by J. C. Wilder
The first thing Vivian heard upon awakening was a moan.
She lay silent for a moment, trying to place the noise. The room was quiet and the scent of wood smoke lingered in the air. Wondering what time it was, she moved and the moan echoed again. This time she realized it came from her own throat.
She stilled. It hurt to move, even breathe. Remaining still, she took stock of her injuries. Her head throbbed, but her throat hurt worse. It was as bad as the time she’d had tonsillitis in grade school. Combined with her headache, it was far worse than any hangover she’d ever experienced. Her right side was sore where she must have landed on it and her elbow was tight and hot.
But the most pressing problem was that she needed to go to the bathroom. Just the thought of attempting to get out of bed made her stomach roll dangerously.
“Pills,” she moaned. “I need drugs.”
“So you’re awake.”
Vivian’s eyes flew open and she sat up at the sound of a strange voice. A young woman sat by the window and Vivian thought for a second it might be her friend, Shai. Then pain shot through her skull and she grabbed her head, praying it wouldn’t come apart. She heard a soft mewling sound, like that of a kitten, and she was astonished to realize it came from her.
“There now, take it easy.” The voice was soothing as were the cool hands that helped her lean back against the abundance of pillows that miraculously appeared stacked behind her.
Vivian felt the bed dip as the woman sat down beside her.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“My name is Maeve. I’m a friend of Sinjin’s.”
Another one of his women, no doubt.
Hesitant, Vivian opened her eyes, blinking at the intrusion of sunlight. For a second, all she could see was a feminine figure clad in black. Around her head was a coronet of gold like the paintings of religious figures from the medieval period.
Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the intrusion of light and the stranger beside her took form. Her resemblance to Shai was breathtaking. Her hair was deep auburn, the shade women strived to achieve by coloring but usually failed miserably. Long and loose, it caught the sunlight and exploded into flames of silk on her shoulders.
Her eyes were the same shade of emerald, and they were the oldest eyes she’d ever seen. Deep in their mesmerizing depths resided a wealth of knowledge and life, and from her appearance, not all of it was good. She had the look of a warrior, her body well toned, her arms rippled with muscles. Dressed in black pants, black tank top and a small silver pentagram on a chain around her neck, she looked ready to do battle.
“Have you looked your fill?” her tone was amused.
Vivian blinked. It wasn’t often someone took her by surprise but this woman had managed it. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to stare.”
She smiled. “It’s not every day you find a stranger in your bedroom.”
“It’s not that. You resemble a friend of mine.”
“Shai Jordan?”
Vivian gaped. “You know Shai?”
“I do. ‘Tis a small world we reside in, Vivian,” Maeve said. “I’ve met most of your circle. Erihn, Shai, Jennifer, and I’ve heard stories of you.” Her eyes gleamed with amusement.
Vivian gave a throaty chuckle then winced in pain. “I’ll bet you have. But she was another woman.”
The smile slid from Maeve’s face, her expression now sober. “That’s too bad. I’d always thought I would enjoy meeting that Vivian. She sounded like a lot of fun. I hope she isn’t completely gone.”
Vivian gave her a wobbly smile. “Well, maybe not all of her is vanquished.” She glanced around the room, noting the open door and the gloom of the hallway. She shivered.
Maeve gave her an understanding smile. “Don’t worry, Vivian, you’re safe here.”
“I don’t feel very safe.” To her dismay, she felt her lip tremble.
Maeve laid a hand on her arm and a strange sense of calm invaded her. It was as if a mild pain medication had been released within her system and had taken immediate effect. Vivian could feel her body relax as her pain faded to a more manageable level and she sank back into her pillows.
“No one would dare trespass here. Sinjin will see to that.” She removed her hand and the odd, floaty sensation remained in place of the pain. “Now, let’s get you cleaned up and I’ll fix you some breakfast.”
Numb, Vivian nodded, strangely willing to follow wherever this magical woman wanted to take her.
* * * * *
The afternoon sun was warm on her skin as Vivian lay in a comfortable lounge chair in the overgrown courtyard. Beside her on a small table was a glass vase filled with a bright arrangement of flowers from Detective Draven. She smiled. What a nice man he was. Handsome, charismatic and she could tell he would be good in bed. He knew how to make a woman feel like the center of the universe when he talked to her. With his concentration focused on her, nothing else existed but the two of them. Too bad she wasn’t attracted to him. Her smile faded. A nice, uncomplicated relationship was preferable to the emotional tangle Sinjin had placed on her shoulders.
She sighed and looked around the wildly overgrown courtyard that Sinjin called home. Crumbling brick paths were weed-choked, the flowerbeds resembled a wilderness with only a few roses gone wild. In the center was a dilapidated fountain. Moss grew thick over what she suspected was a young woman, though she looked as if she were bundled for winter weather in her voluminous green pelt. The basin was filled with thick, stagnant water and wisps of weeds.
Maeve had said that the house had been empty for almost seventy years and the locals believed it haunted. She’d shown Vivian clippings of old newspaper reports of bodies being found in house during the last forty years. Almost all were victims of drugs or gang brutality. The house and spacious grounds were scarred by the violence that had inhabited it for so long.
But Sinjin was working to change that. He’d concentrated on restoring the inside of the house. Preferring to do the bulk of the work himself, he’d completed most of the south wing, which included the front entrance. Luckily for them it also included the kitchen.
It was good to have a task in life. What was hers? Before Mel’s death, she would have said her task was to raise funds for various charities and play with her friends. Looking back now she realized it wasn’t a terribly fulfilling existence.
Since Mel’s death, all she’d done was travel and avoid her life. Now, sitting in a courtyard in New Orleans, she was forced to face it. It was time to make hard decisions and one of them was to reconcile her past and that included her relationship with Marc.
Marcus Hendricks III, a blue-blooded name for a second-year medical student with eyes like hot chocolate and a smile that curled her toes. She’d been only nineteen years old and studying social work with a minor in history. They’d been blissfully happy, living together in their tiny rented space as they’d made their way through school, determined to make a difference in the world in their own way.
Then had come the summons for her to return home and her dream had abruptly ended. Vivian never did find out exactly what had happened to spark her father’s command. Had her father found out about his daughter’s love affair? Bradford Carrington had been a controlling man who’d wanted to rule his daughter’s life as he did his company. With a firm hand and strict discipline. His then-current wife and her children, Vivian’s stepbrothers and sisters, had danced to his tune. Only Vivian had refused to be his puppet.
She hadn’t wanted to leave sunny California, her friends, her classes and her lover to return to Boston. In fact, the same day she’d received his tersely worded summons, dictated through his assistant Scott no doubt, she’d called her father and refused to return home. He’d immediately threatened to cut her off without a cent.
And that incident had sparked a defining moment in her life. She’d never been without money. She didn’t know who she’d be without her millions and the prestigious Carrington name behind her. Even though she’d taken
a job and was, for the most part, supporting herself, in the back of her mind she’d always known that she could fall back on her trust fund should she fail. As much as she’d hated the shackles it had imposed on her life, the money was also as much a part of her as were her arms and her legs. But how could she bear to leave the man she loved with every breath in her body?
Within hours, the decision had been plucked from her fingertips. The evening had been rain-soaked and Marc had been late leaving the hospital. A sharp bend in the road had hidden a three-car accident and he’d died instantly, his car plunging into the sea, his body was never recovered.
Even now she wondered if she’d have made the right decision should the fates have allowed her that choice. Would she have chosen Marc or would she have stayed with the security of her family’s money? Now, even twenty-five years later, she wasn’t sure which she would’ve chosen. She’d loved Marc, of that there was no doubt in her mind, but would she have walked away from her legacy and lived on love alone?
That was the question that haunted her in the dark of night.
Numb with loss, she’d left college and California to return home to Boston. For a short while, her father had seemed to recognize her need for mourning. He’d kept a respectful distance and made few demands. But after a year he’d begun shoving potential husbands down her throat. All of them well-bred young stallions with names like Richard, Emerson or Gregory and pedigrees that any well-reared Boston socialite would be thrilled to hook.
At first she’d been angry with her father, rejecting every stud he’d paraded past as if she were a brood mare. Until James Longford, an enterprising young lawyer with kind green eyes. A kind and gentle man who’d seemed to understand her pain and was content to take it slow, never pressing for more than she’d been ready to give.
Encouraged by his gentleness, she’d begun spending time with him and found she enjoyed his solicitous behavior and wry sense of humor. After a few months, they’d spent most of their waking time together, taking long walks, going to galleries and sailing in calm weather. He’d come from a boisterous New England family, which Vivian took to like a duck to water. Her own family was both physically and emotionally distant, very different from the animated Longfords. Just when she’d thought that maybe she could love James and they could have a future together, that dream had also fractured.
One afternoon she’d returned early from a friend’s baby shower. The house had been quiet and, as she’d made her way to her suite of rooms, she’d overheard her father and James speaking in the library. Wanting to surprise them, she’d tiptoed to the door in time to overhear them discussing the amount of money and a Vice Presidency in the Carrington Empire that James would receive once an engagement ring sat upon Vivian’s finger.
Aghast, Vivian had peered through the door and held her breath as she’d waited for James to toss the insulting bribe back in her father’s face. Instead she’d witnessed the exchange of a fat envelope as Bradford had paid James to ask for her hand in marriage. Rage had blurred her vision and she’d scarcely been able to control her anger.
She’d slipped from the doorway and called her father’s service requesting that he be paged to the office, knowing James would remain behind to await her arrival as they’d planned. After her father had left, she’d plastered a smile on her face and joined her treacherous boyfriend in the library. Within minutes she’d had him naked and willing on her father’s antique desk, she’d screwed his brains out for the first and only time.
Afterward she’d climbed off him, cleaned herself with his silk Hermes tie then withdrew the envelope from his jacket and threw the cash at him, telling him that was the last he’d ever get from her and she hoped the fuck was worth what he’d been paid.
She knew now that, in that moment, the last vestiges of the Vivian Marc had known and loved had died on a desk in Bradford’s library. She’d walked out of her father’s house and never returned. Upon reaching her majority, she’d inherited various trusts from her grandparents—more money than God, Marc used to say—and she hadn’t needed her father’s support any longer.
That was also the moment she’d turned away from the woman she should have become.
Suddenly weary, Vivian let her head drop to the lounger, her eyes drifted closed. After that it became nothing more than a string of men, one after another, and two failed marriages. For years she’d drifted on a cloud of meaningless relationships, cocooned by her money and emotionally unavailable to everyone around her.
Until Mel.
Vivian grinned. They’d met at a New York television station where she’d worked as a cue-card girl. Polar opposites, even now Viv couldn’t say what it was that had drawn them together. Mel had grown up in a very blue-collar existence with a big family and dreams of becoming a star in Hollywood and she’d succeeded with a vengeance only to lose everything in an accident.
What had Vivian succeeded in accomplishing? In college, she and Marc had believed they could save the world. In the end she hadn’t been able to save herself let alone him.
Death was one of the few absolutes in life. So what did she want to accomplish before hers?
Saving the world might be out of the question, but what about a smaller, more obtainable goal? Something strictly for herself.
She wanted a relationship with a man who didn’t know or care about her money. Someone who would love her and not look down on her for being human and making mistakes now and then, someone like—
Sinjin.
She opened her eyes, taking in the dazzling blue of the sky above. Contentment spread through her limbs as the rightness of the situation sank into her bones and every cell of her being.
Exactly. That was what she wanted.
But the problem with being human was that they could die at any minute. She didn’t want to end up on her deathbed with her last thoughts being filled only with regrets. It was time to quit wasting the time she had and rather than running from her life, it was time to embrace it.
Chapter Ten
Sinjin exited the confines of his basement lair just seconds after the sun faded from the western sky. As he left the untouched wing of the house, he heard laughter coming from the open windows of the kitchen. Heading in that direction, he cut through the courtyard, his eyes widening as he saw the transformation that had taken place.
The herb bed nearest the kitchen door showed signs of recent work. The dead plants had been removed and in its place were green plants that appeared to be healthy. Stunted from being covered with brittle, dead vegetation, the small shoots looked to be strong and sturdy.
Who would have thought that something would have grown under all that mess? He had no doubt Maeve had a hand in this and she’d probably given them a helping touch with her magic.
Even though he didn’t need to cook, the kitchen was probably his favorite room in the house. It was spacious with a generous food preparation area complete with bar and island. On the other side of the room was a large fireplace with a cozy conversation nook filled with a loveseat and overstuffed chair.
Through the window, he spied Maeve as she stood at the stove, wiping it down with a dishcloth. Across the room sat Vivian, curled near the fireplace in the loveseat. For the first time since he’d met her, her hair was unbound. Soft dark curls surrounded her face and brushed the shoulders of her dark blue dress. A small bruise marred her chin with several more on her throat. Other than those marks she appeared to be in good health. Legs under her, she laughed at something Maeve was saying, a glass of red wine in her hand.
“You really will have to meet Quinn. He’s such a stitch,” Maeve was saying as Sinjin stepped into the room.
“Someone has to be because ye werena much fun at all,” he said.
Maeve shot him a sour look. “As if you would know.”
“Not for lack of trying.” Sinjin pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly. Maeve had been his houseguest for an extended stay last year and he’d grown to appreciate her wry sense of h
umor. She’d also succeeded in saving his life. “It’s good to see ye, my friend.”
“Good to see you too.” She returned his hug. “I’ve had a lovely day with your new friend.”
He gave Vivian’s wineglass a pointed look. “Should she be drinking?” he asked.
“She’s fine—”
“I am of age,” Vivian drawled. She raised the glass to her lips and took a drink, her gaze daring him to object.
“That ye are. I was more concerned about yer physical health than yer breaking the law.”
“Thanks to Maeve here, I feel fine. I’ve been pampered like a rich woman’s poodle all day long.”
Maeve laughed. “I didn’t allow her to lift a finger.”
“So you’re the one who dug up my yard?”
“Guilty.” She tossed the dishrag over the faucet. “It was a glorious day, so we wandered outside and Vivian rested while I worked in the mud.”
He gave her a mock-lecherous look. “Sounds arousing.”
Maeve rolled her eyes and grinned at the other woman. “Men are so predictable.”
“But amusing in their own, tedious way,” Vivian drawled.
“You are so right.” Maeve picked up her purse. “I’m out of here. I have some errands to run.” She crossed the room to give Vivian a hug. “You take care and call me if you need anything. And you,” she turned to Sinjin. “You take care of her. I don’t want to hear that she’s been hit in the head again.”
“I promise.”
He felt a flutter of panic when Maeve left. They were alone and sparks seemed to fly whenever they were alone together. After the events of yesterday, it would be easier for him to keep his hands to himself. He’d come very close to losing her and he never wanted to go through that again, but for her own good, he had to maintain his distance. But how could a woman worm her way into his psyche in such a short period of time?
He cleared his throat. “So, ye’re feeling better?”
“I am.” She gave him a huge smile. “I really like your friend. She was great to spend the whole day with me.”