by Anna Santos
“I didn’t know this until Marcus confessed that I was his mate,” she said with a challenge. “So how could you know that if you weren’t here? I sure didn’t tell you!”
“Yes, about that. That is why I need Marcus’s word that nothing is going to happen to my wife,” he said, scratching the back of his neck.
To Jessica, he looked kind of guilty and ashamed, but she had no idea why.
“You always were a sneaky liar,” Marcus declared, taking hold of Jessica and pulling her near him.
Tuning in his thoughts, she understood that there was no need for them to be apart any longer. Marcus missed touching her as much as she missed it. Looking up into his face, she relaxed into his arms, feeling safer.
Francesco defended himself, “Please, make no accusations. I had nothing to do with what happened and only just learned about it a few weeks ago. I came here to make amends and shed some light on why Alaric wants Jessica. I’m guessing no one knows that.”
“He is just annoyed because I ruined his plans more than once,” Jessica declared, rolling her eyes at Francesco’s pretentious suggestion that he was there to solve something that was not really a mystery.
“You couldn’t be further from the truth, dear sister,” he declared with a cocky smile. His eyes seem to tell her that he knew something she didn’t. Then he cleared his throat and said with a serious voice, “But first, I want my daughter and my guards. You two can cuddle after my daughter is safe inside my limousine.”
Marcus raised his hand to give a signal, and, with two of his men, Shane moved to the truck. Under Francesco’s watchful eye, the girls were released, and their hands firmly attached with ropes that shone with strings of silver. They looked well taken care of, looking like common girls—wearing jeans and T-shirts—, and not dangerous fighters.
One young girl with long, curly brown hair and sparkling green eyes came out of the truck and craned her neck toward the cars. “Father!” she called, breaking from the group and running, only to be held back by one of the bodyguards. “Let me go,” she hissed at him with glowing black eyes.
Shane ordered his man to let the girl go but held her in place, himself. “No running,” he explained to her. “We need to free you first.” She nodded and stood still as Shane freed her hands carefully from the silver bands.
Francesco watched, emotionless.
“Dad,” the girl called out again, once she was free from the ropes and reached her father.
“Giovanna.” The king looked her over from head to toe with exacting eyes. “Did they treat you well?”
“Yes,” she declared, eyes wide. “I thought you weren’t coming for me.”
“You can thank your mother for that,” he replied, looking toward the limousine. “She is waiting for you inside.” Then he turned to one of his guards. “Take the other girls to the third limousine. I’ll speak with them later. Make sure my daughter changes her clothes when she reaches the hotel.”
“Dad,” Giovanna said again, clearly wanting his attention.
Jessica felt sorry for how little love her father was showing. She thought he was being an idiot.
“Stop being a jerk and hug your child,” Jessica muttered to Francesco.
“She is hardly a child anymore. She is over two hundred years old and should know how to behave in public,” he declared. “She is a princess, and my guards are evaluating all her actions. How can she have their respect if she acts like a child when she sees her father? She has to act brave but was always a sentimental fool.” He gave his daughter a harsh look. “Go to your mother. We will talk later.” She nodded and walked away, hugging herself.
Jessica pitied her, remembering how cold her own father had acted when she was little and wanted his attention but he was too busy taking care of his coven’s necessities.
“Now that you have your guards and your daughter back, cut to the chase and tell me what you know about Alaric and his search for Jessica,” Marcus urged.
* * *
THE KING
Marcus could sense Jessica’s impatience. He was impatient himself while waiting for Francesco to explain himself.
“Since I have your word, I guess we can speak freely,” Francesco said meekly.
“I would also really like to know how you know that I am Isobel’s reincarnation,” Jessica added.
“The reason I know that fact, Jessica, is because Valentina is my wife,” Francesco explained.
That name only had an effect on Jessica and Marcus; the others had no clue who Valentina was. Marcus understood that Jessie knew her far too well. Though, it had been more than two hundred years since the king saw her. Nevertheless, Jessie’s anger blasted through her mind-link to Marcus, who restrained her as she began to growl like an angry, homicidal animal.
“I promised to kill that bitch whenever I saw her again,” Jessica stated, trying to twist free of Marcus’s arms.
“Calm down, honey,” he whispered, holding her against his chest and brushing his mouth against her ear. “We need to listen to what she has to say.”
“You don’t understand. She is evil. She is not to be trusted. I hate her. She—hurt me. She kept me restrained and away from others. She tried to make me forget you,” she blurted, emotions running free as years of hurt and sorrow emerged from her memory and invaded Marcus’s mind. The shock made him step back and almost release his mate. He cut the mind-link before her emotions took control of him, and he lost his temper.
Anna added, “Jessica hates her. She hurt her!”
“Take ahold of your mate, Shane,” the king ordered, and Shane held Anna, preventing her from moving forward.
Meanwhile, Francesco’s guards moved forward, shifting their king behind them to protect him from the ferocious females.
“Everybody calm down,” Marcus ordered with a firm, authoritative voice. His men stood still, although they were growling dangerously and rattling their bows at the other guards. Jessie and Anna also calmed somewhat. “We will listen to what he and his mate have to say,” he said to Jessica. “I understand your pain, but I gave my word. We will listen to what they have to say in their defense.”
“Anything that comes out of that woman’s mouth is a lie,” Jessica retorted.
“This doesn’t make any sense, Jessie. Valentina was your best friend in your prior life. Why would she harm you in this one?” As he questioned her, Jessica gasped.
“What?” Jessica’s wide eyes showed Marcus that she had no memories of Valentina from her past life. “Did she know Isobel?”
Marcus’s voice was gruff when he replied, “Yes.”
“So, besides being my relative, she also knew me well when I was Isobel. That doesn’t make any sense! If she knew me if she knew that the memories I had were true, why did she keep us apart? Why did she try to make me forget you?”
Marcus squinted his eyes and growl to her words. The knowledge that Valentina had somehow kept them apart was enough to stir anger inside of him.
Francesco cleared his throat as Marcus’s eyes glittered menacingly into his. “I demand an explanation,” he shouted.
Francesco raised his hands in a clear sign of truce, “Valentina will explain to Jessica everything that went on at the boarding school where they met for the first time in this life. But Jessica and you need to calm down. If any of you tries to hurt my mate, I’ll be forced to intervene. I don’t want to start a silly war because of a misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding?” Jessica asked, fisting her hands and gritting her teeth. “Your mate is a sick and twisted person who enjoyed terrorizing me!”
“Not everything is what it seems, Jessica. You need to let her explain.”
“Then make her get out of her hideout and face me. Or is she too scared of me? Is she afraid that she isn’t strong enough to protect herself from me? Does she need to hide behind her mate?” Jessica talked loud enough for Valentina to hear as she tried to leave Marcus’s hold. “I know you can hear me! Come out, you coward! Let me
go, Marcus, so I can make her come out!”
“That is not going to happen. You are going to behave and calm yourself down,” Marcus said with a serious voice. She stared at him, growling in annoyance. “Do I need to take you to the car and calm you down?”
Jessica narrowed her eyes at him, clearly displeased by his menace. “I’m not acting out or exaggerating about what that woman had done to me. I have good reasons to hate her.”
“I know,” Marcus assured her and then added to calm her, “I’ll take care of this problem myself if I don’t like their excuses.”
“Not excuses,” Francesco corrected. “Explanations.”
“Fine, I’ll listen to what she has to say and let her keep her head, for the time being,” Jessica declared, staring at Francesco.
“I thank you for that. I like her head very much,” he joked, winking at her. “Open my wife’s door, if you please,” he commanded a guard.
A tall, beautiful woman stepped out of the limousine into the burning sun wearing a fancy lilac dress cut to display a generous cleavage. Almost everyone became struck by her beauty. She had long black hair, big, expressive brown eyes, a mouth red as blood, and extremely pale skin. She was a sweet sight to male senses, but all that Marcus felt through his mind-link with his mate was Jessica’s extreme animosity toward this fake-looking angel.
Chapter Twenty-Eight—Things Aren’t always What They Seem
JESSICA
Jessica followed Francesco’s movements around Marcus’ office as he held a glass of whiskey and looked at the books. Marcus was next to his mate, holding her hand as his inner thoughts asked her to be calm. It had taken him a lot of time, during their ride home, to convince her to listen to what that woman had to say.
Meanwhile, Valentina was explaining to Jessie how she had heard about her condition and convinced Jessica’s parents to send the girl to her care. She was sent to Europe to a boarding school where Valentina could keep an eye on her and, at the same time, try to fix her. Her parents loved her and knew that Valentina was the only one that had the power and the knowledge to keep Jessie alive. If they hadn’t sent Jessie away, she would have been dead a long time ago.
“There was nothing to fix!” Jessie shouted, outraged by the impersonal tone that Valentina was using to talk about her childhood.
It was not all black and white like Valentina was painting. Jessica had been cast out, rejected, seen as a weirdo, and her parents didn’t want her with them. They had let that awful woman take her away to do all those bad things to her. To close her inside her room for days, to erase her memories time after time, to make her believe that all she remembered was a lie and that she was sick and delusional. That she was mentally deranged and needed to take drugs to have a chance to be normal.
“Jessica, you don’t remember. You don’t remember everything. You just recall the worst parts, the parts where you had to be held down and restrained. The parts where you had to be locked inside your room so you wouldn’t hurt other people and yourself. It is true that I used spells on you. It is also true that I had to give you strong potions to numb your powers and suppress your memories of a past life. But I did it to save you.”
Her eyes narrowed with rage. “Save me! I was a kid. What could I do? You were the one who locked me up and restrained me to a bed!”
“Jessie, you had seizures! You would have strong convulsions, and your powers would destroy everything around you. And, as far as your memories go, they were killing you. We had to create walls inside your brain to keep them away from your consciousness. Those walls were the only thing that allowed you to have a normal life. But sometimes you would just tear apart all the walls and break all the spells with your nightmares. Then you would scream and destroy everything. You hurt anyone who tried to calm you down. But we weren’t trying to hurt you. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was trying to keep you alive. You have to believe me.” Valentina paused and breathed. She focused on Jessica, waiting for her to say something.
Meanwhile, Jessica processed all the new information. Valentina had strong arguments, but Jessica had her doubts. Her years in the boarding school weren’t a happy ride down memory lane. They were scary, conflicted, and resentful. She suffered alone and missed her family. She had no one to comfort her, no one who understood her. She grew up feeling rejected and unloved. Her parents never visited her there. They forgot all about her. They left her alone.
“Why did you keep Jessica away from me?” Marcus asked. Jessica looked at him, their connection telling her that he had his own doubts. “You are claiming that you knew all along that Jessica’s memories were true. So, if you knew that she was Isobel reincarnated, why didn’t you bring her to me? I was here, suffering for her like she was suffering from being apart from me. Why in the hell didn’t you bring my mate home?” Marcus asked in an angry tone and upset face.
“She was too young and fragile to be put with her mate,” Valentina answered, leveling her voice to match his, as if what he was suggesting was absurd. “She needed to grow up and learn to control her witch powers, which were being enhanced by her memories because of her hatred and desire for revenge. She had scary nightmares that caused destruction because she wanted revenge for her death. But, of course, I planned to bring her home. I was just waiting for her to come of age when she would be able to reconcile both personalities. Until then, the memories were killing her.”
“I could have—I would have been patient and waited for her,” he declared. Jessica held his hand tighter because she knew that he felt ashamed by Valentina’s words that were portraying him as a beast incapable of controlling his urges. “And I know about the seizures and the coming and going of her memories.”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me and would reject her,” Valentina added. “Anyhow, I couldn’t bring her here because she ran away from us first. Somehow Jessica outsmarted us and ran away. I don’t even know how she survived all this time without our help. I was sure she had died until she arrived in our kingdom and stole the grimoire.”
“I survived on vampire blood,” Jessica explained, staring at Marcus and remembering everything she had done to survive. “Vampire blood heals me. I escaped to America, and here I found a vampire who took me under his protection. He liked…me.” Jessica stuttered the last words because she knew Marcus would get jealous. She thought carefully about her next words. “I had lost my memory. I needed protection. I was running from Valentina and her evil nuns. I knew that vampire blood prevented my seizures, and I needed somewhere to live and someone to protect me. I looked for supernatural beings and found some groups that would do anything to have a witch in their ranks. I eventually found a group with a vampire who I liked. I made him my lover.” She bit her lip and held Marcus’s hand stronger. “I had no clue where to find you. I was running, scared for my life, and doing everything I could to keep living.”
“I can’t be mad at you for that,” Marcus whispered, putting his hand on her face and stroking her hair. “I’m sorry you had to experience all that.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. Being free was the best thing that ever happened to me. Besides, I could take care of myself. My vampire didn’t hurt me. He was kind—I wouldn’t have stayed with him if he wasn’t. He…well, he loved me, and, in some level, I also loved him. Not as much as I love you, never as much as that, but he was a part of my life. He was the reason I survived after arriving in America. I helped him with protection from other groups of vampires that wanted to invade his territory, and, in exchange, he gave me his blood and took care of me.”
“So how did you get here?” Valentina asked.
“Radicals came to my town. They were killing hybrids and disrespecting territories and their leaders. They were slaying supernatural women and children. A few groups got together to face them and stop the slaughter. We weren’t strong enough. I barely survived—actually, I was saved. Anna saved me,” she whispered, emotional as she remembered. “She and her crew came just in time to save a few
of us. My lover had already fallen—hybrids were the first to go after using a new drug that night. There were too many vampires, and they had a necromancer. I wasn’t as strong as I am now. Anna arrived just in time to save the rest of us and chase away the radicals. I’m sorry,” she whispered, clearing tears off her face. The emotion of the memories was getting to her.
“You don’t need to remember this if you don’t want,” Marcus stated, brushing away her tears.
“I want you to know,” she whispered. She was staring at his eyes, telling her story to him and not to the other two who really didn’t matter to her. Marcus was all that mattered. She wanted him to know all she had lived through to get to him. “I owe my life to Anna. I’ve paid my debt more than once. We have taken care of each other since that night, but she is the reason that I’m here. Somehow the universe conspired for her to find me and then get me here, find her mate, and bring me to meet you. That is the only reason I’m here. If I didn’t meet her, if she hadn’t saved me, I wouldn’t have found you.”
“The gods brought us together,” Marcus declared, kissing her eyes. She kept crying, overwhelmed by the emotions that were also affecting his soul because of their bond.
“Destiny has a strange way of bringing people together,” Valentina said. “Who would think that my best friend would reincarnate as a member of my family, and I would be the one to take care of her?”
“I’m still not sure that what you are saying is true,” Jessica declared, staring at her with cold eyes. “I don’t remember things the way you describe them.”
“Memory can be a tricky thing. But I would never hurt you, Jessica. You are my blood, my only living family. The others are dead. Alaric made sure of that.”
