Chapter Twenty-Six
Mirrors. Mirrors above me and all around me. I’d seen this place before. In a dream? Not a dream, a fantasy. Camila showed me this bedroom. Was it Rook’s? Was this real?
Rubbing my eyes I tried to remember how I got here. It felt like I’d been sleeping for days. What was the last thing I remembered before waking up here?
Oh God.
It all came flooding back at once. The drugstore. That poor clerk. Malcolm. And then...
Rolling out of bed I stumbled across the room aiming for the door but had to make a pit stop in the bathroom when my bladder let me know I really had been out for a while. Once that was taken care of I cracked the bedroom door open. Seeing nothing but carpet and walls lined with paintings similar to the ones in the spa, I eased around the doorjamb and padded down the hallway.
Passing several closed doors along the way I eventually came to a living room where overstuffed recliners and couches faced a very large widescreen TV mounted on the wall. Add the bar in one corner and the stripper pole in another and I had no doubt a man lived here. Beyond the bar I found the kitchen, which was very modern and so squeaky clean I doubted it was used very often. At one end of the kitchen there was a table with benches on three sides but no dining room that I could find.
Backtracking, I found the front door on the wall behind the couches and recliners. As quietly as possible I opened the door and prayed I would find something familiar on the other side.
My hopes sank when I stepped out onto the unfinished concrete floor. Why would I be in a high rise that was still under construction? At first all I could see was open space, cement pillars and large picture windows with no curtains or shades covering them.
Looking out a little farther I saw... a forest?
What the hell?
Moving towards the outer wall of the building I crept forward to get a better look. The room was bathed in sunlight but once I moved into the forest I was surrounded by gloomy darkness. The forest floor was soft allowing me to move silently towards the sounds of male grunts and clanging metal. A damp earthy scent filled my nose and when I reached out to touch a tree the bark was rough with patches of soft green moss here and there. Looking up I tried to see the tops of the trees but they stretched to the ceiling and kept going into what appeared to be a night sky.
I’d seen something like this before, in The Gateway during one of Solomon’s shows.
A few steps later a small clearing came into view and I ducked behind a tree to avoid being seen. Several men formed a circle with Rook at its center. He was shirtless with his black leather pants riding low on his hips. Even with everything I’d been through, the sight of his muscles flexing as he struck out at an attacker sent shivers up my spine.
I’d always known he would be a skilled fight but never imagined he would be so beautiful. His movements were fluid and graceful, each one flowing to the next like choreographed steps in a deadly dance. One after another the men came for Rook and one by one he left them bloody and broken lying at his feet.
When only two men were left standing, Rook swung his sword slicing clean through the neck of one man as he spun around to land a kick to the head of the other man. Throwing his sword aside he grabbed the man by his head and twisted until a loud crack rang through the air. Dropping the last man to the ground he roared to the sky then fell to his knees with his head in his hands.
I took one step and his head snapped around with rage burning in his silver eyes. Reflexively I bit my lip and stepped back, away from the livid demon just twenty feet across the clearing. I’d never felt fear because of Rook before and something inside me broke as I shrank away from him.
It seemed to take him a moment but then his features relaxed as he focused on me and asked, “Angela?”
I nodded my head but couldn’t move towards him. What was wrong with me? This was Rook; not that crazed maniac who...
No, I wouldn’t let myself think about that right now.
Rook stood in a fluid motion and took one step towards me. It was too fast and I flinched before I could stop myself.
He stopped and eased back, taking a seat on a fallen tree. “I won’t hurt you Angela. I would never hurt you.”
I forced myself to take a step towards him and said, “I know you wouldn’t hurt me.” Taking another step I asked, “Where are we Rook?”
He glanced around and gave an amused snort. “Believe it or not we’re in the staff apartment building at Myths and Legends.”
“Really?” I asked, looking around in surprise as I made my way slowly across the clearing. When I reached the fallen tree I sat down at the opposite end from where Rook was sitting. “It reminds me of a show I watched in The Gateway once. Well, I didn’t actually watch the show; I just caught part of it while I waited for you. Anyway, it was Swan Lake and I remember watching as grass spread out from the stage covering the theater floor. I’d been thinking it was an illusion but then I knelt down to see if I could touch it and it was just as real as all of this.”
Rook chuckled, “I’ll have to tell Solomon about that. As a human you should have been tempted to reach out and touch the grass, but you shouldn’t have acted on that impulse. I guess like the vampire mind control, Solomon’s magic doesn’t work on you the way it should either.
Anyhow, think of this as a training program, one of many created by Solomon at my request. When I turn it off, the forest and the bodies will disappear leaving the unfinished building in its place.”
I’d suspected the dead men on the ground weren’t real, but it was a relief to have my suspicions confirmed.
“Why is this floor unfinished?”
“There’s only one floor above this one and it belongs to Dragon. When we built this place we decided to add a layer of security between him and any possible threats. Anyone wanting to get to him would have to go through me and a whole slew of Solomon’s magical booby traps,” Rook explained as he reached down and plucked a bottle of water out of the tall grass.
“What kind of booby traps?”
“The usual. Portals that suck you into alternate dimensions with no way back, various monsters that appear out of nowhere to bite your head off, magical quicksand meant to hold you in place until I get here.” He shrugged and took a drink of his water. “Other things along those lines.”
My eyes went wide and he said, “We added your palm print to the system when we brought you here. You don’t have to worry about any of the security measures here or anywhere else in the resort.”
I was still skeptical and asked, “How will my palm print keep magical monsters from eating me alive?”
“The security panels are part technology, but mostly magic. When your palm print is scanned at an entry point the magic determines the threat level you pose. Since I gave you the same security clearance that I have, the magic will not see you as a threat no matter where you go in the resort. I do however; need to warn you not to open any doors outside my apartment unless you’re sure you know where they lead. Some of the doors in this resort are actually portals in disguise.”
It felt like my jaw hit the floor. “Why would you give me that kind of access to the entire resort?”
He looked down for a moment then met my eyes. “If I can’t trust you, who can I trust?”
Unable to handle the emotions involved with a question like that I looked away from his penetrating gaze and asked, “So how long was I out anyway?”
“You were missing for about thirty-six hours before the hospital called. Claire and I spent about four hours at your bedside in the ICU until you were stable enough to be moved. You’ve been sleeping here for about twelve hours.” He paused for another drink of water then asked, “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
He held out his water bottle and I took what he was offering. He moved slowly, carefully and I appreciated his attempt not to spook me even as I regretted the need for his caution.
I hadn’t really thought about food or water up to that point but once
the cool liquid hit my mouth I couldn’t stop drinking.
When the bottle was empty, Rook slipped a T-shirt over his head and said, “How about we go back inside. You can have some more water and I’ll make you some food. I’m not much of a chef, but if you like omelets you’re in luck.”
I smiled but there was something I needed to know before we did anything else. Looking down I asked, “Why am I here Rook? When he shoved me out of the car by the ER I thought I was going to die. Hell, I wanted to die, it hurt so much. But here I am less than a day later and physically, I’m as good as new.”
“I couldn’t let you die Angela so I asked Claire to give you some of her blood.”
I turned to face him. “Will I be a nightshifter now?”
He shook his head. “Not a chance. Your body is strong enough to fight off the virus. Within a couple of days there won’t be any trace of it left in your blood.”
“Thank you Rook, thank you for saving my life.”
“Don’t thank me Angela,” he growled. “I wasn’t there when you needed me. It should have never come to you needing vampire blood.”
“Don’t Rook. You can’t blame yourself for anything that happened to me. I left the resort after you told me how much danger I was in. I never should have gone without even telling you where I was going. And Malcolm... It’s all my fault...”
Rook interrupted, “The trackers found him in time, he’ll pull through.”
“Truly?” I could hardly believe that was possible.
“It takes more than a few bullets to take a shapeshifter out,” he assured me.
I closed my eyes for a moment, relieved to have one less death on my hands, but I couldn’t let Rook take the blame for what happened to me. “If you had tried to help me you would have been punished for it. The man who...” I had to take a deep breath to stop the tears that threatened to fall. “The man who took me shot the drugstore clerk in the head. He said he hoped you would reset time to get me back so that your Elders would take care of you for him.”
“Claire warned me,” Rook said with a grimace. “Harrison told me he thought something had happened to you. I was about to reset time back to a point when we were still upstairs when Claire came into the lobby and stopped me. Another second and she would have been too late.”
“Did she see what happened to me?”
“Not exactly,” Rook hedged.
“What did she see?”
He rose to his feet and offered me a hand. “I’ll tell you about it while I make us some food.”
Hesitantly I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. His hand was strong and warm, and more comforting than I would have thought possible. He said some strange words and the clearing and forest vanished, leaving nothing but the cement floor and pillars behind.
While he made us omelets Rook explained what a golden prophecy was and told me all about his adventures in Solaria. He expressed his guilt for not searching for me himself, but I told him I understood why he hadn’t. I also pointed out that if his best trackers and Solomon’s locator spells all failed, then his chances of finding me weren’t very good, and his time was better spent saving the humans in New Orleans and preventing Travali’s vampires from outing the supernatural community in the worst possible light. He told me that only half of Claire’s prophecy had been fulfilled but they weren’t sure what the rest of it meant.
By the time we were finished eating I was just about caught up on everything that happened while I was gone, but I had the distinct feeling he was holding something back. Not to mention his eye twitched a time or two making me sure there was something he didn’t want me to know.
“What aren’t you telling me Rook?”
We were sitting at opposite ends of his kitchen table and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Rook?” I asked, then it hit me. “Where is Rachel?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face and my heart stopped.
“She’s here at the resort,” he began, then looked me in the eyes. There was so much anguish in his silver eyes that I knew this wasn’t going to be good at all. “Your arrest was a distraction and with Clarissa’s help, Danarius was able to take Rachel to Solaria. He tied my hands by killing humans. If I had reset time or even stopped time to take her away from him again, I would have broken the rules. He gave her back to us, but not before he fed her a vial of Oblivion.”
I gasped, remembering what Dragon had told me about the drug and what I’d seen firsthand when we came across it at work.
“Is there anything we can do?” My eyes pleaded with him, begged him to say yes, but he just closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Dammit Rook there has to be something we can do.” I got up and paced across the kitchen.
“For now she’s being kept comfortable but there is no known cure for addiction to Oblivion. If we stop giving her the drug, her heart will fail and she will die. We’ve even tried changing addicted humans into vampires, since normally the drug isn’t addictive for supernaturals. It was a good idea, but unfortunately it didn’t work. The new vampires were still addicted to Oblivion and had to be put down like rabid dogs.”
I turned back to face him. “I want to see her.” He started to shake his head but I said, “She is my child and I want to see her, now.”
“Angela,” He started then stopped and seemed to be searching for the right words. “We had two choices to keep her calm. Either we let her have sex, constantly, nonstop, or we make her think she’s having sex. We decided against letting her actually have sex and went with option two.
Basically there is a nightshifter on duty at all times who is continuously sending sexual fantasies to your daughter so she thinks she’s having sex. In order to keep up the steady stream of erotic visions some of the guys needed a little help. Some of them chose to feed, but some of them wanted to fulfill their own fantasies while projecting what they feel into Rachel.”
My eyes narrowed. “What does that mean exactly?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “In lieu of alternate punishments Clarissa has volunteered to entertain anyone who wants to help keep Rachel calm. Since she has always thought she was too good for most of the guys around here, they’re lining up at the door for the chance to fuck her.”
Okay then. “I still want to see her.”
He made a defeated noise but said, “Let me clean up first, then I’ll take you to see her.”
Him saying he wanted to clean up had me taking a good look at myself. I was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants which wasn’t too bad, but then I ran my fingers through my hair and my tongue over my teeth and decided I could use some personal hygiene time too.
Rook grinned at me and said, “Claire brought you some clothes. They’re in one of the guest rooms and all the bathrooms are stocked with toothbrushes, shampoos and that kind of stuff.”
Rook showed me to a guest room then went to his room to get cleaned up. I couldn’t help but think that only two days ago we would have gone to the same bathroom and showered together - especially since the showers here were more than twice the size of mine at home with water spraying from multiple shower heads.
So much had been taken from me, from Rook, and not just that comfortable feeling we’d had just days ago. How was I ever going to tell him what we’d lost, what I’d allowed someone to take from us when I left the safety of the resort. Would he ever be able to forgive me?
As I washed my hair and cleaned my body I wondered how long it would take to move past what happened to me. Would I ever stop flinching when Rook made sudden movements? I wanted him to hold me, needed him to comfort me, but the thought of intimacy terrified me.
I hadn’t told Rook what happened while I was with the man, the one who liked to make me scream. But I saw it in his eyes when he looked at me. I saw the pain and guilt, and the rage flaring like silver sparks in his black eyes. Rook knew the horrors I’d suffered, and I had no doubt he planned to teach the man responsible what it felt like to scream.
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Chapter Twenty-Seven
Once I was showered and my hair was dry I started going through the boxes of clothing Claire had left for me. There were plenty of underclothes, yoga pants, jeans and T-shirts - the kinds of things I liked to wear when I was just lounging around. Everything was the right size and I was thankful for her unexpected thoughtfulness.
Then I opened the last box and I was glad Rook wasn’t with me. The box contained a pale green dress that I recognized from the fantasy Camila showed me of Rook and me in Mystique. On top of the dress was a gold bangle bracelet with a textured design that reminded me of rushing water, like the bubbling froth of river rapids. Under the dress I found a small plastic case that held a diaphragm. It had been years since I used one but it was one of the few forms of birth control my body could actually tolerate.
Why on Earth would Claire leave me a diaphragm?
Deciding I would never be able to guess at her motives I placed the case in a drawer and hung the dress in the closet. I couldn’t imagine why I would need either item anytime soon, but maybe the psychic knew something that I didn’t.
Sliding the bracelet onto my wrist I went in search of Rook. I didn’t usually wear jewelry but something about the gift made me think it was given to me for a reason and not just on a random whim.
Rook was waiting for me in the living room and when his eyes zeroed in on the bracelet my theory was proven correct.
“May I?” he asked holding out his hand for the bracelet.
I handed it to him and he examined it closely then gave it back to me.
“What is its significance?” I asked him.
“Claire has jewelry made out of the gold she cries during her golden prophecies. She gave the bracelet from the Phoenix Prophecy to Serafina. It has four scenes etched on it that depict the primary elements of that prophecy. I would guess this bracelet was made from the gold she cried the day you went missing.”
“Why does it have rushing water etched on it, and why would she give it to me?”
“As for the water, if that’s what it is, I’m not sure but if she gave it to you, then you will play a major part in fulfilling the prophecy,” he told me, then gestured to the door.
Destined for Time Page 24
