The Guardian (Callista Ryan Series) (39 page)

             
All her life, Callie had seen pictures of this. The Big Ben was something that belonged in story books and fairy tales. And even though she’d always known it was real, she had never quite imagined that something so enchanted could exist in this world. As though they agreed, stars framed the tower, claiming it as their own, the silver pinpricks of light greedily surrounding it.

             
“Wow,” she breathed.

             
Alex drew her closer to him as he neared the tower, each second getting nearer.

             
“Wait, what are you doing?” she asked, looking around at the people below. “They’ll see you.”

             
“We’re not going to the ground,” he replied.

             
“Then…what—“

             
“Do you remember the movie?” he asked, his expression exhilarated.

             
“Yes,” she said, though she barely understood what he’d said. How effortless it was to become lost in his face. She couldn’t believe that she had once found his features jagged and coarse due to those decades of breakage. Despite the landmark in the foreground,
this
was the most stunning sight she had ever seen. The most familiar. The most indescribable.

             
And then, as though to answer her unspoken question, he nodded to the clock’s face, which was only feet away. Her eyes widened.

             
“Really?” she asked, turning to him again.

             
He grinned, and quickened his pace for a brief moment, closing the short distance between their bodies and the improbable edifice before them.

             
And then, slowly, they sank onto the inner rim of the clock’s circumference. A radiant white light washed over them, drowning them in the soft glow of the tower. Callie could hardly believe that she was standing there, on top of the Big Ben, looking up at the iron hands while Alex held her close to him. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that this could be possible.

             
The golden veins of the clock’s face decorated the circle in an intricate spider web, crawling outwards in magnificent artistry. Looking at it from this angle, the sloping lines formed a multifaceted sun, brilliant and all-seeing as its light was cast out over London. The Roman numerals which counted the hours gleamed. And as Callie stood there, in the pit of it all, she wrapped her arms around Alex’s waist and rested her head against his chest, feeling so small in the face of the majesty that surrounded her. “It’s like a dream,” she murmured.

             
“It’s the place halfway between sleep and awake,” he said. “Wendy had it right.”

             
She gazed out at the night sky, looking once again at the horizon. “Second star to the right,” she whispered, her eyes scanning the constellations for the two brightest bulbs.

             
He kissed the top of her head, and she chuckled.

             
“I guess I already know where Neverland is, though,” she said. Looking up at him, sinking into his liquid brown eyes, she said, “It’s the place where people never grow up. The place where anything is possible. I think I’ve been living there for weeks.”

             
He laughed, and lowered his forehead against hers. Gazing at her with emotions too complex to define, he reminded her, “But Wendy returned home at the end of the story.”

             
She froze. She knew what he was asking her, and truthfully, she hadn’t given much thought to returning home in the past few days. She knew that she had to eventually. Maggie would be waiting for her. But she couldn’t imagine what life would be like once she returned to the real world, once she left him. All she knew was that she
couldn’t
leave him. And she couldn’t leave Maggie alone.

             
She lifted her eyes to meet his, and saw the subtle question on his face. But what could she say? Her heart suddenly split down the center, yanked in two different directions.

             
“Halfway between sleep and awake,” she repeated softly. “That’s where she’d always love him.”

             
It wasn’t an answer. And she saw that he knew it wasn’t an answer. But he must have seen how her guilt was at war with her desire, for he closed his eyes and gathered her more closely against him, and let the question die on his lips.

             
They stood there like that for a long while, their flesh merging together, their hearts full of the same joy, the same imminent misery.

             
Without warning, the clock struck eight, and a chorus of bells rang out through the night air, showering London with powerful chimes. Callie gasped, nearly losing her footing. Alex caught her, though, and lifted her back to his chest. Their faces were closer together now; she could see the need in his eyes. Somehow, the peace which she had felt earlier had disappeared, for their time together had become fleeting. Her feet dangled in the air as, to the music of the bells, he lowered his lips in quiet plea. If their nights together were numbered, he would not waste a second. The way he held her so possessively… it was as if he was trying to hold onto the moment. And she realized, as the metallic ringing of the bells counted down the hours, that she would remember this night for the rest of her life.

             
Slowly, his kiss gentled. His mouth pressed lightly against hers, and she savored the feel of him. When he broke the kiss, and the bells ended, and the night became still once more, she buried her face in his throat to hide the hot tears which spilled down her cheeks. Because she knew in that moment that she couldn’t stay.

             
And because, at the same time, she knew that her heart would be lost in the forest forever.

Chapter
Twenty One

Shadows

             
Over the nex
t
week, Callie spent her days on the beach with Zeke, learning how to access his mind from greater distances and more complicated angles. She struggled with certain techniques, such as Perceiving upon him when she couldn’t look at him, or confusing him by accessing two memories simultaneously. But she became stronger with others, such as jumping back and forth between his and Serena’s minds, and focusing on the smaller details in each picture so as to make it more vivid, more distracting.

She spent the nights with Alex. As Shay had remained locked up in her cottage, producing odd smelling experiments and muttering to herself, Callie had no difficulty
persuading Alex to let her stay with him. To be honest, he didn’t seem to need very much convincing. They would talk into the small hours of the morning about small nothings: his favorite childhood pet (a stray dog which his brother had named Calem, who would return each night to eat the scraps from their supper table), the time she found out that she needed braces and threatened that she wouldn’t speak or smile the entire time she had to wear them, the stranger memories he had witnessed from the likes of George Washington and Sigmund Freud, her fifth birthday party at the circus. Strangely, the more trivial the subjects, the better she felt that she knew him. All of the inconsequential snapshots somehow formed the full picture.

             
Most nights, she would find herself nodding off as they sat in front of the fire, entangled in his arms, listening to him spin stories while she felt his voice rumble in his chest. These moments were so comfortable, so delicious, that she would try to force herself to stay awake. Invariably, she would end up falling asleep against his shoulder, and he would carry her to bed so that she woke up the next morning once again wrapped in the soft weight of white bedding. For the first few mornings, she woke alone, and found him sleeping on the couch. One night, though, when he tried to fold her into the comforter and return to the couch, she reached out and caught his wrist.

             
“Stay,” she whispered, half-awake yet aware that, even in the darkness of unconsciousness, she would feel his absence.

             
After a moment of visible hesitation, Alex sank down beside her, and Callie fell asleep in the hollow between his shoulder and his neck.

             
Now, when she woke, she was facing the window. She watched as the sun filtered through the trees, pleasantly warm against her skin. Alex’s solid arm was holding her territorially, snaking around her belly and tucking her into him. She could tell from the even rises and falls of his chest that he was still asleep.

             
She rolled over to face him, and her heart caught on the way the sunlight trickled across his face, highlighting his bronze skin, filtering through his eyelashes. His expression was so peaceful. She traced a finger over the knotted curve of his cheek.

             
His eyelashes fluttered, and then revealed his hazy brown eyes. She smiled timidly at him.

             
“Good morning,” she said quietly.

             
A corner of his mouth lifted, and he inhaled deeply against the pillow. She smoothed back a loose strand of his hair, pushing it behind his ear, loving the way he sighed at her touch. Every movement, every sound that he made, affected her. As she watched him slowly drift through the layers of sleep and return to the waking world, she felt safe again. And that was when she knew that despite her reluctance, he already had complete control of her heart. He already possessed the power to destroy her. And, in spite of all that, he was always saving her.

             
“Alex,” she whispered.

             
“Hmm?” he breathed.

             
She hesitated, and then murmured, “I love you, too.”

             
His eyes snapped open. She saw a flicker of disbelief cross his face, but that barely lasted a moment before it was replaced with a pleased, almost smug grin. “I know,” he said.

             
“Hey,” she said, suppressing a chuckle and lightly smacking his shoulder. “You might at least pretend to be surprised. It’s not every day I say that to someone.”

             
He moved as though to stretch his arms over his head, and then suddenly shot into the air and pinioned her to the mattress, clasping her wrists above her head with iron strength. She tried to wriggle free, even though, as she saw the canopy of muscle above her, and the triumphant smile that he was wearing, she couldn’t think of any place she’d rather be.

             
“I’ve got news for you,” he said, leaning down to kiss her nose. “You fell in love with me the second you saw me.”

             
“
What
?” she asked, gasping for breath through her laughter. She squirmed again, twisting her wrists beneath his hands. “Kind of confident for someone who had to haul me kicking and screaming halfway across the world, aren’t you?”

             
His russet eyes sparkled, and his lips trailed lower as he kissed her throat.

             
“You’re here, aren’t you?” he quipped.

             
“Ha!” she barked, though she didn’t protest when he finally brought his face up and, beaming at her with all the brilliance of the sun itself, inclined his mouth to hers, kissing her with such tenderness, such gentle gratitude, that she immediately forgave him his cockiness.

             
When he pulled away half an inch, his eyes tracing her face, she shook her head and breathed, “I never had a chance, did I?”

             
He grinned slowly in reply, and lowered his lips to hers once again.

             
“Is everyone decent?”

             
Alex’s head snapped up and turned to face the bedroom door. Callie looked beyond him, though there was no one there. The voice had come from the cottage door.

             
“Zeke,” Alex growled under his breath, sounding as though he could kill his friend for the intrusion.

             
Callie sighed, and her head fell back once again onto the pillow. “He probably wants to train some more.”

             
Alex looked back down at her, and his eyes softened as he saw her laying there. “I can get rid of him,” he offered.

             
Callie took his words seriously for a moment, and then rolled her eyes when she realized that she had to decline. “No,” she said, pushing up from the bed. “Just tell him that I have to shower, and then I’ll be right out.”

             
The expression on Alex’s face was almost comical, it was so crestfallen as he watched her walk away. She grinned, and then stepped back towards the bed. Framing his face with her hands, she leaned in and kissed him lightly. “I love you,” she said again, her voice a little hoarse as she felt how true the words were.