DARK SOULS (Dark Souls Series) (9 page)

He raised his eyes and looked straight at me as he took his seat. This time I was ready for it, and didn’t flinch. Neither did he. Pure silver greeted me again. I had never seen eyes like that on a person before. They were mesmerizing.

He cocked a small smile at me. I blushed, realizing that I was probably staring at him for too long yet again. I busied myself with tying the back of my apron and pretended to be immersed in the orders of lattes and cappuccinos as Andrea skulked around me. Thankfully, she seemed back to normal, her teeth as white as if she dipped them in bleach, no rotting incisors in sight. I stayed a good distance away from her anyway, remembering Rob, remembering
me.

“Hey you,” I heard Macy say to Asher in greeting. “Remember me? I was the one at the party, flying doors off hinges looking for my errant friend over there.”

I rolled my eyes, though I kept them trained on the next person ordering. Macy’s tactics, though admirable, were not going to bait me this time.

“Yeah, of course. Glad you found her.”

His voice was like sugared butter, and I clenched my jaw at the sound, turning the milk steamer on extra loud.
Sugared butter laced with razorblades
, I reminded myself. My body was still twanging as if barbed wire was scraping against my skin every time I moved. Coupled with my clenching stomach, I wasn’t doing too well this morning, I wiped my brow with the back of my wrist as I bent down to grab soy milk.

“You remember Emily?”

“I do.”

I would not look up. Nope, I couldn’t hear them. My stomach rumbled in painful agreement.

I felt him come over, his movements cautious as he weaved through the morning crowd, taking his place in line. I felt his study of me like a slow burn as I continued to pour cups of espresso like he wasn’t there.

Don’t look up. Do not do it.

Damn it, I looked up.

“Hi,” he said, looking at me over the espresso machine. “I wanted to say, I’m sorry about the other night.”

“Oh. Really?” I cleared my throat as I wiped off the milk steamer with a towel, not because I needed to but because I really needed an excuse to pull my stupid self together.

“Yeah, I think I came off as…abrupt.” He shrugged, his leather jacket tight against his broad shoulders. I forced myself to glance only at his face as I continued to work the coffee machine like a pro. Coffee beans, cup, press button, steam. I said the words like a mantra in my head. I would not look at his neck. I would
not.

His words hung in the air awkwardly, with Macy’s face darkening ominously behind it. I really hated to be rude, especially when he was trying to be nice.

I relented, just a little. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry for. If anything, I should be the sorry one, running off like that. It was kinda rude.”

I turned around to grab the blender as Andrea called out a frappe order, all too aware of Asher’s continued gaze on me and the increased prickling over my body the closer I got to him.

“So, redo?” He asked, smiling as he held his hand over the espresso maker, opening his palm in invitation. But his eyes, there was something behind them.

His hand reached just shy of my collarbone, and even though I didn’t raise my own hand to meet his, heat boiled up inside me regardless. My hand that held a full cup of coffee jerked, knocking the full blender beside me into the sink.

“Oh, good job.”

I looked up to see Liz Graham, one of Macy’s friends, ambling up behind Asher, her right eyebrow predictably arched as she eyed the mess. I barely spared her a glance as I began to clean it up, knowing that her ice blue eyes would pin me down as soon as I connected with them. She didn’t like me, and I didn’t like her.

I flicked a glance at Asher. There was probably only one reason she would show up today, and that reason was currently causing fireworks to detonate against my skin.

“Liz!” Macy called from her table. “Did you get my Facebook post? About those killer knee highs?”

“Yes! I died.” Liz’s voice rose a few octaves—dare I say became cheerful—when she turned to Macy.

Liz gave Asher a long look before tucking a strand of wheat blonde hair behind her ear and going over to Macy, pulling out her phone as she and Macy cooed over boots. I knew Macy was distracting Liz, but it was a distraction I didn’t want. I didn’t want to be alone talking to Asher,
feeling
him this closely. 

“Sorry,” I said, feebly trying to clean the mess while Andrea called out orders to me with increasing impatience. My fingers were shaking and I clenched them together against my palms, hard.

“Don’t worry about it.” He leaned over to grab a towel and wipe the sopping brown mess on the counter. It didn’t seem to bother him that Macy was very pointedly not helping, her version of giving us ‘privacy.’ He was too busy looking at me, his eyes feeling like pinpricks each time he moved them across my face. At that moment, I would’ve accepted a lifetime of growling stomach just to know what he was thinking. 

I had the strangest feeling inside me. I was drawn to him, but repelled by him at the same time. To enunciate my conflicting emotions, my stomach gurgled loudly. I turned my face away from him so he couldn’t see the pain that had skittered across it.

“Skipped breakfast,” I shrugged apologetically, trying to brush off the clenching pain as nothing but a tiny hunger pang.

“Emily,
seriously.
Look at the line!”

Andrea’s voice, though whiney, had a point. The morning rush was here, and because our third shift-mate didn’t show up, we were now understaffed. Asher’s alluring but uncomfortable eyes aside, I had to get to work. I started to redo the frappe recipe, wiping my brow again.

He got the hint. “I’ll see you later.”

His voice was low, soft, something only I could hear. I shivered at the sound. How is it that he possessed such power over me when saying something so simple? Had I suddenly dropped into a romance novel?

My stomach rolled, clenched, deflated. I pressed a hand to it. Nope, no romance novel would have their heroine experience cramps so bad that it made the time of the month look like a cakewalk.

 I heard Macy over the crowd, jabbering away at Asher as he sat across from her with Liz sitting regally in the middle. After making my hundredth pumpkin caramel latte, I realized that I hadn’t even asked Asher what he wanted to drink. There was a gap in the line, and as I faced the espresso machine I could see their table. I opened my mouth to call out to them, but no words came out. I was speechless.

 I felt like my thoughts were trapped inside me and something was preventing me from voicing them. Each time I opened my mouth to call out Asher, to maybe form a full sentence in front of him, no sound would come out. I pressed a hand to my neck, my fingers digging gently into my throat as if they could locate an actual obstruction.

No more
.

I gave an abrupt jolt as a voice that wasn’t mine snaked through my head, rattling the stack of ceramic mugs to my left. Asher, Liz and Macy looked over in surprise and I smiled sheepishly at them, hoping that I wasn’t trembling as noticeably as I thought I was.

I let out a slow, quiet breath as I tried to get my trembling body under control. 

“Miss? Could I actually get soy milk in this? My fault, I forgot to tell you.”

Grateful for the distraction, I immediately reached for the to-go cup the patron was holding out to me and remake his latte.

“Sure, no problem.”

There. My voice was back, escaping from my mouth easily. But the voice…what was that?

A loud, ear-splitting crash interrupted my thoughts and shocked every single patron in the place to such an extent that I heard screams. The sound was so sudden that my heart nearly shot out of my chest and so loud that I almost scrambled down the basement stairs and flattened myself onto the floor for cover. The sound was followed by a loud wail, reverberating around the coffee shop in short staccato bursts.

Now that I had every reason to tremble, I braced both my hands on the counter and breathed deep as I recovered from my initial shock. Glancing over at the sound, I realized a little boy had run into the display of coffee mugs near the entrance. Andrea was already over there, asking the mother, “Is he okay? Is he hurt? Cut?”

The mother was shaking her head as she held her child close, the boy still wailing against his mother’s chest.

I was so focused on the mother and child that I failed register that Asher was now in front of me.

Confused, I looked at him, wondering how he got behind the counter so quickly. His back was to me, but he stood ready to pounce, his body coiling in a way that I didn’t even know humans were capable of. His hands were out to his sides, but clenched, the muscles of his arm stiff under his jacket. He had backed up just a little, so close that if I blew out a deep breath, I would tickle the hairs at the back of his neck.

Wait. Wait a minute. Was he…no, that’s stupid. Not possible. No way. I frowned, backing up myself until I hit the end of the counter.

But…was he protecting me?

With everyone calming down, he turned and I could see the ice in his gaze. For a panicked moment I thought he was staring those blade-silver eyes at me, but I quickly realized that I wasn’t the source of his interest—the crash of glass and ceramic was, and now that it was over, his face was carefully smoothing back to normal.

My body vibrated strangely in response, my muscles tensing and readying to spring into action despite the increasing pain in my stomach. It was only when I looked down that I realized my hands were clenched tightly into fists—so tight that I could see the whites of my knuckles. I immediately relaxed my hands, wincing slightly at the dull ache that followed.

Macy let out a little squeak in surprise, her hand moving to her mouth very slowly as she lifted her hot chocolate to her lips and stared at Asher, wide-eyed.

“Asher?” I asked hesitantly, carefully. I kept my voice soft and unthreatening as I steadied my gaze on him, observing him as I would a tiger escaped from the Bronx zoo.

“I can deal with sullen-hot. I cannot deal with psycho-hot.” I heard Liz say. She had taken up residence behind the pastry counter, just to my right, using it as a shield should Asher begin to go postal on her. He was barely paying attention to her, only looking at her once, like a pretty art piece on a wall before moving on and forgetting about it. He just glared, at me, at the empty space beside me, I really wasn’t sure.

“Asher?” I tried again.

My voice caused him to blink, and he relaxed as soon as I caught his attention. But his eyes remained alert and focused as he walked around me and back to the other side of the counter.

“I hate loud noises,” he said before making his way to the exit, barely even looking at me.

I remained stiff with shock, tense and watchful, as my eyes followed him out the door. I couldn’t help but continue glancing at the back of his head in wonder, and I sensed Liz beside me, looking at him in furtive panic until he disappeared from the windows.

The air cleared as soon as he left the coffee shop.

What was that?
I asked myself.

 I’m potentially in the middle of a mental breakdown, or receiving special superpowers, depending on your point of view, and yet I still find time to be lured in by a mysteriously handsome new guy? Just last Friday, every part of me was telling me to stay away from him. Now, it felt like I was being torn in half—one side urging me to go on, to continue the pursuit of Asher and all the feelings he gave me just by looking at him, and the other side demanding that I stay far, far away. That I was being warned. 

“Oh, dude you are totally smitten.” Macy grinned as she leaned up against the counter. “I told you. He even tried to
defend
you! Like a knight. A hot, sexy, brooding knight.”

“A dark knight,” I said softly, mumbling half to myself.

“Well yeah, dark and
sexy
. Oh please,” she said when she saw my tense look. “I react way worse than he did when I find a spider crawling up my leg. So, want me to invite him out with us tomorrow night?”

I cringed. “No, I don’t think so.”

I hadn’t thought about seeing him again. It was taking a lot of effort to be normal around him, and in the state I was in, it was only going to get worse. Maybe I really was getting the stomach flu. Maybe that’s all this was, despite exhibiting unnatural physical manifestations, and possibly hearing strange voices, maybe in the midst of it I was just getting the stupid flu. I was always able to rationalize my way into or out of anything, and I was so desperate for answers that I could probably talk myself into actually believing I had a virus. The flu could create hallucinations, dizziness and a heated craziness that made you feel like you were burning from the inside out. I most definitely possessed each and every one of those symptoms. Of course that could be what this was.

Don’t be an idiot
, I told myself. It was high time I actually acknowledged these physical changes and supernatural mental abilities in me instead of ignoring them. That way I could actually try to fix it.

I had the foreboding feeling that if I didn’t at least try, I would probably end up like those poor, broken ceramic mugs, scattered across the tiled floor. Broken shards of what used to be a complete and comforting whole.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I brushed Macy off as gently as I could after my shift ended. Usually we headed over to the local diner for a while between my shifts, Macy for the most part regaling me with the latest college gossip as we shared a plate of fries. 

Today however, I was restless and clenched tight. My stomach had only become worse. Beads of sweat were rapidly forming on my brow, and I quickly had to wipe the sweat away before anyone noticed. While my stomach made my body beg for me to go home, curl up, and lie down with a hot water bottle, the pain was causing my mind to become even more determined to figure out what was going on.

Luckily, I was never a sick child. Not once have I ever had to enter through hospital doors, sick and in pain. I had lived such a sheltered life when I was young that I rarely had an opportunity to have any sort of accident that could land me in the hospital. And so I was able to rationalize that, because I never had any reason to go to a hospital before, I didn’t need to go to one now.