Found (The Crescent Chronicles #3) Read online

  Levi was waiting for me outside the door. “It’s going to get colder when the sun goes down.” He held out my black pea coat for me.

  “Thanks.” I let him help me into it. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t bother with his own coat. He never got cold.

  “I was about to ask you if we’d be able to find our way back in the dark…stupid question.”

  “Not stupid, just unnecessary.” He took my hand and led me down the back porch stairs.

  It was twilight and there was something almost eerie about walking around the empty fields. It was a clear night, with a star filled sky that I never would have seen in the city.

  Levi was right about the temperature dropping. I was grateful for my coat. I had it buttoned all the way up.

  I hesitated for a moment as we neared the woods. “Is there a particular reason you’re leading me into a dark forest?”

  “I never took you as being afraid of the dark.”

  “You can’t blame me for being scared of things.”

  His face darkened. “I’m sorry.”

  I hadn’t meant to hurt him with my words, but the truth was, I’d had too many close calls over the past few months not to worry. “It’s okay. I know I’m safe with you.”

  He took my hand. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  “And it’s in the woods…right. Why doesn’t this surprise me?”

  He laughed. “Come on.”

  I let him lead me deeper into the forest. I gripped his hand tightly. He might have been able to see in the dark, but I definitely couldn’t. The woods were dense, with a thick cover of trees blocking out most of the light the moon and stars could have provided us. “Can’t you just fly us there?”

  “You want me to?”

  “Yes, please.” Chances were if we kept walking much longer, I’d end up with a turned ankle. No matter how coordinated you are, there’s no way to avoid tripping over tree roots you can’t see.

  After removing his sweater and t-shirt, he wrapped his arms around me, and I enjoyed the usual feeling. The only problem was the small pellets of rain stinging my face. It hadn’t been raining on the ground.

  He landed, and it took me a moment to regain my balance. “Lovely weather for a walk in the woods.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m leading us to shelter.”

  “Shelter?”

  “You’ll see.” He grinned again.

  I finally looked around. Right behind me was what appeared to be the mouth of a cave. “Are we going in there?”

  “Yes. It’s much cooler inside.” He put a hand on my back.

  I tentatively stepped forward, only willing to enter because of Levi’s hand.

  The woods seemed brightly lit compared to the complete darkness engulfing us inside the cave. I stopped moving.

  “It’s just a little further.”

  “Levi, I’m scared.” I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve admitted that to someone.

  “Don’t be,” he whispered in my ear as he moved us forward.

  “I’ll be right back.” He pulled his t-shirt and sweater back on over his head. I’d assumed he was taking me inside for one reason, but maybe I’d underestimated his romantic side.

  “Levi!” My chest clenched. There was no way he could leave me alone.

  I blinked my eyes as the room became illuminated by several kerosene lamps. I say room, because that’s what it was. I wouldn’t have ever believed it was a cave.

  “What is this place?” The room was furnished with a simple double bed in one corner, and a table and chairs. For all intents and purposes, it was a house.

  “Check this out.” I walked over to where Levi stood pointing up.

  “Wow.” I gaped up at what appeared to be a skylight. It provided a perfect view of the night sky. The cave must have opened up beyond the woods. “How’d you find this cave? And are you the one who fixed it up? Why isn’t the rain pouring in? Is there a glass window up there?”

  “It’s a bit of a long story. Want to stay awhile?” He gestured to a thick rug near a fireplace I’d missed when I’d been distracted by the skylight. There were logs piled in front of it.

  “Will that work?” I wasn’t sure how there could be a fireplace in a cave, but then again I’d never seen a furnished cave before either.

  “Absolutely.”

  I took a seat on the rug while Levi worked on making a fire. It didn’t take long, and the warmth was almost instant. Combined with the comfortable temperature of the cave already, it was perfect. The rain had picked up outside, and distant thunder made me especially glad to be inside.

  “Ready for story time?” He lay down next to me. I followed his lead, laying my head on his chest.

  “I can’t remember the first time I found out I was going to be king. It was always just my reality. I knew I was important, and that people went to extra lengths to do things for me.”

  “Not too surprising.” I sat up and unbuttoned my coat, tossing it aside.

  “I do remember the first time I learned about the significance of me picking a mate.” He took my hand, leading me back down on the rug next to him. “I’d always thought it was the same as with other Pterons. You called the girl you married your mate, but essentially she was just your wife.”

  “Just your wife?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Please listen.”

  “Okay.”

  “When I was fifteen, my dad showed me the ring.” He raised my hand so he could look at the rubies on my finger. “It was just like the ring Mom wore. He explained that if I gave the ring to a girl and made love to her with the right intent; it would bind us permanently—marking her as mine.”

  “The right intent?”

  “I had to want it.” He placed our entwined hands on his chest.

  “So if you hadn’t wanted to be with me forever…”

  “Exactly. It wouldn’t have worked.” He played with a few strands of my hair. “I thought it was a joke. Growing up the way I did, I knew a lot of strange things existed, but a magic binding ring? Not so much.” Levi paused for a second before continuing. “I laughed at Dad and told him to get a life.”

  “I take it that didn’t go over too well?” I couldn’t imagine how Robert would take getting laughed at.

  “Not exactly. He sent me out here to spend the summer. Back then, my great-grandparents were still around, and they lived nearby. Dad said I couldn’t come home until I accepted my position and the importance of finding the right mate.”

  “Oh wow, a summer with your grandparents and great-grandparents. It must have been a blast.”

  He laughed. “Not quite. Add in that my great-grandmother was considered crazy by some.”

  “Crazy?”

  “Yeah, she was into magic.”

  “Magic?” That was a term he rarely used, and he’d just mentioned it twice. It seemed there was even more to The Society than I imagined.

  “She was human, but she had some witch in her bloodlines.”

  “Oh…people are born witches?”

  “Yes. I mean, some humans try to practice it, but there are born witches. My great-grandfather took a lot of slack for picking her, I’m sure, but I guess he really wanted her.”

  I smiled. All these happy couples in Levi’s family. “Okay. Continue.”

  “My great-grandma knew why my dad sent me out here, and she told me she knew what I needed to do if I wanted to go home.”

  I sat up on an elbow. I was dying to hear more.

  “I asked her how, and she just said to trust her. She asked to see my ring, so I gave it to her. Dad insisted I bring it with me. Part of me wanted to throw it in a river, but I knew he’d kill me if I did. She disappeared for a few hours, and when she came back she put the ring in my palm. She’d put it on a thick silver chain and just said, ‘Here, wear this tonight.’ Then she kissed me on the cheek and walked away.”

  “Weird…”

  He nodded before continuing. “I decided to humor her.
I don’t know why, I just did. I went to bed with the ring around my neck.”

  I stroked his chest through his gray sweater. “What happened?”

  “I had this crazy dream. I was insanely happy with a girl I didn’t know. I couldn’t even see her face, but I knew she was beautiful. The feeling was incredible—it was like life was perfect. There was a scene in the dream—we made love in front of the fire in a cave with a skylight open to the sky—it was picture-perfect. I woke up with this ridiculous desire to find that cave. I just knew it was real. I spent weeks exploring, and then I found it. Of course, I made a few modifications since then.”

  “Did you build all of this? The fireplace?” I looked around. I didn’t know much about this sort of thing, but I doubted most fifteen-year-olds could have fixed it up so well.

  “My grandpa is really good at carpentry and he helped me. The hardest part was the fireplace, and to answer your earlier question, yes there is a glass window in the skylight. We wouldn’t want to let the rain in. If my grandpa thought it was weird that I was suddenly interested in furnishing a cave in the middle of the woods, he didn’t show it.”

  “Is this a joke? That just doesn’t sound like something you’d do at fifteen.”

  “It’s no joke. I was on a mission. I was going to find my mate, bring her back here and find that happiness.” The way he said it, the far-off look in his eyes, made me wonder just how unhappy his childhood was. “I kept the ring around my neck and searched for her. I didn’t know what she looked like, but I figured I’d just know.”

  “I’m guessing that quest didn’t last long.”

  “No. After a few months, I just got pissed off. Why give me that damn dream just to make it impossible? My great-grandma got sick around then, but I confronted her. She told me I needed to have the experience in order to keep myself on the right path.”

  “So how’d you go from searching for your mate to sleeping with anything that walked?” I tried to say it casually, but it hurt. I hated thinking about how many other girls he’d slept with—and discarded.

  “I was tired of hurting. It was like a piece of me was missing. I needed to fill it—and forget. It didn’t take long to realize an endless supply of girls could make it easier. After a while, the pain went away, and I moved on. That is, until I met you…”

  “You just wanted to sleep with me.”

  “At first, sure, but I quickly realized it was more—so much more.” He ran a finger over my lips. “That first time we kissed, I sensed it. And after the beach, I knew it for sure.”

  “You couldn’t have actually thought I was that girl.”

  “Of course, I did. I knew it.”

  “How?”

  “I just knew.” He traced circles on my arm.

  “You said in the dream we were in front of the fire.”

  “Yeah…I remember every detail.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “More impossible than a ring you can’t take off?”

  “I guess not…”

  He kissed the back of my hand. “You were worth waiting for.”

  “Waiting for? You call what you did waiting for me?”

  “I would have left. I wanted to just get the hell out of my life. I wanted to let someone else take over. I think that’s what my great-grandma meant when she said it would keep me on the right path. I think part of me, even if it was small, was afraid that if I left, I’d never find the girl—you.”

  “This better not just be some weird trick to get me to sleep with you.” I tried to laugh, but his face was completely serious.

  “I love you, Allie. I know I suck at showing you sometimes, but I really do.”

  “Why do you think you needed to find this cave? What did it have to do with keeping you on your path?”

  “You know how I said I almost left it all behind?”

  I nodded.

  “I was going to tell my dad when we were out here visiting. I figured it would be better to do it with my grandparents as buffers. My grandpa sensed what I was doing and dragged me out here to the cave. I still remember how he sat me down on that chair.” He pointed to one of the four situated around the table. “He said, ‘I was with you when you worked on this cave—don’t you think your mate deserves a chance to come here at least once?’”

  “How bad was your childhood?” I had to know. What was so bad that he almost left?

  “My dad is what he is. I was never good enough, and he never let me forget it. I was his greatest disappointment in life.”

  “Levi, that’s not true.” I put a hand on his arm.

  “It is. The first time in my life he said he was proud of me was when I told him I’d found you and made you my mate.”

  “But I’d run away…”

  “Yeah…”

  “We both have daddy issues.”

  “Daddy issues?”

  “Come on, you know what I mean.” I put my head back down.

  “He worked a lot, right?” He stroked my hair.

  “Yeah. My parents were divorced when I was so little that I didn’t know any different, but as the years went on, he visited less and less. The only good thing was that when we were together, he always made me feel like his little princess.”

  “Princess, eh?”

  “Don’t—”

  “Go on.”

  “I was never as important as his work though. I don’t just mean the hours. Dad’s company doesn’t only buy hotels, they also buy other places. One time, when I was seven, they bought this old amusement park. I was with Dad when he went to look at a carousel they were taking apart to sell the pieces. It was one of those really old wooden ones. I fell in love with one of the animals. It was a flamingo that was a double-seater. I don’t know why I loved it—maybe it was the wings.”

  “You’ve always liked wings, huh?” He arched an eyebrow.

  “Levi.” I rolled my eyes. “As I was saying. I loved it. I thought Dad was going to get it for me…my birthday was coming up. I remember seeing the drop cloth in the living room that was obviously covering something big. I just knew it was the flamingo.”

  “But it wasn’t?”

  “Nope. It was a horse from a much newer carousel, or even one that’d just been made in a factory or something. Dad saw my face fall and asked why I didn’t like the horse. It had a purple saddle, and I loved purple. I asked why he didn’t get me the one I wanted.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “The biggest stockholder saw it when it was unloaded at his office. He wanted it for his daughter. Dad gave it away and figured he could just give me the horse instead.” I fidgeted. “I was so angry, I pushed over the horse and some of the paint chipped. I told him to get the stupid thing out of my sight. He looked devastated, so I ran. He never said anything about it, but he never brought me on any of his work trips again. Oh my god, this is embarrassing. I sound like a spoiled brat.”

  “You don’t sound like anything. You were an eight-year-old whose dad broke her heart.”

  “So yeah, we both have daddy issues.”

  “I guess so. Let’s hope our kids don’t have them.”

  “Or mommy issues.”

  He laughed. “All right, neither.”

  “We’re really going to have kids one day, huh?”

  “Don’t you want to have kids?” He looked at me seriously.

  “In theory…”

  “Same here. Let’s agree to not bring that topic up again until you’re done with college.”

  “Good deal.” I snuggled into his side.

  “Don’t move. I just want to check the fire.”

  I waited as he stoked the flames. He also took the quilt off the bed. “I promise this hasn’t been sitting here for seven years.”

  “You’ve been back recently?”

  “I was here this summer…”

  He laid the quilt down right next to me. I moved onto it and he joined me.

  I slipped my hand under his sweater and t-shirt. “Do you
think this is going to live up to your dream?”

  “I have a hunch it’ll be better. Reality has to be better.”

  “I love you.” I leaned over and kissed him. So often he was the instigator, but I needed my lips against his.

  “I love you more than anything.” He brushed my hair back from my face. “More than anything.”

  I pushed his sweater over his head, following up with his t-shirt. “I could look at you for hours.”

  “Only hours? I could stare at you for days.” He pulled off my sweater. “Or maybe years.” He unclasped my bra.

  “The problem is I need you to do more than stare.”

  He grinned. “So do I, Al. So do I.”

  He cupped each of my breasts and returned his lips to mine. Normally by this point, he’d be trying to get me out of my pants, but he was taking it a little slower. I liked it.

  “You’re wearing light green panties.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I’ve dreamed this before.”

  “You remember the color of my underwear?”

  “It’s still me, Al. It might have been an emotional dream, but I’d still remember a detail like that. You never wear green panties.”

  “I haven’t done laundry since we got back.”

  “Likely story.” He moved his mouth down to my breast, and I moaned.

  I struggled a moment with his buckle, but eventually I got it and unzipped his pants.

  He moved his mouth. “In a hurry?”

  “I want you.”

  “Really? I’d have had no idea.” He shifted to slide out of his khakis and boxers. “But the question is whether I’m ready for you.” He ran a hand down my stomach, stopping at the button of my jeans.

  “You’re ready.”

  “I love when you boss me around, babe.”

  “Then you’re going to enjoy life with me.”

  “Yeah, I think so too.” He finally unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them down. He slipped off my panties. “When did you realize you loved me?”

  “I didn’t admit it to myself right away, but it was that night at Antoine’s. As weird as it felt to have you giving me a ring so early, a part of me actually looked forward to getting an engagement ring from you.”

  “I guess I gave you what you wanted.”