I started crying in earnest then. I wanted, with every fibre of my body, to feel something else. But a sadistic, twisted, desperate part of me wanted to never let go. To never relinquish that pain, that heartache, that loss. To let it go would be to forget. And how could I forget Michel?
I couldn’t. Michel had been my whole world and although he no longer existed and I was still alive; breathing, walking, feeling in the cruel world that now wrapped around me, it was not my world if I didn't think of Michel. I could not survive here if Michel wasn't first and foremost in my heart. One day, I may be able to let him slip to a farther recess in my mind, but not yet. Not now. It was too soon. And Avery had been using that grief, expecting it to break my defences down. Instead he had only solidified them.
I didn't want to forget Michel. Even if Avery cruelly made me relive mentally every intimate moment with my kindred for the rest of my very long life. I would not forget.
I stood to my feet in the centre of the room, my arms wrapped tightly around my body and stared at the vampire before me.
“Go to work, Ms. Monk. Go pour your Caipirinhas and Cachaças and bury yourself in the mundane. This meant nothing. Just a reaction to heightened tension after our practice sessions with your Light. The need for my vampire to stake a claim, nothing more. We both know it was unintended." He shrugged. He had clearly got himself back under control.
I said nothing, what was there to say? Avery could pretend he didn't want to possess me, to own me, but I knew better. Especially now. His inner vampire had just let it slip, in an unguarded moment he was now trying to cover up. Avery wanted me. I wasn't sure in what form, but I did know it involved the power I could give him when we joined.
I stomped out without another word and headed down the stairs. I was already half an hour late for work. I walked in a daze, with my Light wrapped firmly around me. I wasn't taking the chance a fey could jump out of the shadows and bypass my shattered mental shields. So I simply fashioned my Light into a cloak and draped it over every part of my body.
It felt surprisingly good.
Jorge scalded me for my tardiness, but when he saw my face immediately stopped in his tracks. Instead he handed me my apron and the keys to the till silently and took his scheduled break, leaving me in charge.
Despite being rushed off my feet, my mind still wandered. The afternoon's experiences branded on my mind. In my desperation to feel anything other than the pain I had been suffering, I had almost let a vampire close enough to drain me. But I hadn't, in the end. In the end I had fought back. And even if the attack from Avery had been painful, reminders of a life lost, I would not give up my love for Michel. And if that meant I had to live the rest of my very long eternal life feeling that keen sense of loss and heartache, then I would. For Michel. For me.
I devoted the next few hours to serving, clearing tables and keeping my customers happy. By the time the sun set and I could feel vampires spreading out in the night, I was back in control of myself. My mind. My body. Even my grief. Despite the circumstances, it had been cathartic. It had forced me to face up to my feelings, that over riding sense of loss and heartache and pain. And it had made me accept them. I could live with them a while longer.
I would continue to fight back.
No more than a minute after the sun set, Avery slid into a seat at the bar. He looked relaxed, his whole body a confident, luxuriously sinuous flow of muscles. He practically oozed post coital bliss, despite the fact nothing like that had happened between us - he'd only witnessed what had appeared in my mind. This was the Avery I was used to, though. Not that slightly puzzled and off-kilter man I had left behind in my apartment. His sexy demeanour now hadn't gone unnoticed by my female customers either. Hell, even some of the males were drooling.
I pushed a Cachaça towards him, prepared to accept his offer of friendship in the guise of aid, despite knowing exactly where it might lead. I needed an ally right now and I'd use Avery just like he was using me. And then I poured a drink for myself. Avery raised his shot glass up to me and said with an intense gaze to his eyes, “To the potential for a fantastic relationship.”
I hesitated as a few heads turned my way and more than one look of jealousy accompanied them and then keeping a wary eye on the crouching tiger before me, slammed the drink back and tipped the shot glass upside down on the bench. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and heard Avery's low, but controlled, growl.
“I thought we might have passed this,” I said quietly - if not even a little hopefully - holding his hunger filled gaze.
“You have suddenly become more appealing, Ms. Monk. As though you've lost your ribbons and satin and lace, and finally grown some claws and an attitude and more than just a growl to your bite.” He leaned forward and grabbed hold of my singlet pulling me across the bar towards him. His lips brushed the pulse in my neck and he whispered, “It's fucking hot.”
I pushed back roughly against his hold, he released me and sat back down with a satisfied look to his face. I was stunned. Although far more familiar to me than the helpful friend Avery had been, this sudden about face still seemed out of place. He had come close to showing me his vampire's end game, he'd maybe seen a different side of me because of it, I'm not certain, but now, it seemed that Avery had a taste for more. I wasn't sure what to make of this. I thought perhaps he would moderate his intentions - not hunt me with such open desire. Make my end game easier to obtain. How stupid could I have been? I was playing with the devil right now and I needed to remember that.
I decided nonchalance was my best approach. “The experience was enlightening, Rousseau, but not enough to tempt.” I just hoped he bought my brush off. I couldn't lie, he'd know I was still not keen to join with him, but I wasn't ready to cast him adrift either. I would gladly use him, while he was still able to hone my skills, but then I'd figure a way to ditch him at the first appropriate chance.
He just looked at me for a while, then shrugged. His gaze taking in the customers in the bar for the first time. I noticed a slight tension seep into his frame.
I continued to serve for a few more minutes, then during a lull he waved me over to his end of the bar.
“What do you see, Ms. Monk?” he asked, flicking his eyes out over the bar.
I looked up across the bar and took in the patrons. I knew Avery wasn't asking me literally what it was I saw. So, I tried to differentiate auras. I'm hopeless at reading auras and only those with some sort of power show. I supposed fairies should rate something on the aura scale, but I couldn't see it. So, I let myself sink into the black nothingness that takes me Dream Walking or Blood Life Seeking and sought out those in the room. Still nothing, only Avery registering as a Dark space right beside me.
I was about to shrug a non-committal reply when the air around certain people shimmered. Not their aura, which is a glow close to their bodies, but the actual air or space around them, possibly as far out as several feet in some instances. I went around the bar methodically counting all those with a shimmering space surrounding them and turned back to Avery. He had been watching me very closely.
“There's six of them. They were harder for me to detect.”
He nodded slowly, obviously not fazed by the level of difficulty I had detecting the Fey, but pleased in the fact that I had at all.
“And yet, none have approached you. What are you doing, Ms. Monk?” he asked, looking me up and down as though he might see what magical shield I had operating.
“I've got my Light wrapped around me like a cloak.” I hadn't lowered it or removed it the entire afternoon. It was still firmly in place.
“Is that a fact?” Avery said impressed. “Is it hard to maintain?”
“No, not really. I'm constantly aware of it being there, but it only requires a small amount of effort to keep it up.” A bit like my normal mental shields. They were so natural that they remained in place even when I slept. I could lose them though. When I was injured or upset. I was picking it would be the same with my Light
.
“This is good,” he said, taking another look out across the room. “I'm sure they could bypass it though, if they know who they are hunting. If a description of you gets out or the location you are hiding in. Still, this is something we can definitely work with.”
“I'd like to see them try,” I shot back at him, bristling at the implication that my Light wasn't strong enough.
Suddenly Michel had me up against the side of the bar, his body trapping mine and grinding against me from behind. We were both fully clothed, but the implication was obvious. Avery had breached my shields without any effort at all.
“Do you still think they can't get past your Light?” Michel whispered against my cheek. I felt sick to the stomach that Avery was using Michel to get his point across. Not unlike the sessions in my apartment, but this one just crossed a line.
I pictured where Avery had been sitting at the bar in my head, then slapped him in the face with my Light as hard as I could and came back to my body. One hand holding onto the bar top to keep me steady, the other clenched around my stake ready to strike.
Avery stared at me for a second, his hand rubbing his cheek where my Light had struck, his eyes glinting in the lights of the bar. Not yet releasing the jade, but threatening to.
“I say again... hot,” he said in a low voice. “Fucking hot.”
“Stop doing that!” I ground out through gritted teeth. “Just because you know how to get past my Light, doesn't mean they will.”
“But they may communicate with each other. Those who fail, will hand on their knowledge of your defences to others. In time, they will know what I know.”
“But not yet,” I growled and turned to serve a few customers.
I felt Avery's hot gaze on me the entire time I carried out my tasks. Pouring drinks, chatting to customers, giving out change. I'd almost got used it when I felt an even hotter gaze on me, right between my shoulder blades. I don't know what it was about Gabriel, but I could always tell when he was right there.
I didn't respond to it. He would have seen Avery watching me, perched close to the bar. I could imagine he wasn't thrilled about that, but hey!, what could I do about it? It's not like Avery was going to let me out of his sights after dark. I flicked a glance over at Avery and my jaw almost dropped to the ground. Another skimpily clad teenage couple were being chatted up. He was insatiable. He had their attention too and he was no longer watching me, but instead concentrating on the line of their necks and I think the full swell of the female's breasts. Bloody men and their never ending hard-ons.
I swung around to have a go at him and bring him back down to Earth, when Gabriel stepped in front of my view.
“You look tired, Luce,” he said, reaching out and running a finger down my cheek.
I frowned at him. Gabriel had shown interest in me, but never touched. Still, I could imagine he was feeling threatened with Avery here and maybe it had been enough to get him to take that bold next step. I didn't want to offend him, he was my boss's son after all.
“Hey, Gabriel. Is it change of shift already?”
“I'm a little early. I was hoping to convince you to have a drink with me,” he said, thrusting his hands in his pockets and looking vulnerable.
I bit my lip and flicked a glance at Avery. He seemed quite content chatting his latest protégés up. He didn't look like he was going anywhere with them though. He was sitting quite comfortably flush against the male while his eyes devoured the woman at his side. So, I probably wouldn't have to give chase. I returned my gaze to Gabriel.
“Come on,” he said hopefully, holding out his hand to me. “Maria will look after the bar.” And when I hesitated, “Just one drink, Luce. It can't do any harm.”
I sighed. He was right. Avery was busy and right there at the bar and besides, this was Gabriel. He was harmless and innocent and it had taken a huge amount of courage for him to work up to organising this. One drink. What did it matter if I entertained him for just one drink?
I slipped my hand in his and was immediately somewhere else.
The white, pristine sand between my toes sparkled under the hot, blazing ball of a descending sun, in a crisply blue sky tinged with pink. The azure blue of the ocean beside me swept in and out in rhythmic waves upon the shore. A soft, fresh sea breeze wrapped around my body, making me realise I was no longer dressed in my short shorts and singlet top, but instead in a skimpy hot pink bikini. Three triangles covering strategic spots.
I whirled around taking in familiar palm trees swaying on the edge of the sand and found Gabriel.
He smiled, his hands still thrust deeply in his pockets.
“Where am I?” I asked, but I already had a fairly good idea. I'd been here before.
“Um, I think it might be the Bahamas.” Yep. Definitely been here. “I wasn't in control of this shift.”
“Where is he?” I asked, clenching my hands in fists and trying to use my Light to shatter the illusion. It would have worked if it was an illusion. I know it would have. But this wasn't a mind manipulation, this was an actual place.
I was standing in the hot sand of a Bahamas’s island at the mercy of the Fey who had brought me here.
“He'll meet us here soon,” Gabriel answered, then added a little sheepishly, “I'm sorry, Luce. I had no choice. They threatened my father's life.”
“You're a fairy,” I said with little emotion in my voice. I was surprised. I hadn't sensed it. And more importantly, neither had Avery. But, I was not going to show that surprise to the fairy before me.
“I'm an umskipti,” he answered without an ounce of shame. “Jorge has raised me as his own from birth. His real son lives in Álfheimr.”
“He doesn't know,” I said, shocked at the violation that the Fey had carried out on my boss.
“No.”
“How did they get his son into Álfheimr with the portals closed?” I asked, trying to puzzle through it, despite a rising tide of fear threatening to drown me at any moment. I had to get out of here. I had to get back before he came.
“There has been one portal open. It only operates in one direction though. It's how death charms left behind here can still work. But, I've been here centuries, since before the others closed.”
Living out one changeling life after another. I didn't need him to say it, I could picture how it went. Even though the portals were closed, the Fey still managed to steal our fertile children and replace them with their changelings, their umskipti. And, when Amicus, Michel's sire, faced the final death, he was saved by the amulet he wore and was still able to enter Álfheimr.
“You're a pack of bastards, you know that,” I spat at him.
“I'm sorry, Luce. Really I am. I like you. A lot. But, you are his elska. I am honour bound as a member of the Royal Court of Ljósálfar to do everything in my power to return you to him.”
“I don't believe that,” I said, feeling a sense of dread roll through me. "The other fey who confronted me on the street in Rio..."
I didn't get to finish my sentence, suddenly Gabriel was chiming, a haunting musical sound. Beautiful, but eerily wrong. “Did they impregnate you?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Why do you care?”
He ran a hand through his short hair. Then almost reluctantly admitted, “I get to go home if I deliver you in one piece.”
“So that's what this is about?” I said, understanding slamming into me like a ton of bricks. “Your release from this realm in exchange for my captivity.”
He just stared at me with an infinitely sad look on his face.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered and disappeared.
I stood there breathing heavily for a few minutes, trying futilely to think of a way out. And then I felt him. Sensed him behind me, walking quietly closer.
I took a deep breath in, made sure my Light was firmly wrapped around my body, pulling on the edges of the metaphysical cloak to make sure it was closed. Then turned to face the bastard, kidnapping, double-crossing Prince of Lj
ósálfar.
“Elska,” he drawled as he came to stop a foot in front of me. “Finally I've found you.”
Without hesitating, I pulled my fist back and punched him hard in the jaw.
Elska my arse!
Chapter 8
Reunion
I sat on the beach getting sand in my bikini and waited for Lutin to come around. I'd hit him hard. Both physically and with my Light as a back up too. So, the chances of him coming to quickly were slim. I'd made a quick survey of the area of beach we were on, but it was secluded and the jungle behind the palm trees that fringed the beach, was dense.
I had considered using leaves or vines of some description to tie him up, but I'm an urban survivalist. Not a wilderness one. He didn't have anything in his pockets that would have helped either. And I purposely avoided pulling his sleeves up to reveal his bracelet. Fey silver and I were not a good mix. I don't think my Light cloak would have kept me safe from that.
His tall, nearly six foot well-toned body, lay in a slump on the beach beside me and I took the time to consider him as unemotionally as I could manage. His chiselled cheekbones and out-of-this-world handsome face were relaxed in unconsciousness. His lips so full and kissable. Even knocked out, he could have an effect on a woman. It's just what they are. They don't need their melodious voice or their musical chimes to influence you. They have a body made by gods and absolutely every aspect of them is designed to capture your attention.
I studied his short spiky blonde hair, always messed up in some sort of mischievous style. Lutin was all imp. His sole purpose in life was to have fun and wreak havoc. He'd spelled me in the past, but I wasn't the naïve half-human I used to be. I knew his intentions were not pure. He only wanted my body for the Fey children he thought I could conceive. There was no long lost love between us, it was all about what he thought I could give him. Not what he could give me.
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