Jude Stephens (28 page)

I began pacing back and forth. “I’m good Roberto.
I’ve been training hard and learning a lot about being a Sensay. I
have a Sensay trainer his name is Cheve. Bullet is still with me
too, and Mark. He really has taken to life on the island. He even
has a girlfriend named Sarah. Mark that is, not Bullet. She’s a
pretty girl. And, oh yeah, I met my mother! It seems that the
Sherman’s adopted me when I was a little girl. My real mother’s
name is Onatah and she is a tribal elder!”

I took a deep breath as I had nervously rushed
through that whole speech. I don’t know why I was so nervous to be
around Roberto.

Roberto stood and walked over to
me. Taking my shaking hands in his and looking straight at me he
said, “Its okay, Piccolina. I know about you and Alex.”

My shoulders slumped. “How did you know?”

“
The men that are keeping us made
sure I was aware of it. Myaing told them that was the reason she
agreed to turn you over to them. She’s in love with Alex and wanted
you out of the way. Chinthe’s are well known for their jealousy. I
can’t believe Alex would overlook something like that and put you
in such a vulnerable position.”

I felt I had to defend Alex. “Don’t blame Alex,
blame me. I should have felt this coming. I knew the woman was a
bitch, but I never picked up on her evil aura.”

Roberto dropped my hands. “You truly love Alex
then?”

I sighed. I didn’t want to do this right now. “Yeah
Roberto, I truly love Alex as you truly love Annika.” Seeing the
look of pain cross his face I softened. “By the way, I met Annika
and Gjord. Your son is lovely. You should be proud.”

Roberto looked anything but proud. A tic began on
his jaw line. I thought maybe he was feeling guilty over our
affair. I knew firsthand how passion can cloud a person’s mind so
when I spoke I used a gentle understanding voice, “Roberto, don’t
beat yourself up over things. I’ve learned in the last few months
that emotions are not always black and white. Love and lust
sometimes blur. What we had was beautiful and despite it all I
don’t regret it. I was hurt for awhile only because you weren’t
honest with me. After my marriage to Brian, honesty became the most
important part of a relationship for me.” Brian my ex had lied and
had affairs during our brief marriage.

Roberto began to pace in agitation. “So you think
that what we had was just lust?”

I had to be honest. “Well yeah, you never told me
about your mate and your son. You obviously love Annika or else you
couldn’t have mated with her. I’ve learned a little bit about the
process.”

Roberto stopped dead in his tracks
and in a low voice asked, “have you and Alex mated?’

“
No…not yet, but I’ve seen him in
a mating frenzy and he told me about the process. We’ve decided to
wait until there was a little less drama in our lives.” In a colder
voice I added, “We tell each other everything.”

Before the last word left my mouth Roberto pulled me
roughly against him. “You want honesty, Piccolina? How’s this for
honesty?” He dragged my hand down to feel his thick erection
through his jeans. I tried to pull my hand away when something
registered in my brain. I could feel the vibrations emitting from
his erection.

“
I don’t understand,” I
stuttered.

He pushed me away. “I’m sure you would if you
thought about it.”

He walked over to the only cot in
the room and sat down. My brain didn’t want to think about it. For
some reason I kept shying away from thinking about why Roberto was
in a mating frenzy for me. So instead I blurted out, “Don’t you
have to do something about….about that?” I stupidly pointed to his
crotch.

Roberto leaned back on his elbows
and stared at me with smoldering eyes. “What are you suggesting,
Piccolina? That you would like to help me? Do you want to mate with
me, Olivia?”

“
Nnno,” I stuttered. I was using
all of my control to keep from launching myself at him. My body
knew his so well. It knew every hard muscle, every angular plane,
and every spot where my tongue could travel. I shook my head to
clear it from memories that came rushing back. I wasn’t the same
person he had hurt. I also loved Alex. A picture of his smiling
green eyes calmed my body and my mind.

“
No. I don’t want to mate with
you, and my name now is Orenda, though Alex has nicknamed me Wren,
and it seems to have stuck. So you can call me Wren. Since my brain
has been scrambled, literally, I would appreciate you speaking the
truth to me plain and simple. No games.”

I sat down on a lone chair that was next to a small
wooden table and waited to hear the truth.

Roberto sighed, “Okay no games, just the truth this
time. I wish I had been honest from the beginning; I want you to
understand though, that with my position on the vampire counsel it
has not been easy for me to do so.

Several years ago, my family and Alex’s became
friends. We met one summer in Florence while on holiday. I was
smitten with Annika and her with me. I marked her and last year we
completed the bonding. Everyone was happy with the impending union.
Then last year, the Sandstroms came to visit. It started as a great
day. In the morning Alex, Annika and I went for a horseback ride on
our estate. Annika loves horses. When we decided to return to the
house, Annika wanted to stay out riding for awhile. She didn’t come
back. We were frantic. At first we thought The Guardians had taken
her, but then a few months later other evolved began reporting that
they saw her in different places, Amsterdam, Sydney and here on Cat
Island. We were all confused. None of us had any idea what had
happened.”

Roberto stood and ran a hand
through his hair. “Until a few weeks ago, when someone reported
seeing Annika here
on Cat Island again.”
Roberto looked me in the eye, “With a child. A child that you now
know couldn’t be mine. As you’ve just witnessed I’ve never mated
with anyone.”

His words sank in. What I had
witnessed a few minutes ago, and my brain had refused to understand
was that Annika and Roberto were not mated. Annika had mated with
someone else.

Realization dawned on me. Roberto was not Gjord’s
father. My mind raced back to when I was at Annika’s yesterday and
to the child that looked so much like Roberto. Reality crashed down
on me as a picture of Annika, Gjord and Cristoforo flashed in my
head with stark clarity.

My face must have shown my
understanding because Roberto sighed deeply, “It is so Piccolina.
Let me try and explain. When I first heard the report about Annika
and a child the first thought to cross my mind was that she mated
with someone else. It’s forbidden to do so when you’re bonded with
another, but there have been some rare cases. I couldn’t understand
why she ran away over it, but then the friend told me that the boy
looked just like me. I knew immediately that it was Cristoforo’s
child. I called Alex and told him of the child, though I didn’t
want to disparage his sister so I didn’t tell him that the child
wasn’t mine. I thought he should hear it from her.”

Roberto looked so hurt that I got
up and went to sit beside him on the bed. “That must have been
devastating news for you, Roberto. I’m so sorry.” I truly was
sorry, having just been through the heartache he was experiencing,
I knew how it felt. Even though he was the cause of my heartache, I
still cared enough about him to feel badly for him.

Roberto grabbed me roughly by the arms. “You
misunderstand, Wren. I’m not devastated by losing Annika. I’m
devastated at losing my brother. When I fell in love with you, I
realized my feelings for Annika were just a pale comparison to how
love is supposed to feel. She was at first a friend and then a
lover. The friendship was stronger than the love. My pain comes
from the fact Cristoforo hates me and will do anything in his power
to see me suffer.”

Trying to ignore his words of love for me I asked,
“Why? Why would Cristoforo hate you so much as to go after
Annika?”

Roberto let his hands fall to his side. “It’s a long
story.”

“
Looks like I got nothing but
time,” I said looking around the room that was our
prison.

Roberto laughed bitterly. “I guess so. The last
several months I’ve dreamed of locking us together in a room.” He
looked at me with those dark smoldering blue eyes that always made
me weak in the knees. “Though the bed was much larger and you wore
a lot less.”

Using every Sensay power I had, I forced myself to
block the feelings rising up inside me. Rather coolly I said, “You
were telling me about Cristoforo?”

Quickly hiding the hurt in his eyes he began, “Do
you remember me telling you when we met about my sister

Abrielle?”

“
Yes.” I remembered Roberto
telling me that she had been kidnapped and murdered by The
Guardians a few hundred years ago. That was not the worse part of
the story. She was pregnant at the time and her child was ripped
from her body and stolen.

Roberto continued, “Cristoforo and Abri were close.
The two were inseparable until her marriage. He blames me for her
death.”

“
How can he blame you, Roberto?
The Guardians kidnapped her and murdered her. If he wants to blame
someone then he should blame the people who did it!”

“
No, he is right to blame me. I
blame myself. You see, Cristoforo was supposed to have gone back
with her to her estate to be company for her during her confinement
after her child’s birth.”

A look of misery passed over Roberto’s face. “We
each had our duties at Castello Durato, our family estate. Mine was
to oversee the vineyards. Cristoforo’s was to breed magnificent
horses. While he and Abri were preparing to leave, a mare began to
foal. Abri didn’t want to wait. She was anxious to get back to her
husband.

Cristoforo asked me to attend the mare, and I
refused because Cristoforo had always been irresponsible, always
putting his pleasures before the good of the family. I refused him
thinking it would teach him responsibility, and Abri was murdered.
If only I had let him accompany her they might not have attacked,
seeing she wasn’t alone.”

Roberto buried his face in his
hands to try and wipe the vile memories away. My heart was breaking
for him and for Abri and for the first time ever, even
Cristoforo.

I knelt in front of him and took his hands away from
his face. “Roberto, it’s not your fault. Do you remember telling me
when Alex was taken by The Guardians after I left him in that hotel
room all alone, that if I stayed I could have been taken too? Well,
this is not different. If Cristoforo had been with Abri, he might
have been killed too. Then there would be no Gjord, who is a
miracle. You once told me I had to fulfill my destiny. So did Abri,
Cristoforo and you.”

Roberto took my hand and placed his mouth on the
inside of my wrist. Lightening raced through my veins. Closing his
eyes he said, “You are right. It doesn’t ease the pain, but I know
you are right.”

Opening his eyes but keeping his mouth on the inside
of my wrist he asked, “Now that you know the truth, what of your
destiny? At whose side does it lie? Mine or Alex’s?”

Chapter 29

Thankfully, I was saved from answering Roberto by
the door being pushed open by a huge blond man. He looked as if he
stepped out of the pages of a freaking romance novel. He had curly
blond hair and eyes the color of a clear summer sky. Not to mention
that his arms looked to be the size of three men’s.

He smirked at me as my eyes traveled his length. “So
you’d be liking what you see little Sensay?” Seeing Roberto
clutching my hand his eyes lit up. “Mmmm so it’s true about a
Sensay? You’ve been shagging Alex and Roberto? Have you ever done
both at the same time?”

I could see by the glint in his eye that he was
picturing just that with a little of him thrown in to boot. From
Janel and Alex’s description and the vampire smell rolling off of
him, I was going to say that standing before me was the vampire
Seamus Fitzgerald.

Roberto growled and stood up, “Watch your mouth
Seamus.”

I pushed Roberto back down on the
bed and mouthed the words “
Trust
me
” to him before turning around again to
face Seamus. Using what I hoped was a sexy voice, I asked, “Alex
told me all about you. Seamus Fitzgerald, correct?” I asked
him.

“
That’s me.” Seamus moved closer
to me as if in a dare to Roberto. “What else has he told you,
little Sensay?”

I pretended to think while my mind worked
frantically for a plan. Still smiling at him I ran a finger down
his broad chest. “He said that you were quite the ladies man back
in the sixties and something about you doing a lot of
shagging.”

Seamus’s eyes widened, “Mmmm yeah,
he was right about that. Being a Sensay, I bet you know a lot about
shagging.”

I batted my eyes at him. “I know a little, but I’m
the kind of girl that believes one should never stop learning.”

I ignored Roberto’s groan from behind me. I was
trying to buy some time. I knew that if I bought us enough time the
cavalry in the form of Alex, Cheve, Mark and Bullet would arrive to
help.

For right now I needed to call
upon my Sensay training to make this vampire think that I wanted
him. I stepped closer so that my breasts pressed against his broad
chest. I let a little moan escape from between my slightly parted
lips. “Oh… your chest is so hard. Is there anything else on you
that’s hard?”

Seamus wrapped his arms around me and pressed me
against his hard body. There was no mistaking his erection. I felt
it pressing against me.