Touching Smoke: Touch Saga, #1

By Airicka Phoenix

I assumed I was human.
I assumed wrong.

I dream of death and warm blood on my hands. I dream of the day I burn the world to the ground. I dream of the day
I will finally die.

Running is something my mother taught me to do very well. I never knew why until the night I cause an earthquake and meet Isaiah. My shadow. My protector. My other half. I need him. I need his blood. He is the only one who can keep me hidden from the man who created me. The man who created
the monster.

The world is depending on me not to fall in love. But what happens when the temptation becomes too great and falling is my only option? Can I live knowing I will destroy the world because his touch is the only thing keeping me alive?
And how can I trust someone as lost as I am?

Touch Passion. Touch Power. Touch Smoke!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Airicka Phoenix
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781498934909

Airicka Phoenix

Airicka Phoenix is a multi genre author of over twenty-five bestselling novels starring strong female leads and sexy alpha heroes. She started her journey after never finding the type of books she wanted to read. Her love of tortured souls and forbidden romance carried her into writing her own hard-earned happiness. Currently, she lives on the outskirts of Toronto with her babies and can be found hard at work on her next project. For more about Airicka, visit her at AirickaPhoenix.com

Book preview

Prologue

I had a dream once. I stood on a cliff overlooking the remains of a ruined city with my bare toes inches from a carpet of torn and unmoving bodies. Plumes of smoke rose up into a sky, churning with the blood of innocent souls lost to the war raging below. Howls of anguish tore through the carnage, shattering time and space with its heart wrenching song of agony. Humidity held firm to the stench of decay and death like a lover’s embrace.

It was beautiful.

Seeing the terror in the eyes of men and women as they fell sang through my soul like the first taste of cotton candy—sweet and addictive. Their blood dripped from my fingertips and rained down the length of my white dress, a harsh contrast. It was warm and thick like paint. I relished in the knowledge that it was me they all feared. It was me who held all the power. I was unstoppable.

Yet I came awake retching. Sweat gelled my clothes to my body. My stomach returned the burger I’d had the night before over the side of the bed in a puddle of chunky sickness.

In the next bed, my mother came awake with a jolt, but it was too late. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing she could say that would make the horror vanish from behind my eyelids, to clean my soul of what I’d done. True, it hadn’t been real, but it had felt real. The sick pleasure I’d felt had been real. The blood of innocent lives lost felt real running down my body.

I never told her.

I couldn’t.

I was so ashamed. I was so disgusted. What sort of person was I that I would dream about such a thing? Was I secretly some kind of closet psychopath? No. I swore I would never tell anyone.

Little did I know at the time that my nightmares were about to become a reality I would be unable to wake from.

Chapter 1

What’s the matter? Mom honed in on my mood before I even realized I was chewing anxiously on my thumbnail.

Nothing. I quickly wiped the spit off on my jeans and stuffed my hands into my lap. My torn and bloody thumbnail glared up at me, a sick mockery of my lie.

Fallon ... The warning tone was in effect.

Nothing.

It was a risk telling Mom when I was being plagued by my own personal team of demons. Her tendency to overreact was legendary. I spent a great deal of time and effort practicing to lie convincingly.

Don’t lie to me. Unfortunately, even practice didn’t help sometimes.

I gave my head a shake, fixing my attention out the passenger side window in clear avoidance. Pale sunlight splashed over blooming treetops. The golden rays spilled through the knotted branches in splinters that lay broken across the forest floor. Birds flittered from tree to tree, singing their anxious little song. I could hear their elated chirping over the Rust-Bucket’s roaring engine and I wondered what they had to be so excited about.

Fallon! My mom had this theory that the more she said my name in that I-am-your-mother-and-you-will-answer-when-I-ask-you-something tone, I’d succumb to her demands, and usually it worked. I may have been sixteen, legal enough to drive in just about every part of the world, but I feared my mother’s wrath like nobody’s business. She was downright merciless when she wanted to be and I wasn’t stupid.

It’s nothing! I insisted, already knowing even before the words were out that she wouldn’t believe me.

Ooookay. Her sigh resounded of feigned remorse, as if she really didn’t want to have to do it and it hurt her more than it would hurt me ... as if I believed that. Her hand wandered off the steering wheel and inched toward the radio.

I caved faster than a house of poorly placed cards in the wind. There was nothing worse than country music, and not just any country music, the old western kind that only played when you were in the middle of nowhere and only two stations worked on the radio: ancient western and some crazy guy ranting about the end of the world and demons spilling out of hell onto earth. Right, like I believed in demons. I didn’t even believe in Santa Claus. Never had. But seriously, give me the crazy guy any day. Unfortunately, he only came out at night when he knew he could give me nightmares of horned creatures clawing their way out of the fiery pits of Tartarus.

Okay! Fine! I grabbed her wrist before she could touch the knob. I’ll talk! I would never have made it as a spy, not when I would only need to be threatened with country music to spill everything without a qualm. Screw dignity.

She didn’t actually smirk—my mother didn’t do that—but there was a satisfied tilt to her lips as she sat back and waited patiently for me to begin.

I faltered in my explanation. Every thread I grabbed proved to be the wrong way to start and I had to be careful about how much I told her. My jumbled emotions kept knotting up inside me like yarn, tying up my tongue and making my every attempt to speak impossible.

Mom never interrupted me. She knew how hard it was for me to talk about things I didn’t understand myself. I knew she would sit there, for hours if she had to, waiting, never breaking my concentration, until I was ready to speak. Just so long as I told her, she would wait, but only for so long before she began badgering again.

I had another dream, I finally said, staring down at my lap as if the rest of my courage was somehow sitting there, waiting to be plucked up. The only thing there was my hands, clenched together between my jean-clad thighs. Sweat squished between my palms. I wiped them on my jeans.

What was it about? she asked, casual with a tense undertone she failed miserably to conceal.

Her knuckles blistered white around the steering wheel and there were slight pinch lines on either side of her mouth. She stared with such fierce determination out the windshield that I half expected there to be scorch marks on the glass.

Mom was very pretty, much like those old black and white movie starlets they showed every so often on basic TV. She had beautiful cinnamon-colored hair that was naturally wavy when she didn’t cut it pixie-style and it always carried the lingering scent of citrus from her shampoo. She also had beautiful hooded, viridian-green eyes that shimmered like sunlight over a lake. Her complexion wasn’t as pale as mine, but porcelain, and she was willowy, not gangly like me, but graceful ... like a dancer. No one ever believed Erin Braeden was my mother. Physically, we were as different as night and day. My hair was thicker and curlier, and so black it shone with streaks of blue. It hung like a weighty carpet to my waist. It also had a life of its own, constantly creeping into my eyes when it was down, catching on things, and when the wind blew through it, the whole thing was one giant bird’s nest. I tried cutting it, but it had a maddening way of growing back, longer and thicker than before. I eventually gave up and kept it in a tight braid down my back.

Fallon?

I averted my gaze. I don’t remember.

Liar, liar, pants on fire! However, it was either lie or tell her about Amalie. Lying was safer.

The dreams had begun six months before and I could never remember more than a few seconds of it. It was always dark with flashes of light, like someone spinning around and around with a camera in a room full of candles. Every so often I would see a flicker of a hand holding a pen over a faded journal, but the image would always dance away too quickly for me to read what was being written. There were only two instances where I actually caught a glimpse of something tangible, and both times it was a name:

Amalie Nicolette Dennison

I didn’t know who she was, or why she kept popping into my dreams every night. Nor did I know why I would wake up in the morning, dizzy with the salty scent of sea breeze hanging thick in the room, but I wished she would stop. I wasn’t sure my brain could take any more sleepless nights. Never mind my sanity.

Where are we going? I asked, needing a change of topic.

Thinking about Amalie always creeped me out and I didn’t like it. I refused to believe that I was some pod for spiritual communication as I’d heard it being called on a TV show somewhere in Alberta a few months back. The whole show had been ridiculous. Spirits from the Great Beyond had better things to do than wander into the minds and dreams of the living. Besides, Amalie hadn’t left me any subliminal messages or announced the name of her killer, assuming she was murdered. She just kept trying to make me nauseous with the spinning and the lights.

Honestly, though, I blamed the whole thing on my mom. Would it have killed her to spend one night somewhere that didn’t look haunted? It was no wonder I was getting crazy dreams. My subconscious was begging for a hint of normalcy. Mom, however, didn’t see it that way.

I was thinking we could just drive west for a while, she answered, rhythmically tapping her unpainted fingernails on the worn leather of the steering wheel in a way that meant she was in deep thought but was answering because she believed children should always receive an answer when they asked a question. What do you think?

I thought I would like to head back to Nova Scotia, rent an apartment, and stay there. But that answer would only earn me a deep sigh and a long speech about firsthand experiences and how every teenager in the world would have loved to be in my shoes and how I should enjoy it. Blah, blah, blah. I’d heard it all before.

So, instead, I replied dryly, West ... fun. Nothing there we haven’t seen a million times before.

She either didn’t pick up on my sarcasm, which was unlikely, or she chose to ignore it, which I was sure of, because nothing ever passed over her head.

Actually, there’s a school I called the other day—

Reflexively, I groaned. Not another one. I was ignored again.

—they teach Latin and French.

"Wow! Latin? That should come in handy, oh ... never!"

She spared me a glower from the corner of her eyes. You will like this one and it’s only for a little while.

Every time our funds began to decrease, Mom would stuff me into the most heavily guarded private school she could possibly find, while she worked herself silly earning more travel money. She claimed it was a good opportunity for me to make new friends and learn new things. It also gave her a chance to do what she needed to get done without having to worry about leaving me alone in a motel. What I never confessed to was that I stopped trying to make new friends after leaving the fourth grade for the sixth time in one year. I learned everything I needed to know from the mountain of textbooks, worksheets, and notes I carted around from all the schools I’d left behind over the years, and there were tons of those. The number was mindboggling, so I never kept count, but she always insisted.

Can’t we just use the money Dad left me?

I knew it was useless to ask, even before she speared me with a dark scowl. Mom never touched that money, except to pay for all the high priced schools she thought I needed. I think it was her way of making it up to me for losing out on so much of my childhood to the open highway. Not that being stuck behind towering walls of stone and iron was any better, and I was sure Dad would have told her so as well, had he not died when I was four.

That money is for you to start your own life one day.

One day. I knew my dad would have wanted Mom to use the money instead of working herself to death, but she refused to touch a penny of it in any way that didn’t involve my education.

How long are we staying there? I sighed heavily. It was better to just accept it.

Mom shrugged. Don’t know yet. In other words: until she had enough cash to keep us afloat for a few months. That could be anywhere from three to six months.

Well, maybe it would be different this time, I thought with uncharacteristic optimism. Maybe Amalie would behave for once. Maybe she’d go away. I believed that about as much as I believed the sleek, black motorcycle racing to catch our fender was on its way to rescue me.

I blinked, instantly straightening in my seat. My heart leapt in my chest and pattered with an excited tremor that made my hands tremble and my stomach muscles flutter. I bit my lip, restraining the smile I could feel blooming there.

It was him!

I darted an anxious glance toward my mother. She hadn’t noticed. I sometimes wondered if she ever noticed him. I certainly did. I would recognize him anywhere.

Giddy with excitement, I reverted my attention back to the tall, lean figure clad in jeans and a battered jacket in soft black leather. The familiar sight of him filled me with an unnatural longing to leap out and throw myself at him. We’d never met, but I knew, I knew he would crush me into his chest and hold me. I knew that he would smell of dark things, of night and dreams and danger. My fingers trembled, aching with the insatiable hunger to thread through hair I couldn’t even tell you the color of because I’d never seen him without the sleek, black helmet that covered his entire head. Tears of frustration blinded me as they always did at the injustice of my situation, at the ache pounding in my chest. It hurt how badly I wanted to be with him.

The sun gleamed off his black helmet as he inclined his head. He raised a hand and gave me a two-fingered salute as though he could see me watching him through the side mirror. That too was a familiar thing, like our own personal code of communication.

My lips twitched and I raised a hand to wave back. Deep down, I stifled the mindboggling pulse of familiarity that warmed in my chest. I didn’t know him, yet the pull was unmistakable. As was the distinct sense of déjà vu at seeing that exact bike a few days ago at a gas stop in Nova Scotia, and periodically for as long as I could remember, but always from a distance and always gone when I tried to get a closer look.

I must have been waving for too long, because my mother’s voice broke through my train of thought. What are you doing?

I quickly stuffed my hand back between my thighs. Nothing.

But Mom wasn’t fooled. She took one glance into the rearview mirror and lost all the color in her face. The leather between her fingers squeaked as she tightened her grip around the wheel. Her spine stiffened and she cursed words I had never heard my mother use and usually got an earful when I used.

Hang on! she hissed a split second before she floored the gas pedal.

Somewhere on highway 1 heading west, two sets of jagged burn marks mar the asphalt where the Impala had all but ripped through the concrete. Black smoke billowed, choking the clear sky with the stench of burned rubber. The motorcycle screeched, swerving under the attack.

Mom! My cry of panic was shoved aside and ignored.

Where most would have shaken a fist and thrown a few curse words, the rider righted himself, leaned over his handlebars, and sped up.

We were doing a hundred and climbing. The needle quivered as we accelerated to speeds the rust-bucket was not accustomed to. The Impala groaned and shuddered, but kept pace.

What are you doing? I shrieked, partly out of soul chilling terror, partly to be heard over the clashing roar of two engines battling; one ours, the other the speeder behind us.

Get down! Mom shot back, hunched over the wheel, eyes narrowed on the road.

I wasn’t given time to follow orders. I was thrown back into my seat as the acceleration jumped nearly off the radar. I didn’t even think the Rust-Bucket could go that fast.

Hold on!

Jagged gashes scarred the leather dash where I clawed for bearing as I was smashed against the door. My skull ricocheted off the glass with a sickening crack which sent a burst of light exploding before my eyes. My spleen smashed into my ribs when Mom suddenly slammed down on the brakes. My heart took shelter in my throat, thrashing like a captured bird struggling for escape. I would have been panicked, but I was already having trouble reminding my lungs to breathe and my brain not to explode.

The Rust-Bucket nearly flipped. For a split second, that’s exactly what I was expecting, and in that second, my heart forgot to beat. I watched, paralyzed from the brain down, as the car skidded as though on ice, rolling dangerously close to the ditch on the side of the road. The world seemed to clash, swirling in smears of green and blue. I might have screamed, but even that seemed unlikely when I’d forgotten how.

Behind us, the motorcycle screeched, sounding like a desperate cry. The rider yanked sharply to the left at the last second, trying to miss the back end of the Impala. I was twisted in my seat before it even registered that I was no longer frozen. The leather headrest tore under my nails as I scrambled into the backseat—over duffle bags, blankets, and fast food wrappers—to watch with crippling horror as the bike squealed once more before disappearing over the edge into the ditch.

My soul screamed before the sound tore through the soft tissues of my esophagus and exploded from my lips. Time screeched to a halt. Everything froze, except the loud shrill of my cries and the crack of my heart as the bike nosedived over the lip and crashed.

No!

Fallon! Only when my mother’s blunt nails peeled the skin on my arm did I realize she’d stopped me from throwing myself out the door.

I kept screaming, my insanity raging against reality. The world spun and dipped, and flashed crimson. Everything roared, swallowing the animal like howls tearing through my lungs. I felt deranged, completely unhinged, like someone losing something so utterly precious to them that the very idea of living was unbearable. It was inconceivable. I wanted to die. I wanted to throw myself out of the car and dive into the ditch and ... and what? What was wrong with me?

Fallon, calm down. Although soothing, my mom’s tone did nothing to appease the hysteria eating me up inside.

Don’t leave him! I pleaded, only just then realizing I was sobbing like my heart would cease beating if I stopped. Don’t leave him! Please!

We have to go, she said, still holding on to me as she used her free hand to maneuver the Impala back onto the road.

No! I shrieked, renewing my thrashing, throwing myself against the door. Don’t leave him!

But she didn’t stop and I was taken away, away from the other half of me.

Chapter 2

Mom pulled over nearly a mile away and let me out. I fell to my knees on the stretch of gravel making up the side of the road, retching dry bile. Bits of rock cut into my palms and my knees through the fabric of my jeans. Blood oozed from the gashes along my bruised knuckles. I didn’t recall how I’d gotten the cuts, but I guessed from trying to break the car window. My arms ached and there were splotches of black and blue all along my forearms and the heels of my hands. Jagged puckers of flesh marred the back of my arm where my mother had restrained me and kept me from throwing myself out of a moving car, although I wished she hadn’t. Something told me the wrenching pain would have been far less had I just leapt to my death and ended it there.

Fallon—

Why did you do it? I didn’t need to glance up to know she stood over me, a grief-stricken look on her face. Her remorse thickened the air around us and dripped from her voice.

I had to.

Why? My shoulders shook beneath my broken sobs. My cheeks burned from the consistent flow of hot tears. Why would you ...

It’s okay—

I slapped away the hand she placed on my shoulder. My head shot up, anger suffocating me. It’s not okay! You ran him off the road and just drove off. You killed him! You killed me! But I didn’t say it out loud. It was crazy sounding enough inside my head.

Her lips tightened and untightened as though working out a way to speak. A war raged behind her eyes, now staring straight through me, no longer seeing me but something in the vast distance of her memory. She remained in the frozen position for what felt like hours, seemingly reliving whatever nightmare plagued her constantly. Then she blinked. The turmoil in her eyes vanished and they were once more filled with shrewd determination.

Get in the car, she said so simply I actually blinked.

What?

She turned away and started for her door. Get in the car! she repeated louder.

I didn’t move from my kneeling position in the dirt, my legs useless. I was prepared to sit there forever because the thought of moving made no sense to me.

Fallon! she snapped through my open window. Get in the car! Now!

The bones in my neck cracked painfully when I snapped my head around to glare at her. From that angle, all I could make out was her sweat kissed brow, but that was enough.

I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me why you would do something like that!

I’ll leave you here!

Then leave! I looked away, folding my arms over my chest like a defiant child.

Fine! She started the car, waited a heartbeat as though expecting me to come to my senses, then drove off in a cloud of dust when I continued to sit there and glower at the stretch of road ahead of me.

I didn’t watch her. I sat staring at the wall of trees barricading the highway. They’d never looked so tall or ominous from inside the car, but out there, sitting amongst them, I felt almost insect-like. The approaching darkness didn’t help.

I don’t care! I told myself, hefting my aching body to my feet and starting back. I wasn’t leaving until I knew he was all right. It amazed me how quickly night swooped down when one was on foot, in the middle of nowhere, without a single shred of light in sight. Even though I told myself there was an upside to not being able to see in the dark, I kept tripping on my own feet and those reasons quickly became hazy. Then, like all good wildernesses, with the dark came the biting cold. I very quickly began to appreciate the warmth and security of the Rust-Bucket, but I refused to turn back.

The night pushed against me, feeling almost solid to the touch. I waved a hand in front of my face and saw nothing. A more rational voice in my head warned me to stop before I wound up in a hole or lost, but the pull denied me. With every step, it grew stronger until it pulsed like a second heartbeat inside me.

It was undetermined how long I walked for. Even if I wore a watch, which I didn’t, time was iffy in the dark. My legs were beginning to hurt and I was certain I would grind my teeth

Reviews for Touching Smoke

[KrystalMarie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

best author ever!