clearing Tallis, only to lose my balance. As I prepared to topple over, I immediately threw my hands behind me in order to support myself.
“Shit!” I screeched. I immediately felt the telltale, slicing pain of sharp glass as the shards embedded themselves into both of my palms. I pushed myself back onto my heels as Tallis grabbed me around my wrists and thrust me upward, standing me on my feet again. Then he grabbed my hands, pulling them in front of me as we both assessed the damage. That wasn’t exactly an easy task to do. There was so much blood, I couldn’t see the source of it, or the number of wounds. The blood puddled in my palms and soon found a twisting path down my right arm.
Tallis took a deep breath and released me. When I glanced back at him, I could see his chest rising and falling along with the wide flare of his nostrils. His eyes were huge and wholly focused on the blood that he now saw trailing down both of my arms.
“Bluid,” he whispered, as if he’d become transfixed by the sight of it, almost like a vampire.
“Tallis!” I called out, wanting, no, needing him to snap out of whatever weird trance was overtaking him.
As soon as I called his name, he shook his head and the bizarre stupor he was under left him just as quickly as it appeared. He leaned forward and turned on the sink faucet before grabbing my right wrist, his fingers immediately covered with my blood.
At the feel of Tallis’s skin on mine, I felt a great jolt ricocheting through my body. I felt as if I’d been struck by lightning. My eyes immediately closed of their own accord, and I suddenly felt an indescribable, but intense pressure between my ears and behind my eyes. It felt like my head was filling up with water, water that was desperately seeking a way out. Then, in the blink of an eye, the feeling vanished.
I opened my eyes and saw Tallis in front of me, no … above me. Only he wasn’t dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt anymore. No. Now he wasn’t dressed in anything! Confused, I looked left and then right, only to discover I was no longer in my kitchen, or even inside my house. Instead, we were outside, standing in some sort of green pasture. I glimpsed the sun sinking behind the craggy mountains in the distance. Mountains which were framed by a vast lake.
My heartbeat raced as my logical mind sifted through the feedback my eyes insisted on reporting. There was no room for logic in the scenery that now surrounded me. I looked at Tallis again and found he looked younger somehow. The scar that ran the length of half his face was gone, and his ordinarily short hair was much longer. It trailed over his upper back and cascaded down his massive shoulders, tickling my chest. Glancing down, I discovered that I too, was completely naked. Shocked, and maybe a little mortified, I looked back up at Tallis who smiled at me. That was when I felt him.
My heart lodged in my throat as he thrust himself fully inside me. I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t felt him inside me before. I didn’t even know if this was the first time he’d entered me since my arrival to this strange dream state. When he withdrew before pushing hard into me again, I couldn’t help the moan that escaped me. I watched my arms attempting to wrap around him, but that was an impossibility, owing to his expansive chest and back. So I settled for looping my arms around his neck as I watched him smile down at me, and his eyes twinkled with what looked like love.
“Tallis,” I said in a hot breath, but he quieted me with a kiss. His lips intoxicated me with their plumpness as his hands found my breasts. I moaned again when he squeezed the taut pebbles of my nipples slightly. Just long enough to make me alternate between calling it a pleasurable and a painful experience.
I heard my moans growing even louder as he started to hasten his thrusts. Now he no longer fully extricated himself before driving back in again. Now his movements were shorter, faster and more purposeful. I dug my nails into the soft flesh of his back and wrapped my legs around his waist, giving him more access and begging him to push more deeply inside me. And he lapped up that opportunity with gusto.
I clenched my eyes shut tightly as I tried to prepare again for his girth and length. But every thrust somehow felt deeper than the last. With each pounding entry, I was consumed by an intense ecstasy that verged on pain, owing to his substantial length. All I could do was cling to him, wrapping my arms around his neck and my feet around his middle as his body explored and penetrated mine.
Reaching down between my legs, he settled his finger on the sensitive flesh between the folds of my skin and started to rub it, teasing the hardened nub as waves of bliss showered me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, much less, think. All I could manage to do was happily succumb to the ecstasy that he wove deep inside me. My whole body started to shake as an orgasm overcame me. I gripped him even more tightly, eagerly playing the role of captive and surrendering to the intense waves of bliss that kept overtaking me. Tallis pulled his hand out and smiled as soon as I managed to open my eyes and breathe again. His smile faded as he unwrapped my legs from around him and
pinned them back, until my calves were touching my hamstrings.
He admired me from this angle for a few seconds before thrusting inside me again, pushing himself so deeply, I could only wonder how he managed to fit his full length inside me. He shut his eyes tightly, driving himself even faster until seconds later, he collapsed against my chest, fully spent and exhausted.
I closed my eyes as my left hand ran through the silken tangles of his hair. When he pulled away, a harsh coldness suddenly embraced me, like an emptiness, a bottomless void. I opened my eyes to ask him to place his head against my chest again, but the words disappeared when I found myself facing the blade of the sword he held directly above my heart.
“Tallis?” I started, doubt and fear lacing my voice as my anxious eyes sought his.
“Ah’m sorry,” he said between lips that were so tight, it didn’t even look like he’d spoken. And his eyes seemed suddenly hollow, distant and unfeeling.
I couldn’t respond before he pulled his arms up and planted his sword straight down into my chest. He pushed so hard that I could feel the blade burying itself into the earth beneath me. There was a momentary burst of pain, but when the pain fled, it was as if it never happened. Seconds later, I felt like I was drowning, and my lungs were filling with liquid. I couldn’t breathe.
Tallis sat up and pulled his sword from me before throwing it against the ground. He brought his stricken gaze back to mine. Still, I struggled to breathe.
“Ah’m sae sorry,” he repeated as tears filled his eyes.
I couldn’t understand why. I couldn’t understand what just happened; and I wanted to tell him that, but I couldn’t open my mouth to speak. All I could do was lie there while my lungs filled with what I could only imagine was my own blood. Now that blood was pouring out of my mouth.
Tallis collapsed against me in despair. I wasn’t sure how or why, but I felt my arms wrapping around him, trying to tell him that I understood why he’d done what he had and that I forgave him. But when I touched his back, I felt something sticky, something that was wet and hot.
Suddenly, my vantage point shifted, and I was no longer inside my body, but now an outsider, observing the carnage. I could see my body—small, limp and white. Tallis was still on top of me, straddling me. He was holding my lifeless form, clinging to it while his loud sobs wracked his body and he shook with the effort to restrain them. But it was the view of his back that held me transfixed.
The tree tattoo that encompassed his whole back was no longer black. Instead, every line and every shadow was bright crimson.
Blood, I heard the word echoing through my head. Your blood.
The branches and the roots of the tree continued to drip, and the blood made a path down Tallis’s back and into the earth where it stained the ground bright red. As I watched the blood continue to drain from the tree, I felt myself growing weaker, feebler, and more tired.
I realized then that the tree was my blood and I was losing my life’s essence. The longer it bled, the less life I had. And while I had to admit I was ready and fully prepared to let go, I couldn’t understand how, or why, Tallis would have done this to me.
“Then there uprose upon the sight, uncovered down to the chin, a shadow at his side...”
- Dante’s Inferno
ELEVEN
When air suddenly filled my lungs, I gasped in response, greedily sucking in the biggest breath I could before blowing it out again. I blinked once or twice, and when I opened my eyes, I discovered I was no longer dying in a pasture, surrounded by mountains and a tranquil lake. Instead, I was back in my kitchen. Tallis was standing in front of me, looking horrified. He glanced down at my hand, which was still clasped in his, before dropping it as if it were scalding hot. Then he took a few steps back, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just seen … what we’d just seen. His ordinarily olive complexion was ghastly white, paler than I’d ever seen it, and perspiration beads covered his forehead.
“What was that? What in the hell did I just see?” I asked.
My voice sounded pained as my heart hammered inside my chest, and the awful memories of the vision continued to haunt me. What did it mean? First, Tallis was inside me; and moments later, plunging his sword into my chest, and killing me? Did it portend the future? Or was it somehow a vision of the past? But how could that moment have already occurred? I was never part of Tallis’s distant past. Did that mean, then, that this was our future, our shared destiny?
“Ah dinnae know,” Tallis answered as he continued to shake his head. It appeared this was all one big mystery for which he had no clues. His chest was rising and falling noticeably, giving him the look of someone who was winded and, maybe, even a little frightened.
“I don’t believe that!” I railed back angrily, my voice cracking with the effort. I took a step forward, but stopped once I heard glass crunching underfoot. When I glanced down, I was immediately reminded of the glass of milk Tallis dropped as soon as I mentioned Alaire. That was when I remembered my hands.
I looked down at them and saw they were still raw and bloody, in dire need of first aid. But I couldn’t say my attention was fully engulfed by my wounds. No, instead, it was wrapped up in the subject of the vision I’d just witnessed, and what that vision possibly meant.
“I don’t believe you know nothing about what we both just saw,” I said again, only this time, I used a more even tone of voice. Looking back at Tallis’s face, I scrutinized it. As far as both of us seeing the vision, that was merely a guess on my part, but it was also something I intended to get the answer to.
“Ah dinnae know whit more tae tell ye,” he answered gruffly.
“Tell me what you saw,” I demanded, figuring that was a good place to start. I needed to know if the vision were exactly the same for both of us, or not.
“Ah dinnae want tae discoos it,” he replied as he clenched his jaw shut tightly. His body language conveyed that there was no way he would volunteer anything.
“Well, I do!” The wounds in my hands began to sting, only further igniting my anger. I did my best to ignore the pain, and remained hell-bent on getting some of my questions answered. “I can’t tell you how sick to death I am of these visions that keep hitting me whenever you touch me! I’m tired of all the questions I have about them! And I’m really tired of you never having any answers!”
“Lass,” Tallis started as he held his hands up as if to calm me. But I was way past the point of calming.
“I think it’s closer to the truth to say you do have the answers, but you just won’t give them to me!” I continued, glaring at him as tears of frustration burned the back of my eyes.
“Now is nae the time,” he said. His eyes narrowed on me and his expression seemed discouraging. “We moost first tend tae yer wounds,” he said as his eyes settled on my hands. He took a step nearer to me and reached for my right hand, but then seemed to think better of it, and dropped his arms back to his sides.
“Exactly!” I shouted at him. “You’re afraid to touch me because you’re afraid of what we’re both going to see if you do!”
“Besom, ye need tae calm down,” he chided again, but his words fell on empty ears.
“Fuck calming down!” I yelled as I walked the few steps to the sink and turned the faucet on. I decided to bathe my own wounds since Tallis was obviously reluctant to act as my caregiver. Once the water felt lukewarm, I passed my left hand underneath it, wincing when the water flow made contact with my wounds.
“Besom,” Tallis started again, reminding me that I still had unfinished business with him.
“I want you to tell me what I, no, what we, just saw!” I insisted as I craned my neck to the side in order to face him.
He didn’t say anything right away, but just stood there, staring at me as the battle of whether or not to tell me the truth played across his face like a bad movie.
“Well, if you won’t talk, I will,” I continued, hating his silence. “I saw you kill me!” I winced as
I yanked a shard of glass out of my palm and blood started to pour from the wound. From what I could tell, there were three more pieces of glass still sticking out of my palm. And that was just my left hand.
“Nae,” Tallis said, shaking his head, but I could tell by the guilty expression on his face that he’d seen exactly the same thing. “Ah could never,” he started.
“You can’t deny it, because you saw it too,” I accused him, my voice a little softer this time. I shook my head and clenched my eyes shut tightly, but the memory of him plunging his sword into my chest still plagued me. “Tallis, why did you kill me?” I asked as I opened my eyes, the pain in my voice more palpable. “How could you do that to … me?”
“’Twas nae ye,” he said at last, sighing heavily as he shook his head and took a step nearer me, only to stop himself.
“I was in my own body when I experienced the vision,” I argued as I continued pulling the shards of glass from my left hand with my right. “It wasn’t like I witnessed everything that happened from a third person’s perspective.” Well, that was except for the final scene when I observed his bleeding tattoo. But I decided that little tidbit wasn’t so important at the moment.
“Ye were nae the one,” he started, but quickly shook his head and stopped as if he didn’t want to give away too much.
“I felt you, Tallis,” I argued as I turned from my ministrations and faced him. “I felt you inside me! And it was the most realistic thing I’ve ever experienced. It wasn’t like a dream. It felt … too real.”
When he nodded, it surprised me. I figured he would continue to argue that I hadn’t seen what I thought I had. “Ah saw the same thin’,” he finally admitted, shaking his head as he sighed deeply.
“Then we experienced the same thing together? The sex? And the … murder?”
“Aye,” he said with another brief nod as he dropped his eyes to the ground, refusing to look at me for a few seconds.