Aiden's Story (A Watcher Novel)

by S. J. West

  “How can you say such words, Dom Fernando?” She whispered. “You don’t even know me.”

  “I have known many women in my life,” I admitted, which was one of the few truths I said to Isabelle that night. “But, I have never met someone like you, Lady Isabelle. My heart, my mouth, my entire body yearns to show you just how extraordinary you are. I have been told that you are destined to go to a convent. Is that true?”

  Isabelle nodded slowly, and I could tell by the look of dread on her face that the convent was not somewhere she herself wanted to spend the rest of her life.

  “Then if that is to be your destiny, don’t you owe it to yourself to first experience the pleasures of a man who truly desires you?” I lowered my head to hers and whispered in her ear. “Let me make love to you before you are doomed to such a fate. Let me open your eyes and help you experience pleasure, as you never have before and might not ever have the chance to again. I can show you the stars of heaven over and over again without ever having to leave this earthly plane. I yearn to hear you moan my name as I kiss every inch of your skin and then scream it as I bring you over the brink of ecstasy. Please, Isabelle, let me make love to you this one night. I promise the memory of it will be enough to last you a lifetime. ”

  I lowered my head even further and suckled the side of her neck where her artery was throbbing in time with her rapidly beating heart. Her sharp intake of breath told me I had her exactly where I wanted her. I couldn’t imagine anything Malcolm might have up his sleeve that would dissuade Isabelle from being my prize that night. I stood upright and instantly captured her gaze with mine once again.

  “Meet me at the back of the chateau by the river, Isabelle,” I said huskily, staring into her plain brown eyes. “I will be waiting.”

  I walked back to the table where Malcolm was still standing and set down my wine goblet.

  “You’re turn,” I told him with a cocky grin, confident I had just won the game.

  I went out to the back of the chateau certain that no matter what Malcolm did, Isabelle would be running out of the king’s home to find me down by the river.

  I must have stood by the shoreline for well over half an hour, but Isabelle never came. I walked to the front courtyard to see if I could find Malcolm, but I couldn’t find him either. I phased back into the Council Chamber to see if they were still there enjoying the evening’s festivities, but neither of them were present. I decided to walk through the chateau to see if they had gone somewhere else together.

  As I walked down one corridor, I heard the distinct cries of a woman experiencing a tremendous amount of pleasure. Once I located the door of the room the sound was emanating from, I peeked inside to see if my suspicions were correct. I found Isabelle and Malcolm lying on a large four-poster bed within the room with Isabelle sitting astride Malcolm’s hips completely naked and enjoying herself immensely. I quickly closed the door and cursed to myself.

  How had he seduced her into his bed after I was so sure she would come to me instead?

  I went back to the party and decided to wait for my answer. I spied Isabelle as she entered the room an hour later. She kept her gaze averted from mine but looked far happier and self-confident now than she did earlier in the evening.

  When Malcolm walked back into the room ten minutes later, he grabbed a goblet of wine from a passing serving boy and came to stand beside me near the fireplace.

  “How?” Was the only question I had to ask.

  “You may have offered her pleasure for one night,” Malcolm conceded, “but I offered her pleasure for many more to come. Since her family has already promised her to the church, I told her that I would arrange to have her situated in a convent near the Vatican. That way we can have as many rendezvous as her heart desires. She might look mousy on the outside, but I assure you there is a lot more to her once you get her into bed.”

  “I want a rematch,” I said. Being defeated by Malcolm was not something I liked, and I was determined to prove I could win at the game he had made up.

  “All right,” Malcolm said, never having been one to back down from a challenge. “Same time next year? I’ll even let you choose the place and the lady of interest. ”

  I held my hand out to Malcolm, and he shook it firmly to seal the pact.

  This game of seduction became an annual event for Malcolm and me for many years to come. For over five-hundred years, Malcolm watched me play with the affections of random, unwitting women. He knew what a cad I was and how I sexually used, then killed the women I won. Malcolm was no saint either, but he didn’t always kill his conquests. There came a time in the early 1700’s when he started to deny himself the taste of human blood for as long as he could resist.

  On Valentine’s Day in the year 1718, we met up in Charleston, South Carolina. I knew I had lost the bet as soon as Malcolm entered the tavern where we agreed to meet. He was unashamedly dressed in pirate garb, which consisted of a long grey wool coat with black leather cuffs and collar, a white shirt with ruffled jabot and black leather pants, boots and tricorn hat. He even wore a black eye-patch over his left eye for added effect. I, on the other hand, was wearing a red and blue militia uniform I had stolen off my last meal.

  “Are you still sailing on the Queen Anne’s Revenge with Blackbeard?” I asked Malcolm as he walked over to my table.

  “Obviously,” he replied, plopping down in the chair across from me.

  “Then why are we meeting here and not in New Providence? I thought he preferred to sail in the Bahamas.”

  “He plans to blockade the port of this fair city come spring. He sent me ahead to do a little scouting. So I thought I would kill two birds with one stone: beat you and spy for him.”

  “Don’t you think you look a little conspicuous?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at his attire. “It’s a bit obvious that you’re a pirate.”

  “I don’t wear it when I’m scouting, but I knew it would win me our little game this evening. What woman on this earth could resist me dressed like this? Maybe I can save the fair damsel from your clutches this year.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?” I asked, taking offense to his holier than though tone.

  “It means that you have the self-control of a rabid dog,” Malcolm said rather scathingly. “Every time you win, the object of our game becomes a tasty dessert for you after you use her body to satisfy your sexual urges.”

  “And what’s so wrong with that? Are you telling me you’re abstaining from drinking blood now?” I snorted derisively.

  “No. I’m not saying that,” Malcolm sighed heavily. “But I have cut back.”

  I sat there for a moment studying him carefully before I asked, “Why?”

  Malcolm turned his gaze away from me and looked at the humans milling about the room around us.

  “I’m growing weary of being the monster in their nightmares,” he admitted quietly.

  “But why the change of heart all of a sudden? Did something happen to cause you to rethink the way we do things?”

  “I looked at myself and didn’t like what I saw very much,” he confessed. “Sebastian is older now and I need to provide a steadier life for him. After I help Blackbeard with this blockade, I intend to leave his service and take Sebastian somewhere so we can build something resembling a normal life. I may have cursed my son to experience the change every night, but I don’t have to doom him to keep living with a father who only thinks about himself.”

  If there was one person Malcolm truly loved at that time in his life, other than himself, it was his son.

  “You’ve given Sebastian a good life,” I told him, knowing Malcolm had done his best to protect his son. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for his curse. Our father is to blame for that.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “That’s what I’ve told myself all these years, but it wasn’t His fault, Aiden. We were the ones who chose not to follow His rule. We broke His trust in us. I’m not going to blame Him for my own faults anymore. I’ve been ma
king my own decisions since we were sent here and now I need to own up to that fact.”

  “So does this mean we’re going to stop having this annual meeting of ours?”

  “No. We’ll still do it. At the very least, I can prevent you from killing a few people. Maybe in time, I can convince you to try and stop too.”

  “Sounds like you need to find a place in the Vatican again if you plan to play the pious card. Maybe this time you can actually act like a real priest. You never did tell me why you left there. Were people becoming suspicious of how you never seemed to age?”

  “It wasn’t that,” Malcolm said with a shake of his head. “I could color my hair white with chalk and use makeup to make my face look a little older than I am. No, I left because of Brand.”

  “Brand?” I said, sitting up straighter. “You never told me you saw him.”

  Malcolm waved a hand in the air as if his chance meeting with Brand was nothing for me to be concerned about.

  “Back in 1508, he was helping Michelangelo with the Sistine Chapel. Brand was still trying to do what he was sent to Earth to do as a Watcher. I asked him why he even bothered, and he told me he still held out hope that our father would find a way to forgive us one day. I wasn’t in the mood to be around him any longer than I had to be so I left.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me that story?”

  “You never asked me why I left the Vatican, and I didn’t really want to talk about it.”

  “Do you think he’s right? Do you think God can forgive us for what we’ve done down here?”

  Malcolm slowly shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. A part of me hopes so, but another part of me can’t imagine why He would.”

  After that meeting with Malcolm, I began to question my own actions. He hadn’t planted enough self-doubt to make me stop killing to satisfy my bloodlust, but his hope for forgiveness did take some of the joy out of it for me. I started viewing humans as more than just playthings for me to use as I saw fit, but it wasn’t until Justin sent me on a mission in the mid 1800’s that I came face to face with what I had become, and I didn’t like what I saw.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In January of 1861, Justin asked me to join the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The Pinkerton Agency was founded in 1850 in Chicago, Illinois by Allan Pinkerton. It soon became the largest firm for private law enforcement in the world.

  On the morning of February 22, 1861, I arrived in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to meet with a Pinkerton agent who had uncovered a plot to assassinate then president-elect Abraham Lincoln. The plotters were secessionist and wanted to assassinate Lincoln before his inauguration. I had no idea who I was meeting or what they looked like. All Allan Pinkerton told me was that the agent was unique and that I should do exactly what they told me to do, no questions asked.

  That afternoon, I sat in the lobby of a hotel in downtown Harrisburg waiting for this mystery agent to contact me. I pretended to read a newspaper, but the paper was upside down so the agent would know I was the one they were supposed to be meeting. I sat there for almost half an hour before I heard someone speak the code phrase.

  “Oh Charles,” a woman behind me said, her accent distinctly southern, “there you are. I thought I might have to find a bloodhound to track you down for me.”

  I folded the newspaper up as I finished the code by saying, “You know I’m allergic to dogs.”

  I stood up from the settee and turned around to face the woman. She was very attractive with long brown hair pinned up into a stylish bun. She was dressed in a teal silk gown with a tailored jacket that had ruffled cuffs and collar. A matching hat sat jauntily to the side on her head, and her smile for me looked so genuine you would have thought we were old friends instead of complete strangers.

  “Well, come along then,” she said, walking around to me and looping one of her arms around mine nonchalantly. She led me to the staircase that lead up from the lobby to the guest rooms on the second floor. “We need to get ready for the dinner party. It isn’t every day that someone gets to dine with the President of the United States.”

  The woman kept the casual chatter up until we reached our room. Once inside, she took off her hat and tossed it on the only bed in the room. After I closed the door behind me, she whirled around and held out one of her hands for me to shake.

  “Kate Warne,” she introduced herself rather officially. “Allan tells me your name is Aiden Keles.”

  I shook her hand and was surprised by how strong her grip was considering how delicate she appeared. I would soon learn that Kate was anything but frail.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Warne,” I replied, somewhat shocked that Allan Pinkerton had a female detective on his payroll. Yet, considering what the Pinkerton Agency was, it made perfect sense. Sometimes the wives and girlfriends of important men would say things in casual conversations amongst themselves that no man would be privy to. Who better than another woman to spy on them? Moreover, during that time in America’s history, a charmingly beautiful southern belle was a perfect tool of espionage to infiltrate the social elite and ferret out any activities by the secessionist movement.

  “Allan didn’t tell me what it is that I’m supposed to be doing here,” I admitted. “He just told me to follow your instructions and not ask questions about your orders.”

  Kate smiled. “Dear Allan, he never trusts anyone fully. He probably wanted to make sure you didn’t inadvertently say something to someone during your travels here that would give away our plan.”

  “And, if I might ask, what is the plan exactly? Why am I here?”

  Kate shrugged off her jacket and tossed it on the bed to lay beside her hat.

  “You’re here to help me protect the life of our dear president-elect. I’m sure Allan at least explained to you that I uncovered a plot by a group of secessionist in Baltimore to assassinate him. They’re planning to do it when he has to change trains in the city while he makes his way to Washington D.C. for the inauguration.”

  “What exactly do you need me to do?”

  “I need you to act as my escort to a dinner this evening being held in honor of Mr. Lincoln. Afterwards, he’ll don a disguise, and we will act as his escorts to his train. You and I will stay with him through the entire journey to deal with anything that might happen. Do you think you can handle that?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, having met few people during my time on Earth who held themselves with the confidence Kate did that day. She immediately earned my interest.

  “Good. Now, help me out of these clothes so I can get ready for the party.”

  Kate turned her back to me. I helped her out of her layers of petticoats and corset, but there was nothing sexual about the encounter. It was completely business-like. She was solely focused on her mission to save the life of the president and not even my presence was enough to dissuade her from her objective.

  Kate was the first woman I ever truly felt a platonic kinship with. Her mindset reminded me so much of my own, and I don’t mean she thought like a man.

  She thought like a warrior.

  Once she was dressed, we set out for the governor’s home where the dinner was to take place. The governor of Pennsylvania at the time was Andrew Gregg Curtin. He was a good friend and staunch supporter of Lincoln.

  When we arrived at the governor’s home, we were immediately taken into the sitting room where guests were already gathered and listening to Mr. Lincoln give a speech. As you can imagine, he was talking about slavery and what he felt our nation must be willing to do to end it. The guests seemed worried about the possibility of secession by the southern states and the changes war would bring to their own peaceful lives.

  Personally, it had been a long time since I fought in a war. I was ready for it. But, I did have to wonder why Justin asked me to join the Pinkerton Agency at that particular point in history. I would have thought slavery was something he would want to see continue, not end. If Abraham Lincoln was assassinated before he was offici
ally sworn into office, slavery would have more than likely continued, at least for a while. I had to assume Justin wanted the war to happen, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Sure, it would bring chaos and force brothers and friends to fight against one another in the conflict, but why did he want to tear this particular country apart? What was his end game?

  During the meal, Lincoln’s private secretary, a man by the name of John George Nicolay, came into the dining room and whispered something into Lincoln’s ear. Lincoln nodded and set his fork and knife down on his plate.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” Lincoln said, standing from his chair and laying his napkin down on the table. “I’m afraid I need to leave your company earlier than expected this evening. Something has come up that I need to address immediately.”

  I knew this was the cue we were waiting for to make our own excuses to leave early.

  “Mr. Lincoln,” Kate said, holding a hand to her stomach. “I don’t suppose my husband and I could trouble you for a ride back to the hotel. I believe you are staying at the same one as us. I fear the rich food this evening isn’t settling well with the baby.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at this statement. I knew we would be traveling with Mr. Lincoln back to the hotel, but hadn’t been informed a fictitious baby would be our explanation for a hasty departure.

  “Why of course, Mrs. Warne,” Lincoln said graciously. “I know how pregnancy can affect a woman’s constitution. You and your husband are more than welcome to ride with me.”

  I walked around to Kate’s chair and pulled it out for her. She came to my side and took hold of one of my arms as if she needed it to maintain her balance from her supposed nausea. The governor and his wife wished us all well as we left their home in Lincoln’s carriage.

  Lincoln laid his trademark stovepipe hat on the seat beside him as the carriage pulled away. He looked at the two of us and said, “So what’s the plan, Ms. Warne. What am I supposed to do now? Allan was rather secretive about the whole matter. He wouldn’t even tell me or my wife what would happen beyond this point in the scheme to see me safely to Washington.”