by kimberly
"When I am wounded, the cold is so ingrained it goes to the bone." His eyes held the shadows of his troubled thoughts. Taking another piece of wood, he tossed it onto the fire. "There is no warmth when the iciness is the very blood in your veins," he continued, words so intense she imagined she could feel the iciness that must seep through him.
"Why did you bring me back to Blackthorne?" she asked, softly, going past the place in her mind where she should have turned but didn't. She had to pursue all the answers. "I know Grandmother's dying. Am I to replace her?"
He shook his head. For a brief moment, she could see weariness in him. He was still worn out by the previous night's exertions and not inclined to reveal more than he had already said. "Not at all. The only thing you have to do is play in the illusions of normalcy we have set up here at Blackthorne. When Anlese dies and I leave here, all this is yours."
"Is this all our world is to you? Illusions?"
"I see Anlese told you I do not belong here." He ran one slender finger under his eye. "Sometimes I forget my own belated humanity. It is easy to do when centuries are spent on the outside looking in."
Her mind caught up with the implications of the word. "Have you really lived through centuries?"
He offered a wise, yet sad, smile that momentarily smoothed his features and made him look younger. "I have seen many lifetimes within this one in which I have been graced with eternal life. For you to comprehend you would have to understand the level of existence I am bound to."
"Did it take all your lifetimes to learn to talk in circles," she inquired wryly, "or is it a natural gift?" When he smiled, he looked so adrift, so vulnerable, that she could not help but feel the curse he must live under.
Morgan tossed his head to settle the unruly hair above his eyes. "Let us just say I am very good at distorting the truth."
"How long have you been here?"
"I have spent over two centuries watching mortals live their insignificant lives and die inconsequential deaths." He gave a broad sweep of his arm. "Now, they lie in decaying graves, praying as they died believing their gods were real. Everything they ever said, saw or did in their lives was completely obliterated by the touch of death."
"And you have gone untouched?" she prompted gently.
"Untouched? Hardly." He looked away. "I envy the rest of the dead." He lapsed into silence, giving his attention to the snapping fire.
Julienne, too, was immersed in thoughts. She wished she'd never asked him what she had. He had a way of disarming a person with the unexpected. She turned his answers over in her mind, noticing he was not inclined to explain in any great detail. She did not push, though she felt there was something he was deliberately concealing from her, just as she sensed an underlying current of pain that seemed to be a driving factor in his psyche. She wished he trusted her enough to confide deeper in her, tell her of his torture. But she sensed he would not do so willingly. She'd just have to be satisfied with what little he did share.
At least I'm learning the truth about him. She shivered, wrapping her arms around her body for warmth. Outside, the thunder rolled, conferring a menacing punctuation on her thoughts.
What parts of all this I can understand…
Chapter Nineteen
Julienne sat in the library. The steady patter of rain filled her ears, punctuated with the rumbling of thunder and flashes of lightning. With the electricity out and the phone lines downed by the storm, Blackthorne was truly cut off from the outside world. Oil lamps lit around the library provided a romantic glow, their pungent scent filling the air. She glanced down at the tangle of yarn in her lap. Anlese was trying to teach her how to knit, and failing.
"I'm sorry, Grandmother," she smiled sheepishly. Knitting was definitely not her forte.
Anlese's eyes crinkled in merriment. "You're doing fine, dear." Her own hands expertly worked over her latest project, a baby blanket. Despite the slight tremor of her hands, her fingers had a dexterity that belied her pain. "You can't expect perfection on the first try."
Julienne put aside her needles and flexed her fingers.
"Just not very talented, I guess." Stretching out her arms, she drew back her shoulders, feeling kinks of tension.
I'm so bored. God, is this all there is to do? There was no television, no radio. No damned anything! She felt she'd go insane in the quiet and the solitude. She now knew what Morgan had meant when he said the boredom would make you want to slash your throat. She winced. An apt choice of words, in retrospect.
Thinking of him, she glanced across the library.
Morgan lounged on the couch in front of the fireplace. He was stretched out comfortably, book propped on his stomach, reading quietly. No drink at hand, cigarettes in easy reach, a pair of black-framed reading glasses perched on his nose, black hair tousled, as it always was. He looked so sane, so normal, that she had difficulty believing this was the same man she'd been acquainted with for the last two weeks. No goading anyone with nasty remarks, no fighting with Ashleigh, no drunken rampages. He seemed content to do nothing more than read.
She considered him with curious eyes. Through the past seven days he'd been polite but distant, giving her no chances to speak with him beyond casual conversation, making no mention of the night she'd discovered he was not mortal, much less recognizing their brief sensual encounter on the day he'd shown her the druid's temple. It was as though by ignoring her he could gloss over both incidents and pretend they never happened. And though he declined to join the routine of the household, he nevertheless made himself a pleasant, not oppressive, presence. When he tried, he could actually be civil. The change in him was amazing. In fact, he was acting almost…human.
The fact that he wasn't drinking probably played a large part in the metamorphoses. She remembered Melissa had told her he was a binge drinker; would go off the booze until something set him off again.
What's the trigger? she wondered, and how long will his newly found sobriety last? Had he been this way when her mother lived here? Certainly those two stormy personalities would not have been able to find peace.
What did they fight about? Why did Cassandra hate him so? She clearly recalled her grandmother's words this afternoon. Cassandra, Anlese had said, had the gift of prophecy. Julienne frowned. The gift of foresight. Her heart started thudding unpleasantly in her chest.
Like my dreams? Whatever Cassandra had seen frightened her enough to take her child and flee, cutting off all contact with Blackthorne. What was it her mother had experienced in her visions? Her brow wrinkled. Did Morgan know? Or, had Cassandra's fears centered around him?
Melissa came into the room, interrupting her thoughts. She carried a small tray. "Here's coffee, Miss Julie," she said with a brief smile.
Jolted out of her reverie and floundering, Julienne smiled politely, accepting the cup and balancing it on its saucer. "Thanks." Enjoying the fragrant steam, she took a sip of the warm liquid.
"Miss Anlese," Melissa said. "You didn't eat much tonight. Would you like something?"
Anlese shook her head. "No, Melissa. I'm fine." She put her knitting back into its bag. "I'm a little tired tonight."
"Are you all right?" Julienne asked, laying her hand on the old woman's arm.
Anlese offered a wan, tired smile. By lamplight, her skin looked ashen, unhealthy. Tight lines of pain were etched around her eyes and puckered mouth. "No, dear, I'm not. I know it's only a matter of time before this cancer takes me."
Julienne was stunned. "Don't say that!" She felt the sting of hot tears, selfish tears. A hard knot settled in her throat, threatening to choke the air out of her. She fought to keep her composure.
Noticing her distress, Anlese patted her hand. "You must not be afraid for me," she said gently. "I'm ready."
Unable to speak, she wiped away the tears threatening to spill over.
"I know it's early," Anlese continued, "but you must excuse me. I'm so tired tonight. I'd like to go to bed." The old woman rose, taking the hand Melissa
offered.
Julienne nodded mutely. Watching her grandmother leave the library, she could see her leaning heavily on Melissa's arm. Judging by her slow, careful movements, Anlese was in great pain.
Left to her own devices, she wondered what to do next. There's nothing to do, she reminded herself. She looked at the tangle of yarn. Ho-hum. Boring!
I hate knitting, her mind shouted out. I need some excitement here. Some noise, some music, dancing, laughter. Oh, God, I'm twenty-four. What am I doing here? I don't belong in this place. She thought of California, of the life she'd left behind. Would it be unreasonable to want to go back? There she at least had a life, an identity. Here, she had…nothing.
Panic seized her. What had she gotten herself into by coming to Virginia? Grandmother, she's dying. What a wonderful welcome home after twenty-one years. Morgan. Oh, Morgan. An unbalanced man. A man who's leaving soon. Where will that put me? I don't want that. I don't want to be alone again.
She shot a surreptitious glance toward him, tapping her fingers on her chin.
I'm not alone now. He's here. Ashleigh's gone. Remembering the kisses he'd given her, she absently traced her lips with a finger, feeling the throb of sensual warmth between her tingling legs. We're by ourselves. I'm attracted to him. He's attracted to me…
A hot flame of embarrassment scorched her cheeks.
Whoa! No! Stop it! Thinking about sleeping with Morgan is crazy! He's too unstable. He's suicidal. But he's good-looking and oozes sensuality and a magnetism that's hard to resist. I could eat him up with a spoon.
Why not? her little demon whispered. Perched on her shoulder, it prodded with its sharp pitchfork, awakening the restless needs of a young woman whose body was coming back into sexual bloom after a barren season. Take no chances, it whispered in her ear, and you get nothing in life.
The grandfather clock in the foyer began to sing out the hour. Nine chimes sounded over the hard patter of rain against the windows. The old house seemed strangely quiet…empty.
She shivered. Where had the time gone? She had two choices at this point. Find something to do or go to bed. She decided to find something to do. Taking her cup, she crossed the library, walking down into the sunken alcove harboring Morgan. As he occupied the whole couch, she sat down in front of it, setting her cup beside her knee. The fire in the hearth snapped cheerily, providing warmth to her pale skin. She sighed, running her hands down her arms to stay the chills, snuggling deeper into her sweater.
"What is the matter, lass?" Morgan lowered his book.
Julienne was surprised he was paying attention to her presence.
"Grandmother's not well," she said. Shifting her body, she turned so she could face him, leaning against the sofa and propping her arm on its edge. "She's dying. I thought she was like you."
"No. She is still only mortal," he explained gently.
"Why can't she be cured?" she asked. "You could heal her, couldn't you?"
"I have offered her a healing through my blood," he said. "She does not want it. The practice of her trade has taken too much from her over the years and she wishes to be free."
Well, I guess that's that.
"Oh." With her free hand, she reached out and tipped the book so she could see its spine. The words were illegible to her. "What are you reading?"
"A history of the Middle Ages," he said, taking off his glasses.
She let the book fall. "Is it interesting?"
"Monotonous," he pronounced. "Inaccurate."
"How do you know?" She cocked an eyebrow in question.
He gave her a level look. His fingers toyed with his glasses as he composed his answer. "I was there through most of it," he finally replied.
"Were you?" She reached for his glasses, peering through the lenses. Not prescription. Just common drugstore magnifying glasses.
Morgan cocked his head. A slight smile tugged at his lips, and his eyes held a little bit of the playfulness he had shown last week, when he'd kissed her. "Go ahead. Guess my age, if you can."
Julienne hesitated, looking into his eyes, fascinated, suddenly uncertain. She possessed no idea of how old he could possibly be. What she considered to be eternity, he could consider infinitesimal.
"Uh, pushing forty hard," she teased, recalling the day when she had first come to Blackthorne, mentioning how she had expected him to be older. "The gray gives away your age."
Morgan snorted, picking up on her game. He was as vain as any man on this point.
"It does not!" he protested. To check it, he again pulled down and surveyed his longish bangs. Yes, definitely shot with gray. He plucked out a few of the offending hairs, feeling there were plenty to spare.
"I was thirty-seven when I stopped aging," he continued. "When would you think it was?"
Julienne demurred. "I'm sure I don't know."
"I shall tell you then," he volunteered. "I was born in the year of seven hundred and sixty-six, in Hibernia. For your reference, Charlemange was emperor and the Christian Crusades in the name of God were still to come. Some mathematics," he continued dryly, "would give you roughly twelve hundred years."
Feeling suddenly insignificant and young, she gasped. "It's not possible! Perhaps it's not eternity, but it's damn close by my thinking." As the numbers sank into her mind, she was struck by a new thought. "What's it like to live that long?"
Morgan closed the book and put it aside. He gave Julienne a look that bored right through her, into her very soul. It was the kind of look that made one wonder if he was sane. "We do not live. We exist." The emotion on his face was a stony grimness. Breaking their eye lock, he lifted and pressed his fingers to his temple to stay the pulsing vein there.
Her gaze followed his move. "Headache back?"
"It is nothing." To show it was true, he lowered his hand. "I am fine. Just this damn small print annoying me."
She playfully tossed his glasses back at him. "Blind enough to need glasses?"
"My eyesight is a little blurred today," he said.
"You don't seem to sleep much," she commented. "Maybe you're tired."
"I do not need much rest," he explained, "after regeneration completes itself."
Julienne put her hand on his arm. "Let me see again."
Morgan tensed under her touch, but relaxed after a moment, letting her unbutton his sleeve. Pushing up the cuff, she turned his arm to the fire to better see his wrist. The wound he'd inflicted had completely healed, but she could see the pale white marks of earlier, older scars. She traced one with the tip of her finger. The scar extended from just below his wrist, traveling up his forearm almost to the bend in his arm.
"Why did you do that?" Her lips trembled a little. The words were so strange to say. "Did you really want to die?"
His countenance became a bit less composed, rewarding her with a flicker of unease behind his eyes. "A price must always be paid for the secrets of the forbidden." She'd stumbled near a subject that bothered him. His arm tensed and she could tell he wanted to draw away from her grasp. She tightened her hold. She wasn't going to let him go. Not yet. Instead, she boldly reached for his right hand so she could examine it. Rolling up the cuff, she could see three more scars of a scarily precise length and depth. He'd once cut deep and hard. His intent to die had been a strong one.
"You pay in blood, I see."
"The scars disturb you," he observed distantly. He pinned her with his laser-beam stare, dissecting, probing the pieces, searching the depths of her eyes.
"No." She paused. "Yes." She let her tongue trace her lips as she formed her question. "Why do you have these? Why didn't they heal, too, and go away?"
He drew away from her grasp. "These are from my mortality, before legacy claimed me." Absentmindedly, his index finger traced the dark ring under his eye.
Julienne forced her gaze to meet his steadily. "What drove you to suicide, Morgan?" Around them, the library was very still, the storm outside lulling, like the eye of the hurricane.
"Old guilt." His
answer was too quick, too glib, too practiced. The words, at first simple, sounded strangely cryptic.
She leaned closer. "I think it's more," she said. "Hell is empty." She tapped him on the forehead. "The devils are there."
Morgan caught her hand. "Nothing is there."
Julienne began to button his cuffs. I wonder how he's survived his repressed emotions rattling around inside him like caged poltergeists.
"You haven't had a thing to eat today," she said sensibly. "Maybe that's why you have a headache." Come to think of it, she hadn't seen him put one single morsel of food in his mouth since the day she'd arrived. Though possessing a prodigious thirst for whiskey, he seemed to have no appetite. She hadn't even seen him so much as drink a cup of coffee.
He laughed quietly, a low, vibrant sound that reflected his shift back into a congenial mood.
Julienne frowned, still upset by the scars. "What's funny?"
"I am not bound by the constrictions of that need," he said simply.
She shook her head. "I don't understand. How can that be? You were born like the rest of us, right? Had a mother and a father?"
"Of course. I was born as you would expect," he replied. "Only my mother was not human. My father was."
"Your father was mortal?"
"Usually, one parent is," he explained. "It is upon birth that a child undergoes the rituals that begins their growth into their supernatural existence. There are three stages. First, mortal life must be extinguished."
Julienne gulped, feeling her stomach flip-flop in panic. Her heart seemed to drop a thousand miles in seconds.
"Extinguished?"
He nodded. "When that life is gone, the joining of the soul and new spirit is performed."
A long shiver ripped through her. Her dream of smothering her child jumped to the forefront of her mind, vivid, horrible. She remembered how she'd lowered her hand to the mouth of her son and pressed…
Her eyes began to glimmer with tears of shock and grief. She blinked, desperate to hide them from Morgan.