The White Aura

1

OLIVIA

My nails dug deep into the flesh on his back, and my lips found his soft, yet rough neck as my mouth filled with the salty taste of him. He growled and fisted my hair in his hands as he pulled my face to his mouth. I gently bit and kissed those magnificent lips, the tender skin plush under my teeth. A low rumble escaped his throat, echoing through my mind, as he pulled me closer. Soft lips kissed me harder and strong arms lifted me off the floor. My legs wrapped around his waist as he pushed me against the wall.

My gosh, he was a good kisser!

Gazing into those deep brown eyes, I lost myself in his soul. He was truly a beautiful boy, one I would never see myself being with in the waking world. I enjoyed our dreams together, as often as they were, and cherished each kiss, each touch, each look. He stirred a part of me I never knew existed, arousing me to want and need more out of my life.

Running my hands through his hair, I reached for him and pulled his lips back to mine.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! I jumped out of the bed, catching my foot on the edge of the large yellow shag rug on my way to the dresser holding the alarm clock I hated so. Slamming the off button, I caught sight of my appearance in the mirror just long enough to wince and turn away quickly. My hair was wild, sticking out all over the place in tangled knots, while my tired face resembled a ghost or some other horrific supernatural being. Grabbing my brush, I hurried to the bed, not able to consider how crazy I looked in my just-waking state. The fierceness of my night was reflected in my hair, apparently.

The dream…I stopped brushing in mid-tangle to contemplate the vision from last night. The most recent of many, these occurrences were making me feel as if I had awakened from a deep slumber. Suddenly, my mind was sharp, and my body felt like a live wire. My mystery dream man was more real in my heart than I cared to admit, changing my state of being, the way my mind worked. Suddenly I daydreamed, doodled, and imagined the unknown.

I studied my slim, lanky frame that was beginning to get curves in all the places my parents were dreading. My breasts were getting perkier, my hips becoming rounder. Most seventeen year olds had more curves than me at this point, but my mother said, when she bothered to acknowledge me, I was a late bloomer in everything. Fantastic.

My deep red hair fell to my waist in tousled, loose waves. My bright green eyes sparkled like gemstones in the sunlight. Red hair and green eyes. Really spectacular combination. I couldn’t have gotten seductive brown eyes, I had to get stuck with boring green. Nothing special to look at, that was for sure. My mother and father always told me I was beautiful, but isn’t that what parents are supposed to think?

I ran the brush through my thick hair again, rearranging myself on the bed until I was cross-legged. For the last year, I had been having dreams about this guy who I had never met. The night of my sixteenth birthday, the sleep visions had begun, forever changing me. Did the two have a connection? I couldn’t help but feel that the fluttering in the pit of my stomach was a sign that they did. I had started a journal that very morning, so I could remember everything, documenting the location specifics and what went on. The guy seemed to be about nineteen, if I had to guess, as he looked and acted only slightly older than me and my friends. He was tall, about 6 feet, with jet black hair and big brown eyes that looked like dark honey. He was totally gorgeous and I couldn’t fight the feeling he was too handsome for plain Jane me.

Our locations varied. Sometimes we were in my room and sometimes a room that was decorated in dark colors and housed lots of books. Maybe it was his room, I didn’t know. Occasionally we were outdoors in places I didn’t recognize. The things we did also varied, but one thing was always the same: he never told me who he was. I had read a million books on dreams, and I still couldn’t figure out why I saw the same guy every night. The dreams had no rhyme or reason, yet they felt familiar and safe. Like I was right where I was meant to be. Dreams are a part of our subconscious thoughts, according to all my reading, but why was he there?

Something surprising happened along the way. I felt as if I knew him, almost as though I’d fallen for my dream guy. As crazy as it seemed, I had this odd feeling he was somehow real. The turning and twisting of my gut told me to follow my instincts, and they led to him. When things weren’t the right decision, I generally had a bad feeling, an intuition maybe, a sixth sense. I felt none of that with him.

There was something about the dreams that just felt…strange. Maybe it was the fact that the dreams were becoming somewhat sexual, but I was a virgin. Heck, I had only kissed one boy, and it was nothing like the kissing in these trysts. When I had kissed Brady, I hadn’t felt much. It was pleasurable, but nothing like I’d imagined my first kiss would be. It was disappointing, like seeing the movie you kind of wanted to see instead of the one you had been dying to see. There were no sparks when our lips met like I’d always thought there would be. No fireworks going off while I was swept off my feet, dizzy with love and passion. Not like the dream kissing with my mysterious, sexy boy. Glancing over at the clock, I sighed, realizing I needed to get ready for school.

I walked to the closet and began rummaging through my clothing. I decided on a cute black skirt, ankle boots, a white shirt, and a scarf the same color as my eyes. I looked a little boring, but presentable. Fashion was something I always had been interested in, but I totally failed at really achieving the whole cute girl thing. Although I attempted to be unique, my outfits came out dull. Daring was basically a disaster no one wanted to even deal with, my attempts a combination of bad choice on top of another. I glanced at the clock as I heard my mother yell, Olivia, it’s time to go!

Great, I was going to be late for school again if I didn’t hurry. I threw my books in my white and yellow backpack and grabbed a cherry pastry from the kitchen on my way to mother’s black SUV. She was seriously going to leave me one of these days. I had been begging my parents for my own vehicle for a year, but they wouldn’t give in. Something about how I needed to figure it out financially and buy one on my own. If they would only help me, I wouldn’t have to rush every morning to make sure I didn’t walk to school in heels. My parents weren’t like that, though. They rarely were around, paying me little attention, and I’d known when I asked that getting a car was a wish I wouldn’t be granted.

Heya, Momma! Sorrrrrrry. I couldn’t decide what to wear, I said as I got in the car.

I always felt bad being late, but it was difficult to wake up and get going in the mornings after those crazy nights. My body tried to get ready for the day while my mind was stuck in the night before. I hadn’t told anyone about them. Not that I didn’t think my mom would be totally understanding—I had a feeling she would. It was just kind of weird being consumed with someone I’d never met, and telling my mom I kind of wanted to hump my dream dude was unthinkable. As I buckled, she simply stared ahead, nodding at my apology. If she was upset, I couldn’t tell. My mother wasn’t a very talkative person. She wasn’t one of those moms who would butt in at every corner. If I had a problem, she listened and gave advice, but only if I went to her first. Otherwise, she observed from afar. While it was nice to a point, it also made me wonder if she actually cared sometimes.

In fact, I often wondered why my parents bothered with having children. My father wasn’t much different than my mother, never giving advice. When I was growing up, they had always been there for the important stuff. Like plays, award ceremonies, and games. As the years passed, it seemed like they became more and more secretive. My brother, Kyle, who was twenty-eight, lived in another state. We’d never been close due to the large age difference and the fact that he only visited on holidays. Why was he so distant? Was there something about my family I didn’t know? Did it play into why I felt them growing further from me? Were we in the witness protection program?

My mind drifted to my sexy dream man as some ‘70s song played on the radio and I watched the homes on the street pass by slowly. This guy was interfering with my thoughts. I wished I knew where he came from and why I was fantasizing about him. And why did it start on my birthday? The events had to be related. I tried to recall meeting him, but I felt only confusion. I would remember meeting him, wouldn’t I?

Olivia, dear, are you listening? We’re almost to school, my mother was saying as I snapped back to reality.

Oh, sorry, Mom. Just thinking about a test I have today. I lied yet again. It seemed to get easier the less they paid attention.

She nodded. I hope you do well. How are you feeling today? Did you sleep well? Does anything hurt?

Turning my head, I rolled my eyes. I’m fine, Mom. She showed barely any interest in anything besides my health, which she was a little intrusive about lately.

We were turning in to the school parking lot, thankfully, and she cut her interrogation off. My mystery dream man would have to wait to invade my thoughts until later.

2

SCOTT

I hated when she had to go to school. Or just wake up for that matter. Olivia Whitehead was the woman for me, my heart, my reason for breathing, for living, and she had absolutely no idea who I was. She made my heartbeat quicken at the mere thought of her beautiful face, but she didn’t know me…not really, anyway. All she knew was the mystery man she loved to kiss in her dreams. Clenching my hand, I looked out the window, aimlessly watching a bird make a nest on the limb of a wide oak tree. If only it was time for me to meet her in her waking hours. It just couldn’t occur yet. Too many bad things would happen if I found her before October 1st, exactly six months from yesterday, her seventeenth birthday.

I am a fifth generation sorcerer, which means I’m special to my family. Each firstborn in a generation is born with a different power they specialized in, but every five years, each family’s firstborn sorcerer accumulates all the powers from the previous five years. For instance, one of my great-grandfathers, Philip Tabors, from the first generation, had the power to dream walk. That’s how I went to see Olivia. When I relaxed my mind and body, my spirit would go to her. She thought she was simply dreaming, but our spirits were in fact visiting. All sorcerers can do magic, but the specialty powers are stronger and more complex for the firstborn sorcerers they belong to. My Grandma specialized in healing, meaning she could practically bring the dead back to life, and while my sister, Sadie, also had the ability, she wasn’t quite as powerful in it because it wasn’t her specialized power. She specialized in potions and charms, mixing and creating concoctions many others would be envious of. Every sorcerer specializes in specific areas of sorcery, but fifth generation sorcerers are the most powerful of them all.

When I was ten years old, all of my powers hit me. My awakening, the magical change, as the elders liked to call it. I remember it like it was yesterday. I woke up on my birthday, and as I stood, the power flowed through me, charging and bubbling my blood. My hand tingled as I lifted it in front of me and watched the glow of power as it consumed me. I was ten, so naturally, I attempted to blow stuff up and my father came flying in the room, chuckling when he saw the shattered dresser. Your mother isn’t going to be happy about that, he’d said, shaking his head as he waved his hand in front of it and pieced it all back together. It was the point I realized our whole family was special, and not just me.

We’d gone to my grandma’s then, him antsy and excited like a kid eating cake. My mom and grandma waited on the porch, both glowing with excitement while my younger siblings played in the front yard. I watched them running around, wondering why we hadn’t noticed any differences before. How could my family have been so magnificently different and I only now, thinking back, saw it? The mysterious way things appeared and disappeared, how Grandma always got to our house really quick, the way my parents always looked so much younger than my friend’s parents. Everything was clear, like finally getting glasses after years of not seeing anything but blurs.

My father rushed me out of the car, and we’d all hugged and excitedly spoke before they told me everything. We went inside, where they all sat around me at the old oak table in the kitchen, looking at me like I had won the lottery, and explained who I was, what we did, how it worked. It’d taken years to learn the basics, but I was a quick study and excelled at our talents.

Ten years later, I had complete control of my powers, and I’d found the woman I was destined to be with.

She just didn’t know this, and couldn’t until October.

There was a curse on anyone in my family who fell in love. Apparently my first generation grandpa really pissed off another sorcerer, and since then, we’ve all had to pay. As sorcerers, we can sense the person we are supposed to be with the rest of our lives the moment we see them. Our heart mates, as we call them. But because of this curse, we couldn’t let them fall in love with us under any moon two quarters before their legal birthday. The first time I heard this, I laughed hysterically before realizing my parents were serious. It hadn’t bothered me when I was a younger teen, cause really, who thinks about love then? I chased girls for the fun of it, but the moment I saw Livvie, everything changed. The complete and total feeling of consumption as my breath was taken from me was overwhelming, yet beautiful. I’d known nothing about her in those moments, but I did know I wanted no harm to ever come to her.

I found a loophole around the curse with one of my five specialized powers, dreamwalking. As a fifth generation, I had a lot of tricks up my sleeves, and I was more than willing to use any and all necessary. I could still see Olivia without breaking any rules. If the rule was broken, my love would die on her eighteenth birthday. So I had to be careful…very careful.

3

OLIVIA

Liv. Liiiiiiiiiv. Liv….

I snapped my head up from my notebook covered in scribbly hearts. I had been doodling and hadn’t heard a word my best friend had said. Standing just slightly shorter than me, Juniper had milk chocolatey skin and beautiful black curls that framed her face. Her hair wasn’t so short she couldn’t do anything with it, but not so long that she looked like the rest of the girls in our class. She had blue and light pink streaks dyed on each side, generally held back with some sort of headband or scarf. Today her big brown eyes were lined with heavy black liner while her hair was wild and free with a flower behind her ear. She loved music and always wore some sort of inverted quarter note; today’s dangled from her ears. Our mothers met when they put us both in the same dance class at age three. We had been equally horrible at it, but that only solidified our friendship. Through the years, we’d failed at more sports than we’d succeeded, but we’d always done it together. Juniper was awesome and truly like a sister to me.

I’m sorry, J. I was just doodling and didn’t mean to ignore you. I grinned as I dropped the pen on top of the notebook. I didn’t want to hurt my best friend by not giving her the attention she deserved. I’d been in my own little world