by Kristie Cook
Tristan and I sat on our beach for the sunset. Until now, I hadn’t purposely watched a sunset since our honeymoon. I kneeled behind him, kissing and rubbing the scars away from his back. He’d shuddered several times, but had otherwise been quiet and withdrawn. My own thoughts had been reeling over everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
“How can Vanessa and the other vampires come out in daylight? Is that just a myth?” I asked, breaking the silence. His back free of scars and dark magic, I moved to sit in front of him, between his legs, just like the old days.
He chuckled. “With all the questions you must have, you’re still focused on vampires?”
I shrugged. “I have been writing about them for the last six years.”
I’d been curious about this since yesterday in Key Largo, but I really asked now because it was the most trivial of all my questions. I felt the need to lighten the tension hovering over us. It worked—or, at least, distracted him from his heavy thoughts. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and leaned his chin on my shoulder.
“Can’t your vamps come out in the daytime?” he asked.
“My vamps have no limitations. They’re the ultimate predators.”
“And so are real vamps.”
A seashell in the sand caught my eye and I reached out for it. It came to me without my touching it. I did it again with another one.
“Whoa,” I breathed.
Tristan chuckled again. “You’d better be careful or you’ll create bad habits. Next thing you know, you’ll be at a restaurant and the salt shaker moves across the table in front of the waiter.”
“Good point. But I’m supposed to practice.”
I made the shells play leap frog with each other. Then I tried to levitate a shell; I couldn’t hold it. A different shell rose and hung in the air, but not by me. I watched Tristan’s hand, but it just looked like he held it out, waiting for someone to shake it. I tried to imitate him, but my shell only hopped up and down.
“I thought you were the ultimate predator,” I said. “If they have vampires, why did they need to create you?”
“I’m a warrior, not a predator. There’s a difference,” he said darkly. He made his shell fly into the water. I tried levitating mine again and was able to hold it in the air. “Vamps have their own problems. You can get the scoop from Solomon in a few days.”
“Solomon?” I tried picturing Rina’s mate. I hadn’t seen him since the day Tristan had disappeared, when they left for the battle. In fact, I’d only seen him twice in my life—the only other time in Mom’s cottage in Cape Heron, when I’d first met Rina, too.
“Sure. He is a vampire, after all.”
“Solomon’s a vampire?” The shell fell with my astonishment.
“What’d you think he is?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t really think about it.” From what I did remember about Solomon, he looked to be of African descent, but with very pale skin, and he was exceedingly attractive and quite scary, actually…but I didn’t remember fangs, like Vanessa and the others. Of course, I hadn’t known vampires were even real at the time, so I wasn’t exactly looking for them. “So, we have vampires on our side, too?”
“Of course. That’s what Amadis do, remember? We save the souls of the so-called damned.”
“That’s an oxymoron. How can we save souls that are already damned?”
“That’s exactly it. There are some who willingly gave their souls up long ago, but for most, they’re not entirely lost causes. If they’ve been bitten, turned against their will, they can continue to hold onto some humanity. They can hold onto their souls. As long as there’s any hope, Amadis power can lead them to goodness. Like they did with me. Like you did with me.”
“They started it. Mom started it.”
“You finished it,” he murmured as he tightened his arms around me in a hug.
“Can you feel that it’s gone? I mean, I actually felt the dark power leave my body.”
“The evil force? Most of it, yes. And with each scar you remove, I feel the last traces disappearing. But the strength of our powers mostly comes from Daemoni magic. It’s part of our DNA.”
I shuddered. “I hate that part.”
“It’s pointless to hate it. There’s nothing you can do about it. Something I realized a long time ago. But we can use it for good and you have a lot of strength you can do good with. I think you may be more of an ultimate warrior than I am.”
I laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious,” he said and his voice held no hint of humor. “Owen was right. No one else could have done what you did with me.”
“Like I told him, I know your weakness. You told me a long time ago.”
He pressed his lips against the side of my neck. “You.”
“And our love.”
“Our love is a strength.” He sighed, the warm air fluttering the tiny hairs at the base of my scalp. “My biggest strength and my biggest weakness.”
I remembered being ready to give myself up to the Daemoni for love. “Yeah, probably mine, too.”
We sat in silence as the sun sank behind the water. The heavy tension returned with each heartbeat of dead air. My attempts at conversation hadn’t lifted Tristan’s mood at all. I sighed, knowing what simmered in his mind.
“You’re brooding,” I finally said.
“Hmm…?” he asked distractedly.
“You’re wallowing in regret and you need to stop.”
He confirmed my suspicion by not responding for a long moment. When he finally did, his voice came out in a pained whisper. “I almost killed you today, Alexis.”
I shook my head. “No. Not you. You protected me. The monster tried to kill me, but you were still in there, too. Preventing it.”
“I couldn’t control it, though.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” I countered.
He sighed. “You give me too much credit.”
“I wish you would stop beating yourself up,” I said with a groan of frustration. “If you really wanted to kill me, Tristan, you would have. But you didn’t. You couldn’t do it. You overcame the monster.”
He shook his head. “God overcame it.”
“God gave me the power and I gave it to you to strengthen the real you. Because we knew you were still fighting. I would be dead right now if it weren’t for Real Tristan…my Tristan…keeping me alive.”
He fell silent again for a long time. I hoped he accepted my point.
When he finally spoke, his voice was much lighter. “Well, keeping you alive is in my best interest. And I’m selfish like that.”
I snorted. “You are one of the most unselfish people I know.”
“Hmm…when it comes to you, you have no idea how selfish I can be.”
I smiled to myself. “Well, I forgive you for that, too. Since it’s also in my best interest.”
“Thank you,” he murmured. His kisses behind my ear and the lighter feeling in the air told me he no longer mulled over this afternoon’s events. Happy to move beyond the gloom, I trained my thoughts on the blaze over the water.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked, turning sideways to see his face.
“You can always ask,” he teased, pulling out one of my old lines, from when we first met. I smiled at the memory…and at the fact that his attitude had genuinely improved.
“What is it with you and sunsets? You never told me why you like them so much.”
“Ah.” He shrugged. “They’re just beautiful, aren’t they? The perfect piece of art, each one unique.”
“That’s it?” I’d always thought there was something more to it—he’d always made such a point of watching them.
“Well…not exactly. I like to watch the sunrises, too, but you’re never awake for them.” He paused. “See, the vamps may be able to come out in the day, but they prefer the night and the cover of darkness. All the Daemoni do. Humans fear the unknown and anything beyond the light is unknown. The Daemoni
feed off that fear. I once lived for the night, too, but now I appreciate the light and all its various forms. The colors it produces that can’t be seen in its absence. The way it bounces off the clouds and the water when it’s on the horizon. Sunsets are a little extra special because they mark another day I’ve been able to live in the light. They only mean anything when I’m with you, though.”
He glanced down at me, then quickly looked away, as if embarrassed by this secret he’d just divulged. The pinks and purples and golds—so many more than I’d ever noticed before—swam out of my vision as I took in an even more precious sight. If at all possible, he appeared even more exquisite now than he’d ever been before. And, if at all possible, I loved him more this moment than ever before.
I took his face in my hands and kissed him. It became the first passionate kiss we’d had since the Ang’dora. It blew me away. His lips felt even softer and smoother than they had last night, like silk against mine. I caressed my hands over his face, feeling the new smoothness, and slid them back, twisting them into his hair and pulling him closer. I separated my lips and his tangy-sweetness tasted delicious.
He lay me down in the sand, cradling my head in the crook of his arm, and moved his mouth along my jaw, down my neck and across my shoulder and then followed the path back up again. The electric current underneath my skin charged more intensely than ever and felt more exciting than our first touches. His free hand trailed down my side, over my hip and around my thigh. He slid it under the bottom of my dress, up along the inside of my leg. I shuddered with overwhelming excitement as his fingers trailed along the edge of my panties.
“This is unbelievable,” I breathed.
“Mmm…it’s a good start,” he replied, still kissing me. Then he picked me up and carried me into the house, our lips moving together the whole way. The results of the Ang’dora magnified every sensation of making love to him by at least one hundred times compared to before. I lost any control I’d ever had. And he did, too…but not in the way that made his eyes blaze. In a good way. A blissful way.
I knew because when I lost control, the wall in my mind fell and I could hear his thoughts. And I felt the sensations and experienced the excitement for both of us. Overcome with euphoria, my mind exploded and reached into his, sharing what I felt.
“Oh…Lex,” he moaned pleasurably as we both flew over the edge.
I apologized later, as we lay on the floor, the bed in shambles again. “Sorry for getting into your head. I couldn’t help it.”
He grinned widely, the gold flecks in his eyes dancing. “Don’t be sorry. That was…mind blowing.”
I slept peacefully—for the first time in over seven years, I didn’t have a single dream.
Chapter 24
We spent the next two days putting our affairs in order, as Rina had put it. Tristan used my computer to move money around our various accounts. Owen met Julia, who delivered identification for him and for the new A.K. Emerson-Wells. We also worked on my powers.
By our last day there, I could move objects—even Tristan—with my mind, control my electrical charge at different levels of power and flash without falling. We practiced flashing together, too, Tristan holding my hand and leading me. I found this even more disorienting than flashing by myself, because I went with him but didn’t know where. The “destination” I had to concentrate on was simply “wherever Tristan is.” We must have done it fifty times before I could land without falling, Owen laughing at me every time. Although I learned to sense Tristan’s flash trail, the guys decided against my learning how to follow it yet. Apparently, following a trail was more difficult than I had time to practice.
We also searched for my pendant. We never found it.
Our flight from Miami to London, where we would connect to Athens, left in the afternoon of the third day. My emotions were mixed as we prepared to leave the beach house, where so much had happened to me.
“Will we ever be able to return?” I asked Tristan.
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Me, too,” I said with a sigh.
From my honeymoon to grieving to the Ang’dora, this house had seen the best and worst of me. It would forever hold a special place in my heart. We shared one final kiss in our house and then Tristan looked down at me and smiled.
“Ready to go home?” he asked.
I felt sad to leave but excited for what was to come, even with the danger we could face on the way. “I guess. Let’s do it.”
He took my hand and we walked down the driveway, into the brush and flashed. I’d become accustomed to the absence of air by now, but I still sucked in a huge breath when we appeared, a natural reaction.
Owen had gone ahead to drop the photos in the mail and to transport our luggage because we couldn’t flash with it and we’d look suspicious flying without any. He waited for us in the long-term parking lot at the Miami airport.
“So much for the Ferrari,” Owen muttered sadly as we abandoned the sports car and headed for the terminal.
“I thought you were getting a motorcycle,” I teased to cheer him up. It worked.
His face brightened and he smiled. “Oh, yeah.”
We traveled with no problems from the Daemoni. Tristan had been concerned they would stage a terrorist attack, but apparently they weren’t ready to go that far with the humans. When we arrived in Athens, we had to go our separate ways. The Amadis mansion occupied a private island in the Aegean Sea. Owen took the Amadis boat with our luggage, but Mr. and Mrs. Wells checked into a hotel room and then rented a boat for the day, leaving a paper trail for the authorities and the media.
The boat trip was unbelievably beautiful. The sun shone brightly, dancing on the azure water and warming the air, although the wind held a slight chill. I was glad to finally be able to let my mind relax—being in crowded places was difficult. It had taken every ounce of mental energy to keep my wall up on the airplane, knowing I couldn’t escape the voices if it fell. Owen and Tristan took turns “singing” and “talking” to me, just to give my mind something to tune into. Now, with no one around but Tristan, I didn’t have to hold the wall at all.
After about an hour, Tristan idled the engine and pointed at an island about three miles away, barely visible on the horizon. “That’s where we’re flashing to first. I’ll lead. Then we’ll have to swim to the Amadis Island. It’s shielded, of course, so we can’t flash onto it.”
“Okay,” I said, although I didn’t feel okay at all. My insides squirmed with anxiety.
Tristan twisted his hand and shot a bolt of fire at the boat’s engine. It ignited, large flames building on the fuel. No turning back now.
And then we both heard another boat engine approaching quickly. Too quickly.
“They’ll go by—I hope,” Tristan muttered. We had little time with the flames growing larger by the second and we certainly didn’t need someone coming to help before we flashed.
“Got ’em,” the horribly familiar yet beautifully musical voice chimed in my head. I felt the blood drain to my feet.
“Vanessa,” I barely croaked.
Tristan spun around and eyed the approaching boat. He swore under his breath, his fists clenching at his sides.
“Now what?” I mouthed, unable to get the words out.
His body relaxed as he turned to me. “Stick to the plan. She won’t be able to get us.”
“Will she follow us, though?”
“She won’t know where we’re going and she won’t get close enough to follow our trails.” Tristan’s eyes cut to the fiery engine. “We have to go.”
He grabbed my hand but I couldn’t bring myself to stand up. I watched the other boat approach from the back and swing around to the front of ours.
My insides contracted tightly with panic. What if I screw up and don’t go with Tristan? What if I get stuck here alone? Can I fight her? I thought I could, but I wasn’t positive. And Vanessa had back-up. Her brother drove the boat.
“Come on, ma lykita,
we’ll be okay,” Tristan said softly. “Trust me.”
Those last two were the words I needed to hear. I stood up and nodded. Holding hands, we ran up the bow and jumped.
Barely in time. The boat engine exploded.
Vanessa stood right below us at her bow, grinning as she looked up at us. Her brother stood behind the wheel, also gazing at us. They seemed to be waiting for us to land right into their laps.
And then we flashed.
But not before I caught the gleam of the sun hitting a silver circle with a red stone in the center, dangling from Vanessa’s gloved hand, as if taunting me.
We landed on the island and I sucked in a deep breath as Tristan surveyed our surroundings.
“We’re good from now on,” he said.
I turned around, though, and started stomping away as if that was the way back to Vanessa. “Stupid, evil, thieving vampire bitch.”
Tristan’s arm immediately encircled my waist, holding me motionless. “I know, my love. I saw it, too.”
“Then let’s go get it!” My anger overshadowed the fear I’d just felt when I first heard her thoughts.
“Don’t worry, we will. Just not right now. We need to get home.” He pressed me tighter against him.
I stopped struggling. As strong as I was now, intensified more by my anger, I was still no match for Tristan. And he was right. There would surely be plenty of opportunities to get my pendant back in the future. Because she—and the Daemoni—would not give up.
Which became obvious immediately. I heard her thoughts again first and then her boat as it quickly approached the little island.
“Son of a bitch,” Tristan muttered.
“How does she always know where we are…?” My voice trailed off as I realized the answer. “Oh! Oh, no! Tristan…my blood. My blood is in her!”
His arm dropped from my waist and I slid to the ground.
“Shit. Why didn’t I think of that?” He kicked a boulder the size of a soccer ball and it sailed across the water before dropping with a ker-plunk.
“How far until we’re safe?” I asked.