by Talyn Scott
“A wormhole?” Kash chuckled.
“Precisely,” Sixten answered solemnly, “right next to Captiva Island.”
“The werewolves are creatures governed by the moon,” Qudir said, “I think they would feel it, especially so close to Sanibel Island.” His midnight eyes held disbelief, though he refused to join Kash’s laughter. “And I do not believe in time travel.”
“It has nothing to do with celestial pull,” Sixten retorted, aiming at the smallest scroll Maestru held. He handed it over, and Sixten opened it for the others to study. “Think of wormholes as vacuums, a trajectory of free-falling.” He pointed at the general spot, though the exact coordinates still eluded him. “These wormholes do not send particles from the past or even the future. It’s not time travel per se, though particles would have to be traveling at an inconceivable speed.” He looked at each of them. “An immortal speed.”
“Like a lengthy pothole,” Maestru equated, releasing a pent-up breath. “It’s easier to accept Habalines traveling this way. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an awesome power to move between realms…”
“As we understand it, it’s easier to accept,” Qudir supplied, his eyes sharpening…accepting.
“I suppose,” Maestru muttered, rubbing his chin in thought. “If we find a way to break the connection between Captiva and this wormhole, they close up shop. However, what’s stopping them from creating another?”
“That’s just it. By this scroll, this is the only wormhole connecting us to their realm,” Sixten said, hoping the inscriptions he read were completely thorough. “The Habalines didn’t create this one”- he pointed to the next map -“or any other wormhole. They are anomalies occurring quite naturally.” They still looked somewhat skeptical, so Sixten’s irritation bled through. “Do you agree we have black holes within space?” He didn’t wait for their replies. “It’s possible that wormholes are gravitational singularities within black holes, and according to these aboriginal diagrams, most of them do center a black hole’s interior.”
“So these aliens are not as powerful as we imagined,” Qudir concluded. “Some human scientists can create black holes similar to those formed by lost stars.” He placed his palm on the doorframe, leaning against it. “If what you’re saying is true, you’d be right on the money, Six. They’re only using a highway nature already provided.”
“A one way highway, at that,” Six said.
“The Habalines can only move in one direction?” Maestru asked.
“As far as I can tell,” Six answered. “There’s one definite way it’s not traversable.” A flicker of hope filled the cavern as Sixten continued, “Once Habalines leave their realm and enter ours, they can’t back out. There’s no way to travel back and forth, or even within the same universe.” Sixten would keep the exact reason why to himself, he needed a trump card for the unpredictable future.
“So if we really want to keep other Habalines out,” Maestru said guardedly. “There’s a foreseeable way.”
“Exactly.” He nodded. “In time, and it will definitely take some time. We will locate the wormhole’s precise connection,” replied Sixten, “and find a way to close it off.” In vivid detail, he could tell them how to do it now.
“You make it sound so easy, Six,” Kash said, inclining his head.
“It’s not,” he replied, staring at his friend longer than necessary. With a raised hand, his fingers splayed over his favorite blade, clutching. His heart drummed out any other thoughts, relentlessly pounding until Blythe came back in a clear vision, filling his mind with her purity. “Yet I’ve never had anything worthwhile come easily, have you?”
Chapter Three
A Gilded Cage
Blythe kicked an armchair and then winced before bending and rubbing her throbbing toe. “Yep, just as I thought…solid walnut.” Then the thin, gold chain secured on her ankle by a manacle, somehow wrapped around her opposite foot and yanked her down. “Oh!” She went for a flyer, face planting on a silk Persian rug before she could even think of steadying her balance. “That a girl,” she said, pressing the heels of her hands against the intricately woven fantasy and pushing up, “show ‘em your moxie.” The damned rug had to have survived the seventeenth century, or, at least, looked like it did. Yet Blythe wished to destroy it. After pacing for hours, while trapped in her exquisite surroundings, she walked a distinct edge.
Pretty or not, a cage was still a cage.
And her current attitude was far from pleasant.
Blythe managed to untangle the chain, righting herself to resume her pacing. And she couldn’t help but wonder what hurt worse, her toe, chafed ankle from trying to work it through her shackle, or swollen throat from screaming hysterically on that damned airplane.
The upside to her painful throat? Gianni had backed off after watching her inner, nuclear meltdown. However, he made it perfectly clear Blythe had not deterred him. After putting her to sleep, his voice threaded through her dreaming state where he claimed that he would allow her time to acclimate. Acclimate to what? Gianni said she would regain her lost memories eventually. Why would she want to recall more of her time with him? “Whoever said ignorance was bliss knew her stuff.”
On the other hand, if she remembered her past with Gianni, maybe she could find his weakness. A weakness might be the only way to allow her escape. “That old Achilles story doesn’t seem so far-fetched now.” She knotted her hands at her sides, grumbling to no one, “All I need is an arrow and your weak spot.”
“Archery, pet? Sounds like fun. No games are off limits as long as you are nude while playing,” Gianni hissed in her ear, startling her into jumping a foot off the floor, “all the way down to your delectable toes. As far as weak spots go, you are that for me – my only weak spot.” He closed the door behind him with his mind. Then, she heard the lock click in place, since he was pretty smooth with human mechanisms.
Blythe released her fists, hugging herself and ignoring him. The long sweater dress he had provided hugged everything she had to offer. Or advertised everything she did not want to offer him. Its wool blend dyed the most exquisite persimmon she had ever seen, each strand achingly vibrant. No, this number was not off the rack. Too bad that she hated it, would love to ruin it with a rusty pair of scissors, just to have a truly psycho moment.
“I want shoes,” she finally said in a way of greeting. This was the first she had seen of him since trying to claw his incredible face off on that private plane. Of course, seeing that he was a vampire, any good digs she marred him with healed almost immediately.
“Why not stay comfortable?”
Blythe had no clue where she was. Although her chilly, pacing feet told her, it probably was not Florida. Or could I be underground? “Shoes wouldn’t enable me to get away from you. You have that scenario covered with this.” She held out her foot, carefully twirling the chain she had battled moments ago. And why couldn’t she break something so amazingly thin? “So what’s the point in cold feet?”
“Cold feet?” He did not have the decency to appear ashamed. “Hmmm…Come, pet,” he ordered instead, lowering himself onto a wide settee anchored by a matching ottoman. All the furnishings were exorbitant, mostly Victorian, but she did not think they were all antiques, simply reproductions. He patted his muscular thigh, smiling. “You required patience from me.” Those butterscotch eyes narrowed; silvery pupils flashed a warning. “I have been so.”
“I most certainly didn’t ask for any patience.” Blythe refused to move, just waited. “I’m sure, at one point in my hysterics, I told you to fuck off.” He leaned back against chunky, gold brocade pillows, settling in comfortably. Shiny, black hair slid over the silky fabric. It fell halfway down his back, and Blythe could not decide if Gianni looked dangerous or dangerously erotic. But why did it matter?
“My lovely Blythe, hair woven from the darkest night, eyes of the richest cognac, if you actually told me that, I would have pulled only one word from your request. Here is a hint,” he said in
a thickly exotic accent, not Italian, “off would not be it.”
He was magnificent, but Gianni would never be Sixten. Blythe jutted her chin, staying where she stood. “I’m a married woman.”
He arched an arrogant brow, watching her closely. “You are no such thing.” Light hit his sharp cheekbones, casting him in shadowed relief. A fallen angel depicted in numerous paintings, books, and even statues, someone who could never be real, yet here he sat, breathing while only missing wings.
Blythe feared bringing up Sixten, but she refused to go near that lap of his. “Marriage certificate and uh, a claim endorsed by Maestru says otherwise.”
“Marriage certificate?” Gianni inquired with shining eyes, amused. “A human ceremony a male orchestrated in order to appease you?”
“Yes, we had a lovely ceremony, very romantic.” A total lie. Sixten’s fellow vampires forced the paperwork through without her knowledge. At first, she was angry. Then, she quickly realized Sixten’s highhandedness did not matter when she loved him more than she thought possible, could not live without him. Sixten felt the same way. What she thought of as manipulation was his way of protecting her, keeping them as one for all time. The love they shared was the precise reason she had to get away from this powerful lunatic before her.
“Perhaps you do not recall a Dynasty Vampyr can smell deceit,” he said gently. However, his placidity was unconvincing. Blythe could see his chest had begun to rise and fall rapidly. “Your lie is the scent of turpentine, irritating me.” Silver pupils swallowed the butterscotch. A flash of anger, sudden and dark, opened a ruthless void barely controlled. Once more, Gianni patted his thigh. Slowly.
Bits and pieces of his volatile temper surfaced in her memories.
Fast on the heels of that recollection, Blythe realized that Gianni was keeping his potent vampiric coercion in check, which was subject to change without notice. After a steadying breath, she closed the distance between them, hesitating at his knees until he pulled her down. There, she sat rigidly. Though the minute she sat down, exhaustion crept through her. Still, she refused to lean against him, as he would have preferred. He brought up her feet, wrapping his long fingers around the left one and massaging before moving to the right, working his fingers underneath the strange manacle.
She shook her foot, rattling her bizarre irons. “It’s like a horrific anklet,” she said coyly, wanting to pull useful information from him. Again, why would something incredibly fragile not bend a fraction? “Your power is unfathomable. Do I need such a negligent leash for you to keep me contained?” She shook her head, dizzying from the simple movement. “Hardly.”
“It is not attached to prevent you from leaving on your own.” The feel of his body pushing through the thick material of her dress disconcerted her, his thigh under her bottom intimately familiar. She remembered that, in the not too distant past, Gianni made a move, gave her a look, or said a simple word, and her body responded, melting at his will. By his widening smile, she understood he sensed it. “My hunter secured you. It’s to prevent any interfering vampire from misting you out without my knowledge.”
“Another vampire couldn’t break this?” Again, she rattled it for effect.
Ignoring her question, he lifted his fingertips and slowly outlined her lips when he spoke, “I remember these wrapped around my thickness, drinking the response you pulled from me.” She felt his lips in her hair, lowering until they pressed against the shell of her ear. “Many times this happened.”
A shiver so cold it actually heated her body overwhelmed her. “I really am married, Gianni, certificate and all.”
“Human certificates do not apply to those who are not human, pet. Although you have some human blood, you are still claimed by two immortal factions. In case you are wondering, a Dynasty Vampyr’s claim trumps them all.” The tip of his tongue flicked against her lobe. Another shiver followed, this one leaving her cold. Gianni glanced at the intricate fireplace. At his will, a fire erupted with flickering, red waves intended to warm her body, but it would take more than that. Intense fear suddenly pushed icicles through her veins. “If we were to consider human legalities, your marriage certificate was fraudulent, Blythe. You are unmarried.”
“The claim, Maestru backed it up.”
“Did he, now?” The corner of his mouth kicked up, and she realized he thought it was funny. “When did this vampiric marriage take place?”
“I was eighteen,” she explained nervously, flashing crimson. “I’m told if a vampire took another’s virginity, she became his mate.”
“True for the Species,” he agreed, his hand twisting into her hair and holding her face securely to his, “but Sixten Kovac is not fully Species. And even if he was, after all was said and done, he threw you away.”
“That’s not true!” He knew way too much about her life. Probably more than she did. Still, no paper or claim could make a difference when she and Sixten wanted to be together. No one would break them apart.
“Really? You were in Italy without him, under your brother’s protection, no less,” he reminded, brushing his lips across hers. Across and back. Across and back. When she turned her face away, soft kisses littered her jawline before trailing back to her ear.
“Sixten supported me financially,” she whispered after clearing her throat a couple of times, “provided for me and my brother.” His free hand caught her foot in a nearly painful grasp, but she went on, “He visited me every…year.”
“Your brother sold you to me.” He eased the pressure on her foot, releasing her hair at the same time. “You became my personal Donor, Blythe. After we made a real connection, you were my only Donor. A high honor you held.” At her gasp, he asked, “You feel shame that I bought you or that your brother sold you?”
“Both.” She refused to cry, though her eyes burned with the effort.
“Believe it or not, I have an ethical code. Until you, I had never sold any property or bought it.”
“Anthony sought you out?”
“He sought many out, searching for the highest bidder. Just thinking of the cruel ones you could have ended up with….” Heat left his body. His fury over her treatment struck a strange cord inside her. Gianni’s eyes flipped to hers, pleading, though his lips were too proud to utter the words. Still, the raw possessiveness she found in his gaze quickly surpassed his anger. “After I had you, you were the only one I wanted in my bed. And I made it so. I found such joy in you, in us. For an immortal to come back from ennui, it is a rebirth of sorts. Everything is new as I see through your eyes.”
“I was your welcome distraction.”
“I say I am reborn, yet you say I am distracted. I would have never given you up. And however your brother arranged for your disappearance, well; he was a fool to cross the powerful. Now he is a dead one.”
“You had him killed?”
“I would have enjoyed punishing him, but no. I did not order Anthony’s death.” His fingers traced her ankle, and then searched upward until they found a delicate hollow beneath her knee. “How could I hurt you that way?” They pressed in, eliciting a surprised gasp from her throat. “Still, I am satisfied with his death.”
“No matter what he did, his death is painful,” she hated the hitch in her voice, pretending to have a civil conversation with her gorgeous captor. Pretending not to feel what he was doing to her as his hand reached her inner thigh. “I want to know why he died.”
“Since you understand you are of Were blood.” His opposite hand traced up her spine, fingertips rolling over each bump with great familiarity. “You also understand Anthony was of no relation to you.”
“In the vampire world, does blood only mark familial relations?” He curled his hand around her waistline, pulling her back while his roaming fingers found the elastic of her panties. And there went that craving again. Somewhere in her mind, she wanted to pull away, didn’t she? “Can’t you be close to someone who isn’t kin?”
“You mean in the way you want to be married
to someone though you are not?” His face went rigid, like a marbled mask readying to crack.
Words echoed in her mind from a broken memory. An unsolicited promise Gianni made more than six months ago, Tell me who destroyed your heart, and I will lay his at your feet. No, she did not want Sixten’s heart lying at her feet. She wanted him alive and with her forever. She kept that thought, skirting his pointed question. Instead, she asked the obvious, “What have you planned for me?”
Gianni’s lids dropped, his long, inky lashes throwing crescents over high cheekbones. His growing erection pressing into her hip, he shifted and brought Blythe closer to his chest. She pressed her forearm against his sternum, refusing to lean on him. Tight muscles were firm and strong under her hands, but that was to be expected. Gianni was the vampire, a frightening, royal immortal. She considered past times when she sensed immortal power from those in passing, especially Sixten, and had no inkling of what she felt. Other beings were everywhere. Somehow, maybe because she was a werewolf hybrid, Blythe could judge Gianni’s power level as if she were a supernatural seismograph. He was nothing like the others, nowhere close. He was different.
“Planned?” He shook his dark head, smiling. “I have yet to taste your body again.” For whatever emotional reason, his fangs were staying down, and they were long. It astonished her that he could talk around them so effortlessly. “It is not, as you say, a plan, but a desire. You have been gone for quite some time, my Blythe.” She opened her mouth to interrupt, but he placed a purposeful fingertip over her lips. “I am holding back. A first for me, I will admit, and it is taxing. I am not human. I want.” He shrugged. “I take.” Air crackled with his changing mood. He filled the empty space between them with his static power, one that tired of simmering. A hot open mouth skimmed her temple, her cheek, and across her ear. “You must accept what is to be,” he whispered against her tingling lobe, soft lips brushing her ear with every syllable, “Ask me how I know you were not truly married under the vampiric law.”