by Anna Santos
Jessica was unable to finish her sentence because the king pulled her into his arms. His eyes closed with the burning sensation taking over his veins. She didn’t fight him back as his arms embraced her and drew her to his chest. He felt her heart pound fast, and her temperature rise as he pressed his nose against her neck, smelling and hugging her, possessively.
“Dad,” Eric called but it seemed like a distant whisper inside his mind. As he smelled her perfumed hair and molded her body against his, a confession left his mouth. “She is mine. You are mine. You aren’t going anywhere.” Jessie sighed in surrender as his lips softly kissed her neck. “Do you understand me, witch? You are mine.”
“Marcus,” she said through a veil of tears. Her next words were puzzling to the king. “I finally found you.” Freeing her hands, she hugged him back. “I’ve been looking for you for so long, my love.”
Chapter Thirteen—No Longer a Ghost
THE KING
Anna, Shane, and Eric were waiting outside the king’s room. He could hear their whispered questions and doubts about what was going on. He had taken Jessica to his bedroom moments after he’d felt her arms embrace him back and her voice call his name. It had been a long time since he had heard his name. Everybody called him King, Your Majesty, Dad, or Grandpa, but never by his name. There was only one person who had called him by his birth name, and she was long gone.
Meanwhile, Jessica kept sobbing against his chest, clenching her nails into his velvet coat. He, however, was much calmer than he had been in quite some time. He didn’t feel the crazy jealousy that had taken over his rationality. Even if he was also fully aware that he had claimed her as his, which dramatically reversed his plans to reject her and let her go.
“Come on, Jessica, don’t cry,” he whispered tenderly as he stroked her soft hair. Her body felt right inside his arms, but he still had to let her go. He had to regain his reason and explain to her why they couldn’t stay together.
Slowly calming herself, she lifted her face to stare at him. She looked really young and vulnerable, making it more difficult for him to tell her that he didn’t have any intention of making her his mate.
“Can we talk now?” he whispered just as his bearded face was seized by her hands, forcing him to nearly drown in her liquid blue eyes.
“You fool! Why in the hell didn’t you tell me sooner that you were my mate? Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you?” she asked as the remaining tears rolled down her face.
He arched an eyebrow, unsure how he should react. She was young, with a full life ahead of her. What could she possibly know, at this point, about time and waiting?
“I cannot believe you are still alive,” she whispered with her honeyed voice that made his body tense in lust and grief.
His entire body reacted to her. He didn’t want it to, but it had a mind of its own. Why wasn’t she rejecting him? Why was she so sad about his keeping their bond a secret from her? He’d thought she wouldn’t want him, either. He was no longer young; he didn’t feel a passion for life anymore. He was depressed and felt even older than he looked. But she was caressing his face, touching him as if she had missed him dearly. Tears kept welling up in her eyes, and her voice trembled with emotion when she spoke. He could barely focus on what she was saying.
“I—can’t believe that I didn’t recognize you! Being a witch can suck sometimes. Heavens—I’m remembering so many things now!” she babbled as she looked around the bedroom. “You changed the décor. Where is all my stuff?”
His brows drew together. “What are you talking about? We need to have a serious conversation. I need to explain a very important matter to you. And you need to pay attention.”
“I really don’t want to talk anymore,” she sighed, her voice laced with a tenderness that made him shiver. “I’ve missed you!” She laced her arms around his neck and placed her lips against his with a sigh.
The king just had time to grab her so they wouldn’t fall as he felt her mouth against his. Surprised, he wanted to push her away and complain, but he lost his will the moment she gasped in lust against his lips. A tingling sensation spread down his skin. His lips burned against hers. He closed his eyes in surrender and held her close. She tasted too damn good! And even if his rational mind was telling him that he was cheating on his wife with his new mate, his body had other urges. He hungered for her. Having her in his arms was making him completely infatuated. He hadn’t had a real woman in his arms for a long time. However, he didn’t want another woman. He wanted Isobel.
“Please stop,” he asked with pain in his voice. He pulled her gently away from his lips and gasped when he noticed how flustered she was. She also smelled aroused and her mouth was perfect in his eyes. Why did she have to look like a Celtic goddess?
“This is so much better than in my dreams,” she whispered, her eyes narrowed with desire. “Please tell me this is real that I’m not dreaming,” she pleaded as her hands seized his face.
“Jessica, we need to talk. Please, try to control yourself.”
“Don’t call me that, honey. You’ve always called me Ellie.”
“What the hell are you saying, witch?” the king asked. He pulled away with angry eyes. “Did you do some kind of spell on me? Is that why I’m feeling this pull, this second bond with you? Did someone send you here to torment me? Is Alaric behind this craziness? Answer me, witch!”
It was Jessica’s turn to draw back with her hands against her chest. “You have no idea who I am,” she whispered, then collapsed on the floor.
Her body began convulsing. But despite her suffering, the king made no move to approach or help her.
“Stop the act and explain to me what is going on,” the king ordered.
Jessica’s eyes kept blinking fast and rolling back in their sockets as blood ran down her nose. Finally, it being clear that this was not a hoax, but it was instead her having some sort of attack.
The king kneeled beside her and pulled her into his arms. “Jessica, what is wrong? Talk to me! Jessica!”
The king’s worried cries alerted the others still standing outside the bedroom door. Anna barged in and ran to pull Jessica from her grandfather’s arms. Eric was right behind her, and together they lay Jessie on the king-sized bed.
“Is she okay?” the king asked, worried as the bond kick in again. He suddenly felt like the world would end if something bad happened to her.
“What did you do to her?” Anna demanded angrily.
“We were...I was trying to explain to her...When she suddenly collapsed.”
“Did you drink from her? Did you give her your blood?” Anna questioned, clearly dissatisfied with his answer.
“No, of course not. I was...She was saying things that made no sense. She knew my name. She told me to call her Ellie. She is clearly deranged. But I did nothing to her. She is the one who must have done something to me. She can’t be my mate. She has clearly played you. I believe she is one of Alaric’s spies. She put some kind of spell on me to torment me and make me—” the king babbled.
“She is burning up,” Anna said with distress, focused purely on Jessica. “Her brain is overloading with memories from her past life. This has happened before. She is having a seizure.”
The king clenched his jaw before asking, “What are you talking about?”
“Is she your mate?” Anna asked, letting her fangs out and staring at her grandfather with a serious expression. Words were trapped inside his throat. “It's a simple answer! Yes, or no, Grandpa?”
“All my senses tell me yes,” he whispered, trying to control his preoccupation with the girl who continued to shake and bleed from her nose. Anna had placed Eric’s white handkerchief to her face to stop the bleeding, but it was swiftly turning red.
“Great. Just great! All this time she was talking about her dreams and her mate, and it turns out she is my grandmother!” Anna grumbled as she bit her wrist and pressed her blood against Jessica’s lips. With her other hand, s
he forced her mouth open to swallow. “She will die if she doesn’t heal quickly. Her brain has suffered a stroke, maybe multiple ones. I just hope her memory won’t be affected this time.”
“Will she remember me?” Eric asked, looking at Jessie with an anxious face.
“Am I the only one who isn’t understanding what the hell is going on?” the king asked as he looked around at the group who had accumulated in his bedroom.
“Jessie is your mate,” Shane began to explain and then scratched his head. “She is our queen, apparently.”
“I don’t want another mate. Isobel is and will always be my only queen!” the king informed the room. “I have no wish for a new queen.”
“Jessica is Mom, Dad,” Eric explained in a grief-filled voice without taking his eyes from Jessica’s face. “She’s Isobel.”
Meanwhile, Jessica had coughed and rejected the blood but eventually swallowed it. The convulsing stopped, so Anna set about cleaning the remaining blood away.
It appeared that the witch was unconscious and was now sleeping. The king calmed down, while his brain began to try and process what he had heard. His heart and soul longed to know that she was going to survive.
“When she first talked to me about her dreams, about her king—I could never imagine,” Eric mumbled, caressing her face. “It is so unexpected! I knew I liked her from the start, but still...She is...was my mom!”
“We will know if she's out of the woods once she wakes up,” Anna informed everyone.
“Shouldn't we take her to the hospital?” Eric inquired. “And what if she forgets all about us because of what just occurred?”
“Then we need to tell her about it,” Anna said as she rested on the edge of the bed. “We should let her rest.”
Sighing deeply, the king asked, “Has everyone lost their grip on reality in this house?”
He moved his gaze to his granddaughter. Anna sighed and took a deep breath, before talking, “We need to have a serious conversation about Jessie before she wakes up.” She stood up and covered Jessica with a blanket. “We need to let her sleep and heal. Meanwhile, we should explain to you what is going on and why she's your mate.”
“I'll stay here next to her,” Eric said, sitting next to Jessica and holding her hand. The king growled at him. “For God’s sake, Dad! It is not like I’m trying to steal her from you. She is my mother. I have no indecent intentions toward her.”
“She is not your mother,” he grumbled, stepping closer as his hands closed into a fist. “Your mother is dead.”
Eric didn’t seem intimidated by his action. He put his hand up to stop his father’s tirade and said, “Yes, but guess what? She has reincarnated, and she’s been looking for us.”
The king stepped back. The word reincarnation echoed inside his head. “How can it be?”
“She loves you,” Anna said, reaching for his arm. Her hands looped around his upper arm and her eyes softened with emotion.
The king eased the stiffness in his shoulders and gazed down at her.
His granddaughter further elaborated on Jessica’s story. “Since she was old enough to remember and understand, she always said to her new parents that she had to find her vampire mate. They thought she was kidding or she was just playing make belief. Then they realized she remembered things that happened a long time ago and could speak languages she should never have known. They thought she was possessed. They made her see thousands of supposed ‘specialists,’ who tried to fix her and erase her past life. But she never fully forgot. It would disappear for a while and then the dreams would return to remind her of memories from the past. When it happened, it would haunt her stronger than ever.”
Anna paused and breathed deeply with a sad face. “But the amount of memories made her sick and weak. Sometimes she would speak in a different language and act differently. Her family grew tired of listening to her saying she had to leave and find her mate, that she didn’t belong there, and so they sent her away. They sent her to a boarding school where she couldn’t bring shame to them, where people would stop calling her a freak and a vampire lover. Eventually, an attack was brought against her coven. She survived only because she was not at home. She’s been looking for the culprits who attacked her coven ever since then, while she struggled with her memories and the intense urge to find you. Her mate.”
“Are you sure she is not lying?” the king asked, overwhelmed with Anna’s explanation. “She could be tricking you from the start. She could be a spy for Alaric. He is...crazy and wants to kill every one of us.”
“Grandpa, I have complete faith in her. If she says she is Isobel, then it’s the truth. Besides, she has been intensely fixated on you since she arrived here. It was hard to understand that my best friend had a crush on my grandfather. I told her to...I don’t know what I told her. I just know that she wouldn’t lie to me. She saved me. I was surely going to die if she hadn’t come to my rescue when we first met. We’ve been true friends since then. I’ve known her long before I even knew you existed. She is not pulling off some cagey, elaborate trick to deceive you. She didn’t put you under any spell. If you feel that she is your mate, then she is. She is your queen. She is the reincarnation of Isobel,” Anna said in a calm tone. “And if you reject her, you are rejecting the love of your life, your other half, Isobel, your soul-mate. The woman who faced hell on Earth growing up to find you again. Do you understand me?”
The king stayed mute as he stared at Anna with tentative eyes. “You all believe her?” he asked, then looked around at all three of them.
They all nodded, even his son. He was completely puzzled and didn’t know what to think about it all.
He looked closely at Jessica who was sleeping peacefully, no blood pouring from her nose any longer. He needed to clear his thoughts.
“I have to think this through,” he said. “I’m going to the library.”
Then he turned his back on them and walked away without looking back, his boots echoing on the wooden floor.
The world was topsy-turvy, no doubt about that. He really needed to think and ask for advice. He used to fall asleep and imagine he was conversing with Isobel when he needed advice. He used to anticipate her answers and imagine their talks were like she was a sort of ghost who haunted his dreams with his full authority. He’d wanted her to visit him. He liked to think that she had never left his side and was watching over him from the other side.
But who would advise him now that Isobel was supposed to be the blonde girl who had barged into his life out of the blue?
Chapter Fourteen—Remembering
THE KING
When the king entered his library, the first thing he saw was Jessica’s bag on the floor. He picked it up, holding onto it as he sat behind his desk. Sighing, he rubbed his face as Anna’s words reverberated through his mind. Jessica’s words were beginning to make sense to him, as well.
He stared at his beloved wife’s painting and felt an intense pain hit him like a tidal wave breaking against the shore. The centuries of waiting to die weighed heavily on him. He was feeling quite old and very confused. Had his wife really reincarnated back? Was she Jessie? They were so unlike one another. How could it be?
As he tossed the bag on his desk, a small journal slid out. He hadn’t ever seen it before. The title immediately caught his attention: Diary of Dreams. That was an unusual name for a diary. Although it was invading her privacy, he was curious, so he opened it. Instantly, he was enthralled in what Jessica had written. She had put down all her dreams there. On those pages were all the memories of their life together, at least, a version of it. He couldn’t help feeling astounded by the similarities as well as the many details of events that resembled his life with Isobel.
Several hours later, he went online and googled reincarnation. As he read, he attempted to find some flaw in her preposterous story. Maybe she only imagined she was the reincarnate Isobel but was not really her. She had read a lot of Isobel’s books and it was possible she had become
infatuated with her life, with their love story. Maybe she was just possessed by his wife’s ghost. Maybe there was a perfectly logical explanation for her dreams about Isobel’s life. He couldn’t think of a damn one, though.
* * *
He had fallen asleep and when he reopened his eyes night had fallen. As he awoke, with his enhanced hearing back, he thought he heard his name being called, faintly. He quickly made his way to his bedroom only to find Jessica talking in her sleep. She was alone in his bed, whispering his name like she needed help. She was having a bad dream, it was clear by the speed of her heartbeat and the sweat on her skin.
His wife had been reborn a witch. He kneeled next to her and held her hand to his face, smelling her scent. She did smell like Isobel, even if she looked and acted nothing like before.
“How did I die?”
He opened his eyes, taken aback by her question. It was a painful memory for him.
“And who is Esme? I keep waking up, crying for her. Who is she?”
“Esme would have been the name of our baby if it was a girl.”
“So my dreams are true. I died pregnant. I remember falling and then everything becomes dark and scary. I remember being terrified screaming for you,” she said, her voice laced with sadness and pain.
“I wasn’t there. I arrived too late.” Tears blinded his blue eyes.
“Who killed us? I have a really bad feeling about that. Was it someone close to us? And why was I falling in a void? Did I die from that fall? Or did someone decapitate me?”
“You fell. Normally, you wouldn’t have died from that. But you were pregnant and that made you vulnerable and susceptible to things that wouldn’t normally kill you. Vampire’s women are almost defenseless when they are pregnant.”
“I see.” She swallowed hard, as though finally understanding why she had died. “Vampire women when pregnant become as if they were mortals and they eat and act like mortal humans. Therefore, they can be killed easily” ´
