Audrey sighed and couldn’t stop her face from falling into her hands for a dark, but not restful, moment. When she opened her eyes again her surroundings still appeared the same even though everything had changed forever.
Counsuelo spoke again even more gently, “Are you in love?”
The question surprised her because she wasn’t thinking about Jonathan; it was Falkon she couldn’t stop seeing in her mind’s eye. It was as though she had stared directly at the sun and was haunted by its shadow superimposing itself over everything she looked at. Her mother had met a man at the burned out church just as she had. Her mother had been haunted by visions of a black wolf like the one she had glimpsed in Jonathan’s company more than once. History seemed sinisterly to be repeating itself. Had Wilona been referring to God or to a man when she wrote “I must have faith my Lord will deliver me safely into his arms…” Which brought her back to Falkon. Even though it should have had the opposite effect, the thought of him eased her intense confusion and mysteriously nipped her anxiety in the bud…
“Audrey, do you not wish to talk to me?”
She met Consuelos dark caring eyes and the love she saw in them relieved the pressure against her heart long enough for her voice to find its way out. “That man who spent the night with father… he knows where mother is.” She hadn’t meant to say that but it was too late to take it back now.
Counsuelo’s eyes widened and now it was she who seemed at a complete loss for words. Finally she said, “I do not believe it. I do not trust him! Is this what he and your father were-?”
“No! I’m the only one who knows. He brought me a letter from Wilona. She asked me not to tell father, or anyone else. She wants me to go and see her so she can explain.”
“You do not mean-?”
“He’s come to take me to her.”
“No!” Consuelo’s hands flew apart as she pushed back her chair and stood, but she wasn’t much taller on her feet. “I do not know what is going on, Audrey, but you cannot trust that man! Stuart would die if he lost you as well. I think you should call the police!”
Now why hadn’t she thought of that? It was the sensible thing to do, after all. It was the safe thing to do. It was what she should do. Yet she had already told Falkon she was going with him… her body wanted to go with him and didn’t seem to care that her thoughts were running around each other like frightened hens. It was curiously difficult to think about Jonathan, like trying to catch a glimpse of the moon when the sun was high in the sky… beneath which a big black wolf was running straight toward her…
“Audrey?” Consuelo cupped her face in both her hands, which smelled pleasantly of Cilantro. “Are you feeling okay? I really think you should call the police!”
The sensation of warm, slightly rough skin against her cheeks was bracing. “I’ll think about it.” She lied. If she involved the authorities her mother would burrow even deeper into hiding and she would never see her again, never find out the truth. She would be burying Maat alive and she couldn’t possibly do that. She raised her right hand and gently cupped the scarab hanging around her neck. The truth, she felt, was everything.
Consuelo frowned but didn’t insist as she gently stroked the young woman’s hair away from her pale face.
Audrey closed her eyes, soothed by the gentle caress, heavy with concern, which was so different from what she had experienced last night.
Consuelo said, “How can you be sure that letter really is from your mother?”
“Because I recognize her handwriting.” She couldn’t bring herself to mention the aborted journal she had brought down from the attic and hidden in her bedroom.
“Then how can you be sure she was not forced to write it? That man cannot be trusted, niña!”
“Why?” she said hotly. “Just because he didn’t like your cooking?”
Consuelo took a step back.
“I’m sorry!”
“You are upset, I know, but I am afraid for you, Audrey.”
“Don’t be,” she said firmly, standing. “Father has been corresponding with this man for years. He’s a respected scholar as well, and a lord. He’s not a criminal. My mother left of her own free will; she wasn’t abducted. Falkon isn’t to blame; he’s only the messenger.” This argument sounded so convincing she could almost believe it herself.
“No.” Consuelo shook her head, her expression at once suspicious and resigned. “He is not to be trusted.”
It struck Audrey then that Consuelo hadn’t suggested she tell her father about the letter, which was curious. She obviously wanted to protect his feelings… even more than she wanted to protect his daughter…? Of course! It was incredible how blind she continued to be even while taking pride in how much more effectively her consciousness seemed able to elegantly choreograph the wild dance of her thoughts and feelings. Consuelo was in love with Stuart! She had probably been in love with him from the moment he stepped into that hot little kitchen in Toledo and made her feel “like a preencess in a fairytale.”
The revelation came as no surprise really, but it had the effect of seeming to shift the world beneath her feet just that little bit more that made everything feel like too much to handle. In the last couple of days, too great a demand had been put on her comfortably established perspectives on reality and what was and wasn’t possible. Her emotional palate had sipped too many shots of intoxicating potential that were seriously impairing her ability to think clearly when it was most imperative she do so.
“Don’t worry, Consuelo.” She gave her a long, fervent hug through which she sought to communicate her belated understanding and sympathy. “I’ll handle this. My father’s been through enough losing his wife and raising a daughter all by himself. Thank God we’ve had you. I’ll always love you more than Wilona. You and Darlene are my real mothers.”
Consuelo sniffed and turned away. “Gracias, mi vida,” she whispered. “Que Dios to proteja.”
Audrey left the kitchen with no idea where to go next. Her father was sleeping. It was possible he might not wake up before it was time for her to-
As she passed the room Darlene used as an office, the sound of a man’s quiet voice made her stop short. The housekeeper regularly met with Don and Edward but it was neither a Scottish brogue or a Cockney lilt she was hearing now. Without thinking she opened the door and strode into the small room.
For an instant Darlene looked startled where she sat behind her desk, but then the placid mask she preferred to wear over her actually quite expressive features settled firmly into place.
“What are you doing here?” Audrey demanded of Jonathan, who had risen from the chair he had been occupying directly across from the housekeeper.
“He came to see you, dear.” It was Darlene who replied. “I told him you were in the kitchen, but when he realized you and Consuelo were… talking, he didn’t want to interrupt.”
Their luminous depths arresting her, Audrey stared into the eyes of the man who had fucked her last night as no man ever had before. Falkon’s image was immediately absorbed into his pupils as though they were black holes in the universe where she truly lived and always wanted to be…
Firmly, he grasped her forearm and led her out of the office.
Relishing the proximity of his strength, she walked submissively beside him, grateful to have the responsibility of where she was going, and what she was going to do, temporarily lifted from her. She would confide in him and he would help her, he would know how to handle the emotionally explosive and potentially dangerous situation. Or perhaps she wouldn’t have the chance to tell him because he wasn’t planning to talk at all. Both thoughts were equally comforting.
⊕
Jonathan led her to the burned out church where they had first met. He permitted her to pause in the mud room first, where he slipped her coat on for her with a polite urgency that discouraged words. It was approaching noon but the early morning mist had not dispersed.
“The Dragon’s Breath,” she said as they
walked quickly between half buried stones into the heart of the ruin. She had spoken quietly and yet her voice sounded uncannily loud after so much silence, in the world and between them.
“Merlin,” he said. “Excaliber. Good movie.”
“Yes…”
He finally stopped walking and turned to face her, gripping both her upper arms now as though afraid to let go of her for even a moment. He whispered her name, “Audrey…” as though it was the first word of a spell.
More than ever before the once sacred space made her think of a dragon’s skeleton mysteriously buried between worlds. The fog was even denser there, as though it emanated from the very spot on which they were standing.
He asked softly, “Do you recognize me?” but there was a hard edge to his voice and she suffered a fleeting impression he was ready to punish her if she answered incorrectly.
“I think so… I feel like I’ve known you much longer than two days.”
“Oh yes.”
“You mean in past lives, right?”
“There’s only one life that lasts forever and takes endless forms.”
“I feel this must only be a dream, Jonathan. Please tell me we’re really having this conversation!”
He drew her to him and kissed her, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist as she slipped her arms around his neck. They clung to each other, breathing the same air, mingling the heat and moisture of their separate physical incarnations in an urgent quest for the ultimate chemical reaction—the divine fire of sexual arousal that instantly ignited between her legs. His thrusting tongue stoked her excitement as his caressing hands cradled and encouraged it.
He pulled out of their kiss.
“Oh no!” She sounded just like a spoiled little girl. “Please keep kissing me, Jonathan. Make love to me… right here…”
“No. You’re not even remotely ready.”
“What do you mean?” She let go of him, offended, which cooled her ardor significantly. “I was ready enough last night.”
“You don’t understand.” He kept his arms around her. “We’ll have sex in ‘the Dragon’s Breath’ when you’re prepared for it, my Lady. Now look into my eyes.”
“But I can barely see them.” The mist had become nearly impenetrable and yet she wasn’t feeling chilled, on the contrary. She felt perfectly warm in his arms. They seemed to be occupying a dimensionless space because when she looked down she couldn’t even see their feet and when she looked up the charred remains of walls and buttresses had also vanished from sight.
“Audrey, look at me and don’t look away.”
He kept his voice low and calm but she sensed abruptly how important it was she listen to him, that she not let her attention wander. Clutching the collar of his coat, she snuggled as deeply as she could into the safe harbor of his arms, looked directly up into his eyes, and moaned. She really couldn’t be sure they were his eyes she was seeing for they resembled two suns burning behind a cloud.
She breathed, “Jonathan?!”
“I’m here.”
It was reassuring to hear that because he didn’t seem to be and, for that matter, neither did she. Their entwined limbs protected by black coats were just darkness now. Vaguely she could guess the location of her arms and hands and legs but she had to concentrate and the effort didn’t seem worth it. She was much too engrossed in doing what he had commanded her to do, staring up into his eyes, which had transformed into something else she loved—the golden glow of a lamp-lit room seen through windows at night. But it wasn’t her own familiar home they led into. She sensed they were part of a structure so vast she couldn’t even begin to see all of it from where she stood. But this particular room was open to her, she felt it calling to her, inviting her to explore it, and no sooner had she thought of doing so than she found herself standing on the most beautiful rug she had ever seen. It was woven from such brilliantly colored threads she couldn’t look away as they flowed around each other like currents in water forming intricate eddies and pooling into sections that never succeeded in damming the flow of the whole.
Jonathan’s voice seemed to come from all directions as he said firmly, “Keep moving.”
Somewhere far away she heard herself gasp. She was still connected to her body, a fact reassuring to some part of her that was already becoming faint as a candle flame before a gloriously large warm fire, like the one burning in the exquisitely furnished and appointed chamber in which she stood as if in a lucid dream.
There was a woman in the room. The space was so large she was only a distant figure but she could clearly make out the long-sleeved gilded red robe she was wearing. She was tall and slender and her black hair was so long that even half pinned up it flowed in coiling tendrils down her back. Audrey approached her, gliding along the current of her desire to do so, and the closer she got the more in awe she grew of her incredible beauty. At the same time she felt her heart sinking with disappointment at the expression ruining her exquisite features. She didn’t want to but she knew this woman all too well, she knew her so well she was her. She reached languidly for a silver chalice studded with crude-looking gems. In firelight brightened by candles, her gilded sleeve glimmered in a most pleasing empowering fashion. She was seduced by this new yet old persona, the confines of her skull an alien firmament beneath which entirely different thoughts from the ones she normally entertained drifted… swiftly, with a brooding purpose like an incoming storm… her thoughts were thunderclouds alive with a forked lightning so intensely selfish it was irresistible, unstoppable, terrible! She could see people running from her unquenchable desires, from the burning force of her needs indistinguishable from an all-consuming fear. It was perfectly still in the rich chamber, she couldn’t hear the fire dancing in the cavernous stone hearth, she couldn’t smell the incense burning in a small golden bowl or taste what she was drinking or even feel the cup she was holding but she could see everything clearly… and read what she saw… She was hungry and not for food. She was looking forward to the satisfaction of another kind of appetite now. Someone young and lovely was being brought to her, someone with not too much flesh on their bones because she liked them slender, although not so thin it was too easy to see the skeleton they would soon become, but not too soon; she enjoyed playing with them, teasing them with hope while slowly—savoring the ultimate experience—draining them of life. She had been born a countess, she could afford to be wicked, especially after she wed a Prince of the Blood who gave her leave to be as evil as she craved. It was he who had introduced her to the cruel sensual sports she had become addicted to and which kept her alive, sustaining her beauty by suspending her in time. There was an ache in the sinews of her soul that continued to grow but so too did her ability and determination to ignore it, for she couldn’t survive without living, beating hearts. All would be darkness…
“Come back now, Audrey.”
She suffered the sudden plunging sensation she sometimes experienced between sleeping and waking. She became conscious of her hands clutching cold leather before she saw Jonathan’s face and eyes, which had ceased to be anything more. Nevertheless, she would never look at them the same way again. The potential power latent in his gaze, the black-hole-like force his pupils could exert, these were not just poetic metaphors, they were real, she had experienced them, and whether or not her own vivid imagination had provided the fuel was beside the point. Something had happened she would never forget, it was an indelible part of her memory now. Hadn’t Falkon just pointed out how vital memory was?
Gently, Jonathan forced one of her cheeks down against his chest. “How do you feel?”
“A little groggy.” She closed her eyes. “Like I just woke up.”
“What did you see?”
“A beautiful fire-lit room.”
“And?”
“A beautiful woman. I mean, she was gorgeous.”
“And she was you, Audrey.”
She was silent, flattered and miserably ashamed in a single heartbeat.
“She’s the reason we’ve been separated for so long,” he whispered, “my love!”
Her breath caught on a totally unexpected sob. Her chest heaved and she pulled away from him, shocked by the grief and regret buried so deep in the fibers of her being her body felt it before her mind even knew it was there.
“It’s all right.” With one arm he cradled her tenderly but firmly against him while tilting her face up toward his. “You have all the strength you need to fight now.”
“Fight?” For a moment too horrible to ever want to remember she was afraid she was alone with a madman, an ex-soldier who saw everything in life as a bloody battle. “Fight what?”
“Yourself.”
“Myself.” It wasn’t a question because somehow she understood him.
“That woman still lives in you, Audrey, and someone wants her back.”
Chapter Eight
Jonathan took her home, and stayed for lunch. Consuelo served them in the kitchen, her sober expression lightening hopefully every time she looked at him. You protect my girl her eyes commanded as she rewarded him in advance with a sandwich made from succulent left over roast turkey, shot on the grounds, garnished with home-made mayonnaise and homegrown lettuce and served on freshly baked multi-grain bread.
Audrey was so ravenous conversation was out of the question. She wolfed down her sandwich, relishing every bite as though she had never tasted food before in her life. Each individual flavor was so divinely distinct she could see everything it contained as images flashed through her mind—dark woodland paths opening onto golden fields of wheat dotted with grazing cows and dairy barns—she merged them all on her tongue and magically digested the world. The smoothie Consuelo blended up loudly for dessert sent her on a rapturous trip to sunny Florida and lush orange groves giving way to bright red strawberry fields and seemingly endless hot expanses of sugar cane, whereas the plastic straw she was sucking all this goodness up with sobered her with the thought of terminally expanding landfills. How much trash she alone produced was staggering, it drove home how large and powerful the planet she lived on was that it could continue to endure so much abuse even as all its intricately woven systems inevitably began unraveling. Yet the delicious lunch she was blessed with told her there was hope, there was always hope provided she took full conscious responsibility for herself, for all her thoughts and actions, for all her desires…
Eternal Blood - Books 1-3 Wolf Shield, Sword of the Blood, Vampire Bride Page 7