All Chapters of Awakening - Eve Of Eden: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

It feels like only seconds, and I flutter my lashes open again. Nausea hits me hard, and the burning ache and throbbing pulse in my ankle, although far less intense, make me groan, flinch, and try to sit up.“Stay.” A warm, strong hand presses harshly to my forehead, pushing me back down ungracefully, like a soft slap of pressure, and I blink awake properly. Aware it's glowy and amber and weirdly warm now out here in the wilderness. I'm also lying down, comfortable, and not wet at all. Disoriented by the change of atmosphere and even light, and not sure where I am.The smell, though, of burning, smokiness, that sort of matches how my leg feels, and I mumble incoherently while still being dazed. Letting my dream state spill out verbally.“Are you burning my foot off? Don’t eat it.” I mutter with a slur, wondering why I feel so out of it. There's a weird taste in my mouth that seems oddly familiar, and I'm seeing double as I try to fo

I push away the need to keep questioning, as he hasn't given me the answers I crave, but I'm getting to know that he isn’t one you can push to give up so easily. You have to take what you can when he shows little and let it slide when he closes down on you again. In so many ways, he's like Eve, and maybe it's because I have handled her all these years that I can’t be mad at him for having a similar defense mechanism. They're both powerful, shunned, and tortured in their own ways.They both pretend not to care while their actions say otherwise. And they keep everything they’re thinking and feeling locked up tight inside a badass mask and a cold, denial-based demeanor that makes it seem like they don’t possess normal emotions. Doing things that seem cruel to me, yet benefit me in some way.Kaelin made me kill that vampire by illusion because he wanted me to think I could go on without him and not fear killing later. Eve knew I would settle for Sim

Our pace is slow, given I'm limping and moving like a snail, and he’s sulking and walking ahead ever since I told him I hadn’t changed my mind about pursuing Eve. I don’t know what his problem is.No matter what he says, I refuse to believe anyone truly wants to be alone when there are people who love them and want them close. Eve doesn’t really want to do this, and if I left her, I would never forgive myself.Watching him walk ahead in the darkness, the moon bright enough tonight and the sky clear enough to actually see, I'm miffed at him. He hasn’t said one word to me since he came back to the cave this morning, nor all day, nor for the past three hours while walking. Just glares, silence, eating apart, and keeping ten steps ahead of me so I can’t say a word to him.Juvenile.I motion a middle finger at his back, giving him the bird, and stick out my tongue.So busy cursing him out, lost in my own thoughts from

Kaelin has dragged a couple of large boulders to the spot he’s chosen for a make-shift seating arrangement, and it’s not lost on me that he has spaced them opposite one another at each side of the fire. Keeping us apart.I walk over, pull off my cloak to shake the rain off, lay it down in the space beside the nearest boulder to dry off, then sit down to face him. He’s already hunched there, tending to his little creation and adding some chunkier bits of woof to make it bigger and hotter. He looks so gentle this way. Handsome, peaceful…not at all like someone I should stay mad at.“I’m sorry I was such a psycho….. this whole thing has been…. hard,” I admit with defeat, still melancholy about some home truths I came to face while arguing with him. “I’m sorry I beat you up. I’m sorry I took out all my hurt feelings on you. It’s not your fault, and I'm grateful that you decided to help me.&rdq

The rain didn’t last long, and as soon as it stopped, Kaelin, who was avoiding getting close to me like the plague, has us up and out pronto. Every time I get within four feet, he moves like his ass is on fire, and as cute as it was at first, it’s getting old two hours later.He has not mentioned my kissing him at all since. It’s like he's pretending it never happened, and once again adds weight to the idea that he likes me.He only talks to me from a distance, although he checks if I need my wounds dressed every half hour. No offer to carry me again, though, given that touching him would probably send him running for the hills. He’s annoyingly obvious in his fear of me seducing him.You’re only scared of such things if you think or know you will cave.The mountain is getting closer than ever and looks like it won't take more than another day and a half, maybe two, to get there at our current pace. Less if we travel in light