HAPTER 14
While Celeste ushered the honking goose away from the car and toward the gate, making a few honks of seeming encouragement herself, I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, asking Jackson to tell me whatever he needed to. “Please. I’m listening.”
He took a deep breath before speaking, and I could hear the pregnant tension in the sound even over the phone.
“I told myself that I wasn’t going to try to talk you into staying here. I told myself that I wasn’t going to try to sway your decision, and I’m still not. But there are just a few things I have to say before you make your choice. There are a few things that I need you to know.
“First thing... I care about you, Vivian. I know we haven’t known each other all that long, but I care about you deeply. You do something peculiar to my heart when I’m around you, and I like it. It’s something that makes me think that I might possibly want my heart to feel the funny way it does around you indefinitely. I truly don’t care if you stay but decide not to give me an heir right away, or not ever.
“Which brings me to thing two. I just want you here. I just want you to stay, Vivian. I just want to spell that out and make it crystal clear. I want you to stay. Badly. I want this more than I’m sure you even realize. And if you go, there will be a spot in my heart that I doubt will ever be filled. Not by anyone. You’re special to me not because of your fertility, but because of who you are. You make me smile, and you make my heart feel a way it’s never felt before. And that’s even though you can be a bit maddening and naughty at times, especially regarding text messages. You do occasionally come awfully close to warranting a court martial.
“But despite that, you still make my stomach drop sometimes just to hear you speak in that lovely, light voice of yours. You still make my heart flip just to sit near you and look into your eyes. The things you say sometimes, or the way you react to things I’ve said sometimes... You just make my heart feel very strange, though in the best possible sort of way. Your great beauty is just a bonus.”
While I stifled a sob brought about by Jackson’s words causing some huge welling of emotion in my chest, a few orange butterflies whirled in front of the car, dancing in a breeze. This was what I’d been waiting for, the thing I hadn’t even been able to articulate that I wanted. What Jackson was saying was what I’d been waiting for and hadn’t even known it.
After taking a long pause, he took a deep breath before continuing. “I want you to stay, and I want that badly, and I just wanted you to know that. I think it’s definitely possible that we could have a future together, and a very happy one. But, of course, I want the choice to still be all yours. Because I truly care about you, I want you to make a decision based not on what I want, but whatever you think will make you happy.
And that’s it. That’s all I had to say. And now, even though I myself feel better, I just hope I haven’t complicated things for you. If your mind has been leaning one particular way, a way leaning toward your home, I hope I haven’t made things harder for you.”
Wiping fresh tears from my cheeks, I said no, that he hadn’t. “See, Jackson, when you called, I—”
My words had suddenly been cut off by some loud noise I couldn’t immediately place. Irritated, I looked at Celeste and the goose, for just a second, thinking that they’d both suddenly stepped up their honking. But they were a good distance away now, near the gate. And the noise, I now realized, wasn’t really anything at all like a honk anyway; it was a higher-pitched sound. It was like an extremely loud, yet somewhat distant, siren. It hadn’t been pealing for three seconds yet when I heard Jackson’s voice in my ear again.
“Wherever you and Celeste are in the park right now, get back to the car and drive back to The Arch immediately. That’s the warning siren that a large group of Gorgolians are heading toward the city at once.”
Knowing that already, I’d been waving Celeste back to the car almost since Jackson had started speaking, and now she was dashing over after having ushered the goose back behind the gate.
“Celeste’s coming, and we’ll drive back to The Arch right away.”
“Good. You should still have some time to get back, but, Vivian, if the two of you see any sign of fighting in the skies before you can, you pull over and take shelter in the basement of the first building that you see. Do you understand?”
“Yes. We have the top down, so I’ll be able to see any sign of fighting, and we’ll take shelter right away. I promise.”
“Good. I need to shift now and join my men, so you won’t be able to call me to tell me you’re back safe, but I’m going to station one of my men at the entrance to The Arch in human form, so that he can fly up and tell me when you’ve arrived.”
“Okay.”
“Be safe, Vivian; be careful. Tell Celeste to drive fast but not recklessly.”
“Oh, I don’t think driving fast will be any problem for Celeste.”
I was sure she’d also drive bordering on recklessly, too, no matter what I said.
“I’m tempted to just come fly to get you myself in dragon form, but I think Drago is going to be looking for something like that. He’s going to be looking for you. I almost think you’ll be safer on the ground. And now that I’m thinking of it, put the top up on the car. Leave it open a crack so you can watch the skies, but put the top up.”
“Okay. We will.”
“And when you get back to The Arch, you stay inside, no matter what, and tell Celeste to do the same. No one is to be outside on any balcony, for any reason, on my explicit orders. And if Celeste disregards my orders and decides to go out, Vivian, you are not to follow her out, for any reason. Do you understand me? Not even if her life is in danger.”
“I understand.”
“Good.”
While the sirens continued to peal, and Celeste got in the car, there was a long pause.
“Vivian, I need to go to my men now and prepare for battle. Please, please be safe. When the fighting is over, I’ll come to you the very moment I’m able.”
“Okay. And you, too, Jackson. Please be safe.”
“See you as soon as I can, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. It was the first time he’d ever called me that. I liked it. I loved it, in fact. I loved hearing him call me sweetheart in his deep, rich voice. Even in the midst of sirens blaring and Celeste starting the car and whipping it around to head back out to the road, I thought how I’d be happy to hear Jackson call me sweetheart just a billion more times over the course of my life.
After pocketing my phone and making sure my seat belt was still fastened securely, I turned to look at Celeste, surprised to find her smiling.
She glanced over at me, letting a little chuckle escape her mouth. “That little rascal just did not want to go back to the pond. I think he actually wanted to come home with me. I honked at him in goose language that I’ll come back sometime and bring him some bread for a treat.”
I stared at her, incredulous. “Gorgolian alarm sirens are blaring right now, and you’re honestly thinking about geese?”
Immediately, it crossed my mind that that was probably an unfair question. After all, I’d been thinking about my pleasure at being called sweetheart while Gorgolian alarm sirens were blaring.
Celeste shrugged, smile fading, gaze on the dirt track in front of us. “I guess maybe I’m just trying to distract myself from thinking about how the Gorgolians are going to attack the city, and I won’t be able to even attempt to help in any way, because now we all know how I react when faced with one of them.”
Now I felt bad, and I told her I was sorry. “That was probably inconsiderate of me not to realize you were just trying to distract yourself. Didn’t mean to be a jerk.”
She glanced over at me, smiling again. “Well, maybe I deserved that, after making you think we were going to crash into a brick wall.”
I thought about her words for a second, then snorted. “Well, really! You did deserve that!”
I soon told her that Jackson had said to put the top up, and she did.
“Oh, and he also said for you to drive fast, but not recklessly.”
“Me? Recklessly? Never. We will drive fast, though. See, when there’s a city-wide emergency, ten stacked levels of road open up so that everyone can get to safety fast, without any traffic jams.”
“What do you mean, ‘ten stacked levels of road?’?”
“Well, you’ll see in a sec.”
Celeste put the gas to the floor, and I soon did. After leaving the dirt trails of the park and coming out on the main paved road leading into the city, I saw that ten glowing red lines of light hung above the road, extremely bright, even in the sun, yet translucent at the same time, like a hologram. Celeste soon confirmed my thinking, saying that yes, they were holograms. She then pushed a few buttons on the dashboard, and within seconds, we were ascending to drive between the fifth and sixth hologram bars, flying.
“See, it’s like having ‘ten stacked levels of road,’ like I said. And this hardly ever happens, that Jackson calls for the hologram to appear, so this is going to be awesome to drive in it. And in a second, you’ll definitely see the need for the clearly-defined lines, because once we really get into the city, I know all ten ‘levels’ of driving space will probably be used. But even still, we’ll still be able to race back to The Arch as fast as we want to go. Even with all the cars in the city, you’d be surprised just how much ten different roads-in-one really clears up congestion.”
She wasn’t kidding. Even once we got into downtown, we still raced along just as fast as we had when leaving the park. Traveling within the hologram was something like being in a massive parking garage, only with all the cars above and below us moving.
Looking out the window, I couldn’t even see the actual paved road anymore, just the multiple levels of cars beneath us. It was honestly kind of fun to ride in a car this way. Or, maybe not outright fun, but at least distracting enough so that I wasn’t overly anxious about the impending Gorgolian attack.
Celeste seemed to be distracted by it, too, because she’d fallen completely silent, just staring straight ahead and pushing buttons on the dash every so often. At first, I thought she was maybe just enjoying the rare experience of driving between the levels, but then a little crease between her big blue eyes told me otherwise; I asked what she was thinking about.
Without taking her gaze from the level we were on at present, she lifted her slender shoulders in a shrug. “Well, not about the Gorgolians. I know we’ll make it back to The Arch before they reach the city. I’m just thinking about how such a fearless maniac like myself, a maniac who crashes into brick walls, or nearly crashes into them like today, could have just completely frozen up how I did when I saw Drago heading toward me. I’m having thoughts that maybe Jason’s right. Maybe I just froze up because dragons are simply very scary up close, and it was my first time ever dealing with one. Maybe I do just need a second chance.”
Right away, I felt sick to my stomach.
“No. No, Celeste, I’m warning you. Do not get any thoughts about going out onto the balcony again this time, or—”
“I’m not. Truly, I’m not, Viv.”
She glanced over at me, and I saw that the look in her eyes was one of sincerity.
“I am not going out onto the balcony this time. I know my limitations now, and I know not to do a reckless thing twice. No, this time I’ll be...” Celeste paused, swallowing. “I’ll be staying indoors, with the rest of the women.” She paused again, tightening her hands on the steering wheel. “Grandma Irene will be... She’ll be super proud.”
Celeste stomped on the gas, flicking the radio on to a pop station, and I knew she was done talking at the moment. Peering out a crack in the hardtop, I began trying to look for any signs of Gorgolian shifters and fighting, but all I saw were Jackson’s men, circling high above the city, in clusters of about a dozen. And then, once we neared The Arch, I spotted a glimpse of Jackson himself -- dark, fierce, and magnificent, hovering low with his face seeming to be directed toward the ground, as if he was trying to spot someone. His sweetheart, maybe, I thought with a little thrill rippling through me.
Once inside The Arch, Celeste and I told his shifter guard that we’d arrived safely, and then once he’d taken off to tell Jackson, Celeste and I took the elevator up to my apartment.
The fight between the United Federation of Shifters and the Gorgolians raged all afternoon and into the night. Coming from somewhere high in the sky, great booms and crashes shook the city. Long jets of fire shot across the darkened horizon. Every so often, a mighty roar would shake the very foundation of The Arch itself, making the building tremble with just the faintest of vibrations. Also, every so often, a noise like a bomb hitting the ground far below would sound, likely indicating that one of the thousands of shifters in the sky had fallen to the ground, dead or injured. I knew that when a Gorgolian was killed, Jackson and his men would try to catch him in mid-air and steer him away from all buildings to land on the road so that no one inside the buildings would be hurt.
Somewhere along the way, even as worried as we were about Jackson, Jason, and the other UFS shifters, Celeste and I managed to get a few hours of sleep. I crashed on the French blue couch in the living room, fighting a few sniffles of anxiety over Jackson’s safety, and Celeste fell asleep in a recliner nearby, empty glass of wine tipped over in her lap.
I awoke sometime shortly after dawn. Jackson’s strong arms were around me, lifting me. My face was against his hard chest. My arms found their way to wrap around his strong shoulders. Feeling as if I were in some hazy, blissful dream, I never wanted it to end. But shortly after he carried me into my bedroom, whispering sweet nothings into my ear, even calling me sweetheart several times, it did. That was when Jackson said something that had the effect of making me bolt upright to sit in bed, heart pounding.