by Nichole Van
For the record, they were very nice nostrils—well-proportioned and carefully manscaped.
“Are you sure? Why are you dying? What happened? Why do you think I can help?” His words came at me in a rush.
Mmmm. “Yes. It’s a long story. Ditto. And I’m not sure, but that’s why I’m here.” I answered his questions.
It took him a second to put it together.
A long pause.
Would he help me?
I felt his eyes roaming my face from behind his sunglasses. The searing awareness of his gaze, the radiating heat of his body so close to mine . . .
I was torn between losing myself in the lava that was my attraction to him or throwing myself into a glacial lake to cool off.
He licked his very fine lips.
Which did NOT help my temperature control issues.
They’re called Hot People for a reason, folks.
He nodded, slowly. “I will help, but I’d like you to answer some questions for me. Deal?”
I blinked.
Man, he was good at keeping me on my toes. Again, did not see that coming.
My mind raced.
If he had recognized me, if he knew who my parents were . . . he could do a lot of damage with a couple well-placed queries.
Did he hope to use me? It wouldn’t be the first time a man had pretended interest in me to get information or garner favor.
Of course, I was the gatekeeper. It wasn’t like Tennyson could use my connections without my active participation. I still controlled his access.
And as I was literally dying, it’s not like I had any other choice.
“I am not opposed to answering any questions you have as they pertain to myself.” I laid my words carefully.
Silence.
“But . . . ?” he prompted.
“But I will only talk about me. No one else.”
His brow puckered, like my request was absurd. “I only have questions for you.” Again with the soft voice. “I won’t ask you for others’ secrets.”
Okay. Correct answer. Now what?
“What questions could you possibly have for me though? I’m not the alleged prophet here,” I said.
“There are things I’d like to know,” was his maddeningly vague answer. His face had gone bank vault on me again.
“Like what? I’m an open book.” I ticked on my fingers. “Virgo. Pumpernickel. Giraffe. Fruitcake.”
He lifted a snooty Hot Person eyebrow. “Gemini. Sourdough. Panda. Carrot cake.”
That startled a laugh out of me. “What?”
“Zodiac sign, Gemini. Favorite bread, sourdough. Unlikely animal I’d like as a pet, panda. And least liked cake, carrot cake.”
To say I was impressed would be a massive understatement.
“How did you know that fruitcake isn’t my favorite?” I countered.
“No one likes fruitcake. It’s the culinary equivalent of a dare.”
Point taken.
Damn. How could a tall, hot guy actually have a personality, too? That didn’t seem fair, karmically speaking.
“So is mind-reading one of your prophetic skills, too?” I asked.
“No. I simply speak fluent Random.”
Gah.
Right in the feels with that one.
I didn’t want my brain to like-like him, too.
But . . . it was sorta really hard not to like someone who openly admitted to speaking fluent Random. It was a rare linguistic skill.
But what else could he want from me. I mean, I had already confessed to my undying love of all things pumpernickel. Seriously. It was the divine god of breads and got bonus points for being fun to say . . . pumpernickel.
“Well, that’s settled then.” Like before, he tossed a thumb over his shoulder. “Let’s head back to my place and have a heart-to-heart chat.”
“Oh, we don’t need to do that. I don’t want to bother you more than I have to. You’re already being kind to talk to me. We can just get a table in the cafe over there.” I waved toward a collection of mostly empty chairs and tables in front of a restaurant.
He didn’t even glance at the cafe. “I would like some privacy.”
I looked at the vacant chairs. “That seems plenty private for—”
“I’m sorry, Olivia. It has to be my place.” He crossed his arms, the bag swinging from his hand.
Whoa? What?!
“Why do you care where we talk?” That red alarm bell went off again, only over my head this time. “You planning on hurting me sooner rather than later? I might be dying but that doesn’t mean I was interested in doing it today.”
“What?!” His head reared back.
“I’m just saying, what’s wrong with the cafe over there? Ya know, the one with all the people and the inconvenient ways to hide the ravaged body of the girl you picked up in the piazza?”
“What the hell!” His jaw may have sagged a bit. “You took that to a dark place disturbingly fast.”
Yeah . . . I probably should have filtered that better. You spend your life mired in a supernatural nightmare, you end up a little dark. It happens.
I also maybe had a tiny obsession with Wednesday Addams of The Addams Family.
Don’t judge.
“Olivia, I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice dripped sincerity and concern. “Not now, not ever. I misspoke earlier. I just want to talk in a comfortable, private place. It’s . . . it’s—” He swallowed. Released a deep breath of air. “—it’s difficult for me here. I need to be away from so many people. Staying in town longer than necessary is . . . tough.” He waved a hand in a large circle.
Interesting. Both the information and the fact that I believed him. “Okay,” I said.
“Are you really dying?” he asked again, that same genuine honesty in his voice.
“I am.”
He winced at my unvarnished words.
“But I can help you?” he replied. “If I help, you may not die?”
“That depends. Are you really a prophet?”
A sad smile touched his lips. “I prefer the term oracle, but prophet works, too. And I’m here to help you. You can trust me.”
Wow. My heart triple-skipped. Maybe there was hope after all. After so many years of searching, it was hard to believe I had hit pay dirt.
I told my rampant expectations to stop throwing a premature party, but that’s pretty much all rampant expectations do—stupid, little party animals.
My hands continued to shake.
“C’mon,” he waved his bag, indicating I should go ahead of him. “I’ll drive you.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”
“You can drive me, then.” He laughed and walked past me, heading for the steep road down to the parking lot. “I’ll give you my leg.”
I chuckled despite myself, jogging to catch up. “Your leg? How will that help?”
“Lot harder to chase you down if I only have one leg. Besides, it’s titanium.” He rapped a knuckle against the metal. “You can clock me out cold with it if I get out of line.”
EIGHT
Olivia
In the end, I followed Tennyson to Villa Maledetti, him in his Jeep, me in my rental car.
I should have been concerned. I was following an essentially unknown man to his home. That was stranger-danger territory. My logical brain told me this.
But . . . try as I might, I couldn’t seem to feel even a jot of worry. My emotions were more relief, anticipation and giddy excitement than concern.
Why was this? Was it Tennyson D’Angelo’s stunning good looks working me over? Would Tennyson use his charm and good looks to work me over?
Mmmmm. The idea was appallingly appealing—
I stopped right there.
Huh.
I hadn’t expected the situation to go full Stockholm Syndrome quite so fast.
That said, my initial plan had been to simply show up on his doorstep. How was this any different really? At least now I had been a
ble to take his measure before ending up alone with him.
Tennyson felt safe. There was a goodness that seeped out of him. I most certainly didn’t get any sort of creepy vibe. Hot vibes, sure, but not creepy. He had purchased baby clothes, for heaven’s sake.
And sidenote: Why baby clothes? Tennyson hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring and nothing online indicated he was married. So was he just a baby daddy then? Or were the clothes a gift for someone else? Or did he have a baby clothes thing where he dressed up stuffed animals in them or something?
Not that I would be judgy about that . . . too much.
Tennyson had said he was worried about hurting me. I was ninety-seven percent sure he didn’t mean that literally in the physical sense. So that only left the figurative sense of hurting, which was either super vain or super insightful on his part.
Probably both.
He couldn’t be clueless as to his hotness. Maybe he was simply warning me to not fall in deep lust—oops, I meant like—with him. That any emotions I might develop would be unrequited.
Which . . . okay.
I owned a mirror. I knew I wasn’t up to Hot Person standards.
Duly warned.
There was just something intangible in my attraction to him. Something beyond the obvious physical aspects that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I felt that if I could only articulate it, it would logically explain the whole thing and allow me to move past it.
But for now, I was at a loss.
Tennyson pulled off the main highway onto the long lane where I had first seen him earlier. After about a mile or so, he rolled to a stop in front of an enormous Renaissance palace, complete with a looming tower ringed with an arched loggia. The villa appeared to have begun life as a medieval castle and then been added on to over the years, with columns and pedimented porticoes on two sides. It was opulent and grand and exactly what you would expect from the Conti dei Maledetti—the Damned Earls.
I had done my homework.
“Nice place. So is your brother really an earl?” I asked as we both stepped from our cars.
“Dante? Yeah.” He shot me a quick sideways glance as he reached for his bag of baby stuff in the back seat. “You have done your research.”
I had seen photos of the three of them together—Dante, Branwell and Tennyson. Dante and Branwell were both tall, muscular men with strong features and hazel eyes. Tennyson was lithe and pretty by comparison.
“Dante is the oldest, if only by twenty minutes.” Tennyson held open the front door for me, politely waiting for me to pass through. “Though I’m guessing you probably already knew all that. Exactly how good is your intel?”
I smiled. “Not as good as you may think. I’m here, aren’t I?”
He raised his eyebrows, acknowledging the point.
The front door led to a grand hall and an even grander central staircase. I looked around, eagerly taking in the surroundings.
And then I noticed them. Everywhere.
Wriggles.
My heart lodged in my throat.
I couldn’t help myself. I started counting.
One, two, three, four, five . . .
Tennyson set the bag of baby stuff on a console. The Wriggles danced in his presence, eddying around him, wiggling in mid-air like excited puppies. If said puppies were deadly and terrifying.
Moving through the Wriggles without any hesitation, Tennyson motioned for me to follow him up a few stairs. I did so, counting Wriggles as I went, passing into a large drawing room.
Yes. A full-on drawing room. There was no other way to describe the expansive space.
My mind reeled trying to take it all in. Three enormous sets of french doors sat opposite the pedimented doorway. Several seating areas dotted the room; the largest one featured a comfy-looking sectional facing a flat screen television. The walls and ceiling were covered in Baroque frescoes and gilded moldings.
But the room’s opulence wasn’t what instantly drew my attention.
No. That was saved for the enormous Wriggle waving in the corner next to the TV. At least ten feet tall with puckered edges, reality warped and distorted around it, like viewing a desert mirage, heat waves rising.
I had counted fourteen Wriggles since entering the villa. The house was riddled with them. Honeycombed. But none were as large as the one currently hovering beside the flatscreen TV. It was, hands down, the biggest Wriggle I had ever seen.
I swallowed convulsively, telling my panicked breathing to slow down.
I would be okay. I lived every day with this danger.
I would just stay in this corner of the room, as far away from the big Wriggle as possible.
The Wriggles continued their love affair with Tennyson D’Angelo. They vibrated and undulated whenever he passed near them. They danced for the Boogie Man.
Dance. Boogie Man. I cracked myself up.
It was either laugh or sob in terrified horror.
Where was I?
Wriggles. Did Tennyson see the Wriggles, too? He seemed oblivious to them.
He crossed the room, that tingling surge of awareness wafting with him.
“Can I take your jacket?” he asked, motioning to my leather jacket.
I grabbed on to the lapels. “No, thanks.”
Stop there. Don’t keep talking.
My mouth refused to listen to my brain. “It’s an accessory jacket, so I’ll just keep it on.”
“Accessory jacket?”
“Yeah, it’s part of the whole outfit.” I swept a hand down my side. Stop. Let it go. Don’t explain and make it weird. “Without the jacket, my t-shirt is a little too, uh . . . tight.”
My mom would call it slutty; Langley would call it man-catching.
Thankfully, I did manage to censor those thoughts before saying them out loud.
Tennyson seemed to get a little hung up on the word tight though. Was it just my imagination or did his eyes follow my hand, lingering a little longer than necessary: chest, hips, legs and back up?
He let out a gust of air and looked away, raising his hands to his hips. “Can I get you something to drink? Are you hungry?”
“I’m fine for now. Thank you.”
Silence descended.
“I can’t believe you’re dying.” He said the words almost on a whisper, like he struggled to move past that point. “I’ll help any way that I can.”
He sounded like a long-lost friend finding out about my terminal illness—so gentle, so devastated. But then my rational brain pointed out that I had literally just met this man and such thoughts were COMPLETELY mental and I needed to stop projecting.
“Thank you,” I replied.
He brought his eyes back to me, once more roaming my face, drifting lower and then back up again.
Goosebumps eagerly shot to attention everywhere his gaze touched. Horny little buggers that they were.
I licked my lips, unsure what to do or say next, but certain if I opened my mouth, a tsunami of weird questions would flood forth.
I bit my tongue and stayed silent.
Tennyson
I’m dying.
Olivia’s words from the piazza continued to buzz through my mind, a blipping GIF.
I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying.
Sunlight poured through the window behind her, outlining her body in golden light. My heart lurched into my throat.
How could this glorious woman be dying? Surely she had been exaggerating. She looked healthy, glowing even.
The thought of anything happening to her lashed at me, shredding my psyche with sharp talons.
I couldn’t bear it. Olivia had to be mistaken.
“How are you dying, Olivia? Are you sick?” The words tumbled out of me. “How do you think I can help you?”
“As I said earlier, it’s a long story.” Olivia spoke slowly, as if distracted. She studied the room, her gaze taking everything in, lingering on the large flatscreen TV in the corner.
“I have all day.” I motioned for her
to sit down. “Please take all the time you need.”
She stared toward the TV, before sinking into a corner of the large sectional.
Was she feeling uncomfortable? Just curious about her surroundings? I wanted her to tell me every tiny thing she was thinking, in the most precise detail.
I was already in too deep. I had allowed myself to be drawn out—talking with her, interacting—and now I was helpless to stop the free fall.
It was only a matter of time before I loved her more than life itself. I could feel it, sense it on the edge of my consciousness, hovering, waiting . . .
But as for her—
I took the opposite end of the sectional—closer than decorum dictated perhaps but as far as I could handle being away from her.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to gather my scattered thoughts.
She was here. This was happening.
I reached out with my senses again, trying to feel something from her . . .
I came up empty.
I had insisted she come to the villa mostly for my sanity, quite literally. I needed the emotions of the world to fade. As a bonus, isolating her from others would allow her emotions to shine clean and clear.
But she was still an utter blank. No emotion. Not an iota of feeling.
Why couldn’t I feel her? What made her different?
The only other person whose emotions I couldn’t feel was Jack. But he had been trapped in the shadow world. Was that part of Olivia’s story, too?
Before I could jump in with my hundreds of questions, Olivia spoke, “You said you are an oracle. What does that even mean? How does one become an oracle?”
I paused before answering, briefly wondering how much to tell her.
The answer was immediately obvious—
Everything.
I would tell her everything.
She was now wrapped up in this, whether she wanted to be or not.
“It’s a genetic thing. I was born with it, as were my brothers,” I replied.
“They’re oracles, too?”
“Yes, but each of our gifts is different. My gift has two distinct parts. I have visions of the future, sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary.”
I declined to mention that for most of my life, I had functioned with relative normalcy as long as I was careful—live with other people, have a girlfriend, eat at a restaurant, etc. But my GUT had accelerated in power in recent years. Others’ emotions were impossible to shut out now, and my involuntary visions had become staggeringly powerful, leaving me shattered and ragged and barely clinging to sanity.