Thane’s face turned hard. “Then you need to tell him yourself because I already said we would.”
Roman leaned back in his chair. Never before had Thane questioned his authority. “Why is this so important to you?” he demanded.
“You left me in charge—and I gave my word.” Thane turned and left.
Roman walked into St. Vincent’s Hospital with tightness in his stomach. Hospitals and doctors. He hated both. Charlatans, quacks, and incompetents. Although having never suffered any sickness himself, as a man of many wars, he had seen scores of barbers and butchers practicing their skills.
He hadn’t entered a hospital since it was called a Sanatorium. Much had changed since 1890, but not the smell. That lemony antiseptic, mixed with rotting bodies from his memory, made him suppress the urge to gag. As a soldier, death and decay were nothing new. But death wasn’t supposed to have the sweet overlay this place held. As if the people pretended death didn’t exist. They kept the stench of decay at bay with potpourri and disinfectant.
He stopped at the information desk and asked for directions. The elderly volunteer smiled before directing him to the ICU on the fifth floor. Shaped like a donut, the nurse’s station sat in the center with a hallway dissecting the unit. An elderly man exited the patient’s room when Roman paused to greet the police officer stationed there.
“Ah, Mr. Nicolis. Thane called and said you were on the way. I’m Dr. James Orley.” Dressed in Arnold Palmer sportswear, with a Titleist visor framing his balding pate, the aroma of Ben Gay and Old Spice clung to him. At least seventy years old, craggily faced with hunched shoulders, Dr. Orley leaned against his cane and extended his hand. They shook and Roman noted the elder still had strength in his grip.
“I understand you don’t take on individual clients, but your company came highly recommended. I’d count it as a personal favor, as would my nephew, Senator Orley.”
Roman smiled. He respected a man who used every asset at his disposal. Even if those assets didn’t mean a damn thing to him. “Is Miss Walker a relative of yours?”
“No. Just a friend. I was a plastic surgeon and she was my last patient before I retired nine years ago. She was brought in with a fractured cheek and a broken nose along with miscellaneous injuries.”
“Car accident?” he asked.
Dr. Orley shook his head. “Beaten in a group home. She’s an orphan. The right side of her face was a disaster, but the left, well she reminded me of my sister, Ester, when she was sixteen . . . so beautiful. The night they brought Stella in, I was on my final rotation and set to enjoy my retirement. I cut through the ER on the way to the parking lot. I wanted to say goodbye to some of the nurses.” He chuckled gave Roman a wink.
“Her gurney was against the wall, out of the way. The ER was in chaos that night. A collapsed building had trapped three firefighters and some tenants. My hospital was the nearest trauma center. Since she was stable, they stuck an IV in her and left her there.” The doctor’s eyes misted over.
“The beauty of her skin and sharpness of her features,” he sighed. “I’m drawn to symmetry, so I had to see the entire picture of her face.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t leave her like that. So I took over her case and fixed her up. Since then, we’ve been friends.” He paused to clear his voice. “I kept in contact with her throughout the years. She’s an orphan, you know,” he repeated absently. “Her stepmother put her in foster care after her father died.”
His rheumy eyes met Roman’s. “She asked for nothing, nor accepted anything other than dinner. I’ve always respected that. She’s a good girl who’s had a hard time. This, she didn’t deserve.”
“Why don’t you trust the police to protect her?”
“Would you trust the police to protect someone you care about?” Dr. Orley ran a trembling, spotted hand across his aged face. “I respect the police, but they’re overworked and underpaid. Once she wakes and tells the detectives what she remembers, the policeman stationed outside her door will disappear. There’ll be no one to stop that animal from returning to finish what he started.”
Roman followed the doctor into her room as he explained her current condition. “She has broken ribs, a collapsed lung, punctured liver and stomach, cuts to the back of her head, face and neck, and a concussion.”
He beckoned Roman closer to the bed. “To keep her comfortable and speed up her healing, the doctor placed her in a drug-induced coma. She’s been out for the past week. Hopefully, they’ll bring her back soon.”
As he continued, Roman approached the mummified woman. Bandages covered a good portion of her swollen face and long black hair draped the pillow. Drainage tubes led from her abdomen and chest. What little skin he saw was pasty and sweaty. Machines surrounded her, tracking every heartbeat, forcing air into her lungs and drugs into her body. He couldn’t see the beautiful girl Dr. Orley described.
Compelled, he touched the only part of her not bandaged or swollen, her hand. Calloused with unpolished, chewed nails, her strong fingers closed around his, seizing him in a weak, but electric grip that whipped through him and left his insides soupy.
Her eyes opened. His heart seized and twisted hard in his chest. Her gray orbs pierced his soul. He jerked his hand from hers and backed away from the bed.
No, his mind screamed.
Yes, his heart cried.
Her eyes turned yellow and glowed, tracking him. The glow only he could see, spread as a sparkling mist from her eyes to cover her entire body.
“She shouldn’t be awake.” Dr. Orley checked her vitals and then left the room to get her physician.
The telltale radiance faded and her eyes closed. Roman grabbed her hand again. “Elyssian . . . it’s too soon.”
CHAPTER 3
I failed. Stella Walker lived.
Alamut—so named by his god Anubis—balled his hands at his sides. His gut twisted. A simple woman survived his harvesting when all others succumbed. Heart suspended in his chest, he leaned closer to the dresser mirror and stared into his blue irises, searching. There, swirling in the depth were writhing tendrils. Anubis hadn’t abandoned him. The god’s power still coursed through him. Dark, intoxicating threads granted him the power to supplant the will of mortals and lead them to their slaughter, all in the name of his master. Like water to a stranded man, only this quenched his thirst. Not the bonds of his false family or the duty and loyalty they demanded. Nothing mattered, but what the god promised. For his servitude, the power to rule would be his.
But Stella Walker still breathed. She refused to submit. Somehow she defied the power of Anubis and survived. Now she recuperated in a hospital, guarded by the family, when her soul should be in the bowels of Duat, The Underworld, at Anubis’ command. All of the souls he harvested waited there in ceremonial jars for The Rising, the day Anubis would lead his army against his father, SET, for control of The Underworld and ultimately, Chemmis, the home of the Egyptian pantheon.
Damn it! He ground his teeth in frustration. Her survival could destroy everything for him. Instead of a general in Anubis’ army, he would remain here, locked in his current position as lackey in the Nicolis household.
One moment he was enjoying the final seconds with his latest victim, next a startled gasp jerked him around and stole those precious seconds from him. Frozen on the second floor ramp of the parking garage, the dim lighting in the garage haloed her. He almost dropped to his knees ready to repent for the cooling body still clutched in his hands. Until she turned and broke into a run.
No, not an angel. Mortal.
He dropped his victim and charged after her. She ran faster than expected. What should have been a short sprint turned into a chase from the garage and through downtown. He should’ve let her go. Left one alive to tell the tale. What she saw didn’t matter nor the innocence of her soul. She ran, he chased. Prey and predator. The outcome was a foregone conclusion, but she didn’t go down like the rest. She fought when others succumbed. Even when he used the power Anubis gifted
him with, she battled for her life. He almost respected her. For days she lingered, each hour getting closer to death. Then suddenly Roman shows up and she opens her eyes. Stella!
“For his next trick, Roman will walk on water,” Alamut griped. The recently healed muscles on his back twitched with the memory of his more recent punishment. Anubis, The God of the Dead, had an abundance of knowledge about pain and torture. Roman would suffer for this, and so would she.
He glared at his image in the dresser mirror. His eyes glowed neon. The mirror warped, twisting his features into something familiar and grotesque. A monster. Good. The face of a monster was better than the visage returning his stare. The same deep blue eyes in a similar angular face with the same curly dark hair. This is the face the world saw and constantly compared to Roman. But he wasn’t Roman. He didn’t lead the family, wasn’t CEO of the company, and he wasn’t immortal. Roman was everything that the Nicolis name embodied, while the rest of the family withered in his shadow.
He buried his fist in the mirror. Shards exploded around his hand, showering glass everywhere.
Without warning, his bedroom door burst open and Thane entered. “What the fuck, man? What happened?” His head swiveled, taking in the damage.
Hand bleeding, he wiped his knuckles on his jeans and inhaled a slow breath. His heart rate steady, the donated energy from Anubis dissipated leaving his muscles quaking. One wrong move and he’d collapse. Thane approached warily studying him.
Show no weakness. Roman taught him that lesson here at RockGate. He learned it again at the feet of his god when he accepted enslavement. He looked over his shoulder at his older brother, nailing him with a stare.
Hmm, another new suit. He swallowed his scorn and forced a smile across his tight face. “I didn’t like what I saw.”
“Just realized you’re not as pretty as you thought, huh?” Thane chuckled, though the laughter didn’t reach his steady eyes. “Dinner’s ready. You coming?”
Strength returned in a rush. He swayed a bit, but managed to turn. Thane waited in the middle of his bedroom watching him with a gaze that used to intimidate. Not anymore.
“I have other plans.” He shrugged into his jacket and left Thane where he stood. Not caring what his brother thought.
Worry Thane, it’s what you do best. A gong sounded in his head, turning his smirk into a grimace. His vision wavered and dimmed. The Summoning began.
No. Not now. Paused on the first landing of the grand staircase, voices filtered from the dining room and other parts of the house. He couldn’t allow this to happen now, in the mansion with nearly everyone home.
Like someone taking a sledgehammer to the Liberty Bell, his head gonged again. Anubis called. He held his skull between his hands and tripped down the remaining stairs to land on his knees on the marble floor. He ignored the pain and staggered to his feet. Then the calling tugged on his soul, nearly bringing him down again. Footsteps echoed down the hallway, coming his way.
He dashed through the kitchen and stumbled into the garage. Alone, he grounded himself in this place and moment, holding his atoms together by the force of his will. Sweat drenched his clothes, plastering them to his frame. He couldn’t go, not now when he couldn’t explain or defend himself.
The pull ebbed, slowly releasing him. He hopped in his Mustang and peeled out of RockGate. Windows down, he hit one hundred on the highway and enjoyed the swerving car and beating wind. This is what he loved, the buzz of the edge, the thrill of pushing his mortality to milliseconds before the end and then pulling back. Immortality was wasted on Roman. Instead of living, he sat around waiting for a woman.
Stella. Her name rolled around his mouth like rock candy, banging his teeth, bruising his palate, but too damn tasty to spit out. Everything about her was sweet, especially her screams.
He arrived at his destination wind-blown and somewhat dry, and parked in the driveway of the single story house. The two houses next to him were in foreclosure. The other three were occupied, but their owners had no interest in their neighbors, which is exactly what he needed. Across the street, loomed a fenced textile factory, shuttered three years ago when the economy went south. Boarded up and skeletal, it was more of an eyesore than the rundown homes facing it.
Alamut entered his empty house, locked the door behind him and walked into the kitchen. He opened the cellar door and stepped into the darkness. He didn’t need light to find his way down the stairs, but motion lights flickered on when he slipped into the underground tunnel, and covered the distance between the house and the factory a few yards away.
He emerged on a suspended walkway, hovering over a pit in the gutted basement of the factory. The smell slapped him. Fermenting meat best described the odor. His stomach tried to roll, but he squelched the sudden weakness and leaned over the rail. At the bottom of the pit rested the Anubites, his army. Hibernating in the form Anubis chose for them, the form he glimpsed in the mirror, waiting to be gifted with new souls from Duat. Twisted souls, souls darker than what he harvested would inhabit their transformed body and give Anubis and him the power to defeat his enemy.
“And . . . Stella.” He remembered everything about her. Those damned gray orbs were lodged in the loveliest face he had ever seen. Cat eyes with long silky lashes, ghostly skin, and a pouty mouth that belonged around a cock. She stalked his days and haunted his nights. Even as she died, the steel in those wide eyes never softened. She didn’t accept her fate, but fought it. He liked it when prey fought back. It made the kill sweeter. His cheek tingled remembering the sting of her slap and the feel of her slim body under his, fighting for her last breath. His cock twitched and started to snake.
Too bad she had to die.
CHAPTER 4
Roman stopped at the foot of Stella’s bed and watched the steady rise and fall of her chest. The bandages were off her face, but a square patch of white gauze still covered her cheek. No longer pasty, a tinge of pink returned to her skin. So much progress in only three short days. Small and helpless, he wanted to gather her in his arms more than he wanted his next breath. Instead, he fisted his hands at his sides. That one touch of her hand kick-started the same torment that followed him from century to century; rising like a tsunami and smashing against the shore, leaving nothing but wreckage in its wake. A stabbing pain shot behind his eyes and a grimace twisted his features. God, this time would be no different.
“Why now? How much do I have to suffer and when will it be enough?” he whispered.
He walked to the door and grabbed the handle. Two steps and he would be on the other side, out of her presence. Leaving would be best for them both, yet he turned away from the door and returned to her bedside.
Slave to Elyssian’s soul, he tracked her through Europe and North America, love starved and desperate, each time praying he would find a way to save her. Each time watching her die never knowing how much he loved her. To save his sanity he gave up, praying that ending his search for Elyssian would stop the tally. Only to have her return repeatedly to haunt him.
“Damn it! You shouldn’t be here.”
He breathed hard remembering how her death stripped his humanity and left him a cold, hollow shell.
As always, she was different. Where once she’d been sunshine blond and Marilyn Monroe curvy, now she had straight, midnight hair similar to his and sleek lines to her body.. She was too thin to be healthy. Certainly her spirit would be as broken as her body. Again, she wouldn’t know him, wouldn’t love him. He could turn and leave. Never return. Thane would protect her and keep her safe.
He moved closer and couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to touch her hair. He stroked the matted tresses off her face and felt the tingle clear to his toes.
“Shit.” He jerked his hand away.
Many times he’d regretted that fateful day he rode into the Villa two millennia ago. What should’ve been a relaxing diversion for him and his twin brother had left them both cursed. Roman, to walk the earth searching for the one woman he
did love and Reign, his twin, had vanished before his eyes never to be seen again.
“You no longer fit into my life,” he whispered to her, “I’m getting married.” But he wasn’t. He was stupid to think a union with Bianca would chase his loneliness away, give him a few decades of happiness. His head rationalized the decision, but his heart wouldn’t cooperate and his soul wouldn’t join with another. This is why Stella returned. To torment him. His gut clenched like he took a punch.
Roman ran the back of his hand down the side of her unscarred cheek. “Stella Walker. Stella.” He breathed her name and accepted the inevitable. No quiet, predictable life for him in the woods, and no lost love found with Stella. The tragic inescapable trap cinched tight around his neck.
“I’m a fool.”
Her eyes opened and her gaze slowly traveled up his body to meet his. Long silky lashes framed gray stormy eyes.
“Beautiful.” Slipped from his brain and out of his mouth.
The tingle started in his palm and seeped into his bones, searing him as an electric charge raced around his body. Centuries ago, hope died a brittle death in the center of his chest. Now, its tendrils unfurled and took root. She won’t recognize me, but his heart searched her face and hoped.
Wild eyed, she looked at him. Then tried to look away, around, through him. The EKG machine screamed, but above the din a croaked cry came from her throat and she trembled.
“It’s okay. No one is going to hurt you.” He took her hand.
She yanked away and attempted to scoot her weak body to the other side of the bed. The machines screeched a rapid tune as her pulse and blood pressure spiked.
“I’ll protect you.” He reached for her again.
Color drained from her cheeks, leaving pasty skin behind. Tremors raked her body as she cowered in the bed. A nurse burst through the door. “What’s going on in here?” She turned off the alarms. “Miss Walker, you have to calm down.” The nurse pinned one of her shoulders to the bed and pressed the help button. “Stella, you’re going to hurt yourself. Please calm down.”
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