by Kristie Cook
Everything went black.
I felt a sudden change around me. I heard the water nearby and crunching of feet on gravel. We seemed to be going up steps, and then the light shone brightly. The air smelled like our beach house . . . or Heaven.
And I knew. This was it. I’d been wrong all along. He was dead. And now I had joined him. We were finally together again. He’d carried me up the stairway to Heaven.
But wait.
Something wasn’t right.
It wasn’t exactly his face. This one was distorted. Wouldn’t he be perfect in Heaven?
And the pain. Excruciating pain shot through my ribs and back. How come there’s so much pain in death?
Am I not dead?
But if I’m not . . .
I tried so hard to not let the pain overcome me again as I looked into the scarred face for my answer. But I fought a losing battle. I could barely breathe through the fluid in my lungs. I let my eyes close, unconsciousness tugging at me, but I wouldn’t go yet. As he carried me, he bent his head down to mine, his lips in my hair.
“Ah, Lexi,” he murmured. “Ma lykita.”
My eyes flew open, and I gasped loudly, painfully. No! Oh, no, no, no! I tried to fight the blackness. I have to know!
My mind screamed, but I couldn’t manage anything more than a weak whisper. “Tristan?”
“Shh. It’s okay. I’ve got you now, my love.”
Blackness overcame me. The last thing I remembered was the smell of a summer’s day—mangos and papayas, lime and sage, and a hint of man.
Chapter 8
I ran through a golden meadow, the grass as high as my waist, the sun bright and warm on my skin. I didn’t know this place, and I didn’t care. Snowcapped mountains surrounded me, and a lake spread out before me. My body felt light as joy filled every cell. I burst through the meadow’s edge, and my feet sunk into soft sand. And I couldn’t stop laughing. As the image faded, one word floated lazily in my head like a feather drifting on the air: “Happy.”
When the image disappeared completely and consciousness returned, I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes. The soft and plump pillows cradled my head. The sheets felt smooth and satiny against my skin. I felt so comfortable and relaxed, I was sure my body, feeling nearly numb and weightless, still slept. Or, perhaps, it just no longer existed.
I sensed bright light on the other side of my eyelids. I heard waves in the distance. I also heard someone breathing close . . . very close. A familiar, tangy-sweet scent filled my head and coated the back of my throat. Mmm . . . I smiled in my mind. Am I still dreaming, or am I in Heaven?
I sensed someone watching me. Mom? Owen? Angels? I shifted slightly, wishing the feeling would go away. Son of a witch! Ouch! So lying still felt very good, but moving did not. And the pain confirmed I was, indeed, awake. And alive.
Then the events of last night flooded into my consciousness. The scene played out against the backs of my eyelids. Walking up to the Daemoni, handing myself over to them. The beautiful, blonde vampire. Crashing through the glass table. The bite . . . My hand flew to my neck.
“Am I a vampire?” I asked aloud, my voice husky so it sounded more like a croak. If I’d been turned, I wanted to be prepared. The world would be a different place for me.
A familiar chuckle nearby. Oh, how I love that sound. “No. Definitely not.”
Ah. That silky, smooth, lovely voice, like honey mixed with butter. And I remembered the rest . . . including what he called me. My eyes sprang open.
And there he lay. Looking like an angel. Perhaps he was.
Right in front of me, on the pillow next to mine, rested the face I’d been dreaming about. The one I’d nearly forgotten and held on to so tightly so I never would. Even more sublime than I ever allowed myself to remember. But . . . not exactly the same. Ugly scars marred the perfection. Yet still breathtaking. The most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
He couldn’t possibly be real.
I squeezed my eyes shut, mentally cussing out Swirly for pulling this ultimate head job on me. Just when I thought I’d finally pulled myself away from the edge of the abyss, that I was safe from falling in, I had apparently plunged all the way to the bottom. And Swirly ruled this place, creating impossible aberrations that hit all of my senses. But why? Had my mind created a safe place because what truly existed was too horrible for me to handle—being held captive by the Daemoni? Or had they brainwashed me? Or was I right about Swirly playing her most cruel game ever?
I shook my head, denying it all. I have to face this. Whatever it is, I chose it. This is what I wanted. I inhaled deeply and slowly, ignoring the protest from my ribs, and slowly peeked out of one eye. Nothing had changed. Still in my bed in the Caribbean room. Still the beautiful face watching me. Those hazel eyes—green on the outside, gold flecks around the pupils—staring into mine with the deepest love. He lifted an eyebrow. My own eyes widened. Could it possibly be . . . ?
My heart skipped an unnatural rhythm as I swallowed the lump in my throat. I lifted my shaking hand, hesitated with the thought that this would kill me if I was wrong, and then finally reached for his face. I barely touched his cheek with my fingertips, and electricity sparked. My heart jumped. Tears sprang to my eyes, and my whole body started trembling.
“Tristan?”
I barely caught his wide grin as he pulled me into his strong arms, pressing me against his hard body. My own body ached but I didn’t care. It felt unreal to be close to him again. To smell his scent, to feel his strength and warmth, to be in his arms when I thought I never would be again.
“Tristan, my sweet Tristan?” I cried, wanting to believe but still afraid to. Afraid demonic magic made me believe in this moment so they could rip him away again, a part of their torture for me. Or, worse, afraid I would wake up, completely alone, nothing changed, just another foggy morning.
“Yes, my love, I’m here now.” His lips found mine in a deep, loving kiss, and they were so full and so soft. So gentle and lovely. So real. He wiped the tears from my face, but they kept coming. “I’m here, ma lykita.”
Those words played like the world’s most beautiful song to my ears. And I dared to allow myself to believe. I cried as I tried to kiss him all over while holding on to him as tightly as I could. He returned every one of my kisses, covering every inch of my face. The pieces of my heart fused back together with every kiss, and it swelled so large, I felt sure my chest couldn’t contain it anymore. The emotions overwhelmed me, and I sobbed in his arms as he held me.
“I can’t believe . . . it’s really you . . . I’m not hallucinating . . . I’m not dead?” I sputtered between tears and kisses.
“We’re together, my love. It’s real.”
A million questions raced through my mind, but I didn’t want to talk or think yet. I just wanted to hold him closely and savor the feeling of finally being together. I actually held him in my arms once again. I couldn’t let go of him, still afraid if I did, he would disappear.
I finally pulled back just enough to look into his face.
“It’s really you?”
He nodded. His beautiful, full lips pulled into a stunning grin. Oh, that exquisite smile I would have died to see again. His eyes held mine for several minutes, the gold sparkling brightly, the green like bright, shiny emeralds. Love and happiness swam in their depths. Has he always been this damn gorgeous? I felt sure he had been. I remembered how he took my breath away, but he seemed so unreal now. He looked like an angel . . . except for those scars.
My brows pushed together as I studied the scars, sadness overwhelming me. I traced each one with my fingertips—one curved down from his right temple to below his eye, another stretched across his left cheek, and a third cut across his chin. There were several smaller ones, too. Tears filled my eyes.
“What happened to you?” I whispered. “Where have you been? I’ve been so . . . so . . .”
I couldn’t say the words. So what? So depressed. So lost. So alone. So insane.
His face darkened a shade. He put his finger to my lips.
“Shh . . . not now.” He closed his eyes and tightened his arms around me. “I just want to hold you now that I can. Feel your heart beat against me. Know you’re here and you’re okay. It feels so . . . incredible.”
“It feels like Heaven,” I said, laying my head against his chest.
“This has been my vision of Heaven for a long time.”
We lay in silence, staring at each other. I couldn’t keep my hands away from him—over his face, across his chest, along his hair to the ponytail behind his head—needing to physically touch him.
This moment really felt like Heaven on Earth. The depression, the anger, the insanity already felt like a distant memory now that I lay in his arms again. I hadn’t even realized how small and cold my heart had been until now. It swelled with love and warmed with happiness with every beat we lay there. He was my warmth and my light, chasing away Psycho and Foggy and possibly even Swirly.
“How do you feel?” he finally asked.
“Mmm, I don’t know. Tremendously happy doesn’t do it justice. I can’t even think of the right words. It’s too . . . big.” I paused. “No, I’ve got it. Whole. That’s what I feel. Finally whole.”
He chuckled and kissed my forehead. “I completely understand. But I meant, how do you feel physically?”
“Oh.” I did a quick physical assessment. “Sore, if I move. And thirsty. But still whole.”
He reached over me for a glass of water on the nightstand. I consumed every last drop of the refreshing liquid, the cool wetness feeling like a salve on my raw throat.
“I don’t feel too bad, considering. I think I had some broken ribs.”
“And probably a punctured lung. But you’re healing unusually fast.”
He looked at me with a strange expression. He narrowed his eyes as he searched my face.
“What?” I asked, squirming with self-consciousness. He’d probably been watching me sleep for some time, but until now, it had been so long to have his eyes on me at all. Even at my best, I would have felt awkward, and I certainly wasn’t at my best.
“Just thinking . . .” He seemed to change thought processes as his expression returned to nothing but adoration. “. . . how beautiful you are and how much I love you.”
He kissed me on the lips, the electricity charging between us. I returned the kiss with a deep hunger, not able to get enough of him.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I breathed. “I just can’t believe it.”
I pulled myself into him, pressing as tightly as I could, kissing the scars on his cheeks and his chin and down his neck, burying my face in the crook between his neck and shoulder and inhaling deeply.
He stiffened, and a low, quiet growl escaped from his throat. I looked up into his face. Flames burned in his eyes. I pulled back slowly, not wanting to do anything rash, not knowing what this meant. At one time, such a sound meant danger—that the monster within him fought for control, fighting to kill me. Our union supposedly squashed the monster, but . . . My heartbeat picked up pace. I thought he was my Tristan . . . but he’d also become somewhat of a stranger to me now.
“Tristan . . . ?” I whispered hesitantly.
He blinked and focused on me, the fire controlled, and then closed his eyes and leaned back. He let out a heavy sigh.
“I’m so sorry,” he finally whispered. “I don’t know what they’ve done to me.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” I told him as much as myself. “We’ve been through this before. We can do it again.”
“I had nearly twenty years to prepare myself to be around you last time.”
“But you are still Amadis. And you know you have our love. You have my trust. That’s what it takes. We can do this.”
He cupped my face in his hand and looked at me with desperation in his eyes. “God, I love you, Alexis. You have no idea. I held on to you like a life rope. Only you—my love for you—could pull me through.”
My own sufferings suddenly felt insignificant. The excruciating pain I’d felt couldn’t possibly equate to all he’d gone through. I knew this even without knowing the story. I heard this truth in his voice. I saw it in the scars. My heart squeezed with love and guilt and compassion and grief. He’d endured so much—for us.
“I held on to the other end of the rope, pulling from here,” I whispered.
He stroked my cheek and brushed my hair back. “They told me so many different lies . . . you found someone else, they’d killed you, you’d killed yourself. But I just had to hang on anyway, and if any of it were true, I would die at my own hand, not theirs.”
“Tristan . . . don’t ever say . . .” I shook my head. I told myself such talk didn’t matter because none of what they’d told him was true. “I never gave up on you. I never have and never will stop loving you. I am yours. You and me together forever. Nothing can change that.”
“You don’t know how good it is to hear that.”
He kissed me on the mouth again, and our lips moved together with a desperate longing built over seven-and-a-half years. His tangy-sweetness filled my mouth, and I didn’t think I could ever get enough of the delicious taste. My body wanted to melt into his, and I needed to feel his skin next to mine. I tugged his shirt off and pressed tightly against him, kissing his shoulder and neck. I felt the scars on his back, rigid under my fingertips. My heart contracted again. He pulled away and rolled onto his back, sighing heavily.
I turned onto my stomach so I could see his face, being careful, but the condition of my ribs had already improved. His eyes were closed, and he breathed deeply for control. I studied his face, every inch, from the perfectly angled eyebrows and the long, dark lashes lying against his high cheekbones to the straight nose, full lips, and square chin. Even with the scars, no creature on Earth was as beautiful as him.
And then I saw the mangled Amadis mark.
I couldn’t suppress the gasp. “What did they do to you?”
Thick, nasty scars covered the whole left side of his chest, curving and twisting, as if snakes bored and tangled under his skin. I gingerly slid my fingertips along the gnarled ridges. Something about them made my stomach clench with the sick feeling of hatred and malevolence. He clasped his hand down on mine and held my palm against his chest.
“What did they not do?” he muttered, staring at the ceiling. “First, they tried torture, trying to force me to change my loyalty back to them. Physical torture, emotional, mental . . . they did all kinds of unimaginable things. But I refused. Nothing—no amount of pain or misery—could pull me away from you. Then they tried to bribe me with power and control over everything, over the world. When I still rejected them, they tried to kill me, using every technique possible. But they couldn’t do it. I refused to die at their hands. They finally decided cutting my heart out would be the only way to kill me.”
My breath caught as my own heart nearly broke again, and my stomach rolled with nausea. He continued staring at the ceiling, his hand still clamped on mine, over his heart, and the electric current flowed between us. I felt so helpless, wanting to do something for him.
“They couldn’t take my heart, though,” he continued. “Regardless of what kind of instrument or weapon covered with a variety of poisons and spells they tried to use, the skin immediately healed up. Their dark magic left scars, but they couldn’t get any deeper than the skin.” He finally looked at me, his eyes glassy and filled with a mixture of pain, appreciation, and love. “See . . . you already had my heart.”
My free hand flew to my mouth as I stared at him wide-eyed, more tears brimming.
He closed his eyes again and pressed my hand harder against his chest. “I can feel your power. It feels good.”
I collapsed against him and wept into his chest. How could I have been so angry and selfish?
“I’m so sorry,” I cried.
“Sorry? You saved me, Alexis. You protected me.” He tried to pull me closer but I resisted, shifting s
o I could look him in the eye.
“I behaved horribly. Really, really horribly,” I admitted. “I felt such anger toward you for leaving me, never really thinking about what you may have been going through. I only knew my own pain, and it was nothing . . . nothing compared to . . . to yours.”
I choked on the thought of what he’d endured and buried my face back into his chest, wishing I could crawl into some dark hole and never have to show my face again. Or to be pummeled with stones or tarred and feathered or lashed with a vine whip. I deserved to be tortured by all means possible, and still everything combined wouldn’t compare to what he’d gone through.
“I honestly hope it wasn’t ‘nothing.’ I hoped you missed me at least half as much as I missed you. I hung on to that hope.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner. I know seven years is a long time for you. You had every right to hurt and feel angry.”
“I did miss you so much. And it was such a long time. I even thought I started to forget your face, my memory fading, and with everything else going on, I thought I was losing my mind. I tried so hard to hang on to you, I started hallucinating that I saw you and heard you.”
He shifted under me. “Mmm. You mean recently?”
I paused. “Yeah. Why?”
“You weren’t hallucinating, my love.”
I inhaled sharply as my head snapped up. My eyes narrowed. “That was you? In the backyard, at the park, in Key West?”
He nodded. I didn’t know whether to be grateful that I hadn’t been quite as crazy as I’d thought or angry that he’d been back for over a week, letting the darkness get the best of me. If I hadn’t been so happy to be in his arms again, anger would have definitely won.
“Why would you do that to me?” I breathed, pushing away from him. “How could you be here for so long and not come to me? Why would you let me go through all that?”
“Please don’t be angry.” He pulled me back into his arms, and I let him, wanting to release the bitterness and animosity for good. “Trust me, it wasn’t easy. I wanted to go straight to you and finally hold you in my arms. But I had to test myself all over again. I’m still not sure what their magic may have done to my subconscious, and seven years doesn’t feel as long to me, so I could wait a few more days. Ensuring I had control was worth the delay. Unbearable but necessary.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have let you see me, but sometimes I just couldn’t bring myself to flash. I wanted you to run to me, into my arms. And then you gave me a real scare the other morning in Key West. They watched too closely, or I would have just taken you then.”