Man, someone must have slipped him some kind of hallucinogenic, because this was one hell of a trip. He was surrounded by clouds of every color, and in the distance he could see the Northern Lights. He looked below him and saw the world spinning. He watched as night and day passed in only seconds. The wind kicked up a notch and the world spun faster. His smile faded only slightly but he continued to watch. From somewhere far away he could hear Frankie’s voice.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he shouted into the sky. He tried to open his eyes but his body would not obey him. Instead, the wind got stronger and the world spun faster. The wind blew so hard that he had to grab the edge of his carpet and hold on. It got faster still. The wind threatened to push him off the carpet, but he held on. “Stop this!” he shouted.
“Let go!” he heard Frankie call to him.
“Are you fucking insane?” he shouted again. “I’ll die!”
“Let go Antonio,” another softer voice said. Macy. She wanted him to let go. Suddenly he felt a pressure on his hand and remembered that Macy was there with him. He was scared shitless but he trusted her. He gritted his teeth and held his breath as he let go of his carpet and let the wind blow him wherever it chose.
He not only felt himself falling, but he saw it as well. The Earth below him got bigger and bigger and he braced himself as the ground rushed up to meet him. This was it, he thought. He was going to die again. As he braced for impact, he shouted one last message into the air. “I love you Macy!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Antonio’s body jerked violently in the chair and then was perfectly still. Dead still. His family sat around the circle, some with smiles, others with confusion, but Macy could only stand there with her mouth open.
She, and everyone else in the room, had just heard him declare his love for her.
And what the hell was she supposed to do with that? Antonio was dead. Or at least, he used to be. Walking dead. That equaled zombie. Macy had a zombie in love with her. Before she could contemplate it any further, Frankie’s voice startled her into action.
“Dammit Antonio answer me!” she yelled in his face. “Are you alright?”
Macy started shaking him in hopes of getting a reaction. It wasn’t long before they were all calling his name, but they didn’t dare break the circle. Macy could feel the tears gathering in her eyes. He loved her, and now he was dead again! Wasn’t that just her luck.
She leaned down to plant a soft kiss on his cheek.
***
Antonio hurt. Not the kind of hurt where you picked up something heavy and ached a little bit, but an all- consuming what the fuck did I just get hit by a bus hurt. He felt the lightest pressure on his cheek and it warmed his face. It was then that he realized he wasn’t breathing. The fall must have knocked the breath out of him. He forcibly dragged air into his lungs and willed himself to breathe.
Macy watched as Antonio drew in a sudden and ragged breath. There were no words to describe the relief she felt when he did it either. She hadn’t even realized that she had been holding her own breath until he began breathing steadily and she finally let her own free.
“Antonio,” Frankie said loudly, “can you hear me?”
Antonio answered with a grunt, but it was good enough.
“Where are you?” she asked. “Look around. Tell us where you are.”
Antonio forced his eyes open in his weird ass acid trip and did what he was told. He was in a small room with a dirt floor. The walls were shabby and covered with drawings. The window had no glass in it and it let in a small amount of light which was splayed across the floor and on his foot. He immediately jerked his foot back away from the sun’s rays.
He inspected his foot, expecting some kind of injury, but there was none. He smiled. He forced himself to his feet and took another look around. There was a small bed in the corner and a shelf with a few books on it. Something about it seemed so familiar to him, and yet, so far away at the same time.
It was a memory that he couldn’t quite grasp. As he was getting ready to leave the room, a child walked in. He walked right past Antonio as if he weren’t there at all. The boy had short dark hair and big brown eyes. So dark that his eyes almost seemed black. He picked a book off the shelf and began to read to himself. Antonio watched the child with a growing sense of familiarity.
A woman’s voice called out from another room, “Son, it’s time for dinner,” she said. Only she said it in Spanish. A voice he knew.
“Coming Mama,” the boy said as he jumped off his bed and ran for the door.
Antonio spoke aloud when the boy was gone. “I know where I am,” he said.
“Tell us,” Frankie’s disembodied voice urged.
Antonio smiled and said, “I am home.”
“Tell us what you see,” Frankie said.
He followed the boy out of the room and into the kitchen. There was a woman standing by the stove. It was an old wood burning stove that smelled so familiar. The woman had long black hair that looked like spun silk. When she turned around he saw her eyes. Black as night and surrounded by thick lashes. His eyes.
“I see my mother,” Antonio said. “I am in Spain, around 1760 I think.”
He stepped toward his mother and raised a hand as if to touch her face. He felt the love for his mother swell in his chest until it threatened to burst. He wished he could just stay there in that moment forever.
“I think we went back a little too far,” Frankie’s voice said. “Look in your pocket. You will find a watch there. Wind it forward.”
“No,” Antonio said, watching his mother interact with himself as a child. How long had it been since he had thought of his mother? His heart swelled in his chest. He had loved her so dearly. He could almost feel it when she kissed the top of his head when she served him dinner.
“Antonio, you have to help us,” Frankie said.
“I don’t want to leave here yet,” Antonio replied. “I want to remember this.”
Truth be told, he didn’t want to move forward because now that the memories were coming, they were coming fast and he knew what was in store.
“Antonio,” Macy said, “If you don’t leave then you can never come back to me.”
Antonio sighed in resignation. He knew he had to go, but it didn’t make it any easier. He shoved his hand in his pocket and sure enough, there was a pocket watch in there. He flipped the cover open and turned the dial forward.
The world spun in front of him, blurring everything he saw into a mess of multicolored lines and inducing an extreme case of vertigo. When the world stopped spinning, he again recognized where he was.
He was then a fifteen year old boy standing by his mother’s grave. His father had passed when he was still an infant, and his mother followed thanks to a rabid horse that ran her down. He told his family where he was, but continued to watch his teenage self curse the gods for his misfortune. It was that day that Antonio realized he was truly on his own.
He followed himself as he ran from the cemetery and into the streets of Madrid. He had nothing left in the little cottage that he and his mother used to live in, and so it was then that Antonio began his life on the streets. He stole what he needed, sometimes worked for a farmer here and there for room and board.
Antonio spun the watch again and was met with what he considered his worst memory. One he had tried and tried to forget.
It was March, 1785, and it was Antonio’s thirtieth birthday. He had celebrated his birthday by drowning himself in beer in a local tavern. Too drunk to sit up, the barkeep had thrown him out. Antonio watched helplessly as the events of that fateful night unfolded in front of his eyes.
He was walking, sort of, through the dark streets when a bum asked if he had any change he could spare. His response was to tell the man to fuck off. The seemingly homeless man rose to his feet and moved too quickly to stand in front of Antonio.
“I said I was hungry,” the man growled in his chest.<
br />
Antonio tried to push the man aside, but he proved to be much stronger. He grabbed Antonio by the back of his head and jerked it to the side. Antonio screamed when he saw the teeth the homeless man was sporting and what he intended to do with them, but he was helpless to stop him.
The man dug his teeth deep into Antonio’s neck and drank greedily. When he had his fill, Antonio dropped to the ground. He didn’t have the strength or the inclination to move. He knew he was dying and that was ok with him.
“You are not afraid,” the man said. “Why is that?”
Antonio struggled to speak but managed to gurgle out, “Want to die.”
The man laughed heartily. “Not tonight, my friend,” he said. “Not for a long time. Not until you learn the value of life.” With that remark, he scored his own arm and blood ran freely down his hand. He brought the arm to Antonio’s face and allowed the blood to drip into his mouth.
Antonio gagged and tried to shut his mouth, but the man was stronger and forced Antonio’s mouth open. He pinched his nose and forced him to swallow. After a couple of gulps the man removed his arm and laughed. “Good luck to you,” he said as he sauntered off singing a little tune and leaving Antonio on the street to die or worse.
Antonio knew the pain that followed and had no desire to watch it again. He spun the watch forward again and when he stopped, he found himself wandering the streets as a vampire. He knew by the surrounding buildings that he had come forward a couple years.
He watched himself walk and knew he was on the hunt for dinner. At first, when he realized what he was, he tried not to feed. That only ended in him losing control and killing whoever was unlucky enough to be near him.
It was after a while that he discovered that if he fed regularly he could take only a small amount and no one would die in order for him to live.
Not that he had wanted to in the beginning, but killing a vampire isn’t really that easy.
He watched as he approached a prostitute on the street. He gave her his money and took her to an alley where he sank his fangs into her neck without foreplay. He knew it was uncomfortable for her but he ended it just as quickly as it began.
Antonio did not want to watch this part of his life either, so he turned the clock.
It was 1800 and he was as usual, looking for dinner. He had traveled from Spain to France in hopes of finding something, anything new. It was on that fateful night that he did in fact find something new. He had entered a tavern and ordered a drink when from out of nowhere a voice in his head said, “Why bother with drinking that, it isn’t what you need.”
Antonio chuckles as he watched himself spin around looking for the owner of that voice. It was then that a tall man with black hair down to his waist approached him. His eyes were greener than the grass that Antonio hadn’t seen in what felt like forever, and his face was amused but kind.
It was that night he met Angel Knight, and the rest, as they say, was history.
Antonio spun the watch again and this time, it hit the mark he had been looking for.
He watches as he and his family fought against Merrick and the Fae. He watched as he threw himself in front of a wall of fire to protect Angel. He watched himself die. He watched his spirit leave his body and he watched himself harass Macy until she gave in and contacted Angel.
He tried to wind the watch back to focus on the moment he died, but all he saw his spirit looking toward the light, smiling, and then frowning. His spirit turned away from the light and the haunting began all over again.
“I can’t do it,” he said aloud. “I cannot see what my spirit saw and I can’t ask myself. I want to wake up now.”
Frankie said a quick prayer and told Antonio to come back to them. He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was the same as the last thing he remembered before going on his wicked trip. Macy. She was staring at him with a strange expression on her face. He didn’t waste a second to throw his arms around her and kiss the hell out of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Macy didn’t have time to form a coherent thought as Antonio jerked up from the chair and grabbed her by the back of her neck. He pulled her down hard and met her with a soul scorching kiss. His lips were hard and demanding of her and she was helpless to stop him. His tongue was in her mouth and his arms made a steel cage around her. No one had ever kissed her like that before. She was so taken back that she forgot to breathe. She thought she might pass out from lack of air, but at the same time she didn’t care.
When he finally gave her the opportunity to take a breath Macy pulled back only far enough so that she could see his face. “What the heck was that?” she asked.
“Not one more minute,” he rasped back at her. “I will not waste even one more minute.”
Antonio let her go and pushed out of the recliner. He ignored the questioning looks from his surrounding family and scooped Macy up in his arms.
“Wait!” she squealed, “What are you doing?”
“Taking what’s mine,” he growled in her ear as he whisked her away and up the stairs. He took the stairs two at a time with his cargo, despite her smacking him on his chest and telling him to put her down.
When he reached his bedroom, he gently laid her on his bed. He leveled his head so that he looked her right in the eyes. “I know that life is too short. I know that I have lived a long time, wasted so many years alone, and I have died and come back. You brought me back. I would be lost and so would my family if not for you. I didn’t understand before tonight, but now I do. I couldn’t understand how I could have such strong feelings for someone I didn’t remember, but now I remember you.
I remember the way you brush your hair in the morning and how you listen to music when you run. I remember that you really, really hate it when I sing.”
“It’s not that bad,” she said quietly.
Antonio laughed out loud so hard that his whole body shook. “And I remember that you have a heart of gold and wouldn’t hurt a fly if you could help it.” He sobered and said, “I love you. I know it in my bones. I recognized you as my mate immediately. I would move the stars for you. I would leave everyone and everything I love for you. I would give my life for you. I only regret that I had to die to find you.”
“Antonio,” Macy began.
“Shhh,” he said. He lifted her chin with his thumb and finger so that she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. “Tell me you don’t feel it too. Tell me you don’t know in your heart that we belong together.”
Macy stared into his dark eyes. She wanted to tell them that there was no way she was in love with a ghost. Or rather, a zombie. But when she looked into his eyes, she saw his soul. She could see that he meant every word he said. The look in his eyes sure didn’t say zombie to her. It said one word. Mine. And just the thought of losing him again ripped her heart in two.
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Can’t what?” he asked. “Can’t love a dead guy? Can’t answer me?”
“I can’t say that I don’t feel it,” she said. “But how can this even work?” She pushed herself back on the bed to make some distance between them. “No one can even know you’re alive. We couldn’t go out places, we could never have a family. I don’t see how we could ever be anything more than we are right now.”
“Gotta have faith,” he said with a mischievous grin. He straightened up and started shaking his hips. “You gotta faith,” he started singing. He launched into his own rendition of George Michael’s old tune. He even grabbed a hairbrush off the dresser and was singing into it. He turned his back to her and shook his ass in time with the music playing in his head. He turned his head to look back at her and shot her a toothy grin. When the chorus came around, he jumped on the bed and threw in some air guitar for good measure.
Macy couldn’t help it, she laughed. He was an idiot, and she was head over heels for him. “Antonio, behave!” she yelled at him over his singing.
“Would you prefer the King?” he asked with a h
eavy southern drawl. He arched his lip and wagged his eyebrows at her.
She threw a pillow at him. “You are ridiculous!”
“But you love that about me!” he accused.
“So?” she asked. Then she realized what she said.
He stopped dancing on the bed and bent to his knees in front of her. “Be mine, if only for today,” he said, taking her hand in his own. “If we are still here tomorrow, and you still want me, then we can be together then too, and every tomorrow after that until we can’t stand each other anymore. If that time comes, just say the word and I will go away. I will leave you alone and never haunt you again. But just for tonight, let’s be who we really want to be. Let’s be a crazy couple in love and do silly things and laugh about it. No one knows what will happen tomorrow, especially us. Dying isn’t something I ever thought about, not with the life I was living. I didn’t consider dying until it happened. Then there was nothing I could do. There were no more chances for me; until you came along. I don’t know how long I’ve got in this borrowed life. Time is so precious, and it’s the one thing we can never get back, so let’s not waste another second pretending not to know.”
Macy’s mind was spinning at about a hundred miles an hour. She knew she had some good arguments for him, but she couldn’t seem to produce a single one. Instead, she nodded.
He wasted no time leaping on top of her and knocking her onto her back on the bed. “Thank you,” he whispered. He dropped his head and kissed her lips. At first, it was just the lightest feathering of his lips across hers. Then he opened and took her bottom lip between his. He sucked gently and then his tongue slid out to trace the outline of her mouth. It was so tender and so sweet that she thought her heart might burst.
Forbidden Love Series Book 4: From The Ashes Page 12