The Seer : The Alterealm Series Book 2

After washing and changing, I needed some quiet, so I went to my tower. It was still odd to think I had a tower. The others were busy doing whatever it was they all did, and I had to find some silence to sort through all the thoughts in my head.

I glanced from the lights of the night realm down to my pack and realized I hadn’t once missed it when we’d gone to free the captives. I would have to think about that when my mind wasn’t full of too much else to sort out.

My phone dinged, so I pulled it out of my pocket to see Daxx was calling me. I hoped nothing new was wrong.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Crissy. The guys are doing their interrogations with the new prisoners, so I thought us girls could hang for a while.”

I liked that idea. At least I knew what hang meant, Daxx had explained it to me once when I asked her how we did that, and from where. “Okay.” I answered, remembering she would be waiting for me to answer.

“So, you’re not in your room or the kitchen… where are you?”

“Oh.” I forgot she couldn’t just see me. “In my tower.”

She chuckled. “Alright, Rapunzel, where is your tower?”

I almost corrected her and then remembered a fairy tale story I had once seen. It was funny to call me that. “Um, you know the tunnels that go past the library?” I focused trying to find the easiest way to explain.

“Yep, I’m heading that way. Where do I turn off?”

I shook my head. “You don’t. Go right to the very end then up the ladder. That’s where my tower is.”

“Okay, see you in a couple.”

I wasn’t sure what a couple meant, but didn’t get to ask because she hung up. I unbolted the door and opened it, looking down to the floor of the tunnel. A few minutes later, I watched Daxx climb up. When she was on the floor of the tower, I closed the little door again and bolted it.

Daxx moved around and looked out in every direction. “Damn. Victor is the man to get you a great place like this.”

I frowned of course Victor was a man. “He knows I need the quiet to settle my flashes and sort through them.”

She nodded and looked out to the town. “I use the gym, but I can see how this would be a great spot.” She grinned at me. “I do believe our justice is very smitten with you.” She winked at me.

I knew what smitten meant, and thought that was a nice way to say it. “I am very smitten with him too.” I nodded. “I guess I have to be, to be his mate.”

She snorted. “It helps, yes.” Standing there, she looked me up and down a few times. “How are you doing?” She waved her hand behind her. “After all the action tonight.”

I bit my lip and sat down on my cushion. “I still can’t believe I threw the knife at that man.” I watched her lean back against the short wall and squat down. “But I just had to free those people.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t right to hold them there.”

She sighed. “I know. You did so good though.” She smiled at me. “I’m proud of you.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure anyone had ever been proud of me before, and couldn’t find the words to tell her how much it meant that she had.

“You are handling all of this giant-man-alternate-realm stuff so much better than I did.” She chuckled. “I still can’t believe it’s all real sometimes.”

I blinked and looked at her. “Why wouldn’t it be real?”

Shaking her head, she sighed again. “I forget you’ve been seeing it for a long time. I had no clue any of it existed until Wanda sent me here unannounced.”

I remembered the flashes I’d seen before all of that had happened. “I guess it was a surprise for you.”

Daxx snorted. “Surprise is an understatement, but yeah it was.” Her face grew serious as she studied me. “How are you and Victor?” I saw her eyes go to my arm and realized she was thinking of the mating tattoo.

I ran my hand down my arm and looked at it, wondering what it would look like with a tattoo. I once thought I wanted one, until I found out they used needles to mark the skin. After that, I knew the only way I could change my appearance, without pain and terror, was to dye my hair. I stopped, remembering she was waiting for an answer. “He doesn’t trust himself with me alone.” I bit my lip. “I told him I know about sex and it’s okay…”

She made a strange sound, I didn’t understand. “You told him that?” She giggled in a way I’d never heard. “I should have tried being straight forward like that. Instead of walking around…” She waved a hand at me, “Sorry. You were saying?”

“I don’t know why he won’t.” I searched her face to see if she understood. “I said it was okay and he is tempted but won’t.” I shook my head. “I don’t understand. I wanted him to feed from me too…” I looked own at my hands, thinking. “I wanted to do that for him,” I shrugged and then smirked, “and was quite curious about it too, I admit. I like fangs.” I shook my head. “But he won’t do that either.” I sighed loudly and looked up at the small roof covering my tower. “I have thought about what it must be like to live so long.” I waved my hands around feeling the excitement of it. “To see and experience so much, many years beyond my understanding.” I looked back at her. “I can’t even feel what it would be like.” I tapped my head. “In here. It’s amazing and more than fascinating…” I frowned. “I don’t even know the words to explain it.”

She nodded. “I get what you mean. It is something though, to know a hundred years from now you’ll still be the same as you are now.”

“Yes. Exactly.” I told her. I bit my lip and looked down to pick at the material on the cushion. “I don’t know if I can, Daxx.” I flicked my eyes to hers then looked away just as fast. “Live that long.” I said softly. “In my mind, so busy without end…” I shook my head and took a short breath, feeling my emotions crushing me. “I don’t know if I can do it that long.” I felt a tear in my eye, but left it to fall. “I couldn’t sleep, the excitement and nerves, knowing of the battle to be,” I nodded so she knew, “the one we did to free the scared eyes.” I took a deep breath and it shook with the release. “So, I read,” I smiled briefly when I remembered the look on Bronx’s face when I said I was taking all the books I had selected, ‘to pass the time.’ I bit my lip and felt another tear fall. “I read of others, those that are like me.” I still couldn’t believe that was true. “Seers.” I nodded and looked at her. “I am a seer. That is my skill.” I puffed out my cheeks and blew out a breath to control the emotions. “Even about those who learned to control the things forced in their head,” I paused to look at her again, her blue eyes hadn’t strayed. Daxx always listened. “After some time, many years, they all ended the same.” I tapped my head with my finger. “The flashes... the visions won in the end and the seer did not.” I nodded. “So many I read about that became void, no longer meant for society…” I sniffed, not liking that tears still fell, “that’s what the books said.”

I stood up, not able to sit still for a second more. “How can I be a mate for Victor?” I touched my arm, “and take his mark if I’m to be like that.” I nodded and looked at her through watery eyes. “To live that many years just…” I paused to find the word, “assures I will end up that way and leave him with a mate that speaks and moves no more.”

She jumped up and hugged me tight. I felt more tears fall. I didn’t understand all of it, but I hadn’t ever felt this kind of pain before. I felt like I lost something I didn’t even have.

My face was wet when she released me, hers was too, as her blue eyes searched mine. “You have to tell him.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t work that way. “Explain it like you just did to me.” She nodded. “Maybe there’s a way.” She stepped back and hugged her arms around her. “They’ve lived for freakin’ ever, Crissy, there has to be a way.” Her voice shook as she spoke.

I inhaled sharply and wiped my hand over my face, trying to remove the tears, then nodded. She was right. They had been around since any world knew, they would know something. “I will tell him.” I took another deep breath, feeling better not still. “When other things are resolved and he has the time…”

“No.” She spun back to me and grabbed my hands. “Now. Nothing is more important to him, or to me, than you.”

I looked down at her hands and remembered when I looked at my gloves. “I will need more gloves.” I told her. I saw the confusion in her eyes. “I read to get the mark the flesh of palms must join.” I felt my cheeks heat. “And other things.” I pulled my one hand free and held it open in front of her face. “If my palm flesh is covered it can’t happen.”

She looked at my hand, a strange look in her eyes. “I should have looked for the instruction manual.” She snorted and then nodded, giving me that look she did when she made a promise I knew she would keep. “I will get you a pair of gloves in every color of the rainbow if you need them.”

I smiled, she always knew what to say to put me at ease. “I would like more colors.”

Releasing my other hand, she nodded. “Call Victor, talk to him.”

I looked around. “Yes. But not here.” I thought of the big room they called mine and shook my head. “I need to take him to my quiet safe spot, where we are from.”

“You have a safe spot there?”

I nodded. “Yes.” I bit my lip. “He’s not going to like it though.

Daxx laughed. “He’d climb Mount Everest for you.”

I wasn’t sure where that was, but if she said it then it must be so. “I will get him to take me back, so we can go there to talk.”

She hugged me quickly. “I need to go cry on my mates’ shoulder.”

I gave her a startled look. “Are you okay?”

Her mouth formed a soft smile and she nodded. “I will be.”

After she left I went back to my bedroom and paced. I had my pack on the bed, ready and waiting. Looking at my phone, I wondered why my stomach felt so nervous to talk to Victor, but I did it anyway.

“Cristy.”

“Hi.” I looked around the room.

“Is everything alright?” He sounded concerned.

I nodded. “I’m…” I remembered not to say okay. “fine. Are you very busy?”

There was a pause and a door. “No. I’m done in the cells for the night. I was just going to…” he cleared his throat.

I knew he didn’t want to say something. “Feed?” I asked quietly.

“Yes. It was a draining night. Then I was going to come and see you.”

I smiled. “I would like that. I want to talk.”

He sighed. “I was worried everything tonight would be too much for you…”

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not that. Well, okay, I don’t think I could do that every night, but I’m okay. With that.” I added.

“If you are certain.”

I heard another door close and almost asked where he was going and then I heard the whooshing sound the doors made in the cells. Maybe he was just leaving there now. “I am certain.” I took a deep breath. “I will wait at… my room for you.”

“I won’t be long.” He answered and then hung up.

I probably had walked around the room a hundred times in the period it took for him to knock on the door and come in. “Hi.” I said and looked at the space around him. The man of justice was gone and Victor, the sweet one was back.

He smiled and noted I was wearing a jacket. His eyes went to my pack. “What did you wish to talk about?” With long strides he came over and leaned down to kiss me on the forehead.

I smiled and then bit my lip. “I’d like to talk somewhere else.”

Searching my face for a moment he nodded once. “We could go up in the tower.”

I shook my head and played with the material of his shirt. “I’d like to go to the place I go for quiet… where I live.”

The muscle in his jaw jumped a few times, the way it did when he thought something through. “We can do that.”

I looked up to see if he looked tired. “Are you very tired after fighting? Too tired to climb?”

Smirking, he shook his head. “I can climb.” He tilted my chin up with a finger. “What am I climbing on?”

I wasn’t sure what difference that made. “Fire escape.” He nodded and released me to look at my arm.

“Where is your transporter?”

I looked at my wrist. “In the bathroom.”

He turned and walked that way. “I want you to always wear it when you… cross over to there. So we don’t have to go searching, if you find yourself in trouble again.”

I thought that was very sweet of him. I held out my arm when he walked out with it in his hand.

He secured it to my wrist and then reached down and lifted the edge of my jacket to be sure I had the belt and little box on. With a nod, he leaned down and picked up my pack and held it out to me. “Where am I taking us?”

I thought for a moment and then told him of a place that would be the closest he would know. “The street by Daxx’s.”

We reached the roof with the little stoop that I lived under. Out of everywhere I went, here always felt most right, so in my mind I lived here. Ten stories in the air, closer to the sky than the streets below.

“Only I would be fated a mate that is an adrenalin junkie.” Victor mumbled as he stepped onto the top of the building.

I looked up at him. “I’m not a junkie.” I frowned.

He smirked. “I didn’t mean a drug addict, heart, I meant someone that likes danger.” He looked back down the stairs and ladders we had just climbed.

My eyes went wide. “I don’t like danger. I hide from it.”

Chuckling, he touched the side of my face and then moved to walk around the roof and look under the small stoop. “You may think you hide from it.” He glanced back to me. “But the fact remains, you run straight for it, without regard for your own safety.” He went and looked over the city for a moment. “I can see why you like it here.” He sighed. “It makes my tower gift to you seem…” he waved a hand down over the view, “lacking.”

I went over and touched his arm so he would look down at me. “I love my tower.” I told him.

Smiling, he put his arm around me and pulled me against his side. “That pleases me more than you know.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but we were both happy, so that was good. “I showed Daxx my tower tonight.” I thought for a moment. “While you guys were doing your interrogation thing.” I still didn’t know what that was.

He snorted. “Daxx’s words?”

I nodded, he was so smart. “She called me Rapunzel too.”

Victor looked at me a big smile on his face and then he looked at my hair. “Her way of speaking at times is…” he made a motion with his hand. “unrefined.”

I laughed. “Only to you.”

Nodding slowly, he hugged me tighter. “Yes, I’m aware.” He smiled and then kissed my forehead again. “I seem to be stuck in one era of language and have never quite moved beyond it. Or so I’m told.”

I put my cheek against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. “I may not always understand what you say, but I like it.”

“That is all that matters to me. Now.” Grasping my shoulders, he leaned back and his eyes searched my face for a long time. “What is so difficult to say that you needed to bring me to the place you are the most comfortable in?”

I bit my lip, not even knowing that was why I did it. He was so smart. I took a deep breath and stepped away, I had to move to keep my thoughts clear and focused. “It was so easy to explain to Daxx,” I walked a few feet the other way then stopped. “Or she just understands me, maybe.” I looked to see he hadn’t moved, and knew he wasn’t going to follow me as I paced around the roof. “I read many things in those books… from the library.” I looked down to see the streets were quiet and then to the sky. The sun would be up soon. “I was quite excited when I read some of it.” I turned on the heel of my boot fast and nodded. “I know I am a seer now. That’s what the one book told me.”

Walking the other way a few feet, I watched him. He made no motion to interrupt my thoughts. I liked that about him, he knew the smallest thing would set my mind in another direction. “I am looking for the words.” I told him.

“I know, heart.” He whispered in reply.

I don’t know why he called me that sometimes, but I liked it. Some of the others called me nice names too. I’d never had a nickname before, well not nice ones. With a quick nod, I moved again. “I read things, sad things.” I said quietly, and they were. “Seers minds working, working, see so much.” I stopped and looked down at the surface under my boots. “It’s very difficult, as you understand, to sort it and focus through it…” I took a deep breath, not understanding why this was so hard when it had been easy with Daxx. My heart felt like it was aching. I looked over at him, standing there just watching me, not judging, just watching. “Seers…” I cleared my throat because it felt tighter, “they can’t do it endlessly.” I nodded. “And your kind would know as they live many lives longer than others.” He took one step then stopped and continued to look at me. Was he sensing how the emotions were filling me? “I read of their fate. Many of them, not just one or two.” I told him so he would know, I looked so I would know. “A mind…” I tapped my head with the tips of my fingers. “like mine.” I shook my head, “it’s not made to see forever without pause.” Letting out a too loud shaky breath, I moved quickly in the other direction and then stopped just as suddenly. “After…” I frowned, trying to say it and not feel it, “years and years their minds break. The visions win.” I finished quietly. I heard his boots on the rough surface, but couldn’t turn to look at him. When he would have touched me, I paced away. “I can not…” my eyes blurred with tears, “I can not take your mark and then leave you with a mate that does not speak or move.” I shook my head, angry with the tears and emotions winning when I needed him to know. “That is a burden no one should have to see.” I took a shaky breath, afraid to turn and see the hurt on his face that I would have caused.

Gentle hands grasped my shoulders and turned me to face him. I looked up through the tears to see pain in his eyes and more tears rolled down my cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

With his thumb, he brushed a tear off my skin. “Are you certain?” He took a deep, ragged breath. “Of what you read? That a way hasn’t been found?”

I blinked, more tears falling. “I read all there was on it.” I touched the side of my head. “I always remember what I see. In and out of my head.”

He nodded. “I know, heart.” He pulled me tightly against his chest and held me. I cried more, I couldn’t stop it. “You are breaking me,” he said softly into my hair. “I will find a way. If I have to have the kings order every inhabitant to search, our realm and all others. I will find a way.” His hand stroked down my back in a gentle touch. “Our members of science will be ordered to cease all other studies to find a way to help you.”

I wanted to believe it would happen, but even for one that always told the truth, sometimes things just couldn’t be. I wanted to tell him he couldn’t order his entire world to do this for me, but I knew he found some comfort in this, so I left it. I looked up to see his red eyes looking back at me. “You understand why I can’t…” I swallowed the lump that appeared in my throat, “why it isn’t right to take your mark.”

A tear rolled down his handsome cheek and I thought my heart might shatter. “I do not.” He said with so much emotion I don’t know how he spoke. “But it must be your choice to accept freely. A decision I can not sway, despite my heart paining inside my chest.” He kissed my forehead and I could feel even his lips shaking.

We continued to stand there, our arms around each other as the sun brightened the sky. I felt so much and yet so little at the same time. A void grew inside me and I didn’t understand it. I listened to his heart beating for a moment more and then moved a step back. He looked so tired now, and I remembered it was well past his night time now. “You should go rest, Victor.” I told him quietly. “There is much still to do.” I nodded and backed up another step. “I will continue looking for your brother.” I looked down at my hands and saw my gloves, but knew now was not the time to mention why I wore them. “And find his children, and theirs from there.” I took a deep breath and then let it out to find I might live through this pain. “We have to find Marcus, I will search my flashes for signs of him.” Yes, there was much to do. I looked up at him to see him studying me, the pain still in his eyes.

He finally nodded slowly and held out his hand. “We’ll go rest.” I looked at the large hand for a moment and then he lowered it. “You are not coming back with me?”

I tried to smile, I don’t know if I did or not. “I will be back in a while.” I looked around at the early morning light. “I need some quiet right now.”

He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the surface we stood on. “For more than four hundred years I have simply had to tell someone to do something and it was done.” He raised his eyes, filled with emotion, to look at me. “I find myself in unchartered territory presently.” I watched the nerve in his jaw twitch. “Please, return to me soon…” he came over and tucked the hair behind my ear, “and unscathed.” I frowned. “Safely.” He told me.

I nodded. “I will.” Stretching up onto my toes I kissed his mouth softly. “Go rest, a tired justice would be bad for his people.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “The justice without his seer of truth will be far more dangerous for the people.” Leaning down, he kissed my lips softly and held my chin staring into my eyes for several breaths.

When he released my chin, he was gone from my sight. I wrapped my arms around my waist in a self-hug and looked out over the city. Going to pick up my pack, I went and sat under the small roof I had slept under many times. I was trying to find something to think, something to see. The one time I needed the flashes to appear and distract me, they would not. A tear rolled down my cheek as I stared, but didn’t see a thing in front of my eyes.