Pursued (54 page)

“I get it,” he said at last. He coughed again and spat blood, wincing as the jagged ribs stabbed his side. “But why are you telling me this now, when it’s too late?”

I say to you again, Warrior, you shall not die. I am not often able to interfere directly in the lives of my children. But every now and again, I am permitted to make an exception.

Suddenly, a pale golden mist gathered at Merrick’s feet and engulfed him. At first it was simply warm, then almost hot. But the heat seemed to bring healing. Or at least, an easement of the agony he’d been suffering. There was a faint chiming sound—as though the most glorious music imaginable was playing just out of earshot—and then Merrick smelled something wonderful—a scent that was lush and delicious and completely alive all at the same time.

Something moved in his wounded legs—it felt as though invisible hands were setting the bones painlessly back in place. He gasped in surprise and drew in a double lungful of the golden mist. It promptly went to work inside him and as he watched, the caved in side of his chest popped back out, like a balloon inflating.

Last but not least, he felt all the minor burns and lacerations on his face being healed. The mist lingered along the twisted white scar on his face but he didn’t feel the healing tingle this time.

I could heal your scars as well,
he heard the Goddess murmur as the mist dissipated.
But Elise loves them as she loves you. She would be sorry to see them go. Rise, Merrick, you are whole.

Slowly, still not quite believing what had happened, he got to his feet. His legs worked, he wasn’t bleeding from anywhere. Most importantly, it didn’t hurt when he breathed.

“I’m well,” he said, wonderingly, taking a deep breath and letting it out with relish. “You healed me. You fucking healed me! Uh, I mean…” He coughed. “Thank you, Mother of All Life. And please forgive my language.”

You are forgiven.
He thought he heard a hint of laughter in her voice.

“But why?” Merrick asked uncertainly. “I mean, why me?”

When you were on Rageron, in the Deep Blue, you prayed to me. You made a request—the first you made since before your mother died. Do you remember what it was?

At first he couldn’t but then his eyes widened. “Yeah, I do. But why—?”

Watch.
Suddenly the golden mist formed again but this time it showed an image. As he watched, Merrick’s mismatched eyes narrowed and his hands closed into fists at his sides. A low, protective growl rose in his throat and he leaned forward, as though he could reach into the mist and stop what it showed by will alone.

Then the vision dissipated as quickly as it had formed.

Elise needs you now—urgently,
the Goddess told him.
Go to her. Before it is too late.

“’Scuse me, Miss Elise, but you got a visitor down here with a whole bunch of flowers.” The soft, drawling voice of Barney, the ancient doorman at Elise’s downtown apartment building, came clearly through her intercom.

James,
she thought in exasperation.
Couldn’t he even give me an hour before he had to come after me?
But she knew the answer to that—her ex-fiancé was nothing if not persistent, especially when large sums of money were involved.
And that’s all I am to him,
she thought bitterly.
Just a large sum of money he doesn’t want to see float out of his reach. Well too bad, James, this little wad of cash is gone.

Resolutely, she pressed the intercom button. “Tell him to leave, please, Barney. I’m not seeing anyone.”

There was a soft, indistinct mutter of male voices and then Barney replied.

“Sorry, Miss Elise, but he’s real persistent. Says he just wants to come up and tell you how sorry he is. You oughta see these flowers—they’re
real
purty.”

Elise ground her teeth. She’d always kind of thought it was cute what a hopeless romantic Barney was, despite his age. He was like a secondary character in a romantic comedy, going out of his way to get the two star-crossed lovers together. But right now she found his meddling annoying in the extreme.

“I’m sorry, Barney,” she said firmly. “But I’m just not interested.”

She was turning away from the intercom, congratulating herself for never quite getting around to giving James a key to her apartment, when Barney’s voice came floating out of the small, tinny, box again.

“Miss Elise, he says to tell you if you just listen to him for five minutes, he’ll tear up the prenup, whatever that means.”

The offer stopped Elise dead in her tracks. For the past hour, ever since she’d gotten home, she’d been pouring over her copy of the ill-fated document she’d so foolishly signed.

All this time she’d believed it was a standard contract, one to protect a rich man from a gold-digging woman. Since she had her own money and career and didn’t care about James’ wealth, she’d signed without hesitation, though it had hurt her a little that he thought such a document was necessary between them.

But it was more—much more than that. And sure enough, there
was
a clause that stated she was legally bound to James and had to go through with the wedding, no matter what. Even worse, it stipulated that their marriage couldn’t be dissolved for at least a year afterwards. Not only had she legally obligated herself to marry James—she was going to be stuck with him for a good long time afterwards.

Reading the document made her sick. James had been planning this for a long time—probably ever since he’d run that background check on her and gotten in touch with her stepfather.

He’d hand me over to Charles on a silver platter as long as he got paid enough to do it,
she thought, and knew it was true. The depth of dishonesty and betrayal from a man she’d once believed she loved hit her like a brick in the stomach. But if James was actually offering to tear it up…

“Are you sure?” she asked into the intercom. “Are you sure that’s what he said, Barney?”

“Sure am, Miss Elise. He even got a copy of it with him. I can’t make heads ’nor tails of it, though—looks like a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo to me.” Barney cackled. “’Course that’s why I’m a doorman ‘stead of a lawyer, I guess. So what do you say? Should I send him up?”

Elise hesitated. Something in her gut told her to be careful—to be wary of this offer, which seemed too good to be true. And yet, if she could really get James to tear the contract up, she could save herself years of litigation and possibly hundreds of thousands in court fees.

“Miss Elise?” Barney asked again. “You there?”

“All right,” she said at last, against her better judgment. “Send him up.”

It seemed only a second later that she heard a knocking at the door. Jumping up, she ran to open it but a sudden surge of anxiety made her look out the peephole first. Nothing could be seen, however, but the bottom half of James’ immaculately tailored suit and a huge bouquet of deep red roses which obscured his face.

Elise sighed. She hated roses—they reminded her of her father’s funeral. But they were the first flowers James had ever sent to her and she’d never had the heart to tell him so. As a result, she was always getting bunches of them from him. Though from the look of things, he’d outdone himself this time—there had to be three or four dozen long stemmed American Beauties in the bouquet he was holding up.

Well, I’m damn well going to tell him what I think of roses now!
she told herself. Sliding the bolt, she opened the door and held it wide. “Come in,” she said tersely. “But don’t expect to stay long.”

“Just long enough,” he murmured and Elise frowned, thinking that his voice sounded wrong somehow. What had happened to his accent?

“James?” she asked uncertainly, backing away.

“No, not James.” The roses dropped to one side and a different face from the one she’d expected appeared. Different, but horribly familiar all the same. “Hello, princess,” her stepfather said, kicking the door shut behind him. “Long time no see. What do you say we get reacquainted?”

* * * * *

“Merrick, is that really you?” Olivia’s face on the viewscreen looked cautiously happy and bewildered at the same time.

“Yeah, it’s me all right,” he snapped. “But I don’t have time for small talk.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just—Elise was so sure you were dead.”

“Sure enough to go down to Earth and see that fucking fiancé of hers?” Merrick growled.

Olivia frowned. “Well, yes, she went to see him. But only to tell him that the wedding—uh, joining ceremony—was off.”

“But she’s down there now, right? Down on Earth?”

Olivia nodded. “Yes, she is.”

“Do you have the coordinates? The place she’s at? I need to find her
right now,
Olivia. It’s urgent.”

“Well, she
did
give me a place I might be able to reach her.” Olivia frowned. “Her fiancé’s house.”

Merrick swore. “And you think she’ll be there instead of her own place? She
does
have her own place, right?”

Olivia looked troubled. “I honestly don’t know. I
think
so. Her fiancé has been really persistent about wanting her to come back home, but she’s been so broken up about you I don’t know if she’d spend much time with him. Here, let me get you the addresses she gave me.” Olivia’s face disappeared for an instant and then she returned and rattled off a string of numbers and words that didn’t seem to make sense to Merrick. He fed them into the guidance system anyway and punched in the coordinates.

“This is amazing,” Olivia said from the viewscreen. “Sylvan is going to be so happy!”

“Don’t start the fucking party yet,” Merrick growled. “I have something to deal with first. Something important.”

Olivia looked worried. “Is it Elise? Is she in trouble? I knew I should have gone down to Earth with her!”

“Don’t worry, I’m going to take care of her.” Merrick nodded at Olivia. “Thanks for the coordinates.”

“But—” Olivia started.

Merrick broke the connection. “Hang on, baby,” he murmured under his breath as he punched the red button. “I’m coming.”

“Well, well, princess…it’s been a long time.” Charles advanced on her, giving Elise no choice but to back away.

“Why are you here?” she asked in a voice that trembled much more than she liked. “Get away from me!”

“I just wanted to see you again, that’s all.” He grinned at her, showing teeth that were slightly yellowed with age. Other than that, though, he looked almost the same as he had that horrible day he’d attacked her. His hair had gone from deep grey to a majestic silver, but it was still thick and full and the wrinkles around the corners of his eyes were barely noticeable.

Probably gets himself Botox or some kind of laser treatments,
Elise thought, feeling sick. She was certain that most women would think her stepfather was quite handsome. But the very sight of him so close, even after all these years, still made her feel like puking her guts all over his shoes.

“Well, I
don’t
want to see you.” She glared at him, still backing away. “So why don’t you just…just go home and leave me alone?”

“Now, now, is that any way to greet me after all these years? And after I went to so much
trouble
to set up our reunion.”

“Does James know you’re here? He’s going to be angry when he finds out.” Elise wished she could get around him and run for the door, but her body refused to move when she told it. It seemed all she could do was keep backing slowly away—getting farther and farther from her only hope of escape.

“Does he
know?”
Her stepfather threw back his head and laughed. “Princess, the roses were
his
idea. Here.” Without warning, he threw the heavy bouquet directly at her.

Out of instinct, Elise fumbled to catch it, gasping as the thorns pricked and scratched her arms. But she barely felt the pain. All she could think of was that it was happening again—Charles was coming for her again and she was helpless to get away from him. “Leave me alone,” she tried to shout, but her voice came out in a whisper. “You already ruined my life, what more do you want from me?”

“Why, just another little taste.” Charles grinned at her in the awful, predatory way she remembered from her adolescence. “I thought having you that one weekend would be enough—that I could get you out of my system once and for all—did you know that, princess?” He shook his head. “But somehow it just wasn’t. I’ve tried everything to forget you and I almost thought I’d succeeded, until James called me up out of the blue.”

“You can’t be serious,” Elise protested.

“Oh but I
am
, princess.” Charles gave her a charming smile that made her cold inside. “You see, I had a little piece on the side who looked like you—a little anyway—and I thought I was content. But from the minute I heard that fruity British accent of his telling me all about what you’ve been up to these last ten years, I knew no substitute was going to be enough. I needed to have you again. You and only you.”

“Well you
can’t
have me.” Elise glared at him though her heart was pounding against her ribs. She was almost to her bedroom door now and she was forming a plan. If she could just get in and lock the door, she could call for help on her phone. Charles might have bought his way out of her rape back in her hometown, but Tampa was
her
city and she was a respected attorney. She knew a lot of officers on the force and if she called and said her stepfather was trying to rape her, dispatch would send a black and white with no questions asked.

“If not me, then who?” Charles demanded. “That pansy fiancé of yours?” He laughed. “Yes, princess, James told me all about how you were ‘saving yourself’ for marriage and I played along. But I knew you were really saving yourself for
me
. Weren’t you?” He pressed close to her suddenly, crowding her against the door of her bedroom with the roses crushed between them. Their overpowering scent, mixed with the alcohol on his breath, made Elise dizzy and nauseous.