Soul Mates Kiss (3 page)

"Nooo," Lola wailed. "I'm not going to
Louisiana! You know how much I hate humidity!"

"It won't be so bad this time of year," Sable
soothed, brushing aside Lola's objections. "Besides, your birthday
is October 31st-on Samhain-and what better place to be at that time
than in New Orleans? Now, Marcus is an orphan. He has no idea who
his parents are or what his bloodline is. You're going to need to
be inventive when you find him so that you can get him to come back
with you."

She was staring at her mother wide-eyed. Get a
man convinced to come with her to New York? Her power was about
finding magical abilities and human talents. She could barely tell
when a man was hinting for a date unless he asked for it
straightforward. She did not understand how men's brains worked.
How could she convince a stranger to come with her thousands of
miles away from his home? Was her mother insane? "Mother, I
seriously cannot do this," Lola stressed through gritted teeth.

"Yes, you can. In fact, here's your plane
ticket." Sable plunked it in front of her. "You will leave in the
morning."

"Ahh! I have a ticket?" she exclaimed.

Her mother dimpled. "All expenses will be
paid."

"I have my own money," Lola said
belligerently.

"You're being difficult, darling."

"Well, who wouldn't be?! I'd like to have my
lawyer." And they both knew she was talking about her father.

Her mother opened her mouth, then closed it. Her
lips thinned. Her eyes became slits. For some reason it made her
look prettier. But that did not stop her heart from beating a
faster. She was an imposing figure if she wanted to be.

"How many times have I ever asked you for
anything, Lola?"

And her mother, and knew exactly where to attack
her.

Aww, lowballing
. She's on the war path. It meant this
really was important.

And Lola had no choice but to give in.

BUT LOLA KNEW, from the moment her mother first
mentioned the mission, that she would go. She could not put that
poor man in the clutches of the Council on his own. It did not stop
her from protesting too much, though. Her mother, and the Council,
has to know that she would always try to defend herself.

As she took leave of her mother, she realized
that she was not really angry. Her bloodline made it necessary for
her to do certain things at times. There was no escaping it, even
if she tried. Otherwise, she would feel guiltier the next time she
used her magick for mundane things. Like making traffic move.

It was a small epiphany that surprised her. It
had never occurred to her that she could give magick this much
leeway into the eternal argument she's always had with her mother
about her place in the magical world. She must be growing up.

Or was she beginning to understand that there
were Magickals that needed help, too? That needed saving?

They hugged each other tight. They never knew
when they would see each other again. She sometimes suspected that
her mother would sometimes go on dangerous missions for the
Council. It worried her, but always, it was her mother's choice.
Her principles, her prerogative.

"Thanks for dinner, Mother. Will I be seeing you
on my birth day?"

"We'll see, darling. If not then, I'll
definitely be seeing you when you return with Marcus." She kissed
her daughter on her forehead. Sable was taller than her daughter by
a mere three inches but that did not stop her from looking deeply
and worriedly into her eyes. "You know I love you, right?"

She sighed. "Yes, Mother, I know. And I love
you, too, even though you're one of the most annoying witches on
this planet sometimes."

They laughed and hugged once more and walked to
the entrance of the restaurant. Lola had already sent a message to
William and he was waiting for her outside. It was already dark and
the drive towards home went by in a flurry of emotions as Lola
thought about the man she was to find.

She was not excited about bringing some
unsuspecting person into this kind of life. She knew she would have
been much happier had she not known she was a witch. It was hard
being different; hard always being scared that people you like
would not like you once they found out you were not like them. Now
she was going to have to drop this bomb on some other poor guy and
she would totally mess up his life.

But there was nothing she could do to avoid the
mission.

Because the last thing she needed right now was
the Council at her ass.

MARCUS SWAN stared out the window of his
Mystical Grove mansion the following evening.

Something is coming
, he thought as he looked out at the
waning light. The day was almost over, but since it had been
raining since this morning, it looked like twilight the whole
day.
Well,
maybe not something big, but definitely something important.
Something that is going to bring me... pain?

But it seemed something more like that.
Whatever's coming was going to change something in his life. Or,
no...

Not in his life, really. But in him.

He wondered if this had anything to do with the
woman he kept dreaming of lately.

A beautiful woman with ash-blonde hair and
exotic green eyes kept turning up in his dreams almost every night.
She was on his mind a lot during his waking hours, too. In his
dreams, she was searching for him, calling out, telling him
something. But he could never make out what she was saying.

This wasn't new to him, so it wasn't shocking
him at all. It was just making him curious, and a little pensive,
because the flavor of whatever's coming was different than anything
he's ever tasted or felt before.

Marcus could "see".

Or taste, or feel, or hear. It wasn't entirely
seeing, really. He could sense not the future, but what the future
would be bringing. It wasn't even just by observing the present to
predict what future would be. There were things, or people, that
just happen to arrive with no warning. That was what he could
sense.

He learned long ago to live with this weird
ability, but sometimes he got very frustrated when he could not
figure out what he was supposed to be seeing.

This gift helped Marcus along in the business
world over the years. He simply invested where he felt he would
make money, and in this he was never wrong. The difference Marcus
had with other smart businessmen was that he had never done a bad
investment, ever, nor had he ever committed even the tiniest
mistake since he started doing business.

So here he was, a billionaire at thirty.
Naturally, many women pursued him. He was hounded by a few
controversies, too, because aside from his physical attributes that
the opposite sex found attractive, apparently he was an
"interesting" and "extraordinary" fellow, and that some of the
fortunes that kept happening to him and to hose linked to him did
not happen very often to other people.

Only God knew what would happen if anyone ever
found out about his weird ability. So he chose to move here to
Mystical Grove where he could take a break from it all and think.
If they only knew that he was regular enough to feel weirded out by
his being different. How could he feel fully comfortable about it,
when he could not explain fully why he was like this?

The village was small and isolated from the big
cities. No one knew who he was here. So yes, he has acquired his
privacy, but not his peace.

What was coming?

And who was the woman in his dreams?

The rain was falling in earnest now and he
watched as lightning flashed in the sky and lit up the night.
Everything looked alive for the few moments the forked light
illuminated the heavy clouds. Raking his fingers through his deep
auburn hair, his blue eyes flashed.

He was very frustrated at the way he had been
feeling lately, and those dreams did not help. She was so beautiful
with her sultry, wicked eyes and she had the most seductive smile
anyone could ever see on a pair of luscious, sexy lips. She was so
gorgeous that some of those dreams had turned decidedly...
erotic.

He had awakened in such a state that he had to
get up and take a shower before he could calm down, much less go
back to sleep. That pissed him off, too. He hated it when he could
not control something in his life. It reminded him too much of the
time when he was a child and alone.

He had already ran away from three foster homes
that time. He already knew that there was something different about
him. The other kids and grown-ups had started knowing this, too.
They couldn't explain it, and this only made him more of a freak in
their eyes. Oh, the adults tried to understand. But they started to
fear him, too, so he was treated with a heavy hand.

Someone would invariably start acting cruel. He
would get into fistfights that would get him in even more trouble.
It did not matter that he never started a fight; he always ended up
getting punished because in their eyes, having "weird" abilities
made him more of the threat.

Yes, he ran, because he knew he was not wanted,
and he did not particularly like staying in places where he felt in
danger.

He felt safer on the streets.

Running away from the first foster home was the
first time he understood control, and was the first time he started
taking control of his own life. His eyes clouded over as he
remembered how hard it was living and growing up alone. Only the
fact that he had seen more unfortunate people around him guided him
on a path that he did not know where would go at the time, but he
knew the purpose of.

There were thousands of people who needed help
in this world, and he has a gift he could use to help those that
them. Thank God he was able to. They may not know how he did it,
but it was important to him that almost all those kids he helped
take out from the streets have good jobs now in his company, and
living in places they called home, with families they were able to
support on their own.

Being homeless did not mean they did not want
families. Maybe, they desired it more than anybody else.

"Mr. Swan, will you need anything else tonight?"
asked his housekeeper.

Turning from the window, he faced Amie. She had
been working for him for years while her husband worked as a
caretaker for the garden and grounds. They lived in a cottage a
little further away on his backyard but they were always accessible
if he needed them. Right now, they were his only family.

"No, Amie, that will be all for tonight. You and
Hudson have a lovely evening."

Nodding slightly, Amie said "Very good, sir.
I'll see you in the morning."

After she left the room, Marcus went back to
watching the storm.

MARCUS LOVED WATCHING storms. They were real,
beautiful and majestic, and the most uncontrollable phenomena on
earth.

It was maybe because of that. Uncontrollable.
Powerful. He could feel the air being charged with that power, such
that he could feel goosebumps because his own power was reacting to
it, like the greeting of old friends.

He had power like that in him-not easily
manifested like other gifts he's found out earlier. It sometimes
made him feel nervous, but so far it had never brought him trouble.
He was different. He sometimes wonder if he was human, because he
has never met anyone like him. Someone who could control... some
forces. Like lightning, sometimes. Or a part of what future
brings.

Noone could control storms. It's a force of
nature that people were still trying to understand. They really
never could. They could only let it be, and stay in a safe
distance. And watch.

But Marcus, he took control of his life, a
difficult undertaking being alone at the age of fourteen. But he
was able to do so. He eluded the system until he was of legal age.
By that time, he has already acquired a significant amount of money
by gambling here and there to get him through school and then
through college; while working the stock market via the Internet at
nights. He acquired his first million before he graduated, took up
serious investing in real estate, bought companies he could rescue
from the banks, made partners with lucrative businesses-and stocks,
stocks, stocks.

He was his own force of nature.

Now he was sending many foster kids to
school-about more than a million at the last count. This was one of
his undertakings that brought peace to his restless heart. He
secretly managed charities that helped the poor. Since beginning
his humanitarian activities, he also started feeling nearly
whole.

He liked being single and alone. He had never
been trusting of other people because of his past experiences. In
fact, he absolutely loved being alone.