Stone Passions Trilogy (56 page)

“May I go to her now?” She didn’t know why she was asking permission. Without waiting for an answer, she started to stand up but she still held Rhys’s hand. Letting go, she was stopped when Omari wrapped his fingers around her other wrist and pulled her back to the couch.

“Sit,” he commanded, his fingers burning into her skin through the layers of her clothing. With a gasp, she raised her eyes and caught the desire blazing wildly in his half-shuttered hazel eyes. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply and his voice was guttural, “Two of your kind over such a short period… gods, I want a human so badly it hurts. It physically hurts.”

A low growl erupted from behind her and the desire melted from Omari’s face to be replaced with amusement. His smile was charming and nearly irresistible as he held her gaze and chuckled, “Don’t worry, Rhys, I can control myself…. It would have been easier if there had been a larger gap between Melanie and this one but I
can
control myself. After all, it is the only way to get Vaughn back before Melanie passes from this life into the next.”

Jenna’s eyes widened painfully as Omari’s chatted so calmly about Lenni’s death, even if the words weren’t as harsh as Armand’s had been. Frantically scurrying away from the crazy, beautiful person, she found herself on Rhys’s lap. A solid arm wrapped around her waist and a broad palm rubbed her back, “Breathe, Jenna. Melanie’s not going to die any time soon. Just breathe.”

Whipping her head around, she felt calmness rush through her as she met Rhys’s gaze. His nostrils flared as he exaggerated the act of inhaling deeply and, numbly, she followed his lead. She felt her head clear as oxygen rushed back into her lungs. Holding his eyes, she breathed with him. He murmured, “That’s it, sweetheart, just breathe.”

“And you wonder why I have to wait,” Omari said wryly, a smile in his voice. “Even without sex she breathes for him. She already belongs to him.”

“I refuse to lose another brother to these two girls,” Armand growled darkly.

“You don’t have a say in the matter,” Omari said softly but with finality. “If they are meant to be there is nothing either of us can do.”

“Now that’s not true,” Armand retorted, slaying Omari with his green gaze. “There’s plenty
you
can do but you choose to play your games and let the rest of us twist in the wind.”

“You cannot see the big picture, Armand,” Omari’s voice was suddenly weary with the knowledge and cursed understanding of the ancients, of an immortal. “Everything is changing.”

The silence that followed that announcement was heavy, oppressive. Everyone stared at the white-haired man and in that moment Jenna knew that Omari wasn’t human, that Armand and Rhys and Vaughn weren’t human. Melanie had been right all along.

Abruptly, the veil lifted and she was flooded with the realization that another world existed right before her eyes but she had refused to see it, even when Melanie and Ferris constantly pointed it out. It was a terrifying thing to discover; how much had she missed?

“You see so quickly,” Omari’s voice cracked the weighted atmosphere and Jenna shook her head, trying to erase the disturbing thoughts and recriminations. She could do nothing but stare at him as an entire world opened up to her.

“It’s too fast,” Rhys protested, slowly rubbing his hand up and down her back.

“So she breaks,” Armand scoffed, dismissing Jenna with a wave of his hand. “One less human to keep our secrets.”

“Fuck you,” Rhys growled, never ceasing in his caress.

“It’s the way it is meant to be,” Omari interjected, his voice calm, reassuring. “Now, Rhys, I want you to go to your mother and ask her for a vial of ambrosia.”

“No,” Armand bit out, his green eyes blazing with frozen fire.

“Ambrosia?” Rhys asked, the excitement in his voice and the hope in his eyes snapping Jenna out of her stupor.

“She’ll know what I’m talking about,” Omari giggled, which was slightly disturbing. Most men didn’t giggle for fear of losing their man card and yet this strange man turned male giggling into an art form. Clapping his hands together in private delight, he continued, “Your mother has to believe that the two of you are wildly in love but Jenna is reluctant to perform the ritual. Tell her you need another option, something that will give you… time.”

“What does this have to do with Vaughn?” Rhys asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.

Omari didn’t answer the question as he stood up and held his arms out to the side, once again giving Jenna the impression that he was very powerful and much, much older than she could possibly imagine. “The two of you will go on a… quest and Vaughn will be restored to us. Well, that was already a given since he would be released from the curse whence Melanie passes into the next life.” Waving his hand through the air, dismissing the callous words with a wave, he added, “You will take your trip and get to know one another on a much more intimate level and Vaughn will be restored to Melanie.”

He yammered on some more but Jenna was lost within moments as he talked about Greece and Vaughn. Greece? “Greece? You want me to drop everything and go to Greece?”

Omari abruptly stopped talking – Jenna hadn’t even realized she had interrupted him with her question – and looked at her as if she were mad.
He
was the mad one. “Yes, Greece. Now pay attention.”

Numbly, she tried to follow along and eventually he managed to convince her that going to Greece on the spur of the moment was the good and prudent thing to do, that Ferris would be well provided for and if she ever wanted to find peace it was something she had to do.

By the end of Omari’s lecture, Jenna was almost positive it had been her idea to begin with.

Chapter 7

After the decision was made to go on the bizarre quest, Jenna was finally allowed in to see Melanie and the sight that had greeted her eyes made her gasp in shocked disbelief. Her sister had no injuries! She was completely healed and in no way resembled the bloodied and broken girl in the photograph that had caused Jenna’s mad dash to the city. Still, Lenni had lost too much weight and her bones were protruding outwards, just beneath her skin, and it was not a good look on her.

Dragging her sister out of the cool shower, she managed to get a towel wrapped around Lenni’s skinny body and set her on a chair so she could brush her sister’s damp hair. “You’ve been keeping a lot of secrets from me, Melanie.”

Her sister gave her a sheepish look as she tried to explain but her words were disjointed and broken until Jenna told her that there may be a way to get Vaughn back. Melanie immediately perked up at that, begging to be allowed to go with. Jenna was on the verge of giving in when Rhys appeared, denying the possibility before Melanie could get her hopes up.

Standing in the doorway he looked so incredibly handsome and Jenna had to fight the urge to throw herself into his arms. After all, he had promised that the next time he had her in his arms he was going to make love to her. It wasn’t the appropriate time but she knew that they would be consummating their relationship as soon as the plane took off.

After a few minutes of discussing the upcoming journey, Rhys let out an exclamation and dug in his pocket, pulling out a chain with a pendant attached. With a sultry smile, he handed it to Jenna, “Omari asked me to give this to you. It’s a protection charm.”

Jenna had seen a similar charm around Lenni’s neck, the one that Ferris now wore. It was a disc with a greenish colored stone in the center and it looked ancient. Knowing what she now knew now she wondered if it were truly enchanted. Absently, she took it, sliding it around her neck as she drank in the sight of Rhys. When he touched the tip of his finger to the pendant, she sucked in a breath as electrical currents zapped along her skin. “Tell him I said,
Thanks
.”

“Will do,” he grinned, as reluctant to leave as she was to let him go but she had her sister to worry about. When Melanie made a slight sound of distress, he made his excuses and left but there was a heated promise in his eyes. Her heart smiled and it made it a joy to help her sister.

After she managed to get Melanie dressed and looking almost human, Melanie teased her about liking Rhys and being attracted to him while he was a gargoyle. Jenna stumbled backwards and sat down hard on the bed. She hadn’t put two and two together to come up with the fact that Rhys was the stone monkey she had admired all of those weeks ago. Or that he had seen her while she had been sunbathing topless on the roof. She fervently hoped that he couldn’t see when he was a gargoyle. And if he could….

Jenna’s cheeks went up in flames as she realized she had been in practically nothing because a skimpy pair of bikini bottoms hardly counted as a covering. But she had seen him naked, too. Granted, at the time he had been in his gargoyle form: a laughing monkey with a wide, toothy smile, large, protuberant ears, intricately carved stone wings, and a massive, muscular, anatomically correct, male physique. He had been gorgeous and very well hung.

Rhys was that gargoyle. She was stunned and oddly giddy.

“Melanie, you have to come home with me,” Jenna said softly, holding her sister’s eyes as they lay on Vaughn’s massive bed. “I freaked out when I saw you on the news and mom and dad are probably worried sick.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Melanie protested in a small voice, as if staying close to Vaughn would bring him back sooner.

“I know, sweetie,” Jenna crooned, stroking her fingers through Melanie’s long, dark hair, gently kissing the crown of her head. “It’ll just be for a few days and then you can come back.”

Melanie looked at her with wide, sorrow-filled, blue eyes and Jenna would have promised her anything to get the desolation out of those eyes. “Promise?”

“Of course.” But her heart pounded against her ribs. How could she leave her sister alone when the love of her life was frozen in stone? How could she not when the trip could mean bringing him back? Standing up, she pulled Melanie to her feet and offered her a trembling smile, “Now, let’s go home so you can help me pack because the sooner I leave the sooner Vaughn will be back.”

Melanie threw her arms around Jenna then, hugging her for all she was worth. “Thank you, Jenna. This means the world to me.”

“I know,” Jenna kissed her sister’s cheek as she returned the hug with the same desperation that Melanie felt.

When they were in the car, she wanted to erase the forsaken expression on her sister’s face so she murmured, “It must have driven you nuts not to be able to tell me that you had been right all along.”

At Melanie’s blank expression, Jenna chuckled, “About magic and dragons and gargoyles. You were right.”

She blushed and caught her lower lip between her teeth, gnawing on the tender flesh as she admitted, “There were so many times that I wanted to tell you something, about Vaughn, about the castle, but my tongue always got tangled up.”

Jenna laughed out loud, “That’s a first. You’re tongue never gets tied up.”

“I know,” Melanie even managed a small smile. “I kept asking Vaughn all of these questions, trying to figure out what he was, and he simply couldn’t tell me – even when I guessed outright what he was! Can you imagine being so close to discovering a huge secret and being denied? It was awful!”

Jenna laughed, easily imagining how hard it would have been, especially for someone like Melanie, who had never stopped believing. Glancing at her sister out of the corner of her eyes, catching the dreamy smile on Lenni’s lips, she knew she would go to the ends of the earth for her and she was very happy to do so.

“It was so frustrating not being able to share everything with you but I guess that’s how the powers that be keep their secrets secret,” Melanie continued. “I didn’t even know Vaughn was a gargoyle until he caught me when I fell from my balcony.”

The car almost flew off the road as Jenna’s hands jerked at that announcement. Straightening the wheels, her heart jack knifing in her chest, she glared at her sister, “What?”

Melanie worried her lower lip some more, averting her gaze as she mumbled something about imps and Peter and the necklace around her neck. “But everything turned out all right, nothing actually happened.”

“Jesus, Lenni,” Jenna growled, concentrating extra hard on her driving now that her hands were shaking slightly.

“I’m okay.” Melanie reached over and put her finger over the medallion around Jenna’s neck, “You have to be sure to keep this on at all times, Jen. It saved my life.”

Jenna glanced over and looked at Melanie’s neck, to the necklace that was no longer there. Lenni blushed, putting her fingers to her throat, “I gave my necklace to Ferris to keep her safe. I am under the protection of a gargoyle now.”

“It’s been a very eventful year for you,” Jenna deadpanned, still freaking out about how close she had come to losing Melanie and not even knowing about it. She had to remind herself that Lenni was all right, that she was protected by a gargoyle and she was all right.

“You have no idea,” Melanie blurted.

After a weighted silence, Jenna hesitantly asked, “Does it bother you that the fates, or whatever, aren’t putting me through all of these trials to discover their secrets?”