Author's Note: I did it! I finally finished the chapter! Hooray for me! For all of you doubters out there, I'm never giving up on this story. It may take me several months to upload a new chapter, and it might be years before I finish But I will finish! I am not a quitter! Now, if you're not a quitter either and you still haven't given up on me or my story, here's chapter 9 of Dark Illusions. Don't forget to review. :)

Chapter 9

"All of this supernatural stuff is really awesome and all, but I think I've reached my quota for like the entire year," Kris said when they got back to Jayden's house and he transformed back into himself. "Do you think we could just talk—out loud? We could pretend we're a couple of people on a first date. Not that I know what that's like."

Jayden smiled. "That's alright, sivamet. Neither do I."

Kris raised her eyebrows. "You said you were over 900 years old. You expect me to believe that in all that time, you never went out on a date? I suppose you're going to tell me you were a virgin before today, too."

Jayden frowned. "Of course I was. Why would I ever cheat on my lifemate?"

Kris gave a mirthless laugh. "I've only been alive for the last 24 years! I wasn't even born yet. How could you have possibly cheated on me?"

Jayden pulled her aside and forced her to look into his eyes. Kris once again felt herself falling into their depths. "You are my lifemate. It matters not that you did not exist for most of my life. You are the other half of my soul. Being with anyone else...it would not be right. Only you could ever satisfy me." Jayden placed Kris' hand over his heart. "Only you could ever bring light to my darkness."

Kris tugged her hand away and glared at him. "Stop, okay? Just stop."

Jayden looked dejected. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Yes!" Kris threw her hands up in defeat. "No!"

"Well which is it?"

"Both! Neither! Ugh..." Kris slumped into a nearby chair and put her head in her hands. "I don't know."

"I'm confused."

Kris looked up. "Good! I'm not the only one." Kris felt her headache returning. The pain went away just as quickly as it had appeared as she felt Jayden brush her mind with his. Kris had to force herself to let him withdraw.

Jayden sat down beside her. "Why do you fight your instincts? Why do you close yourself off from me when every part of you screams for us to be one?"

"Following my instincts is what got me into this mess in the first place. And you're wrong. Not every part of me is screaming for us to be one. It's just that some parts scream louder than others."

"What are you saying? Do you regret completing the ritual?" Kris could feel his hurt. "I asked you if you wanted me to continue and you said yes! I would have stopped, Kristine! It would have damned near killed me to do so, sivamet, but I would have. For you, I would do almost anything!"

"Calm down, Jayden. I don't regret what we did." Kris closed her eyes and smiled. "It was the single most amazing experience of my entire life. It was heaven, truly."

Jayden relaxed. "I don't understand, then. What mess are you in?"

Kris opened her eyes and once again looked at him. "My instincts are always getting me into trouble. It's the whole empath thing. Sometimes I feel like I'm of two minds. There is my conscious mind and my empath mind. My empath mind senses and understands things that my conscious mind can't. With some practice and self reflection, I've been able to overlap the two just a little. But there is still so much that my conscious mind doesn't understand. My empath mind still keeps secrets sometimes, and when it does, all I have are my instincts. And when I follow my instincts, it's my conscious mind that has to deal with the fallout." Kris sighed. She could tell Jayden was still confused. "Basically what I'm saying is that while the empath part of me knows who you are and what you mean to me, my conscious mind isn't ready to accept any of it yet. And even though I don't regret what we did, I do wish we could have waited until all of me was ready."

Jayden pondered this for a moment. "So the empath part of you—the part that recognizes me as your lifemate—it overrode the part of you that wanted to wait?"

"Yes! It took over and once again complicated my life. Although..." Kris blushed. "I must admit that empathic overload has never had quite this effect before."

Jayden smiled. "I see." A few moments passed by in silence until Jayden asked, "so how do we move past this? How do we get the rest of you ready for us to be one?"

"Well, if it's okay with you, I'd kind of like to pretend like the last several hours didn't happen and just start over. If we could take a huge step back and just get to know each other as people..."

"Of course," Jayden reassured her. "I have waited over 900 years for you, Kristine. I can wait a bit longer. We can go as slow as you need. There will be some limitations, however. The nature of our bond will require us to touch each others' minds. A light brush now and then should be sufficient to keep your sanity intact. We will also need to remain in close physical proximity to each other or we will both begin to feel uneasy."

"How close?"

"I'm not sure exactly, but I do not believe there can be more than a few miles or so between us."

"Well that explains why I felt worse the farther I ran from the house."

Jayden nodded. "I had hoped you would return on your own when you ran too far out, but you just kept retreating, regardless of the bond."

Kris smirked. "Well, I've always been a stubborn one."

Jayden smiled. "I have learned that stubbornness can, at times, be a good thing."

Kris laughed. "Yes, well usually, it just gets me into trouble."

Kris felt a chill as the conversation abruptly turned serious. "There is one more thing. I do not wish to upset you more by mentioning it, but lifemates cannot keep secrets from one another." Kris felt fear creep into Jayden's heart.

"What is it? I'm a big girl; you can tell me."

"I mentioned before that during the day, I sleep buried in the soil. My heart stops and my body completely shuts down as I receive nourishment from the earth."

"Yeah, about that, how does your body know to just start up again?"

"It's hard to explain. It's a combination of things. We can discuss it later, but I need to tell you something important. Please listen."

"Okay."

"When I sleep, it will feel to you as if I am dead. You will wish to follow me into death. You must remember—"

"Let me stop you right there." Kris was enraged. "What kind of a person do you think I am? Do you really think me so weak that I would try to kill myself over a man?"

"You don't understand. The bond will cause you to feel empty without me. I—"

"Listen here, Jayden. I don't care how 'empty' it could make me feel. My heart could feel like a bottomless pit. Nothing—and I mean nothing—could ever make me take my own life. I would check myself back into that hellhole of a mental hospital before I'd ever even think of suicide! I refuse to invite that kind of darkness into my soul!"

Jayden reached out his hand and wiped a stray tear off his lifemate's cheek. "Forgive me. I did not mean to dredge up unpleasant memories. At dawn, I must go to ground to replenish my strength. I almost lost you, Kristine. I can't—" Jayden choked back a sob and looked away as tears began to flow.

Kris reached up and turned back Jayden's head so she could gaze into his golden brown eyes. "Hey. It's okay. You don't need to be afraid. I promise you that I will still be here when you awaken from your deathlike sleep."

Jayden smiled through his tears and Kris felt joy bursting out of him once more. Jayden threw his arms around Kris and pulled her in for a tight embrace. Once again, Kris felt that sense of rightness and instinctively put her arms around him and snuggled closer. Kris closed her eyes and listened to Jayden's heartbeat. As she listened, she realized his heart had the same rhythm as her own. She had felt it earlier too but had been too distressed to pay it much notice. "Jayden?" she asked with her head still resting against his chest.

"What, Kristine?

"Your heart has an echo. Has your heartbeat always sounded like this?"

Jayden laughed. "Are you referring to our synchronized heartbeats?"

Kris pulled away slightly to look up at him. "Well, that's part of it, but that's not what I meant by echo."

"Oh? Well what did you mean, then?"

"Your heartbeat doesn't have the same rhythm as most people. Instead of Ba-Bum Ba-Bum it sounds more like Ba-Ba-Ba-Bum. Almost like there is an echo or a beat within a beat."

Jayden looked puzzled and pulled away from her to feel the pulse point in his neck. "Huh," he said a few seconds later. "I've been to many healers for various injuries. No one ever mentioned it. Of course, if for some reason you have the same rhythm, then it makes perfect sense. Lifemates' hearts always beat as one."

"Oh, well that does explains a lot, because I do have the same rhythm. So does my nephew. The doctors told us we have benign heart murmurs." Kris moved away from Jayden and stood up. "Come to think of it, benign heart murmurs do run in my family." She started pacing back and forth. "Which is weird because I looked it up once and murmurs aren't normally genetic unless they turn malignant later on, yet the ones in my family rarely do."

"Kristine?" Jayden called out, but she appeared not to hear him.

"In fact, it's only happened once that I know of. Of course my research on my family history is still fairly limited at this point. I've only traced it back as far as my great grandparents and I still don't have all the data on my second and third cousins yet, but it's not out of the realm of possibility."

"Kristine?" Jayden once again sought his lifemate's attention to no avail.

"How could I have missed this? This could change everything!"

"Kristine!" Jayden's mental cry disrupted Kris' train of thought.

Kris stopped her pacing and looked back at Jayden with a sheepish grin. "Sorry. Sometimes I get lost in my own little world. Were you saying something?"

Jayden stood up and put his hands on her shoulders. "That's quite alright sivamet. I was just trying to get your attention so you could tell me what you were going on about. I tried reading your mind, but your thoughts were moving a mile a minute. It just looked like one big jumbled mess up there. That's probably why you didn't even notice I was in there!"

Kris started laughing. She laughed so hard that Jayden had to keep her from falling over. "What is so funny?

"You just brought new meaning to the term scatterbrained," Kris managed to get out before bursting into laughter again.

After a second, Jayden found himself laughing along with her. It was a big belly laugh, the kind so big it hurts. But it was a good hurt, for this was the first time that he'd really let loose since he was a fledgling.

Kris stopped laughing as Jayden's mix of emotions washed over her. She looked up to see that Jayden was beaming. "I haven't laughed like that in centuries. I'd forgotten what it felt like. Sivamet, you are a miracle worker."

Kris blushed and looked away. "What does that mean—Sivamet? You keep calling me that."

"It's a term of endearment. It means 'of my heart.' You are my heart, Kristine. You are also sielamet—"my soul." I call you that because without you I feel nothing." Jayden reached out his hand and gently turned her face towards his. "Without you, I am nothing."

Looking into his eyes, Kris felt her heart start to race and her body began to heat up again. Her breasts ached and she could feel herself growing wet. It took all the strength she had to pull away. "You have to stop saying things like that."

"You asked. Do you wish me to stop calling you that? I won't like it, but I will stop, if that is what you really want."

Kris thought about it. Calling someone your heart was about as romantic as you could get. Regardless of what happened earlier, she wasn't really ready for that kind of intimacy. While she felt like she'd known Jayden forever, she'd only just met him. But when he called her that, it made her feel special, like her life meant something—like she meant something. She didn't feel like that very often. Usually she needed to look back at her life and find little instances in her memory to remind her that she wasn't just a nobody. Perhaps a pet name couldn't hurt. "No. Don't stop. I kinda like it. Just don't overdo it, okay?"

"Okay, Kristine."

Kris laughed and shook her head.

"What's funny now?"

"Nobody really calls me that either. Usually I go by Kris or Krissy."

Kris had to chuckle again at the look of utter disgust on Jayden's face. "Kris?" he said it like he had a bad taste in his mouth. "I am never calling you that. And Krissy sounds like a little girl..." Jayden eyed her D cups. "...which you definitely are not."

Kris felt a blush stealing up her cheeks again and began to feel self-conscious. "Yes, well, I got that nickname when I was a toddler. I switched to Kris when I was eleven. My family still calls me Krissy, though. Old habits die hard, I guess."

"Well, then. What am I to call you? Pumpkin?"

"No."

"Cutie Pie?"

"Blech." Kris stuck her tongue out.

"Ainaak Enyem?"

"Huh?"

Jayden smiled. "Forever mine."

Kris rolled her eyes. And just when I thought he couldn't get any more romantic. "Kristine will be fine."

"Very well...Kristine."

Kris felt another wave of lust pass through her. Good God, he even makes my name sound sexy. Jayden face lit up as he grinned from ear to ear. "Hey! No eavesdropping on my private thoughts!" Kris glared at him. "Pervert."

"You're the one who was thinking it. What does that make you?"

Kris growled in frustration. "Why don't we just go back to what we were discussing earlier? What was it again?"

"Something about heartbeats and your family tree?"

"Oh, yes! I've learned that empathy not only runs in my family, but it has a very specific pattern. A child born to every member of each generation exhibits the signs, whether the parent does or not. It's really quite fascinating."

Jayden looked thoughtful. "That is fascinating."

"I know, right! Anyway, I was just thinking that maybe the heart murmur thing could be an indicator of who's an empath. If I'm right, then this could mean a major breakthrough in my research!"

"Research?"

"Yes, I've been researching my family tree. You see, I've been compiling a list on my computer for the last year. It's good thing I have a backup at home, because I don't think my flash drive survived the crash. I'll have to take you to my apartment and show you sometime. We don't get many visitors, because Mickey doesn't trust very easily, but she would just love you!" Kris looked up in shock and gasped as she bopped herself on the forehead. "Oh my God, Mickey! Oh I'm so stupid! Here I am getting it on with you while Mickey's at home bawling her eyes out thinking I'm dead! Jayden, you have to take me home. She needs to know I'm okay."

"Kristine, sivamet, calm down. It's too late to go anywhere. It's 4:30 in the morning."

"What? How long was I unconscious earlier?"

"Nearly six hours. Plus there was the bonding and you running off and the ride back..."

"I get it. I don't care how late it is, Jayden. Mickey needs me."

"It will be dawn in a few hours and I can't protect you then. Isn't there any way you can get a message to her without leaving the house?"

"Well, I'd ask to use your phone, but I haven't memorized Mickey's new number yet. And an e-mail alert is just plain creepy from someone you think is dead. I mean, it brings a whole new meaning to the term 'ghostwriter.'"

"You really can't wait until sunset?"

"Jayden, she's like a sister to me. If you thought your brother was dead, would you want him to wait until the next day to tell you he was actually alive?"

"We have a telepathic connection, so he wouldn't have to." Kris just glared at him. "Okay, I see your point. I'll take you home."

"Thank you."

"On two conditions."

Kris rolled her eyes and glared at him again. "What?"

"I won't leave you unprotected. Two trusted members of my staff come with us and stay with you at your apartment while I sleep."

"Two, Jayden? It's a small apartment. Plus, it's not that bad of a neighborhood, Jayden. It's not like we're at great risk of a drive by. Why do I even need protection?"

"It's not human criminals I'm worried about."

Kris mentally slapped herself for her stupidity. "You're talking about vampires."

"Among others."

Kris nodded her head. "Okay. They can stay at my place. But just about the only place they'll have to sit is at the kitchen table. The couch in the living area is also my bed and I'm not giving that up."

"Noted."

"That's one. What's the second condition?"

"I need you to wear a protection pendant."

"What in the world is a protection pendant?"

"You'll see. Come with me."

As Kris followed Jayden through many hallways and passages in his house, she couldn't help but gawk at the sheer size of it. "I suppose after 900 years you accumulate a lot of wealth. This place is massive. It didn't look this big on the outside. Are you sure you're not a Time Lord."

"A what?"

Kris giggled. "It's a Doctor Who reference. Never mind. Anyway, how did you get to have a house this cool? Did you make really good investments? Buy stock in Google? Rob a bunch of banks?"

"What? I would never! How could you think I would ever do such a terrible—" Jayden stopped when he realized his lifemate was laughing again. "You were kidding."

Kris smirked at him. "Yes." Jayden shook his head and pressed on until he reached a brick wall. "Did you take a wrong turn?"

Jayden just smiled. "There's one thing you need to remember when you're with me." He grabbed her hand and pulled her right through the wall. "Not everything is as it seems."

Kris gasped as she suddenly found herself in what looked like a giant lead-lined vault bursting with one-of-a-kind treasures. Glass cases filled with gems from around the world spanned every corner of the room. The place sparkled from the spectacular jewelry inside. "You sure you didn't rob a bank? This place could rival Fort Knox!"

Jayden laughed at the expression on his lifemate's face. "You wanted to know how I achieved such wealth? I'm a jewelry designer."

Kris' jaw dropped. "You made all of these? They're amazing!" Kris walked up to one display case which featured what appeared to be different gems fused together. How did you get the gemstones to blend so seamlessly? Are they fake?"

"Oh, no. They're real. Each Carpathian has one or two special skills that they excel at. For me, it is casting illusions and gem calling. Before you ask, gem calling means that I have a natural affinity for gemstones. I can sense where they are and what properties they have and call them up from the earth. I shape them and mold them and polish them to perfection. Then I add a little illusion to make people see things within the gemstones that aren't actually possible."

"You are an artist." Kris almost whispered. "I never would have guessed that about you."

"Is that a bad thing?"

Kris shook her head and smiled. "No. Just surprising."

"I'm going to go get the pendant. Feel free to look around, but DO NOT touch anything."

"Okay." Kris nodded. She was so awed by the treasure around her that she wasted no time exploring.

Jayden called to her from across the room. "In addition to the regularly jewelry that I sell online, I also have custom pieces that I make for the Carpathian community and our many allies." Kris was vaguely aware of him shuffling through some boxes as she lingered at a case of bracelets. She recognized some of the gems from her rock collection as a child. She saw tiger's eye and lapis-lazuli, hematite and jade. There were also plenty of birthstones such as sapphire, ruby and amethyst. As she moved onto the next display, Jayden continued. "I enhance the stones' natural properties and imbue them with wards and charms for power and protection. There are also some for healing as well as those for clarity and peace of mind."

"Mhmm. Cool." Kris was barely listening to him now. Something had caught her eye from across the room. It was a small crystal hanging from a wall sconce. It spun around and around and cast miniature rainbows around the room. Kris felt drawn towards the myriad of colors swirling inside the crystal. So pretty. She couldn't help herself. She reached up to pull it down for a closer look. The second her hand wrapped around the crystal, Kris was bombarded by flashes of pictures and sounds all jumbled together and mixed up with strong emotions. Kris had experienced flashes of this kind before, but never like this.

"Dark...so dark... empty inside...please make it stop...visions keeps coming...blood everywhere...sharp teeth...red eyes...not real...can't be real...just a dream...too much death...music...music is life...music is safe...music is calm...someone's here...is she back?...no not her...run...run away...broken strings...splintered wood...my sanctuary...you took my sanctuary...music...where's the music?...so quiet...so dark...not a dream...nightmare...wake up...wake up, Mickey...wake up!"

"KRISTINE, WAKE UP!"

Kris gasped and opened her eyes to find herself lying in Jayden's arm on the floor of the vault. The crystal was on the floor next to her. Jayden let out a sigh of relief and held her close. "I told you not to touch anything! Don't scare me like that! You just had what looked like a seizure and started babbling for twenty minutes! "

Kris put her emotional blocks back up.

"Don't you block me out!"

"I can't deal with your irrational fears right now, Jayden."

Jayden practically growled at her in anger. "Irrational fears?"

"Not now, Jayden! I had a vision! Mickey's in trouble or going to be, and if I really just spaced out for a whole twenty minutes then we're just that much closer to dawn. Now do you have the protection pendant?" Jayden nodded. "Good. Then grab your two staff members and take me home. NOW."