He walked away, leaving me just standing there in the hallway like a useless clump of mashed potatoes. He can’t do this, he can’t, I thought.
But he did. And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I didn’t know how much time passed, but when King grabbed my hand and began tugging me toward the elevators, I immediately saw the blue light seeping from his body into the air around him.
That can’t be good.
“You okay?” I asked as we rode down in the elevator.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He lifted his chin a little.
“Because if you just did what I think you did, your dick is in the process of shriveling up.” I’d meant that as a joke, but given my lack of experience in that department, I immediately regretted my choice. Clearly, the man was upset.
Then it dawned on me: my gift. I reached out and placed my hand on his, attempting to duplicate the healing process from earlier. Nothing happened.
“It’s not working,” I said, pulling away and inspecting my hands.
“Some pain cannot be erased,” he said regretfully. “Nor should they be.”
Meaning, he wanted to suffer? Meaning he actually did it? “Oh, God. Please don’t tell me…No. No. Not with her.”
He looked straight ahead at the doors. “I did what I had to.”
“You didn’t…” His wife would be devastated. I mean, if Mack screwed Talia after marrying me and my having his child, there would be no excuse on earth that could wash away my pain or prevent me from removing his dangly parts with my fingernails. That wasn’t to say that I wouldn’t understand the why. But could I live with it or forgive it? No. Not when I loved him so deeply and passionately. There could be no sharing for any reason when you’ve given your heart so completely to another.
“Thank you, Theodora,” King said sarcastically, replying to my thoughts.
“Sorry. But there’s right and then there’s real. Real is never wanting to share the person you’re in love with. I mean, could you forgive Mia if she slept with Mack to save your life?”
He swiveled his head in my direction and snarled.
“Exactly,” I said. “But…” I shook my head. “Did you really…do…that?” I still couldn’t believe it.
“I do not wish to discuss this.”
The doors slid open, and we stepped out of the elevator to make our way to the awaiting limo outside. After we got in, King murmured, “You will have to make Mia understand, Theodora. Make her understand how much I love her. She will listen to you. Seers have a special bond.” The heart-wrenching sorrow in his tone was almost too much to bear.
Crap. I think I’m going to cry.
I scrubbed my face with my hands. “I’m not a magician. I can’t just make her feel happy—or—I don’t know.” I sighed. “Maybe I can.” This was all still so new to me. “But…Okay, don’t get pissy on me for saying this, King, but you’re King. People fear you. You squash anything that gets in your way. Why didn’t you fight?”
“Who says I didn’t?” He cleared his throat and straightened his tie.
“Meaning?”
“Talia has upped her game. I was unprepared.” King’s aura instantly turned to a dark blue. This mood-ring feature was very strange.
I frowned at him, wondering what the ever-living hell that meant. Then it dawned on me; the little tidbits I’d heard and seen. These 10 Club people were ruthless.
I gasped and covered my mouth. “She has something on you, doesn’t she?”
“Not on. Over,” he corrected solemnly.
I heard the wheels in my head go click!-click!-click! Talia had leverage on him. And the only thing King loved more than Mack was likely his wife and baby son.
Reading my thoughts, King said, “And you would be correct in your assumption.”
Fucking bitch. I didn’t know the details, but what did that matter? Talia had backed King into a corner so dark and tight that he’d had no choice.
King’s head whipped in my direction. “Don’t. You. Say. A fucking word, Seer. Or so help me I will disembowel you. Are we clear?”
I nodded stiffly. “I’ll do my best to make Mia understand.” I slid my hand over his and gave it a squeeze. I think that was the moment that I realized that hate and revenge were like unwelcome viruses in my soul. I was built to forgive and heal. And now, more than ever, I wanted to make King’s pain dissolve but couldn’t. And it was a strange, strange thing wanting to help this man. He’d been my nemesis for an eternity. Now I felt protective of him like a big sister. “I’ll do everything I can to make things right. I promise.”
~~~
Six hours later, around nine in the morning, King and I were back at his San Francisco palace, making preparations to resurrect Mack. And once again, I had to keep my head from exploding. It had been a week—yes, only one week—since I’d first laid eyes on Mack. My entire life changed in that moment. I changed in that moment. And I guessed that was only the tip of the iceberg. Because, yes, I had regained the part of myself that felt connected to this world, but I still couldn’t remember my past. I suspected that once I fixed that, it would open up yet another whole new world for me—how to control my gift, the feelings that I had for those I loved in my past lives, the lessons I’d learned along the way.
But for now, I had to take stock of the vast metamorphosis I’d undergone in just seven little days. No light, no love, no passion in my life to now…Performing resurrection rituals to bring back the love of my existence. I almost laughed. Almost. Nope, not one bit of logic or the old Teddi in this room.
According to an ancient text King’d procured “many dark lifetimes ago” he’d said, there were specific steps that had to be followed to open the fissure between worlds and beckon a soul to return. Once the soul arrived, somehow a body…appeared. Or something. That was where his plan became a bit—okay, really, really vague.
“Sooo…” I said, pacing back and forth in King’s living room, the same living room that had been filled with 10 Club members yesterday evening and had been cleaned spotless. Probably by one of King’s people possessions. “You are going to bring Mack back and put him into his old body?”
“Maybe,” he said, completely absorbed in is preparation of the five-foot-wide, witchy-looking circle he’d drawn with blood in the center of his hardwood floor—an outrageous cliché. He’d finally removed his bow tie and had rolled up his sleeves to avoid getting messy, but there were smatters of blood and some ashy stuff smudged on his face and shirt.
“I’m going to take that to mean you’re not sure,” I said.
Kneeling, he adjusted the small silver chalice so that these little arrow-like symbols on the sides lined up with markers on the circle. “Maybe.”
I lifted both brows. “Really? You’re going to wing it?”
His head of dark shiny hair whipped up, and his cobalt eyes burrowed into me. “Have a better idea, Dr. Valentine?”
I mashed my lips together. “Nope.”
“Then please be quiet. I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Fine. Okay.” I blew out a long breath, hoping this would work. After all that we’d been through, this would be the end of a very, very long journey for Mack, myself, and for King. No more curses. No more killing. Just living and being happy. I only hoped I could help Mia overcome King’s very disturbing infidelity. Basically, he’d been…ugh…forced to choose between not only Mack, but Mia and his child too.
Dear God, what does Talia have hanging over this man?
Whatever it was, getting Mia’s heart to heal wouldn’t be easy. She’ll be hurt regardless.
“Not helping, Theodora.” King twisted the small silver cup a little to the right.
“Sorry.” But you really should stay out of my head.
“Not likely—I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s almost involuntary.” He got to his feet and stared down at his handiwork. “The wait is over. If I’ve done this correctly, Mack will app
ear as soon as we place an article of his inside the chalice.” King took a silver necklace with an Egyptian ankh from his pocket and placed it inside the cup. That had to be the necklace Mack told me about. I guessed King had tracked it down—probably not too difficult for a man like him if he truly was as good at finding things as Mia had said.
“I am better than good,” King said, correcting my thoughts. “And now for the blood of an innocent baby.”
I gasped. “What?”
“Relax.” He frowned. “I called in a favor and procured some from a stillborn.”
My mouth turned down at its corners. “What is wrong with you people?”
“Do you prefer we take the blood from a living, healthy infant?”
Wincing, I said, “No. But…”
“But nothing. The infant’s life will serve a greater purpose, and no harm came to him on our account.”
Trying not to be sick, I flicked my wrists through the air. “Just…hurry—get it over with.” Not like he needed my permission, but I wasn’t going anywhere and I was beyond anxious.
He walked over to the bar in the corner and ducked behind it, reemerging with a small bag of blood. He then returned to the circle and knelt beside it, his finely featured face turning into an oasis of serenity. Eyes closed, he began chanting in an ancient language that reminded me of Hebrew with lots of deep-throated phlegm-like sounds. He then opened his eyes and squeezed the syrupy contents into the silver chalice. Surprisingly, the chalice wasn’t this huge goblet-like thing I’d imagined it to be. In fact, it reminded me of those small glasses used for sherry only this one was made of metal.
The room immediately began to glow and then the walls around us started pulsing and throbbing as if we were inside some sort of heart.
But as I watched the chalice, I noticed its form dissolving. “What’s happening?”
King stopped his voodoo chatter and stared down at the thing with outrage. “Fucking Mack!”
“What? What!”
“It’s a fake,” he groaned.
No. No. Noooo… I covered my face. Mack, what in the world did you do with it?
~~~
King and I sat in his sleek, stainless-steel-everything chef’s kitchen, sulking at the black granite breakfast bar, sipping copious amounts of scotch. Yes, for breakfast. After all, it was eleven in the morning and we needed some sort of fuel for our long day of misery ahead.
“You gonna answer that?” I slurred.
King’s cell phone kept ringing. It had to be Mia. Poor guy. I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to have that conversation, but eventually, he would have to face her along with the fact that he’d been forced to fuck a woman he loathed for a forged chalice. It was a sad, sad moment for this man, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“Please don’t remind me,” he grumbled in reply to my thoughts.
Sorry. “So do you think Talia switched the chalice?” I asked.
“No. She would not knowingly give me a fake.” Still in his dirty tux, he poured another tall glass of scotch into his glass tumbler, his head sagging a bit.
I sipped on my second glass and bobbed my head. “Well, Miranda said that Mack gave her a phony chalice, too.” She’d chucked it at his head. “That means Mack made two fakes and the real one is out there.”
“Aren’t you the sharp one,” he grumbled.
Oh, shut up. I took a swig of scotch.
“Of course,” King continued, thinking aloud, half mumbling, “something so rare and powerful would have to be kept in a safe place.”
“Maybe he didn’t trade it at all,” I said, the thought slamming into my skull like a falling brick. It was simply a hunch. But considering Mack’s story about the first time we met, I knew how determined he’d been to make his way back to Minoa with that rock. He loved his brother, and Mia I assumed, and would’ve wanted them to have the real chalice after he’d gotten what he wanted and double-crossed a few very powerful and scary people. The question was, where had Mack hidden it?
That is, if I’m right.
I looked at King. “Now that I’m thinking about it, he kept saying something about being warm or buried somewhere warm. Does that mean anything?”
King’s beautiful face contorted into a very unpleasant-looking and nasty snarl. “I am going to kill you, Theodora. But this time it will be for pure and simple pleasure.”
I instinctively leaned away in my chair. Not that it would do any good. At best, I’d make it to the other side of the kitchen if King wanted me dead. Anyway, I took his reaction to mean that Mack had given me some sort of code. Still…
“Screw you, King. The man I love was bleeding out in my arms, gasping for air. It kind of overshadowed the freaking moment. So where is the chalice, then?”
“My brother was likely trying to say that he was ‘keeping it warm’—a phrase we used as children when we took something from each other without asking. I would catch him red-handed, playing with my hunting blade, and he would simply say he was merely ‘keeping it warm for me.’ I would take his bows, and when he caught me, I’d say the same thing.”
I swallowed hard, fully understanding what this meant. Mack had had it on him somewhere, which given the leather jacket he’d worn was entirely possible. The cup wasn’t all that big and he could’ve easily had it tucked inside a pocket. I never would’ve noticed since I’d only seen him wear the jacket when he’d been in my backseat. After that, he’d taken it off, but I had no clue where that jacket went.
“Did you happen to see his leather jacket at the cabin?” I asked.
King rubbed his forehead and groaned. “I laid it over him when we buried him. That was his favorite jacket.”
“And you buried him…?”
“In that ancient burial ground. It was the only place that had ever given him peace without having to kill.”
Crap. It was one thing to have to watch Mack die, but it would be an entirely different breed of horror returning to the scene of the crime and watching King dig him up.
Seriously. I need to track down whoever erased my memories. I was beginning to wonder if they’d only been doing me a favor.
~~~
Unwilling to once again brave the “deplorable conditions” of commercial airlines—King’s words—or risk his necessary “supplies” for the ritual being touched by anyone, we made the nine-hour drive back to that cabin in the desert. For the first hour of the trip, I had to listen to King curse the gods of ancient Greece because his helicopter was somewhere on the East Coast. Then the next four hours, the car—a black Mercedes sedan with tinted windows—was filled with a dreadful silence, interrupted by his phone ringing every five minutes.
“If you’re not going to answer it, why don’t you shut it off?” I finally asked around five in the afternoon, on my last leg of any civilized emotions.
His blue eyes, with eagle-like intensity, remained focused on the road. “I am waiting for a very important call.”
“I see.” I glanced his way and noticed how he had a blue light all around him.
“What do all of the colors mean?” I asked.
He looked at me for a brief moment and then brought his eyes back to the road. “Every Seer is different, I’m told, but red is anger, hate, rage, and pain. Black is death. Green is life.”
“What about blue?”
“Sorrow and regret.”
“That’s what I thought.”
His phone rang again and the name “Mia” popped up on the screen of the center console.
“Avoiding her is only making it worse,” I said. “She’s probably worried.”
“I am aware of this,” he replied coldly.
“Just answer it. Tell her what happened. I’m sure that the not knowing is torturing her.”
King sneered. “This, coming from you, is rich.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you wondered why you cannot remember your past?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Becau
se you couldn’t take it anymore—this truth you speak so fondly of. It was too much for you.”
He had to be messing with me, but that look on his face said otherwise. “So what did I do?”
“Fifty years ago, I tracked you down in London. Your Seer gift was just beginning to awaken, as were your memories. This is how I always knew you were coming—your thoughts become quite loud. And because you’re connected to Mack, and I to him, it’s not hard for someone of my particular skill set and background to find you.”
I bobbed my head and looked out the window at the winter sun dipping below the horizon without fanfare or glitz. Quiet. Melancholy. Just like me. I didn’t like where this story was going.
He continued, “But this time, before I took your head, you didn’t fight, you didn’t cry. You simply begged me to give you a moment. You said you couldn’t bear it anymore.”
“Bear what?” I asked with a dreaded sigh.
“I wasn’t sure what you did at the time—but now I know that your gift is healing. You healed yourself the only way you could: by making yourself forget everything. Mack, me, your past.”
I was completely stunned—yet, I kind of wasn’t. Probably because somewhere in the back of my mind, I already knew what he’d just told me.
“But I didn’t forget—not really,” I said.
He shrugged. “It is like I told you; some emotions are meant to be felt. We cannot truly erase them.”
I finally understood. I’d tried to block it all out, but it hadn’t worked. I was a Seer. Ancient. Powerful. Connected to everything. And asking myself to forget Mack was like asking myself to forget my own soul or who I was. At the end of the day, I could never change or destroy what was inside my heart. It was part of me. So seeing Mack, gazing into his eyes, had restored the piece of me connected to him. It could never be erased. It had only been buried below the surface, just waiting for the right catalyst. My memories—those moments in time that were stored in my brain—well, those were gone.
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