Love Of A Lifetime

by Murphy, Riley

  Thank you, my brother.

  After he said a silent prayer, he turned to brush a hand over Finley’s shoulder and saw her grimace. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “Not really.” She sighed and snuggled up against him. “Well, maybe. I sort of feel like I did a heavy workout. What happened? I had the worst...” Her words trailed off and her eyes widened. “I thought most of it was a dream, but it wasn’t a dream, was it? Jesse.”

  Before she pushed away from him he assured, “He’s been taken to the hospital. He’ll be well cared for there.”

  She stopped struggling and searched his face. “That man, that thing h-he,” she sputtered, “I thought he killed him. He tried to kill me.”

  She sat up and pushed the hair out of her eyes. “He had jagged teeth and a deep voice and he spoke in a language I understood. He was tall and he floated and…and—”

  Jack leaned up on elbow and arranged the covers around her, nodding. He’d been expecting her adrenaline to kick in eventually. “Here, take a sip of this.” He reached out and grabbed the snifter off the nightstand. Holding the brandy up to her lips, he tipped it before she could refuse.

  She took a large sip, coughed, made a face and continued in a rush, “And his coat. There was something about his coat. It grabbed me like it was a living—”

  “What?” He pulled the glass back so quickly that the amber liquid nearly sloshed over the rim.

  Her head bobbed as she snatched the brandy back, taking another pull before rushing out, “It felt like snakes slithering over my skin.” She coughed again, frowned, and looked down at the snifter. “This stuff tastes like burnt rubber.”

  He blinked and murmured, “It’s hundred-year-old Remy Martin. The best type of brandy you can buy.”

  If her dubious expression hadn’t told him she wasn’t impressed, her next words did. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  He forgot about the brandy. Too intent on the other topic. “You’re sure about the coat?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked so upset, he took the glass from her and sighed. “You don’t need to worry. We’ll figure out what’s going on.”

  “Oh, I know that. It’s just that…” She gathered the covers against her. Twisting and turning a corner of the duvet as she stared down at her hands for a second before looking up. “I should have trusted you. I know that now. I was confused and scared. I—”

  “Shh, there’s no need to explain what can’t be comprehended. Both of us were working on instincts that couldn’t be changed.”

  “Not you.”

  “Especially me. You even called me on it.” He leaned in. “The deep voice, remember?”

  “Well your instincts were better than mine. Mine nearly got us both killed and for that I’m sorry.”

  He wasn’t going to correct her, as she had died and he never could. At least not on this planet.

  “For what it’s worth I realized I’d made a mistake and I was going to return to the manor to have it out with you.”

  “About Ceil?”

  “No, my vision when I was in the bath, but then I ran straight into trouble. Cyrus tried to kill me. That’s when he discovered who I really was.”

  “Shit.” Jack sprang up off the bed. Pulling on his leathers he laced them up as he paced. Cyrus here on earth? Fuck. And now he had The Book of Maps?

  He stopped short.

  Wait, had she just said, who I really was? He snapped around and looked down at her. “You know who you really are?”

  “I know our history. I saw some of it when I was being, ah, when Cyrus was questioning me.”

  Jack scowled. Hearing the quaver in her voice he sat on the edge of the bed. “What did he want to know?”

  “Well, after he stopped strangling me,” Jack tried not to scowl, she must have notice as she rushed on, “he stumbled back and said,” she paused here to recall. “That my life was protected. Which doesn’t make sense because if that were true then how was I murdered in my last life?”

  “What?”

  “Yes, that’s why I left with Jesse when I did.” She took his hand and leaned forward. “I saw Ceil drug me and slit my writs. I thought that you and she planned it. To be rid of me so that our connection would be broken and you’d be free to love her.” A deep pink color rode her cheeks as she fiddled with his ring. “I saw a hand. I saw this. The ring I bought you.”

  He stared at the top of her head, watching as she lovingly brought his hand to her cheek and pressed against it. “I take it you understand now that such a thing isn’t possible.”

  “Yes.” She pulled back. “I saw a place with a glass dome roof. It was surrounded by red sand and inside there was a white rug. We were on it. That was a special place for us, wasn’t it?”

  Elation swelled inside him. He tried to contain it as he whispered, “You saw that?”

  She nodded. “I felt the place and that moment was very important to us.”

  He couldn’t believe it. This was the first time being on Earth that she’d ever had any recollection of her true heritage. Of Emon and their home. He squeezed the hand that still clasped his. “Yes. That was my home before it became ours. It was also the place where I claimed you as my eternal mate.”

  “And Cyrus?” she asked softly.

  “The subject of him is a long one.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her bent knuckles before he stood and walked to the fireplace. “Cyrus is our enemy now but it wasn’t always that way.”

  “He hates me.”

  Jack shook his head but didn’t turn around. “I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s just the opposite.”

  “Tell me.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There was so much he could say, but the question was how much of the truth should he share? “Something happened to him the summer I found you. Before that he was my friend. He, Selig, and I spent a number of years together, traveling and hunting.”

  “Selig? I think I remember him.”

  Jack brushed a hand over the mantle and swallowed, pushing aside the thought of what Selig has just done for them. There’d be another time to explain this to her. Right now, he figured since he’d started the dialogue he may as well finish it. “Cyrus was the future ruler of the Skarka nation, and in Emon, I was royalty. Selig was picked to be my master of arms so all three of us had a common bond. Only that summer, Cyrus and Selig were sent away to be trained as warriors. I wanted to go too, but Emon’s future king wasn’t allowed.

  He turned and shrugged. “Left behind, I started to venture farther and farther from the city until I found your tiny village and then you.” He inclined his head. “That was it. I knew right away and I think you did too. By the time Cyrus and Selig returned, they were no longer friends and all three of us were different people. Selig at that point, had his mate and I had you. Cyrus had no one and became resentful. He tried unsuccessfully to get between us for months, but none of his manipulations worked.” Jack brought both hands up to rake them through his hair. This was all painful and dangerous ground he hadn’t walked on in centuries. “Are you sure you want to speak about this now?”

  “I think we have to. Cyrus knows who is to bear the seventh child.”

  His heartbeat sped. “You’re sure? He told you that?”

  When she nodded, there was no turning back. “I think Cyrus eventually fell in love with you and when you refused him he waited until our men, me included, were on our annual hunt and he invaded. He ordered his warriors to butcher all of our women. Young, old, they didn’t discriminate. They didn’t leave a single female of Emon race alive...except for you.”

  Her mouth opened, then she blinked and snapped it shut. Leaning forward she whispered, “Are you telling me that I’m responsible for a whole race of women disappearing? Me?”

  Jack turned back to the fire. He threw a few logs in and once again watched the flames. He couldn’t look at her when he told her the next piece of their history. “Cyrus took you bac
k to his lands and by the time I got there, you were gone.”

  “Gone?” When he didn’t answer, she pressed, “As in dead?”

  “Yes,” his voice was so low, he wasn’t sure she’d even hear him. Turning he added, “You can see why when I lost you prematurely, in our last lifetime, it nearly undid me. It was like reliving that failure all over again. I left you unprotected that time, and this last? It seems I did so again. I had no idea that Cyrus was here. I’m sorry.”

  Both of them were quiet until she cleared her throat. “The moment that I saw the desert, I knew I was from your race.”

  “You were, but once your soul was sent here, you belonged to this world. You have to earn the right to return to ours.” He walked back to the bed and took hold of her chin. “You see, in every world but the forbidden one, a soul is to be embraced. It is the essence of who we are as individuals, no matter where we come from or what we look like. But when these souls were taken from the vessels holding them in ways other than peaceful means, it was decreed that they be sent to the forbidden world to recover.”

  She stared up at him. Her frown told him she was mulling that over. “Okay, you lost me. I don’t understand.”

  He let go of her to brush her bangs off her forehead. “The forbidden world is a place where souls are given many hardships and trials in order to make them stronger, before they can be returned to the world from which they came.”

  When she shook her head, he tried a different approach. He knew this wasn’t easy to understand. “Look at it like…” he paused, trying to formulate an appropriate analogy, “The forbidden world is your version of say, hell.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Only there’s no evil intent,” he quickly assured. “Take for instance, the women of my world. They didn’t choose for Cyrus and his men to kill them, but still, they were affected by the act. Their souls bruised and corrupted, angry and, in some cases, left helpless, tainted by the violent act that had the potential to alter, or possibly destroy, the individual essence they were capable of being in their next life. Do you know what happens when a soul isn’t given the time, after this kind of brutal interruption, to cycle through lifetimes and recover?” She shook her head. “It withers and dies and is never reborn.”

  One of her brows shot up. “So, what you’re telling me is that I’m stuck in hell?”

  He shrugged. “It was only an analogy. I prefer to call it, recovery.”

  “Really? Hell?” She was, well? Stunned was a good word for it.

  He scowled and corrected, “Recovery.”

  “For how long?” She wasn’t about to argue. Especially when he wasn’t going to sway her on this.

  “Now,” he ignored her question and started pacing as he explain, “it was only the recovering souls that could enter the forbidden world—hence the name—so that’s why Emon males had to petition the council to allow us entry. They called this permission giving blessing. We didn’t have the time to wait for our mates to cycle through lifetimes before returning to us. Our race would have been wiped out.”

  “I know, you told me. You were granted rights to come here and find a mate but you needed that mate to give you half of their soul to be able to stay here, right?”

  He stopped pacing to answer, “Yes, but it wasn’t easy. As once your soul was released in this world, you became a part of the world here, and no longer a part of our...my world.”

  “So you didn’t come here to find a mate, you came here to find me.”

  “Yes,” he nodded, looking into her eyes. “The other Vampine males, who hadn’t claimed their mates before our women were butchered, were granted a blessing. They were given the chance, during one of your lifetimes, to find a soul here to bond with.”

  Finley thought about the corrupted soul theory. “Does this mean that the time clock for my release has been reset? You know, on account of being murdered in my last lifetime?”

  “No, it doesn't matter what you do here. No actions, good or bad—murder or suicide—have any effect on your release. That’s the problem.”

  “So what are we waiting for? I mean, you found me. Can’t we just go back now that I’ve cycled through, how many lifetimes? I mean, who decides when a soul like mine has recovered?”

  “Ah, that’s where it gets tricky and where the prophecy comes in. We need those seven future leaders to be born so that they can petition the council to set up cycling guidelines, so to speak.”

  “Guidelines?” She squashed her nose up. Wow, this really was hell.

  “As it stands now, there are no rules. It’s all about dates and order. That’s the problem. You were ready to come home many hundreds of years ago, but your placement in line to be reviewed for release? That’s nearly four hundred years from now.”

  “Are you kidding me? They review according to a list that’s based on arrival and not on phase of recovery? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  He sighed. “It is as the council decreed.”

  “Sounds more like the government to me.”

  He apparently wasn’t going to argue with her as he went on, “So the point here is that we need all seven children to be born, so they can devise a plan to convince the council to change this archaic system. Do you know what’s happening on other worlds? And why this one is such a mess?” She shook her head, impressed with his passion on the subject. “They’re releasing undeserving souls back into my world and other worlds - giving them the opportunity to perpetuate the instance that brought them here to begin with which only facilitates another chance to disrupt the life path of an innocent.”

  “Like me.”

  “Yes.”

  Finley stretched her back as she thought about this and when it came to her stiffened. “Wait, getting out of here has nothing to do with real recovery, right? If what you’re telling me is true, the assumption is that by the time you go to the council for review they figure you’re recovered and they send you back no matter what?”

  “Exactly.”

  She knew her eyes were wide when she tilted her head back, looking up at him. “This isn’t hell, it’s worse. It’s prison and I’m waiting to be paroled. Only instead of getting let out early for good behavior, like I should, I’m stuck in line waiting behind other inmates who’ll be released before me. Guys like Hitler and Dahmer.”

  He gave her a crooked smile. “Prison, huh? You do like labels.”

  She ignored how her heart rate kicked up to speed, being treated to his lopsided grin, and would have questioned him further about their first claiming, but a vibrant image suddenly engulfed her. This time she wasn’t startled by the vision. With a measure of acceptance, she slowly leaned against the headboard and closed her eyes. And unlike before, this time she didn’t mind the throbbing pain that shot through her while she recalled another part of her past.

  She saw herself standing a good distance from the edge of a cliff. Lime green grass and fragrant yellow flowers surrounded her. A gentle breeze blew and its coolness felt wonderful against her warm cheeks. Smiling when she stepped forward. Her feet were sure and steady as her brisk walk changed to a trot before her speed suddenly increased to a full out run. Heady adrenaline raced through her veins as her weight shifted forward in anticipation of—Oh God, no. But the scene continued to unfold. And she couldn’t deny what was happening. In mere seconds, she would disappear over the cliff.

  Although her body currently stiffened, the moment her feet left the ground in the image, she recognized there was no such trepidation in her form from ages past. She embraced the path she’d chosen and sailed through the air, weightless and happy, as she plunged toward the distant ground to meet her death. The knowledge was somehow tragically beautiful.

  “Finley?” She heard him and felt him. He had hold of her by the shoulders and was gently shaking her. “Mia lei?”

  She opened her eyes hoping he didn’t see the sorrow in them. But he did.

  “What’s the matter, babe? Are you all right?”r />
  Her lip trembled and she tried hard not to cry, but the lump in her throat was choking her. “I didn’t wind up here because I was killed by Cyrus. I’m here because I took my own life and I’m paying the price for disrupting the path of my own soul. It was me. I did this to us.”

  The truth was there written in the beautiful, but stoic, features of the only man she was destined to love. She dropped her head and whispered, “You must hate me.”

  He hooked a finger under her chin and lifted until she was forced to look at him. “You are mine. Every decision you make, right or wrong, I will accept. We are a continuum. There is no room for hate or recriminations.”

  She searched his gorgeous countenance, and spying the truth, she melted. But still a small part of her worried. She hadn’t fully grasped all of her past with him yet, but already she knew enough to know that by choosing to end her life the way she did, all those years ago, she’d thrown them into these untested waters and made them vulnerable. Hadn’t she known, before she took own life, what the ultimate outcome would be? Was it the guilt of knowing the women of her race had died because she’d blown Cyrus off? Was that it? “Why did I do it?”

  He pulled her into his arms and heaved a sigh that said this wasn’t the first time he’d contemplated that question. “I don’t know. But I do know that there had to be a good reason why you chose such a path for us. We’ll find out what prompted your decision, I promise. And, once we do, the council won’t be able to refuse us when we petition to go home.”

  She prayed this was true. She wanted it to be. The only time she felt whole was when she was with him. Although, there was something else. Something big she needed to remember. She snuggled in his arms for a few more seconds and then pulled away.

  “Is there something you haven’t told me? I feel it pulling me but I can’t make it out. It’s important I think and I’m supposed to know about it. Do you know what it is?”

  Jack blinked and looked away. What was it? She waited and didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until he said, “Yes.”