by Anna Santos
“Yes, I know. I know, but I appreciate your advice.”
I smiled at her and turned around to face the window. There was still a lot of humanity in Camille, even if she’d been an angel for almost four years. Camille had mixed her angelic personality and her previous one flawlessly. She had a kind and brave heart. Nothing was lost in the symbiosis. Jacob had a remarkable soulmate, and I hoped I would have the same luck. Even young, Aria was extraordinary.
“Cedric, Aria loves you.”
“I know she does.”
“Please, don’t be so worried about her. She has a good head on her shoulders. She won’t do anything to hurt you.”
“I’m worried that, somehow, Philippe will win her heart.”
“And if he does?” Camille asked me the question that I feared the most. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
After an awkward moment of silence, Camille added, “You should call Aria.”
“I can’t. I have one last appointment. Even if I would like to join her, I don’t know how long I’ll take here. Besides, she’s with her family. Although I don’t like Philippe, I know that if he’s trying to win her heart, he’ll be cunning enough to pretend to care about her and won’t let anyone harm her. I’m not so sure about him not harming her. But, she has her angel to protect her. She is powerful. I need to trust her.”
“Yes, she’s extremely powerful. She doesn’t know how to control her powers, at least, not yet. I’m sure her angelic personality will kick in if anything threatens her life.”
I spun around. “I hate this. I want to be with her. I want to keep her safe. My heart is racing.”
“Am I interrupting something?” a female voice asked.
I aimed my stare at the door and saw Josephine. Our eyes locked when she entered. My conversation with Camille would have to wait.
“Not at all. Camille was about to leave,” I told her.
Camille frowned at me before asking, “Is she your appointment?”
The female vampire smiled. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you before. I’m Josephine.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Josephine,” Camille said, holding on to her hand. “I’m Camille.”
“Do you want me to wait outside while you finish your conversation? I saw the door being open… I was planning to knock.”
“No, it’s fine.” Camille smiled at her. “I’m sure you and Cedric have important business to take care of. I was leaving anyway.”
“I’m sorry for prying, but are you siblings?” Josephine asked.
“No. Sometimes, I act as his conscience. Other times, like his mother. But we’re simply good friends.”
Josephine laughed, apparently amused. “I understand you completely. I’m also like that with my vampire children.”
“You’re a vampire! I rarely meet vampires. You’re so pretty!”
I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry to interrupt your little chat, but I have other matters to take care of with William after this meeting.”
“Yes, I ought to go,” Camille said as she looked at me.
“Camille, could you see the arrangements for tomorrow?” I asked since I didn’t want her to forget the dinner. “Josephine, could you take a seat?”
“I’ll take care of everything for tomorrow, Cedric. It was nice to meet you, Josephine.”
With that said, Camille disappeared, and I was left alone with the vampire.
My eyes landed on her as I pressed my hands on the desk. The vampire female was wearing a blue silky and long dress. It molded to her curves perfectly. Her long, raven hair framed her pretty face, enhancing her red lips and pale skin. I wondered what she could possibly want from me that had made her insist we meet privately. If anything, I was sure that behind all that glamour there was an intelligent and astute woman who didn’t mind using the beauty God had given her to get what she wanted. I just didn’t know what that was yet.
Josephine glided her way to the seat in front of my desk and, with her eyebrows knitted together, she asked, “Is everything okay with you?”
I waved at her in dismissal, but my jaw tensed. “Please, sit down.”
Nodding, she complied, and I could finally sit back and relax my limbs.
“I truly appreciate this audience, Your Majesty,” Josephine said.
I frowned. A vampire acknowledging my title wasn’t something I had experienced often. “I have to confess, I’m curious about what brings you here.”
“I hope you have time for our meeting because it may take a while.”
“We better get started then,” I urged her.
Chapter NINE
CEDRIC
Taking a pen between my fingers, I jiggled it up and down, staring at Josephine’s serene face. I was wary of her intentions. No good ever came from vampires.
“What’s making you tense?” she asked with her honeyed voice.
“Life,” I answered, not falling for her fake concern and putting down the pen. “Now, could you please tell me what you want from me? My time is precious.” I was being rude, but I didn’t have the patience to play games.
“Interesting,” she declared, putting a smile on her red lips and crossing her legs. She leaned back in her chair, hands on her lap, looking like an Egyptian queen. “You don’t like us.”
“Us being who, vampires? Then no, I don’t. I like you even less now that I know you were the one to sire Philippe.”
“That’s a real shame,” she whispered with that eternal smile on her lips. “I find you rather pleasing to the eye.”
I frowned and locked my hands together over the desk. “Did you come here to hit on me? I have to warn you that you’re wasting your time. I have a mate, a truly beautiful and amazing one.”
“Oh, no darling,” she interrupted me. “I’m not going to waste my time with that.” She chuckled, and I arched an eyebrow. “I was merely stating a fact. And I know how you angels are faithful to your mates. I like that about you.” Sighing nostalgically, she uttered as an afterthought, “I miss that.”
“Now we’ve cleared that up, what do you want from me?”
Her face became serious as she leaned forward and voiced her request. “I need help. But before I ask for it, I need to tell you my story about my quest for a spell to set right a terrible mistake I’ve made.”
Her words baffled me as the sadness that clouded her eyes became an enigma to me. Her hands tensed on her lap. I had to wonder if her previous smiles were just an act. Something seemed to be consuming her.
“I’m in no mood to listen to stories,” I shared my thoughts without thinking. It annoyed me to feel any empathy for one of these beings.
“Please, I need you to listen to me,” she said, leaning forward, afraid that I might send her away, no doubt.
I considered it for a second, then noticed her pleading eyes.
“I’m tired and I need to be somewhere,” I said.
“It won’t take too much of your time. I’ll be brief. But you’re the only one who can help me.”
“I don’t trust your kind. You know that, don’t you?”
She leaned back and blinked as if she were decoding my words.
I pursed my lips and waited for her to speak again.
“This has nothing to do with my kind, and I’ve never done you wrong. What I’ll ask of you will be for the good of your own kind. I’ve researched for many decades. The least you can do is let me tell you what I need from you.”
“You have ten minutes.”
“I can work with that.” She sucked in a breath. “Then I guess I’ll tell you my story from the moment I became one of you. It all started after my mate of several centuries decided that he’d had enough of me and rejected me.” She paused to watch my reaction.
I had a hard time understanding why anyone would want to reject her. “It was his loss, no doubt.”
A smile played on her lips as her hands caressed the fabric of her dress and her eyes avoided mine.
<
br /> I gulped when I noticed the shade of red coloring her cheeks.
“Once you were rejected…did one of my ancestors claim you?” I questioned, wanting her to continue to tell me her story.
“Yes. I was taken to the other realm, and one of the gargoyles was suited to be my mate.”
“So, what went wrong?”
“At first, I didn’t want a new mate,” she said. “I was deeply in love with my former mate. I couldn’t understand his actions. I was in shock, hurt and terribly confused. I didn’t know gargoyles could claim other souls. I didn’t know vampires could become angels. Everything was new and challenging. I liked being able to walk in the sunlight, though. It was exhilarating to touch the sun streaming through the window and see the landscapes bathed by the light. I miss that the most.”
I nodded, under the spell of her honeyed voice. Then, reality sank in. “Since you weren’t keen on accepting him, he had to reject you,” I finished her story. “I’m sorry, but there’s no way to find you a new mate. You’ve lost your chance. I can’t help you, Josephine.” I moved to get off my chair, annoyed that I’d wasted my time with that vampire female.
She was quick to slam her hand on my desk. “He didn’t reject me.”
My heart leaped because what had happened was worse than I’d expected. “You failed the trial.”
She stared away with watering eyes.
“I begged him to reject me,” she told me, her voice trembling. “I swear I did.”
Vampires were cunning liars. Yet I believed her words and grief.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to seem…so weak,” she said as she cleared away the tears with the tips of her fingers.
“I don’t understand what you want from me. If he’s turned to stone, there isn’t anything else we can do. It’s already too late. And it’s been how long since that happened?”
“More than two hundred years.” She held her hands together and squeezed them tight.
“I wasn’t even born yet.”
“Your grandfather was the king. He was…strict. They didn’t want former vampires among their ranks.”
“Yes, we’re more tolerant now,” I agreed, even if I understood my grandfather’s point of view.
“It didn’t matter. Oliver didn’t give up on me. He wanted me and treasured me. I grew fond of him.”
“Apparently not enough,” I said, only to regret it because her eyes became sadder and her cheeks got redder. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to judge you.”
“It’s hard to fall in love again. It’s even harder when you’re in love with someone else who broke your heart.”
“I couldn’t say.”
“The worst part was that my mate had a devious plan, and he didn’t reject me for the pleasure of being evil or punishing me for my disobedience. He had a wicked plan that he put into action as soon as I was one of you.”
“Josephine, that’s all intriguing, but I don’t see the point of knowing the tragic story of how you could have become one of us but blew it. I’m tired and there’s nothing I can do for you.”
“But you can,” she said, apparently immune to my grumpy demeanor.
“I can’t.”
“You can because I’ve found it, Cedric. I’ve found it.” She leaned forward onto the desk with enthusiasm in her voice.
I frowned at her attitude, finding a glint of madness in her eyes. I had no idea what she was talking about. Maybe she was completely crazy. Time could do that to a person. She was an old vampire woman. Perhaps she was becoming senile. Vampires didn’t get physically old, but their brains could deteriorate if they lost the will to live.
“What did you find?” I asked to indulge her madness and then get rid of her.
“The spell to unbind the curse. I found the spell that God dictated to one of the prophets and that Gabriel hid from you. I have it and I want to use it. I’ve searched for more than two hundred years for it—to save Oliver.”
“That’s a myth,” I said, skeptical.
“Every myth is born from something.”
“Or from the head of someone with a vivid imagination. It’s a fairy tale. Many before us have looked for it and never found it.”
“Well, I found it, and I can prove it. I want to prove it. I want to cast the spell five days from now. That’s why I was in such a hurry to speak to you. I need you to let me enter the other realm, to be face to face with Oliver’s statue. I need to say the spell under the full moon of this world and the other.” She talked fast, absorbed in her need to share everything with me. Then, she looked at me with hopeful eyes and bit her lip.
I sighed deeply. I didn’t want to doubt her words because she looked so sure about what she was claiming to have that I thought it would be rude to question her sanity.
“I’ll need to see the spell,” I informed her.
She nodded immediately.
“It’ll have to be tomorrow, not today. I need to speak with someone else about this, to prove the authenticity of it. I’ll bring down one of our older gargoyles to talk to you and see the spell.”
She nodded again.
“How does it work?” I asked since it would be a great discovery to my people if what she was saying was true. She could also think that she had the real thing, but someone had played her and tricked her with some fake imitation. “How much money did you spend on this quest of yours?”
“A lot,” she whispered as she leaned back, more relaxed. “I had many trying to trick me. I spent a lot of my immortality researching and looking for it. That’s how much I regretted having turned Oliver to stone. That was never my intention. I wanted to love him. I did. Especially after finding out why I was rejected and understanding how vicious and evil my former mate was. I wanted to love Oliver. But the love I had wasn’t enough.”
“He loved you enough to face the trial.”
“I know. That’s why I need to save him.”
“How does it work?” I asked once again, since she hadn’t answered me yet.
“It can only be cast by the soul who failed the trial. The person must regret the failure. But it isn’t a cure, Cedric. The spell is simply a switch,” she said calmly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’m willing to take his place. I’m willing to take his curse, so he may live again.”
At first, I didn’t fully understand her words. Then, they struck me, and I opened my eyes in surprise and fear. “You’re going to die,” I said in shock. I wasn’t expecting that sort of altruistic behavior from a vampire.
“Yes,” she said mildly. She didn’t seem afraid. “I’m going to take his place.”
“You’ll cease to exist. It’ll be dark forever,” I explained to her. “It isn’t like sleeping, Josephine. It’s empty, and you don’t dream. You simply cease to exist. We become nothing when we’re turned into stone. When the trial fails, we can never open our eyes again to the night. We experience it every day of our cursed life and dread the moment that the sun rises on the horizon.”
“I know. Oliver explained to me what it was to be a gargoyle with a curse. I know what’s going to happen.”
I endured the stare of her shining brown eyes.
“I don’t want you to share this with anyone else,” she pleaded, lowering her voice and averting her eyes to the window. “I don’t want Philippe to know. He’s the sole person who would care. He’s my only family. But it’s been two hundred years since I decided that I’m done with life. I’ve lived more than what I should have lived. I want to do something useful with my existence for a change. I want to redeem myself. Will you help me?” She looked at me. Her words were having a huge impact on me. I was shocked and stunned.
“You’ll die,” I mumbled, more to myself than to her.
“We all have to die someday. Even the sun isn’t immortal from what scientists can tell. I don’t have a soulmate.” Her voice was laced with extreme sadness. “I’ll go to hell when I die. I may as well spare myself the t
rouble and do some good with my life. Make someone happy and fix a mistake that should’ve never happened. Oliver should have rejected me when he had the chance. I should have…forced him to do that. Now, I don’t have a second chance of finding a mate, and Oliver is turned to stone.”
“Your former mate didn’t want you back?”
“I didn’t want him back. It was all a scheme to know what happened on the other side of the realm. All he wanted was the stone.”
“I see… But you didn’t give it to him or the portal would be closed, and I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”
“I didn’t. He wanted to open a portal to hell. I couldn’t let him do that.”
“Sounds like you’re better off without that prick.”
“I didn’t ask to be a vampire.”
I felt sorry for her. I knew many didn’t have a choice. Vampirism wasn’t curable either.
“Will you help me?”
“I will,” I said.
She looked at me with glistening eyes that reflected her joy. “Thank you!”
Her happiness didn’t make me feel better. “Don’t thank me, Josephine. I’m sentencing you to death.”
“No, you’re saving one of your own.”
“Tomorrow then. I’ll instruct William to meet you here. Bring the spell.”
“Won’t you be here, too?” She had a girly voice when she asked me that. The disappointment was evident, and it left me curious.
“No, I have other matters to attend to. But you can trust William.”
“I like William. He’s a kind one. He reminds me of Oliver.”
“I have to go now. I have to talk to William.”
“It’s okay,” she said, getting up. “My ten minutes are up anyway. Thank you, Your Majesty.”
I nodded sternly and moved to the door. I let her leave first. Then, I left to meet William and ask him about the vaccine and the vampires. It was going to be a long night, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what Aria was doing. She was a good girl; she wouldn’t do anything stupid. I knew that. It didn’t mean I didn’t want to be with her. I missed her. We hadn’t been apart this long since we’d been bonded together.
