Prince of Twilight (23 page)

“I think that might be true.”

“God, what have I done to her?” He tipped his head back to stare up at the stars.

Stormy sat up, brushing her hair back from her face. “Maybe Rhiannon was right about that, too? Maybe we need to find a way to exorcise her? To set her free?”

His head came down, and his eyes locked onto hers, sparking with anger. “Kill her, you mean?”

“Vlad, she's not alive. Not really.”

“Oh, she's very much alive. I see her in you. Even now, I see her. She's trying to come through, trying to speak to me through you, isn't she, Tempest?”

She set her jaw, stiffened her spine. “She has been, ever since we… I'm not sure how much longer I can keep on fighting her. It's…exhausting.”

He averted his eyes quickly. “You, too, are suffering because of what I did.”

She lowered her head then. “Guilt isn't going to solve this, Vlad.”

“No. I'm not ready to give her up. Not yet, Tempest.”

She lifted her head, met his eyes again. “I can't go on like this,” she told him. “Not for much longer, Vlad. At least when I'm not with you, she stays…dormant. Asleep. But here…”

He sighed, impatient, angry perhaps and frustrated. He still expected her to suddenly remember and become the woman he longed for. All
she
wanted to do was figure out how to get rid of her.

And maybe convince him to love her, instead.

She swallowed hard. “Would you…take me to her grave?”

“Are you certain you're strong enough?”

“No. But I want to try. I feel as if I have to.”

“Don't, not for my sake, Tempest.”

“I'm not. It's for her sake, Vlad. Part of me…loves her as much as you do. I mean, the woman she was. Not the presence that haunts me now, but that girl. That innocent, grieving, heartbroken child who is, maybe, somehow, a part of me. I have to help her if I can.”

“You're a generous woman.”

She let her eyes go hard. “I want to help her by setting her free. Not by bringing her back.”

His features hardened, but he got to his feet and held out a hand. She took it and let him draw her upright. “The night is aging.”

“Yeah,” she said, and she slid her arms around his neck. “So let's do this the fast way, all right?”

He nodded. She tightened her grip, and they whirled into the night.

Stormy resurfaced from her memories. She had recovered nearly all of them now, she sensed. She knew when she had fallen in love with him, and why he'd held her heart captive for so very long. Always it had been about Elisabeta. Never her. He'd never loved her.

He never would.

 

“There is no reason to believe anything dire has happened to either of them,” Rhiannon said for the tenth time.

But that was exactly what Vlad believed, and he was kicking himself for his part in it. By the gods, if anything happened to prevent him doing what must be done in time…

Melina was on the telephone yet again, dialing Tempest's cell phone number. She met his eyes and shook her head. “I got her voice mail again. She must have the phone turned off, Vlad. If she doesn't want to hear from us, she's not going to pick up the messages I keep leaving.”

Lowering his head, Vlad resumed his pacing. “This is my doing. All of it.”

Rhiannon stepped into his path, blocking his progress. “Stop this. You can find her, Vlad. You, more than any of us, can find her.”

He stared into Rhiannon's eyes, frowning. “I don't know. My bond with Elisabeta isn't as powerful as—”

“Not Beta, Vlad. For the love of the gods, would you stop focusing on her for one second? Are you that obsessed? It's Stormy. I'm talking about Stormy. Do you think I can't smell her on you?” Rhiannon snapped, looking as if she would like to knock him over the head with something heavy. “You drank from her, Vlad. And more than once. Her scent and her essence are still alive in you. The bond created by that act is a powerful one. You, more than any of us here, can sense her.”

“You think I haven't tried?” He tipped his head back and pushed his hands through his hair in frustration.

“I think,” Rhiannon said, “that you are trying too hard.”

“I'm going after them,” he said. “Tempest is likely going home, to her mansion in Easton. I'll go there and—”

“Not just yet.” Rhiannon glanced at Melina and Lupe. “Does either of you have any skill at scrying?”

“I do,” Lupe said.

“Then get a map, and a pendulum, and try to narrow the search. For both of them.” Then she turned to Vlad. “Come with me, we have work to do.”

He didn't want to go with Rhiannon. He wanted to be out hunting for the women. But Rhiannon was a wise woman. It wouldn't be smart to ignore the help she offered, though why she offered it, he couldn't fathom. He'd all but destroyed her trust in him. He went where she led him, into a room he'd never seen before—a room with sculptures and candles everywhere. It resembled a spiritual temple. There were huge satin pillows strewn about the floor, and she nodded at one, so he sat.

Then she closed the door behind them. She stood in the room's center and turned in a slow circle, waving her hand before her as she did. One by one, the candles came to life, flames leaping onto their wicks in obedience to her gesture and her will. He was impressed, in spite of himself.

“You're going to need to relax,” she told him.

“Far easier said than done, Rhiannon.”

“Lie back on the pillows, Vlad.”

He did, pulling more of the cushions around behind him to make a bed of sorts.

“Listen only to my voice,” Rhiannon said, and her tone had become deep and low, soft and, at the same time, commanding. “Thoughts will come. Just move them away and return your attention to my voice. Gently, steer your focus to my words. Only to my words.”

“I'll try.”

“You'll do it. Keep your eyes open. Choose a candle you see easily and focus on its flame. See the way it dances, the way its fire waxes and wanes like the tides. Like the moon.”

He focused on a nearby candle flame.

“See how the wax heats and melts. Do you see it, Vlad?”

“I see it.” He watched beads of wax roll slowly down the sides of the candle, pooling at the bottom.

“Feel your body heating and melting just as the wax does. Your feet are warming, melting. Feel the flame relaxing them into liquid.”

He felt her words, her will, flowing into him. And he felt his feet grow warm until it seemed they were melting into the floor.

“And now your calves. Feel them pooling, like warm wax. Dripping, liquefying. And your knees, your thighs, warming, heating, melting.”

He thought about the women as his body
obeyed, wondered what was happening between them right now.

“My words, Vlad. Listen to my voice. See the candle. Feel it heating you. Your groin and your hips. Your pelvis and your belly. Warming, melting, pooling.”

She continued, and the thoughts that kept drawing him away seemed to come more slowly and to take longer to return each time he pushed them away.

When she had convinced him that his entire body was a puddle of hot wax on the pillows, she said, “Let your focus go soft. Let the candle flame split into two flames and become blurry. Relax your vision. See now, with your inner eye. See her. See Tempest. Taste her blood again. Feel it coursing through your body. She is inside you, Vlad. She's a part of you. You are bound. See through her eyes. See her.”

His vision blurred, and in a moment his eyes fell closed.

“Where is she, Vlad?”

“She's…in her car. Belladonna, she calls it. She loves the thing.” A smile tugged at his lips. “She's driving.”

“Yes. Good. Don't strain, Vlad. Just let the images flow into you. Flowing like that warm, melting wax. Filling you. Warming you. What else do you see?”

He stopped trying and relaxed. Rhiannon's voice made resistance futile, even if he'd wanted to try. “She's…crying.”

“That's all right. Don't let those tears distract you. They flow, warm and liquid, like the wax. They flow for you. They show you her heart. They are the waters of true emotion, and they are cleansing and healing to a woman's soul.”

“She loves me,” he whispered, feeling the emotion that filled her heart to bursting.

“Yes. And she wants you to know where she is. She wants you to come to her, Vlad. Listen to her thoughts now. Move gently into her mind and listen. Open to her. Let those thoughts roll like the melting wax. Let them seep into you. Let them….”

Her voice faded, replaced by the voice of Tempest's heart, of her thoughts.

He doesn't love me…never loved me. He loves her. I was just a means to get her back all along. He was using me. I've wasted my life, loving him, longing for him, waiting and hoping, when all the time he never…

Have to stop thinking about him. God, why can't I get him out of my mind? Have to go home. No, no, not home. Don't want to face Maxie and Lou, not now. Don't want to tell them what a fool I've been. Don't
want to be around anyone, no one. Not now, not yet. I need to be alone. I need to get past this.

I wonder if he'll let Rhiannon exorcise Elisabeta from Brooke's body? He won't. I know he won't. I wish Rhiannon could exorcise him from my heart, though. Maybe she can. Maybe I should ask her. Then again, maybe it won't matter. I'll be dead anyway, if Rhiannon can't send Beta to the other side.

She looked through the windshield of the car, seeing darkness, a road and a sign. “Seaside, 80 km.” And she thought of the sea, the coast, a cozy inn where she could rest and try to heal.
Far enough away from him? Maybe. Maybe far enough. It's only another hour. I'll go there. I love the ocean. If I'm going to die tonight, it can be right there, on the shore, with the waves rolling in around my feet. A good place to die.

“Seaside,” he said aloud, though even to his own ears, his voice sounded a bit hoarse. “A town called Seaside. She's going there.”

“Good, Vlad,” Rhiannon said softly. “Very good. Now I want you to pull yourself out of her body, out of her mind. I want you to see what's around her, in the car. Is there anyone else there with her?”

“I am with her.”

“Yes, but besides you.”

He gently withdrew from Tempest's mind, the
voice of her thoughts fading away, until he was in the car, in the passenger seat. He felt something, a presence, a familiar one, and he frowned, guiding his attention toward it. And then he saw—

The door to the room burst open, jarring Vlad back into his own body, into the room, into reality, where he landed with as much impact as if he'd fallen from a tall building. The trance state shattered on impact, and he sat up so fast it made him dizzy. He had to press a hand to his head. Rhiannon's hands closed on his shoulders as she snapped, “Lupe, what are you thinking, barging in here during—”

Vlad growled an interruption. “When I can stand upright, you bungling mortal, I'll—”

“I've got her!” Lupe blurted almost at the same time. Then she looked at Vlad as his threat sunk in, and her face went tight with fear. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”

He held up a hand to shut her up.

“Ground yourself, Vlad. Here, hold this.” Rhiannon handed him a large quartz crystal the size of his fist, and he took it and held it between his palms, trying to get his bearings again.

“We know where Tempest is going, Lupe,” Rhiannon explained. “To a town called Seaside.”

“I got the same thing. But not just for her,” Lupe said, a little breathlessly. “I got the same results when I scried for Elisabeta. I think she's following her or—”

“She's not following her,” Vlad said softly. Gripping the edge of a table, he got to his feet, still a bit shaky. “She's
with
her.”

“With her?” Rhiannon searched his face.

“She's hiding in the back of Tempest's car.”

A gasp came from the doorway, and they turned to see Melina standing there. Her fists clasped, she said, “The weapons room door was open, so I went in to check. There's a handgun missing.”

 

Tempest pulled over and patted Belladonna's dashboard the way she would pat the neck of a sweaty horse, one that had just carried her away from trouble. “Thanks for taking me the hell out of there. You've been a pal. I'm gonna miss you.”

She cut the engine, slid one arm through one of the straps of her backpack purse, and pulled it onto her shoulder as she got out of the car. Then she stood for a moment, looking down at the spot that had beckoned her. A rocky shoreline, choppy sea beyond, shallow waves rolling up and breaking over the stones and boulders. It appealed to her, this
rough-faced beach. Not all smooth and sandy, but rugged and forbidding, harsh beneath the star speckled velvet black of the sky.

Stormy hitched her bag up higher onto her shoulder, walked down the little incline to the shore and stood for a moment, staring out at the sea. And even as she tried to find a positive spin to put on her heartache, warm tears welled in her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks.

“It's not entirely bad,” she told herself. “At least I got rid of
her.
”

She took a moment, then, to feel the lightness in her soul. No more was there that sense of something foreign, lurking and waiting to take over. Hating her from within.

It felt good. It was a huge relief.

And yet, there was another weight in her, this one crushing heavily down on her heart. She loved him. She loved him even now. And it was stupid—pathetic, really—to love a man who didn't love her back. She knew it. And yet there was nothing she could do about it. Pretty sad to think that she, the independent and notoriously feisty Stormy Jones, was going to die loving a man who cared nothing for her.