Okay. Now I’m afraid. I realized Mack had my keys and there was nowhere for me to go—nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
I’m an idiot. If he intended to kill me, which I now had the impression he might, given the strange, deadly vibe oozing from his direction, I deserved to die. Just like those stupid girls who “check out that weird noise” in the attic during a horror movie.
I lifted my chin a bit, faking composure. A victim’s fear often fed a killer’s ego. “Mack, tell me what you’re doing—what’s really going on here? Because if you plan to drag me inside to cut my throat, you know I can’t go anywhere, so you’ve won. But I’d at least like an explanation.” No. I wasn’t giving in. I was buying time to think.
His blue, blue eyes flickered with disdain, and his surreally handsome face was coated in rage. There were no traces of the kind, dimpled man I’d seen only moments earlier.
What the hell happened to him?
“I owe you nothing, Theodora. Now do as I say, and get your ass inside, or I will drag you by the hair.”
Oh fuck. I knew in my heart that running wouldn’t do any good, but I did it anyway. I turned and sprinted down the road.
Arms pumping, boots slamming into the earth, I ran as hard as I could, kicking up dirt behind me. I felt a hand grab my sweater and jerk me back. My body slammed onto the ground, knocking the wind from my lungs.
“I fucking told you to get inside, woman,” Mack growled as I tried to breathe but couldn’t. With little effort, he plucked me from the dirt and threw me over his shoulder.
My lungs kicked back in, and I screamed, “Don’t do this, Mack! I can help you. You don’t want to do this!”
Marching with determination, me bouncing painfully on his shoulder, he said, “Shut the hell up. You have no clue what I want to do.”
I clawed and kicked, but he was too burly, and I was no match. “Mack, please! I’m begging you to let me—”
We crossed the threshold into the cabin, and that was when I became pretty darn certain that I was the one who’d gone mad.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TEDDI
“What the…?” I whispered.
Mack threw me down onto a soft leather couch beside an unlit fireplace, and then gripped the sides of his head, snarling and groaning with his eyes closed as if in pain. Then suddenly his face relaxed and his head snapped in my direction. “You cannot run from me like that, Theodora. Do you understand me? Do you!” he yelled.
Nodding absentmindedly, I was totally speechless. The inside of the cabin wasn’t dark and dusty, and the walls weren’t rotting wooden planks. The inside was rustic, yes, but it had clean white plaster walls and a cozy living room with a bearskin rug, fireplace, and knotted pine coffee table. In the other corner was a round table with a gas lamp in the middle and a hutch filled with canned food, stemware, and plates. There was even a little kitchen area with a propane hotplate and a granite counter.
My mouth half flapping, I stuttered out, “I—I—dun-dun-don’t understand.” And then I looked up at Mack. “Holyfuckingshit!” I was no longer looking at him, but…but… “Your hair. Your face.” His hair was dark, his stubble was jet black, his skin was a deep olive. But those eyes—those blue, blue eyes. He looked like that man King. Exactly like him.
Mack stood there, arms crossed, staring.
“Mack? Please help me understand what’s happening here.”
“You are a Seer, Theodora. And these grounds—think of it as a place where the energy you draw your gifts from is concentrated.”
He meant to say it was turbocharging me or something. The crazy thing was, I could feel it. I could feel this strange pulse beating through my veins and throbbing against the inside of my skin.
He continued, “It’s why the tribe who once lived here considered it sacred.”
“But you don’t look like you, and this place is not what I saw when you opened the door.”
“A spell to trick the eye and keep people from coming inside just in case they make it past the wards around the edge of the property,” he added.
“So…you…” I blew out a breath. Mack looked so…so…fucking goddamned beautiful. I had to look away and try to process.
“You’re seeing me as I once was when we first met,” he explained. “Don’t you remember me?”
I shook my head no.
He reached over onto the hutch and grabbed a small silver ashtray. “I don’t have a mirror, but this will do. Look at yourself.”
I took it from him and glanced at the shiny surface. The blurry reflection staring back wasn’t the face I knew in the mirror.
“Shit!” I dropped the thing on the floor. The eyes had been brown and almond shaped with thick black lashes.
My mind fought against it all because it wasn’t possible. Not one single bit of it. Yet, there it was. Proof. Standing right in front of me. Still, I couldn’t quite swallow such a big ugly pill. Because if all this wasn’t a fantasy, then that meant all of the stuff Mack and his brother had told me might be real, too.
“I, uhhh…” I stood from the couch. “I need a moment. Outside. Alone,” I added.
Mack gave me a look, and once again I had to avert my eyes. Seeing a face different from the one I knew made my insides churn like miserable mules tethered to an old flour mill.
“I won’t run,” I told him. “Besides, where would I go?”
“Make it quick. We don’t have much time before they find us.”
“Your brother, you mean,” I said.
“He’s not the only one looking for me.”
“Oh goodie.” I turned for the doorway and pulled the handle. “I’ll be right outside. Please ignore the screaming.”
I stepped onto the dusty old porch that creaked under my weight and then flashed a glance over my shoulder. Once again, I saw nothing inside except for cobwebs, dirt, and rotting wood plank walls.
I shut the door. Walked a few yards away and screamed at the top of my lungs.
~~~
After my initial shock subsided, Mack and I settled in with our meager supplies, and he built a small fire in the fireplace to take the chill from the air. As for me, I had so many questions leapfrogging inside my head that I really didn’t know where to start. There was the part about my being a Seer. Was my mother one, too? Or anyone else in my family? Then there was Mack. He really was three thousand years old.
Crazy.
And people really were looking for him. And I really had been murdered by that King guy, reborn over and over again.
Crazier.
Overnight I’d gone from being a person who lived in a world defined by logic, to a person living in a world where logic was completely useless. The old Teddi—focused and analytical, who was probably smarter than the average bear because her world had once been free of emotional distractions—she was dead. Or more accurately stated, she was buried deep underneath layers and layers of the real me.
But who was I?
Unfortunately, that question would have to wait. Because Mack still believed he had to die, and I wanted him to live. Of that, there was no question.
After snacking on some jerky and chugging a big bottle of water, I settled down on the couch, and Mack took the old-fashioned-looking leather armchair in front of the fire. I couldn’t stop staring at him. That jet black hair falling over his ears, the black eyebrows and whiskers on his sculpted jaw. It was strange how different he looked, less all-American-hotty-slash-special-forces poster boy and more like a man whose beauty was truly from another time. Exotic, I guess I’d call him.
“You’ll have to stop staring,” he said, gazing into the fire. “It’s making me feel self-conscious.” He cracked a sweet little smile, and it was just as infectious as the smile I’d seen earlier.
“I can’t help it. It’s just that…you’re so…” I wanted to say fucking hot, but instead said, “different.”
“It’s an illusion. A reflection from your memories.”
“So I’m really th
is Óolal person,” I said.
“You still don’t remember?”
I shook my head, and he made a little hmph! sound.
“Did you expect me to?” I asked.
“You usually remember something—sometimes all at once, sometimes in bits and pieces, but you remember eventually.”
“And have you always introduced yourself in such a mysterious manner?” I asked, referring to the dark room at the clinic.
“No. Looking at you is…I was trying to avoid…never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
His response only piqued my curiosity. I had assumed that the dark room was because he didn’t want me to see him, but perhaps it had been the other way around. “Is it because you and I were once…” I swallowed the words I’d meant to say.
“I loved you,” he said.
“And now?”
“It’s complicated,” he replied.
“No kidding.” I held my hands out toward the fire to soak in a little more heat. It was the middle of the day, but it was also still February.
He glanced at me, frowning. “These days, love is something people see in movies or on television, a fantasy concocted by the media they try to mimic. Their version is fleeting and cheap.”
“Not true. My parents love each other. They’ve been together for forty years.”
“Because they likely have a unique connection—a rarity that goes beyond today’s definition of love.”
“What about you and me?” Obviously I didn’t love him. I barely knew the guy. Or…I did and—never mind. I had no fucking clue what was going on.
“You and I have a connection, too. Only ours was forged in a moment of torment and pain.”
“Care to elaborate?” I said.
“It’s simple. Your father was a powerful man, and he cursed me to roam the earth, living his pain of having to kill you. You are also very powerful and didn’t want that, so your soul won’t rest until you’ve released me from your father’s curse. Which is why you must kill me—you’re the only one who can free my soul.”
I cringed.
“Don’t look so shocked,” he said.
“I think you’re misinterpreting my lack of enthusiasm. And you’re mistaken if you think I’m going to kill you.”
“You have no choice, Theodora. It’s your fate. And you want to be free of your vow just as much as you want to free me.”
“Fuck you. I won’t kill you.”
“Sooner or later, I will not be able to hold back. That rage you saw out there—that violent man—he’s inside me. And looking at you only aggravates him. Eventually, he’ll break free again, and when he does, he’ll try to kill you. You will have no choice but to defend yourself and end me.”
I understood now what he was saying, nevertheless… “There has to be another way.”
He gave me a look that made me want to crawl inside a hole and die. “What?” I snapped back.
“You think I haven’t tried?”
“How the hell should I know? Not like I’ve had time to think through every piece of this.”
“My brother and I have attempted to break the curse many times—nothing works. Not even dying. And, by the way, the part where I’m dead, disembodied, no way to feel anything other than suffering and pain, that’s no picnic. You have to do this for me, Theodora. You are just as powerful as your father was, which means you are capable of ending this pain. And you must do it now. Before I lose control and try to hurt you.”
I understood what he was saying. I truly did. Seize the moment. But I could not do what he asked. I wasn’t capable of murdering someone. I just wasn’t.
“I’m sorry, but we’re just going to have to wait until you ‘lose control,’ because I’m not about to take a knife and slit your throat or run you over with my car or whatever the hell you imagined I’d be doing to you.”
Mack shook his head at the floor. “If I get to you first, then all this starts over again. You’ll be reborn, and I will have to sate my urges.”
I stared at him, trying to grasp what he was saying. He didn’t mean that…that… “You go around killing people?”
“I’m very good at it.”
I wanted to vomit. I didn’t remember my father, this Kan man, but what a jackass. What was he thinking when he’d cursed Mack?
“Great. You’re a serial killer.”
“No. Never that. But there is always killing to be done in this world, Theodora. For my brother, for powerful people, for pride and country.”
I just…I just… “This is too much.” I stared at him in complete wonder. And awe. And then the lust kicked in.
One corner of his mouth curled into a wide smile.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. You gave me that same look the second time we met.”
“I wish I could remember,” I said.
“Perhaps you simply don’t wish to. Not a surprise, frankly.”
I was in no position to speculate. “Tell me what you remember. I want to know everything.” What I really wanted to know was how to save him. And the devil was always in the details.
“If I tell you, will you do what I’ve asked?” he said.
I couldn’t lie, so I danced around the question. “It might increase your odds of persuading me.”
He shook his head. “Stubborn. You are always so stubborn.”
~~~
MACK
It was the least I could do for Theodora, I supposed. By my estimations we still had a few hours left until King used his gifts to find us and until the deed needed to be done. And I had to admit, spending time with her, staring into her large green eyes (I wasn’t a Seer, so I saw the real her), watching the way she looked at me, it all started bringing back those memories from when she was Óolal and I was simply a stranded stranger in her village.
So yes, even against my better judgment and knowing how much more difficult it would make Theodora’s task of ending me, I found myself unable to resist having these final moments together. There was nothing sweeter, nothing more right in this world than spending time with her. When I wasn’t busy pushing back my urge to kill her, that was.
I cleared my throat, determined to project nothing but confidence. There could be no doubt in her mind regarding how this day would end.
“The second time we met,” I said, “was about five hundred years ago. I had been recently raised from the dead by my brother after his many failed attempts. Not a happy period of my life—King was as tormented, bloodthirsty, and just as violent as I was. And he was strong—something he liked to remind me of.”
I watched Theodora’s expression sour. “He hit you?”
“No. He beat me. Severely. But he beat anyone who displeased him. He killed anyone who disobeyed him.”
“Jesus. No wonder you don’t want to see the guy.”
“I admit that I dreamed of killing my brother and taking revenge, but then I learned the truth about him and what he’d given up to bring me back from the dead.”
“Don’t hold me in suspense,” she said with a certain grim fascination.
“He was cursed like I was, but he was a ghost, his soul in constant pain.”
Theodora’s mouth sort of hung open, revealing a bit of that soft pink tongue. I wanted to stroke it with mine along with a few of her other body parts.
I shifted in my chair so she wouldn’t notice my arousal. “I had to hand it to my brother; his sheer will to get back to Mia was a force unlike any other. Though it took him a few centuries, he learned how to materialize for short instances. From there, he began tracking down people—shamans, witches, Seers, anyone with gifts who could help him extend, control and manipulate the curtain that separated him from the world of the living. He got so good at it that no one knew he was dead. He amassed a huge fortune and built a powerful network of very dangerous allies; he could go anywhere he wanted with the blink of an eye. But when he finally found a way to bring me back into this world, he gave up the opportunity for himself.”
“Yes. He chose me over his own needs. He said that without me by his side, he would never be able to set his life right again.”
“I’m still unclear about how one comes back from the dead and gets a new body.”
I shrugged. “It took him a few thousand years to do it—he found a man who knew how to use a particular necklace he obtained many, many years prior from Cleopatra.”
“How’d he get a necklace from her?”
“He fucked her, gained her trust, and once he got his hands on it, he killed her.”
Theodora’s face twisted with disgust. “Remind me to stay far the hell away from your brother.”
“Don’t feel bad for her. Cleopatra was ruthless and powerful. She had plenty of blood on her own hands.”
“I always thought she died from a snake bite.”
“A myth. She died from having her body drained of blood—something that my brother also wanted since it fetched a high price on the black market.”
Theodora frowned.
“Cleopatra was no ordinary woman,” I explained. “She was so powerful that ingesting just a few drops of blood could make a person look ten years younger.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I have helped my brother run his business, on and off, for centuries.” Ironic, I know. I had been dead set against ever working with him, but some things were simply meant to be.
“What does he do?” she asked.
“He’s a power broker of sorts, but the occult version.”
“I’m definitely staying away from him.”
A wise choice. “Well, the issue is that he and I are linked. Our souls connected as twin brothers.”
I could see the dots connecting inside Theodora’s mind.
“That’s why he refuses to let you die,” she whispered, clearly thinking aloud.
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