A Cursed Bloodline (WG 4) (6 page)

“Hello?” answered a deep baritone voice.

“Martin, it’s Celia Wird. Um, you probably heard I was attacked a few days ago.”

“Yes. We are looking into the matter. You have my word the wolves responsible will be taken care of—”

“That’s not why I’m calling.” I took a deep breath, still unsure whether my actions were the right ones. I banged my fist against the door. “Aric’s here…at Misha’s house.”

He paused, probably either furious at Aric for disobeying him or questioning why I’d ratted him out. “I see,” he finally said.

“He probably only wants to make sure I’m safe,” I added quickly. “But since he doesn’t get along with Misha he might need help leaving.”

“Indeed he might,” he said quietly. “I’m in the area. I’ll be there shortly.”

The closet door swung open as Martin disconnected. I jumped. There stood my love, in all his battered glory. He’d shaved what had remained of his hair. His face was unreadable, frozen from the deep scars that crisscrossed his face like reptilian scales. The slit that had allowed his left eye to see through the battered flesh was larger. His right, completely sealed just days before, was now visible. I couldn’t see his baby browns well. But I saw they remained intense, healthy, and beautiful.

He inhaled deeply, taking in my scent as he often did when we’d been apart. His nostrils were incapable of flaring, from the severity of the tissue damage, but it didn’t matter. It was his subtle way of demonstrating he’d missed me. Aric didn’t seem to care that my aroma was masked by an array of Asian herbs; he just wanted to feel close to me.

I reached out and touched his hard, jagged face without thinking. He leaned into my hands and rubbed against them. The show of affection was so strong in such a small gesture, I lost my breath.

My eyes fixed on his as he spoke. “Makawee cut through the skin, in hopes that my eyes had survived.” I nodded, but said nothing. He tried to kiss my hands, but what remained of his lips was nothing more than tough and melted flesh. “I can’t blink or close them, so I have to moisten them and cover them with wet gauze to sleep. But I can see. I guess that’s more important.”

He obviously felt the need to explain. So I let him, and I linked my hands around his neck. God, I’d missed him. Aric fastened his strong arms around my waist. But as I melted against him, the faint song of wolves filled my ears. Something struck me in the shoulder, hard enough to break Aric’s hold. I stumbled back. Aric’s grip to my arm kept me from falling backward. To my absolute horror, Anara’s faint image appeared next to Aric’s. My blood turned to ice. He’d arrived to kill Aric.

“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” Anara’s voice echoed in my head.

“No!”

Aric swerved around, growling. He’d scented my fear, but he failed to see Anara. He veered back to me. “Celia, what’s wrong?”

Anara examined him closely. “I can kill him now. Perhaps it might end his misery.” His glare cut back to me. “The decision is yours.”

My body plunged into survival mode, releasing my breath in rapid bursts. “You have to leave, Aric….I don’t want to see you anymore.”

Aric stiffened. “What?”

“Too much has happened to keep us apart. Don’t you see? We’re not meant for each other.”

Aric’s anger and hurt masked his ability to scent my lies. “
Don’t say that!
You can’t just give up on us. I love you.”

The song of wolves built into a crescendo. Anara’s menacing focus returned full force on Aric. My efforts hadn’t impressed him. So I bit the inside of my cheek and let loose. “There is no more us, Aric. Get out!”

Aric reached for me. I slapped his hands away. “Get out,” I sobbed. “You need to leave.
You need to leave now!
”

I’d expected Aric’s fury. Instead he became strangely quiet. “No. I’m not going anywhere.”

I shoved Aric hard, over and over again, Anara following us every step of the way. “I can’t be with you! I won’t be with you!”

My sobs threatened to choke me, but it was my hysterical screams that brought Misha and his vampires sweeping into my room like an avenging army. Martin and Emme rushed in behind them.

Misha covered me with a robe and hauled me away from Aric. I cried into my hands, humiliated and devastated by how I’d treated Aric.

And still Aric wanted me. Once more he reached for me, his head shaking with apparent shock and confusion. Martin held him back with a simple clasp of his shoulder. “It’s time to go, Aric.”

Aric slowly lowered his brutalized hands. “Please don’t do this,” his soul begged mine. “I love you.”

I gasped, trying to catch my breath, irresolute between leaping into his arms and sputtering harsher words to force him away.

“You said you’d never leave me,” he whispered.

I dug my claws through the thickness of the robe, digging into my flesh to keep me from collapsing.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry….

Martin led Aric away. He didn’t resist, but watched me until he disappeared around the corner. Anara’s presence lingered long enough to show me a glimpse of his satisfied face before disappearing like a passing breeze.

An Elder, a master vampire, and Aric—a royal among
weres
—in one room. And no one had sensed Anara. My God, how was I going to stop him?

One by one, the vampires left, seemingly bored now that the drama had concluded with no bloodshed. Misha held me close until my cries lessened to mere whimpers.

Emme stood near my bed. I couldn’t bear to look at her. It wasn’t just how I’d treated Aric, but also the spinelessness I’d shown before Anara. The pain I felt from his physical assault was nothing compared to the ache in my heart. I’d been many things in my young life: an orphan, a foster child, a delinquent, but never a coward.

“I hate you,”
I hissed aloud.

The viciousness in my voice made both Misha and Emme tense. They exchanged glances. Emme walked slowly toward me. “Who are you talking to?” she asked. When I didn’t answer, she stroked my hair with her fingers. “Celia?”

Emme’s gentle touch disgusted me. I didn’t deserve kindness. I tore away from her and bounded into my bathroom, slamming the door hard enough to crack the frame. Once again, I threw up, although this time it had nothing to do with my pregnancy. It was, however, a reminder that this situation wasn’t solely about me. My baby depended on me to keep it together, and I’d be damned before I’d lie down and die.

After spending nearly half an hour getting cleaned up, I walked into the living room. Misha and Emme waited in silence. Misha should have been in his glory now that he believed Aric was out of my life. Instead he sat with his hands clasped in a praying position, something he often did when troubled. Emme kept her head lowered and fiddled nervously with the sleeve of her lavender sweater.

I rubbed at my face. “May I please have something to eat?”

Misha stood. “Whatever you wish,” he said softly. He kissed my head. I was grateful for his show of affection. Perhaps I wasn’t such a monster after all.

Emme approached me when he left and held tight to my hands. Her sweet face searched mine with sad eyes. “Celia, I don’t know what’s happening, but please promise me that if I can help, you’ll let me.”

I didn’t promise her anything. Instead I released her and sat on the soft chocolate couch, staring at the unlit fireplace. Emme sighed and ignited it with a flip of a switch then took a seat beside me. She waited with me until Chef arrived with an assortment of finger sandwiches and hot bowls of carrot soup. I ate what I could stomach and went back to sleep.

In my dream, I returned to the same field I’d been in with Misha. This time, I walked through the soft green grass with the Aric of my past. His long dark hair hung slightly over his brown eyes and his five o’clock shadow hugged the strong jaw of his sexy face. My fingertips slid down his cheek. His dark Irish skin was soft and whole once more. He smiled and kissed my hand.

“I love you, Aric.”

His smile faded and his dark brows creased into a deep frown. “No, you don’t.”

He shoved my hand away from him and stepped back. A flicker of fire sparked from his core and spread, engulfing his large form in a blanket of flames.

I screamed over Aric’s agonized roars. The heat blistered my face and hands as I shoved him to the ground and swatted the blaze with my palms. The flames eventually died, leaving Aric crouched in the fetal position, naked and shivering. His entire body had been burned, every muscle raw, exposed, and horribly charred. Tears leaked from my eyes. “No, baby, no,” I whispered.

I tried to hold him, but he leapt to his feet and bolted away. The field around us erupted into an inferno. I chased him, calling his name, pleading for him to return. My legs grew heavy and weak, I couldn’t catch him. “Don’t leave me, Aric!” I begged. “Please, let me help you!”

Aric vanished into the thickening cloud of smoke. Behind me children screamed for their mother. I whipped around frantically. Three small children raced toward me with their arms outstretched. They had all been burned, they were all in pain, and they all resembled Aric.

Chapter Six

My screams woke me from my hellish nightmare. Emme’s voice called to me over the rising commotion around me. Strong arms grabbed me and held me down and hisses wafted above me. I forced my eyes open, my chest heaving from my attempt to shove the vampires holding me down.

One by one they released me when I stopped struggling. Sweat stuck the thin fabric of my T-shirt against my skin and dripped from my scalp.

“Celia, can you hear me?” Emme stood about ten feet away, held firmly in place by Misha. She was bleeding from deep gashes to her chest and arms. Misha’s vampires licked their lips greedily, turning their attention from me to her. Hank appeared especially ravenous.

Emme blushed before her soft yellow light erased the signs of her embarrassment and knitted her wounds closed. “Let me go to her, Misha.” He released her and she approached me slowly. “Celia, do you know where you are, honey?”

Her words were clear and I knew I should answer, but my lack of strength and the numbness wearing me down made it seem like an impossible demand.

Edith slinked toward her, protruding her chest and lengthening her incisors. “Maybe you should simply ask if she knows her name, sweet one,” she cooed. She reached her hand toward Emme’s face, but Hank forced his way between them.

“Emme isn’t yours to take,” he snapped.

Edith smiled sinfully. “Is she yours, then, Hank?”

Emme cleared her throat. “I’m not either of yours to…eat.”

Edith’s sultry eyes made Emme step back toward Misha. “We weren’t just talking about feeding from you, little one.”

Edith’s arrogance vanished at Misha’s hard stare.
“Leave,”
he ordered through clenched fangs.

The vamps obviously wanted to stay. While they could live forever, immortality tended to dispel excitement, and they grew restless with the monotony of everyday life. So they eagerly waited for anything out of the ordinary to spice up their so-called lives. Unfortunately, today I’d been the one to provide the entertainment.

Emme slipped onto the bed and crawled to the center, where I sat unmoving. “Can you hear me, Celia?”

“I didn’t mean to scratch you,” I responded in way of an answer.

She tried to smile. “It’s okay. It’s my fault. I should have called for help instead of approaching you in your sleep. You were thrashing around so violently I thought that if I could heal your fear, your panic would cease.”

My eyes scanned her blood-soaked sweater. “You were wrong.”

Misha suddenly appeared alongside me. “Celia, you need to…” He referred to me as Celia only in the direst of situations. “…you need to eat,” he finished quietly.

It was still daytime. The hazy spring sun shone softly against the window, just as it had before the start of my nap. “I just ate.” My stomach growled, insisting otherwise.

Emme shook her head. “That was yesterday, Celia.”

I had lost another day. “Oh. Then I guess I should eat.”

Once again, I ate enough to feed a legion then returned to bed almost immediately. I didn’t sleep. I was afraid to. I wanted to be with Aric. I longed to touch him and have him in bed with me, laughing and wrestling as we’d done countless times before our world fell apart. My new reality was too much to bear. My mind wandered to an intimate moment from our past, the first time I asked to see his wolf form.

“If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” I’d teased.

He adjusted his position above me, tickling me a little with his warm naked body. “I just saw yours, rather closely, I might add. Ohhh…you mean your beast form.”

I hadn’t fully adapted to being naked around him. And despite being in the familiar surroundings of my bedroom, my cheeks flushed and I squirmed beneath him. He smiled and bent his head to kiss me.

I moved his hand away when he cupped my breast and teased the nipple. “Ah, ah, ah. Not until you show me.”

Aric groaned and slipped out of my king-sized bed. “Fine. But I’m warning you, I’m rather intimidating.”

“I know.” My eyes traveled down his muscular torso and fixed on a certain spot before returning to meet his. His face reddened at my grin. Most males would’ve been rather pleased with themselves. Not Aric. But his modesty was one of the characteristics that made him so sexy. “I’ll tell you what, Aric. As soon as I see your big bad wolf, you can intimidate me some more.”

Aric’s body heated, this time for a different reason. “I’d like that,” he murmured gruffly.

He jumped into bed as a magnificent large gray wolf. Silver and black covered his head and back, while snow-white fur encased his underside. He wagged his tail when I stroked him. It felt strange being naked around him while he was a wolf, so I
changed
and licked his face. He rubbed his head against my neck, making me purr. Even as a beast, he felt good, soft…perfect. My bed threatened to break when he playfully flipped me onto my back, so we returned to our human forms. His skin was as warm as his fur against me. For a while neither of us moved, we just stared at each other, breathing heavily as the heat continued to rise between us. Slowly, he stroked my hair away from my face. “God, you’re beautiful,” he’d whispered.