by Renea Mason
I punched him square in the throat. And fuck did it hurt. Son of a bitch. I snapped my arm back, shaking the sharp pain from it, then cradled my palm.
He clutched his throat, rasping his next words. “Hey…I taught you that move. You don’t get to do it to me.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Besides, you know I was kidding about the pool table.” Cough. “Sort of.”
“Oh, I know. That’s not why I punched you.”
“Then why?”
“Human men? Fuck you, Rhys.”
“Sweetness, I’m sorry…” He laughed and coughed at the same time into his closed fist.
“It can’t possibly be any of us. Do you have any idea how many women I’ve fucked?”
“No, I don’t.”
He paused and peered into the distance, deep in thought. “Come to think of it, neither do I. There had to be at least a couple thousand in the eighties alone. Not one child.”
I punched him again.
He grabbed my arm, twisted and pinned it behind my back. “I’m not going to punish you like I’m dying to because of your condition.” More throat clearing. “But I’m trying to figure out which makes me angrier. You landing the perfect hit straight to my Adam’s apple, or you lying to me. I thought we were close.”
“I didn’t fucking lie to you. Overton’s the father.”
Tilting his head, he considered the truth in my words for a moment. “Holy crap on a cracker.” He released my arm and stepped back. “Does Cyril know?”
“Yes. We had a… situation. The three of us, and well… Oh, fuck it, he knows. He just knows.”
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Oh, sweetheart…” His term of endearment was somewhere between congratulations and an apology. He wrapped his arms around me.
Encased in his warmth, with his hand stroking my back, the gravity of the situation pulled down my defenses. His black T-shirt muffled my sobs as I buried my face in his chest. Tears born of fear, frustration, and confusion left wet splotches on his shirt.
“Everything will be OK, sweetheart. Everything will be OK.” He squeezed me a little tighter.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Time
A loud crash sounded from the hallway. I lifted my head from Rhys’s chest and met his gaze. “What the hell was that?”
He patted my back. “Ahh…Cyril would be my guess.”
My brow furrowed. “I should go check on him.”
Rhys pressed his lips to my forehead. “Sweetness, don’t forget that he’s having a difficult time adjusting.” He glanced down at my stomach. “Possibly even more than you.”
I nodded, smoothing my hand over my lower abdomen. “That’s hard to believe.”
“I’m here for you. Besides, you owe Clarence and me a movie night. But this time we’re not letting him near the popcorn.”
Clarence. I had been so caught up in everything that I hadn’t taken the time to touch base with him. I’d inadvertently thrust my best friend into Cyril’s crazy world when I clung to him as my human life slipped away. After causing his death and then subsequently resurrecting him, he’d embraced our fucked-up life. Especially his newfound kinship with Rhys. Because I used the soul of a man he had fallen for, his own, and the soul of one of the shapeshifting Marys, he’d become a shifter himself.
“Rhys…”
“What is it, sweet stuff?”
“Thank you for being there for Clarence when I couldn’t be. He’s new to this world, and he’s still adjusting…”
“Oh, sweetheart…no worries. I’m sort of partial to that oversized pain in the ass. Plus, you’re new, too. I’m honored to welcome you both into our family. I haven’t had this much fun since George Michael was still the lead singer of Wham.”
I shook my head in disbelief. I’d never understand his fascination with the eighties.
“I’m serious. I saw them in concert six times the year Make It Big came out. Still have the coffee mug to show for it.”
“Oh, I believe you.” I chuckled.
He smiled and nudged his chin toward the source of the noise. “Go on…soothe that savage beast. Wonder if Cyril can get a hangover?”
“We’ll soon find out.” I hugged him and took a deep breath.
Cyril.
Each of my footsteps stalled with trepidation. What would I find? Was he still intoxicated? Angry? Another loud crash echoed off the walls.
Through the slightly open door, Cyril’s hunched form was backlit by the large, Tiffany lamp suspended from a bracket on the wall. Items from his desk lay strewn across the floor.
Placing my palm on the wooden surface, I eased the door open. I tiptoed inside, turned, and pressed the door closed with not even a click. Cyril did not acknowledge my presence. With slow, deliberate steps, I approached as he continued to rummage through the contents of a large, iron-bound trunk. His office contained various trinkets from his time on Earth. It looked more like the basement of a museum or the lair of a mad wizard than an office.
I waited, watching his hands sift through old papers and trinkets.
He tossed something that resembled a prehistoric canteen over the side of the box and let out a ragged sigh. “Light, I can smell you.” He met my gaze. Such intensity behind his ocean-blue eyes.
I folded my arms, crossing them over my chest, but didn’t say a word.
A deep, audible inhalation laced with annoyance gave way to his grumble, “Did you need something?”
Trying to not allow the distance in his voice to impact me, I spoke the truth. “I’m worried about you.”
He scoffed and returned to his task, whisking items from left to right inside the box.
I stood, unwavering, even though my hand trembled. The effects of my blood seemed to have worn off, but what remained was even more concerning.
“Cyril?”
“What?” he snapped, refusing to look at me. An irritated growl rumbled in his chest as he lifted a stack of papers from inside the box and set them on the floor.
“Can I help you?”
“No, you’ve helped enough. Go on back upstairs with Overton; you’re making it hard for me to concentrate. I can’t afford to be distracted.”
“So, you have something that important bothering you, and I’m not important enough to know?”
“Do we have to do this now?”
“Is there ever a good time to argue?”
His hard gaze homed in on me. Righting his six-foot, five-inch frame, he took two strides forward, towering over me. “You really want to know?”
“Absolutely.”
“Where do you want me to start? Would you like to know how, when I stood in that hallway and watched you through Overton’s eyes, I was insanely jealous? Not of you being with him, but how you are with him. The way you look at me is different. You make me want to demand that reverence from you. Instead, I settled for fucking you.”
“Cyril—”
“No. Wait… you wanted to hear it. It’s my turn.” He leaned down and whispered in my ear.
I squeezed my eyes shut tight.
“The woman I’ve dreamed of since the beginning of time is pregnant with my best friend’s child. It’s quite a blow, Light. I’m able to rip the soul out of every living thing on this Godforsaken planet, but I can’t create one. So you must forgive me; I’m not used to having to deal with insecurities. You’ve introduced feelings that simply aren’t meant for someone like me.” A low rumble vibrated in his chest. “If that wasn’t enough, do you know why I was acting so strange?”
“Well… from what you said, my blood made you drunk.”
“Yes, that’s right. Do you know that’s only happened to me one other time?”
My brow wrinkled with surprise. “It’s happened before?”
“Oh, yes. That’s why I’m in here sorting through these items like a lunatic.”
“When?”
“About ten years before the coming of Christ.”
“Are you serious?”
He
placed his hands on my waist and hoisted me onto his uncluttered desk surface. “Oh, most certainly. I had traveled from Egypt to what is now known as Great Britain. When I arrived there, I happened upon a band of Celts. It was the winter solstice, and a celebration was underway. They gathered in a circle around a fire in the center of a ring of standing stones. One elderly man played a lute. When I approached with my weathered beard and ragged clothes, I expected them to flee or at least react, but instead they acted as though they were expecting me.”
I rested my hand on his bicep, and stroked his skin with my thumb, urging him to continue.
“The women chanted, soft and rhythmic. A man wearing a red woolen cape stood and gathered the hand of a beautiful young girl, just newly a woman. The man yanked the robe off her shoulders, exposing her naked body. The music continued as the girl walked toward me. She was lovely—long flowing red locks, freckled, ivory skin, brilliant green eyes.”
I resisted the urge to clutch his arm as the pang of jealousy gripped me.
“When the fire caught the highlights in her red hair, I thought for sure she was you.” He brushed a lock of my hair behind my ear. “She offered herself to me. Who was I to decline such a gift? It would have been rude.”
“Of course.” I rolled my eyes.
“Once I penetrated her, her thoughts were even easier to read. It was a fertility ceremony. They invited me to strengthen the bloodline, but the strangest thing… she had been foretold of my arrival. They were expecting me, but she had received the knowledge second hand.”
“So, you fucked her there in front of everyone?”
“Yes, Light. Different times. I wanted to bite her, but couldn’t with the crowd. There was something different about her. Something I couldn’t place. I foolishly thought I had found you. That the strange things her body made me feel were a sign.”
“Maybe she was meant for you too. Maybe I’m not the only one.”
He cupped my face. “I’m certain you’re the only one. With you it’s different, there is no doubt. You complete me in so many ways. It’s not a strange feeling, it’s peace. It’s like I finally found who I’m meant to be. With the young woman, it was more of an unsettling connection.” He kissed me on top of the head but then continued his story. “Caught in the rhythm of the music, her strange enchantment, and fighting everything I had in me not to bite her, I… didn’t hold back.”
“I can’t imagine you ever do.”
“No. You don’t understand.” He glanced up at the ceiling for a moment before staring back into my eyes. “I came inside her. I hadn’t done that since I first ended up here and realized what happens when I do. I had vowed not to do it ever again, but these strange people…and it was expected. It was what they wanted me to do.”
I looked away from him, finding that the ease at which he spoke of bedding other women bothered me. I needed to get over myself and focus on his story.
His cheek twitched, and breath left his lips with an exasperated sigh. “Light, I’ve done a lot of horrible things in my time. But please understand I have changed. I’ve learned. I would lie to you, but I respect you too much.” The reluctance in his voice was tangible.
“Cyril…just tell me.”
“They invited me to stay in a makeshift tent for the night. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I heard someone approaching. It was her. She came back for more. You are manageable when under my influence, but human women become crazed. They lose all judgment.”
“I fucked you and Overton in the woods because I couldn’t control myself.”
He let out a soft chuckle. “So you did, but that’s as it should be. I hope it doesn’t require me to influence you with my seed to make you desire us so enthusiastically.”
“It doesn’t. But I can’t imagine you’d turn down the opportunity to ease the Celtic girl’s ache?”
“You’re correct, but again, my hospitality got the better of me. This time we were alone, so I bit her. It was moments later that I noticed something was wrong. I had never been intoxicated; the sensation was new and puzzling. I panicked thinking she had somehow poisoned me.”
The look of dread on his face told me everything I needed to know, but I asked anyway, granting his unspoken plea for absolution.
“What did you do, Cyril?”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I killed her.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Symbol
I sat up in the bed when I heard the knock on the door. After lying curled into a ball for the past several hours, scrambling to make sense of everything happening in my life, a numbness had overcome me. All the revelations of the past forty-eight hours were too much. I left Cyril with tears in my eyes, and they still hadn’t dried.
I blinked them away from the corner of my eyes. The whirling buzz of random thoughts in my mind meant only one thing. “Clarence, I’m not in the mood for company.”
Being able to hear Clarence’s thoughts made it impossible for him to lie. It was convenient that he couldn’t read mine. Having Cyril in my head was bad enough. As plain as day, one thought pushed past all the others to surface loud and clear. “Too fucking bad.” In a tone much kinder than the words in his head, he replied, “Come on, I haven’t seen you in forever.” He didn’t wait for me to respond before opening the door and letting himself in.
One look at me, and he planted his feet. “Whoa, you OK?”
I sniffled. The harder I fought to hold back the tears, the more they flowed. I couldn’t form the words, so I shook my head.
Clarence strode to the edge of the bed and wrapped his huge arms around me, ensnaring me in his comforting warmth. “I won’t ask what happened. Just cry. Let it out. We can talk later.”
His thoughts echoed, “I’ll kill the motherfucker who did this to her. I’ll let the beast out and start cleaning house as soon as I know who to start with.”
It was so strange seeing the inner workings of someone’s mind. It was both refreshing and terrifying. I considered myself lucky Clarence’s silent ranting overtook my focus. His thoughts were pure, logical, and easy to follow. I mumbled against his chest, “No one to kill.”
He hugged me tighter. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t want to ask but needed a focal point for all the emotion overcoming him. The problem was, I couldn’t pinpoint any one thing. I didn’t know what normal was anymore. The word everything escaped my lips on a sob.
He drew soothing circles on my back with his hand. “Start at the beginning.”
“Beginning?” My shoulders shuddered with my suppressed cry. “There is no fucking beginning, that’s the problem. Cyril just told me a story. How he killed a young woman and tossed her body off a cliff into the ocean.”
His brows knitted together. “What the fuck? Why? When?”
“It was sometime before the coming of Christ. Do you hear how fucking crazy that sounds? It’s all crazy. I’m so naive and incredibly fucking stupid.”
“Before Christ…Linden, times were—”
“Yes. Yes, I know. Times were different.” I shoved Clarence just enough for him to get the hint and swung my legs off the bed. “I need some air.”
“Where are you going?”
I wiped my tears on my sleeve. “I don’t know. I need a change of scenery.”
“Want company?” He rested his hand on my shoulder.
“Not really, but you’re not letting me leave here alone, so why fight it?”
“Finally, a fucking benefit to your mind reading.” He rolled his eyes, hand resting on his hip.
My steps on the hardwood of the hallway floor echoed as I marched toward the staircase. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe you’ll come to your senses faster, and we can cut out the bickering.”
I stopped, spun, and glared up at him, noting his smug expression. “Fuck you, Clarence.”
He smirked. “See, I’m the perfect person to keep your mind off things.”
As we turned the corner in
to the hallway that passed Cyril’s study, Cyril stepped out of the doorway holding a tattered swatch of cloth. “Light? Are you OK?”
I blinked my eyes, attempting to push Clarence’s thoughts far enough out of mind so I could think. Cyril knew I wasn’t OK, but I guess everything was relative. “As well as I can be.”
He took a step closer, bent, and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could make it better.”
I glowered at his chest, and the symbol on the fabric he held caught my attention. “What is that?”
Clarence tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear, “I’ll meet you in the car.”
Still transfixed by the intricately woven pattern adorning the cloth in Cyril’s hand, I gave Clarence a flat reply. “OK, thanks.”
Cyril’s concerned tone broke me from my musing. “Light, what’s the matter?”
“The symbol. What is it?”
He cleared his throat. “Because I sometimes lose random memories, I collect trinkets throughout time from those defining moments in my life. Memories aren’t lost, but rather, buried. It’s like the awakening hides them from me, and on occasion, seeing something familiar can make them surface. This was the tribal shield of the young woman I told you about earlier. I was hoping if I saw it, it might help me uncover some memories I may have forgotten. Much like when I read your mind for the first time.”
I shot him a glare, remembering how he deceived me. “It sure looks a lot like the symbol on a gravestone in the cemetery where we met.”
“The Celts used many variations of this knot work. It’s not exactly unique.” He averted his eyes. “I didn’t keep it for the symbol.”
“Then why?”
He opened his palm. The corner of the cloth was stained russet with the blood of a woman who’d walked the Earth before Christ.
I held back the gasp threatening to escape. I wondered if he collected trinkets from all his victims like a serial killer but was silenced by the look in his eyes. Remorse. Suffering. There was no way he took any gratification from his deeds.
I had done it again. His tales of destruction often overwhelmed me, sending me into an emotional frenzy, and I forgot to consider him. Without a doubt he possessed compassion, and his actions had taken a toll on him. I couldn’t imagine living with the hindsight of thousands of years of mistakes.