Page 49 of Beneath the Watching

Startled, I stood up. “Wait. There’s a God?”

I sensed rather than felt the amusement and goosebumps ran down my arms. Is this what it was like to have an invisible friend? Discomfort ran through me; I was much too old for childhood fancies. The voice seemed neutral, neither friend nor enemy.

There is if you believe there is.

“What is this place?”

What one in your shoes would consider an alternate dimension.

I glanced down at my flip-flops.Shoes would’ve come in handy. “How long have you been following me around?”

Forever.

“Why am I only noticing you now?”

Curses. Change. Everything is changing. Decay is coming.

With her final pronouncement, I felt the air shift as if a vacuum had been turned on and a void left behind.

My mind went to mine and Al’s apartment and I thought about how dirty it must be in my absence before I pictured Madison helping him clean. The cleaning lady only came once a week.

Dropping to a sitting position, I laid my chin on my knees. Distracting myself with the things that didn’t matter wouldn’t fix anything. Right now, I was all alone in the woods, facing my own personal demons.

Kiara was a combative emotional wreck; she bulldozed her way through everything while I was an armored tank, never letting a thing penetrate my iron shield. The connection wasn’t lost on me, the dysfunction in our lives and the resulting consequences.

The voice had implied there were other people caught up in this and I had to wonder what their issues were, how they’d tried to navigate what Stefan referred to as the Third Realm beforefinding themselves dropped or kidnapped into this magical dimension.

Back home, I was a shell of a person, drifting along doing whatever anyone told or expected of me. I took zero risks, nodding and smiling, never expressing a need, hope, or dream. My foster families had enjoyed the benefits of such behavior, dressing me up and showing me off with proclamations about how well-behaved I was, how cute my outfits were, and how easy I was to take care of.

My own parents hadn’t wanted me, not if they gave me away, and I made damned sure I was as desired as I could be with each and every family that took me on after they left.

My heart hurt, considering the possible reasons my own mother and father wouldn’t have wanted me. I was now too old to need the care of a parent a small child would, but I wasn’t too old to want the more mature guidance such a relationship would provide. I’d never had any information about my birth family, their existence seemingly wiped off the face of the planet, so I’d stopped pursuing it.

Pushing the thoughts of my origins away, I gazed at the landscape around me. It was beautiful, with the piercingly bright stars and large, heavy moon. The craters and mountains on the lunar surface stood in sharp relief, easily identified without the use of a telescope. It was breathtaking.

As my thoughts wandered, I remembered Stefan saying there was no where I could run he wouldn’t find me.

I’d run away; but he hadn’t found me.

16

STEFAN

Silence descendedupon the dinner table; glowing eyes fixated on me. An impossible question had been asked of me—as if I would ever drag my woman here. “She is currently acclimating to her new life.”

Sem took a knife from the side of his dinner plate and cut into the receptionist’s upper arm, carving a chunk of flesh away before delicately placing it beside a cluster of grapes. “Is that a refusal of a direct order?”

A mix of emotions ran through me. For years, I’d ignored the higher court and its authority, myself and my peers having run around unchecked and unbothered. It was easy to forget there were those above us to answer to. I couldn’t imagine a single one of us bowing to anyone at this stage. “Not at all, she merely needs to be ready.”

My superior cut another small chunk of meat and lifted it to his lips. “Your care of lesser beings is unbecoming. Perhaps you’ve forgotten your own shaky place,” Sem remarked.

“Not at all, my Lord.”

Sem eyed me, chewing slowly, as a trickle of blood slid down his chin adding to the already dried collection perched on the edge of his face. If I were anyone else, I’d have been terrified.

Josiah didn’t touch the food, content to sip on his glass of blood. His posture was deceptively relaxed though I could sense the coiled snake lying beneath the cool exterior. A woman seated beside him was trailing her fingers along his neck and making cooing sounds, oblivious to the charge of electricity sparking in the air.

The High Lord leaned back in his seat, still chewing the piece of flesh. He’d pulled in his aura, closing himself off where before, he’d been an open book. Many others kept a guard of privacy, including the man in the chair next to me. Lacking the same magnitude of strength and ability as the people around me, I knew my own shield was weak despite my best efforts.

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