The Prophecy

Chapter Four

I stood in my doorway for god knows how long starring at him. 

“Are you going to stand there all night or can I come in?” He was leaning against he doorway towering over me, and those damn blue eyes. I realized my mouth was wide open, I snapped it shut then said, “You never answered me, what do you want?”

“I thought you could use someone to talk to.” He brushed passed me and walked over to my vanity, he touched a few things and turned around. “I heard you had a day, wanna tell me about it?” He sat down on my window’s bench seat, put his feet up on all my pillows and laid down arms up over his head. I walked over and smacked his feet down.

“Why would I tell you? You seem to care about the sound of your own voice more than anything else from what I can tell.” 

“You’ve known me for all of two days.” He rolled his eyes, “I’m like an onion, I have many layers, I’m complex woman!!!!” 

‘You Athen Whitten seem about as complex as doorknob.” He grabbed a pillow and clutched it to his chest like he was in pain, “You wound me, my heart… It’s breaking.” He playfully reached to the ceiling as if he was grabbing a hand for help and he rolled off the bench onto my carpet taking half a dozen of my decorative pillows with him. 

“Damn it Athen did you come here to trash my room or comfort me? Because you’ve been here all of 3 minutes and you’re about as caring as horse fly on my ass.” I bent over and grabbed the clutter from the floor, replacing them on the window seat then reached for his hand to get him up and throw him OUT. This is the last thing I need right now, I don’t want some frat boy throwing my crap around driving me nuts I want to sit and wallow in my own self pity. But something happened, something familiar…

The moment our hands made contact I saw the lights in my room flicker. His playful smile fell from his lips and was replaced by a look of hunger that made me suck in my breath like the hiss of a teapot ready to blow. And as if on cue my heart began playing a game of hacky sack hopping down into my belly then up into my throat. Suddenly his hand tightened around mine and he pulled me to the floor. Like lightening he spun me around my back flat against the carpet his arms on either side of me and his face less than 6 inches from mine. “What… Are… You?” Each word followed by a deep slow breath. 

“Why does this keep happening to me…” I say in barely a whisper my mind a fog. We were stuck, I knew I wanted to push him away but my body was no longer my own. Without my permission my hands started moving up his muscular arms slowly, with purpose. As I did this I felt the goosebumps form on his perfectly tanned skin. He felt it too? He looked down and watched me go from his elbow to his shoulder, up his neck to his cheeks and they stopped. I moved his face back to look at me, his blue eyes looked different… they… was that? “Flames.” I said. In the center of his pupil I saw a flicker of red and orange. 

If he heard me he didn’t show it. He kept his gazed locked on mine, and with no warning whatsoever before I knew what was happening his lips came crashing down. They were… HOT. And I don’t mean attractive I mean the temperature of his skin was scorching. But once I felt them I couldn’t even breathe let alone form a coherent thought. My lips moved with his in sync, he opened his mouth slightly and automatically mine followed suit. His tongue tasted like sweet wine, and he grabbed two fistfuls of my hair and rolled our bodies to the side, pushing us even closer together. I climbed on top of him, he sat up and grabbed my face in his hands, I wrapped my legs around his middle and our lips met once more. Then suddenly… 

*CRACK*

We were brought back to reality by a loud boom. I rolled off of his lap and we were in the dark. I watched the embers in his eyes fade and he shook his head a little as if to wake from a dream. I opened my mouth to speak and my door suddenly flew open light flooding the room and blinding me. “Echo are y-“ I shielded my eyes from the bright light and saw past it to recognize it was Callen holding a flashlight staring at me and his older brother sitting on my bedroom floor in the dark. His face fell, he looked confused and hurt. “The fuse box blew I wanted to make sure you were ok. What are YOU doing in here.” He pointed his light directly into Athens eyes as the concern in his voice left and was replaced by annoyance.

“That little brother is none of your business. But since I’m such a nice person, always putting others before myself I’ll humor you. I came to see if miss Echo needed a shoulder to cry on after such a stressful day.”

“And what on earth made you think YOU were the person she needed to confide in?” Callen stepped towards us and the lights flew on. He lowered his arm and continued to throw daggers at the middle Witten brother with his eyes. “You can leave now.” And gestured to the door.

Athen chuckled and got up off the ground, smoothing out his shirt and pushing back his golden hair he started to exit but stopped and called back “We will finish this conversation another time Echo.” Threw me a wink and was gone. I tried to hide my crimson cheeks by turning away from Callen and pretending to fix my bed. 

“Echo wha-“ I cut him off mid sentence.

“Callen thank you SO so much for coming to make sure I was ok, but I’ve had a s**t day, I’m really tired I’d like to get to bed is that alright? We can talk in the morning” I felt like crap because the look of disappointment on his face was so obvious, but like a true gentleman all he said was,

“Of course, I’m glad you’re ok. I’ll see you tomorrow for our lessons have a good night.”

I ran to my bathroom, splashed my face with cold water and looked myself in the eyes. “What is going on.” I said out loud. I’m a virgin… I’ve only kissed a boy two times in my life, tonight being the third why in the hell did I all of a sudden feel the need to act like the town w***e with not one, or two but THREE brothers. Walking to my bed, pulling back my covers I remembered the light in Athens eyes before he kissed me… was that real? And as a laid in bed and reached over to turn off the light I was shocked and I remembered. Every time one of the boys touched me I actually felt electricity, was this magic? Waylon had accused ME of casting but what if he was right? Only it had to be someone else because I knew I hadn’t done anything. There was no other logical explanation for this…

The next day I walked into the kitchen to find Ms. Loretta at the stove. She didn’t even turn around when I came in but said “Mornin’ darlin how did you sleep?” I sat down at the island and picked up a roll from the counter and picked at it.

“I slept fine I guess, I had a lot on my mind.”

Utensils flew through the air as she whisked a bowl, “Of course you do, all that excitement probably didn’t help any.” My head shot up, eyes wide.

“W-what? What excitement what do you mean?” I could tell I was blushing. 

She turned to face me, “The power blowin’ like that. This big ole house things like that are bound to happen every now and then but I’ll say usually only happens during a storm not a normal thing for the power to go out in the middle of July…” 

Oh god, of course that’s what she meant, like an i***t I automatically thought she was referring to me and Athen… “Oh that, yeah that was weird.” I looked back down at my roll to avoid her scrutinizing glare. 

“What did you think I meant?” 

“I didn’t.” I lied, “I’m still really sleepy I wasn’t really paying attention I’m sorry.” She checked me once a again and let it go, turned back to her cooking and we talked about her secret recipe for crepes and the perfect sugar to fruit ratio for her famous peach jam. I got up and helped her finish and set the table. I was spreading sweat cream cheese onto my second crepe when my Aunt and uncle entered the room. 

“Sweet pea Arthur and I are going on a trip.” My Aunt sat down across from me and my uncle walked into the kitchen. Callen and Waylon came out as he went in and the boys sat down and dug into the breakfast spread. “Callen baby I want you to go with us.”

“Huh?” He said his mouth stuffed with fruit and pastry, “Where are we going?”

“Your Daddy and I spoke with Elder Micheal this morning about sweet Echo’s binding, and he said we needed to come see them to find out which of them helped Annette with her spell. Only the one who created the spell will know the exact way to set things right and let her access her full range again. We don’t want to mess this up she’s already lost half her time to train for the Goddess we really don’t have any room for error. I know you’ve been dying to take a peek at the Elders scrolls and Library baby and with your demonstration in less than 4 weeks I think it would do you some good.” Callen shook his head in agreement and went back to his plate, I saw a few times while we were eating he kept staring at me and I’d smile and go back to fumbling with my half eaten plate.

Once i looked up and saw Waylon shamelessly looking at me. I held his gaze for a good minute and he didn’t even flinch, had his father not come into the room I don’t know how long we would have stayed that way. “Ok baby Ms. Loretta is taking care of all the travel arrangements and went upstairs to ready the trunks the car will be here in about an hour. I’m going to go call my office and have my assistant let the school know I’m taking a few personal days.” 

“Thank you sugar.” Aunt Marg grabbed her plate and went into the kitchen as her husband disappeared around the corner to his office and I was left alone with the eldest and youngest Witten boys. 

“We are gonna get to the bottom of this Echo don’t you worry,” Callen reached across the table and grabbed me by the hand. My head shot up to look at him as our connection was awakened once more. I caught my breathe and looked at him for a moment, his kind eyes calming me and taking all my worries, in that moment all I felt was him. But all it took was one purposeful cough to bring us back to reality. 

“Jesus y’all, get a room.” Waylon said as he push back from the table and carried his plate into the kitchen. 

“I’m sorry.” I said, looking at Callen, he was smiling for a moment the c****d his head to the side and said, “What ever do you have to be sorry for?”

“Last night I…” he held up a hand to stop me.

“I don’t need to know, my brother has had his share of girls he’s a known man w***e I’m sure what ever happened was his fault.” What? No!

“No Callen I..” He cut me off again.

“Like I said no need to explain it’s forgotten.” He then got up and left the room.

Wait, did Callen think we… Did he think I was… he didn’t think we were “together” did he? I mean I can’t deny the connection I feel when I’m close to him but that doesn’t give him some sort of claim on me, especially considering I feel almost the exact same thing ever time I’m near his brothers… but he doesn’t know that. I’m gonna need to set that boy straight because this is too much. I made my way to the kitchen and found it empty. I sighed and rinsed off my plate in the sink and headed out the back door to get some air. How did my life get even MORE complicated since I moved here. 

“Where are you going?”

I screamed a held my chest, “Goddamn it Waylon WHAT are you doing?!? Why in the world would you think hiding next to the door and scaring the daylights out of me was a good idea?”

He was leaning against the house and laughed, “I’m literally standing here in plain sight if you got scared that’s on you there’s no where for me to hide.” He looked out over the back yard into the trees and said, “ come with me I want to show you something.” And he took off walking.

“Where?” I started after him but got no reply, “What do you want to show me?” nothing. “Damn it Waylon where are we going?” He spun around, “Do you always ask this many questions, just come on.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the trees… this seemed familiar like the other night I was yet again following this man through the orchard and has no idea where we were going. Even though I was annoyed I couldn’t seem to stop my feet from walking. All I could feel were his fingers wrapped around my wrist, I looked over and noticed how big his arms were. How long had he been pulling me? All of a sudden we were entering a clearing, and he brought me to a large pond. He dropped my hand and walked out onto the dock. He glanced back at me and smiled, looked out over the water and ripped off his shirt. I just stood there like an i***t unable to move. Before I knew it he had jumped into the water. I waited a moment and he resurfaced, “You gonna stand there all day or you gonna get in girl?”