Flutter (The Discover Series) Read online

  I saw Aaron walk around the other side of the diner. Pulling my hands from my pockets, and cupping them around my mouth, I blew hot air into them. The bitter smell of stale coffee filled my hands, and I grimaced.

  I was going to have to brush my teeth before we left, I thought to myself.

  Aaron walked up to me nodding, and I took a deep breath.

  “Let’s go get ourselves an ice Princess.”

  Flutter

  Two

  Ripple Effect

  Sara

  I couldn’t remember exactly when I had become aware of the fact that I was in a dream.

  I couldn’t remember anything actually.

  It was so dark I couldn’t tell at first if my eyes were open or closed. I blinked rapidly, trying to distinguish a difference between the two. It was an intense kind of darkness and it immediately had me feeling claustrophobic. It didn’t help that I felt almost completely restricted, but by what? My breathing came harder and faster, and I tried not to freak out.

  I didn’t know how long I had been asleep, everything in the ‘where and when’ department of my brain seemed to be pretty fuzzy. The more I realized just how little I could remember, the more the small pin needles of panic started to spread throughout my body, making my fingertips and toes tingle with numbness. I desperately tried to construct some memory of where I had been, or even what I had been doing last, but everything seemed to blur in my mind - including this dream. I knew it had to be a side effect of still being comatose somewhere, and honestly that’s all that kept me from going into full on hysterics. Everything inside me was screaming that something wasn’t right, and it went a lot deeper than being held hostage inside a dream.

  I hate the kind of dreams where you know you were in one, almost like looking into a window at yourself, but no matter what you do you just can’t wake yourself up. Sub consciously, you know when you are dreaming; there is always that lingering nagging feeling deep inside, sending off warning bells that something just isn’t right, and I was experiencing those signals loud and clear right now.

  Scratch that, this wasn’t a dream; this was definitely more a nightmare.

  Dreams, at best, were something that you didn’t mind sleeping through, or getting woken up from at the most inopportune moment. Nightmares on the other hand were trap doors, dead ends around every corner, fear gripping suffocation; and no matter how terrifying they seemed to be, it was almost impossible to be woken up from one when you wanted nothing more.

  I had been so absorbed with the disorientation of the memory loss I was struggling with, that I hadn’t actually stopped to let myself think about the actual nightmare itself. But now I was starting to feel…cold? And that distraction took me in another direction. It occurred to me then that I was trapped, and for the first time since becoming aware of my circumstance, I realized I couldn’t move anything. Was I standing? Or was I lying down? I didn’t even know, but the fact that I was doing either of the two in this nightmare, and I was just now realizing it had me freaking out more.

  Attempting to focus, I pulled in all the corners of my concentration and tried to figure out my surroundings. I couldn’t see more than a few inches from my face, so trying to squint to see a few feet in front of me was beyond out of the question. My eyes had adjusted to the pitch black I was surrounded by; it was definitely brighter now, like someone had lit a lantern and was slowly adjusting the strength of the flame.

  I still couldn’t seem to put into words exactly what I was surrounded by. It didn’t help that my vision was completely clouded either, like I was looking through fogged-over glasses. Whatever I was bound by was solid, and not entirely clear; it had a good grip on every inch of my body. The only thing I had any room to move were my head and neck, and even those I couldn’t move much.

  Trying to analyze the situation of my dream could easily have been, hands down, my worst idea ever. At least I thought so. I still couldn’t remember past memories, so trying to remember past bad ideas was probably not going to happen at the moment-

  Ugh! I scolded myself. I was getting side tracked again.

  I currently had bigger problems to sort through. Starting with: why couldn’t I wake myself up?

  Maybe I was just in too deep a sleep, and it was going to take a while to coax my brain to finally react.

  I couldn’t seem to feel anything around me; and even though I wasn’t physically uncomfortable, the simple fact that I seemed to be snugly enclosed in something was extremely off putting. Breathing seemed to be next to impossible; and I struggled to drag small amounts of air in through my nose to keep myself from passing out-not only from lack of oxygen, but from the frightening unknown.

  Could someone pass out in a dream? I didn’t know.

  I tried to focus on what my fingers could feel; but they were numb, so the attempts were useless. I also wasn’t exactly sure where they were, it felt like my entire body had fallen asleep. The loss of feeling also made it hard to determine if I even had clothes on. The list of things I was unaware of continued to grow. Instincts had me attempting to look down, but I was drawn up short; the tip of my chin rubbed up against something smooth…cold and…wet.

  I shivered.

  Just like that, the memory was there, flashing in my mind like big, bright, neon lights blinking: remember me, remember me! Instantly I was able to breathe just a little bit easier. It was as if the chill had triggered something inside my head, and suddenly I could remember being sick, extremely sick. There had been two weeks of intense flu like symptoms. If flu symptoms could be on steroids, mine had definitely taken a few hits. I remembered having a high fever, cold and hot spells - I had been burning up one minute and completely overcome with the chills the next. Horrible headaches had attacked me, as well as a dull ache that settled into my bones. That’s what this was: I had obviously gone delirious, most likely from the rollercoaster of symptoms I had suffered, and now they were messing with my mind.

  I could feel it again, my body was starting to shiver from the coldness I felt earlier, and I prayed that this would be enough to awaken me. My breathing started coming faster, and I could see the small vapor clouds it left in front of me inside the small cave that surrounded my head. Suddenly everything seemed so real to me, making me doubt my earlier thoughts and I was beginning to doubt if this was a dream at all. I was starting to see things clearer now, and the edges around my dream no longer blurred. Instantly the small area I was in was bathed in a soft, golden glow of light. I still couldn’t move my head to look down, or even around me really, but my newly refined eye sight could finally focus on what was surrounding me.

  No, not surrounding me, trapping me, I thought.

  I blinked several times, and squinted, my brows pulling together in confusion, and I shook my head in denial.

  This wasn’t real; I had to be dreaming, my mind argued against the infeasibility of what I was seeing.

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and dragged my teeth over my bottom lip, and as hard as I could stand it, I bit down on my lip until I could taste the faint metallic flavor of blood. I waited a couple of seconds, waited to wake up, but nothing happened. I opened my eyes slowly and instantly wished I hadn’t, the light around me had grown brighter, and there was no mistaking it this time.

  Oh my god! I thought frantically, as I realized what I was trapped in.

  I was trapped in ICE!

  Adan

  Have you ever had the feeling of being drawn to someone,

  But there wasn’t anything they had said or done.

  That’s exactly how I felt walking over the surface of the icy lake, standing directly over the spot I knew she was hidden. Nestled deep below, she was protected and safe inside of her frozen cage. I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around their whole Freezing process. But from everything I had learned, these extreme measures needed to be taken to ensure she would remain secure.

  She was the key to everyone’s survival. I knew that was a lot of pressur
e to put on any one person, even one as strong as her, but I knew she could handle it. I had witnessed once before how strong she could be. She meant everything to the safety of two clans, to their very existence.

  Oddly enough, she meant a lot to me too. I didn’t quite know how, but being this close to her did something to me. Gravity was at its finest moment here, pulling me toward her. As if to prove a point, I crouched down, drawn to the spot just above her head and placed my bare hand on top of the thin layer of frost that covered the entire lake. The cold bit at my exposed flesh, but not enough to distract me from the tingling sensation that was currently consuming all of my attention.

  The moment my hand had pressed against the ice, sparks started and sizzled, electric currents soared up my arm, spreading like a wild fire throughout my entire body. The ice splintered and shifted below my feet from the intense pressure of the electric currents, sending hairline cracks over the top of the lake. I thought about pulling my hand back, but even if I could have sent out the effortless command, I knew I wasn’t going too.

  I had thought my reaction to her the first time we had met had been a fluke, adrenaline from the events that had taken place earlier that night – a night that even now, after sixteen years, I could still remember clearly. The situation at that time had been completely different, and although I felt strongly about her then, it was vastly different now; just as strong, but definitely different. She had been just a toddler then, and my instincts at the time, had been a deadly need to protect her at any costs. But now…now I had a hard time explaining to myself what I felt toward her. The urgency to guard her was still there, but it was more than that, and it wasn’t something I was comfortable thinking about, even in the safe confines of my own head.

  Here I was, with every single one of my nerves vibrating with life, hope, and that same strangely familiar yearning that I was missing something. I hadn’t expected my reaction to her to be even stronger, after all this time, especially with the depths of thick, solid ice separating us. The barrier should have been laughable to me, it was nothing compared to the millions of miles, and years that had been stacked against us.

  It was my mission to bring her back, other than her Watcher; I was the only other one to see the Princess alive. My instructions were strict but clear: find the princess, warn her Watcher, and under no circumstances was I ever to have any contact with her. I was to remain invisible to the girl who haunted my dreams, and created an ache deep in my guy that I didn’t completely understand. Of course I had wanted to know why I wasn’t allowed to be around her, especially with the weird connection I had to her; but as always the information and details I was allotted were on a ‘need to know’ basis only, and apparently I never needed to know anything.

  I could have protested, made things difficult for the council of both clans; but my need to protect her outweighed the small part of me that wanted to rebel against my pre-written fate. My job had been to get them safely off the island. I had been extremely confident the pull she had on me would come in useful, even if it was good for nothing else but confusing the hell out of me. I had expected it to take me a lot longer to find her, but the gravity-like link had drawn me to her the whole time, guiding me to her location.

  Within a week I knew of her vicinity, and within two weeks I knew exactly where she was. After two months of zigzagging all over the northern hemisphere, making sure I lost anyone who might have been following me, I was finally standing over her.

  My reaction to her had always been there; as far as I could remember. It had been a dull crackle over the years, but the moment I had started tracking her, the current surged to existence full force. It had been like a special beacon she was releasing just for me; like she knew I was coming for her, and she wanted me to find her without any trouble.

  I knew how crazy that made me sound, but how else could I possibly explain the connection I feel toward her? Maybe it was just the fact that I needed her to save our kingdom that was putting more emphasis on the attraction I thought I had to her. It was just my imagination working overtime; after all, illusions were her kind’s specialty. That explanation made me feel less guilty about my forbidden feelings for a Princess that wasn’t mine. Relief was temporary because in the end I knew my reaction to her had nothing to do with our royal responsibility.

  With my hand still pressed against the severely cold ice, I realized that her presence was embedded in every inch of the frozen lake. It had absorbed her presence, possessing it, just like the ice possessed her. She made the habit of captivating the elements around her, causing them to want, to need to become a permanent part of her mind, her body, her soul. I was fascinated by her ability to draw that same need out of me.

  Crouched here, I felt like I was a part of her in some extraordinary way; I could feel her. And that’s when I realized I was actually feel her.

  Frowning, I tried to focus on exactly what I was feeling. The emotion twisted in my gut, giving me an uneasy feeling, but I didn’t know why. What was she trying to tell me?

  I heard footsteps approaching behind – I heard them way before they had come close enough for any normal person to hear. Bare feet crushed the delicate shapes of the snow flakes scattered over the length of the frozen lake; I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

  “She’s here; right below you in fact.” He said his voice rich with our inherited, Spanish accent.

  “Well gee thanks, Sherlock Holmes.” Two months worth of traveling with Aaron was to blame for the disdain that laced my words. “I didn’t bring you along so you could find her, I brought you along so you could defrost her, but something is wrong.” I told him, looking up to gauge his reaction and see if he had noticed it too.

  “What do you mean something is wrong?”

  “I mean something doesn’t feel right.”

  “I don’t understand. What makes you think that?

  “I can fe-“ I quickly stopped myself. Confiding in him my unexplained draw to her was not on the agenda.

  No one knew about my mysterious connection to her. Not only was I not allowed to ever have contact with the Princess, I wasn’t given any in-depth detail about my mission either. I had learned at a very early age that having any feelings for the Princess of any kind were strictly forbidden. I had made the mistake once of commenting on my confusing affection toward her. I had been quickly put in my place. It wasn’t frowned upon, or simply not a very good idea, nope, feelings toward the Princess was and is a big no, no. The attachment to her only continued to grow, and I learned to deal with the chaos privately. I wasn’t about to change that now.

  “I don’t understand why that matters. I’m telling you something is wrong.”

  He didn’t respond to my harsh tone. He just circled around me, staring at the spot right above the Princess’s head, focusing intently. My gaze swept across Aaron’s body, there was no disgust in my eyes, just an open curiosity. I never got used to seeing Aaron in his natural form like this. Even now as I looked at him, it was as if this was the first time I was seeing him. I dropped my eyes to meet the same spot on the ice, and wondered how she would look for the first time when she finally took her form.

  “It’s already started.” He finally said

  My head snapped up. My wondering thoughts, bursting like a bubble at his words. I looked at him with puzzled eyes. His head was cocked to the side and his face was twisted in complete focus.

  “What do you mean it’s already started? I thought you said it was way too early? That we would have to jump start the process ourselves.” I accused. I looked toward the sky. The sun was starting to peek through the clouds, dispensing light for the first time in months. “The sun,” I whispered, “it’s starting to come out.”

  He was silent for so long, I didn’t think he was going to answer me, but when he finally looked at me, he looked just as confused as I was.

  “I don’t understand it…” his voice trailed off as he knelt down, resting his knee against the frozen floor a
nd resting one arm on his knee. He placed his other hand flat on the cold surface, just like mine had been moments before.

  I hadn’t expected the intense sense of possession that flooded me, consumed me, when Aaron placed his hand over her. I knew he wasn’t actually touching her, and I was completely aware that I was insane, but that didn’t change the urge to want to punch him – or smack his hand away. I would have been satisfied with doing both. I balled mine into fists to control the temptation. Something occurred to me then, and I blurted it out before I thought about how crazy it would sound.

  “Do you feel anything toward her?” and just like I had suspected, Aaron looked at me like I had lost my mind.

  “What do you mean?” He asked slowly, his dark brows pulling together with uncertainty.

  I wanted to take it back, I wanted to pretend like I hadn’t just opened my mouth, and let the crazy thought in my head out, but I couldn’t take it back. I had to explain myself.

  “I mean do you feel any…connection to her?” I was waving my hands around in front of me like I was insane. “Like a cosmic pull toward her?” I felt like an idiot, but part of me didn’t care, because I desperately wanted to make sure that no one else felt the same link to her that I did; that she was mine even is she wasn’t. “Well?” I demanded, when he just stared at me with a perplexed expression.

  “I feel her energy…if that’s what you mean” His words came out slow, as if he were unsure of what my reaction would be.

  “So you don’t feel it all the time, her energy, I mean? Is it only when you’re close to her?”

  “Yes.” He still sounded unsure about where this was going, and then he specified, “Only when I’m close to her.”

  I exhaled my relief slowly, hoping he wouldn’t notice, “Just wondering.” I shrugged nonchalantly, passing it off as indifference, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. Aaron wasn’t one to dwell on facts or details that didn’t involve the specific task at hand; he was pretty laid back.