by Karen Glista
Makayla, dressed in sweats and a T-shirt with her hair in pigtails, came through the door and stopped. “Sister,” she sputtered with wide eyes that sparkled magically. “You—look—hot! I love that Gothic, Balmain look.”
A clasp of thunder rattled the windows. “Sounds like it might rain,” she said, glancing at her rounded butt in the mirror. She tugged at the hem. “It’s a little short.”
“No, it’s perfect. He’s gonna cream his jeans when he sees you.”
The sound of rolling thunder transformed to a stentorian boom that shook the entire house. Donja glanced to the window. “I’d like to cream him all right,” she mumbled as she hurried across the room with her black, thigh-high spiked boots tapping rhythmically. She paused at the window and glanced back. “Is it possible to love and hate someone at the same time?”
“I’m not sure,” Makayla answered whimsically with a slight smile that curled upon her face, “but I feel the same way about chocolate.”
Donja found a smile that faded as fast as it came. “Seriously, do you think it’s possible?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Neither am I,” Donja said tucking her hair, “but it might be happening.” Noticing that the sun had disappeared, she leaned into the window, her curves accentuated by the shimmering flow of her skimpy black mini. “Wow, it’s getting so dark. It is going to rain.”
“Umm hmm, Lake Superior’s pissed and there’s storm warnings all over the radio. You’d best take a coat; the winds can get pretty nasty and temps have already dropped to the lower fifties.”
“I can feel it,” Donja said, hugging her chest as winds whipped the curtains. “Is that common here? My God it was eighty degrees a few hours ago.”
“That’s the Upper Peninsula for you,” Makayla smiled, “if you don’t like the weather, wait twenty minutes, it’s bound to change.”
“Maybe I’d better wear a denim jacket with my skinny jeans and now that I think about it, rainboots might not be a bad idea.”
“Why?” Makayla grimaced.
“I don’t have a coat to match this dress.”
“No way, you’re not wearing denim, he might be taking you to some highfalutin Council party and you need to make a good impression.”
“Uhh, I hope not, my gothiglam look might turn a few heads.”
“Your goth look is beautiful, that’s not my concern, I just don’t want you to feel out of place…the only one in jeans. Someone might sneer or make a comment and you know your temper.”
Donja spared a glance. “Yeah.”
“Think about it. Once that scar-faced freak finds out Torin marked you, he might retaliate. The Council can protect you…all of us.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Donja sighed.
Makayla headed for the door. “I have a coat that would rock that look. Let me get it for you.”
Gazing out the window, Donja saw Torin with an umbrella in one hand, a bouquet of flowers in the other, dashing for the front door. She took a breath, the smell of rain on dirt penetrating the window. A bolt of lightning coruscated the mamba black skies. She grasped the window and slammed it tight as a barrage of demonic raindrops pelted the glass.
“Here, this should work.” Makayla said.
Donja spun from the window.
Makayla handed her a luxurious knee-length coat.
“How nice,” Donja said, running her hands over the soft fur “but, it’s not—”
“No, it’s fake mink. I wouldn’t be caught dead in the real thing.” She took a step back and tilted her head. “Nice,” she whispered. “It compliments you my dear, you’re a true gothic vamp.”
“Vamp…hmmm, I think that would be him,” Donja smirked as she sashayed out the door and down the hallway, Makayla closely behind. Descending the stairs, she heard her mom’s voice and froze, rooted in place.
“And do you plan to live here or Italy?”
“Both,” Torin’s voice carried, “I will buy a home here so that Donja can finish school and be near you.”
Unobserved, Donja and Makayla inched closer, eyes locked on Torin and Lisa.
“And after she finishes school, will I ever see her again?” Lisa questioned.
“Of course. We will be here at times, traveling back and forth between the two homes.”
“Two homes?”
“Yes, as I mentioned, I will buy a home here, closer to town to accommodate her schooling and I already have a vast estate in Italy overlooking the Amalfi Coast. It’s beautiful,” he smiled, “and its only about a five-hour drive from Florence, which is quite lovely. You’re welcome, anytime. Believe me, you will enjoy visiting the medieval villages, boutiques and the cuisine is excellent,” he said, his voice as smooth as honey, “and the wineries of Tuscany are superb.”
“It sounds like you’ve got it all planned out but I’m curious. Rich boy meets average American girl. How do your parents feel about this—sudden marriage?”
Donja watched his face as his demeanor shifted. “My mother’s dead and my father and I are estranged. I’m alone, though I have more cousins, aunts, uncles and the like than I can count.”
Donja saw his nostrils flare.
He smells me, cover blown.
“Estranged from your father,” Lisa blurted with a bit of alarm in her voice, “I’m sorry but that just adds more questions to a growing list.”
Donja watched as Torin met Lisa’s suspicious eyes.
She’s on to you, big guy.
“Ask what you may,” Torin smiled with his jaw twitching, “I have nothing to hide.”
The hell you don’t, Donja thought but as she watched, it occurred to her that there was something unspoken in his eyes. She cocked her head.
She hit a nerve…my God, are you capable of pain?
“Okay,” Lisa snapped with a hand to her waist. “Where did you get all this money? How do I know you’re not a gangster and that you’re dragging my daughter into a world of danger?”
His gaze turned stolid as he brushed back a fringe of hair. “Well, you’re right about the danger. This world we live in is more dangerous than ever. Just watch the news, it’s packed with terrorist attacks, children shooting each other in school, murder, mayhem and the casualties rise daily, so yes,” he glared. “I may inadvertently put Donja in danger by our presence at a museum, or sporting event, or an opera…even a movie theater…wasn’t there just a mass shooting at one here in this country?”
Lisa’s eyes narrowed to thin slits and she was just about to contradict, but fell silent as Torin’s voice deepened. “But intentional danger?” he cocked his head unnaturally. “Never,” he whispered in an eerie, barely audible voice. “I would protect her with my life and as to your last suggestion that I might be a gangster, how flattering,” he said romancing the words, “but you’re wrong again, for my work which involves a tedious affair with gems, is far less exciting.”
“Gems?”
“Yes. My late mother owned diamond mines in Africa which I inherited and I’ve made sound investments.”
“That doesn’t jive,” Lisa hissed. “Then why would you work a meager detective job, isn’t that below you?”
“No, I love my job and money can’t buy the satisfaction of getting criminals off the streets.”
“Mother, please, let’s forgo the interrogation,” Donja said as she marched forward her spiked boots tapping on the hardwood floor.
Torin’s eyes swept over her and his lips parted, ever so slightly.
“Flowers,” she said with a forced smile.
“Hmmm, sorry,” he frowned, eluding her gaze, “but these are for you mother.”
Lisa took a step forward, inches from Torin’s face. “Keep your flowers, I don’t need them, I need my daughter back,” she said as she cast a look to Donja, “but it appears that’s not going to happen.” Her eyes narrowed. “If you hurt her I’ll find you in the dead of night, Torin…my God,” she mumbled as she combed her hair with her fingers, “I can’t even remember
your last name.” She turned to walk away, tears welling in her eyes.
“It’s Mancini,” Torin said. “Torin Cade Mancini.”
Donja took his arm, leading him into the foyer. She yanked the front door wide. Rain pelted their faces as Donja raised a hand to block the winds. He set the flowers on the steps, raised the umbrella, and pulled her tight as they dashed down steps and out the walk to the Ferrari.
He opened her door, his signature style intact. Donja blotted raindrops off her cheeks and buckled up as he rounded the car and slid in. He spoke, and the car started.
“You look ravishing,” he said with a flash of his eyes. Donja turned away, silently watching the torrential downpour sheeting the window.
“You’re angry, I can detect your pulse which is about 115,” he whispered, “not healthy for a mortal.”
A boom of thunder forced her to flinch.
He put his hand on the exposed skin between the top of her boot and the hemline of her dress.
She shoved his hand away.
He hit the accelerator and the Ferrari whined as it lunged forward, raindrops pelting the windshield like bullets.
Donja gazed through the window, enlivened by whorls. She bit at her tongue, her mother’s tears imprinted in her mind. They passed through the Soo and across the International Bridge. At customs, Torin didn’t even ask, he just snatched her clutch from her lap, her face to the window, showed their I.D. then lay it back. He gassed the car, out from the bridge down Huron Street and Donja assumed they were headed for Observes, but instead, he took a sharp turn which flung her clutch to the floorboard, tires squealing. He accelerated, the car flying down a deserted highway.
The storm escalated and Donja just stared out the window as streaks of lightning illumed the sky.
Where is he taking me?
She dropped her head with a rapid glance to his face as she retrieved her clutch. She turned back to the window. He was angry, so much so that his jaw twitched incessantly and his eyes which he held firm to the road were like pools of boiling tar.
Zooming down the two-lane highway, he suddenly swerved, tires squealing as they bypassed a downed tree and then like a tempest of angry gods, thunder boomed as the Ferrari picked up speed, penetrating the gale. They took their leave of civilization, winds whipping the forest into a maddening frenzy. They must have traveled fifty miles, not a house in sight, and as the storm churned with deadly malice, Donja grew increasingly angry, so much so that the heartfelt safety of her family was blown away, lost in the raging abyss.
He suddenly steered the car right, taking a loosely graveled path leading to asphalt which wound itself through a medieval forest with dripping bows and blackened bark. Rounding a narrow drive toward a bluff where gnarled birch and elm stood like silent guardians, she spied a house, perched atop a ledge overlooking a vast body of water. The house was grand, wrapped in cedar with shutters and a red tile roof and drawing nearer, she noticed water sheeting the walls with luminescent quality. He pressed a button atop the visor and one of six garage doors slowly opened. He zipped inside, and the Ferrari stopped on a dime, the garage door closing behind, all but silencing the storm.
Donja surveyed the garage which accommodated multiple cars, the Ferrari, a Mercedes, SUVs, a Jeep, Range Rover, motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. Suddenly her door was flung open and Torin freed her of the seat belt and pulled her to her feet. He took her hand and led her past the showroom of vehicles to a door and into the home. The first thing she noticed as he led her down a tiled hallway with her spiked boots resounding, was the smell of sandalwood. They came to great room flanked by a wall of windows overlooking Lake Huron. The atmosphere was rich, the décor quite masculine with supple leather furniture, mahogany tables, and oil paintings, complete opulence. She noticed a fireplace, crafted of native stone which rose twenty feet and turning, she looked up to the bannistered, upper level which provided a clear view of the great room and beyond. She watched his fluidic movement as he moved across the room and in the blink of an eye appeared at the bar. He removed the stemmed ball from atop a crystal whiskey decanter and poured himself a drink. He thrust his head back, raised the fluted stein to his lips and downed it in one swallow. He threw the empty stein which crashed into the glass shelves, shards flying. He leaned upon the bar and then as if one could never be enough, snatched another fluted stein and poured another.
Donja couldn’t pull her eyes from him, the fury within mounting. It occurred to her in that moment just how much she would enjoy clawing his eyes out. Suddenly her mom’s tears flashed through her tortured mind. She cast her fur coat and clutch to the sofa as her feet, by no will of their own, marched straight to him. He turned to face her, his seething eyes on her body, not her face and that just served to infuriate her further.
“You bastard,” she said as she slapped the stein from his hand. “How dare you hurt my mom, that wasn’t our deal,” she screeched as she punched his chest. He didn’t move, not a bit of resistance as her fist found his chest again and again, mercilessly. “You could have warned me that you were going to come, propose and rip her heart out, I could have prepared her. Damn you!” she wailed as her tears fell.
He suddenly grasped her hands. “It’s not me you’re angry at, Donja, you’re angry at yourself, the way you talked to her, the pain your words inflicted.”
“You forced me!” she screamed, struggling to free her hands. “I had to hurt her to keep her alive, you bastard. I hate you!”
“No more than I hate myself,” he said as he forcefully spun her around and spooned her back, holding her hands firm to her waist. “Do you see this room?” he groaned, his chin to her shoulder with his deep masculine voice resonating. “This is who I am, this along with my villa in Italy is where I have spent the last two hundred years of my life, waiting patiently for what I thought would never come again.” He forced her forward to the windows and pointed to the floor. “Do you see that path worn in the floor?” he scoffed. “That’s where I have paced, day after day, locked in a prison of hell.” He forced her to a wall where an antiquated picture hung. Donja surveyed the picture painted on birch bark. It was decaying inside a frame which must have been hundreds of years old. “Do you see her?” he moaned. “That was my wife, my life, my love, taken from me, ripped away by age, her hatred of Iridescents and her fear of becoming immortal.”
Donja felt her blood run cold, eyes on the face of an older woman with dark skin and long gray locks and though the image was worn with cracks and chipped edges, she focused on her eyes which looked hauntingly familiar. She raised a hand to her brow as her mind took a tumble.
She’s one of the women in the wedding album.
“She’s Chippewa.” she breathed, hauntingly.
“Yes, second child of the Durent chief, born at the dawn of time and it took me sixty years to convince her to sit for a portrait,” his voice softened, “because she was afraid doing so would steal her soul.”
He spun her like a rag doll and their eyes met. “You are as close to her blood as any female alive, that’s why I all but dropped to my knees when you walked by the V.I.P. booth. For a moment it was her, you’re so much like her, so beautiful, but after I caught your scent and scanned your blood, my hopes sank, only to be…”
“Let go of me!” she exploded as she struggled to be free. He released her and she slapped him across the face. “I’m not your dead wife. How dare you destroy my life as well as my family’s in some insane attempt to replace a dead woman, who must not have loved you or she would have moved heaven and earth to stay with you.”
His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened.
“Now take me home,” she snapped as she pushed past him and set her stride for her coat and clutch.
She felt his hand, firm and hard as he spun her and pulled her to him. “Don’t play with my heart, Donja, you won’t like the outcome!”
She met his gaze, the temper he warned her of self-evident, but it mattered not for at this moment their temper
s were so evenly matched that she would have slapped him again had he not held her arms so tightly. “So, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it, huh?” she hissed. “Let me go, you son of a bitch. You may force my hand in marriage, but I can see and feel the permanent damage you’ve inflicted on my family and I hate you for it, do you hear me? I hate you.” Their eyes locked and as the tether between them intensified, Donja felt weakened by his gaze. “Release me,” she groaned turning her head unnaturally to one side. She saw movement in her periphery and cast her eyes to the bannistered, upper floor where eight or more men stood with silent faces, watching. A shiver of some intensity washed over her.
His minions, oh God…what if he sends them to strike my family.
She turned her head and they faced off. “What’s wrong, you afraid you can’t handle me on your own, or do you just need an audience to your brutality?”
Torin looked up to the second level and saw Val Fabichi, his best friend for over three hundred years. “Val, I didn’t realize you were still here.”
“Just a few beers with the boys and a game of pool,” Val answered, “sorry, I didn’t know you were coming back.”
“Get them out of here. Leave us!” Torin snapped.
Donja watched in bewilderment as the men flashed like streaks of light down the stairs and out the door. She glared at Torin as she tried to break free of his grasp. “Let me go,” she groaned.
He ignored her and met her gaze with scintillating eyes.
She instantly felt a hypnotic power penetrating her mind. “Stop that, don’t look at me,” she hissed, closing her eyes, “it’s unfair…this power you possess.”
“It’s who I am” he whispered, and she felt his breath on her cheek. “I can’t control it, the swoosh of your blood, the beat of your heart—your scent.” He took a breath. “Listen to me. I don’t want to replace Anstosa, she’s dead and what I feel right now, this pain in my chest far exceeds…”