The Quarter Moon (Afterlife saga) by Stephanie Hudson

thought with a hidden smile. His silver blue eyes grew wide with both shock…and was that… fear?
    “Leave us!” He snapped making me jump and after a few pouts , five females left quietly. I found my eyes following them, everyone strutting their beauty like peacocks being dismissed unhappily. He placed his pipe down on a small table and stood up to greet me, but his smile didn’t meet his eyes. This instantly made me wary.
    “Keira, what an unexpected but lovely surprise !” He said in that easy going manner I now knew was being put on for my sake. I folded my hood back and smoothed my loose hair back from my face.
    “Well , that isn’t completely true now is it?” I said deciding to put a stop to the bullshit before it clouded my reasons for being here. For only a moment he looked taken back but with a quick flick of his wrist, he dismissed Ira and held out his hand for me.
    “Keira, please join me .” I took his large hand and let him lead me to the same booth. I had to walk up a few steps to get there and once in the only thing I could do with my legs was to sit as if I was about to start meditating. When I saw him sit the same way I did a mental shoulder shrug and waited for him to say the first thing. After all, I didn’t really have a plan here and was just going with the rocky flow.
    Leivic picked back up his pipe and from here I could see the tiny and intercut carvings along the thin, twig like pipe that got thicker towards the end. A little copper cup sat at the end and I gathered this was where the tobacco was put for smoking. He puffed on the flattened end and he gave me a sideways glance as if still trying to comprehend that I was actually here and more importantly, how he was going to deal with that very fact. He then sucked in a lung full and like before, he let out a smoking Dragon he knew I liked watching from last time. For a second he seemed pleased with my wide eyed reaction. Then his voice cut through the smoky creature and with its end came the end of the silence as well.
    “Why are you here , Keira?” His voice brought me back to that very day when I learnt words could nearly kill you. “Draven is dead!” Those words would not only haunt me to the end of time here, but in the next life as well. I closed my eyes momentarily as I tried to breathe through the pain. For a few seconds the memory hit me so hard I had to fight the run reflex my brain was screaming at me. It just wanted me to get as far away from that voice as I could, just to spare me the agony demons that would come collecting soon after.
    But I stayed.
    “What happened to him, Leivic?” I asked the one question I had been regretting not asking him that day. It was the same question that had troubled my every thought and the amount of times was long ago lost in the masses. I heard his reaction through the pipe he was sucking and I knew my question was like a sucker punch to the gut.
    “Keira…I…can’t .” He said with trouble and that was when I finally looked at him. His usually pale scar was now an angry red through his flustered skin and at that moment, I couldn’t help what happened next. I reached out to him and placed my hand on his scarred face. He flinched but didn’t move away.
    The feeling I got was an overwhelming comfort. My hand grew warm and my body tingled. It was as though my cells were crying out for the supernatural side that I had been denied and now they finally had contact, it was like they were singing.
    “Please , my friend.” I said and he closed his eyes. I thought I had lost my only chance and was about to move my hand away, when his covered mine and held it to his cheek.
    “It’s been a long time since I felt a touch like this .” He whispered as if to himself and me hearing him was like an afterthought. I smoothed my thumb along the part of his scar that cut across his nose and I heard a rumble as if his inner bear was enjoying being petted.
    “You are such a good, clean soul , Keira