Catalyst Read online

  Catalyst

  A Realm of Flame and Shadow Prequel

  Christina Phillips

  Phoenix 18 Publishing

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019. Christina Phillips

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  All rights reserved. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Christinaphillips.com

  Cover Design by Covers by Christian

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  Twenty-Five Years Ago

  Tom

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  The cottage was tucked down a narrow lane on the outskirts of the Cornish village. Pink and white daisies ran riot over the brick paved path, and overgrown shrubs tumbled across the old stone garden wall. Tom pushed open the wooden gate and took a deep breath.

  It was the first time he’d come here since his granny had died.

  And she had left him her home.

  “Are you okay?” Aria whispered as he stood by the front door. Aria, the girl he’d known for eighteen years, since he was five years old. His best friend.

  The girl he loved. Even though she lived in the same village as him, hers was in a different dimension and they’d never met in the real world. But when their minds connected, they were together in every way that mattered.

  “This is hard.” He closed his eyes, and in his mind’s eye Aria smiled at him, her gorgeous brown eyes filled with sympathy.

  “I know. But I’m here.”

  “Okay. Let’s do this.” He stepped into the cottage. His parents had sold or claimed most of the furniture, but a few items remained, like forgotten ghosts from another lifetime. He gave an unintentional sniff.

  “I can smell your granny’s baking,” Aria said. Through their unique link they sometimes caught glimpses of the parallel world. As if their senses intermingled for brief moments where they could see through each other’s eyes or breathe the same air. “It’s almost like she’s sending you a message from beyond the veil.”

  He gave a reluctant grin as he climbed the stairs. “The place just needs a good clean, that’s all.”

  “You’re so practical.”

  “One of us has to be.” He went into the larger of the two bedrooms. Timber beams supported the ceiling, and the lattice window looked out over the front garden. The cottage was tiny, but it would be a great home for Aria and him.

  Don’t go there.

  Deep down, he knew the chances of it happening were remote, but hope was all they had. He shoved the regret to the back of his mind and buried it. The last thing he wanted was her guessing where his thoughts had strayed.

  After a quick glance in the second bedroom, he went downstairs and into the back garden.

  “I need to get the roof checked before we do anything else. Mum reckons it hasn’t been touched in over a hundred years.”

  “Will you be able to install solar panels?”

  Aria, always the environmentalist. But then, it was second nature to her and her family.

  “I don’t see why not. The cottage is so small if I get enough panels the electricity board will be paying me each quarter.”

  “Hey, Tom,” a voice called from the front of the cottage. Tom swung around. Zad was here? They’d met four years ago when they were part of a volunteer team helping to rebuild after an earthquake in South Asia, and they’d kept in touch since, despite Zad appearing to live a nomadic lifestyle.

  Not that Zad believed in using the phone. When he had something to say, he just turned up. Tom still hadn’t worked that one out, especially as the other guy didn’t seem to drive anywhere.

  He pushed open the side gate. “Hey.” As expected, there was no car parked in the lane, and besides, he would’ve heard the engine.

  Zad gave him a faint smile. “Didn’t mean to interrupt while you’ve got company.”

  “What?” Shit, he must have heard him talking to Aria. Again. When he was alone, he always spoke aloud, even though there was no need. They usually communicated telepathically, which at least saved a lot of awkward questions from his family and friends. “No, there’s no one here. I was just, uh, on the phone to Aria.”

  “I need to meet this girl of yours.”

  Do you want me to leave? Aria said in his mind.

  Not unless you want to.

  “Yeah,” he said to Zad. “Not going to happen, though.”

  Zad held up a couple of six packs of beer. “Housewarming.”

  I’m going, Aria said, and he heard a strange, wistful note in her voice. What was going on? It wasn’t the first time lately she’d given the impression she was hiding something from him. But they didn’t have secrets from each other. They told each other everything.

  Speak to you later, she added, before he had the chance to ask her what was wrong. Have fun.

  You, too. He’d find out what the problem was later. Maybe she was just distracted with all the arrangements she’d been making for her sister.

  As Aria disconnected, the familiar sense of loss shivered through his mind. Their link was something he could never explain. It wasn’t as though he had any other superpowers. Just this incredible telepathic link with one person. Aria.

  A link he couldn’t even imagine living without.

  Unease gnawed at the back of his mind, but there was nothing he could do about it right now, and he forced a grin for Zad. “Let’s drink.”

  Aria

  The salty, sea breeze whipped Aria’s hair across her face as she left the beach and navigated her way around the boulders strewn across the sand. An entwined couple, about her age, stood on a rock, oblivious to the rest of the world, and pain squeezed her heart.

  She so badly wanted to be able to hold Tom like that. In real life, and not just in dreams. Well, okay, so they were more than just regular dreams when she and Tom were together, but it wasn’t the same.

  Would they ever find a way to bridge the chasm that separated them?

  She’d asked herself the same question a million times, but it was only during the last six months that her optimistic hope for a miracle had begun to crumble.

  She and Tom didn’t have a future together. And if she wanted Tom to have a full life, rather than this strange, twilight one they shared, she had no choice but to accept that.

  Aria, where are you? Her sister’s voice floated in her mind. You’re late.

  Sorry. I’m on my way. She got on her bicycle and headed toward the village. The road was flanked with wind turbines, and the summer sky was cloudless. Hopefully, the weather would hold for her sister’s wedding in two days’ time.

  Aurora was at their parents’ home in the bedroom they’d shared as children. This evening they were having a girls’ night out, and Aria had been planning it for ages.

  It was going to be epic.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Her sister frowned and came across the room to take
her hand. She’d never been able to hide her feelings from Aurora, the older sister she’d worshipped as a kid, and while all her family and friends knew about Tom, only Aurora knew the whole truth.

  “Not really.” Shit, she hadn’t meant to admit that. Not now, when her sister was so excited about her wedding. She didn’t want Aurora worrying about her when everything should be focused on her. “I mean, I’m fine. I need a shower to freshen up, that’s all.”

  Aurora sighed, clearly not fooled for a second. “This is about Tom, isn’t it? You’re still with him.”

  “I couldn’t say goodbye to him last month. Not when his granny had just died.” She was using that as an excuse. She didn’t want to end this strange, magical connection with Tom. The idea of never speaking to him again, never seeing his beautiful face in their linked dreams or sharing her innermost thoughts with him filled her with a sick terror she couldn’t even explain to her sister.

  But this half-life couldn’t go on forever.

  “I know.” Her sister squeezed her fingers in sympathy. “You had to be there for him. And if you were just friends, there wouldn’t be a problem. It wouldn’t matter that there’s no chance of you ever meeting and building a future together. But you love him, Aria, and you’ll never be able to fall in love with anyone else until you break this connection with him.”

  Her throat ached with tears she’d refused to cry for so many months. Because if she cried, she’d finally acknowledge the futility of this crazy love. A love that should never have existed.

  “I don’t understand why this happened to us. You’d think there would be a reason for it, some purpose why we found each other in the first place. But all it’s done is broken my heart.”

  “Maybe it’s not such a rare thing. Maybe it’s because no one’s ever spoken of it before?” Aurora didn’t sound very hopeful, though. For years, the pair of them had researched for any obscure reference that might apply to Aria’s situation. But there was nothing in the histories of their people that even hinted it was possible to telepathically connect with someone from another dimension.

  Until she and Tom had grown old enough to question their unusual link, she hadn’t even believed in the existence of other dimensions. Never mind a dimension that was a different version of her own. But when they’d become teens, and wanted to meet, their experiences of their worlds—that seemed so similar—hadn’t added up.

  Because if they were in the same universe, they’d both be living in the same village on the Cornish coast.

  “I’ll tell him tonight.” Her voice was husky, and her sister pulled her into a hug.

  “I’m so sorry,” Aurora whispered. “I wish there was something I could do.”

  Aria gave her a sad smile, but she knew the time for hoping wishes could come true was over.

  Chapter 2

  Aria

  Dawn was still a whisper beyond the horizon when Aria slipped into Tom’s dreamworld. It was something they had done since they were children, even before they’d discovered they could communicate telepathically. But in the last couple of years, as friendship blossomed into something so much deeper, the nature of the dreams had evolved.

  At night, in his arms, it was too easy to believe that the dreamworld was the real one.

  But it wasn’t. It could never be. And tonight was the last time she’d ever see him.

  He was standing by the woods that bordered his village, but unlike her world, there was no meadow filled with wildflowers. As she walked toward him, she drank in his profile. His T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, the breeze ruffled his tousled black hair, and his sexy stubble that darkened his jaw made her breath catch in her throat.

  “Aria.” He turned and smiled at her, and her heart ached. How could she turn her back on him? “Did you have a good night with your sister and friends? How did it go?”

  She went to him and took his outstretched hand. His skin was warm, and his strong fingers held her as though he’d never let her go. Why was this all they could ever have together?

  Why couldn’t they have it all?

  “It was fantastic. We had a great time. What about you and Zad?”

  “Same. We ended up crashing in the cottage for the night.”

  Say goodbye and walk away.

  Not yet. She went onto her toes and brushed a kiss across his lips. He wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her close, and his stubble grazed her cheek as he whispered in her ear.

  “I wish we could stay here forever.”

  “And I thought you were the practical one.”

  He pulled back and grinned down at her. “Guess I’ve been hanging out with you for too long.”

  She couldn’t even remember the time before Tom was a part of her life.

  And now he was her life. But she still had to let him go.

  “Do you know what I wish?” She cradled his face, and his blue eyes melted her heart. “That we could find a doorway between our worlds.”

  “I think we already have.”

  “No, not this dreamworld. In the real world.” Why was she going over this again? They’d discussed it endlessly over the years, but it didn’t change anything. And this wasn’t enough anymore.

  “I’d split the space/time continuum to be with you, if I could.” He was no longer smiling, and her heart cracked a little more. “I’d leave everything in my world if I could live in yours.”

  “Tom,” she choked. He was making this so much harder than it already was. “I’d never ask you to do that.”

  “I know. But it’s the truth. You’re all I want, Aria.”

  She wound her arms around his shoulders and clung on tight.

  One final time, to last me forever.

  His hands slid beneath her top, and she shuddered as his fingers caressed her back. Feverishly, she tugged his T-shirt over his head and tossed it to the ground. The only good thing about the dreamworld was it didn’t matter where they were. No one would ever see them.

  “I missed you,” he groaned against her cheek, and she couldn’t help smiling.

  “Since last night?”

  “Yeah. Miss you all the time.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, but his face was still there in her mind.

  His face would always be there, no matter what she did. So why was she going to end this amazing thing between them?

  But she already knew the answer. And it wasn’t just that she needed to break away so they could both forge a new life for themselves. It was because if she didn’t, one day she might never wake up from this dreamworld, which sometimes seemed more real than her own family.

  She kissed him, savoring his taste and committing it to memory. He pulled off her top, and they sank to the grass on their knees, facing each other. His gorgeous blue eyes spellbound her, the way they had since she’d turned sixteen and fallen in love with him, seven long years ago.

  Her fingers trailed over his taut pecs and circled his nipple. He groaned and pulled her close, burying his hand in her hair. She dug her nails into his flesh, and he laughed, falling onto the grass.

  “You win.” His muscles flexed, and she drank in the sight of his breathtaking biceps as he cradled the back of his head on his hands. “I’m all yours.”

  She smiled, but unlike any other day, she didn’t have the heart to make a laughing retort. Instead, she dusted feather-soft kisses across his chest, and his jagged sigh wove into her blood as she pushed his jeans over his hips.

  His body was a sculpted work of art, strong and lean.

  Mine.

  Her nails scored his skin, teasing, and his warning growl sent tremors of need racing through her. She dipped lower and swirled her tongue along his thick cock before taking him into her mouth.

  He bucked, and tangled his fingers in her hair, pinning her in place. She closed her eyes and relished the taste of his body, the scent of arousal, and the bittersweet desperation that consumed her senses.

  Without warning he pulled her up and rolled her
onto her back, as her clothes dissolved around her. The grass was unnaturally soft like velvet and cushioned her naked body in a sensual caress. Tom straddled her, his blue eyes almost black with desire, and his smile scorched the breath in her lungs.

  “What happened to me winning?” she gasped.

  “Changed my mind.” His mouth claimed hers, and she wound her arms around him, gliding her fingers along the length of his back. He pressed a burning trail of kisses over her throat and shoulder before worshipping her breasts with mind-tingling devotion.

  She writhed beneath him as he explored every dip and curve as though it was their first time together. Everything felt so real, so vibrant, it was hard to remember this world existed only in their linked minds.

  Don’t think of that now.

  His stubble grazed the tender skin of her thighs as his mouth branded every sensitized particle of her body. She gripped his hair, urging him on, as his tongue teased her swollen clit, and her incoherent gasps filled the fragrant air.

  She wanted to hold onto this moment forever, or at least prolong it for a few more precious seconds, but every electrified nerve trembled on the precipice. Panting, Tom braced his weight on his hands and kneed her thighs apart. Their gazes meshed, hot and needy. Eternity shimmered in his eyes, a future that could never be theirs, but she locked it tight within her heart, regardless.

  He pushed into her, inch by glorious inch, until he filled her utterly. For an endless heartbeat, time suspended, as though searing this ultimate joining into the fabric of her soul. But she couldn’t hold on any longer and she arched her back, demanding more, and with a heart-stealing smile, Tom gave her it all.