“I thought we might go back to my hotel, where we can talk with no interruptions,” he said. “We can order dinner in if you like. Would you like to do that?”
Being anywhere with him was fine with her. Tonight she just needed to have the answers to her questions. She needed to know the truth because she was desperately and hopelessly in love with him.
“Yes, that’ll be fine,” she said. She felt a bit nervous without knowing exactly why.
He drove quickly through the streets, making her wonder how he was so familiar with the area.
“Have you been here before?” she asked.
“Do you mean Brighton?” he asked and looked at her with a soft smile. She nodded.
“Yes, many times,” he said.
“Oh. Was that on business?”
“Yes.”
She stayed quiet the rest of the way. She knew he was glancing at her frequently but she didn’t look back at him. She wanted so much to believe him; she wanted so much to fall into his arms and tell him how much she loved him.
When they arrived at the hotel, he let the valet take the car as he took her hand and they walked through the lobby towards the elevator. When he hit the button to the penthouse, she looked at him in wonder.
“The penthouse?”
“Why not?” He smiled.
“It must be pretty pricey!”
“Not really,” he said with a soft smile.
The room was incredibly huge and gorgeous. He took her coat and as she looked around, he came and stood in front of her.
He put his finger under her chin and lifted her face until their eyes met and she stopped breathing. She lost her balance and his right arm wrapped around her waist, holding her steady. She saw a faint smile of satisfaction on his face.
She stared into his gorgeous green eyes and his perfect face, trying to take in every inch of him. She focused on fighting to keep her breath slow and steady even though her heart was hammering wildly in her chest and her hands were sweating from anxiety.
Sebastian made sure she was steady on her feet before he let her go as he pulled her toward the sofa.
“Alright,” he said with a smile when they sat down. “This is the moment of truth. Go ahead and ask away.”
“Who is Annabel?” Her question came out in a shaky voice as Annabel’s face filled her mind and she felt the same sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach as she had standing in the foyer of his house back in St. Jean de Luz. She took a couple of deep breaths.
“Who is she?” she pressed on. “And why did she tell me that you are her husband?”
Sebastian took her hands, gazed deep into her eyes, and said regretfully. “Annabel is my horrible nightmare, the most evil existence on this planet.” He paused and stroked her hand. “We used to be married, a very long time ago. It was an arranged marriage that was annulled two years later. And she doesn’t want to let go.”
The word “annulled” seemed to reach such a sensitive part in her thoughts that it gave her body a strange jolt.
“It’s pretty complicated,” he continued. “I have no control over when she leaves and when she shows up. I don’t care about her, I don’t love her, and I have never loved her. The two years that we spent together I was mostly away, and there was no interaction or relationship as man and wife. In fact we never actually consummated our marriage.”
“When were you married?” she asked.
“Arielle, there is something you need to know before I can answer this specific question. It’s going to be hard to accept, but it’s the truth, and you must know that truth if you are going to be with me. Do you want to be with me?”
What a strange thing to say, she thought to herself. There is nothing he could say that would keep me away from him. She couldn’t imagine a future without him.
“Yes, I want to be with you,” she said. “I love you.”
“Well I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “Because what I have to say will be extremely difficult for you to hear.”
What was he talking about? She looked at him, and he was looking very distressed.
“What is it?” she asked.
Anxiety had spread across his beautiful face and his eyes were full of shadows.
He shook his head in despair and squeezed her hands in his. She could hear him sucking in a deep breath before he continued.
“I’m not who you think I am,” he said.
“Sebastian, what are you trying to say?”
He took a minute before answering, trying to find the right words. When he spoke, his words came out slowly, deliberately. “I have been on this earth…for a very long time.”
“What do you mean by a very long time?”
“I mean centuries…I mean long, excruciating centuries. I’ve remained twenty-seven years old for as long as I can remember. I never get any older.”
It took a second to register the meaning of what he was saying. Suddenly she went still. She was completely horrified. Her mind moved back to the bookstore, back to the pages of the family book, back to the Sebastian born in the sixteenth century. No! Could it be?
But that was utterly insane. Nothing was making any sense at all. She closed her eyes and she felt a cold chill run down her spine. Terror filled her whole body as if the book was coming to life. She was shaking and sweat was dripping down her back. She had lost all capability of movement and she felt faint.
“Arielle! Arielle!” She could hear his voice faintly, as if it were coming from a great distance.
When she opened her eyes she was lying in bed, feeling disoriented. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten there. Her eyes rested on his amazing face, his expression apprehensive.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“You fainted, sweetheart,” he said. He was sitting next to her, his eyes searching her face as if he were trying to read her soul.
She squeezed her eyes closed and bit her lower lip, trying to shake away the last words she had heard. She didn’t want to look at him, she didn’t want to accept any of this. She lay there for a long time in complete silence.
When she finally opened her eyes, he hadn’t moved an inch. He was still sitting next to her, his eyes fixed on her face, and she could see despair written all over him.
As she stared at him, she felt total panic taking over her. He reached out to touch her and she jerked away, vaulting out of the bed. He didn’t try to follow her or to say a word. She walked over to the window. Her legs were shaking as she stared outside without seeing anything at all. A million questions were swirling in her head, but she was too terrified to utter a single word, frightened of what she might hear next.
This couldn’t be happening to her!
It was exactly what she had feared. Sebastian was just a dream, a figment of her imagination. She must have wanted someone like him for so long that she had created him in her mind, and now the dream was ready to end. She had fallen in love with the most beautiful man in the world, who was turning out to be anything but a normal human being. She felt herself drowning in sadness.
“Arielle, please!” she heard his soft, velvety voice begging her. But begging her to do what? She gathered every piece of strength her body possessed and turned slowly to face him.
“I need to know the truth, Sebastian. Are you the same Sebastian I read about in your family book?”
“What book is that?” he asked, puzzled.
“The Gaulle estate sixteenth century book?”
She was afraid to hear the answer. She held her eyes closed tight, and pressed her lips together, waiting for his reply. What if he said yes? Would that change the way she felt about him? Would she love him any less? Would she want to just run away?
Her mind was full of questions, questions with no reasonable answers.
His reply was firm, but his voice was weak and worried. “Yes, I am,” he said.
Her eyes snapped open and she stared straight ahead, pretending that she hadn’t heard what he just said. She close
d them again and stared into the darkness, knowing that this was a very important moment in her life. It was a very dark and scary moment of enormous significance.
“Arielle, do you hear me? I am the same person you read about in my family book.”
Her mind was completely frantic and her body was cold. She didn’t want to accept what he was saying. She was thinking of the things she had read in the book; the parts about immortality kept flashing before her like a movie being run over and over again in her mind.
I have to find out who he really is, and what he really wants with me, she thought. She opened her eyes, a cold expression painted on her pale face.
“So…you never get old?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“No, not at all,” he said, a smile brightening his beautiful face. “We stop aging after we become immortal,” he added.
She wasn’t sure she could process this type of information right away. She was pretty frightened.
“Arielle, I would never hurt you,” he added gently.
“So, what are you then? Are you a vampire?” She looked at him fearfully.
He looked back at her trying to hold back laughter. “No, my love, I’m not a vampire, I’m an immortal,” he said.
“Well, what’s an immortal? And how can I believe you?”
“Vampires are made up,” Sebastian explained slowly, carefully. “They are scary characters in stories used to entertain mortals. Immortals are real. We have lived on this earth always, even before the beginning of civilization. We are immune to sickness and we can live forever. We have lived among people for centuries, and we don’t need to hurt mortals in order to survive.”
She listened to him, trying to breathe normally, but she was still very scared. Was this real? Was it a dream or a nightmare? Could this possibly be happening?
Sebastian stood up, crossed the room, and tried to put his arms around her. But she pulled away, not sure if she wanted to be there or if she needed to run for her life. Seeing her hesitation, he stood an arm’s length away, letting her absorb all he was telling her.
“Okay, you are not a vampire,” she said. “But what is so special about being an immortal? How are you different from humans?”
“Well, I have a heart if you can call it that, but it doesn’t beat anymore,” he said. “It stopped beating when I became immortal.” His voice was heartrending as he continued. “I’m extremely strong, beyond any human comprehension. I can move faster than the human eye can follow. I can sense people’s presence from quite a distance. And if I get hurt I have the ability to heal very quickly. I can’t cry and I can’t dream,” he added, pain in his voice.
“Unbelievable,” she whispered. “Is there anything else I need to know about you?”
His eyes fixed helplessly on her face, worried about the next statement, and his voice dropped to a barely audible tone. “I can read everyone’s mind, with no exceptions,” he said. He was now looking right at her, waiting for her reaction.
“You know everything I’m thinking?” she exclaimed. Her head started spinning out of control and she felt the floor giving way under her feet. She grabbed a chair to stop her from falling and closed her eyes to get control of herself. Oh my God, all this time he knew how she felt. Embarrassment consumed her as she welled up with anger. She didn’t dare to breathe, afraid she might say something she would regret.
“Yes, I know what you are thinking,” he said. His eyes were staring at her with utter awareness.
“If you can read my mind, why did you ask me all those questions at the beach? Why do you keep asking me if I love you and if I want to be with you?” she asked. She was furious. He looked completely unfazed by the anger in her voice.
“I wanted to get the answers from your lips, not from inside your head,” he said simply.
“What about using my love of Pride and Prejudice?” she asked, in sheer frustration. “You knew my feelings about that book and you used them to deceive me.” She turned away from him, seething. She was furious and deeply embarrassed.
“I knew all of that,” he said. “But I didn’t try to deceive you. The book is my favorite too, and I have felt like Darcy ever since I met you. There is one more thing that you need to know about me,” he said. “Immortals can’t lie.” His voice was firm and steady.
“Well, how did you become an immortal? How did this happen?”
“I have been told that you become immortal when you are dying, and you are in the stage between earthbound and crossing to the other side. Someone is there to give you the gift – if you want to call it that – of immortality. I think I know who did this for me, but I’m not sure. And I’m not ready to tell you that right now.” He paused before going on. “I realized that I was immortal as time went by and I remained young and unchanged as others got older. I don’t understand the purpose of my existence as an immortal on this earth, and there is no one to enlighten me. I would love to know who the first immortal was and where he or she came from, but I have never been able to get an answer to my question. Nobody seems to know.”
He was shaking his head. He looked so worried and sad.
“I know the next question will sound a little silly,” she said. “But what do you eat?”
“I can eat everything you eat, but I prefer a particular drink that has been passed down through the centuries to the immortals to give our bodies strength and provide the energy we require to survive.”
“What is it?”
“It is called Salve,” he said.
“Where do you get it?”
“I’m not ready to discuss this right now either.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Arielle, immortals belong to a secret society that is bound by a code called The Rule,” he explained. He paused for a short moment as if he was trying to decide if he should go on. Finally he continued. “The details of the salve and its source are a secret that is provided to each immortal and it’s to remain a secret. I hope you can accept that.”
She was not sure she was ready to accept any of this, but she went on asking questions. Maybe she was trying to reach a point at which something would start making sense to her.
“So you live forever? And nobody can ever harm you?”
“I do have eternal life,” he said. “And it’s very hard to hurt me, but it’s not impossible.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are a couple of ways I can be hurt, but I’d rather not talk about something so morbid right now.”
“How have you been able to keep busy all these years? Or should I say centuries?”
“I have been very involved in the family business. I’m the only heir to what my father created. I have attended practically every university around the world and have studied every possible course ever offered. I hold multiple degrees and I have lived in most parts of the world. I have learned many languages, I have read myriad books, and I have listened to thousands of recordings. I love sports and I am a passionate horseback rider. I still get bored and try to find new things to do.” He chuckled under his breath and his voice changed to a soft whisper as he added, “Immortality is something that was very hard to accept, Arielle. It is very difficult to live with. I had to move from place to place as people around me started to get older and they started to notice that I wasn’t changing.”
She was beginning to feel sad for him, and she reached out to take his hand. “Have you ever made friends with mortals?” she asked. “Have you ever dated a mortal?”
“I stopped making mortal friends or getting close to them. It was hard to see them get sick or die. I didn’t like the constant pain of losing someone I cared about. It was hard moving away all the time. As the years went by, it all became routine, but it never stopped making me sad. You are the only mortal I have ever wanted to be with. And actually, you are the only woman I have ever loved.”
“Are there many like you?” she asked.
“Yes, there are many. One of them is Annabel. This is why I�
��m trying to tell you that it’s not easy to get rid of her; she can show up any time and any place she likes. She isn’t ready to give me up even though we have been apart for more than five hundred years.”
Arielle wasn’t sure what to do with all this information. She felt overwhelmed, but she still loved Sebastian just as much as she had before she knew any of this.
“Sebastian, you can read my mind, so I’m sure you know that I’m completely and utterly in love with you. But I’m also very worried about this relationship. The fact that you can see my thoughts also makes me very uncomfortable,” she added.
She looked out the window again and wrapped her hands around her body as she felt a cold wave of fear sweep over her. His voice was low as he responded to her. She could feel him standing behind her but not touching her.
“I think you know just about everything there is to know about me now,” he said. “Now you can decide if you want to be with me or if you want to walk away.” His voice was full of sadness. He paused and then added, “I love you, Arielle. And I know that I’ve been looking for you all my long life. I’ll never hurt you or let anyone else hurt you. I hope you’ll try to understand and accept who I am, and what I am, and that you will not leave me.”
His voice was breaking as he continued, “I know that I can’t live without you, but if you decide to walk away because you can’t accept me, I’ll not stop you. I love you, and I think I have loved you all my life – even before I knew you.”
Arielle’s heart was pounding in her chest and she was trying to breathe normally. She walked out onto the balcony and felt the wind brush her face. It was twilight, and in the distance the daylight was giving way to the night-lights of the city.
Chapter 15
AS ARIELLE STOOD on the balcony, grappling with the meaning of all she had just heard, she was sure he was standing in the same place unmoved, watching her, giving her time to take in and understand all she was dealing with.
There is a lot to understand here, but one thing I know is that I can’t walk away, no matter how bad this whole thing seems to be right now, she thought. God, I love him!
Arielle Immortal Awakening (The Immortal Rapture Series Book 1) Page 17