Blakeshire (Insight #9)(23)

“Gee, I don’t know, maybe because I know that death has separated us, that when we lived again, at some point you found Willow instead of me.”

His anger—the devotion was now laced with anger and what I thought was love—intensified. I was so confused. Did he feel that emotion because her name was mentioned or because he was trying to reach out to me?

“Do you know how brief my time with Willow was?”

See, now any other boy would have brushed that comment off, or at the very least downplayed it—but not Drake Blakeshire. No, he wanted to be blunt. To pull out the ugly truth and stare it down.

Even though I was screaming at myself, telling myself to never, ever mention Willow’s name again, I spoke anyway. “I’m not the one whose soul was opened up so all of my memories would flood to the surface,” I murmured as my gaze moved to the deep purple of his essence that was surrounding his body. That shade was a reflection of deep dreams or a connection to a spiritual plane. It was a shade you would always see around souls that had opened their minds up to accept all the secrets their souls knew.

His spellbinding eyes connected with mine. “The only memories of her they could find with that invasion were of war. Ruthless war. That always ended us before we had a chance to figure out that we were not what either of us were looking for.”

“That is a new tune,” I mocked. I already knew from digging in his thoughts before that he had in a sense said something close to that to Willow, only he said he fought and died for her, that they lived by passion.

“I see things differently now,” he said as his eyes drifted all around me.

“Why all of a sudden?”

Whatever he wanted to say, he held it back. “You’re deflecting. Tell me why a girl who is terrified of water wants to know if I have a boat.”

“Call me an opportunist.”

He smirked. “Facing your fears whilst your emotions are on hiatus?”

“Not all of them are gone,” I confessed.

“Good to know,” he said under his breath as his fingertips moved to trace my jawline. “Do you have any idea why you fear water?”

“Do you?”

“Unfortunately.”

He let silence explode between us.



Drake



Sometimes my mind was hard to control. Full of too many memories of past lives, memories that my dreams supplied. A word or phase would thrust me back without warning. Around Madison Marie, that seemed to happen often. Usually, those moments were full of bliss, but right now dread was building in me. Deep, dark dread that was spreading like a malignant, cancerous tumor.

I could see a place in my mind that looked like the palace, at least the dark, original structure, the passageways. I felt her there. The memory was rich. In my soul, I felt a possessiveness, one that was stronger than the one I had today, and I could not understand why. It was almost like I wanted to protect her and someone or something else but was certain I would fail.

My mother’s words were getting to me. I had never reasoned that one of my past lives had indeed occurred in Esterious, but right now, looking back at this dream I could swear it had. At one time, I was an original Blakeshire.

“Man of many words,” she said, pulling me from my thoughts. Her eyes were hooded; she was barely staying awake at this point. I continued to let my fingertips outline her beautiful image. Underneath my touch, I could see the faintest glow of light. I didn’t know if I was imagining it or not, but I wanted to believe I was giving her peace and rest right now, just as I had the night before when that same glow was present.

“Glass boat,” I said to myself as I grasped that memory a little tighter. She was there. In that original life. I was certain. But I was still missing a huge, vital part of that dream.

“A what?” she murmured.

“I remember a glass boat, the bottom of it anyway.” Before I could censor my words, I described what I was seeing in my thoughts. “...lost passage, dark water, a few sea creatures that were oversized.”

She slowly opened her eyes. “Even if I didn’t fear water, I would seriously think that going in the ocean in a boat made of glass would be a bit reckless.”

I laughed under my breath. “I don’t recall the reasons…I just know it ended badly.”

“How are you sure that that was me and not her?” she asked, clearly seeing into my mind.

Creator help me, I was really getting weary of hearing Willow’s name or the mention of her. She had become a weapon that Madison Marie wielded without thought. Something Willow didn’t deserve.

“Because I called you by your name.”

She furrowed her brow.

I leaned closer to her, only allowing a few inches to divide us. “You cannot stand it when a boy calls a girl by a name that does not belong to her. You take it as an insult. In some way, you think they do that simply so they will not accidentally call them by the wrong name. Plays into the heated jealousy that you and I share.”

“True, but you kinda lost me.”

“Love; I called Willow that when she crossed my path, and she liked it.” Before she could move away from me, I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her against me. “Anytime my mind was opened—or soul, rather—and the visions showed me calling a girl ‘love,’ I knew it would end in slaughter, that the two of us would die within a very short window of time. I hated those visions. They made me sick. As if my soul knew I needed a reprieve, another story would play out, and in that story I never called that stunning woman at my side love; I called her by her given name because that was what she demanded. Wanted.”