Taking the Stage: Soulgirls, Book 2 (13 page)

“Cerveau’s real name is Jaimela.” The answer easier to speak than she imagined. “We were raised together, trained together and in every way, she is my shield-sister. Her shield. My sword. We were inseparable. But at our majority, it was knowledge she longed to conquer, not the battlefield. I didn’t mind the change of direction. In fact, I admired it. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. Her mind deciphers puzzles the way Castilian steel severs flesh.”

The story flowed from her easily, bearing no hiccup of shame. That ease, more than any mark his sexy mouth left on her flesh, revealed the imprint their mating left on her soul. A flash of regret died a simple death at the happiness cascading into her heart. She would never be alone again. Her shield-sister and her mate would bracket her, protect her from all sides.

Her mate.

She rubbed her hand against his belly, tracing the ridges of his abdomen. She would mark him here. Where it would be plain to all.

He was hers.

“Ruth?” Her name sounded both delicious and odd on his lips.

“Ruthie,” she whispered. It was an almost shy confession. “That’s what my friends call me.”

“Ruthie.” He tested the syllables. “Ruthie. I like it. Softer. Sexier.”

She laughed. It was hardly a sexy name, except that it turned her inside out when he said it.

“Jaimela loves knowledge,” he prompted.

“Yes. She visited the Oracle at Delphi and spent several nights in the temple of Athena. She told me that the goddess visited her dreams.”

“A rarity in these times.” His understanding unlocked another seal inside her heart. He was quickly nesting himself inside of her, becoming as vital to her existence as air.

“Yes. A great honor. When she came before my mother and begged leave to quest, the court was stunned. No Amazon had been called to quest in five hundred years, since the time my grandmother ruled. It was without question that Jaimela would be granted the leave to go.”

“And you took the oath to go with her. To protect her on her quest.” Of course he understood.

Gods, she loved him.

She
loved
him.

“Yes.” The emotion rolled through her, a pervasive wind that shattered what remained of the wall. “Her quest took us around the world. We visited temples throughout Asia Minor, the Pacific and deep into South America. We watched the sun climb the sides of Machu Pichu and the moon achieve her zenith over the lost jaguar temples of the Maya. But we pushed on, forever roaming, as Athena’s messages arrived in the form of owls.”

“Until you arrived here.”

“Yes.” Roseâtre dropped her head to lie against his chest, the thump of his heart beating in her ear a sweet reminder of shared passion. Her heart echoed the cadence of his. He was everywhere inside of her, she could almost feel the sprout of his fur, caressing her, comforting her.

“What happened when you arrived at the Arcana Royale?”

“I don’t know.” The confession hurt, but truth often did. “We walked inside the lobby. Jaimela practically bounced with excitement. She kept murmuring ‘it’s here, it’s here’ and then she just went still. Her eyes glazed. Her mouth slackened and nothing I did could rouse her.”

Her throat clogged with remembered frustration, anger and even a tinge of fear. She’d been faced by nothing to battle, nothing to strike down, only the empty eyed face of her sister. Helpless.

Anthony’s arms caged her, his hands stroking and petting. Tears slid down her face in earnest. The loss as poignant now as it had been then. “The Overseers summoned me before them. Jaimela had broken a covenant, stolen knowledge, and by the laws that govern this place, she would serve until she surrendered what she had taken, returned it to its rightful place.”

“Why doesn’t she just do it then?” It wasn’t callousness or anger in his tone, but true question.

“Because, she doesn’t remember. The person she became—Cerveau—she doesn’t remember what Jaimela did. It’s as though another exists there—she is and is not my sister.” Roseâtre lifted her head, sniffling back the tears. “Despite their claims and what I heard, she offers no recollection of what happened that morning when we walked in and barely remembers the life we shared before that moment. It’s as if Jaimela died when she entered the lobby and only Cerveau remains.”

“She’s not dead.” He stripped away the veil of sadness.

“What?” Lifting her head, she gazed at him, searching. “Why do you say that?”

“She came to me and she smelled different—looked different—hell, she even sounded different. She told me to take you away from here, to convince you to go. But then she went cold again, ice in her eyes and the other told me you would never leave.”

He’d spoken to Jaimela. In all their years here, she’d seen almost no evidence of her sister. Only the hard possession of the other.

If she woke now—what did that mean?

He caressed her cheek, smoothing her hair back and tucking it behind her ear. “So they consigned her to serve as a showgirl?” Bafflement creased his expression.

“It was the safest route they offered.”

“And your slave bands?”

“I wouldn’t leave her. I
won’t
.” There. She’d confessed it. The oath that bound her to the sister who couldn’t even remember the crime she’d supposedly committed. The sacrifice of her own freedom to remain at her side. The interminable journey with no light at the end.

“You’re amazing.” Anthony’s words startled her as did the fierce kiss he stroked over her lips. “Abso-freaking-lutely amazing.”

“Why? Because I failed?”

“Hardly.” His expression hardened. “You’ve maintained your oath, given up that which is vital to the existence of a being, willingly tendered your body and soul to stay at her side and I love you for it.”

His declaration decimated the fragments of the wall around her. She could almost feel the cat stretching inside of him, purring up against her skin.

“But you can’t serve this oath like this any longer.” He pressed his fingers to her lips, stifling the objection. “If you’re right and your sister has been locked beneath that other all this time and she’s rousing—who’s to say that your staying in those damnable bands is not holding her captive as well?”

Logic and reason collided with fierce emotion. Her gut choked at the idea of leaving, her heart rent in two and yet… “How could my staying affect her?”

“I don’t know.” At least he was honest. “But you’ve trapped yourself to protect her and if you won’t leave, maybe she won’t either. You don’t know if she understands
why
you’re here. And if she wants you to go…does that not release you from your oath?”

The twisted suggestion appealed to her. “What if that’s just what I want to hear? What if I just want a reason to go so I don’t feel like an oath-breaker?”

“You don’t need a reason. Those damnable bands bind you so that you can’t leave. But if you remove them, then your choices become your own again. What is the more difficult battle? The one where you follow orders or give them?”

Roseâtre rubbed her face. She knew the answer to that one. “Following orders is easy.”

“Exactly. They have to come off, Ruthie. You belong to me and I to you. No one else. We won’t give up on your sister and we have months of the show left. But if she’s waking now, then now is the time to act.”

“But I can’t stay here without them.”

“Yes, you can. We’ll find a way. I don’t care how long it takes. But the bands come off.”

The order should have rankled. But it didn’t. Instead, a new sensation bloomed in her breast. One that vaguely resembled hope.

“Will you let me remove the bands?”

Would she? Could she dare?

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“Afraid of the battle?” he challenged, his blue eyes dark and assessing.

“No.” Absolutely not.

“Then we face each battle as it comes. But you’re
mine
and I don’t share. Will you take the bands off?”

“I don’t share, either.”

“Trust me, princess. You don’t have to. Now, will you, for the love of the gods, take the damn bands off?”

“No.” Roseâtre exhaled. Determination surged through her, a fierce pride and sense of self that she’d nearly forgotten. “But I will take them off for the love of you.”

Chapter Thirteen

Anthony wasted no time when she’d conceded to taking the bands off. He scooped up the half-forgotten key from the stone table and used it to remove the shackles on her wrists and the collar from her throat. They both stared at the items as though expecting them to spark and explode, but they did neither. They disappeared in a shimmer of golden light as though they’d never been.

Good riddance.

Hours later, entangled together in the sheets, Anthony watched her slumbering face. A slender alarm beeped on his phone.

Sunrise.

He held his breath. Her lashes fluttered open, revealing new flecks of gold amongst the field of her hazel eyes.

“Boo.”

He grinned, relieved. They spent the day making love, sleeping and eating but she was never out of his arm’s reach. The three stripes on her arm remained, the scars still pink. He liked those almost as much as the single stripe she’d given him.

Heidi waited for them on the theatre stage when they arrived for rehearsal, the tigers trailing Anthony and Roseâtre like a guard of honor. Her amused expression swept over them, from Anthony’s arm around Roseâtre’s back to the lift of her chin.

Anthony tensed, ready for anything.

The stage manager laughed, clapping her hands together in solitary applause. “Well done, Mr. diNapoli. Well done. I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t have it in you.”

“You knew?” Roseâtre gaped, shocked.

“Of course, I did.” Heidi’s smug expression gentled. “And it’s about time too. We just have to decide what to do about the show.”

Anthony made a cutting gesture. “Roseâtre performs, regardless of the damn bands. We’ll honor our commitments.”

“I thought as much.” Heidi nodded, satisfied. “Well, you should get to work. The show opens soon, and we still haven’t done a complete run-through. No more stage nookie for the two of you.”

Roseâtre’s strangled laughter was music to his ears.

A few days before opening night, Anthony found a few moments to use the phone. Roseâtre swam lazily in the pool, playing with Nalini. In just two short weeks, his princess had undergone quite the transformation. She no longer looked askance at the cats, but had drawn the line at letting them pile onto the bed with them.

The ring in his ear died as someone answered the other end of the line.

“Hello?” The earthy voice was low, husky and distinctly female.

“Mother?”

“Anthony!”

Warmth shook him. In the decades since his uncle handed him his ass in battle and ordered him to submit or leave, he hadn’t had the courage to face his mother. She’d wept openly when he’d chosen to walk away.

“Yes, Mama, it’s Anthony.”

“Are you finally ready to come home?”

He wrestled with himself. He’d explained his shame to Roseâtre and instead of disappointment or disgust, she’d merely slugged him in the arm and told him to grow a pair. Leadership wasn’t about winning. It was about doing what was best for the tribe or Pride. She’d sacrificed her freedom, her sense of self to protect a tribe member that didn’t even remember her. Could he do any less?

“Yes.” The word was short, a breath. But as his gaze slid over the pool, he met Roseâtre’s—no, Ruthie’s—grin. She gave him a thumb’s up. They would return to his Pride. He would bow to his uncle. He wasn’t all that interested in the burden of leadership, but she promised to back him every step of the way if he wanted to take it back.

“All the better to watch your ass,”
she’d teased
.

“Mama, I have a mate and I want to bring her home to meet all of you.” He held his breath during the long silence greeting his statement.

Finally, his mother’s soft sigh drifted musically through the phone. “It’s about time…”

Cerveau’s reaction was nothing like he expected. It took several days of rehearsal to get all the girls comfortable. Not even the vampire, Kiki, took her role as seriously as Ruthie, but they managed. Together, they adjusted the storyline, tweaking the turning points, the dark moment and the ending.

“So you’ll stay with the show for the seventy-five shows the diNapoli tigers are scheduled to perform.” Cerveau sat next to Ruthie at the stage edge. Anthony stood on the theatre floor, watching them. The quiet agony in Ruthie’s eyes slashed at his soul. No matter how much they discussed the issue, he knew that leaving would hurt her. But if her shield-sister was as loyal as she, the princess’s absence might motivate Jaimela to come out again, to fight to be at her sister’s side.

“Maybe longer. But I don’t know for sure.” Ruthie cast a glance at him and he nodded. Unquestioningly. Even if they left the Arcana Royale they wouldn’t give up on Jaimela. So if that meant putting on a cat and pony show every night, they would do it.