Midway through gulping down his drink, Erik choked. “What?”
She rolled her eyes. “Long story.”
“The scrolls described the Stone of the Eklektos,” Erastos said.
“Mentioned would be the correct word to use there,” Rose corrected.
“Fine. It briefly described it,” Erastos amended. “The point is that the scrolls did explain that the Stone of the Eklektos belongs to the Eklektos.”
“And I was supposed to just know that it meant me?” she asked.
Erastos sighed, “When I gave you the box in Greece, I told you that the contents of the box belonged to you. If the Stone of the Eklektos belongs to you, that makes you the Eklektos. It is quite simple. Does no one listen to what I say?”
“We listen. We just think you’re crazy,” Kallias muttered.
“Our time together is up,” Erastos announced. “Listen to me closely, Rose Foster. When you face Theron, you will need the Stone of the Eklektos.”
“Because it makes me more powerful,” Rose guessed.
“No,” Erastos said impatiently. “Because it focuses your power. It draws out the power. It manipulates it. The Stone will allow you to use limitless power.”
“Manipulates,” Kallias repeated. “Interesting choice of words.”
Erastos sighed, “Kallias of Athens, you can choose to trust me or not. But I hope that you remember what happened the last time you chose to distrust me. I assume that you do not want to lose another person you love.”
“Are you threatening me?” Kallias asked, his eyes narrowing.
“No, I am warning you,” Erastos said, “that if she does not have the Stone of the Eklektos when you face Theron again, none of you will survive.”
Erik set his empty glass on the table. “You said limitless power. Does that mean that it will allow her to use her power without consequences?”
“No,” Erastos answered. “Only her power is limitless. Unfortunately, her body is still human. When she uses too much power, she will die.”
Rose straightened as she realized that Erastos had said when and not if. She glanced at Erik and Kallias, but neither of them seemed to have noticed. She tried to calm herself. The last thing she needed was for them to notice her fear.
“I must admit that a vampire body would be more ideal for the Eklektos than a human body,” Erastos continued. That eerie smile tugged at his lips again. “Ah, what a beautiful, dangerous monster she would be as a vampire.”
Kallias scowled at him. “What is wrong with you?”
“I should go,” Erastos announced, standing suddenly. He shared a long, meaningful look with Rose. “You know all that I can tell you at this time.”
“What? That’s all?” Erik objected. “You’re not going to help us?”
“I have helped,” Erastos said. “And the type of help that you are referring to is not mine to give. It is yours and Kallias’s and Geoffrey’s and Emma’s and many other allies’ that Rose has yet to meet. My purpose is elsewhere.”
“Conveniently elsewhere,” Kallias muttered under his breath.
“I still want to know how you know all of these things,” Erik grumbled.
Erastos ignored them. “You know what you have to do,” he told Rose.
Her brows furrowed. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Geoffrey and Emma chose that moment to join them in the living room. Emma’s brown hair dripped water onto her pale yellow dress, and her skin didn’t appear to have been dried well either, leaving wet blotches all over the fabric.
Geoffrey pointed at Erastos and asked Kallias, “Friend or enemy?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Kallias muttered.
“You’re really pale,” Emma told Erastos, “like an angelic bunny.”
Rose turned to frown at the peculiar vampire. “A bunny?”
Erastos stared blankly at Emma, obviously confused by her strangeness.
“A white one,” Emma said, nodding, “from Heaven.”
Erik glanced at Geoffrey. “Uh, Geoff, is Emma okay?”
Geoffrey raked his fingers through his short hair and sighed as that familiar blush crept up his neck again. “She drank a lot of my blood.”
Erastos bowed politely to Rose again. “Until next time, my Eklektos.”
Rose was so stunned that this strange vampire kept bowing to her, as if she were royalty or something, that she let him leave without saying anything. When she heard the door close, however, she jumped to her feet. “Hey! Wait!”
Kallias caught her hand to stop her as she tried to run after Erastos. He stood and drew her back toward him. “Where are you going?” he asked worriedly.
“I just need to talk to him for a second,” Rose told him.
“No. Absolutely not,” he said. “You can’t go out there alone.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do.”
His brows furrowed. “That’s not what I…” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I just don’t trust him, and I don’t think you should either.”
“You don’t trust anyone, Kallias,” Rose reminded him.
“There is something off about him,” Kallias insisted.
“Kallias is right,” Erik said. “You shouldn’t go out there.”
“Since when are you cautious?” Rose asked incredulously.
Erik shrugged. “Since I met someone who feels no emotion.”
She frowned at him. “What do you mean by that?”
Erik frowned, visibly disturbed by this. “I’ve never encountered anyone so cold. I feel nothing from him. Nothing. He might as well be an object, instead of a living being. Everyone feels something. But not him. He just…sits there.”
Rose sighed as she attempted to think of an explanation for why someone might be so emotionless. “Theron doesn’t show much emotion.”
“Theron is a psychopath, Rose,” Kallias reminded her.
She grimaced. “Good point.”
“And even Theron feels more emotion than this guy does,” Erik added.
“His mind is unusual as well,” Kallias agreed. “Reading his mind is like reading a list of command prompts on a computer. There is no personalization to his thoughts. It is as if his mind is always blank, aside from the task at hand.”
“Maybe he’s an android,” Rose muttered dryly.
“A what?” Erik asked, frowning irritably at her again.
“A robot that looks like a human,” she elaborated.
Erik looked at Kallias. “Did she seriously just suggest that?”
Kallias shrugged. “She reads a lot of science fiction.”
“When I’m not reading horror novels,” Rose agreed.
Erik grimaced at her. “Translation: You’re weird.”
She flashed a sarcastic smile at him.
“Whatever Erastos is,” Kallias said, “something is clearly off about him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rose sighed. “I still need to talk to him.”
Kallias stared at her for a moment. “Okay, then, I will go with you.”
“Alone,” she amended. “I need to talk to him alone, Kallias.”
He sighed tiredly, “He could kill you before I could even…”
“You trust me, right?” she interrupted. “You said that you did.”
Kallias stared at her for a moment and then nodded. “Yes. Only you.”
She smiled. “Then, act like it. I promise that I will be fine.”
He scowled at her. “You can’t promise that.”
“I just did,” she said stubbornly. “Now, you have to trust me.”
Kallias sighed, “Fine. But if I feel that you’re in danger…”
“You’ll come out there. Got it,” she finished for him. She smiled and pulled her hand out of his as she spun around to follow Erastos outside.
“I can’t believe you just let her do that,” Erik muttered after she left.
“What was I supposed to do?” Kallias said. �
�I can’t tell her what to do.”
“Yes, you can,” Erik scoffed, “and the old Kallias would have.”
Kallias sighed in frustration. “I’ll be upstairs,” he muttered irritably.
—
Rose stopped beside a long, black car in the driveway. “I was worried you might have already left,” she said as someone opened the back door for her.
“I knew you were coming,” Erastos replied easily.
She peered into the car, scowling as she saw the man in the driver’s seat.
“Give us some privacy,” Erastos told the man.
She could only see the back of the man’s head and his neatly cropped black hair. The man nodded and hit a button on the dashboard. Her eyebrows lifted as a divider slid down between the front seat and the spacious backseat. “Huh, I thought that only happened in movies,” she muttered under her breath.
Erastos gestured toward the empty seat beside him. “Sit.”
Rose crawled into the oversized car that might have reminded her of a limousine, if she’d ever been in one, and sat down beside the strange vampire. She glanced at him. He stared straight ahead, his pale blue eyes fixed on the divider. His pale blonde hair fell around his shoulders and midway down his back, contrasting starkly with his black shirt. He sat rigidly, his posture impeccable.
She sighed and pointed at the divider. “Who is the man?”
Erastos glanced at her. “He is only a human. He is unimportant.”
Rose scowled at him. “I am a human.”
“No, you are the Eklektos,” Erastos corrected. “It is different.”
She rolled her eyes, giving up. “Doesn’t he ask questions?”
“No,” Erastos said. “It is my understanding that he is paid well.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Your understanding? You don’t know?”
His lips thinned. “Ask your question.”
She ran her fingers along the black leather seat as she considered the Stone, the scrolls, and everything else that had happened. “Why didn’t you tell me more when you gave me that box? Why did you just disappear like that?”
“It was not time for you to know,” Erastos said simply.
Rose narrowed her eyes at him. “But why…”
He held up his hand to stop her. With a long, tired sigh, he said, “With all due respect, my Eklektos, neither of us has time for this. Now, I know that there is a very specific question that you wanted to ask. Ask that question.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she doesn’t follow orders, but she realized that he was right about the time issue. Theron could find her at any minute, and it would be a bad idea to be sitting outside in a car, defenseless and waiting, when he found her. She swallowed. “I am going to die, aren’t I?”
Erastos watched her, his pale blue eyes steely and cold. “Yes.”
She nodded. She’d expected that answer. “When?”
“It is best if you don’t know that part,” he stated.
Rose blew out a shaky breath. “And…there is no avoiding it?”
“Any path that you might choose will ultimately lead to your death,” he answered. “It is necessary and unavoidable. You should prepare yourself for it.”
“Oh, yeah, that should be easy,” Rose muttered sarcastically.
“It is important that Kallias does not know,” Erastos added.
She stared at him blankly. “You realize that he’s a telepath, right?”
“Do not think about it. Kallias will not look past your conscious thoughts if he has no reason to suspect anything is wrong,” he told her. “He often will not even read your conscious thoughts. He trusts you enough to ignore them.”
She nodded in understanding. “You want me to deceive him?”
“Think of it more as an intentional omission,” Erastos corrected.
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s still lying.”
“Do you want him to die?” he asked, his tone still emotionless.
“No,” she said worriedly. “I’ll do anything to prevent that.”
“Then, you will do this,” he told her. “It is the only way.”
Rose stared at the dark tinted window, as she processed the imminence of her own death. “How will it happen? Will Theron kill me? No, that’s not what you said. You said I’d die from using too much power.” She sighed, “Will it hurt?”
“You will experience unbearable pain before your death,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for sugar-coating it.”
“I am afraid your future involves much suffering,” he added.
“Again with the sugar-coating,” she muttered sarcastically. She glanced at him, her brows knitted in worry. “But my friends? If I die, they will survive?”
His jaw tightened. “You will lose many loved ones before this is over.”
“Many?” she sputtered. Her heart pounded harshly against her chest. “But…how? Those four vampires inside are the only people that are involved.”
“At this time,” he agreed, “but there will be more in the future.”
She swallowed audibly. “No, no, no…I…I can’t lose anyone. I can’t. I will do anything to prevent that. Please. Tell me how to prevent it.”
“Ah, that I cannot do,” he said. “Loss is necessary for strength.”
She stared at him for a moment, thinking that she must have heard him wrong. “You…heartless jerk!” she snarled, finally. “You honestly think that it’s okay for innocent people to die because it might make me stronger?”
“No one is innocent,” Erastos stated. “Even the kindest people have a dark side. You are proof of that. As a matter of fact, the kindest are often the darkest. You have to know the darkness before you want the light.”
Rose felt a strange twisting in her stomach, a surge of adrenaline that shot through her, boiling her blood with fierce, fiery anger. “So, they deserve death? Is that what you’re saying?!” she growled, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
His lips tugged upward into that odd smile again, that smile that never failed to send an unnerving chill down her spine. “Ah, I had hoped that I would witness it. I have waited so long to see this. It is so beautifully terrifying.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, suddenly confused.
“The eyes,” Erastos said, smiling. “The eyes of the Eklektos.”
She froze. “What? Right now?” she asked, shocked. She covered her eyes with her hands, as if that would somehow change them back to their normal blue.
“You should not be ashamed of them. They are a sign of your power,” he told her. “That being said, it is best if you do calm yourself. Kallias is bound to you. He will feel your anger, and he will come out here to check on you.”
“I’m a circus freak,” Rose muttered bitterly.
“No, there is no one like you in a circus,” Erastos assured her.
She frowned at him. “You really don’t get metaphors, do you?”
He suddenly seemed disappointed. “Ah, the eyes are blue again.”
“Good,” she muttered, still disturbed that her eyes had changed colors without her knowledge. “Erastos, I need you to tell me how to save everyone.”
“Even you cannot save everyone. You must accept that,” he said.
“I don’t accept that. I refuse to accept that,” she snarled.
He smiled. “And that is what makes you so powerful.”
“Tell me how to save them,” she insisted.
Erastos sighed, “Sacrificing yourself will save them. This time.”
She frowned. “What do you mean? If I die, how can there be a next time?”
He straightened, his pale hair falling down his back. “I must go now.”
“No, I have more questions,” Rose argued.
“I cannot answer them,” Erastos stated. “Leave now.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I need to know how…”
“I will see you again,” he interrupted, “when you need me.”
“I need you now. I have questions,” she pleaded.
“None that can be answered at this time,” he told her.
She sighed in frustration, raking her hand through her long, red hair.
Even though they were in a car now, he bowed his head to her. “Until the next time, my Eklektos,” he murmured as he opened the car door for her.
She glared at him, but then, she reluctantly climbed out of the car.
She trudged through the muddy yard toward the door, using the headlights of the car to see. Thankfully, the driver waited until she reached the door before driving away. She sighed and did her best to clear her mind of the conversation before opening the door and heading into the house to find Kallias.
—
“Kallias, stop! You don’t need to read that!” Rose exclaimed.
He lounged on the guest bed, one arm folded beneath his head, his long legs hanging over the end of the bed, as he scanned one of the scrolls as if it were a newspaper, rather than an ancient document written by his dead wife. His black clothing contrasted starkly with the white quilt that covered the bed beneath him.
She crossed the room and snatched the scroll out of his hand, finally gaining his attention. “Why are you reading that? Are you trying to torture yourself?!”
He seemed bored. “It doesn’t bother me anymore, Rose.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s believable,” she muttered sarcastically.
He pulled the scroll from her hand and tossed it onto the nightstand, next to an empty coffee mug. She gasped as he suddenly grasped her hand and pulled her onto the bed, causing her to stumble forward on top of him. His fingers entangled in her hair as he pulled her face close to his. “I always believed that those wounds couldn’t heal, you know,” he murmured, “before I met you.”
Rose shifted to get into a more comfortable position, which resulted in her straddling his hips. She flushed as her body pressed so intimately against his. “Uh…yeah, I…I remember you saying that once,” she stammered nervously.
“I was wrong,” he told her, “because I’m healing now.”
A surprised smile curved at her lips. “Good.”
His hand rested on her hip, on the bare skin between the waistband of her jeans and the hem of her shirt. His thumb rubbed the sensitive skin of her hip, moving in slow, languid circles, raising chill bumps on her skin. “I love you.”
The Stone of the Eklektos Page 75