The Black Rose Chronicles

by Linda Lael Miller

  Neely turned quickly away. Ever since that first time Aidan had kissed her, she’d been sizzling like so much water spilled onto a hot griddle. Some primitive sense warned that he had the power to hurt her as no other man ever could, and Neely’s emotions were fragile as it was.

  If she waited long enough, maybe he’d go away, and she wouldn’t have to take the dangerous chance of loving him.

  20

  Twilight gathered behind the mountaintops, then spilled down over the throngs of evergreen trees, shrouding them in pale apricot, and after that lavender, and finally a velvety purple. Neely and Aidan watched the spectacle from the window in the dining room of his apartment, where they sat at the round oak table, each gripping the other’s hand.

  Neely’s emotions were very close to the surface, and the glorious sunset brought tears to her eyes. She moved to rise from her chair, but Aidan held her in place by gentle force.

  “Neely,” he said quietly. “Don’t run away. It’s time we talked.”

  She wanted to look anywhere but at Aidan, but she couldn’t; his gaze seemed to hold hers fast. “About what?”

  “You know ‘about what,’” Aidan sighed with a touch of exasperation.

  Neely bit her lower lip for a moment. “You’re leaving,” she blurted out. “You’ve been in Pine Hill for six weeks, the construction job is about to end, and—”

  “Yes,” Aidan said. His dark blue eyes reflected the faint smile that touched his mouth. “I’m leaving.”

  She sniffled and straightened her shoulders. “Okay, good,” she said. “So long.” She tried again to stand, intending to bolt, but Aidan wouldn’t release her hand. She sat trembling for a few moments, refusing to look at him, but then the compulsion grew too strong. “What do you want?” she snapped.

  He said nothing, sensing somehow that there was more she needed to say, silently insisting that she come out with it.

  Neely shoved her fingers through her hair. “I know we—we haven’t made love or anything, but—well—I thought something was happening between us. There’s a lot of electricity, or so it seemed to me. Now you’re just going to leave.”

  “There’s a great deal you don’t know about me, Neely,” Aidan said sadly, staring not at her but through the window, glazed with light on the inside now, dark beyond. “And a great deal I don’t know about myself.”

  She narrowed her eyes and sniffled again, then dashed the back of her free hand—Aidan still held the other—across her wet cheek. “I know you’re an artist, that you have a house in Connecticut, that you were born in Ireland but raised in the United States—”

  He silenced her with an infinitely tender glance. “All those things are true,” he said, running his finger lightly over her knuckles. “At least, they seem true. But there are some serious gaps in my memory. You know about my adventures in England, for instance—how I woke up in the hospital, only to be told that I’d been found naked as a flounder in that old pile of stones. What the devil was I up to before that, Neely? How did I get there? Am I some kind of madman? What else have I done that I’ve conveniently forgotten?”

  Neely slipped out of her chair, still holding Aidan’s hand, and settled on his lap. From the moment she’d met him, she’d wanted him, with every breath she drew and every beat of her heart, but there had been a certain courtly, old-fashioned restraint in his manner. “I don’t know,” she assured him softly. “I’ve got a few ghosts of my own, remember—all that babble to my doctor about vampires, for one thing.” He smiled at that but didn’t interrupt, and Neely went on earnestly. “There are a lot of mysteries in this life, Aidan Tremayne, but there are also a few things I’m absolutely certain of, and here they are: You are a fine, sweet, gentle man, good to the core of your soul, and I love you.”

  Aidan touched her trembling lower lip with the tip of an index finger. “Suppose you’re wrong?” The pain of his own uncertainty was clearly audible in his voice. “Oh, Neely, what if I’m some sort of maniac?”

  She rested her forehead against his. “I’ll take my chances.” She pulled in a deep breath, let it out in a rush, and sat back to look into his eyes. “Is that why you haven’t made love to me, Aidan? Because you’re afraid you’re really a modern-day Jack the Ripper and the fact has simply slipped your mind?”

  He chuckled, but there was anguish in the sound. “No, it isn’t that—I know I could never hurt you, under any circumstances.” Aidan actually looked shy, and she would have sworn there was a blush under that spring suntan of his. “The truth is, I seem to be rather behind the times when it comes to sex. I feel as if I’ve been searching for you for a thousand years, and when we make love, it’s going to be a sacred event.”

  Neely’s tough, scarred heart softened, then melted entirely. “Well, then,” she said with sniffly briskness and a pinch of sarcasm, “it makes perfect sense that you’re planning to leave, doesn’t it?”

  Aidan gave her a brief, nibbling kiss, the kind that always drove her crazy and left her aching for hours afterward.

  “It does,” he affirmed, a few sweetly torturous moments later, “when you consider that I’m asking you to go with me, as my wife.”

  It seemed that the floor buckled a little just then, and Neely tightened her arm around Aidan’s neck, afraid she would tumble from his lap. “You want to marry me?” Aidan grinned, looking damnably Irish and outrageously handsome. “Do I ever,” he replied.

  Neely was in a state of blessed shock. All her life she’d been waiting for a man like Aidan, one who could make her heart sing, and help her to be her best self, and she’d been disappointed more than once. In short, Aidan Tremayne seemed too good to be true. “You haven’t even said you love me,” she pointed out.

  He took her chin in his hand and then kissed her, with slow, deliberate heat and a skill that incited a riot of sensation inside her, then drew back. “Haven’t I?” he whispered. “Funny, that’s what I thought I was saying when I told you I’ve been searching for you for a thousand years. I do love you, Neely. Very, very much.”

  She buried her face in his neck and held him tightly for a long time, overwhelmed with happiness, struggling to assimilate it somehow.

  At long last he stood, holding Neely close and looking down into her eyes. “Here, now,” he said gruffly. “I’d best take you home, Miss Wallace, before I break my own rule and carry you straight off to bed.”

  There was nowhere Neely would rather be that night than in Aidan Tremayne’s bed, for her senses had been humming with anticipation since the first time he’d kissed her, weeks before. “You know what they say about rules,” she ventured tentatively.

  Aidan ran the pad of his thumb over her moist lower lip. “This is one I don’t mean to break,” he said. He held her a little closer, though, and went on. “It’s a gypsy’s life I’m offering you, Neely. You’ll never want for anything, but I’ve no idea when or where we’ll settle. I want to see everything, be everywhere—to dance on mountaintops and make love to you on star-washed beaches—”

  She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “Such a romantic,” she said with a happy sigh. ‘Tell me, though—what about that big fancy house of yours, back in Connecticut?”

  He sighed again, resting his strong, work-calloused hands on her shoulders. “There’s nothing there that I want, Neely—it’s as if the place belonged in some other man’s life, not my own. I’m thinking of signing it over to one of the universities or perhaps some charitable organization.” He frowned pensively. “Would that bother you?”

  Neely shook her head. “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she said. For now, Aidan was all she needed or wanted; she would take all future days and moments one by one. “Let’s get ourselves married, Mr. Tremayne.”

  He laughed, hooked his thumbs through the loops at the back of Neely’s jeans, and hoisted her against him for one deliciously frustrating moment. “The sooner, the better,” he answered.

  Aidan found Neely’s jacket and politely escorted her outside to his car. ‘
Time you were tucked up in your own bed, fast asleep,” he said when she was settled in the passenger seat and he was behind the wheel.

  Neely blushed and kept her attention focused on the windshield, which had become a star-spangled mural. “Kindly stop reminding me that I’m going to be all by myself.”

  Aidan grinned, starting the Spitfire’s powerful engine and deftly working the gearshift. “We’ll be together soon enough,” he assured her. “Be patient.”

  Neely was anything but patient.

  That night she tossed and turned, catching only fleeting minutes of sleep. She felt like a complicated clock, wound so tightly that her inner springs were about to burst out in every direction.

  The following day Neely gave notice at the Steak-and-Saddle, and Duke jokingly told her to go ahead and clear out, because he didn’t want her underfoot for another two weeks.

  She was so grateful that she flung her arms around the older man’s neck and gave him a resounding kiss on the cheek.

  She and Aidan applied for their marriage license later that morning at the courthouse, and then they went shopping for their new home.

  Neely referred to their house on wheels as a recreational vehicle, while Aidan called it a “caravan.” It was a sleek, shiny marvel, complete with its own bathroom, a queen-size bed, and a small kitchen. There were so many options that Neely expected to spend at least a week immersed in the owner’s manual.

  Of course, it would be some week far in the future, when the novelty of being a gypsy bride had worn off.

  Aidan didn’t seem to mind trading in the sports car; he took an object from the glove box, dropped it into his jacket pocket, patted the vehicle’s gleaming hood, and walked away. He and Neely were rambling down the road in their RV when he took one hand off the wheel and extended a small box to Neely.

  “There were only two things in the Connecticut house that I wanted,” he said. “Here they are.”

  Neely’s hands trembled as she accepted an exquisite old music box, surely an antique. When she opened it, a few slow, poignant notes drifted out, then there was silence. She started to rewind the key, hungry to hear more, and that was when she saw the ring glimmering in the worn velvet lining of the lid.

  Aidan had pulled the large vehicle off to the side of the road and sat watching her with his heart in his eyes. “According to these strange memories of mine, that ring has been in the Tremayne family for almost a century.”

  It was a simple piece of jewelry, a wide gold band with a large marquis diamond set at an angle. Inside that magnificent, multifaceted stone glimmered the sunlight of a hundred summers and the sparkle of as many stars.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Neely whispered, slipping the ring onto her finger. It was only slightly too big.

  “It can’t begin to compete with you,” Aidan replied.

  That evening Neely found it even more difficult than usual to say good night to Aidan. Yes, she wanted him to make love to her, but even more than that, she longed to sleep in his arms, naked and trusting.

  Neely spent the next day cleaning her rented house and packing up the few personal belongings she’d brought with her when she left Connecticut. She found a store selling antique clothing and jewelry in the next town and bought a lovely old dress of ivory and silk, made sometime in the twenties, along with an ornate sterling silver broach, studded with marcasite.

  She hung the dress on her tiny back porch to air through the afternoon and evening, then mended a few tiny tears in the fabric while watching television. Even with everything she had to do, it seemed to Neely that time was passing with all the speed of a snail stuck in neutral.

  She was lying on the lumpy sofa in her living room, legs sticking straight up in the air and waving her feet back and forth to dry the polish on her toenails, when the jingling of the telephone made her start. She grappled for the receiver and nearly fell off the sofa in the process.

  “Hello?”

  Her brother Ben’s voice echoed warmly in her ear. “Hello, Sis. So, how does it feel to be almost married?”

  “You tell me,” Neely responded with a grin. The relationship between Ben and Doris had developed into a grand passion, and the two of them were planning a summer wedding.

  Ben laughed. “Sweetheart, if you’re as happy as I am, then you’re doing just fine.”

  Joyous tears blurred Neely’s vision. “How’s Danny? Is he glad about having Doris in the family?”

  “He’s crazy about her.” Ben was quiet for a moment. “Neely, you’re really sure this is what you want to do, aren’t you? I mean, getting married is a pretty big step.”

  Neely lifted the hem of her T-shirt to dry her cheeks. “I know it sounds strange, but I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I was born to love this man, Ben, and he was born to love me.”

  “All the same,” Ben said grudgingly, “if he mistreats you, I’ll take out his teeth. You tell him that for me.”

  Neely smiled. “Okay, big brother,” she said obediently. “I’ll tell him, but you don’t need to worry your bushy-bearded head, because Aidan Tremayne is a gentleman.” After that, Neely talked to Danny for a few minutes, and then to Doris. When the phone call was over, and everyone had congratulated everyone else, she went into her room to admire her wedding dress, which hung on the outside of her closet door.

  The moonlight lent the gown a special sort of magic, catching in the pearl buttons rimmed with tiny crystals, making the exquisite, hand-worked lace seem almost new again.

  Neely fell asleep admiring it.

  Aidan slept with the peaceful abandon only a mortal is capable of, dark hair rumpled, one arm flung up over his head.

  Valerian watched him in silence, knowing he shouldn’t linger, but not quite able to tear himself away. A thousand times the dark angel had wanted to reach out his hand and restore Aidan’s memory of all he had been before, and he wanted that now, as keenly as ever. He even went so far as to brush his fingers lightly over Aidan’s forehead, causing him to stir in his sleep, but in the end Valerian drew back.

  Rare vampire tears glittered in his eyes. We could have owned the stars, he told the sleeping one.

  Aidan rolled onto his side, still deeply asleep, and murmured a single word. And with that one word he broke Valerian’s heart.

  “Neely,” he said.

  Suddenly a burst of strangely dark light filled the room. Valerian raised his eyes and felt the most abject horror he had ever known, for Lisette stood on the opposite side of the bed, majestic and evil, plainly restored to all her former powers. Her once-scarred skin was unmarked, her auburn hair was as lush and gleaming as ever, her blue-green eyes bright with triumph, fury, and madness.

  She looked upon the sleeping Aidan for a long moment, as if to devour every line and fiber of him, and then raised her eyes to Valerian’s face again.

  Lisette laughed softly, musically, and Aidan stirred on the mattress, unaware that his soul was about to be stolen for a second time.

  “Did you think, Valerian, that I would let him go so easily as all that?” Her face became hard and horrible for a moment; no doubt, she was considering the events of recent months. “Aidan is mine—my creation, my treasure. I will not give him up.”

  At last Valerian found his voice. “You must,” he said hoarsely. “If you have any mercy in you, any decency—”

  She laughed again, but it was a silent laughter, much like the unspoken language vampires and other immortals use to communicate with each other, and Aidan did not seem to hear it.

  ‘Mercy,’ is it? ‘Decency’! Oh, but that’s amusing! What good are such fatuous concepts to me, Lisette, the Queen of all vampyres?

  Valerian closed his eyes briefly, searching his mind and his soul for a solution, finding none except to plead Aidan’s case and, if necessary, to fight Lisette to the death. He held little hope of success either way, however, for the queen was not one to listen to reason, and she had plainly regained her powers, perhaps even garnered new ones throu
gh the peculiar graces of suffering.

  Think what Aidan has been through, he reasoned, touching the forehead of the sleeping vampire-turned-mortal. Imagine what he risked, what he endured, to be a man again, to find his way in the mortal world. How can you—even you—take that from him? Great Zeus, Lisette—if you must have a plaything, take me.

  Lisette glared, plainly displeased, and folded her white arms over the even whiter, flowing fabric of her Grecian gown. You? she scoffed. Do you think me a fool, Valerian? You are as elusive as quicksilver—the moment I turned my back, you would be off dallying with some fledgling. No, I don’t want you—you’re far too troublesome as it is.

  Slowly Valerian rounded the bed, forced himself between Lisette and the still oblivious Aidan. He loomed above the older and more powerful vampire, the first female blood-drinker ever made, and called upon all the showmanship and bravado he possessed.

  Go from here, he commanded. This one you shall not have.

  Lisette was clearly undaunted. The sorceress drew herself up, and Valerian felt her powers focus on his midsection just before she sent him hurtling backward over Aidan’s bed to crash silently against the opposite wall.

  Valerian recovered quickly and moved to stand and resist her further, but she struck him again with another of her purely mental blows, and he felt himself paralyzed, not just physically but spiritually as well. He watched helplessly as Lisette stepped close to the bed again, knelt, and reverently smoothed Aidan’s dark hair.

  Valerian struggled to shout a warning to the sleeping mortal, but he could not force a sound past his throat. He had, he realized, vastly underestimated Lisette’s powers.

  I will make you love me, the vampire queen told Aidan. I will show you the stars, and we will not be parted again. No power on earth, or in heaven, shall ever separate us.

  Inwardly Valerian shrieked in protest, and his helplessness was in those moments the greatest burden he had ever been made to bear, either as a vampire or as a human man.