Free Endless Days (The Firsts) by C.L. Quinn Page B

splayed against his chest.
    “It’s okay, it’s a part of you.  It’s always there.  Kav, this is called a spirit amulet.  All of the firsts have it.  It is merged with you, a part of you for all of your life.  Your power is amplified…is channeled with it…through it.  You are completely disconnected.   It is why you have been alone in all this…your exceptional abilities have been inaccessible.  Now, we will work on bringing them back.  Now, we will make you well.  And God help those who hurt you.  Once you have your strength back, you will know who they are, what they did, and you will know how to find them.”
    “But you said it would hurt you to help me.”
    “It will not be easy.  It will be painful for you…you will have to relive much of the bad things.  I will have to journey with you.  It will be painful for me only in that I will have to see and feel what you went through…”   She paused before she said the next, “But…I care about you, and it will be painful for me to see you hurt.  My actual pain…that would only come if I allowed us to bond.  I cannot do that, but I think you understand.”
    He understood.  She said she “cared” for him, like she might a child or a puppy.  Not with the scorching need he felt for her.  No.  He couldn’t open himself up to her like that.  She would see, would know, how much he needed her.  He had a drop of pride left…and couldn’t bear her to look at him with pity of his unrequited love.  He didn’t remember a lot of things, but he remembered how much it hurt to love and not be loved in return.  He couldn’t bear it from her.
    With a curt nod of his head, he agreed he would stay and work with her.  But he’d be gone, just as he planned, before the night ended.
    She’d done something to him.  He could feel it.  Something moved through his body as if it were alive…it spoke to him in a voice older than time itself…ancient, rich, powerful…and he knew now…
    She was right.  He was something different.   Suddenly, an intense tiredness struck him.  His eyes rolled back and he couldn’t help but let his eyelids drop.  They stayed there.  When he was finally able to open them some time later, he didn’t know how much, she was there, on the floor again, his hands in hers, her eyes searching his face.
    “David…”  She said softly, pronouncing it Dah-veed.  He tried to look at her, but his eyes fought him.
    “I…I can’t keep my eyes open.   What’s wrong with me…”
    “You are reconnecting to your spirit, your power.  It will be a little like a vampire conversion.  You will sleep the rest of the night, I think.”
    No, no, he wanted to be gone… Away…far…away…  He lost consciousness.
     
     
    Kav woke abruptly.  He sat up quickly, a dim light in the corner let him know he was in his own bed in the mansion’s basement.  A light sheet was pulled halfway up, but he’d thrown it off sometime while he slept.  When he glanced around he noticed a figure in the bed beside him, curled up small, sleeping soundly.  Cherise.  He rolled over and stared at her.  A dream, having her beside him in sleep.  She was fully clothed, that hadn’t been part of the dream…but close enough .  His eyes seemed even sharper in the dim light than before.  He noticed every nuance of her appearance, her sounds, her movements.  She was perfect.  Well, to him.  For him.  If he hadn’t gone through whatever he needed to heal from, if he had been whole, he would have taken her and never let her talk herself out of it.   She would be his.
    But he couldn’t come to her as anything but a broken, incomplete man.  He wouldn’t be good for her.  And that was the end of it.  Not able to stop himself, he ran his fingers along her cheek.  She moaned sensuously and rolled toward him, then stretched a leg out and threw it over his bare one.  Contact, skin to skin…it was an instant reaction.  He could feel his